CHAPTER IV
RELATES HOW NELSON BORROWED A LEAF FROM BOB, AND HOW DAN CRIED QUITS

There wasn’t much about gas-engines that Nelson didn’t know, for ever since he was old enough to walk his family had spent a portion at least of every summer at the shore, and of late years a gasoline-launch had been a feature of the vacation program. To be sure, a power-dory was rather a trifling thing after a thirty-six-foot cruising-launch, and the engine left much to be desired, but it got along pretty well, and Nelson wished he didn’t have to return to camp, but might turn the dory’s head up the lake and go cruising. But perhaps they would let him take the dory some other time. Tom Ferris was on the pier when the boat came within easy hail.

“Where’s Dan?” he asked.

“Coming back by road.”

“Road?”

“Yes; he decided to walk.”

“What for?” asked Tom incredulously.

Nelson shook his head. “Exercise, I guess,” he answered, as he steered the dory in under the boom. “Here! catch the bag, will you?”

It was evident that Tom was far from satisfied with the information supplied, for all the way up the hill he shot suspicious glances at Nelson, and stumbled over numerous roots and stones in his preoccupation. But he didn’t discover anything more, at least from Nelson.

After the mail was distributed in Birch Hall the two boys got their rackets and balls and climbed the hill, past the spring and the little sunlit glade where church service was held on Sundays, until a tiny plateau was reached. Here was the tennis-court, fashioned with much difficulty and not altogether guiltless of stones, but not half bad for all that. It was well supplied with back-nets – a fortunate circumstance, since the woods closed in upon it on all sides, and balls once lost in the undergrowth would have been difficult to find. Tom, considering his bulk, played a very fast and steady game, and succeeded in securing one of the three sets which they managed to finish before the assembly sounded at eleven o’clock and they fled down the hill to the lake.

The morning bath, or “soak,” as it was called, was compulsory as regarded every camper. Nothing save absence or illness was allowed to excuse a fellow from this duty. Tom and Nelson donned their bathing trunks and pushed their way out onto the crowded pier. Two of the steel boats were occupied by councilors, whose duty it was to time the bathers and keep an eye on adventurous swimmers. The boys lined the edge of the pier and awaited impatiently the signal from Mr. Ellery. Presently, “All in!” was the cry, and instantly the pier was empty, save for a few juniors whose inexperience kept them in shallow water along the little sandy beach. The water spouted in a dozen places, and one by one dripping heads bobbed above the surface and their owners struck out for the steps to repeat the dive. Nelson found the water far warmer than he was accustomed to at the beaches; it was almost like jumping into a tub for a warm bath. When he came to the surface after a plunge and a few vigorous kicks under water he found himself close to the boat occupied by Dr. Smith. He swam to it, laid hold of the gunwale, and tried to wipe the water from his eyes.

“What’s the trouble, Tilford?” asked the councilor smilingly.

“I guess my eyes are kind of weak,” Nelson answered. “The water makes them smart like anything.”

“Better keep them closed when you go under. It isn’t the fault of your eyes, though; it’s the water.”

“But they never hurt before, sir.”

“Where have you bathed – in fresh water?”

“No, sir – salt.”

“That’s different. The eyes are used to salt water, but fresh water irritates them.”

“I should think it would be the other way,” said Nelson, blinking.

“Not when you consider that all the secretions of the eye are salty. Tears never made your eyes smart, did they?”

“No, sir; that’s so. It’s funny, though, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s like a good many other things, Tilford – strange until you get used to it. I suppose you swim pretty well?”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. I’ve swam all my life, I guess, but I don’t believe I’m what you’d call a dabster.”

“I wouldn’t think of calling you that, anyhow,” laughed the Doctor, “for I don’t think I know what it means. But how about diving?”

Nelson shook his head.

“I’ve never done much of that. I’ve usually bathed in the surf, you see. I’d be scared silly if I tried what those fellows are doing.”

The fellows referred to were standing on a tiny platform built up a good ten feet above the floor of the pier. One by one they launched themselves into the lake, at least eighteen feet below, some making straight dives, some letting themselves fall and straightening out just as they reached the surface, and one, who proved to be Dan Speede, turning a backward somersault and disappearing feet first and hands high over head.

“That was a dandy, wasn’t it?” asked Nelson with enthusiasm.

“Yes; I guess Speede’s the star diver here. But he takes mighty big risks sometimes. If you want to try a dive I’ll watch you and see if I can help you any with criticism.”

“All right, but I just jump off when I dive,” said Nelson. “But I’d like to learn, sir.”

So he swam over to the steps, reaching them just ahead of Dan, and walked along the pier to a place where there was no danger of striking the steam-launch which was tied alongside. He had just reached a position that suited him and was standing sideways to the water, when there as an exclamation, some one apparently stumbled into him, and he went over like a ninepin, striking the water in a heap and going so far under he thought he would never come up again. But he did finally, his lungs full of water and his breath almost gone from his body – came up choking and sputtering to see Dan looking down with that maddening grin on his face, and to hear him call:

“Awfully sorry, Tilford. I tripped on a knot-hole!”

Nelson coughed and spat until some of the water was out of him – and it was odd how disagreeable it tasted after salt water – and turned to swim back. Dr. Smith was smiling broadly as Nelson passed, and the latter called, “We won’t count that one, sir.”

Dan was awaiting him on the pier, apparently prepared for whatever Nelson might attempt in the way of revenge. But Nelson took no notice of him. This time he made his dive without misadventure, and then swam out to the Doctor to hear the latter’s criticism.

“That wasn’t so bad, Tilford. But you want to straighten out more and keep your feet together. And I wouldn’t try to jump off at first; just fall forward, and give the least little bit of a shove with your feet at the last moment.”

“I’ll try it again,” said Nelson.

This time Dan did not see Nelson as the latter came along the pier. He was standing near the edge, daring Hethington to go over with his hands clasped under his knees, and knew nothing of his danger until he found himself lifted from his feet. Then he struggled desperately, but Nelson had seized him from behind and his hands found no clutch on his captor’s wet body. The next instant he was falling over and over in a most undignified and far from scientific attitude. He tried to gather himself together as he struck the water, but the attempt was not a success, and he disappeared in a writhing heap. Like Nelson, he came up choking and gasping, trying his best to put a good face on it, but succeeding so ill that the howls of laughter that had greeted his disappearance burst forth afresh. But, thought Nelson, he was a wonderful chap to take a joke, for, having found his breath, he merely swam quickly to the steps and came up onto the pier looking as undisturbed as you please.

“That puts us even again, doesn’t it?” he said to Nelson.

Nelson nodded.

He kept a watch on Dan the rest of the time, but the latter made no attempt to trouble him again. He profited to some extent by Dr. Smith’s instructions, and when the cry of “All out!” came he believed that to-morrow he would have the courage to try a dive from the “crow’s-nest,” as the fellows called the little platform above the pier. He walked up the hill with Bob and Tom.

“I don’t see why that silly idiot of a Speede wants to be forever trying his fool jokes on me,” he said aggrievedly.

“That’s just his way,” answered Tom soothingly.

“Well, it’s a mighty tiresome way,” said Nelson, in disgust.

“He has an overdeveloped sense of humor,” said Bob Hethington. “It’s a sort of disease with him, I guess.”

“Well, I wish he’d forget it,” Nelson grumbled. “I’m afraid to sit down on a chair now for fear there’ll be a pin in it.”

“Oh, he gets tired after a while,” said Bob. “He was that way with me for a day after camp began.”

“What did you do?” asked Nelson curiously.

Bob smiled; so did Tom.

“I gave him some of his own medicine. I filled his bunk with pine-needles – they stick nicely to woolen blankets, you know – tied knots in every stitch of clothing he had, and put all his shoes in a pail of water. He’s never bothered me since.”

“Did he get mad?”

“Mad? No, you can’t get the idiot mad. Carter says he laughed himself to sleep that night – Dan, I mean.”

“I wonder if all the St. Eustace fellows are like him,” Nelson mused. “If they are, life there must be mighty interesting. Perhaps they have a course of practical joking there.”

Dinner was at twelve-thirty, and it was a very hungry set of fellows that dropped themselves onto their stools and attacked the soup, roast beef, potatoes, spinach, beets, apple pie, and cheese. Nelson marveled at first at the quantity of milk his neighbors got away with, but after a day or so he ceased to wonder, drinking his own three or four glasses without difficulty. After dessert the history of the preceding day was read by one of the councilors, while the historian, a very small youth known as “Babe,” grinned sheepishly and proudly as he listened to his composition. Nelson’s hazing was referred to with gusto and summoned laughter, and “Babe” was loudly applauded when the history was finished and the reader had announced “George Fowler.”

At one-thirty the bugle blew for “siesta,” the most trying part of the day’s program. Every boy was required to go to his bunk and lie down for half an hour with closed eyes and relaxed body. By the middle of the summer custom had enabled most of them to accept this enforced idleness with philosophy, and to even sleep through a portion at least of the terrible half hour, but at present it was suffering unmitigated, and many were the pleas offered to escape “siesta.” When Nelson approached his bunk he was confronted by a square of brown wrapping-paper on which in black letters, evidently done with a blacking-brush, was the inscription:

HILLTON IS A

BUM SCHOOL

He felt his cheeks reddening as the snickers of the watchers reached him. There was no doubt in his mind as to the perpetrator of the insult, for insult it was in his judgment, and his first impulse was to march down the aisle and have it out with Dan there and then. But he only unpinned the sheet, tossed it on the floor, and laid down on his bunk. Presently, when his cheeks had cooled, he raised his head cautiously and looked around. The dormitory was silent. One or two fellows were surreptitiously reading, a few were resolutely trying to obey orders, and the others were restlessly turning and twisting in an agony of inactivity. Mr. Verder was not present, and the dormitory was in charge of Dr. Smith, whose bunk was at the other end. Nelson quietly reached out and secured the obnoxious placard, laying it clean side up between his bed and Bob’s and holding it in place with a shoe. Then he found a soft pencil, and, lying on the edge of the bunk, started to work. Bob looked on dispassionately. Nelson wondered if he ever really got interested in anything.

After a while the task was completed. Nelson looked warily down the room. Dr. Smith was apparently asleep. Finding two pins, he crept off the bed and secured the sheet of paper to the rafter where it had hung before. Up and down the dormitory heads were raised and eager eyes were watching him. This time the placard hung with the other side toward the room, and the new inscription read:

1903

Hillton 17

St. Eustace 0

Nelson scuttled back to bed. Faint whispers reached him. Then:

“Where are you going, Speede?” asked the Doctor’s voice suddenly.

Dan, creeping cautiously up the aisle, paused in his tracks.

“I left something up here, sir.”

“Get it after siesta, then.”

Dan went back to bed. The whispers grew, interspersed with chuckles.

“Cut that out, fellows,” said the Doctor, and silence reigned again. For the next quarter of an hour the score of last autumn’s football game between Hillton and St. Eustace flaunted itself to the world. The fellows, all save one or two who had really fallen asleep, wondered what would happen after siesta. So did Nelson. He hoped that Dan would make trouble, for it seemed to him then that that insult could only be wiped out with blows; and although Dan was somewhat taller and much heavier than Nelson, the latter fancied he could give a fairly good account of himself. And then the bugle blew, fellows bounded onto the floor, and the ensuing racket more than made up for the half hour of quiet. Dan made at once for the placard. Nelson jumped up and stood under it. Dan stopped a few steps away.

“That’s my piece of paper, you know,” he said quietly.

“Get it,” answered Nelson.

“Cut it out, you two,” said Bob.

Nelson flashed a look of annoyance at the peacemaker.

Dan viewed him mildly. “Look here,” he said, “if you’ll take that down and tear it up, we’ll call quits.”

“I don’t know,” said Nelson. “How about Hillton being a bum school?” Dan grinned.

“You take that down,” he said.

“I will when you take back what you wrote on the other side.”

“Don’t you do it, Dan,” advised a snub-nosed chap named Wells.

“You shut up, Wells,” said Bob; and Wells, who wasn’t popular, was hustled out of the way by the others who had gathered.

“Well, ain’t she pretty bum?” asked Dan innocently.

“Not too bum to lick you at football,” answered Nelson hotly.

“Pooh!” said Dan. “Do you know why? Because they wouldn’t let me play.”

That aroused laughter, and Nelson stared at his antagonist in deep disgust. “What an idiot he was,” he said to himself; “he couldn’t be serious even over a quarrel.”

“Well, she did it, anyhow,” he said rather lamely.

“Well, it’s over now, isn’t it?” asked Dan calmly. “So let’s take the score down,” and he moved toward the placard.

“No you don’t!” Nelson exclaimed, moving in front of him; “not until you’ve apologized.”

Dan smiled at him in his irritating manner.

“Don’t you believe I could lick you?” he asked.

“Maybe you can,” said Nelson, “but talking won’t do it.”

“Well, I can; but I’m not going to. There isn’t going to be any row, so you fellows might as well chase yourselves. It was just a joke, Tilford. Hillton’s all right. It’s the best school in the country, barring one. How’ll that do for an apology, my fierce friend?”

“It isn’t quite truthful,” answered Nelson, smiling in spite of himself, “but I guess it’ll answer. Here’s your old paper.”

Dan accepted it and tore it up. Then he stuffed the pieces in the first bunk he came to.

“War is averted,” he announced.

Then he went out, followed by most of the inmates of the dormitory, who were laughingly accusing him of “taking water.”

“He’s a queer chump,” said Nelson, with something of unwilling admiration in his tones. But Bob didn’t hear him. He was back on his bed, absorbed in a magazine.

“And you’re another,” added Nelson under his breath.