Even as he sat there she saw him as a blonde god
standing on the pitcher's mound, with the scars of battle on his
baseball pants, his left foot placed in front of him at right
angles with his right foot, his gaze fixed on first base in a
cunning effort to deceive the man at bat, in that favorite attitude
of pitchers just before they get ready to swing their left leg and
h'ist one over.
The second time that Rudie called, Ma Keller said:
"Ivy, I don't like that ball player coming here to see you.
The neighbors'll talk."
The third time Rudie called, Pa Keller said: "What's that guy
doing here again?"
The fourth time Rudie called, Pa Keller and Ma Keller said, in
unison: "This thing has got to stop."
But it didn't. It had had too good a start. For the rest of
the season Ivy met her knight of the sphere around the corner.
Theirs was a walking courtship. They used to roam up as far as the
State road, and down as far as the river, and Rudie would fain have
talked of love, but Ivy talked of baseball.
"Darling," Rudie would murmur, pressing Ivy's arm closer,
"when did you first begin to care?"
"Why I liked the very first game I saw when Dad----"
"I mean, when did you first begin to care for me?"
"Oh! When you put three men out in that game with
Marshalltown when the teams were tied in the eighth inning.
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