There were seconds in which amazement held the members of the Safety
First Club speechless and almost motionless.
This open invasion of the privacy of the club was something wholly
outside their experience. A boy who didn’t belong might call there,
of course, if he wished to see one of the members; but he would
be expected to halt outside and hail the club with a shout, or,
at the most, to knock at the door and pause outside. And he would
be quite as anxious to observe this code as the members would be
anxious that he should observe it. A fellow didn’t care to enter
where he was not wanted, and if he had been wanted, he would have
been elected to membership. That was the way the matter was reasoned
out. The conclusion was accepted by everybody in interest. So for
one of the town boys to walk up to the door, and throw it open, and
look in at the assembled coterie, and do these things calmly and
unconcernedly--well, none of the town boys would have thus conducted
himself. But there was Paul Varley doing these things quite as a matter
of course, thus proving himself not of the town and at the same time
bringing embarrassment to the club.
Varley stepped into the room. “Hullo, everybody!” he said cheerily.
“Thought I’d drop in for a minute--I’ve heard a lot about this joint of
yours, you know.”
There was no response; surprise still held the members of the club.
Varley smiled genially. He was perhaps a year older than any of the
Safety First boys, and a great deal more practised in some of the ways
of the world. He ran his eye over the room, and spoke again:
“Pretty nifty--what! Snug as a bug in a rug, aren’t you?”
Oddly enough, it was the usually reticent Shark who first found tongue.
“We like it.” He threw an emphasis on the “we,” to which Varley might
have taken exception, had he been disposed to be critical. But the
caller was not looking for trouble.
“I should think you would,” he said smoothly. “Fixed it up yourselves,
didn’t you? Thought so. More fun to do it.”
It did not seem to occur to the Shark that it was his business to make
reply, and nobody else volunteered. Varley took off his cap. It was a
handsome cap of fur. He unbuttoned his overcoat; it was fur-lined. In
fact, from head to heels he was outfitted for very cold weather, as if
his garments had been selected for wear in semi-Arctic regions. Plainly
enough, somebody had told him wonderful tales of winter temperatures
“up country.”
The evidences that Varley intended to make a stay of some length
stirred Sam to his duties as unofficial head of the club. Somehow, the
rôle of spokesman seemed to fall to him, in times of emergency, by a
sort of common consent.
“Er--er--why, how do you do?” he stammered. “Won’t you take a seat?”
Varley shook his head. He was still smiling in his friendly fashion.
“Why, no; I’d rather look about a bit, if I might,” said he. “I’d heard
so much, one way or another, about this den of yours, that I made up
my mind I’d make a call. Thought, too, I’d find you all in about this
time of day. Say, you’ve got a cracking good hang-out! Said you fixed
it yourselves, didn’t you?”
Then up spoke the Shark, testily: “Nobody said that.”
“But it’s the fact, all the same,” Sam hastened to remark. “Yes; what’s
here we did, or made, or whatever you choose to call it.”
“Smooth work, too,” said Varley quickly. “Garage once, wasn’t it?”
Inasmuch as the club-house was the property of Step’s father, Step felt
called upon to make reply.
“No--stable.”
Varley turned to the tall youth. “Whatever it began with being, it’s
all right now. And it’s a bully good scheme you fellows have. Great
place to loaf, this is!”
Now this was said affably enough, and with no trace of the
condescending note for which the boys were listening keenly. A chap--an
older chap--from a big city might be disposed to be patronizing; and
the Safety First Club did not care to be patronized. But no fault was
to be found with Varley’s manner. Sam felt moved to explain the plan
the crowd had followed.
“Oh, we got together what we could,” said he. “Each one contributed.
Somebody brought an old sofa, and somebody else a table his folks
weren’t using any more, and so it went on. And if anybody had a
picture he liked, he hung or tacked it up. That’s the way it went,
and--er--er--that’s about the whole story.”
Varley nodded, and crossed the room to examine an old engraving. From
this he went to inspection of a very modern cartoon from a newspaper.
“Liberty hall--I get the idea,” quoth he. “And I like it. Gives
variety. By the way, it’s like the plan they have in some of the big
clubs. Members contribute odds and ends--curios--they pick up. It’ll
make quite a museum after a while.”
“Or quite a junk shop!” interposed the Shark. He was staring hard at
the visitor through his spectacles, and his expression was dubious,
if not hostile. The other boys moved uneasily. They had begun to
recover from the surprise of the visit, and to understand that Varley
felt himself on a purely friendly errand. Therefore there should
be allowance for his ignorance of the local code, and avoidance of
controversy. The Shark’s speech embarrassed them, but not Varley. He
laughed, lightly and good-naturedly.
“You’re on the mark, at that. Museums and junk shops are a lot alike;
but that doesn’t prevent ’em from being interesting. Why, I went into
a queer old shop one day, and there was an old machine, with all sorts
of rings and pivots, and hung on ’em was a--a--well, it looked like an
oblong sphere and----”
“What!” shouted the Shark.
Varley glanced at him questioningly. “I beg your pardon?” he said with
a touch of formality.
The Shark drew a long breath. “An oblong sphere!” he repeated slowly.
“Jee-whippiter!”
Again it was Sam’s duty to explain. “Don’t let the Shark bother you. He
means well, but he’s a bug on mathematics--and cones, and circles, and
cubes, and spheres, and--er--er--and all that sort of thing. But he’s
harmless.”
Once more Varley’s laugh saved the situation. “I understand.
And he’s right, at that. What I meant was, that the thing was
egg-shaped--almost, but not quite. And that little difference in
shape, the inventor figured, was just what would make it a perpetual
motion machine, that would keep going forever, once you started it.
Of course, it didn’t work. But I say!”--he was looking straight at
the Shark--“I say! If you’re up in the ‘math’ I envy you. It’s my
stumbling-block--gets me every time.”
“Umph!” said the Shark non-committally. In his experience the world was
strangely crowded with beings woefully deficient in the mathematical
sense. He was learning to make allowances for their shortcomings. The
visitor, by frank confession of incapacity, won a degree of toleration,
if not of approval.
“Yes; it gets me every time,” Varley went on. “I’ve had half a notion
to see if I couldn’t go into the senior class at your high school,
just to brush up on the mathematical review--maybe I shall yet. But
first I want to get better acquainted with the town and the people.
That’s why I dropped in on your crowd. And now that I’ve said ‘Howdy,’
I’ll move along.”
“Oh, don’t be in a hurry,” said Sam politely.
For the first time the blackboard, with its boldly chalked inscription,
caught Varley’s eye.
“Hullo! What’s that? Safety First Club? Say, that’s a funny name for a
lot of boys to pick out!”
“Well, it pleases us,” said Sam, a little curtly.
Varley’s ready smile was in evidence. “So I supposed, or you wouldn’t
have chosen it. But it’s an odd name, all the same.”
Sam hesitated an instant. “It--well, maybe it is odd. But some things
happened to impress us with the need of looking before we leaped. So we
agreed on the name. Then other things happened to impress us some more,
and we kept it.”
“I see,” said Varley; but then he repeated, “Safety First Club, Safety
First?” as if he were still puzzled. “Somehow, that seems to bar a lot
of fun.”
“Oh, we manage to get along.”
“Where do you draw the line between what’s safe and what isn’t?”
Again Sam hesitated. “Why--why, I guess there isn’t any general rule.
You have to settle each case as it comes.”
“But what’s the rule for settling it?”
The Shark came to Sam’s assistance. “Law of chances,” he said curtly.
“Meaning----?”
“Can you get away with it? Can’t dodge all risks, can you? But when you
have to take one, isn’t there a safer way than the first way you think
of? Just stop and figure. It pays!”
Varley shook his head. “That’s all right for mathematical sharps,” he
said laughingly; “but I’m not in that class. The tree would fall on me,
or I’d drown, or the bull would toss me over the fence, long before I
could cipher out what the chances were.”
“Pays, all the same, to try,” the Shark insisted.
Varley glanced a little inquiringly at Sam. As has been explained, he
was older than the club’s members, and more versed in the ways of the
world; and now he had an intuition that the boys, while satisfied with
their club’s title, were not eager to discuss it with a comparative
stranger. He looked at Sam, but Sam said nothing.
The visitor buttoned his overcoat. “Guess I’ll be running along,” he
remarked. “Mighty glad to have had a look at your den.”
“We’re glad you like it,” said Sam, reminded of his manners.
Varley moved toward the door. He was quite aware that nobody had asked
him to call again, and for the first time since his arrival began to
feel a trifle of embarrassment.
“Fine place--bully!” he said. “I--er--er--I don’t suppose anybody is
going my way?”
Now, there was something in the other’s manner which brought a sudden
change in the plans of Sam Parker. Maybe his instinct of hospitality
stirred; he might at least escort this unbidden guest whom he had
failed to welcome warmly.
“Guess I’ll trot along, too.” He caught up his cap and overcoat, put
them on, and slipped into his overshoes. “Ready, when you are,” he
added.
Varley said, “Well, so long, you fellows!” and said it jauntily; but
he was silent while he walked away from the club-house with Sam. The
latter also seemed to be tongue-tied. Indeed, the pause threatened to
become awkward for both of them, when Varley, with an effort, ended it.
“Great winters you have up here!” he said jerkily. “Must be no end of
sport, when you get the hang of things. Can’t say I’ve quite done that
yet.”
“You’ll get it quickly enough,” Sam assured him.
“Hope so,” said Varley. “I’d like----” he broke off abruptly. “Hear
that? What’s happening up the street?”
Sam didn’t answer. Indeed, he had no need to do so. Like Varley, he
had heard the sharp “honk, honk!” of an automobile horn rising above
the jingle of sleigh-bells, and then a woman’s shriek of alarm, and
the quick beat of hoofs on the icy roadway. A horse, drawing a light
cutter, had taken fright at a passing motor car, had got out of control
of the woman who held the reins, and was making a frantic bolt.
Turning, the boys had a glimpse of a wiry bay, neck outstretched, ears
back, red nostrils distended; of a sleigh swaying wildly; of a woman
tugging vainly at the reins.
“Runaway!” gasped Varley. Then he did the instinctive thing, and the
plucky thing. The horse was very near, and coming fast. Varley sprang
into the street. Promptly as he acted, though, there was a second
in which his eyes were on Sam; and in that instant he had a queer
impression that his companion was about to do as he was doing. But Sam
suddenly appeared to change his plan, for he wheeled, and ran down the
street, approaching the track of the runaway, not directly but on a
long diagonal.
There flashed on Varley an ugly doubt of Sam’s courage. Then for a
little he forgot everything but the galloping horse, and the part he
meant to play in stopping the maddened animal. He leaped over the piled
up snow lining the sidewalk, and gave a great bound for the horse’s
head. He was not reckoning risk, or chances--or conditions, for that
matter. It had not occurred to him that just at this point the frozen
road, with its thin, greasy coating was extraordinarily slippery
and treacherous under foot. He hardly realized what was happening,
when, as he was about to grasp the bridle, his feet shot from under
him. The shoulder of the runaway struck him. Luckily, it was only a
glancing blow, but it sent him reeling back, out of danger of contact
with plunging hoofs or lunging sleigh. Down he went in a heap, sorely
shaken and with the breath half driven from his body; and there he lay,
recovering his wits and his wind, while he watched Sam, twenty yards
away, score success where he had failed.
Sam sprang much as Varley had sprung; but he caught the reins close
to the bit, and was not shaken off. Not that he was able to check
the runaway’s career at once--as a matter of fact, he was dragged a
considerable distance. He forced the horse, though, out of the beaten
track and into the deeper snow, and little by little he reduced the
speed. The animal struggled hard, but Sam kept his hold. Two or
three men came running up; and in a moment more the horse was at a
standstill, trembling like a leaf, but again under control; his driver
had been assisted from the sleigh, and was thanking Sam so warmly
for his timely help that the boy, blushing hotly, was glad to beat a
retreat and return to Varley, who by this time had picked himself up,
and was brushing the snow from his overcoat.
“Great Scott! but that was a star job of yours!” was his greeting.
“Oh, it was just luck,” Sam answered modestly.
“Luck?”
“Yes; luck to find better footing than you had.”
Varley gave a queer little groan. “Thunder! I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, right here’s one of the smoothest places you can find anywhere;
you need spiked shoes to stand on it. Farther on, though, it is
rougher--rough enough to give you half a show, anyway. I saw how it was
and ran along a bit. If you’d thought to do that, you’d have been all
right. You made just as good a try as I did.”
Varley glanced at the other keenly. “Look here! First off, you were
starting straight out just as I did. Then you stopped, and changed your
scheme. You had the real hunch. I was stood on my head, and you got
away with things. And all the difference was, you took time to think.”
“I tried to,” said Sam quietly.
“It was a clever plan. But I say!” Varley paused an instant, his
expression half admiring, half uncertain. “Come now! You talk about
belonging to a Safety First Club, yet you pile in in a case like
this----”
Sam interrupted him. “Our kind of Safety First doesn’t mean wrapping
yourself up in cotton wool and stowing yourself away on a shelf. It
doesn’t mean dodging all risks--you’ve got to take some. But it does
mean finding the best way to take them, if they seem to be necessary,
and cutting them out, if they’re not necessary. That’s all there is to
it.”
Varley finished his task of brushing the snow from his coat. He
straightened himself, and looked at Sam.
“Somehow or other, Parker, it strikes me there’s a lot to be said for
that notion of yours,” he remarked with conviction.