"Hey Harry," shouts his best friend, Charlie Ross. "Come play ball with us. You can be the umpire!"
"Can't today guys, I'm on my way to the library." thirteen year old Harry Truman replies.
"Oh c'mon!" Bess Wallace cried. "We need somebody who's fair to make the calls!"
Harry often served as umpire in the neighborhood baseball games, to avoid the chance of breaking his glasses. The other kids respected his fairness. Even if Bess was batting, he never played favorites.
Harry and Bess had met in Sunday School when Harry was 6 years old, and they first moved to Independence from the farm in Grandview. He thought she had the most beautiful blue eyes and golden curls he’d ever seen. She was quite an athlete, too, and better at ice skating and running sports than Harry. He admired her fast skating, and baseball skills. She always hit home runs. Years later Bess became his wife.
As he stood watching the game, Harry thought, "I wish I could play baseball like Bess, but then, she was just telling me the other day that she wished she knew as much about history as I do."
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Harry was the only one of his friends who wore glasses, and he’d had them since he was six years old. His mother discovered one Fourth of July, that he couldn't see the fireworks. So she took him to Kansas City to
have an eye exam. Harry could still hear the words of his mother, when he first got his glasses from Dr. Thompson.
"Now Harry, those glasses are expensive, and we can't afford to go buy new ones, so you'd best take good care that they don't get broken."So, Harry rarely played rough and tumble games with the other boys. He preferred to spend his few idle hours reading, particularly history and biographies. |
"See you guys later." Harry called, as he waved, and went on his way to the little library on Lexington Avenue.
You may wish to visit Internet Sites About Baseball
or continue with Harry's Heroes from Ancient History.
