Читать книгу Crofton Chums - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

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At a quarter before five that afternoon the expressman landed the last of Gil’s and Poke’s belongings in the corner room at Sunnywood Cottage. On his final trip upstairs the expressman carried a waste-basket filled with books and a crimson sofa pillow embroidered with a gray C. Gil paid him, closed the door behind him and then with a shout of triumph seized the cushion and hurled it across the room at Poke. As Poke was at that instant bent over a suit case, extracting a miscellaneous assortment of books, balls, pens, shoes and so forth from it, and as the cushion struck him square between his shoulders, the result was interesting and spectacular. Poke’s head went into the suit case and his feet flew out behind him. Gil, chortling gleefully, watched Poke recover his equilibrium. Then, by deftly dropping to the floor at the psychological moment, he escaped the rubber-soled shoe that sang across the room and banged against the door. He picked up the missile and tossed it back. Poke caught with one hand, swooped down and tagged the suit case. Gil waved his hand.

“Out at the plate!” he yelled.

Then they looked at each other and grinned.

“Get busy,” said Poke finally. “It’s most five o’clock. Say, you hate to unpack, don’t you?”

“Observe the trouble I saved myself at hall,” said Gil, pointing to his trunk. “If I’d unpacked there, as you did, I’d have had it all to do over again. See?”

“Well, as we aren’t likely to move again to-day you’d better get busy. Say, it was a great scheme of ours to get here early and be all settled ahead of the others, wasn’t it?”

“Marvelous,” agreed Gil ironically. “See us now!”

Poke looked over the room and grinned. “Looks as though it had been struck by a cyclone, doesn’t it? Say, this is a dandy big closet.”

“Well, don’t hog it all. Seen my trunk key anywhere?”

“Yes, I saw it on the window sill at hall.”

“Oh, feathers! Well, I’m not going back for it to-night. Let’s try yours, Poke.”

“Won’t fit. You tried it last year. Get a hammer.”

“Haven’t any.”

“Put your fool head out in the hall and yell for one.”

“All right. Say, Poke, weren’t you surprised when J. G. let us off on our room?”

“Rather! But I dare say there are plenty of fellows who’ll be glad of it.”

“Well, they can have it! I like this ten times better. Of course we’re paying a little more—”

“About fifty cents a week more,” said Poke scornfully, “and what’s that? I’ll bet Mrs. Hazard will give us better things to eat than we got at school. And anyway it will be more—more homelike.”

“‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,’” sang Gil as he opened the door. Then, “Say, Poke, who shall I yell for?”

“Yell for a hammer, of course.”

“Hammer! Hammer!” cried Gil softly. “It doesn’t come, Poke! What’s the chap’s name?”

“Hazard.”

“First name, I mean.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe he wouldn’t like to have me get familiar on so short an acquaintance,” reflected Gil. “I guess I’ll go down and find some one.”

“Don’t get lost,” advised Poke.

Gil didn’t have to search far, for Jim was in the lower hall. Gil explained his quandary.

“I guess I can get it open for you without prying the hasp off,” said Jim. “Wait a minute and I’ll get some keys.”

Five minutes later Jim lifted the lid in triumph. “There you are,” he said. “Say, you fellows have got a raft of truck, haven’t you? Going to put all those pictures up?”

“I guess so,” answered Gil, “if there’s room for them.”

“Better let me help you, then,” said Jim. “Tell me where you want them to go. I’ll get the step-ladder.”

“He’s a good-hearted kid,” observed Poke as Jim hurried off.

“Your friend came back again,” announced Jim as he returned with the ladder, “just after you telephoned. Said he’d decided to take this room. I told him we’d just rented it and he was as mad as a hornet. You would have thought that we’d cheated him out of it.”

“Oh, that’s like Bull Gary,” said Gil. “He has an overdeveloped sense of importance.”

“He’s got an ingrowing ego,” said Poke.

“I don’t know what that is,” laughed Jim, “but it sounds bad.”

“It’s awful,” Poke assured him solemnly. “Let’s put that one over the bed, Hazard. Want help?”

“No, you fellows go on and get your things unpacked. We have supper in about an hour.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Gil.

“I’d like to know how you managed that fellow the way you did,” said Jim presently.

“Who? Gary?” asked Gil. “Well, not to make a mystery of it, Hazard, we all belong to the same society, Plato, and in Plato every fellow is supposed to act decently. Bull wasn’t acting decently and he knew it.”

“Oh, do you have societies here?” asked Jim.

“Four,” was the reply. “There’s Plato, which is the best, and to which Endicott and I belong—”

“Also Bull Gary,” said Poke dryly. “But Bull was an accident.”

“And Pindar, Homer and Hesiod,” continued Gil.

“Are they secret societies? How does a fellow get into them?”

“Yes, they’re secret. And a fellow doesn’t get into them; he’s taken in. Each society has from thirty to forty members. New members are taken in each year during Winter Term.”

“I see,” said Jim, moving the ladder to a new location. “I thought maybe you could be proposed and get in that way.”

“Why?” asked Poke. “Are you at school?”

“I’m starting to-morrow,” replied Jim. “I’m in the Lower Middle Class. I suppose you fellows are beyond that, aren’t you?”

“One year,” replied Gil. “I didn’t know you were one of us, Hazard. What do you think of our seat of learning?”

“I like it,” answered Jim warmly. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“Know many fellows?” asked Poke.

Jim shook his head. “Not a one.”

“Wrong, Mr. Hazard,” said Gil; “you know two. Mr. Perry Oldham Kirkland Endicott and Mr. Gilbert Benton, two of the Academy’s most prominent and representative members. Bow, Poke.”

“Happy to meet your inquaintance,” murmured Poke politely.

“Well, I know you fellows a little,” laughed Jim, “and I know the chap across the hall in the same way. But that’s all.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll soon know plenty of fellows. Who is the chap you spoke of?”

“His name is Latham, Jeffrey Latham, and he comes from Poughkeepsie. He’s a sort of a cripple. One leg’s shorter than the other. He says he was born that way. He seems a nice sort of fellow, and I was mighty glad that Gary didn’t get his room from him.”

“Cripple, eh? That’s hard lines. What class is he in?”

“Lower Middle, same as me.”

“Then we’re all Middlers here. Is the young lady your sister, Hazard?”

“Yes. Hope’s going to High School when it starts. It’s her first year.”

“Is your father here?” asked Poke.

“No, he’s dead,” answered Jim. “Died about three years ago. That’s why we’re here doing this. Everything went smash when dad died.”

“Too bad,” said Poke sympathetically. “Never mind the rest of those pictures. You’ve done enough already. Besides, I’m going to knock off work and get ready for supper.”

“There aren’t many more to go up,” said Jim. “I’ll stick ’em under this bed.”

“Don’t forget that we must telegraph this evening, Poke,” said Gil. “We can telephone to the office from here.”

“That’s so,” answered Poke, adding in explanation to Jim, while a broad smile enveloped his countenance. “You see, Hazard, we’ve got to get permission from home to change our lodgings.”

“But you’ve already done it!” exclaimed Jim. “Suppose—suppose your folks won’t let you?”

Visions of having the room back on his hands, empty again, gave him an anxious moment. But Gil smiled reassuringly.

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” he declared. “I shall wire, ‘Poke moving to village. Am going with him. Wire permission.’”

“And I,” said Poke, “shall say, ‘Gil moving to village. Am going with him. Wire permission.’” He winked at Jim. “Easy, what?”

“Well, I hope it works,” laughed Jim. “Supper will be ready in about ten minutes. Guess I’ll go and wash up.”

“Much obliged for helping us,” said Gil. “See you later.”

Sunnywood Cottage may be said to have formally opened its season that evening at supper. At one end of the table sat Mrs. Hazard, at the other Jim. Hope sat at her mother’s right with Jeffrey Latham beside her, and across from them were Gil and Poke. Jeffrey was a bit shy at first, but by the time supper was half over Gil and Poke had made friends with him and the meal was a very jolly one.

“This certainly beats dining-hall,” declared Poke, accepting a second dish of Mrs. Hazard’s preserves.

“Well, rather!” Gil agreed. “We never had preserves like this, did we, Poke?”

“Nor cake like this, either,” added Poke, looking politely expectant at Hope, in front of whom the cake dish was reposing.

“This certainly beats dining-hall,” declared Poke.

“Do have another piece,” said Mrs. Hazard, smiling with pleasure. “I shall tell Jane that you like it.”

Poke accepted his third slice demurely.

“Is Jane the cook, ma’am? She’s a dandy, all right!”

“Jane made the cake,” answered Mrs. Hazard, “but I can’t trust her yet with all the cooking. I think she is going to do very nicely after she has had a little more experience.”

“Yes’m, experience is what counts,” said Poke gravely.

“Well, you’re getting plenty of experience with that cake,” said Gil dryly. “I guess, Mrs. Hazard, I ought to warn you now that Poke is an awful eater.”

“Huh! I don’t begin to eat as much as you do. Have some more cake, Latham? You don’t eat much, do you?”

“Oh, yes, I do, but Mrs. Hazard made me take dinner after I came. And I didn’t want to seem impolite and so I ate a whole lot.”

“Come to think of it,” said Gil, “it’s a good idea to leave a little room for J. G.’s ice cream and wafers.”

“By Jove,” exclaimed Poke, “I forgot about that!”

“To-night, do you mean?” asked Jim. “Do you get things to eat at the reception?”

“Sure thing! Ice cream and those sugar wafers that taste like blotting paper. It’s a good plan to go early, though; last year the eats gave out about nine o’clock.”

“Are you expected to go to it?” asked Jim.

“Yes,” replied Gil. “Of course you don’t have to, but it’s a pretty good idea to do it, Hazard. You get a chance to meet fellows, you see. Faculty too. ‘Boots’—that’s Thurston, you know; physics;—will tell you about his trip to Europe, and ‘Kitty’ Clarke—he’s chemistry—will talk fishing until your head spins. Besides, you’ll meet Mrs. Gordon, and she’s a dandy, isn’t she, Poke?”

“Yes. We’ll all start about eight. You’re going, Latham?”

“Yes, but I’ll start a little ahead. I can’t get along quite as fast as you fellows.”

“Oh, we’re in no great rush. We’ll all go together. We’d better go by the road, though; I guess you’d find it pretty hard through the woods. Let’s telephone those messages to the telegraph office now, Gil, before we forget it.”

Half an hour later they were off, Gil and Poke ahead and Jim and Jeffrey behind, all suiting their pace to Jeffrey’s. He managed to swing himself along about as fast as an ordinary walk, and that was fast enough for any of them this evening, for all had supped well and it was still pretty warm, although the sun had been down for a good half-hour and there was a little breeze from the west. It was not quite dark as they followed the winding road, but when, presently, the school buildings came into sight beyond the trees lights were agleam in most of the rooms.

“Seems funny not to be living up there,” reflected Poke. “I wonder who’ll get our room.”

“Homesick already?” laughed Gil. “Much I care who gets it. I believe we’re going to have a dandy time at—what’s its name?”

“Sunnywood Cottage,” replied Poke as they turned onto the drive that led past the rear of Academy Hall to the Principal’s residence. “Say, I like Mrs. Hazard, don’t you?”

“You bet! She’s a lady.”

“Yes, she’s—she’s sort of like a fellow’s own mother, isn’t she? And she certainly has great preserves!”

The house was brilliantly lighted and already fellows were arriving. Gil and Poke waited at the steps for the others to come up. Then, settling their collars and furtively slicking down their hair, they followed the stream, deposited their caps in the hall and entered the big library, already half full of guests. Mr. Gordon, the Principal, or J. G. as the boys called him, was receiving with Mrs. Gordon, and toward them the Sunnywood contingent made their way, Gil and Poke, however, stopping at least a dozen times to greet friends. On several occasions Jim and Jeffrey were introduced, but only one name stuck in Jim’s memory afterwards, that of a big, good-looking, broad-shouldered fellow of nineteen, who squeezed Jim’s hand like a vise and of whom Gil whispered a moment later as they passed on: “That’s Duncan Sargent, football captain; one of the best!” Then Jim was shaking hands with Mr. Gordon and Mrs. Gordon and the Principal was saying:

“This is James Hazard, my dear. His mother has taken the Timberlake house, you know.”

The Principal was a sturdily built man of fifty-odd, clean-shaven, with a nice face and a voice that made you like him instantly. In appearance he was more the business man than the scholar. Jim had met Mr. Gordon several times already, but Mrs. Gordon he had never seen. She asked kindly about Jim’s mother and how the house was prospering. Then another boy claimed her attention and Jim stepped back out of the way just as Jeffrey, who had found difficulty in getting through the throng, reached Mr. Gordon.

“How do you do?” greeted the Principal, shaking hands in his hearty way. “And what is your name? We haven’t met before, have we? You must set me right if I am wrong. I confess that I sometimes forget a face.”

“My name is Latham, sir, Jeffrey Latham. I came to-day.”

“To be sure! And so you’re Latham, eh? I believe—yes, I think I might have known it, my boy, for there is certainly a strong resemblance to your father. And how is the Senator? Well, I trust?”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. A fine man, Latham. I have had the pleasure of meeting him once or twice in a casual way. I hope you’ll find your stay with us happy and profitable, Latham. You must come and take tea with Mrs. Gordon and me some evening.”

As Jeffrey shook hands with Mrs. Gordon and turned away Poke Endicott, who had been next him in line, dragged him aside.

“What did J. G. mean about the Senator, Latham? Is he your father?”

“Yes,” replied Jeffrey.

Poke whistled softly.

“Don’t that beat all!” he ejaculated. “Why, man alive, Senator Latham and my dad are regular old cronies. Haven’t you ever heard him speak of Major Endicott?”

“Lots of times!” cried Jeffrey. “Is that your father?”

“That’s the dad! Why, say, Latham, you and I are pretty nearly relatives, aren’t we?” He grinned and stretched out his hand. “Senator, I’m pleased to meet you!” he cried.