The High School Pitcher Part 37

"It _is_," admitted Lawyer Ripley, struck by the force of the remark. "You've scored a point there, Prescott. Well, then, since I _am_ the boy's father, and since I want to do him full justice on the side of mercy, if he'll have it---will you tell all of the truth that you know to that boy's father?"

d.i.c.k glanced around at his chums. One after another they nodded.

Then the High School pitcher unburdened himself. Tip Scammon sat up and took keen notice. When d.i.c.k had finished with all he knew, including the tripping with the pole, and the soft-soaping of the sidewalk before his home door, Tip was ready to talk.

"I done 'em all," he admitted, "includin' the throwin' of the brickbats. The brickbats was on my own hook, but the pole and the soft soap was parts of the jobs me and Fred put up between us."

"Why did you throw the brickbats on your own hook?" asked Lawyer Ripley sharply.

"Why, you see, 'squire, 'twas just like this," returned Tip.

"After I'd done it, if I had hurt Prescott, then I was goin' to go to your son an' scare 'im good an' proper by threatenin' to blab that he had hired me to use them brickbats. That'd been good fer all his spendin' money, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, and for all he could steal, too," replied Lawyer Ripley.

"I didn't know nothing about his stealin' money," retorted Tip, half virtuously. "I jest thought he had too much pocket money fer his own good, an' so I'd help him spend some of it. But, see here, lawyer, ye promised me that, if I did talk, nothin'

I told yer should be used against myself."

"I am prepared to keep that promise," replied Mr. Ripley coldly.

The sound of a slight stir came from the doorway between the outer and inner office. There in the doorway, his face ghastly white, his whole body seeming devoid of strength, leaned Fred Ripley.

"I had almost forgotten that I asked you to come here," said Mr.

Ripley, as he looked up. "How long have you been here?"

"Not very long, perhaps, but long enough to know that d.i.c.k Prescott and the rest have been doing all they can to make matters harder for me," Fred answered in a dispirited voice.

"As it happens, they have been doing nothing of the sort," replied the lawyer crisply. "Come in here, Fred. I have had the whole story of your doings, but it was on a pledge that I would give you another chance to show whether there's any good in you. Fred, I can understand, now that you've always thought yourself better than most boys---above them. The truth is that you've a long way to go to get up to the level of ordinary, decent, good American boyhood. You may get there yet; I hope so. But come, sir, are you going to make a decent apology to Prescott and his friends for the contemptible things you've tried to do to them?"

Somehow, Fred Ripley managed to mumble his way through an apology, though he kept his eyes on the floor all the while. Full of sympathy for the father who, if proud, was at least upright, d.i.c.k and his chums accepted that apology, offered their hands, then tip-toed out, leaving father and son together.

CHAPTER XXII

ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE SWIMMING POOL

In the next few weeks, if Fred Ripley didn't improve greatly in popularity, he was at all events vastly quieter and more reserved in his manner.

Tip Scammon had vanished, so far as common knowledge went. Mr.

Ripley, feeling somewhat responsible for that scamp's wrong doing, in that Fred had put him up to his first serious wrong doing, had given Scammon some money and a start in another part of the country. That disappearance saved Scammon from a stern reckoning with Prescott's partners, who had not forgotten him.

Fred was again a well-dressed boy, also a well-mannered one.

He had very little to say, and he kept his sn.o.bbishness, if any remained, well concealed.

d.i.c.k & Co., after the scene in the lawyer's office, if not exactly cordial with the unhappy junior, at all events remembered that they had agreed to "forget." Nor were Prescott and his chums priggish enough to take great credit to themselves for their behavior.

They merely admitted among themselves that any fellow ought to have the show that was now accorded to the younger Ripley.

Baseball had gone off with an hurrah this season, though there had been an enormous amount of hard work behind all the successes.

Now, but one game remained. Out of fourteen played, so far, only one had resulted in a tie; the others had all been victories for Gridley.

With the warm June weather commencement was looming near. One Wednesday morning there was a long and tedious amount of practice over the singing that was to be offered at the close of the school year.

"Huh! I thought we'd never get through," snorted Prescott, as he raced out into the school yard. "And we were kept ten minutes over the usual time for recess."

"Gee, but it's hot to-day," muttered Tom Reade, fanning himself with his straw hat.

"Oh, what wouldn't I give, right now, for a good swim down at Foster's Pond!" muttered Purcell moodily.

"Well, why can't we have it?" suggested Gint.

"We couldn't get back by the time recess is over," replied Purcell.

"The end of recess would be when we _did_ get back, wouldn't it!"

asked a senior.

"Let's go, anyway!" urged another boy, restlessly.

As students were allowed to spend their recess quietly on the near-by streets, if they preferred, the girls generally deserted the yard.

The spirit of mischievous mutiny was getting loose among the young men. Nor will anyone who remembers his own school days wonder much at that. In June, when the end of the school year is all but at hand, restraints become trebly irksome.

d.i.c.k's own face was glowing. As much as any boy there he wanted a swim, just now, down in Foster's Pond. Oh, how he wanted it!

"See here, fellows," Prescott called to some of the nearest ones.

"And you especially, Charley Grady, for you're studying to be a lawyer."

"What has a lawyer to do with the aching desire for a swim?" inquired Grady.

"Well, post us a bit," begged d.i.c.k. "What was it the great Burke had to say about punis.h.i.+ng a community?"

"Why," responded Grady thoughtfully, "Burke laid down a theory that has since become a principle in law. It was to the effect that a community cannot be indicted."

"All of us fellows---_all_ of us might be called a community, don't you think?" queried d.i.c.k.

"Why---er---aha---hem!" responded Grady.

"Oh, come, now, drop the extras," ordered d.i.c.k. "Time is short.

Are we a community, in a sort of legal sense? Just plain yes or no."

"Well, then, yes!" decided Grady.

"Whoop!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed d.i.c.k, placing his straw hat back on his head and starting on a sprint out of the yard. His chums followed.

Some of the fellows who were nearer the gate tried to reach it first. In an instant, the flight was general.

"Come on, Rip! You're not going to hang back on the crowd, are you?" uttered one boy, reproachfully. "Don't spoil the community idea."