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THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES
[Illustration: THE BUTCHER LOOKED DOWN
AT THE FUNNY FACE AND SAW THE KINDLY MOTIVE UNDER THE EXAGGERATED
BLUFFNESS
[PAGE 12]]
THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF STORIES
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS CHIEF SCOUT LIBRARIAN BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED FOR THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY WALT LOUDERBACK
DECORATIONS BY ARTHUR D. SCOTT
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
So much of my time is given to reading boys' books that, when I read
books for grown-ups, now and again I find myself saying, "What a bully
story for boys to read!" Latterly, I have been putting down the titles
of such stories. When the list began to lengthen, it occurred to me, why
not make a book for boys containing stories like that: stories written
for grown-ups but also of interest to boys in their early teens.
Such a collection of stories could not be made, however, without the
consent of the authors and publishers, but since everybody loves a boy,
I didn't have much trouble in convincing them they ought to grant
permission to use their stories for such a purpose and, as a result, I
am pleased to present to the boy readers of our country the BOY SCOUTS
BOOK OF STORIES.
Looking over the list, I find it covers pretty well the reading
interests of boys. There are stories about boy scouts, school stories,
stories of the sea and "wild west" stories, detective and mystery
stories; most of all, though, a goodly number of humorous stories, and I
am willing to hazard the guess there will be no regrets on the part of
readers because the selections happen to abound in stories of the latter
sort.
How about it, boys?
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE GREAT BIG MAN _Owen Johnson_ 1
II. A TWILIGHT ADVENTURE _Melville Davisson Post_ 27
III. TAD SHELDON, SECOND CLASS SCOUT _John Fleming Wilson_ 45
IV. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE _Arthur Conan Doyle_ 71
V. THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF _O. Henry_ 108
VI. THE HONK-HONK BREED _Stewart Edward White_ 125
VII. THE DEVIL-FISH _Norman Duncan_ 140
VIII. THE JUMPING FROG _Mark Twain_ 155
IX. BINGISM _Booth Tarkington_ 165
X. CONCHO CURLY AT THE OP'RA _Edward Beecher Bronson_ 191
XI. THE LIE _Hermann Hagedorn_ 206
XII. STORY OF THE BANDBOX _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 229
XIII. THE HERO AND THE COWBOY _Joseph C. Lincoln_ 265
XIV. THE DOLLAR _Morgan Robertson_ 289
XV. THE MASCOT OF "TROOP 1" _Stephen Chalmers_ 315
XVI. THE LION'S SMILE _Thomas W. Hanshew_ 330
XVII. THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF _A. T. Quiller-Couch_ 361
XVIII. THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN _Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton_ 386
ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing
Page
The butcher looked down at the funny face and saw the
kindly motive under the exaggerated bluffness _Frontispiece_
"Some of the men stood about; behind them two men sat on
their horses, their elbows strapped to their bodies" 32
"I went to leeward and there found me bould Tad launchin'
the little dingy" 64
The black scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in
his side 120
"'Tis the devil-fish!" screamed Bobby 140
"But before he could lite on her with his knife, I hopped
out of my close-pen into the canon" 204
He woke and gave a low cry. Some one was sitting on his bed 224
"For a second it left off rainin' sand, and there was a
typhoon of mud and spray" 272
[Illustration]
I.--The Great Big Man[A]
_By Owen Johnson_
THE noon bell was about to ring, the one glorious spring note of that
inexorable "Gym" bell that ruled the school with its iron tongue. For at
noon, on the first liberating stroke, the long winter term died and the
Easter vacation became a fact.
Inside Memorial Hall the impatient classes stirred nervously, counting
off the minutes, sitting gingerly on the seat-edges for fear of
wrinkling the carefully pressed suits or shifting solicitously the
sharpened trousers in peril of a bagging at the knees. Heavens! how
interminable the hour was, sitting there in a planked shirt and a
fashion-high collar--and what a recitation! Would Easter ever begin,
that long-coveted vacation when the growing boy, according to theory,
goes home to rest from the fatiguing draining of his brain, but in
reality returns exhausted by dinners, dances, and theaters, with perhaps
a little touch of the measles to exchange with his neighbors. Even the
masters droned through the perfunctory exercises, flunking the boys by
twos and threes, by groups, by long rows, but without malice or emotion.
Outside, in the roadway, by the steps, waited a long, incongruous line
of vehicles, scraped together from every stable in the countryside,
forty-odd. A few buggies for nabobs in the Upper House, two-seated rigs
(holding eight), country buckboards, excursion wagons to be filled
according to capacity at twenty-five cents the trip, hacks from Trenton,
and the regulation stage-coach--all piled high with bags and suitcases,
waiting for the bell that would start them on the scramble for the
Trenton station, five miles away. At the horses' heads the lazy negroes
lolled, drawing languid puffs from their cigarettes, unconcerned.
Suddenly the bell rang out, and the supine teamsters, galvanizing into
life, jumped to their seats. The next moment, down the steps, pell-mell,
scrambling and scuffling, swarming over the carriages, with joyful
clamor, the school arrived. In an instant the first buggies were off,
with whips frantically plied, disputing at a gallop the race to Trenton.
Then the air was filled with shouts.
"Where's Butsey?"
"Oh, you, Red Dog!"
"Where's my bag?"
"Jump in!"
"Oh, we'll never get there!"
"Drive on!"
"Don't wait!"
"Where's Jack?"
"Hurry up, you loafer!"
"Hurry up, you butter-fingers!"
"Get in!"
"Pile in!"
"Haul him in!"
"We're off!"
"Hurrah!"
Wagon after wagon, crammed with joyful boyhood, disappeared in a cloud
of dust, while back returned a confused uproar of broken cheers,
snatches of songs, with whoops and shrieks for more speed dominating the
whole. The last load rollicked away to join the mad race, where far
ahead a dozen buggies, with foam-flecked horses, vied with one another,
their youthful jockeys waving their hats, hurling defiance back and
forth, or shrieking with delight as each antagonist was caught and left
behind.
The sounds of striving died away, the campus grew still once more. The
few who had elected to wait until after luncheon scattered hurriedly
about the circle and disappeared in the houses, to fling last armfuls
into the already bursting trunks.
On top of Memorial steps the Great Big Man remained, solitary and
marooned, gazing over the fields, down the road to Trenton, where still
the rising dust-clouds showed the struggle toward vacation. He stood
like a monument, gazing fixedly, struggling with all the might of his
twelve years to conquer the awful feeling of homesickness that came to
him. Homesickness--the very word was an anomaly: what home had he to go
to? An orphan without ever having known his father, scarcely remembering
his mother in the hazy reflections of years, little Joshua Tibbets had
arrived at the school at the beginning of the winter term, to enter the
shell,[B] and gradually pass through the forms in six or seven years.
The boys of the Dickinson, after a glance at his funny little body and
his plaintive, doglike face, had baptized him the "Great Big Man" (Big
Man for short), and had elected him the child of the house.
He had never known what homesickness was before. He had had a
premonition of it, perhaps, from time to time during the last week,
wondering a little in the classroom as each day Snorky Green, beside
him, calculated the days until Easter, then the hours, then the minutes.
He had watched him with an amused, uncomprehending interest. Why was he
so anxious to be off? After all, he, the Big Man, found it a pleasant
place, after the wearisome life from hotel to hotel. He liked the boys;
they were kind to him, and looked after his moral and spiritual welfare
with bluff but affectionate solicitude. It is true, one was always
hungry, and only ten and a half hours' sleep was a refinement of cruelty
unworthy of a great institution. But it was pleasant running over to the
jigger-shop and doing errands for giants like Reiter and Butcher
Stevens, with the privileges of the commission. He liked to be tumbled
in the grass by the great tackle of the football eleven, or thrown
gently from arm to arm like a medicine-ball, quits for the privileges of
pommeling his big friends _ad libitum_ and without fear of reprisals.
And then what a privilege to be allowed to run out on the field and
fetch the nose-guard or useless bandage, thrown down haphazard, with the
confidence that he, the Big Man, was there to fetch and guard! Then he
was permitted to share their studies, to read slowly from handy, literal
translations, his head cushioned on the Egghead's knee, while the
lounging group swore genially at Pius AEneas or sympathized with
Catiline. He shagged elusive balls and paraded the bats at
shoulder-arms. He opened the mail, and sorted it, fetching the bag from
Farnum's. He was even allowed to stand treat to the mighty men of the
house whenever the change in his pocket became too heavy for comfort.
In return he was taught to box, to wind tennis rackets, to blacken
shoes, to crease trousers, and sew on the buttons of the house. Nothing
was lacking to his complete happiness.
Then lately he had begun to realize that there was something else in the
school life, outside it, but very much a part of it--vacation.
At first the idea of quitting such a fascinating life was quite
incomprehensible to him. What gorging dinner-party could compare with
the thrill of feasting at midnight on crackers and cheese, deviled ham,
boned chicken, mince pie and root beer, by the light of a solitary
candle, with the cracks of the doors and windows smothered with rugs and
blankets, listening at every mouthful for the tread of the master that
sometimes (oh, acme of delight!) actually passed unsuspectingly by the
door?
Still, there was a joy in leaving all this. He began to notice it
distinctly when the trunks were hauled from the cellar and the packing
began. The packing--what a lark that had been! He had folded so many
coats and trousers, carefully, in their creases, under Macnooder's
generous instructions, and, perched on the edge of the banisters like a
queer little marmoset, he had watched Wash Simmons throw great armfuls
of assorted clothing into the trays and churn them into place with a
baseball bat, while the Triumphant Egghead carefully built up his
structure with nicety and tenderness. Only he, the Big Man, sworn to
secrecy, knew what Hickey had surreptitiously inserted in the bottom of
Egghead's trunk, and also what, from the depths of Wash's muddled
clothing, would greet the fond mother or sister who did the unpacking;
and every time he thought of it he laughed one of those laughs that
pain. Then gleefully he had watched Macnooder stretching a strap until
it burst with consequences dire, to the complete satisfaction of Hickey,
Turkey, Wash, and the Egghead, who, embracing fondly on the top of
another trunk, were assisting Butcher Stevens to close an impossible
gap.
Yet into all this amusement a little strain of melancholy had stolen.
Here was a sensation of which he was not part, an emotion he did not
know. Still, his imagination did not seize it; he could not think of the
halls quiet, with no familiar figures lolling out of the windows, or a
campus unbrokenly green.
Now from his lonely eerie on Memorial steps, looking down the road to
vacation, the Great Big Man suddenly understood--understood and felt. It
was he who had gone away, not they. The school he loved was not with
him, but roaring down to Trenton. No one had thought to invite him for a
visit; but then, why should any one?
"I'm only a runt, after all," he said, angrily, to himself. He stuck his
fists deep in his pockets, and went down the steps like a soldier and
across the campus chanting valorously the football slogan:
Bill kicked,
Dunham kicked.
They both kicked together,
But Bill kicked mighty hard.
Flash ran,
Charlie ran,
Then Pennington lost her grip;
She also lost the championship--
Siss, boom, ah!
After all, he could sleep late; that was something. Then in four days
the baseball squad would return, and there would be long afternoon
practices to watch, lolling on the turf, with an occasional foul to
retrieve. He would read "The Count of Monte Cristo," and follow "The
Three Musketeers" through a thousand far-off adventures, and "Lorna
Doone,"--there was always the great John Ridd, bigger even than Turkey
or the Waladoo Bird.
He arrived resolutely at the Dickinson, and started up the deserted
stairs for his room. There was only one thing he feared; he did not want
Mrs. Rogers, wife of the housemaster, to "mother" him. Anything but
that! He was glad that after luncheon he would have to take his meals at
the Lodge. That would avert embarrassing situations, for whatever his
friends might think, he, the Great Big Man, was a runt in stature only.
To express fully the excessive gayety he enjoyed, he tramped to his
room, bawling out:
"'Tis a jolly life we lead,
Care and sorrow we defy."
All at once a gruff voice spoke:
"My what a lot of noise for a Great Big Man!"
The Big Man stopped thunderstruck. The voice came from Butcher Stevens'
room. Cautiously he tiptoed down the hall and paused, with his funny
little nose and eyes peering around the door-jamb. Sure enough, there
was Butcher, and there were the Butcher's trunks and bags. What could it
mean?
"I say," he began, according to etiquette, "is that you, Butcher?"
"Very much so, Big Man."
"What are you doing here?"
"The faculty, Big Man, desire my presence," said the Butcher,
sarcastically. "They would like my expert advice on a few problems that
are _per_plexing them."
"Ah," said the Great Big Man, slowly. Then he understood. The Butcher
had been caught two nights before returning by Sawtelle's window at a
very late hour. He did not know exactly the facts because he had been
told not to be too inquisitive, and he was accustomed to obeying
instructions. Supposing the faculty should expel him! To the Big Man
such a sentence meant the end of all things, something too horrible to
contemplate. So he said, "Oh, Butcher, is it serious?"
"Rather, youngster; rather, I should say."
"What _will_ the baseball team do?" said the Big Man, overwhelmed.
"That's what's worrying me," replied the crack first-baseman, gloomily.
He rose and went to the window, where he stood beating a tattoo.
"You don't suppose Crazy Opdyke could cover the bag, do you?" said the
Big Man.
"Not in a lifetime."
"How about Stubby?"
"Too short."
"They might do something with the Waladoo."
"Not for first; he can't stop anything below his knees."
"Then I don't see how we're going to beat Andover, Butcher."
"It does look bad."
"Do you think the faculty will--will----"
"Fire me? Pretty certain, youngster."
"Oh, Butcher!"
"Trouble is, they've got the goods on me--dead to rights."
"But does the Doctor know how it'll break up the nine?"
Butcher laughed loudly.
"He doesn't _ap_-preciate that, youngster."
"No," said the Big Man, reflectively. "They never do, do they?"
The luncheon bell rang, and they hurried down. The Big Man was
overwhelmed by the discovery. If Butcher didn't cover first, how could
they ever beat Andover and the Princeton freshmen? Even Hill School and
Pennington might trounce them. He fell into a brown melancholy, until
suddenly he caught the sympathetic glance of Mrs. Rogers on him, and for
fear that she would think it was due to his own weakness, he began to
chat volubly.
He had always been a little in awe of the Butcher. Not that the Butcher
had not been friendly; but he was so blunt and rough and unbending that
he rather repelled intimacy. He watched him covertly, admiring the
bravado with which he pretended unconcern. It must be awful to be
threatened with expulsion and actually to be expelled, to have your
whole life ruined, once and forever. The Big Man's heart was stirred. He
said to himself that he had not been sympathetic enough, and he resolved
to repair the error. So, luncheon over, he said with an appearance of
carelessness:
"I say, old man, come on over to the jigger-shop. I'll set 'em up. I'm
pretty flush, you know."
The Butcher looked down at the funny face and saw the kindly motive
under the exaggerated bluffness. Being touched by it, he said gruffly:
"Well; come on, then, you old billionaire!"
The Big Man felt a great movement of sympathy in him for his big
comrade. He would have liked to slip his little fist in the great brown
hand and say something appropriate, only he could think of nothing
appropriate. Then he remembered that among men there should be no
letting down, no sentimentality. So he lounged along, squinting up at
the Butcher and trying to copy his rolling gait.
At the jigger-shop, Al lifted his eyebrows in well-informed disapproval,
saying curtly:
"What are you doing here, you Butcher, you?"
"Building up my constitution," said Stevens, with a frown. "I'm staying
because I like it, of course. Lawrenceville is just lovely at Easter:
spring birds and violets, and that sort of thing."
"You're a nice one," said Al, a baseball enthusiast. "Why couldn't you
behave until after the Andover game?"
"Of course; but you needn't rub it in," replied the Butcher, staring at
the floor. "Give me a double strawberry, and heave it over."
Al, seeing him not insensible, relented. He added another dab to the
double jigger already delivered, and said, shoving over the glass:
"It's pretty hard luck on the team, Butcher. There's no one hereabouts
can hold down the bag like you. Heard anything definite?"
"No."
"What do you think?"
"I'd hate to say."
"Is any one doing anything?"
"Cap Kiefer is to see the Doctor to-night."
"I say, Butcher," said the Big Man, in sudden fear, "you won't go up to
Andover and play against us, will you?"
"Against the school! Well, rather not!" said the Butcher, indignantly.
Then he added: "No; if they fire me, I know what I'll do."
The Big Man wondered if he contemplated suicide; that must be the
natural thing to do when one is expelled. He felt that he must keep near
Butcher, close all the day. So he made bold to wander about with him,
watching him with solicitude.
They stopped at Lalo's for a hot dog, and lingered at Bill Appleby's,
where the Butcher mournfully tried the new mits and swung the bats with
critical consideration. Then feeling hungry, they trudged up to
Conover's for pancakes and syrup. Everywhere was the same feeling of
dismay; what would become of the baseball nine? Then it suddenly dawned
upon the Big Man that no one seemed to be sorry on the Butcher's
account. He stopped with a pancake poised on his fork, looked about to
make sure no one could hear him, and blurted out:
"I say, Butcher, it's not only on account of first base, you know; I'm
darn sorry for _you_, honest!"
"Why, you profane little cuss," said the Butcher, frowning, "who told
you to swear?"
"Don't make fun of me, Butcher," said the Great Big Man, feeling very
little; "I meant it."
"Conover," said the Butcher, loudly, "more pancakes, and brown 'em!"
He, too, had been struck by the fact that in the general mourning there
had been scant attention paid to his personal fortunes. He had prided
himself on the fact that he was not susceptible to "feelings," that he
neither gave nor asked for sympathy. He was older than his associates,
but years had never reconciled him to Latin or Greek or, for that
matter, to mathematics in simple or aggravated form. He had been the
bully of his village out in northern Iowa, and when a stranger came, he
trounced him first, and cemented the friendship afterward. He liked hard
knocks, give and take. He liked the school because there was the long
football season in the autumn, with the joy of battling, with every
sinew of the body alert and the humming of cheers indistinctly heard, as
he rammed through the yielding line. Then the spring meant long hours of
romping over the smooth diamond, cutting down impossible hits, guarding
first base like a bull-dog, pulling down the high ones, smothering the
wild throws that came ripping along the ground, threatening to jump up
against his eyes, throws that other fellows dodged. He was in the
company of equals, of good fighters, like Charley De Soto, Hickey, Flash
Condit, and Turkey, fellows it was a joy to fight beside. Also, it was
good to feel that four hundred-odd wearers of the red and black put
their trust in him, and that trust became very sacred to him. He played
hard--very hard, but cleanly, because combat was the joy of life to him.
He broke other rules, not as a lark, but out of the same fierce desire
for battle, to seek out danger wherever he could find it. He had been
caught fair and square, and he knew that for that particular offense
there was only one punishment. Yet he hoped against hope, suddenly
realizing what it would cost him to give up the great school where,
however, he had never sought friendships or anything beyond the
admiration of his mates.
The sympathy of the Big Man startled him, then made him uncomfortable.
He had no intention of crying out, and he did not like or understand the
new emotion that rose in him as he wondered when his sentence would
come.
"Well, youngster," he said, gruffly, "had enough? Have another round?"
"I've had enough," said the Big Man, heaving a sigh. "Let me treat,
Butcher."
"Not to-day, youngster."
"Butcher, I--I'd like to. I'm awfully flush."
"Not to-day."
"Let's match for it."
"What!" said the Butcher, fiercely. "Don't let me hear any more of that
talk. You've got to grow up first."
The Big Man, thus rebuked, acquiesced meekly. The two strolled back to
the campus in silence.
"Suppose we have a catch," said the Big Man, tentatively.
"All right," said the Butcher, smiling.
Intrenched behind a gigantic mit, the Big Man strove valorously to hold
the difficult balls. After a long period of this mitigated pleasure they
sat down to rest. Then Cap Kiefer's stocky figure appeared around the
Dickinson, and the Butcher went off for a long, solemn consultation.
The Big Man, thus relieved of responsibility, felt terribly alone. He
went to his room and took down volume two of "The Count of Monte
Cristo," and stretched out on the window-seat. Somehow the stupendous
adventures failed to enthrall him. It was still throughout the house. He
caught himself listening for the patter of Hickey's shoes above, dancing
a breakdown, or the rumble of Egghead's laugh down the hall, or a voice
calling, "Who can lend me a pair of suspenders?"
And the window was empty. It seemed so strange to look up from the
printed page and find no one in the Woodhull opposite, shaving painfully
at the window, or lolling like himself over a novel, all the time
keeping an eye on the life below. He could not jeer at Two Inches Brown
and Crazy Opdyke practicing curves, nor assure them that the Dickinson
nine would just fatten on those easy ones. No one halloed from house to
house, no voice below drawled out:
"Oh, you Great _Big Man_! Stick your head out of the window!"
There was no one to call across for the time o' day, or for just a
nickel to buy stamps, or for the loan of a baseball glove, or a sweater,
or a collar button, scissors, button-hook, or fifty and one articles
that are never bought but borrowed.
The Great Big Man let "The Count of Monte Cristo" tumble unheeded on the
floor, seized a tennis ball, and went across the campus to the esplanade
of the Upper House, where for half an hour he bounced the ball against
the rim of the ledge, a privilege that only a fourth former may enjoy.
Tiring of this, he wandered down to the pond, where he skimmed
innumerable flat stones until he had exhausted the attractions of this
limited amusement.
"I--I'm getting homesick," he admitted finally. "I wish I had a
dog--something living--around."
At supper-time he saw the Butcher again, and forgot his own loneliness
in the concern he felt for his big friend. He remembered that the
Butcher had said that if he were expelled he knew what he would do. What
had he meant by that? Something terrible. He glanced up at the Butcher,
and, being very apprehensive, made bold to ask:
"Butcher, I say, what does Cap think?"
"He hasn't seen the Doctor yet," said the Butcher. "He'll see him
to-night. I guess I'll go over myself, just to leave a calling-card
accordin' to _et_-iquette!"
The Big Man kept his own counsel, but when the Butcher, after dinner,
disappeared through the awful portal of Foundation House, he sat down in
the dark under a distant tree to watch. In a short five minutes the
Butcher reappeared, stood a moment undecided on the steps, stooped,
picked up a handful of gravel, flung it into the air with a laugh, and
started along the circle.
"Butcher!"
"Hello, who's that!"
"It's me, Butcher," said the Big Man, slipping his hand into the
other's; "I--I wanted to know."
"You aren't going to get sentimental, are you, youngster?" said Stevens,
disapprovingly.
"Please, Butcher," said the Great Big Man, pleadingly, "don't be cross
with me! Is there any hope?"
"The Doctor won't see me, young one," said the Butcher, "but the
_at_-mosphere was not encouraging."
"I'm sorry."
"Honest?"
"Honest."
They went hand in hand over to the chapel, where they chose the back
steps and settled down with the great walls at their back and plenty of
gravel at their feet to fling aimlessly into the dusky night.
"Butcher?"
"Well, Big Man!"
"What will you do if--if they fire you?"
"Oh, lots of things. I'll go hunting for gold somewhere, or strike out
for South America or Africa."
"Oh!" The Big Man was immensely relieved; but he added incredulously,
"Then you'll give up football and baseball?"
"Looks that way."
"You won't mind?"
"Yes," said the Butcher, suddenly, "I will mind. I'll hate to leave the
old school. I'd like to have one chance more."
"Why don't you tell the Doctor that?"
"Never! I don't cry out when I'm caught, youngster. I take my
punishment."
"Yes," said the Big Man, reflecting. "That's right, I suppose; but,
then, there's the team to think of, you know."
They sat for a long time in silence, broken suddenly by the Butcher's
voice, not so gruff as usual.
"Say, Big Man--feeling sort of homesick?"
No answer.
"Just a bit?"
Still no answer. The Butcher looked down, and saw the Big Man struggling
desperately to hold in the sobs.
"Here, none of that, youngster!" he exclaimed in alarm. "Brace up, old
man!"
"I--I'm all right," said the Great Big Man with difficulty. "It's
nothing."
The Butcher patted him on the shoulder, and then drew his arm around the
little body. The Big Man put his head down and blubbered, just as though
he had been a little fellow, while his companion sat perplexed,
wondering what to do or say in the strange situation.
"So he's a little homesick, is he?" he said lamely.
"N-o-o," said the Great Big Man, "not just that; it's--it's all the
fellows I miss."
The Butcher was silent. He, too, began to understand that feeling; only
he, in his battling pride, resisted fiercely the weakness.
"You've got an uncle somewhere, haven't you, youngster?" he said gently.
"Doesn't he look after you in vacation-time?"
"I don't miss _him_," replied the Big Man, shaking his head. Then he
pulled himself together and said apologetically: "It's just being left
behind that makes me such a damned cry-baby."
"Youngster," said the Butcher, sternly, "your language is _at_-rocious.
Such words do not sound well in the mouth of a suckling of your size."
"I didn't mean to," said the Big Man, blushing.
"You must leave something to grow up for, young man," said the Butcher,
profoundly. "Now tell me about that uncle of yours. I don't fancy his
silhouette."
The Great Big Man, thus encouraged, poured out his lonely starved little
heart, while the Butcher listened sympathetically, feeling a certain
comfort in sitting with his arm around a little fellow-being. Not that
he was sensible of giving much comfort; his comments, he felt, were
certainly inadequate; nor did he measure in any way up to the situation.
"Now it's better, eh, Big Man?" he said at last when the little fellow
had stopped. "Does you sort of good to talk things out."
"Oh, yes; thank you, Butcher."
"All right, then, youngster."
"All right. I say, you--you don't ever feel that way, do you--homesick,
I mean?"
"Not much."
"You've got a home, haven't you?"
"Quite too much, young one. If they fire me, I'll keep away from there.
Strike out for myself."
"Of course, then, it's different."
"Young one," said the Butcher, suddenly, "that's not quite honest. If I
have to clear out of here, it will cut me up _con_-siderable."
"Honest?"
"A fact. I didn't know it before; but it will cut me up to strike out
and leave all this behind. I want another chance; and do you know why?"
"Why?"
"I'd like to make friends. Oh, I haven't got any real friends,
youngster; you needn't shake your head. It's my fault. I know it. You're
the first mortal soul who cared what became of me. All the rest are
thinking of the team."
"Now, Butcher----"
"Don't think I'm crying out!" said the Butcher, in instant alarm. "It's
all been up to me. Truth is, I've been too darned proud. But I'd like to
get another whack at it."
"Perhaps you will, Butcher."
"No, no, there's no reason why I should." The Butcher sat solemnly a
moment, flinging pebbles down into the dark tennis courts. Suddenly he
said: "Look here, Big Man, I'm going to give you some good advice."
"All right, Butcher."
"And I want you to tuck it away in your thinker--savez? You're a nice
kid now, a good sort, but you've got a lot of chances for being spoiled.
Don't get fresh. Don't get a swelled head just because a lot of the
older fellows let you play around. There's nothing so hateful in the
sight of God or man as a fresh kid."
"You don't think----" began the Big Man in dismay.
"No; you're all right now. You're quiet, and don't tag around, and
you're a good sort, darned if you aren't, and that's why I don't want to
see you spoiled. Now a straight question: Do you smoke?"
"Why, that is--well, Butcher, I did try once a puff on Snookers'
cigarette."
"You ought to be spanked!" said the Butcher, angrily. "And when I get
hold of Snookers, I'll tan him. The idea of his letting you! Don't you
monkey around tobacco yet a while. First of all, it's fresh, and second,
you've got to _grow_. You want to make a team, don't you, while you're
here?"
"O-o-h!" said the Great Big Man with a long sigh.
"Then just stick to growing, 'Cause you've got work cut out for you
there. Now I'm not preachin'; I'm saying that you want to fill out and
grow up and do something. Harkee."
"All right."
"Cut out Snookers and that gang. Pick out the fellows that count, as you
go along, and just remember this, if you forget the rest: if you want to
put ducks in Tabby's bed or nail down his desk, do it because _you_ want
to do it, not because some other fellow wants you to do it. D'ye hear?"
"Yes, Butcher."
"Remember that, youngster; if I'd stuck to it, I'd kept out of a peck of
trouble." He reflected a moment and added: "Then I'd study a little.
It's not a bad thing, I guess, in the long run, and it gets the masters
on your side. And now jump up, and we'll trot home."
The following night the Big Man, again under his tree, waited for the
result of the conference that was going on inside Foundation House
between the Doctor and the Butcher and Cap Kiefer. It was long, very
long. The minutes went slowly, and it was very dark there, with hardly a
light showing in the circle of houses that ordinarily seemed like a
procession of lighted ferry-boats. After an interminable hour, the
Butcher and Cap came out. He needed no word to tell what their
attitudes showed only too plainly: the Butcher was expelled!
The Big Man waited until the two had passed into the night, and then,
with a sudden resolve, went bravely to the doorbell and rang. Before he
quite appreciated the audacity of his act, he found himself in the
sanctum facing a much-perplexed head master.
"Doctor, I--I----" The Big Man stopped, overwhelmed by the awful majesty
of the Doctor, on whose face still sat the grimness of the past
conference.
"Well, Joshua, what's the matter?" said the head master, relaxing a bit
before one of his favorites.
"Please, sir, I'm a little--a little embarrassed, I'm afraid," said the
Great Big Man, desperately.
"Am I so terrible as all that?" said the Doctor, smiling.
"Yes, sir--you are," the Big Man replied frankly. Then he said, plunging
in, "Doctor, is the Butcher--is Stevens--are you going to--expel him?"
"That is my painful duty, Joshua," said the Doctor, frowning.
"Oh, Doctor," said the Big Man all in a breath, "you don't know--you're
making a mistake."
"I am? Why, Joshua?"
"Because--you don't know. Because the Butcher won't tell you, he's too
proud, sir; because he doesn't want to cry out, sir."
"What do you mean exactly?" said the Doctor in surprise. "Does Stevens
know you're here?"
"Oh, Heavens, no, sir!" said the Big Man in horror. "And you must never
tell him, sir; that would be too terrible."
"Joshua," said the Doctor, impressively, "I am expelling Stevens because
he is just the influence I don't want boys of your age to come under."
"Oh, yes, sir," said the Big Man, "I know you think that, sir; but
really, Doctor, that's where you are wrong; really you are, sir."
The Doctor saw there was something under the surface, and he encouraged
the little fellow to talk. The Big Man, forgetting all fear in the
seriousness of the situation, told the listening head master all the
Butcher's conversation with him on the chapel steps the night
before--told it simply and eloquently, with an ardor that bespoke
absolute faith. Then suddenly he stopped.
"That's all, sir," he said, frightened.
The Doctor rose and walked back and forth, troubled and perplexed. There
was no doubting the sincerity of the recital: it was a side of Stevens
he had not guessed. Finally he turned and rested his hand on the Big
Man's shoulders.
"Thank you," he said; "it does put another light on the question. I'll
think it over."
When, ten days later, the school came trickling home along the road from
vacation, they saw, against all hope, the Butcher holding down first
base, frolicking over the diamond in the old familiar way, and a great
shout of joy and relief went up. But how it had happened no one ever
knew, least of all Cap and the Butcher, who had gone from Foundation
House that night in settled despair.
To add to Butcher's mystification, the Doctor, in announcing his
reprieve, had added:
"I've decided to make a change, Stevens. I'm going to put Tibbetts in to
room with you. I place him in your charge. I'm going to try a little
responsibility on you."
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Reprinted by special permission from "The Prodigious Hickey."
Copyright, 1908, by Little, Brown and Company.
[B] The "shell" is the lowest class.
[Illustration]
II.--A Twilight Adventure[C]
_By Melville Davisson Post_
_A good many boys are fortunate in their "aunts"
and "uncles." Such a one was Martin with his
"Uncle Abner." The experiences they had together
down in the mountains of Virginia were very
remarkable, and often most desperate, as in the
case of the following story, but one of the many
set down by Martin, grown to be a man, in the book
from which this was taken. But, it's enough to
make you boys wish you, too, lived with an "Uncle
Abner" in a similar early Virginia settlement,
with the wild forests so near at hand._--THE
EDITOR.
IT was a strange scene that we approached. Before a crossroad leading
into a grove of beech trees, a man sat on his horse with a rifle across
his saddle. He did not speak until we were before him in the road, and
then his words were sinister.
"Ride on!" he said.
But my Uncle Abner did not ride on. He pulled up his big chestnut and
looked calmly at the man.
"You speak like one having authority," he said.
The man answered with an oath.
"Ride on, or you'll get into trouble!"
Abner's eyes traveled over the speaker with a deliberate scrutiny; then
he answered: "Are the roads of Virginia held by arms?"
"This one is," replied the man.
"I think not," replied my Uncle Abner, and, touching his horse with his
heel, he turned into the crossroad.
The man seized his weapon, and I heard the hammer click under his thumb.
Abner must have heard it, too, but he did not turn his broad back. He
only called to me in his usual matter-of-fact voice:
"Go on, Martin; I will overtake you."
The man brought his gun up to his middle, but he did not shoot. He was
like all those who undertake to command obedience without having first
determined precisely what they will do if their orders are disregarded.
He was prepared to threaten with desperate words, but not to support
that threat with a desperate act, and he hung there uncertain, cursing
under his breath.
I would have gone on as my uncle had told me to do, but now the man came
to a decision.
"No!" he said; "if he goes in, you go in, too!"
And he seized my bridle and turned my horse into the crossroad; then he
followed.
There is a long twilight in these hills. The sun departs, but the day
remains. A sort of weird, dim, elfin day, that dawns at sunset, and
envelops and possesses the world. The land is full of light, but it is
the light of no heavenly sun. It is a light equal everywhere, as though
the earth strove to illumine itself, and succeeded with that labor.
The stars are not yet out. Now and then a pale moon rides in the sky,
but it has no power, and the light is not from it. The wind is usually
gone; the air is soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like a
perfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by day
cease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt the
night begin. The bat swoops and circles in the maddest action, but
without a sound. The eye sees him, but the ear hears nothing. The
whippoorwill begins his plaintive cry, and one hears, but does not see.
It is a world that we do not understand, for we are creatures of the
sun, and we are fearful lest we come upon things at work here, of which
we have no experience, and that may be able to justify themselves
against our reason. And so a man falls into silence when he travels in
this twilight, and he looks and listens with his senses out on guard.
It was an old wagon-road that we entered, with the grass growing between
the ruts. The horses traveled without a sound until we began to enter a
grove of ancient beech trees; then the dead leaves cracked and rustled.
Abner did not look behind him, and so he did not know that I came. He
knew that some one followed, but he doubtless took it for the sentinel
in the road. And I did not speak.
The man with the cocked gun rode grimly behind me. I did not know
whither we went or to what end. We might be shot down from behind a tree
or murdered in our saddles. It was not a land where men took desperate
measures upon a triviality. And I knew that Abner rode into something
that little men, lacking courage, would gladly have stayed out of.
Presently my ear caught a sound, or, rather, a confused mingling of
sounds, as of men digging in the earth. It was faint, and some distance
beyond us in the heart of the beech woods, but as we traveled the sound
increased and I could distinguish the strokes of the mattock, and the
thrust of the shovel and the clatter of the earth on the dry leaves.
These sounds seemed at first to be before us, and then, a little later,
off on our right-hand. And finally, through the gray boles of the beech
trees in the lowland, I saw two men at work digging a pit. They had just
begun their work, for there was little earth thrown out. But there was a
great heap of leaves that they had cleared away, and heavy cakes of the
baked crust that the mattocks had pried up. The length of the pit lay at
right angles to the road, and the men were working with their backs
towards us. They were in their shirts and trousers, and the heavy
mottled shadows thrown by the beech limbs hovered on their backs and
shoulders like a flock of night birds. The earth was baked and hard; the
mattock rang on it, and among the noises of their work they did not hear
us.
I saw Abner look off at this strange labor, his head half turned, but he
did not stop and we went on. The old wagon-road made a turn into the low
ground. I heard the sound of horses, and a moment later we came upon a
dozen men.
I shall not easily forget that scene. The beech trees had been deadened
by some settler who had chopped a ring around them, and they stood gaunt
with a few tattered leaves, letting the weird twilight in. Some of the
men stood about, others sat on the fallen trees, and others in their
saddles. But upon every man of that grim company there was the air and
aspect of one who waits for something to be finished.
An old man with a heavy iron-gray beard smoked a pipe, puffing out great
mouthfuls of smoke with a sort of deliberate energy; another whittled a
stick, cutting a bull with horns, and shaping his work with the nicest
care; and still another traced letters on the pommel of his saddle with
his thumb-nail.
A little to one side a great pronged beech thrust out a gray arm, and
under it two men sat on their horses, their elbows strapped to their
bodies and their mouths gagged with a saddle-cloth. And behind them a
man in his saddle was working with a colt halter, unraveling the twine
that bound the head-piece and seeking thereby to get a greater length
of rope.
[Illustration: "SOME OF THE MEN STOOD ABOUT. BEHIND THEM TWO MEN SAT ON
THEIR HORSES, THEIR ELBOWS STRAPPED TO THEIR BODIES"]
This was the scene when I caught it first. But a moment later, when my
uncle rode into it, the thing burst into furious life. Men sprang up,
caught his horse by the bit and covered him with weapons. Some one
called for the sentinel who rode behind me, and he galloped up. For a
moment there was confusion. Then the big man who had smoked with such
deliberation called out my uncle's name, others repeated it, and the
panic was gone. But a ring of stern, determined faces were around him
and before his horse, and with the passing of the flash of action there
passed no whit of the grim purpose upon which these men were set.
My uncle looked about him.
"Lemuel Arnold," he said; "Nicholas Vance, Hiram Ward, you here!"
As my uncle named these men I knew them. They were cattle grazers. Ward
was the big man with the pipe. The men with them were their renters and
drovers.
Their lands lay nearest to the mountains. The geographical position made
for feudal customs and a certain independence of action. They were on
the border, they were accustomed to say, and had to take care of
themselves. And it ought to be written that they did take care of
themselves, with courage and decision, and on occasion they also took
care of Virginia.
Their fathers had pushed the frontier of the dominion northward and
westward and had held the land. They had fought the savage single-handed
and desperately, by his own methods and with his own weapons. Ruthless
and merciless, eye for eye and tooth for tooth, they returned what they
were given.
They did not send to Virginia for militia when the savage came; they
fought him at their doors, and followed him through the forest, and took
their toll of death. They were hardier than he was, and their hands were
heavier and bloodier, until the old men in the tribes of the Ohio Valley
forbade these raids because they cost too much, and turned the war
parties south into Kentucky.
Certain historians have written severely of these men and their ruthless
methods, and prattled of humane warfare; but they wrote nursing their
soft spines in the security of a civilization which these men's hands
had builded, and their words are hollow.
"Abner," said Ward, "let me speak plainly. We have got an account to
settle with a couple of cattle thieves and we are not going to be
interfered with. Cattle stealing and murder have got to stop in these
hills. We've had enough of it."
"Well," replied my uncle, "I am the last man in Virginia to interfere
with that. We have all had enough of it, and we are all determined that
it must cease. But how do you propose to end it?"
"With a rope," said Ward.
"It is a good way," replied Abner, "when it is done the right way."
"What do you mean by the right way?" said Ward.
"I mean," answered my uncle, "that we have all agreed to a way and we
ought to stick to our agreement. Now, I want to help you to put down
cattle stealing and murder, but I want also to keep my word."
"And how have you given your word?"
"In the same way that you have given yours," said Abner, "and as every
man here has given his. Our fathers found out that they could not manage
the assassin and the thief when every man undertook to act for himself,
so they got together and agreed upon a certain way to do these things.
Now, we have indorsed what they agreed to, and promised to obey it, and
I for one would like to keep my promise."
The big man's face was puzzled. Now it cleared.
"You mean the law?"
"Call it what you like," replied Abner; "it is merely the agreement of
everybody to do certain things in a certain way."
The man made a decisive gesture with a jerk of his head.
"Well," he said, "we're going to do this thing our own way."
My uncle's face became thoughtful.
"Then," he said, "you will injure some innocent people."
"You mean these two blacklegs?"
And Ward indicated the prisoners with a gesture of his thumb.
My uncle lifted his face and looked at the two men some distance away
beneath the great beech, as though he had but now observed them.
"I was not thinking of them," he answered. "I was thinking that if men
like you and Lemuel Arnold and Nicholas Vance violate the law, lesser
men will follow your example, and as you justify your act for security,
they will justify theirs for revenge and plunder. And so the law will go
to pieces and a lot of weak and innocent people who depend upon it for
security will be left unprotected."
These were words that I have remembered, because they put the danger of
lynch law in a light I had not thought of. But I saw that they would not
move these determined men. Their blood was up and they received them
coldly.
"Abner," said Ward, "we are not going to argue this thing with you.
There are times when men have to take the law into their own hands. We
live here at the foot of the mountain. Our cattle are stolen and run
across the border into Maryland. We are tired of it and we intend to
stop it.
"Our lives and our property are menaced by a set of reckless desperate
devils that we have determined to hunt down and hang to the first tree
in sight. We did not send for you. You pushed your way in here; and now,
if you are afraid of breaking the law, you can ride on, because we are
going to break it--if to hang a pair of murderous devils is to break
it."
I was astonished at my uncle's decision.
"Well," he said, "if the law must be broken, I will stay and help you
break it!"
"Very well," replied Ward; "but don't get a wrong notion in your head,
Abner. If you choose to stay, you put yourself on a footing with
everybody else."
"And that is precisely what I want to do," replied Abner, "but as
matters stand now, every man here has an advantage over me."
"What advantage, Abner?" said Ward.
"The advantage," answered my uncle, "that he has heard all the evidence
against your prisoners and is convinced that they are guilty."