As I remember it, I put it to the gang this way: “We ought to behave ourselves and protect the good name of the town.” They laughed at me and asked me if I had joined Judge Kingsley’s Sunday-school class.
I knew they didn’t suspect the truth, nevertheless that dig nearly put me out of countenance on account of the secret I was cherishing. I blushed and stammered and I lost my grip then and there as a leader—and it was the same old story—it was on account of a girl. A girl does rattle the gear of man-business!
One of the fellows remarked that I was getting almighty pious after I had used them to clean up my own dirty job. He said the most of them had matters of their own which needed attention, and wanted to know if I proposed to sneak out on them after all the help they had given me.
I told them that I had thought the thing over carefully and had decided that what we had done to Mr. Bird was not right or lawful and we’d better make no more mistakes.
“Then perhaps you want us to correct that mistake and make up a bee and carry the furniture back to the old cuss,” suggested one of the Sortwell boys.
When I failed to welcome that notion they turned on me in good earnest, and in my own heart I had to admit, looking on the surface of the thing, that they had good reason for thinking that I was both selfish and ungrateful.
In the Sixth Reader, at school, I had found the story of Frankenstein’s monster. I saw that in organizing the Skokums I had built a lively little monster of my own.
“I have a special and a private reason for asking you to quit and be good, boys,” I told them.
“A member who keeps his private and special reasons to himself and doesn’t trust the rest of us isn’t much of a help in time of trouble,” said Ben Pratt. “I have never taken a whole lot of stock in you, Ross Sidney, and now I take less than ever before.”
From remarks which were dropped I gathered that the rest of them held similar sentiments.