IITHE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Bert didn’t like Ben. He came to that conclusion just twenty-four hours after his arrival at Mt. Pleasant Academy. Ben had had his room to himself all the fall and resented Bert’s appearance on the scene. He also resented having a junior put in with him. To be sure it was the custom at the academy to have the younger boys room with the older, but Ben, who had been there three years and a half, and was the oldest boy in the house, thought he ought to be exempt from such annoyances. And he didn’t scruple to let Bert understand that he was anything but welcome. Benson Holden was a big chap, big even for his seventeen years, with a dark, good-looking and somewhat arrogant face and a masterful manner where the younger boys were concerned. He had made up his mind, evidently, that if he must have Bert with him Bert was to pay in services. After Bert had been an occupant of Number 2 just half an hour it began. “Bryant, get my slippersout of the closet.” “Bryant, throw that towel over here. And be quick, too, kid!” “Put those shirts in my second drawer, Bryant, and put the bag in the closet. Don’t muss ’em up, now!” Bert very quietly obeyed, but he had already begun to do some thinking that was to bear fruit in the shape of action.
Later that evening the last two boys reached school. These were juniors, Tom Frye, nicknamed “Small,” and James Fairchild, alias “Kid.” With their arrival the roster of twelve pupils was complete. After supper was over, Bert had his talk with the Doctor in the office, and met Mrs. Merton, a sweet-faced woman whom the boys called Mother and worshiped devotedly. Later, too, he met the rest of the teaching force, Mr. Folsom and Mr. Crane, both youngish men, the former short, stout and pompous and the latter tall, cheerful and jolly. Before that first evening was past he had made friends with the three other members of his class, “Small” Frye, “Kid” Fairchild and Lansing Grey. He liked them all; and some of the older fellows were nice to him, notably Steve Lovell, upper middler. He saw nothing more of Nan that evening. The next morning studies began in the schoolrooms which occupied one end of the building.Besides the twelve boarders there were as many day pupils who came from Mt. Pleasant and Whittier and Riveredge, the nearby towns. Altogether Mt. Pleasant Academy cared for twenty-four boys. Bert got through the first day of lessons creditably enough, and at half past three was free for the rest of the afternoon.
Young Grey, known as “Lanny” for short, had taken a fancy to the new boy and after school took him on a tour of the building and grounds. Bert saw the gymnasium, above the schoolroom, the laboratory downstairs, the heating and lighting plant, the snow-covered athletic field and finally the two rinks where, by the time they arrived, some dozen and a half fellows were hard at work practising hockey.
“That’s the House Team over there,” explained Lanny. “Ben’s captain. This is the Day Team. The captain’s that short, round-faced fellow, Billy Spooner. The first match comes off a week from next Saturday. Do you play hockey?”
Bert shook his head. “No, I never tried it. Do you?”
“Yes, and if Ben was fair he’d give me a chance on the House Team. I can play a heap better than Cupples.”
“Won’t he let you play?” asked Bert.
“No, I’m a junior. All juniors are good for is to run errands and fetch and carry. It makes me tired.”
“I guess it’s going to make me tired, too, pretty soon,” said Bert. “Seems to me I’ve been on the go for Holden or Gardner about every minute since I got here.”
Lanny nodded. “Yes, they always take it out of a new fellow. Good work, Dick!” They had stopped at the barrier beyond which, on the smooth surface of hard ice, the House Hockey Team was practising, and Lanny’s shout of praise had been elicited by a clever stop at goal by Dick Gardner. “He’s a dandy goal-tend,” explained Lanny. “Never gets rattled for a minute.”
“What has he got on his legs?” asked Bert.
“Leg-guards. That puck is pretty hard when it hits. There’s Small over there; and Kid, too. Let’s go over.”
But at that moment Ben Holden, swinging by, caught sight of the two boys and skated up to the boards.
“Say, Bryant, run up to the room, will you, and find a pair of hockey gloves on the table. I forgot them.”
“I’m tired, Holden,” replied Bert quietly. “Send some one else.”
Ben stared in surprise. Then he frowned and, leaning over the barrier, seized Bert’s ear. “Tired, eh? Well, you forget that, kid, and run along and do as I tell you. You’re much too fresh for this place.”
Bert jerked away, rubbed the ear and smiled sweetly. “I’d like mighty well to know what you did before I came, Holden,” he said. “I’m wearing my shoes out running errands for you.”
“Are you going?” demanded Ben threateningly.
“No, I’m not!”
“I’ll get them,” volunteered Lanny Grey.
“All right,” said Ben, “but get a move on. They’re on the table or the bureau or somewhere there. As for you,” he added, scowling at Bert, “I’ll teach you to do as you’re told before you’ve been here much longer.”
Bert turned away without reply and, while Lanny sped back to the house, walked around the rink to where the other two juniors, Kid and Small, were standing. They greeted him eagerly.
“What was the row over there?” asked Small.
“Nothing much. Holden wanted me to run andget his gloves from the room and I said I was too tired.”
The others looked at Bert in mingled amazement and admiration.
“Gee!” breathed Kid. “You’ll get it!”
“What for?” demanded Bert defiantly.
“For not shacking,” replied Kid with a knowing shake of his blond head. Small nodded affirmatively and eyed Bert with sympathy.
“Why should I?” asked Bert. “I didn’t come here to shack, as you fellows call it, for every chap in school. Let them run their own errands!”
“I wish they would,” sighed Kid. “Stanley Pierce says I’ve got to work on the toboggan slide after supper.”
“We all have to,” said Small gloomily. “And my hands get so cold and my feet ache so——!”
“What do you mean?” Bert questioned. “Who has to work where?”
“Juniors and lower middlers have to fix up the slide after supper,” explained Small. “Put snow on the boards and wet it down so it will freeze to-night.”
Bert turned and regarded the slide which began back of the house and swept down the hill tothe meadow beyond. He shook his head. “I shall be very busy this evening,” he said. “Sorry.”
“But you’ll have to!” exclaimed Small in horrified tones. “It—it’s the rule.”
“Who made the rule? I didn’t see it in the catalogue.”
“Of course not, but it’s a rule just the same. And it isn’t so hard. In fact, it’s sort of fun—if the weather isn’t very cold.”
“Well, the weather is cold to-day,” responded Bert. “Much too cold for me to go out after supper.”
“You’ll go, just the same,” said Kid with a grin.
“I think not,” replied Bert quietly. “Not only that, but I’ve made up my mind that after this I’m not going to shack for any one.”
“You can’t help yourself,” said Small. “Of course, you’re new here and don’t understand, but the juniors always shack for the seniors and upper middlers. It—it’s always been done.”
“Not by me,” replied Bert, cheerfully. “The rest of you can do it if you like, but I’ve quit.”
“But—but—” stammered Kid, “they—they’ll do things to you!”
“What sort of things, Fairchild?”
Kid stared blankly at Small and Small shook his head at a loss. “I don’t know,” said Kid finally, “because no fellow has ever—ever——”
“Mutinied?” suggested Bert with a smile.
“They’ll fix you somehow, though,” said Small darkly. At that moment Lanny Grey joined them and Kid breathlessly told him of the new boy’s rash resolve. Lanny listened in silence, frowning the while. Then,
“Good stuff!” he growled. “They make me tired. I ran my legs off all the fall and I’m sick of it. Just now I went all the way to the house for Ben’s gloves and they weren’t there. And when I came back and told him so he said I was a ninny. Whatisa ‘ninny’?”
“Idiot,” said Small.
“Dunce,” said Kid.
“Let him find his own gloves then,” growled Lanny. “I’ve a good mind to quit, too.” He looked doubtfully at Bert.
“Let’s all quit,” suggested Bert cheerfully. “Let’s make a declaration of independence. They can’t punish us all, you know. And even if they do make it warm for us we can stand it, I guess. What do you say, you fellows?”
There was a moment of silence. Lanny looked from Small to Kid. Then, although he found little encouragement in their countenances, he thrust his hands resolutely into his pockets.
“I’m with you!” he said.
“And me!” cried Kid excitedly. Kid was only thirteen years old but of the stuff of which heroes are made. Only Small hesitated longer. “What—what do you suppose they’ll do to us?” he asked.
Lanny shrugged his shoulders.
“Pull our ears, probably. Cuff us a bit. I don’t know, and I don’t care. But Bryant’s right. If we stand together this shacking business has got to stop. And to-night there’s the slide to fix, too.”
“Bryant says he isn’t going to,” murmured Small awedly.
“I’m not,” said Bert. “I have a very delicate constitution and the night air is extremely bad for it.” Lanny grinned.
“Me, too. The doctor has told me to stay indoors after dark.”
“Do you fellows really mean it?” asked Small doubtfully.
“We do,” answered Lanny. “Are you with us?”
Small’s eyes grew very big and round with contemplation of the awfulness of what he was pledging himself to, but he answered promptly, even if his voice shook a little, “Yes!”
“Good!” said Bert. “Now let’s go back to the house and draw up a proclamation. We must do this thing right, you know.”
When, an hour later, darkness drove the House Team from the rink and they came stamping into the hall the proclamation, imposingly inscribed on a sheet of cardboard, confronted them from the mantel. It was George Waters who first saw it and, having perused the first paragraph, broke into a laugh.
“Hi, fellows! Come over here!” he called. “Read this. It’s killing!”
The others gathered around in front of the fireplace and this is what they read:
PROCLAMATION!Know all men by these Presents that we, the Junior Grade members of this Academy, in solemn conclave gathered, hereby declare and resolve that all men are created free and equal; that the custom of shacking so long extant in this institution isunjust, unwise and degrading; that said custom or practice is a base survival of an undemocratic custom pertaining to the educational institutions of Great Britain, whose yoke we so gloriously renounced in 1776; that hereafter shacking shall be abolished in this school.For the support of this Declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor. God defend the right!Albert Payson Bryant,Lansing Stone Grey,Thomas Kirkwood Frye,James Fairchild.P.S. After this when you fellows want anything done you’ll have to do it yourself.
PROCLAMATION!
Know all men by these Presents that we, the Junior Grade members of this Academy, in solemn conclave gathered, hereby declare and resolve that all men are created free and equal; that the custom of shacking so long extant in this institution isunjust, unwise and degrading; that said custom or practice is a base survival of an undemocratic custom pertaining to the educational institutions of Great Britain, whose yoke we so gloriously renounced in 1776; that hereafter shacking shall be abolished in this school.
For the support of this Declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor. God defend the right!
Albert Payson Bryant,Lansing Stone Grey,Thomas Kirkwood Frye,James Fairchild.
P.S. After this when you fellows want anything done you’ll have to do it yourself.