Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Runaway wives -- Fiction; Sportswriters -- Fiction
Of course, Pat knew that he really wouldn't be a kid. It didn't surprise
him to find that Tris was a man but he was quite a lot different from
pretty nearly all the other grown-ups that Pat had ever seen. They
didn't run like Tris. Probably they couldn't. The other men in this
baseball park ran, but Tris was the fastest. But it wasn't just looking
at him that Pat liked. He said the name over to himself several times.
"Tris Speaker, Tris Speaker." There was fun in the sound of it. Not
quite enough for a whole afternoon, to be sure. This was a park without
sandpiles or a merry-go-round. And there were no policemen to make
everybody keep off the grass. Pat wished they would.
"I want to go home," he said at last.
"Tired already?" asked Peter. "Well, there's only half an inning more.
It wasn't much of a game, was it? Too one-sided. But we're not going
home right off. I've got to go straight to the office and I'm going to
take you with me."
In another ten minutes the game was over. "You didn't like it, did you?"
asked Peter. The formula nettled Pat.
"Yes, I did," he said.
After a long trip in the subway they came to the big building where
Peter worked. Pat had never been there before. At the end of a long
corridor was a small office and Peter opened the door and went in. "I've
got to write the paper," he said. "You keep quiet till I'm done. Here's
the funny section for you."
Upon examination Pat found that it was last Sunday's pictures. He had
already seen the one about how the kids put dynamite in the Captain's
high hat. Still he followed the adventure again. When Kate read it to
him on Sunday it had made him a little sad. It seemed to him that it
must have hurt the Captain when Maude, the mule, kicked him in the head.
Now he found a new significance in the last picture. Maude and the
Captain were floating in the air high above the roof. Coming out of the
Captain's mouth were marks like this, "!----!!!" And yet it must be
pleasant to go floating away in the sky like that. Pat looked out of the
window and he could see the river and the great bridge. He would like to
have a high hat and some dynamite and a mule. Then he could float
through the window like Davey and the Goblin. That would be better than
sitting there in the little office so quietly while Peter pounded the
keys of his typewriter. Peter kept taking sheets of paper out of it and
tearing them up.
"Whatch you doing?" Pat asked when he could keep silent no longer.
"Hush," said Peter very sternly, "you mustn't ask questions now. I'm
doing a story for the Bulletin. That's very important, I must do it
right away."
"Why?"
"Well, pretty soon they're going to put the paper to bed." Pat knew that
must be some sort of joke. Papers didn't go to bed. They didn't have any
pajamas or nightgowns.
Somebody knocked at the door and before Peter could say anything Charlie
Hall came in. "Is that your kid?" he asked.
"Yes," said Peter, "He's my son. Say hello to Charlie Hall, Pat."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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