The war was on.
The juniors may be said to have won the first skirmish, for the upper
grade fellows, assisted by the two lower middlers, labored the better
part of an hour that night, shoveling and carrying snow to the wooden
part of the toboggan slide and subsequently sprinkling it with water
so that it might freeze over night into a good foundation for further
improvements; and this without help from the mutineers, who from the
darkened windows of Small’s room, watched the work in warmth and
comfort.
“First blood for our side,” murmured Kid gleefully.
When the workers returned with benumbed fingers and ice-coated boots
it was evident that their attitude toward the offending juniors was to
be one of silent contempt. Bert, Lanny, Small and Kid were absolutely
ignored by all save Cupples and Crandall, who, so far, observed a
difficult neutrality. During study hour Bert and Ben sat at opposite
sides of the green-topped table and exchanged never a word, Bert
deciding ruefully toward the end of the evening that much of that sort
of thing would probably become very tiresome.
In the morning the revolutionists gained a convert. The convert was
Nan. Nan was greatly excited and very enthusiastic. And she assured
Bert and Lanny, who had gone out after breakfast to slide down the
short coast afforded by the sloping driveway, that she was heart and
soul with the Cause. They must never give in, she declared. She also
said many other things about Tyranny, the Despot’s Heel, Right and
Justice and Suffering for a Principle. The latter phrase misled Lanny
until Nan explained that she was not referring to her father. Her words
sounded very fine and the two boys were quite heartened. They had not
thought of the thing as a Cause before and now Lanny began to look
quite noble and heroic, or as noble and heroic as it is possible to
look with a green plaid Mackinaw jacket and ear-muffs.
“What you must do, though,” continued Nan, sinking her voice to a sort
of frozen whisper, “is to form a Society!”
“What sort of a society?” asked Bert.
“Why, a――a Society for Mutual Help and Protection.”
“Oh!” murmured Lanny, much impressed. “How would you do it?”
“Just――just do it, silly! I tell you what; come to the stable after
morning school and organize. And meanwhile I’ll think up a good name
for the Society. You must bring Small and Kid, too, you know. And you
must have a password and――and a grip.”
“We’ll have the grippe all right if we sit around the stable long,”
said Lanny. “It’s as cold in there as――as――――”
“A barn,” suggested Bert. “All right, we’ll be there, Miss Merton,
right after school.”
“What do you call her Miss Merton for?” asked Lanny after Nan had
hurried indoors again. “Her name’s Nan; except when you want to get her
mad, and then it’s Nancy.”
“Well, I don’t know her very well yet,” answered Bert in excuse. “She
seems a pretty good sort.”
“She is. She’s all right――for a girl. Girls always want to stick their
noses into things, though. Just as though we couldn’t get up a society
without her help!”
“Well, we wouldn’t have thought of it, I guess. And I’m glad she did.
It’ll be rather fun, won’t it?”
“Sure. It must be a secret society, too. And we’ll vote for officers.”
This settled, they went on with the matter in hand, which was to start
at the corner of the house and see how far they could make their sleds
go around the corner into the road.
At ten minutes past twelve the four crept into the stable with
appropriate stealthiness and found Nan already there. She led the way
into the harness room, closed and locked the door and took command of
the situation. There was a stove in the harness room, but as there was
no fire in it it couldn’t be said to help the situation much. It was
undoubtedly cold and Small remarked sarcastically that he didn’t see
why the hall wasn’t good enough.
“Because,” replied Nan scathingly, “you can’t form a Secret Society
with the whole world hearing every word you say. You’d be surrounded by
your enemies in the hall.”
“I’d be surrounded by some heat, anyway,” muttered Small ungraciously.
“Dry up, Small,” commanded Lanny. “Now, then, what’s the first thing,
Nan?”
“Choose a name. I’ve thought of several that might do. What do you
think of ‘The League of Emancipators’?”
“Um,” said Bert. “But I think something shorter would be better.”
“Well, then, there’s ‘The Secret Four.’”
“What’s the matter with ‘The Four’?” asked Small.
“‘The Junior Four’ sounds pretty well,” Bert suggested. And the rest
agreed that it did, Nan concurring and nobly striving to hide her
disappointment over the fact that her names had been rejected.
“‘The Junior Four’ it is, then,” said Lanny briskly, breathing on his
fingers to warm them. “Now what?”
“A password,” said Nan. “I couldn’t think of anything very――very
striking.”
“Justice!” suggested Lanny.
“No surrender!” said Small.
“Non plus ultra!” piped Kid.
“You’re a goose,” laughed Nan. “That means ‘None better.’”
“I know what it means,” replied Kid. “I guess I’ve studied as much
Latin as you have.”
“I guess you haven’t!” responded Nan indignantly. “The idea!”
“I’ve got a good one,” interrupted Lanny, who had been scowling
ferociously at the stove. “‘All for one, one for all!’”
“You got that out of ‘The Three Musketeers,’” charged Small. “And,
anyway, it’s ‘One for all and all for one.’”
“It is not! Is it, Bert?”
“I don’t know, but it sounds all right. ‘One for all and all for one.’”
“It’s fine!” declared Nan. “Now you must have officers.”
“What kind of officers?” asked Kid.
“Why, a――a president and a vice-president, I should think, and a
secretary, and――and――――”
“A sergeant-at-arms,” said Small.
“I think Bert ought to be president,” declared Lanny, “because he
started it all.”
That was agreed to, and finally Lanny was made vice-president, Small
sergeant-at-arms and Kid secretary.
“I think,” said Bert, “we’d ought to make Miss――make Nan a member.” Nan
clapped her hands, but her face fell the next instant.
“I couldn’t be, though, because, don’t you see, the name is The Junior
Four. And I’m not a junior, and I’d be the fifth.”
“You could be an honorary member,” said Lanny. And so Nan was duly
elected and with a flattering unanimity. After that Small thought they
ought to have a grip and showed them three he knew of. Then Lanny
demonstrated one he liked and there was much handshaking and confusion
for several minutes. In the end Small won and they all learned his
grip. And as by that time the hour for dinner was near at hand the
first meeting of The Junior Four was adjourned, subject to the call of
the secretary. Kid, still smarting a little under Nan’s aspersion on
his knowledge of Latin, wanted to adjourn sine die and had the pleasure
of explaining that sine die meant “without day.” Small said it sounded
more like “without sense” and refused to adjourn in any such manner.
Nan cautioned them that it would be best to avoid suspicion, and to
this end they left the stable one by one, at minute intervals; all
except Small, who, left the last, refused to freeze to death for any
principle or cause and sneaked out long before his time was up.
All this was on Thursday, and for the rest of the day The Junior Four
stayed very close together, not knowing at what moment the upper grade
fellows might tire of their present attitude of contemptuous silence
and indulge in violence. By the time afternoon school was over the day
students had learned of the situation and had already begun to take
sides, and by the next noon the school was sharply divided into camps.
The rivalry between house students and day students was for the time
forgotten and upper grade fellows hastened to the support of Ben and
his cohorts and lower grade boys flocked to the standard of Bert and
Lanny and the others. Being at last forced to choose sides, Cupples and
Crandall threw in their lots with the revolutionists, and with their
enlistment the last semblance of peace vanished. Every room was divided
against itself, for every room was occupied by an upper grade fellow
and a lower grade fellow. The second floor of the house these evenings
was strangely quiet. To be sure, when study hour was over the lower
grade fellows managed to get together somewhere, while Stanley Pierce’s
room became the regular meeting place for the enemy. But as these
meetings were generally councils of war the usual chatter of voices
and ring of laughter were missing. The first real engagement of the
opposing forces occurred on Friday afternoon and resulted in a victory
for the revolutionists, as you shall see.
Small resided in Number 5 with George Waters. Waters had been, from the
first, in favor of strong methods and the heavy hand in dealing with
the mutiny, and on this occasion his patience deserted him. Hurrying
upstairs after school, he found Small struggling into a sweater.
Waters was after an extra skate strap, and, after searching everywhere
in vain, he charged Small with having hidden it. Small denied it
indignantly, and Waters, having worked himself into a fit of bad
temper, insisted that Small should help look for it. Small, inwardly
quaking, refused. There was a wordy war, and in the end Waters took the
key from the inside of the door.
“You’ll stay here until you find that, Small,” he declared from the
doorway. “We’ll see whether you’ll do as you’re told!”
With that Waters departed, locking the door after him and pocketing the
key. Left imprisoned, Small merely grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
He had promised to go skating on the creek with the other juniors and
Nan, but he much preferred a warm room and a book to read. Ten minutes
later, his feet on the radiator and a rattling good book in his hands,
Small had quite forgotten Waters, his imprisonment, the Cause and all
else. Half an hour passed unheeded and then voices called from outside:
“Small! O you Small!”
Small, unheeding, read on. The hero was cutting his way through the
jungle of South Africa closely pursued by a band of head-hunters.
“_Small! Where are you, Small?_”
This time Small heard and looked out of the window. Down below in the
snow stood Lanny and Bert, come in search of him. Small opened the
window.
“Hello,” he said. “I can’t come out. Waters has locked me in.”
Bert and Lanny thrilled. Here was war to the knife!
“Did he take the key?” asked Bert.
“I don’t know; I guess so. It’s all right, though; I don’t mind staying
here.”
“Don’t you worry,” cried Lanny, “we’ll get you out.”
They hurried into the house and upstairs. The second floor was
deserted. Every key they could lay their hands on was tried, but
none fitted. From beyond the door Small begged them not to trouble,
assuring them that he was quite resigned.
“One for all and all for one!” cried Lanny, undismayed. “Keep up your
courage. We’ll get a ladder.”
“Bully!” said Bert.
“But I don’t want――” began Small. It was quite lost, however, for the
others were already halfway down the stairs. Luckily the room was
on the back of the house, out of sight of the rink; although it is
probable that Waters was much too busy playing hockey to notice what
might be happening at the house. It was only a minute’s work to carry
the long ladder from the basement and set it up outside Small’s window,
one end in a rhododendron clump and the other against the sill. Small
viewed it doubtfully.
“I don’t want to climb down that thing,” he demurred. “I might fall.”
“Hurry up,” Bert commanded. “They may come back. Get your sweater and
cap.”
“But――but I tell you――――”
“Say,” interrupted Lanny impatiently, “you don’t want those fellows to
say that they got the better of us, do you? Get a move on, can’t you?
Gee, I never saw such a slow-poke!”
At that moment Nan and Kid, having waited some time for the return of
Bert and Lanny, appeared on the scene.
“Hello,” cried Kid, “what’s the fun, fellows?”
The matter was hurriedly explained, while Small frowned down from the
open window rebelliously.
“What ho! A rescue!” cried Kid. “Let me go up and carry him down, will
you, Lanny?”
Nan was visibly excited. “It’s perfectly lovely!” she declared. “Think
how chagrined they will be when they come back and find――find the prey
has escaped them! Oh, hurry, Small, hurry!”
“I don’t want to hurry,” growled Small. “I don’t intend to break my
neck getting down that old thing.”
“But you’ve got to,” said Bert. “How are we going to rescue you if you
don’t?”
“I don’t want to be rescued!”
“You’ve got to be,” declared Lanny. “Out you come, now. If you don’t
we’ll go up there and get you. I’m not going to have a perfectly good
rescue spoiled by you.”
“Yes, please do,” begged Nan.
“A rescue! A rescue!” chanted Kid shrilly, dancing around in the snow.
Small debated with himself a minute and finally disappeared in search
of sweater and cap.
“You fellows make me tired,” he growled when he returned to the window.
“Why can’t you let me alone? I don’t want to be rescued. I don’t want
to go skating. I don’t want――――”
“Cut out the regrets and hurry the job,” advised Lanny.
Small cautiously climbed over the sill and set one foot tentatively on
the ladder. Then he looked down. It seemed an awfully long way to the
ground. “Some one hold it,” he grumbled. Lanny and Nan obeyed. Small
tried the second rung, found that it held and that he was still alive,
and essayed the third. His head was below the window sill now and the
rescue was progressing famously. At that instant Kid harkened to the
voice of the Imp of Mischief.
“Small,” he called, “try that next round with your foot before you put
your weight on it. It looks weak.”
Small turned and cast a horrified look at the rung in question, and
clung desperately to the ladder.
“It――it’s cracked, I think,” he stammered. “I――I guess I’ll go back.”
“It isn’t cracked; it’s all right,” said Bert. “Kid, you keep your
mouth shut.”
“I was just warning him,” muttered Kid. “Of course, if you fellows want
to see him fall and hurt himself, all right. But I don’t want any man’s
blood on my soul. I――――”
“Shut up!” yelled Lanny. “Come on down, Small; it’s perfectly safe.”
“It is, is it?” chattered Small. “Then what’s he talking that way for?
I’ll l-l-lick him when I g-g-get down!”
“You ought to be ashamed, Kid,” remonstrated Nan. “How would you like
it if――――”
But at that moment Small put the weight of one foot on the rung, there
was a slight _creak_, he gave a cry of fright, tried to take his foot
off again and scramble up the ladder and lost his footing entirely.
“Look out!” yelled Bert. Lanny and Nan jumped aside and Small, yelling
lustily, came down the ladder like a shot, his feet waving wildly and
his arms wrapped around the sides. He reached the ground in a heap.
Bert hurried to him and picked him up.
“Are you hurt, Small?” he asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” answered Small weakly, feeling himself inquiringly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried Nan. Small, very white of face, concluded that
no harm had been done. Then his eyes fell on Kid. That irrepressible
youth was seated in the middle of a clump of rhododendrons doubled over
with laughter.
“It was all his fault!” cried Small, and dashed at Kid. But Kid
recovered very suddenly from his laughter and rolled and scrambled out
the other side of the shrubs just as Small came crashing through. Then
ensued a race that presently took pursued and pursuer out of sight
around the building.
“It’s lucky he didn’t hurt himself,” said Bert, laughing. “I say, he
left the window open. The room will be as cold as Greenland when Waters
gets back.”
“And serve him right,” said Lanny.
“Couldn’t you go up and close it?” asked Nan.
“I guess I will.” So Lanny ran up the ladder. When he reached the top,
instead of closing the window, he disappeared into the room and was
gone several minutes. Finally he came out again, drew the window shut
and slid down the ladder. “I left the Sign of the Four,” he explained,
grinning. At that moment Small and Kid returned, evidently reconciled,
and the five went back to the creek to resume their skating. When an
hour or so later, Waters, who had quite forgotten the prisoner, tried
to open his room door and found it locked he was quite surprised until
he recalled the earlier events. Then, a little conscience stricken, he
unlocked the door and entered the darkened room.
“Find that strap yet, Small?” he asked gruffly.
There was no answer and Waters lighted the gas and gazed in bewilderment
about the empty apartment. Then he looked under both beds and in the
closet, declaring in a loud voice that Small might as well “come out of
that now” because he knew just where he was. But Small didn’t appear,
and Waters, passing the study table, caught sight of a sheet of paper.
On it was what was evidently intended for a skull and crossbones, and
under that was printed:
“_One for All and All for One!_”
V