A SPILLED PITCHER
LITTLEFIELD crept into Melvin’s bed that night with a sense of security
that he had not felt for weeks, and was soon in a deep, restful sleep.
Melvin undressed in his own room, and then slipped across the hall in
pajamas to the little Prep’s room, turned on the electric light, and
surveyed the field. His first act was to clear away the lighter
furniture, so as to leave an open space about the window at which the
disturbance was wont to occur. Then he filled two pitchers with water
and placed them in convenient positions, one close to the corner of the
bed, the other against the wall opposite. When this was done, he
adjusted the window-sashes after the usual arrangement, and at the top
of the lower sash, in the corner nearest the bed, fastened a nail. To
this he attached one end of a string, and taking the other end with him
as he jumped into bed, he drew it tight and tied it to his finger.
“Now if I can only keep my hand quiet,” he thought as he lay down, “any
movement of the window ought to rouse me; but I suppose I shall begin to
roll as soon as I am asleep, and get the string loose, or wake myself a
dozen times for nothing. I’ll give it a trial, anyway.”
Healthy and unworried, Dick fell asleep almost as soon as his head
touched the pillow. In his sleep he turned slightly in bed and threw one
arm above his head, so that the pressure of the cord on his finger made
itself felt. The pressure occasioned a dream, and the dream at length
brought him back to consciousness. He seemed to be struggling vainly to
free himself from one of the gymnasium rings, to which he was hanging by
a single finger. He squirmed and twisted and strove to cast it off, but
despite his struggles the ring still clung to the finger, and the finger
still clutched the ring. He awoke with a frightened start, relieved to
discover that he was free from the ugly predicament, yet still under the
spell of the vague terror of the vision. With quickened breath and
straining ears, he listened to make sure there was no other reason for
his waking. Except for the distant, labored puffing of a night freight,
as it worked its way through the edge of the town, the silence was
absolute.
Muttering reproaches to himself for the undefined dread that crept into
his heart as he felt the depressing influence of the darkness and quiet,
and the solitary waiting for an unknown assailant, he turned over and
settled himself once more in a comfortable position for sleeping. The
rumbling of the ponderous train died gradually away in the distance,
leaving a stillness unnatural and oppressive.
“I don’t wonder that the little chap’s nerves are unstrung,” thought
Dick. “I can feel my heart throb all over my body.”
The watcher’s nervous tension gradually slackened, and he was just
falling into a doze, when the scrape of a rubber sole on a stone surface
brought him instantly to attention, as the nodding fisherman starts with
the first tug at his line. The sound came clear in the dead silence,
repeated at close intervals as the mysterious visitor crept along the
ledge, setting foot after foot slowly and carefully in place.
At the first distinct noise Melvin had lifted himself upright in bed and
listened intently and fearfully, with his heart madly thumping. Then as
the steps drew nearer, and he realized that the opportunity which he had
longed for was really to be granted, that the perpetrator of the crazy
night pranks would soon be delivered into his hand, the uncanny spell of
the night was instantly broken. Throwing off the useless noose from his
finger, he slipped out of bed, and took his stand close to the wall
beside the window.
It was a moonless night of flying clouds, and Melvin, peeping round the
window casing, could barely distinguish the vague outline of the man
outside, who, clinging to the window stops, was now trying to raise the
lower sash.
“I’ll bet I know you, you lunatic!” thought Melvin, drawing back as the
sash slowly lifted. “We’ll see who has the fun out of this night’s
adventure.”
The visitor now had the window high enough to admit his head and
shoulders; Melvin could hear the shirt scrape against the bottom of the
sash as the intruder worked himself cautiously in. From this sound, as
well as the noise of breathing, the waiting senior knew that his quarry
was within the room as far as the waist. Was this the time to strike?
Would the fellow come in still farther, or merely yell and withdraw
beyond reach? In a flash Dick considered the question and came to his
decision.
The intruder paused, listening for a sound from the bed. Then Dick heard
the drawing of a long deep breath, and knew what it meant. A groan,
awesome and sepulchral, broke the nocturnal stillness, then suddenly
choked and ended in a gasp. Two strong arms caught the prowler’s waist
like the jaws of a steel trap, and jerked the floundering legs through
the window into the room.
Both went down together to the floor, when with the recollection that
the owner of the room could not really be a very powerful adversary, the
intruder recovered his presence of mind and fighting spirit. Sure of his
prey, Dick let himself be rolled toward the side of the room where one
of the pitchers stood; then with a quick wrestler’s turn he twisted
himself on top, found the pitcher and emptied it on his enemy’s head.
While the prostrate boy gulped and sputtered and coughed, Melvin freed
himself and groped his way to the electric light.
“I thought so,” he said coolly, as the light flashed upon Tompkins’s
dripping head and the pool on the floor. “Come, my wild Western Injun,
Brave-Man-not-afraid-of-the-Dark, who makes a specialty of frightening
little boys! Take that towel and help mop up this water.”
They worked for a few minutes without a word. When the task was
finished, Melvin tossed Tompkins a steamer rug from Littlefield’s sofa,
and pointed to a chair.
“Wrap yourself up and sit down. This thing has got to be straightened
out before we part. What have you to say for yourself?”
“Nothing.” Tompkins spoke for the first time.
“Great sport, isn’t it, to scare a timid little chap into brain fever! I
always thought you were half fool, but I never knew before that you were
such a coward.”
“I’m not a coward!” retorted Tompkins, aroused. “I didn’t mean to hurt
the boy, I was just having a little fun.”
“Why didn’t you try it on me then, or some other fellow of your size?”
“It wouldn’t have been any fun.”
“And for the sake of your amusement you keep Littlefield in fear of his
life for weeks. If that isn’t cowardly, what is it?”
“It’s selfish, I admit,” said Tompkins, soberly, “and mean, but not
cowardly.”
“Call it selfish and mean, then,” continued Melvin, “if you prefer. Here
you are chosen by the school to be pitcher on the nine, a position of
honor and responsibility, and you behave like a monkey, doing all sorts
of fool tricks, any one of which the Faculty would think ample reason
for firing you. What do you call that? It seems to me like a breach of
trust.”
“I don’t know,” answered the culprit.
“It’s just as if some one were to give you a thousand dollars to keep
for him and you agreed to take care of it, and then spent it for your
amusement.”
To this Tompkins said nothing at all. The senior paused a minute for a
reply, and then continued: “And the worst thing about you is that you
have no sense or conscience and never will have any. You aren’t bad;
you’re just childish and selfish. But you have apparently set your heart
on getting expelled, and your best friend can’t stop you. It’s really
foolish in me to stand here talking to you at two o’clock in the
morning. You can’t reform, or if you can, you won’t.”
With disgust stamped on every feature, Melvin turned to look at his
watch. When he raised his eyes again, Tompkins was on his feet.
“Yes, I’m a fool, Dick Melvin, I don’t deny it; but I’m not a hopeless
case. I can’t become a school balance wheel like you, but you won’t
catch me in another scrape this year.”
“Do you mean it?” demanded the senior, with a sharp glance at the
speaker’s face.
“I do. I’ll make it right with Littlefield,—and you see if I get into
trouble again.”
Dick held out his hand, and gave the other a cordial clasp, but all he
said was: “Clear out, then, and let me go to sleep. I’ll believe in the
reform when I see it.”
Next morning Melvin waked to find Littlefield standing at his bedside.
“Come, get up,” said the boy, with a grin, “it’s only ten minutes to
breakfast. What did you do with the water pitchers?”
On his way to chapel half an hour later Melvin suddenly felt Varrell’s
grip on his arm.
“Well, Dick, it has happened!”
“What?”
“The thing that I said would happen. The stealing has begun again. Some
one has taken ten dollars from Durand’s bureau drawer.”
“But Durand’s room is in the other entry.”
“That makes no difference. You can reach all the entries through the
basement.”
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