CHAPTER VIIIAN UNEXPECTED VACATION

CHAPTER VIIIAN UNEXPECTED VACATIONThe boys bad been told before they retired that there would be no lessons the next day, and the breakfast hour was put one hour later, to the satisfaction of all but Pee Wee, who was inclined to question the wisdom of the arrangement. To put off a meal on any pretext was to him a violation of the proper order of things. Still, as it occurred to him later, there was some satisfaction in the thought that he would have a better appetite and be able to eat more; and this reconciled him to the situation.Of course there was only one topic of conversation among the boys during and after the meal. The fire had banished everything else from their minds and conjecture was rife as to what changes if any it would make in the routine of the school. The incidents of the night were gone over from every angle, and the part that Bobby and Fred had played was more discussed than any other feature.The boys made an inventory also of their personal losses. In most cases that was not great. One or two had forgotten watches or scarf pins in the confusion, but cherished the hope that some of these might be found in the debris when the ruins had time to cool.“I hope you didn’t lose your joke book, Billy,” remarked Shiner.“I hope you did,” put in Fred with a grin.Billy looked scornfully at his would-be-tormentors.“I don’t have to depend on any joke book,” he replied loftily. “I get the best things I spring on you dubs right out of here,” and he touched his forehead.“How can you?” queried Sparrow. “Mr. Leith was telling us the other day that you couldn’t get anything out of a vacuum because there wasn’t anything in it.”Billy favored him with a stony stare.“Just to prove to you that you’re wrong,” he said, “I’ll ask you fellows a simple question, and I’m willing to bet that none of you can answer it. That’ll show where the vacuums are.”There was no immediate acceptance of the challenge, and the scorn in Billy’s eyes became more pronounced.“Just as I thought,” he announced. “Every one of you has rooms to let in his upper story.”“Oh, well,” remarked Mouser, stung into acceptance, “we’ve stood so many of Billy’s jokes that one more won’t count. Go ahead, Billy, and get it off your chest.”The invitation was none too cordial, but Billy pounced on it.“All right,” he said, “here’s the question. What’s the best material for footwear?”“You tell him, razor, you’re sharp,” murmured Shiner.“You tell him, garter, you’ve got the snap,” remarked Howell.“You tell him, goldfish, you’ve been round the globe,” put in Fred.Billy glared at the dispensers of these frivolities.“You fellows are just trying to gain time to think up an answer,” he remarked cuttingly. “Come across now with the answer and prove that you’re not the dumb-bells I think you are.”“Why, leather is the best material for footwear I suppose,” hazarded Bobby.“Wood lasts a long time; lots of people wear nothing but wooden shoes in Holland and other places in Europe,” suggested Skeets.“How about canvas?” queried Shiner. “I’ve got a pair of tennis shoes that I’ve had for more than two years, and they’re almost as good as ever.”“All wrong,” pronounced Billy. “You’ll have to do better than that.”They cudgeled their brains, but the list of possibilities seemed about exhausted, and at last they gave it up.“Well, Billy, let’s have it,” said Fred. “What is the best material for footwear?”“Banana peels,” Billy answered promptly.The boys looked blankly at each other.“Come again,” urged Mouser, “I don’t get you.”“Why, you fatheads,” said Billy, “even you ought to know that banana peels make the best slippers.”What might have happened to the perpetrator of this outrage will never be known, for at that moment a summons came from Dr. Raymond for all the boys to come to the assembly hall of the school.When they obeyed and had all taken their places, Dr. Raymond, who was seated on the platform with Mr. Leith and Mr. Carrier, and who looked worn and haggard after a sleepless night, arose to speak.“The fire of last night was of course a great misfortune,” he said among other things, “not especially in a financial sense, for, as you may be glad to know, the building and furniture were fully covered by insurance. But it is regrettable that so many dormitory rooms were destroyed, for it makes it necessary for some of the pupils to suspend their studies for the month or more that may be necessary before the part of the school damaged by fire can be rebuilt. It may be necessary for them to work a little harder when they return in order to make up for lost time. With the exception of those who are thus excused, the work of the school will go on as usual. While we all are sorry that the fire occurred, that after all counts for little compared with the fact no one was seriously injured. I want before you all to say publicly what I have already said to them personally, that Blake and Martin by their quick thinking and brave action have brought credit to themselves and honor to Rockledge School.”Following his remarks, he read the list of those who would be given the unexpected and yet most welcome vacation. The boys listened breathlessly, each one hoping that he might be among the favored ones, and when the reading finished there were many stifled sighs of disappointment on the part of the majority, while the eyes of the elect glowed with satisfaction. Bobby and Fred were on the list, as well as Mouser and Shiner and Lee, but none of their other close friends were included in the dozen or more to be excused.The exodus was not to take place for a day or two, because time was required for packing and for proper notification of their parents. Telegrams were already coming in from the latter who had heard or read of the fire, and the teaching staff had plenty of work in sending reassuring messages in reply. How the fire had started was a mystery.When finally the boys were dismissed, they gathered in groups, discussing eagerly the program that had been mapped out by the head of the school. Some were jubilant, others despondent.“Scubbity-yow!” cried Fred, executing a jig. “Best news I’ve heard since Sitting Bull sat down.”“I love my books, but, oh! you vacation,” chuckled Shiner.“If you fellows fell in the water, you’d come up with a fish in your mouth,” remarked Billy enviously.“Never mind, Billy,” comforted Fred. “You’ll have all the more time to think up some poor jokes to spring on us when we get back.”“I don’t know any poor ones,” replied Billy. “All of mine are good, too good anyway for you boobs to guess, I notice. By the way,” he continued, brightening up visibly, “here’s one of the best I ever thought of. Why is—”“Officer, he’s crazy again,” groaned Fred.“Choke him off, somebody,” urged Mouser.“But listen,” pleaded Billy.“Not on your life,” was Shiner’s heartless rejoinder. “Here’s where we get a chance, fellows, to make Billy stew in his own juice. It’ll break his heart to have a joke all ready to spring and nobody to listen to it.”“But you fellows don’t know what you’re missing,” warned Billy. “Why ought a cook—”“We’ll admit she ought, right off the reel,” interrupted Skeets, “so suppose we let it go at that.”But Billy was not to be shaken from his prey, and he held on like grim death.“Why ought a cook to get good wages?” he demanded.“Because she needs the dough,” replied Mouser promptly. The suddenness of the response nearly took Billy off his feet.“You must have heard that somewhere,” he said in a crestfallen way.“Noah sprang that on Mrs. Noah when they were in the Ark,” jibed Mouser.“I knew you wouldn’t have guessed it of your own accord,” retorted Billy, getting at least that much satisfaction out of his discomfiture.Shortly after dinner, Bobby and Fred went to call on Lee. They found him in much better condition than they had expected. They had feared that the excitement of his experience the night before might have given him a set-back, but on the contrary his eyes were bright, and there was more color in his face than had been there at any time since he had been taken ill.He was fervent in his thanks to Bobby and Fred for having saved his life, but they waved these aside and made as light of their own part in the proceedings as possible.“It would certainly have been all up with me if it hadn’t been for you fellows,” declared Lee. “I suppose the smoke must have stupefied me before you came, because I can just remember staggering about the room without even having sense enough to find the door. It was an awfully plucky thing for you boys to do, and I owe it to you that I’m not dead this minute.”“You certainly look to be far enough from dead now,” laughed Bobby.“Perhaps the shock and shaking up did me good instead of harm,” rejoined the boy from the South. “I certainly feel better than I did at this time yesterday.”“All the same, I guess the doctor wouldn’t prescribe it,” said Fred with a grin.“Probably not,” smiled Lee. “By the way I hear that you two fellows are going to have a vacation.”“Right you are,” chuckled Fred. “And maybe we’re not tickled to death about it, eh, Bobby?”“You bet!” returned Bobby happily. “But you’re on the list too, Lee, although for that matter you’ve been having about all the vacation you wanted for the last two weeks.”“That was the wrong kind of vacation.”“Of course you’ll have to spend it here,” conjectured Fred.“I’m not so sure of that,” replied Lee. “I was speaking to the doctor this morning and he said he thought I’d be able to make the trip home in two or three days from now. He thinks the warm southern weather is just what I need to bring me around all right again. So I telegraphed to my mother this morning about it and asked her to answer right away.”He had barely finished speaking when there was a knock at the door, and a messenger entered with a telegram.“Here it is now!” exclaimed Lee, his face lighting up with expectancy. “If you fellows will excuse me I’ll see what she says.”He ran his eyes eagerly over the telegram, which was an unusually long one, and before it was finished gave a whoop of delight.“Sounds as though you had good news,” remarked Bobby, as he saw the flushed face and sparkling eyes of his friend.“I should say so!” cried Lee, waving the yellow slip above his head. “Listen to this part of it, fellows: ‘I cannot tell you how grateful I am to the brave boys who saved your life, and I want you to be sure to bring them along with you for a visit, if they would care to come.’ How about it fellows? Will you come along with me?”“If we would care to come!” repeated Bobby. “You bet we’ll come!”“Will a duck swim?” asked Fred, wild with delight at the vista opened up by the invitation. “That is,” he added a little more soberly, “if the folks at home will let us go.”“Of course,” agreed Bobby. “But I haven’t much doubt about that. They let us go West on a ranch, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be just as willing to have us go down South on a plantation. Come along, Fred, and we’ll write to them now, so that the letters will get to them to-morrow.”“Why not telegraph?” asked Fred, who was bubbling over with excitement and impatience.“It would cost too much,” replied practical Bobby. “We’ll have to write good long letters to explain everything and get them to let us go.”“Put it strong,” counseled Lee. “I’ll be terribly disappointed if you can’t go with me. And I know that my mother will, too. I want to show you what life is on a real old-fashioned Southern plantation.”“Don’t you worry,” replied Bobby. “If we can’t go, you can be sure that it won’t be any fault of ours.”They put all their powers of persuasion into the letters they wrote, and were especially urgent that the answers should be sent at once. Then they waited with feverish impatience for the replies.These were not long in coming, for the second day after they wrote they received the answers. They tore the letters open with quaking hearts, for fear that they might prove unfavorable. And their delight was beyond bounds when they found that they might go. There were long letters of advice and injunctions to take the best care of themselves. And there was also in each letter a substantial check to cover all expenses of the trip. It was made plain to both that the ready agreement to let them go was largely due to their behavior at the time of the fire, and was in the nature of a reward.To save a great deal of unnecessary traveling, it was arranged that the boys should go directly from Rockledge School to New York. It was thought best that they should go South by boat, instead of rail, and a separate letter to Dr. Raymond requested that he should telegraph for passage and stateroom in advance, and make what other arrangements might be necessary for the trip.As may be imagined, the next two days were busy ones for the three boys. But at last all was ready, and with a big send-off from their chums, they took the train for New York. The journey was a pleasant though uneventful one, and they reached the city too late to do anything but go directly to their stateroom on the boat.The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, they took up their position on the rail and watched the scene of busy life on the pier. There was great noise and animation as the last freight was put into the hold and belated passengers hurried down to the vessel. But at last order was brought out of confusion and the bell rang the signal for “All Ashore.”

The boys bad been told before they retired that there would be no lessons the next day, and the breakfast hour was put one hour later, to the satisfaction of all but Pee Wee, who was inclined to question the wisdom of the arrangement. To put off a meal on any pretext was to him a violation of the proper order of things. Still, as it occurred to him later, there was some satisfaction in the thought that he would have a better appetite and be able to eat more; and this reconciled him to the situation.

Of course there was only one topic of conversation among the boys during and after the meal. The fire had banished everything else from their minds and conjecture was rife as to what changes if any it would make in the routine of the school. The incidents of the night were gone over from every angle, and the part that Bobby and Fred had played was more discussed than any other feature.

The boys made an inventory also of their personal losses. In most cases that was not great. One or two had forgotten watches or scarf pins in the confusion, but cherished the hope that some of these might be found in the debris when the ruins had time to cool.

“I hope you didn’t lose your joke book, Billy,” remarked Shiner.

“I hope you did,” put in Fred with a grin.

Billy looked scornfully at his would-be-tormentors.

“I don’t have to depend on any joke book,” he replied loftily. “I get the best things I spring on you dubs right out of here,” and he touched his forehead.

“How can you?” queried Sparrow. “Mr. Leith was telling us the other day that you couldn’t get anything out of a vacuum because there wasn’t anything in it.”

Billy favored him with a stony stare.

“Just to prove to you that you’re wrong,” he said, “I’ll ask you fellows a simple question, and I’m willing to bet that none of you can answer it. That’ll show where the vacuums are.”

There was no immediate acceptance of the challenge, and the scorn in Billy’s eyes became more pronounced.

“Just as I thought,” he announced. “Every one of you has rooms to let in his upper story.”

“Oh, well,” remarked Mouser, stung into acceptance, “we’ve stood so many of Billy’s jokes that one more won’t count. Go ahead, Billy, and get it off your chest.”

The invitation was none too cordial, but Billy pounced on it.

“All right,” he said, “here’s the question. What’s the best material for footwear?”

“You tell him, razor, you’re sharp,” murmured Shiner.

“You tell him, garter, you’ve got the snap,” remarked Howell.

“You tell him, goldfish, you’ve been round the globe,” put in Fred.

Billy glared at the dispensers of these frivolities.

“You fellows are just trying to gain time to think up an answer,” he remarked cuttingly. “Come across now with the answer and prove that you’re not the dumb-bells I think you are.”

“Why, leather is the best material for footwear I suppose,” hazarded Bobby.

“Wood lasts a long time; lots of people wear nothing but wooden shoes in Holland and other places in Europe,” suggested Skeets.

“How about canvas?” queried Shiner. “I’ve got a pair of tennis shoes that I’ve had for more than two years, and they’re almost as good as ever.”

“All wrong,” pronounced Billy. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

They cudgeled their brains, but the list of possibilities seemed about exhausted, and at last they gave it up.

“Well, Billy, let’s have it,” said Fred. “What is the best material for footwear?”

“Banana peels,” Billy answered promptly.

The boys looked blankly at each other.

“Come again,” urged Mouser, “I don’t get you.”

“Why, you fatheads,” said Billy, “even you ought to know that banana peels make the best slippers.”

What might have happened to the perpetrator of this outrage will never be known, for at that moment a summons came from Dr. Raymond for all the boys to come to the assembly hall of the school.

When they obeyed and had all taken their places, Dr. Raymond, who was seated on the platform with Mr. Leith and Mr. Carrier, and who looked worn and haggard after a sleepless night, arose to speak.

“The fire of last night was of course a great misfortune,” he said among other things, “not especially in a financial sense, for, as you may be glad to know, the building and furniture were fully covered by insurance. But it is regrettable that so many dormitory rooms were destroyed, for it makes it necessary for some of the pupils to suspend their studies for the month or more that may be necessary before the part of the school damaged by fire can be rebuilt. It may be necessary for them to work a little harder when they return in order to make up for lost time. With the exception of those who are thus excused, the work of the school will go on as usual. While we all are sorry that the fire occurred, that after all counts for little compared with the fact no one was seriously injured. I want before you all to say publicly what I have already said to them personally, that Blake and Martin by their quick thinking and brave action have brought credit to themselves and honor to Rockledge School.”

Following his remarks, he read the list of those who would be given the unexpected and yet most welcome vacation. The boys listened breathlessly, each one hoping that he might be among the favored ones, and when the reading finished there were many stifled sighs of disappointment on the part of the majority, while the eyes of the elect glowed with satisfaction. Bobby and Fred were on the list, as well as Mouser and Shiner and Lee, but none of their other close friends were included in the dozen or more to be excused.

The exodus was not to take place for a day or two, because time was required for packing and for proper notification of their parents. Telegrams were already coming in from the latter who had heard or read of the fire, and the teaching staff had plenty of work in sending reassuring messages in reply. How the fire had started was a mystery.

When finally the boys were dismissed, they gathered in groups, discussing eagerly the program that had been mapped out by the head of the school. Some were jubilant, others despondent.

“Scubbity-yow!” cried Fred, executing a jig. “Best news I’ve heard since Sitting Bull sat down.”

“I love my books, but, oh! you vacation,” chuckled Shiner.

“If you fellows fell in the water, you’d come up with a fish in your mouth,” remarked Billy enviously.

“Never mind, Billy,” comforted Fred. “You’ll have all the more time to think up some poor jokes to spring on us when we get back.”

“I don’t know any poor ones,” replied Billy. “All of mine are good, too good anyway for you boobs to guess, I notice. By the way,” he continued, brightening up visibly, “here’s one of the best I ever thought of. Why is—”

“Officer, he’s crazy again,” groaned Fred.

“Choke him off, somebody,” urged Mouser.

“But listen,” pleaded Billy.

“Not on your life,” was Shiner’s heartless rejoinder. “Here’s where we get a chance, fellows, to make Billy stew in his own juice. It’ll break his heart to have a joke all ready to spring and nobody to listen to it.”

“But you fellows don’t know what you’re missing,” warned Billy. “Why ought a cook—”

“We’ll admit she ought, right off the reel,” interrupted Skeets, “so suppose we let it go at that.”

But Billy was not to be shaken from his prey, and he held on like grim death.

“Why ought a cook to get good wages?” he demanded.

“Because she needs the dough,” replied Mouser promptly. The suddenness of the response nearly took Billy off his feet.

“You must have heard that somewhere,” he said in a crestfallen way.

“Noah sprang that on Mrs. Noah when they were in the Ark,” jibed Mouser.

“I knew you wouldn’t have guessed it of your own accord,” retorted Billy, getting at least that much satisfaction out of his discomfiture.

Shortly after dinner, Bobby and Fred went to call on Lee. They found him in much better condition than they had expected. They had feared that the excitement of his experience the night before might have given him a set-back, but on the contrary his eyes were bright, and there was more color in his face than had been there at any time since he had been taken ill.

He was fervent in his thanks to Bobby and Fred for having saved his life, but they waved these aside and made as light of their own part in the proceedings as possible.

“It would certainly have been all up with me if it hadn’t been for you fellows,” declared Lee. “I suppose the smoke must have stupefied me before you came, because I can just remember staggering about the room without even having sense enough to find the door. It was an awfully plucky thing for you boys to do, and I owe it to you that I’m not dead this minute.”

“You certainly look to be far enough from dead now,” laughed Bobby.

“Perhaps the shock and shaking up did me good instead of harm,” rejoined the boy from the South. “I certainly feel better than I did at this time yesterday.”

“All the same, I guess the doctor wouldn’t prescribe it,” said Fred with a grin.

“Probably not,” smiled Lee. “By the way I hear that you two fellows are going to have a vacation.”

“Right you are,” chuckled Fred. “And maybe we’re not tickled to death about it, eh, Bobby?”

“You bet!” returned Bobby happily. “But you’re on the list too, Lee, although for that matter you’ve been having about all the vacation you wanted for the last two weeks.”

“That was the wrong kind of vacation.”

“Of course you’ll have to spend it here,” conjectured Fred.

“I’m not so sure of that,” replied Lee. “I was speaking to the doctor this morning and he said he thought I’d be able to make the trip home in two or three days from now. He thinks the warm southern weather is just what I need to bring me around all right again. So I telegraphed to my mother this morning about it and asked her to answer right away.”

He had barely finished speaking when there was a knock at the door, and a messenger entered with a telegram.

“Here it is now!” exclaimed Lee, his face lighting up with expectancy. “If you fellows will excuse me I’ll see what she says.”

He ran his eyes eagerly over the telegram, which was an unusually long one, and before it was finished gave a whoop of delight.

“Sounds as though you had good news,” remarked Bobby, as he saw the flushed face and sparkling eyes of his friend.

“I should say so!” cried Lee, waving the yellow slip above his head. “Listen to this part of it, fellows: ‘I cannot tell you how grateful I am to the brave boys who saved your life, and I want you to be sure to bring them along with you for a visit, if they would care to come.’ How about it fellows? Will you come along with me?”

“If we would care to come!” repeated Bobby. “You bet we’ll come!”

“Will a duck swim?” asked Fred, wild with delight at the vista opened up by the invitation. “That is,” he added a little more soberly, “if the folks at home will let us go.”

“Of course,” agreed Bobby. “But I haven’t much doubt about that. They let us go West on a ranch, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be just as willing to have us go down South on a plantation. Come along, Fred, and we’ll write to them now, so that the letters will get to them to-morrow.”

“Why not telegraph?” asked Fred, who was bubbling over with excitement and impatience.

“It would cost too much,” replied practical Bobby. “We’ll have to write good long letters to explain everything and get them to let us go.”

“Put it strong,” counseled Lee. “I’ll be terribly disappointed if you can’t go with me. And I know that my mother will, too. I want to show you what life is on a real old-fashioned Southern plantation.”

“Don’t you worry,” replied Bobby. “If we can’t go, you can be sure that it won’t be any fault of ours.”

They put all their powers of persuasion into the letters they wrote, and were especially urgent that the answers should be sent at once. Then they waited with feverish impatience for the replies.

These were not long in coming, for the second day after they wrote they received the answers. They tore the letters open with quaking hearts, for fear that they might prove unfavorable. And their delight was beyond bounds when they found that they might go. There were long letters of advice and injunctions to take the best care of themselves. And there was also in each letter a substantial check to cover all expenses of the trip. It was made plain to both that the ready agreement to let them go was largely due to their behavior at the time of the fire, and was in the nature of a reward.

To save a great deal of unnecessary traveling, it was arranged that the boys should go directly from Rockledge School to New York. It was thought best that they should go South by boat, instead of rail, and a separate letter to Dr. Raymond requested that he should telegraph for passage and stateroom in advance, and make what other arrangements might be necessary for the trip.

As may be imagined, the next two days were busy ones for the three boys. But at last all was ready, and with a big send-off from their chums, they took the train for New York. The journey was a pleasant though uneventful one, and they reached the city too late to do anything but go directly to their stateroom on the boat.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, they took up their position on the rail and watched the scene of busy life on the pier. There was great noise and animation as the last freight was put into the hold and belated passengers hurried down to the vessel. But at last order was brought out of confusion and the bell rang the signal for “All Ashore.”

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