LEFT EARED DONGAN
Left Eared Dongan, Sophomore, jester of the Fig Tree Celebration
and candidate for football-end, was not a Great Man, just then. He
was an aeroplane. It may have looked as though he was merely a boy,
running over a hilltop, two miles from the academy, waving his arms
madly. But that was a mistake. Not only was he really an Updegraff
monoplane, but also he was breaking all records. Of course he was
alone. He would not, for his chances of becoming end, have allowed
any one to see him making b’lieve.
He twisted the second button on his coat; which, as every aviator
knows, steers an aeroplane (that is, when the aeroplane is a Santa
Benicia Sophomore). Then he pulled his nose, which turns down the
elevating planes, and puffed up the last stretch of Bilbunet Hill.
He saw a bunch of chaparral, and suddenly he was not an aeroplane.
Not at all. He was Colonel Church, leading a brilliant night attack
on Yaqui Indians. But his trousers got fuzzy, and he became an
aeroplane again.
He soared through a little pass, toward a deserted shack once
occupied by a shepherd, away from all the regular hill-paths. He sat
down with his back against the board walls, trying to work out the
following terrific problem:
If your arms are the wings of an aeroplane, how can you use the hands
that are so inconveniently stuck way out there at the end of those
arms, to manage levers?
He was just deciding that, perhaps, after all, according to the
practise of the best aeroplane-builders, coat-tails, and not arms,
are planes, when he heard a sound within the cabin.
He was startled. There was a mumbling, kept up for some time, and
accompanied by a low pounding on wood.
Left Ear promptly became Sherlock Holmes. Dragging Dr. Watson along,
he sneaked about to the back of the cabin and looked in through a
little window.
There stood Poodle Darby, by a wooden kitchen-table, reading aloud
from a sheet of paper, and keeping time by tapping on the table!
The room was bare, except for the table, a chair, and many papers.
Left Ear gleefully chortled to himself. “So _here’s_ where you come
when you want to write poetry for the school mag., is it, Mr. Poodle?
You think you _will_ keep us away, do you? You think you will get in
poetries on us, do you?”
By this time he was running down the hill side, too busy even to be
an aeroplane.
He gathered the first four Sophomores whom he met in the Yard,
explained to them in a gasping yelp the awful thing Poodle was doing,
and the five started on the dogtrot for the shack on Bilbunet Hill.
As they edged up to the window, Poodle was in the midst of reading
the poem all over again, after having rewritten a couple of lines.
He read it loudly and clearly. He must have liked it, for the joyous
listeners outside heard him declare, “Say, that ain’t _half_ bad!”
“Sure it ain’t!” shouted Left Ear, outside, and the five rushed for
the open door on the other side of the shack.
Poodle arose, in huge horror, and faced five large, happy grins.
“We thought we’d call on you and read you some of our poetry,” said
Left Ear. “It’s so nice (ain’t it? Yes, no? sure it is, little
Poodle; now don’t you answer me back) to have a fellow-goat—excuse
me, fellow-poet, I meant—sympathize with you, in this crool world.
Say, will you fellows just sit on Poodle,” he suggested to the other
four, “and I’ll read you some of the beau-ti-ful things he has on
that mahogany kitchen-table there. Oh, Poodle, how _could_ you be so
crool and keep them gems from us?”
There is an unwritten law of Santa Benicia that when a man is
about to be subjected to a “jolly,” he may, if he have reasonable
excuse, state it, and not receive the “jolly,” yet not be regarded as
“begging off.” However, if he attempt to do this very often, it will
take an excuse that would shake the world to be accepted as good.
Poodle had never tried to get out of being “jollied” before, but this
time he pleaded.
“Aw don’t Left Eared.... _Reason’ble ’Scuse!_ This stuff I’m writing
is for the school paper—it’s verse, all righto, but you’ll spoil it
for me if you read it.”
“It don’t go—bum excuse,” growled Left Ear, furious at the prospect
of losing this chance of being in the lime-light.
“It _does_ go—first time I ever made Reason’ble ’Scuse; and it _is_
reasonable, and it’s going to go.”
“Nix,” chortled the others, hypnotized by Left Ear. But they were
suddenly surprised and shocked to see Poodle, with one quick motion,
upset the table and chair, in a corner, and spring behind it, where
he doubled up his fists and got into an attitude of defense. They
edged toward him.
Left Ear stooped to pick up a paper fallen from the table in front
of the barricade. But he caught, instead of the paper, Poodle’s fist
under his chin. He was slightly lifted up, and dropped hard, on the
floor.
Just then, the five saw Poodle violently shake his head and remark
“I’ll handle ’em,” as if to some one _behind_ them. They turned,
to see Hike standing at the door, leaning against the door-jambs
carelessly, and smiling very sweetly. Said Hike:
“Well, speeds, having a pleasant little time with yourself? You know
the law that if you don’t accept a _really_ Reason’ble ’Scuse, then
the victim is expected to fight, and his friends can help him, don’t
you? I got here about the same time you did, and it strikes me that
what Poodle said was Reason’ble ’Scuse, all right. You’ll spoil his
stuff for him if you monkey with it before he hands it into the
paper. You know mighty well and _good_” (Hike, as he talked, was
getting angry), “that this is the first time Pood’ ever made _any_
excuse to keep from being jollied, and so—”
He stepped in, like a panther, quick, silent, and grabbed the first
classmate by the collar, and threw him clean through the door.
The others, except Left Ear, chorused, “You’re right, Hike—we got
excited, I guess. We’ll fight if you want to, but we admit we’re in
bad.”
“All right,” said Hike. “How about you, Left Ear? By the way, you
know you didn’t have any right to butt in here—this ain’t on the
school grounds; it’s Poodle’s private Country Estate, and you’ve got
no right to come in here unless he invites you—especially if he
wants to sport his oak. And he doesn’t invite anybody—even me—very
often. You goats keep him from writing down there, and if he wants
to write up here, it’s his privilege. I understand it was you that
led this business—I heard down in the Yard how you came rushing down
there to get the gang.”
Now, Mr. Left Ear Dongan was not a bad chap, but he was as
thoughtless as a runaway engine with a dead engineer. He had been
badly jolted by Poodle’s fist, and his merry game was spoiled, so he
snarled:
“All right. If Poodle’s such a big baby that he can’t stand for a
little kidding, why we’ll give him a milk-bottle and let him sneak
out here and have a good time with himself. And talk about butting
in—I’d like to know what else _you’re_ doing—coming here and talking
like you was a big brother, or a faculty member. ‘Especially if he
wants to sport his oak.’ You must think you’re in Oxford. I suppose
you think you’re aviating with— You and your baby brother, here. Oh,
piffle!”
Hike laughed, “You’ve got sand, anyway, Lefty. You know I can lick
you, without trying. But don’t splutter so much; we can’t catch what
you say. By the way, ‘like you was’ strikes me as rotten grammar—and
I ain’t any too careful myself.”
“You sure ain’t,” snarled Left Ear. “‘Ain’t’ is about as
ungrammatical as anything I could ever say.” He wondered why the rest
of the gang grinned, when he looked to them for approval and comfort.
“Right you are, Lefty,” hummed Hike, and continued, “Now, about
Poodle’s being a baby. How about that, Pood’?”
“No,” said Poodle, shortly. “Fight. To-night. Fig Tree Major. Heh,
Left Eared?”
“All right,” said Left Ear, and departed, still furious.
“Sorry you’ve got to fight—don’t like it much, even if I did fight
with Taffy, t’other day,” mused Hike. “But I guess it’ll be the only
way to calm down Left Ear. He’ll be a good friend of ours, after you
beat him up.”
Hike knew, and Poodle knew, that Poodle was not at all likely to do
anything like “beating up” Left Ear, who was certain to stand high in
the school boxing-contest, as well as to make the football-team, one
of these days.
In a way, Poodle had more courage than Hike—he was not half so
strong, yet he was no more afraid.
It showed that night in the way in which he faced Left Ear, and took
a bloody nose without flinching.
“There,” cried Hike to Poodle, as they returned home after the fight.
“I hope that will be the last nose-punching we’ll have to go through
with. It’s too kiddish, that’s all.”
But he knew that Left Eared Dongan was still angry, and that he
would have to discover some way of soothing that imaginative person.
How—when? He didn’t know. But he’d have to find the way. Meanwhile
(as he continued to Poodle):
“I’m going to cut out _all_ this strong-arm business, aeroplaning
and everything else, just as soon as football-season is over. I’m
going to settle down right now, and study electricity, all the time.
Study! Nobody’ll get me out of my room, not for one minute, except
for recitations and football. Me for the quiet life. No fighting, no
aeroplaning, no nothing, till—”
Just then Poodle pounced on a yellow envelope which had been poked
under their door while they were away. “Telegram for you, Hike,” he
said.
Hike read it over, then exclaimed, “Well, what do you think of that!
Cap’n Wibbelty-Wobbelty’s on the loose! Well, what _do_ you think of
_that_?”
“We’d all be glad to tell you what we think of it before we hear it,”
said Poodle.
“Oh, pardon _me_. Here she is. Want the address read, too?”
“Oh, Hike, _please_ read it, if it’s got anything to do with
Wibbelty-Wobbelty.”
“Listen:
‘Come to San Francisco at once. Meet me Palace Hotel. Captain Welch
in Mexico making trouble at my ranch. Insurrectos. Need help with
tetrahedral. Explain when come. Hurry.
‘John Adeler.’”
“Wow!” said Poodle, amazed, and—
“Wow!” roared Hike, in a different tone, wildly excited. “This means
a hike on the _Hustle_. Mexico—insurrectos—night flight—wow!” He
grabbed his cap, tossed a time-table to Poodle, and cried, “Please,
Pood’, see what’s the next train I get into town. I’m going to see
the Headmaster right now, and get leave to—”
“See him at midnight?” howled Poodle. “And permit us to _state_ that
there ain’t any trains between midnight and dawn.”
“Gee, that’s so,” mourned Hike. “I was so excited I forgot it was
late at all.”
“Yes,” remarked Poodle. “You were some excited. This is that ‘no
aeroplaning, no nothing’ that we were just hearing about, ain’t it?”
“Uh-huh. Gee, Poodle, I’m just _crazy_ over this. Gee, it’s great....
Out in the _Hustle_. Mexico. Cap’n Welch. It’s too good to be true!”