There were three more school-days that week, and they were the quietest
of the year. On the principle that it was an ill wind that blew nobody
good, there was one instructor to whom such unusual decorum was welcome,
and that was poor Meeker, who noted the gloom in the eyes of most of the
First Latin, and responsively lengthened his face, yet at bottom was
conscious of something akin to rejoicing. His had been a hapless lot. He
had entered upon his duties the first week in September, and the class
had taken his measure the first day. A better-meaning fellow than Meeker
probably never lived, but he was handicapped by a soft, appealing manner
and a theory that to get the most out of boys he must have their
good-will, and to get their good-will he must load them with what the
class promptly derided as "blarney." He was poor and struggling, was
graduated high in his class at college, was eager to prepare himself for
the ministry, and took to teaching in the mean time to provide the
necessary means. The First Latin would have it that Pop didn't want him
at all, but that Meeker gave him no rest until promised employment, for
Meeker had well known that there was to be a vacancy, and was first to
apply for it. But what made it more than a luckless move for him was
that he had applied for the position vacated by a man Pop's boys adored,
"a man from the ground up," as they expressed it, a splendid,
deep-voiced, deep-chested, long-limbed athlete, with a soul as big as
his massive frame and an energy as boundless as the skies. He, too, had
worked his way to the priesthood, teaching long hours at Pop's each day,
tutoring college weaklings or would-be freshmen in the evenings,
studying when and where he could, but wasting never a minute. Never was
there a tutor who preached less or practised more. His life was a lesson
of self-denial, of study, of purpose. Work hard, play hard, pray hard,
might have been his motto, for whatsoever that hand of his found to do
that did he with all his might. Truth, manliness, magnetism, were in
every glance of his clear eyes, every tone of his deep voice. Boys
shrank from boys' subterfuges and turned in unaccustomed disgust from
school-boy lies before they had been a month in Tuttle's presence; he
seemed to feel such infinite pity for a coward. Never using a harsh
word, never an unjust one, never losing faith or temper, his was yet so
commanding a nature that by sheer force of his personality and example
his pupils followed unquestioning. With the strength of a Hercules, he
could not harm an inferior creature. With the courage of a lion, he had
only sorrow for the faint-hearted. With a gift and faculty for
leadership that would have made him a general-in-chief, he was humble as
a child in the sight of his Maker, and in all the long years of his
great, brave life, only once, that his boys ever heard of, did he use
that rugged strength to discipline or punish a human being, and that
only when courtesy and persuasion had failed to stop a ruffian tongue in
its foul abuse of that Maker's name. It was a solemn day for the school,
a glad one for the church militant, when he took leave of the one to
take his vows in the other. There wasn't a boy among all his pupils that
would have been surprised at his becoming a bishop inside of five
years,--as, indeed, he did inside of ten,--and the class had not ceased
mourning their loss when Meeker came to take his place. "Fill Tut's
shoes!" said Snipe, with fine derision. "Why, he'll rattle around in 'em
like shot in a drum." No wonder Meeker failed to fill the bill.
And yet he tried hard. Something told him the First Latin would decide
whether he should go or stay. Halsey had not been consulted in his
selection, or Halsey would have told the Doctor in so many words that it
took a man of bigger calibre to handle that class. Beach had not been
consulted. He had known Meeker in undergraduate days and thought him
lacking in backbone. Pop had "sprung" him, so to speak, upon the
school, as though he really felt he owed his boys an apology, and, with
the ingenuity of so many unregenerate young imps, the First Latin set to
work to make Meeker's life a burden to him.
It was one of the fads of the school that the individual slate should be
used in mathematical hour instead of a wall slate or blackboard. It was
one of the practices to give out examples in higher arithmetic or
equations in algebra and have the pupils work them out then and there,
each boy, presumably, working for himself. Meeker introduced a
refinement of the system. He announced one example at a time, and
directed that as soon as a pupil had finished the work he should step
forward and deposit his slate, face downward, on the corner of the
master's table. The next boy to finish should place his slate on top of
that of the first, and at the end of five minutes the pile of slates
thus formed was turned bottom side up. All boys who had not finished
their work in the given time--four, five, six, or eight minutes,
according to the difficulty of the problem--were counted out. All whose
work proved to be incorrect were similarly scored, while those who had
obtained by proper methods the right result were credited with a mark of
three, with an additional premium for the quickest, the first boy
counting six, the second five, the third four. Meeker introduced the
system with a fine flourish of trumpets and marvelled at its prompt
success. Even boys known to be lamentably backward in the
multiplication-table were found to present slates full of apparently
unimpeachable figures in cube root or equations of the second degree,
and the whole twenty-seven would have their slates on the pile within
the allotted time. "Of course," said Meeker, "it is beyond belief that
young gentlemen of the First Latin would be guilty of accepting
assistance or copying from a competitor's work," whereat there would be
heard the low murmur, as of far-distant, but rapidly approaching,
tornado, and the moan would swell unaccountably, even while every pencil
was flying, every eye fixed upon the slate. This thing went along for
two or three days with no more serious mishap than that twice, without
an apparent exciting cause, while Meeker would be elaborately explaining
some alleged knotty point to Joy or Lawton, the half-completed stack
would edge slowly off the slippery table and topple with prodigious
crash and clatter to the floor. Then Meeker bethought himself of a
stopper to these seismic developments, and directed that henceforth,
instead of being deposited at the corner, the slates should be laid
directly in front of him on the middle of the desk. This was most
decorously done as much as twice, and then an extraordinary thing
occurred. It had occasionally happened that two or even three of the
boys would finish their work at the same moment, and in their eagerness
to get their slates foremost on the stack a race, a rush, a collision,
had resulted. Then these became surprisingly frequent, as many as four
boys finishing together and coming like quarter horses to the goal, but
the day that Meeker hit on the expedient of piling the slates up
directly in front of him, and at the third essay, there was witnessed
the most astonishing thing of all. Snipe was always a leader in
mathematics, as he was in mischief, and he, Carey, Satterlee, and Joy
were sure to be of the first four, but now, for a wonder, four, even
five, minutes passed and not a slate was in. "Come, come, gentlemen,"
said Meeker, "there's nothing remarkable in this example. I obtained the
result with the utmost ease in three minutes." And still the heads bent
lower over the slates and the pencils whizzed more furiously. Five
minutes went by. "Most astonishing!" said Meeker, and began going over
his own work to see if there could be any mistake, and no sooner was he
seen to be absorbed thereat than quick glances shot up and down the long
bench-line and slates were deftly passed from hand to hand. The laggards
got those of the quicker. The experts swiftly straightened out the
errors of the slow, and some mysterious message went down from hand to
hand in Snipe's well-known chirography, and then, just as Meeker would
have raised his head to glance at the time and warn them there was but
half a minute more, as one boy up rose the twenty-seven and charged upon
him with uplifted slates. Batter, clatter, rattle, bang! they came
crashing down upon the desk, while in one mighty, struggling upheaval
the class surged about him and that unstable table.
"But those behind cried 'Forward!'
And those before cried 'Back!'"
Turner, Beekman, Snipe, and Shorty vigorously expostulating against such
riotous performances and appealing to their classmates not to upset Mr.
Meeker, who had tilted back out of his chair only in the nick of time,
for the table followed, skating across the floor, and it was "really
verging on the miraculous," said he, "that these gentlemen should all
finish at the same instant." But that was the last of the slate-pile
business. "Hereafter, young gentlemen," said Meeker, on the morrow, "you
will retain your seats and slates, but as soon as you have obtained the
result hold up your hand. I will record the name and the order and then
call you forward, as I may wish to see your slates." This worked
beautifully just once, then the hands would go up in blocks of five, and
the class as one boy would exclaim "Astonishing! Miraculous!" Then
Meeker abandoned the speed system and tried the plan of calling up at
thirty-second intervals by the watch as many boys as he thought should
have finished, beginning at the head of the class. And then the First
Latin gave him an exhibition of the peculiar properties of those
benches. They were about eight or nine feet long, supported on two
stoutly braced "legs," with the seat projecting some eighteen inches
beyond each support. Put one hundred and forty pounds on one end of an
eight-foot plank, with a fulcrum a foot away, and the long end will tilt
up and point to the roof in the twinkling of an eye. Meeker called his
lads up three at a time, at the beginning of the next new system, and
smiled to see how smoothly it worked and how uncommonly still the lads
were. Then came exhibit number two, and in the most innocent way in the
world Doremus and Ballou--the heavy weights of the class--took seats at
the extreme lower end of their respective benches. The sudden rising of
the three other occupants when called forward resulted in instant
gymnastics. The long bench suddenly tilted skyward, a fat young
gentleman was spilled off the shorter end, vehemently struggling and
sorely bruised, and then back the bench would come with a bang that
shook the premises, while half the class would rush in apparent
consternation to raise their prostrate and aggrieved comrade. Hoover's
bench was never known to misbehave in this way, for he had it usually
all to himself, except when some brighter lad was sent to the foot in
temporary punishment. But no matter how absurd the incident, how
palpable the mischief, it was apparently a point of honor with the class
to see nothing funny in it, to maintain an expression of severe
disapproval, if not of righteous indignation, and invariably to denounce
the perpetrators of such indignity as unworthy to longer remain in a
school whose boast it was that the scholars loved their masters and
would never do aught to annoy them. The most amazing things were
perpetually happening. Meeker's eyes were no sharper than his wits, and
he could not understand how it was that Snipe and Joy, two of the
keenest mathematicians in the class, should so frequently require
assistance at the desk, and when they returned to their seats, such
objects on his table as the hand-bell, the pen-rack, or even the
ink-stand, would be gifted with invisible wings and whisk off after
them. Nothing could exceed Snipe's astonishment and just abhorrence when
it was finally discovered that a long loop of tough but almost invisible
horse-hair was attached to the back of his sack-coat, or the
condemnation in the expressed disapprobation of the class when Joy was
found to be similarly equipped. Then Meeker's high silk hat, hung on a
peg outside Pop's particular closet, began to develop astonishing powers
of procreation, bringing forth one day a litter of mice, on another a
pair of frolicsome kittens. Meeker abandoned the hat for a billycock as
the autumn wore on, and the class appeared content; only the Doctor was
allowed a high hat. But Meeker was of nervous temperament, and started
at sudden sounds and squirmed under the influence of certain others,
noting which the class sympathetically sprinkled the floor with
torpedoes and jumped liked electrified frogs when they exploded under
some crunching heel, and the fuel for the big stove presently became
gifted with explosive tendencies that filled Meeker's soul with dread,
and the room with smoke, and the breasts of the First Latin with amaze
that the janitor could be so careless. Then there was a strolling
German band, with clarinets of appalling squeak, that became speedily
possessed of the devil and a desire to "spiel" under the school windows
just after the mathematical hour began, and Meeker's voice was uplifted
from the windows in vain protest. The band was well paid to come and the
policeman to keep away. I fear me that many a dime of poor Snipe's
little stipend went into that unhallowed contribution rather than into
his boots. All this and more was Meeker accepting with indomitable
smiles day after day until the sudden withdrawal of George Lawton from
the school,--no boy knew why, and all the fun went out of the hearts of
the First Latin when they heard the rumor going round that Pop himself
had written to his old pupil, Mr. Park, suggesting that his step-son
would better be recalled from a city which seemed so full of dangerous
temptation to one of George's temperament, and yet Pop had really seemed
fond of him.
The whole thing was unaccountable. The most miserable lad in school,
apparently, was Shorty. He had gone to the Lawrences to inquire for his
chum right after dinner that Tuesday evening, and the servant checked
him when he would have bolted, as usual, up the stairs to George's room.
Mrs. Lawrence was entertaining friends at dinner, but had left word that
if Master Reggie came he was to be told that George could see no one
that evening, that Mrs. Lawrence would explain it all later. Shorty
went there Wednesday on his way to school, and the butler said Master
George was still in his room, and that he was not to be disturbed.
Wednesday at recess the leaders of the class held a council and
determined to appoint a committee to ask an explanation of the Doctor,
since not a word could be extracted from Halsey or Beach, and the
committee called right after recitation and "rose and reported" within
two minutes. Pop silently pointed to the door. Then seeing that Shorty
and Joy still lingered, half determined, supplemented the gesture by
"Young gentlemen, pack yourselves off! When I am ready to tell you,
you'll hear it and not before."
But the woe in Shorty's face was too much for him, after all. He knew
the lads and the friendship they bore each other.
"Here you, sir!" he cried, with affected sternness, "sit there till I
want you," and he pointed to a bench, even while frowning at the others
of the disheartened delegation, who scuttled away down-stairs in dread
of the Doctor's rising wrath. When all were gone and the big, bare
school-rooms were still, Pop looked up from a letter he was writing,
beckoned with his long forefinger, then reversing the hand, pointed
downward at the floor beside his desk, and Shorty, recognizing the
signal, with leaping heart and twitching lips, marched up and took his
stand, looking dumbly into the Doctor's pallid face. The great man
shoved his gold-rimmed spectacles half-way up across the expanse of
forehead the lads had likened to "a ten-acre lot," folded his hands
across the voluminous waistcoat, and leaned back in his chair. Then his
eyes swept downward.
"Has our friend Snipe often been in need of money?" he asked.
"He had hardly any at all, sir," blurted Shorty, with something like a
sob. "There are holes in the soles of his shoes and corresponding holes
worn in his stockings, and the skin of the soles of his feet'll go next.
He never had enough to get a decent lunch with, and couldn't join our
first nine last year because he hadn't the uniform and wouldn't ask for
one. The Club subscribed and bought it,--he was so bully a player. All
the----"
The Doctor knows that Shorty is not named because of brevity in speech,
and upraises a white hand. "Did he owe any of the boys,--Hoover, for
instance?"
"He wouldn't borrow," said Shorty, indignantly; "last of all from
Hoover. None of us ever owe _him_ anything except----" And Shorty gulps,
and the tears that were starting to his eyes burn out before the sudden
fire of his wrath.
"Except what?" asks Pop, deliberately.
"A lickin'," says Shorty, with reddening face, whereat the Doctor's head
tilts back and the great stomach heaves spasmodically. The grim lines
about the wide mouth relax. It is his way of laughing and he enjoys it,
but Shorty doesn't.
"I wish you'd tell me what's the trouble with--with Lawton, sir," he
almost sobs again. "They won't let me see him, and the boys say it's all
a----" But here Shorty breaks off, which is unlike him.
"Yes," suggested Pop, "they say it's all a--what?"
"Shame," said Shorty, well knowing that that shame is mentally qualified
by a most unqualified adjective.
Pop ponders a moment. "Has none of the boys missed anything besides
Joy,--no trinkets, rings, anything?"
"Hoover and Briggs are always missing something, sir, and Seymour lost a
gold pencil."
"But Lawton never borrowed and didn't owe anybody,--in school, I mean?"
asks Pop.
"Didn't owe anybody _anywhere_ that I know of!" protests Shorty. "He
says it makes him sick to owe anything. If Hoover says anything
different, he's lying. That's all."
"What's the reason Hoover isn't at school?" asks Pop, and while his face
does not change the eyes study closely.
"He's afraid of trouble because some of that Metamora set tripped and
hurt Snipe, running to a fire last Saturday."
"That's what you get for running to fires, sir. Young gentlemen have no
business mingling with crowds and rowdies. That's why you lost the head
of the class in Latin three weeks ago. You spent hours at that big fire
down-town when you should have been at your Virgil."
Shorty reddens, but attempts no defence. He knows it is so. He knows,
furthermore, that if the bell were to strike the next minute he'd be off
like the wind,--Latin, and even Snipe, to the contrary notwithstanding.
What he doesn't understand is how the Doctor knows all about it.
"Youngster," says the Doctor, after a moment's reflection, "I want
Hoover back at school at once, and there must be no harming him in any
way. What's more, I have told Lawton to stay away until I send for him.
There are reasons for this, and you can say so to the class. To-night
you will see him yourself, and he will tell you the whole story. Now, I
must write to Hoover _paterfamilias_. Run along!"
But Pop is mistaken in one matter. Shorty does not see Snipe that night,
nor the next day, nor the next. He waits vainly until late in the
evening, then goes to the Lawrences', and Mrs. Lawrence, with scared
face, comes down to ask what he means. George had asked permission soon
after dark to go and spend one hour with his friend and chum and tell
him his troubles. It is now ten o'clock. He has not been there, and he
has not returned.