CHAPTER XVII

HEBE POCOCK IN TROUBLE

The big frost came soon after the Keyport game and Eve excitedly informed her particular friends when she came in to school that the nuts were falling in showers. It was toward the end of the week when this happened and it had already been arranged that a nutting party should take an entire Saturday for the trip to Peveril Pond, some miles beyond the Sitz place.

The Beldings' car and one of Mr. Purcell's sight-seeing autos were to carry the party from the Hill, with two seats reserved for Eve and her brother Otto, whom they would pick up at the farmhouse. Prettyman Sweet and Lily Pendleton were invited--indeed, Eve had insisted upon all the basketball team being of the party--and Purt was dreadfully exercised in advance regarding what would be the proper costume to wear.

"Oh," said Bobby Hargrew, "when folks go fox-hunting in the fall they wear red coats, because the fox is red, I suppose. Now, you ought to wear a nut-brown suit, hadn't you?"

"Yes, Purt," drawled Lance Darby, "something nutty will suit you, all right, all right!"

The girls wore sweaters and old caps and old skirts and lace up boots--all but Lily. She came "dressed to the nines," as Bobby declared.

"What under the sun are you supposed to represent, Lil?" demanded Jess Morse. "You--you look like a fancy milkmaid."

"Well, I'm going into the country; I shall look the part," said Lily, demurely.

"Oh, say!" continued Jess, in a whisper, "you've got altogether too much red on your cheeks for a milkmaid, young lady."

At that Lily flushed deeper than the "fast color" on her cheek.

"Is that so, Miss?" she snapped. "I guess a milkmaid ought to be rosy-cheeked."

Chet, going by, overheard this. He glanced at the red spots in Lily's naturally pale cheek, and laughed.

"On the contrary," he said, winking at Jess.

"What's on the contrary?" demanded Lily, sharply.

"Milkmaids shouldn't be rosy-cheeked, you know," said Chet, gravely.

"Why not, Mr. Funny?"

"Because a milkmaid is naturally a pail girl," chortled Chet.

Lily was rather angry for a while because they joked her about the rouge. She was the only girl in all the Junior class who used cosmetics and, as Chet laughingly said once, "painting the Lily was a thankless job--it didn't improve her looks!"

They piled into the two autos and started off with much laughter and blowing of horns. Nellie Agnew was almost the last one to board the Beldings' car.

"I had to run down to Mrs. Doyle's for Daddy Doctor," she explained. "Poor little Johnny is dreadfully sick. He never really recovered from the shock, or the cold, when he fell into the sewer basin. He's such a poor, weak little thing now. It would make your heart ache to see him, Laura."

"Lil says that Hester goes there all the time, and that she's always doing something for Rufe, or the rest of them," Jess Morse said.

Laura shook her head. "I know," she said. "I saw Hester and Rufie in the park together the other day. They seem to be very good friends. And I'm sorry."

"Why--for pity's sake?" demanded Nellie.

"Why, father is on the Board of Education this year, you know, and he told us--but you mustn't repeat it!--that Bill Jackway had admitted that the night the gym. was first raided Rufus slipped into the building unbeknown to him early in the evening, and was there until after midnight. Then he cried to go home, being afraid, he said. But Jackway let him out without ever making the rounds of the gym., and so he doesn't know for sure whether the damage to the apparatus was done while Rufe was there, or afterward."

"My goodness me!" gasped Nellie. "How awful!"

"Could it be that half-foolish boy, do you suppose?" cried Jess.

"He isn't so foolish. Rufe is dreadfully cunning about some things," replied Laura. "Think of those footprints in the athletic field. I _know_ the person who made them walked backwards. Maybe Rufe got into the gym. again unknown to his uncle; and he'd be just sharp enough to get out of that window backward and so reach the fence."

"And he could be hired to do that for a little money," said Jess, confidently.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" exclaimed Nellie. "It's too dreadful."

"But Mr. Jackway can't make Rufe admit it. The boy won't speak. And the Board doesn't know what to do about it," Laura said. "Now, I've told you girls this; don't let it go any farther."

They promised--and they were girls who could keep their word. Lance and Chet on the front seat of the machine, with Bobby between them, hadn't heard it at all.

When the cars reached the Sitz place Eve and Otto were taken into the tonneau of the Beldings' car, and they went on, down the leaf-strewn road, toward Peveril Pond. The forest fire that had threatened all this side of the ridge had burned out without crossing the wide highway known as "the State Road" and so the lower slope of the ridge and all the valley had been untouched.

They passed the district school which Eve attended before she came to Central High.

"And we had a splendid teacher at the last," sighed Eve. "But when I first went to it--oh! the boys acted so horrid, and the girls gabbled so. It wasn't a school. My mother said it was 'a bear garden!'

"You see, there were some dreadfully bad big boys went to the school, off and on. The Four Corners isn't so far away, you know. Hebe Pocock--Laura will remember him?"

"I guess so!" cried Laura.

"Well, he was one of the big boys in school when I first came here. We had a new teacher--we were always having 'new' teachers. Sometimes there would be as many as four in one term. If they were girls they broke down and cried and gave it up; and if they were young men they were either beaten or driven out of the neighborhood.

"But I can remember this particular young man pretty well, little as I was," laughed Eve. "He wasn't very big, but he didn't look puny, although he wore glasses. But when he opened school he took off the glasses and put them in his desk. He was real mild mannered, and he had a nice smile, and the big girls liked him. But Hebe and the other big boys said they were going to run him off right quick!"

"And did they?" asked Jess, interested.

"Well, I'll tell you. He was taking the names of all us children, and he got along all right till he came to Hebe. Hebron was the ring leader. He always gave the sign for trouble. When the master asked his name Hebe leaned back in his seat, put his feet up on the desk, and looked cross-eyed at the new teacher. Of course, all the little follows thought it was funny--and some of the girls, too, I guess.

"'Please tell me your name,' said the master, without seeming to notice Hebe's impudence.

"'Wal,' drawled Hebe, 'sometimes they call me Bob, and sometimes Pete, and sometimes they call me too late for dinner. But don't you call me nothin', Mister!'

"The teacher listened until he got through," said Eve, her eyes flashing at the remembrance of the scene, "and then he doubled his fist and struck Hebe a blow between the eyes that half stunned him. Hebe was the bigger, but that teacher was awfully strong and smart. He grabbed Hebe by the collar and hauled him headlong over the desks and seats, stood him up before the big desk with a slam, and roared at him:

"'What is your name?'

"'He--Hebe Pocock,' exclaimed the fellow, only half sensing what had happened to him.

"'Hebe?' repeated the master, with a sneer. 'You look like a 'Hebe.' Go take your seat.'

"And do you know," laughed Eve, "that Hebe was almost the best behaved boy in the school all that term?"

"Oh!" laughed Jess, "it must be lots of fun to go to an ungraded school like that one."

"It's all according to the teacher," Eve said. "When we had a poor teacher it was just a scramble for the scholars to learn anything. The big ones helped the little ones. But our present teacher, Miss Harris, is a college girl and she is fine. But some funny things happen because we have the old-fashioned district system of government, with 'school trustees' elected every year. This year at the far end of the district they put in old Mr. Moose, a very illiterate man, for trustee. And one of the girls was telling me about the day he visited school to 'examine' it. That is the method, you know; each trustee makes an official visit and is supposed to find out in that visit how the teachers are getting along."

"Tell us about it, Eve," urged Laura.

"Why," laughed Eve, "Mr. Moose came in and sat on the teacher's platform for a while, listening and watching, and showing himself to be dreadfully uncomfortable. But he thought he had to make some attempt to examine the school, so when Miss Harris called the spelling class he reached for the speller and said he'd put out a few words. So he read to the first boy:

"'Spell "eggpit."'

"'E--double g--p--i--t,' says the boy.

"'Nope,' says Mr. Moose. 'Next.'

"Next scholar spelled it the same way and that didn't suit Mr. Moose, and so it went on down the line, everybody taking a shy at 'Eggpit.' Finally Miss Harris asked to see the book.

"'These young 'uns of yourn air mighty bad spellers,' said Mr. Moose.

"'But they have all spelled 'eggpit' right,' said Miss Harris. 'Where is the word?'

"And what do you suppose Moose pointed out?" chuckled Eve.

"Give it up!" was the chorus of her listeners.

"'Egypt!'"

"My goodness!" cried Jess, choked with laughter. "Can you beat that for a school trustee?"

They arrived at the sloping hollow at the end of Peveril Pond, where they proposed to picnic, very soon after this. It was a pretty glade, and the smooth road went down to the shore and skirted it for half a mile.

Off on a rocky point were several boys or men fishing; but they were not near enough to disturb our friends. Of course the boys clamored for lunch at once; but while the girls prepared it the boys were shooed off to begin the nut gathering.

Lance Darby, with a perfectly solemn face, set Pretty Sweet to work thumping an oak tree with a huge club to "rattle off the nuts;" and he might have been whaling away at the trunk of the tree until luncheon had not Chet taken pity on him and showed him that neither chestnuts or shell-barks grew on oak trees, and that that particular oak didn't even have an acorn on it!

Suddenly, just as the girls had the good things spread on the seats of the two cars, a chorus of screams arose from the fishermen. There were three of them, and when our friends' gaze was attracted by the shouts they saw that the bigger one was down in the water and the other two were leaping about on the sands.

"Guess they've caught a whale," said Chet.

"They are in trouble--serious trouble," declared his sister, leaving the car herself to start for the scene of the difficulty.

"That's little Mike Pocock," said Eve, grabbing her arm. "And I believe the fellow in the water is Hebe."

"Never mind. He's in some difficulty. See! he can't stand up," cried Laura.

"But weally!" gasped Prettyman Sweet. "The lunch is just weady----"

"Come on, you cannibal!" ejaculated Lance. "Let's see what's wanted over there."

The whole party, girls as well as boys, trooped along the shore of the pond toward the rock where the fishermen had been standing. They saw in a moment that this boulder had rolled over--probably while Hebe Pocock was standing upon it to make a cast--and that Hebe was caught by the rock and held down to the bottom of the pond. He was barely able to keep his head out of water as the boys and girls of Central High approached.