Mother Stoltzfus was right, Jaybird's mom was frantic. "You've got to do something, Coach," she cried, "Jaybird's been gone three days, I'm worried sick... He wouldn't stay away this long if he wasn't in trouble."
"We're doing everything we can do, Sis," the Coach, Jaybird's dad, said. "He didn't turn up at Ware or at Morse's Mill. The sheriff had blood hounds searching all over the Farm. He's disappeared."
"He's just a little boy," Jaybird's mom sobbed, "what are we going to do?"
Jaybird's dad knew something about Jaybird that his wife knew also, because he had often told her, but that she more often than not forgot. Jaybird's dad knew that his son was as tough as a 10 year-old could be, maybe tougher. He also knew that Jaybird could take care of himself out in the woods. What Donnie had told them about Jaybird going off with a crazy guy to find a doctor to treat a hand damaged by a firecracker did concern him he had to admit, but in spite of what he might tell Jaybird, he felt confident that if the wound had been bad enough, Jaybird would have enough sense to come home for help. In short, it was too early for him to be truly worried about his son although he would not say this to Jaybird's mother.
Jaybird's dad knew something about toughness. Twenty years earlier on a bitter, rain-drenched November night near Verdun, France he had been among the first American soldiers to drop their 100 pound packs in the deep trenches and take their placees on the firesteps facing the German lines across no-man's land, 500 yards away. Improbably, even miraculously, he suffered no wounds of the flesh from the shattering artillery bombardments, the gas attacks, the grenades, the bayonets, and the machine-gun nests he endured for the next 12 months, but it was 10 years after returning before he became anything resembling the high-spirited, carefree young man he had been in the exhilarating spring of 1917 when he took up arms for the sheer adventure of it. He remembered none of it, indeed when he emerged from the nightmare in a St. Louis veteran's hospital in 1925 it was to start a new life. He turned to games, playing baseball in the summer, football in the fall and winter. When his playing skills declined he became a coach. He had been coaching Jaybird since the boy was old enough to hold a ball. The kid could swing a bat, and he could hit a bull's-eye 8 out of 10 times with a baseball from 50 feet. The Coach wasn't worried about Jaybird.
"What are we going to do, Coach?" Jaybird's mom repeated.
"Don't worry, Sis," said the Coach, "the kid's goin' to be okay."
But no more than 20 miles away as the crow flies, Jaybird was not okay. He was running a fever of 105 degrees and he was delirious. Jaybird and Phil were sleeping in the bunkhouse part of the Stoltzfus farm complex, when Phil was awakened by the sounds of Jaybird gasping for breath and flailing in his bunk. It was a dark and stormy night. Phil jumped out of his bunk and tried to calm Jaybird, noting with alarm his fevered state. He ran to the well for a bucket of water. The main house was dark, the only light coming from streaks of jagged lightning etching the distant horizon. Phil tried to cool Jaybird's forehead with cool water from the well, but he knew it was not a solution to what was wrong with Jaybird. Phil ran to the barn, and working in the dark, mostly by feel, and from his memory of where things were located, managed to slip a bridle on a horse and lead it to the bunkhouse. He carried Jaybird from his bunk and deposited him on the unsaddled back of the big plow horse, then jumped on in back of him, and holding Jaybird firmly with one arm, kicked the sway-backed animal into motion and guided him through the barnyard and onto the road leading to the nearby farm community of Grubville some 6 or 7 miles away, where Phil knew there was a doctor. A horse doctor to be sure, but someone Phil knew would be able to treat his young comrade with something more than a centuries-old home remedy that clearly was not working. Jaybird stirred and tried to sit up straight with the rain in his face. Rin ran along beside.
The coma broke two days later. Jaybird heard birds singing and opened his eyes. He saw a high ceiling marked by a slowly moving object. It was a spider. He lay very still in a high bed, his eyes following the progress of the spider as though nothing else existed. Slowly he began to wonder where he was. He was alone in a sparsely furnished room, the only sound the cheery chorus of a lone Mocking Bird coming through the wide open window. He ached all over, especially his head. He tried to move but it hurt too much. He closed his eyes and slept.
Phil got up from his chair and went into the outer room where a man wearing a short white jacket sat at a desk, writing. "Doc," he said, "I think Jaybird done woke up."
Dr. Land looked up from his writing and smiled. "Good," he said, "good. He'll be all right now... let's have a look." He stood up and went to Jaybird's bedside. He put his hand on Jaybird's forehead, smiled approvingly, took his pulse, then looked up at Phil. "He's pulled through. He's going to make it."
Phil's face broke into a wide smile. "You done good, Doc," he said.
Two hours later Jaybird woke up to a familiar feeling. He was hungry. He sat up and looked around. "Where am I?" he asked. No one answered. Jaybird tried to remember. A vision of Jennie Wren came into his head. The dog Rin jumped up from his spot in the corner of the room and came to lick Jaybird's hand.
Dr. Land came through the door, smiling. "Well now," he said, "how's my young patient?"
Jaybird saw a slim middle-aged man in a white jacket with a bald head, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a flowing black mustache. "Where am I?" he asked, "...who are you?"
Dr. Land smiled. "You're in Grubville," he said, "and I'm Dr. Land. How do you feel?"
Jaybird said, "I'm hungry ... how did I get here?"
Dr. Land smiled again. "You have a guardian angel my young friend. His name is Crazy Dan. He bought you in here two nights ago, said you'd been hit with a German shell fragment."
"That was Phil," said Jaybird, "where is he?"
Dr. Land shook his head. "He kept vigil beside your bed here for two days, while you were in a coma, but as soon as you came out of it, he up and took off. Said he had to report back... what did happen to your hand?"
Jaybird flushed. "It was a firecracker," he said. He looked at his hand; except for the thumb it was encased in a large white bandage. "Did you do something to it?" he asked. "It still hurts."
Dr. Land nodded. "It will continue to hurt for a while, but it's going to be okay... I had to amputate the middle finger."
Jaybird blinked. He looked at Dr. Land curiously. "Amputate?"
"I had to cut off your finger to save your life," said Dr. Land quietly.
"But it still hurts," said Jaybird.
"It's called phantom pain," said Dr. Land, "it will go away in time."
Jaybird stared at his bandaged hand. "Can I still throw a curve ball?" he asked.
Dr. Land laughed. "Maybe better than ever ... did you ever hear of Three-fingered Brown?"
There wasn't much about baseball that Jaybird didn't know. "Sure," he said, "his real name was Mordecai and he pitched for the Cubs. He was pretty good."
"He sure was," agreed Dr. Land, "and you will be too, Jaybird."
"How soon before I can pitch again, Dr. Land?"
The doctor beamed. "Soon enough," he said, "soon enough. But first we have to get some food into you."
"Can I have something to drink? I'm real thirsty."
"Sure you can," said the doctor, "let me see if we have some apple cider, how does that sound?"
"It sounds good," said Jaybird. He swung his legs to the side of the bed and noticed for the first time that he was wearing some kind of hospital gown. When the doctor returned with a tray holding a large glass of apple cider and a plateful of saltine crackers, Jaybird asked, "Where are my clothes?"
Dr. Land gestured toward a chair. "You didn't come with a whole lot of clothes, Jaybird," he said, "that Cardinal's shirt and those short pants with the whole in `em is all there was." He put the tray down on a small table next to the bed. "Now then, Jaybird," he said, "can you tell me where you're from?"
Jaybird had eaten three crackers and had drunk half the glass of cider before he answered. "Yes sir," he said, "I'm from Cottage Farm."
Dr. Land looked puzzled. "Cottage Farm," he said. "Seems like I've heard of it. I do believe there's a baseball team somewhere nearby with that name."
Jaybird shook his head vigorously. "Yes sir, there sure is. Cottage Farm has got a real good baseball team. My daddy is the coach, and he is also the pitcher."
"You don't say? Well now, ain't that just fine. But you know what, Jaybird? I don't know where Cottage Farm is, and you know what else? We got to figure out a way to get you back to your daddy at Cottage Farm."
"And my momma too," said Jaybird.
Dr. Land agreed. "And your momma too. So how we goin' to do that? Do you know how to get to Cottage Farm from here?"
Jaybird knitted his brows. "I don't know where we are," he said.
"We're in Grubville."
Jaybird shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry Dr. Land," he said, "I don't know where Grubville is." Then he had a thought. "Phil would know," he said.
"Crazy Dan," said Dr. Land. "But I don't know where he is." He thought a moment. "Jaybird," he said, "do they have a telephone at Cottage Farm?"
Jaybird brightened. "They do. In my grampa's store."