CHAPTER V.LESTER IS WAKED UP.
“But ‘setting up’ is a very mild form of hazing compared with what I had to go through when I first came here,” said Jones, after a little pause. “Three years ago the members of the yearling class who were not lucky enough to obtainchevrons, used to treat a fellow rather roughly. They formed themselves into a committee of the whole, whose business it was to see that a plebe’s life was made miserable. Why, it wasn’t safe for a fourth class boy to go into the wash-room alone. I did it once, and the first thing the yearlings did was to give me a glimpse of Niagara Falls.”
“How did they do that?” inquired Morris.
“They stood me on my head, and let two streams of cold water from the hydrants run up the legs of my trowsers. Then they showed mehow to climb Zion’s hill, which is simply trying to walk up the wall to any tune the plebe happens to know. He must sing his own accompaniment. Then they ordered me to recite the alphabet forward and backward with appropriate gestures; in short, they did any and every thing they could think of that would make one appear ridiculous.”
“I would have seen them happy before I would make such a fool of myself,” said Dale, angrily.
“You would, eh? Then you would have got the neatest kind of a thrashing.”
“Very well. I would have reported the last one of them as soon as I could have found my way to the superintendent’s office.”
“And been sent to Coventry for it?” exclaimed Jones.
“Coventry! I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why, he means that if you were to run to the teachers with a little thing like that, or with any thing, in fact, that savored of tale-bearing, all the boys would go back on you as soon as they heard of it. They wouldn’t speak to you, or even look at you,” said Enoch. “You would be as much alone in this big school as ever Robinson Crusoe was on his island.”
“Then what is a plebe to do when the yearlings, as you call them, take a notion to show him Niagara Falls, or teach him to climb Zion’s hill?” demanded Dale.
“O, such hazing as that is a thing of the past,” replied Jones; and this assurance was very comforting to the three boys from Long Island. “The last time it was tried was when Duncan, Fisher and their crowd, took Sam Arkwright out of his bed in the attic, with the intention of ducking him in the Big Pond. They got him out on the ice, but before they could stick him in, Don Gordon came up and spoiled their little game. At first they thought they would put him and his brother in too; but Don handled Duncan, who was the bully of the school, with so much ease, that the others were afraid to touch him. More than that, they dared not attempt to haze any other plebe, for Don hinted very plainly that those who tried it would have to answer to him for it.”
“It is a fact,” said Lester, seeing that Dale looked a little incredulous. “One single plebe backed a class of seventy-five yearlings square down.”
“You needn’t speak of it in a tone so contemptuous,”said Jones, warmly. “You are a yearling now, and you and your class are at liberty to start the hazing business going again, if you feel so inclined. I dare you to do it.”
Jones knew that he was perfectly safe in saying this, and so did Enoch. We know that Lester was just the one to urge others on to performances of this kind, and he would have looked upon the attempt of some unlucky plebe to climb Zion’s hill to a tune of his own singing as an interesting spectacle; but the promise of the lieutenant-colonel’s silver leaf at the close of the next examination, would not have induced him to take an active part in the proceedings. Don’s big heart would not let him stand quietly by and see a helpless student imposed upon, and Lester knew it. By his victory over Clarence Duncan Don had broken up the barbarous practice of hazing most effectually.
Just then a door at the farther end of the hall was opened, and five boys came out. Three of them were dressed in citizen’s clothes, and the other two were in uniform. One of the latter was a short, thick-set fellow, who wore his hands in his pockets, and bent so far forward when he laughedthat he showed the silver ornaments in his shoulder-straps. The other was considerably taller, and straight as an arrow and looked every inch the soldier. That the two in uniform were officers of rank was made evident by the actions of a party of students who were sitting on a bench near the door, waiting for an opportunity to report their arrival to the adjutant. They arose to their feet as one boy, and raised their hands to their caps; while the officers and their civilian companions, after returning the salute, stepped forward and shook hands with them in the most friendly manner.
“I’ll bet they won’t be so condescending when they go by this crowd,” said Lester, in a tone of disgust.
“Who are they, any way?” asked Morris.
“The two in uniform wear the brass collars among the students,” replied Jones. “The short one is Colonel Mack, and the other is Major Gordon, the lieutenant’s brother.”
“Isn’t that enough to convince you that promotions in this school go by favor of the teachers?” demanded Lester. “Two commissions in one family!”
“The other three are Egan, Hopkins and Curtis—graduates who are taking the finishing course,” continued Jones, paying no attention to Lester’s ill-humored remarks. “They are all chums, and when you see one of them loafing around, you may be sure that the others are not far away. They even spend their vacations together, putting in the time in hunting and fishing—all except the colonel, who thinks more of his books than he does of a gun or fly-rod. They went up into Maine last fall, and while they were camping out in the woods, the major killed a full-grown moose.”
“Aw! What is the use of keeping that preposterous yarn in circulation?” exclaimed Lester. “Every time I hear it I am reminded of the ‘Three Fishers,’ who went out to catch trout, but who never got a bite, although they angled faithfully all day long; nevertheless when—
‘Three fishers went into town that nightTheir “speckled beauties” were fair to see;They talked of their sports with keen delight—The envy of all the fraternity.For men will fish, and men will lie,And what they can’t catch they’re sure to buy,And never repent in the morning.’
‘Three fishers went into town that nightTheir “speckled beauties” were fair to see;They talked of their sports with keen delight—The envy of all the fraternity.For men will fish, and men will lie,And what they can’t catch they’re sure to buy,And never repent in the morning.’
‘Three fishers went into town that nightTheir “speckled beauties” were fair to see;They talked of their sports with keen delight—The envy of all the fraternity.For men will fish, and men will lie,And what they can’t catch they’re sure to buy,And never repent in the morning.’
‘Three fishers went into town that night
Their “speckled beauties” were fair to see;
They talked of their sports with keen delight—
The envy of all the fraternity.
For men will fish, and men will lie,
And what they can’t catch they’re sure to buy,
And never repent in the morning.’
That’s the way it was with Don and his moose; he shot it with a silver bullet.
“I have heard you say that before, but I can’t believe that it is true,” retorted Jones. “Don Gordon never had to draw a long bow to win a reputation either as a student, soldier or hunter; and, besides, the boys who were with him wouldn’t back up a false statement of any kind.”
“Private Lester Brigham, room 39, third floor!” shouted the corporal who was acting as Bert’s assistant; and this broke up the party about the stove, and put an end to the discussion. Lester followed the porter, who shouldered his trunk and went up stairs with it. He had a great curiosity to see who it was that he was to be “chummed” on during the year, and when he reached the room to which he had been assigned, he found out, for the boy was there waiting for him.
“It’s just what I might have expected from that little snipe of a Bert Gordon,” soliloquized Lester, when his eyes fell upon his new room-mate, who was sitting at the table with a book before him. “Instead of chumming me on a decent fellow, like Enoch Williams, he has gone and shoved me in with one of the good little boys. I shall see nofun in my room this term.” Then, aloud, he said, as he extended a very limp hand to be shaken by the boy at the table: “Ah! Ross, you and I are to live together for awhile, are we? I don’t know how we shall get on, for your way of enjoying yourself and mine are widely different.”
“Perhaps there will not be as much difference this term as there was last,” answered Ross, sinking back in his chair, while Lester opened his trunk and took out his uniform. “I came here, last term, fully resolved to behave myself. I studied hard; I never ran the guard to eat pancakes at Cony Ryan’s; I never wilfully disobeyed any of the rules of the school; and what did I make by it? Not even a corporal’s stripes. You and your crowd set the law at defiance, ran away in Mr. Packard’s schooner, and had a good time generally, and yet you are no worse off to-day than I am. What makes you look at me in that way?” added Ross, for Lester, who was kneeling in front of his trunk, never took his eyes off his room-mate’s face while the latter was speaking.
“It is because I am surprised to hear you talk so,” was the reply. “I thought you were one of the good boys, and when I came into this roomand found whom I was chummed on, I was disgusted. Williams wanted me put in his room, but Bert Gordon wouldn’t listen to it. I suppose he was afraid we would get up another runaway scheme.”
“You fellows must have had lots of fun while you were gone,” continued Ross.
“We certainly did,” replied Lester, with great enthusiasm. “Of course, we knew that we would be captured in time, for, with the exception of Williams and myself, there was not a boy on board the Sylph who knew how to stand his trick at the wheel. I suppose you know that I was the original commander of the yacht?”
“Yes; I heard all about it. Why did you give it up?”
“Because I wasn’t sure that I could handle so large a vessel as the Sylph in a narrow river, having always been accustomed to plenty of sea room. Besides, Enoch wanted the command, and I didn’t. I proposed the thing, and so long as the boys got some fun out of it, that was all I cared for.”
“Have you thought of anything for this term?” inquired Ross.
“I have not; and if any of the other fellows have, I don’t know it.”
“I wish you would be good enough to keep me posted. I didn’t see any fun at all last term, and I am ready for anything now.”
“I can’t promise to do that until I have consulted the other fellows,” was Lester’s reply. “But I will speak to them and see what they think about it.”
“I’ve got plenty of money, and I am ready to spend it, too.”
“But the rules say that you must give it to the superintendent for safe keeping.”
“I can take care of it myself. I gave him a little, just for a blind, and the rest I shall keep by me. That’s what you did last term.”
“Yes; and if it had not been for Mack, and a few other boys I don’t at all like, I should have lost the last red cent of it. I wish that somebody else had recovered it for me, for I don’t like to feel that I am under obligations to Mack and his crowd.”
It was plain that Ross, having become thoroughly disheartened by his failure to win promotion at the last examination, had abandoned all hope of ever being anything better than a private, and had fully made up his mind to casthis lot with Lester Brigham and the rest of the law-breakers.
“He don’t care a snap of his finger for the fun he thinks he is going to see,” soliloquized Lester, who, having put on his uniform, left the room to report his arrival to the adjutant, “but he wants revenge on the teachers and on the students who received warrants and commissions. How he imagines that he is going to hurt either of them by breaking the rules, I can’t understand; he will find that he will hurt himself instead. Well, I don’t know that it is any of my business. I shall say a good word for him to Enoch and the rest, because he’s got money. They made pretty free with my pocket-book last term, and now they can look to somebody else for their pies and pancakes.”
By the time it began to grow dark, all the students who were to attend the academy during the year had reported for duty. There was guard-mount that night, it being the 14th of January, and the next morning the roar of the field-piece announced that the business for the next twelve months had begun in earnest. And a dreary year indeed it proved to be to some of the students. Jones and the other discontented fellows in thesecond class, often declared, with no little disgust and indignation, that they had never seen anything like it. Cony Ryan was often heard to make the same remark. His little parlor, which had so frequently echoed to the songs and speeches of the guard-runners, was now entirely deserted of evenings, although Lester and Enoch and some of their particular friends occasionally dropped in on Saturday afternoon to eat pancakes and maple syrup, and to mourn with him over the days that were past.
“We can’t help it, Cony,” Enoch once said to him. “It is all Don Gordon’s fault and Bert’s. Don is reported to have said, when he shook hands with Mack at the beginning of the term, that he should consider himself unworthy of the position he holds if there were a single instance of successful guard-running this year. That is always the way with these bad fellows, you know. Whenever they turn over a new leaf, and do it in dead earnest, they go just as far the other way. They become enthusiasts and radicals.”
“Radicals!” repeated Jones. “In modern politics a radical is a person who advocates extreme measures of reform. Radical is good. Gordon, the Radical.”
“I understand all about that,” said Cony. “But are you boys willing that he should boss the academy? If you were major of the battalion do you imagine that you could keep him inside the grounds if he didn’t want to stay? Not by a long shot. He would find some way to outwit you, and the harder you made it for him, the better he would like it. That’s the kind of a cadet his father was, and Don is just like him. I know it, for I have learned to read boys as easily as I can read so many books.”
“But you don’t understand it, smart as you think you are,” exclaimed Lester, who was enraged at the imputation that was thus cast upon the skill and cunning of himself and his companions. “You see before you at this moment a crowd of fellows who are as sharp as Don Gordon ever dare be, and who have quite as good a supply of courage.”
“I can’t see it,” answered Cony, with something like a ring of contempt in his tones. “I was sorry to hear that Gordon had quit guard-running—”
“I can easily believe that,” interrupted Jones, with a smile and a sidelong glance at his companions.“Don was always well supplied with the needful, and he was not at all backward about spending it. When he asked for money, the superintendent never refused to let him have it.”
“I wasn’t thinking about his money,” said Cony, hastily. “I admired his pluck, his ingenuity in baffling the guards, and more than all, I liked to talk to him, for he is smarter than a steel trap. I say I was sorry to hear that Don had gone over to Egan and that crowd,” he added, addressing himself to Lester, “for I knew that we should see no more of him here, unless he happened to look in of a Saturday; but when I heard that it was you who proposed that runaway expedition in Mr. Packard’s yacht, I told myself that the boys had another leader who was fully as daring as any they had ever had.”
“And it is my opinion that they were, and still are, satisfied with the change,” answered Lester, with great complacency. “Ask them if we didn’t see lots of fun while we were cruising in the Sylph, and see what their reply will be.”
“Yes; but you stopped at that,” exclaimed Cony. “One single, solitary plan was all your brain would hold.”
Cony might have added that that single plan never originated in Lester’s brain. The latter never would have thought of it if it had not been for Huggins. Cony knew just how much the academy boys thought of Lester as a leader, for he had heard through Jones that Enoch Williams had pronounced him a fraud of the first water; but he wanted to wake him up and set him to work at something, if he could, for his revenue had fallen off considerably since Don Gordon declared that an absolute stop must be put to guard-running.
“You don’t seem to have any originality about you,” continued Cony, still addressing his remarks to Lester. “You are a boy of one idea; and now that you have got that out of your head, you don’t seem to be able to scare up any more. If you are fit to lead your comrades, you will prove it before many more days have passed over your head.”
“But how can I prove it?” demanded Lester, who was pleased to know that Cony looked upon him as a leader among his fellows. “There never were such precautions taken against guard-running before; all the old students say so. The officer of the guard hardly ever sits down for more than fiveminutes at a time; Don and Mack make it a point to go the rounds when you are least expecting to see them; and never a night passes that they don’t look into every dormitory in the building.”
“In other words, being full of tricks himself, Don knows just how to go to work to head off every other trick that can be conjured up,” Jones remarked. “I tell you, Cony, they have drawn the reins tight so far this term, and all the signs seem to indicate that they will not be slackened an inch.”
“No matter for that,” was Cony’s response. “I know an army of boys who were graduated at this school, and who, if they were here now, would laugh at Don Gordon and his new regulations. If Gordon was the same fellow he was when he first came here, he too would laugh at all such rules, and run the guard as often as he felt like it. What you boys want is a leader in fact as well as in name—somebody who has brains enough to think up plans for your amusement, and courage and skill enough to carry them out. I thought—I really thought that Brigham was that sort, but I have been disappointed in him.”
“He isn’t any more disappointed in him thanwe are,” whispered Enoch, as he and the rest bent their steps toward the academy, the time for which their passes were granted having nearly expired. “We found out long ago that he is all talk and no do.”
“And Cony knows it,” replied Jones. “He was only trying to put a little life into Lester, because he wants to see the color of some more of his money. That was what he was up to, and you may depend upon it.”
“That is a very nice place to get away to,” observed Morris, who had never visited Cony Ryan’s hotel before; “but what a cross old chap the landlord is!”
“That’s only his way of talking,” Enoch hastened to explain. “He isn’t cross at all. He likes to see fun—nothing suits him better than to have that little parlor crowded so full of boys that another one could not be pushed in edgewise—and he hoped that by giving Brigham a good overhauling he could hurt his pride, put some ambition into him and set guard-running to going again; but I am afraid he is destined to be disappointed in that. Lester’s will is good enough, but he lacks the ability.”
“Then kick him out and put some one else in as leader.”
“Leader!” sneered Enoch. “Lester never has been acknowledged as such since we found him out, which we did in less than an hour after we got possession of Mr. Packard’s schooner. But it is policy to make him think he holds that position. If one of our fellows gets hard up for a dollar, we flatter him about something until we get him in the right humor, and then we strike him for a donation. It is very comforting to know where you can get a loan when you want it. I suppose he is going home with me next vacation, but I can’t say that I expect any pleasure from his visit; still I shall do the very best I can for him, because when Jones and I were stopping at his father’s house, nothing was too good for us.”
While the two boys talked in this way they were trudging through the snow toward the academy, Lester Brigham lagging behind alone, so that he could commune undisturbed with his own thoughts. Cony Ryan still looked upon him as the leader and hope of his party! If there were any boy in the academy who could head off Don Gordon, he was the one! There was a good dealof consolation in that reflection, but what business had Cony to say that if Don were the same boy he was when he first came to Bridgeport, and the existing rules were in force, he would laugh at them and run the guard as often as he felt like it? When the fact that he (Lester) had been one of Cony’s very best customers was taken into consideration, the comparison that had been drawn between his courage and skill and Don Gordon’s, was unkind, to say the least. He wished he could think up some way to make Cony sorry for what he had said.
“He may learn to his cost that it was bad policy for him to go at me in that fashion,” said Lester, to himself. “It will be a colder day than this when I next go into his house to get warm, or to eat his pies and pancakes. But I must do something at once. Cony’s cutting remarks will set all the fellows to thinking, and the first one who hits upon a plan that suits the rest and promises to be successful, will crowd me out of my position as leader.”
“Hallo, Brigham! What are you hanging back for?” shouted Enoch, who, with the rest of the party, was now a long distance in advance of Lester.
“He doesn’t like the way Cony rallied him on his inactivity, and I shouldn’t wonder if he had put his thinking-cap on,” observed Jones.
“That’s just it,” said Lester, frankly. “Now, that I think of the matter, we have showed ourselves to be a pretty set of fellows to let one or two boys get the weather-gauge of us so completely, without a single word or act of remonstrance on our part. I don’t intend that this state of affairs shall continue much longer.”
“Good for you, Brigham!” cried all the boys, in concert.
“I knew you could think of something, if you went about it in earnest,” added Enoch. “What do you propose?”
“Nothing yet. I haven’t got my wits fairly at work; but I will have an idea to present for your consideration when I meet you to-morrow morning.” And then he wondered what in the world he should do if he failed to keep his promise.
“Good for you!” shouted the boys, again. “Will it be another picnic on the bay?”
“Of course not,” Enoch hastened to reply. “We’ve had enough of picnics; we want something new this time, and the more excitement anddanger there are in it, the better I, for one, shall like it. We want to perform an exploit that has never been attempted or even thought of since the Bridgeport academy had an existence. None of us ever dreamed of so daring a feat as running off with a private yacht, until Brigham suggested it to us, and I know that when he gets ready to report the result of his cogitations, he will astonish us. All we’ve got to do is to give him time.”
Enoch’s words were meant to be encouraging, but they were not. On the contrary, the effect they produced upon Lester was a disheartening one. In order to meet the approval of all his friends, the plan he proposed must be entirely original, and there must be danger and excitement in it. Lester began to be afraid that he had promised more than he could fulfill. He relapsed into silence again, and as soon as he had reported his return to the officer of the day, he made the best of his way to his dormitory. His room-mate was there, and the manner in which he was greeted by him astonished Lester not a little.
Ross had been “gated” for thirty days on account of some unsoldier-like conduct in the ranks during dress-parade, and this preventedhim from accompanying Lester and his party to Cony Ryan’s. He had felt very ill-humored over it at first, but he was glad of it now. So was Lester, when he heard and comprehended the first words his companion addressed to him.
“Brigham,” said Ross, in a suppressed tone of voice, at the same time jumping up to close and lock the door, “I have got hold of something that has suggested an idea to me, and if you are as smart as I think you are, you can perform an exploit that will throw your picnic on the Sylph far into the shade. I never heard of such a thing being done, but I don’t see why itcan’tbe done.”
Was it any wonder that Lester was surprised as well as delighted? He felt like taking Ross in his arms and hugging him; but he didn’t. He dropped into the nearest chair and looked at him without speaking.