Scott Morgan
Boys of Oakdale Academy

CHAPTER VIII.
THE WHITE FEATHER

Nearly a dozen boys of Oakdale Academy slept poorly that night; some of them scarcely slept at all. Of the latter Chipper Cooper turned and tossed and twisted all through the long hours, and finally when he did doze a little it was only to be aroused by the morning whistles of the mills, which brought him out of bed, shivering and nerveless, fully two hours ahead of his usual rising time.

When he knew his father had gone for the day he crept down stairs, to the astonishment of his mother, who, after taking one look at his haggard face, decided that he must be ill. Her conviction that this was the case seemed confirmed by the fact that he could eat no breakfast, although he sought to reassure her by saying it was far too early for him to have any appetite. Realizing at last that he must offer some explanation for his strange behavior and unusual appearance, he confessed that he had been troubled by a slight attack of indigestion on the previous day, which was true. As a penalty for this subterfuge he was compelled to swallow a tablespoonful of some homemade remedy which Mrs. Cooper sternly forced upon him.

An hour later Chipper was puttering about in the woodshed when he heard a footstep and looked up to discover Chub Tuttle shivering in a turtleneck sweater outside the open door. Chub likewise looked pale and heavy-eyed, and a single glance was sufficient to let each lad know what the other had passed through.

“Gosh! it’s cold this morning,” mumbled Tuttle. “Ground is froze stiff and puddles skimmed side of the road.”

“Yep,” answered Chipper; “there’ll be skating pretty soon. What you doing over here so early?”

Tuttle entered the shed. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” he confessed. “Don’t b’lieve closed my eyes once. Couldn’t help thinking about Rod Grant going clean off his nut.”

“’Sh!” hissed Chipper, tiptoeing up some steps and closing a door that led toward the kitchen. “I don’t want mother to find it out – yet. I s’pose she’ll have to know about it pretty soon. Sleep! Say, I never got a bit. Couldn’t help thinking all night long that Grant might be lost in the woods or drowned or freezing or something. Have you heard anything this morning, Chub?”

“No; I cut across back lots so’s not to come through the main street of the village. Four or five times last night I sat up in bed, thinking I heard people out searching for Grant. Jiminy, Chipper, didn’t he look just awful when Bern opened the closet door! I’ve never seen a crazy person before, but I knew he was stark daffy the minute my eyes fell on him.”

“So did I,” nodded Cooper. “We should have had sense enough to realize that, having a batty streak in his family, he was liable to go woppy like that.”

“Never occurred to me,” confessed Chub, turning the sawhorse on its side and seating himself on it. “Did you eat any breakfast?”

“Not a morsel.”

“Same here. Have some peanuts.”

Cooper declined the proffered handful of peanuts, and Chub, trying to swallow one, nearly choked over it.

“I’m worried sick,” acknowledged Chipper. “I’d give anything in the world if I hadn’t taken part in that fool racket last night. You know only a year or two ago some students at West Point drove a fellow half crazy hazing him, and he knocked one of the bunch out with a chair. Came near killing him, too. The fellow didn’t die, but the doctors said it was doubtful if he’d ever get over it. Read about it in the newspapers. Funny thing, but the chap they were hazing was named Grant, too.”

“I guess this hazing business ain’t as much fun as it might be,” sighed Chub. “You’ll never get me into any more of it.”

“I think I’ve had my fill, too. I just hate to show up at the academy to-day.”

The sound of a low, peculiar whistle, like a signal, drifted in through the open door of the shed, causing them both to give a start.

“That’s Sleuth!” palpitated Chipper, starting for the door.

Hesitating on the road in front of the house, they beheld Billy Piper, who turned into the yard at once and hurried toward them, in response to a beckoning signal from Cooper. His manner was nervous and furtive, and he glanced round as if in constant apprehension of feeling the hand of an officer at his collar.

“Hello, Chub; you here?” he said. “Just come over by the lower bridge. Thought I’d come that way, so I wouldn’t have to pass through town. Say, who do you s’pose I saw waiting for the morning train over at the station? You can’t guess. It was Barker.”

“Barker?” exclaimed Chipper and Chub in a breath. “Waiting for the train? Where’s he going?”

“He didn’t want me to know he was going anywhere, but I caught him with his satchel in his fist, and he had to own up. Said he’d had an invitation to visit Fred Merwin over at Clearport. Now my deduction is – ”

“The sneak!” cried Cooper resentfully. “He’s running away!”

“That was my deduction,” nodded Piper.

“And he was really the fellow who put up the whole job,” gurgled Tuttle. “He’s skinning out on us; he’s leaving us to face the music.”

“And if that doesn’t prove him to be the biggest coward in Oakdale I’ll eat my hat!” snarled Cooper. “He made a lot of talk about Grant being a quitter and a coward, but now he’s showing himself up all right. Say, I’d like to have just a few words with him – I’d like to tell him what I think. Come on.”

“Too late,” said Piper. “There’s the train whistling now.”

The sound of a locomotive signaling for the station beyond the river reached their ears through the clear, cold November morning, and they knew that long ere they could reach the depot the train would pull out for Clearport.

“Let him go,” muttered Tuttle. “He’ll have to come back. He can’t dodge it this way.”

In the shed those three unhappy boys discussed the affair until the first bell sounded from the tower of the academy, when at last, encouraged by one another’s company, they set forth for school, making haste through the main part of the village. As they approached the academy Phil Springer stepped round a corner and beckoned to them.

“Juj-juj-jiminy!” chattered Tuttle, his teeth rattling in spite of his efforts to prevent them. “They’ve heard something about Grant!”

Their hearts heavy, they followed Springer. Behind the academy they found assembled the rest of the boys who had taken part in the hazing, with the exception of Berlin Barker, and these lads gazed at them inquiringly as they approached.

“Have yeou fellers heard anything?” asked Sile Crane.

“Not a thing,” answered Piper. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing, and that’s mighty funny. We expected old Priscilla Kent would have the whole town stirred up by this time. If Rod Grant hadn’t come home last night she’d been throwing fits all over the territory before this.”

“Perhaps he came home,” said Cooper hopefully. “You’re right about Miss Priscilla, and so in this case no news sounds like good news.”

“Have you seen anything of Barker this morning?” questioned Jack Nelson.

Sleuth promptly gave them the same information concerning Berlin which he had imparted to Cooper and Tuttle, concluding with an expression of his views regarding the conduct of Barker. Their indignation was boundless, and, as one fellow, they agreed that the chap who had been the main mover in the hazing had shown the white feather.

“That’s enough for me, by jinks!” cried Sile Crane. “He run away last night, and now he’s dug out of Oakdale. Yeou bate I’ll tell him something when he comes back! If Rod Grant is – ”

“Great Cæsar!” gasped Piper suddenly. “Here comes Grant this minute, and Stone is with him!”

He pointed with an unsteady finger, and those boys beheld Rod Grant and Ben Stone coming down along the footpath from the direction of Tige Fletcher’s house.

CHAPTER IX.
MOMENTS OF APPREHENSION

As Grant drew near they saw he was regarding them with a half taunting expression on his bronzed face. In return they stared at him wonderingly, seeking to detect in his manner some symptoms of craziness.

“Dud-dinged if he don’t look all right,” muttered Phil Springer.

“I guess he’s got over it,” said Sile Crane.

Followed by Stone, the boy from Texas vaulted the back yard fence and came straight toward them.

“Well, how are the noble warriors and the desperate cattle rustlers this morning?” was his mocking inquiry. “You sure appear a trifle upset, gents. King Philip has a pale and languid look; Tecumpseh seems some disturbed, and I declare, Osceola is nervous. Girty, the renegade, has backed off, ready to take to his heels. I miss the familiar face of the chief of the cattle rustlers. Is it possible he has found himself indisposed this morning, which has compelled him to remain in bed? Take you all together, you’re a sure enough meaching-looking bunch.

“Survey them, Stone. Would you ever imagine these brave bucks possessed the hardihood to lay in wait, in superior numbers, under cover of darkness, and jump on a lone and unsuspecting person? Can you pick out among them the bloodthirsty redskins who would cruelly tie a captive to the stake and attempt to burn him alive? There they are – Cooper, Crane and Springer; – and there’s their disreputable accomplice, Rollins, otherwise known as Girty, the renegade. These others are the cattle rustlers, who rescued the unfortunate wretch from the Indians and bore him to their mountain rendezvous, where they threw him into a room with the bleaching bones of poor old Tanglefoot Bill. Is it any wonder they drove the victim of such cruel treatment clean batty? Is it any wonder that he chanted a doleful dirge, and rubbed powdered chalk on his face, and chewed soap until he could froth at the mouth? Such behavior on his part certainly indicated that he had gone plumb loony.”

He concluded with a burst of laughter that grated harshly on the ears of the deluded jokers, who were slowly beginning to understand that they had been fooled completely – that the joke was on them. The realization of this brought flushes of shame mounting to their faces.

“Well, I’ll be switched!” gasped Crane. “He’s a-givin’ us the laugh.”

Chipper Cooper pretended to look around on the ground. “Can anybody find a hole small enough for me to crawl into?” he muttered. “I want to get out of sight – quick.”

“I don’t blame you any,” chuckled Rod Grant. “Take my advice and seek seclusion and shelter in the swamps of the Narragansetts. You were a bum redskin, anyhow. You gents had a heap of fun, didn’t you? But you always want to remember that the fellow who laughs last laughs best. It’s my turn now, and I’m enjoying it a plenty. You ought to see yourselves. You’re the cheapest looking aggregation of hazers I ever beheld. Some of you appear sick enough to have a doctor.”

This was true; without exception, they all wore a silly, shamed expression.

The sudden sounding of the last bell came as welcome relief, and they lost no time about hustling indoors, followed more leisurely by Grant and Stone, the former continuing to cast jibes after them.

During the morning session the boys were given time to think the whole matter over, and with the coming of a calm realization that they had been not only checkmated but completely hoist on their own petard, their chagrin was intensified. Occasionally one of them would steal a sly glance toward Rod Grant, but whoever did so was almost certain to meet the chaffing, derisive gaze of the boy from Texas. Some made secret vows of vengeance, while others were more inclined to “own the corn” and acknowledge themselves outwitted. What they now dreaded more than anything else was the stinging tongue and pitiless badinage of the new boy.

At intermission they held a secret conclave, at which a few betrayed their continued rawness in the face of advice from others to swallow the medicine, bitter though it was, and make the best of it.

“I tell yeou, fellers,” said Sile Crane, “after due consideration, I’m sorter inclined to own right up before Grant that he come it over us mighty slick. We started aout to have haydoo-gins of fun with him, but before we got through he made us look like a cage of monkeys, and that’s all there is to it. I snum, I think ’twas pretty clever of him.”

“Bah!” growled Hunk Rollins. “If you want to lay down and let him use you for a foot-mat, go ahead. I don’t feel that way, and I don’t propose to do it. He’s been shown up as a case of bluff. He hasn’t got the nerve to fight, nor even to play football. Are we going to let that sort of a feller crow over us?”

“I’ve got an idee,” said Crane slowly, “that Rod Grant ain’t lackin’ in nerve. No feller could ’a’ stood what he did last night, bein’ chucked into a dark room with a real skeleton that had been rubbed over with phosphorus, and then fooled the bunch of us by makin’ b’lieve he was crazy, unless he had pretty good nerve. He’s refused to play football, and mebbe he won’t fight; but I cal’late the chap that keeps treadin’ on the tail of his co’t is goin’ to run up against a s’prise party some day. Bimeby he’ll wake up and break loose, and when he does there’ll be some doings.”

Returning to the academy after dinner, Chipper Cooper found a number of the boys still talking about Grant.

“Say,” cried Cooper, “you can’t guess who called me up over the long distance ten minutes ago.”

“Barker,” said Nelson instantly.

“You win.”

“Bub-Barker!” sneered Phil Springer. “What did he want?”

“Wanted to know what we’d heard about Grant. Said he naturally felt somewhat anxious.”

“You bate he felt that way!” exclaimed Crane scornfully. “What’d you tell him?”

“I told him all about it – told him what a lot of lobsters we were.”

“What made yeou do that?” cried Crane. “Why didn’t yeou tell him they’d had to put Grant in a strait-jacket, or somethin’ like that?”

“Didn’t think of it quick enough, Sile; but I told him the fellers were mighty disgusted because he sneaked out.”

“What’d he say to that?”

“Oh, he denied that he had sneaked. Said he’d had a standing invitation from Merwin, who had been urging him for a long time to come over, and that was why he went. All the same, I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was greatly relieved.”

“Of course he was,” nodded Nelson. “We all know he skipped out and left us to face the music. Now that there’s nothing more to worry about, he’ll come back with his head up.”

“Nothing to worry about!” sighed Billy Piper. “Wait till the prof finds out what happened to his skeleton. My deduction is – ”

“He’ll bone the whole school to tell who did it,” sighed Cooper. “If anybody squeals, we’ll find ourselves in a mess.”

“If anybody sus-squeals!” muttered Springer. “What’s going to prevent Grant from giving the whole thing away?”

“He’ll do it,” said Rollins. “That’s the way he’ll get even with us.”

“Get even!” said Roy Hooker. “Seems to me he’s more than even as it stands.”

With the beginning of the afternoon session they perceived something in Prof. Richardson’s manner which increased their apprehensions. Nevertheless, not until he had heard the physiology class and was on the point of dismissing it did the principal speak out. Standing beside his desk, he removed his spectacles and held them balanced upon his thumb, while his eyes surveyed the scholars before him, several of whom found it difficult to hide their nervousness.

“It’s an unfortunate thing,” began the master calmly, “that some young men in this school seem to hold very crude and unsatisfactory ideas regarding honor and decency. You know very well that I have always favored clean sport and decent fun – I have even encouraged it. Yesterday I informed the members of this class that I had secured a human skeleton, which those who wished to do so might examine at an extra session after school closed to-day. This skeleton had been placed in the laboratory. I have but recently discovered that the laboratory has been entered by some one and the skeleton has been broken. It was strung upon wires, and may be restored. This, however, in no way palliates the offense, which was no more nor less than a shameful act of vandalism. It is quite likely that more than one person was concerned in this despicable business. I’m not going to question you individually, but I warn you now that I shall deal severely with the culprits when I learn who they are, unless they at once own up to the deed. The lad who comes to me first with an honest confession will be treated with more or less leniency. It may be that some one who was not concerned in the matter – who is in no way responsible – knows something about it. If so, I hope he will speak up at once and tell the truth. This is his opportunity. Let him speak.”

It seemed that the master’s gaze came to a rest upon Rodney Grant as he concluded, and more than one lad in that class felt his heart stand still, believing it almost certain that Rod would grasp this opportunity to complete the work of retaliation. For several moments the silence was intense. The prominent “Adam’s apple” in Sile Crane’s neck bobbed convulsively as he swallowed. White around the mouth, Chub Tuttle slowly rolled his eyes in Grant’s direction. Rod was looking straight at the professor, but he sat unmoved and calm, like an image of stone.

“Very well,” said the master at length; “you have had your opportunity, and no one has chosen to speak out. Perhaps some one will decide to do so after further consideration. At any rate, I shall leave no stone unturned in my efforts to learn the identity of the rascals. The class is dismissed.”

School over for the day, Ben Stone found an opportunity to question Grant. “What would you have done,” he asked, “if the professor had singled you out and put it to you point-blank?”

“I should have declined to answer.”

“Then he certainly would have believed you concerned in the breaking of the skeleton.”

“I was.”

“But you were not to blame. If you had told the truth the other fellows would have had to suffer, while you must have been exonerated.”

“Had he cornered me,” said Grant, “I should have requested that the same questions be put to every other fellow in school.”

“What if they had lied? They might have denied knowing anything about it.”

“In that case,” said Grant, “I should have told the story of the hazing and refused to give the names of the fellows who took part in it.”

“Do you think they would have followed the same course – all of them, or any one of them – had the situation been reversed?”

“I don’t know,” answered Grant; “but I hope so.”

CHAPTER X.
WHO TOLD?

Jack Nelson was right about Barker; Berlin came back “with his head up.” To the surprise of his teammates, he was on hand for football practice that night, having caught the afternoon train from Clearport. When some of the boys commented on the shortness of his visit to Merwin and hinted broadly that he had made that visit for the purpose of avoiding the height of a severe storm which had threatened to fall upon the heads of all concerned in that piece of skylarking at which he was the master mover, he made an indignant denial. Even Crane, who had vowed he would give Barker a piece of his mind, was silenced by Berlin’s resentment and anger over the insinuation that he had shown the white feather.

Barker was not one of the few who betrayed a disposition to make the best of the fact that Grant had turned the joke upon his tormentors; on the contrary, this knowledge seemed to pierce his very soul with a red-hot iron, and he became still more vindictive and vicious toward the lad from Texas, declaring he would yet make the fellow laugh out of the other side of his mouth. Nor was his bitterness softened in any degree when he was told of Grant’s silence regarding the breaking of the skeleton.

“He didn’t dare peach, that’s all,” said Berlin. “If he’d had the nerve, he’d blown the whole business.”

A secret known by many persons may scarcely be called a secret, and almost invariably it is sure to “leak.” For reasons, Roger Eliot had not been taken into the confidence of the hazers, yet it was not long ere he learned what had happened on that lively night, and in his quiet way he took occasion to jest a trifle at the expense of the fellows concerned. They wondered who had told him, and Rollins expressed the belief that Grant must be “tattling and boasting.”

With the approach of the date for the Wyndham game, which was to conclude the season, football almost wholly absorbed the attention of the boys. Every effort was being made to strengthen the weak points on the team, for Oakdale still hoped to defeat the former champions and conclude a remarkable series of triumphs by winning the championship for the first time in the history of the academy. Although he pretended to be optimistic, the coach kept the players keyed to a fine point, never once permitting them to get the impression that the game would be anything but a stern battle from start to finish in which the failure of a single fellow to do his level best might prove disastrous.

In secret consultation with Eliot, Winton owned up to apprehension concerning two of the players, and repeated over and over that even one more good man might strengthen the eleven enough to bring about the desired victory. Although Grant’s name was not mentioned again, Roger felt sure the coach had him in mind, but Eliot knew well enough there was no prospect of altering the fellow’s decision about playing. Furthermore, the time had already grown too short for the new boy to put in the practice he would need to become at all efficient.

The game, to be played in Wyndham, was scheduled for a Saturday. On Friday, at the beginning of the afternoon session, Prof. Richardson startled the school by delivering a grim lecture on the evils of hazing. Beneath his calm but scathing words some of the boys writhed visibly, despite their efforts to maintain a semblance of indifference. They knew, at the very start, the cause of this lecture, and concluded at once that in some manner the principal had learned the particulars of the hazing affair in which they had been concerned. As he went on the master proceeded to cite special instances in which hazing had resulted in the wrecking of the mental or physical health of the victims. He denounced it as disgraceful, unmanly and brutal, adding that he had been mortified and shocked to learn that various of his most respected boys had been concerned in such a piece of work.

“A few days ago,” said the professor, “I had something to say to you about the breaking of the skeleton in the laboratory, which at that time I supposed to be an act of vandalism. I have since learned that this skeleton was used by the hazers to frighten the unfortunate subject of their pitiful sport, and that it was broken while being thus used, and then returned to the academy. I declared, should I learn who had been concerned, that I would be severe in my punishment; but that declaration was made without a full understanding of the circumstances. I am now in complete possession of the facts, and I know the name of every boy who took part in that disgraceful frolic. The wisest men often feel at liberty to change their minds, and, without any claim to special wisdom, I have changed mine. I shall not inflict immediate chastisement upon the offenders. However, I shall hereafter keep close and constant watch upon them, and any further offense of theirs coming to my notice shall not pass, I promise, without merited discipline. I am not so old that I do not understand that boys will be boys, but there are plenty of clean and manly sports in which you may indulge to your heart’s content without danger of bringing to yourselves pangs of regret, and without fear of inflicting shame upon your parents and friends by your behavior. Although I have been exceedingly mild in my denunciation of your conduct, I wish you to know that I feel highly incensed and grieved and regretful over it.”

Without exception, they were intensely relieved when he had finished. Few of them ventured to exchange glances, but behind his geography Hunk Rollins grinned and winked at one or two of the guilty chaps who chanced to look in his direction.

After school that night, ere proceeding to the football field for final signal practice, half a dozen lads gathered behind the gymnasium.

“Somebody pup-peached,” said Phil Springer.

“Well, whoever the pup is, he’s a peach, that’s all I have to say,” observed Chipper Cooper.

“Who d’you s’pose it was, fellers?” questioned Sile Crane.

“My deduction is,” said Sleuth Piper, “that it was a certain party named Grant.”

“Of course it was Grant,” agreed Berlin Barker. “No one else would do it.”

“If it was him,” said Tuttle, “why didn’t he come right out with it when the prof gave us that first game of talk about busting the skeleton and offered to let off without punishment any one who would own up?”

“Because he’s a sneak and a coward!” exclaimed Berlin. “He was afraid to get up before the whole school and squeal, but he went to Prof. Richardson privately and told the whole business. I’ll bet my life I’m right.”

“Of course you are,” eagerly put in Rollins – “you’re dead right, Berlin. You’ve got the cheap skate sized up correct.”

“If you are right,” said Cooper, “we’d all better show Mr. Grant what we think of a sneak. I’m in favor of sending him to Coventry. Let’s cut him out, let him alone, have nothing to do with him; let’s not even speak to him. If every fellow will do that, he’ll enjoy himself hugely – I don’t think.”

“It’s a good idea,” nodded Barker.

“Maybe there’s one feller yeou can’t git to agree to it,” drawled Crane. “Ben Stone’s ruther chummy with Rod Grant.”

“There was a time when Stone wasn’t very popular around here,” reminded Barker.

“Oh, yes,” nodded Sile; “but yeou don’t want to forgit that he come out on top, just the same.”

“Look here,” sneered Berlin, turning on the lanky fellow, “if you want to take up with a sneak and a coward like this boasting Texan why don’t you say so? If you want to be friendly with a skulking, white-livered creature who peaches on you behind your back you can do so.”

“Naow yeou hold right on!” snapped Crane. “I ain’t said nothin’ about bein’ friendly with him myself, have I? We all know haow we used Stone and what come of it. Bern Hayden was at the head of that business, and he’s got out of Oakdale and gone to school somewheres else. I just mentioned the fact that Stone was ruther friendly with Grant. I s’pose that’s natteral, too, seein’ as he recollects what happened to himself when he first hit this taown. We don’t know yet for dead sartain that ’twas Grant who give us away, and so I’m in favor of goin’ slow, that’s all.”

“We don’t have to have proof against him,” retorted Barker. “Nobody else would tell. Besides that, he’s shown himself to be a quitter and a cheap dub. A fellow who hasn’t the sand to play football when his team needs him is a – ”

“’Sh!” hissed Piper. “Here’s Eliot.”

“Come on, fellows,” called the captain of the team, looking round the corner. “What are you doing here? The coach is waiting for us.”

They followed him to the field.

A slight spitting fall of snow, beginning early the following morning, filled the boys with apprehension, but it did not result in a storm; and at ten o’clock the members of the team and the coach set out on their long ride over the frozen roads to Wyndham. A group of boys and girls who could not make the trip to witness the game were assembled at the square in front of the postoffice, and gave the buckboard load of husky youngsters a rousing send-off. As the buckboard swung down the main street Piper espied a sturdy, solitary figure in front of Stickney’s store.

“There he is!” exclaimed Sleuth. “There’s Grant watching us!”

“The cheap, blabbing coward!” cried Barker.

Ben Stone, sitting in front of Berlin, twisted round in his heavy overcoat.

“Look here, Barker,” he said indignantly, “if you’re referring to my friend Grant, take my advice and use different language in my hearing.”

“Oh, ho!” sneered Berlin. “Your friend Grant, eh? Well, you must be proud of your friend!”

Stone’s face was flushed, and he would have made a hot retort had not Eliot promptly interfered.

“Drop it, both of you,” commanded Roger. “This is no time for a quarrel. We’ve got a football game on our hands.”

“All right, captain,” said Ben, straightening round. “I’m mum.”

Barker laughed mirthlessly, and the buckboard rumbled across the bridge.

Little did those boys dream that while they were on their way to the scene of the contest Rodney Grant made arrangements with the telephone operator in Wyndham to secure the earliest possible report of the game. And while they were fighting desperately on the field Grant sat within instant call of the phone, waiting to bear of the result. When at last the exultant Wyndham operator transmitted over the wire the intelligence that Oakdale had been defeated by a score of 10 to 6, the boy from Texas returned to the home of Priscilla Kent in a deeply dejected frame of mind.

“I’m sorry,” he said to himself. “It’s too bad.”