It's dreadfully dull to be the teacher's son. You have to do just so, you know, "to set a good example," and it isn't any fun. Father never asked me to tell what was going on, no matter what was up; but he put me "upon honor" not to go in myself, so of course I had to keep out. But the fellows understood, and used to tell me all about it afterward, and as somehow they always came to grief, I felt a little more contented than I might have done.
One night we could not get to sleep.
The long moonbeams came down athwart the dormitory through the great windows, and lay in broad parallelograms, bisected and quartered, upon the floor. We got our geometry lesson out of the figures, and reeled off a whole section of theorems, without the least effect. That ought, by rights, to be enough to set a whole houseful of boys journeying into the Land of Nod, but it didn't us.
Father heard us jabbering and came up to see what the matter was, but our sudden interest in the science of planes and prisms so amused him that he laughed all the way down-stairs; for Charlie Brown crept to the door and heard him.
At last Frank Hapgood—"Happy-go-lucky"—sat up in desperation, flung his pillow on the floor, got out of bed deliberately and sat down on it. Nine other pillows, nine other white-robed figures solemnly followed suit. Said Harry Eveleth, "Fellows, I've tried to do my duty and go to sleep, and I can't. We must do something!"
A silence, broken by a sigh from Ramon. "Ah! on nights like zis I have gone to ze—ze zoogar houses to sleep some time, in Habana!"
THE OLD HORSE WAS SLEEPY ... BUT THEY WERE READY AT LAST.
Frank "Happy" gave a start, looked at the circle intently, then gave a little nod, and winked.