[legendsport]

Egypt, GA: June 13, 1924:

A slew of bleary-eyed Barrells stepped, dropped or were carried out of a series of automobiles strung out in a line along the drive that connected the family farmhouse to the distant county road. Rufus took his wife's hand and led the troop towards the house.

As Rufus approached the porch, the front door swung open and Possum Daniels stepped out. Rufus smiled at his oldest friend; Possum had been kind enough to keep an eye on things while the family had gone to New York for the Olympic Trials.

Possum cocked an eyebrow, asking the question Rufus had known he'd ask. Rufus grinned and nodded in return. "Hoo boy!" Possum exclaimed and did some kind of jig on the porch, looking to Rufus' eye surprisingly nimble for a man in his fifties who had spent a decade in a squat behind home plate.

The joy was a little short-lived as even as Possum capered on the porch, the door opened again and his brother Cooter stepped out, followed by Rube Farmer. Rufus stopped in surprise, setting off a chain reaction as the rest of the family were all forced to stop short as well. About halfway down the line, Jack Barrell swung his gaze to his brother Joe.

Jack saw Joe's mouth drop open when the growing crowd on the porch was increased by three as Edna stepped out of the house, holding the hands of their twins, one on each side. Jack swallowed and squeezed Marie's hand; this wasn't going to be good.

"Edna?" Joe blurted. "What are you doing here?"

Edna gave her husband a stony-eyed look, her mouth set in a hard line. Her father stepped to the edge of the porch and glared down at Joe.

"She's here to..." Rube Farmer began. He was stopped by Edna, who had stepped up behind her father and grasped his arm. She shook her head when he looked at her, then frowned, sighed heavily and stepped back, turning his hard-eyed gaze back to Joe.

A moment of silence ensued that was quickly broken by Betsy Barrell who ran towards the porch with a shouted, "Gloria and Deuce!"

The twins had a shell-shocked look on their faces. Now seven years old, they didn't quite understand the interplay going on around them, but knew it wasn't good. Gloria smiled weakly at Betsy; Little Rufus - or Deuce as Joe called him - stared at his father with an unreadable expression on his face.

Even as Alice caught Betsy by the arm as her daughter attempted to race past her onto the porch, Edna took a breath and spoke, saying, "I want a divorce."

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The return trip had started on a high note thanks to Danny's success at the Trials. They said their goodbyes to Claudia and James at Penn Station before boarding a train to Philadelphia for the first leg of the long trip south. In Philadelphia they'd switched trains and headed south, taking up an entire car to themselves.

The ride was enjoyable for Rufus and Alice who were surrounded by nearly the entire family. By the time the train had finally arrived in Atlanta on the 13th, the patriarch and matriarch were fully up to speed on their far-flung clan.

Joe's situation was tabled - everyone knew how precarious things were for him with Edna and no one spoke about it. Rollie and Francie were happy - their daughter Martha (they called her Marty) was healthy and precocious and Rollie talked as much about more children (Francie rolled her eyes at this and muttered, "We'll see") as he did about his plans for a professional basketball league. He told his father that he and Jack Kristich had a well-formed plan and were approaching the operators of some of the more successful barnstorming clubs as well as the owners of other teams in other sports - Carl Boon, for one, was interested and Jack mentioned that James Connolly Jr had expressed interest as well. Rufus frowned a bit when Connolly was mentioned - Jack saw this and told his parents that Junior was nothing like his father.

Jack and Marie were also doing well. Agnes would shortly turn five; between her and baby Jean, Marie had her hands full while Jack spent his weekdays working for the Connolly Mines. The business often meant traveling to the silver mining areas, keeping Jack away from Toronto for days at a time. Still, Marie had grown used to this, as it seemed like an extension of his football and hockey careers. "The children... they keep me company," she said with a small smile.

Everyone agreed that Claudia had seemed happy. Even Danny grumpily acknowledged that she and James looked well. "Powell is a good man; he'll take great care of them," Rufus told Danny.

Danny himself was thrilled at the prospect of going to Paris for the Olympic Games. A not insignificant amount of time was spent in discussion about which Barrells would go to Europe and how expensive the trip might be. Though Rufus made good money at the OSA and with Rollie's help had also invested wisely in the burgeoning stock market, he and Alice had lived through the tough economic times of the 1890s and remembered all too well how things could quickly take a dramatic turn for the worse. So they were frugal. Rollie grinned and said, "We're going, and we'll pay our own way." Jack said the same. But Joe had said, "I don't know," with a grim look on his face.

Fred grumbled a bit about Georgia Baptist coach Ed Allen. Rufus had laughed - he remembered Ed from his playing days. "Eddie came up the hard way through independent ball, and he's always had a chip on his shoulder," Rufus explained, adding, "And the fact that his FABL career was short and unaccomplished didn't help." Fred groused about how Allen rode him, calling him "Golden Boy" because his father was a connected big-wig who would make sure he got his chance in FABL. Despite all this, Fred kept his head down, worked hard at school and baseball, and hit .352 for the Gators, who posted a disappointing 24-26 record (which hadn't helped Allen's mood).

Things were better for Tommy. Though Rudy Beckmann was gone, having become the Athletic Director at St. Matthew's University, his replacement, Kid Cady, had been at Capital as an assistant for over a decade. A former pitcher, he loved Tom and made no bones about it. "That boy is going places," he had told Rufus when he and Alice had stopped in DC on the way north. Tom, like Rollie and Fred, was smart - he had his eye on college. Clyde, the unofficial Barrell, had improved as a junior, raising his batting average from .203 to .252, thanks in part to working with Powell Slocum before the latter had moved to Brooklyn. Hinzman's strength was his fielding; Rufus was nearly certain he'd have a professional career.

Bobby was pondering where he would play high school ball. On the one hand, his brother was in DC and Capital had a burgeoning reputation for turning out professional baseballers. But Bobby had a bit of Jimmy's fierce independence in him and was leaning towards staying in Georgia and perhaps playing in Atlanta. Rufus figured it didn't much matter: Bobby would be a success wherever he played.

Harry was a bundle of manic - and sometimes comic - energy. Even Rufus admitted that their youngest got away with far too much - "We're simply plum tuckered out," he had once told Possum, who found Harry to be a kindred spirit and actively encouraged his shenanigans (to Alice's general disapproval). Still, when he was around, Possum worked with Harry on "inside baseball" as he called it. Harry was a baseball sponge and Possum poured out the knowledge he'd accumulated as a hard-nosed catcher, crafty manager and eagle-eyed scout. Though Rufus felt that all four of his youngest sons had it in them to play professionally, but Bobby and Harry would be the most successful. Both had prodigious athletic gifts - Bobby could already hit the ball a country mile. Harry, with Possum's tutelage was a more well-rounded player even at age 11. He had cat-like reflexes, was wiry and fast, with keen eyesight and a budding sense of how the game worked. Also, to his credit, Harry did not solely rely on Possum's knowledge; he had cornered Powell Slocum and somehow convinced the game's best hitter to describe his approach to hitting - to a then 10-year-old boy!

The lone down point in the trip came in Atlanta. Joe Reid, Alice's father, had turned 70 the previous October and was in failing health. Ever since Vera had passed away some of old Joe's vitality had gone missing. Though he and his wife lived hundreds of miles apart, they were tied together by their love for Alice and their 10 grandchildren. Now retired from his life's work as a baseball executive, Joe was fading fast. The entire clan had trooped over to Joe's rambling and increasingly tumbledown house. They had left their cars there.

Rollie convinced Joe to agree to help him do some repairs on their grandfather's home. Bobby eyed his grandfather warily - if he were going to attend school in Atlanta, the plan was for him to live with Grandpa Joe. Alice had quietly opined to Rufus that maybe Bobby living with him would give her father the spark he needed. "His life is so empty now that both my mother and baseball are out of his life," she pointed out. Rufus agreed.

Thinking that nothing could be more depressing than Joe Reid's dwindling vitality, the clan had headed to the farm, only to discover that they were wrong.

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Edna could not be swayed. "It's over," she said, repeatedly as Joe tried to reason with her. Rufus and Alice, along with Jack and Rollie, had shepherded the younger members of the family into the house, leaving Joe and Edna alone. Rube Farmer stood by the door, peering through the glass with his fists clenching and unclenching. Jack stood nearby, eyeing him warily, in case things turned violent.

Outside Joe was pleading with his wife. "Come on, Ed, you know I love you!"

"You sure have a funny way of showing it, Joe." She went on to list the litany of sins he'd committed, blaming much of it on Chicago itself. "Why I ever let you drag us to that cesspool of a city, I'll never know," she said.

She had turned her back on him and he could see her shoulders shaking as she cried. "Ed..." he started to say, but she spun around, with fury written on her face.

She thrust an envelope at him. "Here, take this...." she snarled.

Joe gingerly took the envelope. It was a plain, white envelope with something heavy inside it. He opened it and looked inside. A photo of a baby. And the key to their home in Chicago - her key.

"That's your son, congratulations," Edna said and the tone of her voice made Joe realize his marriage really was over. "His... mother... mailed it to the house." The anger was gone from her voice. What replaced it was... empty and forlorn.

"She mailed it... to our house," she repeated sadly, with an emphasis on the word "our."

Joe raised his eyes from the picture of Roger Cleaves.

"Where will you live?" Joe asked her in a small, resigned voice.

"Here in Georgia, with my parents. Honest, hard-working people who will show our children how good, morally upright people live. Not like Chicago, surrounded by gangsters and flappers," she said, some of the anger back in her voice.

Joe nodded. "I'd like to see them. You know, when I'm here in Georgia," he replied.

"You're still their father and they love you," Edna replied in that same weary tone - a tone that frightened and saddened Joe far more than her anger had.

"And you?" Joe asked, then rubbed his fist over his eyes which were tearing up.

Edna looked at him, tears in her own eyes. She just shook her head in reply.

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