CHAPTER X

NEW SURROUNDINGS

The boys were so eagerly looking ahead that they scarcely gave a backward glance at Clinton, as the train rolled away. Mr. Blake had his paper and a whole seat to himself. Bobby and Fred occupied a seat ahead of him, and laughed and chattered as they pleased.

"This is only Friday," said Fred, "and classes don't begin at Rockledge until Monday. We'll have two whole days to get acquainted in. Do you s'pose there will be some of the boys at the Rockledge station to meet us?"

"And a brass band, too, maybe--eh?" chuckled Bobby. "I guess nobody but the principal of the school knows we're coming, Fred. We'll be new boys, and the bigger fellows will boss us around at first."

"Huh! they can't boss _me_ if I don't want to be bossed," declared the pugnacious Fred.

"Don't you begin to talk that way," advised his chum. "We'll have to be pretty small potatoes at first."

"I don't see why," grumbled Fred.

"You'll find out. My father went to a boarding school when he was a boy, and he told me," Bobby explained.

They did not have to wait until reaching Rockledge to learn something about the temper of the boys with whom they would be associated. At Cambwell several students got aboard and came into their car. They were all older than Bobby and Fred, and they were very noisy and self-assertive.

They sang, and joked together in the seats up front. Finally they spied the two boys from Clinton sitting in the middle of the car.

"Hullo!" exclaimed a tall, thin, yellow-haired boy who seemed to be a leader in the fun. "There's a couple of kids who look as though they'd just left home and mamma. Bet they're going with us."

One of the other boys said something in a low tone, and then he and the yellow-haired one got up and came down the aisle.

"Say!" said the second boy, who was short and stocky and squinted his eyes up in a funny way when he talked. "Goin' to school, sonnies?"

"Yes, we are," said Fred, sharply.

"Rockledge or Belden?"

"Rockledge, if you please," said Bobby, politely.

"Huh!" said the tall boy, grinning. "I don't know whether it pleases us any to have you go to Rockledge. But it's lucky you're not bound for Belden."

"Why?" asked Fred.

"We'd have to chuck your hats out of the window. We don't allow any Belden boys to ride in this train with their hats on."

"And do the Belden boys throw the Rockledge boys' hats out of the window?" asked Bobby, innocently enough.

"If they're able. But they ain't. You sure you are going to Rockledge?"

"You can wait till we get off the train and then find out whether we tell the truth, or not," said Fred, rather crossly.

"Say, young fellow! we don't like fresh fish at Rockledge," warned the yellow-haired boy. "If you're going there, you want to walk Turkey."

Bobby pinched Fred warningly, and both the chums remained silent.

"I never did like the looks of red hair, anyway--did you, Bill?" suggested the squinting chap, grinning.

"No. We'll have to dye it for him," said the yellow-haired boy. "What color do you prefer instead of red?" he asked Fred Martin.

"Well, I wouldn't like it to be straw-colored," responded Fred, promptly, and with a meaning glance at his interrogator's hair. "Any other will suit me better."

The yellow-haired boy flushed and his pale eyes sparkled. Fred stared back at him quite boldly, for the ten year old was no coward, whatever else he might be.

"Fresh fish--just as I told you," muttered the other strange boy, scowling and squinting at the same time. He was a very ugly boy when he did this. "Both of them."

"Well!" began Bill, and then stopped.

The train had halted at another station the moment before. Somebody entered the front door of the car, and at once the group of boys going to Rockledge School set up a shout.

"Hi, Barry!"

"See who's come in with the tide! Hey, Captain!"

"Hullo, Barry Gray!"

"Captain! Captain! How-de-do!"

Even the yellow-haired boy and his comrade turned to look. Bobby and Fred saw a handsome, brown haired fellow coming down the aisle. He was fourteen or older. He carried a light overcoat over his arm and he was very well dressed.

He tossed his coat and bag into one of the racks, and began shaking hands. Everybody seemed glad to see him. As he quickly glanced down the aisle his look seemed to quell Bill and the squinting boy.

"He's going to butt in, of course," growled the first named.

"Sure. Feels his oats--"

The fellow with the squint said no more. The handsome fellow, whose name seemed to be Barry Gray, came down the aisle almost at once.

"Hullo, Bill Bronson," he said, with some sharpness. "Up to your usual tricks?"

"It isn't any business of yours, Barry, what Jack and I do," growled the yellow-haired boy.

"I'll make it my business, then," said Barry Gray, laughing. Then he turned directly to Bobby and Fred.

"You kids going to Rockledge this term?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Bobby, quickly.

Barry Gray was not as tall as Bill Bronson, and perhaps not as old, but he evidently was not afraid of either of the bullies.

"Where are you from?"

"Clinton, sir," pronounced Bobby, again taking the lead.

"What's your name--and your chum's?" asked Barry.

"My name is Bob Blake, and this is Fred Martin," said Bobby.

"Glad to know you," said the older boy, shaking hands with both of them, and even Fred began to forgive him for calling them "kids."

"Ever been to school before?" asked Barry.

"Not to boarding school," Fred said.

"Come on up and I'll introduce you to the other fellows. Don't mind Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks, here," added Barry Gray, grinning at the two retiring bullies. "If they bother you much, come to me. I'm captain of the school this year, and Dr. Raymond expects me to keep all of the fellows straight. Being a captain is like being a monitor. You understand!"

"Oh, yes, sir," said Bobby.

"And you needn't 'sir' me so much," said the kindly captain. "Come on, now--"

Bobby turned to ask permission of his father. Barry at once saw that Mr. Blake was with the chums from Clinton.

"Who's this, Bob? Your father, or Fred's?"

"This is my father," said Bobby, politely.

The frank school captain stepped forward and offered his hand. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Blake," he said. "You trust the boys with me. I'll see that they get in right with the other fellows, and that they're not put upon too much."

"I'm sure of it," said Mr. Blake, smiling. "I shall feel better about leaving Bobby and Fred at Rockledge, knowing that you will have an eye on them."

"Oh, you can be easy about them," said Captain Gray who, despite his natural conceit, seemed a very nice fellow. "Of course, they'll have to take a few hard knocks, and the boys will 'run' them some. But they sha'n't be hurt."

"Huh!" muttered Fred. "I guess we can take care of ourselves."

Barry looked down at him and grinned. "Yes, I see you own red hair," he observed, and Mr. Blake laughed outright.

Fred followed his chum and Barry Gray up the aisle with rather a lagging step. He felt his own importance considerably, and he did not see why he should be as respectful as Bobby was to the captain of Rockledge School.

In a very few minutes Master Martin felt better. The other boys were a lot more friendly than Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks, who the chums learned later, were two of the most troublesome boys at the school. Not many of the others liked the bullies.

There were some fellows quite as young as Bobby and Fred, but none of them were "greenies," like the chums from Clinton.

"Sure you'll have to be hazed!" explained a fat, genial boy, named Perry Wise--called "Pee Wee" because of his initials and his size. "Every fellow has to, that comes to the school. But Barrymore Gray won't let them go too far. He's a nice fellow, he is."

"I think he is fine," said Bobby, enthusiastically.

"He's pretty fresh, I guess," grumbled Fred.

"We don't call the captain of the school fresh," said Pee Wee. "He has a right to boss us. The Doctor lets him. Next to the teachers, Barry's got more to say about things in the school than anybody else."

This did not please Master Martin much. He wanted to be of some importance himself, and he had never been used to giving in to other boys, unless it was to Bobby Blake.

However, there was so much to hear, and so many new people to get acquainted with that Fred had little time to worry about Barry Gray. The chums found the time passing so quickly that they were surprised when the train slowed down and the brakeman shouted, "All out for Rockledge!"

There was no crowd of boys and no band. Rockledge was a busy town, with oak-shaded streets, great bowlders thrusting their heads out of the vacant lots, and much blasting going on where new cellars were being excavated.

There was an electric car line through the middle of High Street, which turned off at the shore of the lake (they learned this afterward) and went as far as Belden.

Bobby and Fred, with Mr. Blake, took a car on this line and crossed the railroad, finally bringing up within sight of the grounds of Rockledge School.

It was not a large school, and there were only four buildings, including the gate-keeper's cottage where all of the outside servants slept. It had once been a fine private estate, and Dr. Raymond had made of it a most attractive and homelike institution.

The doctor and his family, and his chief assistant, lived in a handsome house connected with the main building of the school by a long, roofed portico. This last building was of brick and sandstone, and held classrooms, dining-rooms, the kitchen department in one end of the basement, and a fine gymnasium in the other.

In the upper stories were a hall, two large dormitories in each of which were beds for twenty boys, and five small dormitories for two boys each. The ten highest scholars occupied these small rooms, and from them was chosen the captain of the school each June.

The junior teachers slept in this big building, too.

There were beautiful lawns, fine shrubs, winding, shaded walks, and a large campus on which were a baseball diamond, a football field, and courts for tennis, basket-ball, and other games.

These facts Bobby and Fred gradually absorbed. At first they were too round-eyed to appreciate much but the fact that the place seemed large, and that there positively was an immense number of boys! Fifty boys seemed to have swelled to a hundred and fifty--and they all stared at the newcomers.

Mr. Blake went immediately to the doctor's study, taking Bobby and Fred with him. Dr. Raymond was a tall, big-boned man, wearing very loose garments and a collar a full size too large. The big doctor had bushy side-whiskers, and his chin and lip were very closely shaved. He had white, big teeth, and he showed them all when he smiled.

His eyes were kindly, and wrinkles appeared around them when he smiled, in a most engaging fashion. When he shook hands with Bobby and Fred, some magnetic feeling passed from the big man to the boys, so that the latter decided on the instant that they liked Dr. Raymond!

"Manly little fellows--both," said the doctor, to Mr. Blake, as the two gentlemen walked toward the big windows at the end of the room, leaving Bobby and Fred marooned, like two castaway sailors, on a desert isle of rug near the door.

The doctor's study was enormously long, with a high ceiling, and lined with books, save where a fireplace broke into the bookshelves on one side. There was a very large flat-topped desk, too, several deep chairs, and a number of smaller tables at which the older boys sometimes did their lessons.

"You'll find them just as full of fun and mischief as a couple of chestnuts are of meat," said Mr. Blake, with a chuckle. "But I don't think there is a mean trait in either of them. My boy has had, we think, rather a good influence over Freddie Martin. The latter's red hair is apt to get him into trouble."

"I understand," said the doctor, nodding and smiling. "I try to leave the boys much to themselves in the matter of deportment. The bigger boys are supposed to set the standard of morals, and I am glad to say that I have never yet had occasion to be sorry for beginning that way.

"We run Rockledge School on honor, sir. Every year--in June--we present to the boy who earns it, a gold medal stating that for the past year he has shown himself to be worthy of distinction above his fellows in a strictly honorable way.

"This medal is not given for scholarship--yet none but a fairly studious boy may earn it. It is not given for deportment strictly--though no boy who is not gentlemanly and of manly bearing and action, can win it. The medal is not given for mere popularity, for a boy may sometimes be popular with his fellows, without having many of the fundamental virtues of character which we hope to see in our boys.

"The boy who won it last year, and is gone from us now, stood ninth in his class only, and was not much of an athlete--which latter tells mightily among the boys themselves, you know. Yet my teachers and myself, as well as the school, were practically unanimous in the selection of Tommy Wardwell as the recipient of the Medal of Honor."

The gentlemen talked some few minutes longer. Then Mr. Blake came to bid Bobby and Fred good-by. He shook hands gravely with his own son and then took Fred's hand.

"You've got some trouble, some fun, and a lot of work before you, Master Fred," he said. "I expect your father and mother will be anxiously waiting for good reports about you."

Then he looked at Bobby again. That youngster was having great difficulty in "holding in." His father was going away--and going to a far country. Thousands of miles would separate them before they would meet again.

"You got anything to say to me, Bobs?" asked 'Mr. Blake, briskly.

"Ye--yes, sir!" gasped Bobby. "I--I got to kiss you before you go, Pa!" and he flung his arms around Mr. Blake's neck and for a minute was a baby again.

He knew that Fred would think such a show of emotion beneath him, and he saw the doctor looking at him curiously. Just the same, Bobby Blake was glad--oh, how glad!--many and many a time thereafter that he had bade his father good-by in just this way.