Hike and the aeroplane

Left Eared Dongan, Sophomore, jester of the Fig Tree Celebration and candidate for football-end, was not a Great Man, just then. He was an aeroplane. It may have looked as though he was merely a boy, running over a hilltop, two miles from the academy, waving his arms madly. But that was a mistake. Not only was he really an Updegraff monoplane, but also he was breaking all records. Of course he was alone. He would not, for his chances of becoming end, have allowed any one to see him making b’lieve.

He twisted the second button on his coat; which, as every aviator knows, steers an aeroplane (that is, when the aeroplane is a Santa Benicia Sophomore). Then he pulled his nose, which turns down the elevating planes, and puffed up the last stretch of Bilbunet Hill.

He saw a bunch of chaparral, and suddenly he was not an aeroplane. Not at all. He was Colonel Church, leading a brilliant night attack on Yaqui Indians. But his trousers got fuzzy, and he became an aeroplane again.

He soared through a little pass, toward a deserted shack once occupied by a shepherd, away from all the regular hill-paths. He sat down with his back against the board walls, trying to work out the following terrific problem:

If your arms are the wings of an aeroplane, how can you use the hands that are so inconveniently stuck way out there at the end of those arms, to manage levers?

He was just deciding that, perhaps, after all, according to the practise of the best aeroplane-builders, coat-tails, and not arms, are planes, when he heard a sound within the cabin.

He was startled. There was a mumbling, kept up for some time, and accompanied by a low pounding on wood.

Left Ear promptly became Sherlock Holmes. Dragging Dr. Watson along, he sneaked about to the back of the cabin and looked in through a little window.

There stood Poodle Darby, by a wooden kitchen-table, reading aloud from a sheet of paper, and keeping time by tapping on the table!

The room was bare, except for the table, a chair, and many papers.

Left Ear gleefully chortled to himself. “So here’s where you come when you want to write poetry for the school mag., is it, Mr. Poodle? You think you will keep us away, do you? You think you will get in poetries on us, do you?”

By this time he was running down the hill side, too busy even to be an aeroplane.

He gathered the first four Sophomores whom he met in the Yard, explained to them in a gasping yelp the awful thing Poodle was doing, and the five started on the dogtrot for the shack on Bilbunet Hill.

As they edged up to the window, Poodle was in the midst of reading the poem all over again, after having rewritten a couple of lines. He read it loudly and clearly. He must have liked it, for the joyous listeners outside heard him declare, “Say, that ain’t half bad!”

“Sure it ain’t!” shouted Left Ear, outside, and the five rushed for the open door on the other side of the shack.

Poodle arose, in huge horror, and faced five large, happy grins.

“We thought we’d call on you and read you some of our poetry,” said Left Ear. “It’s so nice (ain’t it? Yes, no? sure it is, little Poodle; now don’t you answer me back) to have a fellow-goat—excuse me, fellow-poet, I meant—sympathize with you, in this crool world. Say, will you fellows just sit on Poodle,” he suggested to the other four, “and I’ll read you some of the beau-ti-ful things he has on that mahogany kitchen-table there. Oh, Poodle, how could you be so crool and keep them gems from us?”

There is an unwritten law of Santa Benicia that when a man is about to be subjected to a “jolly,” he may, if he have reasonable excuse, state it, and not receive the “jolly,” yet not be regarded as “begging off.” However, if he attempt to do this very often, it will take an excuse that would shake the world to be accepted as good. Poodle had never tried to get out of being “jollied” before, but this time he pleaded.

“Aw don’t Left Eared.... Reason’ble ’Scuse! This stuff I’m writing is for the school paper—it’s verse, all righto, but you’ll spoil it for me if you read it.”

“It don’t go—bum excuse,” growled Left Ear, furious at the prospect of losing this chance of being in the lime-light.

“It does go—first time I ever made Reason’ble ’Scuse; and it is reasonable, and it’s going to go.”

“Nix,” chortled the others, hypnotized by Left Ear. But they were suddenly surprised and shocked to see Poodle, with one quick motion, upset the table and chair, in a corner, and spring behind it, where he doubled up his fists and got into an attitude of defense. They edged toward him.

Left Ear stooped to pick up a paper fallen from the table in front of the barricade. But he caught, instead of the paper, Poodle’s fist under his chin. He was slightly lifted up, and dropped hard, on the floor.

Just then, the five saw Poodle violently shake his head and remark “I’ll handle ’em,” as if to some one behind them. They turned, to see Hike standing at the door, leaning against the door-jambs carelessly, and smiling very sweetly. Said Hike:

“Well, speeds, having a pleasant little time with yourself? You know the law that if you don’t accept a really Reason’ble ’Scuse, then the victim is expected to fight, and his friends can help him, don’t you? I got here about the same time you did, and it strikes me that what Poodle said was Reason’ble ’Scuse, all right. You’ll spoil his stuff for him if you monkey with it before he hands it into the paper. You know mighty well and good” (Hike, as he talked, was getting angry), “that this is the first time Pood’ ever made any excuse to keep from being jollied, and so—”

He stepped in, like a panther, quick, silent, and grabbed the first classmate by the collar, and threw him clean through the door. The others, except Left Ear, chorused, “You’re right, Hike—we got excited, I guess. We’ll fight if you want to, but we admit we’re in bad.”

“All right,” said Hike. “How about you, Left Ear? By the way, you know you didn’t have any right to butt in here—this ain’t on the school grounds; it’s Poodle’s private Country Estate, and you’ve got no right to come in here unless he invites you—especially if he wants to sport his oak. And he doesn’t invite anybody—even me—very often. You goats keep him from writing down there, and if he wants to write up here, it’s his privilege. I understand it was you that led this business—I heard down in the Yard how you came rushing down there to get the gang.”

Now, Mr. Left Ear Dongan was not a bad chap, but he was as thoughtless as a runaway engine with a dead engineer. He had been badly jolted by Poodle’s fist, and his merry game was spoiled, so he snarled:

“All right. If Poodle’s such a big baby that he can’t stand for a little kidding, why we’ll give him a milk-bottle and let him sneak out here and have a good time with himself. And talk about butting in—I’d like to know what else you’re doing—coming here and talking like you was a big brother, or a faculty member. ‘Especially if he wants to sport his oak.’ You must think you’re in Oxford. I suppose you think you’re aviating with— You and your baby brother, here. Oh, piffle!”

Hike laughed, “You’ve got sand, anyway, Lefty. You know I can lick you, without trying. But don’t splutter so much; we can’t catch what you say. By the way, ‘like you was’ strikes me as rotten grammar—and I ain’t any too careful myself.”

“You sure ain’t,” snarled Left Ear. “‘Ain’t’ is about as ungrammatical as anything I could ever say.” He wondered why the rest of the gang grinned, when he looked to them for approval and comfort.

“Right you are, Lefty,” hummed Hike, and continued, “Now, about Poodle’s being a baby. How about that, Pood’?”

“No,” said Poodle, shortly. “Fight. To-night. Fig Tree Major. Heh, Left Eared?”

“All right,” said Left Ear, and departed, still furious.

“Sorry you’ve got to fight—don’t like it much, even if I did fight with Taffy, t’other day,” mused Hike. “But I guess it’ll be the only way to calm down Left Ear. He’ll be a good friend of ours, after you beat him up.”

Hike knew, and Poodle knew, that Poodle was not at all likely to do anything like “beating up” Left Ear, who was certain to stand high in the school boxing-contest, as well as to make the football-team, one of these days.

In a way, Poodle had more courage than Hike—he was not half so strong, yet he was no more afraid.

It showed that night in the way in which he faced Left Ear, and took a bloody nose without flinching.

“There,” cried Hike to Poodle, as they returned home after the fight. “I hope that will be the last nose-punching we’ll have to go through with. It’s too kiddish, that’s all.”

But he knew that Left Eared Dongan was still angry, and that he would have to discover some way of soothing that imaginative person. How—when? He didn’t know. But he’d have to find the way. Meanwhile (as he continued to Poodle):

“I’m going to cut out all this strong-arm business, aeroplaning and everything else, just as soon as football-season is over. I’m going to settle down right now, and study electricity, all the time. Study! Nobody’ll get me out of my room, not for one minute, except for recitations and football. Me for the quiet life. No fighting, no aeroplaning, no nothing, till—”

Just then Poodle pounced on a yellow envelope which had been poked under their door while they were away. “Telegram for you, Hike,” he said.

Hike read it over, then exclaimed, “Well, what do you think of that! Cap’n Wibbelty-Wobbelty’s on the loose! Well, what do you think of that?”

“We’d all be glad to tell you what we think of it before we hear it,” said Poodle.

“Oh, pardon me. Here she is. Want the address read, too?”

“Oh, Hike, please read it, if it’s got anything to do with Wibbelty-Wobbelty.”

“Listen:

“Wow!” said Poodle, amazed, and—

“Wow!” roared Hike, in a different tone, wildly excited. “This means a hike on the Hustle. Mexico—insurrectos—night flight—wow!” He grabbed his cap, tossed a time-table to Poodle, and cried, “Please, Pood’, see what’s the next train I get into town. I’m going to see the Headmaster right now, and get leave to—”

“See him at midnight?” howled Poodle. “And permit us to state that there ain’t any trains between midnight and dawn.”

“Gee, that’s so,” mourned Hike. “I was so excited I forgot it was late at all.”

“Yes,” remarked Poodle. “You were some excited. This is that ‘no aeroplaning, no nothing’ that we were just hearing about, ain’t it?”

“Uh-huh. Gee, Poodle, I’m just crazy over this. Gee, it’s great.... Out in the Hustle. Mexico. Cap’n Welch. It’s too good to be true!”