For Hal the trip was a great novelty. He and the other freshmen had never taken a railroad ride in a private car, and it was a great novelty for them. The ovations the boys received at the different stations were particularly interesting and at most every station the Alumni and friends of Lowell, after shaking hands with the old boys on the team and wishing them good luck, would always ask, “Where’s Case? We want to see Hal and Hans, also Robb and Talkington.” Between stations he read a few short stories for boys as he was always interested in them. Hal was not known to be superstitious and did nothing on going to bed that would show that he was, so it is impossible to write down anything about him here along this line. Hal, however, did wear his cap on the train and just before he went to bed he took a wad of chewing gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the button on the top of his cap. There may have been no superstition connected with that, however. He probably only wanted to put it where he could find it. Huyler, the utility and pinch hitter, got a new nickname on that ride. They called him the “Candy Kid.” No one knows who started it, but the idea may have been suggested by the numerous confectioners’ signs which dotted the landscape all along the route, and particularly those of one manufacturer whose goods were continually offered by the newsboys on the train. Black, whose youth was spent in the coal districts of Illinois, was happy because he was on his way to his own state, and whenever they passed a trainload of coal on the way, he would tell the boys what a great business coal mining was. You would not think he would have much love for coal or the mines either, for as a boy he had lost two of the fingers of his right hand by getting his hand caught in some machinery at one of the mines near his home while playing around it. But Miner always said that if he had more than three fingers left on his pitching hand he probably could not throw the kind of curves which he did, but would have to pitch the same as others, and he probably wouldn’t amount to much as a pitcher if he did. For Babe Radams the ride was one of doubt. He wanted to get into the game the next day but only an accident to Miner would give him a chance, and he thought very likely that he would have to sit on the bench. He wouldn’t think of hoping that Miner would have to be taken out of the box, but he felt confident that he could take care of the job if he got a real chance, and perhaps they would let him pitch the second game, if Lowell won the first. Babe’s thoughts were, however, all for the glory of Lowell and so he really wished that it wouldn’t be necessary to call on him during the first contest. He had acquired a good deal of glory as second pitcher on the team and felt sure that next year he would be the first pitcher for the team, since Miner would be out of school.