THE CLUB MENDED.
"Then the club is all broken up?"
"Yes," said Charlie, mournfully.
"How did it happen?"
"You see, Will"--every body called the apothecary's clerk Will--"we had a
school and Sid kept it, and he licked the fellers, and they couldn't stand
it."
"I see."
"But I think Sid wanted to make up."
"And it was easier for him to make up than for the boys who had got the
lickings, was it?"
"I guess it was," said Charlie, laughing.
"Too bad to be broken up!"
"Yes," and Charlie's laugh was turning to a cry.
"You didn't think of the notice stuck up on the post, 'No cross words?'"
"Why, no! I know I forgot all about it."
"I don't believe your teacher, Miss Barry, will be pleased to know of the
quarrel, as she is a kind, good-natured lady, and makes folks kind to one
another."
"I 'spose she wont like it."
"Wouldn't you like to have your broken club mended?"
"Yes, yes," replied Charlie, excitedly. "How?"
"There is one way to do it and fix all things right again." As Will spoke
he also attended to his breakfast, interjecting his words amid sips of
coffee and mouthfuls of Aunt Stanshy's flaky biscuit. He was hungry, as he
had been out before breakfast in answer to a furious alarm of fire.
"You see, when a club is in pieces, that it may be mended again, each
piece must resolve to do what it can toward a coming together again. Will
you?"
"Yes, I will."
"There's one. Who is the next one to bring round, the next piece of club
to make willing to be joined to the rest?"
"I guess Wort feels about as stuffy as any one. There he is out in the
lane now."
"Is he? Go, get him."
The "stuffy" splinter of the club was brought in. Will had disappeared,
but soon came back to the table, bringing from his room a neat, white
package of--Charlie's curious eyes could not guess what.
"Art you Wort Wentworth?" asked Will.
"Yes."
"I have some candy for you."
Here the apothecary displayed various long, dainty sticks of candy,
exceedingly toothsome in their looks. There were checkerberry-pipe and
licorice-pipe and sassafras-pipe, and--how Wort's eyes did glisten and his
mouth water as he imagined the different kinds there!
Will did not forget, to Charlie's joy, that another boy present had also
several sweet teeth. Having sweetened up Wort's disposition, Will said,
"You and Charlie will now do me a favor, won't you?"
"I will," said Charlie, eagerly, who had great admiration for the
apothecary, but might possibly have been moved also by great love for his
candy.
"And I will," said Wort, determined not to be outdone by Charlie.
"Well, now, the club that has been broken is going to be mended, and you
two will forgive and forget, wont you?"
"I will," declared Charlie, promptly.
Wort hesitated.
"Take this while you are thinking," said Will, pressing into Wort's hands
an extra large piece of rose-pipe.
As he took it, Wort growled, "Sid began it."
"But will you end it if Sid is willing to make up? You wont hold out?"
"N--n--o."
"There is Sid!" said Charlie.
"Where?"
"Going along the lane, that boy with a blue cap on."
"You two stay here, and tell Aunt Stanshy, Charlie, that I'll be back soon
to finish my breakfast," and away went Will, without a hat, a cake of
bread in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other.
"If that fellow isn't the greatest! He would leave a funeral in just that
way if the impulse took him," declared Aunt Stanshy, watching him from the
window, and secretly admiring him. "What a boy! He makes lots of trouble
for me, O dear!"
"Aint he funny?" asked Wort.
"Funny?" replied Aunt Stanshy, who did not intend that any one else should
depreciate her idol. "Funny? of course not."
All this time Will was chasing Sid, who was heading up the lane and was
about entering Water Street. Sid was in a hurry, and unaware that he was
wanted by any one in the lane, had broken into a run; but Will had run to
so many fires that he was equal to this emergency and overtook Sid, laying
a hand on his shoulder.
"What do you want?" asked Sid. "I want to catch that man ahead there and
borrow his clam-digger."
"Come back to the house with me a little while."
Any of the club boys would do any thing for Will, and Sid turned.
"Good-morning, Mr. Somers."
Will turned his head, so covered with wilfully curly hair. In his hand
were the bread and cheese still. He blushed as he said, "Good-morning,
Miss Barry."
"Whew," he said to himself, "the teacher has caught me now!"
Several people indeed "caught" Will Somers, in that way, that morning, and
wondered what he was doing, running bare-headed. He carried his point,
though, captured Sid, and led him back to the house.
"Now, Sid," exclaimed Will, on his way to Aunt Stanshy's "there has been
trouble in the Up-the-Ladder Club, I learn, and I want to fix it up, and
you will help me, will you not?"
"O yes," replied Sid, whose nature was not a hard and implacable one.
"Wort is at the house, and you are willing to say you are sorry you hurt
him, and you want to make up and be good friends?"
"O yes."
When Will entered the house with his prize, the two met Wort face to face.
"I want these two knights to make up and be good friends again, because it
is all foolish and wrong, you know, holding out against one another," said
Will.
The two boys eyed one another, Sid grinning, Wort looking sulky and
foolish.
"Wort," said the late principal of the academy, "I am sorry I hurt you. I
didn't mean to do it, but I suppose I was too anxious to keep up the
discipline of the school, and I got agoing, you know. Let's shake hands
and be friends."
Wort hesitated.
"You ought to do that," said Will. "Shake hands, Wort," and as he spoke he
carelessly but effectively waved a stick of sassafras-pipe in Wort's
sight. It is one of the most potent sticks that can be used for a boy's
"_licking_."
"Well, I will," said Wort, "and I didn't mean to hurt you;" unwilling that
Sid should be the only one thought able to inflict an injury.
"I now announce," said Will, "that soon as possible, I shall take every
boy down to Sandy Beach for an afternoon's fun; that is, every knight who
makes up."
This had a magical effect. All the disaffected knights followed the
example of Sid and Wort, "making up" and joining the beach-party. The
excursionists had a capital time on that occasion, and returned in such a
frame of mind that it could be considered as settled that the club, once
in splinters, was now mended.
The boys, on the subsequent Sunday, told Miss Barry that there had been a
quarrel, but, added Sid, "It is all fixed now."
"I am very glad there has been a reconciliation," replied Miss Barry. "If
there had been none, I should have felt that you were going down and not
up the ladder. In our play we can be moving up, and reconciliation is a
round in the ladder."