To Cal’s surprise West House kept on its way around the corner of the Hall, following a path that led slightly downward toward a smaller building set in a corner of the grounds. There was a brook which flowed for a little distance into what Cal surmised to be the Mill Pond of which Sandy had spoken, and the path passed over a tiny rustic bridge. At the bridge the company stopped.
“Now then,” said Sandy, and—
“O you East House!” they shouted.
Two boys tumbled out on to the porch and waved, and in a moment others appeared and the hail was answered.
“O you West House!”
Hands went up in friendly salutation and then West House turned and retraced its steps, turning to the right where the path divided, and fetching up at the School House steps. By this time the entrance was alive with boys, boys of all sizes and a variety of ages, but all, excepting a sprinkling of newcomers like Cal and Clara Parker, looking excited and merry. Cal had stuck pretty close to Ned Brent and now Ned introduced him to several fellows whose names he either didn’t catch or immediately forgot. Presently, finding that no one was paying any attention to him, a fact which helped to reduce his embarrassment, he wandered into the building.
There was nothing remarkable about School House. It was the oldest of all the buildings and the corridor was rather dark and stuffy. Rooms opened from it at left and right, and peeking into the nearer one, Cal saw a blackboard-lined apartment with a platform and teacher’s desk at one end and some forty pupils’ desks occupying the rest of the room. At one of the boards a middle-aged man with a scowling countenance was making cabalistic figures with a piece of yellow chalk. Evidently, thought Cal, that was the mathematics instructor who went by the unattractive name of Grouch. Suddenly overhead the bell began its last summons. A sprinkling of boys came in, but most of them continued their conversation on the steps. Cal found a new object of interest in a large pine board occupying a space near the door. Beside it hung a pad of paper and in one corner were dozens of thumb-tacks. On the board itself were many pieces of paper torn from the pad and impaled with the tacks. The messages they bore were interesting to the new boy:
“J. W.; meet me at noon at East House. Taffy.”
“Growler Gay; Where’s my French dictionary? Must have it today. E. M.”
“Spud H.; Meet me on steps after morning. Carl.”