CHAPTER XI
NED GETS A LETTER
For an instant silence followed the startling announcement, silence in which the wind seemed to join, for there came a lull in the gale. Then, as the gale resumed its furious blowing, the audience became fear-crazed and a mad rush ensued.
Women and girls were screaming at the tops of their voices. Men were shouting to one another to know what had happened. Boys were darting here and there seeking a means of escape from what they believed would prove a death-trap. The noise of bricks clattering to the floor could be heard and the school-house seemed, at least to the excited imaginations of some, to be on the point of toppling down.
The four chums, who were seated near each other, had jumped up at the first crash. Bart reached over to grab Alice and prevent, if possible, her being trampled under foot. Fenn had Jennie by the arm. Then the light from the moving picture machine, which had served to dispell the gloom, went out. The maddened rush became worse.
"Quick!" cried Frank. "Let's give the school yell! Maybe it will quiet the rush until we can turn on the lights! There's a switch on the wall here! Now, fellows altogether!"
His three chums heard him as if in a dream, but they comprehended.
"One, two, three!" cried Frank.
Then, above the noise of the gale, above the shrieks of the women and girls, above the hoarse calls of frightened men, arose the yell, given with all the power of the lungs of the four boys:
"Ravabava—Havabava—Hick! Hick! He!
Dabavaba—Nabahaba—Snick! Snack! Snee!
Why do we thus loudly yell?
'Tis for our school: old Darewell!"
Never had the call been given under such circumstances. Never had it sounded more strangely. Never had it been more welcome.
For an instant there was a silence following the yell. It had momentarily drowned the cries from the panic-stricken ones. Before there was a chance for a continuance of the panic that had been halted, if only for an instant, Bart cried:
"There's no danger. Wait until the lights are turned on!"
In another moment Frank had reached the switch and the place was brilliant with the gleam from scores of incandescent lamps. The rush had been stopped, for, as the crowd looked about, they saw there was no immediate danger.
In one corner of the auditorium there was a gaping hole in the roof, where the top part of the tower had crashed through. The floor in that section was covered with bricks and mortar, and several seats were crushed, but the audience had crowded up front and no one was hurt.
A moment later some of those in charge of the entertainment hurried to the platform and made an announcement.
A hasty investigation showed, it was said, that the tower had fallen mostly outward instead of toward the school, which accounted for only a small part of it hitting the roof. Had the entire pile of masonry toppled over on the auditorium there might have been a great loss of life. As it was the main school was in no danger, but, for fear the structure might have been weakened it was decided best to dismiss the audience at once.
"That wind must be pretty strong," observed Bart as he and his chums, with Alice, Jennie, and some of the other girls, got outside.
"Oh! It certainly is!" cried Jennie as she stepped from the doorway. "I'm being blown away."
The wind had caught her long cloak and whipped it up around her shoulders so that it acted like a sail. Jennie was being fairly carried along the street.
"There's your chance, Fenn!" cried Frank. "Rescue a maiden in distress."
Fenn did not stop to reply to his tormenter but caught Jennie by the arm and helped her to straighten her garment.
"Noble youth!" exclaimed Bart. "You shall be suitably rewarded."
They all laughed, rather hysterically, it is true, at the nonsense talk, but it was a relief to their over-strained nerves for the shock of the accident had been a severe one.
They passed along and, as they got beyond the shelter of the school the full force of the wind was felt. It was almost a hurricane, and it was all they could do to walk along.
"No wonder it blew the tower down," observed Ned. "Let's take a look at the wreck."
They walked around to the other side of the school. There, prone on the ground, though but a confused mass of bricks and mortar, was what had been the tower.
"There's the clock!" exclaimed Frank, as he saw the dial of the timepiece some distance from the big mass of masonry. "See, it stopped just at ten."
There were four dials to the clock, one for each side of the tower. The dials were of sheet iron with big gilt hands which were worked simultaneously by the one set of wheels and springs. This dial, to which Frank called attention, had fallen from its place, with the hands still attached to it, the rods to which they were fastened, and which served to turn them, having been cut off close to the back of the face.
"I'm going to take it home for a souvenir," Frank said. "If they want it back they can have it."
He picked up the dial, which was painted white with black numerals on it. As he did so he uttered an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Ned.
"It's all mud, or something black," Frank replied. "I've got it all over my hands."
"Better let it alone," advised Bart. "The wind will blow it away, and you with it, if you try to carry it."
"I guess I can manage," Frank responded, and though the gale did get a good purchase on the flat surface of the dial which was two feet in diameter, Frank clung to it and took it home with him.
"See you to-morrow!" called Fenn to Frank, as the latter turned off on a street that led to his uncle's house. The others went in the opposite direction.
"We'll come and take a look at the ruins by daylight," suggested Frank. "Good-night."
"Good-night," called his chums, and the girls.
"Queer sort of a relic he's got," observed Bart.
"It's just like him," Ned rejoined. "Frank's a queer chap anyhow."
"I think he's nice," remarked Alice.
"So do I," chimed in Jennie.
"Who said he wasn't?" demanded Bart. "Can't a fellow make a remark about his chum without being found fault with?"
"I don't think it's nice to say he's queer," Alice said.
"Why he admits it himself," her brother put in. "He doesn't care what we say about him. We call him queer about twice a week; don't we fellows."
"Sure," replied Ned, coming to his chum's support.
"Well, never mind," Alice rejoined. "Let's hurry home or we'll be blown into the next county."
It was such a cold blustery night, with the wind seeming to increase in violence rather than diminish, that all were glad when they reached their houses.
"It's a pretty fierce gale," remarked Mr. Keene, when his son and daughter had told him what had happened, "but I wouldn't think it was strong enough to blow the tower down. Must have been weak somewhere."
"The janitor said some of the chimneys needed new mortar in the cracks, and maybe the tower did also," Bart said.
"I suppose the school authorities will investigate and see what caused it to fail," his father went on. "It was a dangerous thing to let such a weak tower stay up."
Bart stopped at Ned's house the next morning to call for him, and then they intended to get Frank and Fenn to go together and take a look at the tower.
"Come on in," Ned invited his chum at the door. "I've got a letter."
"Who from?"
"My aunt, Mrs. Paul Kenfield, of New York. She want's me to come down for a week or two. You know, she wrote me some time ago inviting me for next summer. Now she says she wants me to come right away, and to bring you three fellows. I wrote her, after I got the first invitation that I'd like to take my chums with me."
"That's very kind of you," replied Bart. "I guess I can go. When are you going to start?"
"Monday."
"That will give you a week there. I don't believe I could get ready so soon. I've got to help dad Monday."
Then you and the other boys could come afterward. Say on Tuesday or Wednesday," suggested Ned.
"I'll think about it," his chum replied. "But come on, let's go take a look at the fallen tower."