WAYNE RAISES A FLAG
March came in like a lion that spring and roared and raved over the
river and about the dormitories and made life out of doors a hardship
that few cared to brave. Ere it was a week old it had piled the ice
in walls along the river banks, swept the green bare of snow, and
snapped the tall flag post in front of Academy Building. Wayne and Don
hugged the fireplace when not at recitations or in the gymnasium, and
got a lot of studying done. Wayne’s ability to learn his lessons had
increased of late, and he was ready to give credit to Professor Beck
and the steady training he was undergoing. Physical exercise clears the
brain, and Wayne discovered an improvement before he had been at work
with the track squad for two weeks. He even began to speak tentatively
of trying for a scholarship, and Don grinned and cunningly encouraged
him by saying:
“Oh, well, you can try, of course. But I don’t believe you can make it.
You won’t stick to it long enough; you’ll get tired of studying after a
while.”
An assertion which Wayne indignantly denied.
“Just you wait and see! You needn’t think you and Paddy are the only
fellows in school who can get scholarships!”
Gymnasium work was much the same as it had been since Don and Wayne
went into training; there was always the chest weights and the
dumb-bells, and Wayne knew every splinter and crack in the running
track by this time. But he had dropped two or three pounds of weight,
and felt better for it; he had made the acquaintance of a number of the
candidates who were the sort of chaps that it was well to know; he had
secured a new interest in school life, and he was able to talk more or
less intelligently with Don upon subjects that occupied full half of
that youth’s thought--namely, the approaching spring handicap meet and
the more distant interscholastic contest. Don had thrown himself heart
and soul into the task of turning out a winning track team, and, being
a youth who was willing and eager to back his mental efforts with the
hardest sort of physical labor, he was in a fair way to succeed. For
two weeks past he had been in correspondence with a number of Hillton
graduates, and now he was able to announce that he had secured promises
of active assistance from almost all of them, and that the track men
would not want for coaching.
“Barret is coming in April,” he told Wayne one day. “He was a star
hurdler at college a couple of years ago. Then Kenyon, who holds the
intercollegiate two-hundred-and-twenty-yard record, and Burns, who
won the one hundred yards last spring, are both coming to coach the
sprinters. Remsen, the old football coach, is coming, and I think he’ll
be willing to teach Dave and Hardy and Kendall a few tricks with the
weights. We need a middle-distance man and some one who knows something
about pole vaulting. Johnstone may come; he’s half promised. As for you
and Chase and Treadway and the rest, why, Beck will look after you;
he’s a dandy coach for the distances; he used to be a fine runner in
the mile, and held the intercollegiate championship for a couple of
seasons. We’ll be well fixed for coaches this spring.”
“Seems to me with all those men to help,” said Wayne, “we can’t help
winning.”
“It doesn’t follow. You see, St. Eustace and the other schools will
have just as many good grads coaching them. St. Eustace generally has a
whole army of them. That’s one bully thing about that school: you never
hear of it begging for aid of any sort from the alumni; the alumni’s
always on hand and waiting to help. Of course, I don’t mean that
Hillton graduates aren’t like that, only--well, sometimes they seem a
bit backward in coming forward.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Wayne; “perhaps if the truth was known we’d find
that St. Eustace captains have just as much trouble getting the old
fellows to go there and coach as you have had. I know from what Dave
told me once that Hillton fellows always help the school all they know
how.”
“Good for you!” answered Don, with a grin. “’Rah for Hillton!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing much; only that you are coming on. I think I can detect
symptoms of patriotism, Wayne.”
“Pshaw! Of course a fellow always stands up for his school; he’d be
mighty poor trash if he didn’t.”
“Glad to hear you say so,” responded Don dryly. “You didn’t seem to be
impressed with that fact when you first arrived in our midst with your
two trunks and an air of supreme importance.”
“Oh, shut up!” growled Wayne. Don smiled silently, as though at an
amusing thought, and Wayne observed him with rather an embarrassed
expression. Finally he broke the silence.
“Stop grinning there like a chloroformed catfish, Don! I suppose I was
rather a silly ass when I got here. But, you see, I hadn’t been away
from our little old village very much and didn’t know a great deal
about boarding schools.” He paused and looked reminiscently into the
flames. “You and Dave and Paddy were awfully nice to me. I must have
seemed a powerful sulky brute!”
“Well, you were a bit exasperating at first with your high and mighty
views of the school and the fellows and the way in which we conducted
things here at Hillton. But we all kind of took to you the first day;
perhaps that was the reason. I’ll never forget the afternoon you walked
in here, plumped your valise down, and asked why the nigger hadn’t
lighted the fire!”
“But it was chilly,” objected Wayne.
“And when I explained very respectfully that you would be obliged to
share the study with me, you looked me over very condescendingly and
remarked: ‘Well, I reckon it’s the rule; but seems to me they might
have told me that.’”
“Did I say that?” asked Wayne meekly.
“Every word. And I don’t mind acknowledging now that I was sorely
tempted to knock your head against the wall.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Because if you had we wouldn’t have been
chums. But I wonder why you didn’t kick and get another roommate?”
“That’s the funny part of it, Wayne. I suppose I must have liked you
even then. By the way, do you remember how mad you got one day when
Paddy told you that you spoke with a ‘refined negro dialect’?”
“Yes,” answered Wayne, “I remember. Well, I’m glad I’ve learned a
little sense since then. I felt powerful mean and homesick the first
few weeks I was here; and you and Paddy and Dave were awfully decent
to me. It isn’t the thing that a fellow talks about, of course, and I
hate to have any one get ‘sloppy,’ but, honest, Don, I won’t forget it,
you know.”
“Oh, quit your joking!” cried Don, jumping up. “Let’s go over to
Hampton and bother Dave.”
So they struggled into their sweaters and went. The sound of hammering
and shouting aroused their curiosity, and they made a detour to the
front of Academy Building to learn the meaning of the noise. A group
of workmen were putting the finishing touches on the new flagstaff,
and already it reared its length aloft on the edge of the bluff, the
glistening gold ball at the top of the slender mast shining bright
against the gray sky.
“Phew!” exclaimed Don. “She’s a tall old stick, isn’t she? Must be a
good fifty feet, eh?”
“Worse than that,” answered Wayne. “I should say about sixty.”
“Maybe. I wonder if they’ll get a new flag. The old one’s pretty well
worn out.”
“Say, Don,” Wayne suggested as they hurried on toward Hampton House
with their ears tingling, “wouldn’t it be a grand joke to run a flag up
there to-night ourselves? Think how surprised ‘Wheels’ would be in the
morning!”
“By Jove! Great scheme. Come on; let’s tell Paddy and Dave.”
Those young gentlemen hailed the idea with glee, and called Wayne a
public benefactor and many other flattering things. The fact was, life
had been deadly dull of late, and the continued indoor existence was
beginning to affect their spirits. The idea of having a flag raising of
their own appeared illumined with brilliance, and the quartet at once
began arrangements.
“But we haven’t a flag,” objected Dave.
“Let’s make one. It ought to be something more startling than the Stars
and Stripes,” said Paddy. “I wish we had a class flag. I tell you,
fellows, let’s run up a skull and crossbones!”
“Just the thing!” giggled Wayne. “Where’ll we get it?”
“Have to make it. Dave’s got some black paint stuff, and we’ll use a
sheet or something.”
“Pillowcase would be better,” said Don. “Rip it open, you know.”
“Splendid! We’ll use Dave’s.”
“Use your own,” responded Dave. “If I supply the paint you’d ought to
supply the pillowcase.”
“Well, all right, stingy. Get your paint stuff.”
Paddy’s pillow case was quickly produced and ripped at the seams,
and the four boys squatted about it on the floor, while Don drew a
skull--at least, he declared it was that--and a pair of very stout
bones beneath it. Then Wayne, claiming the right by virtue of the
origination of the idea, filled in the design with some extremely
sticky varnish, and the flag was complete.
“That’s not black at all; it’s sort of brownish,” Wayne objected.
“Well, bones aren’t black, anyway,” said Don. “Besides, it shows up
finely. Now how’ll we get it up there?”
Plans were discussed until supper time, and at length it was decided
to go and have a look at the pole and the halyards on the way to the
dining hall. This was done. The workmen had departed, the new ropes
were flapping sharply against the pole, and the boys found everything
ready for them. They didn’t linger there, for fear that they would be
observed and connected with the affair the next day, but went on to
supper, agreeing to meet in Hampton at nine o’clock.
At a few minutes past that hour four muffled and mysterious figures
scuttled across the yard, keeping in the shelter of the laboratories
and the gymnasium, and gathered about the flag pole. Detection was
out of the question, for the night was as dark as the most desperate
mission could demand. Above them the topmast creaked complainingly in
the wind and the halyards beat a tattoo against the wood. Very quickly
the new flag was attached, Paddy complaining _sotto voce_ because the
varnish stuck to his hands, and Wayne laid hold of the other rope.
“Hats off!” commanded Don in a husky whisper.
Four cloth caps left as many heads bare to the cold wind, Dave whistled
a lugubrious march beneath his breath, and Wayne ran the flag upward
into the darkness and the teeth of the March tempest.
“Hold on,” whispered Paddy. “Pull it down again!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the others.
“Why, don’t you see, they can get it down! Shall we allow our flag to
be lowered? Never! So let’s cut the rope that the pillowcase is on.
Then they’ll have nothing to lower it with!”
The others studied the problem a moment in silence. Then, “Well that
sounds reasonable,” muttered Wayne. “Let’s try it anyway.” So the flag
came down, and Paddy cut the halyards a few inches beneath it. Then the
skull and crossbones was again hoisted, this time with scant ceremony,
the severed length of rope was stuffed under Paddy’s jacket, and the
four conspirators parted with muffled laughter. Above them in the
wind-swept space the ominous standard flapped in the darkness.