Scott Morgan
The New Boys at Oakdale
CHAPTER XXVI – THE CONFESSION
Distracted, scarcely realizing what he did, with that terrible cry from Hooker’s lips still ringing in his ears, Charley Shultz turned from the old quarry and limped away as fast as he could go. In his mind he carried a dreadful picture of Roy Hooker, lying bleeding, battered and dead at the bottom of that great excavation, and for the time being Osgood was wholly forgotten.
On his hands and knees, Charley crawled up the railroad embankment. One of his hands happening to touch a stout, crooked stick, about a yard in length, he grasped and retained it instinctively. When the track was reached, the stick served him for a cane as he hobbled away.
“It’s awful – awful!” his dry, bloodless lips kept repeating. “And I’m to blame for it all! I’m the only one who is really to blame. I thought some of the rest should help shoulder the load, but I was wrong. It’s up to me; I can see that plainly enough at last. If I’d only seen it in the first place, perhaps – perhaps this terrible thing might not have happened.”
After a time he remembered Osgood, and halted, looking back toward the quarry.
“Why doesn’t he come? Why is he staying there? He can’t do anything now. Well, perhaps it’s best that I should go it alone. That’s what I ought to do. No one else should be seen with me. I must face this thing by myself. What will they do with me? I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that I can never, never forget, if I live to be a thousand years old.”
His teeth set, he crippled onward, his ankle, if possible, causing him greater distress than ever, though it seemed as a mere nothing compared with the anguish of his remorseful and repentant soul. Not once were the shooting pains sufficient to wring a whimper or a groan from him. His mind was made up at last; he had decided what he would do, and he was almost fierce in his eagerness to do it before he should weaken or falter.
The South Shore Road, approaching the railroad at one point, promised an easier course to follow, and he abandoned the ties. Vaguely he wondered what the hour could be, and looked for some sign of approaching dawn, as it seemed that the night must be far spent. To him that night had stretched itself to the length of a lifetime. Into it had been crowded experiences which had wrought in this boy a complete change of heart. In the moulding of his character such experiences must indeed have a powerful effect.
Beyond the river, as he drew near the dam at the lower end of the lake, he could see a few lights still shining palely in the windows of the village. Little had he imagined, when he first came to this small, despised country town, that here he was to face the first great crisis of his life. Here, it now seemed, he had met with disaster that meant his complete undoing.
The little railroad station on the southern side of the river was dark and deserted. Near it he halted again, tempted by the thought that somewhere around those black buildings he might hide until the first train should pull out in the morning – might hide there, and, sneaking aboard that train at the last moment, succeed, after all, in making his escape.
“But I won’t do it!” he suddenly snarled. “I attempted to run away like a coward, and this is what I’ve come to. I won’t try it again. I’ll face the music and pretend that I’ve got a little manhood left.”
Beneath the span of the bridge the water flowed swift and silent, save for a few faint whisperings and gurglings. Looking down at it, he drew away from the railing, fearful that he might be tempted to leap and end it all. Had he been met at the foot of Main Street by officers, waiting to place him under arrest, he would not have been surprised, and would have offered no resistance.
Once before upon this same night he had sneaked up Cross Street, and again he followed the same course. Something like a powerful magnet now seemed drawing him on, although as yet he but faintly realized that he was moving toward Hooker’s home as fast as he could.
The house was lighted in almost every room. In front of it he halted again, struggling weakly against that attracting force. In there was Roy’s mother – the mother of the boy he had destroyed – waiting distractedly for some tidings of her unfortunate son. How could he face her? How could he utterly crush her with the terrible truth?
As he faltered and wavered, he became aware that some one was coming up Cross Street. In the silence, even at that distance, he heard the sound of footsteps.
“Some of the searchers – Roy’s father, perhaps – returning to tell her that they have not found him. When they do find him – oh, when they do!”
Then he thought of another house, a modest little white cottage, farther up the street. It was to that cottage that he should go, after all. There he would find the one to whom his confession should be made. This decided on, he forced his stiff and swollen ankle to bear him a little farther, with the aid of the stick, which clumped upon the sidewalk as he hobbled. There was a light in one of the windows of the cottage, the window of Professor Richardson’s study. The professor was awake. He was there in his study, waiting for some news of Roy. Well, he should soon know it all.
Shultz rang the door-bell, and barely had he done so when he heard some one hastening to answer. Through the sidelights of the door came the gleam of a lamp. A key turned in the lock, the door was flung open, and the old professor, in dressing-gown and slippers, lamp in hand, stood before Charley Shultz.
“What is it?” he eagerly asked, his voice hoarse and husky. “You’ve come to tell me. They have found him?”
“I’ve come to tell you everything, professor,” was the answer. “May I come in? I’m ready to drop. I can’t stand a minute longer.”
“Come in, my boy – come in. Good gracious! you’re in rags. You’re lame! You’re hurt!”
Having closed the door, the professor sought to aid his visitor to hobble into the study, which opened off the hall. In that room Shultz dropped heavily upon a chair, the stick, released by his nerveless hands, falling with a thud upon the rug.
“My goodness!” breathed the old man, staring aghast at the boy. “You must have been through a terrible experience. You’re ghastly pale, and your face is scratched and cut. What has happened to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know how I can tell you! But I must, and I will. That’s why I came here. I should have told you long ago. You were right, professor – you were right when you said it was a cowardly thing for the one who was to blame to keep silent. I didn’t understand then, but now I do – now that it’s too late!”
“Too late!” breathed Professor Richardson, intensely moved. “Too late! Do you mean that Roy is – ”
“He’s dead,” said Shultz.
Groping for a chair, the old man grasped it and sank upon it.
“Dead!” he echoed, running his thin hands through the white locks upon his temples. “This is terrible news, indeed! I’ve been hoping they would find him and bring him back all right. It will be a dreadful blow to his poor parents. How do you know? Are you sure – are you sure he’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sure. And I killed him!”
A few moments of absolute silence followed this declaration. Grasping the arm of the chair, the professor leaned slowly forward, his lips parted a bit, his eyes fastened upon the face of the boy. One hand was partly extended as he whispered:
“You – you killed him? What are you saying, Charley Shultz? Are you crazy?”
“No, no; but it’s a wonder I’m not. Listen, professor, and I’ll tell you the whole story. It started over a game of cards. He accused me of cheating. I struck him. I knocked him down. As he fell his head hit against a marble mantelpiece. That was what ailed him. No one else did a thing, professor; no one else is to blame. They wanted me to tell, but I refused. One fellow insisted that I should tell.”
“But why didn’t they tell, themselves?”
“Because they were afraid. Because they knew the disgrace and trouble it would bring on them all. Besides, I was the one who did it, and I was the one who should have owned up to it.”
“But you said – that Roy – was dead.”
“So he is. Listen, and I’ll tell you how I know. You shall have the whole story.”
Shultz told it all, holding nothing back save the names of the other participants in that game of poker. He made no effort to shield himself, no attempt to justify himself, and there was no need to question him; for his story, although given in short, broken sentences, was vivid and complete. When he told at last of Hooker’s blind plunge into the old quarry, the listener groaned aloud.
“That’s all, professor – that’s all,” Shultz concluded, in a manner that bespoke his boundless contrition and utter resignation to consequences. “You can see that it was I who killed him, and whatever my punishment may be, I deserve it.”
“It’s terrible!” said the old man solemnly. “It’s the most terrible thing that has ever come beneath my personal notice in all my life!”
In the hall the bell of a telephone began to ring, causing them both to start nervously. Immediately the man rose to his feet.
“It must be a call from the Hooker’s,” he said. “I’m on the same party line with them. Roy’s mother must be ringing up to ask me if I’ve heard anything. How can I answer? What can I tell that poor woman?”
Shultz, sick with pain of body and mind, could make no reply to this. Slowly, reluctantly, the professor left the study to answer the phone. Listening, Shultz could hear his words:
“Hello… Yes, this is Professor Richardson… What’s that? I don’t understand you… Is that you, Mr. Hooker?.. Yes, yes. What are you telling me? Roy – Roy is – ” His voice, husky and broken, became confused, and he seemed a bit incoherent. “Yes, yes,” he went on more plainly. “I think – I think I understand… Yes, I’ll come down. Right away.”
The receiver clicked upon the hook. Professor Richardson re-entered the study with a firm tread, stopped in front of the chair on which Charley Shultz still sat, and for a few silent moments gazed sternly at the cowering lad. Presently he said:
“The call was from Mr. Hooker. I’m going down there. You’ll wait here for me, while I get on my shoes and coat. Wait here. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” answered Charley faintly.
During the few minutes while the professor was absent Shultz sat there nervously clasping and unclasping the fingers of his cold hands. For a single moment, dreading what he might yet have to face upon this eventful night, he thought of stealing from the house and hurrying away. Only for a fleeting moment, however, did he harbor that thought.
“Never!” he whispered savagely. “Whatever I must face I’ll face. I’m done with being a coward!”
The professor reappeared, wearing his overcoat. “Come,” he said, and Shultz lifted himself to his feet. In the hall the man secured his hat. They left the house, and Shultz managed to descend the front steps with the aid of his stick. On the street the professor gave the boy an arm.
The door of the Hooker home was opened almost instantly at their summons.
“Come in,” cried Roy’s father; “come in, professor. Oh! you’ve some one with you.”
“Yes,” replied the principal of the academy, “I brought Charley with me for a most excellent reason, as you’ll soon learn. He has hurt his ankle and is very lame.”
In the sitting room Shultz staggered and nearly fell, for he suddenly found himself face to face with Ned Osgood.
“You?” he exclaimed in amazement. “You here? Then you’ve told them everything!”
Osgood seized him, swept him off his feet and practically bore him into another room.
“Look, Charley!” he cried, pointing at a person who sat in the depths of a big easy-chair, near which hovered Mrs. Hooker. “Here he is! He’s all right now, too. He’s all right, for he can talk and he remembers.”
The person on the easy-chair was Roy Hooker!
CHAPTER XXVII – LIKE A MIRACLE
Only for Osgood’s sustaining arm, Shultz would have collapsed completely. Ned helped him to a chair, where he sat staring in dumb amazement and doubt at Roy Hooker. It was a marvel of marvels, a miracle beyond his understanding.
“I’m dreaming,” he thought. “It can’t be true.”
But Roy was there. Roy was speaking. Shultz heard him say:
“You look to be in worse condition than I am, old fellow. You’re all broken up.”
Shultz was broken up indeed. Not a sound did he make, but he covered his face with his hands, and tears began trickling through his fingers. Then he felt some one touching him gently, reassuringly, and heard the husky voice of Professor Richardson, the man he had scorned and sneered at, saying gently, almost tenderly:
“There, there, my boy. It’s all right. You made a mistake, as we all do sometimes, but you’ve been punished more than enough. I am sure no one could wish you to receive further punishment.”
Then Hooker spoke again:
“Why, he wasn’t to blame any more than I was – not as much. I started it. I lost my head and called him nasty names and tried to hit him. I’m the one who is really to blame for everything.”
Somehow this made Charley’s tears flow the faster. He did not sob, he did not speak, but he sat there with a great feeling of gratitude in his heart and a yearning to say something to Roy Hooker which he knew he never could say.
“We were all to blame,” asserted Ned. “No one fellow should try to take it on himself; I’m dead certain other chaps in the bunch will agree to that.”
“It will be a lesson to you all,” said the old professor. “Mrs. Hooker, I congratulate you that your son is again in his normal mind and apparently not much the worse for his experience. It has been a trying time for us all, and we should be thankful indeed that it has turned out so well.”
Through his tear-wet eyelashes Shultz was looking at Roy.
“I – I don’t understand,” he whispered. “I saw him fall into the old quarry.”
“But you didn’t wait to see how far he fell,” said Ned. “I looked. Perhaps twenty feet below the brink over which he ran, I saw him lying on a wide projecting shelf of rock. He was stunned, and he lay perfectly still, without answering when I called to him. I knew I must get him out somehow, and in a minute or two I thought that I might find a rope in one of the tool houses of the new quarry. I ran around there as fast as I could, broke into one of those little shanties, found a rope and hurried back. Making one end of the rope fast, I lowered myself to the shelf on which Roy still lay. He was just coming to his senses, and when he saw me he spoke. Of course, he had no idea where he was or how he came to be there, for he could remember nothing that happened after his head struck the mantelpiece in my room.”
“And I can’t remember now,” put in Hooker. “It’s all a blank.”
“When he had recovered and seemed to be pretty strong,” Osgood continued, “I tied the rope about his body beneath his arms. Then I climbed back out of the quarry and succeeded in pulling him up, almost inch by inch. He could help me some by grasping the rough places in the face of the rock and by getting a few footholds now and then. As soon as he was safely out, we hoofed it for town.”
“It’s likely,” said Professor Richardson, “that Roy struck his head when he fell, and that shock restored his lost memory.”
“And I’ve got my boy again,” said Mrs. Hooker, embracing her son and kissing him. “That’s enough. I am satisfied and happy.”
“I don’t think anybody should kick up a big muss over this affair,” said Roy’s father. “Now when I was a boy, I got into some scrapes myself. I guess most men are too apt to forget the fool things they did when they were youngsters.”
“That is very true,” agreed the professor. “Maturity cuts us off from true sympathy with boyhood and youth, and we are almost certain to become too exacting and too harsh toward lads who invariably find experience the best teacher. I have tried not to forget this myself, but I presume I am like others, in a measure, at least.”
“Say,” broke in Mr. Hooker suddenly, “while we’re chinning here, we’ve forgotten something. We’ve forgotten there are parties of searchers out looking for Roy this minute. It was agreed that the Methodist bell should be rung when he was found. I think I’d better see about it that that bell rings.”
“Yes,” nodded Professor Richardson, “and we’ve forgotten something else as well. Charley has a sprained ankle, and I fear it is badly hurt, even though he managed to get around on it for a long time after it was injured. He should have the attention of a doctor as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Hooker. “I’ll send Dr. Grindle here right away. I’ll have to pass his house on the way to tell them to ring the bell.”
Finding his hat, he hurried from the house, and it was not long before the doctor appeared.
While the ankle was being bathed and bandaged, the church bell flung forth to the scattering band of searchers the message that the one they sought was found. Once before on that night Charley had listened to the notes of that bell and trembled with terror. He trembled again, but it was with great joy, and in the midst of good resolutions, which, though unspoken then, he silently vowed should be faithfully remembered and faithfully kept.
CHAPTER XXVIII – COMRADES ALL
Charley was sitting on a big chair, his bandaged ankle resting on cushions piled in another chair, when Ned Osgood came to see him at noon the following day. Ned had visited him early that morning, but now he returned with his face aglow and his tongue eager with a message.
“How’s the ankle, Shultzie?” he cried.
“Oh, it’s pretty well,” was the answer. “Of course it gives me fits, especially when I have to move it a little, but then, I guess I can stand it.” He looked at Ned almost entreatingly.
Osgood drew a chair close and sat down.
“The fellows all want to know how you’re coming on,” he said. “Of course I’ve had to tell them all about it.”
“Confound it!” exclaimed Shultz. “I don’t count in this business. How’s Hooker? That’s what I want to know.”
“I’ve been to see him, too. He didn’t come to school this morning, but he’s all right, just the same. Says he’s stiff and lame, and all that, but thinks he’ll be frisky enough in a day or two.”
“Does he – does he seem to be all right – in his head?” faltered Charley anxiously.
“Oh, sure. There’s nothing the matter with him.”
“Well, I’m mighty glad to hear it. You know I’ve been worrying – I just couldn’t help it. I kept thinking he might have a relapse or something – might lose his memory again.”
“Pooh! Nonsense! The doctor says he’s O. K. and he’ll stay so.”
“That’s great, Ned.”
“Funny,” said Osgood, “but the first thing he did was to ask about you.”
“I don’t see why he should care a rap about me. If it hadn’t been for me – ”
“Oh, cut that out! It’s plain bosh. Nobody thinks for a minute of putting it all on you, much less Hooker.”
“You know, old man, I wish I could have said something when Roy spoke up the way he did last night and declared he was to blame. I felt something – something inside of me here, but I couldn’t say it to save my life. After I’m gone, I hope you’ll tell Hooker that I think him a dandy, a brick, the finest fellow in the world.”
“After you’re gone? What do you mean by that?”
“Of course I can’t go right away with this old ankle the way it is, but when it gets better so that I can leave Oakdale – ”
“Leave Oakdale!” exploded Osgood. “Why are you going to leave Oakdale? Tell me that.”
“Why, Ned, I don’t see how I’m going to stay here. Professor Richardson was mighty decent last night, but of course I knew that was because he thought I’d had enough just then. He can’t want me back in the school, and there must be lots of fellows who’d shy at me, too. Once it wouldn’t have worried me if two-thirds of them had handed me the frosty, but now I’m – I’m sort of changed. I seem to be weak and lacking in backbone, and I know I couldn’t stay in the school with a lot of the fellows that way, even if Prof was willing I should stay.”
“Now you listen to me, Shultzie,” said Osgood earnestly. “I’ve had a talk with the professor, and he’s coming to see you to-night.”
“Oh, I don’t believe I want to see him again. I don’t believe I can. You know I said some mighty nasty things about him behind his back. I tried to turn the fellows against him, and he knows it.”
“But you can bet he’s willing to forget that, Charley, and he will never mention it unless you do. Between you and me, Prof is a pretty fine old boy. We had him sized up all wrong.”
“I reckon we did, Ned. Just because he was along in years and old-fashioned in some of his ways, we didn’t understand him at all. You know he said last night that most men didn’t understand boys. Well, it’s my opinion that few boys understand men, especially men like Prof Richardson.”
“I won’t put up an argument on that point. You’ll be welcomed back to school by him, Shultz, and you’ll be welcomed just as heartily by the fellows. Why, when Piper heard just how you owned up and tried to take all the blame, he was enthusiastic about you. Said you’d proved yourself a white man all the way through.”
“But he didn’t know what I’d been through to bring me to that point.”
“That doesn’t make any difference. Say, do you know the way the fellows behaved toward me made me mortally ashamed of myself? Charley, they actually thought I did something commendable last night. They seem to have the idea that just because I pulled Hooker out of the old quarry I’m a real hero. And you can’t make them see it any other way, either. Jack Nelson nearly broke my paw shaking hands with me.”
“Nelson!” muttered Shultz. “If he only knew!”
“He does. He knows the whole business. I told him while we were alone in the woods last night.”
“And he shook hands with you to-day?”
“That’s what he did.”
“Well, he must be pretty white himself.”
“White? He’s as fine a chap as one could find in a year’s hunt. Now look here, old fellow, I’ll tell you just what we’re going to do, you and I. You’re coming to school again as soon as you can get there. We’re going to stay right here in Oakdale and prove that we’re somewhere near as decent as the fellows we’ve met in this town. We’re going to prove to Professor Richardson that we’re not a couple of cheap trouble-makers. We’re going to try our level best to do just about what’s right. Do you get me?”
There was a gleam in Shultz’s eyes; a smile broke over his face; he thrust out his hand for Osgood to take.
“I get you, Ned,” he returned, his voice vibrant with deep earnestness. “You’re right; that’s just what we’ll do, as long as we’re to be given the chance. And say, I’m mighty glad to have the chance.”
When Shultz returned to the academy on crutches several days later, he was immediately surrounded by a crowd of boys who welcomed him back in no uncertain manner. First among those to hail him and shake his hand was Roy Hooker, and he was followed closely by Jack Nelson. Billy Piper was not among the last to grip Charley’s fingers, and there was no uncertain sincerity in his tone, as he said:
“Shultzie, you’re all right. You proved it. Say, it’s just ripping to have you back.”
“Old man,” said Nelson, “you want to get that ankle cured as soon as you can. The nine is crippling along without you, but I tell you we miss you out there in center field.”
“That’s right,” said Chub Tuttle, gulping down a mouthful of half-chewed peanuts. “It’s a rotten shame, the mess I make of it trying to cover that patch. I lost the game last Saturday by muffing a ball you could have caught without half trying.”
Grant, Crane, Stone and others all had a cheerful word for Charley, and while they were expressing themselves, Professor Richardson came pushing gently through the throng and clapped both his hands on the abashed boy’s shoulders.
“Well, well,” said the principal, beaming, “here you are again. That’s fine, I declare. You ought to be able to throw away those crutches in a few days. Do you know, I actually attended the last baseball game, and, on my word, I found it very interesting. I believe I’ve been missing something, and when it is possible I think I shall take the games in hereafter.”
Was this the “old fogy back number” Shultz had so often sneered about and derided? Why, instead of being sour and crabbed, this man was genial and gentle and sympathetic. Charley wondered how he had ever happened to misjudge the professor so greatly. The boy felt his heart swelling with the gladness and camaraderie of it all, and to keep the mist out of his eyes, he laughed, a genuine, sincere, happy laugh, amazingly unlike his laughter of former days. He was a lucky fellow; oh, yes, he knew it very well. He was different; he knew that, too, and he would never again be as he had been once, thank goodness.
When Osgood got a chance to speak to Shultz unheard by others, he laughingly said:
“I told you how it would be. Now you’ve seen for yourself, and you ought to be satisfied.”
“Satisfied?” said Charley. “That word doesn’t express my feelings, Ned, and I don’t believe there’s a word in the language that can express them.”
Professor Richardson’s troubles were indeed over; during the remainder of the term he was not disturbed by even the faintest show of insubordination or unruliness among his pupils, who seemed to vie with one another in their efforts to make the old principal’s duties not only easy but pleasant.
When Shultz next visited Osgood’s rooms, he noticed, not without surprise and wonderment, that all the old “family portraits” had disappeared. Not only that: Ned was using plain and simple writing paper, unadorned by a crest.
These two boys both became genuinely popular in Oakdale, and their splendid playing upon the baseball field caused many members of opposing teams to express admiration and envy, and to assert that it was mainly through the fine work of Osgood and Shultz that Oakdale won the championship that season.
