THE WHITE FEATHER.
Nearly a dozen boys of Oakdale Academy slept poorly that night; some of
them scarcely slept at all. Of the latter Chipper Cooper turned and
tossed and twisted all through the long hours, and finally when he did
doze a little it was only to be aroused by the morning whistles of the
mills, which brought him out of bed, shivering and nerveless, fully two
hours ahead of his usual rising time.
When he knew his father had gone for the day he crept down stairs, to
the astonishment of his mother, who, after taking one look at his
haggard face, decided that he must be ill. Her conviction that this was
the case seemed confirmed by the fact that he could eat no breakfast,
although he sought to reassure her by saying it was far too early for
him to have any appetite. Realizing at last that he must offer some
explanation for his strange behavior and unusual appearance, he
confessed that he had been troubled by a slight attack of indigestion
on the previous day, which was true. As a penalty for this subterfuge
he was compelled to swallow a tablespoonful of some homemade remedy
which Mrs. Cooper sternly forced upon him.
An hour later Chipper was puttering about in the woodshed when he heard
a footstep and looked up to discover Chub Tuttle shivering in a
turtleneck sweater outside the open door. Chub likewise looked pale and
heavy-eyed, and a single glance was sufficient to let each lad know
what the other had passed through.
“Gosh! it’s cold this morning,” mumbled Tuttle. “Ground is froze stiff
and puddles skimmed side of the road.”
“Yep,” answered Chipper; “there’ll be skating pretty soon. What you
doing over here so early?”
Tuttle entered the shed. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” he
confessed. “Don’t b’lieve closed my eyes once. Couldn’t help thinking
about Rod Grant going clean off his nut.”
“’Sh!” hissed Chipper, tiptoeing up some steps and closing a door that
led toward the kitchen. “I don’t want mother to find it out—yet. I
s’pose she’ll have to know about it pretty soon. Sleep! Say, I never
got a bit. Couldn’t help thinking all night long that Grant might be
lost in the woods or drowned or freezing or something. Have you heard
anything this morning, Chub?”
“No; I cut across back lots so’s not to come through the main street of
the village. Four or five times last night I sat up in bed, thinking I
heard people out searching for Grant. Jiminy, Chipper, didn’t he look
just awful when Bern opened the closet door! I’ve never seen a crazy
person before, but I knew he was stark daffy the minute my eyes fell on
him.”
“So did I,” nodded Cooper. “We should have had sense enough to realize
that, having a batty streak in his family, he was liable to go woppy
like that.”
“Never occurred to me,” confessed Chub, turning the sawhorse on its
side and seating himself on it. “Did you eat any breakfast?”
“Not a morsel.”
“Same here. Have some peanuts.”
Cooper declined the proffered handful of peanuts, and Chub, trying to
swallow one, nearly choked over it.
“I’m worried sick,” acknowledged Chipper. “I’d give anything in the
world if I hadn’t taken part in that fool racket last night. You know
only a year or two ago some students at West Point drove a fellow half
crazy hazing him, and he knocked one of the bunch out with a chair.
Came near killing him, too. The fellow didn’t die, but the doctors said
it was doubtful if he’d ever get over it. Read about it in the
newspapers. Funny thing, but the chap they were hazing was named Grant,
too.”
“I guess this hazing business ain’t as much fun as it might be,” sighed
Chub. “You’ll never get _me_ into any more of it.”
“I think I’ve had my fill, too. I just hate to show up at the academy
to-day.”
The sound of a low, peculiar whistle, like a signal, drifted in through
the open door of the shed, causing them both to give a start.
“That’s Sleuth!” palpitated Chipper, starting for the door.
Hesitating on the road in front of the house, they beheld Billy Piper,
who turned into the yard at once and hurried toward them, in response
to a beckoning signal from Cooper. His manner was nervous and furtive,
and he glanced round as if in constant apprehension of feeling the hand
of an officer at his collar.
“Hello, Chub; you here?” he said. “Just come over by the lower bridge.
Thought I’d come that way, so I wouldn’t have to pass through town.
Say, who do you s’pose I saw waiting for the morning train over at the
station? You can’t guess. It was Barker.”
“Barker?” exclaimed Chipper and Chub in a breath. “Waiting for the
train? Where’s he going?”
“He didn’t want me to know he was going anywhere, but I caught him with
his satchel in his fist, and he had to own up. Said he’d had an
invitation to visit Fred Merwin over at Clearport. Now my deduction
is——”
“The sneak!” cried Cooper resentfully. “He’s running away!”
“That was my deduction,” nodded Piper.
“And he was really the fellow who put up the whole job,” gurgled
Tuttle. “He’s skinning out on us; he’s leaving us to face the music.”
“And if that doesn’t prove him to be the biggest coward in Oakdale I’ll
eat my hat!” snarled Cooper. “He made a lot of talk about Grant being a
quitter and a coward, but now he’s showing himself up all right. Say,
I’d like to have just a few words with him—I’d like to tell him what I
think. Come on.”
“Too late,” said Piper. “There’s the train whistling now.”
The sound of a locomotive signaling for the station beyond the river
reached their ears through the clear, cold November morning, and they
knew that long ere they could reach the depot the train would pull out
for Clearport.
“Let him go,” muttered Tuttle. “He’ll have to come back. He can’t dodge
it this way.”
In the shed those three unhappy boys discussed the affair until the
first bell sounded from the tower of the academy, when at last,
encouraged by one another’s company, they set forth for school, making
haste through the main part of the village. As they approached the
academy Phil Springer stepped round a corner and beckoned to them.
“Juj-juj-jiminy!” chattered Tuttle, his teeth rattling in spite of his
efforts to prevent them. “They’ve heard something about Grant!”
Their hearts heavy, they followed Springer. Behind the academy they
found assembled the rest of the boys who had taken part in the hazing,
with the exception of Berlin Barker, and these lads gazed at them
inquiringly as they approached.
“Have yeou fellers heard anything?” asked Sile Crane.
“Not a thing,” answered Piper. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing, and that’s mighty funny. We expected old Priscilla Kent would
have the whole town stirred up by this time. If Rod Grant hadn’t come
home last night she’d been throwing fits all over the territory before
this.”
“Perhaps he came home,” said Cooper hopefully. “You’re right about Miss
Priscilla, and so in this case no news sounds like good news.”
“Have you seen anything of Barker this morning?” questioned Jack Nelson.
Sleuth promptly gave them the same information concerning Berlin which
he had imparted to Cooper and Tuttle, concluding with an expression of
his views regarding the conduct of Barker. Their indignation was
boundless, and, as one fellow, they agreed that the chap who had been
the main mover in the hazing had shown the white feather.
“That’s enough for me, by jinks!” cried Sile Crane. “He run away last
night, and now he’s dug out of Oakdale. Yeou bate I’ll tell him
something when he comes back! If Rod Grant is——”
“Great Cæsar!” gasped Piper suddenly. “Here comes Grant this minute,
and Stone is with him!”
He pointed with an unsteady finger, and those boys beheld Rod Grant and
Ben Stone coming down along the footpath from the direction of Tige
Fletcher’s house.
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