At seven the watch was over—the last watch. Not a senior had appeared. The middlers breakfasted early, then hung round the steps of Carter, waiting for the chapel bell.
“It’s coming!” cried Dearborn, holding up his finger in joyful anticipation. “And at the right time, too! See the tree-tops bend!”
Just as the dismal clang of the bell sounded out its first summons, when the boys, slowly sauntering forth from dormitory entries, were lazily reckoning up the minutes of liberty left to them before the final fatal stroke should cut off their entrance into chapel, the breeze struck the weather-vane, filled out the folds of the flag, and set it flapping vigorously.
“Three long ‘Seatons’ for the middle class!” shouted Strout, leaping out from the waiting group with cap in hand. “Make it good now, one, two, three—”
A groan from behind stopped him suddenly. The breeze had strengthened; the white flag was exposed in its full length and breadth; and it bore the numerals not of the middle, but of the senior class!
“Some mistake about that flag, isn’t there, Strout?” rang out Curtis’s voice from the steps. “You must have got a blind man to put that up.”
Strout returned neither look nor word, but he collared every sentinel before the first recitation and cross-examined him thoroughly. Every one, including Bosworth, swore that he had watched honestly and intently at the lightning-rod beside the belfry during his whole hour, and had heard nothing. Every one, except Bosworth, told the truth.
CHAPTER XV
ABOUT MANY THINGS
“Who did it, Dick?” asked Phil, later in the day, when the flag had been taken down, good-bys said, and the dormitories, emptied of those who were fortunate enough to be within easy distance of home, had ceased to resemble an anthill in its busy season.