STORM AND CALM
Hervey’s fortunes were never at a lower ebb than when he stood in that
damp cellar as the night came on and tried to reconcile himself to
sleeping on the straw. Even the morrow held only the hope that by chance
some one would discover him in his dreadful dungeon. It was not until a
rotten board, laid diagonally against the foundation, had collapsed with
him that he gave up and threw himself down with a feeling as near to
despair as his buoyant nature had ever experienced.
Through the cracks and crevices of the shingles high overhead, he
watched the light die away. A ray from the declining sun streamed
through the window from which he had fallen, lingered for a few moments,
then withdrew leaving the place almost in darkness. Such a price to pay
for a merry little game with a snake!
Meanwhile, events occurred which were destined to have a bearing on
Hervey’s life. At about half past nine that night, young Mr. Talbot
emerged from the Walton house and encountered Wyne Corson coming in
through the gateway. They both laughed at the encounter.
“Missionary work?” Mr. Talbot inquired.
“You beat me to it?” laughed Wyne.
“No, I’m through,” Mr. Talbot said. “He isn’t even home; nobody knows
where he is. No, I’m through working on that prospect, and I wouldn’t
waste my time if I were you, Corson. He’s going to military school and I
guess that’s the best place for him.”
“The fellows in my troop are crazy about him,” said Wyne.
“They might better be crazy about you,” Mr. Talbot answered. “If they’re
as crazy as all that, they’re better off without another crazy fellow in
their troop. Come on, walk along with me; there’s no one inside but Mr.
and Mrs. Walton and they’ve decided to send him to Chestnut Hill
School.”
“Jiminies, but that chap has possibilities all right,” said Wyne, as
they walked down the street together.
“Impossibilities, you mean. Why they don’t even know where he is
to-night; hasn’t been home since noontime. You know I had him in my
troop; I know something about him.”
“Two fellows in my patrol are so nutty about him that they waited around
here in front of his house to-night just to get a squint at him. I don’t
know, there’s kind of--oh, I don’t know--something about him; don’t you
think so?”
“Oh, there’s plenty about him,” laughed Mr. Talbot, “and I know a few
things that nobody else knows. You take my advice and keep away from the
buzz-saw. The name of Hervey Willetts means trouble. Corson, when you
talk to him and deal with him you get just absolutely no comeback;
there’s nothing to work on.”
“Yet look what he did.”
“Does that kind of thing ever get anybody anywhere?”
“That’s some funny hat he wears, hey?”
Mr. Talbot threw up his hands good-humoredly. “I see he’s got you,” said
he.
Wyne laughed, “Oh, I don’t know; you just can’t help liking him. He’s
different from any fellow _I_ ever knew. He asked the doctor how much it
costs to get tattooed.”
“Well, there’s one thing he hasn’t done yet; I’m surprised at that. What
does he want; mottoes on his arm like on his hat?”
“The doctor seemed to like him,” said Wyne.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”
“I thought I might get him into my troop----”
“You’re wasting your time, boy. Listen.” Mr. Talbot put his arm over
Wyne’s shoulder as they walked along the street together. “Now I’m going
to tell you something and you mustn’t ever mention it--to anybody.”
“Yes, but you can’t tell me there’s never anything to get hold of. When
I was trying to save that girl the other day, I thought there wasn’t
anything to get hold of. Well, I got my fingers in her mouth and I
grabbed hold of her chin. I found something to get hold of all right.”
“And you’re going to California. You’re the biggest hero that’s ever
come under this local council.”
“Yes, because I found something to get hold of.”
“Listen, my boy. Do you think I haven’t tried? Why we had him in our
troop. All last summer he was up at Temple Camp----”
“That’s some camp, I guess.”
“I’ll say it is. He’s the only boy in my troop who was lucky enough to
go up there. You know, Corson, Mr. Walton is one of the finest men that
ever lived--_absolutely_. He’s strong for Temple Camp. You know it costs
something up at that ranch--oh yes. He had Hervey up there all summer
and the little devil was dismissed at the end of the season. He just did
as he pleased all summer. When they were closing up they let him down
easy; told him never to come back. And they meant it. Mr. Walton doesn’t
know anything about this. And Hervey doesn’t know I know. It came to me
indirectly from a scoutmaster in Clover Valley who had a patrol up
there. I wrote up to camp, saying I was Hervey’s scoutmaster, and asked
them about it. You ought to see the letter I got back. Now Mr. Walton
tells me he’s going to send Hervey up to Chestnut Hill Military Academy
for the fall and winter and next summer up to Temple Camp----”
“Good night!”
“Interesting? I just smiled. I thought I wouldn’t say anything; just let
matters take their course. If I can’t help Hervey, at least I don’t want
to hurt him. Mr. and Mrs. Walton are going to Europe next summer and
Hervey’s going up to Temple Camp. I think Mr. and Mrs. are entitled to a
vacation.”
“But Hervey can’t go up there,” Wyne said.
“Oh, can’t he! Leave it to him.”
“Does he know he’s going to be sent up there?”
“I dare say.”
“I bet he’s worried.”
“I bet he isn’t. He doesn’t know that word is in the dictionary.”
Wyne shook his head.
“I’ll tell you just what Hervey’ll do if you want to know,” said Mr.
Talbot. “He’s not giving Temple Camp a thought. They didn’t fire him; he
fired them. He’s forgotten all about it. But you know he’s lucky; he
always says he’s lucky. When Mr. Walton sends him up there he’ll go and
he’ll trust to luck. He can’t say that he’s forbidden to go, not now.
He’ll go up there--he’s just reckless enough to do it--and he’ll trust
to doing some big daredevil stunt and being allowed to stay.”
“And he’ll succeed, too, I bet,” said Wyne.
“No, he won’t succeed. They’re not falling for things like that up
there. He’ll be just packed off home as soon as he gets there. And I
don’t know what he’ll do. Mr. and Mrs. Walton won’t be here; the house
will be closed up. But I’m not going to poke my nose in Hervey’s
concerns. It’s like putting your hand in the fire, you just get burned.
There’s nothing to get hold of with Hervey; he’s got to make his own
trail. Why look at to-night! Where do you suppose he is?”
Wyne shrugged his shoulders. And so they walked along in silence for a
few minutes.
“But I had to laugh how he wanted to know about getting tattooed,” Wyne
said finally. He was thinking about Hervey. It was not just that he
wanted to help him either. “I’ve often noticed him on the street; he
never seems to be in a hurry. He’s always kind of fooling around as he
goes along.”
“Oh, he has no idea of time at all,” said Mr. Talbot. “That’s where
military school’s going to do him good. He wanted to bet me he’d
escape!”
“Well, I bet he will,” said Wyne.
“No siree!”
“I don’t know, I kind of think he’d do anything he tries to do.”
“Hmph, well he usually tries to do the wrong things,” said Mr. Talbot.
“But he’s going to do the things that other people want him to do for a
while now,” he added with a chuckle.
“Just the same I bet they liked him up there--at that camp.”
Mr. Talbot laughed, it was so palpable that Wyne Corson was under
Hervey’s spell.
“What’s the matter?” Wyne asked, with just a suggestion of testiness.
“Nothing. I don’t think they saw a great deal of him up there, if that’s
what you’re asking.”
“Honest, do you think he’ll go up there next summer?”
“He will if you dare him to.”
“No, honest, do you?”
“Of course he will,” Mr. Talbot smiled, then added more seriously. “What
else can he do?”
“Jiminies!” said Wyne with a kind of sorrowful shake of his head. “Some
fix he’s in; I bet he’s worrying.”
“Yes, that’s the trouble with him,” said Mr. Talbot. “He just wore
himself to skin and bone last year worrying about the national debt. I
don’t think I’d lose any sleep over him,” he added seriously; “he isn’t
worrying at all.”
“But what’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure; stand on his head I suppose. Well, here we are;
come in a minute and I’ll show you some scout pictures.”
They lingered for a few minutes in front of Mr. Talbot’s house. “Wait a
second, I’ll see if I’ve got a booklet about Temple Camp,” he said.
“Maybe you’d like to glance it over. I wish you’d come in.”
“No, I’d better scoot, I think it’s going to rain,” said Wyne.
“Was that thunder?” Mr. Talbot asked. “All right, just wait here a
second.”
As Wyne waited, the rumbling of distant thunder could be heard in the
sky. He held out his hand, but felt no drop of rain. Presently a flash
of zigzag lightning lit the sky and one of the blinds of the Talbot
house blew shut, then open again. Soon he was hurrying home to South
Farrelton with the Temple Camp booklet stuffed in his pocket and was
scarcely indoors when the storm which had been threatening broke in full
fury. Wyne’s parents and sister had retired, but his mother called to
him to know if he had got wet, and asked him to go up and shut the attic
window for the rain seemed to be blowing from the north.
Wyne paused in the dark attic for a few moments, listening to the
torrential downpour on the shingles and looking out of the window which
was streaming with rain. He wondered where indeed Hervey Willetts could
be so late at night. Why did his thoughts dwell on Hervey Willetts?
There were fine, brave scouts in his own troop. He went downstairs to
his own room, stirred by the heroic fury of the maddened elements and,
as he entered, a deafening peal of thunder smote his ears. It seemed to
shake the house in its tumultuous frenzy. That was the climax of the
storm.
It was odd how two things strangely related to each other occurred
immediately upon the waning of that spasmodic storm. And how each of
those things was characteristic of the boy concerned in it. At about the
same time that Wyne Corson propped himself comfortably up in bed for a
leisurely perusal of the beautifully illustrated Temple Camp booklet,
Hervey Willetts scrambled up a broken rafter of the old barn roof which
had been struck by lightning and had fallen into his dank and streaming
dungeon.
Oh, he was lucky! Just as he always said he was, _he was lucky_. But he
did not know of his greatest luck. He did not know that a boy down in
South Farrelton was sitting propped up in bed looking at the pictures of
lake and cabin and reading about the rules and awards and all the
pleasurable routine of a great scout community in the sequestered
woodland of the Catskills.
Wet, hungry and exhausted, with a stern military school staring him in
the face, Hervey Willetts was luckier than he knew. Reading, looking at
books even, was something that he never did. He had never even seen that
familiar booklet about Temple Camp! Yet that little booklet was destined
to influence his future. It is funny, when you come to think of it, how
that pretty, tasseled prospectus was to deal this doer of mighty deeds a
knockout blow. He had blithely disregarded every by-law and rule that it
contained. He had repudiated it in toto. And now, out of its own prosy
printed matter, it was to strike him back with a fine retaliatory swat.