IVTHE FIRST SKIRMISH
The war was on.
The juniors may be said to have won the first skirmish, for the upper grade fellows, assisted by the two lower middlers, labored the better part of an hour that night, shoveling and carrying snow to the wooden part of the toboggan slide and subsequently sprinkling it with water so that it might freeze over night into a good foundation for further improvements; and this without help from the mutineers, who from the darkened windows of Small’s room, watched the work in warmth and comfort.
“First blood for our side,” murmured Kid gleefully.
When the workers returned with benumbed fingers and ice-coated boots it was evident that their attitude toward the offending juniors was to be one of silent contempt. Bert, Lanny, Small and Kid were absolutely ignored by all save Cupples and Crandall, who, so far, observed a difficultneutrality. During study hour Bert and Ben sat at opposite sides of the green-topped table and exchanged never a word, Bert deciding ruefully toward the end of the evening that much of that sort of thing would probably become very tiresome.
In the morning the revolutionists gained a convert. The convert was Nan. Nan was greatly excited and very enthusiastic. And she assured Bert and Lanny, who had gone out after breakfast to slide down the short coast afforded by the sloping driveway, that she was heart and soul with the Cause. They must never give in, she declared. She also said many other things about Tyranny, the Despot’s Heel, Right and Justice and Suffering for a Principle. The latter phrase misled Lanny until Nan explained that she was not referring to her father. Her words sounded very fine and the two boys were quite heartened. They had not thought of the thing as a Cause before and now Lanny began to look quite noble and heroic, or as noble and heroic as it is possible to look with a green plaid Mackinaw jacket and ear-muffs.
“What you must do, though,” continued Nan, sinking her voice to a sort of frozen whisper, “is to form a Society!”
“What sort of a society?” asked Bert.
“Why, a—a Society for Mutual Help and Protection.”
“Oh!” murmured Lanny, much impressed. “How would you do it?”
“Just—just do it, silly! I tell you what; come to the stable after morning school and organize. And meanwhile I’ll think up a good name for the Society. You must bring Small and Kid, too, you know. And you must have a password and—and a grip.”
“We’ll have the grippe all right if we sit around the stable long,” said Lanny. “It’s as cold in there as—as——”
“A barn,” suggested Bert. “All right, we’ll be there, Miss Merton, right after school.”
“What do you call her Miss Merton for?” asked Lanny after Nan had hurried indoors again. “Her name’s Nan; except when you want to get her mad, and then it’s Nancy.”
“Well, I don’t know her very well yet,” answered Bert in excuse. “She seems a pretty good sort.”
“She is. She’s all right—for a girl. Girls always want to stick their noses into things, though. Just as though we couldn’t get up a society without her help!”
“Well, we wouldn’t have thought of it, I guess. And I’m glad she did. It’ll be rather fun, won’t it?”
“Sure. It must be a secret society, too. And we’ll vote for officers.”
This settled, they went on with the matter in hand, which was to start at the corner of the house and see how far they could make their sleds go around the corner into the road.
At ten minutes past twelve the four crept into the stable with appropriate stealthiness and found Nan already there. She led the way into the harness room, closed and locked the door and took command of the situation. There was a stove in the harness room, but as there was no fire in it it couldn’t be said to help the situation much. It was undoubtedly cold and Small remarked sarcastically that he didn’t see why the hall wasn’t good enough.
“Because,” replied Nan scathingly, “you can’t form a Secret Society with the whole world hearing every word you say. You’d be surrounded by your enemies in the hall.”
“I’d be surrounded by some heat, anyway,” muttered Small ungraciously.
“Dry up, Small,” commanded Lanny. “Now, then, what’s the first thing, Nan?”
“Choose a name. I’ve thought of several that might do. What do you think of ‘The League of Emancipators’?”
“Um,” said Bert. “But I think something shorter would be better.”
“Well, then, there’s ‘The Secret Four.’”
“What’s the matter with ‘The Four’?” asked Small.
“‘The Junior Four’ sounds pretty well,” Bert suggested. And the rest agreed that it did, Nan concurring and nobly striving to hide her disappointment over the fact that her names had been rejected.
“‘The Junior Four’ it is, then,” said Lanny briskly, breathing on his fingers to warm them. “Now what?”
“A password,” said Nan. “I couldn’t think of anything very—very striking.”
“Justice!” suggested Lanny.
“No surrender!” said Small.
“Non plus ultra!” piped Kid.
“You’re a goose,” laughed Nan. “That means ‘None better.’”
“I know what it means,” replied Kid. “I guess I’ve studied as much Latin as you have.”
“I guess you haven’t!” responded Nan indignantly. “The idea!”
“I’ve got a good one,” interrupted Lanny, who had been scowling ferociously at the stove. “‘All for one, one for all!’”
“You got that out of ‘The Three Musketeers,’” charged Small. “And, anyway, it’s ‘One for all and all for one.’”
“It is not! Is it, Bert?”
“I don’t know, but it sounds all right. ‘One for all and all for one.’”
“It’s fine!” declared Nan. “Now you must have officers.”
“What kind of officers?” asked Kid.
“Why, a—a president and a vice-president, I should think, and a secretary, and—and——”
“A sergeant-at-arms,” said Small.
“I think Bert ought to be president,” declared Lanny, “because he started it all.”
That was agreed to, and finally Lanny was made vice-president, Small sergeant-at-arms and Kid secretary.
“I think,” said Bert, “we’d ought to make Miss—make Nan a member.” Nan clapped her hands, but her face fell the next instant.
“I couldn’t be, though, because, don’t you see, the name is The Junior Four. And I’m not a junior, and I’d be the fifth.”
“You could be an honorary member,” said Lanny. And so Nan was duly elected and with a flattering unanimity. After that Small thought they ought to have a grip and showed them three he knew of. Then Lanny demonstrated one he liked and there was much handshaking and confusion for several minutes. In the end Small won and they all learned his grip. And as by that time the hour for dinner was near at hand the first meeting of The Junior Four was adjourned, subject to the call of the secretary. Kid, still smarting a little under Nan’s aspersion on his knowledge of Latin, wanted to adjourn sine die and had the pleasure of explaining that sine die meant “without day.” Small said it sounded more like “without sense” and refused to adjourn in any such manner. Nan cautioned them that it would be best to avoid suspicion, and to this end they left the stable one by one, at minute intervals; all except Small, who, left the last, refused to freeze to death for any principle or cause and sneaked out long before his time was up.
All this was on Thursday, and for the rest ofthe day The Junior Four stayed very close together, not knowing at what moment the upper grade fellows might tire of their present attitude of contemptuous silence and indulge in violence. By the time afternoon school was over the day students had learned of the situation and had already begun to take sides, and by the next noon the school was sharply divided into camps. The rivalry between house students and day students was for the time forgotten and upper grade fellows hastened to the support of Ben and his cohorts and lower grade boys flocked to the standard of Bert and Lanny and the others. Being at last forced to choose sides, Cupples and Crandall threw in their lots with the revolutionists, and with their enlistment the last semblance of peace vanished. Every room was divided against itself, for every room was occupied by an upper grade fellow and a lower grade fellow. The second floor of the house these evenings was strangely quiet. To be sure, when study hour was over the lower grade fellows managed to get together somewhere, while Stanley Pierce’s room became the regular meeting place for the enemy. But as these meetings were generally councils of war the usual chatter of voices and ring of laughter were missing. The first real engagementof the opposing forces occurred on Friday afternoon and resulted in a victory for the revolutionists, as you shall see.
Small resided in Number 5 with George Waters. Waters had been, from the first, in favor of strong methods and the heavy hand in dealing with the mutiny, and on this occasion his patience deserted him. Hurrying upstairs after school, he found Small struggling into a sweater. Waters was after an extra skate strap, and, after searching everywhere in vain, he charged Small with having hidden it. Small denied it indignantly, and Waters, having worked himself into a fit of bad temper, insisted that Small should help look for it. Small, inwardly quaking, refused. There was a wordy war, and in the end Waters took the key from the inside of the door.
“You’ll stay here until you find that, Small,” he declared from the doorway. “We’ll see whether you’ll do as you’re told!”
With that Waters departed, locking the door after him and pocketing the key. Left imprisoned, Small merely grinned and shrugged his shoulders. He had promised to go skating on the creek with the other juniors and Nan, but he much preferred a warm room and a book to read. Ten minuteslater, his feet on the radiator and a rattling good book in his hands, Small had quite forgotten Waters, his imprisonment, the Cause and all else. Half an hour passed unheeded and then voices called from outside:
“Small! O you Small!”
Small, unheeding, read on. The hero was cutting his way through the jungle of South Africa closely pursued by a band of head-hunters.
“Small! Where are you, Small?”
This time Small heard and looked out of the window. Down below in the snow stood Lanny and Bert, come in search of him. Small opened the window.
“Hello,” he said. “I can’t come out. Waters has locked me in.”
Bert and Lanny thrilled. Here was war to the knife!
“Did he take the key?” asked Bert.
“I don’t know; I guess so. It’s all right, though; I don’t mind staying here.”
“Don’t you worry,” cried Lanny, “we’ll get you out.”
They hurried into the house and upstairs. The second floor was deserted. Every key they could lay their hands on was tried, but none fitted. Frombeyond the door Small begged them not to trouble, assuring them that he was quite resigned.
“One for all and all for one!” cried Lanny, undismayed. “Keep up your courage. We’ll get a ladder.”
“Bully!” said Bert.
“But I don’t want—” began Small. It was quite lost, however, for the others were already halfway down the stairs. Luckily the room was on the back of the house, out of sight of the rink; although it is probable that Waters was much too busy playing hockey to notice what might be happening at the house. It was only a minute’s work to carry the long ladder from the basement and set it up outside Small’s window, one end in a rhododendron clump and the other against the sill. Small viewed it doubtfully.
“I don’t want to climb down that thing,” he demurred. “I might fall.”
“Hurry up,” Bert commanded. “They may come back. Get your sweater and cap.”
“But—but I tell you——”
“Say,” interrupted Lanny impatiently, “you don’t want those fellows to say that they got the better of us, do you? Get a move on, can’t you? Gee, I never saw such a slow-poke!”
At that moment Nan and Kid, having waited some time for the return of Bert and Lanny, appeared on the scene.
“Hello,” cried Kid, “what’s the fun, fellows?”
The matter was hurriedly explained, while Small frowned down from the open window rebelliously.
“What ho! A rescue!” cried Kid. “Let me go up and carry him down, will you, Lanny?”
Nan was visibly excited. “It’s perfectly lovely!” she declared. “Think how chagrined they will be when they come back and find—find the prey has escaped them! Oh, hurry, Small, hurry!”
“I don’t want to hurry,” growled Small. “I don’t intend to break my neck getting down that old thing.”
“But you’ve got to,” said Bert. “How are we going to rescue you if you don’t?”
“I don’t want to be rescued!”
“You’ve got to be,” declared Lanny. “Out you come, now. If you don’t we’ll go up there and get you. I’m not going to have a perfectly good rescue spoiled by you.”
“Yes, please do,” begged Nan.
“A rescue! A rescue!” chanted Kid shrilly, dancing around in the snow. Small debated withhimself a minute and finally disappeared in search of sweater and cap.
“You fellows make me tired,” he growled when he returned to the window. “Why can’t you let me alone? I don’t want to be rescued. I don’t want to go skating. I don’t want——”
“Cut out the regrets and hurry the job,” advised Lanny.
Small cautiously climbed over the sill and set one foot tentatively on the ladder. Then he looked down. It seemed an awfully long way to the ground. “Some one hold it,” he grumbled. Lanny and Nan obeyed. Small tried the second rung, found that it held and that he was still alive, and essayed the third. His head was below the window sill now and the rescue was progressing famously. At that instant Kid harkened to the voice of the Imp of Mischief.
“Small,” he called, “try that next round with your foot before you put your weight on it. It looks weak.”
Small turned and cast a horrified look at the rung in question, and clung desperately to the ladder.
“It—it’s cracked, I think,” he stammered. “I—I guess I’ll go back.”
“It isn’t cracked; it’s all right,” said Bert. “Kid, you keep your mouth shut.”
“I was just warning him,” muttered Kid. “Of course, if you fellows want to see him fall and hurt himself, all right. But I don’t want any man’s blood on my soul. I——”
“Shut up!” yelled Lanny. “Come on down, Small; it’s perfectly safe.”
“It is, is it?” chattered Small. “Then what’s he talking that way for? I’ll l-l-lick him when I g-g-get down!”
“You ought to be ashamed, Kid,” remonstrated Nan. “How would you like it if——”
But at that moment Small put the weight of one foot on the rung, there was a slightcreak, he gave a cry of fright, tried to take his foot off again and scramble up the ladder and lost his footing entirely.
“Look out!” yelled Bert. Lanny and Nan jumped aside and Small, yelling lustily, came down the ladder like a shot, his feet waving wildly and his arms wrapped around the sides. He reached the ground in a heap. Bert hurried to him and picked him up.
“Are you hurt, Small?” he asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” answered Small weakly, feeling himself inquiringly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried Nan. Small, very white of face, concluded that no harm had been done. Then his eyes fell on Kid. That irrepressible youth was seated in the middle of a clump of rhododendrons doubled over with laughter.
“It was all his fault!” cried Small, and dashed at Kid. But Kid recovered very suddenly from his laughter and rolled and scrambled out the other side of the shrubs just as Small came crashing through. Then ensued a race that presently took pursued and pursuer out of sight around the building.
“It’s lucky he didn’t hurt himself,” said Bert, laughing. “I say, he left the window open. The room will be as cold as Greenland when Waters gets back.”
“And serve him right,” said Lanny.
“Couldn’t you go up and close it?” asked Nan.
“I guess I will.” So Lanny ran up the ladder. When he reached the top, instead of closing the window, he disappeared into the room and was gone several minutes. Finally he came out again, drew the window shut and slid down the ladder. “I left the Sign of the Four,” he explained, grinning. At that moment Small and Kid returned, evidently reconciled, and the five went back to thecreek to resume their skating. When an hour or so later, Waters, who had quite forgotten the prisoner, tried to open his room door and found it locked he was quite surprised until he recalled the earlier events. Then, a little conscience stricken, he unlocked the door and entered the darkened room.
“Find that strap yet, Small?” he asked gruffly.
There was no answer and Waters lighted the gas and gazed in bewilderment about the empty apartment. Then he looked under both beds and in the closet, declaring in a loud voice that Small might as well “come out of that now” because he knew just where he was. But Small didn’t appear, and Waters, passing the study table, caught sight of a sheet of paper. On it was what was evidently intended for a skull and crossbones, and under that was printed:
“One for All and All for One!”