HARRY HARDING
--_Messenger “45”_
_By_
ALFRED RAYMOND
[Illustration: _The_
GOLDSMITH
_Publishing Co._
CLEVELAND OHIO
MADE IN U.S.A.]
_Copyright 1917, by_
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A MENACE TO THE SCHOOL 1
II ON THE TRAIL OF A JOB 9
III AN ANXIOUS MOMENT 27
IV A SURPRISE AND A DISAPPOINTMENT 37
V FRIENDS AND FOES 51
VI AT THE END OF THE DAY 67
VII TEDDY COMES INTO HIS OWN 75
VIII THE RECRUITS TO COMPANY A 81
IX THE BITTERNESS OF INJUSTICE 95
X BREAKERS AHEAD FOR HARRY 105
XI TEDDY BURKE DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF 116
XII A DISASTROUS COMBAT 122
XIII THE MEASURE OF A MAN 129
XIV THE PRICE OF HONESTY 138
XV A FATEFUL GAME OF CATCH 148
XVI ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK 158
XVII THE SINGER AND THE SONG 169
XVIII CONFIDENCES 178
XIX THE BELATED DAWN 185
XX TEDDY’S TRIUMPH 191
XXI GETTING EVEN WITH THE GOBBLER 202
XXII A DISTURBING CONVERSATION 213
XXIII HARRY PAYS HIS DEBT 224
XXIV WRITING THE WELCOME ADDRESS 239
XXV COMMENCEMENT 250
HARRY HARDING--_Messenger “45”_
CHAPTER I
A MENACE TO THE SCHOOL
“I _will_ drown and no one _shall_ help me,” announced Miss Alton
defiantly.
The first class in English accepted this remarkable statement in
absolute silence, their eyes fixed on their teacher. As she stood
high and dry on the platform, facing her class, there seemed little
possibility of such a catastrophe overtaking her, therefore, they
knitted their wise young brows, not in fear of her demise by drowning,
but in puzzled worry over the intricacies of shall and will.
“I _will_ drown,” repeated Miss Alton firmly, “and no one----”
“Oh-h-h!” a piercing shriek rent the grammar-laden air. As though
about to prove her declaration, Miss Alton made a sudden dive off the
platform that carried her half-way up an aisle toward the immediate
vicinity of that anguished voice.
The first class in grammar immediately forgot the uses of shall and
will and twisted about on their benches to view their teacher’s hurried
progress toward the scene of action.
“It’s Teddy Burke,” muttered a boy to his nearest classmate. “Wonder
what he’s done.”
Miss Alton had now brought up between two seats at the rear of the
room. In one of them sat a little girl, her head buried in her arms.
Directly opposite her sat a red-haired boy. His thin face wore an
expression of deep disgust, but his big black eyes were dancing with
mischief. As the teacher approached, he made an ineffectual dive toward
a grayish object on the floor. Miss Alton was too quick for him. She
stooped, uttered a half-horrified exclamation, then gathered the object
in. It was a most terrifying imitation of a snake, made of rubber, and
coiled realistically.
“Theodore Burke, what does this mean?” she demanded, holding out the
snake and glaring at the offender.
The little girl raised her head from her arms and eyed the culprit with
reproachful horror. “He put it on my seat,” she accused. “I thought it
was alive, and it scared me awful.” Her voice rose to a wail on the
last word.
“This is too much. You’ve gone just a little too far, young man. Come
with me.” Miss Alton stood over the red-haired lad, looking like a
grim figure of Justice.
The boy shot a glance of withering scorn at his tearful victim, then
rose from his seat.
Grasping him none too gently by the arm, Miss Alton piloted him down
the aisle and out of the door. It closed with a resounding bang.
A buzz of conversation began in the big schoolroom. Two or three
little girls left their seats and gathered about the heroine of the
disquieting adventure, while half a dozen boys of the eighth grade of
the West Park Grammar School put their heads together to discuss this
latest bit of mischief on the part of their leader and idol, Teddy
Burke.
Meanwhile, Teddy, of the black eyes and Titian hair, was being marched
rapidly toward the principal’s office.
Miss Alton flung open the door and ushered him into the august presence
of Mr. Waldron, the principal, with, “Here is an incorrigible boy, Mr.
Waldron.”
The principal, a short, stern-faced man, adjusted his eye-glasses and
stared hard at Teddy. The boy hung his head, then raising his eyes
regarded Mr. Waldron defiantly.
“So you are here again, young man, for the third time in two weeks,”
thundered the principal. “What has this bad boy done, Miss Alton?”
Miss Alton began an indignant recital of Teddy’s latest misdeed. The
principal frowned as he listened. When she had finished, he fixed Teddy
with severe eyes.
“Let me see. The last time you were here it was for interrupting the
devotional exercises by putting a piece of ice inside the collar of one
of your schoolmates. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? How would you like
to have your schoolmates play upon you the unkind pranks you are so
fond of playing upon them?”
“I wouldn’t care,” returned the boy, unabashed. “I wouldn’t make a
fuss, either.”
“Miss Alton is right,” snapped Mr. Waldron, his face reddening angrily
at the boy’s retort. “You are, indeed, an incorrigible boy. I think
I had better put your case before the Board of Education. There are
special schools for bad boys like you. We don’t care to have such a
boy among us. You are a menace to the school.” He continued to lecture
Teddy sharply, ending with, “Take him back to your room for the day,
Miss Alton, but make him remain after the others have gone home this
afternoon. By that time I shall have decided what we had better do with
him.”
Teddy walked down the corridor ahead of Miss Alton with a sinking
heart. Was he a menace to the school and could Mr. Waldron really put
him in a school for bad boys? He had heard of such schools. He had
heard, too, that sometimes the boys came out of them much worse than
when they entered. The murmur of voices came to his ears as Miss Alton
flung open the door and urged him into the schoolroom. The noise died a
sudden death as she stepped over the threshold.
“Go to your seat,” she ordered coldly.
Teddy obeyed. The little girl, whose shriek had caused his downfall,
eyed him with horror. Even in the midst of his troubles he could not
resist giving her an impish grin. She promptly made a face at him
and looked the other way. The smile vanished from Teddy’s face. Then
he folded his hands on his desk and thought busily for the next five
minutes.
The class resumed its interrupted recitation. Suddenly the boy reached
into his desk and began stealthily to take out his belongings. The
books belonged to the school, but a pencil box, a knife, a box of
marbles, a top, a dilapidated baseball, a magnet and a small, round
mirror with which he delighted to cast white shadows on the books
of the long-suffering eighth-grade girls, were treasures of his
own. Stuffing them into his pockets he replaced the books; then he
sat very still. It was almost time for the recess bell to ring. He
hardly thought Miss Alton would order him to keep his seat. Such
light punishments were not for him. To-night--but there would be no
to-night in school for him. When recess came he would go outside and
say good-bye to the fellows, then he would start out and hunt a job.
He was almost sixteen, and the law said a boy could work when he was
fourteen, if he had a certificate. Well, he would get that certificate.
His mother would let him go to work if he wanted to. She was so busy
with her own affairs she never cared much what he did. If he had a job,
then Mr. Waldron couldn’t send him to a reform school. That was the
place where incorrigible boys were sent.
Teddy did not stop to consider that his mother might prove a match for
Miss Alton and Mr. Waldron when it came to a question of her son’s
incorrigibility. He thought only of putting himself beyond the reach of
the school authorities by his own efforts.
The recess bell rang at last and the pupils filed out in orderly rows
to the big, grassy yard, at one side of the school building. Teddy was
at once surrounded by half a dozen boys, his particular friends. The
girls collected in little groups about the yard to comment on Teddy’s
iniquity. They eyed him askance with curious, aloof glances. The boys,
however, were deeply interested in the possible outcome of Teddy’s rash
defiance.
“You’re goin’ to get fired all right,” was the cheerful prophecy of one
boy. “What’ll your mother say?”
“She won’t say,” giggled a freckle-faced boy. “She’ll just take Ted
across her knee and----”
“Well, I guess not,” flung back Teddy. “I’m not going to wait to get
fired, either. I’m going to beat it. When the recess bell rings I’m
not going in with the rest of you. See here,” Teddy began pulling his
various treasured belongings out of his pockets. “I brought all this
stuff out to give you fellows. I sha’n’t want it. I’m going down to
Martin Brothers’ Department Store and get a job. That’s what I’m going
to do. Here’s my looking glass, Sam. Every time you cast a shadow with
it, think of me. And you can have my marbles, Bob.”
Teddy distributed his belongings rapidly about the little circle. The
boys took them with some reluctance. They had far rather have Teddy
Burke, ringleader of all their mischief, with them than his belongings.
“Aw, why don’t you get your mother to come down here and fix it up with
those old cranks?” demanded Sam Marvin regretfully. “It ain’t your
stuff we want, Ted. It’s you. What’re we goin’ to do without you?”
“Be good,” grinned Teddy. “I’m a menace to the school, you know.”
“I wish I was goin’ to work,” said Bob Rayburn sadly. “Pa won’t let me,
though.”
“Honestly, won’t your mother lick you if she finds out about what
happened to-day?” inquired Arthur Post, a tall, thin boy with a solemn
face.
“Lick nothing,” retorted Ted. “She isn’t going to find out about it.
I’m going to tell her myself. She’ll say I can go to work if I feel
like it.”
His chums eyed him with mingled admiration and regret. To them Teddy
was a hero.
“There goes the bell. I’ve got to beat it. Don’t any of you start to
go in till I get to the corner,” directed Ted. “Then _she_,” he jerked
his thumb in Miss Alton’s direction, “won’t know I’ve skipped until
it’s too late. I’ll let you know where I am as soon as I get that job.
Good-bye, fellows. Be sure and do what smarty Alton tells you, and
don’t go bringing any rubber snakes to school. You can have that one of
mine if you can get it away from old Cross-patch.”
With an air of gay bravado Teddy raised his hand in a kind of parting
salute, then darted down the yard and through the gateway to the
street. At the corner he waved his hand again, then swung out of sight,
leaving a little knot of boys to gaze regretfully after him and wonder
how they could possibly get along without wide-awake, mischievous Teddy
Burke.