The two boys listened to the speeches and singing at the park, ate a hurried and fragmentary dinner at a downtown lunch-room, and then hied themselves to the Y. M. C. A. field. The game with Toonalta was to begin at half-past two, but owing to the fact that Joe Taylor and Jim Wheelock and one or two others had spent the noontime swaying about on top of the Association float and that it took them some time to change from Historical Personages to baseball players, it was nearly three when, before an audience that crowded the stand and flowed over on both sides of the field, Pete Chase wound up and sent the first delivery speeding across the plate for a strike. It was a sizzling hot afternoon, with scarcely a breath of air blowing across the diamond. The glare on the gray-brown dirt of the base path hurt the eyes, and Wayne, clad in almost immaculate, new baseball togs, felt the perspiration trickling down his back and from under the edge of his cap. Between him and the pitcher’s box heat waves danced and shimmered. His throwing hand was moist and he wiped it on a trouser leg. The Chenango infield was talking hearteningly to Chase and each other, Jim Wheelock’s drawl mingling with Vic Despaigne’s sharp staccato. There were two umpires that day and Wayne was wondering how the one on the bases stood the heat in his blue flannel attire, with his coat buttoned tightly from chin to waist. Chase wasted one and then put a second strike across. Medfield’s adherents cheered and the chatter in the field increased again. Then there was a _crack_ and Chase put up a lazy gloved hand, turned and tossed the ball to Jim. One out! After that, for several innings, Wayne forgot how hot he was. East, the Toonalta left fielder, also fell victim to Chase’s slants, but Burns, second baseman, slammed a hard one at Despaigne and that youth made his first error. Although he recovered his fumble like lightning, the runner, a fast chap on the dirt, was safe by the time the ball was in Jim Wheelock’s hands. A single past White sent the runner to second and placed the rival shortstop on first, but the trouble ended a few minutes later when Pete Chase scored his third strike-out in one inning. Joe Taylor had rearranged his line-up for today’s battle. Hal Collins, left fielder, led off and was followed by Wheelock, first baseman, Taylor, right fielder, Colton, centre fielder, White, third baseman, Hoffman, catcher, Sloan, second baseman, Despaigne, shortstop, and Chase, pitcher.