BOB’S “BREAKING IN.”
BY ELEANOR PUTNAM.
“WHY don’t you write a story, Tom?” said Jim.
“Can’t,” said I; “never did such a thing in my life.”
You see the beginning of it all was Jim’s coming home for a three months’ leave. Jim’s in the navy and just home from Japan. So he came to see us, and so I broke my leg. When we came home from school we had planned no end of larks for the vacation, what with the Christmas tree and sleighing and skating and coasting, and making candy over to Aunt Lewes’, and going into Boston to Pinafore and having Charlotte-russe at Parker’s, and all the rest.
So the first thing I did the very night after we got home, was to fall through a bad place in the stable floor and break my leg, and Will said it was lucky it wasn’t one of the horses. Of course that finished my fun, for I could not go anywhere with the rest, but just had to lie there with my leg in splints; and though of course I had my presents just the same, I was mad all the vacation.
It wasn’t any great fun, you’d better believe, to lie on a lounge and stick in the house and see Will going everywhere and having no end of jolly times every day.
Then when the Saturday came for him to go back to Dr. Thomas’s and leave me behind, and I thought of seeing all the fellows and hearing what they had for presents and all that, I concluded that if I’d been well I’d have been glad for once in my life even to go back to school. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough done for me either, for mother and Jennie, the cook, almost cured me of ever liking cream cakes and jam again, by the heaps of it they gave me. Nell made me more neckties than I can wear in ten years, and played backgammon by the hour. Father brought me a new book from the city nearly every night, and Jim told me more stories—“yarns” he called them—and he and I made the most complete man-of-war that ever was seen in these parts. So you can see that I was not neglected, but I tell you there’s nothing like being well and having two whole legs to stand on. I’d got pretty tired of reading and jig-sawing and painting, and one afternoon I’d been telling them about the time we broke Bob Richards in at school, and says Jim:
“Tom, old fellow,” says he, “why don’t you write a story. Write it all out, and send it to Wide Awake; you never know what you can do till you try,” says he.
I thought I couldn’t at first, but the next day Jim had to drive over to Medford, and Nell had to go too to match mother’s gray dress and get some red ribbons for the dog. They both went off, and mother had a caller down stairs, so I was left all alone, and that’s how I came to write about it anyway.
You see our fellows have always had a fashion of giving the new boys a “breaking in.” The thing began by just doubling up the bed clothes, or sewing up the fellow’s sleeves, and then they got to ducking them and scaring them with ghosts, and when at last they pumped on little Fred Harris and frightened him into brain fever, Dr. Thomas forbade anything more of the sort.
Now when Dr. Thomas says anything he has a way of meaning it, so we fellows were surprised enough when one day Jeff Ryder came into the gym where we were having a circus, and said: “I tell you what let’s do! Let’s give Bob Richards a regular breaking in!”
“Yes I would, Jeff,” said Harry Thorndike, in the odd, quiet way he had with him. Harry Thorndike was our head boy, and entered Harvard last summer. “Yes, I would,” says he, “and get sent home for a month; it would be no end of fun. I would.”
Of course we boys all looked at Jeff when Harry spoke in that way, to see if he didn’t feel cheap, but he didn’t, a bit.
“I’ll take all the blame,” says he, “and I’ll risk being sent home.”
So then he told us all about his plan, and we thought it was a jolly good one too.
Bob Richards was a new fellow; only been there four weeks; and when he first came we thought he was a regular moon-calf. He was rather small of his age and had a kind of pinched, half-starved look, as if he’d never had a good square meal from soup clear through to pudding in his life. He was homesick and lonesome too, and we got into the way of calling him “baby” and “sissy,” but he never seemed to mind a bit, but would always help a fellow with his lessons just the same, and was first-class in any game.
One day Ralph Bixby, the bully of the school, said something about Richard’s mother, and I just wish you could have seen that little fellow fire up.
“You say what you like about me,” says he, “but don’t you say anything about my mother; it won’t be best for you, Bixby.”
“Do you want to fight?” says Bixby, bristling up like a turkey cock.
“It is not fighting I am after,” says Richards, very quietly, “but I can fight if there is need of it.”
But Bixby said he wouldn’t fight with an underclass man, and then went off and told Dr. Thomas that little Richards had been offering to fight. We all liked little Richards, for he was clear grit right through and no mistake. So when Jeff told us his plan we all agreed to it and there weren’t more than half a dozen of us fellows that knew about it, and we didn’t have to go and tell everyone about it either, as girls would.
BOB IS CALLED UPON TO MEET HIS DOOM.
At last the term was ended, and we were going home next day; that is, all we fellows who had any homes to go to, or any invitations to visit. But Bob Richards, he didn’t have any place to go because his mother was poor and lived way down in Machias, and it was too far away. So most boys would have been ugly about it and envious of the other boys, but Richards wasn’t a bit. Will and I were though, one winter when all our people were away in Germany, and we had to stay at the school or else go to Aunt Jocelyn’s. We don’t like very well to go to Aunt Jocelyn’s, for she always has cold meat and rice pudding without any plums, and says that she likes to see boys sober and useful. She gave Will and me dictionaries for Christmas presents. So we’d rather go most anywhere than to Aunt Jocelyn’s. But we were mad though to think we had to stay at the school, and Will told one of the fellows that he’d punch him if he didn’t stop looking so glad.
Little Richards you would have thought was going himself, he looked so glad and happy, and rushed about up and down stairs into all the rooms, helping the fellows pack and cord their trunks, strap up their valises, and directing cards for their boxes, and you’d have thought he was going himself sure enough.
“Don’t you wish you were going home, Richards?” said Ned Smith. He is one of those fellows who are always saying things they ought not to, though not meaning to be hateful. He’d do no end of things for a fellow who was sick, and then like as not tell him something that would make him sicker than ever. So he couldn’t think of anything better to say than to ask little Richards if he didn’t wish he was going home.
“Why, yes,” said Bob, in the bright, quick way he had with him; “why, yes, of course I wish I was going home, but if I can’t I can’t, so there’s an end to it. Besides I’m going home next summer; it’ll only be twenty-five weeks.”
Just to think of his speaking of it in that chipper way, as if he’d said twenty-five minutes instead of weeks.
The packing was all done after a while, and we were ready for an early start next morning. We had eaten our last supper, beef-steak and fried potatoes—we always have a sort of extra good supper the last night of the term. Then after supper we had a good time in Mrs. Thomas’ own room, with her two babies and her cousin who played the piano for us, and by ten o’clock we were all in our rooms and the house got still.
It was eleven o’clock when we heard three mews and a scratch like a cat, which was Jeff Ryder’s signal; he could have opened the door and come in just as well, but he was always very fond of giving all kinds of signs.
We opened the door and there were Hal Thorndike and the two Everett boys and Jeff. Will and I had a room alone. We came out and joined them and went up stairs trying to keep still, though Will would giggle, and he and Jeff had a scuffle on the landing about which should go in and get Bob out of bed.
At last Harry Thorndike settled it by telling them both to go. They had masks that Jeff and I made of black cloth with holes cut through for the eyes and mouth.
So they went in and waked up Bob, and said in a horrid, scarey sort of way, “Unhappy mortal! prepare to suffer your doom! Arise and proceed to the hall of judgment!”
He wasn’t more than half awake, but he was clear pluck, and he came out shivering with cold and with a blanket round his shoulders.
The boys had blindfolded him, and they led him round and round till he was pretty well mixed up, and then they took him to the Hall of Judgment, which was Harry Thorndike’s room.
The two younger boys staid with him while we older ones fell to work like beavers in Bob’s room.
We had a hard time though you’d better believe, trying to keep quiet, for the fellows would forget every now and then and speak or laugh out loud. We had Archibald, the school janitor, up to help us, and we made quick work of what we had to do I can tell you.
To begin with, his room was just the forlornest place that ever you saw, and no mistake! We furnish our own rooms at Dr. Thomas’, and we always try to fix them up rather gorgeous. Our mothers and sisters are always sending us gimcracks to make our dens kind of gay. Then if fellows happen to have any girl friends you know, they are always sending them tidies and such trash for philopene presents, and though we don’t much care to have the things round under feet, somehow if one fellow has them, all the rest wants them too.
But I just wish you could have seen little Richards’ room! the barest, coldest place! There was no carpet, only a common sort of rug before the little old stove, that was so wheezy and full of cracks that it would not do much but smoke anyway. There was a bedstead, and his study table with his books on it. There was a picture of his mother, and one of his sister—rather pretty she was too, with smiling eyes like Richards’, and soft hair in little rings about her forehead and face. Thorndike said that she would be very pretty when she was older—say seventeen. Mrs. Thomas’ cousin is sixteen and a half. Bob had put a little wreath of some kind round the two pictures. There was a plant too on the table. He brought it in his hand all the way from Machias, with a brown paper bag over the top of it, and now it was just ready to bloom.
The first thing we did was to bring in a big warm carpet all made and fitted to the room, and we spread it down, but didn’t nail it because of the noise and because we thought he’d like to do it himself. Then we covered the old table and mantle with jolly, bright cloths. We never could have picked them out in the world if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Thomas’ cousin, the one who played on the piano for us. She is rather nice for a girl, and sometimes wears little gold horse-shoes in her ears. Jeff Ryder is going to marry her when he is twenty-one, but nobody knows it yet, not even she. Jeff only told me one night when I had a sore throat and he slept with me. So she helped us pick out the things, and gave us a tidy, and a pin-cushion the size of a bean bag. Then we moved in a first-class stove, and Archibald set her up and built a rouser of a fire in her. We put a pair of new blankets on the bed, and Jeff Ryder brought out a student’s lamp—one of the double headers; the two Belknap boys—that means Will and me—gave a big easy chair to go beside the table; then the Everett boys gave a set of book shelves; and Dr. Thomas gave a box of books, as many as a dozen I should think. We left these in the box, for Will and I always think that half the fun of having presents is opening the bundles ourselves. Harry Thorndike gave the stove and a little clock from his own room. We put the pin-cushion on the bureau, and the tidy on the chair, and while we were standing there looking at it all, there came the very softest kind of a step outside and there was the Doctor’s wife. She had a picture in her arms, one that I had seen a good many times in her own sitting-room. It was quite a large picture of a woman with a sort of hood on her hair and a baby in her arms; both the woman and the baby had a kind of shiny hoop just above their heads in the air, looking as if in a minute they’d drop down and make crowns. Will told me once that he thought it was a picture of Mrs. Thomas and the baby, but I think not, though there was the same kind of look too on both their faces.
“Hang this up, boys,” she said; “he is very fond of it, and I have had it for a good many years. I’ve babies of my own now to look at, so we will give this to Bob. Let us hang it over the mantle-piece.”
There is something rather queer about the Doctor’s wife. It isn’t that she isn’t pretty, for she is; and it isn’t that she is odd or old, for she is younger a good deal than the Doctor, and as kind and jolly as a girl; but there is something queer about her, for I don’t know how many fellows have said she seemed just like their mothers; and what I want to know is how in creation can she look and seem like the mothers of so many boys—dark and light, and homely and handsome, English, German, American, and even one colored fellow said she made him think of his “mammy.” I think it must be a kind of motherish way which she has, that makes us all feel so about her.
She gave the picture to Hal Thorndike and he hung it up, and I tell you the room did look just immense.
Then we went down stairs and brought Bob up again, and sat him down in his new chair, and told him not to take off his blinder till he’d counted three hundred, and then we all ran down into Will’s and my room to wait and see what he would do. We rather expected to hear him shout, or tear round, or do something or other; but we counted three hundred two or three times over, and not a sound came from his room.
By and by Jeff said he was going up to see what the row was—which was only his way of speaking; for you couldn’t call it a row, could you, when there wasn’t a sound to be heard!
Jeff didn’t come back, and then Will said he’d go and see where Jeff was, so Hal said it was like Clever Alice and her cheeses that she sent rolling down hill after each other; but at last the two boys came back, not grinning at all, but solemn and long-faced enough.
“I guess he’s mad,” said Jeff; “anyhow he can’t be glad, for he’s howling!” which was another of Jeff’s ways of speaking; for Bob certainly was not howling.
“I don’t see what he wants to act that way for,” said Will. “I bet I wouldn’t if I had so many things given to me at once!”
“You can’t always tell,” said Hal. “It isn’t always a sign a fellow is mad if he howls. I howled like a good one when my father came home from sea, when I was a little fellow, a good many years ago.”
“Let’s go up and see what’s the matter with him,” said I.
“Let’s go to bed!” said Harry. “Don’t one of you young rats go near his room to-night, or I’ll report you to the Doctor!”
We all laughed, for of course we knew he’d never report us; he isn’t that kind; but we minded what Hal said all the same, as everybody has a way of doing, and we didn’t hear a sound more till morning, and the gong waked us up.
And then there was Archibald at the door to help with the trunks and boxes, and the lamps were lighted in the dining-room, and there were fritters and syrup for breakfast, but they were too hot to eat. Then there was Jeff Ryder with a present for the Doctor’s wife’s cousin—some candy in a jolly, silver box, lined with blue silk (Jeff will spend all his quarter’s money on one thing), and there in a dark corner of the stairs was the cousin herself, with a little pink sack on, crying about something, and Harry Thorndike was leaning on the balusters saying, as I came along, “Why Anette, child, it’s only for two weeks anyhow! Come, don’t send me off this way; can’t you wish me a merry Christmas?”
Then they shouted that the big sleigh was ready, and I thought we were going to get off without having to see Bob at all.
So I rushed out through the hall and down the slippery steps, but there was Bob before me, very white in the face, and with his eyes looking more than ever like his sister’s.
I tell you we fellows felt awful cheap; a sight cheaper than Bob did himself. Jeff Ryder whispered to me that he was going to bolt, but it was no go. Bob stepped right in front of us.
HURRAH FOR HOME AND CHRISTMAS!
“Boys,” said he; “boys, you must let me—if I only could tell you—if you only knew—” and just then Hal Thorndike came along (the cousin had run away up-stairs) and set things right as he has a way of doing.
“All right, youngster,” he said; “we know just what you want to say—no one who looked at you could accuse you of being ungrateful. Let up now, old fellow, don’t say a word more, but go up to my room and see if I left my watch-key on the bureau.”
Bob ran off, and Harry said, “now cut for it, fellows!” says he; “hip, vamoose, get, pile into the sleigh, or he’ll be back again, thanking you worse than ever!”
So in we jumped, the whip cracked, the bells jingled, and we gave three cheers for the Doctor, and three more for his wife, and then we dashed away.
Of course, little Richards wrote to us, but a letter isn’t half so bad as to have a fellow brace right up and thank you before your face and eyes. So we got out of it pretty well after all, didn’t we?
And this is all there is about “Bob’s ‘Breaking In,’” and not much of a story either to write all out and send to a magazine. But you see Jim told me to, and it was lonesome with Jim and Nell and mother gone, and only the cat for company the whole afternoon.
LITTLE John Locke
Says kittie can talk;
And this, my dears, is exactly how:
John said, “Kittie mine,
Say, when will you dine?”
And kittie looked up and said, “Neow-w.”
