Bert didn’t like Ben. He came to that conclusion just twenty-four hours
after his arrival at Mt. Pleasant Academy. Ben had had his room to
himself all the fall and resented Bert’s appearance on the scene. He
also resented having a junior put in with him. To be sure it was the
custom at the academy to have the younger boys room with the older,
but Ben, who had been there three years and a half, and was the oldest
boy in the house, thought he ought to be exempt from such annoyances.
And he didn’t scruple to let Bert understand that he was anything but
welcome. Benson Holden was a big chap, big even for his seventeen
years, with a dark, good-looking and somewhat arrogant face and a
masterful manner where the younger boys were concerned. He had made up
his mind, evidently, that if he must have Bert with him Bert was to pay
in services. After Bert had been an occupant of Number 2 just half an
hour it began. “Bryant, get my slippers out of the closet.” “Bryant,
throw that towel over here. And be quick, too, kid!” “Put those shirts
in my second drawer, Bryant, and put the bag in the closet. Don’t muss
’em up, now!” Bert very quietly obeyed, but he had already begun to do
some thinking that was to bear fruit in the shape of action.
Later that evening the last two boys reached school. These were
juniors, Tom Frye, nicknamed “Small,” and James Fairchild, alias “Kid.”
With their arrival the roster of twelve pupils was complete. After
supper was over, Bert had his talk with the Doctor in the office, and
met Mrs. Merton, a sweet-faced woman whom the boys called Mother and
worshiped devotedly. Later, too, he met the rest of the teaching force,
Mr. Folsom and Mr. Crane, both youngish men, the former short, stout
and pompous and the latter tall, cheerful and jolly. Before that first
evening was past he had made friends with the three other members of
his class, “Small” Frye, “Kid” Fairchild and Lansing Grey. He liked
them all; and some of the older fellows were nice to him, notably
Steve Lovell, upper middler. He saw nothing more of Nan that evening.
The next morning studies began in the schoolrooms which occupied one
end of the building. Besides the twelve boarders there were as many
day pupils who came from Mt. Pleasant and Whittier and Riveredge, the
nearby towns. Altogether Mt. Pleasant Academy cared for twenty-four
boys. Bert got through the first day of lessons creditably enough, and
at half past three was free for the rest of the afternoon.
Young Grey, known as “Lanny” for short, had taken a fancy to the
new boy and after school took him on a tour of the building and
grounds. Bert saw the gymnasium, above the schoolroom, the laboratory
downstairs, the heating and lighting plant, the snow-covered athletic
field and finally the two rinks where, by the time they arrived, some
dozen and a half fellows were hard at work practising hockey.
“That’s the House Team over there,” explained Lanny. “Ben’s captain.
This is the Day Team. The captain’s that short, round-faced fellow,
Billy Spooner. The first match comes off a week from next Saturday. Do
you play hockey?”
Bert shook his head. “No, I never tried it. Do you?”
“Yes, and if Ben was fair he’d give me a chance on the House Team. I
can play a heap better than Cupples.”
“Won’t he let you play?” asked Bert.
“No, I’m a junior. All juniors are good for is to run errands and fetch
and carry. It makes me tired.”
“I guess it’s going to make me tired, too, pretty soon,” said Bert.
“Seems to me I’ve been on the go for Holden or Gardner about every
minute since I got here.”
Lanny nodded. “Yes, they always take it out of a new fellow. Good work,
Dick!” They had stopped at the barrier beyond which, on the smooth
surface of hard ice, the House Hockey Team was practising, and Lanny’s
shout of praise had been elicited by a clever stop at goal by Dick
Gardner. “He’s a dandy goal-tend,” explained Lanny. “Never gets rattled
for a minute.”
“What has he got on his legs?” asked Bert.
“Leg-guards. That puck is pretty hard when it hits. There’s Small over
there; and Kid, too. Let’s go over.”
But at that moment Ben Holden, swinging by, caught sight of the two
boys and skated up to the boards.
“Say, Bryant, run up to the room, will you, and find a pair of hockey
gloves on the table. I forgot them.”
“I’m tired, Holden,” replied Bert quietly. “Send some one else.”
Ben stared in surprise. Then he frowned and, leaning over the barrier,
seized Bert’s ear. “Tired, eh? Well, you forget that, kid, and run
along and do as I tell you. You’re much too fresh for this place.”
Bert jerked away, rubbed the ear and smiled sweetly. “I’d like mighty
well to know what you did before I came, Holden,” he said. “I’m wearing
my shoes out running errands for you.”
“Are you going?” demanded Ben threateningly.
“No, I’m not!”
“I’ll get them,” volunteered Lanny Grey.
“All right,” said Ben, “but get a move on. They’re on the table or the
bureau or somewhere there. As for you,” he added, scowling at Bert,
“I’ll teach you to do as you’re told before you’ve been here much
longer.”
Bert turned away without reply and, while Lanny sped back to the house,
walked around the rink to where the other two juniors, Kid and Small,
were standing. They greeted him eagerly.
“What was the row over there?” asked Small.
“Nothing much. Holden wanted me to run and get his gloves from the
room and I said I was too tired.”
The others looked at Bert in mingled amazement and admiration.
“Gee!” breathed Kid. “You’ll get it!”
“What for?” demanded Bert defiantly.
“For not shacking,” replied Kid with a knowing shake of his blond head.
Small nodded affirmatively and eyed Bert with sympathy.
“Why should I?” asked Bert. “I didn’t come here to shack, as you
fellows call it, for every chap in school. Let them run their own
errands!”
“I wish they would,” sighed Kid. “Stanley Pierce says I’ve got to work
on the toboggan slide after supper.”
“We all have to,” said Small gloomily. “And my hands get so cold and my
feet ache so――――!”
“What do you mean?” Bert questioned. “Who has to work where?”
“Juniors and lower middlers have to fix up the slide after supper,”
explained Small. “Put snow on the boards and wet it down so it will
freeze to-night.”
Bert turned and regarded the slide which began back of the house and
swept down the hill to the meadow beyond. He shook his head. “I shall
be very busy this evening,” he said. “Sorry.”
“But you’ll have to!” exclaimed Small in horrified tones. “It――it’s the
rule.”
“Who made the rule? I didn’t see it in the catalogue.”
“Of course not, but it’s a rule just the same. And it isn’t so hard. In
fact, it’s sort of fun――if the weather isn’t very cold.”
“Well, the weather is cold to-day,” responded Bert. “Much too cold for
me to go out after supper.”
“You’ll go, just the same,” said Kid with a grin.
“I think not,” replied Bert quietly. “Not only that, but I’ve made up
my mind that after this I’m not going to shack for any one.”
“You can’t help yourself,” said Small. “Of course, you’re new here and
don’t understand, but the juniors always shack for the seniors and
upper middlers. It――it’s always been done.”
“Not by me,” replied Bert, cheerfully. “The rest of you can do it if
you like, but I’ve quit.”
“But――but――” stammered Kid, “they――they’ll do things to you!”
“What sort of things, Fairchild?”
Kid stared blankly at Small and Small shook his head at a loss. “I
don’t know,” said Kid finally, “because no fellow has ever――ever――――”
“Mutinied?” suggested Bert with a smile.
“They’ll fix you somehow, though,” said Small darkly. At that moment
Lanny Grey joined them and Kid breathlessly told him of the new boy’s
rash resolve. Lanny listened in silence, frowning the while. Then,
“Good stuff!” he growled. “They make me tired. I ran my legs off all
the fall and I’m sick of it. Just now I went all the way to the house
for Ben’s gloves and they weren’t there. And when I came back and told
him so he said I was a ninny. What _is_ a ‘ninny’?”
“Idiot,” said Small.
“Dunce,” said Kid.
“Let him find his own gloves then,” growled Lanny. “I’ve a good mind to
quit, too.” He looked doubtfully at Bert.
“Let’s all quit,” suggested Bert cheerfully. “Let’s make a declaration
of independence. They can’t punish us all, you know. And even if they
do make it warm for us we can stand it, I guess. What do you say, you
fellows?”
There was a moment of silence. Lanny looked from Small to Kid. Then,
although he found little encouragement in their countenances, he thrust
his hands resolutely into his pockets.
“I’m with you!” he said.
“And me!” cried Kid excitedly. Kid was only thirteen years old but
of the stuff of which heroes are made. Only Small hesitated longer.
“What――what do you suppose they’ll do to us?” he asked.
Lanny shrugged his shoulders.
“Pull our ears, probably. Cuff us a bit. I don’t know, and I don’t
care. But Bryant’s right. If we stand together this shacking business
has got to stop. And to-night there’s the slide to fix, too.”
“Bryant says he isn’t going to,” murmured Small awedly.
“I’m not,” said Bert. “I have a very delicate constitution and the
night air is extremely bad for it.” Lanny grinned.
“Me, too. The doctor has told me to stay indoors after dark.”
“Do you fellows really mean it?” asked Small doubtfully.
“We do,” answered Lanny. “Are you with us?”
Small’s eyes grew very big and round with contemplation of the
awfulness of what he was pledging himself to, but he answered promptly,
even if his voice shook a little, “Yes!”
“Good!” said Bert. “Now let’s go back to the house and draw up a
proclamation. We must do this thing right, you know.”
When, an hour later, darkness drove the House Team from the rink and
they came stamping into the hall the proclamation, imposingly inscribed
on a sheet of cardboard, confronted them from the mantel. It was George
Waters who first saw it and, having perused the first paragraph, broke
into a laugh.
“Hi, fellows! Come over here!” he called. “Read this. It’s killing!”
The others gathered around in front of the fireplace and this is what
they read: