CHAPTER XIXSCHOOL LIFE
“You stirred up the animals, Walter,” said Hodge after Gus had taken his departure. “Don’t do it any more. Gussie is all right enough if you don’t bear on too hard. Look at the shoulders on him. No wonder he’s the next to the best boxer in school. The trouble with him is that he counted upon being the pitcher on the school nine next spring, that’s all. It’s a little bit rough, you know, to be waked up by an earthquake.”
“He stands about as much chance of being pitcher as I do of being King of Timbuctoo or of Oshkosh,” sniffed Walter.
“He doesn’t have a ghost of a show if Richards can do again what he did to-day,—strike out the three heaviest hitters on the nine,” laughed Ned.
“Yes, and strike out each of them twice in succession,” added Walter.
“Good work, old man!” said Hodge affectionately patting Dan on the shoulder. “We’ll leave you here. Look out for Gus. If he meets you alone some dark night he may pitch into you.”
“Hello, Carlton,” said Dan, as he and his roommate were about to enter their hall. “What’swrong?” The little fellow’s face was pale and it was manifest that he had been crying.
“Somebody poured water in my bed,” said Carlton. “My room is all mussed up too. I—I think I’ll——”
“You’ll what?” asked Dan kindly as the boy hesitated.
“I—I think I’ll write my mother and ask her to let me come home.”
“No, no. That isn’t the way. I’ll go over with you, and we’ll set matters to rights in a minute. Do you know who did it?”
“I think I do. I am almost sure——”
“Well, don’t let him know that you know, whoever it is.”
“Why not?”
“Because you may have more trouble if you do.”
“But I don’t want to sleep in a wet bed. I’ll catch cold.”
“Take your bedding off and let it dry.”
“Maybe they’ll pour more water on it if I do.”
“I guess not.”
“Hello; got a protector have you?” Dan looked up as he heard the question, and saw Gus Kiggins before him. “Well, you’ll need his help, I guess,” continued Gus, as he looked again at the troubled little lad. “He wants his mamma, doesn’t he? Poor little darling! Do the naughty bad boys plague him? He mustn’t play with muckers. It is naughty and it is not nice. Come——”
“That’s enough!” broke in Dan quietly.
“Enough of what?” demanded Gus as he instantly turned to face Dan. His manner betrayed his anger and it was manifest that he resented the quiet words of the new boy.
“Enough of picking on a little fellow,” said Dan steadily.
“What is it to you?”
“I sha’n’t stand by and see Carlton abused.”
“He needs a little attention—and so do you! And you’ll both get it.”
Dan did not move from his position nor did he reply to the words of his angry classmate. As he looked at Gus he saw that the boy undoubtedly was possessed of great physical strength. He was not any taller than he, but was much heavier. Dan recalled too, what one of the boys had said, that “Gus Kiggins was one of the best boxers in the Tait School.” The fellow was angry now and not only inclined to quarrel, but apparently ready to seek trouble. Dan was also aware of the feeling of jealousy which doubtless had been aroused by what he had seen of his pitching in the scrub game of baseball. “Here comes Squint!” exclaimed Gus suddenly in a low voice, as the teacher who was in charge of the entry came into the hall. “That saves you this time, but if you don’t learn how to mind your own business you’ll get some teaching that isn’t down in the catalogue!” With this parting threat Gus turned and left the hall. The teachernodded to the two boys who remained in the entry, and at once entered his room.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” exclaimed Carlton to Dan.
“For what?”
“For taking my part against that big bully.”
“Has he ever troubled you before?”
“Yes. He pulled my ears this morning, and when I cried he picked me up in his arms and held me over the balusters.”
“What did you do then?”
“I cried—a little.”
“What for?”
“Because I was scared. He might have dropped me,” replied Carlton, unable to conceal his surprise as he looked at Dan.
“Did it make him stop when you cried?”
“No. He is a big bully! I guess he’ll find out that I don’t like him very well!”
Dan repressed the smile that rose to his lips and looked down at the little fellow before him. Plainly Carlton was a “spoiled” boy who never had been taught to consider anyone but himself. What a multitude of new elements the shrinking selfish little lad had to learn!
“Do you think Gus Kiggins will cry when he finds out that you don’t like him very well, Carlton?” Dan inquired quizzically.
“He’s just a big bully, that’s all he is!” said Carlton. “I don’t like the boys here anyway. Iguess I’ll go home. My mother told me I might leave if I didn’t want to stay.”
“What will your father say?”
“I haven’t any father. He’s dead.”
“Have you any brothers?”
“No.”
Dan’s knowledge of life was limited, but he thought he saw plainly the training which Carlton had received. Doubtless, he surmised, the boy’s mother in her loneliness and grief had devoted herself to the only child she had. His every wish was granted, his will never was thwarted, and he ruled his mother as a tyrant might have done.
“Carlton,” Dan said quietly, “what do the fellows call the boy that runs away or cries when he has something hard to do?”
“I don’t know what they call him and I don’t care. I won’t stand it to have that big bully pull my ears or let the boys pour water in my bed! My mother——”
“Did you know my father is dead too?” broke in Dan.
“No. Is he?”
“Yes. I’ve got a lot of hard things to learn too. I am sure I shall feel just as you do many times, but I’m not going to run. The boys all think the fellow that runs away is a coward.”
“But you’re big and strong.”
“In some ways.”
“You aren’t afraid of Gus Kiggins.”
“No, but there are some other things that I’m afraid of.”
“What are they?”
“A good many.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I’ve thought already of doing just what you say you’re going to do, but I’ve decided to stay and fight it out.”
“I can’t fight.”
“Yes, you can!”
“I’d like to know how.”
“If you’ll try you’ll soon learn.”
“Will you show me how?” asked Carlton eagerly.
“I’ll show you all I know, but that isn’t much.”
“Yes, it is! I know it is! I’m coming over to have you show me. I’d like to find out——”
“Come whenever you want to,” said Dan as he smiled and at once departed from the hall. As he walked to his room he was thinking of what the little fellow had said. He wanted to run away from his troubles. “That’s just like me,” said Dan to himself. “I haven’t learned to do what a lot of the fellows here have, and just because it’s hard for me to learn I wanted to play the baby act too. Well, I guess Carlton and I are in the same boat. We’ll have to learn how to paddle or just be carried down stream. That’s all there is to it.”
“Where have you been?” asked Walter as Dan entered the room.
“Oh, I went over to his room with that Carlton Hall. He’s a little fellow and a new boy—green in some ways as I am,” Dan added.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s having his troubles. The boys upset his room, pour water in his bed—and——”
“That’s enough, isn’t it!” laughed Walter. “Oh well, it’s a hard row to hoe, but it’ll do him good. He’ll learn pretty soon how to pitch into the fellows and drive them out. It’s the only way. Dan, you did yourself proud to-day.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, sir, you did! The fellows are wild about you. When you struck out Hodge and Smith and Gus Kiggins, our three heaviest hitters, twice in succession they all said you were surely the real thing.”
“Did Gus Kiggins say so?”
“Not exactly,” laughed Walter. “His nose is out of joint. You wouldn’t exactly expect him to be happy over such a thing.”
“No,” assented Dan.
“He’ll be all right though, he’ll have to be. He isn’t very popular with the fellows anyhow.”
“He can play ball.”
“Yes, he’s a good player all right enough, but he’s a dirty player. He was center on the football team last fall, but Samson wouldn’t let him hold down the place.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Gus had a way when the ball was snapped back of grabbing dirt in each hand and then rubbing it into the eyes of the center of the other team. Then he had a trick of grabbing the other center right by the leg and pinching his muscles so hard that the fellow was limp as a rag. Of course it wasn’t so bad when it came to his putting up a game like that with the Military Academy. They’re a lot of muckers themselves and any trick is fair in war, you know.”
“Gus Kiggins said I was a mucker.”
“Yes, I know he did, but you mustn’t mind a little thing like that. Gus is sore.”
“Sore?”
“Why, yes,” laughed Walter. “He’d counted upon being the pitcher of the school nine next spring. Naturally he doesn’t enjoy having you take his place. You wouldn’t like it yourself.”
“I haven’t taken his place yet.”
“You’re dead sure of it, Dan, if you can keep up such work as you were doing this afternoon. All the fellows say so. They’re warm for forming the new league too. I think myself it’s a sure thing. We’ll have the pennant in baseball too, if you pitch your game. Dan, you’ll be the king!”
Dan smiled at the suggestion, though the words of praise were sweet to him. To an extent they served to drive away some of the darker feelings that had been in his mind. He decided in his quiet way that he would keep his eyes open and perhapssome of the things in which he was aware that his training was deficient might be improved without his roommate referring to them, for in spite of his unassuming ways Dan was keenly sensitive to the suggestions for improvement which Walter felt free to make.
That same evening after supper Smith, Hodge, and Ned all came to Dan’s room, and their words of praise for the work of the afternoon were doubly soothing to Dan’s troubled heart. After all, perhaps, he was not entirely out of place among the boys of the Tait School, he thought.
As the conversation turned to other matters and Ned’s words kept his companions in good humor, Dan felt himself strongly drawn to the boy. Sturdy, thickly set, his round face plain in feature, but lighted up by his love of fun and his manifest friendliness for everyone, Dan decided that Ned was one of the boys to whom anyone might turn with confidence. Whatever Ned’s defects might be, he was true.
“Look here, Ned,” Smith was saying, “do you see that scar on my cheek?”
“I do,” replied Ned. “What of it?”
“I got it in the cars the other day. I had to stand, and right in front of me was a woman who had a long hatpin in her hat. I tell you such things ought to be stopped by law. I’m opposed to them.”
“Yes. You’re against long hatpins, so to speak,”laughed Ned. “Well, I’ve been against them myself several times.”
“That’s all right,” said Hodge as the boys laughed. “You want to keep away from those things.”
“My father told me just before I left home how to keep the doctor away,” said Smith.
“How?”
“‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ That’s poetry. You fellows might not know it, so I’m repeating it for your benefit.”
“I know something better than an apple to keep him away,” said Ned.
“What’s that?”
“An onion. That’ll keep the doctor and everybody else away too.”
“Ned, we’ll have to shut you up if you don’t quit that,” said Hodge.
“That makes me think of something that happened at home just before I left for school,” continued Ned, unabashed. “My father was looking for a new chauffeur. There was one chap that applied for the place that my father rather liked, though I didn’t agree with him exactly. Finally my father asked the fellow how long he had been in his last position. ‘Five years,’ the fellow told him. ‘That’s a good record—a remarkably good record in these days,’ my father said. You know he always says ‘these days’ as if he thought the world somehow was running down and was almost out, and theworst of it is he always looks straight at me when he says it.”
“I wonder why,” suggested Hodge soberly.
“I wonder about it too,” said Ned.
“Oh, go on with your chauffeur,” said Smith. “We’ve got to hear about him, I suppose, so let’s get through with it. I’ve got something I want to say, but no one ever has a chance when Ned is around. He even talks in his sleep. You wind him up and——”
“Keep still there, you one of a million varieties. I’m doing this. Where was I when you broke in with your drivel?” asked Ned.
“You were giving us a long-drawn-out tale of your new chauffeur,” said Walter. “Probably all you wanted was to let us know that you had a car. What kind is it?”
“The kind that little Alexander and little Moses had in the bulrushes,” suggested Hodge. “The kind that mother used to make.”
“This applicant for the proud position of chauffeur in my ancestral domicile——”
“Be-a-u-ti-ful language,” drawled Smith. “My, I wish I could talk that way.”
“This applicant said, in response to my father’s question,” continued Ned unabashed, “that he had been five years in his last place. ‘Fine record,’ said my pater, much delighted. ‘Why did you leave?’ he then asked the chap.”
“Ah, I know the answer to that,” said Hodge.“That came over in the Mayflower. That was told to J. Smith by Pocahontas.”
“What was the answer. I never heard it,” said Walter.
“Why, the fellow left his last place because he was pardoned out or his term had expired, I forget which,” groaned Hodge.