"But I didn't give in," asserted Frank. "That's just the point. They were too many for me, of course, and I couldn't help myself at last, but I held out as long as I could."
"Anyway, it's over now," said Bert, "and it won't bother us any more. But there's one thing I've made up my mind to: I'm not going to have anything to do with hoisting other new boys. I don't like it, and I won't do it."
"No more will I, Bert," said Frank. "It's a mean business; a whole crowd of fellows turning on one and beating him like that."
Just then the bell rang, and all the boys poured back into the schoolroom for the afternoon session.
Each in his own way, Bert and Frank had made a decidedly favourable impression upon their schoolmates. No one mistook Bert's passive endurance for cowardice. His bearing had been too brave and bright for that. Neither did Frank's vigorous resistance arouse any ill-feeling against him. Boys are odd creatures. They heartily admire and applaud the fiery, reckless fellow, who takes no thought for the consequences, and yet they thoroughly appreciate the quiet, cool self-command of the one who does not move until he knows just what he is going to do. And so they were well pleased with both the friends, and quite ready to admit them into the full fellowship of the school.
The Lloyds were greatly interested by Bert's account of the hoisting. They praised him for his self-control, and Frank for his plucky fight against such odds, and they fully agreed with Bert that hoisting was a poor business at best, and that he would be doing right to have nothing to do with it.
"Perhaps some day or other you'll be able to have it put a stop to, Bert," said his mother, patting his head fondly. "It would make me very proud if my boy were to become a reformer before he leaves school."
"I'm afraid there's not much chance of that, mother," answered Bert. "The boys have been hoisting the new chaps for ever so many years, and Dr. Johnston has never stopped them."
That was true. Although he feigned to know nothing about it, the doctor was well aware of the existence of this practice peculiar to his school, but he never thought of interfering with the boys. It was a cardinal principle with him that the boys should be left pretty much to themselves at recess. So long as they did their duty during the school hours, they could do as they pleased during the play hour. Moreover, he was a great admirer of manliness in his boys. He would have been glad to find in everyone of them the stoical indifference to pain of the traditional Indian. Consequently, fair stand-up fights were winked at, and anything like tattling or tale-bearing sternly discouraged. He had an original method of expressing his disapprobation of the latter, which will be illustrated further on. Holding those views, therefore, he was not likely to put his veto upon "hoisting."
As the days went by, Bert rapidly mastered the ways of the school, and made many friends among his schoolmates. He found the lessons a good deal harder than they had been at Mr. Garrison's. And not only so, but the method of hearing them was so thorough that it was next to impossible for a boy who had come ill-prepared to escape detection. Dr. Johnston did not simply hear the lesson; he examined his scholars upon it, and nothing short of full acquaintance with it would content him. He had an original system of keeping the school record, which puzzled Bert very much, and took him a good while to understand.