FRANK AND HIS FRIENDS.
The band played two pieces in front of the Thalia Theater. The man who
was handling the “fierce and untamed bloodhounds” skillfully succeeded
in getting all three of them into a fight, appearing nearly frightened
to death over it. The donkey walked into the midst of the dogs and
separated them by taking the aggressor in his teeth and pulling him
away, and Barnaby Haley was well satisfied with the advertising he would
receive on account of all this.
Frank, looking on, understood that the same things happened in nearly
every town visited by the company.
The donkey was to be taken into the theater by the stage entrance, but
Hans found a chance to say to Frank:
“Shust vait here till dot theater comes oudt uf me. I vill peen righdt
pack a minute in.”
Ephraim induced one of the musicians to take charge of his horn, and
remained with Frank.
Hans soon reappeared.
“Now shust you took dot tinner to me,” invited the Dutch lad. “I pelief
a square meal can eadt me a minute in.”
“Eat!” cried the Vermont lad. “Why, that Dutch sausage can eat any gol
darn time an’ all the gol darn time! Never see northing like him in all
my born days.”
“Oh, shust shut yourseluf ub!” cried Hans, quickly. “Your mouth dalks
too much mit you. You don’d peen no ganary pird to eadt. You vos aple to
ged der oudtside uf a whole lot.”
“Waal, b’gosh! these air howtels we stop at some of um have pritty
blamed poor grub,” confessed the Yankee youth. “Their beefsteak is made
of luther, an’ their bread might be bought up by ther loaf an’ used fer
pavin’-stuns on the streets.”
“Well, I think I’ll be able to give you something to eat that you can
digest, but you mustn’t expect too much.”
“We kin eat any old thing with you, Frank,” declared Ephraim. “Why, when
we was campin’ aout at Fardale last summer we hed appetites like hosses,
an’ it didn’t make no diffrunce whut there was to eat, we jest et it.”
“Yaw,” nodded Hans; “und some uf der things vot vasn’t to eadt we shust
eated all der same.”
“But naow we want yeou to tell us haow it happens yeou are here, Frank,”
urged Ephraim, as they walked along together.
Frank, who had formerly been a schoolmate of the boys at Fardale
Academy, after which he had gone to Yale, briefly explained that he had
been forced to leave college on account of the loss of his fortune, and
was now making his own way in the world. The boys knew he had left
college, but they had not heard he was working on a railroad. Both were
astonished.
“Darn my turnups!” cried Ephraim.
“Shimminy Gristmas!” gurgled Hans.
“Whut yeou been doin’ on the railroad?”
“Running an engine,” explained Merry.
“Runnin’ it? Haow?”
“Engineer.”
“Vot?” gasped Hans.
“Come off!” palpitated Ephraim.
“I have come off,” smiled Frank. “I am out of a job now.”
“Haow is that?”
“Railroad made a reduction of wages, there was a strike, big fight over
it, rival road scooped all the business, my road went to pieces.”
“An’ naow—whut?”
“The rival road has scooped the road I worked on—absorbed it. A lot of
old engineers have taken the places of the men who used to run on the
Blue Mountain road. I’ve been trying for a show, but I’m so young they
don’t want to give me anything. Looks like I’d have to get out of here
and strike for something somewhere else.”
“Waal, that’s too darn bad!” drawled Ephraim, sympathetically. “But
haow’d you ever git to be ingineer, anyhaow?”
“Worked my way up. Began as engine-wiper in the roundhouse, got to be
fireman, then engineer. Right there came the trouble, and now I’m on the
rocks.”
The eyes of the Vermonter glistened.
“If the hanged old railroad hadn’t went up the spaout, you’d bin runnin’
that in a year!” he cried.
“Yaw,” nodded Hans.
“Yeou’re a hummer!” declared Ephraim. “Yeou’ve got lots of git there in
ye, an’ that’s whut does the trick. But I swan to man, it must have
seemed tough to yeou to have to git right aout an’ work like a Trojan.”
“Yaw,” put in the Dutch boy. “Vork nefer had nottinks to done mit you
pefore dot.”
“I don’t see haow yeou brought yerself to it.”
Frank looked grave and not exactly pleased.
“I have always expected to work when the time came,” he asserted. “I
hope you didn’t suppose for a moment that I was going to spend my life
in idleness?”
“Oh, no, no!” the Vermonter hastily cried; “but yeou wan’t reddy. Yeou
was in college an’ havin’ a slappin’ good time. It was mighty rough to
have ter break right off from that all to once an’ git out an’ dig fer a
livin’.”
“Well,” said Merry, slowly, “I will admit that it was not pleasant at
first; but I made up my mind that it was to be done, and I went at it
heartily. After a time, I came to enjoy it as I never enjoyed anything
before.”
“Whut! Yeou don’t mean to say yeou liked it better than playin’
baseball?”
“Yes!”
“Jee-roo-sa-lum!”
“Better than anything. Work is the greatest sport in the world, for it
is a game at which one plays to win the prize of his life. The winning
of all other games are tame in comparison with this. It draws out the
best qualities in a man, it tests him as nothing else can. Oh, yes, work
is the champion sport, and success is the prize for which all earnest
workers strive. The man who shirks and fears honest work can never
succeed in the world. Determined men will push him aside, and he will be
with the losers at the end of the great game.”
Ephraim Gallup clapped Frank on the shoulder familiarly.
“Yeou are yerself, b’gosh!” he cried. “I kin see that yeou are soberer
an’ stiddyer, but yeou are Frank Merriwell jest the same. Yeou was alwus
sayin’ things like that that no other feller ever thought to say. There
ain’t no danger but yeou’ll be with the winner in this game yeou’re
talkin’ abaout.”
“Uf der vinners don’d peen mit him they vill peen der wrong side on,”
asserted Hans.
“Come in here,” he said, “and I will introduce you to a particular
friend.”
He led them into the small fruit and cigar store in front of which he
had been standing when the donkey ran away from Hans.
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