From School to Battle-field: A Story of the War Days

CHAPTER VI

There were three more school-days that week, and they were the quietest of the year. On the principle that it was an ill wind that blew nobody good, there was one instructor to whom such unusual decorum was welcome, and that was poor Meeker, who noted the gloom in the eyes of most of the First Latin, and responsively lengthened his face, yet at bottom was conscious of something akin to rejoicing. His had been a hapless lot. He had entered upon his duties the first week in September, and the class had taken his measure the first day. A better-meaning fellow than Meeker probably never lived, but he was handicapped by a soft, appealing manner and a theory that to get the most out of boys he must have their good-will, and to get their good-will he must load them with what the class promptly derided as "blarney." He was poor and struggling, was graduated high in his class at college, was eager to prepare himself for the ministry, and took to teaching in the mean time to provide the necessary means. The First Latin would have it that Pop didn't want him at all, but that Meeker gave him no rest until promised employment, for Meeker had well known that there was to be a vacancy, and was first to apply for it. But what made it more than a luckless move for him was that he had applied for the position vacated by a man Pop's boys adored, "a man from the ground up," as they expressed it, a splendid, deep-voiced, deep-chested, long-limbed athlete, with a soul as big as his massive frame and an energy as boundless as the skies. He, too, had worked his way to the priesthood, teaching long hours at Pop's each day, tutoring college weaklings or would-be freshmen in the evenings, studying when and where he could, but wasting never a minute. Never was there a tutor who preached less or practised more. His life was a lesson of self-denial, of study, of purpose. Work hard, play hard, pray hard, might have been his motto, for whatsoever that hand of his found to do that did he with all his might. Truth, manliness, magnetism, were in every glance of his clear eyes, every tone of his deep voice. Boys shrank from boys' subterfuges and turned in unaccustomed disgust from school-boy lies before they had been a month in Tuttle's presence; he seemed to feel such infinite pity for a coward. Never using a harsh word, never an unjust one, never losing faith or temper, his was yet so commanding a nature that by sheer force of his personality and example his pupils followed unquestioning. With the strength of a Hercules, he could not harm an inferior creature. With the courage of a lion, he had only sorrow for the faint-hearted. With a gift and faculty for leadership that would have made him a general-in-chief, he was humble as a child in the sight of his Maker, and in all the long years of his great, brave life, only once, that his boys ever heard of, did he use that rugged strength to discipline or punish a human being, and that only when courtesy and persuasion had failed to stop a ruffian tongue in its foul abuse of that Maker's name. It was a solemn day for the school, a glad one for the church militant, when he took leave of the one to take his vows in the other. There wasn't a boy among all his pupils that would have been surprised at his becoming a bishop inside of five years, – as, indeed, he did inside of ten, – and the class had not ceased mourning their loss when Meeker came to take his place. "Fill Tut's shoes!" said Snipe, with fine derision. "Why, he'll rattle around in 'em like shot in a drum." No wonder Meeker failed to fill the bill.

And yet he tried hard. Something told him the First Latin would decide whether he should go or stay. Halsey had not been consulted in his selection, or Halsey would have told the Doctor in so many words that it took a man of bigger calibre to handle that class. Beach had not been consulted. He had known Meeker in undergraduate days and thought him lacking in backbone. Pop had "sprung" him, so to speak, upon the school, as though he really felt he owed his boys an apology, and, with the ingenuity of so many unregenerate young imps, the First Latin set to work to make Meeker's life a burden to him.

It was one of the fads of the school that the individual slate should be used in mathematical hour instead of a wall slate or blackboard. It was one of the practices to give out examples in higher arithmetic or equations in algebra and have the pupils work them out then and there, each boy, presumably, working for himself. Meeker introduced a refinement of the system. He announced one example at a time, and directed that as soon as a pupil had finished the work he should step forward and deposit his slate, face downward, on the corner of the master's table. The next boy to finish should place his slate on top of that of the first, and at the end of five minutes the pile of slates thus formed was turned bottom side up. All boys who had not finished their work in the given time – four, five, six, or eight minutes, according to the difficulty of the problem – were counted out. All whose work proved to be incorrect were similarly scored, while those who had obtained by proper methods the right result were credited with a mark of three, with an additional premium for the quickest, the first boy counting six, the second five, the third four. Meeker introduced the system with a fine flourish of trumpets and marvelled at its prompt success. Even boys known to be lamentably backward in the multiplication-table were found to present slates full of apparently unimpeachable figures in cube root or equations of the second degree, and the whole twenty-seven would have their slates on the pile within the allotted time. "Of course," said Meeker, "it is beyond belief that young gentlemen of the First Latin would be guilty of accepting assistance or copying from a competitor's work," whereat there would be heard the low murmur, as of far-distant, but rapidly approaching, tornado, and the moan would swell unaccountably, even while every pencil was flying, every eye fixed upon the slate. This thing went along for two or three days with no more serious mishap than that twice, without an apparent exciting cause, while Meeker would be elaborately explaining some alleged knotty point to Joy or Lawton, the half-completed stack would edge slowly off the slippery table and topple with prodigious crash and clatter to the floor. Then Meeker bethought himself of a stopper to these seismic developments, and directed that henceforth, instead of being deposited at the corner, the slates should be laid directly in front of him on the middle of the desk. This was most decorously done as much as twice, and then an extraordinary thing occurred. It had occasionally happened that two or even three of the boys would finish their work at the same moment, and in their eagerness to get their slates foremost on the stack a race, a rush, a collision, had resulted. Then these became surprisingly frequent, as many as four boys finishing together and coming like quarter horses to the goal, but the day that Meeker hit on the expedient of piling the slates up directly in front of him, and at the third essay, there was witnessed the most astonishing thing of all. Snipe was always a leader in mathematics, as he was in mischief, and he, Carey, Satterlee, and Joy were sure to be of the first four, but now, for a wonder, four, even five, minutes passed and not a slate was in. "Come, come, gentlemen," said Meeker, "there's nothing remarkable in this example. I obtained the result with the utmost ease in three minutes." And still the heads bent lower over the slates and the pencils whizzed more furiously. Five minutes went by. "Most astonishing!" said Meeker, and began going over his own work to see if there could be any mistake, and no sooner was he seen to be absorbed thereat than quick glances shot up and down the long bench-line and slates were deftly passed from hand to hand. The laggards got those of the quicker. The experts swiftly straightened out the errors of the slow, and some mysterious message went down from hand to hand in Snipe's well-known chirography, and then, just as Meeker would have raised his head to glance at the time and warn them there was but half a minute more, as one boy up rose the twenty-seven and charged upon him with uplifted slates. Batter, clatter, rattle, bang! they came crashing down upon the desk, while in one mighty, struggling upheaval the class surged about him and that unstable table.

"But those behind cried 'Forward!'

And those before cried 'Back!'"

Turner, Beekman, Snipe, and Shorty vigorously expostulating against such riotous performances and appealing to their classmates not to upset Mr. Meeker, who had tilted back out of his chair only in the nick of time, for the table followed, skating across the floor, and it was "really verging on the miraculous," said he, "that these gentlemen should all finish at the same instant." But that was the last of the slate-pile business. "Hereafter, young gentlemen," said Meeker, on the morrow, "you will retain your seats and slates, but as soon as you have obtained the result hold up your hand. I will record the name and the order and then call you forward, as I may wish to see your slates." This worked beautifully just once, then the hands would go up in blocks of five, and the class as one boy would exclaim "Astonishing! Miraculous!" Then Meeker abandoned the speed system and tried the plan of calling up at thirty-second intervals by the watch as many boys as he thought should have finished, beginning at the head of the class. And then the First Latin gave him an exhibition of the peculiar properties of those benches. They were about eight or nine feet long, supported on two stoutly braced "legs," with the seat projecting some eighteen inches beyond each support. Put one hundred and forty pounds on one end of an eight-foot plank, with a fulcrum a foot away, and the long end will tilt up and point to the roof in the twinkling of an eye. Meeker called his lads up three at a time, at the beginning of the next new system, and smiled to see how smoothly it worked and how uncommonly still the lads were. Then came exhibit number two, and in the most innocent way in the world Doremus and Ballou – the heavy weights of the class – took seats at the extreme lower end of their respective benches. The sudden rising of the three other occupants when called forward resulted in instant gymnastics. The long bench suddenly tilted skyward, a fat young gentleman was spilled off the shorter end, vehemently struggling and sorely bruised, and then back the bench would come with a bang that shook the premises, while half the class would rush in apparent consternation to raise their prostrate and aggrieved comrade. Hoover's bench was never known to misbehave in this way, for he had it usually all to himself, except when some brighter lad was sent to the foot in temporary punishment. But no matter how absurd the incident, how palpable the mischief, it was apparently a point of honor with the class to see nothing funny in it, to maintain an expression of severe disapproval, if not of righteous indignation, and invariably to denounce the perpetrators of such indignity as unworthy to longer remain in a school whose boast it was that the scholars loved their masters and would never do aught to annoy them. The most amazing things were perpetually happening. Meeker's eyes were no sharper than his wits, and he could not understand how it was that Snipe and Joy, two of the keenest mathematicians in the class, should so frequently require assistance at the desk, and when they returned to their seats, such objects on his table as the hand-bell, the pen-rack, or even the ink-stand, would be gifted with invisible wings and whisk off after them. Nothing could exceed Snipe's astonishment and just abhorrence when it was finally discovered that a long loop of tough but almost invisible horse-hair was attached to the back of his sack-coat, or the condemnation in the expressed disapprobation of the class when Joy was found to be similarly equipped. Then Meeker's high silk hat, hung on a peg outside Pop's particular closet, began to develop astonishing powers of procreation, bringing forth one day a litter of mice, on another a pair of frolicsome kittens. Meeker abandoned the hat for a billycock as the autumn wore on, and the class appeared content; only the Doctor was allowed a high hat. But Meeker was of nervous temperament, and started at sudden sounds and squirmed under the influence of certain others, noting which the class sympathetically sprinkled the floor with torpedoes and jumped liked electrified frogs when they exploded under some crunching heel, and the fuel for the big stove presently became gifted with explosive tendencies that filled Meeker's soul with dread, and the room with smoke, and the breasts of the First Latin with amaze that the janitor could be so careless. Then there was a strolling German band, with clarinets of appalling squeak, that became speedily possessed of the devil and a desire to "spiel" under the school windows just after the mathematical hour began, and Meeker's voice was uplifted from the windows in vain protest. The band was well paid to come and the policeman to keep away. I fear me that many a dime of poor Snipe's little stipend went into that unhallowed contribution rather than into his boots. All this and more was Meeker accepting with indomitable smiles day after day until the sudden withdrawal of George Lawton from the school, – no boy knew why, and all the fun went out of the hearts of the First Latin when they heard the rumor going round that Pop himself had written to his old pupil, Mr. Park, suggesting that his step-son would better be recalled from a city which seemed so full of dangerous temptation to one of George's temperament, and yet Pop had really seemed fond of him.

The whole thing was unaccountable. The most miserable lad in school, apparently, was Shorty. He had gone to the Lawrences to inquire for his chum right after dinner that Tuesday evening, and the servant checked him when he would have bolted, as usual, up the stairs to George's room. Mrs. Lawrence was entertaining friends at dinner, but had left word that if Master Reggie came he was to be told that George could see no one that evening, that Mrs. Lawrence would explain it all later. Shorty went there Wednesday on his way to school, and the butler said Master George was still in his room, and that he was not to be disturbed. Wednesday at recess the leaders of the class held a council and determined to appoint a committee to ask an explanation of the Doctor, since not a word could be extracted from Halsey or Beach, and the committee called right after recitation and "rose and reported" within two minutes. Pop silently pointed to the door. Then seeing that Shorty and Joy still lingered, half determined, supplemented the gesture by "Young gentlemen, pack yourselves off! When I am ready to tell you, you'll hear it and not before."

But the woe in Shorty's face was too much for him, after all. He knew the lads and the friendship they bore each other.

"Here you, sir!" he cried, with affected sternness, "sit there till I want you," and he pointed to a bench, even while frowning at the others of the disheartened delegation, who scuttled away down-stairs in dread of the Doctor's rising wrath. When all were gone and the big, bare school-rooms were still, Pop looked up from a letter he was writing, beckoned with his long forefinger, then reversing the hand, pointed downward at the floor beside his desk, and Shorty, recognizing the signal, with leaping heart and twitching lips, marched up and took his stand, looking dumbly into the Doctor's pallid face. The great man shoved his gold-rimmed spectacles half-way up across the expanse of forehead the lads had likened to "a ten-acre lot," folded his hands across the voluminous waistcoat, and leaned back in his chair. Then his eyes swept downward.

"Has our friend Snipe often been in need of money?" he asked.

"He had hardly any at all, sir," blurted Shorty, with something like a sob. "There are holes in the soles of his shoes and corresponding holes worn in his stockings, and the skin of the soles of his feet'll go next. He never had enough to get a decent lunch with, and couldn't join our first nine last year because he hadn't the uniform and wouldn't ask for one. The Club subscribed and bought it, – he was so bully a player. All the – "

The Doctor knows that Shorty is not named because of brevity in speech, and upraises a white hand. "Did he owe any of the boys, – Hoover, for instance?"

"He wouldn't borrow," said Shorty, indignantly; "last of all from Hoover. None of us ever owe him anything except – " And Shorty gulps, and the tears that were starting to his eyes burn out before the sudden fire of his wrath.

"Except what?" asks Pop, deliberately.

"A lickin'," says Shorty, with reddening face, whereat the Doctor's head tilts back and the great stomach heaves spasmodically. The grim lines about the wide mouth relax. It is his way of laughing and he enjoys it, but Shorty doesn't.

"I wish you'd tell me what's the trouble with – with Lawton, sir," he almost sobs again. "They won't let me see him, and the boys say it's all a – " But here Shorty breaks off, which is unlike him.

"Yes," suggested Pop, "they say it's all a – what?"

"Shame," said Shorty, well knowing that that shame is mentally qualified by a most unqualified adjective.

Pop ponders a moment. "Has none of the boys missed anything besides Joy, – no trinkets, rings, anything?"

"Hoover and Briggs are always missing something, sir, and Seymour lost a gold pencil."

"But Lawton never borrowed and didn't owe anybody, – in school, I mean?" asks Pop.

"Didn't owe anybody anywhere that I know of!" protests Shorty. "He says it makes him sick to owe anything. If Hoover says anything different, he's lying. That's all."

"What's the reason Hoover isn't at school?" asks Pop, and while his face does not change the eyes study closely.

"He's afraid of trouble because some of that Metamora set tripped and hurt Snipe, running to a fire last Saturday."

"That's what you get for running to fires, sir. Young gentlemen have no business mingling with crowds and rowdies. That's why you lost the head of the class in Latin three weeks ago. You spent hours at that big fire down-town when you should have been at your Virgil."

Shorty reddens, but attempts no defence. He knows it is so. He knows, furthermore, that if the bell were to strike the next minute he'd be off like the wind, – Latin, and even Snipe, to the contrary notwithstanding. What he doesn't understand is how the Doctor knows all about it.

"Youngster," says the Doctor, after a moment's reflection, "I want Hoover back at school at once, and there must be no harming him in any way. What's more, I have told Lawton to stay away until I send for him. There are reasons for this, and you can say so to the class. To-night you will see him yourself, and he will tell you the whole story. Now, I must write to Hoover paterfamilias. Run along!"

But Pop is mistaken in one matter. Shorty does not see Snipe that night, nor the next day, nor the next. He waits vainly until late in the evening, then goes to the Lawrences', and Mrs. Lawrence, with scared face, comes down to ask what he means. George had asked permission soon after dark to go and spend one hour with his friend and chum and tell him his troubles. It is now ten o'clock. He has not been there, and he has not returned.

CHAPTER VII

Forty-eight hours passed without a trace of George Lawton, and they were the saddest two days the First Latin ever knew. "All the life went out of the school with Snipe," was the way Joy expressed it, though no fellow in the whole establishment was credited with more mischief than the speaker. Lessons and recitations, despite the best efforts of Halsey and Beach and the lamb-like bleatings of Meeker, seemed to fall flat. Even the leaders went through with them in a style more dead than alive, and at every sound upon the stairs all eyes would be fixed on the doorway and matters would come to a stand-still in the class. It was plain that every boy was thinking only of the missing comrade and praying for tidings of him. The masters, too, were weighed down with apprehension – or something. Othello's dark face wore a yellowish hue, and Meeker looked the picture of nervous woe. His complexion, always pallid, now seemed ashen, and he started at every sudden sound. Thursday went by without a word of any kind of news. The class huddled together at recess, taking no notice whatever of Hoover, who skulked away for his smoke, followed by many unloving eyes but without audible comment, for Shorty had conveyed Pop's dictum to the class, and when Pop took his boys into his confidence, as, through some one or two of their number he sometimes did, and told them thus and so, there was no question. That class at least observed his wishes to the letter. Hoover had been told to return to school and no questions asked, and the First Latin was virtually pledged to the arrangement.

"Aut impendere viam, aut poscere causas."

But a wretched-looking Hoover it was that emerged from the Doctor's closet at two that afternoon and slunk back to the accustomed place at the foot of the room. Even Briggs had steered clear of him, and every one noted how Briggs flitted about from group to group during recess, his old-time "cheek" apparently vanished, his effrontery replaced by nervous appeal. He had seized on Shorty, as the boys turned out for recess, with eager question about Snipe, but the youngster impatiently shook him off and shot away, light of foot as he was heavy of heart, and the eyes of the others followed him as he turned into Twenty-fourth Street, for all seemed to know he was using his half-hour to speed to the Lawrences' for news of Snipe. Before the bell recalled them he was back, mournfully shaking his head, and they trooped up-stairs, low-voiced and disconsolate, Hoover slinking in alone, last of all, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes flitting nervously about. All through the half-hour the talk had been as to the possible cause of Snipe's mysterious withdrawal from the school and later and more mysterious disappearance. Everybody felt that John, the janitor, could tell something, even if it were only a lie – or a pack of lies, for John's veracity was a thing held up to scorn at the end of a hair. But John kept under the wing of some teacher and could not and would not be approached, and John looked white and scared. The Doctor came at the usual time, made the usual impressive pause at the doorway, pointed, as usual, to the usual foot of the class, who blinked and shifted rather more than ever. Then Pop removed his hat and strode with his usual deliberation to the closet, hung it on its peg, produced his gold-rimmed spectacles, and, as usual, wiped the glasses with his spotless cambric handkerchief as he looked over the notes and letters on his desk, while in subdued, half-hearted way the recitation went on. Then, with only a glance along the line of young faces, all studying him and none regarding Halsey, who at the moment had little Beekman on the rack, he signalled to Shorty, and the boy sprang to his side.

"Hear anything?" he asked, in undertone, as though he needed not to be told that Shorty had gone to inquire.

"No news, sir," said Loquax, with lips that twitched alarmingly. "Mrs. Lawrence will be here right after school."

"Then you stay. I may need you," said the Doctor, and pointed to the bench.

Five minutes later, after rapidly reading the brief missives on his desk, the Doctor arose, signalled to Hoover, ushered him into the lead-colored closet, followed and shut the door, from which quarter of an hour later Hoover emerged, as has been said, looking limp and woe-begone, and the moment school was over slunk away homeward without a word. By this time the First Latin was half mad with mingled curiosity and concern, when an elegantly dressed woman, followed by a manservant with a compact little parcel under his arm, appeared at the Fourth Avenue entrance, where the group still lingered, waiting for Shorty, and the whisper went round that it was Mrs. Lawrence, Snipe's aunt. The excitement rose to fever heat. Doremus and Satterlee, scouting about the avenue an hour later, declared that she had been crying when she came forth again and walked away to Twenty-fourth Street. Friday came. Shorty was ten minutes late at first recitation and failed in every lesson, yet not a word of rebuke came from any one of the masters. Halsey merely inclined his dark head, and with a tinge of sympathy in his tone, wherein they had long known only cutting sarcasm or stern admonition, said, "Never mind going further to-day." At recess, again, the boy bounded away to the Lawrences' and came back five minutes late, with face as hopeless as before, but he bore a note, which he laid upon the Doctor's desk, and without a word accepted the "ten marks off" for his delay, which at any other time would have caused a storm of protest. Pop arrived three minutes ahead of time, saw at a glance that little Pythias was down near the foot of the class, and made not the faintest allusion to it. He had barely taken his seat and looked over the two or three notes when a heavy tread was heard upon the stair, and despite Halsey's efforts the recitation hung fire, and every boy stared as a tall, grim-visaged, angular man of middle age stepped within the door, and in another moment was clasping hands with the Doctor, who left his dais to greet him. There was a brief, low-toned exchange of words, then Halsey and the new-comer caught each other's eye, despite the former's effort to stick to his work, and, faintly flushing, Halsey arose, and they too shook hands.

"How have they done to-day, Mr. Halsey?" promptly queried the Doctor; and as nobody had done well or behaved ill, Halsey hesitated. He could not dissemble. Pop saw the hitch and cut the Gordian knot.

"Gentlemen of the First Latin," he said, "the school is honored by a visit from one of Columbia's most distinguished alumni. Shall we give him an exhibition performance in the Anabasis or – take half holiday?"

The class would rather stay but not exhibit; and so in five minutes the decks are clear, and, next to Beekman, the shortest boy in the highest class is being presented to the tall graduate. Before the name was mentioned he knew that it must be Lawton's step-father, Mr. Park.

First there has to be another conference of some ten minutes' duration between the Doctor and his visitor, who had taken the youngster's hand and looked down into his anxious face with solemn, speculative eyes and without the ghost of a smile. Shorty feels his soul welling up in mightier sympathy with Snipe. There is not a thing in Park's manner to invite a boy's trust or confidence. Then the two turn to Shorty, and he is summoned to rejoin them.

"The Doctor tells me you have been my – er – young Lawton's most intimate friend, – that most of his hours out of school have been spent with you. I had heard as much before through his mother and his aunt, whom I believe you know, – Mrs. Lawrence."

The boy looks up, unspeaking, his blue eyes clouded. It needs but faint encouragement, as a rule, to relax his tongue; but neither in word nor manner does he find encouragement here. He looks, and his gaze is fearless, if not a little defiant, but he answers never a word.

"What I wish to know is something of your haunts, occupations, etc. We supposed that when in your company and in the home of such eminent persons as your grandparents our boy would be safe."

Shorty reddens. Many a time when Snipe would have studied he has coaxed him out for a run afar down-town, a visit to some bell tower or some famous fire company, where they were never without kindly welcome.

"I gather," continues Park, "from what has been told me at his aunt's, that your associates were not always of the better class of boys."

Shorty turns redder still. Many a time when he would have been glad to spend an evening at the home of Joy or Beekman, Doremus or Satterlee, Snipe had held back. "You go," he said: "I'll stay here and read," and it wasn't long before Shorty fully understood the reason. Snipe could not bear to go in such shabby attire, but he had no better, and could get none without importuning his mother. No one in the houses of the fire department looked or said critical things about his clothes. Snipe was just as welcome as Shorty, and the rough fellows of the red shirts seemed to enjoy explaining everything about the different styles of engines and all the intricacies of their running rules to the brown-eyed boy, who seemed to ponder over what he was told and to remember everything. And so it had resulted that whenever a cold or rainy Saturday came round and they couldn't play ball, big Damon and little Pythias had spent many an hour going from one engine-or hose-house to another, studying the different "machines," learning to know the foremen or leaders of the rival companies, and often climbing to the tall perches of the bell towers and gazing out through the watcher's long glass over the far-spreading city, the smoky shores of Jersey or Long Island, the thicket of masts bordering the rivers, and the distant glimmering bay. It was all of vivid interest. True, they heard language that was eminently unclassical. They penetrated into sections of the great city where the fashionable garments of their wealthier schoolmates would have become the target for the satire of the saloons and the missiles of the street Arabs. They saw and heard all manner of things at which Aunt Lawrence would have shrunk in dismay, and concerning which Shorty's own people were sometimes apprehensive. But as neither boy cared to imitate the language or the manners thus discovered, it was held that no great harm resulted. That they might have been far better employed every right-thinking moralist will doubtless declare, and that they would have been better employed even Snipe, down in the bottom of his heart, would have admitted – but for his clothes. It is astonishing how much one's garb has to do with one's goodness, even among school-boys.