Barry Locke, half-back

But it appeared that Jones had spoiled the party. Silence fell. Even Fessenden grew quiet. Then some one laughed awkwardly and the spell was broken.

“Well,” said Jones, in mild astonishment, “what’s the difficulty? Let’s go. Any one will do; or any two.”

“Where’s your license to butt in?” growled Rusty, nursing his jaw tenderly.

“Why, hello! Is that you, Waterman? That was a nice one you stopped just now. They ought to have you on the nine, Rusty! Well, if the game’s over, Locke, let’s wander. Who’s this chap?”

“He’s a pup,” answered Rusty, aggrievedly. “We were lugging him down to the pond when this fresh guy here came up and shot off his mouth. Said we mustn’t. I told him to beat it and then he wanted to fight. You’d think we were doing something we oughtn’t! Isn’t this Pup Night, Peaches?”

“As ever was!” agreed Jones, heartily. “And if you fellows expect to see any of the fun, you’d better get a move on. It’s long after eight.”

“Well, we’re going to take this brat with us,” said Rusty. But his tone lacked conviction. Jones shook his head.

“Not to-night,” he said gently. “Fade away, Rusty.”

“You’ve got a lot of gall,” began Rusty, blusteringly.

“I’ll say he has,” agreed one of the others. “This isn’t any of your business, Jones.”

“Is that,” Jones inquired amiably, “your considered opinion?”

“Yes, it is, if you want to know.” Assurance, however, decreased perceptibly toward the end of the statement.

“Well,” said Jones, “you look—or you would look if I could see you—like a fellow ready to back his opinions. How about it?”

“Oh, dry up!” The retort was delivered in retreat, so to say, for the speaker was already moving cautiously in a direction which could never bring him any nearer Jones than he had been, even if persisted in indefinitely. Jones allowed the argument to close. So did all the others. Rusty laughed with a creditable simulation of unconcern and moved too.

“If you’re going to make a—a serious affair of it—” he began sarcastically.

“That’s it,” said Jones. “International complications, World Court and all that, Rusty. Good night.” Jones re-donned his coat. The party was at an end, disrupted, broken in halves. One half went schoolward, discussing the affair, in dissatisfied mutters; the other set off toward the Andersons’ house. Nearing the light, Jones turned a puzzled regard on Fessenden.

“Well, son, what was your trouble? Think they were going to murder you?”

Fessenden shook his head, gulped, but made no answer.

“What do they do to them at the pond?” asked Barry.

“Make them swim across, if they can swim. A few get chucked in. There are always three or four sporting enough to say ‘yes’ to that. Faculty won’t stand for it unless the pups are willing. Those who can’t swim get off; or maybe the others give them a bath with a pail. It’s only fun—rather silly fun, I guess. I suppose you can’t swim, son.”

They were at the gate and Fessenden was fumbling for the latch. At Jones’s question his head went down and a sob shook him. Jones stared perplexedly at Barry and the latter put a hand on Fessenden’s shoulder and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I—I’m ashamed,” gulped the boy.

“Oh, that’s it! Well, really, you know, it becomes you,” said Jones, gently, “but I wouldn’t trouble about it any more.”

“I was in the library after supper,” began Fessenden, haltingly, “and—and two boys were talking across the table; whispering. They—they said a boy was drowned last year by—by the Third-Class fellows, and—”

“Just trying to scare you, I guess,” said Jones. “Nothing in it, son.”

“Then I was coming home and I saw a light and hid and those fellows were talking to you—” he indicated Barry—“and I heard what they said and was frightened. I—I can’t swim! After you went along I tried to get by on the other side of the road. I thought if I could catch up with you— But they saw me and I ran and they chased me. They were shouting, ‘Drown the pup’! Then I fell and they got me.” Fessenden ended with a final gulp and an appealing and shamefaced smile.

Jones chuckled.

“And you thought you were a goner, eh? Never mind, young— What’s your name, anyway?”

“Fessenden.”

“And you room here? I’ll bet you’re the fellow who plays the fiddle!”

The other nodded.

“I’m sorry if I’ve annoyed you,” he said in eager apology.

“Not a bit, son, but I do wish you’d learn to wangle that tiddly-widdly bit you’ve been struggling with for two days!”

Fessenden laughed tremulously.

“I have,” he said. “I can play it straight through now.”

“Praises be!” ejaculated Jones. “Well, better run along and get your beauty sleep. Just remember this, though, young Fessenden. Never cry till you’re hurt, and not then if you can help it. And never, never let yourself get frightened. Whatever it is that gets your goat, son, go straight up to it and poke it in the jaw. Just like Locke did! And that was a neat swing, I’ll say.”

“I—I’ll try,” said Fessenden, gratefully. “And thanks for making them—for everything—”

“That’s all right. If you feel under obligations to this gentleman and me, just go up and play the tiddly-widdly thing through for us. I’d like to know what happens after the peety-weety-weety part!”

“Queer bird,” commented Jones, as he and Barry crossed the road.

“High-strung,” said Barry. “He’s at my table and we were talking at supper. I think he’s been sort of homesick.”

“I’d think he might be, staying in that room and playing his fiddle all day. I can get homesick just listening to one of the things—some kind of sick, anyway! Let’s sit here a minute and see if he fiddles for us.” He seated himself on the porch and Barry dropped down beside him. Across the road a front window in the opposite house became an oblong of light.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” asked Jones.

“At home. There’s a chap who has a gymnasium and gives lessons in boxing and wrestling. Clyde Allen and I got it into our heads a couple of years ago that we’d like to learn and we went to him most of one year. Some of the other fellows in high school went, too, and we used to have boxing bouts at Clyde’s house, up in the billiard-room on the third floor, until the plaster began to give way in Mrs. Allen’s bedroom.”

“You and Allen are pretty chummy, then,” said Jones.

“Yes. Well, I don’t know, either. We’ve known each other a long while and we live only three houses apart. Clyde was a year ahead of me at school, though, and for the last two years we haven’t been quite so thick. And then, last fall, he came here, and last summer, at Orchard Bluff, he took up with an older crowd. But of course we’re pretty good friends.”

“I see. Listen!”

Through the darkness, from the lighted window across the way, came the strains of the “tiddly-widdly” air, played very softly. As the player neared the dangerous stage Jones turned to Barry with a little smile and held up a finger. But now the bow didn’t falter. It went swiftly through a maze of tiny notes, unerringly, triumphantly, paused over a thin, silvery tone, and descended to the lower notes for a repetition of the opening movement and was still.

“That’s fiddling, young Fessenden!” murmured Jones. He clapped his hands softly and Barry joined him. A form darkened the lighted window, stood there a moment as though peering across, and then vanished. “That was his amende,” said Jones, gravely. “And his thanks. A decent kid, I guess, but brought up wrong. I’ll bet he couldn’t toss a ball from first base to second! Or boot a football, or—or clean a fish, always supposing he could catch one. That’s no way to bring a fellow up, Locke. And if he is that sort, the last place to send him to is a boarding-school. There are too many rough-necks here who don’t know a—an andante from a—you say it, Locke.”

“Anduncle,” said Barry, gravely.

“Huh? Well, anyway, you get the idea. That kid’s in for a lot of hard knocks in the next few months, and he won’t know how to take them because about all he knows of life is keeping his feet dry and his fiddle tuned! Let’s go up.”

“Come in and see my antique,” said Barry, when they had climbed the stairs. “That is, if you have the time.”

“I’ll take time,” Jones replied, and, when the light was on: “Well! a gen-oo-ine Chippendale! Or is it Sèvres?”

“Real Ming,” said Barry.

“Ming, eh? One of our best little designers.” Jones took the arm-chair and surveyed the desk approvingly. “I knew him well. Also his uncle, Grand Rapids. Say, Locke, where’d you find that relic? Is there a public dump around somewhere?”

“I like your nerve!” exclaimed Barry, indignantly. “What’s the matter with it?—except that it’s a bit more modern than the rest of the stuff.”

“Maybe that’s it,” said the other, grinning. “I hope you’ve got it clamped to the floor so Toby won’t pinch it! Joking aside, though, it’s not half bad. Has lots of room, too. I suppose you didn’t pay anything for having it delivered.”

“I didn’t, as a matter of fact, but what of it? Go on and spring it.”

“Nothing of it. Only, if any one gave me a nice desk like that I’d expect him to deliver it.”

“You’re insulting. I paid six dollars for that desk, Jones, and I’ll bet you wish you owned it.”

“I’ll bet I wish I were the fellow who got the six dollars! Well, getting to love your little home, are you? You look quite fixed up. Photographs and everything! Mind if I look?”

“Help yourself. Just the family, mostly.”

“This must be your father. Looks rather like you. And this is Allen, isn’t it? Makes him look quite noble.” Jones completed the inspection of the photographs and lounged back to his chair. Then, looking over at Barry with a smile, he said, “I suppose he warned you against me, Locke.”

“Warned me?” Barry repeated, confused. “What makes you think that?”

Jones chuckled.

“Oh, I just knew he would! He doesn’t approve of me, doesn’t like me. And I don’t like him. You mustn’t mind that, because I dislike lots of persons and things—like Napoleon and Pansy Chester and vanilla ice-cream—that other folks admire hugely. So my taste isn’t any criterion.”

“I guessed that you didn’t,” answered Barry. “Like Clyde, I mean. Would you mind telling me why?”

“Not a bit, if I knew. But I don’t. Perhaps it’s more the gang he travels with than he. Oh, I could state objections to your friend, just as he could to me, but they wouldn’t be enough to explain it. We’ve never spoken to each other more than a couple of dozen times, probably; and then we just growled.”

“Well,” said Barry, after a moment, “of course Clyde isn’t perfect. No one is—”

“Thanks be!” said Jones, fervently.

“But I’ve known him a good while, and so—” Barry broke off and his smile deepened. “You know it would be a lot nicer if you two fellows didn’t growl at each other, because I like Clyde and I—” He stopped abruptly this time, looking uncomfortably embarrassed.

Jones grinned.

“And you don’t think I’m so bad. Go ahead and say it. Never mind my blushes.”

“I don’t believe you could blush!” laughed Barry. “Anyway, I give you fair warning that I’m going to get you and Clyde better acquainted, so—”

“I know,” sighed the other. “You’re going to have a lingering illness and die with an angelic smile on your face, while Allen and I clasp hands across your bed.”

“I am not!” denied Barry, vigorously. “I don’t intend to have even a toothache on your account. Neither of you is worth it. But I don’t intend, either, to have a couple of decent chaps whom I—like—act so silly. There’s no sense in it.”

“Noble sentiments, me Lud! They does you credik. Just the same and notwithstanding—” and Jones yawned, stretched, and pulled himself out of the chair—“before you have Allen and me shaking hands, one of two things has got to happen: either he must change a lot or I must. I bid you good night.”