Sample pages from Brass Knuckles

BRASS KNUCKLES The Story of a Young Gangster Who “Turned to the Right” by Msgr. Raymond J. O’Brien with new illustrations by

Erin Bartholomew

2015 St. Augustine Academy Press Hom e r Gl e n , I l l inoi s

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Brass Knuckles

This book is newly typeset based on the edition published in 1930 by Benziger Brothers.

All editing strictly limited to the correction of errors in the original text and the updating of outdated spelling for some words.

This book was originally published in 1930

by Benziger Brothers.

This edition Š2015 by St. Augustine Academy Press.

Editing by Jacob Stange and Lisa Bergman.

ISBN: 978-1-936639-69-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015959262

Illustrations by Erin Bartholomew Š2015

Frontispiece redrawn from original found in the 1930 edition.

Contents I. The New Shortstop . . . .

II. Some Quick Thinking . . .

III. The Stolen Car . . . . . .

IV. The Round-Up of the Gang V. The Hand of the Law . . .

VI. Brass Knuckles . . . . . .

VII. Just Too Late . . . . . .

VIII. Bully vs. Boxer . . . . . .

IX. A Sick Soul and a Sick Body X. Pants and Pals . . . . . .

XI. A Clue . . . . . . . . .

XII. A New Experience . . . .

XIII. Penitent, Hero and Patient .

XIV. The Finger of God . . . .

XV. Visitors . . . . . . . . .

XVI. A Boy’s Best Friend . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1 12 27 34 44 54 61 73 84 92 102 111 122 137 148 159

Respectfully dedicated to my Reverend Associates on the Faculty of the Quigley Preparatory Seminary

CHAPTER I The New Shortstop

T

he summer vacation had just begun, and a group of boys from St. Leo’s parochial school sat on the steps of Jack Reynolds’ home, discussing the prospects of a successful baseball season during the vacation.

“If we could only get a good shortstop to take Bud’s place,” exclaimed Frank Mann, the catcher, “we could play right through the summer, and—” “You can’t find good shortstops running around loose right in the middle of the season,” interrupted John Roberts, the first baseman, “and there’s no use trying to win games with a weak sister playing short,” he added, emphatically.

“Of course, we could use Bud in some of the games, but he’s moved so far away, we couldn’t count on him to show up,” said Frank.

“Speed Austin is the best shortstop in the neighborhood,” said Jack Reynolds, the captain and left fielder of St. Leo’s, “but—” he hesitated.

“Yes, ‘but,’ ” broke in Roberts, “he’s as crooked as he is fast. He stole your glove, didn’t he, when we played his public-school outfit a couple of weeks ago?”

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“I don’t know,” answered Jack, impatiently. “He was the last one I saw with it. That’s all I know.”

“Aw, he and his crowd are all alike,” exclaimed another of the team. “They think they’re hard guys. They hang around the playground and act as though they owned the place. They’re always looking for a fight. Get one of those guys on the team and St. Leo’s would have a fine name before the summer was half over.”

“St. Leo’s? You mean the Lions,” corrected Frank Mann. “Father Ryan said we could use the suits, but if we put outsiders on the team for the vacation, we’d have to let the ‘L’ stand for Lions.”

“Well, most of us will be from St. Leo’s, anyhow,” insisted the speaker, “and if we get a bad name, we’ll be in bad with Father Ryan, and that’s not so good.”

“Well, I don’t think Speed Austin is as bad as the rest of them,” challenged Jack. “Ever since that game, he acts pretty friendly whenever I meet him.”

“He ought to act friendly!” laughed Roberts. “He’s got your glove. You’re his Santa Claus!”

“Aw, forget it!” exclaimed Jack, rather hotly. “I don’t know who has it, and neither do you. And besides, I’ve a new one, anyhow.”

“Why don’t you ask him for it, if he’s so friendly?” insisted Roberts.

“Ask him?” repeated Jack. “He knows I lost it at that game. I don’t want to come right out and ask him if he took it. How would it look if he didn’t? It would make me look like a piker to accuse a friend. I loaned

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him the glove and it disappeared, that’s all I know.

Maybe he has it, but he doesn’t act like it.”

“Let’s raid the shack where his gang hangs out,” suggested Roberts, with, a smile. “Maybe we’ll find it there.”

“Let’s raid the shack and get a bust in the nose,” laughed Frank Mann. “Nobody gets near that shack but the gang. You know that.”

“Yes, there’s some of them always around there, it seems,” seconded Jack. “Let’s forget the glove and decide on who’s going to take Bud’s place. I’m for taking a chance and asking Speed to play.”

“You are?” cried the boys, in surprise. “On the square?”

“Yes!” declared Jack. “The public-school team is broken up, and the team on the playground is a bunch of hams. Speed knows we have a good team, suits and everything, and I think he’ll jump at the chance to play with us, and oh, boy! what a sweet infield we’d have with him on short!”

The boys were silent a moment. Jack was the captain, and he seemed to know Austin better than any of the others. Still, they had no use for the “playground gang,’’ of which Speed was a popular member.

“Of course,” added Jack, sarcastically, “if you fellows think that you’d be spoiled by Speed’s company, we won’t ask him, that’s all.” Jack was growing angry. For more than a week he had been planning to get Speed Austin on the team. “You’re a fine bunch, though, if you ask me. Why not give him a chance?”

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“Second the motion,” exclaimed Frank Mann, Jack’s pal, cheerfully. “I sort of like Speed, myself.”

“All right. Let’s ask him,” agreed the boys, still somewhat doubtful about the prudence of the decision.

“Nix on the cold shoulder, though,” said Jack, decisively. “If we take him on the team, we’ve got to give him a square deal. I’m not going to ask him to play with the Lions and then have him made to feel that some of us think he’s not good enough to travel with us.”

“All right, Jack,” exclaimed Roberts. “If you think he’s a friend of yours, he’s all right with me.”

“Fine!” said Jack. “I’ll ask him as soon as I see him, and then I’ll let you know what he says.”

The boys parted, Jack and Frank starting off on a search for Speed Austin. They walked over to the playground and met Speed just coming through the gateway in company with two other boys, a few years older than he.

“Hello, fellows,” greeted Speed, cheerfully.

“Hello, Speed, where to?” asked Jack, stopping.

Speed and his companions glanced at each other. It was evident that the boys from St. Leo’s wanted to talk to Speed, but that Speed’s present companions did not care for Jack and Frank’s company.

“C’mon, Speed, let’s go,” growled one of them, as they started down the street, ignoring Jack and Frank.

Speed’s face showed that he resented the attitude of his playground friends. “See you later,” he remarked curtly to them, and turned to Jack.

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“Nowhere,” he said, cheerfully, answering Jack’s question. “Where you going?”

“We’re looking for you,” exclaimed Jack, as the three started away, leaving the chagrined pair scowling over Speed’s desertion.

“Lookin’ for me? Why?” asked Speed, thinking of the glove that belonged to Jack, but which now lay hidden in the shack.

“Yes. How would you like to play short for us, Speed?” asked Jack.

“Are you getting up a new team?” asked Speed, eagerly.

“Well, we’re going to have almost the same team that played your school a few weeks ago, only we’re calling ourselves the Lions instead of St. Leo’s. We’re going to have the same suits, but it won’t be a school team, and we need a good shortstop. Bud Philips moved away, and we want you to take his place.”

“Me?” asked Speed, in surprise. He was thinking of what the gang would say. “Speed Austin playing with the St. Leo crowd! We’re not good enough for him any more!” It would surely mean jeers and criticism from the young toughs that, with him, ruled the playground, for they knew that “Father Ryan’s boys” considered them “bad company,” and, while they gloried in the adulation they received from the rank and file on the playground, they were nettled by the humiliating indifference and sometimes obvious contempt with which they were treated by the older boys from St. Leo’s.

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However, the casual meetings between Speed and Jack that had occurred since the day Jack’s team lost to Speed’s seemed each time to be more pleasant to both boys, and Speed began to like his new friend more than some of his playground associates. Before he had a chance to use the stolen glove, he was sorry that he had taken it. Now Jack was inviting him to join the team he captained.

“Yes,” answered Jack. “Don’t you want to? We have the best team around here.”

“I sure do want to! When’s your next game?” answered Speed, with enthusiasm.

“We’ll let you know, but we want you out for practice tomorrow. I’ll get word to the other fellows, too,” said Jack, delighted at Speed’s acceptance.

“I have Bud’s suit,” said Frank. “C’mon over to my house and get it now.”

Speed took the baseball suit home. He would have been a very happy boy if he had not stolen Jack’s glove.

His face was clouded now at the thought of his meanness.

“Well, there’s only one way out of it,” he reflected, bitterly, as he folded up the uniform and laid it away. “I’ll have to ‘come clean,’ that’s all.”

As Speed rehearsed in his mind ways and means of making a clean breast of things to Jack, he grew more and more dejected. It wasn’t going to be easy. Jack had treated him so fine—loaned him the glove, never asked him about it when they met from time to time, and now gave him a place on the Lions. It was not Speed’s first