THE FIGHT
BILLY did not suppose he would sleep that night, so disturbing was the
matter of the little circular; but nature protects youth. In a few
minutes the words jumbled incoherently and lost themselves; and a night
of dreamless sleep prepared him to meet the day.
His first waking thought was the circular. He caught it up and read it
over, growing angrier with each line.
“A certain lily-necked, high-browed junior found the picnic plus one
Dark-Eyed Beauty so enthralling that he forgot the call of the
whistle, and they had a forced sample of the simple life for one
night in the open.
“This is what may be expected from the kid-gloved, Sunday-school
contingent represented by the haughty H. They’re all handy with the
moral tacked on fore and aft to—the other fellow’s story. But when
it comes to getting away with any little plum, _viz._, the D. E. B.,
they’re there with both feet, and the goods. See?
“N. B. All who favor muck-raking the other man in public, and the
primrose path on the sly, vote the High-brow ticket.
“N. B. No. 2. Every man who handles money for clubs or societies
should be under bond. This means the Fifth Avenue High. A word to
the wise is sufficient.”
Billy was so disturbed by the first item that he took little note of the
third, though he knew it was intended for him. But his conscience was
clear; he had— A quick fear assailed him. He had not banked the money on
Friday! It had been too late. School duties pressed that day, and he
thought it would be perfectly safe in Miss Hartell’s desk in the
high-school library. How could it be otherwise?
Yet when he put on his school clothes the key to his drawer was missing!
In a fever of worry he hunted through his belongings, knowing all the
time that he could not have taken the key from his ring. He tried to
think back over his every movement on Friday afternoon; first, his
interview after the session closed with Miss Hartell about his essay;
next, the meeting of the Good Citizens’ Club when they had taken many
initiation fees. He and Bess had counted the money and he had receipted
to her for it; and last, he had locked it in the drawer, but this was
after Bess had gone.
Nothing illuminating came to him. A suspicion instead filled him with
indignation: Who could write such a paragraph unless he knew something
to warrant it? Whoever knew that was the one who had tampered with the
drawer, the lock.
Hardly able to concentrate his mind, Billy wrote out his report of the
scout for filing, brushed and cleaned the flag as well as he could, and
tried to settle down to study; but the lessons dragged. The words meant
nothing; his mind was held by the disquieting slip, that had neither
signature, nor slightest mark to show who wrote it or who printed it.
That was evidence of evil intent; and if the school authorities could
find out its source, they would expel the student responsible for it.
He went to the dining-room, impatient for breakfast, and while waiting
his sister Edith came down with the baby. “Good-morning Billy. Baby is
glad you’re at home again.”
Billy touched the pink cheek, and put his finger in the tiny hand that
closed softly around it. He thought his sister very lovely in her sweet
dignity of motherhood.
“William Bennett! Your grandfather made your name worth while, my baby,
and now Uncle Billy is adding honor to it.” She caressed the soft cheek.
“Don’t count on me; I may not add lustre even if I do the best I can.”
The future loomed rather dark to him just then.
“Billy, that is all any one can do,” his mother said, coming in with Mr.
Wright at the moment.
Breakfast followed, and while they ate, Billy recounted the happenings
of the scout.
He went early to school, and barely greeting the first comers, hastened
to the library. The drawer was locked, and no trace of meddling
appeared.
Puzzled and worried he went to the west entrance to wait for Erminie.
Instead of seeing her he was surrounded by friends with voluble
congratulations; for the morning paper, in large type and pictures,
featured the adventure of little Signa and the part the Scouts had
played in her rescue.
Billy wondered how such an account, fairly accurate, had been managed,
and again his desire to do that work burned in him. Yet on inquiry it
was simple. The Morning News Company kept photographs on hand of every
important and picturesque spot in the State, and the lake was among
them.
Through Mr. Streeter they learned the main facts that concerned the
boys, and also through him obtained pictures of the boys, Billy and
Redtop; for the Scoutmaster’s den was littered with pictures of his
admiring boys.
With all the effusiveness of the greetings, Billy divined a reticence,
an aloofness, even on the part of some who had been his most
demonstrative friends; and on the appearance of Hector he broke away
from them to tell his cousin of his difficulty.
“Perhaps I have a key that will fit the lock; those desks are nearly all
alike.” Together they went to the library, locking the door behind them.
The lock yielded to one of Hector’s keys.
“There should be over forty dollars there,” Billy said, his voice a
little shaky.
“Why, didn’t you bank—”
“It’s gone!” Billy threw up his head and looked blankly at Hector.
“When did you put it there?”
“Last Friday. It was after banking hours when the meeting closed.”
“And Saturday morning you left town. Nearly three days the start of you
that thief has, Billy. I guess you’re in for making good. Can I help
you?” Hector’s voice was sympathetic.
“I may need your help. Did you see that dodger?”
“Yes.”
“When did it come out? Are there many?”
“At Buckman’s meeting. It was circulated so adroitly that not one of us
can tell where it came from. It just appeared. Everybody has one.”
“Of course it’s the Kid’s game.”
“Probably; but it will not be safe to say so. He’s too sharp to leave an
opening for proof.”
“Whoever wrote that circular knows where that money went to.”
“Yes. I wondered what that ‘treasurer’ squib meant.”
“That key was stolen in this building.”
“What did you do after the meeting Friday before you went home?”
Billy thought. “I threw my coat over a bench while I straightened up the
drawer and locked, and then went to the lavatory to wash my hands. A lot
of kids were there, joshing, and I may have been gone ten or fifteen
minutes.”
“Whom did you see, coming or going?”
“Gee! I can’t tell, fifty, I guess.”
“And you were the last to leave the library?”
“Yes, before it was locked.”
“It’s a mystery surely. But I must go. See you later.”
The loss troubled Billy sorely, and the morning wore on dully, his books
a burden, his recitations poor. At noon he waited again for Erminie.
When he did not see her go out of the building as usual, he went
upstairs, and watching his opportunity at a telephone when no one was
near, called her up at her home.
Her mother answered. Erminie was gone, Billy could not learn where.
Indeed the tremulous voice at the other end of the wire sounded as if
the mother herself did not know. Above her words and his own he heard
her husband’s voice swearing, and the curses were coupled with Erminie’s
name. But of the scraps he heard, the one that electrified him was this:
“Al Short showed me that paper—”
Instantly Billy divined that he meant the circular. He was speaking with
a third person in the next room. “Don’t you have an idea where Erminie—”
“Billy Bennett, Erminie’s whereabouts is none of your business. You’ve
made her and us enough trouble.”
He dropped the receiver. It was true. He was the cause of their trouble;
he had gotten Erminie left at the picnic; he had angered Jim Barney,
whose threats, Billy believed, had frightened Erminie into running away.
And Billy could not say a word in her defence. She had to bear the cruel
slur alone. How shameful that an innocent accident should be the scourge
of a girl, perhaps for the whole of her life!
The afternoon was duller than the morning. It was near the end of the
year, when the routine was somewhat relaxed, and the coming election on
the morrow caused a buzz and stir, an undercurrent of restlessness that
swept around and past Billy unheeded. He sat with his eyes glued to his
books, trying to think, and failing.
At the close of the session he met the officers of the Good Citizens’
Club and told them of the loss of the money.
Bess, girl-like, jumped to her conclusion. “That Jim Barney has
something to do with it!”
“Bess! Bess!” Reginald chided; “it’s serious—accusing one of stealing
with no proof against him.”
“Just the same, I’m sure I’m right.”
“It makes no difference who took the money, I must make it up.” Billy
faced them fearlessly. “Boys, and Bess, I know you’ll believe me when I
say I don’t know a thing about where that money is. Yet I’m all to the
bad for being so careless about it. I want to do the right thing, but I
can’t refund it all at once, not—not to—”
“Of course you can’t, Billy! We’ll make it up, and the club need never
know. I’ll lend you thirty myself, and I’m sure—”
“Here, Queen, you can’t have all the glory; the rest of us want to prove
good too,” Reginald shook first her hand and then Billy’s.
His throat began to ache and he could not speak, but gave each a racking
hand-squeeze and turned away, his eyes burning, his heart beating, yet
feeling lighter than since his first glimpse of the venomous circular.
On the steps outside he met Jim Barney face to face. He had hoped this
would not happen., Since the day when, a little boy, he had fought Jimmy
Dorr for whipping the twins, Vilette and Evelyn, fought with every
muscle in his body a twisted whip-cord of indignation, he had had no
such “bloody hate” for anything living as he now felt for Jim. It took
all the self-control he possessed to answer the Kid’s sneering greeting
calmly and pass on.
“Where have you cached the D. E. B? Money comes in handy when one has—”
Jim never finished.
The double-barrelled shot was barely sped when Billy sprang upon him.
Fortunately for Jim he was on the last step and had not far to fall. He
had not expected Billy to retaliate. He knew that Billy prized the
honors he expected to win, and did not believe he would forfeit them by
fighting, no matter how great the provocation. Neither did he reckon on
the reversal of his own maxim in life, “Might makes right.”
Billy was proverbially good-natured. His quick wit could turn most of
the “joshing” back on the “josher,” and he had learned that fighting is
usually an indulgence to the blood of the beast in us, rather than an
act of devotion to right. But when the man slow to fight does become
enraged, especially if it is in the just cause of others, he is twice an
adversary; the blood of the beast joins with the spirit of man. Right
then makes might.
Billy was younger, slenderer, less skilled; for the Kid valued his “good
right arm” as his chief glory in life. But right arm and skill, any
force that mere physical exercise had developed, met its Waterloo in
such a tide of outraged spirit as enables a little woman with a carving
fork, to put to flight desperadoes, or such as now nerved Billy’s arms.
In that grapple his fingers were pincers of steel. His doubled fists
were derrick hammers, and every blow brought blood. The Kid did not have
time even to think of his vaunted “strangle-hold,” his pet “trip-trick.”
He was down and under—not under a man, but a fury all legs, arms,
weight, crushing knee, strangling fingers powerful beyond belief.
So fast rained the blows that the by-standers, silenced by what they
read in Billy’s face, hardly believed the fight begun before they saw
the Kid’s resistance weaken, his body grow limp. Billy realized it, and
ceased his onslaught.
“Say ‘enough,’ or I’ll kill you!” Billy’s words were not loud, but they
carried a white-hot power to the half-conscious fellow under him.
“Enough,” came in a thick voice.
Billy got to his feet, bent and turned the Kid’s face up,—a bloody,
bruised face,—and set his foot on the heaving breast. “Stay where you
are till I speak.” His words hit like bullets. “Within a week you get
out another dodger and take back the slam you gave that girl. You find
the key to that desk, and return the money you stole from me—”
[Illustration: “Stay where you are till I speak.”]
Billy, blinded by his passion and sure of his ground, flung out his
accusations, forgetting that money is visible, ponderable; that evidence
to its theft must be equally convincing.
But the Kid did not forget. He was cowed but not beaten. He reached out
a thick, dirty forefinger and interrupted. “Go to the man who printed
that dodger if you want retraction, not to me. You’ve called me a thief,
you son of a gun! You’re the thief, and I’ll prove it! I’ll have you in
the pen—”
Reginald and Sis Jones, who had stayed to discuss Billy’s plight, now
came on the scene in company with Redtop in time to see Billy spring
again on the prostrate Jim.
“Hold on, Billy! Do you strike a man when he’s down?”
Reginald’s cool voice checked Billy’s wild fury, that had leaped again
at the Kid’s accusation. He looked up fiercely. “He called me a thief,
Reg,—a thief!”
“What evidence have you for saying that, Jim?” Reginald asked sternly
while helping him to his feet.
“I’m not giving my case away.”
“You’ll have to, or be arrested for libel.”
This was a bold stroke, but Jim thought he knew more than any of them
when it came to accusation, law, and trickery. “Arrest nothing! You
didn’t hear me. You can’t swear—”
“But these others did.” Reginald glanced about at the five or six boys
looking silently on at the quarrel.
“Then they’ll have to bring suit, not you.”
“What rot is this?” Redtop lunged forward and leaned threateningly near
Jim. “I don’t give a dead dog for law, but if you call Billy Bennett a
thief, you loafer, I’ll mop this town with you!”
It looked to Jim as if he would have two furies to fight. “I’ll explain.
Bill won’t even try to deny that he stayed out all night after the
picnic with—”
“If you bring a girl’s name into this I’ll kill you! I’ll—”
“That’s right! No girl’s name may be mentioned here.”
The cool, authoritative voice was the Principal’s, Professor Teal’s. He
ordered the boys to his office, and there the story of the fight and the
causes producing it were retold, save by common consent the episode of
the picnic was not touched.
“I’ll take this under advisement,” the Principal said quietly, when the
matter had been thrashed out with no definite result. He saw it was a
tangle none could unravel except those who would not. Jim had been so
adroit that no gap in his story left an opening for attack.
Billy remained after the others were dismissed.
The Principal returned from closing the door, and did not speak for a
moment, but stood with his back to Billy fumbling with some books on his
desk. When he wheeled Billy saw a different Principal from the one he
knew, calm, cheerful yet powerful and a little stern. Instead, he saw a
sorrowful face.
“Bennett, I can’t tell you how I regret this. I—I suppose you know that
if you have not a more convincing explanation you’ll lose your
honors?—perhaps have to leave the school?”
“Yes, Professor Teal.”
“Can you tell me privately anything more than I heard? As it is, you are
charged with theft, and have been fighting.”
Billy hesitated. “I—I think I can say no more.”
After another silence the man asked suddenly, “Did the picnic episode
noted in that circular refer to you?”
Billy’s eyes blazed. “It did.”
“You are the last one I should have suspected had I not heard Barney’s
remark. How did it happen?”
“It was an accident. My watch went wrong.”
“That was unfortunate.”
“Professor Teal,” Billy burst out suddenly, “I believe my watch was
purposely set back, for it has never varied before nor since. Some one
planned the whole thing for spite. How else could any one have known
about it? We came home separately and—and—Not one moment of that night
is one we need be ashamed of.”
“Then I shall have two or three of the teachers hear your report and the
young woman’s—”
“Pardon me, Mr. Teal, I would never give her name.”
“Will she not wish to do this herself?”
“I think not. My silence will protect her. That’s what I fought Jim
Barney for.” And when the man did not reply at once, Billy added
impulsively, “Mr. Teal, in my place would you give away a girl?”
The man turned, laid a kindly hand on Billy’s shoulder, and smiled.
“Billy, if I had the pluck I wouldn’t. But go home and tell your
mother.”
“I—I had hoped not to worry her.”
“I’ve met your mother; and from what I know of her I think she’s
worrying already. Moreover, she will have to know why you lose your
honors, won’t she?”
“I—I guess you’re right. I’ll tell her.”
He bade the Principal good-bye and started off with a buoyance that
surprised him, for he was stiff and sore, and he knew his standing among
his mates was lost.
Not till he was nearly home did he think of his troop. Would the
Scoutmaster take away his badges? He must, if the theft of funds was
known. For Mr. Streeter the return of the money would not be enough; he
must know that Billy did not commit the theft.
“He need never know; they have made up the sum,” Billy thought. Yet
instantly he knew that was neither justification nor proof of his
innocence.
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