Loe raamatut: «Bobby Blake at Rockledge School: or, Winning the Medal of Honor», lehekülg 7

CHAPTER XIV
THE HONOR MEDAL

Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks were released from their harnesses, and the "pillows" were taken off their feet and hands, they went to opposite ends of the gymnasium and had nothing to say to each other.

Barry did not mention the foul blow and its punishment, and none of the smaller boys dared speak of it. It was certain, however, that the intimacy of the only two boys in the school inclined to bully the smaller ones had taken a decided set back.

The fun of the "poguey fight" was not to end so quickly, however. Some of the bigger boys caught Pee Wee and Mouser Pryde, and fastened them into the harness and put the mufflers on their feet and hands.

The fat boy and his chum made no decided remonstrance, and when they were swung up, they made an earnest endeavor to give the fellows all the fun they were looking for. Their gyrations certainly were amusing, and Bobby and Fred laughed as loudly as any of the other boys.

But when the fat boy and Mouser were let down, and Max and Barry grabbed the chums from Clinton, for a moment, Fred was inclined to cut up rough.

"Aw, be a sport, Fred!" said Bobby, earnestly. "If Pee Wee can stand it, we can."

So Fred thought better of "getting mad" and for a while the two friends swung in the air and punched and kicked at each other to the delight of the other boys. Bobby was very careful not to anger the red-haired lad, and they came through the poguey fight with smiling faces. It was borne in upon Bobby's mind more and more that Fred Martin was going to have difficulty in keeping out of trouble in this new environment.

At eleven o'clock the whole school filed up to the hall on the second floor. None of the teachers were present and there was some little confusion and noise at first.

Barry stepped forward and held up a hand for silence. "You fellows better take a tumble to yourselves," he said calmly. "You want to show the Doctor that you don't have to be watched all the time. You all know – at least, all of you but Bobby Blake and Fred Martin, and they are not making the noise – that this isn't the place for skylarking.

"We had our fun downstairs. I hear the Doctor coming now. Let's give him a Rockledge cheer when he comes in and then – silence!"

The door opened as he ceased speaking and the tall, heavy-set principal with his quiet smile and pleasant eyes peering through the thick lenses of his glasses, appeared.

Captain Gray raised his hand again. The roomful of boys sprang to their feet. Bobby noted that many of them placed their left hands upon the little blue and white enameled button that they wore on the lapels of their coats, as they shouted in unison:

 
"One, two, three —boom!
Boom – Z-z-z – ah!
Rockledge! Rockledge!
Sword and star!
Who's on top?
We sure are —
Rock-ledge!"
 

Bobby and Fred had both noticed the blue and white buttons with the star and sword upon them, but they did not know what they meant. Now Bobby guessed that there was some society, or inner circle at Rockledge School that they, as newcomers, knew nothing about.

All the boys did not belong to it. Pee Wee did not wear a button, nor did many of the fellows from their dormitory. Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks did not possess the badge, either.

Meanwhile, Doctor Raymond, smiling and bowing, approached the rostrum. Bobby – his mind always on the alert – noted the little blue and white spot against the dead black of the doctor's coat.

"Well, boys! I am extremely obliged to you, I am sure," said the Doctor, bowing again. "I am just as sensitive to compliments as the next person. I hope you will always be as glad to see me as you appear to be at this moment.

"Now, I shall not detain you for long. You know my little lectures have usually the saving grace of brevity. We have come together once more to face a year of study. Let us face it like real men! Star and sword, my boys! The star we are aiming for, and the Sword of Determination will hew our way to the goal.

"There! I will give you no homilies. There are but two new boys with us this year – Robert Blake and Frederick Martin. Give them a warm welcome. They only do not understand about our Medal of Honor."

He suddenly opened his large hand and displayed in its palm a five-pointed gold star, at least two inches across, and with a beautiful blue-velvet background.

"Here it is – all ready for the engraving. At the close of the school year, this medal will be presented to the one among you who has won it by studiousness, good conduct, manliness and general popularity.

"It is not always the boy who sets out to win the medal who really does win it. You, who are older, know that. We teachers try not to influence the opinion of the school in the choice of the recipient of the Honor Medal.

"The winner must stand well in his classes, or he cannot have the faculty vote. His deportment must be good, or we teachers cannot vote for him. But you boys yourselves must – after all – choose the winner.

"There are fifty of you in Rockledge School. You have each, individually, a better chance to understand your neighbors' characters than anybody else. You are quick to find out if there is something fine in a lad's temper. You will soon learn the one who restrains himself under provocation, who bears insult, perhaps, with confidence in his own uprightness; who keeps straight on his way without turning aside because of any temptation.

"That is the sort of a lad who will win this Medal of Honor," concluded the Doctor, very seriously. "Any boy – even the youngest – may secure it. It does not have to go to the boy at the top of his class, nor to the oldest boy in the school. You little chaps stand just as good a chance for it as Captain Gray," and he rested his hand upon Barry Gray's shoulder for an instant as though there was some secret understanding between him and the captain of the school.

"Now, I have talked enough. School will begin in earnest on Monday. Remember, bounds are as usual. You little fellows, see Barrymore, or some of the masters, if you are not sure of a thing. And remember that my office door is never locked."

He went out quickly at the door behind the platform. Somehow, the boys felt rather serious, and there was no shouting or fooling as they filed out and down the stairs to the open air.

"Say! that was a handsome gold medal he showed us," said Fred, with enthusiasm, to Bobby.

"Wasn't it?" returned his chum, with sparkling eyes.

"I'd like to get that myself," admitted the red-haired one.

"Didn't I tell you, you'd have no chance at that, Ginger?" chuckled Pee Wee's voice behind them.

"I see it," admitted Fred, without getting angry. "But it would be fine to win it, just the same."

So Bobby thought. He remembered what his mother had said to him on one occasion, and wondered if it were possible for him to win the gold medal and present it to her when she returned from that far journey which she and his father were soon to take.

"She certainly would be proud of me then," thought Bobby Blake. "I guess she'd think after that, it would be safe to leave me alone anywhere – yes, sir! And I certainly would like to own such a medal."

This set his mind to thinking upon the fact that at daybreak the very next morning the ship on which his parents had bought their stateroom would sail from New York. They were already on the train which would bear them to the coast.

After they sailed it would be a long time before he could even expect a picture post-card from them – a month, at least. And then, they would be thousands of miles away!

He slipped away from Fred and Pee Wee and went into one of the schoolrooms. There was a big globe there, and he timidly turned this around and around until he found the pink splotch of color which marked Brazil.

There was the gaping mouth of the Amazon, with the big island dividing it, and the river on the south side, against which was the black dot marking the city of Para – where his parents would land.

He thought of all he had ever heard or been taught about the Amazon – "that Mighty River." He knew how the current of the vast stream met the ocean tides and fought with them for supremacy. He knew how the river overflowed its banks in the rainy seasons and covered vast areas of forest and plain.

The trader's station, to which his parents were bound, was a thousand miles up the Amazon, and then five hundred miles more up another river. Why – why, if he fell ill, or anything —

He never realized until this moment just what it would mean to have his mother and father so far away. It had been great fun to come to Rockledge to school. He liked it here. He hoped he would learn, and advance, and win his way with both the boys and the teachers.

But to have a mother and father so many, many miles away – especially to have a mother going away from one just as fast as steam could take her —

Bobby Blake put his arm on the big globe, and laid his face against his jacket-sleeve. His shoulders shook.

CHAPTER XV
GETTING INTO STEP

The routine of the school did not really begin, as Dr. Raymond had said, until Monday morning. Yet by that time Bobby Blake and Fred Martin felt as though they were really old members of the Rockledge Fifty.

They had learned many of the stock stories of school – legends of great fights with the boys of Belden School, or of mighty games at football or baseball or some other sport, in which victory had perched upon the banners of Rockledge.

The loyalty of boarding school boys is second only to family feeling or patriotic love for one's country. Bobby and Fred and the other boys of Dormitory Two were just at that age when the mind and heart are both most impressionable.

The new boys learned the school yell, or cheer, which they had first heard given in eulogy of Dr. Raymond. They thought it the finest yell they had ever heard.

They were told about the Sword and Star, too. It was indeed an honor to wear the little blue and white button. One had to be at least one year at Rockledge, to stand at a certain mark in recitations, and to have a pretty clean record in deportment, to gain entrance into the Order of the Sword and Star.

It was true that such chaps as Pee Wee, and the Mouser, as well as Shiner and Howell Purdy, were rather skeptical about the value of membership in the school secret society. Dr. Raymond was a member and that "looked bad" to those boys who were out for fun. And "f-u-n" spelled – in their minds – "mischief," and vice versa!

Those first few weeks of the new school year, however, passed without any very wild outbreak upon the part of either the merely mischievous, like Pee Wee and his mates, or by the really disturbing element (which was small) headed by Billy Bronson and Jack Jinks.

Those two worthies had, after a time, joined forces again; but they were not as good friends and co-workers as they had been before the poguey fight.

Bobby and Fred really gave most of their attention to studies. The school at Clinton had been graded so differently from this preparatory institution, that the chums had to work hard to pick up in some studies, while they were well advanced beyond their mates in others.

Fred was inspired by Bobby's example to win good marks for himself. Even the stern master, Mr. Leith, who looked over the work of the smaller boys fortnightly, commented favorably upon what the chums had accomplished.

In play hours the Lower School kept together for the most part. Here was where Fred Martin's plans were proven smart. The baseball outfit that he and Bobby had purchased with their peep-show money was welcomed with great approval by the boys of Number Two Dormitory.

Bobby and Fred won their places on the Second Nine at once. They played the First Dormitory Nine on Saturday of the first week of school, and won. Bobby's "fade-away," as Fred had prophesied, puzzled the other nine's battery splendidly.

The next Saturday the victorious nine played against a team of town boys and again won. Captain Gray then began to take notice of the victorious nine. He coached them a little and then they challenged a nine belonging to the Belden School across the lake.

It was after the first of October when this match occurred, and the Rockledge boys went across in their own boats. Although visiting a hostile camp, the boys of Rockledge were very nicely received by the older Belden boys. Naturally, the home team had the crowd with them, but Bobby held the enemy down to ten hits and only six runs, and the Rockledge nine won by two runs.

Although their hosts remained polite to the visitors, Bobby and Fred saw very plainly that the rivalry between the two schools was deep-seated. They heard Captain Gray and Max Bender talking to some of the big fellows of Belden, and both sides were boasting of what the rival football teams would do to each other on Thanksgiving Day.

On that day the Belden crowd would come over to Rockledge, and from this time on, there was little more baseball played by the Rockledge boys. They were deeply interested in football.

In this game Bobby and Fred did not shine so brightly, but they went into hard training with the second junior team and under Captain Gray, who coached the smaller boys as well as the first team, learned a whole lot about football.

Meanwhile, not a word had come to Bobby from his parents after they had sailed from New York. He heard from Clinton every week, for Michael Mulcahey painfully indited a scrawly letter to him, enclosing sometimes a note from Meena. Michael, having crossed from Ireland in a sailing ship years before, was considered by Bobby a marvel of sea-lore. One time he wrote:

"DERE BOBBY: —

"It ain't nawthin alarmin that we don't here yet from Mistur Blake an his good lady an so I tell Meena whos got the face ache most of the time now and is just as good compny as a mad cat. She's rayfused to marry me agin, an I do be thinkin thats struck in an worries her face a lot. Howsomever 'tis about your feyther and mother Id write to cheer you up a bit. I well remember the long passage we made from the Ould Sod when I kem to this counthry. Twas head winds we had, an its like head winds that has held the big ship back thats takin Mistur Blake an his good lady to these Brazils. An tis a mortal far ways they do be goin. Mistur Martin says the offices in New York hav had no wareless telegraf despatches (what iver they be) from the ship since she was off Hattie Ross – an whoever she is I dunnaw. But if she's like most females, she's cranky, an that accounts for the delay.

"Be good an ye'll be happy, aven if ye don't have so much fun, from your friend and well wisher, rayspectfully,

"MICHAEL MULCAHEY."

This letter – and similar epistles – cheered Bobby some, and Mr. Martin wrote him a jolly little note, enclosed in a longer letter to Fred. But Bobby could not help feeling worried about the silence of his parents, especially at night.

When he knelt to say his prayers (and most of the other boys in Dormitory Two did likewise), he remembered what his mother had said about her praying for him at the same time every evening, and sometimes he had to squeeze his eyes shut tight to keep back the tears.

That the time on board the great steamship going south to the Tropics, and the time in New England was vastly different, did not enter Bobby's mind. It just seemed to him as though his mother was very near him indeed as he knelt before his chair.

For a sturdy, busy boy, however, there was not much time for worriment. Every day there was something new; one could not be lonesome at Rockledge.

The boys went from their beds to breakfast, from their meals to work in the schoolroom, from their lessons to play – a continual round of activities.

The athletic instruction interested the chums from Clinton immensely, and until the real cool weather set in, the boys of the school enjoyed swimming in the lake every day.

Dr. Raymond hoped that, before long, he would be able to build a gymnasium with a swimming pool in a special building by itself. This was something to look forward to, however.

All aquatic sports did not stop when the frost came. There were plenty of boats belonging to the school – from light, flat-bottomed skiffs which the little fellows could not possibly tip over, to a fine eight-oared shell manned by the bigger boys. In this they raced the Belden School every June before Commencement.

Wednesday and Saturday afternoons were holidays, but without special permission the boys of the Lower School could not go out of bounds. On Saturdays the bigger boys went to town if they so desired, or took long tramps through the woods, or rowed to the upper end of the lake.

If the smaller fellows wanted to go out of bounds, usually a teacher went with them. There was a picnic of the Lower School on one of the islands in the lake, however, that Bobby and Fred were not likely to forget for a long time.

Pee Wee and Mouser got it up. They first got permission to take a cold dinner on Saturday and row to the island. There was a farmer whose land joined the school property on the east. From him they obtained several dozen ears of late greencorn – nubbins, but sweet as sugar – and some new potatoes.

They were excused from lessons that day at eleven – all but Pee Wee himself. He had been lazy, as usual, and was behind in his work. It looked, for a time, as though the picnic had to be delayed.

But urged on by the others, Bobby faced Mr. Carrin, who had Pee Wee's class in history, and begged the fat boy off.

"Do let him do the extra work to-night, sir, after supper," begged Bobby. "We were going to have such a nice time, and Pee – I mean Perry – got the picnic up, and – "

"It is a pity that Perry cannot spend a little of his mind and effort on his lessons," said Mr. Carrin, with a smile.

"Yes, sir. I know, sir," said Bobby, eagerly, "but he doesn't seem to be able to think of two things at once."

"I guess that is right," chuckled Mr. Carrin, who was a much more pleasant gentleman than Mr. Leith. "Tell him he may go, but I shall expect a perfect recitation on Monday morning, first thing."

"Huh!" growled Pee Wee, who had overheard some of this. "I'm glad enough to get off, Bobby Blake. But you needn't have told him I was weak-minded."

Bobby grinned at him. "What do you care if you are a little bit crazy? And I didn't tell him anything new. He was on to it."

The crowd rowed off in three boats. There were seventeen of them. They went to the upper island, which was the biggest, in an hour and a half, and as soon as they landed they set to work to build a fire and make the picnic dinner.

Of course, they were too hungry to wait until the potatoes were baked, but as soon as the light wood had burned down to ashes and coals, they thrust the potatoes under the bed of the fire to bake slowly.

Meanwhile they ate the sandwiches and cake they had brought from school, and each boy cut a stick, on the end of which he stuck an ear of corn. These ears they roasted in the flames.

Of course, they were scorched a little, but they had butter and pepper and salt with which to dress the corn and it did taste mighty nice!

"And there's pretty near a bushel of the potatoes," said Fred, happily. "After the fire dies down again, we can rake them out and eat them. There's a big dab of butter left and plenty of salt and pepper. Crickey! I could eat a peck of them myself."

"We ought to have brought more potatoes and corn along," suggested Pee Wee, licking his fingers, "and hidden the stuff here somewhere. Then we could come another day and have a bake like this."

"Say! the corn wouldn't be much good," Bobby said.

"Scubbity-yow!" yelled Fred, suddenly. "I have it."

"Gee! you must have it bad," responded Mouser. "What kind of a battlecry is that?"

"Say!" went on Fred, without paying the least attention to Mouser's question, "I've got the dandy idea."

"Let's have it?" proposed Bobby.

"Let's build a shack, or a cabin, or something, up there in the thick trees. Nobody would ever see it from the lake. Then we can bring things over to furnish it – on the sly, you know – "

"Why on the sly?" demanded his chum.

"Aw – well – if the other fellows knew it, they'd come and bust it up, wouldn't they?"

"Not our fellows," declared Shiner.

"But you bet the kids from Belden would," urged Pee Wee.

"We could keep still about it, I s'pose," admitted Bobby.

"Well, then!" returned Fred. "Now, we'd fit it up, and store stuff in it for winter – nuts, and popcorn, and 'taters, and turnips – "

"You can't bake turnips," objected Howell Purdy.

"Well! they're good raw, aren't they?" demanded the eager Fred.

"It's a great old scheme," declared Jimmy Ailshine, otherwise "Shiner." "Let's get at it at once. Skeets Brody has his ax. Come on!"

And the excited boys trooped away from the beach and left the potatoes under the coals of the campfire to finish cooking.