CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT SCHEME
DICK SOMES, or “The Brand,” as Chub insisted on calling him, was a success from the start. The circumstances attending his arrival at Ferry Hill enveloped him in a mantle of romance, while to have thrown over Hammond in favor of the rival school at once endeared him to his new friends. Besides this, however, it was hard to resist his personality. As Chub said one day in awed tones: “He’s just about as homely as a mud fence, only somehow you forget all about it.” And you did. You remembered only that his look was frank and kindly, his voice wonderfully pleasant, and his laughter infectious. Before he had been at Ferry Hill a week he knew every one of his forty-two companions to speak to, and could call each one by his name without a mistake. The younger boys tagged after him whenever they might, and the older ones were frankly eager to be with him. He could talk interestingly on a hundred subjects, and could be as breezy as a Kansas cyclone or as staid and proper as young Cullum, of the Second Middle, who, on his arrival from Boston the year before, had been promptly dubbed “Culture” Cullum.
Born in Ohio, Dick had moved west with his parents at the age of six years. Then had followed sojourns in a sod house in Nebraska, in a log cabin in Montana, in an adobe shack in Colorado, and in a real carpenter-built house in a Nevada mining town. After that the fortunes of the Someses had mended rapidly until, when Dick was twelve, the family was living comfortably in one of the finest residences of Helena. For two years Dick attended school uninterruptedly, something he had not done before. Then came his mother’s death and two years of hotel life at home and abroad for him and his father. So, of course, Dick had seen a good deal of the world for a boy of his age, had a keen sense of humor, plenty of imagination, and could rattle off stories that made his audience sit with wide eyes and open mouths. Dick never spoke of wealth, but the impression prevailed generally that his father was remarkably well off, and the fact that Dick had his own check-book and could draw money from a New York trust company whenever he wanted to naturally did much to strengthen that impression.
Harry took much credit to herself for Dick’s capture, and displayed at all times a strong proprietary interest in him. For his part Dick liked Harry immensely and endured her tyranny with unfailing good humor. At Madame Lambert’s School, in Silver Cove, Harry became quite a heroine, and the story of how she had induced a Hammond boy to come to Ferry Hill was in constant demand for a fortnight after school began again.
Naturally enough, Dick’s closest friends were Chub and Roy—and, of course, Harry; and I might include Sid Welch. Sid was fifteen and a confirmed hero-worshiper. Last year he had transferred his allegiance from Horace Burlen to Roy, and now appearances indicated that he was about to transfer it again to Dick. Dick was very kind to him, as he was to every one, but Sid’s youthfulness prevented him from any save occasional companionship with the three older boys. To be sure, Dick was only sixteen himself, but he seemed older than either Chub or Roy. He had barely managed to convince Doctor Emery of his right to enter the Second Senior class, and was working very hard to stay there.
One morning, a week or so after the beginning of the new term, Dick, Roy, Chub, and Harry were seated, the two former on the grain chest and the two latter on an empty box, in the barn. The big doors were wide open and the morning sunlight fell across the dusty floor in a long path of gold. The cold had moderated and that day the water was dripping from the eaves, and the snow was sliding with sudden excited rustlings from the roofs of the barn and sheds. Beyond the sunlight the floor faded into the twilight of the building wherein the forms of farm wagons and machinery were dimly discerned. From close at hand, to be exact, from tiers of boxes and home-made cages ranged along one side of the barn, came strange sounds; squeaks, soft murmurs, little rustling noises, excited chatters, and now and then a plaintive me-ow. The sounds came from the inhabitants of Harry’s menagerie, as Roy had nicknamed the collection of pets. Overhead was the soft cooing of pigeons, and outside in the warm sunlight many of them were wheeling through the air and strutting about the yard. Dick had just been formally introduced to the inhabitants of the boxes; to Lady Grey and her two furry, purry kittens, to Angel and others of his family—white, pink-eyed rabbits these—, to Teety, the squirrel, to Pete and Repeat and Threepete, black rabbits all, to Snip, the fox terrier, to numerous excitable white mice, and, last but not least, to Methuselah.
Methuselah was the parrot, a preternaturally solemn and dignified bird as long as he refrained from conversation. When he spoke he betrayed himself as the jeering old fraud that he was. Just at present he was seated on Harry’s arm, his head on one side, and one glittering eye closed. Closing one eye gave him a very wise look, and I fancy he knew it. At Harry’s feet lay Snip, stretched out in the sunshine, and at a little distance Spot, an Angora cat and the black sheep of the family, sat hunched into a round ball of furriness and watched proceedings with pessimistic gaze.
“When does the first hockey game come, Roy?” asked Chub.
“A week from Saturday, with Cedar Grove. By the way, Dick, can you play hockey?”
“No, what’s it like?”
“Haven’t you ever seen a game?”
“Don’t think so. It’s a sort of shinny on the ice, isn’t it?”
“Something like that,” answered Roy. “You ought to learn. Harry says you’re a dandy skater, and that’s half the battle.”
“Oh, I never could play games,” said Dick. “I’ve tried to catch a base-ball, but I never could do it.”
“You come out for practice in a month or so,” said Chub, “and I’ll bet you can learn how. Will you?”
“If you like. Do both you fellows play?”
“Yes, Roy plays first base and I play second.”
“Chub is captain,” added Harry.
“And where do you play?” asked Dick, turning to her.
“They won’t let me play,” answered Harry disgustedly. “I can play just as well as Sid Welch, though!”
“Oh, come now, Harry,” laughed Chub, “Sid played a pretty good game last year.”
“So could I if you’d let me. I can catch any ball you can throw, Chub Eaton, and you know it!”
“Of course you can,” said Chub soothingly. “I’ll put you behind the bat this year, Harry.”
“How far behind?” asked Roy. “Back of the fence?” Harry made a face at him.
“I wouldn’t think of playing if you bar Harry out,” said Dick gravely. “Harry rescued me from a life of idleness at Hammond, and brought me over here where I’m buzzing my brain out trying to keep up with my class, and I’m naturally awfully grateful to her. If you don’t let her play you can’t have my invaluable services, Chub.”
“Look here, how about foot-ball?” demanded Roy.
“Me?” asked Dick. “I don’t know the first thing about it. The only game I can play is chess.”
“But you ought to do something with those muscles of yours,” insisted Roy. “Did you ever do any rowing?”
“Never even saw a race,” was the cheerful reply. “Oh, I’m no athlete, me. The only thing I can do is ride and fish and shoot and throw a rope and—and run a little.”
“Run?”
“Yes, on my feet, you know. Don’t you ever run hereabout?”
“Yes,” laughed Chub, “we run bases.”
“I couldn’t do that, I guess; a mile’s about my measure. Don’t you have foot races here?”
“No, we don’t do anything in that line. Hammond has a track team, but we haven’t. You should have stayed where you were put, if you want to be a runner.”
“What’s the matter with getting up one of those things here?” asked Dick. “One of those track teams? You’ve got a track, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s not much good. We only use it for exercise,” said Roy. “Couldn’t it be fixed up?”
“I don’t believe the Doctor would do it,” answered Roy. “You see, it would cost a lot, and I know there isn’t much money to spend.”
“Why? Doesn’t the school make money?” asked Dick.
“Oh, yes, but not very much; does it, Harry?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t make anything; it loses,” replied Harry cheerfully. “Then I wear my old dresses in the summer, and we stay here at Ferry Hill; only sometimes I have to go and visit Aunt Harriet Beverly, which is much worse than staying at home.”
“Must be a leak somewhere,” said Dick. “Why, with forty-three boys at four hundred dollars a year, I don’t see why the Doctor doesn’t make slathers of coin.”
“He used to,” said Harry; “but everything costs so much more nowadays, you see. Papa says that if we had accommodations for twenty more boys the school would make money.”
“What kind of accommodations?” asked Dick.
“Why, places to sleep and eat,” answered Harry.
“But if he’s losing money now with forty boys I should think he’d lose half as much again with sixty,” said Chub.
“Didn’t you ever hear the saying that it costs as much to feed three persons as it does two?” laughed Dick.
“Papa means,” explained Harry, “that the expenses wouldn’t be much larger than they are now. It would take more food, of course, and—and things like that, but there wouldn’t have to be any more teachers, because papa and Mr. Cobb and Mr. Buckman could teach sixty boys just as well as forty.”
“I see,” said Chub. “But—could he get twenty more boys? The school isn’t quite full now, you know.”
“He could if he advertised in the magazines and papers,” said Harry. “He never has advertised because he says it wouldn’t pay to do it unless he could take lots more boys.”
“Well, I like the school as it is,” said Chub. “I think there is just enough of a crowd here now. If it was much bigger we wouldn’t hang together the way we do and we wouldn’t have half so good a time.”
“Yes, but I’d like the Doctor to make something,” said Roy. “I’d like Harry to have new dresses in the summer and not have to visit her Aunt Harriet,” he continued with a laugh. “Besides, if the school was making plenty of money we could have a new boat-house, and an addition to the grand stand and things like that, probably.”
“And a new running track,” added Dick. “I’m in favor of enlarging the school!”
“Objection withdrawn,” said Chub. “Go ahead and do it.”
“Then, too,” said Roy, who had apparently been considering the matter quite seriously, “we’d have a larger number of fellows to pick our teams from. If we’ve been able to win from Hammond in most everything in the long run with only half as many fellows as she has, what could we do to her if we had three fourths as many?”
“Third class in algebra!” murmured Chub. “Mr. Somes may answer.”
“Not prepared,” said Dick promptly.
“But it’s so,” cried Harry. “Why, we could—we could simply lambaste them!”
“Good for you, Harry!” laughed Chub.
“Yes, it is so,” pursued Roy earnestly.
“That’s why Hammond can have a track team and we can’t. She has nearly ninety fellows this year to our forty-three. That means that she’s got two chances to our one.”
“Oh, piffle!” scoffed Chub. “Why doesn’t she lick us then? We’ve beaten her three times out of four at foot-ball, and we’re away ahead in base-ball victories, and in rowing. No, sir, the reason we’ve been able to lick her is just because we have so few fellows that we all stick together and work for the school, and when we get a lot more here it will be different and there’ll be cliques and things like that, and half the school won’t speak to the other half.”
“That isn’t so at Hammond, I guess,” objected Dick. “From what little I learned of the place the fellows stick together pretty well.”
“Besides, twenty more wouldn’t make much difference,” added Roy. “What you say might be so if we had two or three hundred, like some of the big schools; but not with sixty. I cast my vote with Dick; let’s enlarge.”
“Yes, indeed,” cried Harry, “let’s! How’ll we do it?”
“Well, don’t let me interfere,” said Chub good-naturedly. “I’ll just sit here and keep still while you do it. But don’t be long, because I’ve got a lesson in just ten minutes.”
“Why, there’s only one way to do it,” said Dick promptly. “We must have a new dormitory.”
“Oh, is that it?” asked Chub. “I’ll see if I can find one for you.” He began to peer around on the floor. “I suppose one slightly used wouldn’t do?”
“You dry up and blow away,” said Roy. “We’re talking business.”
“And if you want to come in on the ground floor,” said Dick, “now’s your chance. If you wait you’ll have to pay a big price to join the Society.”
“What’s it called? The Society of Hopeless Idiots?”
“No, sir; it’s called the Ferry Hill Improvement Society,” replied Dick. “And its objects are to obtain a new dormitory, increased attendance, a new running track and a track team.”
“Is that all?” jeered Chub. “It sounds so easy I guess I’ll have to come in. You may put me down for president.”
“We’ll put you down for janitor, that’s what we’ll put you down for,” said Roy scathingly. “Dick shall be president.”
“I decline,” said Dick. “I nominate Miss Harry Emery, Esquire.”
“No, Roy must be president,” answered Harry, “and I’ll be secretary and treasurer, because I have more time than you fellows. And Dick must be vice-president, and Chub—”
“I’ll be referee.”
“No, you’ll be second vice-president.”
“All right,” answered Chub cheerfully. “That’s me. I’m the one who attends banquets and does the jollying. You folks do the work.”
“Look here,” said Roy soberly. “Are you fellows in fun or do you—do you really intend to go into this?”
Chub grinned and Harry looked doubtful. Dick, however, answered promptly.
“No, sir, there’s no fun about it!” he declared. “We’re going to do it. Work on the new dormitory begins as soon as school closes in June. Why not? What’s a dormitory, anyhow? Thirty thousand will build it, I guess; and if we can’t scrape up that much before June we don’t deserve it!”
“I’ll bet you anything he believes it!” said Chub in awed tones.
“Of course I believe it,” said Dick stoutly. “We’ll send letters to the graduates asking for subscriptions, and we’ll get the fellows in school interested and make them contribute. I’ll start the ball rolling myself with fifty dollars.”
“Gee!” said Chub. “I can’t give much more than fifty cents, I guess.”
“You’ll give five dollars, anyhow,” declared Dick. “No subscriptions received for less than five.”
“I’ll give five!” cried Harry eagerly. “I’ve got almost that much in my bank.”
“Good! Fifty and fifteen are—”
“Is,” corrected Chub.
“Am—sixty-five,” said Dick. “That’s a good starter.”
“Sure!” laughed Roy. “We only need twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and thirty-five more!”
“Oh, maybe it won’t take thirty thousand,” said Dick cheerfully. “I only guessed at it. We’ll find out about that the first thing.”
“Well, there’s no harm in trying,” said Roy. “And it’ll be good fun whether anything comes of it or not. But I vote that Chub be made president because I’m going to be too busy during the next two months to attend properly to the duties of the office. You see, hockey doesn’t leave much time for other things.”
“Not me, though,” Chub protested. “I never was president of anything, and don’t know what you do. Besides, I’m going to be pretty busy myself in another six weeks. Base-ball candidates are coming out early this year. Dick’s the man for president; he started the trouble and the subscriptions. All in favor—”
“I’d just as lief serve as president,” said Dick, “only I may be busy myself pretty soon.”
“What at?” asked Chub.
“Forming that track team. I’m going to be captain of it, you know. Roy’s captain of the hockey team and you’re captain of the nine, and I’ve got to be captain of something, myself.”
“Do you really mean that you’re going to try and get up a team?” asked Roy.
“Yes, and I want you fellows to help me. Will you?”
“Sure,” cried Chub. “It’s a good scheme, Dick. I’ll wager there are lots of fellows here who will be pleased purple to join.”
“Will you?”
“Me? Why, I can’t do anything.”
“How do you know? I dare say you can run bases, and if you can do that maybe you can sprint. And Roy ought to make a good distance runner. You say he was in the Cross Country last fall.”
“I’ll join,” said Roy. “I don’t suppose I can do anything, but I’m willing to try.”
“Same here,” said Chub. “And while we’re about it, let’s start a few other things. We haven’t got a croquet club, nor a sewing circle, you know.”
A meeting of the Ferry Hill School Improvement Society
“And if we started those, Harry could join,” laughed Dick.
“I should think you might let me join the track team,” said Harry. “I can run as fast as anything, Dick!”
“As secretary of the F. H. I. S.,” replied Dick, “you will have no time for trivial affairs, Harry. You’ve let yourself in for a lot of hard work, if you only knew it. Now, I propose—”
“I propose,” exclaimed Chub, jumping up, “that I go to my recitation. When’s the next meeting?”
“The secretary will issue a call for it,” answered Dick.
“Seems to me,” suggested Roy, “that the name ought to be the Ferry Hill School Improvement Society; people might think we were trying to improve the Hill.”
“Settle it to suit yourselves,” cried Chub, making a dash for the door. “I’m off.”
Methuselah, who had been dozing for some time, awoke startled, and broke into angry remonstrances. “Well, I never did!” he screeched hoarsely. “Can’t you be quiet? Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing!”
And the first meeting of the small but very select Ferry Hill School Improvement Society broke up in confusion.