CHAPTER IX

STARTS OUT WITH POETRY, HAS TO DO WITH A BEETLE, AND ENDS WITH A PENALTY

Nelson read with a nod of approval.

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

He was sitting at the table on the porch of Birch Hall, and the lines that pleased him were burned on a wooden tablet affixed to the big stone chimney across the room. His gaze, returning from the quotation, fell on Tom, who at a neighboring table was, like Nelson, writing home. One of Tom’s legs was twined around the camp-stool upon which he was seated, as a morning-glory vine twines about a post. The other leg was stretched straight ahead, as though seeking inspiration at a distance. His forehead was puckered with wrinkles until it resembled the surface of a washboard, and he chewed ravenously at the tip of his pen. Nelson smiled, and let his gaze wander back to his own task only to have it prove truant again, attracted by the scene at his left.

The porch overhung the hill, and from where he sat he looked into the swaying branches of the trees. Between them, like turquoises set in a field of emerald and chrysoprase, shone patches of the lake ruffled to a tender blue by the breeze that sang amid the trees. Near-by a silver poplar flashed the under surface of its leaves into the sunlight, so that they seemed to have been dipped in pale gold. A gray squirrel chattered and scolded on a neighboring limb, and all about birds sang blithely. Nelson sighed, and brought his eyes resolutely back to the half-written letter before him. It wasn’t a morning for letter-writing; the woods called too loudly; his thoughts would stray.

“Oh, hang it!” exclaimed Tom, “I don’t know what to write!”

“Did you tell them about the ants last night?” asked Nelson innocently.

“You bet I did! And say, one of those bites still aches like the mischief. I never thought ants could nip like that!”

“You probably rolled over on them; that’s enough to make any self-respecting ant angry.”

“Oh, dry up and blow away! What are you writing about?”

“Not much of anything--yet. I mentioned the ants. And the weather; I suppose they’ll be pleased to know what sort of weather we had two days before they get my letter! I’ve got almost a page about the weather.”

“Gee! I wish I could write like that. I told ’em it was a fine day, but it only took a line. Wish I could string it out like you can! I guess I’ll just say that I’m well, and that it’s time for dinner, so no more at present.”

“Time for dinner! Why, it’s only half past nine!”

“Oh, you’re too fussy,” answered Tom, drumming on the table with his pen. “Besides, it’s always time for dinner!”

“Have you told them about your aunt?”

“Great Scott, no! I forgot all about her. Say, you’re a true friend, Nel!” And Tom, after scowling fiercely at the tip of his pen for a moment, took a firmer hold of the camp-stool with his leg and began to write vigorously, so vigorously that Nelson feared he would break his pen. Ten minutes passed, during which Nelson finished his own letter, and Tom, having told of Aunt Louisa’s visit in a scant half-dozen lines, informed his parents somewhat unnecessarily that “the weather continues fine,” and that “I will tell you more in my next,” and signed himself “Your loving son, Thomas Courtenay Ferris.”

Then, having hastily sealed and stamped their letters, they dropped them into the mail-box with sighs of relief and hastened out-of-doors.

“Let’s go up to the tennis-court and be lazy until time for church,” suggested Tom.

So they climbed the hill, found a place where the grass offered comfort and the overhanging branches promised shade, and stretched themselves out. Above them was a wide-spreading oak, behind them a little settlement of young birch carpeted with trailing evergreen and partridge-berries. Bordering the path were blueberry and raspberry bushes and goldenrod, the latter already beginning to glow, although August was but just at hand. Thereabouts grew wild strawberries, if Tom was to be believed, although they had long since ceased fruiting. Rocks outcropped on every side, and tall ferns grew abundantly. It was Tom who presently wiggled forward and plucked from a tiny covert of evergreen and grass three oddly shaped blossoms, pallid and translucent.

“What the dickens are these things?” he asked perplexedly. He viewed them suspiciously as though he feared they might poison him.

“Indian-pipe,” answered Nelson. “_Monotropa uniflora._ Let’s see one.”

“Are they poisonous?”

“No, indeed, but they do look a bit unhealthy, don’t they? Corpse-plant they’re called, too.”

“They sure do; look like mushrooms gone wrong. Indian-pipe, eh? Gee, I guess nobody but an Indian would want to smoke such a thing! Say, they smell nice, don’t they?”

“Nice?” repeated Nelson suspiciously. “Smell pretty bad, I suppose. By jove, they don’t though. Say, they’re real sweet! I never knew that they had any odor before. If it was stronger it would be mighty sweet, wouldn’t it? It’s--it’s what you might call illusive.”

“That’s a fine word,” said Tom lazily. “Ill-use-ive, of no use.” He tossed them aside and settled his hands under his head, staring drowsily up into the sun-flecked branches. “Good night; wake me in time for dinner.” He was really dropping off to sleep when Nelson called to him softly:

“Say, Tom, come over here.”

“What for?” asked Tom sleepily.

“I want you to see this beetle,” giggled Nelson. “He’s the craziest dub you ever saw. Come, look!”

“Beetle!” muttered Tom disgustedly. Nevertheless he found sufficient energy to wriggle along on his stomach to the other’s side. “Where’s your old bu-bu-beetle?” he asked.

“There,” answered Nelson, pointing with a twig. He was a small chap, grayish-black in color, with what Nelson declared to be the Morse code written down his back. He was trying to get somewhere, just where wasn’t apparent, for no sooner did he make headway in one direction than he changed his route and started off in another. He was laughably awkward, and bumped into everything in his path.

“Bet you he’s been eating toadstools,” said Tom, “and is very ill.”

“I’ve named him ‘Tom,’” said Nelson soberly.

“Think he looks like me?” asked Tom.

“N-no, but he walks like you.”

“Huh! Look at the idiot, will you?” The beetle had encountered an acorn at least ten times his size and was vainly striving to shove it out of his path. Again and again he stood on his hind legs and tried to move the acorn, acting in a most absurdly exasperated way.

“He’s getting terribly mad,” said Nelson. “It doesn’t occur to him, I suppose, that he can walk around it. Let’s take it out of his way; if we don’t, he’ll stay there all day and never get home to his family.” So the acorn was flicked aside with Nelson’s twig. But the effect on the beetle was not what they had expected. He immediately began to run around very hurriedly in a tiny circle as though trying to make himself dizzy.

“Bet you he’s wondering where the acorn went to,” said Tom. “Look at the idiot! Hey, get up there!” And Tom, borrowing Nelson’s twig, gave the beetle a shove. Apparently that was just what he needed. After a moment, spent perhaps in gathering his thoughts, he started off in a new direction and covered six inches of ground, knocking into every blade of grass and every tiny obstruction on the way. Then, for no apparent reason, he crawled in at one end of a dried and curled leaf and proceeded to try and get out again by climbing the sides. As the sides curved inward he had a terrible time of it. Six times he fell onto his back, all legs waving wildly, and had great difficulty in regaining his equilibrium. At last, quite by accident, he got too near one end of the leaf and tumbled out. Then he took up his journey again.

“I don’t think insects have much sense,” said Tom disgustedly.

“This one hasn’t, that’s certain,” said Nelson. “If he doesn’t look out he’ll-- There he goes, plump into that spider-web. Why, any one could have seen it! Look at him! Tom, you’re an awful fool!”

“Huh?” said Tom in surprise.

“I was addressing your namesake,” explained Nelson.

The namesake was blundering deeper and deeper into the tiny web, reminding the watchers of a man walking through a series of hotbeds as depicted in a comic paper. Finally, by sheer weight, the beetle came out on the other side with a large part of the web trailing behind him, and a very small spider, looking like the head of a black pin, emerged from her hiding-place and began to run excitedly over the scene of her former habitation.

“Don’t blame her,” grunted Tom. “Things are certainly torn up.”

The beetle, doubling in his tracks, progressed without further misadventure for almost a foot. Then he stopped, dug his head into the earth, and waved his legs vexatiously.

“Oh, he’s plumb crazy!” laughed Nelson.

“I guess he dropped something and is looking for it,” said Tom. “Perhaps it’s his watch. Or maybe----”

Tom’s further surmises were rudely interrupted. Up the hill floated a most unmelodious shout. Nelson sat up as though he had touched a live wire.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “what’s that?”

“It’s Joe Carter,” said Tom. “He learned that yell from his brother, who was on the Yale freshman crew.”

“It sounds like--like a banshee!”

“Never heard one,” said Tom.

“Really? I had a tame one once,” answered Nelson, laughing.

“You mean _bantam_, I guess. Hello, there he goes again. Maybe he’s calling us.” And Tom lifted up his voice in a weak imitation of Carter’s awful effort.

“Oh, you can’t do it, Tommy, my boy. Why, I couldn’t have heard that ten miles!”

But Carter wasn’t that far off, and presently, after sending an answering hail, he appeared in the path.

“Say, you fellows, Clint wants to see you in the office.” Then he dropped his voice to an awed whisper. “He’s found out about the sign on the cliff,” he added.

“Phew!” said Nelson. “Was he mad?”

“N-no, I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell,” Carter replied. “But he looked pretty serious. He’s sent for Bob and Dan, too.”

The latter were coming up the hill into the clearing as Nelson and Tom appeared from above. They exchanged sympathetic grins and shakes of the head, and then composed their features and filed into Poplar Hall. Mr. Clinton was at his desk behind the railing.

“Bring some chairs over here, boys, and sit down so that I may talk to you. That’s it. Now, how about this blue-paint episode?”

His glance encountered four rather sheepish faces, but every eye met his fairly. It was Bob who spoke first.

“We all had a hand in it, sir.”

“That’s so, sir,” Tom supplemented. And Nelson nodded. Dan alone gave no sign. Mr. Clinton observed the fact and looked surprised.

“You didn’t have a hand in it, then Speede?” he asked.

Dan’s face suddenly wreathed itself in a broad smile and his blue eyes twinkled.

“I was pretty near all in it, Mr. Clint,” he answered. “You see, sir, they emptied the pot of paint over me!”

The Chief smiled a little.

“Too bad they didn’t use it all that way,” he said. “Now, look here, boys; I’ve heard how you rigged up ropes and slung--slung one of your number over the cliff----”

“That was me, sir,” interrupted Dan modestly.

“Whoever it was, it was a foolhardy and dangerous piece of business. You might have fallen and broken your neck. I’ll confess to a feeling of admiration for the pluck displayed, but I have no sympathy for the achievement. I am responsible for the welfare of you boys while you’re here in this camp. How do you suppose I could have faced your folks, Speede, if you had injured yourself?”

“I don’t think the danger was so great as you think, sir,” answered Dan. “We--we took every precaution.”

The Chief sniffed audibly. “The only sensible precaution would have been to have an ambulance waiting at the bottom,” he said dryly. “If you had to endanger your limbs--and I confess I can’t see the necessity of it--I’d prefer you did it in some better cause. In plain language, what you committed was an act of vandalism. To daub up the scenery with a lot of blue paint is nothing else. It shows not only mighty poor taste, but selfishness as well. The Lord put that cliff there to be a part of the natural scenery, for people to look at and enjoy. And when you deface it you are depriving others of their rights, merely to give yourselves an instant’s selfish satisfaction.”

He paused and awaited a reply; finally:

“It was Wickasaw started it, sir,” said Tom. “They painted their name there first, and they hadn’t any business doing that, sir; and so----”

“And so you thought you had to outrage good taste also? A very poor excuse, Ferris. Now I want you to promise never to attempt anything of the sort again. And I want you to promise, too, that whenever, not only while you’re here but all your lives, you know of an attempt on the part of any one to deface the natural scenery, you will do all in your power to prevent it. What do you say?”

“I’ll promise, sir,” said Bob, and the others chimed in.

“Very well. I am pretty certain you went about this thing thoughtlessly, and I don’t want to be hard on you; but at the same time I can not altogether overlook it. Let me see; you asked for permission, didn’t you, to take dinner at the Inn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I gave it. Now I fancy you accord me the right of retracting that permission, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Nelson softly.

“Yes; well, I think you had better stay in camp the rest of the day. That’s all, boys.”

“Mr. Clinton,” said Tom, as they replaced their chairs, “please, sir, will you stop at the Inn landing for my aunt? I told her we’d be over to dinner and take her on the launch afterward, and I guess she’ll be worried.”

“H’m. I’d forgotten your aunt was here, Ferris. When does she return to the city?”

“First train in the morning, sir.”

“Well, you may come along on the launch, I guess, all of you. But no going to the Inn for dinner, you understand.”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Outside they heaved sighs of relief.

“Gee!” said Dan, “we got out of that cheap, didn’t we?”

And all concurred. Only Tom looked sorrowful.

“They have swell grub at the Inn,” he murmured regretfully.