Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
[Illustration: HE DESCENDED THE SLOPE]
THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB
BY
W. T. NICHOLS
Illustrated by
F. A. ANDERSON
THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1916
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT 1916 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Illustration]
The Safety First Club
* * * * *
_To
M. H. M._
_A youthful critic with the precious art of
combining frankness and friendliness,
this book is appreciatively dedicated_
Introduction
The Safety First idea, along with some other sound rules of conduct
which have been hammered out by hard experience of the race, is often
easier to put into words than into practice. Like other brakes on
machines or men it sometimes seems to cause too much friction, with
resulting protest, especially from youngsters impatient of warnings of
dangers possible rather than presently pressing.
The fact is, however, that these objectors fail to recognize the true
spirit of the rule. Nobody expects active boys and girls to be wrapped
in cotton wool and stored away out of all harm’s reach. They have
their work to do in the world, and in doing it must take certain risks
as the rest of us do. But there are unnecessary risks, just as there
are other risks which are not to be avoided; and it is in shunning
these unnecessary risks, in learning that reasonable caution is not
cowardice, that recklessness is no proof of bravery, and that the way
to redeem a mistake is not to repeat it, that the rule is to be truly
honored.
In “The Safety First Club” and the volumes which are to follow it are
set forth certain adventures of boys who have to deal with problems
such as confront healthy young Americans, boys well intentioned but not
wise beyond their years, fond of the open, restive under restraint. It
is the author’s hope that in their haps and mishaps they may be found
likably human.
Contents
I. “HEDGEHOG DAY” 11
II. SAM TAKES CHANCES 23
III. THE LUCK OF A LONG SHOT 34
IV. THE CLUB GETS A NEW NAME 43
V. SAM FACES THE MUSIC 61
VI. DEALING WITH THE OGRE 72
VII. THE RECKONING 87
VIII. BEGINNING THE TEST 96
IX. POKE AND STEP PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER 111
X. QUEER TROUBLES 124
XI. THE CLUB GETS A CLUE 135
XII. PUNISHMENT POSTPONED 146
XIII. NOT ON THE PROGRAM 159
XIV. SENT TO COVENTRY 173
XV. THE CLUB ENDORSES ITSELF 182
XVI. SAM HAS A RUDE AWAKENING 194
XVII. MORE SURPRISES 202
XVIII. LON DISCUSSES CROOKED THINKING 211
XIX. OF DUELS AND CONSCIENCE 222
XX. SAM MAKES A SPEECH 230
XXI. LON PLAYS DETECTIVE 239
XXII. TOM ORKNEY CHANGES HIS INTENTION 252
XXIII. LON GATES ENTERTAINS 266
XXIV. PETER GROCHE SCORES AGAIN 281
XXV. THE BLIZZARD 294
XXVI. OLD FRIENDS MEET 307
XXVII. PETER’S GRUDGE 319
XXVIII. SAM MAKES CHOICE 334
XXIX. SQUARING THE ACCOUNT 343
XXX. IN FULL SETTLEMENT 355
Illustrations
PAGE
HE DESCENDED THE SLOPE _Frontispiece_
HIS FINGER TREMBLED ON THE TRIGGER 37
“YOU’RE LOOKING FOR TROUBLE” 156
“HOLD HARD, THERE!” 216
“HE’S COMING ’ROUND ALL RIGHT” 283
The Safety First Club
* * * * *
The Safety First Club
CHAPTER I “HEDGEHOG DAY”
Sam Parker stepped out upon the side porch of his father’s house,
closing the door behind him with a slam. There was a frown on his face,
which by no means became it; and the corners of his mouth drooped
sulkily. He was, as a matter of fact, in a fit of temper, which did
not lessen as he surveyed the dull, gray sky, and saw its promise of a
dismal day.
“’Nother spoiled Saturday!” he grumbled. “Nowhere to go and nothing to
do--oh, thunderation!”
Now, to tell the truth, it may be that the weather had much to do with
Sam’s pessimism, just as it often influences persons a great deal older
and wiser than this boy of sixteen. Sam, commonly, was good-natured
enough. This day, though, things had seemed to go wrong from the very
start. He had overslept; one of his shoes had contrived to hide itself
under the bureau; his necktie stubbornly had declined to slip into a
smooth and even knot; he was late at breakfast, and the oatmeal was
cold, and the eggs were as hard as the Fate which he was beginning to
suspect was pursuing him. He had attempted criticism, and his father
had checked him rather sharply with the reminder that the breakfast
hour was 7:30 and not 7:50. His mother had not hastened to his defense;
and even Maggie, the cook, frequently his ally and dispenser of
consoling doughnuts and cookies, had failed him when he sought sympathy
in the kitchen.
“You got up wrong foot foremost,” she told him. “Get along with you
now! This is bakin’ day, and I can’t be bothered.”
Sam, thus repulsed, had clumped out of the kitchen; stormed into the
hall; snatched up his cap and reefer; stamped across the dining-room,
and flung himself out of the house, without visible improvement in
his spirits or his condition. If it was dark within, it was gloomy
without. He looked up the street and down; nobody was in sight. He
buttoned his coat to the neck, and thrust his hands into his pockets:
the world, he perceived, was chilly as well as lonely. Then, of a
sudden, he grinned, fleetingly and reluctantly, at vagrant memory of
the old story of the child that threatened to go out and eat two smooth
worms and three fuzzy fellows because nobody loved it. The baby’s
troubles were ridiculously like his own, and for a trying second he
realized the resemblance. Then he was frowning harder than ever, with
mouth drooping still more sulkily.
In sunnier moods Sam Parker was a good-looking boy. Nobody would have
called him pretty; he wasn’t of the “pretty” type, being, indeed,
rather wholesome and hearty, with plenty of color in his cheeks--and
not a few freckles. For a youth who was rapidly adding to his inches,
in the process known as getting his growth, he carried himself well;
though, as everybody knows, this period in a boy’s life is not that
at which grace of figure or movement is most marked. In other words,
there were times when Sam did not know what to do with his hands or
his feet, and impressed the painful fact upon all beholders, especially
because of a certain impulsiveness, which led him now and then into
embarrassing ventures.
Standing on the porch and glowering at all he beheld, Sam was not
attractive. Hannibal, his bull terrier, trotting from the barn,
noted the storm signals his master was flying, and halting at a safe
distance, made great pretense of scratching for a flea which did not
exist. Sam whistled, and Hannibal grew busier than ever. The boy took
an impatient step, and the dog stopped scratching and bolted for the
barn.
Sam, striding after him, pulled up abruptly. A thick-set man in cap,
and overalls, and boots, and with a carriage rug in one hand and a
brush in the other, appeared in the big doorway.
“H’lo, Sam!” was his greeting. “Good day, ain’t it?”
“Good for nothing!” snapped the boy. “Rotten weather!”
The man’s eyes twinkled. They were pleasant eyes, with little fans of
fine wrinkles at the corners, and they lighted up his smooth-shaven,
weather-beaten face amazingly.
“Huh! Guess you ain’t looked at the calendar lately. This ain’t June;
it’s the fust day of December. And I’m tellin’ you this is pretty good
weather for December. What if there ain’t no snow? The wheelin’s all
right--your daddy took the car out this mornin’.”
Sam nodded. “I know--he went over to Epworth.”
“Why didn’t you go along?”
“What’d be the use?”
Now, this was not strictly ingenuous. Possibly because of his sulks,
Sam had not been invited to accompany his father.
“Sure enough! What’d ’a’ been the use?” said the man with an odd grin.
Sam reddened. “Look here! Bet you I could have gone if I’d wanted to,
Lon!”
Lon, otherwise Alonzo Gates, hired man and general factotum, made no
response to the challenge, but fell to dusting the rug vigorously. Sam,
gloomy browed, drew nearer.
“Tell you, Lon, I could have gone. No fun, though--ride’s too cold.
That’s the trouble with this weather--no coasting, no skating, no
football, nothing!”
“So?” said the man non-committally.
Hobe, the barn cat, sauntered out of the door. Sam kicked at the
animal, which took refuge behind a wooden bucket standing just inside
the sill, and from this cover snarled defiance. Whereupon Sam kicked
again. This time his foot struck something--the bucket. Over it went,
and out shot a gallon or two of soapy water. Hobe darted back into the
barn. Lon moved aside nimbly, but not nimbly enough. Splash! went the
water upon his boots.
“Wal, now, but you have gone and done it!” he ejaculated. “Nice mess to
clean up, ain’t it?”
In Sam’s perverse mood the one thing he cared for was to hide the
regret he felt.
“Huh! Oughtn’t to have stuff standing round like that. Why didn’t you
tell me?”
Lon paused in his labors. “My! but this world’s awful crowded this
mornin’, ain’t it?” he remarked. “First there wasn’t room for you ’n’
Hobe; then you jest couldn’t stand for that bucket treadin’ on your
toes. Wal, wal!”
Sam snorted wrathfully. What wouldn’t he have given for speech so
cuttingly sarcastic that Lon must throw up his hands and beg mercy!
But, effective words failing him, he could do no better than offer
sounds which were disagreeable rather than intelligible.
Lon chuckled; then grew serious. “See here, Sam!” said he. “I kind o’
guess this is hedgehog day for you, ain’t it?”
“Huh?”
“When you come to think it over,” Lon went on, “a hedgehog’s about
the one critter you can’t think of as ever snugglin’ up nice and cozy
to anything or anybody. Now, I knew a feller once that had a tame
woodchuck that liked to be patted; and I’ve seen the tigers and big
cats in circuses purrin’ round their trainers; but I never heard tell
of a hedgehog actin’ real sociable and wantin’ to sit in anybody’s
lap. And, so far’s I can rec’lect, I never run across a hedgehog that
you’d call all-around popular with the neighbors. Whenever one gets
close to anybody, he sticks his spines into him. And when a human
gets to actin’ like a hedgehog--why that’s when he’s havin’ a hedgehog
day--see?”
“Huh!” said Sam again.
Lon gave the rug another flick with the brush.
“By and large, son,” he remarked, “it ain’t good business to have
hedgehog days. I know, I know! When you’re feelin’ that way, that’s the
way you feel, as the fox said to the bear in the trap. But you ain’t
doin’ yourself no good, and you ain’t any perticular help to the rest
of the community.”
“Hang the community!”
“Jest what the hedgehog says,” quoth Lon tranquilly. He carried his rug
into the barn; brought out another; brushed skilfully for a minute.
“Hunt up some of the boys, Sam,” he advised. “Try lowerin’ your spines,
and see if they won’t keep down after a while.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Bad as that, eh?”
Sam disdained to make reply. Lon pursed his lips.
“Sonny, this won’t do. It’s bad medicine. Say, where’ll you be at if
you behave like this when you go to St. Mark’s?”
“I’ll get along all right.”
Lon brushed furiously for a little. “I--I dunno’s there’s but--but one
way--for some folks to learn things,” he said jerkily. “When you’re
there--jest one among two-three hundred boys--it’ll be different, now I
tell you! We put up with you; they won’t.”
“Huh! Who’s afraid?”
“I’d be--if I was you.”
“Bah!”
Lon shook his head. “Sam,” he said, “if I thought this was a real
in-growin’ attack, I’d be worried a heap wuss than I am. But I’m
worried enough as it is. Now, I’ll give you a good tip. If you don’t
want to see the other boys, go for a good, long tramp. Walk it off!
That’s jest what the real hedgehog can’t do--his legs ain’t long
enough.”
“No fun walking--day like this.”
Lon was a patient soul. “Wal, why don’t you go huntin’, then?”
“What for? Rabbits?”
“If you can’t get anything bigger. But you might land a shot at a deer.
’Member what day this is? First of December! Law on deer goes off, and
stays off till the fifteenth.”
“Oh!” said Sam. In the new interest he almost forgot, for an instant,
that he had a grievance against the universe. But it was only for an
instant. “But I wouldn’t have the luck to get a shot at a buck, or a
doe, either. The crowd will have started out early, and scared every
deer within ten miles of town,” he concluded pessimistically.
“Don’t be too sure of that.”
“’Tis sure!” Sam insisted. “Then what’ll I do for a gun?”
“Got your own, haven’t you?”
“What! Try for a deer with a ‘twenty-two’?”
“Why not? It’s big enough, if it gets to the right spot.”
Sam fell back to his second line of defense. “Well, there’ll be no deer
anywhere near town.”
“Who says so?”
“I do!” snapped the boy.
Lon bent toward him, and lowered his voice. “Sam, a feller was tellin’
me last night about a herd that’s been feedin’ in close--right back of
old Bill Marlow’s barn--big buck and three-four more. Old orchard in
there, you know. And that’s so nigh to town most folks won’t look for
’em there. But there they be--or there they were as late as yesterday,
anyhow. And, by gum! if I was you, I’d scout out that way on the
chance--that is, if your mother says it’s all right,” he added hastily.
In spite of himself, Sam’s ambition was fired. A shot at a deer! That
would be worth while.
“You--you’re certain they were there yesterday?” he asked.
“Bill Marlow told me himself. And you can be sure of one thing--he
didn’t tell many other folks. Bill ain’t no gossip.”
Sam nodded. He knew something of Mr. Marlow’s habit of taciturnity.
Doubter though he might be, the prospect was brightening. He had heard
old hunters tell stories of cases in which deer had been killed almost
in the outskirts of the village, while sportsmen ranging farther afield
had been rewarded with sight of neither buck nor doe.
“Well, I suppose I might as well have a look,” he said not too
graciously.
“Of course you might!”
Sam took a step toward the house. “Of course, with my luck----”
“Oh, you never can tell,” Lon reminded him.
“Still, I might as well be wasting time that way as any other,” said
Sam sourly, and quickened his pace.
“Don’t forget to tell your mother!” Lon called after him.
Sam waved a hand in reply, and went on to the house.