IN WHICH WE LEARN THE SECRET CODE OF THE "TIGERS"
For over two weeks after Professor O'Reilley had gathered up his properties and gone in quest of juvenile dimes in other neighborhoods, John waited at the corner of the school yard for Louise, gravely added her books to his own under his arm, and walked slowly home with her. His roommates were at first loud in their jeers, but gradually the primitive jests grew less and less frequent until the daily meeting became a part of the unnoticed routine of the school.
As for his friends, Silvey, after a few caustic remarks, forbore comment. Sid DuPree made the condescending admission that she wasn't half-bad after all. And the "Tigers" found it a distinct addition to their prestige to have a feminine rooter who danced around on the sidelines and exhorted them to even greater deeds of valor as they ground chance opponents into the cinders of the big lot.
Then it was, one Friday afternoon, that Miss Brown stacked her record books neatly in a little pile at one corner of the desk, placed the unmarked homework papers in one of the drawers, and made an innocent announcement which roused thoughts lying dormant in each boy's brain to instant life.
"Halloween is only a week from Saturday. I want each member of the class taking part in the exercises to have the lines learned perfectly. We'll rehearse Monday afternoon."
The rest of the speech fell on deaf ears with John. Halloween but a short seven days away? Why, it seemed scarcely three mornings ago that he had started on the fishing trip which nearly landed the big carp. The gang should be a big one, this time. Silvey and Sid, the Harrison kids, Mosher, Perry, and Red Brown were certainties, to say nothing of smaller groups which might join on that final night. He drew three solitary pennies from his pocket, arranged them, heads up, in a row on the top of his desk, and stared at them until the bell rang for dismissal.
With the coins in his hand, he swung back the door of the little school store, and hastened eagerly up to the proprietress. She greeted him with a smile, for the episode of the lemon drops was still fresh in her memory.
"Pea shooters in yet?" he queried anxiously.
They had arrived that very noon.
"Is there wood on the ends to keep the tin from cutting your mouth?"
She nodded. The door swung back again as Sid DuPree and Silvey stamped noisily in. It developed that they were on a similar errand, and presently Miss Thomas cut the cord around the big, blue bundle and gave them their weapons. The trio left in high spirits, puffing through the empty tubes, making imaginary shots at open windows, and blustering loudly about past performances, as they sauntered along. Silvey halted when the first of the grocery shops near the home corner was reached.
"Got any peas at your house, Sid?"
Sid shook his head. His family dined at a near-by hotel most of the time, and a reserve stock of any kind of food was a rarity. John mentioned a big jar of beans on his mother's pantry shelf.
"They're no good," said Silvey scornfully. "Get stuck in the pea shooter and jam it all up. Got any money, Sid?"
Sid had a penny. It was the day before the generous allowance from Mr. DuPree was due, and his finances verged upon bankruptcy. Silvey had another, and John contributed the remainder of his little hoard. That brought the total to four cents.
"S'pose he'll sell us that little?" asked John, as they gazed at the tempting array of vegetables in the store window. They opened the door timidly. The rotund proprietor stepped forward as he stammered his request.
"Of course!" He beamed on the trio good-naturedly. "What kind do you want, boys?"
"Split's the cheapest," said Silvey thoughtfully.
"But they don't go as far, and it's harder to hit anything with them."
They ordered the more expensive projectiles and divided them equally before they left the store. At the corner, the pharmacy was bombarded persistently until the drug apprentice sprang through the doorway and sent the boys flying down the street.
The pursuit slackened at last and the white coated youth turned to go back. Silvey halted to pant a defiant "Ya-a-a, ya-a-a. Can't catch us. Can't catch us."
John pulled his chum's arm impatiently and pointed to the vacant house just three lots south of Silvey's home.
"Look," he whispered, suddenly cautious. "Some one's forgotten to close the front door tight. We can lock it from the inside and go up to the attic. Nobody can get in to chase us, and we won't do a thing with our pea shooters, oh, no!"
"Maybe the folks haven't left. You can't tell."
"We can run, then. 'Sides, they won't do anything."
They crossed the street and tiptoed up the dusty, rain-spotted veranda steps. John peered into the bleak, dirty parlor and reported the coast clear. Nevertheless, they hesitated on the very threshold.
"You go first," said Sid to Silvey.
"All right," Silvey nodded apathetically. He peered in at the window. "You don't think there's anyone inside, do you, fellows?"
The trio listened intently. "Might be someone upstairs," suggested Sid. "Tramps or something."
"Shucks," broke in John impatiently. "You're all 'fraid cats, that's what you are."
"Go on in, yourself," Bill retorted quickly.
He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor.
"Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob.
"N-no, we may have to run, yet."
They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and DuPree lagged in the rear.
"Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance.
John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright.
"I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really somebody!"
At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief.
"Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this great?"
The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by the hair brush or corset steel method.
The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was exempt from assault.
The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window. The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side, whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea shooter.
"Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned.
"Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"
He filled his mouth anew, took aim with the long tin tube, and let fly. Bill seconded him nobly. The quarry halted, looked upwards, and received Sid's volley full in his face.
"He's coming up the steps," yelled John, who was watching the effect of the attack. "Jiggers, fellows, he's coming up the steps."
They turned to fly to safety. But where was a haven of refuge to be found? They could hear his angry footsteps tramping up and down on the porch.
"Were those front windows locked?" Sid asked.
John shrugged his shoulders miserably. An angry pounding echoed through the deserted hall and bare, cheerless rooms. They stole silently down to the second floor.
"There's more closets to hide in, here," said John hopefully. He glanced from a rear window to the little pantry gable which stood but a story's height from the back yard. "If he gets in, we can climb out and drop. It won't hurt much."
Their enemy tried the door again. Once a window rattled ominously. Sid's face regained a little of its color. "They were locked after all. Jiggers, there he is around the back!"
They drew hastily away from the opening as a purple, distorted face glared up into theirs. A moment later, he was kicking at the back door.
"That's bolted, too," said Silvey thankfully. "I guess we're safe."
At last he left and went around to the front. They listened for a second attack from that quarter. Not a sound in the house, save the dripping of a leaky faucet in the bathroom.
"Come on, fellows." John led the way to the stairs. "We'll open the back door and run like everything!"
The rapidly deepening dusk cast weird shadows through the empty rooms as they tiptoed tensely to the first floor. Once Sid imagined that he saw the fat man hiding in a nook in the hall where the evening gloom lay deepest, and they raised eery echoes through the house in their panic-stricken flight back to the top of the stairway. Past the fearsome corner again, through the stuffy kitchen where a ray of gas-light from the next house fell upon the tall, cylindrical water boiler and gave them a second fright, and out into the blessed freedom of the back yard. There they broke for the railroad tracks and home.
Mr. Fletcher had already arrived from the office, and was in the kitchen, talking, as Mrs. Fletcher prepared supper. That meant that it was long after six, and John was under strict orders to report upon his immediate arrival from school! But as he came in, still panting, the shining rod caught her eye, and his sin of omission was forgotten.
"Pea shooter! Give it here, John. One night of Halloween pranks is enough, let alone a whole week of it."
He surrendered the weapon reluctantly. "Now mind," she added as the bit of tin was dropped into the top drawer of the kitchen bureau, "you're not to buy another one, either."
Mothers were peculiarly unsympathetic about premature pranks; take Fourth of July, no matter how many firecrackers a fellow owned, he had to sneak off to the big lot to light them if he wanted to celebrate on even the day before.
So there was little left to do but look longingly forward to the great night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain, "Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and passed over a bit of folded paper.
He glanced up at Miss Brown. She was filling out the monthly report cards and was not likely to detect him, but he held the note underneath his desk as he opened it, nevertheless. It was from Silvey and ran in nearly illegible figures:
17-12-19-13. 14-22-22-7 26-7 7-19-22 8-19-26-24-16
26-21-7-22-9 8-24-19-12-12-15 7-12-23-26-2 26-15-15
7-19-22 7-18-20-22-9-8 7-19-22-9-22. 25-18-15-15.
He ran his hand back of the untidy jumble of school books and pads and drew out an oft creased, finger marked sheet, the secret code of the "Tigers":
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 |
| N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
He began deciphering the message with a concentration never meted out to his school work. Five minutes of effort resulted in:
John. Meet at the shack after school today all the Tigers there. Bill.
He caught Silvey's gaze upon him and nodded to show that he had received the note. The pair would have met on the way home from school, anyway, but what was the use of a secret code unless it was used at every possible opportunity?
The shack was a rickety, frame affair, built during the long summer vacation when time hung heavy on the boys' hands, and the tribal desire for a stronghold waxed too strong to be denied. Three of the walls were formed of odd planks scavenged from neighboring woodpiles and fences, eked out, here and there, with a few pantry shelves taken from vacant houses. The fourth was nothing but the picket fence, but as Silvey expressed it when viewing their handiwork, "It doesn't rain much from the north, anyway." Door for the low entrance there was not, and the roof, whose shingles were purchased by an arduously earned half-dollar, became a veritable sieve when the raindrops were pounded through by a driving gale from the lake.
The furnishings consisted of a chair, which had long since parted with its back, and a small, shaky desk which had in some way survived the interval between its Christmas presentation and the fall school term. In the one drawer were kept the original of the "Tigers'" secret code, a twenty-five cent rubber stamp outfit which had been used to print the set of membership rules, beginning, "I. No swearing," and two sadly battered, springless, and rusty revolvers. Where they had originated, no one could remember, but there they lay, unsuspected by parental authorities, to be used as a possible defense against the incursions of the "Jefferson Toughs," who ruled the district to the immediate north, or to be dragged forth, as in the present case, to lend an air of solemnity to the many plots hatched between the four cramped walls.
Red Brown descended the side steps into the yard, in answer to the summons of the clan, and found John in his rôle of master-at-arms, strutting back and forth before the doorway. Silvey, as befitted the holder of the exalted office of president, was sitting inside on the crippled chair. John whipped the more formidable of the two weapons from his back pocket and pointed it at the breast of the intruder.
"Halt!" Brown obeyed.
"Who goes there?" The formula had been borrowed from a thrilling Civil War story.
"Friend," came the prompt reply.
"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."
Red opened his mouth doubtfully, then hesitated.
"Hurry up."
"I've forgotten it."
"Aw, think—hard."
John jabbed the muzzle of the revolver into his ribs with a steadily increasing pressure. Brown thought—hard. Finally he broke out,
"It's easy enough for you to remember. You made it up."
Which was true, for the master-at-arms, who was also the secretary, had drafted the rules and was responsible for the initiation ceremonies and passwords of the organization.
"Go on. I'll help you."
"Can't," hopelessly. "It's clean out of my head."
"Have to stay away from the meeting, then."
"Aw, John, quit your fooling. It doesn't matter."
"Here's the start. 'Oppy.'"
"Oppy—"
"What's the rest of it?"
"'Nother 'Oppy,' wasn't there?"
"No, it was 'Oppy-poppy—'"
"'Oppy-poppy—'"
"'Oppy-poppy-oppy-nox.' Let's hear you say it all."
Red repeated it triumphantly.
"Right. Pass friend to the meeting of the 'Tigers.'"
All the other members had trouble with the tongue twister. Either they left out the distinguishing "p" in the third syllable, or forgot the final "oppy" and had to have their memories refreshed in much the same manner as that of the first arrival. This was precisely what John had intended. What was the use of being both secretary and master-at-arms of a club if you couldn't have some fun at the expense of your fellow members?
Inside, Silvey's glance took in the prostrate figures of Sid, Red Brown, and Perry Alford, who were packed so closely together in the enclosure that they could scarcely move, then roamed listlessly past John with his insignia of office, out to the sunlit fence and railroad tracks. Red yawned wearily.
"Hurry up and do something, Sil."
"Where's Skinny?" asked the president.
"Down town with Mrs. Mosher," Sid volunteered. "She wanted him to help her carry packages home."
"Gee," commented Perry, sympathetically. "If I had her for a mother, I'd run away. Honest, I would!"
"And the Harrison kids?"
"Both sick in bed. Too many pork chops again."
"Master-at-arms and secretary," Silvey raised his voice. "Come on in."
John squatted in the doorway and gazed meaningly at his superior. They had walked home from school together that afternoon, and instructions upon the proper way of opening a meeting had been profuse. Silvey grew palpably nervous.
"This here meeting," he blurted at last.
"That isn't the way I told you." John shook the revolver in disapproval. "Meeting will now come to order."
"Meeting will now come to order," Silvey repeated mechanically. "Secretary call the roll."
John snapped his fingers in disgust. He had been so busy looking after Silvey's duties that he'd forgotten his own. There was an interchange of glances between the two before the president spoke up scornfully,
"We'll have to let that go. Who'll be in the gang this year?"
Each member present raised a hand. The two leaders in the affair beamed. Everything augured for a successful night of sport.
"What'll we do?"
"Let's go outside where there's room," Sid suggested. "My leg's gone to sleep."
"Now," said John a few minutes later, as the five boys stretched themselves out on the soft grass beside the shack, "there's the garbage cans on the flats' back porches. They're never, taken in on Halloween."
Silvey nodded. "'Member the chase the janitor gave us last year before we had half of 'em spilled?"
"That was because we started at the bottom and worked up," explained the master strategist. "This time we'll begin at the top and spill 'em out as we go down. We'll be off before the janitor learns about it."
Red chewed on a blade of grass thoughtfully. "Leave milk bottles alone this time. 'Specially old lady Boyer's."
The members nodded approval. On the Halloween preceding, Sid had discovered a solitary container on a window near the flat entrance and dashed it to the cement walk amid exultant yells. Hardly had the noise subsided when a wrinkled, gray-haired head made a distracted appearance at the opening, with a cry of, "I want my milk! I want my milk!" Returning a moment later from panic-stricken flight, the full meaning of the act dawned upon the boys and remorse overcame them. A hasty search for coin of the realm, a moment of consultation, and Silvey, boosted high on his comrades' shoulders, had rapped on the window ledge. "It ain't much, ma'am, but it's all we got, and we didn't know the bottle was yours," he had murmured; and, all unwitting of the sardonic humor of the act, had passed in a check good for a drink at a near-by saloon.
There were moments of reflective silence. "Isn't there something new we can do this year?" Silvey appealed to his fellow members. "Garbage cans and doormats and ringing electric bells are fun, but isn't there a trick we've never worked before?"
"Get some grease and spread it over a porch before you ring the bell," suggested Sid. "My big brother, who's away at college, used to do it. Told me so, himself."
"I tried that once," Red broke in scornfully. "Nearly broke my back getting away. Besides the fellow never steps where he ought to."
John spat with sudden deliberation at a chip of wood on the turf. "Who can get a lot of tomato cans without any holes in them?"
Silvey mentioned a city dump just north of the park, where cans of all sizes and conditions were to be found. His chum nodded approvingly.
"Sid, you and Perry go over there Saturday morning and bring back as many middling-sized ones as you can carry. You other fellows cut up pieces of string about as long as you are."
"S'posing the trick don't work after all that trouble?" asked Sid irritably. John was always giving him jobs to do.
"I'll bring a hose key Halloween night," went on John, ignoring the interruption. "We'll tie a string to a tin, fill it up with water from the hose pipe on the front lawn, and tie it to the doorknob. Door jerks open when the bell rings—you know how mad a fellow is then—and the water goes flying into the hall, ker-splash! Bet you that'll make some fun!"
The others regarded the inventor in silent admiration. "How about the cop?" asked one of them finally.
"Never got mad last year, did he? He's all right. Besides, he's too fat to run very fast."
The back door in the Silvey home squeaked disturbingly as Mrs. Silvey appeared. A dusting cap was jammed determinedly over one eye, and in one hand was a broom.
"Bill, you come in here right away. I want you to help me move the hall rug."
Silvey drawled a response. "Jes' wait until we get through talking. It won't be a minute." He turned to the rest of the "Tigers." "Everybody got pea shooters?" They had, or would have before the eventful day arrived.
"I bought a peachy false-face," Perry boasted in the lull of the conversation which followed. "You ought to see it; looks just like a circus clown."
"Leave it at home," said John brusquely. "You can't see out of 'em when you're running away, and they get all sticky, anyway. They're for kids, not for fellows like us."
"Bill!" scolded the maternal voice again. "Come in the house this minute, before I tell your pa on you when he gets home."
There was that final note of exhausted patience in Mrs. Silvey's voice which commanded instant obedience. He rose with alacrity. As he mounted the steps, the boys still at liberty scampered away in the fast gathering dusk for a game of "Run, sheep, run," down the tracks and over the grass plots and back yards on the street.
It was nearly six when John came panting into the kitchen.
"What have you been doing, son?" asked his mother as she half turned from the gas stove to smile down at him.
"Oh, talking about Halloween, and what we're going to do, and lots of things. It's going to be peachy."
"Mind, you're not to destroy property or anything like that. Otherwise, you'll have to stay in the house Saturday night."
He yawned with elaborate carelessness. "Just going to blow beans and ring doorbells, same as we did last year. Isn't it supper time? I'm hungry."
"We'll eat as soon as your father gets home, son." She turned to give the creamed potatoes a stir lest they stick to the pan. "Oh, I nearly forgot! There's a letter at your place on the dining-room table. It came in the afternoon mail."
"For me?" Surprise made his voice rise to a funny squeak. "Who from?"
"A young lady, I think."
He dashed into the dining-room and opened the envelope with clumsy fingers. On a diminutive sheet of note paper, decorated at the top with two laughing gnomes, ran an invitation copied from some older person's formula:
"Miss Louise Martin requests the pleasure of Mr. John Fletcher's company at a Halloween party to be given at her home on Saturday, October 31st, from eight to ten o'clock."