The Grammar School Boys of Gridley Part 39

d.i.c.k met him half-way, in a leap. Now it was Prescott on the offensive, and he forced Ben all over the field, to the tune of encouraging yells.

Ben tried to save his face, but couldn't. Then d.i.c.k hammered his body.

Young Alvord lost all his coolness, and began to windmill his hands.

That settled it, of course. Any boy who forsakes his guard to take to windmilling is as good as whipped. d.i.c.k watched his chance, then drove in a blow on Ben's jaw that felled him flat.

"O-o-oh!" wailed Ben, holding to his jaw with both hands.

"Do you give it up?" demanded Hoof.

"No!"

"Then get up and go on with the fight."

"I will when I'm ready."

"You will, now, or I'll decide against you," warned Hoof.

"That b.o.o.by broke my jaw," groaned Ben.

"You wag it pretty well, for a broken jaw," jeered Dave.

"Get up, Ben!"

"If you don't you're thrashed!"

"Don't give up like a baby!"

"Get up and fight," ordered Hoof. "One!"

Ben lay on the ground, glaring about him in sullen silence.

"Going to get up?" demanded Hoof. "Two!"

"Oh, Ben, don't let Prescott whip you as easily as that," implored several of Alvord's backers.

"Get up!" commanded Hoof, putting the toe of his boot lightly against Alvord's body. "Three!"

Still Ben refused to stir.

"d.i.c.k Prescott wins the fight," announced Hoof judicially. "Ben refused three times to get up and go on."

As soon as Prescott began to don his discarded coat, Ben got to his feet.

"Now, I have something to say to you, Alvord," announced Dave, going over to the worsted one. "You insulted six of us and called us liars.

d.i.c.k is only one. You'll have to fight the rest of us, one a day, or else apologize before the crowd."

"I won't apologize," glared Ben.

"All right, then. You'll fight me after school to-morrow," Darrin declared.

"And me the day after," challenged Greg Holmes. Reade, Dalzell and Hazelton all put in their claims for dates.

"You think you're going to bully me, don't you?" grunted Ben.

"No," Dave answered. "But when a fellow lies about me I'm going to make him fight or apologize."

"I don't know whether I will fight you, or not," snarled Ben.

"Then you'll get a thras.h.i.+ng just the same, and be called a coward by every decent fellow in school," flared Dave.

Ben quailed a bit inwardly. He had had all the fighting he wanted for the present.

"That Prescott fellow is no good, anyway," sniffed Ben, as he walked homeward with Toby Ross, the only one of the late spectators who had stood by him.

"Well, may-be he didn't tell on us," suggested Toby.

"'Course he did!"

"d.i.c.k has always acted pretty decently."

"Huh! If neither he nor any of his gang told, then who did?" demanded Ben, as though that settled it.

"Ben Alvord, what have you been doing?" demanded his mother, as Ben showed up at the kitchen door.

"Why?"

"Your face is all bruised. Have you been fighting?"

"Yes, ma'am. I had to. I thumped d.i.c.k Prescott for telling on us and getting us all arrested."

"Did d.i.c.k say that he told on you?" asked Mrs. Alvord.

"No, ma'am."

"Denied it, didn't he?"

"Yes'm."

"And I guess d.i.c.k told the truth. I know who did tell on all you boys,"

announced his mother.

"Who?" demanded Ben sullenly.

"Your little brother, Will."

Willie Alvord was only between four and five; not yet old enough to go to school.

"I got it all out of the baby this afternoon," continued Mrs. Alvord. "I saw him playing with a new baseball bat, and I made him tell me where he got it. It seems that Willie heard you and Toby, and the other boys talking about your Hallowe'en pranks yesterday morning before you went to school. Then, later, Willie was out in the street playing, when 'a nice man'--as Willie called him--came along and got to talking with him.

The man talked about you, it seems, Ben, and he made believe he didn't think Willie's big brother was very smart. Then Willie up and boasted of your smartness down at the railroad. The 'nice man' took Willie to the corner and bought him some candy and a baseball bat, and kept on talking about you and Toby, and the rest, and of course Willie told the 'nice man' all he'd heard about the railroad business."