“Round and round, round and round,” the little boy sang from the old man’s lap. I had forgotten he could talk.
The heat that summer drove everyone slightly mad. Not just the temperatures, brutal though they were, but the heat of the city generated by the steel mills along the rivers’ edges, and the coke ovens burning night and day. They called Pittsburg hell with the lid off, and as a July drought settled in, the clouds of smoke and soot thickened, so that the sun itself burned as through a woolen blanket. The new millionaires, whose homes lined Fifth and Forbes in the Oakland suburbs, would escape to the Great Lakes or the Atlantic shore. The workingman took relief where he could.
Pat and Adele would journey to the new zoo out in Highland Park or simply picnic in the groves nearby. Some afternoons they wandered among the modern art at the Carnegie Museum or in the cooled splendor of the Phipps Conservatory. It was all new, a sign of the money minted through the bars of pig iron and ribbons of molten steel, the largesse of the burghers and barons. The ball club began a monthlong western swing to Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, so the Ahearn boys were free for a little sport. Pat and Adele and Christy and Helen hopped on the train to Carnegie Lake and bathed with the crowd of swimmers gathered there. Cartmen sold sandwiches and cold beer from a keg on ice, and the brothers drank mug after mug to stay cool. The sight of the two women in their bathing costumes raised the heat in the Ahearn brothers. In the covering waters, Pat held her close, and what she felt stirring against her thigh both thrilled and horrified her, but she knew better than to pull away, so she let him press against her till he could no longer stand it and had to swim off like a lunatic, muttering oaths. Later that evening, after supper and over a game of rummy in the summer parlor of the Hopkins home, Adele and Pat passed a knowing glance when Mr. Hopkins asked how the water had been that day.
“Crowded,” Christy said. “People will do anything to beat the heat.”
Mopping his brow with a handkerchief, Mr. Hopkins paused at the table and waved his evening’s newspaper. “Did you hear about Doheny, the pitcher? Paper says he went bughouse. Up and left the Pirates and went home to Massachusetts.”
Suddenly alert, Christy said, “In the Post this morning, the headline was ‘His Mind Is Thought to Be Deranged.’ Claims detectives are following him.”
Pat laid down a card. “Don’t be too sure what you read in the papers. Eddie Doheny is a lefty, and you can never be sure about a lefty. He’s always had a temper. Remember that bat he threw at the Giants catcher back in May?”
“Gee, I don’t know, boys.” Mr. Hopkins shoved the wad of his kerchief in his back pocket. “The Pirates have the look of doom. Clarke has been hurt, and Sebring goes off to get married. And now this fella has lost his mind. It’s like they won’t have enough boys to field a team.”
“Maybe they’ll sign you, Papa,” Adele laughed.
“I think Doheny’s just worn out with all this heat,” Pat said. “Just needs to cool off a couple days at home with the missus.”
His remark drew a grunt from Mr. Hopkins, who then nodded and shuffled from the parlor, his kerchief bobbing like a rabbit’s tail.
“Tell the gals what Honus did last summer,” Christy said, “when it was so hot.”
“Last summer, the Pirates were the best. Nobody could beat ’em, talk about a team. Anyhow, comes September, and they’re guaranteed to win the league championship flag, so a couple of my pals says they’re going out to Carnegie Township where Honus Wagner lives and give the Dutchman a box of cigars and the best steaks they can find, just to say thanks, since those cranks were real sporting men and had made a ton of dough off the Pirates. They take the tram over to his place and the father is there—you know he lives at home with his folks—and it is hotter than Hades, and he says sure, go on upstairs. John—that’s what they call him at home—is just cooling off. And what do you think, middle of the day, but the great Honus Wagner buck naked in a bathtub filled with ice he crushed with an old baseball bat, and he’s drinking a bottle of beer, and he says to the fellas, sit down and have one.”
Helen gave him a look. “Don’t say words like that.”
“Like what? Hotter than Hades?”
“No,” said Christy. “She don’t like you swearing in front of the women folk.”
“What’d I say? Buck naked?” He threw his cards into the middle of the table. “Gee, it’s so hot. That don’t sound like a bad thing right now.”