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VISUALIZING
BASEBALL
 ASA-CRC Series on
STATISTICAL REASONING IN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

SERIES EDITORS
Nicholas Fisher, University of Sydney, Australia
Nicholas Horton, Amherst College, MA, USA
Deborah Nolan, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Regina Nuzzo, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA
David J Spiegelhalter, University of Cambridge, UK

PUBLISHED TITLE
Visualizing Baseball
Jim Albert
Errors, Blunders, and Lies: How to Tell the Difference
David S. Salsburg
VISUALIZING
BASEBALL

JIM ALBERT

~CRCPress
V Taylor&FrancisGroup
Boca Raton london New York

eRe Press IS an imprint of the

Taylor &; Francis Group.. an infonna business
A CHAPMAN &: HALL BOOK
CRC Press
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© 2018 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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Version Date: 20170720

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Contents

Chapter 1  History of Baseball 1

Chapter 2  Career Trajectories 17

Chapter 3  Runs Expectancy 33

Chapter 4  The Count 45

Chapter 5  PITCHf/x Data 55

Chapter 6  Batted Balls 67

Chapter 7  Plate Discipline 83

Chapter 8  Probability and Modeling 97

Chapter 9  Streakiness and Clutch Play 121

v
vi  Contents

Bibliography 137

Index 139
Preface

Baseball and Data

Baseball is a special sport in its long-time relationship with data.
From the beginning of American professional baseball in 1869,
statistics such as runs scored, batting average, and counts of home
runs were used to measure accomplishments of ballplayers. The
baseball community now understands the importance of sabermet-
rics, the discovery, interpretation, and communication of patterns
in baseball data, and all major teams have analytics groups as part
of their payroll.
Although there is substantial interest in the study of baseball
through statistical thinking, tables rather than graphs are primar-
ily used by sabermetricians to communicate differences in players,
season effects, and other types of effects. The author strongly be-
lieves that graphical displays, if properly drawn, are a wonderful
way of communicating statistical patterns in baseball including
distributions, relationships, and time-series patterns. Graphs are
especially helpful in communicating to an audience who is not fa-
miliar with all of the detailed collection of observed and derived
measures in baseball. These graphs can be used to enhance the
statistical literacy of people who are interested in sports.

Availability of Data
Baseball is remarkable for its extensive collection of data, much
of which is publicly available. Sean Lahman currently maintains
season-to-season statistics for players, teams, managers, and post-
season results and this data is available as a free download from
baseball1.com. Retrosheet was founded in 1989 for the purpose
of computerizing baseball game accounts. Currently box score data
and play-by-play data is available for a large number of recent sea-
sons from retrosheet.org. Much of the Retrosheet data is avail-
able on Baseball-Reference, one of the most comprehensive col-
lection of baseball data. Data on pitches has been collected from

vii
viii  Preface

the PitchFX system since the 2006 season and is easily accessi-
ble through the PitchRX package in R written by Carson Sievert.
This system includes data on each pitch such as pitch speed and
movement, location, and batting outcome. Most recently, the Stat-
Cast system, introduced in the 2015 season, collects data on player
movements and batted balls including exit velocity, launch angle,
and direction. This data is not generally publicly accessible, but
summaries of StatCast data are available through web sites such
as FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

General Structure of the Book

This book is organized into nine chapters (inspired by the nine in-
nings in a baseball game) and each chapter uses graphs to discuss
a particular aspect of baseball history, illustrate basic principles of
sabermetrics, and describe the new types of baseball data. Chap-
ters 1 and 2 review the history of baseball, and the history of play-
ers as viewed by their career trajectories of performance. There has
always been a tension between pitching and batting performance.
For example, the rate of strikeouts is currently at an all-time high
indicating that pitchers may be getting an upper hand in baseball.
A graph of a player’s career trajectory tells a story beyond the
player’s career statistics – one can see when the player achieved
peak performance and highlight great seasons.
A baseball team wins a game by scoring more runs than its op-
ponent, and many baseball performances can be measured by how
many runs they contribute to the team. Chapter 3 uses graphs to
introduce the concept of runs expectancy that can be used to mea-
sure the value of baseball plays. The notion of runs value is used
in several chapters, to understand how to measure the batter or
pitcher advantage in the count in Chapter 4, to estimate the proba-
bility of a team winning in the 5th inning up by two runs (Chapter
8), and to measure a batter’s clutch performance in Chapter 9.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 use graphs to illustrate the newer sources
of baseball data. When one is watching a baseball, one typically
sees a graph showing the pitch locations about the zone. Chapter 5
introduces the PitchFX data that provides pitch locations together
with information on velocity, movement, and the pitch outcome.
Chapter 6 introduces new batted ball data available through the
StatCast system. This provides interesting insight into the direc-
tion, exit velocity, and launch angle of home runs, and one can
estimate the probability that a batted ball is a hit based on knowl-
 Preface  ix

edge of its exit velocity and launch angle. The FanGraphs site uses
this new data to create a “plate discipline” collection of measures
and Chapter 7 illustrates how swing and contact rates provide in-
sight on strikeout and walk rates.
Outcomes of baseball games, baseball seasons, and individual
season performances are uncertain and it is natural to use the
language of probability to better understand the likelihoods of dif-
ferent outcomes. Chapter 8 uses a graph to explain how the prob-
ability of winning a game changes during the innings and how
dramatic plays such as home runs can have a large impact on the
probability of winning. Similarly, graphs are used in this chapter
to explain the nature of baseball competition. A statistical model
is used to describe baseball competition and simulations from the
model allow one to relate team abilities with team performances
such as winning the World Series. Graphs are also used to show
how one can predict a player’s final season batting average on the
basis of his average after two months of the season.
Baseball fans are familiar with the current great players such
as Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw who have great season statis-
tics. But more subtle batting and pitching performances are not as
well understand, such as the tendency for a player to be streaky or
consistently make clutch performances. Chapter 9 illustrates the
use of graphs to show streaky hitting. It can be difficult to dis-
tinguish streaky and clutch performances from those performances
from “random” data, and special graphs are helpful for detecting
unusual streaky and clutch behavior.

Graphics Principles and Software

The graphs in the book were constructed following guidelines
for visualizing data as expressed in Cleveland (2005). With re-
spect to software, all of the graphs were produced using the
ggplot2 package (Wickham, 2016) in the R statistical system
(R Core Team, 2017). ggplot2 is a graphics system written by
Hadley Wickham inspired by the grammar of graphics described
in Wilkinson (1999). One of the goals of this book is to encour-
age readers to use ggplot2 graphics to illustrate baseball data
and other types of data for their own enjoyment and research.
Tutorial material on producing graphs for baseball data using
R is given in Marchi and Albert (2013). R scripts for many of
the graphs in this book and descriptions of how to obtain the
relevant baseball data are available on the author’s Github site
x  Preface

bayesball.github.io/VB . Similar types of visual explorations of

baseball data are available on the author’s “Exploring Baseball
with R” blog at baseballwithr.wordpress.com.

Intended Audience
This book was written for several types of readers. Many baseball
fans should be interested in the topics of the chapters, especially
those who are interested in the quantitative side of baseball. Many
statistical ideas are illustrated in the book and so the graphs and
accompanying insights may help to promote statistical literacy.
From a practitioner’s perspective, the chapters offer many illus-
trations of the use of a modern statistical graphics system, and
the reader is encouraged to reproduce and hopefully improve the
graphs in this book.

Acknowledgements
I am appreciative of my editor John Kimmel for his continuous
support during the writing of this book. The comments of the
reviewers were very helpful. Much of the writing was completed
during a Faculty Improvement Leave at Bowling Green State Uni-
versity. Last, but certainly not least, I thank my wife Anne for her
understanding and great patience during the book’s completion.

Jim Albert, July 2017

 CHAPTER 1

History of Baseball

INTRODUCTION
Professional baseball in the United States has a long history, as
both the American and National Leagues have played since the
1901 season. Baseball from the beginning collected statistics, so
most of the basic statistics such as counts of at-bats, hits, runs,
home runs, strikeouts, and walks are available for all players since
1901. In this chapter graphs are used to explore patterns of rates
of these basic statistics over time – these patterns help us learn
about the history of baseball. The first part of this chapter focuses
on team offensive statistics such as the number of runs or home runs
hit by a team in a baseball game. Baseball is a competition between
the offensive team and defense team and these plots show that the
balance of this competition has drifted between the offense and
the defense over baseball history. For example, we will learn that
strikeouts per game are currently at an all-time high suggesting
that pitchers currently have an advantage in modern baseball.
Since there is much interest in leaders in different statistical cat-
egories, the second part of the chapter focuses on the patterns of
the leaders for different baseball measures. Graphs will be used to
look at the leading batting averages, home runs, and on-base per-
centages. By focusing on the unusually high leading performances,
one is introduced to some of the greatest players in baseball history.

1
2  History of Baseball

TEAM STATISTICS
Runs Scored
A baseball team wins a game by scoring more runs than its oppo-
nent. One interesting aspect of baseball from a historical perspec-
tive is that the basic rules have not changed. A game is divided into
nine innings, where each team has the opportunity to score runs.
In a half-inning, players come to bat according to a prescribed bat-
ting lineup, and batters continue to come up until three outs are
recorded.
Since runs are such a fundamental component of baseball, a
good place to start is to explore the history of scoring runs. Figure
1.1 displays a time series plot of the average number of runs scored
by a team in a game for each season from 1901 through 2015. The
blue line is a smoothing curve that helps one see the basic patterns
of growth and decline of run scoring.

5.5
Babe Steroids

5.0
Runs per Team per Game

4.5

4.0

3.5 Dead−Ball Gibson

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

Figure 1.1 History of average runs scored in a game by a team.

 Team Statistics  3

Generally, one sees from the graph that teams tend to average
between 3.5 and 5.5 runs a game, but there are dramatic changes in
run scoring over the history of baseball. Labels are used to highlight
four seasons 1908, 1930, 1968, and 2000 that were unusual with
respect to run scoring.

• In the so-called Dead-Ball era (from about 1900 through

1920) in baseball, it was challenging to score runs. Games
were held in spacious ballparks and the ball was “dead”,
partly by design and partly by overuse. The low season for
scoring runs in this period was 1908. The batting average for
all players that season was only 0.239 (contrasted to 0.255 in
the 2016 season) and the Earned Run Average (ERA) for all
pitchers was a low 2.37, contrasted with an ERA of 4.18 in
the 2016 season. There were a number of dominant starting
pitchers during this era including Addie Joss, Christy Math-
ewson, Cy Young, and Mordecai Brown.
• Run scoring dramatically increased after the Dead-Ball era,
hitting a peak in 1930 when over 5.5 runs were scored on
average by a team each game. The 1930 season is labeled
in the figure with “Babe” as the dominant offensive player.
Dominant hitters during this period included Babe Ruth, Lou
Gehrig, Mel Ott, Al Simmons, and Chuck Klein. The 1927
New York Yankees, the “Murderer’s Row”, was arguably the
most famous team during this period including Ruth and
Gehrig. In contrast to the 1908 season, the average AVG in
1930 was a robust 0.296, and the average ERA was a high
4.81.
• After the Babe Ruth period, run scoring generally decreased
from 1930 through 1968, although there was a modest in-
crease in scoring from 1945 to 1955. The season 1968 was
remarkable when only 3.4 runs were scored by a team in a
game. This season was called the “year of the pitcher” and
several pitchers had notable accomplishments. This season
is labeled by “Gibson” since Bob Gibson had a remarkable
low season ERA of 1.12 and Denny McClain won 31 regular
season games. Carl Yastrzemski won the American League
batting crown with a mere 0.301 batting average. After the
1968 season, the Rules Committee of Major League Base-
ball made several rule changes to allow for more offense. The
strike zone was changed to the zone used before 1963 and
the height of the pitching mound was lowered from 15 to 10
inches.
4  History of Baseball

• Since the 1968 season, there was a steady increase in run

scoring until the 2000 season. From the graph, we see the
average runs scored by a team in the 2000 season was sim-
ilar to the peak around the 1930 season. The 2000 season
represented the period of time, the so-called “Steroids Era”
when a number of players were believed to use performance-
enhancing drugs. The top offensive players in the 2000 sea-
son were Todd Helton, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, and Alex
Rodriguez.
• Since 2000, run scoring has dropped substantially, approach-
ing 4 runs per team per game. It appears that baseball is
again in an era similar to the Dead-Ball era that is domi-
nated by pitching.

Home Runs
One of the dramatic ways of scoring runs is through home runs.
Figure 1.2 displays a graph of the average number of home runs
per team per game over the history of Major League Baseball.
Although home runs directly produce runs, by comparing Figure
1.1 and 1.2, one sees that the historical pattern of home run hitting
differs from the general historical pattern of scoring runs.
• Generally, there was a general growth in home run hitting
over the period from 1901 through 2017.
• Looking closer, we see three time intervals when there was
steady growth in home run hitting 1905–1940, 1945–1962,
and 1975–2000. Also we notice two intervals when there was
a decrease in home run hitting 1962–1975, and 2000–2015.
• The three periods of home run increase can be identified with
great home run players. The growth of home runs in the 1920s
and 1930s can be connected with the great hitter Babe Ruth.
To illustrate the dominance of “The Great Bambino,” during
1920 Ruth hit 54 out of a total of 630 home runs hit during
that season.
The growth in home run hitting between 1945 and 1962
peaked with great seasons of the home run hitters Mickey
Mantle and Roger Maris. During the 1961 season, Mantle
and Maris had a great dual to break Ruth’s single-season
record of 60 home runs. Maris did break Ruth’s record with
61 home runs, a record that lasted for 36 seasons, but this
record was believed not to be legitimate by the baseball com-
missioner since he played more games in the 1961 season than
Ruth.
 Team Statistics  5

1.25
2017

1.00
Home Runs per Team per Game

0.75

0.50

0.25

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

History of average number of home runs hit per team

Figure 1.2
per game.

The growth in home run hitting between 1975 and 2000

reached a climax with the “steroids sluggers” Mark McG-
wire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa. The 1998 season was
special in that McGwire and Sosa were competing to break
Maris’ 37-year old home run record. Actually, both players
broke Maris’ record in 1998 with McGwire hitting 70 home
runs followed by Sosa with 66.

At the time that this book was completed (summer 2017), we

observed an interesting surge in home run hitting. There was a 14%
increase in home run hitting between the 2015 and 2016 seasons
and currently (June 2017), teams are averaging 1.28 home runs
per game in the 2017 season which is the highest rate in baseball
history. It will be interesting to see if this pattern of increase in
home run hitting will continue in future seasons.
6  History of Baseball

Speed in Baseball
Speed and quickness play an important role in baseball. A batter
can get an infield hit on a groundball by running to first base
quickly before a throw to first base. A fielder may need to react
quickly to a ball hit to his area of the field and run a long distance
to catch the ball.
Some measures of baseball performance directly relate to player
speed. A triple is a base hit where the hitter reaches third base.
Typically a triple is achieved by a player who has sufficient speed
to reach three bases before the ball is returned to the infield. A
stolen base is recorded when a runner advances to an extra base
to which he is not entitled. Although the pitcher and the catcher
contribute to the success of a stolen base attempt, the speed of the
baserunner plays an important role.
Triples and stolen bases are exciting aspects of baseball, so it
is of interest to explore how the occurrence of these “speed events”
have changed over the history of baseball.

Triples
Figure 1.3 plots the average number of triples hit by a team in a
game against year for seasons 1901 through 2015.
This figure clearly shows a steady decrease in the rate of triples
over time. In the early years of baseball, teams would average 0.5
triples a game which means fans would see, on average, one triple a
game. There was a dramatic decrease in the triple rate from 1925
to 1970, followed by a slight increase in the 1970s, followed by
a gradual decline until the current season. Currently, the average
number of triples per team per game is only about 0.17. Seeing a
triple in a modern baseball game seems to be a rare event.
What are possible explanations for the decline in triples? In
the Dead-Ball era, ballparks were more spacious than the modern
ballparks, making it easier for a triple. Modern players do possess
the speed to reach three bases quickly, but the dimensions of the
modern ballpark may limit the triple opportunities. One contribut-
ing factor is defense – the modern outfielders may be more efficient
in returning the ball to the infield. Also, a runner reaching second
base is about as likely to score on a single as a runner on third
base, so perhaps an attempt to reach third base for a triple is not
considered a good strategy.

Stolen Bases
Another speed event in baseball is the stolen base. Figure 1.4 dis-
plays a historical view of the average number of stolen bases for a
 Team Statistics  7

0.5
Triples per Team per Game

0.4

0.3

0.2

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

Figure 1.3 History of average number of triples hit per team

per game.

team per game. During the Dead-Ball era, stolen bases were pretty
frequent, averaging over a stolen base per team per game. As home
runs became more prevalent, the rate of stolen bases plummeted,
reaching a low value of 0.2 during the 1950 season. From 1950 until
the early 1990s, the rate of stolen bases increased steadily to 0.75
per team per game. Since the early 1990s, the stolen base rates
has shown a modest decrease and leveled off in recent seasons. It
should be mentioned that there is much variation in stolen bases
in modern baseball – in the 2016 season, Milwaukee had a total of
181 stolen bases compared with only 19 for Baltimore.
Why aren’t stolen bases more common in baseball? First, being
successful in stealing bases requires speed and training, and there
are a relatively small number of players who frequently attempt to
steal bases. Second, a stolen base attempt is a risky play and teams
8  History of Baseball

Stolen Bases per Team per Game

1.0

0.5

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

History of average number of stolen bases per team

Figure 1.4
per game.

may decide not to attempt to steal due to this risk. Last, a team
may decide on a strategy of scoring runs primarily on base hits,
and stolen bases don’t play an important role in this strategy. The
current variation in team counts of stolen bases (remember the
comment about Milwaukee and Baltimore) indicates that teams
have different opinions on the value of stolen bases in producing
runs.

The Other True Outcomes: Strikeouts and Walks

The “three true outcomes” in baseball are the three outcomes,
home runs, strikeouts, and walks, that are completely determined
by the pitcher-batter matchup and don’t involve the defensive play-
ers on the field.
 Team Statistics  9

We have already looked at the historical pattern of home runs.

What about the other two true outcomes? The top panel of Figure
1.5 graphs the average number of strikeouts per team per game
across seasons.

8
Strikeouts per Team per Game

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

4.0
Walks per Team per Game

3.5

3.0

2.5

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

History of average number of strikeouts per team

Figure 1.5
per game (top panel) and average number of walks per team
per game (bottom panel).

It is clear from viewing this figure there has been dramatic

changes in the strikeout rate over time. In the 1925 season, strike-
outs were rare, but they steadily increased to 6 (a total of 12
strikeouts per game) in the middle 1960s. Then the strikeout rate
dropped to about 5 in the middle 1970s. Since then, there has
been a steady rise in strikeouts, approaching 8 (almost one strike-
out in every half-inning) in the 2015 season. There was a remark-
able strikeout record during the 2017 season when the Yankees and
Cubs combined for a total of 48 strikeouts in a 18-inning game.
10  History of Baseball

Since strikeouts often are related to walks (think about the

great Hall-of-Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan who had a great fastball
with control issues), one might anticipate a volatile pattern also in
the history of walk rates. The bottom panel of Figure 1.5 displays
the average number of walks per team per game across time.
Walks, like strikeouts, were rare in 1900 (only about 2 walks per
team per game) and they steadily rose over time, reaching a peak
of 3.5 to 4 in the 1950 season. But then walks declined and reached
a low value of 2.8 during the magical “year of the pitcher” in 1968.
It is interesting that walks have displayed a different pattern than
strikeouts since 1968. There was a gradual increase in walk rates
until the 2000 season but walk rates have actually decreased in
recent seasons.

LEADERS
The first set of graphs give one a general understanding how run
scoring, home runs, and speed statistics have changed over the his-
tory of baseball. But these graphs don’t highlight accomplishments
of individual players; baseball fans are fascinated with the players
listed on “leaderboards”. Here we look at some popular measures of
hitting performance and see how the leading measure has changed
over the history of baseball. These leader graphs will highlight some
of the greatest hitters in baseball history.

Batting Average
The MLB batting champion for a particular season is the player
with the highest batting average, where a batting average is defined
by the number of hits divided by the number of at-bats:
H
AV G =
AB
Figure 1.6 plots the AVG of the batting champion for all seasons
from 1901 through 2015. Special high batting averages are labeled
with the player’s last name. Looking at the smoothing curve, we
see some interesting patterns:
• The leading batting average showed a general increase until
the 1925 season.
• In the next 43 seasons between 1925 and 1968, there was a
steady decrease in the leading batting average.
• From the mid-1960s until the 2000 season, there was a grad-
ual increase in the leading average, and the average has dis-
played a steady decrease until the 2015 season.
 Leaders  11

0.425

Williams

0.400
Gwynn
Brett
Williams

Carew
AVERAGE

0.375

0.350

0.325

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

Figure 1.6History of the leading batting average. Special bat-

ting averages are labeled with the last name of the player.

After thinking about the general pattern, one looks for inter-
esting deviations from the pattern. In the early years of baseball
(seasons 1901 through 1925), a batting average of 0.400 or higher
was relatively common. Looking at Figure 1.6, one sees 10 leading
averages over 0.400. The most recent average at this level, labeled
by “Williams” in Figure 1.6, was Ted Williams’ 0.406 average in
the 1941 season. The figure also labels the four leading batting
averages exceeding 0.350 since the 1950 season:
• Ted Williams 0.388 average in 1941
• Rod Carew’s 0.388 average in 1977

• George Brett’s 0.390 average in 1980

• Tony Gwynn’s 0.394 average in 1994
12  History of Baseball

Most baseball experts conclude that we will never see a 0.400 bat-
ting average again in Major League Baseball. Gould (2011) argues
that the reason for the disappearance of the 0.400 average is that
the variability of batting averages has decreased over time, and it is
more difficult for a player to obtain an average that is substantially
different from a typical average.

Home Runs
The home run king in a season is the player with the most home
runs. Figure 1.7 displays the history of the leading number of home
runs with some great leading home run numbers labeled. Looking
at the pattern of the smoother, we note the following:

Bonds

McGwire

Ruth McGwire
Maris
60 Foxx
Ruth Greenberg

Ruth Wilson

Ruth
HR

40

20

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

History of the leading number of home runs. Special

Figure 1.7
home run counts are labeled with the last name of the player.
 Leaders  13

• A small number of home runs were hit in the so-called “Dead-

Ball” erbetween 1900 and 1920.
• Since 1920, the leading number of home runs has been rela-
tively constant over time.
• There are three general peaks in the leading home runs,
around 1925, 1960, and 2000, and valleys around 1945 and
1985.

There are a number of leading home run accomplishments that

are labeled in Figure 1.7. Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest hitter
in baseball history, hit 54, 59, 60, and 54 home runs in the 1920,
1921, 1927, and 1928 seasons. Other players in Ruth’s period had
similar leading home run counts: Hank Wilson’s 56 home runs in
1930, Jimmie Foxx’s 58 home runs in 1932, and Hank Greenberg’s
58 home runs in 1938.
After the great home run leaders in the 1920s, the next great
home run leader was Roger Maris who set a record with 60 home
runs in the 1961 season. After Maris, the leading home run count
stayed relatively constant until the so-called “steroids era” about
the year 2000. The famous leaders in this period were Mark Mc-
Gwire who led MLB with 70 and 65 home runs in the 1998 and
1999 seasons, and Barry Bonds who set the current record of 73
home runs in the 2001 season.

On-Base Percentage
A batting average is one indicator of a player’s success in hit-
ting. But a batting average, by definition, ignores outcomes such
as walks and hit-by-pitches that allow a batter to reach first base.
A better measure of a player’s ability to get on base is the on-base
percentage
H + BB + HBP
OBP = .
AB + BB + HBP + SF
This particular hitting statistic was made popular in the book
Moneyball by Lewis (2004) that was later made into a movie. Dur-
ing the 2002 season, the OBP was an underappreciated measure
and the Oakland general manager could cheaply sign players who
had the talent to get on base. Figure 1.8 gives a historical view
of the leading on-base percentage. One sees that the leading OBP
was small during the Dead-Ball era and rose until the 1925 season.
Then the OBP value dipped a bit and had a dramatic drop during
the 1960s. From 1968 until 2000, there was a steady increase in the
leading OBP and the value has dropped steadily in recent seasons.
Figure 1.8 labels the leading OBP values exceeding 0.500. There
14  History of Baseball

0.60 Bonds

Bonds

Williams
0.55 Ruth

Williams
Ruth
Ruth Bonds
Ruth
Williams Bonds
OBP

0.50 Ruth

0.45

0.40

1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

History of the leading on-base percentage. Special

Figure 1.8
on-base percentages are labeled with the last name of the
player.

were 12 player/seasons labeled and remarkably they were achieved

by only three players.
• Babe Ruth, the great home run slugger, had OBP seasons
of 0.532, 0.512, 0.544, 0.513, 0.516 in the 1920, 1921, 1923,
1924, and 1926 seasons.
• The next OBP titan was Ted Williams who had OBP values
of 0.553, 0.513, 0.526 in the 1941, 1954, and 1957 seasons.
• The final player Barry Bonds had OBPs of 0.515, 0.582,
0.529, 0.609 in the 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 seasons. In
the 2004 season, Bonds had a record 232 walks in 617 plate
appearances for a remarkable 0.609 on-base percentage.
 Wrap-Up  15

Although many current players are very good in getting on-base,

it is doubtful that one will see OBP stars at the level of Ruth,
Williams, and Bonds in the forseable future.

WRAP-UP
This chapter has demonstrated that although baseball has been
playing by the same basic rules for over 100 years, the patterns
of different types of batting events has shown big changes over
baseball history. Generally, home run hitting and strikeouts have
increased over time, while the rates of other events such as triples
have decreased substantially from the 1900 season to the current
day. Also our historical exploration of leaders for specific measures
has helped in identifying some of the greatest hitters in baseball
history.
One implication of these changes is that one cannot judge the
greatness of a particular batting measure just by looking at its
value. For example, due to the changes in the average batting av-
erage over time, it is difficult to evaluate a player’s hitting perfor-
mance by simply looking at his batting average. A leading batting
average of 0.400 would be remarkable in modern baseball, but 0.400
hitters were relatively common in the 1920s. So any player’s per-
formance should be evaluated in the context of the seasons when
he played. This advice is especially important when players from
different eras are under consideration for admission to the baseball
Hall of Fame. When players are compared, one needs to adjust any
career hitting measures for the era in which they played. Other-
wise a player might get into the Hall of Fame not because they
were great but because they happened to play during an era when
pitching or batting were dominant.
 CHAPTER 2

Career Trajectories

INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 illustrated the changes of baseball team performance
over the history of baseball, but interesting patterns in perfor-
mance exist over time when viewed at the individual level. Gener-
ally a professional athlete enters the professional ranks at a modest
level, increases his or her level of performance until a peak level is
reached, and then decreases in performance until retirement. When
some measure of performance is graphed against age, this graphical
display is called the career trajectory of the athlete. Although the
general “rise, hit a peak, and then fall” career trajectory pattern
happens in all sports, the characteristics of this pattern can vary.
For example, some athletes may peak at a younger or older age,
and the rise and fall from peak performance can occur at different
rates.
In this chapter, career trajectory patterns in baseball are ex-
plored. By looking at some representative graphs of some famous
players, one gains a general understanding of trajectory patterns in
baseball. By viewing these graphs, one learns much more about the
season-to-season accomplishments of a player than the cumulative
statistics typically used to summarize a player’s career.

17
18  Career Trajectories

UNDERSTANDING CAREER PERFORMANCE

How Do Baseball Players Age?
Suppose one is interested in learning about how baseball players
age. Here are some basic observations about player ages and the
statistics one collects.

• Practically all of the ages of professional baseball players fall

between 20 and 40 years. The better players tend to make
their Major League Baseball debuts close to 20 and are more
likely to play until age 40 or later.
• One typically keeps track of career statistics. For example,
Barry Bonds had 762 career home runs, Ty Cobb had a career
batting average of 0.366, and Cy Young had 511 career wins.

We are interested in how a player’s performance is spread out

over all the seasons of his career. If one plots some measure of
performance against a player’s age, the resulting graph is called
the career trajectory of the player.

Barry Bonds Home Run Trajectory

Barry Bonds is the current career leader in home runs with 762.
He had a long career in professional baseball from age 21 to 42.
Looking at Bonds’ 762 home runs over his 22-season career, one
can compute that he averaged 34.6 home runs each season.
If Bonds’ home run hitting performance was constant over his
22 seasons, then ignoring the typical season-to-season variation,
the summary pattern of home runs would look like Figure 2.1.
But if one actually plots Bonds’ home run counts against season
in Figure 2.2, one sees that Bonds’ pattern of hitting home runs
has a distinctly non-constant pattern.
 Understanding Career Performance  19

60
Home Runs

40

••••••••••••••••••••••

20

20 25 30 35 40
Age

Figure 2.1Barry Bonds’ career trajectory if his home run hit-

ting performance was constant over seasons.

•
60

• •
• ••
Home Runs

Type
40 •• • Constant

• • • • •• • • •• •• • • •• • ••••••• • Actual

•• • ••
20
•
•

•
20 25 30 35 40
Age

Barry Bonds’ actual career trajectory of hitting

Figure 2.2
home runs compared with a constant pattern of performance.
20  Career Trajectories

A smoothing curve is drawn on top of the scatterplot in Figure

2.3 to help us see the general pattern.

73

60
Home Runs

40

20

20 25 30 35 40
Age

Figure 2.3 Barry Bonds’ career trajectory of home runs with a

smoothing curve added. One unusually high home run count
is labeled.

From the graph in Figure 2.3, one sees that Bonds’ home run
count generally shows a gradual increase from age 21 through 36
and then has a more rapid decline until his retirement age of 42.
The smoothing curve indicates that Bonds generally peaked in
home run performance at age 36. There is one notable exception to
the general pattern – Bonds’ unusually large 73 home runs at age
36 currently (in year 2016) is the most home runs hit by a Major
League player in a single season.

COMPARING CAREER TRAJECTORIES OF HITTERS

It is interesting to explore the career trajectory of a single player
such as Barry Bonds. But to gain a general understanding of aging
patterns in baseball, one wants to compare career trajectories of
 Comparing Career Trajectories of Hitters  21

“similar” players. We discuss the choice of performance measure

and how one determines if two players have similar careers.
First, one needs to decide on the measure of performance. There
are many possible choices for a measure. For example, if one was
interested in slugging performance, one could use the count of
home runs, the rate of home runs (home runs divided by plate
appearances), the slugging percentage, or other measures. If one
was interested in general hitting performance, a multitude of bat-
ting measures are possible. Currently there are particular measures
of performance that provide good summaries of offensive perfor-
mance. We focus on the use of oW AR, the offensive wins above
replacement. Essentially, this measure indicates how many wins the
player contributed to the offense of his team over what would be
contributed by a suitable replacement player. A basic career trajec-
tory graph plots the season oW AR performance measure against
the player’s age.
How does one find a group of similar players? Bill James (1994)
introduced the concept of similarity scores to compare two base-
ball players. To compare two players, one starts at 1000 points
and then makes subtractions based on the differences in the career
statistics in different categories such as games played, runs scored,
hits, and so on. There is an adjustment for the fielding position in
the calculation. Generally it is desirable to compare players who
played the same or similar fielding position.
What patterns do we expect to see in a career trajectory? One
expects a player to mature and increase in performance during
a particular year and then decline until retirement. Conventional
wisdom says that baseball players peak between 28 and 32, al-
though Bill James in his Baseball Abstracts writing gave evidence
to indicate that the range was more like 25 to 29. Personally, I
believe that there may be a general pattern of aging, but players
age differently depending on their playing position, physical con-
dition, and other patterns. But it is helpful to think of 30 years as
a benchmark when one explores these career trajectory graphs.
In the comparisons to follow, a famous baseball player will be
chosen and James’ similarity scores are used to find three other
players who are similar with respect to career performance and
fielding position. The comparisons of career trajectories of oW AR
are helpful in understanding general patterns of aging in offensive
performance.

Mickey Mantle and Three Similar Hitters

Mickey Mantle was one of the great sluggers while I was growing
up. He had a great combination of speed and power and he was one
22  Career Trajectories

of the leaders of the New York Yankees when they were winning
a number of World Series in the 1950s and 1960s. Using similarity
scores, three players with similar batting statistics to Mantle were
Frank Thomas (great player for the White Sox from 1990 to 2008),
Eddie Matthews (third baseman for the Braves between 1952 and
1968), and Mike Schmidt (great Phillies third baseman who played
between 1972 and 1989).
Figure 2.4 displays career trajectories of Mantle, Thomas,
Matthews, and Schmidt using the oW AR statistic. One sees from

Eddie Matthews Frank Thomas

0
WAR

Mickey Mantle Mike Schmidt

20 25 30 35 40 20 25 30 35 40
Age

Figure 2.4 oWAR trajectories of Mickey Mantle and three sim-

ilar players.

this figure that Mantle matured rapidly and appears to peak about
age 25 and then generally declined in performance until his retire-
ment at age 36. Frank Thomas had a similar trajectory, peaking
about age 26, but his performance at his peak is noticeably smaller
than Mantle’s. Both Matthews and Schmidt had longer periods of
 Comparing Career Trajectories of Hitters  23

best performance. Matthews displayed a constant level of offensive

performance from age 21 to 30 and then declined until retirement.
Similarly, Schmidt’s performance was very consistent from age 24
through 37. Comparing the four players with regard to their peak,
we see that Mantle had the best peak performance with an oW AR
statistic value close to 12 at age 25.

Babe Ruth and Three Similar Hitters

Next consider Babe Ruth, the “Sultan of Swat” who played for
22 seasons, 15 of them for the New York Yankees. Figure 2.5 dis-
plays the career trajectory of Ruth and three similar players, Barry
Bonds, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig.

Babe Ruth Barry Bonds

10

0
WAR

Lou Gehrig Ted Williams

10

20 25 30 35 40 20 25 30 35 40
Age

Figure 2.5 oWAR trajectories of Babe Ruth and three similar

players.
24  Career Trajectories

Ruth had a remarkable career – one sees that his oW AR value

remained about 10 runs for the period 25 to 35 years. Since Ruth
actually started professional baseball as a pitcher, his oW AR val-
ues were small for the first few seasons of his career, and Ruth
declined rapidly between 35 and 40. We have earlier commented
on Barry Bonds’ unusual career trajectory for home run counts.
If one removed the three large oW AR values, then Bonds’ trajec-
tory would be typical with a peak about 30 years. But Bonds had
those three high oW AR values at ages 36, 37, and 39 – this is very
unusual for a baseball slugger.
Ted Williams had a career interrupted by military service for
the ages 24 through 26 – from a baseball perspective, this was
unfortunate since his best oW AR seasons occurred early in his
career. His offensive performance declined somewhat after age 30,
but he was a strong hitter during the remainder of his career and
did not exhibit any decline. Lou Gehrig had a rapid rise to his peak
performance and was consistently a strong offensive player until age
34. Gehrig had a rapid decline in performance due to illness and
passed away at age 37 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
disease.

Derek Jeter and Three Similar Hitters

Derek Jeter was one of the most popular Yankee players who re-
tired in the 2014 season. Figure 2.6 displays Jeter’s oW AR trajec-
tory together with three other similar great infielders Robin Yount,
Craig Biggio, and Roberto Alomar. Jeter’s offensive performance
rose rapidly and he had some of his best oW AR seasons at ages 24
and 25. Jeter’s performance stayed constant until age 35 and then
he declined until retirement.
Robin Yount’s oW AR values display a good amount of varia-
tion from season to season. But looking at the smoothing curve,
Yount displayed a traditional pattern of aging, peaking about 27
years. Craig Biggio had a similar pattern of aging, but his peak
age was about 30 years. Roberto Alomar is similar to Yount in
displaying variable oW AR values. Alomar’s performance stayed
pretty constant until age 34, but he declined quickly in later years.

General Patterns of Aging

We have seen different patterns of aging in baseball batters and
have commented on the player’s perceived peak age, the age at
which the player achieves peak performance. Can one make gen-
eral comments about peak ages? All of the players were identified
who had at least 5000 career plate appearances. Each player’s ca-
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 “Did you rest well, Nally?” inquired Ruth.
“Wonderfully!”
“Like a top!” was Hal’s description. “And what wild round of
gayeties do we indulge in to-day?” he asked, with a grin.
“Nothing very strenuous, I hope,” said Miss Hastings, with rather a
drawl that she was “affecting,” Agnes declared, since her lisp had
gone. “But of course I’m ready for anything,” she added quickly, lest
it be thought she intended to cast a wet blanket on the festivities.
“We planned an auto ride to the Glen,” said Ruth. “It’s a beautiful
place, and we can eat lunch there.”
“Sounds good to me,” declared Hal. “Especially that lunch part.
I’m with you.”
“It will be delightful,” said the Boston girl.
“Neale will run the car. He’ll be here about ten o’clock,”
announced Agnes.
“Oh, I think Neale’s the dearest boy!” declared Nally.
“What about me?” demanded Hal brazenly.
“Oh, you don’t count. You’re one of the family!” laughed the
Boston girl.
And so with merry quip and laughter the breakfast proceeded.
Luke was to be a member of the auto party that would go to the
Glen, and he and Neale arrived at the Corner House together, for
Luke was staying with Neale at Con Murphy’s. The two lads, with
Hal, were about to go out to the garage to see that the car was in
readiness when suddenly Ruth, who was looking from the window
toward the street, cried:
“There they are again!”
“Who?” demanded Agnes, impressed by something in her sister’s
voice.
“Those two queer men who were in our cellar! I really believe
they are spying on us. They were sneaking around the side
entrance. Quick! Luke—Neale—see them!”
“I see them!” exclaimed Neale.
 “Those men!” cried Luke, as Ruth pointed to two ragged, shiftless
figures hastening down the street, for they had changed their
intentions on seeing Ruth at the window. “Why, I remember them!”
“You remember them!” repeated Ruth. “What do you mean?”
“Tell you later. Come on, Neale, let’s see if we can’t round them
up!” cried Luke, and, without answering Ruth’s question, he dashed
from the house in pursuit of the mysterious individuals, Neale at his
heels.
CHAPTER VIII
A FUTILE CHASE
Hal Dent stood for a moment in the room with Ruth, Agnes and
Nalbro, looking toward the door through which Luke and Neale had
started in pursuit.
“What’s this all about?” demanded Hal. “Is this part of the daily
morning exercise, or——”
“Don’t stop to ask questions, Hal, but run!” advised Nally.
“Run? Why should I run? I don’t need the training, and——”
“But don’t you understand?” persisted the Back Bay girl. “Ruth
knows something about those men—they’re burglars or something—
and she wants them caught. Go help Luke and Neale!”
“I don’t know anything about the men—that’s the trouble,” voiced
Ruth. “But I would like to have them caught to find out about them.
This is the third time they have been sneaking around where I was.
Once they were in our cellar!”
“Say no more! A detective shall have nothing on me!” cried Hal,
and he, too, dashed from the house while the three girls followed
more slowly, though none the less eagerly.
Dot and Tess, who had been given their breakfast earlier, in
charge of Mrs. MacCall, came out in time to see the start of the
pursuit.
“Oh, it’s a game they’re playing!” cried Dot, hugging her Alice-doll,
who always shared breakfast with her. “May we play, Ruth?” she
begged.
“We want to have some fun!” added Tess.
“It isn’t a game,” said Agnes. “Don’t ask questions, my dears.
There may be trouble.”
“Is it some of the men from Plam Island?” Dot inquired.
 “No,” Ruth replied. “You had better take them back into the
house,” she added, in a low voice to Mrs. MacCall, and then she
raised her voice to say to Hal, who was running toward the rear of
the house:
“They didn’t go that way!”
“I know it, Ruth,” he answered. “But I was going to get out the
car. Those men had a good start, from what little I saw, and we can
get after them better in the car.”
“That’s a good idea!” complimented Nalbro, and she felt not a
little proud of her Boston cavalier.
“I think it will be best—if he can get the car to run,” remarked
Ruth, a bit dryly.
“Isn’t it like other cars?” Nally wanted to know, somewhat
suspicious.
“Not always. Sometimes it takes a notion to start easily, and again
Neale will have to ‘monkey with it,’ as he calls it, five or ten minutes
before it consents to behave.”
“Oh, I do hope it runs!” murmured the Boston girl.
Alas! It was a vain hope. Hal did everything called for in the book
of directions, from retarding the spark, turning on the gas and
ignition to stepping on the self-starter button, but all that resulted
was a humming of the starting motor. There were no welcome
explosions in the cylinders.
“What’s the matter with this boat?” demanded Hal wrathfully,
after he had done several things on his own account in trying to get
the machine in motion. He had even tried to turn it over by hand.
“I fancy it hasn’t had its bath this morning,” dryly remarked
Agnes. “Or perhaps it wants a dusting with violet talcum powder.”
“Never mind,” consoled Ruth. “You aren’t the only one it acts that
way with, Hal. Sometimes I’m so provoked at it that I could just cry.
Then I go off without it and it must feel ashamed of itself. For the
next time I step on the button it goes with a hum and a purr like a
contented kitten lapping up cream.”
“We need a new car—that’s what we need!” declared Agnes. “But
Guardy is so queer. He——”
 “He isn’t exactly queer,” broke in Ruth, coming to the defense of
the absent Mr. Howbridge. “But he insists that we must run on a
strict budget system, and we have not yet gotten out of this car the
maximum of what it is supposed to deliver before it is ready to be
turned in. When that time comes we shall have a new car.”
“I wish you’d take this one out and wreck it then, Hal!” said
Agnes, a bit vindictively.
“Willingly, my lady, if I could get it out at all,” replied the youth,
rubbing one hand where he had skinned his knuckles trying to crank
the motor.
“Never mind. Perhaps Luke and Neale will catch the men, and
then we shall find out all about the secret,” suggested Nalbro.
“I hope they do get them!” cried Agnes.
“I’m wondering what it was Luke meant when he said he
remembered them,” murmured Ruth. “There was something queer in
that.”
“Come on—let’s go out in the street and see if we can find out
anything,” suggested Agnes, for when Hal had his inspiration about
the car they had followed him to the garage, only to lose time.
The street, down which the two strange men had run, followed by
Luke and Neale, was apparently deserted. The girls and Hal strained
their eyes for a sight of either the pursuers or their quarry, and then
from an upper window of the Corner House came a shrill voice
asking:
“Are the engines coming?”
“What engines?” asked Ruth, as she caught sight of Tess and Dot
leaning from the casement at a dangerous angle. “Get right back in
there!” she instantly ordered.
“The fire engines! Are they coming?” went on Tess.
“Fire engines? There isn’t any fire!” laughed Agnes. “Though from
the way we’re running around I haven’t a doubt but what the
neighbors think so,” she added, noting that several curious looks
were cast in the direction of the Corner House from residents on
either side and across the street.
 Then along came Robbie Foote, with a basket of things from Mrs.
Kranz, the “delicatessen lady,” as Tess always called her.
“Anything the matter?” asked Robbie.
“No, nothing much,” answered Ruth, with a warning look at the
others, telling them not to go into particulars. “And you’d better
hurry around to the kitchen with those eggs,” she added. “Mrs.
MacCall is waiting for them.”
“And don’t smash them as you did the others,” added Agnes,
thinking to so occupy Robbie’s mind with this remark as to exclude
from it any desire to ask embarrassing questions. In this Agnes
succeeded, for the delivery boy cried:
“I didn’t bust the eggs! It was the goat, and he wouldn’t ’a’ done
it if the alligator hadn’t nipped his tail!”
“Yes, I guess that’s right,” admitted Agnes. “But, anyhow, Mrs.
MacCall is waiting for you.”
“Oh, aw right,” mumbled Robbie, with an air of having been
unjustly treated.
“There’s no use of our waiting out here,” remarked Ruth. “We’re
only exciting remark.” If there was one thing more than another
Ruth did not like it was to attract attention. “Let’s go in and wait for
Luke and Neale to come back.”
Meanwhile the two boys were not having much success in their
pursuit of the strange characters. They had a glimpse of the twain as
Ruth had called out about them, and then lost it as they dashed for
the street.
“There they go!” Neale had cried, after he and Luke had turned a
corner.
For a time they had the two mysterious strangers in view and
then the men darted into some side alley, or perhaps into some
building, going out a rear entrance and over the back fence. For
when Luke and his friend reached the place where they thought they
could dart in and find their quarry, there was no trace of the men.
“Guess they’ve given us the slip,” remarked Neale, after they had
searched about for some time.
“Looks like it,” agreed Luke.
 “Anything wrong?” asked a man, who had been watching the two
youths.
“Oh, no, not much,” answered Luke, in an indifferent manner.
“Just a couple of fellows we wanted to speak to.”
“Oh, I thought maybe they had stolen something.”
“No,” answered Luke, and this was true enough, for nothing had
been missed from the Corner House cellar.
“It was just as well not to tell that fellow too much,” Luke went
on, as he and Neale started back to join the girls.
“That’s right.”
As they walked into the yard of the Corner House, on the porch of
which Ruth, Agnes, Nalbro, and Hal were gathered, the last looked
at a patch of red on Luke’s left hand.
“Hello,” Hal cried. “Did he bite you?” The hand was bleeding.
“What? Oh, that! I hit it against a brick wall and rubbed off some
of the skin. It isn’t anything.”
“I can match you!” chuckled Hal, displaying his bruised knuckles.
“Say, what kind of a car is that, anyhow?” and he nodded in the
direction of the garage. “Must be a new model. She wouldn’t start
for me.”
“Oh, so that’s how it happened!” chuckled Neale. “I guess you
forgot to cross your fingers and say ‘eenie-meenie-miney-mo’ before
you stepped on the starter, didn’t you?”
“I reckon I did,” admitted Hal, with a grin.
“Luke, let me see that cut,” demanded Ruth.
“Oh, it isn’t anything. I’m not going to have any iodine put on it.”
“Yes you are!” she insisted. “And you, too, Hal. Come up to the
bathroom right away. There’s nothing like treating a cut in time.
There’s no telling what germs may be in it, and iodine will kill them.
Come on.”
“Not for me!” answered Hal. “If you have a bit of sticking plaster
——”
“The worst thing in the world!” cried Ruth. “Come! I insist! And
then, Luke, I want you to tell us what you meant when you said you
remembered those men.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Neale. “You didn’t let out a word about that
when we were chasing them.”
“We needn’t ask if you got them,” commented Agnes.
“That’s right—they gave us the slip,” remarked Luke, ruefully.
He and Hal suffered their hands to be treated with the iodine, and
Luke created laughter by pretending to cry when the fluid stung, as
it certainly did, for he had rather a deep cut, caused when his hand
came in contact with a brick wall as he and Neale swung around a
corner in futile pursuit of the strange men.
“Thanks,” murmured Hal, when his hand had been dressed. “I
shall recommend you to the Red Cross, Ruth.”
“Oh, Ruth is a dandy little nurse,” added Luke. “I can certify to
that. You ought to have her hold your hand and rub your head when
it aches, Hal.”
“Oh, such a pain!” cried Hal, clasping his brow with an assumed
agonized look on his face.
“Silly!” murmured Ruth, blushing as she put away the iodine. “And
now, if your fever isn’t too high,” she went on with gentle sarcasm to
Luke, “you might tell us what you remembered.”
“It isn’t much,” he said, modestly enough. “However, I’ll tell you
all about it. As soon as you cried out about those men a little while
ago, and I had a glimpse of them—I remember your telling me
about the cellar mystery—it at once flashed into my mind that I had
seen the fellows before.”
“Not in our cellar!” exclaimed Agnes.
“No, for I wasn’t here at that time. But it was about two weeks
ago, on the train. I’d been to Hamilton on an errand for Professor
Keeps, and I happened to occupy a seat directly behind those men. I
didn’t pay much attention to them until I heard them mention ten
thousand dollars.”
“Whew!” whistled Hal. “They must be garage men! They’re the
only fellows who ever have that much money nowadays.”
“But is that the only strange thing about them?” asked Ruth.
 “No. The men kept on talking, and though I couldn’t hear all they
said I caught something about dividing up this ten thousand dollars.
Then one of the men—the taller—said: ‘If we let them know it’s
there we’ll get nothing.’ The other agreed with this, and then I had
to leave the train. But I got a good look at the men, and I’m sure
they’re the same fellows Neale and I just chased.”
“Ten thousand dollars!” murmured Agnes.
“I wonder what it means?” murmured Nalbro.
And then, before they could begin a series of surmises, Uncle
Rufus shuffled out on the porch where this talk was proceeding and
announced:
“De tellyfoam’s been ringin’ its haid off, Miss Ruth, an’ it’s
somebody what wants yo’!”
CHAPTER IX
OUT OF TUNE
With a murmured “excuse me,” Ruth arose from where she had
been sitting near Luke, and started into the house.
“Maybe it’s the police telephoning they have captured the two
men!” cried Agnes, who was as much given to looking for
excitement, on certain occasions, as was Sammy Pinkney.
“It couldn’t be,” commented Luke. “The police didn’t know the
men were wanted. And, as a matter of fact, I don’t see that we can
make any charges against them.”
“Didn’t they break into your cellar?” asked Hal, who had not heard
all the particulars, or else had forgotten some of them.
“No, they didn’t break in,” remarked Agnes. “In fact, they went
there on invitation, you might say.”
“Invitation!” cried Nally. “You don’t mean to say you invited them
in?”
“I believe that’s what it is called in law,” went on Agnes. She had
an idea she was going to study law some day. “Ruth saw the men
going into our cellar and she did not forbid them. In fact, she
actually told them to enter—at least, a lawyer would call it that. It’s
a sort of invitation by inference where you don’t forbid a person to
enter.”
“Well, I never would have let them go in if I hadn’t thought they
were from the water department,” said Ruth, who had come back to
the porch in time to hear the latter part of this talk.
“Which they weren’t,” remarked Neale. “I found out that much!”
“Was the telephone message anything about the men?” asked
Agnes.
“No, just Carrie Poole saying she could come to-morrow night.”
 “That’s good.”
Carrie Poole was one of a number of girl and boy friends invited to
another little gathering in honor of Nalbro and Hal.
“But, Luke, can you tell us any more about those men and their
queer talk of ten thousand dollars?” asked Neale.
“Not a thing,” answered the collegian. “I thought it queer at the
time, and for that reason I noticed the men rather more closely than
otherwise I should have done. But, as a matter of fact, I thought
perhaps they were talking of some moving picture plot, and so the
thing went out of my mind.”
“Moving picture plot! What do you mean?” demanded Agnes.
“Well, you know, every one is writing for the movies nowadays,”
went on Luke, smiling. “Every fellow in my class has one or more
scenarios out, hoping for an acceptance, and on the campus all you
hear is continuity, close-up, flashback and the like. And more than
once, in trains, I’ve overheard conversations something like this:
‘Well, we could kill off the man and kidnap the girl.’ ‘It would be easy
to have the house robbed.’
“One might think some desperate crime was being planned, but
all it is, really, is a talk on the plot for a moving picture, or what they
hope will turn out to be one. So when I heard these men saying
something about ten thousand dollars and about not letting some
one know or they wouldn’t get anything, for a time I thought they
might be writing a moving picture scenario.”
“Do you think so now after you’ve had a second look at them?”
asked Neale.
“I certainly do not—especially after the way they ran,” answered
Luke. “And that makes me suspicious that they were around here for
no good purpose. If they had been, they would not have run when
they saw that Ruth had noticed them.”
“It’s just what they did before—the time Agnes and I were in to
see Miss Titus,” said Ruth. “I do hope it doesn’t mean anything! I
hope they haven’t any designs on the house.”
“Nonsense!” laughed Luke, patting her hand which was
conveniently near his as they sat together on the porch. “They’re
just a couple of tramps—that’s all.”
“But their talk of ten thousand dollars! Really, I don’t know that
we ought to go on this little picnic and leave Dot and Tess at home.”
“Take them with us,” suggested Neale.
“There isn’t room in the car.”
“I’ll come back and get them,” offered the good-natured lad; and
so it was arranged, though Ruth, after all, admitted that there could
be no real danger to her younger sisters with Uncle Rufus, Linda and
sturdy Mrs. MacCall in the house.
You may imagine with what delight Tess and Dot received the
news that they were to be permitted to go to the picnic. They had
been mourning the fact that they were obliged to stay at home, and
they had just concocted a scheme of sending over for Sammy
Pinkney and his alligator when there was a rift in the dark clouds.
“I’ll take my Alice-doll!” cried Dot.
“I’ll take Clarissa,” decided Tess. “She wears a black dress and I
can drop her in the mud and not care.” Tess lately had, for some
reason unfathomable by Ruth and Agnes, taken to playing with her
dolls.
“Alice is going to wear white,” said Dot, with a superior air. “White
is best for picnics.”
“Um!” murmured Tess, who was not so particular.
Hal followed Luke and Neale out to the garage while the girls
finished their preparations for the lunch they were taking to the
Glen.
“I’m anxious to see how you start that old boat,” remarked Hal,
rubbing, tenderly, his bruised knuckles.
“It’s easy. All you do is—this.” Neale turned the ignition key,
stepped on the starter switch, and the steady throb and hum of the
motor at once followed.
“You must have it charmed,” commented the Boston lad.
“You have to humor ’em,” chuckled Neale.
After all, it was not necessary for Neale to make a second trip to
take Tess and Dot to the Glen. A neighbor happened to be going out
in that direction and volunteered to take the younger girls.
“Coming home we can pile in anyhow,” remarked Agnes, “for
there won’t be so many lunch boxes and baskets.”
“You verged dangerously near the truth then,” solemnly remarked
Luke. “I shall empty at least half a dozen lunch boxes myself.”
It was a beautiful day, the Glen was looking its best after a light
shower, and there was a “romantic” waterfall among other natural
wonders. Nalbro called it romantic, and she ought to have known
what that word meant. As for Neale, he said he couldn’t see what
there was in a waterfall, anyhow.
“As the Irishman said, what’s to prevent it from coming down?” he
demanded. But no one paid much attention to this ancient joke.
“Now, Tess and Dot,” said Ruth, taking her younger sisters off to
one side when they had been safely delivered, “I don’t want you to
give me any trouble to-day.”
“We never do,” declared Tess.
“You don’t mean to, but you do,” said Ruth patiently and with a
kind smile. “Don’t go off by yourselves exploring, and——”
“Well, you don’t want us tagging around after you and Luke all
day, do you?” asked Tess, though why she should couple the names
Ruth said she could not imagine.
“I want you to be within call, if not within sight, all the while,” was
the stipulation. “There are many little places where you might
wander off and be lost. You needn’t ‘tag’ us around, as you call it,
but don’t get too far away.”
“We won’t,” promised Dot. “Oh, I just love it here and so does my
Alice-doll.”
Indeed they all seemed bent on having a good time, and when
the lunch had been put away until such time as it would be needed
they strolled about the Glen, talking and laughing.
As might be expected, there was a pairing off into couples. Agnes
and Neale found something to look at down one path, Nalbro and
Hal declared they wanted to get to the top of the waterfall, and Ruth
remarked:
 “Well, if they want to tire themselves out by scrambling up there,
let them. I think——”
“Here’s a quiet place—a regular bosky dell,” laughed Luke, and he
led the way.
And then, for a time, the murmuring talk of the young people
mingled with the murmur of the water as it slipped over the mossy,
green stones.
It was, as might have been expected, Tess and Dot who put an
end to what seemed an ideal period, for Ruth soon heard the voice
of Tess calling:
“Where are you? Where are you?”
“Oh, I wonder if anything has happened!” Ruth exclaimed, with a
startled glance at Luke, who sat beside her on a mossy bank.
“What’s wrong?” he cried, his stronger voice echoing through the
forest.
Back came the unromantic answer:
“We’re hungry!”
“Oh, is it noon?” asked Ruth, looking at her wrist watch, and,
finding that it was half-past twelve, she added: “No wonder the poor
things are looking for us. We’ll eat!”
“It seems a pity to leave this,” remarked Luke, glancing around on
their trysting place.
“Oh, we can come back,” conceded Ruth.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
There was the usual merry ado about setting out the lunch boxes
and baskets, and the usual ants walked, true to form, into the butter
and cloyed themselves with sweetness in the sugar. But this is
always expected at picnics.
As Neale remarked:
“No outing is complete without them.”
But Nalbro rather shuddered when a grasshopper alighted on her
slice of bread and threw it quickly away from her with a muttered:
“Ugh! The horrid thing!”
 “You don’t give him credit!” laughed Luke. “Like the bees to the
flowers, he was attracted by your magnetic personality.”
“Thank you!” murmured the Boston girl, flashing a look at Luke,
who was boldly regarding her. And Agnes, by means of her eyes,
telegraphed some message to Ruth.
After lunch, which, if it did nothing more, rendered Tess and Dot
less active, for it made them sleepy, there was a period of sitting
about, wondering what next to do, for it was too warm for much
strenuous exercise.
“Come on!” offered Nalbro suddenly, “I’ll tell the boys’ fortunes.”
“How?” asked Agnes.
“I’ll read their hands.”
“I’m first!”
“No, I!”
“She came with me!”
In turn Luke, Neale and Hal thus cried as they crowded around
the fascinating Boston girl—there was no denying that she was
fascinating—and pretty, though Agnes, at least, had no lack of
beauty and Ruth’s sweet face always gave pleasure to a beholder.
“Oh, I can’t tell your fortunes all at once. And no one must hear
the others’,” declared Nally, with a pretty air of bewilderment, as
three tanned hands were thrust toward her, each one eager to be
first.
“Decide by lot then,” suggested Neale.
“How?” asked Nalbro.
“Shut your eyes and take a hand,” he went on, and this was done.
The Boston girl, with closed eyes, groped among the three palms
held before her, and whether it was accident or design, she took that
of Luke.
Then the other two lads, after some protesting, were sent out of
hearing while Nalbro proceeded to study and trace the lines in the
hand of the young collegian.
What she told him is neither here nor there, nor is what she
pretended to prophesy for Neale and Hal. But as she continued to be
a center of attraction for the young men, while Agnes and Ruth
tidied up the luncheon ground, there were uneasy glances cast in
the direction of the fortune-telling section of the Glen.
“Isn’t it queer how silly boys are about having their hands held?”
remarked Agnes, with a distinct “sniff.”
“She has a certain way about her,” admitted Ruth. “Perhaps we
should be a little more——”
“Giddy! Silly! Why don’t you say it?” challenged Agnes. “I didn’t
imagine Nally was like that. But you never know a girl until——”
“Hush!” suddenly commanded Ruth. “I thought I heard Tess
calling! Yes, she is! Oh, what has happened?”
Through the woods echoed the sobbing voice of a little girl
shouting:
“She’s fallen in! She’s fallen in!”
CHAPTER X
A SHOWER
The little “out of tune” feeling which had begun to manifest itself
in the hearts of Ruth and Agnes was instantly dispelled as they
heard the voice of Dot crying—for it was Dot they heard.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Nalbro, for she was so intent on
finishing the telling of Hal’s fortune, holding his hand in her warm
one, that she had not caught the alarm.
“Something has happened to Tess or Dot—maybe both,” gasped
Ruth, as she sped past.
“One of them has fallen in the brook, probably,” added Agnes, for
the waterfall was the result of a small brook toppling down an
incline. It was not a wide stream; nor was it deep, except in a few
places.
“Come on, Neale!” cried Luke, springing up from a hummock
where he was lying under a tree, possibly thinking over the “fortune”
that Nalbro had outlined for him. “To the rescue!”
“I don’t imagine it amounts to much. Those kids are always falling
in or falling out or getting into some sort of trouble,” commented
Neale. Nevertheless, he followed Luke, and now Nalbro and Hal
joined in.
At intervals the cry came from Dot:
“She’s fallen in! She’s fallen in!”
It was by this cry that Ruth, with the others following her, was
able to get to the place whence Dot had sounded the alarm. Ruth
saw her little sister through a fringe of bushes on the edge of the
brook.
“Dot, what is it? Where is Tess?” demanded Ruth, not stopping to
inquire whether Tess had fallen in, since it seemed obvious, with Dot
there in plain sight, and not wet.
“I don’t know!” sobbed Dot.
“What don’t you know?” demanded Agnes, catching Dot by the
arm and giving her a little shake to quiet the hysterical sobbing that
was rendering Dot unintelligible.
“I don’t know where Tess is,” Dot sobbed. “She went down there
with her Clarissa-doll——” She pointed toward a part of the stream
that the boys knew to be deep, and went on: “Then I heard her yell
and there was a splash and——Oh, she’s fallen in, I know she has!”
The boys waited no longer, but dashed away in the direction of
the spot Dot had pointed out. Agnes and Nalbro remained to comfort
Dot, who was now wiping away her tears on the dress of her Alice-
doll, and Ruth followed the boys.
It was Luke who first shouted back some definite news.
“I have found her!” he announced.
“Is she—is she——” Ruth could not form the words.
“She’s all right!” came the reassuring answer. “But she’s soaking
wet. Tess, come out of that!” he commanded.
By this time the others had pushed through the underbrush and
had come upon a scene which, after a moment, brought roars of
laughter from Neale and Hal. And Luke, after a glance at Ruth to
make sure she was smiling, joined in.
They simply could not help it.
There sat Tess on a flat rock in a shallow place in the middle of
the brook and she was washing her doll’s dress. The water was
flowing down on either side of Tess, as if she might be a rock
herself, as she sat there in the midst of the brook.
 There sat Tess on a flat rock in a shallow place in the
middle of the brook.

The stream was up to her waist as she sat down, but she was
wetter than this, for she was splashed up to her shoulders, and as
she held up the black dress of Clarissa, to see if it needed further
scrubbing, water ran from the garment down her freckled face.
 “Tess Kenway! What in the world are you doing?” demanded
Ruth. “Come right out of there this instant!”
“All right,” said Tess calmly. “I guess Clarissa’s dress is clean,
anyhow.”
“Why did you do it? Why are you sitting there?” went on Ruth, for
Tess had not yet arisen.
“Did you fall in?” Agnes wanted to know.
“Yes, I did,” answered Tess slowly. “And when I was wet I thought
I might as well stay in and be wetter and wash Clarissa’s dress. It
was easier out here, and I found a rock just like a washboard.”
“Oh, you terrible child!” scolded Agnes. “You have frightened us
all! How did it happen? If it hadn’t been for Dot’s calling that you
had fallen in, we might never have known it.”
“Pooh! I was going to tell you, anyhow, so there!” said Tess.
“Yes, but when?” asked Ruth. “Why did you leave Dot?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t wash her Alice-doll’s dress, and I wanted to
wash mine,” explained Tess. “So I came down here.”
“And left Dot alone? That wasn’t kind,” commented Ruth. “She
heard you fall in.”
“She couldn’t have.”
“Yes, I did, too,” declared Dot, for she had been brought along by
Nalbro and Agnes to the scene of the immersion. “I heard you
splash.”
“Pooh! That wasn’t me; that was a rock,” laughed Tess, shaking
her wet hair out of her eyes while Ruth endeavored to wring some
water from her skirts. “I was leaning over a rock to wash Clarissa’s
dress,” she proceeded, “and the rock splashed in. I guess that’s what
you heard,” she said to Dot, “because I didn’t make any noise—that
is, not much—when I slipped in.”
“Then you did fall in?” asked Agnes.
“Yes, I fell in,” admitted Tess. “But that was after the rock
splashed, and Dot couldn’t have heard me. I slipped in and got my
feet wet and it felt so nice—and I was wet anyhow—that I waded
out and sat down. You ought to see that rock! It’s all ribs and
crinkles like a regular washboard. If you could take it home, I’ll show
you where it is!”
She tried to pull away from Ruth as if with the intention of wading
out into the stream again, but her sister held her back.
“No, none of that any more!” decided Ruth.
“Oh, but you’re a sight!” giggled Agnes.
“Pooh! Let ’em dry on me,” suggested Tess indifferently. “I’ve
been wet before, lots of times. If you had been here I could have
taken Alice-doll’s dress out and washed it,” she said to Dot.
“I wouldn’t have her dress washed. It’s clean now. And you can’t
tell whether your doll’s old black dress is clean or not.”
“Oh, it’s clean,” declared Tess. “I sozzled it in the water a lot of
times and I rubbed it on the washboard rock.”
“Well, you’ve given us all something of a fright,” sighed Ruth.
“Though I don’t suppose you meant it. Dear me! we haven’t
anything dry to put on you, though I suppose we might go to some
house.”
“I’ll run her back in the car and let Mrs. MacCall look after her,”
offered Neale. “I’ve got to get gasoline, anyhow.”
“All right,” agreed Ruth, and so Tess had the advantage of getting
an extra ride, and all by herself, in the machine with Neale.
“Honestly, it was comical,” said Agnes, telling some of her girl
friends about it afterward. “In her wet, bedraggled clothes, Tess sat
on the rear seat, as prim and stiff as some old-fashioned lady, and
she seemed to be pretending that she was some millionaire’s wife
out in her auto taking the air.”
This was just Tess—a queer little body if ever there was one.
“Oh, ye puir bairn!” cried Mrs. MacCall, when she saw Tess. “An’
are ye the only one saved?”
“Gracious, you don’t think all the rest are drowned, do you?”
laughed Neale.
“I was fearin’ that,” murmured the housekeeper. “I was fearin’.”
Tess was soon clothed again in dry garments and she went back
to the picnic ground with Neale after he had stopped at the service
station to have the gas tank filled.
The day was nearly over—and a glorious one it had been in spite
of the accident to Tess—and soon the jolly little party was on the
way home, all managing to crowd into the one automobile.
“Oh, I am having such a wonderful time!” sighed Nalbro that
evening on the porch, when the boys had come over for a little talk.
“It was darling of you girls to ask me down.”
“We are glad you are enjoying it,” said Ruth. “And we hope you
can stay a long time.”
“If it weren’t for getting ready to go to boarding school—which
means having a lot more frocks made,” murmured the Boston girl
—“I could stay longer.”
“I wish our dressmaker was up to ‘frocks,’ don’t you, Ruth?”
Agnes asked, with a half envious sigh. “But poor Miss Titus, though
she does have a sign reading ‘Modes,’ has never risen above a gown
—and she used to call everything a dress.”
“Sickening—that’s what I call it,” grunted Neale. “What say you,
fellows?”
“Oh, you boys make me tired!” declared Agnes. “You’re fussier
over one necktie than we are over two dresses! Aren’t they, Nally?”
“I should say so!”
And so the merry quips were exchanged.
“Speaking of water,” remarked Luke, as he came out with a glass
which Ruth had requested him to get, “are you girls going to do
anything about those strange men?”
“What can we do?” demanded Ruth. “We don’t know who they
are, and we aren’t even certain that they did anything more than
make a mistake.”
“It might have been a mistake, getting into your cellar once,”
commented Neale. “But when the same men have been seen
hanging around the Corner House—well, it’s time something was
done, in my opinion.”
“What would you do?” inquired Ruth. “I have thought of speaking
to Mr. Howbridge about it.”
 “Let me mention it to the police,” offered Neale. “I know the chief
and all the officers who have this beat—there are different ones on
different nights. I’ll tell them to keep their eyes open for suspicious
characters.”
“I wish you would,” said Ruth. “And I’ll also speak to Mr.
Howbridge about it.”
“If you girls are nervous,” said Luke, speaking particularly for the
benefit of Ruth, “I can leave Neale and come over to stay here to-
night.”
“What? With me on the job? Boy, you are insulting!” cried Hal, in
mock heroics. “Why, I’ll defy any twain of alleged water inspectors
that ever misread a meter!”
“Oh, we’re not a bit afraid,” said Ruth.
“We have Uncle Rufus and Linda, to say nothing of Mrs. MacCall,”
added Agnes.
“Well, you can always get Neale and me on the telephone,”
suggested Luke, with a laugh.
“And by the time you got over here we’d be kidnaped!” declared
Agnes. “No, we’ll depend on Uncle Rufus.”
However, there was no need for any dependence, for nothing
untoward happened that night.
For the next evening a little affair had been planned, to which
some guests Nalbro Hastings had not yet met were invited. Ruth and
Agnes were busy arranging the details of this, and planning with
Mrs. MacCall what the refreshments should be, when Tess came in
looking somewhat warm and excited.
“What have you been doing, dear?” asked Ruth, smoothing her
hair.
“Oh, Dot and I just now gave Uncle Rufus a shower,” explained
Tess.
“A shower?” Ruth cried.
“You mean you have been giving one of your dolls a bridal-
engagement shower, and you let Uncle Rufus in on some of the
things?” questioned Agnes. “It was kind of you, but——”
 “No, we gave him a regular shower. Like a showerbath, you
know.”
“You what?” gasped Ruth.
“That’s it. Yes, a shower. Dot’s doing it now. I got tired. It’s lots of
fun! Oh, she wet him good that time! Look!”
She pointed out of the window.
CHAPTER XI
A STRANGE SUMMONS
What Ruth and Agnes saw was this. Stretched over the lawn was
a hose that had been used for sprinkling the grass. Uncle Rufus,
having finished wetting down the dry places, had laid the nozzle end
of the hose down, with the water still running, and had walked back
to the faucet to shut it off.
But as Ruth and Agnes watched, Dot picked up the nozzle end of
the hose, with the water still spurting from it, and directed it toward
the old colored man, spraying him well.
“Heah, yo’ li’l missie! Stop that!” cried Uncle Rufus.
“Ho! Ho!” Dot laughed, as she continued to spray Uncle Rufus.
Then he made a dash for her, at which sign of danger she
dropped the nozzle and ran away, whereat Uncle Rufus resumed his
shuffle toward the faucet, perhaps a hundred feet away.
But no sooner was his back turned than Dot again made a rush
for the nozzle, again spraying Uncle Rufus.
He shouted and shook his finger at her, but Dot only laughed the
more and doused him well. But as soon as he started to run toward
her she dropped the hose and ran in her turn.
“That’s what I was doing, but I got tired,” explained Tess. “Oh, we
gave Uncle Rufus a fine shower!”
Ruth and Agnes looked at each other. Then Ruth, shaking Tess
rather severely by one arm, exclaimed:
“You naughty girls! The idea of wetting poor, old Uncle Rufus! You
must be punished for this, Tess. Agnes, go and get Dot and bring
her here.”
When Dot saw Agnes coming out, the mother of the Alice-doll
beat a hasty retreat, not quite fast enough, though, for she was
caught as she ran across the lawn and stumbled.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Dot. “I wasn’t doing it all.”
“Ruth will attend to you,” remarked Agnes, in her sternest voice.
“You and Tess are going to be punished.”
And punished they were, though Tess protested, with tears, that
Uncle Rufus had on his oldest clothes that he wore when he weeded
the garden in the rain, adding that he did not mind being wet.
Really, he did not seem to, though, as a matter of fact, he was
pretty well soaked. For when the two little girls had been sent up to
bed, to have the shades pulled down, without a toy to play with, not
even the Alice-doll, and no picture books to look at or stories to
read, it was Uncle Rufus who interceded for them and begged them
off.
“Look heah, Missie Ruth,” he humbly pleaded when he had on dry
garments, “dem young uns didn’t mean no harm, nohow. An’—ha!
ha!—I doan mind de wettin’!”
“I know, Uncle Rufus,” answered Ruth, with a smile. “It is very
good of you to forgive them and to try to get them off, but they did
wrong and they must be punished. If I don’t do something to them
they will act worse the next time.”
“Yes’m, Missie Ruth, I knows dat, but I done guess dey has been
punished nuff!”
He looked so eager and had such a pleading, loving look on his
honest, wrinkled black face, that Ruth could not resist him. She
knew how he loved Tess and Dot.
“Very well,” Ruth finally said, “I’ll let them stay in bed half an hour
longer, and then you may go up and tell them that you forgive them,
Uncle Rufus, and that they may come down just before supper.”
That was perhaps the shortest half hour ever registered on the
clock of the Corner House, for it could not have been more than ten
minutes after Ruth had remitted the punishment that Uncle Rufus
went up to the girls’ room and timidly knocked on the door.
“We can’t come out,” said Tess meekly, in what she doubtless
intended to be a martyr’s voice. “You’d better go away!”
Uncle Rufus gave one of his inimitable chuckles.
 “Oh!” gasped Dot.
“Oh!” gasped Tess.
“Yo’-all kin come down now,” announced Uncle Rufus.
“Did Ruth say so?” asked Tess.
“Yes’m, she done say dat!” declared Uncle Rufus. “Miss Ruth say
she done mitigate yo’ punishment, whateber dat means, an’ I wants
to say dat I forgibs yo’. Ha! Ha! I guess I done needed de baff
anyhow.”
“Oh, Uncle Rufus, we’re awfully sorry if we gave you a bath
before it was time,” said Dot.
“Doan yo’-all worry none ’bout dat!” chuckled the old colored
man. “Come ’long down ’fore supper!”
Tess and Dot, much chastened in spirit, descended. They were
grateful that none of the boys were around to see their humiliation,
and for a time they went about much subdued, trying to make it
appear that they were more sinned against than sinning.
But Ruth knew them, and so did Agnes, for they had done such
pranks before and always the same thing followed their just
punishment. So, though Nalbro felt sorry for them and was inclined
to “mother” them, she was advised against it by the older Corner
House girls.
The result was that little attention was paid to Tess and Dot,
except that they were treated with exaggerated politeness by their
sisters, perhaps in contrast to their rude but thoughtless showering
of Uncle Rufus.
In a short time the little girls forgot all about it and were playing
about as before, much to the delight of Uncle Rufus, who would not
have slept well had he kept on his mind any longer the vision of his
little tormentors being punished.
“I just love it here!” declared Nalbro, as they were sitting on the
porch, waiting for Linda and Mrs. MacCall to announce the evening
meal. “It’s so different from my own home. It’s stupid there, though
it’s nice enough. Something always seems to be happening here.”
“You’re right there!” laughed Ruth.
 “And sometimes things don’t always happen for the best!” added
Agnes.
“I just wonder where they got that idea of spraying Uncle Rufus?”
mused Ruth. “I do hope they didn’t see it in the movies, for they are
sure to mention it if they did, and Mrs. MacCall will say it’s a sin and
a shame that we ever let them go.”
“Yes, that would be a bit awkward,” admitted her sister. “But I
have a faint suspicion that they must have made it up out of their
own heads.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Ruth. “I do hope Luke comes to-night,” she
went on.
This was so unexpected, coming from Ruth, who seldom let
anything be known about her liking for the young collegian, that
Agnes stared at her sister in some surprise, and even Nalbro raised
her pretty eyebrows. Luke had been called away from Milton for
several days by Professor Keeps, who had some work for the young
man to do.
“Oh, it’s just a matter of business!” Ruth made haste to say, as
she sensed the underlying meaning her words might have conveyed.
“He was going to make inquiries about those two men,” she went
on. “Do you know, I don’t at all like the fact that they have been
seen around here so frequently,” and there was a worried look on
her face.
“Don’t start any fretting,” advised Agnes. “I don’t believe it will
amount to anything. But what was Luke going to find out?”
“He was going to see some railroad men he knows—the
conductor or brakeman on the train the time he sat behind the men
who talked about the ten thousand dollars—and he’s going to ask if
the railroad men know anything about the fellows.”
“Oh, so that’s the only reason you’re wishing Luke to come this
evening—on a matter of business! I see! The plot thickens!” mocked
Agnes.
“Oh, don’t be silly!” advised Ruth, in a small tone of voice.
“Worse and worse!” laughed Agnes. “See her blushes, Nally?”
“Nally, if you side with her,” began Ruth, “I’ll never——”
 But the appearance of Mrs. MacCall with the announcement that
the meal was served put an end to what might have proved an
embarrassing situation.
Toward the end of the meal Tess and Dot were observed carrying
on some secret interchange of ideas.
“Go on—you ask her,” urged Dot to Tess.
“You said you would,” retorted Tess.
“What is it?” Ruth wanted to know.
The two children looked self-conscious for a moment, and then
Dot blurted out:
“Couldn’t we stay up for the party a little while to-night?”
“Why, yes, I intended you should—for a little while,” replied Ruth.
“What made you think you couldn’t? Oh, I see! About Uncle Rufus!
Oh, that’s all forgiven and forgotten.”
“And could Sammy be over?” Dot was quick to ask, taking
advantage of the unexpected softness on Ruth’s part.
“Oh, Sammy! Well, I don’t know. I hadn’t intended to ask him.”
“He’s got a new suit of clothes!” burst out Dot, as if that clinched
matters. And in the laugh that followed, Ruth said:
“All right. Have him over for a little while. But mind! He must go
home early!”
Tess and Dot would have rushed away before the pudding was
served, so anxious were they to convey the welcome news to their
prankish partner, but Ruth insisted on the forms of politeness being
observed, at any rate, and not until she had given the signal for all
to leave were Tess and Dot allowed to depart on their joyous errand.
The young men all came, Luke getting back to Milton just in time
to attend. Cecile, too, motored over from Grantham and arrived with
her intended, Gene Barrows. So that soon the Corner House was
echoing to the merry laughter of happy hearts.
“Dish yeah shore would ’a’ done Uncle Peter Stower good ef he
could ’a’ heerd dis!” remarked Uncle Rufus, as he helped Mrs.
MacCall in the kitchen. “He got kinder ole an’ crusty towards de las’,
but he had lots ob pain.”
 “’Twould be a marcy were the puir mon able to see a little of the
brightness he’s brought about,” agreed the Scotch housekeeper. “But
it’s nae gi’en ta any mon to see what gaes on when he’s depart!”
“’Ceptin’ he turns into a ghost,” Uncle Rufus observed.
“Hech! Hech! Dinna ye start any o’ that talk with the nicht comin’
on!” warned Mrs. MacCall, with a glance over her shoulder.
Ruth could scarcely wait for a chance to get Luke off in a corner
by himself to put to him some questions that were troubling her. But
when she did she derived little satisfaction.
“About those men—” she began. “Were you able to find out
anything, Luke?”
“Nothing worth mentioning,” he replied. “I talked with the
conductor of the train I was on when I heard the strange talk, and
he didn’t even remember the fellows. Small wonder, when you stop
to think how many tickets he has to take up in the course of the day.
Then I tackled the brakeman, and had a little better luck.”
“Did he know the men?”
“He didn’t exactly know them,” Luke replied. “But he remembered
them when I called them to his mind. Luckily, I had noticed them
pretty closely and could give a good description. Perhaps I may turn
out to be a detective—who knows?”
“You’ll have to work up a few more details on this case before I’ll
give you a certificate and a badge,” said Ruth, with a smile. “But
what did the brakeman say?”
“That’s right—stick to the main point,” returned Luke. “Well, he
said the men had ridden on the same train a couple of times before,
but what their business was or what they talked about, he didn’t
know.”
“Were they in the moving picture business?”
“That he couldn’t say. In fact, I didn’t mention it,” was the
collegian’s answer. “The more I stop to think of it the less I like that
moving picture theory.”
“But there must be some explanation of their remark about ten
thousand dollars,” insisted Ruth. “Ten thousand dollars don’t grow on
every bush, you know.”