CHANGING THE RECORD.
The fight was fierce but short.
Harple entered the drill-hall from the stairway, stood for a moment in
terrified astonishment, and then pushed his way violently through the
crowd to the enraged combatants.
“Stop this!” he cried, laying a firm hand on each wrestler; but in an
instant they had broken from his grasp, and fell, struggling, panting,
and still fighting, to the floor.
“Bright!” he called, kneeling above them, and trying to gain a new
hold, “Bright, for goodness’ sake!”
The door from the dining-room was opened, and in the doorway was framed
the stalwart figure of Colonel Silsbee. He took in the situation at a
glance, and strode hastily toward the combatants. The crowd separated
as if by magic to let him pass; but before he reached the struggling
figures on the floor, they, too, had become aware of his presence, had
loosed their hold of each other, and had risen to their feet.
They were a sorry sight. Their clothing was torn, their hair
dishevelled, their faces bruised and bloody. For a moment there was
no sound in the room; the silence was appalling. Then Colonel Silsbee
spoke,--
“Boys, this is disgraceful! I hope never to witness a scene like this
in my school again. Lieutenant Brightly and Cadet Belcher, you will
both report at my office at half-past seven o’clock. Drummer, beat the
mess-call!”
Belcher was led back to the faucet by his friends, and Brightly was
hurried up to his room by Harple, while the battalion fell in for
supper.
“Charley, I’ve made a fool of myself, haven’t I?” asked Brightly, when
the door of their room was closed on them.
“I’m afraid you have, Bright,” was the reply. “I guess you’ve spoiled
everything now. You’ve lost your shoulder-straps without doubt.”
Harple took the pitcher and hurried down the hall for some warm water
with which to bathe his friend’s wounds. “I haven’t much hope for you
after this,” he said, returning. “You simply won’t listen to advice.”
“Well, how could I help it, Charley?” Brightly stood in his
shirt-sleeves, waiting for the water. His wrath was rising again at the
remembrance of Belcher’s taunting words.
“How could I help it?” he repeated. “A fellow would have to be more
than human to stand such abuse. It was simply impossible not to strike
him.”
“Well, there’s no use talking about it; that part of it’s over. The
next chapter is what you’ve got to look out for now,--the one that
opens up at half-past seven. If I thought you’d take any advice at all,
I’d counsel you, when you get in before Colonel Silsbee, to own up, say
you are sorry, agree to abide squarely by your sentence, and then go
to work and get back to your old place again.”
Harple bathed his chum’s face and neck carefully, and dressed a slight
wound on the cheek. Clean linen and a fresh coat restored Brightly to
an appearance of respectability, and then the two hurried down to the
supper-room.
At half-past seven o’clock the principal of Riverpark Academy sat in
his office, awaiting the appearance of the offenders. He was troubled
and anxious,--not so much because two of his pupils had engaged in a
rough-and-tumble fight, as because the entire school seemed trembling
on the verge of disorder, of which he feared that this encounter was
the first serious manifestation.
For some weeks he had noticed this tendency toward mischief and toward
rebellion against rules of the school, and it worried him. He had had
the same experience in former years; but the warmth of the advancing
season and the excitement of out-door sports had heretofore served to
dissipate disorderly tendencies, and he could only hope that such
might now be the case.
Promptly at the hour named Belcher came into the office. A moment
later Brightly entered also. They stood respectfully, undergoing with
apparent composure the sharp scrutiny of the principal.
“Boys,” said Colonel Silsbee at last, “I did not summon you here to
hear excuses for your conduct. There can be no possible excuse for
it. It is intended that this school shall be composed of soldiers and
gentlemen, and they never descend to such encounters as yours has been.
The instinct that impels one man in the heat of passion to strike
another is a brutal instinct, and in my school it must be kept down. I
intend to subject each of you to severe punishment; but lest I should
do either of you an injustice, I desire to hear from you an account of
the trouble, and of the causes which led to it. Belcher, you may give
me your statement.”
The lad addressed advanced a step and laid his hand on the table.
“It began,” he said, “this afternoon at drill. Lieutenant Brightly was
in command of our platoon. I wasn’t able to do the wheelings properly;
it wasn’t my fault, either. But Brightly insulted me, and called me
an idiot; and he wasn’t satisfied with that, but he rushed at me and
struck me a blow with his sword. To-night, in the drill-hall, I asked
him why he did it. He answered me impertinently, and I called him a
bully. Then he struck me, and the fight began. You came in in time to
see the end of it.”
“If you had a grievance against Lieutenant Brightly, why did you not
report it at headquarters, that an examination might have been made and
justice done? Why did you take the matter into your own hands?”
“Well, I--I thought I had a right to. Brede told me I had a right to,
Captain Brede. He said an officer was no better than a private out of
ranks. He said I ought to thrash Brightly for what he had done.”
A look of surprise and pain came upon Colonel Silsbee’s face,--of
surprise, that Belcher should thus try to lay the blame of his conduct
on another; of pain, that the ranking cadet-officer in his school
should have given such advice.
“Captain Brede was greatly mistaken,” he said quietly. “Lieutenant
Brightly, let us hear your account of this affair.”
“Belcher has given a pretty correct version of it,” responded Brightly,
“except that of course he has colored the facts to make in his favor. I
have nothing further to say.”
“Very well,” said Colonel Silsbee. “I still see no excuse for either of
you. Belcher, you may go. Brightly, you will remain for a moment.”
When the door had closed behind Belcher, the principal motioned the
other lad to a chair.
“Brightly,” he said, and there was kindness in his face and voice,
“I have had it in mind for some time to have a little talk with you,
and the occurrence of to-night seems now to have made it a necessity.
You have not, of late, been keeping up to your usual standard in any
department; your manner also has been indicative of dissatisfaction
and carelessness. I am sorry for this, because I had grown accustomed
to thinking of you as one of my first boys. Where does the fault lie,
Brightly? Is it with us, or is it with you?”
The lad hesitated a moment before replying. Finally he said, “I didn’t
think my standing and conduct here were appreciated. I tried to do very
well, but it seemed to me that my efforts met with punishment rather
than with reward. Of course that discouraged me, and lately I haven’t
tried very hard to keep up.”
“Do you wish me to understand that you were disappointed in the rank
assigned to you in the battalion?”
“Well, I thought I deserved to rank higher than first lieutenant.”
“I see. I can understand your feeling. But if a mistake was made, the
mistake and the fault were ours, not yours. Moreover, there was no
slight put upon you. You were given a very honorable position; it was
your duty as a soldier to acquiesce in our judgment, and to accept
the situation without question. To give you my reasons for making the
appointments that I did, while you are in your present state of mind,
would be subversive of discipline.
“I regret this affair of to-night more than you do,--very much more. I
should be glad to relieve you of its consequences if it were possible,
not only for your own sake, but for your mother’s as well; but it is
not possible; my duty to you and to the school forbids it.
“I shall be obliged to suspend you from your office for a time; not
long, I hope. It is my wish, also, that your mother may not learn of
your disgrace until she can be informed also of your reformation and
restoration.”
“I should prefer that myself. I think her feelings have been already
sufficiently hurt in learning that I was not considered worthy of the
promotion to which she believed, with me, that I was entitled.”
There was no repentance manifest in Brightly’s voice; the spirit
indicated by it was still unyielding.
Colonel Silsbee looked up sharply at the boy. “Has your mother made a
complaint to you on account of the appointment?” he asked.
“N--no, I can’t say that she has. I don’t think _she_ would do me an
injustice like that.”
The emphasis was too plain to be misunderstood. The stern look came
back into the principal’s face.
“You may go now,” he said. “And you may consider yourself suspended
from office until such time as an order to that effect shall be
published.”
Brightly bowed, and left the room somewhat haughtily. His punishment
was to be greater than he had anticipated. He had expected to receive
discredit marks enough to cut deeply into his standing in deportment;
but he had not thought that he should be reduced to the ranks, even
for a short time. He felt that his sentence was unnecessarily severe;
that it was unjust and uncalled for. It bruised his pride, it awakened
animosity in his mind, and roused rebellion in his heart.
It was not long after Brightly had taken leave of the principal that
Brede was also summoned to the office. He arose, walked across the
schoolroom with his accustomed swagger, and passed in through the
office-door with the usual supercilious smile upon his lips. The entire
school wondered what he had been summoned for, but only Belcher and
Brightly guessed aright. They knew instinctively that his visit had to
do with Belcher’s awkward excuse for his own fault.
When Brede returned to the schoolroom some fifteen minutes later,
he had lost something of his swagger; the curl on his lips was less
pronounced, and his face was more than usually pale. Every one who
saw him knew that his interview with Colonel Silsbee had not been a
pleasant one.
Moreover, from that night on he ignored both Brightly and Belcher; the
men in the ranks noticed that he grew more quick-tempered and morose;
the principal and teachers in the school found that he became less
careful of his standing.
On the evening following the fight between Brightly and Belcher the
following order was published at retreat:--
HEADQUARTERS, RIVERPARK ACADEMY.
_April 30, 186-._
SPECIAL ORDER, NO. 15.
_Paragraph I._--Cadet Lieutenant Horace E. Brightly, for
conduct unbecoming an officer, is hereby suspended from the
office of first lieutenant and adjutant of the battalion, for a
period of two weeks, the suspension to date from the 29th inst.
_Paragraph II._--Sergeant Major J. R. Finkelton will act as
adjutant of the battalion during the period of Lieutenant
Brightly’s suspension, and all papers pertaining to said office
of adjutant will be turned over to him at once.
By order of the Principal,
Col. JONAS SILSBEE.
Brightly promptly gave to the acting adjutant all papers pertaining
to the office, which were principally tables showing the merits and
demerits credited to each student in the line of conduct.
The system of marking deportment at Riverpark was, in many respects, an
excellent one. Every evening, at retreat, one of the older cadets was
appointed to act as officer of the day for the following twenty-four
hours. It was his duty to make entry in the “officer of the day’s
book” of such offences as were reported to him by the principal, the
teachers, or the cadet-officers, and of such also as came under his
own notice in the schoolroom, where he occupied a position at the desk
throughout the day.
On Friday evenings it was the duty of the adjutant to go, attended by
a clerk, to the office of the principal, and while the clerk read from
the book the reports of offences, the principal would assign the number
of demerit marks to each, and the adjutant would record them on his
list opposite the name of each offender.
He also kept a list of merit marks, a certain number of which cancelled
a certain greater number of demerit marks. If the excess of demerit
marks reached a certain amount, it made the offender a delinquent for a
day; a certain greater amount extended the term of his delinquency to
two days, three days, a week, and so on.
The balance against some of the more careless and mischievous boys
was always so large as to put them on what was known as perpetual
delinquency. Of this last class “Plumpy,” as the fat boy was
affectionately called by his companions, was a conspicuous and shining
example.
A delinquent was not allowed to leave the grounds under any pretext.
Besides that, he was confined to the schoolroom during the hour or
two of every afternoon when the other boys were at leisure, at play,
walking in the country, boating on the river, or visiting the town.
This confinement came especially hard on Saturday afternoons, when the
hours of permitted absence extended from two to six o’clock, and there
was a general exodus from the school of all but the unhappy delinquents.
It was the duty of the adjutant to keep these deportment lists and
records in his possession, and to make up from them the tables of
conduct that entered into the term reports and determined each
student’s standing.
The three students who, at the close of each year, bore the highest
rank in studies and deportment formed the honor grade, and each of them
was entitled to wear the honor-grade chevron.
It was not easy at first for Finkelton to comprehend this somewhat
complicated method of keeping the records, and he asked Brightly one
day to come up and explain it to him. Brightly replied, somewhat
abruptly, that he believed he had fulfilled his entire duty when he
turned the papers over, and that he knew of no reason why he should
spend his time in the labors of an office from which he derived neither
profit nor honor.
But the next day his better nature came to the rescue, and he went up
to Finkelton’s room to acknowledge his fault, and to offer assistance.
“I was too bearish yesterday,” he explained. “I didn’t think what a
mean way it was to speak till afterward. I’ll show you anything you
want to know about the records, and be glad to.”
Finkelton received him rather coldly.
“I haven’t the lists here now,” he said. “Captain Brede came and got
them this morning to figure out his company’s standing as against
Harple’s. Besides, I won’t need your assistance; I got all the
information I wanted from another source.”
Brightly was surprised and chilled by Finkelton’s manner toward him.
They had been very good friends. But after a moment’s thought, he knew
that he merited the implied reproach; and without another word he
turned and went away. Ten minutes later Brede came into Finkelton’s
room, bringing the adjutant’s papers with him.
“I’ve brought back the lists, Fink,” he said, “and here’s a curious
thing in this one that I want to show you.”
He spread out on the table the general record and pointed to Brightly’s
name on it.
“Do you see,” he continued, “that some one has scratched out a 25 in
the balance opposite that name and left it a 5?”
“That’s so,” replied Finkelton, scrutinizing the paper closely. “That
certainly has been a 25. I didn’t notice it before. Do you suppose
Brightly has done a thing like this?”
“Well, a man’ll do a good deal to save an honor-grade chevron.
Twenty-five would have lost it for him, five will let him make it yet.
See?”
“Yes, but I can’t quite believe that of Bright. Maybe five is correct
after all.”
“If it is, what was the use of mutilating the weekly lists? You look at
them and you’ll see that they’re changed too. I tell you I believe he’s
altered them himself. The colonel didn’t cut him in standing when he
suspended him, and the fellow wants to take home a big report to show
to his mother, and make her think he’s been at the head of the heap all
the time.”
Finkelton was rummaging among the weekly lists.
“Don’t you think,” continued Brede, “that you’d better call Colonel
Silsbee’s attention to the matter, anyway?”
“Well, I might,” responded Finkelton, slowly; “but I don’t know that
it’s my duty to, and maybe--” He paused for a moment, recalling
the somewhat strained relations existing at present between him and
Brightly; then he added: “I’ve no objection to doing it, though. I
believe I owe him no favors.”
“Just so,” assented Brede. “I think such a rascally and clumsy trick
ought to be exposed. You might do it to-night when you go in to the
office to make up the reports. I’ll go in with you as clerk if you want
me to, and then I can explain how I came to detect the fraud. See?”
Finkelton nodded. He had entered unsuspectingly into a cruel plot laid
by an unscrupulous schemer.
Ten minutes later, when Brede left the room, his eyes had a wicked
gleam in them, and his thin lips were curled in pleasant contemplation
of satisfying revenge. He himself had erased the figures. He had been
guilty not only of a mean and cowardly act, but of a criminal one as
well. Yet conscience did not smite him, nor fear of discovery cause him
to hesitate.
Finkelton carried out to the letter the programme laid down for him
by Brede. He took the captain into the office with him that evening to
assist in making up the weekly report. At an opportune moment Colonel
Silsbee’s attention was called to the erased and substituted figures
opposite Brightly’s name and Brede very glibly related the story of his
discovery.
Colonel Silsbee was much surprised and perplexed. He could not believe
that Brightly had deliberately falsified the record. The lad had always
been scrupulously honest. He questioned Brede and Finkelton closely,
but they gave him no further information. Finally he said,--
“Brightly shall not be condemned without a hearing. Whatever his faults
may have been of late, I cannot credit the fact that he has been guilty
of so gross a misdemeanor as these papers would seem to indicate. We
will call him in and hear what he has to say.”
The school was gathered in evening session, and unusual quiet rested on
the assembly, when Colonel Silsbee appeared at the door of his office
and summoned Brightly. The suspended officer laid aside his book, and
walked up the aisle and across the open space by the desk with a smile
on his face.
He had quite expected to be called. He had felt sure that Finkelton
would not be capable of making up the reports. Now it had proved so.
They were in a snarl, and needed him to assist them in the unravelling.
The idea seemed to please him greatly. He closed the office-door behind
him and advanced to the table at which the principal and the two
cadets were sitting. His first glance revealed to him that something
more important and more serious than the disentangling of reports had
occasioned his presence.
Colonel Silsbee was the first to speak.
“Brightly,” he said, “my attention has been called to the fact that
erasures have been made opposite to your name in the reports which
have, until recently, been in your possession. It is apparent that
large balances on the demerit side have been changed to small ones
in your favor. I do not ask for an explanation from you, as that
would seem to prejudge you. I only ask whether the balance as it now
stands on the general roll is the true one. Your simple assertion as a
gentleman and a soldier will decide the matter to my satisfaction. You
may examine the papers.”