Part 5

After that the tide of battle turned deplorably and Day made three goals, one right after another. Perkins was almost useless at cover-point and Lovell was eluded without much difficulty. Gardner made several good stops, but the Day Team hammered at him savagely and thrice the puck got by him into the net. House scored again two or three minutes later when Ben, capturing the disk in front of his own goal, skated with it the length of the ice and passed to Pierce in front of the enemy’s net. Pierce fooled Turner, point, and banged the puck between Morgan’s feet. The half ended a minute or so after, the score 3 to 2 in favor of the Day Team. It was still anybody’s game, and Nan said she hoped it would end in a tie so that both sides would be satisfied. Lanny hooted at that.

“Satisfied nothing! Gee, that would be as bad as being beaten! Besides, it wouldn’t do any good; we’d have to play the game over again.”

“If it’s a tie,” said Kid, “they’ll play another period. They did last winter, Stanley says.”

As it turned out, however, a third period was not necessary. Day started the next half with a rush that for a moment almost swept House off their feet. Two tallies were scored before House could settle down and break up the attack. Waters had an unfortunate mix-up with White, of the opposing side, and retired with a gashed lip. Crandall took his place, much to Lanny’s disgust, and from thence on to the end the game was extremely one-sided. The only time when Fortune smiled on the House Team was when, after Morgan had stopped a shot from Pierce’s stick, the puck was pushed into the net by Turner quite by accident. The disk didn’t get far in before Morgan swept it out again, but Mr. Folsom blew his whistle and declared it a goal, and the House supporters howled their glee. Even Nan emitted a shrill cry of delight and blushed rosily when Bert turned to laugh at her.

“I don’t care!” she said. “They’re so far behind that I’m glad they scored.”

Kid jeered scathingly. “Oh, sloppy work! Scored against yourselves! You’re a nice lot of hockey players, you are!” Kid danced up and down in the snow and hurled insults until Lanny threatened to roll him in the snow. But that lucky goal was the final tally for House, and when the game came to an end Day’s victory was a decisive one, the score 7 to 3. Ben was disgusted and chagrined and when Kid, thinking to console him, enumerated a few of the things they would do to the day pupils in the next game Ben spanked him with the flat of his hockey stick and told him to shut up and not get fresh. Kid, surprised and hurt, consoled himself by shying a snowball at the retreating forms of the Day Team players and, as he boasted later with much elation, scoring against the back of White’s head.

The contest was discussed before the big fire in the hall before supper, and Ben announced that beginning Monday there would be morning as well as afternoon practice for the House Team. “We have almost an hour between school and dinner,” he said, “and we might as well put in the time practicing. Those fellows don’t get more than half the practice that we do, and they played all around us to-day. So we’ve got to take a brace, fellows. Lanny, I’m going to try you Monday. You think you can play. Go ahead and show me.”

Lanny, tongue-tied by much joy, grinned. Kid, who was trying to roast some chestnuts he had been treasuring since autumn, gurgled with delight. “They won’t do a thing to Lanny, will they? He’s so small they’ll just pick him up and――” He paused and fixed Lanny with a rapturous gaze. “Say, Lanny, wouldn’t it be funny if they mistook you for the puck?” he cried.

Lanny pounced on him and there was noise and confusion until the older fellows parted them. Then everyone trooped into supper, deliciously hungry, and fell upon the repast like a flight of devastating locusts. Luckily defeat doesn’t spoil appetites.

In spite of Ben’s plans, there was no morning practice on Monday, for a mantle of snow hid the ice and the time that was to have been devoted to skating and stick work was spent with snow-shovels in hand. There was practice in the afternoon, but that night it again snowed and Ben viewed the rink the next day with deep disgust. The only consoling thought was that the Day Team was no better off. Again shovels were brought into play and by the time the ice was cleared the barriers about the rinks were surrounded by deep banks of snow. Bert learned to be an expert with the wooden shovel, for he, like the rest of the under-class fellows, had to work hard those days. But it was all in a good cause and he didn’t mind it a bit. The spirit of mutiny was quite quelled now. The snow made the tobogganing better and there were some rare times on the slide. Having won the right to the use of the slide the juniors were no longer debarred from it, but it must be acknowledged that they were somewhat restricted and often had to wait a good while for a chance to go down. Kid alone, however, voiced rebellion. It seemed as if, having once tasted the joys of independence, he could not reconcile himself to slavery. But he found no encouragement from the other members of the Junior Four and his protests were wasted on the winter air.

“You just wait until I’m an upper middler,” he threatened. “Maybe I won’t bully the juniors! Wow!”

IX

THE SOCIETY MEETS AGAIN

A week later the Junior Four met in extraordinary session. Strange to relate, it had been the Honorary Member who had issued the call for the meeting, but instead of resenting what looked like usurpation of authority the others welcomed the summons.

It was a Saturday morning and a dull one. A February thaw had set in, the snow was fit only for snowballs, the rinks were awash and the second game of the hockey series had been postponed for another week. The day had stretched ahead of them featureless and unpromising, and the summons to the meeting had reached them at a moment when life seemed tame and somber.

Having brought about the gathering, it was Nan’s place to explain the purpose of it, and this she was doing from the only chair the harness room afforded. (It was really a stool with one broken leg, but by careful balancing it was possible to keep seated.)

“It seems to me,” Nan was explaining, “that when you’ve got a perfectly good secret society like this you ought to――to do something with it. We started it to――to resist the tyranny of the upper classes――”

“All for one and one for all!” droned Kid in a sing-song voice.

Nan frowned down the interruption and proceeded. “And now that we have accomplished that――that purpose――”

A muffled giggle from Kid. The others looked elaborately unconscious.

“――I think we ought to find another purpose, something――something worthy and noble.”

“Let’s turn it into an athletic club,” suggested Lanny.

“Or a debating society,” offered Small, who was the literary member of the coterie.

“Let’s make it an eating club like they have in college,” said Kid. “We could have some dandy feeds out here.”

“What were you thinking of, Nan?” Bert asked.

“Well, how would it do to have it a Benevolent Society?”

“What’s that?” asked Lanny finally after prolonged silence.

“A Benevolent Society,” explained Nan vaguely, “is a society that――that does good to people.”

“Who?” asked Kid suspiciously.

“Why, anyone. You present beds to hospitals or endow something, you know. Any worthy cause――”

“That takes money, doesn’t it?” asked Small.

“Of course. We save our money――”

“That’s a silly game!” jeered Kid. “Save your money! Gee, I don’t have enough now.”

“Or we can earn it,” continued Nan. “That would be more fun, wouldn’t it?”

“How could we earn any money?” Bert inquired.

“Oh, lots of ways! We must think up ways, of course.”

“Earn money and then give it away to a hospital!” exclaimed Kid. “I guess not!”

“I don’t say to give it to a hospital,” said Nan indignantly. “I only said that was one way to do it. We could find something else to give it to. We might――might present a set of books to the school library. That would be a kindly deed, wouldn’t it? And it would say on the front of every book that it had been presented by the Junior Four.”

“Would we have to read them?” asked Kid dubiously.

“Of course not, not unless we wanted to. Reference books would be best, I suppose. Succeeding generations of students would appreciate our gift and thank us.”

“Hm.” This from Lanny. “The succeeding generations don’t make much of a hit with me, Nan. What’s the matter with doing something for the present generation?”

“Why, we would be! We’d use the books, too, Lanny. I only said that about succeeding generations to――to show that the gift would endure in usefulness.”

“If we made it an eating club,” said Kid, “we’d get some fun out of it ourselves.”

“There’s nothing noble about an eating club,” declared Nan severely. “I only thought it would be nice for us to――to embark on some noble enterprise and――and do good in the community. Of course, if you boys don’t care for my plan――”

“We haven’t said we don’t,” interrupted Bert hastily. “We――we’re only considering it, eh, fellows?”

“Sure,” replied Lanny. “I――I think it sounds pretty good, only I don’t see where the money’s coming from.”

“That’s so,” said Bert. “There aren’t very many ways a fellow can make money in school, I guess.”

“It’s easy enough to spend it, though,” philosophized Small. “I had a whole two-dollar bill a week ago, and now I’ve got about twenty cents. And there’s no more coming for another week!”

“Pshaw, making money’s easy enough.” Kid beat a tattoo with his heels against the grain bin and looked as much like a captain of industry as he knew how.

“I’d like to see you make any!” exclaimed Small.

“Bet you I could!”

“Bet you you couldn’t! Not unless you got it from home.”

“That wouldn’t be making it,” replied Kid. “That would be finding it! I bet you I could make――” he paused and studied a moment――“make ten dollars in a week if I tried.”

Small hooted and Bert and Lanny smiled amusedly. Only Nan took the boast seriously.

“Could you really, Kid?” she cried delightedly. “Why, ten dollars would be almost enough to buy the books!”

Kid, flattered, nodded nonchalantly. “Pretty near, I guess. It wouldn’t be hard.”

“How would you do it?” asked Nan eagerly.

“Oh――” Kid smiled carelessly――“I know a way. I dare say I could make more than ten if I really tried; maybe fifteen or twenty!”

“Maybe you’d make twenty cents!” Lanny said sarcastically. “You’re a silly little goat!”

“Is that so?” Kid smiled in a superior manner and looked dreamily out the window. “Just because you can’t make money you think nobody else can. Bet you I can make ten dollars in a fortnight easy.”

“You said a week!” exclaimed Small. “And it was fifteen or twenty you were going to make!”

“I said if I wanted to. I don’t want to.”

Small jeered contemptuously. “Maybe I could――if I wanted to; but I don’t want to!”

“I suppose we could all earn a little money if we tried,” observed Bert thoughtfully. “It would be rather fun to try, wouldn’t it? To see which could earn the most in a week or a month? Then we could put it together and buy something and give it to somebody.”

“I’ll tell you what we might do,” said Lanny. “We might save enough or earn enough to buy a trophy of some sort for the baseball clubs.”

“How do you mean?” asked Bert.

“Why, get a mug, you know, something like the one Mr. Folsom and Mr. Crane got for the hockey championship. We could offer it to the school to be played for by the House and Day teams, the team winning it three times to have it for keeps. We might call it the Junior Four Cup.”

For the first time during the meeting genuine enthusiasm reigned. I think Nan would have preferred the books, but she was fond of baseball and the cup idea caught her fancy too. They discussed the plan at length, Small begging to be allowed to draw a design for the trophy. “Crossed bats, you know,” he explained, “with a wreath of laurel and the inscription underneath.”

“‘Presented to Mt. Pleasant Academy by the Junior Four,’” added Lanny. “It would look fine, wouldn’t it?”

“What’s the matter with having our names on it, too?” asked Kid. “Just so they’d know who the Junior Four were, you see.”

“Why not?” This from Bert. “And the fellow who contributed the most money to the fund could have his name first, and the fellow who contributed the next most could have his name second, and so on.”

“That puts my name at the head,” observed Kid gravely.

“I know a fellow who saved over seven dollars with a dime bank,” announced Small.

“How long did it take him?” Lanny inquired. Small thought a moment. Then,

“About nine months, I think,” he answered.

“Nine months!” exclaimed Bert. “We’ll have to get the money by the first of May at the latest. Besides, dime banks aren’t any good. I’ve tried them. You get hard up and then you open them and take everything out. If there was any way of earning some money――――”

“Well, we’ll just have to think of a way,” said Nan. “I’m just certain sure we can do it if we give our minds to it. And it will be perfectly lovely, won’t it? We’ll be public benefactors!”

“We’ll be patrons of sport,” said Lanny. “Won’t the other fellows be surprised?”

“And pleased?” added Nan. She clapped her hands. “Let’s begin at once!”

“How?” asked Bert.

Silence ensued. Finally,

“We could――we could begin by saving,” faltered the Honorary Member.

Lanny shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t got anything to save,” he said dolefully. “That’s why I didn’t go into town this morning. I’m flat broke and Haley told me last week he wouldn’t trust me for another penny. And I owe a quarter to the Pirate besides.”

“Who’s the Pirate?” asked Bert.

“Old Higgins, the fellow who drives the carriage,” Lanny explained. “I didn’t have much coin when I got back after Christmas and so I told him to charge it. And every week he writes me a letter and threatens to go to the Doctor.”

“He _is_ a pirate,” agreed Nan. “Hasn’t anyone any money to start it with?” She looked at Bert. Bert smiled and shook his head.

“But I’ll have some in a day or two, Nan. I’ll have two dollars and I guess I could save fifty cents of it.”

“How about you, Kid?”

Kid smiled sweetly and thrust a hand in his pocket. When it was withdrawn and opened for inspection it held two nickels, three pennies and a piece of chewing gum. Bert made a grab for the gum, but Kid was too quick for him. Nan looked a trifle discouraged.

“And I haven’t any money myself,” she grieved. “We’re all dreadfully poor, aren’t we?” Then she brightened. “But we’ve got three months, haven’t we? If we all do our very best I’m sure we’ll succeed!”

“Can’t fail,” said Kid. “You can count on me for ten sure. Making money’s one of the easiest things I do!”

X

KID MAKES AN INVESTMENT

After the meeting had adjourned Kid retired to his room, which he shared with Stanley Pierce, a senior, and stretched himself out on the window-seat to think things over. Stanley was out and Kid was glad of it, for the problem confronting him demanded a lot of study. How was he to make some money? He had read or heard of boys who earned money and he tried to remember how they had done it. Usually, it seemed to him, they sold papers or ran errands. There were no papers to be sold at Mt. Pleasant Academy and nobody wanted any errands run except the upper class fellows, and Kid’s wildest imaginings failed to picture them paying for such service. If you didn’t run the errands, he reflected ruefully, you got paid all right, but it wasn’t with money! He tried to recall how the heroes of the various stories he had read had risen to fortune. In the Alger books the hero, having been left behind in the great city through some astounding combination of circumstances, had a pretty hard time of it until he dashed in front of a pair of runaway horses and rescued the beautiful daughter of the wealthy banker from certain death. After that it was plain sailing. But Kid didn’t quite see how he was to rescue any bankers’ daughters. He abandoned that idea with a sigh, for he rather fancied himself as a hero.

He had heard that boys sometimes made money selling books or subscriptions to magazines, and after he had considered and rejected various other schemes he went back to the canvassing plan and thought it over again. Of course, there weren’t many folks here at school who would be likely to subscribe. Even if he was successful with the Doctor and the two instructors, Mr. Crane and Mr. Folsom, he would still be a long way from that ten dollars. Perhaps he might persuade one of the older fellows to subscribe; Stanley, for instance, or Steve Lovell; Steve was good natured to a fault; but that was very doubtful. So that meant that he would have to try his fortunes in the nearby villages, Mt. Pleasant, Riveredge and Whittier. Then he wondered how much you made on a subscription and what magazines he had best honor with his support.

He tumbled off the window-seat and rummaged about the closet shelf until he had found an old number of a magazine which Stanley had brought from home. It wasn’t a very high-class publication, but Kid had read the entire contents of it and approved. He nestled down amongst the pillows again and turned to the advertising pages. Bathtubs, breakfast foods, bonds, furniture, patent medicines, agents wanted. Ha! He would be an agent! Kid scanned the columns eagerly. Somebody wanted an agent in every town to sell a suction cleaner and promised 150 per cent. profits. Another concern had a razor strop that folks bought on sight, but the profit was only 100 per cent. and Kid passed it over. A family needle-case sounded more promising, the profit being estimated at from 200 to 500 per cent. Kid liked that until he discovered that an initial outlay of twenty-five cents was necessary. Kid only possessed thirteen cents. Another advertiser assured him that he could make “big money” silvering mirrors in his spare moments, but as the advertiser neglected to state what he considered “big money” Kid sniffed suspiciously and read on.

The difficulty was that those who guaranteed large results demanded from twenty-five cents to a dollar, while those who were willing to send samples without cost were cruelly silent on the subject of profit. But at last Kid found something that promised well. Tinkham’s Throat-Ease was plainly a wonderful discovery. It――or they, since they were tablets “put up in attractive boxes to fit the pocket”――was――or were a certain cure for hoarseness, sore throat, quinsy, tonsilitis, bronchitis, canker of the mouth, cough, gumboils and many other afflictions. Agents had made as much as forty dollars a day. The demand was terrific. They sold themselves. And all you had to do was to send ten cents in stamps or silver to the Tinkham Chemical Company, Waterloo, Illinois, and receive two dozen boxes of the tablets. You then sold the tablets for twenty-five cents a box, remitted two dollars to the company and kept the balance. Kid seized a pencil and figured rapidly, with frowning brow, on the margin of the magazine. Why, that was six dollars! And two dollars out left four dollars! That was――how much per centum was it? It took some time to figure that, but he finally decided that it was nearly two hundred. And if he sold a box to every fellow in school he would have four dollars in no time! Then, of course, he could buy forty-eight more boxes, which would――more figuring――leave him with eight dollars. And eight dollars and two dollars――no, four dollars――made twelve dollars! He had only agreed to earn ten. He would have two whole dollars for spending!

Kid rushed to the table and indited the following epistle then and there:

TINKHAM CHEMICAL CO.,

GENTLEMEN:

Please send me immediately one agent’s outfit like you advertise to send in Puffer’s Popular Monthly for ten cents. Here’s the ten cents. Please send it immediately to Mr. James Fairchild, Mt. Pleasant Academy, Mt. Pleasant, New York, and oblige,

Respectfully, JAMES FAIRCHILD.

P. S. I haven’t got a dime and I send you two nickels which I trust will be agreeable to you.

J. F.

I must acknowledge that it took a good deal of resolution on Kid’s part to drop those two nickels in and seal them up. They looked very large and desirable just then. And after he had sealed the letter he was strongly tempted to recover his money and postpone embarking in business until after the receipt of his next remittance from home. But to his credit be it said that he nobly resisted the temptation and, lest his resolution might not hold out, hurried downstairs and dropped the letter irrevocably in the post box outside the front door. Then, somewhat excited by the prospect of so much wealth, he returned to the window-seat and with pencil and paper carried on his business in imagination to a point where he had disposed of some ten dozen boxes of Tinkham’s Throat-Ease and was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. He would have been still richer if the dinner bell had not sounded just then.

After that there was nothing to do but wait for the tablets to arrive. Kid tried to bear himself modestly, but the thought of so much riches couldn’t fail to reflect itself on his countenance and in his bearing. Stanley Pierce asked him what the trouble was and Kid, smiling knowingly, said “Nothing, thank you.”

“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” growled Stanley. “You’ve been up to some mischief, that’s what, Kid. What you been doing?”

“Nothing,” replied Kid virtuously.

Stanley viewed him suspiciously. “Well, don’t try anything on me, Kid, or I’ll tan your hide for you. No more mutinies, either. Run over and tell Sam I want to borrow his lexicon; left mine in hall.”

The next day Small appeared with his design for the trophy. As the school at large was to know nothing about it until the presentation was made, Small had to be very careful with his design, and it was only exhibited when none of the older fellows were about. That is why Small hung around Kid’s room until Stanley took offense and put him out. Later, though, Small, having watched through the crack of his door for Stanley’s departure, returned stealthily and Kid was accorded a look at the drawing.

“If anyone comes,” whispered Small, “shove it out of sight quick. Here, you’ve got it upside down!”

“Oh, have I?” Kid viewed it earnestly. “I thought it was going to be a mug,” he ventured at last.

“We――ell, mugs are so common, I thought I’d make it a vase. Don’t you think that’s a very graceful shape? Nan’s tickled to death with it.”

“What’s all this?” Kid pointed to the embellishment. “What’s that thing?”

“That’s a wreath of laurel leaves,” replied Small a trifle exasperatedly. “And those are crossed bats, and that’s a ball. The inscription will be underneath there; see? I didn’t put that on because I don’t letter very well. Do you like it?”

“I guess it will do,” replied Kid, “but I don’t know that I just like the shape of it. It looks too much like a water pitcher, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t! If you knew anything about art you’d know that that is a very beautiful shape. It――it’s Etruscan.”

“Is it? Well, just the same it looks like a pitcher and I may decide to have it changed.”

“_You_ may decide to have it changed!” Small laughed hoarsely. “What have you got to say about it? I’m the one that’s doing this, Kid.”

“Well, I’m the one that’s paying for it, ain’t I?”

“Why――why, you’re paying some, maybe,” faltered Small. “But you haven’t any more say about it than the rest of us.”

“I guess if that mug’s ever made it’ll be my money that pays for it,” replied Kid calmly. “The rest of you fellows haven’t any more idea of earning money than――than――than nothing at all! I’m the only one that will have any when the time comes and I guess I’ll have to pretty much foot the whole bill.”