phere around the corner. Theirs was a walking
courtship. They used to roam up as far as the State road, and down as
far as the river, and Rudie would fain have talked of love, but Ivy
talked of baseball.

"Darling," Rudie would murmur, pressing Ivy's arm closer, "when did you
first begin to care?"

"Why I liked the very first game I saw when Dad----"

"I mean, when did you first begin to care for me?"

"Oh! When you put three men out in that game with Marshalltown when the
teams were tied in the eighth inning. Remember? Say, Rudie dear, what
was the matter with your arm to-day? You let three men walk, and Albia's
weakest hitter got a home run out of you."

"Oh, forget baseball for a minute, Ivy! Let's talk about something else.
Let's talk about--us."

"Us? Well, you're baseball, aren't you?" retorted Ivy. "And if you are,
I am. Did you notice the way that Ottumwa man pitched yesterday? He
didn't do any acting for the grandstand. He didn't reach up above his
head, and wrap his right shoulder with his left toe, and swing his arm
three times and then throw seven inches outside the plate. He just took
the ball in his hand, looked at it curiously for a moment, and fired
it--zing!--like that, over the plate. I'd get that ball if I were you."

"Isn't this a grand night?" murmured Rudie.

"But they didn't have a hitter in the bunch," went on Ivy. "And not a
man in the team could run. That's why they're tail-enders. Just the
same, that man on the mound was a wizard, and if he had one decent player
to give him some support----"

Well, the thing came to a climax. One evening, two weeks before the
close of the season, Ivy put on her hat and announced that she was going
downtown to mail her letters.

"Mail your letters in the daytime," growled Papa Keller.

"I didn't have time to-day," answered Ivy. "It was a thirteen inning
game, and it lasted until six o'clock."

It was then that Papa Keller banged the heavy fist of decision down on
the library table.

"This thing's got to stop!" he thundered. "I won't have any girl of mine
running the streets with a ball player, understand? Now you quit seeing
this seventy-five-dollars-a-month bush leaguer or leave this house. I
mean it."

"All right," said Ivy, with a white-hot calm. "I'll leave. I can make
the grandest kind of angel-food with marshmallow icing, and you know
yourself my fudges can't be equaled. He'll be playing in the major
leagues in t