BONFIRE NIGHT AT THE HALL
It was certainly a night long to be remembered in the annals of Oak Hall,—and for more reasons than one.
At the start, several bonfires were lit along the bank of the river, and around these the students congregated, to dance and sing songs, and “cut up” generally. None of the teachers were present, and it was given out that the lads might enjoy themselves within reasonable bounds until ten o’clock.
“Let’s form a grand march!” cried Gus Plum. “Every man with a torch!”
“Yes, but don’t set anything on fire,” cautioned Roger.
“Say, that puts me in mind of a story,” came from Shadow. “A fellow went into a powder shop to buy some ammunition. He was smoking a pipe, and the proprietor––”
“Whoop! Hurrah for Shadow!” yelled somebody from the rear, and the next instant the story-teller of the Hall found himself up on a 102 pile of barrels which had not yet been set on fire.
“Now then, tell your yarns to everybody!” came the cry.
“Speak loud, Shadow!”
“Give us all the details.”
“Tell us the story about the old man and the elephant.”
“No, give us that about the old maid and the mouse.”
“Let us hear about the fellow who was shipwrecked on the Rocky Mountains.”
“Or about how the fellow who couldn’t swim fell into a flour barrel.”
“Say, what do you take me for?” roared Shadow. “I don’t know any story about the Rocky Mountains, or a flour barrel either. If you want to hear––”
“Sure we do!”
“That’s the very yarn we’ve been waiting for!”
“Say, Shadow, won’t you please tell it into a phonograph, so I can grind it out to my grandfather when I get home?”
“Is that the story that starts on a foggy night, at noon?”
“No, this one starts on a dusty day in the middle of the Atlantic.”
“Say, if you fellows want me to tell a story, say 103 so!” grumbled Shadow. “Otherwise I’m going to get down.”
“No! no! Tell your best yarn, Shadow.”
“All right, then. Once two men went into a shoe store––”
“Wow! That’s fifty years old!”
“I heard that when a child, at my grandson’s knee.”
“Tell us something about smoke, Shadow!”
“And fire. I love to hear about a fire. It’s so warm and––”
“Hi! let me get down! Do you want to burn me up?” yelled the story-teller of the school, suddenly, as, chancing to glance down, he saw that the barrels were on fire. “Let me down, I say!” And he made a leap from the barrels into the midst of the crowd.
Shadow landed on the shoulders of Nat Poole, and both went down and rolled over. In a spirit of play some of the students near by covered the rolling pair with shavings and straw. Shadow took this in good part and merely laughed as he arose, but the money-lender’s son was angry.
“Hi, who threw those dirty shavings all over me?” he bawled. “I don’t like it.”
“Don’t mind a little bath like that, Nat!” called one of the students.
“But I do mind it. The shavings are full of dirt, and so is the straw. The dirt is all over me.” 104
“Never mind, you can have a free bath, Nat,” said another.
“I’ll lend you a cake of soap,” added a third.
“I don’t want any of your soap!” growled the money-lender’s son. “Say, the whole crowd of you make me sick!” he added, and walked off, in great disgust.
“Phew! but he’s touchy,” was the comment of one of the students. “I guess he thinks he’s better than the rest of us.”
“Let’s give him another dose,” came the suggestion, from the rear of the crowd.
“Shavings?”
“Yes, and straw, too. Put some down his neck!”
“Right you are!”
Fully a dozen students quickly provided themselves with shavings and straw, both far from clean, and made after Nat, who was walking up the river-front in the direction of the boathouse.
Before the money-lender’s son could do anything to defend himself, he found himself seized from behind and hurled to the ground.
“Now then, give it to him good!” cried a voice, and in a twinkling a shower of shavings, straw, and dirt descended upon poor Nat, covering him from head to foot.
“Hi! let up!” spluttered the victim, trying to 105 dodge the avalanche. But instead of heeding his pleadings the other students proceeded to ram a quantity of the stuff into his ears and down his collar. Nat squirmed and yelled, but it did little good.
“Now then, you are initiated into the Order of Straw and Shavings!” cried one merry student.
“Just you wait, I’ll get square, see if I don’t,” howled Nat, as he arose. Then he commenced to twist his neck, to free himself from the ticklish straw and shavings.
“Come on and have a good time, old sport!” howled one of his tormentors; and then off the crowd ran in the direction of the bonfires, leaving Nat more disgusted than ever.
“I’ll fix them, just wait and see if I don’t!” stormed the money-lender’s son to himself, and then hurried to the Hall, to clean up and make himself comfortable.
In the meantime the march around the campus had begun, each student carrying a torch of some kind. There was a great singing.
“Be careful of the fire,” warned Mr. Dale, as he came out. “Doctor Clay says you must be careful.”
“We’ll take care!” was the cry.
The marching at an end, some of the boys ran for the stables and presently returned with Jackson Lemond, the driver of the school carryall, 106 commonly called Horsehair, because of the hairs which clung to his clothing.
“Come on, Horsehair, join us in having a good time.”
“Give us a speech, Horsehair!”
“Tell us all you know about the Wars of the Roses.”
“Or how Hannibal crossed the Delaware and defeated the Turks at the Alamo.”
“I can’t make no speech,” pleaded the carryall driver. “Just you let me go, please!”
“If you can’t make a speech, sing,” suggested another. “Give us Yankee Doodle in the key of J minor.”
“Or that beautiful lullaby entitled, ‘You Never Miss Your Purse Until You Have to Walk Home.’ Give us that in nine flats, will you?”
“I tell you I can’t make a speech and I can’t sing!” shouted out the driver for the school, desperately.
“How sad! Can’t speechify and can’t sing! All right, then, let it go, and give us a dance.”
“That’s the talk! A real Japanese jig in five-quarter time.”
There was a rush, and in a twinkling poor Horsehair was boosted to the top of a big packing-case, that had been hauled to the spot as fuel for one of the bonfires. 107
“The stage!” announced one of the students, with a wave of his hand. “The World-Renowned Horsehairsky will perform his celebrated Dance of the Hop Scotch. Get your opera glasses ready.”
“What’s the admission fee?”
“Two pins and a big green apple.”
“I can’t dance—I ain’t never danced in my life!” pleaded the victim. “You let me go. I’ve got to take care o’ my hosses.”
While he was speaking Buster Beggs had come up behind Horsehair and placed something attached to a dark string on the box, between the driver’s feet. It was an imitation snake, made of rubber and colored up to look very natural.
“Oh my, look at the snake!” yelled several, in pretended alarm.
“Where? where?” yelled Horsehair.
“There, right between your feet! He’s going to bite you on the leg!”
“Take care, that’s a rattler sure!”
“If he bites you, Horsehair, you’ll be a dead man!”
“Take him off! Take him off!” bawled the carryall driver, and in terror he made a wild leap from the packing-box and landed directly on the shoulders of two of the students. Then he dropped to the ground, rolled over, got up, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him in the direction 108 of the stables. A wild laugh followed him, but to this he paid no attention.
“Well, we are certainly having a night of it,” remarked Dave, after the fun had quieted down for a moment. He spoke to Roger.
“Where is Phil?” asked the senator’s son.
“Went off with Ben, I think.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s queer how much they keep together lately; isn’t it?” continued Roger.
“Oh, I don’t know. Of course that affair with Haskers may have something to do with it,” answered our hero, slowly.
“I wish Haskers would leave this school, Dave.”
“Oh, it won’t make much difference to us, if we graduate, whether he stays or not.”
“I know that. But, somehow, I don’t think he is a good man to have here, even if he is a learned instructor. He never enters into the school spirit, as Mr. Dale does.”
“Well, we can’t all be alike.”
“Would you keep him, if you were in Doctor Clay’s shoes?”
“I hardly think so. Certainly not if I could find another teacher equally good.”
The boys walked on until they found themselves at the last bonfire of the line, close 109 to where the school grounds came to an end. Here was a hedge, and beyond were the woods reaching up from the river.
“Nobody down by this bonfire,” remarked Dave. “Say, this is careless work,” he added. “The wind might shift and set the woods on fire.”
“I didn’t think they’d start a fire so far from the others,” answered his chum.
“Let us kick it into the water,” suggested our hero, and this they started to do, when, unexpectedly, a voice hailed them, and they saw a student sitting in a tree that grew in the hedge which separated the campus from the woods.
“Let that fire alone!” the youth called, angrily.
“Why, it’s Nat Poole!” exclaimed Roger, in a low voice. “Whatever is he doing in that tree?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” returned Dave.
“Is he alone?”
“He seems to be.”
“Do you hear what I say?” went on the money-lender’s son. “Leave that fire alone.”
“Did you build it?” asked Dave.
“I did, and I want you to leave it alone.”
“All right, Nat, if you say so,” answered Roger. “We thought it had been abandoned and that it might set fire to the woods.”
To this Nat Poole did not reply. Plainly he 110 was annoyed at being discovered in his present position. Dave and Roger looked around, to see if anybody else was in the vicinity, and then, turning, walked in the direction of the other bonfires.
“What do you make of that, Dave?” asked the senator’s son, presently.
“It looked to me as if Nat was waiting or watching for somebody, Roger.”
“So it did. The question is, Who was it?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got something of an idea.”
“Some of the students?”
“No. That wild man.”