A BOY GUARDIAN
The conductor grinned and the passengers roared with laughter when the
farmer explained the incident. Even the glum-faced stepson of the narrator
roused up into some interest.
"Thankee, neighbor," spoke the farmer, effusively grasping Frank's hand.
"You're the right sort, sure enough--eyes wide open and up to snuff. Guess
I'd better keep close to home after this. I ain't to be trusted along with
them gold-brick fellows."
The old man took a great fancy to Frank and became quite confidential with
him. He piled candy and peanuts on him from the train boy's supply, invited
him to the farm, and wanted to know Frank's name so he could tell the folks
about him.
"I am Frank Jordan, live at Tipton, and am bound for school at Bellwood,"
said Frank.
"Hey! how--what?" exclaimed the farmer explosively. "You don't mean to say
that you're traveling to school, too?"
"Yes," replied Frank. "But who else do you mean?"
"Why, my son, Robert, over there--Robert Upton. Now, isn't it funny--he's
going right to the very school you are?"
"To Bellwood?"
"That's the name--Bellwood is the place," assented Mr. Upton. "Wish you'd
tell me what you know about it."
"I don't know anything about it, except what I've read and what I've heard
from friends who went there," said Frank. But it seemed he had enough
information to quite interest the farmer. Then the latter told him about
his stepson.
"Robert's been no good at home," he said. "You can see what a sulky,
unsociable fellow he is. No interest in nothing--thinks everybody hates
him, and won't make up to anybody. He says he'll run away if I put him in
school. If he does, I certainly will put him in the reformatory until he's
of age."
Frank stole a rather pitying glance at the lad. The latter was hunched down
in his seat, his hands rammed into his pockets, looking bored and
miserable. Frank wondered what kind of a queer make-up his nature could be,
to mope and scowl that bright, beautiful day, with the prospect of the
useful chance for study and the gay life of schoolboy sport.
"Why, say," suddenly ejaculated Farmer Upton, starting under the spur of
some exciting idea, "why can't Robert go with you to Bellwood?"
"He is doing so, isn't he?" said Frank with a smile.
"I mean why can't you sort of take charge of him and introduce him around,
and save me the time and the expense. You see, if I go with him I can't get
home until to-morrow. I can get off the train at Chester, and not buy any
ticket to Bellwood, but go right back home. I've made all the arrangements
for him by letter at Bellwood. The only reason I was going with him was to
deliver him into the hands of the teachers and give them an inkling of what
a troublesome fellow he is."
"Doesn't it strike you that that would hurt his chances with them and
discourage him?" suggested Frank.
"I never thought of that."
"Excuse me, Mr. Upton," said Frank, "but maybe you're too hard on your
stepson. It's hard to understand people, and a boy is a queer make-up. I
will be glad to have him come with me to Bellwood, and I'll put myself out
to make it agreeable for him."
"But he won't be agreeable; that's the trouble, you see," declared the
farmer. "When he gets in one of them tantrums of his, you simply can't
reason with him."
"Well, I'll take charge of him, if you don't wish to make the long journey,
Mr. Upton."
"I'll never know how to thank you, if you will," said the farmer
gratefully. "Hi, there, Robert."
"Me?" droned the boy in the seat across the aisle.
"Who else do you suppose?" snapped his stepfather testily. "Come, rout out
there, or I'll unhitch a strap somewhere and make you step lively."
Frank made up his mind that he would interest himself in the drifting waif
of a fellow. As he thought of the big, husky farmer and his houseful of
grown sons and daughters, he wondered if in their rough, unthinking way
they had not quite broken the spirit of the motherless lad in their midst.
"Sit down here," ordered the farmer, turning the seat so it faced Frank.
"This boy is going to Bellwood, Robert. He's agreed to take you along with
him, and I'm going back home."
Robert shot a glance of dislike and suspicion at Frank, as if he was a link
in a chain of jailers waiting for him along the line of life.
"You behave yourself along with him down at the academy, or I'll put you in
the reform school," threatened the farmer harshly.
"Oh, give Bob something to think of that's pleasant," put in Frank
cheerily. "It's a scary thing for a fellow, first time he goes among
strangers. I'm bracing up myself to meet the rollicking, mischief-making
crowd at Bellwood, who will just be lying in wait to guy us and haze us.
We'll stand together, Bob, hey? and give them good as they send," and Frank
slapped the lad on the shoulder, with a ringing laugh.
"They won't haze me," muttered Bob.
"Yes, they will, and then you and I will lay around to haze the new fellows
who came after us," cried Frank. "Ha! ha! you'll see some fun down at
Bellwood, Bob. They're a capital set of fellows, I'm told. We'll make the
best of them, anyhow, and the best of ourselves. Come, friend Bob, we'll
stick together and get all the fun out of life we can. Chums, is it?"
Frank was irresistible in his cheery, open-hearted good nature. Bob was
ashamed to refuse his hand, but the set, glum look on his face did not
lighten.
They had to change cars at a place called Chester. The farmer gave Frank
minute instructions as to his charge. He went over his "perky meanness" in
all its details, and he said to his stepson at parting:
"Now, then, you've got your chance to make a man of yourself. Any tantrums,
and you'll hear from me quick, and hot and heavy."
This was his parental farewell, and Frank felt truly sorry for poor Bob,
who, with all his sullenness, seemed entitled to a little better treatment.
After Farmer Upton had left them, Frank tried to break in on his stepson's
sulky reserve, but failed utterly. Bob drew within himself. He made
ungracious replies to questions put to him when Frank tried to interest
him, and about two o'clock went over to a vacant seat and curled up in it
and went fast asleep.
It was about six o'clock when the train pulled into Bellwood. Frank found
it to be a quaint, pretty town with delightful country surrounding it.
"Come on, Bob," he spoke as they stepped to the depot platform; "we must
arrange to have our trunks sent up to the academy."
"You've got my check," said Bob. "You can attend to all that; I'll wait
here."
"Oh, no," replied Frank lightly, "we'll stick together until we get
landed."
He was determined to afford his companion no opportunity to stray off.
There was a look in Bob Upton's eye that recalled the oft-repeated
injunction of his stepfather to watch out for "tantrums."
Frank arranged for the delivery of the trunks, and then made an inquiry of
a truckman as to the location of Bellwood School. The man pointed out its
towers about half a mile away.
They passed through the business part of the little town. At the village
post-office several boys were waiting for their mail. They looked the
newcomers over, but did not address them, and in a few minutes Frank and
Bob found themselves pursuing a path following the windings of a little
stream.
"We'll soon be there," announced Frank as they came to where on a slight
rise of landscape the academy buildings stood pretty plainly in view.
"What's the matter, Bob?"
The latter had halted in a peculiar, positive way. He backed slightly. His
eye was defiant and determined now, instead of sullen.
"The matter is this," he announced bluntly. "I don't intend to go to that
school."