Their victim, having thus put himself beyond their torment, the other boys turned to the brush-pile, and each taking as many branches as he could carry skated down the river.
Viola and Nettie were still on the stump, and only Paul, Jerry and Harry were left at the brush-pile.
“You don’t suppose Miss Darrow hurt herself so badly she can’t skate back, do you?” asked Harry of his companions.
“Jove! I hadn’t thought of that,” returned Paul, and skating over to where the two girls were, he asked concerning the extent of Viola’s injuries.
“She’s hurt her ankle,” explained Nettie.
“My! that’s bad. Can you skate on it at all?” inquired Paul.
“I can’t skate on it, but I may be able to step on it,” dissembled Viola, and getting to her feet, started to walk, only to sink down with a little cry of well-feigned pain.
“Jerry and Harry, come over here! Viola’s hurt her ankle, and we’ve got to get her back down the river some way,” called Paul to his chums.
“Remember we haven’t met Mr. Watson!” exclaimed Nettie in a low voice, as the two boys left the brush-pile and skated toward them.
“Why, I’m glad you reminded me. I’d forgotten,” murmured Paul, and when the new student joined them, he was quickly introduced.
“We’ll have to go down the river and get a sled for you, Viola,” announced Jerry. “You wait here with Nettie and Paul, and Harry and I’ll go down.”
But after their manœuvring to meet Harry the two girls did not propose to lose his companionship so quickly, and Viola hurriedly exclaimed:
“I think perhaps if you boys will help me, I shall be able to walk down.”
“But that will only make your ankle worse, Miss Darrow,” declared Harry. “I have it. We’ll take a big pile of the brush and you and Miss Masterson can sit on it and we will pull you down the river.”
“The very thing!” cried the other boys, and without more ado, they returned to the heap of dried branches, picked out several big ones, which they placed on the ice, heaping smaller ones across them, until they had made a rustic nest into which the girls climbed, while the boys, with pieces of rope which they had found and with their skate straps, bound the heavy limbs together and made a leash by which they could pull the improvised sled.
But not without difficulty did the strange method of transportation advance. First some of the heavy limbs spread, letting the twigs and girls down onto the ice and frequently were they spilled from their nest, but all enjoyed it and with much laughter and merry chatter they approached the spot where the others were stacking the brush which was to be set on fire in the evening.
“My eye! Look what’s coming!” shouted Misery Jones, as he espied Viola and the others.
At his cry the rest of the boys and girls followed the direction of his gaze, and when they beheld the moving brush-heap with its two passengers, they shouted and laughed as they skated up to meet them.
“Ach! die liebliche Schnee-fogeln!” exclaimed Prof. Schmidt, laughing as he caught sight of the two pretty girls on the brush-pile. “Too bad it iss dat wir de coronation not now can have?”
As he heard the words, Longback took a hasty glance over the crowd assembled near the brush-pile, and not seeing Annabel, exclaimed:
“That’s a good idea, Professor. It’s getting so dark that we can have the bonfire now just as well as later.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Misery. “You can’t get out of the formal ceremony by one got up on the spur of the moment. The real queen who won the race, you know, might object and cause you domestic unhappiness. Even kings are allowed only one queen.”
The result of the boy’s protest was a lunge from Longback’s hockey stick, from which he was able to dodge back in the very nick-of-time.
But the haughty senior was not allowed to get away with his caddish suggestion with only Misery’s reproof.
“Now look here, Sam Dalton! No matter if Annabel Hutchins is a freshy she won the race, and she’s going to be crowned queen when you’re crowned king!” exclaimed several of the older girls, gathering about Longback. “You wouldn’t have made any objection, you know, if it had been Viola, or even Nettie, and they’re only freshmen, too; so if you don’t want to regret it all the rest of the time you’re in Rivertown High School, you’ll be just as nice to Annabel as you possibly can be. The poor child went home crying because she thought we were all laughing at her.”
“If it’s going to make so much trouble, what’s the use of having the mock ceremony at all?” exclaimed Elmer, seeking to come to the aid of his chum.
“That’s it! Be a spoil sport!” cried several of the boys and girls.
“Then I’ll resign my honor in favor of any of you who desire it,” growled Longback.
“Let’s not have the bonfire at all,” exclaimed Viola, flashing a look of contempt at the senior. “Instead let’s go on a hay ride to Cardell—I’m sure I can have the horses.”
“Good! We’ll take along Nettie’s and Socker’s mothers and then we can have a dance at the Lake House!” exclaimed Paul.
The suggestion met with instant approval.
“Let’s have a great big sleigh-ride,” Socker exclaimed. “I guess father will let me take our horses, too, and we can fix up with hay, and it will be a great lark.”
“You all can do as you please,” declared Viola, “but I want Jerry and Paul and Nettie and Mildred and Sally and Elise and Dorothy and Mr. Watson and Misery and Jack and Horace and Annabel to be members of my party.”
Readily the boys and girls accepted, and their hostess requested them to gather at her house at eight o’clock. The omission of Elmer, Longback and Socker from her guests caused looks of amazement to be exchanged between the other boys and girls, while the three fellows themselves blushed.
“I’ll take the rest of our gang!” Socker exclaimed. “We’ll go up to Cardell, anyhow, and have a dance, and Viola, if you want to bring your little friends, we should be very pleased to see both you and them.”
“Will everybody whom I’ve invited go?” asked the proud girl, ignoring the remark.
One after another they accepted until it came to Harry, and he said, mindful of what his aunt had told him:
“I thank you very much, Miss Darrow. I should like to go, but I’m afraid it will be necessary for me to stay at home and study.”
“Wow! Wow! Listen to that!” moaned Misery. “On top of saving the kids and beating Pud’s hockey team, he’s a grind!” and skating over to the new student, he felt of his shoulders, murmuring “It’s just as I thought. I can feel his wings sprouting. My, won’t Rivertown get a reputation when people know we’ve got an angel among the freshies.”
“Well, if he stays in school until he’s a senior, there won’t be any angel left about him,” laughed Jerry. “Come on, Harry, you can go just as well as not. The only thing we have to-morrow, beside drawing and rhetoric, is Latin, and Old Grouch Plummer always flunks everybody in that, so it isn’t worthwhile to study the lesson. Besides, we want to initiate you into the delights of the dancing floor at the Lake House, it’s——”
“Perhaps he doesn’t dance,” sneered Elmer. “I’ve always heard that a lot of people down at Lawrenceburgh were opposed to dancing, and maybe Watson’s family is among them.”
This utterly uncalled-for slur made even the rich boy’s chums look at him in amazement, but though Harry flushed hotly, the darkness concealed his confusion, and he replied in a steady voice:
“I’m very fond of dancing, but really, Miss Darrow, I must decline your invitation.” And quickly wishing his friends among the boys and girls “good-night,” he skated over to the bank, took off the ice-runners, and went home.
The real reason for Harry’s declination of the invitation to form one of the merry party, was the fact that he knew there would be necessarily some expense attached to the dance, and his circumstances were such that he was obliged to watch his money carefully. Indeed, it had only been at a distinct personal sacrifice that his father had been able to arrange for the boy to go to Rivertown High School. Aware of this fact, he realized that it would not be right for him to start out by associating with those whose parents were in a position to give them liberal allowances for spending money.
For a few moments after Harry’s abrupt departure there was a silence among the boys and girls who were planning the sleighing party and dance.
“There’s no use in allowing a new freshy to interfere with our fun,” Socker exclaimed.
“Who’s going and who isn’t? I want to know, so that I can get the horses and the sled and the hay ready.”
The others sided in with this view of the matter, and arrangements for meeting were quickly made, after which the boys and girls separated, going to their respective homes.
“Don’t you think that was queer in Harry Watson to decline your invitation, Viola?” asked Nettie, as they walked along.
Before the girl could answer, however, a voice behind them exclaimed:
“He hasn’t got money enough to go, or to do anything the rest of us can. Father says he knows Watson’s father and that he’s poorer than a church mouse.”
Surprised to think their conversation had been overheard, the girls turned quickly and beheld Pud Snooks.
“Well, if that’s the real reason Mr. Watson declined to go with us, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure it’s better not to go than to sponge on some of the boys who have money,” sniffed Viola. At this taunt, which was particularly stinging for the reason that, although the bully’s father had plenty of money, he gave his son very little to spend, with the result that he was always taking part in the pastimes of his schoolmates, and forcing his companions to pay his share, Snooks growled to himself and slunk away.
For several minutes the two girls walked along in silence.
“Well, if it is true that Harry Watson won’t be able to go to our dances and things, I’m going to be all the nicer to him at school and on the ice, because I like him. Honestly, I do, Nettie,” said Viola.
This frank avowal surprised her chum, but she discreetly kept the fact to herself, and it was not long before the unpleasant incident on the ice was forgotten.
But it had made a deep impression upon Harry and, when he arrived at the comfortable home of his aunt he was very serious, returning her greeting almost curtly.
Realizing that something was amiss with the boy, yet knowing well that should she question him about it, she would but add to his reticence, the aunt wisely held her peace, trusting that during the evening he would let her know what the trouble was, of his own accord.
The boy, however, came to the conclusion that the problem which confronted him was one that he alone could work out; and, during supper, he forestalled any possible inquiries on the part of his aunt by relating to her the incidents of the hockey game, and then the races to the brush-pile.
No sooner was the meal finished, however, than he betook himself to his room on the plea that he wished to unpack his trunk, and he was soon busily engaged in so doing, at the same time revolving plans in his mind by which he could either win the good will of the boys who had taken such an evident dislike to him, or else manage in some way to get the best of them so effectually that, for the future, they would not seek to annoy him.
“I thought you were going to grind out your Latin,” cried a voice, presently.
“Why, hello, Paul! I thought you were going on the sleigh-ride!” returned Harry.
“None of our crowd are going, because Mrs. Masterson wasn’t able to chaperone us to-night. Instead we are going to have a candy-pull over at my house, and I came over to get you. So put your duds on and come along.”
At first our hero thought of refusing, then he reconsidered his idea, and accompanied the fellow who was later to be his most intimate chum to his home, where he found all the boys and girls who were to have been members of Viola’s sleighing party, even to Annabel; and pleasant, indeed, was the evening which he passed.
As they bade Paul’s mother and the boy good night and went out on the piazza, Mildred suddenly cried:
“Oh, look at that red spot in the sky!”
Instantly the others turned in the direction towards which the girl was gazing.
“It’s a fire!” exclaimed Misery. “It’s a bad night for one, too, with the wind blowing, and it’s so cold it will be hard to get any water.”
“Where is it? Why doesn’t someone give the alarm?” exclaimed several of the boys and girls.
“It’s over toward the bluff leading up to the school.”
“Perhaps it’s only a manifestation of the aurora borealis!” exclaimed Annabel.
“That sounds fine, Annabel, but I guess I know a fire when I see one,” returned Misery.
“But it’s just as likely to be the aurora as it is a fire,” protested Mildred.
“No, it isn’t either,” retorted Misery. “It’s a bad night, and fires always come on bad nights.”
The excited voices attracted the attention of Paul’s father, and as the gentleman made his way to the front door, several of them turned to him.
“Is that a fire, Mr. Martin?” they asked.
Ere the old gentleman could reply, however, all doubt was put at rest by the shout of “Fire!” followed almost immediately by the ringing of the church bell.
Mr. Martin’s house was situated on the main street, and as the members of the volunteer fire company rushed by to get the hand engine, Paul’s father called out:
“Where is it, boys?”
“It’s Jed Brown’s house,” came the answer.
A fire in a small country village, always a dread catastrophe, is much more serious in the winter, especially when any wind is stirring; and in the realization of these facts, the street was soon alive with men and women hurrying to the scene of the conflagration.
When they learned, however, that it was the home of the crippled veteran, many of them turned back.
All Paul’s friends, together with his father, had started towards the scene, as soon as they knew where the fire was; and as Mr. Martin met several men whom he knew, returning, he asked:
“Where are you going? Is the fire out, or what?”
“Oh, it’s nothing but old Jed Brown’s shanty,” retorted one of them.
“That doesn’t make any difference. You ought to be willing to help Jed as quickly as anyone else. Besides, there’s quite a wind, and if we don’t check the blaze, it may spread. Now turn around and come back with me.”
As Mr. Martin was a person of importance and influence in Rivertown, the men whom he had stopped and ordered to go back quickly obeyed.
When they arrived at the head of the street whence they could see the veteran’s little house, they all realized that it would be impossible to save it, for, though it had been a short fifteen minutes since the alarm had been sounded, the house was a seething mass of flames.
Frantically men were working with shovels, throwing the snow which they scooped up onto the leaping tongues of fire, but without any result.
Rising high into the air, the sparks were borne in all directions, and when an unusually strong gust of wind swirled down the bluff, the burning brands were carried from the doomed house.
“Where are the boys with the hand engine?” demanded Mr. Martin, when no sight or sound was there of the volunteer fire department. “Aren’t they coming?”
“They’re stuck. One of the runners on the front bob gave in,” informed a man who had just joined the constantly-increasing fringe of men and women whose figures stood out in prominent silhouette against the lurid flames.
“Then we must get busy and form bucket brigades to wet down the roofs of those two houses right alongside!” exclaimed Mr. Martin, pointing to two large white residences, one of which was about one hundred feet from the burning house, and the other almost directly across the not over-wide street.
“Come on, men! If those houses catch, the fire will sweep right through the town! A quarter of an hour’s work now will save them; but if we wait very long it will be too late.”
Aroused by the words of the town Nestor, the men and boys lost no time in rushing to each of the residences; and while some of them went into the kitchens and manned the pumps, others formed a line to pass the pails, which were contributed by everybody; while others of the men who had placed ladders against the eaves, mounted the roof, where they sat astraddle of the ridgepole, dousing the embers which were falling on the roofs with greater frequency.
Suddenly, the rumor spread among those still watching the fire that the crippled veteran was in his house.
Hysterical women wrung their hands and begged the men to rush into the flames and rescue the helpless man. Such an act, however, would have been the height of folly, and none of them made the attempt, knowing full well that were he inside he would have met his death long before.
The rumor, however, was dispelled almost as quickly as it had started.
“Ha! Old Jed ain’t in the house! I seen him sneaking off down the street just as soon as the fire was going well,” exclaimed Pud.
“How long was that before the alarm was given?” demanded several of the men, who had heard the statement of the butcher’s son.
“Oh, five or ten minutes, I should say. It seems funny to me that the house should burn so quickly; and then I should have thought Jed would have wanted to stay and watch it,” added Pud.
Had the boy known, however, the purpose for which the old veteran had gone down the street, he would have been less active in trying to sow the seeds of suspicion among those who were in earshot of him. But in his ignorance he continued to make statements that would cast suspicion upon the old man.
“When I first seen the fire, I thought I smelled kerosene.”
“So did I,” chorused several others.
This mention of the fact that they had noted the odor of the combustible oil immediately started the tongues of the women gossips to wagging; and gathering into little groups, they began to talk over with one another the reasons the crippled veteran would have for burning up his home.
The bully, however, had not finished his sensational statements. No sooner had he seen that his sowing of the seed of suspicion had found ready soil, than he added to his previous effect by saying:
“After I seen Jed and smelled the kerosene, I went down around behind the house and seen a fellow running. Seeing he was headed toward the village I cut around back and followed him while he walked up Kenosha street—and who do you think it was?”
The highly excitable minds of the women and the village gossips had been worked to concert pitch by the bully, and as he paused dramatically after his story, they cried:
“Who? Tell us, quick!”
Looking round from one to another of the score of people who had gathered about him, the bully exclaimed:
“It was Harry Watson, the boy that’s come to live here!”
Unfortunately for Harry, he and his boy and girl friends who had been at the Martins’ house during the evening were all scattered between the two houses where the bucket brigades were working, and no one was there to speak a good word for him in contradiction of Snooks’ most despicable charge, for his manner as he spoke gave no room to doubt that he believed the new student had fired the building.
The others quickly put this interpretation upon his statement, and with the rapidity only to be found in villages, word spread about that Harry, for some fancied spite, had burned up the home of the crippled veteran.
And as the story was repeated, it lost nothing in the telling.
“Why doesn’t someone go swear out a warrant for the boy’s arrest?” demanded a particularly irascible old woman.
“You can’t do it, Mirandy, unless you got some reason for making the charge, and you didn’t see the boy,” returned one of the men.
“But Pud Snooks seen him. He can swear out a warrant!” exclaimed the spinster. “It ought to be done. There won’t be nobody safe in the village with that boy liable to burn us all up at any time.”
The words caused alarm among several of the women, who gathered about the old gossip, and they began to demand that action be taken; but when some of the men finally started to look for the bully who had spread the wicked report, he was nowhere to be seen.
The gossips, however, interpreted Snooks’ absence to their own ends.
“Some of the men have probably taken him up to Squire Baxter’s,” said Miranda, and others who had heard her words instantly gave the irresponsible old spinster’s remark the stamp of authority, declaring that Harry’s arrest was but the question of a few minutes.
In the meanwhile, the fire having burnt itself out on Jed Brown’s house, and the danger to the neighboring mansions being thereby over, the members of the bucket brigade made their way once more to the scene of the conflagration.
With Mr. Martin on one side, and his son Paul on the other, Harry approached the ruin.
“There he comes! There he comes! Luther Martin has the little sneak! He knows what to do with him!” snapped Miranda.
And in whispers, low but none the less audible, the word quickly ran around the circle of gossips that the village Nestor was holding the youthful fire-bug until the proper authorities could take him into custody. So curious were the glances cast at them by the rest of the people, that Mr. Martin could not help but notice them, and, wondering at their cause, he turned to the man nearest him, calling him by name, and asked:
“What is the matter, Zeke? Why is everybody whispering and looking at me?”
“’Tain’t you they’re looking at,” returned the man, in a voice as solemn as though he were chief mourner at a funeral.
“Then who is it?”
“Harry Watson.”
“What about him?”
“You know as well as I do.”
Too familiar with his neighbors not to know that something of unusual seriousness was afoot, Mr. Martin laid his hand heavily upon Zeke’s shoulder.
“I want you to tell me what people are saying about Harry Watson, and what all this mysterious whispering means?” declared the patriarchal man in stern tones.
Realizing that it would be folly to try to deceive the village Nestor, Zeke looked uneasily about him, then cleared his throat, preparatory to speaking.
“Well, it’s this way, Luther,” he began in a whining voice. “They are saying as how you’re holding Harry Watson until the constable can come and arrest him.”
Both Paul and the boy against whom the breath of suspicion had been directed could not help but hear what passed between Mr. Martin and the man with whom he was talking, and as the latter explained the action of the rest of the spectators, Harry staggered back as though he had been struck a blow in the face.
“Arrest me!” he exclaimed. “What for?”
“You know,” declared Zeke in a mournful voice.
“Nonsense, Zeke. Nobody’s going to arrest Harry Watson any more than they are me,” interrupted Mr. Martin. “And now if you’ll just get over your desire to create a mystery and tell me what this is all about, I’ll quickly settle it—and if you don’t, I’ll ask somebody who can tell me the plain facts without any trimmings.”
Fond as he was of beating about the bush and giving vague hints and meaning glances, rather than a plain statement of facts, Zeke, however, did not wish to be deprived of exploding the bomb.
“Pud Snooks says he seen young Watson running away from the fire, and he and a lot of us smelled kerosene just as the blaze started, and Mirandy and the rest of us has been saying that there won’t be any house safe in Rivertown until that boy is fast behind lock and key.”
His son having told him during supper the trick the bully had tried to play on Harry which had come so near to resulting in the death of the little children; also about the new student’s preventing Pud from snowballing the crippled veteran, and his attempt to foul the boy during the race on the river, Mr. Martin readily realized the story was but the emanation of the bully’s brain.
Raising his voice so that it could be heard by all within a radius of fifty feet, the village Nestor exclaimed:
“That’s utter nonsense, Zeke. Harry Watson is a good boy. He comes from an honorable family, and there’s no more reason for accusing him of setting Jed Brown’s place afire than there is of accusing me!” Then the patriarchal man paused a few moments to allow the murmurs of surprise to subside before he added in a still louder voice than at first, for the greater effect:
“Besides, Harry Watson has been at my house all the evening, and came to the fire together with my boy, Paul, several of his friends, and myself.”
“But Pud said he seen him!” declared several people, evidently unwilling to accept Mr. Martin’s words.
“Where is Pud?” demanded the village Nestor. “I——”
“Yes, where is Pud Snooks? I want to talk to him!” exclaimed a shrill voice, interrupting.
Turning at the sound, the men and women beheld the bent and bowed form of old Jed Brown.
Instantly, there was a babel of talk and exclamations at this unexpected turn in affairs.
“What do you want to see him for?” demanded one of the men.
“I want to see him to ask him what he was doing in my shed just before I caught him coming out.”
At the words, several of the men and women crowded about the crippled veteran, plying him with questions; but with a wave of his hand, Mr. Martin silenced them.
“This is a very serious statement, Jed,” he exclaimed in a stern voice. “I warn you that you must be careful what you say. Now tell me just what happened, and how you discovered the fire.”
As they heard the words, those of the men and women who were still at the scene, formed a circle about the village patriarch and the crippled veteran, necks craned forward, ears cocked, that they might not lose a syllable of anything that was said.
“I was just getting ready to go to bed when I heard a noise out in the shed,” declared Jed. “For some time I’ve been missing tools, and so I picked up a club I had by the kitchen stove, and started out to see what the trouble was.
“I s’pose I made some noise, for just as I had stepped out of the kitchen door, somebody ran out from the shed and tried to pass me.
“‘Who is it?’ I cried. But instead of answering me, the person swung at me and caught me in the shoulder with a blow that would have knocked me down had I not thrown my arms about him and hung on.”
As he made this statement, the crippled veteran paused. For several moments his auditors waited, thinking he would continue, but when he did not several of them asked:
“Did you see who it was?” “Could you get a look at his face?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“Pud Snooks!”
At the pronouncement of the bully’s name, cries of astonishment arose from the circle of men and women.
“Why didn’t you hold onto him?” demanded Mr. Martin.
“Because he shook me off.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I started after him—and I hadn’t gone more than half way up the street before I saw flames burst from the shed.”
In silence all those in the circle heard these words.
“Do you want to have the boy taken up for this, Jed?” finally asked Mr. Martin.
“No. I don’t want to bring trouble to anyone, but I’m not going to have the house burnt over my head without getting some return. I want to find Pud Snooks and ask him some questions, and then I want to have a talk with his father.”
“You’re a sensible man, Jed,” declared Mr. Martin. “Just come along with me and we will go find Pud’s father. Come, Harry! Come, Paul.”
Without more words Mr. Martin turned on his heel, and led the way up the street, several of the more curious among the crowd tagging at his heels.
“I don’t believe it was Pud who set fire to Mr. Brown’s house,” exclaimed Harry, as they walked along.
“Don’t you s’pose I know him when I see him? I have good reason to!” retorted the crippled veteran.
“What makes you think it wasn’t he, Harry?” asked Mr. Martin.
“Because he was going on a sleigh ride with Socker Gales and some of the other boys and girls,” returned Harry.
“But evidently he didn’t go, for he was at the fire after it was burning fiercely,” asserted the venerable man. Nobody knew the cause for the bully’s remaining at home.
Stung deeply by the words Nettie had uttered when he had come up behind them when the two girls were walking home, Snooks had asked his father for some money that he might join his friends in driving to the Lake House at Cardell for the dance, only to be gruffly refused.
Angry at his father, his friends and himself, the bully had eaten his supper in sullen hastiness, and then left the house by the back way for the purpose of watching his friends depart on the sleigh ride. The route he took, however, led him past the house of the crippled veteran whom he hated so deeply, and the sight of it suggested to him that he might work off his ill-humor by playing some trick on old Jed.
Entering the shed, he lighted a match and was looking about the shop, when he had heard the crippled veteran opening the door of the kitchen, and, thinking only that he must escape, the boy had thrown the match on the floor and rushed to leave the shed. Instead of going out, the match had fallen into a pile of shavings, quickly igniting them, and the flames found ready food in the pieces of wood, oil-soaked leather and other odds and ends with which the shop was littered, and in a few moments had gained such headway that they were irresistible.
Such was the story which Mr. Martin and the bully’s father extorted from the boy after they had questioned him closely in the presence of the crippled veteran for a half hour.
Though the fire was purely an accident, it was so evident that Pud had gone to his arch-enemy’s house bent on mischief, that the butcher and Mr. Martin were at a loss how to proceed in the matter of meting out punishment; and as they sat in silence, pondering over the confession, it was Jed himself who solved the problem.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t come to the house with the intention of burning it, Pud,” he exclaimed. “You and I know I hadn’t occasion for being fond of you, but I’d hate to think there was any boy, or man either for that matter, in Rivertown who was so down on me that he would want to burn the roof over my head.
“Now, I’ve carried a bit of insurance on the place and I’m not going to live very much longer, so if——”
“Jed, I ain’t liked you no better than my boy,” interrupted the butcher, “but you’ve been so decent, and not asked me to punish Pud or send him away where they’ll take care of him, that if it’s agreeable to you I’ll give you two hundred and fifty dollars. Pud, go get my check book.”
“No need to bother about that to-night, Snooks. You can give me the money to-morrow,” declared Jed. And with this understanding Mr. Martin and the crippled veteran took their departure.
Once they were outside, the village patriarch seized the hand of the crippled veteran and shook it heartily.
“Jed, you certainly are a man!” he exclaimed, feelingly. “But where will you go to live, now?”
Ere the old man could answer, Harry and Paul, who had been waiting outside the house, joined them just in time to hear Mr. Martin ask this question.
“If you’d care to, I should like to have you come around to our house!” exclaimed Harry. “I know Aunt Mary would like it, and then as you’re an old friend of dad’s he’d want me to ask you.”
“That would be just the thing,” asserted Mr. Martin, “and I don’t doubt but that you can make arrangements to live at her house with Mary as long as you care to stay in Rivertown. I’ll go and explain things.”
Surprised at first, after the incidents of the evening had been made clear to her, Mrs. Watson readily agreed to board the veteran as long as he cared to remain; and after bidding them all a cordial good-night, Mr. Martin and Paul went to their home.
Many were the glances that were cast at the bully and Harry when they appeared at the high school the following day, but no one had the temerity to speak to them about the incident of the fire, although there were many whispered conversations held in which the sympathy was entirely with the new student.
As Paul had said, the only lesson of importance the freshman class were called upon to attend was the Latin, of which the crusty old Prof. Isaac Plummer, often called “Grouch” by the students, was instructor.
As the boys and girls filed into the classroom, the professor, who was a little squat man, with a scrubby beard, so thin that one of the girls had said it was really an individual beard, glanced at them over the tops of his spectacles.
“There’s no use asking any of you, I suppose, whether you have your lesson or not,” he snapped, in a high-pitched, jerky voice. “The fire last night would have been a sufficient excuse, I suppose, even if it wasn’t for the fact that you never do have your lesson anyway.”
Then, his eyes resting on Harry, he exclaimed:
“What are you doing in here?”
“I came to recite, sir.”
“Listen, the rest of you. Here’s a boy who has come to recite. Do you, by any chance, happen to be a member of the Rivertown High School, or have you just dropped in like manna sent from Heaven to show the rest of these young idiots that it is possible for a child to know its Latin lesson? What’s your name?”
“Harry Watson,” stammered the boy, his face scarlet at the brusqueness of the Latin instructor’s greeting.
“Where do you come from?”
“Do you like Latin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that explains it. I don’t wonder you left Lawrenceburgh. No man who cared for Latin would ever live there, let alone learn it in any of their schools. How far have you gone in Caesar?”
“Through the first two books.”
“Indeed! I didn’t suppose anyone ever got beyond the grammar in Lawrenceburgh. Suppose you start in at the beginning of the second book, which is our lesson to-day, and read as far as you can.”
During this tirade many were the nudges in which the boys and girls indulged themselves; and Elmer and Pud had reveled in it, gleefully, believing that they were about to witness the discomfiture of the boy for whom they had conceived such a dislike.
But Harry was fond of Latin and was also well grounded in his fundamentals. Opening his book at the part indicated, he began to translate, and Prof. Plummer allowed him to finish two sections before he began to ask him questions on construction. But though he tried his best to confuse the boy, Harry did not get rattled, and acquitted himself creditably.
“Watson, I want you to come up here,” the instructor exclaimed, when he had finished. “Let me shake hands with you. I’m glad to know there is one scholar in Rivertown High School who has even the faintest conception of the Latin fundamentals.”
Blushing even more furiously than he had while he was being baited, Harry stood in his place uncertain whether the professor meant what he said or not, and hoping in his heart that he did not.
“Ah, you hesitate, I see,” grinned Prof. Plummer, sardonically. “After you know me better you will know I never mean what I say. Never to my knowledge have I willingly had one of the pupils of Rivertown High School approach any nearer than you are now. Kindly remember that.”
And after calling upon one after another of the members of the class only to have them answer “Not prepared,” old Grouch dismissed the class in disgust.
Although the majority of the scholars in the Rivertown High School lived in Rivertown, there were a goodly number who came from adjacent villages, and for the benefit of these, as well as to give a greater school life to those who lived at home, the trustees of the high school had sanctioned the use of several halls as society rooms.
Thus the girls had two for their exclusive use, the Gamma Gammas and the Lambda Nus; and the boys three, the Kappa Phis, the senior society, the Psi Mus, to which only juniors were eligible, and the Pi Etas, nicknamed the Pie Eaters by the upper classmen, composed chiefly of sophomores, although such of the freshmen as were not too crude were admitted to membership.
For several days after Harry’s encounter with the Latin professor, he was discussed by the boys at the head of the Pi Etas, and, after deciding that he was eligible, the members began to rush him, inviting him around to the club room, to their homes, their skating and dancing parties.
Elmer and Socker, as well as Paul and Jerry, belonged to the Greek letter society, and the proposal to take Harry into the folds of the Pi Eta met with a vigorous opposition from the former pair. Sufficient were there of the sophs, however, who believed that, with a little rubbing off of the rough edges, Harry would be a desirable member of their crowd, to out-vote them, and in due course a committee was selected to pledge him.
But when Harry was approached, he exhibited no great enthusiasm. Fortunately, however, Paul and Jerry were members of the committee and, after the full body had sounded him, they remained at his aunt’s house with him.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like the crowd?” asked Jerry.
“You bet I do! It isn’t that.” And then our hero paused, blushing, finally continuing:
“I might as well tell you fellows, because it will save a lot of unpleasantness for me. I can’t afford to do the things the rest of you fellows can.”
At this frank announcement, Paul and Jerry looked at one another in dismay, for neither of them knew exactly how to answer, and moreover, it was confirmation of their belief that Harry’s refusal to go on the sleigh ride was because of his lack of funds.
As the pause that ensued after the statement became embarrassing, Jerry took the bit in his teeth.
“There’s practically no expense, Harry. No initiation fees, or anything like that. All we have to do is to pay for the light and heat. The school pays the rent, that is, they say they do, though none of the rooms or halls of Rivertown societies have cost a penny, for they’re given by people who own the property. My assessment, so far, this year has been seventy-five cents. You know there are fifty Pi Etas and the expenses for the rest of the year, with Spring coming before long, will be still less, and we want you to be one of the bunch,—honestly, we do. It means no end of fun next year, the Psi Mu surely for junior and the Kappa Phi for senior year.”
A lot of other things Jerry and Paul told our hero, and by the time they had finished talking to him, he had fully come to the conclusion that he would get the money to pay his dues in some manner, and he signified his delight at the prospect of joining the society.
“Good boy!” chorused his chums. “Just stay in your room to-night. As your superiors in the Pi Eta we command you to.”
And hitting the boy such powerful whacks on his back that is seemed to him his teeth would fall out, Paul and Jerry left him. Descending the stairs, they bade Mrs. Watson a significantly courteous “good night” and hurried back to the society room to carry the tidings of Harry’s acceptance to their waiting fellows.
With an understanding of what the call of all the boys upon her nephew meant that would have done credit to a father, Harry’s aunt went to her desk, took out a sheet of paper, and wrote:
“My Dear Boy:
“I hope you find this of use, and it affords me more pleasure to be able to give it to you than it can you to receive it.
“Lovingly, Aunt Mary.
“P. S.—If anything should ever happen that you should get into a little scrape, I want you to feel that you can come to me. Tell me all about it instead of going to an outsider. I shall be able to help you.”
And enclosing a five dollar bill, she put it into an envelope and biding her time until Harry came downstairs, slipped up to his room and placed it on his study table where he would be sure to find it.
Wonder as to what his instructions to remain in the house meant filled Harry with an alternating succession of vague misgiving and delight, and appreciating his mood, his aunt humored him during supper, refraining from pressing him with any awkward questions as to his unusual nervousness.
When he finished supper, Harry stayed around downstairs till he heard the sound of voices out in the street in front of the house. As they drew nearer and nearer, it became evident that they were chanting.
“Mercy! What can that be? It sounds like a funeral dirge!” exclaimed Mrs. Watson, simulating an ignorance of the familiar song by which the Pi Etas announced their descent upon a prospective victim to their initiation, though she had heard it numberless times before, when the members of the society in years gone by had passed through the street in quest of their victims.
The blood mounting to his face, Harry listened a moment, then ran up to his room, grabbed up his Caesar, dropped into a chair and vainly strove to concentrate his mind upon the text before him.
Once only in a life-time does the indescribable thrill grip the heart of a boy who realizes that he has been found fit by the most critical jury in the world, his fellow students, to become a member of one of their secret societies—and in the ecstasy of his happiness Harry never noticed that his book was upside down.
As the measured tread of the steps of the students marching in military time rang out on the porch, Harry could not restrain his feelings, and jumped to his feet, pacing excitedly up and down his room.
For moments that seemed eternal after the sound of the tramping came, he listened for the peremptory knock.
At last it came, and as it rang out, with significance the boy could never forget, his heart almost stopped beating—then he was dully aware that his aunt had gone to the door and opened it. He heard the sound of excited voices, then it seemed as though there were a mighty crash against the door of his room, in rushed several of the boys whom he knew, seized him, tossed him to their shoulders and started down the stairs, not a word having been spoken. But as he gained the outside door, the boys assembled in the yard broke into a chant of triumph, and with the new student still borne aloft, they retraced their steps down the street, the rhythm of their song growing in its delirium until they reached their society room.
But once Harry was inside the sacred precincts, guarded by the four plastered walls, he was no longer the good fellow sought by his schoolmates, but the victim of initiation—and before he had performed all the stunts which were put up to him, it was early in the morning. And when he made his way to his aunt’s house, it was not the carefree boy who had been borne forth on the shoulders of his friends, but a youth, bedraggled, and with a more proper appreciation of his utter insignificance in the scheme of life.
Proud to think that her nephew had been picked out for one of the members of the secret society, Mrs. Watson sat up, with the purpose of welcoming him when he returned home. But as hour after hour went by without his appearing, after the manner of a woman, she began to fear that some harm had befallen him. Accordingly, when at last she heard his halting footsteps on the porch, she threw open the door, and greeted him fondly.
But Harry was so used up that he failed to appreciate the tenderness of the caress, and, realizing the fact, his aunt sent him to bed with the injunction to sleep as late in the morning as he pleased.
Sore, indeed, was Harry when he awoke the next morning, but as he noted the glance cast at him by the other fellows passing on the way to school, glances in which there was a certain amount of envy, he began to forget the ache and pain, caused by the anything but gentle thumps he had received during his initiation, and by the time he had reached the schoolhouse, he was quite his natural self.
But though the boy was in exuberant spirits, it did not take him long to realize that a depression had fallen upon his society mates, and he lost no time in trying to learn the cause.
“What is it?” he asked Paul and Jerry, as they came toward him.
“It’s fierce, that’s what it is,” returned Jerry.
“But why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“Because nobody knows exactly,” asserted Paul.
“We’ll know, though, just as soon as chapel’s over,” announced Jerry, in a voice so doleful, that the last vestige of Harry’s enthusiasm vanished.
Not far into the school grounds had Harry and his companions proceeded, before the boy had found that the gloom shared by his society brothers was reflected in all whom he met, and though he nodded to such of the boys and girls as he knew, when there was any response at all, it was merely perfunctory.
“Sort of a dismal morning to hand out to a new Pi Eta, what?” exclaimed Misery.
But Harry had become too imbued with the spirit of disaster to make any reply, and as he took his seat in the chapel, he was as anxious-eyed as any of the others.
The formal chapel service over, Mr. Larmore closed the Bible with decided emphasis, and then, taking off his glasses and wiping them nervously, he leaned over the little reading table and gazed at the hushed students before him.
“I’m sorry, very sorry, to tell you all that there were depredations committed last night in the physical laboratory belonging to the school.
“Several pieces of valuable experimental apparatus were destroyed.
“I believe that you all have too much understanding to make it necessary for me to dwell upon the heinousness of such acts.
“The incident, bad as it is of itself, is particularly unfortunate in view of the fact that there was, as I understand, an initiation in one of the Greek letter societies last night!”
The significance of the principal’s words were so unmistakable that, as they were uttered, a gasp of shocked surprise ran through the benches of the students.
Not one among them was there who did not know that Harry had been the boy who was initiated, and, as if drawn by an irresistible impulse, they turned their gaze upon him.
Again clearing his throat, Mr. Larmore started to speak, when a boy rose from the seats occupied by the seniors.
“My name is Thomas Dawson. You know me, Mr. Larmore. So do the other people of Rivertown and the scholars of the high school.
“I had the honor to be elected a member of the Pi Eta during my freshman year, and, in the memory of what the society stands for in scholarship and in manliness, in high ideals of school life, I resent most emphatically the imputations in your remarks cast upon the initiation into the Pi Eta society last night!”
Never before had such a defiance to the principal of the school been made, and as the boys and girls who pursued their studies within its brick walls heard it, they were seized with an amazement even greater than at the words of the principal.
But the cup of their surprise was not yet filled.
Pausing a moment after his statement, that the dramatic effect of his utterance might be the greater, Dawson exclaimed:
“In the name of the members of the Pi Eta society of Rivertown High School, I demand to know the authority for your statement that it was any of our members who caused the breaking of the apparatus?”
Never before in the annals of Rivertown High had such a scene been witnessed in the chapel, and as the scholars realized that one of their number was openly defying the man who, for years had guided the destinies of those studying under him, they were dumfounded.
Mr. Larmore, himself, evidently shared the general astonishment for, as he heard Dawson’s demand, his eyes flashed, he opened his mouth as though to speak, and then, evidently thinking better of it, closed it again.
The silence enveloping the chapel was so intense that the fall of a pin would have sounded loud.
Realizing that such a situation could not be tolerated, the principal at last exclaimed:
“Dawson, I am surprised that you should assume such an attitude in this matter.
“For obvious reasons, I cannot enter into an argument with you as to the source of my information. I will say, however, that I consider my authority reliable.
“It grieves me more than I can express to think that any of my boys should so far forget themselves in their sport as to do damage to the school’s property.
“I shall go to my office directly after I have dismissed chapel, and I shall expect those boys who took part in the breaking of the apparatus to come to me and confess.
“Chapel is dismissed.”
Instantly there was a hum of excited voices as the boys and girls filed from the assembly room where the chapel exercises were held.
Instead of going to their class rooms, however, the members of the Pi Eta society filed out of the schoolhouse and gathered about their leader who had challenged the principal.
“Did any Pi Eta smash the apparatus?” asked Dawson. “If he did, for the good of the society he must go to Larmore and take his medicine. I want to be sure of my facts before I take any further action.”
But not a boy spoke up.
“I put you on your Pi Eta oath,” announced Dawson.
But even this placing them on their most sacred honor had no additional effect upon the society boys.
Several of the members of the other Greek letter societies gathered about the Pi Etas—for they realized that a crisis had arisen that affected all the social organizations of the school—and they wanted to plan how to meet it.
When, therefore, they learned that none of the society members had been implicated in the trouble, they cheered loudly.
“The thing to do now, is to find out who told ‘Princy’”—which was the nickname the boys applied to the principal of the school—“that it was the work of the Pi Etas,” said Dawson.
“It strikes me that the best thing to do is for some of us to go in and have a talk with him,” declared Longback, when none of the boys offered any suggestion as to who the bearer of the information might be.
“Why not let the Pi Etas settle it themselves?” proposed another boy.
“Because it concerns the rest of us just as much as it concerns them—as a matter of fact I believe it concerns us more; because I’m sure that not one of the Pi Etas had anything to do with it.”
“Yes, and if any of us should go into Princy’s office, he and everybody else in the school, would think we had come to confess,” declared Paul.
This argument proved a clincher for the plan of sending a delegation to call on Mr. Larmore in his office, and without delay the boys expressed their preferences, the committee finally being composed of Dawson, Longback, Jerry, Harry and Misery.
The new member of the society objected to serving on the ground that it wouldn’t look well for a boy who had just had the honor of coming into the Pi Eta to take such a prominent part in its affairs so soon.
“Well, you must come with us,” returned Dawson, “and I’ll tell you why. There’s no use in mincing matters. Princy and all the other profs think that as part of your initiation, the rest of us either made you break the apparatus, or that you did so in a spirit of bravado.”
The case having been put to him thus plainly, Harry offered no further objection to serving on the committee, and without more ado the boys who had been chosen as delegates mounted the steps preparatory to going to the office of the principal.
“What is it? School for the rest of us?” called another boy, looking about at his companions.
“No, let’s cut?” cried three or four, while one of them continued:
“It will show Princy and the other Profs that we don’t like the deal he’s handing to us.”
Readily all the members of the Greek letter societies in the school agreed to the plan, and without even so much as going into the school house for their books, they hied themselves to their respective society rooms.