ything special to do?" asked Joe, as Charlie and he came to
a pause in recalling scenes and incidents, many of which you will find
set down in the previous book of this series.

"No. After I clean up all the orders I can here I will have a few days'
vacation," replied Hall.

"Good!" cried Joe. "Then spend them with me. Reggie Varley and his
sister are here for a while--you remember Reggie; don't you, Charlie?"

"As well as you remember his sister, I reckon," was the laughing
rejoinder.

"Never mind that. Then I'll count on you. I'll introduce you to a nice
girl, and we'll get up a little sleigh-riding party. There'll be a fine
moon in a couple of nights."

"Go as far as you like with me," invited Charlie. "I'm not in training
yet, and I guess a late oyster supper, after a long ride, won't do me
any particular harm."

Charlie departed for the hotel, to get his baggage, for he was going to
finish out the rest of his stay in Riverside as Joe's guest, and the
young pitcher went to get the new glove, about which he had received the
telephone message.

It was a little later that day that, as Clara was passing her brother's
room, she heard a curious, thumping noise.

"I wonder what that is?" she murmured. "Sounds as though Joe were
working at a punching bag. Joe, what in the world are you doing?" she
asked, pausing outside his door.

"Making a pocket in my new glove," he answered. "Come on in, Sis. I'm
all covered with olive oil, or I'd open the door for you."

"Olive oil! The idea! Are you making a salad, as well?" she asked
laughingly, as she pushed open the portal.

She saw her brother, attired in old clothes, alternately pouring a few
drops of olive oil on his new pitcher's glove, and then, with an old
baseball pounding a hollow place in the palm.

"What does it mean?" asked Clara.

"Oh, I'm just limbering up my new glove," answered Joe. "If I'm to play
with a big team, like the St. Louis Cardinals, I want to have the best
sort of an outfit. You know a ball will often slip out of a new glove,
so I'm making a sort of 'pocket' in this one, only not as deep as in a
catcher's mitt, so it will hold the ball better."

"But why the olive oil?"

"Oh, well, of course any good oil would do, but this was the handiest.
The oil softens the leather, and makes it pliable. And say, if you
haven't anything else to do, there's an old glove, that's pretty badly
ripped; you might sew it up. It will do to practice with."