CHAPTER XI

HONORING THE SENIORS

"Oh!" screamed Jennie, as she made a rush from the platform and fell in a faint just as Alice Keene caught her.

"Oh!" cried several women teachers.

Professor McCloud and a number of the men instructors dashed for the animal, but it lowered its horns and shook its head in a way that made them hesitate.

"Take it away!"

"Let me hide!"

"Save me!"

Various girls were thus crying in different parts of the room.

"Come on, boys! Let's get her out!" cried Bart as he advanced toward the cow. As he did so Mr. Kenton, the language teacher, came down from the platform and advanced upon the animal. He was very near sighted and a trifle deaf.

"What has happened?" he asked of Mr. Long. "Is it some visitor whom the pupils are cheering? I would like to meet him. He seems to be a great favorite."

"It's a cow," Mr. Long said, beginning to laugh as he appreciated the joke. But Mr. Kenton had passed on unheeding and was right in front of the animal. He imagined the exercises had been interrupted by the entrance of some instructor from a neighboring institution, as they frequently attended on the closing day of the high school. Then Mr. Kenton, peering through his glasses saw what the intruder was.

"Why, it's a cow!" he exclaimed in such an accent of strange surprise that the boys, girls and teachers burst into a roar of laughter. This effectually disposed of the fright, and the girls calmed down.

In the meanwhile several boys had surrounded the cow that had advanced into the room. Professor McCloud had hurried into his office for a long ruler. Several of the men teachers were looking for ropes, while others were calling down speaking tubes in frantic tones for the janitor.

Most of the women teachers had fled to a small room to the right of the platform, and a number of girls had hidden under the seats. Many of them, however, remained standing up to see what would happen.

"Come on, boys," repeated Bart. "We'll lead her out."

At that moment a farmer appeared in the doorway behind the cow. He held a rope in one hand and a whip in the other. He seemed much surprised at the commotion on every side.

"I was waiting down in the yard for my cow," he said, in a loud voice, "and when I heard this here racket I thought maybe the critter had broken loose. Has she caused you any trouble? Hadn't ought to as she's a very gentle, mild critter. Did the experiment succeed?"

"Experiment? What experiment?" inquired Professor McCloud indignantly. "Did you bring this cow here, sir?"

"Well I did, but I didn't lead her upstairs. She followed a line of salt some one had sprinkled. She's terrible fond of salt. All critters is."

"What do you mean?" demanded the principal.

"Why I was visited by one of your teachers yesterday--at least he said he was a teacher--and he paid me five dollars for the hire of my cow for this afternoon. Said the faculty of the high school was going to experiment on her. Make her moo into one of them phonograph machines and then see if cows had a language of their own. Said it was for the benefit of the human race. So I agreed to bring the critter here. I left her with the teacher who met me downstairs, and then I went off to git a drink of cider. When I come back the cow was gone and I heard a terrible racket. Then I see some one had sprinkled a line of salt from that court, where I left the critter, right up the stairs. Course I knowed then what had happened. Is the experiment over?"

"What teacher came to you?" asked the principal, trying not to smile.

"Why he gave me his card," and the farmer fumbled in his pocket. "Here it is. Mr. Bo Vine. Don't he teach here?"

"I'm afraid there has been a mistake," said Mr. McCloud. "We did not arrange for any experiment on a cow. I am sorry you had this trouble for nothing."

"Oh, I got paid for it," replied the farmer. "Maybe I made a mistake in the school."

"Perhaps," said the principal. "Can you induce your bovine quadruped to accompany you?"

"My what?" asked the farmer, looking about him in a puzzled manner.

"Your cow," translated the principal.

"Oh, you mean this critter. Sure, yes, she'll follow me. Come on, Bess," and he held out a handful of salt, which the cow began to lick up greedily. Then the farmer retreated down the stairs, the animal slowly following.

"Sorry you couldn't do that experiment," Mr. Craft called out as he gave the cow more salt. "I'd liked to have heard that there phonograph machine. You see my critter's real tame. She often comes up to the back door, and once, when she was a calf she came into the kitchen. So I said, when that there young feller, Mr. Bo Vine, asked if the cow could walk up a short flight of stairs, that she could. And she done it too," he added proudly. "Well I'll bid you good day," and the farmer, who by this time had gotten the animal into the lower court placed a rope about the horns and led her away.

"So that's Ned's trick," said Bart softly to his chums. "Wouldn't wonder but what he'd be expelled for it."

"If he gets found out," put in Frank.

It was some time before the school quieted down. Jennie, under the ministrations of Alice, recovered from her fainting fit, and the prospective nurse began looking around for others whom she might practice on. But there were no more. The women teachers, and those girls who had hidden under desks returned to their seats.

"Young ladies and gentlemen," began Professor McCloud, "this has been an unexpected--"

Then he happened to think of Mr. Kenton's mistake, and he had to turn aside to cover a laugh.

"I think, under the circumstances, we will omit the rest of the program," he added. "I will say nothing further about--about the cow. I think I understand how it happened, and, in view of the fact that it is the close of the term, we will overlook what otherwise we could not. The seniors will now come forward and receive their diplomas and the exercises will be at an end."

The senior class advanced to the platform and stood in a semi-circle about it. Ned's chums noticed that he had quietly entered the assembly hall by a rear door and taken his seat.

"You're a lucky dog," whispered Bart.

"Why?" asked Ned, in seeming surprise.

"Oh, just as if you didn't know! I always believed you were very fond of milk."

"Milk?"

"Yes, and cows."

"Cows? Was there a cow here?" and Ned acted as though that was the first he had heard of it. "I was in the laboratory getting some chemicals for home experiments during vacation," he added with a perfect look of innocence on his face.

"Yes, you were," and Bart smiled. "But never mind,--it was a peach of a joke. We'll soon be out now."

"Let's serenade the seniors," suggested Ned.

"How?" asked Frank, coming over to where the two chums were. Discipline had ended for the day, as the last of the diplomas had been presented without formality.

"Follow me. We've got to honor 'em somehow. It's the last we'll see of 'em."

As the seniors, bearing their precious diplomas, filed out, which was a signal for the rest of the pupils to follow, the four chums, led by Ned, went down a rear stairway. Ned took them into the now deserted lunch room and produced several comical false faces, some paper hats of odd design and a number of tin fifes.

"Get some of the other fellows," Ned said to Stumpy. "We must have enough for a band."

About ten other lads came, in answer to Fenn's quick summons, and were soon arrayed in the masks and caps, while their coats, turned wrong side out, added to their fantastic appearances.

"All ready!" called Ned, and then, every one playing a different tune on his fife, they marched out on the campus.

The seniors, in accordance with an old custom, had gathered in a circle about an ancient elm tree and were singing. The song was "Farewell to Thee, Dear Alma Mater," and they were in the midst of the touching lines:

"We shall be here never more; Some go to a foreign shore,"

"Toot! Toot!" sounded shrilly on the fifes and then the band of masqueraders, followed by scores of other boys and girls, began circling the seniors.

The farewell song was drowned in a burst of weird noises, tootings, yells and shouts.

"Farewell to the seniors!" called Ned.

"Farewell!" echoed the crowd.

"Here we go 'round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush!" sang Bart. "All join hands!"

Then began a mad, merry dance. The seniors looked on helplessly. Some of them were laughing, and some of the girls were crying just a little bit, at the thought of leaving all their happy comrades.

"Farewell, farewell, farewell!" the other pupils sang, as they ran around in a circle, hands joined to hands.

"Now give 'em 'How Can I Bear to Leave Thee,'" suggested Ned, and the pupils quieted down and sang the song with feeling.

Then the circle broke up, and the seniors, waving their diplomas, and trying to say good-bye to scores at once, broke away from the old oak tree and started home--high school pupils no longer. But there were plenty left.