“you fellows in the battalion have all the good times. i just wish i’d entered the high school first year, then i’d have been an officer by this time,” said dixon to reed, one day, with an admiring glance at the other’s neat uniform and shoulder straps.
“oh, yes,” said reed, “it’s such fun to drill three times a week, especially when the thermometer climbs up among the eighties—say about next may. we generally have a hot wave along that time.”
“it’s no fun to carry those heavy muskets,” put in freeman. “i joined the cadets first year, but the guns were too heavy for me, and i had to quit.”
“oh, well, you’re a little chap,” and dixon glanced half-contemptuously at the slender lad. freeman’s cheeks flushed at the look.
“well, i never fainted, anyhow,” he said; “and some fellows a good deal bigger than i fainted more than once that year.”
“that was when we had heavy guns. we use lighter ones, now,” said reed.
[198]
“i’d like to wear that uniform,” went on dixon; “i notice how the girls watch you fellows; girls like a uniform, you know.”
a shout of laughter greeted this remark, and one boy said:—
“too bad you can’t wear a uniform, rosy. you might try to get on the police force next year. maybe the girls would watch you, then.”
rosy joined in the laugh that greeted this suggestion. he was never backward about acknowledging to an interest in the girls, and was forever begging some boy to introduce him to one or another girl of his acquaintance. sometimes his interest in the feminine portion of the school got him into trouble, as was the case a little later on this same day.
when school was dismissed, the boys formed in line, and were expected to go through the corridors, and down the stairs in this order.
but there are always disorderly boys, and noisy ones too, and very often professor keene would be on the stairs, or in one or other of the corridors, to take note of any such; and not seldom would he send a boy back to his class-room, there to wait until all the others had passed out.
on this occasion, as the boys were standing in line in the upper hall, waiting for the signal to move on, “rosy” noticed that the door of one of the girls’ rooms, near which he stood, was ajar. he[199] glanced quickly to right and left. the professor was nowhere in sight, so he leaned over and softly pushed the door open a little farther so that he could look in. as he did so, a hand dropped heavily on his shoulder, and the professor’s voice sounded in his ears.
“dixon,” he said, “i see you are anxious to make the acquaintance of miss bent and her class. step right in, and i will introduce you”; and with his hand still on the boy’s shoulder, he threw open the door, and led him to the platform.
“miss bent,” he said, “this young gentleman was so very eager to meet you and the young ladies of your class, that i took the liberty of bringing him in. allow me to introduce mr. dixon.”
for once, dixon was too confused to be equal to the occasion. his face was as red as his hair, and the bow with which he acknowledged the introduction was not a model of ease and grace. no wonder—when forty girls sat there enjoying his discomfiture, and laughing at the haste with which he departed.
shouts of “here comes rosy!” “did you have introductions enough, rosy?” “say, which was the prettiest girl?” “why didn’t you stay longer?” greeted him, as he reached the playground, where most of his own classmates were waiting for him; but, by this time, he had recovered his self-possession,[200] and only laughed good-naturedly at the sallies of the boys.
when he entered the school-room next morning, two or three voices called out, “wrong room, rosy. the girls’ room is on the other side.”
dixon grinned, as he perched on the top of his desk, and looked about, saying:—
“some of you chaps must have gotten up before breakfast this morning. never saw so many here at half past eight, before.”
“written exam. to-day, sonny,” said barber.
“looks as if ’twas house-cleaning, to-day,” replied dixon, glancing at the pile of books and papers barber was hauling out of his desk.
“does look rather that way,” said barber. then he glanced about the room, and added:—
“say, if any of you fellows have jagged my notebook, give it back, will you. it’s a new one, and i know i left it here last night.”
“you’re dreaming, barber,” somebody remarked. “nobody’s been near your desk.”
“but somebody has, though,” persisted barber; “an’ ’tisn’t the first time, either. my knife vanished last week—the third one i’ve lost this quarter.”
“better have your mother sew up the holes in your pockets,” suggested raleigh.
“or you might fasten a string to your knife and tie it into your pocket,” added another.
[201]
“i tell you, the things are taken out of my desk,” insisted barber, “and somebody does it after school. i like fun as well as anybody, but i’m sick of this kind, and i think it’s time now for whoever did it to hand over my notebook.”
“is it so, for a fact, barber?” said hamlin, walking over to the other’s seat. “have you been losing things out of your desk—honest injun?”
“i have so,” replied barber.
“and i, too. i left a gold pen in my desk last week, and the next morning it was gone,” said lee.
upon inquiry, it proved that nearly all the boys present had lost something from their desks within a few weeks, and several had lost small change or car-tickets from the pockets of overcoats left in the dressing-room during school hours.
“we must tell mr. horton,” said hamlin. “it won’t do to have this sort of thing going on.”
“oh, i say!” broke out dixon, “you don’t really believe that anybody’s been thieving here, do you? i’m always thinking i’ve lost something, and finding it a week or two later, where i’d poked it away, an’ forgotten all about it.”
barber shook his head.
“i poked my new notebook into my desk yesterday just before i went home,” he said, positively. “i can’t be mistaken about that.”
“crawford, you look melancholy. have you lost something, too?” called out dixon.
[202]
“no,” said crawford, shortly.
“not even your temper,” suggested dixon, who seemed to be in a tormenting mood that morning.
crawford was standing with his hands in his pockets, and looking moodily out of the window. he made no reply to dixon’s last remark.
“clark seems to be the only one who has lost nothing,” remarked lee, with a significant emphasis that implied more than the words themselves.
clark looked up inquiringly, while hamlin exclaimed quickly:—
“what do you mean by that, lee?”
“oh, nothing,” said lee, carelessly, “only some things that happened last term have never been really cleared up.”
before the words were fairly out of lee’s mouth, crawford had wheeled around and caught him by the shoulder. lee never flinched, and, for an instant the two boys stood gazing angrily into each other’s eyes.
hamlin, too, had started towards lee, but stopped as he caught sight of crawford’s white, set face.
“well, what are you going to do about it?” demanded lee coolly of crawford.
“i am going to knock you down if you accuse stanley clark of doing anything mean or underhanded since he’s been in this school,” said crawford, while clark looked from one to the other in[203] blank amazement, and the rest of the boys gathered about the two.
“so?” said lee, tauntingly. “perhaps, then, you know more than the rest of us about some of these underhanded performances.”
the perspiration gathered on crawford’s forehead in big drops, and the hand that still clutched lee’s shoulder, trembled perceptibly, but he faced the wondering group, and said slowly, and distinctly:—
“i do know something about at least one underhanded performance that concerns clark. i’ve been longing to make a clean breast of it for weeks, and now i’m going to do it. i put that pony in clark’s desk last year. the letters s. c. were the initials of—someone else, and clark told the truth when he said that he had never seen the book until mr. horton held it up before him. i hated clark last year, and i wanted to do anything i could to injure him. clark,” he left lee and turned towards the other, “clark, it isn’t much to say i’m sorry—but that’s all i can say.”
clark instantly held out his hand, and said cordially:—
“it is all forgotten from this moment, crawford,” and then, catching sight of mr. horton, who had entered the room while crawford was speaking, clark added quickly, “it can end right here, can’t it, sir?”
but crawford spoke before the teacher could reply.
[204]
“no,” he said, “i want all the class to know the truth. then perhaps i can respect myself a little more.”
“very well, crawford,” said mr. horton, “it shall be as you wish. i think you are right, and one who can so frankly and manfully acknowledge his fault, cannot fail to win back the respect of his classmates.”
crawford dropped into his seat with a flush of pleasure at these words, and the boys separated, but more than one glanced coldly at lee, and hamlin could not refrain from saying, as he passed lee’s seat:—
“i hope you are satisfied now, and will stop hounding clark for the future.”
lee made no reply, but he thought to himself, “clark didn’t cheat that time, it seems, but he’s the son of a defaulter; and no southern boy would take a blow as he did last year.”
mr. horton was much disturbed when he learned of the petty stealings that had been going on in the school. soon, not from section d alone, but from all over the school came complaints of losses of greater or less value. the teachers were very much troubled over the matter. they could not bear to suspect any pupil in the school, but no one else had access to class-rooms and dressing-rooms except the janitor, and he had been in charge of the building for years,[205] and nothing of this kind had ever before occurred. a strict watch was kept over the dressing-rooms through the day, and no scholars were allowed to enter the class-rooms until the teachers came in the morning, or to remain after the departure of the teachers in the afternoon. in spite of these rules however, the losses continued.
one wet day, raleigh, who lived a long way from the school, was obliged to walk home because the car-tickets he had carelessly left in his overcoat pocket, were missing. the next morning, he appeared wearing an old shabby overcoat in place of the new one he had had the day before.
“what’s the matter, raleigh? has your new coat been jagged?” questioned barber, overtaking him near the school gate.
“no,” said raleigh, “but if you’ll keep mum, i’ll tell you why i wore this.”
“mum’s the word,” said barber, promptly, and raleigh went on:—
“my car-tickets vanished yesterday. served me right, i suppose, for being such a ninny as to leave them in my overcoat pocket; but it made me mad to have to foot it all the way home in the wet, so i planned a little scheme to put a mark on the stealer. my sister has some shoe blacking that stains like fury—worse than any ink i ever got hold of—and i’ve soaked a sponge with it, and put it in my side pocket, here. see?”
[206]
“well,” said barber, “how’s that going to mark the thief?”
“why, i’ve put half a dollar—a counterfeit one, you understand, that somebody shoved off on my mother—i’ve put it into that same pocket, and if anybody puts a hand in to haul out that half-dollar, he’ll get a mark on his fingers that he can’t scrub off in one day, now i tell you.”
“well, that is a scheme,” laughed barber, “but you ought to let one fellow in every room into it, for you and i can’t examine all the paws in the school, ourselves.”
“that’s so; i never thought of that,” said raleigh.
so the two decided upon one boy in each room who should be the one to keep an eye on the hands in his class-room in case that fifty cents should be missing later in the day.
mr. horton having given raleigh permission for himself and barber to remain in the room that morning, during recess, as soon as the other boys had gone down to the playground, the amateur detectives began operations. they borrowed from the dressing-room a mirror which they hung on the wall in such a way that it reflected the hall and the door of the dressing-room to them, while they, having set open the door of the class-room, were out of sight behind it.
five minutes of the recess had slipped away—ten, and not a person had passed through the hall.
[207]
“i don’t believe,” began barber in a whisper, but at that instant raleigh gave him a poke, and pointed to the mirror. through the hall a boy was passing quickly, glancing furtively about him as he went.
while they looked, he slipped noiselessly into the dressing-room and softly closed the door behind him.
raleigh and barber looked at each other with astonished faces.
“i can’t believe it,” whispered barber, and:—
“i never would have believed it,” said raleigh, in the same breath.
then he added:—
“his going in there is no proof, though it’s against the rules now.”
in silence then the two sat, their eyes fixed on the telltale mirror.
“there goes the bell,” whispered barber. “he’s probably going to wait there and drop in at the end of the line. we must get out of this corner before the boys come up.”
“let’s go out and wait near the stairs; then we can see him when he comes out, without his suspecting.”
this they did, and without seeming to look, saw dixon suddenly and silently fling open the door of the dressing-room as the last boy passed by, and follow quickly to the class-room.
then raleigh hurried into the dressing-room, slipping an old glove on to his right hand as he[208] went. he rejoined barber in a moment, saying:—
“it’s gone.”
“the half-dollar?” questioned barber.
raleigh nodded, and the two went into the class-room. each cast a quick glance at dixon as they passed his seat, and both saw that he was rubbing his right hand with his handkerchief.
as they took their seats, barber glanced at raleigh with a quick gesture towards st. john. he, too, was rubbing his handkerchief over his right hand, and eyeing with a disgusted expression some black stains that showed conspicuously on his slender white fingers.
presently, raleigh went to the desk, and told mr. horton, in a tone too low for any other ears, the result of their watch.
mr. horton was greatly disturbed.
“there must be some mistake,” he said. “i cannot believe it of either of them.”
then placing gordon in charge of the room, he went to confer with professor keene. the result was that when the class was dismissed, st. john, dixon, raleigh and barber were told to remain.
then mr. horton took st. john into the dressing-room alone. the boy followed him with evident bewilderment, and when the teacher said:—
“st. john, will you tell me how you got those stains on your hand?” he looked as if he thought[209] himself the victim of some practical joke, and drawing himself up, answered haughtily and coldly, “that is my affair, sir.”
“ordinarily, it would be your affair, st. john,” answered mr. horton patiently, “but, unfortunately, to-day i must insist upon an answer to my question.”
the boy bit his lip and hesitated, evidently half inclined to refuse to answer, but there was something in mr. horton’s face that puzzled and rather awed him, and after a moment’s silence he said sulkily:—
“the janitor did not fill my inkstand, and i had to go down to that beastly old cellar and fill it myself, and i got the ink on my hand. i never went to a school before where i had to do servant’s work,” he added with his haughtiest air.
“did anyone see you filling your inkstand?” asked the teacher.
“the janitor was muddling around there,” answered the boy. “i told him it was his business to do it for me, and he had the impudence to tell me that it was as much my business as his.”
mr. horton half smiled, understanding that st. john’s overbearing manner would not be likely to incline the somewhat crusty old janitor to save him any trouble; but remembering the serious question at issue, his face grew grave again.
[210]
“have you been in the dressing-room to-day?” he asked.
“no, sir,” said the boy.
“very well; you may go,” and, as st. john went down the stairs, mr. horton returned to the school-room, where he found the three boys sitting in a sort of embarrassed silence.
“dixon,” he said at once, “i see you have stained your hand. how did you do it?”
dixon glanced at his fingers, and the color suddenly flamed in his freckled cheeks.
“i—i—hit it against something black,” he stammered.
“evidently,” said mr. horton. “dixon, were you in the dressing-room at recess?”
the boy hesitated, glanced half appealingly at the teacher, and then at the boys.
“would you rather see me alone?” asked mr. horton, and as the boy nodded, he signed to raleigh and barber to leave the room. then he said:—
“dixon, it will be best for you to tell me the whole truth frankly; best for your own sake, i mean.”
“oh, i’m not thinking about myself, you know,” said dixon. “it’s—” then he stopped.
“well?” said mr. horton, inquiringly.
“oh, dear!” said dixon desperately, “i don’t know what to do,” and putting his head down on his desk, he actually sobbed.
[211]
the teacher’s hand was laid kindly on the rough, red hair, as he said:—
“a fault confessed is half forgiven, dixon, and though this is more than a fault, for it is a most grave and serious matter, yet a frank and full acknowledgment will incline us to deal as leniently as possible with you.”
dixon raised his head. there was a bewildered expression in his blue eyes which changed to one of indignant astonishment as the meaning of his teacher’s words dawned upon him. he started up, dashing the tears from his freckled cheeks as he exclaimed:—
“you don’t mean that you suspect me of stealing!”
“well, really,” said mr. horton, actually moving back a step before the indignant flash of those blue eyes. “well, really, i begin to think i do not, though i must confess that i did a few moments ago. tell me all about it, dixon. evidently you know something about the matter.”
“oh, yes; i wish i didn’t,” and again the freckled face was hidden by the stained fingers. after a moment’s silence, he went on:—
“mr. horton, if i can promise you sure that nothing else will be taken, won’t that do?” he asked imploringly.
“i’m afraid that won’t do, dixon. i see that you[212] are trying to shield the guilty person, but it is not fair to those who have been robbed, nor do i believe that it would be best for the one who deserves punishment to go scot free. it would encourage him to repeat the crime. yes,” as dixon started at the word, “it is a crime, and one that will put the guilty person behind the prison bars, if continued.”
“oh, mr. horton, you won’t put him in prison, will you? promise me you won’t, or i’ll never tell. i’ll go to prison for it myself first,” he cried excitedly.
“easy, easy, my boy,” and mr. horton laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “if you do not tell what you know, we shall surely find out for ourselves who is the guilty person, and then it may be too late for any word of yours to be of any benefit to him. be persuaded, dixon, and tell me all you know about the matter, now.”
“well—i will,” said the boy, after a moment’s thought; “only, mr. horton, i shall depend on you to save him from prison, if you anyway can. you see he’s a little fellow, only thirteen, and it will break his mother’s heart if he’s sent to prison. his mother is an old friend of my mother’s, and when i came in to the city to go to school, last year, i went to her house to board. she’s a widow, and keeps a boarding-house ’way up town. well, sir, the very day after i went there, i was taken sick with typhoid[213] fever, and my mother was sick at home, so she couldn’t come to me, and mrs. gray took care of me just as if i had been her own boy. she sat up nights with me, and oh, i can’t tell you how good she was through all those weeks. the doctor told mother afterwards that i owed my life to mrs. gray’s care and nursing, so you see, i can’t help thinking a lot of her, and i’ve tried my best to keep willie straight; but lately, he’s got to going with one or two bad fellows in the school, and i think, mr. horton, that they make a cat’s-paw of him, and make him do things that he’d never think of doing himself, for he isn’t a bad boy really—willie isn’t—and he’s all his mother has left.”
again the rough red head went down on the desk, and the boy’s low sobs proved the depth of his sympathy for the widowed mother.
mr. horton’s own eyes were dim as he looked down at the lad.
“you haven’t told me how you came to be in the dressing-room at recess,” he said gently, after a little silence.
“why, i hunted all over the playground for willie, and when i found he wasn’t there, i felt somehow that i must find him, and be sure he wasn’t doing anything wrong. you see, i only found out about this a few days ago, and he had promised me solemnly that he’d never take another[214] thing that did not belong to him. you know there’s another dressing-room adjoining ours, and the windows of the two are only a foot apart. as i came through the hall, i saw willie slip into that other room, and i got to the door just in time to see him climb up on the window sill. i didn’t dare speak, for fear he’d fall, but i waited till he’d climbed from one window to the other, and slipped down into our dressing-room, and then went in, and shut the door after me. willie had his hand in the pocket of an old overcoat, one i never saw before. i snatched his hand as he drew it out, and it was all wet with what looked like ink, and that’s the way mine got daubed.”
“and willie kept the half-dollar he found in the overcoat?” said mr. horton.
“oh, no, i made him give it up, and i put it back in the pocket.”
“and then?” questioned the teacher.
“then he cried, and said that those fellows had threatened to tell professor keene that he was a thief, unless he’d keep on taking things. he hasn’t kept a single thing himself, mr. horton. they lent him some money a while ago, and because he couldn’t pay it back, they kept at him, telling him that he could easily pick up loose change enough in the dressing-rooms to pay the debt, and after he had taken one piece of money, then you see, they held that over him to make him keep on.”
[215]
“and these boys; who are they?” said mr. horton sternly.
again dixon hesitated, but in his heart he knew that such boys were too dangerous to be suffered to remain in the school to lead weak boys astray, and so he gave the names.
when at last raleigh and barber were called in, they were glad enough to learn that their classmate was not the thief; and dixon, his mind relieved by having passed the responsibility over to mr. horton, could even laugh at his stained fingers, while he appreciated raleigh’s ingenious plan.
“funny what became of that coin, though,” the latter said, as he took his old coat from the nail where it hung.
“i rather think there’s a hole in this pocket, raleigh,” said mr. horton, feeling at the bottom of the coat “see here!” and he held up the side where the coin could be plainly felt between the outside and the lining.
dixon told the two boys enough of willie gray’s story to explain his own connection with the affair, and awaken their sympathy for the widowed mother.
there were no more losses that year, in the central school.
willie gray’s interview with professor keene, and his suspension from the school for a month proved a lesson that he did not care to have repeated,[216] but his severest punishment was in seeing his mother’s bitter shame and sorrow when she heard the story. he wore very shabby clothes the rest of that year, and so did his mother, but by the end of the school year every scholar’s loss had been made good, and from that time on no more scrupulously honest boy than willie gray could have been found in all that city.
as to dixon, raleigh and barber conceived a new respect and regard for him after this affair, and even his openly expressed liking and admiration for “the girls,” awakened amusement instead of scorn.
“for you see, boys,” dixon said one day confidentially to the two, “you see, boys, i’ve got a lot of sisters at home—half a dozen of ’em—and a right pretty lot they are too. you wouldn’t think they were any relation to a freckled carrot-head like me. but, bless you—they have never found out how homely i am, and, as i’m the only brother they’ve got, i’ve been kind of spoiled, i reckon. anyhow, you wouldn’t believe how i miss those girls, and i like all girls for their sakes, don’t you see?”
st. john never found out that a suspicion had rested upon him. indeed, it is doubtful if he knew that there had been any losses, since, as it happened, nothing had been taken from his desk; and hamlin never again saw dixon hanging about a saloon, since he no longer had to look for willie gray in such places.
