Lesterville was an unlovely town filled with smoking chimneys and the busy whirr of looms. A muddy canal intersected it and on either side immense brick mill buildings ran for the better part of a mile. But the boys didn’t tarry long in the town. A green trolley car bore them swiftly away from the belching chimneys and the hot, weary looking streets and out to the edge of the country. The ball ground was surrounded by a sagging fence and was ridiculously small. A long hit down the right or left foul line was certain to go over the fence, while even a good clout into center was likely to disappear through some hole in the rotting boards. A few unsheltered seats were clustered close to the first base line and these were already occupied when the Clearfield team arrived. The dressing-room was a ten-foot square space, unroofed, thrown together behind the stand. As the fellows changed into their togs the spectators on the top row of seats looked down upon them and offered sarcastic advice and rude comments. Fudge in particular aroused their humor and he was pestered so that he got his playing shirt on wrong side to. The Lesterville nine was a pretty husky aggregation. Most of them were mill employees and their average age must have been fully eighteen. The audience was particularly partisan and offensive, and Dick, settling himself on the visitors’ bench in the broiling sun and opening his score-book, reflected that it was perhaps well that there was no likelihood of Clearfield going home with the ball. He fancied that the hundred or so local sympathizers would make it quite uncomfortable for the visiting team if it won! There’s no necessity of following Clearfield’s fortunes that afternoon in detail. The contest was fairly featureless up to the eighth inning. The visitors could do nothing with Moriarity, the Lesterville pitcher, only three hits, one of them distinctly scratchy, accruing to their score and bringing in but one tally. On the other hand the home team showed itself very capable with the stick and Tom Haley’s best offerings were not puzzling after the second inning. A slight attack of stage-fright in that round on the part of Clearfield aided the home players. Almost every member of the visitors’ infield managed to make an error, while Tom’s wild throw to first in the third allowed Lesterville to add two runs to her already swelling score. When the eighth inning began Lesterville had nine runs to Clearfield’s one, and there seemed no reason to suppose that the final tally would be any more complimentary to Clearfield.