LETTERS HOME FROM THE BOYS.--DICK LEE'S FIRST GRIEF.
There was a large number of new scholars assembled in the "great room"
of Grantley Academy on the first Monday morning of that "fall term."
There were also many who had been there before, but the new-comers were
in the majority. There were boys from the village, boys from the
surrounding country, and boys from even farther away than the southern
shore of Long Island; and they were of many kinds and ages. The youngest
may have been "under twelve," and entitled to ride in a street-car at
half-price; and several of the very older ones had already cast their
first vote as grown-up men.
Counting them all, and adding those who were to make their appearance
during the week, they made a little army of nearly two hundred. There
was also a young ladies' department, with about a hundred pupils; and
there was quite as great a variety among them as among their young
gentlemen fellow-students.
The class-rooms assigned to the lady teachers and their several grades
of learners were all on the northern side of the academy building. There
was a large wing there that belonged to them, and they only met the boys
face to face in the "great room" during morning exercises. Even those of
them who lived or boarded in the southern half of the village found
their way across the green, coming and going, under the shade of the
most northerly row of trees.
As to the "great room" itself, there had been much trouble about the
name of it. Dr. Brandegee called it "the lecture-room," and he did a
great deal towards making it so. There were those who tried to say
"chapel" when they spoke of it; but so many others refused to know what
place they were speaking of, that they had to give it up. "Hall" would
not fit, because it was square; and the boys generally rejected the
doctor's name because of unpleasant-ideas connected with the word
"lecture." So it came to be "the great room," and no more; and a great
thing it was for Dick Lee to find himself sitting on one of the front
seats of it, with his friends all in line at his right, waiting their
turn with him to be "classified," and sent about their business.
Dr. Brandegee made wonderfully rapid work of it; and his several
assistants seemed to know exactly what to do.
"The fact is," said Ford, the first chance he had to speak to Dab, "I've
been studying that man. He's taught school before."
"Guess he knows how, too. And I ain't afraid about Dick Lee, now I've
seen the rest. He can go right ahead of some of them."
"They'll bounce him if he does. Tell you what, Dab, if you and I want to
be popular here, we'd better wear our old clothes every day but Sunday."
"And miss about half the questions that come to us. Dick won't be sharp
enough for that."
"He says he's going to write a letter home tonight. Made him turn pale
too."
Those first letters home!
Ford's was a matter of course, and Frank Harley had had some practice
already; but Dab Kinzer had never tried such a thing before, and Dick
Lee would not come to anybody else for instructions. Neither would he
permit anybody, not even "Captain Dab," to see his letter after it was
written.
"I's been mighty partikler 'bout de pronounciation," he said to himself,
"specially in wot I wrote to Mr. Morris, but I'd like to see dem all
read dem letters. Guess dar'll be a high time at our house."
It would be a long while before Frank Harley's epistle would reach the
eyes that were anxiously waiting for it, but there were indeed "high
times" in those three houses on the Long-Island shore.
Old Bill Lee was obliged to trust largely to the greater learning of his
wife, but he chuckled over every word he managed to pick out, as if he
had pulled in a twenty-pound bluefish; and the signature at the bottom
affected him somewhat as if he had captured a small whale.
"Sho! De boy!" said Glorianna. "He's doin' fust-rate. Dar ain't anoder
young gen'lman at dat ar' 'cad'my jes' like him. Onless it's young Mr.
Kinzer. I hasn't a word to say 'gin him or Mr. Foster, or dat ar' young
mish'nayry."
"Glorianna," said Bill doubtfully, "do you s'pose Dick did all dat
writin' his own self?"
"Sho! Course he did! Don't I know his hand-writin'? Ain't he my own
blessed boy? Guess he did, and I's goin' ober to show it to Mrs. Kinzer.
It'll do her good to hear from de 'cad'my."
So it did; for Dick's letter to his mother, like the shorter one he sent
to Ham Morris, was largely made up of complimentary remarks concerning
Dabney Kinzer.
When Glorianna knocked at the kitchen door of the Morris mansion,
however, it was opened by "the help;" and she might have lost her errand
if Mrs. Kinzer had not happened to hear her voice. It is just possible
it was pitched somewhat higher than usual that morning.
"Glorianna? Is that you? Come right in. We've some letters from the
boys. Something in them about Dick that you'll be glad to hear."
"Sho! De boy! Course dey all had to say somet'ing 'bout him! I's jes'
like to know wot 'tis, dough."
In she went, but more than the Kinzer family were gathered in the
sitting-room.
Mrs. Foster and Annie had brought Jenny Walters with them, and Ham was
there, and all the rest; and they all sat still as mice while Glorianna
listened to Dab's account, and Ford's, of the journey to Grantley, and
the arrival, and the examination, and their boarding-house.
There was not a word of complaint anywhere; and it did seem as if Ham
Morris was right when he said,--
"We've hit it this time, Mrs. Foster. I think I ought to write to Mr.
Hart, and thank him for his recommendation."
"Just as you please, Hamilton," said Mrs. Kinzer; "but this is their
very first week, you know."
"Guess dey won't fool Dick much, anyhow," said the radiant Glorianna.
"But wot's dat 'bout de corn-shellin'?"
"That's all right," said Ham. "Shelling corn won't hurt him. Glad
there's plenty of it. Mother Kinzer, you and Miranda must try that
recipe Dab sent for the new pudding."
"New pudding, indeed! Why, she doesn't put in half eggs enough. But I'm
glad she's a good cook. We'll have that pudding for dinner this very
day."
"So will we," said Mrs. Foster.
"Miss Kinzer," said Dick's mother, "jes' won't you show me how to make
dat puddin'? I's like to know jes' wot dey eat at de 'cad'my."
It was a great comfort to know that the boys were so well satisfied; but
there was her usual good sense in Mrs. Kinzer's suggestion about its
being the very first week.
There are never any more such letters as "first letters," nor any other
weeks like the first. The fact that there were so many boys together,
all old acquaintances, shut out any such thing as loneliness, and it was
not time to be homesick. All that week was really spent in "getting
settled," and there did not seem to be more than a day or so of it.
Saturday came around again somewhere in the place commonly taken by
Wednesday, and surprised them all.
They had all been busy enough, but Dick Lee had never in all his life
found so little spare time on his hands.
"It's no use, Cap'n Dab," he remarked on Friday: "we can't eat up all de
corn I've shelled, not if we has johnnycake from now till nex' summer."
Dab was looking a little thoughtful at that moment.
"Ford," he said slowly, "has she missed a day yet?"
"A corn day? No."
"Or a meal?"
"No, I said I'd cut a notch on my slate first time she did, and it's all
smooth yet."
He held it up as he spoke; and Frank remarked,--
"Yes, smooth enough on that side; but you've nicked it all down on the
other, end to end. What's that for?"
"That? Oh! that's quite another thing. I'm keeping tally of Joe and Fuz.
Every time one of 'em asks a question about our boarding-house, or Mrs.
Myers, or Almira, or' little Dr. Brandegee, I nick it down. Got to quit
pretty soon, or buy another slate."
"They've kind o' kept away from us," said Dab. "They're in only one of
my classes, but they're in three of yours."
"Ain't in any ob mine," said Dick; "but Dr. Brandegee says he'll promote
me soon."
Dick's tongue always began to work better, the moment he mentioned the
academy-principal.
"I don't mind their keeping away from us," said Frank.
"Nor I," said Ford.
At that moment they reached their own gate, and Dick darted forward in
response to an imaginary call from Mrs. Myers.
Ford went on,--
"They can keep away all they please, but they won't do it long. They're
bound on mischief of some kind."
"To us?" asked Frank.
"Well, yes; but it'll light on Richard Lee first. He won't say a word to
us about it, but they've bothered him."
"I'll ask him," said Dab, in whose face a flush was rising. "They must
let Dick alone."
"They won't, then. And there's plenty of others just like 'em. They're
getting together in a kind of a flock these last two or three days. Some
of 'em are pretty big ones."
"Boys," exclaimed Frank, "how about our boxing lessons?"
"Guess we haven't forgotten 'em all in one week," said Ford. "I was
thinking about to-morrow."
So were they all; and they held a council-of-war about it, in their own
room, before supper. The result was, that, by a unanimous vote, that
Saturday was to be devoted to the catching of fish, rather than to
playing ball, or any thing else that would bring them into immediate
contact with Joe and Fuz.
They had all brought their fishing-tackle with them, as a matter of
course; plenty of worms for bait were to be dug in the garden; and Dab
Kinzer had learned, by careful inquiry, that both bait and tackle could
be used to good purpose in the waters of "Green Pond," and sundry other
small bits of lakes, miles and miles away among the hills to the north
of Grantley.
"We'll have a grand time," he said, "and it'll do us all good. No crabs,
though. Wonder if those fresh-water fish bite like ours down in the
bay."
"Some do, and some don't," said Ford. "I've caught 'em."
It did not occur to him now, however, that he could probably teach Dab;
and they all obeyed the supper-bell.
There were three kinds of corn-cake on the table, but the boys were
thinking of something more important; and Dab hardly received his first
cup of tea before he remarked,--
"We're all going a-fishing to-morrow, Mrs. Myers; but we may get home in
time for supper. Can you spare Dick?"
"What, on Saturday? The very day I need him most? Three loads of wood'll
be over from the farm to-night."
Dick had been in the kitchen, and had advanced as far as the door while
Dab was speaking.
"Wood?" he muttered to himself. "Guess I know wot dat means. T'ree load
ob wood, an' no fishin'! It's jes' awful!"
"Now, Mrs. Myers," said Ford, "if you knew what a fisherman Dick is! He
might bring you home a load of them."
"I am sorry," said Mrs. Myers, with more of firmness and less of smile
than they had ever seen on her face before. "I have no objection to the
rest of you going. You may do as you please about that, but I must keep
Richard at his work."
"I am particularly well pleased to learn that you have no objection to
our going," remarked Ford, with extreme politeness, and Dabney added,--
"It does me good too. We'll take Dick with us some other time. Mrs.
Myers, if you will have breakfast pretty early I'll be much obliged to
you."
Even Almira had never seen Dabney look quite so tall as he did at that
moment.