The result of the historical essay competition was a foregone
conclusion. Under the conditions, by which facts counted for more than
form of expression, the production of the Safety First Club, entered
in Poke’s name, took the hundred dollar prize, with never a doubt in
the minds of the judges. Tattered and torn as was the diary of Dominie
Pike, it yet threw so much light upon debated questions of early town
history, and added so much information to the local historians’ store
of knowledge, that the award was made with very little delay.
Poke, it must be said, rebelled at the last, but the club promptly
overruled his objections. Step argued long and vigorously with his chum.
“You’ve got to have money, and here is money. Don’t be an idiot! What
do you want to do? Turn us down, and be sued or--or something? Want
your folks to know all about the mess, eh? Ugh! Thought you didn’t.
And here you’ve been growling about luck being against you, and when
it’s for you, you’re all for jumping the fence to get away from it.
Say, you make me tired!”
This was Step’s conclusion, and along with the rest of his argument
served to shake Poke somewhat, and to send him to Sam, as a sort of
court of appeal. But Sam quite agreed with Step.
“Look here, Poke,” he said. “I know how you feel; how you hate to take
all of what you think ought to be divided among the gang. But it’s the
thing for you to do. That dinner of yours was really a club affair. You
gave it to even up a club account with Varley. So the whole club is
concerned in getting you out of a scrape that resulted from the dinner.
Every one of us feels that way about it--Orkney most of all. So trot
along, and pay the bill, and be happy.”
Poke drew a long face. “Happy? With just a shift of load? I’ll be out
of debt to the hotel man, and under debt to every one of you fellows.”
Sam laughed, and it wasn’t a feigned laugh, either. “Poke, you miss
the combination! There isn’t one of us who hasn’t had his full share of
help, one way or another, out of all we went through.”
“Umph! What did you get, for instance?” Poke demanded.
“I got a lot.”
“A mince pie! You’re fooling me--or trying to.”
“Yes, I got a mince pie,” said Sam calmly. “And I’ll tell you this: I
wouldn’t miss the pointers I’ve picked up in getting it. I know more
about people, and er--er--about motives. And I can see what a fool I
made of myself for a while. And I see, too, how what seem like little
things at the start can lead to big things. Why, it’s like rolling a
snowball that gets bigger and bigger as you push it along. It began
with Varley breaking our rules, and walking into the club. Then came
the runaway, with Varley mixed up in it, and Mrs. Grant’s coming after
us, and my row with the club, and, finally, after Varley had treated us
and you’d treated him in return and got in trouble doing it--why, it
all had to happen to lead us to Sugar Valley. And you wouldn’t have
missed your experience there, would you?”
“Course I wouldn’t!” cried Poke indignantly.
“Well, then! What more would you have? Tom Orkney’s as pleased as Punch
to have found that old book, but it pleases him more to be able to give
you a lift. No, Poke, there’s nothing for you to do but make a fair
wind of it, and sail down to the Rainbow Mountain House, and settle up.”
“You honestly mean that?”
“Every word of it!” said Sam gravely.
So Poke, with the prize money supplemented by his own savings and the
contributions of the club, drove out to the hotel, and paid his bill
for breakage, and received a formal receipt, and drove back, a deal
relieved in spirit, and full of projects to make money enough to repay
his friends.
Paul Varley had not been invited to join in the contribution. He had,
naturally enough, gained a pretty accurate idea of the story and Poke’s
plight, but when he hinted at a wish to bear his share in the relief
fund, Sam rather tactfully discouraged him. Paul understood: it was a
club affair, and he was not of the club, though he was on the best of
terms with its members. He had proof of their regard for him in a very
friendly demonstration in his honor.
Rather unexpectedly, Paul was called back to the city. It was a summons
by telegraph, and he had to obey it at once. He was surprised and
gratified, therefore, when he reached the railroad station to find the
Safety First Club gathered in full force on the platform.
Boys, on such occasions, do not make smooth and felicitous farewell
speeches.
“Quitting us, eh? Sorry!” “Say, old sport, you’ll be running up to see
us some time, of course.” “Paul, we’re going to miss you--you’re all
right.” “What you got on for this summer? Don’t forget old Plainfield.”
That was the sort of thing they told him, and Paul made reply in kind.
But he had a moment apart with Sam, when he spoke more freely.
“Parker, I’m older than your crowd, but, somehow, I’ve got a lot of
good out of them. I’ve tried to keep up my end----”
“But you have kept it up,” Sam cut in. “Why, you’ve treated the lot of
us over and over again, and----”
Varley interrupted him in turn. “I don’t mean that way,” he said
hastily. “I mean in doing things, in taking the luck that came, in
standing punishment with the crowd. I was what you might call soft, out
of condition, at the start; and a lot of your game was new to me--the
roughing it--the tramps over the snow--the flood--all that sort of
thing. I didn’t want to show a yellow streak----”
“Yellow streak nothing! A chap that’d take the chance you took when you
jumped for that boat is true blue all the way through!”
Varley cast a swift glance at the rest of the club; he saw that they
were out of ear-shot, yet he lowered his voice:
“Parker, you heard me squeal when that crash came--when the big barge
hit the old house? Of course you heard me! Now, honestly, that was just
nerves, but I could have bitten out my tongue a minute after I’d yelled
for help. But it wouldn’t have done any good. You’d heard me; the crowd
had heard me. So I made up my mind that if the opportunity came to
make good for that break, I’d seize it. So when you and I grabbed for
the boat and missed it--why--why--well, we just had to stop that boat
from drifting away. So I went after it. That’s the story in a nutshell.”
Sam, the undemonstrative, gripped Paul’s hand.
“It was the pluckiest and quickest witted job I ever saw,” he declared.
“And that’s what every one of the fellows thinks, too.”
Had Varley had doubts of this, they must have been removed, as leaning
from a car window, he waved farewell to the Safety First Club. For, of
a sudden, the Shark, once his bitterest critic, stepped forward, pulled
off his hat, and led in a cheer that gained in hearty volume from
beginning to end.
“What’s the matter with Paul Varley? He’s all right!” chanted the Shark.
“Hurrah for Varley! Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah,
Varley!” chorused the club with a will.
* * * * *
The Stories in this Series are:
THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB
THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB AND THE FLOOD
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.
The following change was made:
p. 153: myself changed to himself (commit himself on)