STANLEY CAMPBELL.
“ARE you going to be busy this afternoon, Campbell?” asked Lieutenant
Wilde, as they came out from dinner one Saturday noon.
“Nothing special,” answered Stanley. “Is there anything I can do for
you?”
“I wondered whether you would be willing to go over to the laboratory,
and help me get ready for one or two experiments that I want to show the
class Monday morning. Don’t come, if you’ve anything else on hand.”
“I haven’t a thing,” said Stanley eagerly. “Really, I’d like no better
fun.”
“Well, I’m going over at half-past two. Will you be over there? Or come
to my room for me, if you like. I have a letter to write first.” And
Irving Wilde turned away to go to his room, while Stanley joined a group
of cadets who were standing in the hall, to discuss their plans for
making the best of a stormy Saturday afternoon.
Punctually at half-past two o’clock, Stanley and Lieutenant Wilde were
walking across the grounds to the recitation hall. It was a dreary, raw
day, with a heavy rain beating down, splashing on the paved walks and
soaking the earth until little dark gray pools of snow and water lay
here and there, while an occasional patch of brown, dead grass came up
through its white covering. But if it was cold and dismal outside, the
little laboratory was warm and comfortable enough to make up for it, and
Stanley gave his favorite inarticulate grunt of content as he hung up
his dripping cap and overcoat beside Lieutenant Wilde’s. It was no
hardship for him to have to help Lieutenant Wilde that day. The two were
excellent friends, and the lieutenant had often admitted to himself that
he found no one of the cadets more companionable than this silent, slow
boy of fourteen. Though Stanley might lack the brilliancy of Max or
Leon, and had to work far longer at his lessons than many another boy,
yet he never stopped until he understood his subject to its foundations,
and knowledge so thoroughly gained was never lost. No skimming over the
top of things, no hasty cramming would satisfy Stanley Campbell. He must
and would know his subject through and through, before it could make any
lasting impression on his mind. No matter, then, that when any test
came, he was found to lead his class. Such boys as Stanley go far
towards making the solid men who are much more the real leaders of the
nation, than the brilliant talkers and thinkers that float lightly along
on the surface of events but, like all other driftwood, lodge and stick
fast when they come to a rock in their passage. And moreover, silent and
unresponsive as Stanley was generally thought to be, Lieutenant Wilde
and his intimate boy friends knew him better. True, the lad could not
talk easily, partly from shyness, partly from utter inability to rattle
off the random nonsense which was the delight of the other boys; but,
under all his outward reserve, he kept up a strong interest in the
conversation, and his face would grow merry or soften by turns, and
often he would give the speaker a quick glance of understanding at some
little point, too slight to catch the notice of his companions. But
however silent he might be in general, he was always at his ease with
Lieutenant Wilde who saw and appreciated the real fineness of his mind,
and predicted a broad and honorable future for the lad.
“I haven’t so very much to do, after all; only a few sulphur
experiments,” remarked Lieutenant Wilde, with a laugh, as he began
setting out an array of flasks and beakers and rubber and glass tubes,
on the long, broad desk which ran across one side of the room. “I’m
afraid, if the truth were told, Campbell, I wanted your company more
than I did your help, this afternoon. Still, you may light the gas
there, if you will.”
Stanley did so, and then stood watching his teacher as he scientifically
linked together his flasks and tubes, now mixing innocent-looking
substances with a practised hand, now applying the flame to this
compound, or adding a few drops of acid to that.
“There,” he said, after looking closely at one of them for a moment;
“that will begin to work now. Bring up a couple of stools, Stanley; we
may as well make ourselves comfortable, for all we can do at present is
to watch this. I wanted to see that they were all in order for next
time, and not have them fail me, as my chlorine experiment did. Do you
know,” he added, with an anxious frown; “I am a little suspicious of
some of these last chemicals.”
“Why?” asked Stanley, as he seated himself astride his lofty stool.
“They don’t act just right, and I’m not at all sure that they are pure.
Still, they came from the same house that always supplies us, and they
must be good.” And Lieutenant Wilde bent his head, to look more closely
at the bubbling mixture.
“What if they aren’t pure?” inquired Stanley.
“Oh, they may explode; that’s the worst they can do,” said Lieutenant
Wilde, laughing at the boy’s dismayed face and involuntary motion away
from the desk. “You needn’t worry, Campbell,” he added reassuringly; “I
think these are probably all they ought to be.”
“I wonder how I’d like to be a chemist,” remarked Stanley thoughtfully.
“You have rather a gift for it,” responded Lieutenant Wilde, resting one
elbow on the desk, while he twirled his glasses by their bows, in the
other hand.
“I’m afraid I haven’t much gift for anything,” said Stanley, and there
was a little tone of regret in his voice, as he went on, “I wish I could
get at things as quick as Max does. It seems as if he knew everything,
without studying it at all. He’s an awfully bright fellow, Lieutenant
Wilde.”
“Yes,” assented Lieutenant Wilde absently. He was mentally weighing the
two boys, as unlike as boys could be.
They were silent for a few moments. Lieutenant Wilde could see that the
boy had something on his mind. He moved restlessly on his stool, while
he leaned his elbows on the desk in front of him, and fitted the
knuckles of his left hand against the knuckles of his right, with a
frowning precision. When he looked up, it was to meet his teacher’s
steady, inquiring gaze, and his face suddenly brightened, showing one
little dimple in his smooth, round chin.
“Well, Stanley?” said Lieutenant Wilde; laughing.
“Well?”
“You’ve something in your head; out with it!”
“How do you know?” asked Stanley rather abruptly, surprised at being
found out.
“How did I know? Why, everything about you tells it, except your tongue,
so that may as well speak,” answered Lieutenant Wilde, smiling as he
watched the boy’s face.
“I believe you do know everything, Lieutenant Wilde,” said Stanley.
“You’ve told me so much, you’d better finish, and say what it’s about?”
“Is it about Max?”
Stanley nodded.
“There’s nothing wrong with him, I hope.”
“No, I don’t know as there is; at least, nothing special. No, there
isn’t really,” answered Stanley, who had a curious habit of thinking
aloud, whenever he was much absorbed.
“What is it, Stanley?” asked Lieutenant Wilde quite seriously.
“It really isn’t anything; honestly, Lieutenant Wilde,” said Stanley,
supporting his chin on his hands and looking straight into his teacher’s
face. “I truly hadn’t any business to say anything, for I’ve most likely
imagined it all; but you caught me by taking me by surprise.”
“You’ve gone so far, Campbell,” said Lieutenant Wilde, as he moved to
light the gas under another flask; “that it isn’t quite fair to Max not
to talk it over and let me judge whether or not you have imagined some
trouble that isn’t there. Come,” he added persuasively; “you ought to be
able to trust me with it, Stanley. Have you boys been having a quarrel,
or has Max been shirking his work?”
“Neither,” replied Stanley. “It can’t do any harm to talk about it to
you, Lieutenant Wilde; it’s only this, have you noticed how Max is
getting in with Osborn and his set, lately?”
Lieutenant Wilde suddenly became very grave, and frowned a little, as he
sat with his eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window across the room. Of
late, Osborn and his friends had been causing Dr. Flemming more anxiety
than all the rest of his pupils. Their increasing disregard of
discipline and reckless extravagance threw little credit upon the
school, while their influence upon the other boys was far from helpful.
As they did just enough work to keep their place in their classes, and
were wary enough to avoid any open outbreak, there seemed to be no
reasonable excuse for sending them away from Flemming. But though the
doctor always hesitated about open expulsion, since he knew well how
difficult it would be for a pupil whom he had dismissed, to gain
admission anywhere else, yet he was only waiting till the end of the
year, to give them a quiet hint to leave Flemming, in search of another
school.
“I hadn’t thought of it,” Lieutenant Wilde answered, after considering
the matter for a moment. “Isn’t Max with your set, as much as he used to
be?”
“I don’t know but he is,” replied Stanley; “only ’tisn’t in just the
same way. He’s all the time running off to see some of them. I’m not a
bit jealous, Lieutenant Wilde,” and Stanley laughed uneasily; “but they
aren’t a good kind of fellows for Max to be with.”
“That’s very true, Stanley,” responded Lieutenant Wilde quickly;
“they’re the worst possible friends for an impulsive, good-natured boy
like Max, for he’s easily led, and before he knows it, they’ll get him
into trouble. How long has it been going on?”
“All this term. He’s with us a great deal of the time; but he and Osborn
are both training for the ninety-two crew, and besides, since the boys
started the quartette, that takes Louis and Leon and Paul and Alex, with
Harry for the banjo, and it sort of leaves Max by himself. Then he
doesn’t have to study nearly so much as the rest of us do; that gives
him more chance for fun, and so he takes up with them. They’re a jolly
set and make it lively for him; you see, they want to hang on to him,
for they know he’s in with the Arnolds and Alex and those fellows that
won’t have anything to do with them. I don’t think Max is to blame; but
he may get into a scrape, for all that, for they’re a reckless crowd,
and Max is always ready for a joke,” explained Stanley, not very
lucidly.
Lieutenant Wilde stroked his silky moustache and bit his lip
thoughtfully.
“I don’t quite like it, Campbell,” he said; “and I am very glad you
spoke of it. I’ll try to get a word with Max before long, and see if I
can’t break it up.”
“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Stanley hastily.
“Don’t you be afraid, I won’t say anything about you. I only want to
caution him, as I have all of you, over and over again, to be careful in
choosing his friends. Max is a magnificent fellow and would never mean
to go wrong; but he is so fond of fun that he loses his head a little
sometimes, and I will just put him on his guard, that’s all.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Lieutenant Wilde said, with one
of his frank, boyish laughs, as he put on his glasses and leaned forward
to survey the compound before him,—
“Do you know, Stanley, that I make myself think now and then of a
Japanese juggler with his balls, when he is throwing them up by turns,
to keep them all in the air. It’s just about the way I have to do with
you boys, first one of you, then another, to keep you going the way I
want you to. It would be ever so much easier for me, if I didn’t care
about you and just let you go on in your own way; but I hate to see you
go wrong, so I have to put in my word occasionally. Perhaps we’re all
the better friends for it, though, and—I’ll see if I can’t give Max a
little start, to set him straight once more. Now,” he went on, “I must
see to this. Will you just hand me the largest flask you can find in
that closet over there?”
Stanley slid down from his high stool and went across to the closet,
while Lieutenant Wilde hastily pushed aside the low gas-burner, with its
flaring jet of colorless flame. The boy stood behind the half-open door,
comparing two or three of the flasks before him, when he heard an
ominous click and a short, sharp exclamation from Lieutenant Wilde. The
next instant, the room echoed with a loud explosion which jarred the
windows and doors in their casements, and set every flask and funnel to
dancing on its shelf; there was a rush of suffocating vapor that filled
the room and, catching fire where it was densest, blazed up in a dull
blue flame about the desk. Then came that sickening sound, the thud of a
heavily-falling body. For one moment, Stanley stood as if dazed by the
report; but it was for only one. Then this boy who was counted as slow
by his friends, returned to his senses and, only conscious that some
accident had occurred and that there was need of prompt action, turned
to see Lieutenant Wilde lying senseless on the floor, below the desk
which appeared to be enveloped in a mass of flame. It was but the work
of an instant to leap forward, turn off the gas, then rush to the
nearest window and throw it open with an unconscious force which
shattered the glass; only an instant, but it showed the stuff of which
the lad was made, and proved his ability to think and act quickly in an
emergency that would have paralyzed many an older person. From window to
window he hurried, throwing them wide open to let in the cool outer air,
then back to his teacher’s side, where he stooped to look at him closely
and steadily, though his heart sickened at the sight.
Lieutenant Wilde lay in the same cramped position in which he had
dropped when the rush of gas had stifled him; his eyebrows and moustache
were burned half off, and his face was cut here and there with the bits
of flying glass. For a minute, the boy’s courage failed, but he quickly
nerved himself again, when he remembered that they were alone in the
building and that immediate aid must be summoned. No calling would do,
for the boys were all inside the house, and the noise of the storm would
drown the sound of his voice. But, on the other hand, dared he leave
Lieutenant Wilde? He might then be dying, or even dead. Desperately he
tore off his coat, rolled it into a sort of pillow and arranged it under
the young man’s head. Then he rushed away, bareheaded and in his shirt
sleeves, through the cold, drizzling rain, down to the doctor’s house.
The doctor met him on the steps, for he had heard the explosion, and,
seeing him coming in this strange plight, he at once imagined some
serious trouble, an impression increased at sight of the boy’s drawn,
ash-colored face.
“Come quick—to the laboratory—Lieutenant Wilde!” panted Stanley
breathlessly.
The doctor turned to his wife, who had followed him out to the piazza.
“Send Maggie for Mr. Boniface,” he said briefly; “you stay here till I
send you some word.” And he hurried away up the hill after Stanley, who
had rushed back to the laboratory again.
When the doctor entered the laboratory, his nephew had opened his eyes
and was breathing with short, quick gasps, as he lay with his head and
shoulders supported on Stanley’s knees, while the boy bent over him,
anxiously gazing down, in the hope of receiving a glance of recognition.
In as few words as possible, Stanley told what had occurred, adding
pleadingly,—
“I did what I could, sir, and then called you,” as if fearing he might
in some way be blamed for the explosion.
“I know you did,” said the doctor heartily, just as Mr. Boniface came in
the room. “I don’t quite like the looks here, though,” he added, as
Lieutenant Wilde’s eyes closed heavily again, and he gave a little moan.
“Campbell, you’ve run enough, but I shall have to ask you to go and send
either Keith or Lincoln for the doctor, and then tell Mrs. Flemming what
has happened and to be ready for us to bring him down to the house, as
soon as he can be moved. Tell her to keep you there and look out for you
a little,” he went on kindly, as he noticed the hard, strained lines
about the boy’s white lips.
“Do you think he—?” faltered Stanley.
“I can’t tell yet,” interrupted the doctor, as if unwilling to hear the
words; “but if he comes out of this, he has you to thank. Go now,
please.”
The news had already flown through the school, and as Stanley went down
the hill, with his coat thrown carelessly over his shoulders, he was
waylaid and questioned by group after group of his schoolmates who had
rushed out, anxious to learn the truth, even at its worst. But Stanley
only answered with a word or two, and hastened on to give his messages
for, now that the reaction had come, he felt strangely weak and sick.
The rest of the afternoon was to him like a long, confused dream: the
half hour of anxious waiting, when kind Mrs. Flemming, in the midst of
her dread and her hurry, made him lie down on the sofa and take the
stimulant of which he stood so sorely in need; then the sound of heavy
steps as the doctor and Mr. Boniface, Jack and Alex brought the young
man into the house and up to the room which Mrs. Flemming had made ready
for him; then the quick trot of the doctor’s horse, as he came hurrying
up the hill; all the stir throughout the house, that comes with any
sudden illness. Then followed the dreadful stillness, when the old
doctor went into the room and the door closed behind him, and Stanley,
Alex and Jack sat on the stairs outside, listening oh! so intently for
any sound that might tell them what was passing within. They did not
speak, not even to whisper a syllable to each other, but sat silently
gazing at the opposite wall, in an agony of waiting. No harm to one of
their schoolmates, to Mr. Boniface, or even to the doctor himself could
have moved them as did this sudden fear of losing Lieutenant Wilde. They
felt as if they had never before appreciated him; and in their minds,
they were going over and over again the many pleasant hours they had
spent together, with a vague feeling that it all was ended now.
But someone was moving in the room, and now and then a low voice could
be heard. Then all was still again; but presently the door opened and
Mr. Boniface came out. He was smiling a little, and to the anxious lads,
his homely face looked like the face of an angel of light, as he came
down to them and seated himself at Stanley’s side.
“It’s not so bad as we thought,” he said, in a low tone. “He was stunned
by the explosion and half-suffocated with the gas; but he’s come to
himself now, and the doctor says the worst is over. He’s badly cut with
the glass, and burned; but his spectacles saved his eyes, and the rest
is painful, rather than dangerous, so it won’t be long till he’s as well
as ever.”
As Stanley gave a deep sigh of relief, Mr. Boniface put his hand on his
shoulder, while he went on,—
“And the doctor, Dr. Rowe, I mean, says that if this boy hadn’t kept his
wits about him as he did, we shouldn’t have had Lieutenant Wilde with us
now. Nothing but his quick thought in turning off the gas and letting in
more air, could have saved him. We can’t thank you, Campbell; but we can
congratulate you, and admire you for the part you have played. And now I
must leave you to tell the others, while I go back up-stairs. Don’t let
the boys make any noise outside, for they want Lieutenant Wilde to get
to sleep.” And he quietly left them.
“You’re the hero of the school, Stan,” said Jack, as the boys stood up,
with a queer, dizzy feeling, now that their anxiety was at an end.
“I knew you had it in you, though,” added Alex, as they put on their
caps. “There isn’t another fellow in Flemming that would have done as
well, and I’m proud to call you a friend of mine.”
And they went away to tell the good news.
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