The long winter had borne its fruit. The talk and gossip of the town had run almost altogether to base ball. There was nobody in Catalpa, unless it was poor old Father Bickerby, who was stone deaf, who had not heard the smallest particulars of the progress of the new nine discussed. Did Larry Boyne make a particularly fine running, one-hand catch in the practice of a winter's afternoon? It was minutely described that night over a hundred tea-tables in Catalpa. Did Charlie King bewilder everybody, some day, by the dexterity and rapidity of the balls that he delivered, so that even the players, always reluctant to praise each other, applauded him? Sage old men hanging over the open fire in the drug store would say that Charlie King "would warm those Jonesvillers, next summer." And, what was of more immediate importance, the financial arrangements necessary to start the club prosperously on its way were perfected while the dull times of a western winter pervaded the town of Catalpa. Judge Howell, himself, with an air of great condescension, headed a list of gentlemen who agreed to give a certain sum to enable the club to carry out their campaign. Others followed the great man of the town, according to their ability. And others, again, pledged themselves to lend any sum that might be required to make up a possible deficiency. But, so many who were able to give outright to what they called "the good cause" came forward with their gifts, there was no chance for any deficiency. Since the outbreak of the war, when everybody was scraping lint, making "comforts" for the soldiers, or marching to the front, there had not been so hot a fever of enthusiasm in Catalpa. The soldiers of this new campaign were the lusty young heroes up in the Agricultural Fair Grounds who were doing battle, every day, with imaginary foes and making ready to face the real antagonists who could not now be very far off; for the base ball season would open in a few weeks. There was a little jealousy over the choice of a captain. Gradually, the place of each man in the nine had been settled without much debate. As we have seen, the list that Alice Howell had made up, in the privacy of her own solitude, became that which the players finally fixed upon, except that Larry Boyne went to third base and Bill Van Orman took the place of catcher, instead of the positions which the fair Alice had assigned them in her draft of an ideal nine.