The Safety First Club, to which Zorn had alluded so cynically, bore its
name for what its members regarded as good and sufficient reasons.
The club had come into existence in the most natural fashion
imaginable. That is, a little group of boys who liked one another
had gathered about Sam Parker, had reached a simple but effective
organization, and had been permitted to take possession of an unused
stable on the premises of Step Jones’s father. This they had fitted
up as headquarters, furnishing the place as best they might. Then
had happened a series of incidents, of adventures and misadventures,
which had served to impress upon the chums the penalties life exacts
for heedlessness and carelessness. They had woefully misjudged Tom
Orkney, for example--Tom, it may be explained, was not of the original
band--and before they came to understanding of the sterling qualities
which eventually won him an election to the club, they had undergone
experiences well calculated to drive home the lesson of the danger in
overhasty thought or action.
Now, it is not to be understood that old heads had been put upon young
shoulders. The boys still conducted themselves as healthy, active,
well meaning but fallible lads of seventeen or thereabouts, and not as
world-worn philosophers of seventy-one. They made mistakes--lots of
mistakes. They formed their judgments not on great knowledge but on
such knowledge as they had--and when a blunder was made, they tried not
to repeat it. And they strove to play the game fairly. Doubtless you
know a dozen boys like these, and fancy them not the less because you
find them very human.
Sam Parker had put into effect the guiding rule of the club in averting
hostilities between Orkney and Edward Zorn, but he had by no means
avoided the complications growing out of the affair of Trojan Walker’s
Cicero.
The Trojan himself was in serious trouble. Sentence had not yet been
passed in his case, but apparently he stood convicted of violating the
rule against taking text-books into rooms where examinations were held,
and of committing the still graver offense of “trying to lie out of
it,” as the school phrase ran.
Sam seemed to be likely to fall heir to the unhappy reputation of
being the chief witness against his friend. The story spread rapidly.
He could observe its effects when he went to school the next morning.
A group of girls fell to whispering as he approached them, and drew
aside as he passed; some of the boys nodded stiffly. There was a loud
controversy in a corner of the yard, which quieted of a sudden, when he
came near. Step, very red of face, said something in a low tone to the
youth with whom he had been disputing, and joined Sam, slipping an arm
through his and drawing him away.
“Confound a chump, anyway!” he growled. “But I say, Sam! Got anything
on for this afternoon? Let’s take a hike somewhere.”
Sam suffered himself to be led out of earshot of the others. Then he
spoke crisply:
“What’s the row? Talking about me, are they?”
Step tried to avoid the question.
“There are a lot of idiots in this school. They run away with any fool
yarn, or let it run away with them, and----”
“And the yarn this time is about me--about Trojan and me, that is?”
“Why--why, Sam----”
“Yes or no, Step?”
“Well, yes; if you must have it. But I tell you, I put a flea in that
fellow’s ear.”
Sam shook his head doubtfully. He was reminded, quaintly, that a flea
was a creature of remarkable agility, and he could not but suspect that
this flea supplied by the impulsive Step might hop about very busily in
the next few days.
“I guess it would be better not to do much talking for a while,” he
said soberly.
“What! You’d let all the yapping go on, and say nothing?”
“I’d say as little as I could.”
Step stared at Sam. “Great Scott! If we don’t deny it, everybody will
believe it’s all so!”
“Well, deny it, then, and stop there.”
Step whistled softly. “Whe-e-e! Sam, I reckon you don’t know all the
trimmings the story is getting. It’s an awful thing for you and for the
whole club.”
“I see that,” said Sam. “What hits any one of a crowd like ours hits
the whole bunch. That’s the worst of it.”
“But can’t we do anything?” Step demanded impatiently.
Sam’s eyes flashed. There were several things he would have been very
glad to do--violent things, some of them. But in the last few months he
had learned steadying lessons in the value of self-control. Perhaps it
was because he had learned these lessons more thoroughly than had any
of his mates that he remained the guiding spirit of the club.
“The first thing to do is to keep our heads. The next is to wait to see
just what happens.... Hold on there, Step! Don’t think I’m for lying
down and letting everybody trample on us! I’ll fight, and try to fight
as hard as any of the rest of you--when the time comes. But I think it
hasn’t come yet.”
Step shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if that’s your notion, all right.
I don’t believe there’s another fellow in Plainfield who could put it
through, but maybe you can.”
“Wait and see,” said Sam very gravely.
The morning session gave plenty of evidence of the spread of the story
through the Junior class, and, indeed, through the school. Sam was
perfectly conscious of a cooling in the regard in which he was held. At
recess the club rallied about him, but other classmates shunned him. It
was at recess, too, that the Trojan heard his fate. He came out of the
principal’s office, after a five-minute conference, looking as dejected
as a boy in physical health could look.
“I get zero on the Latin paper--a clean flunk--to begin with,” he
reported. “That’s on a charge of taking a book into the examination.
Then I’m laid off, as far as Cicero goes, for the rest of the term.
That is on the charge that I tried to squirrel out of the fix and lied
about the book.”
“But that’s a half suspension!”
“How’ll you keep up?”
“Where does it leave your standing now?”
“Wouldn’t they give you a chance to defend yourself?”
There was a medley of exclamations and questions. The Trojan made
answer in general:
“I don’t know just how it will work out. I don’t know what I’m going to
do.”
“But you can’t drop out!” cried Step hotly.
The Trojan smiled, but the smile had no mirth in it.
“You can’t tell what you can do, Step, till you try,” he said.
“But it would break up the crowd--the club! We’ve been together, and
we’ve stuck together since I don’t remember when. And we’ve been in the
same class, and we’ve all kept traveling along together through school
and----”
“I know all that,” the Trojan interrupted.
The Shark was moved to speech. “Look here, Trojan! Tell me something.
They say they found your Cicero where it had no business to be--who
found it?”
“One of the Freshmen, I think.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know.”
The Shark snorted. “Huh! Find out!”
“What difference does it make?” asked the Trojan dully.
“All the difference!” snapped the Shark. “Problem, isn’t it? Course it
is! How you going to solve it till you have facts to work on?”
“I meant that so long as the book was found in a desk in the
examination room, it didn’t matter who found it. The Freshman, whoever
it was, gave it to the teacher in charge there.”
“Kid trick!” Step put in.
“Oh, a yearling wouldn’t know any better,” said Herman Boyd. “He
wouldn’t intend any harm.”
“Well, now, you can’t be too sure----” Poke began; but the Shark
brought the talk back to the main question.
“How do you know, Trojan, it was found in the desk you used that day?”
“How? Why--why, I suppose it must have been.”
“Suppose!” groaned the Shark. “Can’t you fellows ever learn to be
exact?”
A little color came into the Trojan’s cheeks at the thrust. “Be
reasonable, Shark! If a brick fell from a chimney and hit you, would
you--er--er--would you find out, first thing, how tall the chimney was?
This--this whole business--well, it just took me off my feet.”
“Huh! Guess it did. But I’ve got my feet under me, and I’d like to get
things straight. Now, tell me! What’s the last--the last thing you’re
absolutely sure about--about the book, I mean?”
“I left it in the corridor. Sam had borrowed it for a minute, but
he gave it back. I had just time to look up a passage before the
bell rang. Then I left the Cicero with two or three other books I
had--stacked ’em against the wall, just as all the other fellows did
with theirs. When we came out, after the examination, everybody was in
a rush to get away. I grabbed up my books. I didn’t stop to count ’em.
I took it for granted all of them were there. And as we’ve had no Latin
recitation since then, it didn’t occur to me to look up my Cicero.”
“Same case here--same to a dot!” testified Poke.
“Nothing to do with the case,” objected the Shark. “We’re figuring on
the Trojan’s row. And where did you sit, Trojan?”
“In the back row.”
“Sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“I remember he was there,” Sam corroborated. “I was two rows in front
of him.”
“Which desk did you have, Trojan?” the Shark persisted.
“Which? Why--why, one near the middle of the row.”
“Able to point it out surely?”
The Trojan hesitated. “I--I guess so. Only I didn’t notice especially.”
“Umph! Remember your neighbors?”
The Trojan wrinkled his brow. “Let’s see! None of our crowd was very
near me.”
“Was Zorn?” Sam queried.
“I think he was over to the left--two or three desks away.”
“And Jack Hagle?”
“Yes, he was near me.”
“How near?” the Shark demanded.
The Trojan shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. Confound it! you
fellows seem to forget that I was trying to pass a Latin paper and not
mapping the room. I remember Hagle was somewhere around, and Zorn was
not very far off. Yes, and Sam was a couple of rows in front of me. But
that is all I can recall of what didn’t impress me especially at the
time.”
“Umph!” said the Shark, and made no further inquiry.
Here the big gong clanged, and the pupils streamed back into the
schoolhouse, the Safety First Club members going with the others. Sam
felt a certain relief as he saw the Trojan taking his place in line:
he had had disquieting doubts about the course Walker might follow. A
fellow smarting under a sense of injustice--Sam’s confidence in the
Trojan’s honesty was unshaken--might do something in haste which would
lead to deep repentance at leisure. But the Trojan went back to the
classroom, and joined in the recitation almost in his usual manner. As
it happened, the Latin hour had passed, so that the partial suspension
did not interfere with the work he had to do after recess.
Being far from blind, and, in fact, being especially keenly observant
that day, Sam gathered more evidence of the spread of the story of
the Trojan’s trouble and his own share in bringing it about. Now and
then he met glances which were frankly unfriendly: when the divisions
changed rooms between periods he made note that some of the girls,
passing him in the corridors, took pains to keep as far from him as
possible. It was not a pleasant experience for the boy; but for the
present, at least, there was nothing he could do but grit his teeth and
keep his temper.
Sam’s lessons in self-discipline stood him in good stead. They helped
him study his problem, while he resisted temptation to rage against his
fate.
Ed Zorn must have been extremely busy in circulating his version of
what had occurred in the hall.
That was, to Sam’s mind, a big, outstanding fact. Only Zorn had been
near enough to overhear his testimony. The principal and the sub-master
would not have spread the story; therefore, Zorn’s responsibility was
hardly matter for argument.
Why, though, should he have displayed such zeal in making the affair
public property?
Sam shook his head over this question. Zorn was no friend of the
Safety First Club; but something more than mere lack of liking was
needed fully to explain his conduct. It was still a puzzle to Sam, when
the session came to an end, and school was dismissed for the day.
When the Trojan came down the steps, Sam was waiting for him. They
walked away together, both keeping silence until they had left the
yard. Then, as they turned into a quiet side street, Sam spoke.
“Trojan, there’s just one thing I want you to understand. If I’d
dreamed I was getting you into this fix, they couldn’t have pried a
word out of me.”
“I know that, Sam,” said the other, evenly.
“But I did get you into it. Somehow, the way things happened, I
couldn’t have done more harm if I’d schemed a week! That part of it’s
up to me, all right!”
The Trojan kept his eyes straight before him. “Oh, I’m not blaming
you,” he said. “What’d be the use? What’s the use now of--of anything?”
“Here, drop that talk!” Sam counseled. “Keep a stiff upper lip! See you
don’t get rattled!”
The Trojan stopped short. He turned to his comrade.
“Rattled!” he cried. “Sam, you know what they’ve done to me? It is
practically throwing me out of the class! My term marks in Latin are
smashed. Pretty chance I’d have to keep up the work outside, even if
they’d let me take the final examination! And a clean flunk in Latin
would put me down and out. I’d better quit altogether. I’ve been
thinking it over. I don’t see anything else to do.”
“It’s the one thing you can’t do--you shan’t do!” Sam protested.
The Trojan’s manner changed; he spoke dully but with a sort of
determination.
“I’ve thought it out, I say. You know my case--the case at home, I
mean.”
Sam nodded. Trojan’s father, a traveling salesman, was away on a long
trip through the West; his mother was a semi-invalid, quite incapable
of coming to her son’s assistance in an emergency like this.
“Dropping out’d be the simplest and the best,” Walker went on. “I guess
there are other schools--if there aren’t any to take me, I can go to
work somewhere.”
“Nonsense! You stay here!”
“I won’t. This is my own affair--I’ve got to settle it for myself.”
Then his voice rose. “Sam, they didn’t give me a square deal! It wasn’t
fair! They trapped me; they caught me by a trick! I won’t stand it! I’m
through with them--I want to be through with anybody that’ll treat me
as I’ve been treated!”
Sam stared at him in perplexity. The old Trojan had been easy going,
good natured, a fellow who preferred compromise; the new Trojan was
curiously grim and determined and unyielding. There was a glint in his
eye Sam had never seen there before; his jaw was set stubbornly. The
Trojan was in earnest, in deadly earnest. Sam realized this, and his
heart sank within him. Nevertheless, he was ready to fight manfully.
“You’re all wrong! It wasn’t a square deal--I’m with you there. But I’m
not sure that wasn’t accidental--the way it happened, I mean. There’s
something else, though--you can’t go ahead as if nobody but yourself
was hit.”
“Oh! Can’t I?” growled the Trojan.
“You can’t, because we’re all in the row. I’m in up to my neck; there
isn’t a fellow in the club who doesn’t feel that it’s his fight as well
as yours and mine.”
“It’s all right to say that, only you can’t prove it.”
“Why--why----” Sam began; but he was to be spared the need of making
his argument.
Around the corner, from the direction of the school, came Poke, walking
fast and dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. At sight of the
others he pulled up; gave a gasp; betrayed symptoms of a desire to turn
and retreat; hesitated; reached decision; strode forward, grinning
most unconvincingly. Beneath one of his eyes the flesh was bruised and
reddened.
“What’s the matter?” Sam demanded sharply.
The grin on Poke’s usually placid countenance was maintained by patent
effort.
“Oh, nothing! Just a--no; nothing’s the matter.”
“Who blacked your eye?”
“’Tisn’t blacked.”
“It’ll be black enough in an hour or two. Who smashed you?”
Poke’s glance went from Sam to the Trojan, but returned swiftly, and a
bit appealingly, to the chief of the Safety First Club.
“It’s nothing, I tell you. Can’t a fellow do anything without your
holding him up?”
“That depends. When it comes to getting black eyes----”
“Oh, that was just a--a bump that came my way,” Poke put in hastily.
“Not worth mentioning. And say! I’m in a hurry, Sam. Can’t stop to talk
to you fellows. ’By!”
So speaking, Poke stepped by his friends, taking care to keep out of
arm’s reach, and hurried along the street.
The others did not pursue him. Sam looked at the Trojan, and the Trojan
met his gaze unhappily.
“You know what that means?” Sam asked with a touch of sternness.
The Trojan nodded. Poke Green, most peaceful of mortals, had been in a
fight; moreover, it was to be suspected that Poke neither had shunned
nor now repented the combat.
Sam pressed his advantage. “It means that what I told you is true: that
this thing brings in every fellow in the club. We’re standing together;
the crowd is backing you, and it’ll back me, for I’m going to need
friends as you need ’em. We can’t quit cold, either of us. We’ve got to
play the game through, clear up this mess, and win out!”
“How can we win?”
“I don’t know yet, but we will win, if it takes all summer.”
“I don’t see what’s to be done.”
“Give me time--give the club time, that is.”
There was a little pause. Then said the Trojan, dejectedly:
“It’ll be no use. Still, if you’re so set about it, Sam--and I suppose
it’s only right to stand by the crowd, if it’s standing by me. But what
do you want me to do?”
“Promise not to bolt till we’ve had a chance to catch our breath. And
promise to let us know--give us fair warning--before you do anything.”
There was another pause.
“Sam,” said the Trojan at last, “Sam, I--I guess I’ll have to promise
you so much, anyway.”