one morning, st. john, on his way to the class-room, stopped before a bulletin-board on which had been written the names of the institutions offering scholarships to the pupils of the high school.
he had overheard an occasional word about these scholarships, but really knew very little about them. so he stood there reading the list.
then up the stairs behind him came half a dozen boys of section d. as they caught sight of st. john, they, too, stopped to see what he was reading. st. john, who seemed never to want any boy within a yard of him, turned to go, but, with a mischievous glance at the other, reed stood still, and the others pressed closely together, penning st. john in to the little space between them and the board. seeing their purpose, st. john’s face took on its haughtiest expression, and leaning against the board, he waited in angry silence for them to move aside and let him pass. but they, enjoying his discomfiture, stood laughing and chaffing one another, but never saying a word to him.
[236]
more and more boys joined the group, and, each one taking in the situation, stood there as if he had no intention of going farther that day.
finally dixon called out:—
“say, boys, who’s going to take these prizes?” glancing at the board.
“gordon—clark—hamlin—raleigh,” shouted the crowd.
“yes,” said reed, thoughtfully, “they’re the only ones that have the ghost of a chance.”
“but they can’t take ’em all,” somebody suggested.
“well, the girls have a go at two of them. aren’t you going to give the girls a chance?” said dixon.
“we didn’t say that those fellows would accept the scholarships—but they’ll win ’em sure.” this from barber.
“yes,” said reed, with one eye on st. john’s angry face, “they’ll win ’em sure, and they ought to. they’ve worked hard enough for them, and they deserve all they’ll win. the rest of us must play second fiddle this year. not but what second fiddle is pretty fair, when it puts a chap up in the nineties.”
“here comes bobby!”
the word ran through the crowd, and the group dissolved like magic, leaving st. john free to enter the class-room.
[237]
of course he knew that the boys had only been trying to tease him, for his high rank in the class could not be denied; but all the same it made him furiously angry to be ranked with the “second fiddles,” and counted out entirely in the prize competition.
all but one of the six scholarships were to be given to the pupils having highest averages in all or in certain studies, during the three years’ course; but one, and that the highest prize—or the one so considered in the school—was offered to the boy who should rank first in the classical course during the senior year, and should also write the best latin essay. if, as had sometimes happened, two or three boys should stand equally high on the year’s average, then the quality of their essays would decide to whom the prize should go. but if one boy should stand first in the class, and another not ranking as high should hand in a better essay—for any boy who chose was free to compete—then the prize would not be given at all that year.
“i’ll win that scholarship if it kills me to do it, just to make that crowd mad. it would make them mad enough to see their precious four worsted in the fight. and they shall see it, sure as fate!”
so ran st. john’s thoughts during that morning’s exercises. from that day, this one thought and purpose ruled him. he had never cared for athletic[238] sports, and riding and driving were all the exercise he ever took, but now, the time spent in going to and from school was all that he was out of doors; and almost every moment of his waking time was given to study. long after midnight he worked, going over and over what he already knew, lest possibly, some point might have been forgotten or slighted.
the other four boys were working hard too, but they were so accustomed to out-of-door sports and exercise, that it never occurred to them that they could give them up. so they kept their brains and bodies in good working order, while st. john grew, week by week, more worn and weary.
“his royal highness looks rather seedy—eh,” reed said one day to clark, and the latter answered:—
“i think he’s working too hard.”
st. john’s ears, sharpened by his nervous anxiety, caught both question and answer, and resented anyone’s thinking that he needed to work harder than any of the others. up to this time he had been coldly indifferent to his classmates, but now he began to hate them all. he told himself that they were all banded against him, and that not one of them wanted him to win. and this was true. he had made not the slightest effort to gain their friendship, while the others were all prime favorites.[239] even clark was happily conscious that the boys were friendly to him now; all except st. john and lee. lee’s southern prejudice had not yet died away, and in his heart he still regarded clark as a coward.
the competition for the prize scholarships was not confined to section d. there were two girls’ sections, and one other boys’ section in the senior year, and in each of these there were scholars who were quite as eager to win the prizes as were the boys in section d.
and in section d also there were other competitors besides the five who stood highest in the class. these were what reed had called the “second fiddles,” and their chance lay in the fact that neither st. john, gordon, nor hamlin would accept the scholarships, should they win them, as all three of them were planning to enter some of the larger and more prominent colleges. they wanted the honor of winning the prizes, but it was generally understood that the prizes themselves would go to the next lower in class, while the whole class to a boy, always excepting st. john, was now determined that d should be the banner section this year. none were more eager for this last than crawford and freeman. both of them were trying to live down the previous year’s record. they could hope to win no prizes, but they could do their share[240] towards raising the general record, and this they were trying to do.
as the sunny may days slipped away and examination time approached, the strain of the competition began to tell upon many of the pupils. four in section d stood so nearly together that mr. horton himself could not see that one had any better chance than the others.
“i never had four such students in one class,” he said to professor keene one day. “so far as perfect recitations go, there is nothing to choose between them. when st. john first entered, he was away ahead in latin, but the other three have been steadily overtaking him, and now it all rests on the examinations.”
“and the latin essay,” added the professor.
“yes. that, of course, decides one prize.”
“st. john going to win there?” questioned the professor.
mr. horton shook his head doubtfully:—
“i’m afraid the lad is not well,” he said. “i notice that he doesn’t think as quickly as he did, and one of the others may write a better essay. his will be couched in elegant latin, but the matter of it may not be equal to some one of the others. there’s no telling; anyhow, it is going to be a very close contest, and i shall be glad when it is over.”
“yes, so shall i,” responded the professor. “there’s[241] always more or less ill-feeling, and too great strain in these prize competitions.”
a carriage stood before the schoolhouse gate when school was dismissed that day. a lady and little girl sat within it, watching the throng of boys passing down the steps.
“there’s charlie, mamma! charlie! charlie!” called the child’s clear voice, as reed, with hamlin and clark, came down the steps.
reed hurried to the carriage, but his mother was looking not at him, but at one of the other two.
“who is that boy, charlie—the one that you were talking to?” she cried breathlessly.
reed paused, with his hand on the carriage door.
“that’s clark—stanley clark. you’ve heard me speak of him times enough,” he answered, wonderingly.
“oh, charlie, that is the boy that saved nellie’s life. don’t let him get away. bring him here quick. i must speak to him.”
with a mixture of delight and amazement on his face, reed raced after the two boys, and seizing clark by the arm, cried:—
“come, clark, my mother wants to see you. you must come,” he added imperatively, as clark held back, unwillingly. “i’ll tell you what it’s all about to-morrow, hamlin”; and he began to pull clark toward the carriage.
[242]
clark knew why he was wanted, for he had recognized the two, but he would far rather have risked his life again than to have been marched up to that carriage. but there was no help for it, so he submitted with the best grace possible.
mrs. reed seized both his hands, and her eyes were dim as she said:—
“to think that it was you who saved my little girl, and all this time we have never suspected it! you must have seen our advertisements?”
“oh, yes,” said clark, looking mightily uncomfortable, “but i didn’t want any more thanks, you know. any fellow would have done what i did on the impulse of the moment. if i’d stopped to think, i should probably have stood still.”
“not a bit of it,” said mrs. reed promptly. “a boy who acted on such an impulse as you did, couldn’t be a coward. it is not in him. but step in; we’ll take you home. i must know where you live, for i want to call on your mother. i know she was proud of her boy that night.”
clark laughed a little. “no,” he said, “she never knew anything about it, except what she read in the paper.”
“well, she will know about it to-morrow,” said the little lady decidedly.
when the carriage stopped at clark’s door, she again took the lad’s hand.
[243]
“think what a shadow would be upon our home to-day, but for you,” she said, with a glance at her little daughter. “it is a debt that we can never repay, but, at least, let us have the pleasure of seeing you and your mother sometimes, at our home. i have often asked charlie why you never came to our house, as so many of the other boys do; i know the reason, now.”
mrs. clark wondered a little when her son told her that charlie reed’s mother would call upon her the next day. she was not at all pleased, since she was living in the utmost seclusion, feeling almost as keenly as did her son the cloud of disgrace that rested upon them. but when she learned from mrs. reed what stanley had done, when she saw the tears of deep feeling in the eyes of her visitor, and felt the warm pressure of her hands, how could she help being proud and happy?
clark would have liked to stay away from school that next day, but it would never do to bring down his record by an absent mark. he went as late as he dared, however, but the instant he entered the room he saw that the boys were waiting for him, and in spite of the fact that mr. horton was already at his desk, a shout broke from the whole class at sight of the schoolmate, whom they were now as eager to honor as a year ago they had been to hurt and annoy.
[244]
“three cheers for clark!” shouted the irrepressible reed, actually jumping up on his seat in his excitement, and the cheers were given with a will, while clark, blushing and confused, bowed his thanks and dropped hastily into his seat.
“well,” remarked mr. horton, looking slowly about the room, “may i ask what this means? what have you been doing, clark, to awaken all this enthusiasm?”
“nothing at all, sir. it’s just the boys,” stammered clark.
“yes,” said mr. horton dryly, “i’m quite aware that it was just the boys.” but now reed, trying to keep his enthusiasm within bounds, told the story in a few graphic words.
mr. horton listened with as great an interest as even reed could desire, and when the story was ended, said only:—
“boys, you are perfectly excusable for this once; only remember that this is not a precedent,” but the look he gave the quiet lad whom he had learned to love, assured the boys that their teacher was in fullest sympathy with them.
from this time, clark’s popularity in the school was very great. even hot-headed lee blotted from his memory that unreturned blow, the year before, and not even in the depths of his own heart did he ever again call stanley clark “coward.”
[245]
before that day was over, section d had another sensation.
as usual near the close of the year, the rules were relaxed, especially in the senior class, and often some of the boys would remain in the room during part of the recess, talking over their work and surmising about the questions likely to be asked in the examinations. half a dozen or more were busily talking about the dreaded latin essays, when reed came rushing upstairs, exclaiming:—
“i say, you fellows, you missed a picnic, staying in to-day. didn’t you hear us all yelling outside?”
“why, yes, we heard you, but it’s nothing unusual for you little chaps to be noisy,” said hamlin, loftily. then he added, “but if you’re very anxious to tell us what it was about, this time, we can listen, i suppose,” and with an air of patient endurance, he dropped into his seat.
reed picked up a book and flung it at him, but he was too full of his story to pursue the mock quarrel, especially as two or three voices called out:—
“go on, reedy—tell us what ’twas all about.”
“why, we were all out there on the sidewalk—a whole crowd of us,” said reed, “when a fellow came along driving a heavy cart with the worst-looking old rackabones of a horse you ever laid eyes on. the creature didn’t look as if it had had a good meal in six months, and it was so weak that it could hardly[246] crawl. just before it got opposite our gate, the horse stopped, and the big brute that was driving began to lash it unmercifully—to get past us, i expect.
“some of us yelled at him to ‘hold up,’ but, bless you, before the words were fairly out of our mouths, crawford had dashed out and was pitching into that driver, and giving him as pretty a pommeling as you’d want to see; put him right down there in the street and licked him well. then he yanked him up, and ordered him to take the horse out of the shafts. the fellow refused at first, and threatened to ‘have the law’ on crawford; but that didn’t scare crawford a bit, and then the rascal began to whine and swear by turns; and finally asked how he could get his cart home without the horse.
“‘i’ll fix that,’ said crawford, ‘but that horse is going to have a rest for one week, and all he wants to eat, and he’s going to have ’em in the stable where my horses are kept.’
“‘an’ phwat will i be doin’ ahl that week, with niver a hoss to me cart?’ said the man.
“‘i’ll hire a horse for you to use that week,’ said crawford.
“the man looked at him.
“‘an’ phwat if i say no?’ said he, looking as if he would like to give crawford a black eye, if he dared.
“‘then i’ll go this moment, and enter a complaint[247] against you. any officer of the humane society would order that poor brute killed rather than see him driven as he is now, to say nothing of seeing him beaten as shamefully as you beat him just now,’ said crawford.
“the man looked around at us all. of course, we’d crowded ’round to see the thing out—and then he began slowly to unfasten the poor old nag. it was so weak that i thought it would have to be propped up against a fence or something, but it did manage to stand.
“‘now phwere’ll i take him?’ said the man, and i know he added some hot words under his breath.
“‘you’ll come along with me,’ said crawford. ‘i’m not going to trust that horse out of my sight’; and i just wish you’d seen ’em going up the street together, almost holding up that poor old skeleton between ’em, with a crowd of street boys who had gathered, tagging on behind, hooting and yelling.”
as reed stopped to take breath, gordon exclaimed:—
“well, i’d never have believed that of crawford. i didn’t think he was that sort at all.”
“oh, he loves horses,” broke in freeman. “you ought to see him pet those ponies of his. i heard him say once, that his ponies were all the folks he had, for his nearest relative is a cousin that he hasn’t seen in ten years.”
[248]
a sudden silence followed freeman’s words, and more than one boy’s thoughts flew to his own home and those who loved him there, and a new feeling of sympathy for crawford was awakened.
“section d should be proud of crawford, to-day,” said clark. “let’s show him that we are.”
“so we will,” said one and another.
“but won’t mr. horton mark him off for breaking bounds?” said dixon, as the bell sounded.
“not he; trust bobby to do the fair thing when he hears the story,” said graham, and reed added:—
“bobby’s all right. crawford asked me to tell him, and he said it would be all right.”
but for mr. horton’s warning in regard to a precedent, crawford would have received almost as enthusiastic a greeting when he returned half an hour later as had been given to clark that morning; but, as it was, he slipped quietly into his seat, and the boys only showed their appreciation of the stand he had taken, by surrounding him after school, and asking all sorts of questions about the affair. from this time however, crawford was “counted in” to whatever was going on, as he never had been before.
in the midst of the strain of approaching examinations, and essays to be prepared, came the annual drill, and though our senior boys had felt, a few weeks before, as if they could hardly spare the time for the extra drilling, yet, after all, company d did[249] want to keep those red ribbons one more year, and every other company wanted just as much to capture them and that beautiful gold medal; and so, when the great day came, lessons took a second place for once, and the boys in blue came to the front.
this time, there was no disorder, and no unfair dealing. the judges gave high praise to the battalion as a body, and company d retained the red ribbons. it was the last company on the list, and when, with the little silken badges fluttering in the breeze, it marched off the field, all the other companies united in a cordial cheer for company d; which unexpected demonstration from the disappointed competitors so pleased captain hamlin that, the next day, every boy in the battalion received an invitation to a steamboat trip down the bay, with a shore dinner—all at the expense of company d, though hamlin himself paid the bill. and if he thereby deprived himself of a special pleasure trip that his father had promised him, the boys never knew it, and hamlin was content.