AT SCHOOL AGAIN.
The last time we saw Don and Bert Gordon, they had just returned to
Mississippi after having spent a few weeks with their friend Curtis in
his far northern home. They had come back with more honors as students,
soldiers and hunters than they had ever hoped to win. Eight months’ hard
study, combined with strict attention to their duties, had made Don
major of the academy battalion and Bert first lieutenant of his company.
The latter had barely escaped mutilation from the teeth and claws of a
wounded lucivee, while Don had smelled powder, heard the whistle of
bullets, seen a murderous-looking bowie-knife flourished before his eyes
by a ruffian who tried his best to use it on his person, and those who
were with him during that trying ordeal declared, as one boy, that he
never flinched. More than that, he had performed a feat during his
sojourn in Maine of which any veteran hunter would have been proud to
boast. He had killed a full-grown moose, whose antlers had been given an
honored place in his mother’s dining-room.
“I don’t believe Don shot that moose himself,” said Lester Brigham, when
he heard of it. “Some old hunter shot it for him, and he comes home and
palms it off as a trophy of his own skill with the rifle. He tried hard
to get up a reputation on the strength of that fight with the rioters,
which really did not amount to any thing; but after Williams and I
risked our lives to save the crew of the Mystery, Don and his crowd had
not another word to say. There was danger in that undertaking, I beg you
to remember, and if Don and his brother had been the heroes of it, they
never would leave off talking about it.”
Lester was standing in the Rochdale post-office waiting for his mail
when he said this, and Enoch Williams and Jones were with him. Around
them was a crowd of boys, who had so often heard them tell of the
wonderful exploits they had performed during their runaway expedition,
that they were tired of listening to them. Knowing these three fellows
as well as we do, it is hardly necessary to say that, while magnifying
their own achievements, they did not scruple to speak in the most
contemptuous terms of what Don Gordon had done, and to declare, in so
many words, that his promotion and Bert’s was owing entirely to
favoritism. They wore their uniforms on all occasions, carried
themselves very stiffly when they walked, and tried in every way to
impress the Rochdale boys with a sense of their importance. They
succeeded with some, while others, who were civil enough to their faces,
laughed at them behind their backs. The Mississippi boys were not
lacking in common sense if they did live in the country. Williams and
Jones were getting ready to go home now, their preparations being
somewhat hastened by the arrival of Don and his brother, whom, for
reasons of their own, they did not care to meet.
“We heard down here that that fight with the rioters was a pretty severe
one,” observed Fred Packard.
“We don’t doubt it,” answered Jones. “It is very natural for some people
to praise themselves when there is no one to do it for them. I would be
perfectly willing to go through one just like it, and take my chances.”
“So would I,” exclaimed Enoch.
“Here too,” chimed in Lester, puffing out his cheeks and looking very
brave and warlike indeed. “And I wouldn’t brag about it after I got
home, either.”
“Well, then, why did you not go to Hamilton with Don and the rest?”
inquired Fred.
“Because I couldn’t. The third company went, and I belonged to the
fourth. I volunteered to go, and so did my two friends here, but the
superintendent has his favorites among the students, and of course they
had to go, no matter if they were the biggest cowards in the academy.”
“I conclude that you were just spoiling for a fight,” said Joe Packard,
with a smile that was highly exasperating to Lester and his two friends.
“If that was the case, what made you pull your head under the
bed-clothes and pretend that you were ill when the bugle sounded that
false alarm?”
“I didn’t do any thing of the kind; did I, boys?” cried Lester,
appealing to his guests who were prompt to sustain him in his denial of
the humiliating charge. “If Don Gordon told you any story of that sort,
he is a mean, sneaking——”
“Hold on!” interrupted Fred. “Don is a friend of mine, and somehow I
can’t bear to hear him abused. Besides——”
Here Fred stopped and jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the open
door. The boys looked, and saw Don and Bert in the act of hitching their
ponies to a tree on the opposite side of the road. They were dressed in
citizens’ clothes, and although they did not walk with the regulation
step, nor turn square corners, any one could see at a glance that they
had been under military training, and that they had paid some attention
to it.
Lester took just one look at them, and then leaned his elbow on the
show-case and rested his head on his hand. He had evidently forgotten
what he was going to say about Don.
“Another thing, Gordon has never said a word to my brother or me about
you since he came home,” continued Fred. “He isn’t that sort. He is much
too manly to try to build himself up by pulling others down, and that is
more than I can say for some lads with whom I happen to be acquainted.”
“Then who told you that ridiculous tale about me?” demanded Lester,
wincing a little under the covert rebuke contained in Fred’s last words.
“Our information came from a very reliable source,” was the rather
unsatisfactory reply. “I know we live a good many miles from Bridgeport;
but we manage to keep pretty well posted in some things that happen
there.”
“His uncle told him all about it,” said Enoch, turning his back toward
Fred, and speaking in a low voice. “No one else could have done it, if
Don or Bert didn’t.”
The “uncle” referred to was the Mr. Packard who owned the Sylph—the
yacht in which Enoch and his band of deserters made their runaway
voyage. He was an old man with all a boy’s love of fun. He was very fond
of his nephews, Fred and Joe, with whom he corresponded regularly, and
it is reasonable to suppose that if anything amusing or exciting
happened at the academy, he did not neglect to speak of it in his
letters.
“And we took Mr. Packard’s relatives off the Mystery and saved them from
going to the bottom of the bay with her!” exclaimed Lester, in deep
disgust.
“But that was after the fight, you know,” whispered Enoch. “He wouldn’t
say anything against our courage now, I’ll bet you.”
“No matter. He has talked about us, and told things that his good sense,
if he had any, ought to have led him to conceal, and I’ll never go near
his house again. I think Fred and Joe might treat us with a little more
respect after what we did for their relatives when the Mystery was
wrecked.”
As it is possible the reader may think so too, we hasten to assure him
that it was not Fred’s fault nor Joe’s that they could not be friends
with Lester and Enoch. These two had a faculty of driving every decent
boy away from them. When they arrived in Rochdale, Fred and Joe lost no
time in calling upon them, to tell them how grateful they were for what
they had done for their friends when their lives were in peril, but
Lester showed them very plainly, by his actions, that he did not thank
them for the visit. They wouldn’t have anything to do with him when he
was plain Lester Brigham, he said; but now that he was Lester Brigham
the hero, they were anxious to cultivate his acquaintance. That was
something to which he could not consent; and so he, and Enoch and Jones
following his example, snubbed Fred and Joe most royally as often as the
opportunity was presented. If the high-spirited Packard boys grew tired
of such treatment after a while, and showed Lester and his boastful
guests up in their true colors, can anybody blame them?
“Here comes Don,” said Jones, in a suppressed voice. “Don’t salute him.”
“Of course not!” exclaimed Lester, who seemed to grow angry at the mere
mention of such a thing. “We are not at the academy now, and we are just
as good as he is.”
“Hallo, major!” cried all the Rochdale boys, as Don and his brother came
into the store. “Glad to see you back safe and sound, and none the worse
for your fight with the rioters. You don’t act a bit stuck up if you are
a big officer.”
“Just listen to ’em!” whispered Lester, who could not conceal his
indignation. “The world is full of toadies.”
“And always will be,” answered Jones, who was equally angry and
disgusted. “Whenever some fortunate accident raises a chap a round or
two, you will always find plenty who are willing to bow to him.”
“Well, major,” said Fred Packard, “I hear that—”
“O, for goodness sake, drop that,” interrupted Don. “Drop it, I say, or
I’ll not talk to you. I am at home now, and I want to forget school and
every thing connected with it until the time comes to go back.”
Don’s friends knew very well that he cared nothing for his military
title, except in so far as it marked his standing at the academy, and
that was the reason they addressed him by it—simply to bother him. They
gathered in a group about him and Bert, and Lester and his two friends
being left to themselves, secured their mail as soon as the window was
opened, and left the post-office, looking straight before them as they
passed out at the door, and giving the brothers no chance to salute
them, even if it had been their place to do so.
“Now, Don,” said one of the boys, who had not an opportunity to speak to
him before, “is it true that Lester and Williams took the crew off Mr.
Packard’s yacht at the risk of their own lives?”
“It is,” answered Don, readily. “Bert and I were there and saw it all.
It was a brave act, and everybody who knows the circumstances says so.”
“But still Lester pulled the quilts over his head and feigned illness
when the bugle sounded; and Jones, who belonged to your company, was
left behind because he hid in one of the coal-bins,” said Joe Packard.
As Don could not deny this, he said nothing about it. He took his mail
as soon as he could get it, and then he and Bert mounted their ponies
and rode homeward, accompanied by the Packard boys.
The two brothers spent this vacation in much the same way they spent the
first one after their northern friends, Hopkins, Curtis, and Egan had
gone home. Bert studied hard in the hope of being able to exchange his
single bar for a captain’s shoulder-strap at the next examination, but
Don never looked into the book. He had earned a long rest, and had come
home to enjoy it in his own way. He rode and hunted to his heart’s
content, swung Indian clubs, punched the sand-bag with heavy dumb-bells,
and ran a mile every pleasant day at the top of his speed with a view of
lowering the academy record during the next encampment. When the time
came to go back he was ready, and his mother saw him depart without any
misgivings. Don had showed her that he could behave himself, if he set
about it in dead earnest, and now that he had tried it for a whole year,
and made many friends and won his promotion by it, she was firm in her
belief that he was well started on the right road at last. Don thought
so too, but he did not for a moment relax his vigilance. He could not
afford to if he were going to make Egan’s prediction come out true, and
wear the lieutenant-colonel’s shoulder-straps during his last year at
the academy. If he desired to use the authority and enjoy the privileges
those shoulder-straps would give him, it was necessary that he should
win them at the very next examination.
A few days before they left Rochdale, Don and Bert rode over to Lester
Brigham’s to see if he would be ready to start when they did—not because
they wanted him for traveling companion, but because they thought it
would be a friendly thing for them to do; but Lester received them in so
freezing a manner, and showed so plainly that he did not care for their
company, that they left him to himself and set out for Bridgeport alone.
“I don’t want anything to do with them or the crowd they run with,”
soliloquized Lester, as he saw them ride away. “I shall have friends
enough at the academy without them. Enoch said he knew of two or three
good fellows, who had about half made up their minds to sign the
muster-roll this year, and if he brings them with him, they may be able
to think up some way in which we can enjoy ourselves. We have already
tried the only plan I could think of, and I shouldn’t have thought of
that if it had not been for Huggins.”
Lester reached Bridgeport without any mishap, and when he stepped out of
the carriage that took him and his trunk from the railroad depot to the
academy, he found Williams and Jones waiting for him. The “good fellows”
were there also—three of them, and of course they were boys after
Enoch’s own heart. They lived on Long Island, and Enoch went to school
with them before his father moved down into Maryland. They had not come
to the academy to learn, but because they wanted to take part in the
sports and pastimes which fell to the lot of the students, and which
Enoch had described in glowing colors; although he had never said a word
concerning the long, tiresome hours of study and drill that came six
days in the week as regularly as the deep tones of the big bell rang out
from the cupola. They wanted the honor of belonging to the school, a
portion of whose members had stood up so manfully in defense of law and
order; but they never stopped to ask themselves how they would act,
should they be called upon to perform a similar service.
“Here we are!” exclaimed Enoch, as he grasped Lester’s hand in both his
own and shook it cordially, “and I have good cause for complaint
already. That little snipe, Bert Gordon, has been detailed to assign the
boys to their rooms (more favoritism right at the start, you see), and
when I asked him if he would be kind enough to chum you on me, he
replied he did not think it would be just the thing to do.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” demanded Lester, after he had shaken hands with
Enoch’s three friends, who were introduced to him as Dale, Barry, and
Morris.
“Because it suits His Royal Highness to keep you two apart,” said Jones.
“He thinks you wouldn’t study anything but plans for mischief.”
“Is that any of his business?” cried Lester, who was very indignant. “He
and Don throw on altogether too many airs. I wish we could think up some
way to get those straps off his shoulders.”
“That is simply impossible,” said Enoch. “He will be the ranking captain
next year, and Don will be lieutenant-colonel. You wait and see. They
have succeeded in getting on the blind side of the teachers, and their
promotion is a dead sure thing.”
“Couldn’t he be drawn into a scrape that would do the business for him?”
asked Dale.
Lester and Jones both answered that he could not. Bert was one of the
good little boys, and had never learned how to disobey any of the rules.
There had been a time, they said, when his brother Don could be induced
to join in anything that had fun and danger in it; but he was major of
the battalion now, and besides, Egan and the fellows who belonged to
that crowd had so much influence over him that it would be useless to
approach him on the subject of “scrapes.”
“And dangerous as well,” chimed in Enoch. “He has an uncomfortable habit
of telling the truth at all times and on all occasions, and if he is
caught, he will own right up.”
“He did that very thing the year before I came here, and brought some
jolly boys into serious trouble by it,” observed Lester.
“Humph!” exclaimed Dale, contemptuously. “I wouldn’t have any
intercourse with such a milk-sop.”
“He’s no milk-sop, and there is no boy in school who dares call him that
to his face, either,” said Jones, who, in his heart, admired Don Gordon,
and earnestly wished that he was like him in some respects. “It is true
that he has too much honor to lie himself out of a scrape, but he won’t
go back on a friend.”
“I don’t see how you make that out,” snapped Lester, who never could
bear to hear a civil word said about either of the Gordon boys.
“Why, when he was hauled up for allowing Clarence Duncan and Tom Fisher,
and all the rest of the guard-runners to go by him one night when he was
on duty, didn’t he come very near being sent down for refusing to give
their names when he was ordered to do so?” demanded Jones.
“Some of you fellows make a great fuss about that,” said Lester, with a
gesture of impatience. “One would think, by the way you harp on it, that
Gordon is the only boy in the world who has the courage to stand by a
school-mate. If he was so very anxious to keep the guard-runners out of
trouble, why did he not say that no one went by him while he had charge
of the floor? That’s what any decent boy would have done.”
“And that same decent boy would have found himself brought up with a
round turn directly,” replied Jones, “for the superintendent knew right
where to look to find every fellow who broke the rules that night. Don
did the best that could have been done under the circumstances, for
Duncan was bound to go down any way.”
While Lester and his friends were talking in this way, they were
standing at the foot of the wide stone steps that led up to the front
door of the academy; and it was not until their teeth began to chatter
that they thought of going into the building to get out of reach of the
keen, cutting wind which came over the frozen surface of the river.
Gathering about the huge stove in the hall, they threw off their gloves
and mufflers and looked about them. There was a large pile of trunks in
one end of the hall, and Bert Gordon, assisted by one of the corporals,
was trying his best to get rid of it; but fast as his four stalwart
porters worked, the pile grew in size, for a train had just passed
through the village, and carriage-loads of students and wagon-loads of
luggage were arriving every minute. Some of the new comers shook hands
with Lester and his two cronies and were introduced to the boys from
Long Island; but the majority of them, although they crowded up to the
stove to get warm, did not notice Lester and his companions at all.
“Do they feel too big to speak to a fellow?” whispered Dale, who had
never been told of the wide gulf that separated the members of the
different classes.
“That’s just what’s the matter with them,” answered Jones. “A good many
of them are officers, and the others belong to the first class. You must
be careful to say ‘sir’ when you have occasion to speak to them.”
“Say ‘sir’ to those little brats of boys!” exclaimed Dale, who was
greatly amazed.
“That’s the law.”
“I don’t care if it is; I won’t do it. I am just as good as they ever
dare be.”
“No body disputes that,” said Enoch. “Jones is only trying to post you
so that you can keep out of trouble. You must not only address them as
he says, but you must not address them at all unless they first speak to
you. Of course if you want any information, you are at perfect liberty
to go to your company officers to get it; the rule does not apply in
that case.”
“Well, I’ll be shot if that don’t beat any thing I ever heard of,” said
Morris. “Suppose we should quietly ignore all such senseless rules—what
then?”
“If you have any idea of doing that, you had better make an excuse to
get away from here before you put on the uniform,” replied Enoch, with a
laugh that spoke volumes. “They will haze you till you can’t sleep o’
nights.”
“How will they do it?”
“O, there are plenty of ways. They are never at a loss for something,
and they have the faculty of doing the very thing you would rather they
would not do. If they find that any particular way of hazing bothers you
more than another, they will use it every chance they get.”
“The meanest of all the mean ways of hazing is the second exercise in
‘setting up,’” observed Jones. “My back aches yet whenever I think of
it. You see,” he added, addressing himself to Dale, “when I first came
here I kicked against the rules, just as you show a disposition to do. I
couldn’t see why a boy who wore two blue stripes around his arm should
be so high up in the world that I couldn’t speak to him if I wanted to,
and one day I addressed a friendly remark to one of the corporals. Great
Caesar! I thought he would take my head off, he snapped me up so
spitefully. After he quit jawing me I thought he had got through, but he
hadn’t—not by a long shot. A few days after that, he drilled a squad of
us in ‘setting up,’ and I went through the exercise a hundred and eighty
times before that little fice of a corporal gave the command ‘three.’”
“It means ‘stop,’” replied Lester, who had also had some very
disagreeable experience with a corporal to whom, he was determined, he
would not show a proper amount of respect. “It is the same as ‘rest,’
after a squad or company stacks arms.”
“What sort of a drill is it, any way?” asked Barry. “Is it so very hard
on a fellow?”
“You do it a hundred and eighty times without stopping, and then you can
answer the question for yourself,” was Enoch’s response. “I can give it
to you in the language of the tactics. The commands are: ‘_Second_,
EXERCISE. Raise the arms from the sides, extended to their full length,
till the hands meet above the head, palms of the hands to the front,
fingers pointing upward, thumbs locked, right thumb in front, the
shoulders pressed back. (TWO.) Bend over till the hands, if possible,
touch the ground, keeping the arms and knees straight. (THREE.) Resume
the position of a soldier.’ Try it a few times after you have taken your
overcoat off, and see how funny it is.”
Jones and Lester Brigham both gave it as their private opinion that
Barry would learn to his entire satisfaction that there was nothing
“funny” in it.