THE ACADEMY “GHOST” DISCOVERED
If Bar himself had passed that day in a state of ill-suppressed
excitement, he had left a very volcanic state of things behind him.
Before matters at the Academy had a fair chance to settle into their
customary routine, the news had passed swiftly from desk to desk
and bench to bench, whispered, penciled, chalked, everything but
telegraphed or shouted, that “Bar Vernon’s run away,” and this was
speedily followed by, “Mr. Brayton’s gone after him.”
By the time the scholars were let out for the noon “recess,” the same
messages, in various shapes and forms, had made the swift circle of
Ogleport, and more than one boy found himself confronted, at corners
of the green, by a more or less matronly inquisitor, anxious to “know
about it all.”
It was surprising, too, very much so, what clear and circumstantial
statements of the facts those boys were prepared to give, but if any
one among them faltered in his tale, that one was not named Zebedee
Fuller.
The amount of “faith” afloat in Ogleport was quite likely to be all
called for whenever the different inquirers at Zeb’s mouth should come
to compare notes.
“Val,” he dolefully exclaimed, as he encountered that young gentleman,
“you’ve got to help me out of this.”
“Out of what?” said Val.
“Why, Bar hasn’t run away and George isn’t after him, but what am I to
say about it?”
“Keep it up,” said Val.
“Keep what up?”
“Why, Bar is off!”
“Bar off? You don’t mean to say he’s cut it for good?” was Zebedee’s
almost breathless response.
“Can’t say about that,” said Val. “All I know is that he went away this
morning, and may be gone some days, if not longer. There’s a secret in
it.”
“Is there?” said Zeb. “That’s a great comfort. You won’t tell old Sol,
will you?”
“Tell him what?”
“Why, the secret.”
“Oh, I don’t know it myself, and I ain’t half sure that Bar does. He’s
gone after it.”
“And George, too, he must have a secret,” groaned Zeb. “I think I must
tell Dorothy Jane to keep a sharp eye on Euphemia. Val Manning, it’ll
be a bad thing for Ogleport to lose Bar Vernon just now.”
“Hang Ogleport!” exclaimed Val. “Think of me!”
“Yes,” said Zeb, with a look of deep sympathy out of his left eye,
“your case is a hard one. Val, don’t you think the wind is rising a
little?”
“Seems so,” said Val.
“And a bit westerly?”
“More and more west.”
“Val, the Academy ought to have a chance to express its grief over the
loss of Bar Vernon. You and I had better go and carry the sad news to
the old bell.”
Val felt as if that sort of thing would give his mind just the relief
he needed, and by the time the bell had finished its midday work of
recalling the boys to their studies, its last duty for the day, the
“van” in the western gap of the steeple had been securely hitched to
the tolling gear, and two agile forms were creeping down-stairs as
lightly and silently as cats.
“The wind will be higher towards night,” said Zeb to his friend, “but
there’s no telling when the bell may begin to express his feelings.”
Nevertheless, they both returned to their desks and duties with a truly
wonderful degree of firmness, sticking bravely to their books in spite
of more than one ominous wave of grating sound which came creeping down
upon them from the bell-tower.
There was that upon Dr. Dryer’s mind that day, which so absorbed
it that no ordinary interruption would have sufficed to secure his
attention.
Indeed, never in all their experience of him had his pupils been so
puzzled to get at the meaning of his “explanations,” while he once
so far wandered from an exact use of terms as to address Hy Allen as
“Euphemia.”
Hiram was afterwards compelled to thrash half a dozen small boys and
one large one before he could deliver himself from the consequences of
that slip of the tongue.
Hiram would rather have died than have submitted to being called
Euphemia Allen, or even “Effie,” much as he doubtless admired the
Doctor’s pretty daughter.
School was out at last, however, and Zebedee Fuller led the way to the
mill-dam for the accustomed swim.
He found Gershom Todderley and Patrick Murphy strolling about outside
the mill, in a way which plainly indicated their readiness to listen to
any kind of news from “up-town.”
Nor were they by any means disappointed either as to quantity or
quality, for Zeb relieved Val Manning of all necessity for answering
questions.
“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Pat. “Hear that, now! Begorra, that’s the
bill bruk loose again!”
“Ah, yes, the bell!” sighed Zeb. “Somebody has told the old fellow
about George Brayton and Bar Vernon.”
“That’s what it’s towled for?” asked Pat.
“Yes, Patrick,” said Zeb. “Do you s’pose it told itself?”
“That’s what it’s doin’ the noo,” exclaimed Pat. “It’s ownly a praste
can do anythin’ right for that same bill.”
“That’s my opinion,” said Zeb, solemnly. “Those ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s
are at it in broad daylight. What are we coming to?”
If the wind had been a steady one there is really no telling what the
result might have been, but the lulls were so frequent and so prolonged
that the intervals of silence became more difficult to comprehend than
even the sudden outbreaks of half-tipsy tolling.
“Come, Val,” said Zeb, as he and the boys cut short their watery fun
and began to dress themselves. “It’s time we were on hand at the
Academy. They’re pretty sure to get at it this time, and I’m almost
sorry we set it a-going.”
Stronger and stronger blew the western blast, as the boys marched up
the street and across the green, and wilder and more protracted were
the bell’s expressions of its sorrow for the loss of Bar Vernon.
“Quite a crowd of mourners, I declare,” remarked Zeb, as he pointed to
the assemblage on the Academy steps and scattered over the green before
it. “The bell has done well.”
A few minutes later, however, there was indeed a commotion.
There were more than a few of the female population of Ogleport whose
curiosity had brought them out upon the green, just when they should
have been at home getting supper ready; but now, out from the Academy
door, followed in dubious silence by her husband, strode the triumphant
spouse of Dr. Dryer.
“There!” she exclaimed, as she pitched Bar Vernon’s invention down upon
the grass, “it was that thing did it. All it needed was a woman to find
it out. That’s your ghost. Now, Dr. Dryer, I’d like you to find out who
put it up there. Zebedee Fuller, come here!”
Zeb promptly responded, with Val at his side, and there were auditors
in almost uncomfortable abundance.
“There, sir,” demanded Mrs. Dryer, pointing to the wreck of the van,
“did you ever see that before?”
“That?” responded Zeb. “Everybody knows what that is, I hope.”
“What is it, then?” exclaimed the Doctor, incautiously, and Zeb’s face
was all aghast with amazement at such a display of ignorance in such a
man, as he respectfully replied:
“That, Dr. Dryer, is a philosophical apparatus for measuring the
strength of the wind.”
“Zebedee!” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer.
“Strength of the wind?” said her husband.
“Yes, Doctor,” continued Zeb; “the harder the wind should blow the
louder the bell would toll. I have no doubt of it. Still, I should
prefer to have Mr. Brayton explain it to you, as my own information is
limited.”
“Brayton?” cried the triumphant lady. “I told you so. Don’t you
remember? He was up there every time. Of course it was Brayton. He and
that Vernon boy knew all about it. No wonder they ran away together. I
told you so! Come, Dr. Dryer, we had better go home.”
“Hot water for George when he gets back, I’m afraid, if not for
Barnaby,” muttered Zeb; “but the bell don’t seem to feel as bad as it
did. Come on, Val.”
The two were walking rapidly away across the green when they were again
halted by a softer voice than that of Mrs. Dryer.
“Zeb Fuller, what did you mean by laying that to Mr. Brayton?”
“I didn’t do anything of the kind,” replied Zeb; “it was Dorothy.”
“But you let her think so.”
“I?” exclaimed Zeb. “I never touched her. Euphemia, George is as
innocent of that bell business as you or I.”
Effie burst out into a merry peal of laughter over Zeb’s response and
the manner of it, but there were other curious questioners drawing
near, and she hurried away.
Away from that spot, indeed, but her father’s house did not come to
Effie’s mind just then, as the pleasantest place of refuge in the
world, and, instead of seeking that shelter, she turned her footsteps
towards Mrs. Wood’s for a bit of a chat with Sibyl.
A very excellent choice, but why should Effie Dryer have blushed so
deeply, when Sibyl’s mother met her in the hall and put her soft arms
around her and gave her such a sweet and motherly kiss?
So very different was that kiss from any that Effie had received from
her father’s third wife.