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diff --git a/23771.txt b/23771.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f07365 --- /dev/null +++ b/23771.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4713 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hoosier School-boy, by Edward Eggleston + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Hoosier School-boy + +Author: Edward Eggleston + +Release Date: December 8, 2007 [EBook #23771] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +[Illustration: "NOT THERE, NOT THERE, MY CHILD!"] + +THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY + +By +EDWARD EGGLESTON + +New York +Charles Scribner's Sons +1919 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Copyright, 1883, By +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Copyright, 1910, By +FRANCES G. EGGLESTON + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. The New Scholar 3 + II. King Milkmaid 15 + III. Answering Back 23 + IV. Little Christopher Columbus 34 + V. Whiling Away Time 43 + VI. A Battle 48 + VII. Hat-ball and Bull-pen 58 + VIII. The Defender 70 + IX. Pigeon Pot-pie 80 + X. Jack and His Mother 97 + XI. Columbus and His Friends 102 + XII. Greenbank Wakes Up 113 + XIII. Professor Susan 119 + XIV. Crowing After Victory 127 + XV. An Attempt To Collect 137 + XVI. An Exploring Expedition 148 + XVII. Housekeeping Experiences 154 + XVIII. Ghosts 166 + XIX. The Return Home 177 + XX. A Foot-race for Money 189 + XXI. The New Teacher 203 + XXII. Chasing the Fox 210 + XXIII. Called To Account 222 + XXIV. An Apology 229 + XXV. King's Base and a Spelling-lesson 238 + XXVI. Unclaimed Top-strings 243 + XXVII. The Last Day of School, and The Last + Chapter of the Story 252 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +"Not there, not there, my child!" Frontispiece + + FACING PAGE +Jack amusing the small boys with stories of +hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure 44 + +"Cousin Sukey," said little Columbus, "I want to +ask a favor of you" 120 + +Bob Holliday carries home his friend 258 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY + +CHAPTER I + +THE NEW SCHOLAR + + +While the larger boys in the village school of Greenbank were having a +game of "three old cat" before school-time, there appeared on the +playground a strange boy, carrying two books, a slate, and an atlas +under his arm. + +He was evidently from the country, for he wore a suit of brown jeans, or +woollen homespun, made up in the natural color of the "black" sheep, as +we call it. He shyly sidled up to the school-house door, and looked +doubtfully at the boys who were playing, watching the familiar game as +though he had never seen it before. + +The boys who had the "paddles" were standing on three bases, while three +others stood each behind a base and tossed the ball around the triangle +from one hole or base to another. The new-comer soon perceived that, if +one with a paddle, or bat, struck at the ball and missed it, and the +ball was caught directly, or "at the first bounce," he gave up his bat +to the one who had "caught him out." When the ball was struck, it was +called a "tick," and when there was a tick, all the batters were obliged +to run one base to the left, and then the ball thrown between a batter +and the base to which he was running "crossed him out," and obliged him +to give up his "paddle" to the one who threw the ball. + +"Four old cat," "two old cat," and "five old cat" are, as everybody +knows, played in the same way, the number of bases or holes increasing +with the addition of each pair of players. + +It is probable that the game was once--some hundreds of years ago, +maybe--called "three hole catch," and that the name was gradually +corrupted into "three hole cat," as it is still called in the interior +States, and then became changed by mistake to "three old cat." It is, no +doubt, an early form of our present game of base-ball. + +It was this game which the new boy watched, trying to get an inkling of +how it was played. He stood by the school-house door, and the girls who +came in were obliged to pass near him. Each of them stopped to scrape +her shoes, or rather the girls remembered the foot-scraper because they +were curious to see the new-comer. They cast furtive glances at him, +noting his new suit of brown clothes, his geography and atlas, his +arithmetic, and, last of all, his face. + +"There's a new scholar," said Peter Rose, or, as he was called, "Pewee" +Rose, a stout and stocky boy of fourteen, who had just been caught out +by another. + +"I say, Greeny, how did you get so brown?" called out Will Riley, a +rather large, loose-jointed fellow. + +Of course, all the boys laughed at this. Boys will sometimes laugh at +any one suffering torture, whether the victim be a persecuted cat or a +persecuted boy. The new boy made no answer, but Joanna Merwin, who, just +at that moment, happened to be scraping her shoes, saw that he grew red +in the face with a quick flush of anger. + +"Don't stand there, Greeny, or the cows'll eat you up!" called Riley, as +he came round again to the base nearest to the school-house. + +Why the boys should have been amused at this speech, the new scholar +could not tell--the joke was neither new nor witty--only impudent and +coarse. But the little boys about the door giggled. + +"It's a pity something wouldn't eat you, Will Riley--you are good for +nothing but to be mean." This sharp speech came from a rather tall and +graceful girl of sixteen, who came up at the time, and who saw the +annoyance of the new boy at Riley's insulting words. Of course the boys +laughed again. It was rare sport to hear pretty Susan Lanham "take down" +the impudent Riley. + +"The bees will never eat you for honey, Susan," said Will. + +Susan met the titter of the playground with a quick flush of temper and +a fine look of scorn. + +"Nothing would eat you, Will, unless, maybe, a turkey-buzzard, and a +very hungry one at that." + +This sharp retort was uttered with a merry laugh of ridicule, and a +graceful toss of the head, as the mischievous girl passed into the +school-house. + +"That settles you, Will," said Pewee Rose. And Bob Holliday began +singing, to a doleful tune: + + "Poor old Pidy, + She died last Friday." + +Just then, the stern face of Mr. Ball, the master, appeared at the door; +he rapped sharply with his ferule, and called: "Books, books, books!" +The bats were dropped, and the boys and girls began streaming into the +school, but some of the boys managed to nudge Riley, saying: + + "Poor old creetur, + The turkey-buzzards eat her," + +and such like soft and sweet speeches. Riley was vexed and angry, but +nobody was afraid of him, for a boy may be both big and mean and yet +lack courage. + +The new boy did not go in at once, but stood silently and faced the +inquiring looks of the procession of boys as they filed into the +school-room with their faces flushed from the exercise and excitement of +the games. + +"I can thrash him easy," thought Pewee Rose. + +"He isn't a fellow to back down easily," said Harvey Collins to his next +neighbor. + +Only good-natured, rough Bob Holliday stopped and spoke to the new-comer +a friendly word. All that he said was "Hello!" But how much a boy can +put into that word "Hello!" Bob put his whole heart into it, and there +was no boy in the school that had a bigger heart, a bigger hand, or half +so big a foot as Bob Holliday. + +The village school-house was a long one built of red brick. It had taken +the place of the old log institution in which one generation of +Greenbank children had learned reading, writing, and Webster's +spelling-book. There were long, continuous writing-tables down the sides +of the room, with backless benches, so arranged that when the pupil was +writing his face was turned toward the wall--there was a door at each +end, and a box stove stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a +rectangle of four backless benches. These benches were for the little +fellows who did not write, and for others when the cold should drive +them nearer the stove. + +The very worshipful master sat at the east end of the room, at one side +of the door; there was a blackboard--a "newfangled notion" in 1850--at +the other side of the door. Some of the older scholars, who could afford +private desks with lids to them, suitable for concealing smuggled apples +and maple-sugar, had places at the other end of the room from the +master. This arrangement was convenient for quiet study, for talking on +the fingers by signs, for munching apples or gingerbread, and for +passing little notes between the boys and girls. + +When the school had settled a little, the master struck a sharp blow on +his desk for silence, and looked fiercely around the room, eager to find +a culprit on whom to wreak his ill-humor. Mr. Ball was one of those +old-fashioned teachers who gave the impression that he would rather beat +a boy than not, and would even like to eat one, if he could find a good +excuse. His eye lit upon the new scholar. + +"Come here," he said, severely, and then he took his seat. + +The new boy walked timidly up to a place in front of the master's desk. +He was not handsome, his face was thin, his eyebrows were prominent, his +mouth was rather large and good-humored, and there was that shy twinkle +about the corners of his eyes which always marks a fun-loving spirit. +But his was a serious, fine-grained face, with marks of suffering in it, +and he had the air of having been once a strong fellow; of late, +evidently, shaken to pieces by the ague. + +"Where do you live?" demanded Mr. Ball. + +"On Ferry Street." + +"What do they call you?" This was said with a contemptuous, rasping +inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly +with annoyance and partly with mischief. + +"They _call_ me Jack, for the most part,"--then catching the titter that +came from the girls' side of the room, and frightened by the rising +hurricane on the master's face, he added quickly: "My name is John +Dudley, sir." + +"Don't you try to show your smartness on me, young man. You are a +new-comer, and I let you off this time. Answer me that way again, and +you will remember it as long as you live." And the master glared at him +like a savage bull about to toss somebody over a fence. + +The new boy turned pale, and dropped his head. + +"How old are you?" "Thirteen." + +"Have you ever been to school?" + +"Three months." + +"Three months. Do you know how to read?" + +"Yes, sir," with a smile. + +"Can you cipher?" "Yes, sir." + +"In multiplication?" "Yes, sir." + +"Long division?" + +"Yes, sir; I've been half through fractions." + +"You said you'd been to school but three months!" "My father taught +me." + +There was just a touch of pride in his voice as he said this--a sense of +something superior about his father. This bit of pride angered the +master, who liked to be thought to have a monopoly of all the knowledge +in the town. + +"Where have you been living?" + +"In the Indian Reserve, of late; I was born in Cincinnati." + +"I didn't ask you where you were born. When I ask you a question, answer +that and no more." + +"Yes, sir." There was a touch of something in the tone of this reply +that amused the school, and that made the master look up quickly and +suspiciously at Jack Dudley, but the expression on Jack's face was as +innocent as that of a cat who has just lapped the cream off the milk. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +KING MILKMAID + + +Pewee Rose, whose proper name was Peter Rose, had also the nickname of +King Pewee. He was about fourteen years old, square built and active, of +great strength for his size, and very proud of the fact that no boy in +town cared to attack him. He was not bad-tempered, but he loved to be +master, and there were a set of flatterers who followed him, like +jackals about a lion. + +As often happens, Nature had built for King Pewee a very fine body, but +had forgotten to give him any mind to speak of. In any kind of chaff or +banter, at any sort of talk or play where a good head was worth more +than a strong arm and a broad back, King Pewee was sure to have the +worst of it. A very convenient partnership had therefore grown up +between him and Will Riley. Riley had muscle enough, but Nature had made +him mean-spirited. He had--not exactly wit--but a facility for using his +tongue, which he found some difficulty in displaying, through fear of +other boys' fists. By forming a friendship with Pewee Rose, the two +managed to keep in fear the greater part of the school. Will's rough +tongue, together with Pewee's rude fists, were enough to bully almost +any boy. They let Harvey Collins alone, because he was older, and, +keeping to himself, awed them by his dignity; good-natured Bob Holliday, +also, was big enough to take care of himself. But the rest were all as +much afraid of Pewee as they were of the master, and as Riley managed +Pewee, it behooved them to be afraid of the prime minister, Riley, as +well as of King Pewee. + +From the first day that Jack Dudley entered the school, dressed in brown +jeans, Will Riley marked him for a victim. The air of refinement about +his face showed him to be a suitable person for teasing. + +Riley called him "milksop," and "sap-head"; words which seemed to the +dull intellect of King Pewee exceedingly witty. And as Pewee was Riley's +defender, he felt as proud of these rude nicknames as he would had he +invented them and taken out a patent. + +But Riley's greatest stroke of wit came one morning when he caught Jack +Dudley milking the cow. In the village of Greenbank, milking a cow was +regarded as a woman's work; and foolish men and boys are like +savages,--very much ashamed to be found doing a woman's work. Fools +always think something else more disgraceful than idleness. So, having +seen Jack milking, Riley came to school happy. He had an arrow to shoot +that would give great delight to the small boys. + +"Good-morning, milkmaid!" he said to Jack Dudley, as he entered the +school-house before school. "You milk the cow at your house, do you? +Where's your apron?" + +"Oh-h! Milkmaid! milkmaid! That's a good one," chimed in Pewee Rose and +all his set. + +Jack changed color. + +"Well, what if I do milk my mother's cow? I don't milk anybody's cow but +ours, do I? Do you think I'm ashamed of it? I'd be ashamed not to. I +can"--but he stopped a minute and blushed--"I can wash dishes, and make +good pancakes, too. Now if you want to make fun, why, make fun. I don't +care." But he did care, else why should his voice choke in that way? + +"Oh, girl-boy; a pretty girl-boy you are--" but here Will Riley stopped +and stammered. There right in front of him was the smiling face of Susan +Lanham, with a look in it which made him suddenly remember something. +Susan had heard all the conversation, and now she came around in front +of Will, while all the other girls clustered about her with a vague +expectation of sport. + +"Come, Pewee, let's play ball," said Will. + +"Ah, you're running away, now; you're afraid of a girl," said Susan, +with a cutting little laugh, and a toss of her black curls over her +shoulder. + +Will had already started for the ball-ground, but at this taunt he +turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and +stammered: "No, I'm not afraid of a girl, either." + +"That's about all that he isn't afraid of," said Bob Holliday. + +"Oh! you're not afraid of a girl?" said Susan. "What did you run away +for, when you saw me? You know that Pewee won't fight a girl. You're +afraid of anybody that Pewee can't whip." + +"You've got an awful tongue, Susan. We'll call you Sassy Susan," said +Will, laughing at his own joke. + +"Oh, it isn't my tongue you're afraid of now. You know I can tell on +you. I saw you drive your cow into the stable last week. You were +ashamed to milk outside, but you looked all around----" + +"I didn't do it. How could you see? It was dark," and Will giggled +foolishly, seeing all at once that he had betrayed himself. + +"It was nearly dark, but I happened to be where I could see. And as I +was coming back, a few minutes after, I saw you come out with a pail of +milk, and look around you like a sneak-thief. You saw me and hurried +away. You are such a coward that you are ashamed to do a little honest +work. Milkmaid! Girl-boy! Coward! And Pewee Rose lets you lead him +around by the nose!" + +"You'd better be careful what you say, Susan," said Pewee, +threateningly. + +"You won't touch me. You go about bullying little boys, and calling +yourself King Pewee, but you can't do a sum in long division, nor in +short subtraction, for that matter, and you let fellows like Riley make +a fool of you. Your father's poor, and your mother can't keep a girl, +and you ought to be ashamed to let her milk the cows. Who milked your +cow this morning, Pewee?" + +"I don't know," said the king, looking like the king's fool. + +"You did it," said Susan. "Don't deny it. Then you come here and call a +strange boy a milkmaid!" + +"Well, I didn't milk in the street, anyway, and he did." At this, all +laughed aloud, and Susan's victory was complete. She only said, with a +pretty toss of her head, as she turned away: "King Milkmaid!" + +Pewee found the nickname likely to stick. He was obliged to declare on +the playground the next day, that he would "thrash" any boy that said +anything about milkmaids. After that, he heard no more of it. But one +morning he found "King Milkmaid" written on the door of his father's +cow-stable. Some boy who dared not attack Pewee, had vented his +irritation by writing the hateful words on the stable, and on the +fence-corners near the school-house, and even on the blackboard. + +Pewee could not fight with Susan Lanham, but he made up his mind to +punish the new scholar when he should have a chance. He must give +somebody a beating. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANSWERING BACK + + +It is hard for one boy to make a fight. Even your bully does not like to +"pitch on" an inoffensive school-mate. You remember AEsop's fable of the +wolf and the lamb, and what pains the wolf took to pick a quarrel with +the lamb. It was a little hard for Pewee to fight with a boy who walked +quietly to and from the school, without giving anybody cause for +offence. + +But the chief reason why Pewee did not attack him with his fists was +that both he and Riley had found out that Jack Dudley could help them +over a hard place in their lessons better than anybody else. And +notwithstanding their continual persecution of Jack, they were mean +enough to ask his assistance, and he, hoping to bring about peace by +good-nature, helped them to get out their geography and arithmetic +almost every day. Unable to appreciate this, they were both convinced +that Jack only did it because he was afraid of them, and as they found +it rare sport to abuse him, they kept it up. By their influence Jack was +shut out of the plays. A greenhorn would spoil the game, they said. What +did a boy that had lived on Wildcat Creek, in the Indian Reserve, know +about playing bull-pen, or prisoner's base, or shinny? If he was brought +in, they would go out. + +But the girls, and the small boys, and good-hearted Bob Holliday liked +Jack's company very much. Yet, Jack was a boy, and he often longed to +play games with the others. He felt very sure that he could dodge and +run in "bull-pen" as well as any of them. He was very tired of Riley's +continual ridicule, which grew worse as Riley saw in him a rival in +influence with the smaller boys. + +"Catch Will alone sometimes," said Bob Holliday, "when Pewee isn't with +him, and then thrash him. He'll back right down if you bristle up to +him. If Pewee makes a fuss about it, I'll look after Pewee. I'm bigger +than he is, and he won't fight with me. What do you say?" + +"I shan't fight unless I have to." + +"Afraid?" asked Bob, laughing. + +"It isn't that. I don't think I'm much afraid, although I don't like to +be pounded or to pound anybody. I think I'd rather be whipped than to be +made fun of, though. But my father used to say that people who fight +generally do so because they are afraid of somebody else, more than they +are of the one they fight with." + +"I believe that's a fact," said Bob. "But Riley aches for a good +thrashing." + +"I know that, and I feel like giving him one, or taking one myself, and +I think I shall fight him before I've done. But father used to say that +fists could never settle between right and wrong. They only show which +is the stronger, and it is generally the mean one that gets the best of +it." + +"That's as sure as shootin'," said Bob. "Pewee could use you up. Pewee +thinks he's the king, but laws! he's only Riley's bull-dog. Riley is +afraid of him, but he manages to keep the dog on his side all the time." + +"My father used to say," said Jack, "that brutes could fight with force, +but men ought to use their wits." + +"You seem to think a good deal of what your father says,--like it was +your Bible, you know." + +"My father's dead," replied Jack. + +"Oh, that's why. Boys don't always pay attention to what their father +says when he's alive." + +"Oh, but then my father was--" Here Jack checked himself, for fear of +seeming to boast. "You see," he went on, "my father knew a great deal. +He was so busy with his books that he lost 'most all his money, and then +we moved to the Indian Reserve, and there he took the fever and died; +and then we came down here, where we owned a house, so that I could go +to school." + +"Why don't you give Will Riley as good as he sends?" said Bob, wishing +to get away from melancholy subjects. "You have got as good a tongue as +his." + +"I haven't his stock of bad words, though." + +"You've got a power of fun in you, though,--you keep everybody laughing +when you want to, and if you'd only turn the pumps on him once, he'd +howl like a yellow dog that's had a quart o' hot suds poured over him +out of a neighbor's window. Use your wits, like your father said. You've +lived in the woods till you're as shy as a flying-squirrel. All you've +got to do is to talk up and take it rough and tumble, like the rest of +the world. Riley can't bear to be laughed at, and you can make him +ridiculous as easy as not." + +The next day, at the noon recess, about the time that Jack had finished +helping Bob Holliday to find some places on the map, there came up a +little shower, and the boys took refuge in the school-house. They must +have some amusement, so Riley began his old abuse. + +"Well, greenhorn from the Wildcat, where's the black sheep you stole +that suit of clothes from?" + +"I hear him bleat now," said Jack,--"about the blackest sheep I have +ever seen." + +"You've heard the truth for once, Riley," said Bob Holliday. + +Riley, who was as vain as a peacock, was very much mortified by the +shout of applause with which this little retort of Jack's was greeted. +It was not a case in which he could call in King Pewee. The king, for +his part, shut up his fists and looked silly, while Jack took courage to +keep up the battle. + +But Riley tried again. + +"I say, Wildcat, you think you're smart, but you're a double-distilled +idiot, and haven't got brains enough to be sensible of your misery." + +This kind of outburst on Riley's part always brought a laugh from the +school. But before the laugh had died down, Jack Dudley took the word, +saying, in a dry and quizzical way: + +"Don't you try to claim kin with me that way, Riley. No use; I won't +stand it. I don't belong to your family. I'm neither a fool nor a +coward." + +"Hurrah!" shouted Bob Holliday, bringing down first one and then the +other of his big feet on the floor. "It's your put-in now, Riley." + +"Don't be backward in coming forward, Will, as the Irish priest said to +his people," came from grave Harvey Collins, who here looked up from his +book, thoroughly enjoying the bully's discomfiture. + +"That's awfully good," said Joanna Merwin, clasping her hands and +giggling with delight. + +King Pewee doubled up his fists and looked at Riley to see if he ought +to try his sort of wit on Jack. If a frog, being pelted to death by +cruel boys, should turn and pelt them again, they could not be more +surprised than were Riley and King Pewee at Jack's repartees. + +"You'd better be careful what you say to Will Riley," said Pewee. "I +stand by him." + +But Jack's blood was up now, and he was not to be scared. + +"All the more shame to him," said Jack. "Look at me, shaken all to +pieces with the fever and ague on the Wildcat, and look at that great +big, bony coward of a Riley. I've done him no harm, but he wants to +abuse me, and he's afraid of me. He daren't touch me. He has to coax you +to stand by him, to protect him from poor little me. He's a great +big----" + +"Calf," broke in Bob Holliday, with a laugh. + +"You'd better be careful," said Pewee to Jack, rising to his feet. "I +stand by Riley." + +"Will you defend him if I hit him?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, I won't hit him. But you don't mean that he is to abuse me, +while I am not allowed to answer back a word?" + +"Well--" said Pewee hesitatingly. + +"Well," said Bob Holliday hotly, "I say that Jack has just as good a +right to talk with his tongue as Riley. Stand by Riley if he's hit, +Pewee; he needs it. But don't you try to shut up Jack." And Bob got up +and put his broad hand on Jack's shoulder. Nobody had ever seen the big +fellow angry before, and the excitement was very great. The girls +clapped their hands. + +"Good for you, Bob, I say," came from Susan Lanham, and poor, ungainly +Bob blushed to his hair to find himself the hero of the girls. + +"I don't mean to shut up Jack," said Pewee, looking at Bob's size, "but +I stand by Riley." + +"Well, do your standing sitting down, then," said Susan. "I'll get a +milking-stool for you, if that'll keep you quiet." + +It was well that the master came in just then, or Pewee would have had +to fight somebody or burst. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LITTLE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS + + +Jack's life in school was much more endurable now that he had a friend +in Bob Holliday. Bob had spent his time in hard work and in rough +surroundings, but he had a gentleman's soul, although his manners and +speech were rude. More and more Jack found himself drawn to him. Harvey +Collins asked Jack to walk down to the river-bank with him at recess. +Both Harvey and Bob soon liked Jack, who found himself no longer lonely. +The girls also sought his advice about their lessons, and the younger +boys were inclined to come over to his side. + +As winter came on, country boys, anxious to learn something about +"reading, writing, and ciphering," came into the school. Each of +these new-comers had to go through a certain amount of teasing from +Riley and of bullying from Pewee. + +One frosty morning in December there appeared among the new scholars a +strange little fellow, with a large head, long straight hair, an +emaciated body, and legs that looked like reeds, they were so slender. +His clothes were worn and patched, and he had the look of having been +frost-bitten. He could not have been more than ten years old, to judge +by his size, but there was a look of premature oldness in his face. + +"Come here!" said the master, when he caught sight of him. "What is your +name?" And Mr. Ball took out his book to register the new-comer, with +much the same relish that the Giant Despair showed when he had bagged a +fresh pilgrim. + +"Columbus Risdale." The new-comer spoke in a shrill, piping voice, as +strange as his weird face and withered body. + +"Is that your full name?" asked the master. + +"No, sir," piped the strange little creature. + +"Give your full name," said Mr. Ball, sternly. + +"My name is Christopher Columbus George Washington Marquis de Lafayette +Risdale." The poor lad was the victim of that mania which some people +have for "naming after" great men. His little shrunken body and high, +piping voice made his name seem so incongruous that all the school +tittered, and many laughed outright. But the dignified and eccentric +little fellow did not observe it. + +"Can you read?" + +"Yes, sir," squeaked the lad, more shrilly than ever. + +"Umph," said the master, with a look of doubt on his face. "In the first +reader?" + +"No, sir; in the fourth reader." + +Even the master could not conceal his look of astonishment at this +claim. At that day, the fourth reader class was the highest in the +school, and contained only the largest scholars. The school laughed at +the bare notion of little Christopher Columbus reading in the fourth +reader, and the little fellow looked around the room, puzzled to guess +the cause of the merriment. + +"We'll try you," said the master, with suspicion. When the fourth-reader +class was called, and Harvey Collins and Susie Lanham and some others of +the nearly grown-up pupils came forward, with Jack Dudley as quite the +youngest of the class, the great-eyed, emaciated little Columbus Risdale +picked himself up on his pipe-stems and took his place at the end of +this row. + +It was too funny for anything! + +Will Riley and Pewee and other large scholars, who were yet reading in +that old McGuffey's Third Reader, which had a solitary picture of +Bonaparte crossing the Alps, looked with no kindly eyes on this +preposterous infant in the class ahead of them. + +The piece to be read was the poem of Mrs. Hemans's called "The Better +Land." Poems like this one are rather out of fashion nowadays, and +people are inclined to laugh a little at Mrs. Hemans. But thirty years +ago her religious and sentimental poetry was greatly esteemed. This one +presented no difficulty to the readers. In that day, little or no +attention was paid to inflection--the main endeavor being to pronounce +the words without hesitation or slip, and to "mind the stops." Each one +of the class read a stanza ending with a line: + + "Not there, not there, my child!" + +The poem was exhausted before all had read, so that it was necessary to +begin over again in order to give each one his turn. All waited to hear +the little Columbus read. When it came his turn, the school was as still +as death. The master, wishing to test him, told him, with something like +a sneer, that he could read three stanzas, or "verses," as Mr. Ball +called them. + +The little chap squared his toes, threw his head back, and more fluently +even than the rest, he read, in his shrill, eager voice, the remaining +lines, winding up each stanza in a condescending tone, as he read: + + "Not there, not there, my child!" + +The effect of this from the hundred-year-old baby was so striking and so +ludicrous that everybody was amused, while all were surprised at the +excellence of his reading. The master proceeded, however, to whip one or +two of the boys for laughing. + +When recess-time arrived, Susan Lanham came to Jack with a request. + +"I wish you'd look after little Lummy Risdale. He's a sort of cousin of +my mother's. He is as innocent and helpless as the babes in the wood." + +"I'll take care of him," said Jack. + +So he took the little fellow walking away from the school-house; Will +Riley and some of the others calling after them: "Not there, not there, +my child!" + +But Columbus did not lay their taunts to heart. He was soon busy talking +to Jack about things in the country, and things in town. On their +return, Riley, crying out: "Not there, my child!" threw a snow-ball +from a distance of ten feet and struck the poor little Christopher +Columbus George Washington Lafayette so severe a blow as to throw him +off his feet. Quick as a flash, Jack charged on Riley, and sent a +snow-ball into his face. An instant later he tripped him with his foot +and rolled the big, scared fellow into the snow and washed his face +well, leaving half a snow-bank down his back. + +"What makes you so savage?" whined Riley. "I didn't snow-ball you." And +Riley looked around for Pewee, who was on the other side of the +school-house, and out of sight of the scuffle. + +"No, you daren't snow-ball me," said Jack, squeezing another ball and +throwing it into Riley's shirt-front with a certainty of aim that showed +that he knew how to play ball. "Take that one, too, and if you bother +Lum Risdale again, I'll make you pay for it. Take a boy of your size." +And with that he moulded yet another ball, but Riley retreated to the +other side of the school-house. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHILING AWAY TIME + + +Excluded from the plays of the older fellows, Jack drew around him a +circle of small boys, who were always glad to be amused with the stories +of hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure that he had heard from old +pioneers on Wildcat Creek. Sometimes he played "tee-tah-toe, three in a +row," with the girls, using a slate and pencil in a way well known to +all school-children. And he also showed them a better kind of +"tee-tah-toe," learned on the Wildcat, and which may have been in the +first place an Indian game, as it is played with grains of Indian corn. +A piece of board is grooved with a jack-knife in the manner shown in the +diagram. + +[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF TEE-TAH-TOE BOARD.] + +One player has three red or yellow grains of corn, and the other an +equal number of white ones. The player who won the last game has the +"go"--that is, he first puts down a grain of corn at any place where the +lines intersect, but usually in the middle, as that is the best point. +Then the other player puts down one, and so on until all are down. After +this, the players move alternately along any of the lines, in any +direction, to the next intersection, provided it is not already +occupied. The one who first succeeds in getting his three grains in a +row wins the point, and the board is cleared for a new start. As there +are always three vacant points, and as the rows may be formed in any +direction along any of the lines, the game gives a chance for more +variety of combinations than one would expect from its appearance. + +[Illustration: JACK AMUSING THE SMALL BOYS WITH STORIES OF HUNTING, +FISHING, AND FRONTIER ADVENTURE.] + +Jack had also an arithmetical puzzle which he had learned from his +father, and which many of the readers of this story will know, perhaps. + +"Set down any number, without letting me know what it is," said he to +Joanna Merwin. + +She set down a number. + +"Now add twelve and multiply by two." + +"Well, that is done," said Joanna. + +"Divide by four, subtract half of the number first set down, and your +answer will be six." + +"Oh, but how did you know that I put down sixty-four?" said Joanna. + +"I didn't," said Jack. + +"How could you tell the answer, then?" + +"That's for you to find out." + +This puzzle excited a great deal of curiosity. To add to the wonder of +the scholars, Jack gave each time a different number to be added in, and +sometimes he varied the multiplying and dividing. Harvey Collins, who +was of a studious turn, puzzled over it a long time, and at last he +found it out; but he did not tell the secret. He contented himself with +giving out a number to Jack and telling his result. To the rest it was +quite miraculous, and Riley turned green with jealousy when he found the +girls and boys refusing to listen to his jokes, but gathering about Jack +to test his ability to "guess the answer," as they phrased it. Riley +said he knew how it was done, and he was even foolish enough to try to +do it, by watching the slate-pencil, or by sheer guessing, but this only +brought him into ridicule. + +"Try me once," said the little C. C. G. W. M. de L. Risdale, and Jack +let Columbus set down a figure and carry it through the various +processes until he told him the result. Lummy grew excited, pushed his +thin hands up into his hair, looked at his slate a minute, and then +squeaked out: + +"Oh--let me see--yes--no--yes--Oh, I see! Your answer is just half the +amount added in, because you have----" + +But here Jack placed his hand over Columbus's mouth. + +"You can see through a pine door, Lummy, but you mustn't let out my +secret," he said. + +But Jack had a boy's heart in him, and he longed for some more boy-like +amusement. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A BATTLE + + +One morning, when Jack proposed to play a game of ball with the boys, +Riley and Pewee came up and entered the game, and objected. + +"It isn't interesting to play with greenhorns," said Will. "If Jack +plays, little Christopher Columbus Andsoforth will want to play, too; +and then there'll be two babies to teach. I can't be always helping +babies. Let Jack play two-hole cat or Anthony-over with the little +fellows." To which answer Pewee assented, of course. + +That day at noon Riley came to Jack, with a most gentle tone and winning +manner, and whiningly begged Jack to show him how to divide 770 by 14. + +"It isn't interesting to show greenhorns," said Jack, mimicking Riley's +tone on the playground that morning. "If I show you, Pewee Rose will +want me to show him; then there'll be two babies to teach. I can't be +always helping babies. Go and play two-hole cat with the First-Reader +boys." + +That afternoon, Mr. Ball had the satisfaction of using his new beech +switches on both Riley and Pewee, though indeed Pewee did not deserve to +be punished for not getting his lesson. It was Nature's doing that his +head, like a goat's, was made for butting and not for thinking. + +But if he had to take whippings from the master and his father, he made +it a rule to get satisfaction out of somebody else. If Jack had helped +him he wouldn't have missed. If he had not missed his lesson badly, Mr. +Ball would not have whipped him. It would be inconvenient to whip Mr. +Ball in return, but Jack would be easy to manage, and as somebody must +be whipped, it fell to Jack's lot to take it. + +King Pewee did not fall upon his victim at the school-house door; this +would have insured him another beating from the master. Nor did he +attack Jack while Bob Holliday was with him. Bob was big and strong--a +great fellow of sixteen. But after Jack had passed the gate of Bob's +house, and was walking on toward home alone, Pewee came out from behind +an alley fence, accompanied by Ben Berry and Will Riley. + +"I'm going to settle with you now," said King Pewee, sidling up to Jack +like an angry bull-dog. + +It was not a bright prospect for Jack, and he cast about him for a +chance to escape a brutal encounter with such a bully, and yet avoid +actually running away. + +"Well," said Jack, "if I must fight, I must. But I suppose you won't let +Riley and Berry help you." + +"No, I'll fight fair." And Pewee threw off his coat, while Jack did the +same. + +"You'll quit when I say 'enough,' won't you?" said Jack. + +"Yes, I'll fight fair, and hold up when you've got enough." + +"Well, then, for that matter, I've got enough now. I'll take the will +for the deed and just say 'enough' before you begin," and he turned to +pick up his coat. + +"No, you don't get off that way," said Pewee. "You've got to stand up +and see who is the best man, or I'll kick you all the way home." + +"Didn't you ever hear about Davy Crockett's 'coon?" said Jack. "When the +'coon saw him taking aim, it said: 'Is that you, Crockett? Well, don't +fire--I'll come down anyway. I know you'll hit anything you shoot at.' +Now, I'm that 'coon. If it was anybody but you, I'd fight. But as it's +you, Pewee, I might just as well come down before you begin." + +Pewee was flattered by this way of putting the question. Had he been +alone, Jack would have escaped. But Will Riley, remembering all he had +endured from Jack's retorts, said: + +"Oh, give it to him, Pewee; he's always making trouble." + +At which Pewee squared himself off, doubled up his fists, and came at +the slenderer Jack. The latter prepared to meet him, but, after all, it +was hard for Pewee to beat so good-humored a fellow as Jack. The king's +heart failed him, and suddenly he backed off, saying: + +"If you'll agree to help Riley and me out with our lessons hereafter, +I'll let you off. If you don't, I'll thrash you within an inch of your +life." And Pewee stood ready to begin. + +Jack wanted to escape the merciless beating that Pewee had in store for +him. But it was quite impossible for him to submit under a threat. So he +answered: + +"If you and Riley will treat me as you ought to, I'll help you when you +ask me, as I always have. But even if you pound me into jelly I won't +agree to help you, unless you treat me right. I won't be bullied into +helping you." + +"Give it to him, Pewee," said Ben Berry; "he's too sassy." + +Pewee was a rather good-natured dog--he had to be set on. He now began +to strike at Jack. Whether he was to be killed or not, Jack did not +know, but he was resolved not to submit to the bully. Yet he could not +do much at defence against Pewee's hard fists. However, Jack was active +and had long limbs; he soon saw that he must do something more than +stand up to be beaten. So, when King Pewee, fighting in the irregular +Western fashion, and hoping to get a decided advantage at once, rushed +upon Jack and pulled his head forward, Jack stooped lower than his enemy +expected, and, thrusting his head between Pewee's knees, shoved his legs +from under him, and by using all his strength threw Pewee over his own +back, so that the king's nose and eyes fell into the dust of the village +street. + +"I'll pay you for that," growled Pewee, as he recovered himself, now +thoroughly infuriated; and with a single blow he sent Jack flat on his +back, and then proceeded to pound him. Jack could do nothing now but +shelter his eyes from Pewee's blows. + +Joanna Merwin had seen the beginning of the battle from her father's +house, and feeling sure that Jack would be killed, she had run swiftly +down the garden walk to the back gate, through which she slipped into +the alley; and then she hurried on, as fast as her feet would carry her, +to the blacksmith-shop of Pewee Rose's father. + +"Oh, please, Mr. Rose, come quick! Pewee's just killing a boy in the +street." + +"Vitin' ag'in," said Mr. Rose, who was a Pennsylvanian from the +limestone country, and spoke English with difficulty. "He ees a leetle +ruffen, dat poy. I'll see apout him right avay a'ready, may be." + +And without waiting to put off his leathern apron, he walked briskly in +the direction indicated by Joanna. Pewee was hammering Jack without +pity, when suddenly he was caught by the collar and lifted sharply to +his feet. + +"Wot you doin' down dare in de dirt wunst a'ready? Hey?" said Mr. Rose, +as he shook his son with the full force of his right arm, and cuffed him +with his left hand. "Didn't I dells you I'd gill you some day if you +didn't gwit vitin' mit oder poys, a'ready?" + +"He commenced it," whimpered Pewee. + +"You dells a pig lie a'ready, I beleefs, Peter, and I'll whip you fur +lyin' besides wunst more. Fellers like _him_," pointing to Jack, who was +brushing the dust off his clothes,--"fellers like him don't gommence on +such a poy as you. You're such anoder viter I never seed." And he shook +Pewee savagely. + +"I won't do it no more," begged Pewee--"'pon my word and honor I won't." + +"Oh, you don't gits off dat away no more, a'ready. You know what I'll +giff you when I git you home, you leedle ruffen. I shows you how to +vite, a'ready." + +And the king disappeared down the street, begging like a spaniel, and +vowing that he "wouldn't do it no more." But he got a severe whipping, I +fear;--it is doubtful if such beatings ever do any good. The next +morning Jack appeared at school with a black eye, and Pewee had some +scratches, so the master whipped them both for fighting. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HAT-BALL AND BULL-PEN + + +Pewee did not renew the quarrel with Jack--perhaps from fear of the +rawhide that hung in the blacksmith's shop, or of the master's ox-goad, +or of Bob Holliday's fists, or perhaps from a hope of conciliating Jack +and getting occasional help in his lessons. Jack was still excluded from +the favorite game of "bull-pen." I am not sure that he would have been +rejected had he asked for admission, but he did not want to risk another +refusal. He planned a less direct way of getting into the game. Asking +his mother for a worn-out stocking, and procuring an old boot-top, he +ravelled the stocking, winding the yarn into a ball of medium hardness. +Then he cut from the boot-top a square of leather large enough for his +purpose. This he laid on the kitchen-table, and proceeded to mark off +and cut it into the shape of an orange-peel that has been quartered off +the orange, leaving the four quarters joined together at the middle. +This leather he put to soak over night. The next morning, bright and +early, with a big needle and some strong thread he sewed it around his +yarn-ball, stretching the wet leather to its utmost, so that when it +should contract the ball should be firm and hard, and the leather well +moulded to it. Such a ball is far better for all play in which the +player is to be hit than those sold in the stores nowadays. I have +described the manufacture of the old-fashioned home-made ball, because +there are some boys, especially in the towns, who have lost the art of +making yarn balls. + +When Jack had finished his ball, he let it dry, while he ate his +breakfast and did his chores. Then he sallied out and found Bob +Holliday, and showed him the result of his work. Bob squeezed it, felt +its weight, bounced it against a wall, tossed it high in the air, caught +it, and then bounced it on the ground. Having thus "put it through its +paces," he pronounced it an excellent ball,--"a good deal better than +Ben Berry's ball. But what are you going to do with it?" he asked. "Play +Anthony-over? The little boys can play that." + +I suppose there are boys in these days who do not know what +"Anthony-over" is. How, indeed, can anybody play Anthony-over in a +crowded city? + +The old one-story village school-houses stood generally in an open +green. The boys divided into two parties, the one going on one side, and +the other on the opposite side of the school-house. The party that had +the ball would shout "Anthony!" The others responded, "Over!" To this, +answer was made from the first party, "Over she comes!" and the ball was +immediately thrown over the school-house. If any of the second party +caught it, they rushed, pell-mell, around both ends of the school-house +to the other side, and that one of them who held the ball essayed to hit +some one of the opposite party before they could exchange sides. If a +boy was hit by the ball thus thrown he was counted as captured to the +opposite party, and he gave all his efforts to beat his old allies. So +the game went on, until all the players of one side were captured by the +others. I don't know what Anthony means in this game, but no doubt the +game is hundreds of years old, and was played in English villages before +the first colony came to Jamestown. + +"I'm not going to play Anthony-over," said Jack. "I'm going to show King +Pewee a new trick." + +"You can't get up a game of bull-pen on your own hook, and play the four +corners and the ring all by yourself." + +"No, I don't mean that. I'm going to show the boys how to play +hat-ball--a game they used to play on the Wildcat." + +"I see your point. You are going to make Pewee ask you to let him in," +said Bob, and the two boys set out for school together, Jack explaining +the game to Bob. They found one or two boys already there, and when Jack +showed his new ball and proposed a new game, they fell in with it. + +The boys stood their hats in a row on the grass. The one with the ball +stood over the row of hats, and swung his hand to and fro above them, +while the boys stood by him, prepared to run as soon as the ball should +drop into a hat. The boy who held the ball, after one or two false +motions,--now toward this hat, and now toward that one,--would drop the +ball into Somebody's hat. Somebody would rush to his hat, seize the +ball, and throw it at one of the other boys, who were fleeing in all +directions. If he hit Somebody-Else, Somebody-Else might throw from +where the ball lay, or from the hats, at the rest, and so on, until some +one missed. The one who missed took up his hat and left the play, and +the boy who picked up the ball proceeded to drop it into a hat, and the +game went on until all but one were put out. + +Hat-ball is so simple that any number can play at it, and Jack's friends +found it so full of boisterous fun, that every new-comer wished to set +down his hat. And thus, by the time Pewee and Riley arrived, half the +larger boys in the school were in the game, and there were not enough +left to make a good game of bull-pen. + +At noon, the new game drew the attention of the boys again, and Riley +and Pewee tried in vain to coax them away. + +"Oh, I say, come on, fellows!" Riley would say. "Come--let's play +something worth playing." + +But the boys stayed by the new game and the new ball. Neither Riley, nor +Pewee, nor Ben Berry liked to ask to be let into the game, after what +had passed. Not one of them had spoken to Jack since the battle between +him and Pewee, and they didn't care to play with Jack's ball in a game +of his starting. + +Once the other boys had broken away from Pewee's domination, they were +pleased to feel themselves free. As for Pewee and his friends, they +climbed up on a fence, and sat like three crows, watching the play of +the others. After a while they got down in disgust, and went off, not +knowing just what to do. When once they were out of sight, Jack winked +at Bob, who said: + +"I say, boys, we can play hat-ball at recess when there isn't time for +bull-pen. Let's have a game of bull-pen now, before school takes up." + +It was done in a minute. Bob Holliday and Tom Taylor "chose up sides," +the bases were all ready, and by the time Pewee and his aides-de-camp +had walked disconsolately to the pond and back, the boys were engaged in +a good game of bull-pen. + +Perhaps I ought to say something about the principles of a game so +little known over the country at large. I have never seen it played +anywhere but in a narrow bit of country on the Ohio River, and yet there +is no merrier game played with a ball. + +The ball must not be too hard. There should be four or more corners. +The space inside is called the pen, and the party winning the last game +always has the corners. The ball is tossed from one corner to another, +and when it has gone around once, any boy on a corner may, immediately +after catching the ball thrown to him from any of the four corners, +throw it at any one in the pen. He must throw while "the ball is +hot,"--that is, instantly on catching it. If he fails to hit anybody on +the other side, he goes out. If he hits, his side leave the corners and +run as they please, for the boy who has been hit may throw from where +the ball fell, or from any corner, at any one of the side holding the +corners. If one of them is hit, he has the same privilege; but now the +men in the pen are allowed to scatter, also. Whoever misses is "out," +and the play is resumed from the corners until all of one side is out. +When but two are left on the corners the ball is smuggled,--that is, +one hides the ball in his bosom, and the other pretends that he has it +also. The boys in the ring do not know which has it, and the two "run +the corners," throwing from any corner. If but one is left on the +corners, he is allowed, also, to run from corner to corner. + +It happened that Jack's side lost on the toss-up for corners, and he got +into the ring, where his play showed better than it would have done on +the corners. As Jack was the greenhorn and the last chosen on his side, +the players on the corners expected to make light work of him; but he +was an adroit dodger, and he put out three of the boys on the corners by +his unexpected way of evading a ball. Everybody who has ever played this +fine old game knows that expertness in dodging is worth quite as much as +skill in throwing. Pewee was a famous hand with a ball, Riley could +dodge well, Ben Berry had a happy knack of dropping flat upon the ground +and letting a ball pass over him, Bob Holliday could run well in a +counter charge; but nothing could be more effective than Jack Dudley's +quiet way of stepping forward or backward, bending his lithe body or +spreading his legs to let the ball pass, according to the course which +it took from the player's hand. + +King Pewee and company came back in time to see Jack dodge three balls +thrown point-blank at him from a distance of fifteen feet. It was like +witchcraft--he seemed to be charmed. Every dodge was greeted with a +shout, and when once he luckily caught the ball thrown at him, and thus +put out the thrower, there was no end of admiration of his playing. It +was now evident to all that Jack could no longer be excluded from the +game, and that, next to Pewee himself, he was already the best player on +the ground. + +At recess that afternoon Pewee set his hat down in the hat-ball row, and +as Jack did not object, Riley and Ben Berry did the same. The next day +Pewee chose Jack first in bull-pen, and the game was well played. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE DEFENDER + + +If Jack had not about this time undertaken the defence of the little boy +in the Fourth Reader, whose name was large enough to cover the principal +points in the history of the New World, he might have had peace, for +Jack was no longer one of the newest scholars, his courage was respected +by Pewee, and he kept poor Riley in continual fear of his +ridicule--making him smart every day. But, just when he might have had a +little peace and happiness, he became the defender of Christopher +Columbus George Washington Marquis de la Fayette Risdale--little +"Andsoforth," as Riley and the other boys had nicknamed him. + +The strange, pinched little body of the boy, his eccentric ways, his +quickness in learning, and his infantile simplicity had all conspired to +win the affection of Jack, so that he would have protected him even +without the solicitation of Susan Lanham. But since Susan had been +Jack's own first and fast friend, he felt in honor bound to run all +risks in the care of her strange little cousin. + +I think that Columbus's child-like ways might have protected him even +from Riley and his set, if it had not been that he was related to Susan +Lanham, and under her protection. It was the only chance for Riley to +revenge himself on Susan. She was more than a match for him in wit, and +she was not a proper subject for Pewee's fists. So with that +heartlessness which belongs to the school-boy bully, he resolved to +torment the helpless fellow in revenge for Susan's sarcasms. + +One morning, smarting under some recent taunt of Susan's, Riley caught +little Columbus almost alone in the school-room. Here was a boy who +certainly would not be likely to strike back again. His bamboo legs, his +spindling arms, his pale face, his contracted chest, all gave the coward +a perfect assurance of safety. So, with a rude pretence at play, +laughing all the time, he caught the lad by the throat, and in spite of +his weird dignity and pleading gentleness, shoved him back against the +wall behind the master's empty chair. Holding him here a minute in +suspense, he began slapping him, first on this side of the face and then +on that. The pale cheeks burned red with pain and fright, but Columbus +did not cry out, though the constantly increasing sharpness of the +blows, and the sense of weakness, degradation, and terror, stung him +severely. Riley thought it funny. Like a cat playing with a condemned +mouse, the cruel fellow actually enjoyed finding one person weak enough +to be afraid of him. + +Columbus twisted about in a vain endeavor to escape from Riley's +clutches, getting only a sharper cuff for his pains. Ben Berry, arriving +presently, enjoyed the sport, while some of the smaller boys and girls, +coming in, looked on the scene of torture in helpless pity. And ever, as +more and more of the scholars gathered, Columbus felt more and more +mortified; the tears were in his great sad eyes, but he made no sound of +crying or complaint. + +Jack Dudley came in at last, and marched straight up to Riley, who let +go his hold and backed off. "You mean, cowardly, pitiful villain!" broke +out Jack, advancing on him. + +"I didn't do anything to you," whined Riley, backing into a corner. + +"No, but I mean to do something to you. If there's an inch of man in +you, come right on and fight with me. You daren't do it." + +"I don't want any quarrel with you." + +"No, you quarrel with babies." + +Here all the boys and girls jeered. + +"You're too hard on a fellow, Jack," whined the scared Riley, slipping +out of the corner and continuing to back down the school-room, while +Jack kept slowly following him. + +"You're a great deal bigger than I am," said Jack. "Why don't you try to +corner me? Oh, I could just beat the breath out of you, you great, big, +good-for-nothing----" + +Here Riley pulled the west door open, and Jack, at the same moment, +struck him. Riley half dropped, half fell, through the door-way, scared +so badly that he went sprawling on the ground. + +The boys shouted "coward" and "baby" after him as he sneaked off, but +Jack went back to comfort Columbus and to get control of his temper. For +it is not wise, as Jack soon reflected, even in a good cause to lose +your self-control. + +"It was good of you to interfere," said Susan, when she had come in and +learned all about it. + +"I should have been a brute if I hadn't," said Jack, pleased none the +less with her praise. "But it doesn't take any courage to back Riley out +of a school-house. One could get more fight out of a yearling calf. I +suppose I've got to take a beating from Pewee, though." + +"Go and see him about it, before Riley talks to him," suggested Susan. +And Jack saw the prudence of this course. As he left the school-house at +a rapid pace, Ben Berry told Riley, who was skulking behind a fence, +that Jack was afraid of Pewee. + +"Pewee," said Jack, when he met him starting to school, after having +done his "chores," including the milking of his cow,--"Pewee, I want to +say something to you." + +Jack's tone and manner flattered Pewee. One thing that keeps a rowdy a +rowdy is the thought that better people despise him. Pewee felt in his +heart that Jack had a contempt for him, and this it was that made him +hate Jack in turn. But now that the latter sought him in a friendly way, +he felt himself lifted up into a dignity hitherto unknown to him. "What +is it?" + +"You are a kind of king among the boys," said Jack. Pewee grew an inch +taller. + +"They are all afraid of you. Now, why don't you make us fellows behave? +You ought to protect the little boys from fellows that impose on them. +Then you'd be a king worth the having. All the boys and girls would +like you." + +"I s'pose may be that's so," said the king. + +"There's poor little Columbus Risdale----" + +"I don't like him," said Pewee. + +"You mean you don't like Susan. She _is_ a little sharp with her tongue. +But you wouldn't fight with a baby--it isn't like you." + +"No, sir-ee," said Pewee. + +"You'd rather take a big boy than a little one. Now, you ought to make +Riley let Lummy alone." + +"I'll do that," said Pewee. "Riley's about a million times bigger than +Lum." + +"I went to the school-house this morning," continued Jack, "and I found +Riley choking and beating him. And I thought I'd just speak to you, and +see if you can't make him stop it." + +"I'll do that," said Pewee, walking along with great dignity. + +When Ben Berry and Riley saw Pewee coming in company with Jack, they +were amazed and hung their heads, afraid to say anything even to each +other. Jack and Pewee walked straight up to the fence-corner in which +they stood. + +"I thought I'd see what King Pewee would say about your fighting with +babies, Riley," said Jack. + +"I want you fellows to understand," said Pewee, "that I'm not going to +have that little Lum Risdale hurt. If you want to fight, why don't you +fight somebody your own size? I don't fight babies myself," and here +Pewee drew his head up, "and I don't stand by any boy that does." + +Poor Riley felt the last support drop from under him. Pewee had deserted +him, and he was now an orphan, unprotected in an unfriendly world! + +Jack knew that the truce with so vain a fellow as Pewee could not last +long, but it served its purpose for the time. And when, after school, +Susan Lanham took pains to go and thank Pewee for standing up for +Columbus, Pewee felt himself every inch a king, and for the time he +was--if not a "reformed prize-fighter," such as one hears of sometimes, +at least an improved boy. The trouble with vain people like Pewee is, +that they have no stability. They bend the way the wind blows, and for +the most part the wind blows from the wrong quarter. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PIGEON POT-PIE + + +Happy boys and girls that go to school nowadays! You have to study +harder than the generations before you, it is true; you miss the jolly +spelling-schools, and the good old games that were not half so +scientific as base-ball, lawn tennis, or lacrosse, but that had ten +times more fun and frolic in them; but all this is made up to you by the +fact that you escape the tyrannical old master. Whatever the faults the +teachers of this day may have, they do not generally lacerate the backs +of their pupils, as did some of their fore-runners. + +At the time of which I write, thirty years ago, a better race of +school-masters was crowding out the old, but many of the latter class, +with their terrible switches and cruel beatings, kept their ground until +they died off one by one, and relieved the world of their odious ways. + +Mr. Ball wouldn't die to please anybody. He was a bachelor, and had no +liking for children, but taught school five or six months in winter to +avoid having to work on a farm in the summer. He had taught in Greenbank +every winter for a quarter of a century, and having never learned to win +anybody's affection, had been obliged to teach those who disliked him. +This atmosphere of mutual dislike will sour the sweetest temper, and Mr. +Ball's temper had not been strained honey to begin with. Year by year he +grew more and more severe--he whipped for poor lessons, he whipped for +speaking in school, he took down his switch for not speaking loud enough +in class, he whipped for coming late to school, he whipped because a +scholar made a noise with his feet, and he whipped because he himself +had eaten something unwholesome for his breakfast. The brutality of a +master produces like qualities in scholars. The boys drew caricatures on +the blackboard, put living cats or dead ones into Mr. Ball's desk, and +tried to drive him wild by their many devices. + +He would walk up and down the school-room seeking a victim, and he had as +much pleasure in beating a girl or a little boy as in punishing an +overgrown fellow. + +And yet I cannot say that Mr. Ball was impartial. There were some pupils +that escaped. Susan Lanham was not punished, because her father, Dr. +Lanham, was a very influential man in the town; and the faults of Henry +Weathervane and his sister were always overlooked after their father +became a school trustee. + +Many efforts had been made to put a new master into the school. But Mr. +Ball's brother-in-law was one of the principal merchants in the place, +and the old man had had the school so long that it seemed like robbery +to deprive him of it. It had come, in some sort, to belong to him. +People hated to see him moved. He would die some day, they said, and +nobody could deny that, though it often seemed to the boys and girls +that he would never die; he was more likely to dry up and blow away. And +it was a long time to wait for that. + +And yet I think Greenbank might have had to wait for something like that +if there hadn't come a great flight of pigeons just at this time. For +whenever Susan Lanham suggested to her father that he should try to get +Mr. Ball removed and a new teacher appointed, Dr. Lanham smiled and +said "he hated to move against the old man; he's been there so long, +you know, and he probably wouldn't live long, anyhow. Something ought to +be done, perhaps, but he couldn't meddle with him." For older people +forgot the beatings they had endured, and remembered the old man only as +one of the venerable landmarks of their childhood. + +And so, by favor of Henry Weathervane's father, whose children he did +not punish, and by favor of other people's neglect and forgetfulness, +the Greenbank children might have had to face and fear the old ogre down +to this day, or until he dried up and blew away, if it hadn't been, as I +said, that there came a great flight of pigeons. + +A flight of pigeons is not uncommon in the Ohio River country. Audubon, +the great naturalist, saw them in his day, and in old colonial times +such flights took place in the settlements on the sea-board, and +sometimes the starving colonists were able to knock down pigeons with +sticks. The mathematician is not yet born who can count the number of +pigeons in one of these sky-darkening flocks, which are often many miles +in length, and which follow one another for a whole day. The birds, for +the most part, fly at a considerable height from the earth, but when +they are crossing a wide valley, like that of the Ohio River, they drop +down to a lower level, and so reach the hills quite close to the ground, +and within easy gunshot. + +When the pigeon flight comes on Saturday, it is very convenient for +those boys that have guns. If these pigeons had only come on Saturday +instead of on Monday, Mr. Ball might have taught the Greenbank school +until to-day,--that is to say, if he hadn't died or quite dried up and +blown off meanwhile. + +For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday +morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and +so they played "hooky," and, taking their guns with them, hid in the +bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and +beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had +only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop +all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry +for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and +took his place among the pigeon-slayers in the paw-paw patch on the hill +top. + +Tuesday morning, Mr. Ball came in with darkened brows, and three extra +switches. Riley, Berry, and Holliday were called up as soon as school +began. They had pigeon pot-pie for dinner, but they also had sore backs +for three days, and Bob laughingly said that he knew just how a pigeon +felt when it was basted. + +The day after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone +warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at +play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like +a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben +Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing +Lummy's presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking +pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it should not explode +until the stirring of the fire, as the chill of the afternoon should +come on. When they had finished this dangerous transaction, they +discovered the presence of Columbus in his corner, looking at them with +large-eyed wonder and alarm. + +"If you ever tell a living soul about that, we'll kill you," said Ben +Berry. + +Riley also threatened the scared little rabbit, and both felt safe from +detection. + +An hour after school had resumed its session. Columbus, who had sat +shivering with terror all the time, wrote on his slate: + +"Will Riley and Ben B. put something in the stove. Said they would kill +me if I told on them." + +This he passed to Jack, who sat next to him. Jack rubbed it out as soon +as he had read it, and wrote: + +"Don't tell anybody." + +Jack could not guess what they had put in. It might be coffee-nuts, +which would explode harmlessly; it might be something that would give a +bad smell in burning, such as chicken-feathers. If he had thought that +it was gunpowder, he would have plucked up courage enough to give the +master some warning, though he might have got only a whipping for his +pains. While Jack was debating what he should do, the master called the +Fourth-Reader class. At the close of the lesson he noticed that Columbus +was shivering, though indeed it was more from terror than from cold. + +"Go to the stove and stir up the fire, and get warm," he said, sternly. + +"I'd--I'd rather not," said Lum, shaking with fright at the idea. + +"Umph!" said Mr. Ball, looking hard at the lad, with half a mind to make +him go. Then he changed his purpose and went to the stove himself, raked +forward the coals, and made up the fire. Just as he was shutting the +stove-door, the explosion came--the ashes flew out all over the master, +the stove was thrown down from the bricks on which its four legs rested, +the long pipe fell in many pieces on the floor, and the children set up +a general howl in all parts of the room. + +As soon as Mr. Ball had shaken off the ashes from his coat, he said: "Be +quiet--there's no more danger. Columbus Risdale, come here." + +"He did not do it," spoke up Susan Lanham. + +"Be quiet, Susan. You know all about this," continued the master to poor +little Columbus, who was so frightened as hardly to be able to stand. +After looking at Columbus a moment, the master took down a great beech +switch. "Now, I shall whip you until you tell me who did it. You were +afraid to go to the stove. You knew there was powder there. Who put it +there? That's the question. Answer, quick, or I shall make you." + +The little skin-and-bones trembled between two terrors, and Jack, seeing +his perplexity, got up and stood by him. + +"He didn't do it, Mr. Ball. I know who did it. If Columbus should tell +you, he would be beaten for telling. The boy who did it is just mean +enough to let Lummy get the whipping. Please let him off." + +"_You_ know, do you? I shall whip you both. You knew there was gunpowder +in the fire, and you gave no warning. I shall whip you both--the +severest whipping you ever had, too." + +And the master put up the switch he had taken down, as not effective +enough, and proceeded to take another. + +"If we had known it was gunpowder," said Jack, beginning to tremble, +"you would have been warned. But we didn't. We only knew that something +had been put in." + +"If you'll tell all about it, I'll let you off easier; if you don't, I +shall give you all the whipping I know how to give." And by way of +giving impressiveness to his threat he took a turn about the room, while +there was an awful stillness among the terrified scholars. + +I do not know what was in Bob Holliday's head, but about this time he +managed to open the western door while the master's back was turned. +Bob's desk was near the door. + +Poor little Columbus was ready to die, and Jack was afraid that, if the +master should beat him as he threatened to do, the child would die +outright. Luckily, at the second cruel blow, the master broke his switch +and turned to get another. Seeing the door open, Jack whispered to +Columbus: + +"Run home as fast as you can go." + +The little fellow needed no second bidding. He tottered on his +trembling legs to the door, and was out before Mr. Ball had detected the +motion. When the master saw his prey disappearing out of the door, he +ran after him, but it happened curiously enough, in the excitement, that +Bob Holliday, who sat behind the door, rose up, as if to look out, and +stumbled against the door, thus pushing it shut, so that by the time Mr. +Ball got his stiff legs outside the door, the frightened child was under +such headway that, fearing to have the whole school in rebellion, the +teacher gave over the pursuit, and came back prepared to wreak his +vengeance on Jack. + +While Mr. Ball was outside the door, Bob Holliday called to Jack, in a +loud whisper, that he had better run, too, or the old master would "skin +him alive." But Jack had been trained to submit to authority, and to run +away now would lose him his winter's schooling, on which he had set +great store. He made up his mind to face the punishment as best he +could, fleeing only as a last resort if the beating should be +unendurable. + +"Now," said the master to Jack, "will you tell me who put that gunpowder +in the stove? If you don't, I'll take it out of your skin." + +Jack could not bear to tell, especially under a threat. I think that +boys are not wholly right in their notion that it is dishonorable to +inform on a school-mate, especially in the case of so bad an offence as +that of which Will and Ben were guilty. But, on the other hand, the last +thing a master ought to seek is to turn boys into habitual spies and +informers on one another. In the present instance, Jack ought, perhaps, +to have told, for the offence was criminal; but it is hard for a +high-spirited lad to yield to a brutal threat. + +Jack caught sight of Susan Lanham telegraphing from behind the master, +by spelling with her fingers: + +"Tell or run." + +But he could not make up his mind to do either, though Bob Holliday had +again mysteriously opened the western door. + +The master summoned all his strength and struck him half a dozen blows, +that made poor Jack writhe. Then he walked up and down the room awhile, +to give the victim time to consider whether he would tell or not. + +"Run," spelled out Susan on her fingers. + +"The school-house is on fire!" called out Bob Holliday. Some of the +coals that had spilled from the capsized stove were burning the +floor--not dangerously, but Bob wished to make a diversion. He rushed +for a pail of water in the corner, and all the rest, aching with +suppressed excitement, crowded around the fallen stove, so that it was +hard for the master to tell whether there was any fire or not. Bob +whispered to Jack to "cut sticks," but Jack only went to his seat. + +"Lay hold, boys, and let's put up the stove," said Bob, taking the +matter quite out of the master's hands. Of course, the stove-pipe would +not fit without a great deal of trouble. Did ever stove-pipe go together +without trouble? Somehow, all the joints that Bob joined together flew +asunder over and over again, though he seemed to work most zealously to +get the stove set up. After half an hour of this confusion, the pipe was +fixed, and the master, having had time, like the stove, to cool off, and +seeing Jack bent over his book, concluded to let the matter drop. But +there are some matters that, once taken up, are hard to drop. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JACK AND HIS MOTHER + + +Jack went home that night very sore on his back and in his feelings. He +felt humiliated to be beaten like a dog, and even a dog feels degraded +in being beaten. He told his mother about it--the tall, dignified, +sweet-faced mother, patient in trouble and full of a goodness that did +not talk much about goodness. She always took it for granted that _her_ +boy would not do anything mean, and thus made a healthy atmosphere for a +brave boy to grow in. Jack told her of his whipping, with some heat, +while he sat at supper. She did not say much then, but after Jack's +evening chores were all finished, she sat down by the candle where he +was trying to get out some sums, and questioned him carefully. + +"Why didn't you tell who did it?" she asked. + +"Because it makes a boy mean to tell, and all the boys would have +thought me a sneak." + +"It is a little hard to face a general opinion like that," she said. + +"But," said Jack, "if I had told, the master would have whipped Columbus +all the same, and the boys would probably have pounded him, too. I ought +to have told beforehand," said Jack, after a pause. "But I thought it +was only some coffee-nuts that they had put in. The mean fellows, to let +Columbus take a whipping for them! But the way Mr. Ball beats us is +enough to make a boy mean and cowardly." + +After a long silence, the mother said: "I think we shall have to give it +up, Jack." + +"What, mother?" + +"The schooling for this winter. I don't want you to go where boys are +beaten in that way. In the morning, go and get your books and see what +you can do at home." + +Then, after a long pause, in which neither liked to speak, Mrs. Dudley +said: + +"I want you to be an educated man. You learn quickly; you have a taste +for books, and you will be happier if you get knowledge. If I could +collect the money that Gray owes your father's estate, or even a part of +it, I should be able to keep you in school one winter after this. But +there seems to be no hope for that." + +"But Gray is a rich man, isn't he?" + +"Yes, he has a good deal of property, but not in his own name. He +persuaded your father, who was a kind-hearted and easy-natured man, to +release a mortgage, promising to give him some other security the next +week. But, meantime, he put his property in such a shape as to cheat all +his creditors. I don't think we shall ever get anything." + +"I am going to be an educated man, anyhow." + +"But you will have to go to work at something next fall," said the +mother. + +"That will make it harder, but I mean to study a little every day. I +wish I could get a chance to spend next winter in school." + +"We'll see what can be done." + +And long after Jack went to bed that night the mother sat still by the +candle with her sewing, trying to think what she could do to help her +boy to get on with his studies. + +Jack woke up after eleven o'clock, and saw her light still burning in +the sitting-room. + +"I say, mother," he called out, "don't you sit there worrying about me. +We shall come through this all right." + +Some of Jack's hopefulness got into the mother's heart, and she took her +light and went to bed. + +Weary, and sore, and disappointed, Jack did not easily get to sleep +himself after his cheerful speech to his mother. He lay awake long, +making boy's plans for his future. He would go and collect money by some +hook or crook from the rascally Gray; he would make a great invention; +he would discover a gold mine; he would find some rich cousin who would +send him through college; he would----, but just then he grew more +wakeful and realized that all his plans had no foundation of +probability. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +COLUMBUS AND HIS FRIENDS + + +When he waked up in the morning, Jack remembered that he had not seen +Columbus Risdale go past the door after his cow the evening before, and +he was afraid that he might be ill. Why had he not thought to go down +and drive up the cow himself? It was yet early, and he arose and went +down to the little rusty, brown, unpainted house in which the Risdales, +who were poor people, had their home. Just as he pushed open the gate, +Bob Holliday came out of the door, looking tired and sleepy. + +"Hello, Bob!" said Jack. "How's Columbus? Is he sick?" + +"Awful sick," said Bob. "Clean out of his head all night." + +"Have you been here all night?" + +"Yes, I heerd he was sick last night, and I come over and sot up with +him." + +"You good, big-hearted Bob!" said Jack. "You're the best fellow in the +world, I believe." + +"What a quare feller you air to talk, Jack," said Bob, choking up. "Air +you goin' to school to-day?" + +"No. Mother'd rather have me not go any more." + +"I'm not going any more. I hate old Ball. Neither's Susan Lanham going. +She's in there," and Bob made a motion toward the house with his thumb, +and passed out of the gate, while Jack knocked at the door. He was +admitted by Susan. + +"Oh, Jack! I'm so glad to see you," she whispered. "Columbus has asked +for you a good many times during the night. You've stood by him +splendidly." + +Jack blushed, but asked how Lummy was now. + +"Out of his head most of the time. Bob Holliday stayed with him all +night. What a good fellow Bob Holliday is!" + +"I almost hugged him, just now," said Jack, and Susan couldn't help +smiling at this frank confession. + +Jack passed into the next room as stealthily as possible, that he might +not disturb his friend, and paused by the door. Mrs. Risdale sat by the +bedside of Columbus, who was sleeping uneasily, his curious big head and +long, thin hair making a strange picture against the pillow. His face +looked more meagre and his eyes more sunken than ever before, but there +was a feverish flush on his wan cheeks, and the slender hands moved +uneasily on the outside of the blue coverlet, the puny arms were bare to +the elbows. + +Mrs. Risdale beckoned Jack to come forward, and he came and stood at the +bed-foot. Then Columbus opened his large eyes and fixed them on Jack for +a few seconds. + +"Come, Jack, dear old fellow," he whispered. + +Jack came and bent over him with tearful eyes, and the poor little +reed-like arms were twined about his neck. + +"Jack," he sobbed, "the master's right over there in the corner all the +time, straightening out his long switches. He says he's going to whip me +again. But you won't let him, will you, Jack, you good old fellow?" + +"No, he shan't touch you." + +"Let's run away, Jack," he said, presently. And so the poor little +fellow went on, his great, disordered brain producing feverish images of +terror from which he continually besought "dear good old Jack" to +deliver him. + +When at last he dropped again into a troubled sleep, Jack slipped away +and drove up the Risdale cow, and then went back to his breakfast. He +was a boy whose anger kindled slowly; but the more he thought about it, +the more angry he became at the master who had given Columbus such a +fright as to throw him into a brain fever, and at the "mean, sneaking +contemptible villains," as he hotly called them, who wouldn't come +forward and confess their trick, rather than to have the poor little lad +punished. + +"I suppose we ought to make some allowances," his mother said, quietly. + +"That's what you always say, mother. You're always making allowances." + +After breakfast and chores, Jack thought to go again to see his little +friend. On issuing from the gate, he saw Will Riley and Ben Berry +waiting for him at the corner. Whether they meant to attack him or not +he could not tell, but he felt too angry to care. + +"I say, Jack," said Riley, "how did you know who put the powder in the +stove? Did Columbus tell you?" + +"Mind your own business," said Jack, in a tone not so polite as it might +be. "The less you say about gunpowder, hereafter, the better for you +both. Why didn't you walk up and tell, and save that little fellow a +beating?" + +"Look here, Jack," said Berry, "don't you tell what you know about it. +There's going to be a row. They say that Doctor Lanham's taken Susan, +and all the other children, out of school, because the master thrashed +Lummy, and they say Bob Holliday's quit, and that you're going to quit, +and Doctor Lanham's gone to work this morning to get the master put out +at the end of the term. Mr. Ball didn't know that Columbus was kin to +the Lanhams, or he'd have let him alone, like he does the Lanhams and +the Weathervanes. There is going to be a big row, and everybody'll want +to know who put the powder in the stove. We want you to be quiet about +it." + +"You _do_?" said Jack, with a sneer. "_You_ do?" + +"Yes, we do," said Riley, coaxingly. + +"You do? _You_ come to _me_ and ask me to keep it secret, after letting +me and that poor little baby take your whipping! You want me to hide +what you did, when that poor little Columbus lies over there sick abed +and like to die, all because you sneaking scoundrels let him be whipped +for what you did!" + +"Is he sick?" said Riley, in terror. + +"Going to die, I expect," said Jack, bitterly. + +"Well," said Ben Berry, "you be careful what you say about us, or we'll +get Pewee to get even with you." + +"Oh, that's your game! You think you can scare me, do you?" + +Jack grew more and more angry. Seeing a group of school-boys on the +other side of the street, he called them over. + +"Look here, boys," said Jack, "I took a whipping yesterday to keep from +telling on these fellows, and now they have the face to ask me not to +tell that they put the powder in the stove, and they promise me a +beating from Pewee if I do. These are the two boys that let a poor +sickly baby take the whipping they ought to have had. They have just as +good as killed him, I suppose, and now they come sneaking around here +and trying to scare me in keeping still about it. I didn't back down +from the master, and I won't from Pewee. Oh, no! I won't tell anybody. +But if any of you boys should happen to guess that Will Riley and Ben +Berry were the cowards who did that mean trick, I am not going to say +they weren't. It wouldn't be of any use to deny it. There are only two +boys in school mean enough to play such a contemptible trick as that." + +Riley and Berry stood sheepishly silent, but just here Pewee came in +sight, and seeing the squad of boys gathered around Jack, strode over +quickly and pushed his sturdy form into the midst. + +"Pewee," said Riley, "I think you ought to pound Jack. He says you can't +back him down." + +"I didn't," said Jack. "I said _you_ couldn't scare me out of telling +who tried to blow up the school-house stove, and let other boys take +the whipping, by promising me a drubbing from Pewee Rose. If Pewee wants +to put himself in as mean a crowd as yours, and be your puppy-dog to +fight for you, let him come on. He's a fool if he does, that's all I +have to say. The whole town will want to ship you two fellows off before +night, and Pewee isn't going to fight your battles. What do you think, +Pewee, of fellows that put powder in a stove where they might blow up a +lot of little children? What do you think of two fellows that want me to +keep quiet after they let little Lum Risdale take a whipping for them, +and that talk about setting you on to me if I tell?" + +Thus brought face to face with both parties, King Pewee only looked +foolish and said nothing. + +Jack had worked himself into such a passion that he could not go to +Risdale's, but returned to his own home, declaring that he was going to +tell everybody in town. But when he entered the house and looked into +the quiet, self-controlled face of his mother, he began to feel cooler. + +"Let us remember that some allowances are to be made for such boys," was +all that she said. + +"That's what you always say, Mother," said Jack, impatiently. "I believe +you'd make allowances for the Old Boy himself." + +"That would depend on his bringing up," smiled Mrs. Dudley. "Some people +have bad streaks naturally, and some have been cowed and brutalized by +ill-treatment, and some have been spoiled by indulgence." + +Jack felt more calm after a while. He went back to the bedside of +Columbus, but he couldn't bring himself to make allowances. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +GREENBANK WAKES UP + + +If the pigeons had not crossed the valley on Monday, nobody would have +played truant, and if nobody had played truant on Monday, there would +not have been occasion to whip three boys on Tuesday morning, and if Ben +Berry and Riley had escaped a beating on Tuesday morning, they would not +have thought of putting gunpowder into the stove on Wednesday at noon, +and if they had omitted that bad joke, Columbus would not have got into +trouble and run away from school, and if he had escaped the fright and +the flight, he might not have had the fever, and the town would not have +been waked up, and other things would not have happened. + +So then, you see, this world of ours is just like the House that Jack +Built: one thing is tied to another and another to that, and that to +this, and this to something, and something to something else, and so on +to the very end of all things. + +So it was that the village was thrown into a great excitement as the +result of a flock of innocent pigeons going over the heads of some lazy +boys. In the first place, Susan Lanham talked about things. She talked +to her aunts, and she talked to her uncles, and, above all, she talked +to her father. Now Susan was the brightest girl in the town, and she had +a tongue, as all the world knew, and when she set out to tell people +what a brute the old master was, how he had beaten two innocent boys, +how bravely Jack had carried himself, how frightened little Columbus +was, and how sick it had made him, and how mean the boys were to put +the powder there, and then to let the others take the whipping,--I say, +when Susan set out to tell all these things, in her eloquent way, to +everybody she knew, you might expect a waking up in the sleepy old town. +Some of the people took Susan's side and removed their children from the +school, lest they, too, should get a whipping and run home and have +brain fever. But many stood up for the old master, mostly because they +were people of the sort that never can bear to see anything changed. +"The boys ought to have told who put the powder in the stove," they +said. "It served them right." + +"How could the master know that Jack and Columbus did not do it +themselves?" said others. "Maybe they did!" + +"Don't tell me!" cried old Mrs. Horne. "Don't tell me! Boys can't be +managed without whipping, and plenty of it. 'Bring up a child and away +he goes,' as the Bible says. When you hire a master, you want a +_master_, says I." + +"What a tongue that Sue Lanham has got!" said Mr. Higbie, Mr. Ball's +brother-in-law. + +The excitement spread over the whole village. Doctor Lanham talked about +it, and the ministers, and the lawyers, and the loafers in the stores, +and the people who came to the post-office for their letters. Of course, +it broke out furiously in the "Maternal Association," a meeting of +mothers held at the house of one of the ministers. + +"Mr. Ball can do every sum in the arithmetic," urged Mrs. Weathervane. + +"He's a master hand at figures, they do say," said Mother Brownson. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Dudley, "I don't doubt it. Jack's back is covered with +figures of Mr. Ball's making. For my part, I should rather have a +master that did his figuring on a slate." + +Susan Lanham got hold of this retort, and took pains that it should be +known all over the village. + +When Greenbank once gets waked up on any question, it never goes to +sleep until that particular question is settled. But it doesn't wake up +more than once or twice in twenty years. Most of the time it is only +talking in its sleep. Now that Greenbank had its eyes open for a little +time, it was surprised to see that while the cities along the river had +all adopted graded schools,--_de_-graded schools, as they were called by +the people opposed to them,--and while even the little villages in the +hill country had younger and more enlightened teachers, the county-town +of Greenbank had made no advance. It employed yet, under the rule of +President Fillmore, the same hard old stick of a master that had beaten +the boys in the log school-house in the days of John Quincy Adams and +Andrew Jackson. But, now it was awake, Greenbank kept its eyes open on +the school question. The boys wrote on the fences, in chalk: + + DOWN WITH OLD BAWL! + +and thought the bad spelling of the name a good joke, while men and +women began to talk about getting a new master. + +Will Riley and Ben Berry had the hardest time. For the most part they +stayed at home during the excitement, only slinking out in the evening. +The boys nicknamed them "Gunpowder cowards," and wrote the words on the +fences. Even the loafers about the street asked them whether Old Ball +had given them that whipping yet, and how they liked "powder and Ball." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PROFESSOR SUSAN + + +Mr. Ball did not let go easily. He had been engaged for the term, and he +declared that he would go on to the end of the term, if there should be +nothing but empty benches. In truth, he and his partisans hoped that the +storm would blow over and the old man be allowed to go on teaching and +thrashing as heretofore. He had a great advantage in that he had been +trained in all the common branches better than most masters, and was +regarded as a miracle of skill in arithmetical calculations. He even +knew how to survey land. + +Jack was much disappointed to miss his winter's schooling, and there was +no probability that he would be able to attend school again. He went on +as best he could at home, but he stuck fast on some difficult problems +in the middle of the arithmetic. Columbus had by this time begun to +recover his slender health, and he was even able to walk over to Jack's +house occasionally. Finding Jack in despair over some of his "sums," he +said: + +"Why don't you ask Susan Lanham to show you? I believe she would; and +she has been clean through the arithmetic, and she is 'most as good as +the master himself." + +"I don't like to," said Jack. "She wouldn't want to take the trouble." + +But the next morning Christopher Columbus managed to creep over to the +Lanhams: + +"Cousin Sukey," he said, coaxingly, "I wish you'd do something for me. I +want to ask a favor of you." + +[Illustration: "COUSIN SUKEY," SAID LITTLE COLUMBUS, "I WANT TO ASK A +FAVOR OF YOU."] + +"What is it, Columbus?" said Sue. "Anything you ask shall be given, to +the half of my kingdom!" and she struck an attitude, as Isabella of +Castile, addressing the great Columbus, with the dust-brush for a +sceptre, and the towel, which she had pinned about her head, for a +crown. + +"You are so funny," he said, with a faint smile. "But I wish you'd be +sober a minute." + +"Haven't had but one cup of coffee this morning. But what do you want?" + +"Jack----" + +"Oh, yes, it's always Jack with you. But that's right--Jack deserves +it." + +"Jack can't do his sums, and he won't ask you to help him." + +"And so he got you to ask?" + +"No, he didn't. He wouldn't let me, if he knew. He thinks a young lady +like you wouldn't want to take the trouble to help him." + +"Do you tell that stupid Jack, that if he doesn't want to offend me so +that I'll never, never forgive him, he is to bring his slate and pencil +over here after supper this evening. And you'll come, too, with your +geography. Yours truly, Susan Lanham, Professor of Mathematics and +Natural Science in the Greenbank Independent and Miscellaneous Academy. +Do you hear?" + +"All right." And Columbus, smiling faintly, went off to tell Jack the +good news. That evening Susan had, besides her own brother and two +sisters, two pupils who learned more arithmetic than they would have +gotten in the same time from Mr. Ball, though she did keep them laughing +at her drollery. The next evening, little Joanna Merwin joined the +party, and Professor Susan felt quite proud of her "academy," as she +called it. + +Bob Holliday caught the infection, and went to studying at home. As he +was not so far advanced as Jack, he contented himself with asking Jack's +help when he was in trouble. At length, he had a difficulty that Jack +could not solve. + +"Why don't you take that to the professor?" asked Jack. "I'll ask her to +show you." + +"I dursn't," said Bob, with a frightened look. + +"Nonsense!" said Jack. + +That evening, when the lessons were ended, Jack said: + +"Professor Susan, there was a story in the old First Reader we had in +the first school that I went to, about a dog who had a lame foot. A +doctor cured his foot, and some time after, the patient brought another +lame dog to the doctor, and showed by signs that he wanted this other +dog cured, too." + +"That's rather a good dog-story," said Susan. "But what made you think +of it?" + +"Because I'm that first dog." + +"You are?" + +"Yes. You've helped me, but there's Bob Holliday. I've been helping him, +but he's got to a place where I don't quite understand the thing myself. +Now Bob wouldn't dare ask you to help him----" + +"Bring him along. How the Greenbank Academy grows!" laughed Susan, +turning to her father. + +Bob was afraid of Susan at first--his large fingers trembled so much +that he had trouble to use his slate-pencil. But by the third evening +his shyness had worn off, so that he got on well. + +One evening, after a week of attendance, he was missing. The next +morning he came to Jack's house with his face scratched and his eye +bruised. + +"What's the matter?" asked Jack. + +"Well, you see, yesterday I was at the school-house at noon, and Pewee, +egged on by Riley, said something he oughtn't to, about Susan, and I +couldn't stand there and hear that girl made fun of, and so I up and +downed him, and made him take it back. I can't go till my face looks +better, you know, for I wouldn't want her to know anything about it." + +But the professor heard all about it from Joanna, who had it from one of +the school-boys. Susan sent Columbus to tell Bob that she knew all about +it, and that he must come back to school. + +"So you've been fighting, have you?" she said, severely, when Bob +appeared. The poor fellow was glad she took that tone--if she had +thanked him he wouldn't have been able to reply. + +"Yes." + +"Well, don't you do it any more. It's very wrong to fight. It +makes boys brutal. A girl with ability enough to teach the Greenbank +Academy can take care of herself, and she doesn't want her scholars to +fight." + +"All right," said Bob. "But," he muttered, "I'll thrash him all the +same, and more than ever, if he ever says anything like that again." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +CROWING AFTER VICTORY + + +Greenbank was awake, and the old master had to go. Mr. Weathervane stood +up for him as long as he thought that the excitement was temporary. But +when he found that Greenbank really was awake, and not just talking in +its sleep, as it did for the most part, he changed sides,--not all at +once, but by degrees. At first he softened down a little, "hemmed and +hawed," as folks say. He said he did not know but that Mr. Ball had been +hasty, but he meant well. The next day he took another step, and said +that the old master meant well, but he was _often_ too hasty in his +temper. The next week he let himself down another peg in saying that +"maybe" the old man meant well, but he was altogether too hot in his +temper for a school-master. A little while later, he found out that Mr. +Ball's way of teaching was quite out of date. Before a month had +elapsed, he was sure that the old curmudgeon ought to be put out, and +thus at last Mr. Weathervane found himself where he liked to be, in the +popular party. + +And so the old master came to his last day in the brick school-house. +Whatever feelings he may have had in leaving behind him the scenes of +his twenty-five years of labor, he said nothing. He only compressed his +lips a little more tightly, scowled as severely as ever, removed his +books and pens from his desk, gave a last look at his long beech +switches on the wall, turned the key in the door of the school-house, +carried it to Mr. Weathervane, received his pay, and walked slowly home +to the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Higbie. + +The boys had resolved to have a demonstration. All their pent-up wrath +against the master now found vent, since there was no longer any danger +that the old man would have a chance to retaliate. They would serenade +him. Bob Holliday was full of it. Harry Weathervane was very active. He +was going to pound on his mother's bread-pan. Every sort of instrument +for making a noise was brought into requisition. Dinner-bells, +tin-pails, conch-shell dinner-horns, tin-horns, and even the village +bass-drum, were to be used. + +Would Jack go? Bob came over to inquire. All the boys were going to +celebrate the downfall of a harsh master. He deserved it for beating +Columbus. So Jack resolved to go. + +But after the boys had departed, Jack began to doubt whether he ought +to go or not. It did not seem quite right; yet his feelings had become +so enlisted in the conflict for the old man's removal, that he had grown +to be a bitter partisan, and the recollection of all he had suffered, +and of all Columbus had endured during his sickness, reconciled Jack to +the appearance of crowing over a fallen foe, which this burlesque +serenade would have. Nevertheless, his conscience was not clear on the +point, and he concluded to submit the matter to his mother, when she +should come home to supper. + +Unfortunately for Jack, his mother stayed away to tea, sending Jack word +that he would have to get his own supper, and that she would come home +early in the evening. Jack ate his bowl of bread and milk in solitude, +trying to make himself believe that his mother would approve of his +taking part in the "shiveree" of the old master. But when he had +finished his supper, he concluded that if his mother did not come home +in time for him to consult her, he would remain at home. He drew up by +the light and tried to study, but he longed to be out with the boys. +After a while Bob Holliday and Harry Weathervane came to the door and +importuned Jack to come with them. It was lonesome at home; it would be +good fun to celebrate the downfall of the old master's cruel rule, so, +taking down an old dinner-bell, Jack went off to join the rest. He was a +little disgusted when he found Riley, Pewee, and Ben Berry in the +company, but once in the crowd, there was little chance to back out with +credit. The boys crept through the back alleys until they came in front +of Mr. Higbie's house, at half past eight o'clock. There was but one +light visible, and that was in Mr. Ball's room. Jack dropped behind, a +little faint of heart about the expedition. He felt sure in himself that +his mother would shake her head if she knew of it. At length, at a +signal from Bob, the tin pans, big and little, the skillet-lids grinding +together, the horns, both conch-shell and tin, and the big bass-drum, +set up a hideous clattering, banging, booming, roaring, and racketing. +Jack rang his dinner-bell rather faintly, and stood back behind all the +rest + +"Jack's afraid," said Pewee. "Why don't you come up to the front, like a +man?" + +Jack could not stand a taunt like this, but came forward into the +cluster of half-frightened peace-breakers. Just then, the door of Mr. +Higbie's house was opened, and some one came out. + +"It's Mr. Higbie," said Ben Berry. "He's going to shoot." + +"It's Bugbee, the watchman, going to arrest us," said Pewee. + +"It's Mr. Ball himself," said Riley, "and he'll whip us all." And he +fled, followed pell-mell by the whole crowd, excepting Jack, who had a +constitutional aversion to running away. He only slunk up close to the +fence and so stood still. + +"Hello! Who are you?" The voice was not that of Mr. Higbie, nor that of +the old master, nor of the watchman, Bugbee. With some difficulty, Jack +recognized the figure of Doctor Lanham. "Oh, it's Jack Dudley, is it?" +said the doctor, after examining him in the feeble moonlight. + +"Yes," said Jack, sheepishly. + +"You're the one that got that whipping from the old master. I don't +wonder you came out to-night." + +"I do," said Jack, "and I would rather now that I had taken another such +whipping than to find myself here." + +"Well, well," said the doctor, "boys will be boys." + +"And fools will be fools, I suppose," said Jack. + +"Mr. Ball is very ill," continued the doctor. "Find the others and tell +them they mustn't come here again to-night, or they'll kill him. I +wouldn't have had this happen for anything. The old man's just broken +down by the strain he has been under. He has deserved it all, but I +think you might let him have a little peace now." + +"So do I," said Jack, more ashamed of himself than ever. + +The doctor went back into the house, and Jack Dudley and his dinner-bell +started off down the street in search of Harry Weathervane and his tin +pan, and Bob Holliday and his skillet-lids, and Ben Berry and the +bass-drum. + +"Hello, Jack!" called out Bob from an alley. "You stood your ground the +best of all, didn't you?" + +"I wish I'd stood my ground in the first place against you and Harry, +and stayed at home." + +"Why, what's the matter? Who was it?" + +By this time the other boys were creeping out of their hiding-places and +gathering about Jack. + +"Well, it was the doctor," said Jack. "Mr. Ball's very sick and we've +'most killed him; that's all. We're a pack of cowards to go tooting at a +poor old man when he's already down, and we ought to be kicked, every +one of us. That's the way I feel about it," and Jack set out for home, +not waiting for any leave-taking with the rest, who, for their part, +slunk away in various directions, anxious to get their instruments of +noise and torment hidden away out of sight. + +Jack stuck the dinner-bell under the hay in the stable-loft, whence he +could smuggle it into the house before his mother should get down-stairs +in the morning. Then he went into the house. + +"Where have you been?" asked Mrs. Dudley. "I came home early so that you +needn't be lonesome." + +"Bob Holliday and Harry Weathervane came for me, and I found it so +lonesome here that I went out with them." + +"Have you got your lessons?" + +"No, ma'am," said Jack, sheepishly. + +He was evidently not at ease, but his mother said no more. He went off +to bed early, and lay awake a good part of the night. The next morning +he brought the old dinner-bell and set it down in the very middle of the +breakfast-table. Then he told his mother all about it. And she agreed +with him that he had done a very mean thing. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT + + +Three times a week the scholars of the "Greenbank Academy" met at the +house of Dr. Lanham to receive instruction from Professor Susan, for the +school trustees could not agree on a new teacher. Some of the people +wanted one thing, and some another; a lady teacher was advocated and +opposed; a young man, an old man, a new-fashioned man, an old-fashioned +man, and no teacher at all for the rest of the present year, so as to +save money, were projects that found advocates. The division of opinion +was so great that the plan of no school at all was carried because no +other could be. So Susan's class went on for a month, and grew to be +quite a little society, and then it came to an end. + +One evening, when the lessons were finished, Professor Susan said: "I am +sorry to tell you that this is the last lesson I can give." + +And then they all said "Aw-w-w-w-w!" in a melancholy way. + +"I am going away to school myself," Susan went on. "My father thinks I +ought to go to Mr. Niles's school at Port William." + +"I shouldn't think you'd need to go any more," said Joanna Merwin. "I +thought you knew everything." + +"Oh, bless me!" cried Susan. + +In former days the people of the interior--the Mississippi Valley--which +used then to be called "the West," were very desirous of education for +their children. But good teachers were scarce. Ignorant and pretentious +men, incompetent wanderers from New England, who had grown tired of +clock-peddling, or tin-peddling, and whose whole stock was assurance, +besides impostors of other sorts, would get places as teachers because +teachers were scarce and there were no tests of fitness. Now and then a +retired Presbyterian minister from Scotland or Pennsylvania, or a +college graduate from New England, would open a school in some country +town. Then people who could afford it would send their children from +long distances to board near the school, and learn English grammar, +arithmetic, and, in some cases, a little Latin, or, perhaps, to fit +themselves for entrance to some of the sturdy little country colleges +already growing up in that region. At Port William, in Kentucky, there +was at this time an old minister, Mr. Niles, who really knew what he +professed to teach, and it was to his school that Dr. Lanham was now +about to send Susan; Harvey Collins and Henry Weathervane had already +entered the school. But for poor boys like Jack, and Bob Holliday, and +Columbus, who had no money with which to pay board, there seemed no +chance. + +The evening on which Susan's class broke up, there was a long and +anxious discussion between Jack Dudley and his mother. + +"You see, Mother, if I could get even two months in Mr. Niles's school, +I could learn some Latin, and if I once get my fingers into Latin, it is +like picking bricks out of a pavement; if I once get a start, I can dig +it out myself. I am going to try to find some way to attend that +school." + +But the mother only shook her head. + +"Couldn't we move to Port William?" said Jack. + +"How could we? Here we have a house of our own, which couldn't easily be +rented. There we should have to pay rent, and where is the money to come +from?" + +"Can't we collect something from Gray?" + +Again Mrs. Dudley shook her head. + +But Jack resolved to try the hardhearted debtor, himself. It was now +four years since Jack's father had been persuaded to release a mortgage +in order to relieve Francis Gray from financial distress. Gray had +promised to give other security, but his promise had proved worthless. +Since that time he had made lucky speculations and was now a man rather +well off, but he kept all his property in his wife's name, as scoundrels +and fraudulent debtors usually do. All that Jack and his mother had to +show for the one thousand dollars with four years' interest due them, +was a judgment against Francis Gray, with the sheriff's return of "no +effects" on the back of the writ of execution against the property "of +the aforesaid Francis Gray." For how could you get money out of a man +who was nothing in law but an agent for his wife? + +But Jack believed in his powers of persuasion, and in the softness of +the human heart. He had never had to do with a man in whom the greed for +money had turned the heart to granite. + +Two or three days later Jack heard that Francis Gray, who lived in +Louisville, had come to Greenbank. Without consulting his mother, lest +she should discourage him, Jack went in pursuit of the slippery debtor. +He had left town, however, to see his fine farm, three miles away, a +farm which belonged in law to Mrs. Gray, but which belonged of right to +Francis Gray's creditors. + +Jack found Mr. Gray well-dressed and of plausible manners. It was hard +to speak to so fine a gentleman on the subject of money. For a minute, +Jack felt like backing out. But then he contrasted his mother's pinched +circumstances with Francis Gray's abundance, and a little wholesome +anger came to his assistance. He remembered, too, that his cherished +projects for getting an education were involved, and he mustered courage +to speak. + +"Mr. Gray, my name is John Dudley." + +Jack thought that there was a sign of annoyance on Gray's face at this +announcement. + +"You borrowed a thousand dollars of my father once, I believe." + +"Yes, that is true. Your father was a good friend of mine." + +"He released a mortgage so that you could sell a piece of property when +you were in trouble." + +"Yes, your father was a good friend to me. I acknowledge that. I wish I +had money enough to pay that debt. It shall be the very first debt paid +when I get on my feet again, and I expect to get on my feet, as sure as +I live." + +"But, you see, Mr. Gray, while my mother is pinched for money, you have +plenty." + +"It's all Mrs. Gray's money. She has plenty. I haven't anything." + +"But I want to go to school to Port William. My mother is too poor to +help me. If you could let me have twenty-five dollars----" + +"But, you see, I can't. I haven't got twenty-five dollars to my name, +that I can control. But by next New Year's I mean to pay your mother the +whole thousand that I owe her." + +This speech impressed Jack a little, but remembering how often Gray had +broken such promises, he said: + +"Don't you think it a little hard that you and Mrs. Gray are well off, +while my mother is so poor, all because you won't keep your word given +to my father?" + +"But, you see, I haven't any money, excepting what Mrs. Gray lets me +have," said Mr. Gray. + +"She seems to let you have what you want. Don't you think, if you coaxed +her, she would lend you twenty-five dollars till New Year's, to help me +go to school one more term?" + +Francis Gray was a little stunned by this way of asking it. For a +moment, looking at the entreating face of the boy, he began to feel a +disposition to relent a little. This was new and strange for him. To pay +twenty-five dollars that he was not obliged by any self-interest to pay, +would have been an act contrary to all his habits and to all the +business maxims in which he had schooled himself. Nevertheless, he +fingered his papers a minute in an undecided way, and then he said that +he couldn't do it. If he began to pay creditors in that way "it would +derange his business." + +"But," urged Jack, "think how much my father deranged his business to +oblige you, and now you rob me of my own money, and of my chance to get +an education." + +Mr. Gray was a little ruffled, but he got up and went out of the room. +When Jack looked out of the window a minute later, Gray was riding away +down the road without so much as bidding the troublesome Jack +good-morning. + +There was nothing for Jack to do but to return to town and make the best +of it. But all the way back, the tired and discouraged boy felt that +his last chance of becoming an educated man had vanished. He told his +mother about his attempt on Mr. Gray's feelings and of his failure. They +discussed the matter the whole evening, and could see no chance for Jack +to get the education he wanted. + +"I mean to die a-trying," said Jack, doggedly, as he went off to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION + + +The next day but one, there came a letter to Mrs. Dudley that increased +her perplexity. + +"Your Aunt Hannah is sick," she said to Jack, "and I must go to take +care of her. I don't know what to do with you." + +"I'll go to Port William to school," said Jack. "See if I don't." + +"How?" asked his mother. "We don't know a soul on that side of the +river. You couldn't make any arrangement." + +"Maybe I can," said Jack. "Bob Holliday used to live on the Indiana +side, opposite Port William. I mean to talk with him." + +Bob was setting onions in one of the onion-patches which abounded about +Greenbank, and which were, from March to July, the principal sources of +pocket-money to the boys. Jack thought best to wait until the day's work +was finished. Then he sat, where Greenbank boys were fond of sitting, on +the sloping top-board of a broad fence, and told his friend Bob of his +eager desire to go to Port William. + +"I'd like to go, too," said Bob. "This is the last year's schooling I'm +to have." + +"Don't you know any house, or any place, where we could keep 'bach' +together?" + +"W'y, yes," said Bob; "if you didn't mind rowing across the river every +day, I've got a skiff, and there's the old hewed-log house on the +Indianny side where we used to live. A body might stay as long as he +pleased in that house, I guess. Judge Kane owns it, and he's one of the +best-hearted men in the country." + +"It's eight miles down there," said Jack. + +"Only seven if you go by water," said Bob. "Let's put out to-morry +morning early. Let's go in the skiff; we can row and cordelle it up the +river again, though it is a job." + +Bright and early, the boys started down the river, rowing easily with +the strong, steady current of the Ohio, holding their way to Judge +Kane's, whose house was over against Port William. This Judge Kane was +an intelligent and wealthy farmer, liked by everybody. He was not a +lawyer, but had once held the office of "associate judge," and hence the +title, which suited his grave demeanor. He looked at the two boys out of +his small, gray, kindly eyes, hardly ever speaking a word. He did not +immediately answer when they asked permission to occupy the old, unused +log-house, but got them to talk about their plans, and watched them +closely. Then he took them out to see his bees. He showed them his +ingenious hives and a bee-house which he had built to keep out the moths +by drawing chalk-lines about it, for over these lines the wingless grub +of the moth could not crawl. Then he showed them a glass hive, in which +all the processes of the bees' housekeeping could be observed. After +that, he took the boys to the old log-house, and pointed out some holes +in the roof that would have to be fixed. And even then he did not give +them any answer to their request, but told them to stay to dinner and he +would see about it, all of which was rather hard on boyish impatience. +They had a good dinner of fried chicken and biscuits and honey, served +in the neatest manner by the motherly Mrs. Kane. Then the Judge +suggested that they ought to see Mr. Niles about taking them into the +school. So his skiff was launched, and he rowed with them across the +river, which is here about a mile wide, to Port William. Here he +introduced them to Mr. Niles, an elderly man, a little bent and a little +positive in his tone, as is the habit of teachers, but with true +kindness in his manner. The boys had much pleasure at recess time in +greeting their old school-mates, Harvey Collins, Henry Weathervane, and, +above all, Susan Lanham, whom they called Professor. These three took a +sincere interest in the plans of Bob and Jack, and Susan spoke a good +word for them to Mr. Niles, who, on his part, offered to give Jack Latin +without charging him anything more than the rates for scholars in the +English branches. Then they rowed back to Judge Kane's landing, where he +told them they could have the house without rent, and that they could +get slabs and other waste at his little sawmill to fix up the cracks. +Then he made kindly suggestions as to the furniture they should +bring--mentioning a lantern, an ax, and various other articles necessary +for a camp life. They bade him good-bye at last, and started home, now +rowing against the current and now cordelling along the river shore, +when they grew tired of rowing. In cordelling, one sits in the skiff and +steers, while the other walks on the shore, drawing the boat by a rope +over the shoulders. The work of rowing and cordelling was hard, but they +carried light and hopeful hearts. Jack was sure now that he should +overcome all obstacles and get a good education. As for Bob, he had no +hope higher than that of worrying through vulgar fractions before +settling down to hard work. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOUSEKEEPING EXPERIENCES + + +Mrs. Dudley having gone to Cincinnati the next day to attend her sister, +who was ill, Jack was left to make his arrangements for housekeeping +with Bob. Each of the boys took two cups, two saucers, two plates, and +two knives and forks. Things were likely to get lost or broken, and +therefore they provided duplicates. Besides, they might have company to +dinner some day, and, moreover, they would need the extra dishes to +"hold things," as Jack expressed it. They took no tumblers, but each was +provided with a tin cup. Bob remembered the lantern, and Jack put in an +ax. They did not take much food; they could buy that of farmers or in +Port William. They got a "gang," or, as they called it, a "trot-line," +to lay down in the river for catfish, perch, and shovel-nose sturgeon, +for there was no game-law then. Bob provided an iron pot to cook the +fish in, and Jack a frying-pan and tea-kettle. Their bedding consisted +of an empty tick, to be filled with straw in Judge Kane's barn, some +equally empty pillow-ticks, and a pair of brown sheets and two blankets. +But, with one thing and another, the skiff was well loaded. + +A good many boys stood on the bank as they embarked, and among them was +Columbus, who had a feeling that his best friends were about to desert +him, and who would gladly have been one of the party if he could have +afforded the expense. + +In the little crowd which watched the embarkation was Hank Rathbone, an +old hunter and pioneer, who made several good suggestions about their +method of loading the boat. + +"But where's your stove?" he asked. + +"Stove?" said Bob. "We can't take a stove in this thing. There's a big +old fire-place in the house that'll do to cook by." + +"But hot weather's comin' soon," said old Hank, "and then you'll want to +cook out in the air, I reckon. Besides, it takes a power of wood for a +fire-place. If one of you will come along with me to the tin-shop, I'll +have a stove made for you, of the best paytent-right sort, that'll go +into a skiff, and that won't weigh more'n three or four pounds and +won't cost but about two bits." + +Jack readily agreed to buy as good a thing as a stove for twenty-five +cents, and so he went with Hank Rathbone to the tin-shop, stopping to +get some iron on the way. Two half-inch round rods of iron five feet +long were cut and sharpened at each end. Then the ends were turned down +so as to make on each rod two pointed legs of eighteen inches in length, +and thus leave two feet of the rod for a horizontal piece. + +"Now," said the old hunter, "you drive about six inches of each leg into +the ground, and stand them about a foot apart. Now for a top." + +[Illustration: OLD HANK'S PLAN FOR A STOVE] + +For this he had a piece of sheet-iron cut out two feet long and fourteen +inches wide, with a round kettle-hole near one end. The edges of the +long sides of the sheet-iron were bent down to fit over the rods. + +"Lay that over your rods," said Hank, "and you've got a stove two foot +long, one foot high, and more than one foot wide, and you can build +your fire of chips, instid of logs. You can put your tea-kittle, pot, +pipkin, griddle, skillet, _or_ gridiron on to the hole"--the old man +eyed it admiringly. "It's good for bilin', fryin', _or_ brilin', and all +fer two bits. They ain't many young couples gits set up as cheap as +that!" + +An hour and a half of rowing downstream brought the boys to the old +cabin. The life there involved more hard work than they had expected. +Notwithstanding Jack's experience in helping his mother, the baking of +corn-bread, and the frying of bacon or fish were difficult tasks, and +both the boys had red faces when supper was on the table. But, as time +wore on, they became skilful, and though the work was hard, it was done +patiently and pretty well. Between cooking, and cleaning, and fixing, +and getting wood, and rowing to school and back, there was not a great +deal of time left for study out of school, but Jack made a beginning in +Latin, and Bob perspired quite as freely over the addition of fractions +as over the frying-pan. + +They rarely had recreation, excepting that of taking the fish off their +trot-line in the morning, when there were any on it. Once or twice they +allowed themselves to visit an Indian mound or burial-place on the +summit of a neighboring hill, where idle boys and other loungers had dug +up many bones and thrown them down the declivity. Jack, who had thoughts +of being a doctor, made an effort to gather a complete Indian skeleton, +but the dry bones had become too much mixed up. He could not get any +three bones to fit together, and his man, as he tried to put him +together, was the most miscellaneous creature imaginable,--neither man, +woman, nor child. Bob was a little afraid to have these human ruins +stored under the house, lest he might some night see a ghost with +war-paint and tomahawk; but Jack, as became a boy of scientific tastes, +pooh-poohed all superstitions or sentimental considerations in the +matter. He told Bob that, if he should ever see the ghost which that +framework belonged to, it would be the ghost of the whole Shawnee tribe, +for there were nearly as many individuals represented as there were +bones in the skeleton. + +The one thing that troubled Jack was that he couldn't get rid of the +image of Columbus as they had seen him when they left Greenbank, +standing sorrowfully on the river bank. The boys often debated between +themselves how they could manage to have him one of their party, but +they were both too poor to pay the small tuition fees, though his board +would not cost much. They could not see any way of getting over the +difficulty, but they talked with Susan about it, and Susan took hold of +the matter in her fashion by writing to her father on the subject. + +The result of her energetic effort was that one afternoon, as they came +out of school, when the little packet-steamer was landing at the wharf, +who should come ashore but Christopher Columbus, in his best but +thread-bare clothes, tugging away at an old-fashioned carpet-bag, which +was too much for him to carry. Bob seized the carpet-bag and almost +lifted the dignified little lad himself off his feet in his joyful +welcome, while Jack, finding nothing else to do, stood still and +hurrahed. They soon had the dear little spindle-shanks and his great +carpet-bag stowed away in the skiff. As they rowed to the north bank of +the river, Columbus explained how Dr. Lanham had undertaken to pay his +expenses, if the boys would take him into partnership, but he said he +was 'most afraid to come, because he couldn't chop wood, and he wasn't +good for much in doing the work. + +"Never mind, honey," said Bob. "Jack and I don't care whether you work +or not. You are worth your keep, any time." + +"Yes," said Jack, "we even tried hard yesterday to catch a young owl to +make a pet of, but we couldn't get it. You see, we're so lonesome." + +"I suppose I'll do for a pet owl, won't I?" said little Columbus, with a +strange and quizzical smile on his meagre face. And as he sat there in +the boat, with his big head and large eyes, the name seemed so +appropriate that Bob and Jack both laughed outright. + +But the Pet Owl made himself useful in some ways. I am sorry to say that +the housekeeping of Bob and Jack had not always been of the tidiest +kind. They were boys, and they were in a hurry. But Columbus had the +tastes of a girl about a house. He did not do any cooking or chopping to +speak of, but he fixed up. He kept the house neat, cleaned the +candlestick every morning, and washed the windows now and then, and as +spring advanced he brought in handfuls of wild flowers. The boys +declared that they had never felt at home in the old house until the Pet +Owl came to be its mistress. He wouldn't let anything be left around out +of place, but all the pots, pans, dishes, coats, hats, books, slates, +the lantern, the boot-jack, and other slender furniture, were put in +order before school time, so that when they got back in the afternoon +the place was inviting and home-like. When Judge Kane and his wife +stopped during their Sunday-afternoon stroll, to see how the lads got +on, Mrs. Kane praised their housekeeping. + +"That is all the doings of the Pet Owl," said Bob. + +"Pet Owl? Have you one?" asked Mrs. Kane. + +The boys laughed, and Bob explained that Columbus was the pet. + +That evening, the boys had a box of white honey for supper, sent over by +Mrs. Kane, and the next Saturday afternoon Jack and Bob helped Judge +Kane finish planting his corn-field. + +One unlucky day, Columbus discovered Jack's box of Indian bones under +the house, and he turned pale and had a fit of shivering for a long time +afterward. It was necessary to move the box into an old stable to quiet +his shuddering horror. The next Sunday afternoon, the Pet Owl came in +with another fit of terror, shivering as before. + +"What's the matter now, Lummy?" said Jack. "Have you seen any more +Indians?" + +"Pewee and his crowd have gone up to the Indian Mound," said Columbus. + +"Well, let 'em go," said Bob. "I suppose they know the way, don't they? +I should like to see them. I've been so long away from Greenbank that +even a yellow dog from there would be welcome." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +GHOSTS + + +Jack and Bob had to amuse Columbus with stories, to divert his mind from +the notion that Pewee and his party meant them some harm. The Indian +burying-ground was not an uncommon place of resort on Sundays for +loafers and idlers, and now and then parties came from as far as +Greenbank, to have the pleasure of a ride and the amusement of digging +up Indian relics from the cemetery on the hill. This hill-top commanded +a view of the Ohio River for many miles in both directions, and of the +Kentucky River, which emptied into the Ohio just opposite. I do not know +whether the people who can find amusement in digging up bones and +throwing them down-hill enjoy scenery or not, but I have heard it urged +that even some dumb animals, as horses, enjoy a landscape; and I once +knew a large dog, in Switzerland, who would sit enchanted for a long +time on the brink of a mountain cliff, gazing off at the lake below. It +is only fair to suppose, therefore, that even these idle diggers in +Indian mounds had some pleasure in looking from a hill-top; at any rate, +they were fond of frequenting this one. Pewee, and Riley, and Ben Berry, +and two or three others of the same feather, had come down on this +Sunday to see the Indian Mound and to find any other sport that might +lie in their reach. When they had dug up and thrown away down the steep +hill-side enough bones to satisfy their jackal proclivities, they began +to cast about them for some more exciting diversion. As there were no +water-melon patches nor orchards to be robbed at this season of the +year, they decided to have an egg-supper, and then to wait for the moon +to rise after midnight before starting to row and cordelle their two +boats up the river again to Greenbank. The fun of an egg-supper to +Pewee's party consisted not so much in the eggs as in the manner of +getting them. Every nest in Judge Kane's chicken-house was rummaged that +night, and Mrs. Kane found next day that all the nest-eggs were gone, +and that one of her young hens was missing also. + +About dark, little Allen Mackay, a round-bodied, plump-faced, jolly +fellow who lived near the place where the skiffs were landed, and who +had spent the afternoon at the Indian Mound, came to the door of the old +log-house. + +"I wanted to say that you fellows have always done the right thing by +me. You've set me acrost oncet or twicet, and you've always been +'clever' to me, and I don't want to see no harm done you. You'd better +look out to-night. They's some chaps from Greenbank down here, and +they're in for a frolic, and somebody's hen-roost'll suffer, I guess; +and they don't like you boys, and they talked about routing you out +to-night." + +"Thank you," said Jack. + +"Let 'em rout," said Bob. + +But the poor little Pet Owl was all in a cold shudder again. + +About eleven o'clock, King Pewee's party had picked the last bone of +Mrs. Kane's chicken. It was yet an hour and a half before the moon would +be up, and there was time for some fun. Two boys from the neighborhood, +who had joined the party, agreed to furnish dough-faces for them all. +Nothing more ghastly than masks of dough can well be imagined, and when +the boys all put them on, and had turned their coats wrong-side out, +they were almost afraid of one another. + +"Now," said Riley, "Pewee will knock at the door, and when they come +with their lantern or candle, we'll all rush in and howl like Indians." + +"How do Indians howl?" asked Ben Berry. + +"Oh, any way--like a dog or a wolf, you know. And then they'll be scared +to death, and we'll just pitch their beds, and dishes, and everything +else out of the door, and show them how to clean house." + +Riley didn't know that Allen Mackay and Jack Dudley, hidden in the +bushes, heard this speech, nor that Jack, as soon as he had heard the +plan, crept away to tell Bob at the house what the enemy proposed to +do. + +As the crowd neared the log-house, Riley prudently fell to the rear, and +pushed Pewee to the front. There was just the faintest whitening of the +sky from the coming moon, but the large apple-trees in front of the +log-house made it very dark, and the dough-face crowd were obliged +almost to feel their way as they came into the shadow of these trees. +Just as Riley was exhorting Pewee to knock at the door, and the whole +party was tittering at the prospect of turning Bob, Jack, and Columbus +out of bed and out of doors, they all stopped short and held their +breaths. + +"Good gracious! Julius Caesar! sakes alive!" whispered Riley. +"What--wh--what is that?" + +Nobody ran. All stood as though frozen in their places. For out from +behind the corner of the house came slowly a skeleton head. It was +ablaze inside, and the light shone out of all the openings. The thing +had no feet, no hands, and no body. It actually floated through the air, +and now and then joggled and danced a little. It rose and fell, but +still came nearer and nearer to the attacking party of dough-faces, who +for their part could not guess that Bob Holliday had put a lighted +candle into an Indian's skull, and then tied this ghost's lantern to a +wire attached to the end of a fishing-rod, which he operated from behind +the house. + +Pewee's party drew close together, and Riley whispered hoarsely: + +"The house is ha'nted." + +Just then the hideous and fiery death's-head made a circuit, and swung, +grinning, into Riley's face, who could stand no more, but broke into a +full run toward the river. At the same instant Jack tooted a +dinner-horn, Judge Kane's big dog ran barking out of the log-house, and +the enemy were routed like the Midianites before Gideon. Their +consternation was greatly increased at finding their boats gone, for +Allen Mackay had towed them into a little creek out of sight, and hidden +the oars in an elder thicket. Riley and one of the others were so much +afraid of the ghosts that "ha'nted" the old house, that they set out +straightway for Greenbank, on foot. Pewee and the others searched +everywhere for the boats, and at last sat down and waited for daylight. +Just as day was breaking, Bob Holliday came down to the river with a +towel, as though for a morning bath. Very accidentally, of course, he +came upon Pewee and his party, all tired out, sitting on the bank in +hope that day might throw some light on the fate of their boats. + +"Hello, Pewee! You here? What's the matter?" said Bob, with feigned +surprise. + +"Some thief took our skiffs. We've been looking for them all night, and +can't find them." + +"That's curious," said Bob, sitting down and leaning his head on his +hand. "Where did you get supper last night?" + +"Oh! we brought some with us." + +"Look here, Pewee, I'll bet I can find your boats." + +"How?" + +"You give me money enough among you to pay for the eggs and the chicken +you had for supper, and I'll find out who hid your boats and where the +oars are, and it'll all be square." + +Pewee was now sure that the boat had been taken as indemnity for the +chicken and the eggs. He made every one of the party contribute +something until he had collected what Bob thought sufficient to pay for +the stolen things, and Bob took it and went up and found Judge Kane, +who had just risen, and left the money with him. Then he made a circuit +to Allen Mackay's, waked him up, and got the oars, which they put into +the boats; and pushing these out of their hiding-place, they rowed them +into the river, delivering them to Pewee and company, who took them +gratefully. Jack and Columbus had now made their appearance, and as +Pewee got into his boat, he thought to repay Bob's kindness with a +little advice. + +"I say, if I was you fellers, you know, I wouldn't stay in that old +cabin a single night." + +"Why?" asked Jack. + +"Because," said Pewee, "I've heerd tell that it is ha'nted." + +"Ghosts aren't anything when you get used to them," said Jack. "We don't +mind them at all." + +"Don't you?" said Pewee, who was now rowing against the current. + +"No," said Bob, "nor dough-faces, neither." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE RETURN HOME + + +As Mr. Niles's school-term drew to a close, the two boys began to think +of their future. + +"I expect to work with my hands, Jack," said Bob; "I haven't got a head +for books, as you have. But I'd like to know a _leetle_ more before I +settle down. I wish I could make enough at something to be able to go to +school next winter." + +"If I only had your strength and size, Bob, I'd go to work for somebody +as a farmer. But I have more than myself to look after. I must help +mother after this term is out. I must get something to do, and then +learning will be slow business. They talk about Ben Franklin studying +at night and all that, but it's a little hard on a fellow who hasn't +the constitution of a Franklin. Still, I'm going to have an education, +by hook or crook." + +At this point in the conversation, Judge Kane came in. As usual, he said +little, but he got the boys to talk about their own affairs. + +"When do you go home?" he asked. + +"Next Friday evening, when school is out," said Jack. + +"And what are you going to do?" he asked of Bob. + +"Get some work this summer, and then try to get another winter of +schooling next year," was the answer. + +"What kind of work?" + +"Oh, I can farm better than I can do anything else," said Bob. "And I +like it, too." + +And then Judge Kane drew from Jack a full account of his affairs, and +particularly of the debt due from Gray, and of his interview with Gray. + +"If you could get a few hundred dollars, so as to make your mother feel +easy for a while, living as she does in her own house, you could go to +school next winter." + +"Yes, and then I could get on after that, somehow, by myself, I +suppose," said Jack. "But the few hundred dollars is as much out of my +reach as a million would be, and my father used to say that it was a bad +thing to get into the way of figuring on things that we could never +reach." + +The Judge sat still, and looked at Jack out of his half-closed gray eyes +for a minute in silence. + +"Come up to the house with me," he said, rising. + +Jack followed him to the house, where the Judge opened his desk and took +out a red-backed memorandum-book, and dictated while Jack copied in his +own handwriting the description of a piece of land on a slip of paper. + +"If you go over to school, to-morrow, an hour earlier than usual," he +said, "call at the county clerk's office, show him your memorandum, and +find out in whose name that land stands. It is timber-land five miles +back, and worth five hundred dollars. When you get the name of the +owner, you will know what to do; if not, you can ask me, but you'd +better not mention my name to anybody in this matter." + +Jack thanked Mr. Kane, but left him feeling puzzled. In fact, the +farmer-judge seemed to like to puzzle people, or at least he never told +anything more than was necessary. + +The next morning, the boys were off early to Port William. Jack wondered +if the land might belong to his father, but then he was sure his father +never had any land in Kentucky. Or, was it the property of some dead +uncle or cousin, and was he to find a fortune, like the hero of a cheap +story? But when the county clerk, whose office it is to register deeds +in that county, took the little piece of paper, and after scanning it, +took down some great deed-books and mortgage-books, and turned the pages +awhile, and then wrote "Francis Gray, owner, no incumbrance," on the +same slip with the description, Jack had the key to Mr. Kane's puzzle. + +It was now Thursday forenoon, and Jack was eager on all accounts to get +home, especially to see the lawyer in charge of his father's claim +against Mr. Gray. So the next day at noon, as there was nothing left but +the closing exercises, the three boys were excused, and bade good-bye +to their teacher and school-mates, and rowed back to their own side of +the river. They soon had the skiff loaded, for all three were eager to +see the folks at Greenbank. Jack's mother had been at home more than a +week, and he was the most impatient of the three. But they could not +leave without a good-bye to Judge Kane and his wife, to which good-bye +they added a profusion of bashful boyish thanks for kindness received. +The Judge walked to the boat-landing with them. Jack began to tell him +about the land. + +"Don't say anything about it to me, nor to anybody else but your +lawyer," said Mr. Kane; "and do not mention my name. You may say to your +lawyer that the land has just changed hands, and the matter must be +attended to soon. It won't stand exposed in that way long." + +When the boys were in the boat ready to start, Mr. Kane said to Bob: + +"You wouldn't mind working for me this summer at the regular price?" + +"I'd like to," said Bob. + +"How soon can you come?" + +"Next Wednesday evening." + +"I'll expect you," said the Judge, and he turned away up the bank, with +a slight nod and a curt "Good-bye," while Bob said: "What a curious man +he is!" + +"Yes, and as good as he's curious," added Jack. + +It was a warm day for rowing, but the boys were both a little homesick. +Under the shelter of a point where the current was not too strong the +two rowed and made fair headway, sometimes encountering an eddy which +gave them a lift. But whenever the current set strongly toward their +side of the river, and whenever they found it necessary to round a +point, one of them would leap out on the pebbly beach and, throwing the +boat-rope over his shoulder, set his strength against the stream. The +rope, or _cordelle_,--a word that has come down from the first French +travellers and traders in the great valley,--was tied to the row-locks. +It was necessary for one to steer in the stern while the other played +tow-horse, so that each had his turn at rest and at work. After three +hours' toil the wharf-boat of the village was in sight, and all sorts of +familiar objects gladdened their hearts. They reached the landing, and +then, laden with things, they hurriedly cut across the commons to their +homes. + +As soon as Jack's first greeting with his mother was over, she told him +that she thought she might afford him one more quarter of school. + +"No," said Jack, "you've pinched yourself long enough for me; now it's +time I should go to work. If you try to squeeze out another quarter of +school for me you'll have to suffer for it. Besides, I don't see how +you can do it, unless Gray comes down, and I think I have now in my +pocket something that will make him come down." And Jack's face +brightened at the thought of the slip of paper in the pocket of his +roundabout. + +Without observing the last remark, nor the evident elation of Jack's +feelings, Mrs. Dudley proceeded to tell him that she had been offered a +hundred and twenty dollars for her claim against Gray. + +"Who offered it?" asked Jack. + +"Mr. Tinkham, Gray's agent. Maybe Gray is buying up his own debts, +feeling tired of holding property in somebody else's name." + +"A hundred and twenty dollars for a thousand! The rascal! I wouldn't +take it," broke out Jack, impetuously. + +"That's just the way I feel, Jack. I'd rather wait forever, if it +wasn't for your education. I can't afford to have you lose that. I'm to +give an answer this evening." + +"We won't do it," said Jack. "I've got a memorandum here," and he took +the slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, "that'll bring more +money out of him than that. I'm going to see Mr. Beal at once." + +Mrs. Dudley looked at the paper without understanding just what it was, +and, without giving her any further explanation, but only a warning to +secrecy, Jack made off to the lawyer's office. + +"Where did you get this?" asked Mr. Beal. + +"I promised not to mention his name--I mean the name of the one who gave +me that. I went to the clerk's office with the description, and the +clerk wrote the words: 'Francis Gray, owner, no incumbrance.'" + +"I wish I had had it sooner," said the lawyer. "It will be best to have +our judgment recorded in that county to-morrow," he continued. "Could +you go down to Port William?" + +"Yes, sir," said Jack, a little reluctant to go back. "I could if I +must." + +"I don't think the mail will do," added Mr. Beal. "This thing came just +in time. We should have sold the claim to-night. This land ought to +fetch five hundred dollars." + +Mr. Tinkham, agent for Francis Gray, was much disappointed that night +when Mrs. Dudley refused to sell her claim against Gray. + +"You'll never get anything any other way," he said. + +"Perhaps not, but we've concluded to wait," said Mrs. Dudley. "We can't +do much worse if we get nothing at all." + +After a moment's reflection, Mr. Tinkham said: + +"I'll do a little better by _you_, Mrs. Dudley. I'll give you a hundred +and fifty. That's the very best I _can_ do." + +"I will not sell the claim at present," said Mrs. Dudley. "It is of no +use to offer." + +It would have been better if Mrs. Dudley had not spoken so positively. +Mr. Tinkham was set a-thinking. Why wouldn't the widow sell? Why had she +changed her mind since yesterday? Why did Mr. Beal, the lawyer, not +appear at the consultation? All these questions the shrewd little +Tinkham asked himself, and all these questions he asked of Francis Gray +that evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A FOOT-RACE FOR MONEY + + +"They've got wind of something," said Mr. Tinkham to Mr. Gray, "or else +they are waiting for you to resume payment,--or else the widow's got +money from somewhere for her present necessities." + +"I don't know what hope they can have of getting money out of me," said +Gray, with a laugh. "I've tangled everything up, so that Beal can't find +a thing to levy on. I have but one piece of property exposed, and that's +not in this State." + +"Where is it?" asked Tinkham. + +"It's in Kentucky, five miles back of Port William. I took it last week +in a trade, and I haven't yet made up my mind what to do with it." + +"That's the very thing," said Tinkham, with his little face drawn to a +point,--"the very thing. Mrs. Dudley's son came home from Port William +yesterday, where he has been at school. They've heard of that land, I'm +afraid; for Mrs. Dudley is very positive that she will not sell the +claim at any price." + +"I'll make a mortgage to my brother on that land, and send it off from +the mail-boat as I go down to-morrow," said Gray. + +"That'll be too late," said Tinkham. "Beal will have his judgment +recorded as soon as the packet gets there. You'd better go by the +packet, get off, and see the mortgage recorded yourself, and then take +the mail-boat." + +To this Gray agreed, and the next day, when Jack went on board the +packet "Swiftsure," he found Mr. Francis Gray going aboard also. Mr. +Beal had warned Jack that he must not let anybody from the packet get +to the clerk's office ahead of him,--that the first paper deposited for +record would take the land. Jack wondered why Mr. Francis Gray was +aboard the packet, which went no farther than Madison, while Mr. Gray's +home was in Louisville. He soon guessed, however, that Gray meant to +land at Port William, and so to head him off. Jack looked at Mr. Gray's +form, made plump by good feeding, and felt safe. He couldn't be very +dangerous in a foot-race. Jack reflected with much hopefulness that no +boy in school could catch him in a straight-away run when he was fox. He +would certainly leave the somewhat puffy Mr. Francis Gray behind. + +But in the hour's run down the river, including two landings at Minuit's +and Craig's, Jack had time to remember that Francis Gray was a cunning +man and might head him off by some trick or other. A vague fear took +possession of him, and he resolved to be first off the boat before any +pretext could be invented to stop him. + +Meantime, Francis Gray had looked at Jack's lithe legs with +apprehension. "I can never beat that boy," he had reflected. "My running +days are over." Finding among the deck passengers a young fellow who +looked as though he needed money, Gray approached him with this +question: + +"Do you belong in Port William, young man?" + +"I don't belong nowhere else, I reckon," answered the seedy fellow, with +shuffling impudence. + +"Do you know where the county clerk's office is?" asked Mr. Gray. + +"Yes, and the market-house. I can show you the way to the jail, too, if +you want to know; but I s'pose you've been there many a time," laughed +the "wharf rat." + +Gray was irritated at this rudeness, but he swallowed his anger. + +"Would you like to make five dollars?" + +"Now you're talkin' interestin'. Why didn't you begin at that eend of +the subjick? I'd like to make five dollars as well as the next feller, +provided it isn't to be made by too much awful hard work." + +"Can you run well?" + +"If they's money at t'other eend of the race I can run like sixty _fer a +spell_. 'Tain't my common gait, howsumever." + +"If you'll take this paper," said Gray, "and get it to the county +clerk's office before anybody else gets there from this boat, I'll give +you five dollars." + +"Honor bright?" asked the chap, taking the paper, drawing a long breath, +and looking as though he had discovered a gold mine. + +"Honor bright," answered Gray. "You must jump off first of all, for +there's a boy aboard that will beat you if he can. No pay if you don't +win." + +"Which is the one that'll run ag'in' me?" asked the long-legged fellow. + +Gray described Jack, and told the young man to go out forward and he +would see him. Gray was not willing to be seen with the "wharf-rat," +lest suspicions should be awakened in Jack Dudley's mind. But after the +shabby young man had gone forward and looked at Jack, he came back with +a doubtful air. + +"That's Hoosier Jack, as we used to call him," said the shabby young +man. "He an' two more used to row a boat acrost the river every day to +go to ole Niles's school. He's a hard one to beat,--they say he used to +lay the whole school out on prisoners' base, and that he could leave 'em +all behind on fox." + +"You think you can't do it, then?" asked Gray. + +"Gimme a little start and I reckon I'll fetch it. It's up-hill part of +the way and he may lose his wind, for it's a good half-mile. You must +make a row with him at the gang-plank, er do somethin' to kinder hold +him back. The wind's down stream to-day and the boat's shore to swing in +a little aft. I'll jump for it and you keep him back." + +To this Gray assented. + +As the shabby young fellow had predicted, the boat did swing around in +the wind, and have some trouble in bringing her bow to the wharf-boat. +The captain stood on the hurricane-deck calling to the pilot to "back +her," "stop her," "go ahead on her," "go ahead on yer labberd," and +"back on yer stabberd." Now, just as the captain was backing the +starboard wheel and going ahead on his larboard, so as to bring the boat +around right, Mr. Gray turned on Jack. + +"What are you treading on my toes for, you impudent young rascal?" he +broke out. + +Jack colored and was about to reply sharply, when he caught sight of the +shabby young fellow, who just then leaped from the gunwale of the boat +amidships and barely reached the wharf. Jack guessed why Gray had tried +to irritate him,--he saw that the well-known "wharf-rat" was to be his +competitor. But what could he do? The wind held the bow of the boat out, +the gang-plank which had been pushed out ready to reach the wharf-boat +was still firmly grasped by the deck-hands, and the farther end of it +was six feet from the wharf, and much above it. It would be some +minutes before any one could leave the boat in the regular way. There +was only one chance to defeat the rascally Gray. Jack concluded to take +it. + +He ran out upon the plank amidst the harsh cries of the deck-hands, who +tried to stop him, and the oaths of the mate, who thundered at him, with +the stern order of the captain from the upper deck, who called out to +him to go back. + +But, luckily, the steady pulling ahead of the larboard engine, and the +backing of the starboard, began just then to bring the boat around, the +plank sank down a little under Jack's weight, and Jack made the leap to +the wharf, hearing the confused cries, orders, oaths, and shouts from +behind him, as he pushed through the crowd. + +"Stop that thief!" cried Francis Gray to the people on the wharf-boat, +but in vain. Jack glided swiftly through the people, and got on shore +before anybody could check him. He charged up the hill after the shabby +young fellow, who had a decided lead, while some of the men on the +wharf-boat pursued them both, uncertain which was the thief. Such +another pell-mell race Port William had never seen. Windows flew up and +heads went out. Small boys joined the pursuing crowd, and dogs barked +indiscriminately and uncertainly at the heels of everybody. There were +cries of "Hurrah for long Ben!" and "Hurrah for Hoosier Jack!" Some of +Jack's old school-mates essayed to stop him to find out what it was all +about, but he would not relax a muscle, and he had no time to answer any +questions. He saw the faces of the people dimly; he heard the crowd +crying after him, "Stop, thief!" he caught a glimpse of his old teacher, +Mr. Niles, regarding him with curiosity as he darted by; he saw an +anxious look in Judge Kane's face as he passed him on a street corner. +But Jack held his eyes on Long Ben, whom he pursued as a dog does a fox. +He had steadily gained on the fellow, but Ben had too much the start, +and, unless he should give out, there would be little chance for Jack to +overtake him. One thinks quickly in such moments. Jack remembered that +there were two ways of reaching the county clerk's office. To keep the +street around the block was the natural way,--to take an alley through +the square was neither longer nor shorter. But by running down the alley +he would deprive Long Ben of the spur of seeing his pursuer, and he +might even make him think that Jack had given out. Jack had played this +trick when playing hound and fox, and at any rate he would by this turn +shake off the crowd. So into the alley he darted, and the bewildered +pursuers kept on crying "Stop, thief!" after Long Ben, whose reputation +was none of the best. Somebody ahead tried to catch the shabby young +fellow, and this forced Ben to make a slight curve, which gave Jack the +advantage, so that just as Ben neared the office, Jack rounded a corner +out of an alley, and entered ahead of him, dashed up to the clerk's desk +and deposited the judgment. + +"For record," he gasped. + +The next instant the shabby young fellow pushed forward the mortgage. + +"Mine first!" cried Long Ben. + +"I'll take yours when I get this entered," said the clerk quietly, as +became a public officer. + +"I got here first," said Long Ben. + +But the clerk looked at the clock and entered the date on the back of +Jack's paper, putting "one o'clock and eighteen minutes" after the +date. Then he wrote "one o'clock and nineteen minutes" on the paper +which Long Ben handed him. The office was soon crowded with people +discussing the result of the race, and a part of them were even now in +favor of seizing one or the other of the runners for a theft, which some +said had been committed on the packet, and others declared was committed +on the wharf-boat. Francis Gray came in, and could not conceal his +chagrin. + +"I meant to do the fair thing by you," he said to Jack, severely, "but +now you'll never get a cent out of me." + +"I'd rather have the law on men like you, than have a thousand of your +sort of fair promises," said Jack. + +"I've a mind to strike you," said Gray. + +"The Kentucky law is hard on a man who strikes a minor," said Judge +Kane, who had entered at that moment. + +Mr. Niles came in to learn what was the matter, and Judge Kane, after +listening quietly to the talk of the people, until the excitement +subsided, took Jack over to his house, whence the boy trudged home in +the late afternoon full of hopefulness. + +Gray's land realized as much as Mr. Beal expected, and Jack studied hard +all summer, so as to get as far ahead as possible by the time school +should begin in the autumn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE NEW TEACHER + + +The new teacher who was employed to take the Greenbank school in the +autumn was a young man from college. Standing behind the desk hitherto +occupied by the grim-faced Mr. Ball, young Williams looked very mild by +contrast. He was evidently a gentle-spirited man as compared with the +old master, and King Pewee and his crowd were gratified in noting this +fact. They could have their own way with such a master as that! When he +called the school to order, there remained a bustle of curiosity and +mutual recognition among the children. Riley and Pewee kept up a little +noise by way of defiance. They had heard that the new master did not +intend to whip. Now he stood quietly behind his desk, and waited a few +moments in silence for the whispering group to be still. Then he slowly +raised and levelled his finger at Riley and Pewee, but still said +nothing. There was something so firm and quiet about his +motion--something that said, "I will wait all day, but you must be +still"--that the boys could not resist it. + +By the time they were quiet, two of the girls had got into a titter over +something, and the forefinger was aimed at them. The silent man made the +pupils understand that he was not to be trifled with. + +When at length there was quiet, he made every one lay down book or slate +and face around toward him. Then with his pointing finger, or with a +little slap of his hands together, or with a word or two at most, he got +the school still again. + +"I hope we shall be friends," he said, in a voice full of kindliness. +"All I want is to----" + +But at this point Riley picked up his slate and book, and turned away. +The master snapped his fingers, but Riley affected not to hear him. + +"That young man will put down his slate." The master spoke in a low +tone, as one who expected to be obeyed, and the slate was reluctantly +put upon the desk. + +"When I am talking to you, I want you to hear," he went on, very +quietly. "I am paid to teach you. One of the things I have to teach you +is good manners. You," pointing to Riley, "are old enough to know better +than to take your slate when your teacher is speaking, but perhaps you +have never been taught what are good manners. I'll excuse you this time. +Now, you all see those switches hanging here behind me. I did not put +them there. I do not say that I shall not use them. Some boys have to +be whipped, I suppose,--like mules,--and when I have tried, I may find +that I cannot get on without the switches, but I hope not to have to use +them." + +Here Riley, encouraged by the master's mildness and irritated by the +rebuke he had received, began to make figures on his slate. + +"Bring me that slate," said the teacher. + +Riley was happy that he had succeeded in starting a row. He took his +slate and his arithmetic, and shuffled up to the master in a +half-indolent, half-insolent way. + +"Why do you take up your work when I tell you not to?" asked the new +teacher. + +"Because I didn't want to waste all my morning. I wanted to do my sums." + +"You are a remarkably industrious youth, I take it." The young master +looked Riley over, as he said this, from head to foot. The whole school +smiled, for there was no lazier boy than this same Riley. "I suppose," +the teacher continued, "that you are the best scholar in school--the +bright and shining light of Greenbank." + +Here there was a general titter at Riley. + +"I cannot have you sit away down at the other end of the school-room and +hide your excellent example from the rest. Stand right up here by me and +cipher, that all the school may see how industrious you are." + +Riley grew very red in the face and pretended to "cipher," holding his +book in his hand. + +"Now," said the new teacher, "I have but just one rule for this school, +and I will write it on the blackboard that all may see it." + +He took chalk and wrote: + + DO RIGHT. + +"That is all. Let us go to our lessons." + +For the first two hours that Riley stood on the floor he pretended to +enjoy it. But when recess came and went and Mr. Williams did not send +him to his seat, he began to shift from one foot to the other and from +his heels to his toes, and to change his slate from the right hand to +the left. His class was called, and after recitation he was sent back to +his place. He stood it as best he could until the noon recess, but when, +at the beginning of the afternoon session, Mr. Williams again called his +"excellent scholar" and set him up, Riley broke down and said: + +"I think you might let me go now." + +"Are you tired?" asked the cruel Mr. Williams. + +"Yes, I am," and Riley hung his head, while the rest smiled. + +"And are you ready to do what the good order of the school requires?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Very well; you can go." + +The chopfallen Riley went back to his seat, convinced that it would not +do to rebel against the new teacher, even if he did not use the beech +switches. + +But Mr. Williams was also quick to detect the willing scholar. He gave +Jack extra help on his Latin after school was out, and Jack grew very +proud of the teacher's affection for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHASING THE FOX + + +All the boys in the river towns thirty years ago--and therefore the boys +in Greenbank, also--took a great interest in the steam-boats which plied +up and down the Ohio. Each had his favorite boat, and boasted of her +speed and excellence. Every one of them envied those happy fellows whose +lot it was to "run on the river" as cabin-boys. Boats were a common +topic of conversation--their build, their engines, their speed, their +officers, their mishaps, and all the incidents of their history. + +So it was that from the love of steam-boats, which burned so brightly in +the bosom of the boy who lived on the banks of that great and lovely +river, there grew up the peculiar game of "boats' names." I think the +game was started at Louisville or New Albany, where the falls interrupt +navigation, and where many boats of the upper and lower rivers are +assembled. + +One day, as the warm air of Indian summer in this mild climate made +itself felt, the boys assembled, on the evergreen "bluegrass," after the +snack at the noon recess, to play boats' names. + +Through Jack's influence, Columbus, who did not like to play with the A +B C boys, was allowed to take the handkerchief and give out the first +name. All the rest stood up in a row like a spelling-class, while little +Columbus, standing in front of them, held a knotted handkerchief with +which to scourge them when the name should be guessed. The arm which +held the handkerchief was so puny that the boys laughed to see the +feeble lad stand there in a threatening attitude. + +"I say, Lum, don't hit too hard, now; my back is tender," said Bob +Holliday. + +"Give us an easy one to guess," said Riley, coaxingly. + +Columbus, having come from the back country, did not know the names of +half a dozen boats, and what he knew about were those which touched +daily at the wharf of Greenbank. + +"F----n," he said. + +"Fashion," cried all the boys at once, breaking into unrestrained mirth +at the simplicity that gave them the name of Captain Glenn's little +Cincinnati and Port William packet, which landed daily at the village +wharf. Columbus now made a dash at the boys, who were obliged to run to +the school-house and back whenever a name was guessed, suffering a +beating all the way from the handkerchief of the one who had given out +the name, though, indeed, the punishment Lum was able to give was very +slight. It was doubtful who had guessed first, since the whole party had +cried "Fashion" almost together, but it was settled at last in favor of +Harry Weathervane, who was sure to give out hard names, since he had +been to Cincinnati recently, and had gone along the levee reading the +names of those boats that did business above that city, and so were +quite unknown, unless by report, to the boys of Greenbank. + +"A---- A----s," were the three letters which Harry gave, and Ben Berry +guessed "Archibald Ananias," and Tom Holcroft said it was "Amanda Amos," +and at last all gave it up; whereupon Harry told them it was "Alvin +Adams," and proceeded to give out another. + +"C---- A---- P----x," he said next time. + +"Caps," said Riley, mistaking the x for an s; and then Bob Holliday +suggested "Hats and Caps," and Jack wanted to have it "Boots and Shoes." +But Johnny Meline remembered that he had read of such a name for a ship +in his Sunday-school lesson of the previous Sunday, and he guessed that +a steam-boat might bear that same. + +"I know," said Johnny, "it's Castor----" + +"Oil," suggested Jack. + +"No--Castor and P, x,--Pollux--Castor and Pollux--it's a Bible name." + +"You're not giving us the name of Noah's ark, are you?" asked Bob. + +"I say, boys, that isn't fair a bit," growled Pewee, in all earnestness. +"I don't hardly believe that Bible ship's a-going now." Things were +mixed in Pewee's mind, but he had a vague notion that Bible times were +as much as fifty years ago. While he stood doubting, Harry began to whip +him with the handkerchief, saying, "I saw her at Cincinnati, last week. +She runs to Maysville and Parkersburg, you goose." + +After many names had been guessed, and each guesser had taken his turn, +Ben Berry had to give out. He had just heard the name of a "lower +country" boat, and was sure that it would not be guessed. + +"C----p----r," he said. + +"Oh, I know," said Jack, who had been studying the steam-boat column of +an old Louisville paper that very morning, "it's the--the--" and he put +his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and danced around, trying to +remember, while all the rest stood and laughed at his antics. "Now I've +got it,--the 'Cornplanter'!" + +And Ben Berry whipped the boys across the road and back, after which +Jack took the handkerchief. + +"Oh, say, boys, this is a poor game; let's play fox," Bob suggested. +"Jack's got the handkerchief, let him be the first fox." + +So Jack took a hundred yards' start, and all the boys set out after him. +The fox led the hounds across the commons, over the bars, past the +"brick pond," as it was called, up the lane into Moro's pasture, along +the hill-side to the west across Dater's fence into Betts's pasture; +thence over into the large woods pasture of the Glade farm. In every +successive field some of the hounds had run off to the flank, and by +this means every attempt of Jack's to turn toward the river, and thus +fetch a circuit for home, had been foiled. They had cut him off from +turning through Moro's orchard or Betts's vineyard, and so there was +nothing for the fleet-footed fox but to keep steadily to the west and +give his pursuers no chance to make a cut-off on him. But every now and +then he made a feint of turning, which threw the others out of a +straight track. Once in the woods pasture, Jack found himself out of +breath, having run steadily for a rough mile and a half, part of it +up-hill. He was yet forty yards ahead of Bob Holliday and Riley, who led +the hounds. Dashing into a narrow path through the underbrush, Jack ran +into a little clump of bushes and hid behind a large black-walnut log. + +Riley and Holliday came within six feet of him, some of the others +passed to the south of him and some to the north, but all failed to +discover his lurking-place. Soon Jack could hear them beating about the +bushes beyond him. + +This was his time. Having recovered his wind, he crept out southward +until he came to the foot of the hill, and entered Glade's lane, heading +straight for the river across the wide plain. Pewee, who had perched +himself on a fence to rest, caught sight of Jack first, and soon the +whole pack were in full cry after him, down the long, narrow, +elder-bordered lane. Bob Holliday and Riley, the fleetest of foot, +climbed over the high stake-and-rider fence into Betts's corn-field, and +cut off a diagonal to prevent Jack's getting back toward the +school-house. Seeing this movement, Jack, who already had made an +extraordinary run, crossed the fence himself, and tried to make a +cut-off in spite of them; but Riley already had got in ahead of him, and +Jack, seeing the boys close behind and before him, turned north again +toward the hill, got back into the lane, which was now deserted, and +climbed into Glade's meadow on the west side of the lane. He now had a +chance to fetch a sweep around toward the river again, though the whole +troop of boys were between him and the school-house. Fairly headed off +on the east, he made a straight run south for the river shore, striking +into a deep gully, from which he came out panting upon the beach, where +he had just time to hide himself in a hollow sycamore, hoping that the +boys would get to the westward and give him a chance to run up the river +shore for the school-house. + +But one cannot play the same trick twice. Some of the boys stationed +themselves so as to intercept Jack's retreat toward the school-house, +while the rest searched for him, beating up and down the gully, and up +and down the beach, until they neared the hollow sycamore. Jack made a +sharp dash to get through them, but was headed off and caught by Pewee. +Just as Jack was caught, and Pewee was about to start homeward as fox, +the boys caught sight of two steam-boats racing down the river. The +whole party was soon perched on a fallen sycamore, watching first the +"Swiftsure" and then the "Ben Franklin," while the black smoke poured +from their chimneys. So fascinated were they with this exciting contest +that they stayed half an hour waiting to see which should beat. At +length, as the boats passed out of sight, with the "Swiftsure" leading +her competitor, it suddenly occurred to Jack that it must be later than +the school-hour. The boys looked aghast at one another a moment on +hearing him mention this; then they glanced at the sun, already +declining in the sky, and set out for school, trotting swiftly in spite +of their fatigue. + +What would the master say? Pewee said he didn't care,--it wasn't Old +Ball, and they wouldn't get a whipping, anyway. But Jack thought that it +was too bad to lose the confidence of Mr. Williams. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CALLED TO ACCOUNT + + +Successful hounds, having caught their fox, ought to have come home in +triumph; but, instead of that, they came home like dogs that had been +killing sheep, their heads hanging down in a guilty and self-betraying +way. + +Jack walked into the school-house first. It was an hour and a half past +the time for the beginning of school. He tried to look unconcerned as he +went to his seat. There stood the teacher, with his face very calm but +very pale, and Jack felt his heart sink. + +One by one the laggards filed into the school-room, while the +awe-stricken girls on the opposite benches, and the little A B C boys, +watched the guilty sinners take their places, prepared to meet their +fate. + +Riley came in with a half-insolent smile on his face, as if to say: "I +don't care." Pewee was sullen and bull-doggish. Ben Berry looked the +sneaking fellow he was, and Harry Weathervane tried to remember that his +father was a school-trustee. Bob Holliday couldn't help laughing in a +foolish way. Columbus had fallen out of the race before he got to the +"brick-pond," and so had returned in time to be punctual when school +resumed its session. + +During all the time that the boys, heated with their exercise and +blushing with shame, were filing in, Mr. Williams stood with set face +and regarded them. He was very much excited, and so I suppose did not +dare to reprove them just then. He called the classes and heard them in +rapid succession, until it was time for the spelling-class, which +comprised all but the very youngest pupils. On this day, instead of +calling the spelling-class, he said, evidently with great effort to +control himself: "The girls will keep their seats. The boys will take +their places in the spelling-class." + +Riley's lower jaw fell--he was sure that the master meant to flog them +all. He was glad he was not at the head of the class. Ben Berry could +hardly drag his feet to his place, and poor Jack was filled with +confusion. When the boys were all in place, the master walked up and +down the line and scrutinized them, while Riley cast furtive glances at +the dusty old beech switches on the wall, wondering which one the master +would use, and Pewee was trying to guess whether Mr. Williams's arm was +strong, and whether he "would make a fellow take off his coat" or not. + +"Columbus," said the teacher, "you can take your seat." + +Riley shook in his shoes, thinking that this certainly meant a whipping. +He began to frame excuses in his mind, by which to try to lighten his +punishment. + +But the master did not take down his switches. He only talked. But such +a talk! He told the boys how worthless a man was who could not be +trusted, and how he had hoped for a school full of boys that could be +relied on. He thought there were some boys, at least--and this remark +struck Jack to the heart--that there were some boys in the school who +would rather be treated as gentlemen than beaten with ox-goads. But he +was now disappointed. All of them seemed equally willing to take +advantage of his desire to avoid whipping them; and all of them had +shown themselves _unfit to be trusted_. + +Here he paused long enough to let the full weight of his censure enter +their minds. Then he began on a new tack. He had hoped that he might +have their friendship. He had thought that they cared a little for his +good opinion. But now they had betrayed him. All the town was looking to +see whether he would succeed in conducting his school without whipping. +A good many would be glad to see him fail. Today they would be saying +all over Greenbank that the new teacher couldn't manage his school. Then +he told the boys that while they were sitting on the trunk of the fallen +sycamore looking at the steam-boat race, one of the trustees, Mr. +Weathervane, had driven past and had seen them there. He had stopped to +complain to the master. "Now," said the master, "I have found how little +you care for me." + +This was very sharp talk, and it made the boys angry. Particularly did +Jack resent any intimation that he was not to be trusted. But the new +master was excited and naturally spoke severely. Nor did he give the +boys a chance to explain at that time. + +"You have been out of school," he said, "one hour and thirty-one +minutes. That is about equal to six fifteen-minute recesses--to the +morning and afternoon recesses for three days. I shall have to keep you +in at those six recesses to make up the time, and in addition, as a +punishment, I shall keep you in school half an hour after the usual time +of dismission, for three days." + +Here Jack made a motion to speak. + +"No," said the master, "I will not hear a word, now. Go home and think +it over. To-morrow I mean to ask each one of you to explain his +conduct." + +With this, he dismissed the school, and the boys went out as angry as a +hive of bees that have been disturbed. Each one made his speech. Jack +thought it "mean that the master should say they were not fit to be +trusted. He wouldn't have stayed out if he'd known it was school-time." + +Bob Holliday said "the young master was a blisterer," and then he +laughed good-naturedly. + +Harry Weathervane was angry, and so were all the rest. At length it was +agreed that they didn't want to be cross-questioned about it, and that +it was better that somebody should write something that should give Mr. +Williams a piece of their mind, and show him how hard he was on boys +that didn't mean any harm, but only forgot themselves. And Jack was +selected to do the writing. + +Jack made up his mind that the paper he would write should be "a +scorcher." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AN APOLOGY + + +Of course, there was a great deal of talk in the village. The +I-told-you-so people were quite delighted. Old Mother Horn "always knew +that boys couldn't be managed without switching. Didn't the Bible or +somebody say: 'Just as the twig is bent the boy's inclined?' And if you +don't bend your twig, what'll become of your boy?" + +The loafers and loungers and gad-abouts and gossips talked a great deal +about the failure of the new plan. They were sure that Mr. Ball would be +back in that school-house before the term was out, unless Williams +should whip a good deal more than he promised to. The boys would just +drive him out. + +Jack told his mother, with a grieved face, how harsh the new master had +been, and how he had even said they were _not fit to be trusted_. + +"That's a very harsh word," said Mrs. Dudley, "but let us make some +allowances. Mr. Williams is on trial before the town, and he finds +himself nearly ruined by the thoughtlessness of the boys. He had to wait +an hour and a half, with half of the school gone. Think how much he must +have suffered in that time. And then, to have to take a rebuke from Mr. +Weathervane besides, must have stung him to the quick." + +"Yes, that's so," said Jack, "but then he had no business to take it for +granted that we did it on purpose." + +And Jack went about his chores, trying to think of some way of writing +to the master an address which should be severe, but not too severe. He +planned many things but gave them up. He lay awake in the night thinking +about it, and, at last, when he had cooled off, he came to the +conclusion that, as the boys had been the first offenders, they should +take the first step toward a reconciliation. But whether he could +persuade the angry boys to see it in that light, he did not know. + +When morning came, he wrote a very short paper, somewhat in this +fashion: + + Mr. Williams: + + Dear Sir: We are very sorry for what we did yesterday, and for + the trouble we have given you. We are willing to take the + punishment, for we think we deserve it; but we hope you will not + think that we did it on purpose, for we did not, and we don't like + to have you think so. + + Respectfully submitted. + +Jack carried this in the first place to his faithful friend, Bob +Holliday, who read it. + +"Oh, you've come down, have you?" said Bob. + +"I thought we ought to," said Jack. "We _did_ give him a great deal of +trouble, and if it had been Mr. Ball, he would have whipped us half to +death." + +"We shouldn't have forgot and gone away at that time if Old Ball had +been the master," said Bob. + +"That's just it," said Jack; "that's the very reason why we ought to +apologize." + +"All right," said Bob, "I'll sign her," and he wrote "Robert M. +Holliday" in big letters at the top of the column intended for the +names. Jack put his name under Bob's. + +But when they got to the school-house it was not so easy to persuade the +rest. At length, however, Johnny Meline signed it, and then Harry +Weathervane, and then the rest, one after another, with some grumbling, +wrote their names. All subscribed to it excepting Pewee and Ben Berry +and Riley. They declared they never would sign it. They didn't want to +be kept in at recess and after school like convicts. They didn't deserve +it. + +"Jack is a soft-headed fool," Riley said, "to draw up such a thing as +that. I'm not afraid of the master. I'm not going to knuckle down to +him, either." + +Of course, Pewee, as a faithful echo, said just what Riley said, and Ben +Berry said what Riley and Pewee said; so that the three were quite +unanimous. + +"Well," said Jack, "then we'll have to hand in our petition without the +signatures of the triplets." + +"Don't you call me a triplet," said Pewee; "I've got as much sense as +any of you. You're a soft-headed triplet yourself!" + +Even Riley had to join in the laugh that followed this blundering sally +of Pewee. + +When the master came in, he seemed very much troubled. He had heard what +had been said about the affair in the town. The address which Jack had +written was lying on his desk. He took it up and read it, and +immediately a look of pleasure and relief took the place of the worried +look he had brought to school with him. + +"Boys," he said, "I have received your petition, and I shall answer it +by and by." + +The hour for recess came and passed. The girls and the very little boys +were allowed their recess, but nothing was said to the larger boys about +their going out. Pewee and Riley were defiant. + +At length, when the school was about to break up for noon, the master +put his pen, ink, and other little articles in the desk, and the school +grew hushed with expectancy. + +"This apology," said Mr. Williams, "which I see is in John Dudley's +handwriting, and which bears the signature of all but three of those who +were guilty of the offence yesterday, is a very manly apology, and quite +increases my respect for those who have signed it. I have suffered much +from your carelessness of yesterday, but this apology, showing, as it +does, the manliness of my boys, has given me more pleasure than the +offence gave me pain. I ought to make an apology to you. I blamed you +too severely yesterday in accusing you of running away intentionally. I +take all that back." + +Here he paused a moment, and looked over the petition carefully. + +"William Riley, I don't see your name here. Why is that?" + +"Because I didn't put it there." + +Pewee and Ben Berry both laughed at this wit. + +"Why didn't you put it there?" + +"Because I didn't want to." + +"Have you any explanation to give of your conduct yesterday?" + +"No, sir; only that I think it's mean to keep us in because we forgot +ourselves." + +"Peter Rose, have you anything to say?" + +"Just the same as Will Riley said." + +"And you, Benjamin?" + +"Oh, I don't care much," said Ben Berry. "Jack was fox, and I ran after +him, and if he hadn't run all over creation and part of Columbia, I +shouldn't have been late. It isn't any fault of mine. I think Jack ought +to do the staying in." + +"You are about as old a boy as Jack," said the master. "I suppose Jack +might say that if you and the others hadn't chased him, he wouldn't +have run 'all over creation,' as you put it. You and the rest were all +guilty of a piece of gross thoughtlessness. All excepting you three have +apologized in the most manly way. I therefore remove the punishment from +all the others entirely hereafter, deeming that the loss of this +morning's recess is punishment enough for boys who can be so manly in +their acknowledgments. Peter Rose, William Riley, and Benjamin Berry +will remain in school at both recesses and for a half-hour after school +every day for three days--not only for having forgotten their duty, but +for having refused to make acknowledgment or apology." + +Going home that evening, half an hour after all the others had been +dismissed, the triplets put all their griefs together, and resolved to +be avenged on Mr. Williams at the first convenient opportunity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +KING'S BASE AND A SPELLING-LESSON + + +As the three who usually gave the most trouble on the playground, as +well as in school, were now in detention at every recess, the boys +enjoyed greatly their play during these three days. + +It was at this time that they began to play that favorite game of +Greenbank, which seems to be unknown almost everywhere else. It is +called "king's base," and is full of all manner of complex happenings, +sudden surprises, and amusing results. + +Each of the boys selected a base or goal. A row of sidewalk trees were +favorite bases. There were just as many bases as boys. Some boy would +venture out from his base. Then another would pursue him; a third would +chase the two, and so it would go, the one who left his base latest +having the right to catch. + +Just as Johnny Meline was about to lay hold on Jack, Sam Crashaw, having +just left _his_ base, gave chase to Johnny, and just as Sam thought he +had a good chance to catch Johnny, up came Jack, fresh from having +touched his base, and nabbed Sam. When one has caught another, he has a +right to return to his base with his prisoner, unmolested. The prisoner +now becomes an active champion of the new base, and so the game goes on +until all the bases are broken up but one. Very often the last boy on a +base succeeds in breaking up a strong one, and, indeed, there is no end +to the curious results attained in the play. + +Jack had never got on in his studies as at this time. Mr. Williams took +every opportunity to show his liking for his young friend, and Jack's +quickened ambition soon put him at the head of his classes. It was a +rule that the one who stood at the head of the great spelling-class on +Friday evenings should go to the foot on Monday, and so work his way up +again. There was a great strife between Sarah Weathervane and Jack to +see which should go to the foot the oftenest during the term, and so win +a little prize that Mr. Williams had offered to the best speller in the +school. As neither of them ever missed a word in the lesson, they held +the head each alternate Friday evening. In this way the contest bade +fair to be a tie. But Sarah meant to win the prize by fair means or +foul. + +One Friday morning before school-time, the boys and girls were talking +about the relative merits of the two spellers, Joanna maintaining that +Sarah was the better, and others that Jack could spell better than +Sarah. + +"Oh!" said Sarah Weathervane, "Jack is the best speller in school. I +study till my head aches to get my lesson, but it is all the same to +Jack whether he studies or not. He has a natural gift for spelling, and +he spends nearly all his time on arithmetic and Latin." + +This speech pleased Jack very much. He had stood at the head of the +class all the week, and spelling did seem to him the easiest thing in +the world. That afternoon he hardly looked at his lesson. It was so nice +to think he could beat Sarah Weathervane with his left hand, so to +speak. + +When the great spelling-class was called, he spelled the words given to +him, as usual, and Sarah saw no chance to get the coveted opportunity +to stand at the head, go down, and spell her way up again. But the very +last word given to Jack was _sacrilege_, and, not having studied the +lesson, he spelled it with _e_ in the second syllable and _i_ in the +last. Sarah gave the letters correctly, and when Jack saw the smile of +triumph on her face, he guessed why she had flattered him that morning. +Hereafter he would not depend on his natural genius for spelling. A +natural genius for working is the best gift. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +UNCLAIMED TOP-STRINGS + + +With a sinking heart, Jack often called to mind that this was his last +term at school. The little money that his father had left was not enough +to warrant his continuing; he must now do something for his own support. +He resolved, therefore, to make the most of his time under Mr. Williams. + +When Pewee, Riley, and Ben Berry got through with their punishment, they +sought some way of revenging themselves on the master for punishing +them, and on Jack for doing better than they had done, and thus escaping +punishment. It was a sore thing with them that Jack had led all the +school his way, so that, instead of the whole herd following King Pewee +and Prime Minister Riley into rebellion, they now "knuckled down to the +master," as Riley called it, under the lead of Jack, and they even dared +to laugh slyly at the inseparable "triplets." + +The first aim of Pewee and company was to get the better of the master. +They boasted to Jack and Bob that they would fix Mr. Williams some time, +and gave out to the other boys that they knew where the master spent his +evenings, and they knew how to fix him. + +When Jack heard of this, he understood it. The teacher had a habit of +spending an evening, now and then, at Dr. Lanham's, and the boys no +doubt intended to play a prank on him in going or coming. There being +now no moonlight, the village streets were very dark, and there was +every opportunity for a trick. Riley's father's house stood next on the +street to Dr. Lanham's; the lots were divided by an alley. This gave the +triplets a good chance to carry out their designs. + +But Bob Holliday and Jack, good friends to the teacher, thought that it +would be fun to watch the conspirators and defeat them. So, when they +saw Mr. Williams going to Dr. Lanham's, they stationed themselves in the +dark alley on the side of the street opposite to Riley's and took +observations. Mr. Williams had a habit of leaving Dr. Lanham's at +exactly nine o'clock, and so, just before nine, the three came out of +Riley's yard, and proceeded in the darkness to the fence of Lanham's +dooryard. + +Getting the trunk of one of the large shade-trees between him and the +plotters, Jack crept up close enough to guess what they were doing and +to overhear their conversation. Then he came back to Bob. + +"They are tying a string across the sidewalk on Lanham's side of the +alley, I believe," whispered Jack, "so as to throw Mr. Williams head +foremost into that mud-hole at the mouth of the alley." + +By this time, the three boys had finished their arrangements and +retreated through the gate into the porch of the Riley house, whence +they might keep a lookout for the catastrophe. + +"I'm going to cut that string where it goes around the tree," said Bob, +and he crouched low on the ground, got the trunk of the tree between him +and the Riley house, and crept slowly across the street. + +"I'll capture the string," said Jack, walking off to the next +cross-street, then running around the block until he came to the back +gate of Lanham's yard, which he entered, running up the walk to the +back door. His knock was answered by Mrs. Lanham. + +"Why, Jack, what's the matter?" she asked, seeing him at the kitchen +door, breathless. + +"I want to see Susan, please," he said, "and tell Mr. Williams not to go +yet a minute." + +"Here's a mystery," said Mrs. Lanham, returning to the sitting-room, +where the teacher was just rising to say good-night. "Here's Jack +Dudley, at the back door, out of breath, asking for Susan, and wishing +Mr. Williams not to leave the house yet." + +Susan ran to the back door. + +"Susan," said Jack, "the triplets have tied a string from the corner of +your fence to the locust-tree, and they're watching from Riley's porch +to see Mr. Williams fall into the mud-hole. Bob is cutting the string +at the tree, and I want you to go down along the fence and untie it and +bring it in. They will not suspect you if they see you." + +"I don't care if they do," said Susan, and she glided out to the +cross-fence which ran along the alley, followed it to the front and +untied the string, fetching it back with her. When she got back to the +kitchen door she heard Jack closing the alley gate. He had run off to +join Bob, leaving the string in Susan's hands. + +Dr. Lanham and the master had a good laugh over the captured string, +which was made of Pewee's and Riley's top-strings, tied together. + +The triplets did not see Susan go to the fence. They were too intent on +what was to happen to Mr. Williams. When, at length, he came along +safely through the darkness, they were bewildered. + +"You didn't tie that string well in the middle," growled Pewee at Riley. + +"Yes, I did," said Riley. "He must have stepped over." + +"Step over a string a foot high, when he didn't know it was there?" said +Pewee. + +"Let's go and get the string," said Ben Berry. + +So out of the gate they sallied, and quickly reached the place where the +string ought to have been. + +"I can't find this end," whispered Pewee by the fence. + +"The string's gone!" broke out Riley, after feeling up and down the tree +for some half a minute. + +What could have become of it? They had been so near the sidewalk all the +time that no one could have passed without their seeing him. + +The next day, at noon-time, when Susan Lanham brought out her lunch, it +was tied with Pewee's new top-string,--the best one in the school. + +"That's a very nice string," said Susan. + +"It's just like Pewee's top-string," cried Harry Weathervane. + +"Is it yours, Pewee?" said Susan, in her sweetest tones. + +"No," said the king, with his head down; "mine's at home." + +"I found this one, last night," said Susan. + +And all the school knew that she was tormenting Pewee, although they +could not guess how she had got his top-string. After a while, she made +a dive into her pocket, and brought out another string. + +"Oh," cried Johnny Meline, "where did you get that?" + +"I found it." + +"That's Will Riley's top-string," said Johnny. "It was mine. He cheated +me out of it by trading an old top that wouldn't spin." + +"That's the way you get your top-strings, is it, Will? Is this yours?" +asked the tormenting Susan. + +"No, it isn't." + +"Of course it isn't yours. You don't tie top-strings across the sidewalk +at night. You're a gentleman, you are! Come, Johnny, this string doesn't +belong to anybody; I'll trade with you for that old top that Will gave +you for a good string. I want something to remember honest Will Riley +by." + +Johnny gladly pocketed the string, and Susan carried off the shabby top, +to the great amusement of the school, who now began to understand how +she had come by the two top-strings. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, AND THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE STORY + + +It was the last day of the spring term of school. With Jack this meant +the end of his opportunity for going to school. What he should learn +hereafter he must learn by himself. The money was nearly out, and he +must go to work. + +The last day of school meant also the expiration of the master's +authority. Whatever evil was done after school-hours on the last day was +none of his business. All who had grudges carried them forward to that +day, for thus they could revenge themselves without being called to +account by the master the next day. The last day of school had no +to-morrow to be afraid of. Hence, Pewee and his friends proposed to +square accounts on the last day of school with Jack Dudley, whom they +hated for being the best scholar, and for having outwitted them more +than once. + +It was on the first day of June that the school ended, and Mr. Williams +bade his pupils good-bye. The warm sun had by this time brought the +waters of the Ohio to a temperature that made bathing pleasant, and when +the school closed, all the boys, delighted with liberty, rushed to the +river for a good swim together. In that genial climate one can remain in +the water for hours at a time, and boys become swimmers at an early age. + +Just below the village a raft was moored, and from this the youthful +swimmers were soon diving into the deep water like frogs. Every boy who +could perform any feat of agility displayed it. One would turn a +somersault in the water, and then dive from one side of the raft to +another, one could float, and another swim on his back, while a third +was learning to tread water. Some were fond of diving toes downward, +others took headers. "The little fellows" who could not swim kept on the +inside of the great raft and paddled about with the aid of slabs used +for floats. Jack, who had lived for years on the banks of the Wildcat, +could swim and dive like a musquash. + +Mr. Williams, the teacher, felt lonesome at saying good-bye to his +school; and to keep the boys company as long as possible, he strolled +down to the bank and sat on the grass watching the bathers below him, +plunging and paddling in all the spontaneous happiness of young life. + +Riley and Pewee--conspirators to the last--had their plans arranged. +When Jack should get his clothes on, they intended to pitch him off the +raft for a good wetting, and thus gratify their long-hoarded jealousy, +and get an offset to the standing joke about dough-faces and ghosts which +the town had at their expense. Ben Berry, who was their confidant, +thought this a capital plan. + +When at length Jack had enjoyed the water enough, he came out and was +about to begin dressing. Pewee and Riley were close at hand, already +dressed, and prepared to give Jack a farewell ducking. + +But just at that moment there came from the other end of the raft, and +from the spectators on the bank, a wild, confused cry, and all turned to +hearken. Harry Weathervane's younger brother, whose name was Andrew +Jackson, and who could not swim, in dressing, had stepped too far +backward and gone off the raft. He uttered a despairing and terrified +scream, struck out wildly and blindly, and went down. + +All up and down the raft and up and down the bank there went up a cry: +"Andy is drowning!" while everybody looked for somebody else to save +him. + +The school-master was sitting on the bank, and saw the accident. He +quickly slipped off his boots, but then he stopped, for Jack had already +started on a splendid run down that long raft. The confused and +terrified boys made a path for him quickly, as he came on at more than +the tremendous speed he had always shown in games. He did not stop to +leap, but ran full tilt off the raft, falling upon the drowning boy and +carrying him completely under water with him. Nobody breathed during the +two seconds that Jack, under water, struggled to get a good hold on Andy +and to keep Andy from disabling him by his blind grappling of Jack's +limbs. + +When at length Jack's head came above water, there was an audible sigh +of relief from all the on-lookers. But the danger was not over. + +"Let go of my arms, Andy!" cried Jack. "You'll drown us both if you hold +on that way. If you don't let go I'll strike you." + +Jack knew that it was sometimes necessary to stun a drowning person +before you could save him, where he persisted in clutching his +deliverer. But poor frightened Andy let go of Jack's arms at last. Jack +was already exhausted with swimming, and he had great difficulty in +dragging the little fellow to the raft, where Will Riley and Pewee Rose +pulled him out of the water. + +But now, while all were giving attention to the rescued Andy, there +occurred with Jack one of those events which people call a cramp. I do +not know what to call it, but it is not a cramp. It is a kind of +collapse--a sudden exhaustion that may come to the best of swimmers. The +heart insists on resting, the consciousness grows dim, the will-power +flags, and the strong swimmer sinks. + +Nobody was regarding Jack, who first found himself unable to make even +an effort to climb on the raft; then his hold on its edge relaxed, and +he slowly sank out of sight. Pewee saw his sinking condition first, and +cried out, as did Riley and all the rest, doing nothing to save Jack, +but running up and down the raft in a vain search for a rope or a pole. + +The school-master, having seen that Andy was brought out little worse +for his fright and the water he had swallowed, was about to put on his +boots when this new alarm attracted his attention to Jack Dudley. +Instantly he threw off his coat and was bounding down the steep bank, +along the plank to the raft, and then along the raft to where Jack had +sunk entirely out of sight. Mr. Williams leaped head first into the +water and made what the boys afterward called a splendid dive. Once +under water he opened his eyes and looked about for Jack. + +At last he came up, drawing after him the unconscious and apparently +lifeless form of Jack, who was taken from the water by the boys. The +teacher despatched two boys to bring Dr. Lanham, while he set himself to +restore consciousness by producing artificial breathing. It was some +time after Dr. Lanham's arrival that Jack fully regained his +consciousness, when he was carried home by the strong arms of Bob +Holliday, Will Riley, and Pewee, in turn. + +[Illustration: BOB HOLLIDAY CARRIES HOME HIS FRIEND.] + +And here I must do the last two boys the justice to say that they +called to inquire after Jack every day during the illness that followed, +and the old animosity to Jack was never afterward revived by Pewee and +his friends. + +On the evening after this accident and these rescues, Dr. Lanham said to +Mrs. Lanham and Susan and Mr. Williams, who happened to be there again, +that a boy was wanted in the new drug-store in the village, to learn the +business, and to sleep in the back room, so as to attend night-calls. +Dr. Lanham did not know why this Jack Dudley wouldn't be just the boy. + +Susan, for her part, was very sure he would be; and Mr. Williams agreed +with Susan, as, indeed, he generally did. + +Dr. Lanham thought that Jack might be allowed to attend school in the +daytime in the winter season, and if the boy had as good stuff in him as +he seemed to have, there was no reason why he shouldn't come to +something some day. + +"Come to something!" said Susan. "Come to something! Why, he'll make one +of the best doctors in the country yet." + +And again Mr. Williams entirely agreed with Susan, Jack Dudley was sure +to go up to the head of the class. + +Jack got the place, and I doubt not fulfilled the hope of his friends. I +know this, at least, that when a year or so later his good friend and +teacher, Mr. Williams, was married to his good and stanch friend, Susan +Lanham, Jack's was one of the happiest faces at the wedding. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hoosier School-boy, by Edward Eggleston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY *** + +***** This file should be named 23771.txt or 23771.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/7/7/23771/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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