MAKING A FRIEND.
Bart Hodge had missed Merry from the throng of rollicking seniors.
A little while before Frank had been in the midst of the sport;
now he was gone. For a while Hodge continued to take part in the
top-spinning, but his heart was not in it. He looked around and
saw that he was not the only one who found it impossible to drag
back his boyhood in such a manner. He saw that there were others
who were taking part in the top-spinning simply because it was a
privilege of seniors at this time. Some there were who laughed and
joked and were merry, but, strangely enough, it seemed to Bart that
these did not realize how sad a thing it was to lose their boyhood.
So Hodge drifted away by himself, giving himself up to thoughts
that were both pleasant and otherwise.
Bart’s boyhood had not been the pleasantest imaginable. His father
was a careless, self-indulgent man, and he had given little thought
to the manner in which Bart was coming up. Bart had been given
almost everything he desired, and, thus pampered, it was not
strange that he came to be regarded as a “spoiled child.” If he
fretted for anything, he was given that which he desired in order
to pacify him. Finding that he could win his own way with a pout
and a whine, he pouted and whined more and more.
His mother saw with some alarm what was happening, but it was
useless for her to try to reason with his father. “Oh, give the
boy what he wants, and keep him still!” was the way Bart’s father
settled it. His mother, knowing the real disposition of his father,
feared for the future, and her fears were justified.
As Bart grew older, his demands became harder to satisfy, but he
had a way of making life miserable for everybody around if he did
not get his way. More and more he annoyed his father. “The boy must
go away to school,” Mr. Hodge had decided at last. His mother would
have kept him home a little longer, but his father had decreed.
Bart, however, had no fancy for going away to school. He swore he
would not stay, and he did not. In less than two weeks he was sent
home, expelled.
Then Mr. Hodge was furious. “We’ll see about this, sir!” he said.
“An ordinary boarding-school is not strict enough. You shall attend
a military school.”
“I won’t!” said Bart.
But he did--for a month. Then he came home again. The principal
said he was incorrigible.
“We’ll see!” said Mr. Hodge, and his face was black as a
storm-cloud. “I’ll give you one more chance, young man. This is the
last one! If you are expelled again--well, you need not come back
here! You may shift for yourself!”
Bart knew he meant just that, but even then he did not care. He had
such a bad disposition that he longed to be expelled in order to
“spite” his father. “I’d like to show him that he can’t force me
into anything!” muttered Bart.
And so, when he was packed off to Fardale, he went with bitterness
in his heart. During the journey he regarded with satisfaction
the possibility that he would soon be expelled from this school.
He pictured himself as turned from his own home, set adrift an
outcast. He pictured himself as a reckless youngster, going to
sea, perhaps. He would see many strange lands, lead a wild life,
be shipwrecked, make a fortune in some far country, come home and
treat his bent and aged father with kindness and magnanimity,
caring for him in his declining years. He would be able to say:
“Well, father, you see I bear no grudge, even if you did treat me
in a shabby manner when I was a boy. I’ve made myself what I am, no
thanks to you. It’s all right; but I can’t quite forget.”
But this fancy did not give him so much satisfaction as another
that came to him. In this he saw himself wandering homeless over
the world, living a wretched life, drinking, associating with bad
men, sinking lower and lower. At last, having fallen to the depths,
he might drag himself back home. He would be met by a stern
father, who still rebuffed him. On his knees he would beg for one
chance. When he was refused, he’d go out and break into a bank or
something. Then, as he stood in the dock to receive sentence for
his crime, he would turn to his father, point an accusing finger
at the cowering man, and cry out, in a terrible voice: “You are
responsible for it all! My sins are on your head!”
Having such thoughts as these, Bart was in a rebellious mood that
day when he stepped off the train at Fardale station. His first act
had been to kick a poodle dog that came within reach of his foot.
That kick had led him into trouble with a bright-faced stripling
who had also arrived on that train. Later on he had fought this
stripling in an open field on a moonlight night. The fight had
been interrupted, but in his heart Bart knew the stripling would
have whipped him if it had continued to a finish, and he hated the
stripling with a hatred he fancied undying.
The stripling was Frank Merriwell, and so they were enemies when
they first met at Fardale.
Certain it is that Hodge in those days was ready to stoop to almost
anything in order to get the best of an enemy, and many were the
questionable and unfair things he did.
But, no matter how unfair Hodge was, Merriwell always fought fair
and aboveboard. Bart had not fancied that anybody lived who would
never accept an opportunity to take an unfair advantage of an
enemy, and, at first, he could not understand Merriwell. Like many
others in after years, he first mistook Merry’s squareness and
generosity for timidity. The time came, however, when he realized
that Frank Merriwell was as courageous as a lion.
The test that won Hodge to Frank came when Merry might have caused
Bart’s expulsion from the academy by a word which would have
made Bart seem guilty of a reprehensible thing that he had not
committed. Hodge knew that Frank held him in his power; he knew
that the proof of his guilt must seem convincing to Merry. For once
in his life Bart was frightened, for he suddenly realized what it
meant to him if he were expelled from Fardale. His mother’s letters
had convinced him that there was no hope of his father relenting
in such an event. “I’m done for!” said Bart, to himself. And he
wondered why Merriwell did not strike. Had he possessed such a hold
on Frank, he would have struck, even though he had known Merry was
innocent.
Then came an accident at the academy that showed another cadet with
the same initials as Bart was guilty, and Hodge was saved. Still
he wondered why Merriwell had held his hand. “Why did you do it,
Merriwell?” he asked, pointblank. “Because I was not absolutely
certain that you were guilty,” Frank answered. “It looked that
way, didn’t it?” “Yes, it looked that way.” “I should have been
expelled if you had accused me.” “I think you would, Hodge.” “You
had no reason to like me, Merriwell.” “I did not like you,” Frank
admitted. “Then why didn’t you accuse me and get me out of the
way?” “Because to save my life I would not charge my worst enemy
with a crime of which he might be innocent.”
Bart remembered this conversation. He had pondered over it, and it
had opened his eyes to the difference between himself and Frank
Merriwell. All at once he saw that this fellow whom he hated was
his superior in every way. He had suspected it before, and it had
made him hate Merry more intensely; but now the full knowledge of
the fact brought him a different feeling.
Not all at once did Bart surrender to Frank. He tried to keep away
from Merriwell, but the rules of the military school threw them
together singularly, making them roommates. Never were two fellows
less alike. But Bart found that, for all of his sense of justice
and honor, Merriwell was no milksop. Frank could defend his rights,
and he did so often enough.
The end of it all was that Hodge became passionately attached to
Frank, even though he tried to conceal the fact. He would have
fought to the death for Merriwell at a time when he had not ceased
to sneer and say bitter things about him. Others did not know how
much he cared for Frank; he tried to hide it even from himself.
That friendship for Frank Merriwell was the making of Hodge. Frank
was a splendid model. Unconsciously Bart began to imitate him, and
the work of changing his selfish, revengeful nature went on slowly
but surely. In time Hodge realized that he owed the great change to
Frank, but he was not aware of it so much while it was taking place.
Inza had lived there in Fardale, and Bart admired her. But she was
dark-haired and dark-eyed like Bart himself, and she took no great
fancy to him. Merriwell’s success with Inza annoyed him at first.
Then came Elsie.
But it was Merriwell who had done most in saving her from her
father’s shipwrecked vessel, which went to pieces on Tiger Tooth
Ledge, off the coast at Fardale, one wild night, and it was
Merriwell on whom the golden-haired girl smiled. The first sight of
her had aroused a strange sensation deep down in Bart’s heart; but
she would not even give him a glance.
That did not make him bitter toward Frank. Instead, he became
bitter toward girls in general. He told himself that he hated
them all, and that he would never have anything to do with any of
them. So, for a long, long time, Bart Hodge believed himself a
“woman-hater.”
He had kept himself from Elsie. When he thought of her he turned
his mind on other things. She troubled him a great deal for a time,
but at last, after being put out of his mind so many times, she
bothered him less and less. He had not fancied himself in love with
her. He would have ridiculed such a thing as preposterous.
But the time came when, on the burning steamer, he knew the truth
in a sudden burst of light. He had loved her all the time, and,
rather than be false to Frank; he had remained silent. In the face
of what seemed certain death, his lips had been unsealed, and he
had told her of his love.
Then--strange fate!--Merriwell himself had battered down the
partition and dragged them out to life.
Perhaps it was the happiest moment of Bart’s life when he learned
that Frank had found he loved Inza and she loved him. With Frank
and Inza engaged, it seemed that there was no barrier left between
him and Elsie.
He had known that he was going to meet Elsie in Charlottesville
during the Easter trip of the ball-team, and he had made Frank
promise to let him tell her everything, for she remained unaware of
the engagement between Merry and Inza.
When the time came, however, Bart longed to learn from Elsie that
she loved him most before telling her what had happened. He felt
that not for anything would he wish to think she had accepted him
because she knew Frank was lost to her. It was the great longing
of his heart to be first in her heart.
And so, fearing what her answer might be unless she knew all, he
had begged her to wait a little before making it. And he had left
Charlottesville and Virginia without telling her of the engagement
of Frank and Inza. Not, however, till they were back in New Haven
did he confess this to Frank.
“I couldn’t do it!” he cried, alone with Merry in his room. “I long
to hear her tell me she loves me most without having her know that
you can never be anything to her. That would settle every doubt for
the present and for all time.”
“I can’t blame you, Bart,” said Merry. “I believe I understand how
you feel. But I fear you lost your courage when the right moment
came.”
“Gods, Merriwell! who wouldn’t lose courage? Her answer was to make
or mar my whole future. I longed to cry out: ‘Frank and Inza are
engaged.’ But the fear that it would be that alone which would give
her to me made me keep silent. I want her to love me because not
even Frank Merriwell is as much to her.”
“I hope she will, Hodge,” said Merry sincerely; “and something
tells me that she will. It will all come right, old man.”