A COW IN SCHOOL
The boys thronged from the court and out on the campus. There was a buzz
of talk about what had taken place and Sandy came in for a severe
"raking over the coals."
"What did you mean by saying he hurt Lem on purpose?" asked Newton
Bantry, a member of the nine.
"You ask Sandy and maybe he'll tell you," replied Bart. "I'm sorry I
said it, and I won't refer to it again. I may have been mistaken."
"I guess Sandy won't give us much chance to ask him anything," said
Newton.
"Why?"
"Because he's going to leave school. I just heard him telling some of
his cronies, those who were in the game with him. He says it's almost
the end of the term, and he's going to work."
"Well it's small loss," put in Ned. "Though he's a good ball player when
he wants to take the pains. The trouble is he's too fond of playing
tricks."
There was no further dissension in the nine, and under Bart's leadership
it won several more games. The "Preps." challenged the boys again, but,
though the high school boys did their best, they could not win. They
were beaten by one run, but that was regarded as a great achievement
against the redoubtable nine of older lads, and almost equivalent to a
victory.
The weeks passed, and the end of the school term came nearer.
Examinations were the order of the day, and the chums had little time to
go off on trips along the river save on Saturdays. They made several
excursions into the woods, and kept a lookout for the two queer men, but
did not see them.
One day Ned went off alone in a search for the hut with the strange
inscription. But he could not find it. Either he could not locate the
place where he had seen it or the cabin had been moved.
"I'd like to get at the bottom of this," he murmured, as he tramped back
home. "There's a method in the madness of those men, I'm sure."
But, if there was, Ned little dreamed what it portended.
"To-morrow's the last day of school this term," remarked Fenn, one
afternoon as he and his chums strolled home. "My, but I'm glad of it!
Those exams., especially the algebra, nearly floored me. Lucky there's
no more."
"Never mind," said Bart. "Forget it. We'll have a lot of sport
to-morrow. We can cut up a bit and the teachers won't mind."
"That's so," spoke Ned. "I've got to do something. I can feel it in my
bones! Whoop! It must be something worthy of the Darewell Chums!" He
began to do an impromptu war dance.
"Don't get us into trouble," came from Frank.
"Trouble? Did I ever get you into trouble?"
"Oh, no," replied Bart sarcastically. "There wasn't any trouble when you
put the live frogs in Miss Mapes's desk and scared her and all the other
women teachers nearly into fits. There wasn't any trouble when you let a
lot of mice loose in the girls' department. There wasn't any trouble
when you brought Jimmy Dodger's pet coon in and yelled that it was a
skunk. We didn't get blamed for it all, did we? Oh, no, I guess not.
Say, Ned, if you're going to cut up, send in an advance notice that it's
your own doings and none of ours."
"All right," responded Ned. "If I get up the scheme myself I'll take all
the credit."
"You're welcome to it," spoke Frank. "The credit--and what comes after."
"Are you going to do anything?" asked Bart.
"Witness is not prepared to answer," was Ned's reply. "I may and I may
not."
If Ned's chums could have seen him an hour later, talking to a farmer
who lived about a mile outside of the town, they would have had grave
suspicions regarding what he proposed to do to make the last day of
school memorable.
The morning session of the last day passed off quietly enough. There was
not much done in the way of lessons. Some students arranged with their
teachers to do some studying during vacation to make up "conditions,"
and others were consulting with the instructors about the work for next
term.
Professor McCloud announced that the closing exercises would be held in
the afternoon, the boys and girls assembling in the large auditorium on
the second floor.
"I don't see that you're going to make good about that trick of yours,"
observed Fenn to Ned at the noon recess.
"Who said I was going to play any trick?"
"Why I thought--"
"The day isn't over yet," said Ned, with a wink.
At one o'clock the boys and girls gathered in the large hall. Ned's
chums noticed he was not on hand, and they looked wonderingly at each
other. There was no telling when or where Ned would break out.
A program of vocal and instrumental music was rendered and then came
several recitations. It was while Jennie Smith was in the midst of a
dramatic rendering of a poem telling of a maiden waiting and listening
for the approach of her lover. She reached the lines:
"I feel his presence near me in the mystic midnight air
I hear his footsteps coming, coming up the castle stair--"
At that moment there were, unmistakably, footsteps on the stair, only
they were the stairs leading up from the court and not into a castle.
Heavy footsteps they were, not at all lover-like. Up and up they came,
sounding like several men with heavy boots on. Jennie paused, as she
stood on the platform, and listened. The steps came nearer.
An instant later the door, which was not closed tightly, was pushed
open, and into the big auditorium, in front of the pupils ambled a
gentle-eyed cow, that, giving one astonished look around, uttered a loud
"Moo!"