DAVE'S RETURN TO OAK HALL
The carryall containing Dave and his friends soon left Oakdale behind
and was bowling swiftly along over the smooth highway leading to Oak
Hall. The boys were all inside, leaving the driver to manage his team
in any way that suited him. Usually they loved to torment Horsehair, as
they called him, but now they had other matters on their minds.
"The same old Plum," said Ben, with a sigh. "Doesn't it make one weary
to listen to him?"
"Better try to forget him, and Nat Poole too," answered Dave.
"That is easier said than done," said Shadow Hamilton. "Which puts me
in mind of a story. There was once----"
"He is bound to tell 'em," came, with a groan, from Sam Day.
"Never mind; go ahead, Shadow," said Dave. "Sam said you could start in
after we were on board, and I'd rather hear a story than discuss Plum
and Poole."
"You were talking about forgetting Plum. One day a boy got into his
mother's pantry and stole some preserved plums. When the plums were
found missing the boy's mother caught him and cuffed his ears in good
style. Then the boy went outside and his chum told him to stop crying.
'Forget that your mother cuffed you,' said the other boy. 'I ain't
thinkin' of that,' answered the boy who had stolen the plums. 'Then
stop crying.' 'I can't.' 'Why not?' asks the other boy. 'Because the
plums was hot an' I kin feel 'em all along my throat yit.'" And at this
anecdote a smile passed around.
"I suppose football is being talked about," observed Ben, after a brief
pause.
"Yes, some of the boys are playing already," answered Sam Day. "I have
been waiting for Roger to get back. He was captain of our eleven last
season, you'll remember."
"Yes, and you were right tackle."
"Do you suppose we'll get another challenge from the Rockville Military
Academy?"
"Sure we will," burst out Shadow. "They'll want to wipe out the defeat
of last year."
"Gus Plum has organized a football team of his own," observed Sam. "He
has got Poole and a lot of new students in it. They call themselves the
Arrows, and one boy told me they were going to have suits with arrows
embroidered on them."
"By the way, what of Chip Macklin?" asked Dave.
"He is around and as bright as a button," answered Sam. "It is simply
wonderful what a change there is in that chap since he cut away from
Plum."
"Oh, look at the apples!" cried out Ben, as the carryall made a turn in
the road. He pointed to a tree in a field loaded with the fruit. "Wish
I had one."
"You won't get any there," declared Shadow. "That's Mike Marcy's field
and he keeps any number of dogs."
"Well, I never!" burst out Sam, feeling down under the seat. "If you
hadn't spoken I should have forgotten them entirely." He brought out
a bag containing a dozen big red apples. "I bought them while we were
waiting for the train. Here, boys, help yourselves." And he passed them
around.
"Thank you, Sam," said Dave, as he bit into one of the apples. "This is
fine." And the others said the same.
Each had his story to tell, and Sam and Shadow listened with eager
interest while Dave told of his long trip across the Pacific, and his
many adventures since he had left the academy.
"Sounds almost like a fairy tale," declared Sam. "I'd like to see
something of the world myself."
The carryall made another turn and came in sight of the river, dotted
here and there with small craft. Along the shore grew some bushes and a
few trees.
"I see some of the fellows are out rowing," observed Dave. "I'd like to
go out myself some day, before it gets too cold."
The carryall was passing a point where the road was considerably higher
than the surface of the stream. Dave had bitten into a second apple,
that proved to be wormy. Now he leaned out of the carryall and sent the
fruit spinning down through the bushes toward the river.
"Hi! hi!" came back a voice from the shore below. "Who hit me?"
"Gracious, I must have hit somebody!" exclaimed Dave. "I didn't mean to
do it."
"What's the matter?" demanded the driver, pulling his team in.
"You needn't stop," answered Ben. "Dave threw an apple away, that's
all."
"I've got to fix the harness--there's a strap loose," went on Lemond,
and leaped to the ground. He was at work when a man appeared, climbing
up the river bank through the bushes. It was Job Haskers, one of the
assistant teachers at the Hall, the only instructor the students did
not like.
"Ha! so some of you played a trick on me, eh?" fumed Job Haskers, as
he emerged upon the road and strode toward the carryall. "Nice doings,
I must say!"
"Did the apple hit you, Mr. Haskers?" asked Dave, mildly.
"Did it hit me? I should say it did, right on top of the head."
"I am sorry, sir."
"So you threw it, Porter. I am amazed that you would dare do such a
thing."
"I didn't know you were down there--in fact, I didn't know anybody was
there."
"A likely story," sneered the teacher, who was very often hot-headed
and unreasonable.
"I am telling the truth, sir," and Dave's face flushed.
"I cannot go out for a quiet stroll by the river side but somebody must
hit me in the head with a hard apple," growled the instructor. "Have
you just arrived?"
"Yes, sir."
"You ought to be more careful of what you are doing."
"As I said before, I didn't know anybody was down there."
"I presume you didn't want to see me." The teacher turned to all of the
boys. "Where did you get those apples?" he asked, suspiciously.
"I bought them in Oakdale," answered Sam.
"Haven't been stopping at some orchard on the way?"
"You may ask Mr. Cassello, the fruit man, if you don't believe me," and
Sam drew himself up.
"Well, be more careful after this, or you'll hear from me!" answered
Job Haskers, and strode off down the road in a thoroughly bad humor.
"Phew! but we are catching it all along the line," was Ben's comment.
"First Plum and Poole, and now Haskers. Wonder what we'll strike next?"
"I didn't mean to hit anybody," said Dave. "How peppery he is!"
"And he thinks we took the apples from some orchard," added Sam.
"Well, such things have happened," observed Ben, with a grin.
"Which puts me in mind of another story," said Shadow. "There was a
little boy, and his mother had been away nearly all day. 'Mamma,' said
he when she came home, 'can I have two apples?' 'Won't one do?' she
asked. 'No, I want two.' 'Very well,' said his mother. Then she saw him
go to the basket and get one apple. 'I thought you wanted two,' she
remarked. 'Oh,' he answered, 'I had the other one this morning!'"
Sam burst out laughing and so did the others. "I see the drift of
that," said Sam. "You haven't forgotten when we went to Japlet's
orchard after apples----"
"And the bull cornered Sam," said Ben. "Don't forget that, Sam."
"Nevertheless, Haskers is hard on us, and he had no business to call
Dave down as he did, just for throwing the apple into the bushes."
"Perhaps he has found out something about that ram and how he got up
in his room," whispered Ben, and then a laugh went up, in the midst of
which the driver started up the carryall and the journey to Oak Hall
was resumed.
Dave was on the watch, to catch his first sight of the school. They
were passing through a bit of woodland. Now they made a turn, and
rolled out in front of a broad campus lined on either side with a
boxwood hedge. At each corner of the campus were clumps of monstrous
oaks, the leaves of which had just begun to turn, and at the entrance
were more of the same kind of trees.
The school itself was a thoroughly up-to-date structure, of brick and
stone, laid out in the shape of a broad cross. The classrooms, the
office, and the dining hall and kitchen were on the ground floor and
the dormitories and private bedrooms and the bathrooms were above. Off
to one side of the campus was the gymnasium, and down by the river were
a boathouse and a row of bathing houses.
"Hurrah! Here we are at last!" cried Dave, and his heart gave a bound.
"Let us give 'em the old song, boys!" cried Sam Day, who was a good
singer, and he at once started up the following, to the tune of "Auld
Lang Syne":
"Oak Hall we never shall forget,
No matter where we roam;
It is the very best of schools,
To us it's just like home.
Then give three cheers, and let them ring
Throughout this world so wide,
To let the people know that we
Elect to here abide!"
They sang with a will, and when they had finished they added the old
academy cry:
"Baseball!
Football!
Oak Hall
Has the call!
Biff! Boom! Bang! Whoop!"
"Hello! hello!" sang out a dozen voices from the campus. "Here come
some more of the old students!"
"There's Dave Porter and Ben Basswood!"
"Hello, Dave, how do you feel after traveling across the Pacific?"
"Bring any of those South Sea Islanders with you?"
"Mighty glad to see you back, old man!"
So the cries rang on, as Dave and the others left the carryall. Dave
was surrounded, and half a dozen tried to shake hands at once.
"We want you on the football team, Dave," said one.
"I'm glad to know you found your folks," added another.
"You've come back to stay now, haven't you?" asked a third.
Dave shook hands all around. As the school song had it, the place felt
just like home. For the time being his heart was lighter than ever, and
his return to Oak Hall filled him with more pleasure than words can
express.