Ben Stone at Oakdale

The Oakdale lockup was beneath the Town Hall, and into that cage for culprits Stone was thrust. Curious and unfriendly eyes had seen him brought back into the village. As the po...

The trial of Ben Stone had begun. It was held in the Town Hall, which proved none too large to hold comfortably the surprising number of curious persons who flocked thither; for...

As he passed, he looked up at the academy, set far back in its yard of many maple trees, and saw that the great white door was closed, as if shut upon him forever. The leaden wi...

As Ben seemed hesitating over the beginning of the story, Roger observed that, with an apparently unconscious movement, he once more lifted his hand to his mutilated ear. At tha...

Beneath the battery of wondering eyes turned upon him Sleuth bore himself proudly, for he felt that at last his hour had come—the hour in which he would demonstrate to the confu...

Ben came down quietly through the grove behind the house, slipped round to the ell door and ascended to his bare room without being observed by any one about the place. It did n...

All that long, silent afternoon, he wandered through the woods, the fields and the meadows. The cool shadows of the forest enfolded him, and the balsamic fragrance of spruce and...

Although he was certain he would be compelled to undergo an unpleasant ordeal at school the following day, he did not falter or hesitate. With determination in his heart, and hi...

Again Ben Stone found himself confronted by a problem that demanded immediate solution. It disturbed his pillow long after Jerry, wearied to the extreme, was sleeping soundly; a...

The case against Ben Stone broke down right there. Lawyer Frances held a hurried consultation with Lemuel Hayden and his son, and on his advice the charge against Ben was withdr...

In less than two minutes after the resumption of play the spectators perceived that a great change had taken place in the home team, for the Clearporters had returned to the fie...

As he was leaving the academy on the afternoon of his third day at school in Oakdale, Ben Stone was stopped by Roger Eliot, the captain of the football team. Roger was a big, st...

Plunk! Clearport’s full back, Ramsdal, kicked off, booting the ball into the teeth of the wind. Over the chalk marks sped the end men, Long and Stoker, closing in from either si...

As he hastened from the yard and turned down the street, he saw several boys assembled beneath a tree in a fence-corner near the roadside. They were laughing loudly at something...

Through the mail that night Roger received a letter from Jack Merwin, captain and manager of the Clearport eleven, which he read ere leaving the post office. The letter was as f...

For a few moments the boys looked at one another in silence, their faces expressive of dismay. To a fellow, they understood what it meant, and presently some of them glanced tow...

Both Roger and his father urged Ben and Jerry to come home with them for dinner, but the older brother declined, saying that they had many things to talk over between them. Alre...

The boys at a distance continued kicking the football about and pursuing it, but those nearer paused and watched the two lads, seeming to realize in a moment that something was...

“There,” said the widow, when Ben finished eating and sat back, flushing as he realized he had left not a morsel before him, “now I know y’u feel better. It jest done me good to...

That dinner was one never forgotten by Ben. The softly, yet brightly, lighted table, with its spotless napery, shining silver, fine china and vase of flowers, caused him to feel...

“On the contrary,” declared Roger earnestly, as he once more rose from his chair, “I hold quite a different opinion of you, Stone. You have had a tough time of it, and any fello...

A lance of sunshine, piercing a crack in the old barn, struck squarely into Ben Stone’s eyes and awoke him. For a few moments he lay still without comprehending, the odor of the...

Ben mounted the stairs in haste. “Here, Jerry,” he said, “let me try these shoes on you. Let’s see if they fit.” His hands trembled a bit as he removed the remnants of the shoes...

At practice that night Stone astonished everybody, even himself. All hesitation and doubt seemed to have left him, and at everything he attempted he was amazingly sure and so sw...

The game was over; after the third touchdown by Oakdale it had not lasted long enough for Clearport to recover and accomplish anything. The visitors had won, and they were being...

Stone recovered to find some one sopping his face with a cool, dripping sponge. They had carried him off the field, and he was lying on a blanket behind the tiered seats, over t...

It is almost impossible to describe the mental condition of Bernard Hayden immediately after Roger’s departure. Resentful wrath nearly choked him, and for a few moments he raged...

“Yes,” answered Jerry, sitting on the edge of the bed, “he was took off sudden, Ben. He didn’t live much more’n an hour after he was struck down. It was apoplexy or something li...

Having opened school that morning in the usual manner, Prof. Richardson rose beside his desk, on which he tapped lightly with his knuckles, and surveyed the scholars over his sp...

As he passed, the fellow cast a single malignant glance of hatred in Stone’s direction. Through the door which opened into the big, long main room of the gymnasium he strode, gr...