Bert Lloyd's Boyhood Part 15

The blows ceased at once; those holding his hands swung him a couple of times along the fence after the manner of a pendulum, and then dropped him to the ground, where he was surrounded by his late persecutors, who now, looking pleasant enough, proceeded to clap him on the back, and tell him very emphatically that he was "a plucky little chap"; "one of the right sort"; "true grit," and so forth.

Feeling sore and strained, from his neck to his heels, Bert would have been glad to slip away into some corner and have a good cry, just to relieve his suppressed emotions; but as he tried to separate himself from the throng about him, he heard the shout of "Hoist him! Hoist him!"

again raised, and saw the leaders in this strange sport bear down upon Frank Bowser, who, still in the hands of his first captors had looked on at Bert's ordeal with rapidly rising anger.

The instant Frank heard the shout, he broke loose from those who held him, and springing up a flight of steps near by, stood facing his pursuers with an expression upon his countenance that looked ill for the first that should attempt to touch him. A little daunted by his unexpected action, the boys paused for a moment, and then swarmed about the steps. One of the largest rushed forward to seize Frank, but with a quick movement the latter dodged him, and then by a sudden charge sent him tumbling down the steps into the arms of the others. But the advantage was only momentary. In another minute he was surrounded and borne down the steps despite his resistance.

The struggle that ensued was really heroic--on Frank's part, at all events. Although so absurdly outnumbered, he fought desperately, not with blows, but with sheer strength of arm and leg, straining to the utmost every muscle in his st.u.r.dy frame. Indeed, so tremendous were his efforts, that for a time it seemed as if they would succeed in freeing him. But the might of numbers prevailed at length, and, after some minutes' further struggling, he was hoisted in due form, and pounded until the boys were fairly weary.

When they let him go, Frank adjusted his clothes, which had been much disordered in the conflict, took his cap from the hands of a little chap, by whom it had thoughtfully been picked up for him, and with furious flaming face went over to Bert, who had been a spectator of his friend's gallant struggle with mingled feelings of admiration for his courage and regret at his obstinacy.

"They beat me, but I made them sweat for it," said he. "I wasn't going to let them have their own way with me, even if you did."

"You might just as well have given in first as last," replied Bert.

"But I didn't give in," a.s.serted Frank. "That's just the point. They were too many for me, of course, and I couldn't help myself at last, but I held out as long as I could."

"Anyway, it's over now," said Bert, "and it won't bother us any more.

But there's one thing I've made up my mind to: I'm not going to have anything to do with hoisting other new boys. I don't like it, and I won't do it."

"No more will I, Bert," said Frank. "It's a mean business; a whole crowd of fellows turning on one and beating him like that."

Just then the bell rang, and all the boys poured back into the schoolroom for the afternoon session.

Each in his own way, Bert and Frank had made a decidedly favourable impression upon their schoolmates. No one mistook Bert's pa.s.sive endurance for cowardice. His bearing had been too brave and bright for that. Neither did Frank's vigorous resistance arouse any ill-feeling against him. Boys are odd creatures. They heartily admire and applaud the fiery, reckless fellow, who takes no thought for the consequences, and yet they thoroughly appreciate the quiet, cool self-command of the one who does not move until he knows just what he is going to do. And so they were well pleased with both the friends, and quite ready to admit them into the full fellows.h.i.+p of the school.

The Lloyds were greatly interested by Bert's account of the hoisting.

They praised him for his self-control, and Frank for his plucky fight against such odds, and they fully agreed with Bert that hoisting was a poor business at best, and that he would be doing right to have nothing to do with it.

"Perhaps some day or other you'll be able to have it put a stop to, Bert," said his mother, patting his head fondly. "It would make me very proud if my boy were to become a reformer before he leaves school."

"I'm afraid there's not much chance of that, mother," answered Bert.

"The boys have been hoisting the new chaps for ever so many years, and Dr. Johnston has never stopped them."

That was true. Although he feigned to know nothing about it, the doctor was well aware of the existence of this practice peculiar to his school, but he never thought of interfering with the boys. It was a cardinal principle with him that the boys should be left pretty much to themselves at recess. So long as they did their duty during the school hours, they could do as they pleased during the play hour. Moreover, he was a great admirer of manliness in his boys. He would have been glad to find in everyone of them the stoical indifference to pain of the traditional Indian. Consequently, fair stand-up fights were winked at, and anything like tattling or tale-bearing sternly discouraged. He had an original method of expressing his disapprobation of the latter, which will be ill.u.s.trated further on. Holding those views, therefore, he was not likely to put his veto upon "hoisting."

As the days went by, Bert rapidly mastered the ways of the school, and made many friends among his schoolmates. He found the lessons a good deal harder than they had been at Mr. Garrison's. And not only so, but the method of hearing them was so thorough that it was next to impossible for a boy who had come ill-prepared to escape detection. Dr.

Johnston did not simply hear the lesson; he examined his scholars upon it, and nothing short of full acquaintance with it would content him. He had an original system of keeping the school record, which puzzled Bert very much, and took him a good while to understand.

On the doctor's desk lay a large book, something like a business ledger.

One page was devoted to each day. At the left side of the page was the column containing the boys' names, arranged in order of seniority, the boy who had been longest in the school being at the head, and the last new boy at the foot. Each boy had a line to himself, running out to the end of the page, and these parallel lines were crossed by vertical ones, ruled from the top to the bottom of the page, and having at the top the names of all the different cla.s.ses; so that the page when ready for its entries resembled very much a checker board, only that the squares were very small, and exceedingly numerous. Just how these squares, thus standing opposite each name, should be filled, depended upon the behaviour of the owner of that name, and his knowledge of his lessons.

If Bert, for instance, recited his grammar lesson without a slip, the letter B--standing for _bene_, well--was put in the grammar column. If he made one mistake, the entry was V B, _vix bene_--scarcely well; if two mistakes, Med, _mediocriter_--middling; and if three, M, _male_--badly, equivalent to not knowing it at all. The same system prevailed for all the lessons, and in a modified form for the behaviour or deportment also. As regards behaviour, the arrangement was one bad mark for each offence, the first const.i.tuting a V B, the second a Med, the third an M, and the fourth a P, the most ominous letter of all, standing, as it did, for _pessime_--as bad as possible--and one might also say for punishment also; as whoever got a P thereby earned a whipping with that long strap, concerning which Bert had heard such alarming stories.

It will be seen that, by following out the line upon which each boy's name stood, his complete record as a scholar could be seen, and upon this record the doctor based the award of prizes at the close of the term. For he was a firm believer in the benefits of prize-giving, and every half-year, on the day before the holidays, a bookcase full of fine books, each duly inscribed, was distributed among those who had come out at the head in the different cla.s.ses, or distinguished themselves by constant good behaviour.

Once that Bert fully understood the purpose of this daily record, and the principle upon which the prize-giving was based, he determined to be among the prize winners at the end of the term. His ambition was fired by what the older boys told him of the beautiful books awarded, and the honour it was to get one of them. He knew that he could not please his father or mother better than by being on the prize list, and so he applied himself to his lessons with a vigour and fidelity that soon brought him to the notice of the observant doctor.

"I am glad to see you taking so much interest in your work," said he one morning, pausing, in his round of inspection, to lay his hand kindly upon Bert's shoulder as the latter bent over his slate, working out a problem in proportion. "A good beginning is a very important thing."

Bert blushed to the roots of his hair at this unexpected and, indeed, unusual compliment from the grim master, who, before the boy could frame any reply, pa.s.sed out of hearing.

"We'll do our best, won't we, Shorty?" said Bert, turning to his friend beside him.

"I suppose so," answered Frank, in rather a doubtful tone. "But your best will be a good deal better than mine. The lessons are just awful hard; it's no use talking."

"They are hard, Shorty, and no mistake. But you'll get used to them all right," rejoined Bert, cheerfully.

"I guess I'll get used to being kept in and getting whipped, first,"

grumbled Frank.

"Not a bit of it," Bert insisted. "You just stick at them and you'll come out all right."

The fact of the matter was, that poor Frank did find the lessons a little more than he could manage, and there were a good many more "V B's" and "Med's" opposite his name than "B's." He was a restless sort of a chap, moreover, and noisy in his movements, thus often causing Mr.

Snelling to look at him, and call out sharply:

"Bowser, what are you doing there?" And Frank would instantly reply, in a tone of indignant innocence:

"Nothing, sir."

Whereupon Mr. Snelling would turn to Dr. Johnston, with the request:

"Will you please put a mark to Bowser for doing nothing, sir?" And down would go the black mark against poor Bowser, who, often as this happened, seemed unable ever to learn to avoid that fatal reply: "Nothing, sir."

CHAPTER XVIII.

SCHOOL EXPERIENCES.

By the time autumn had made way for winter, Bert felt thoroughly at home at Dr. Johnston's, and was just about as happy a boy as attended this renowned inst.i.tution. In spite of the profound awe the doctor inspired, he ventured to cherish toward him a feeling of love as well as of respect; and although Mr. Snelling did not exactly inspire awe, nor even much respect, he managed to like him not a little also. As for the boys--well, there were all sorts and conditions of them; good, bad, and indifferent; boys who thought it very fine and manly to smoke, and swear, and swap improper stories, and boys who seemed as if they would have been more appropriately dressed in girls' clothes, so lacking were they in true manly qualities; while between these two extremes came in the great majority, among whom Bert easily found plenty of bright, wholesome companions.

There were some odd chaps at the school, with whose peculiarities Bert would amuse the home circle very much, as he described them in his own graphic way. There was Bob Mackasey, called by his companions, "Taffy the Welshman," because he applied the money given him by his mother every morning to get some lunch with, to the purchase of taffy; which toothsome product he easily bartered off for more sandwiches and cakes than could have been bought for ten cents, thus filling his own stomach at a very slight cost to his far-seeing mother.

A big fat fellow in knickerbockers, by name Harry Rawdon, the son of an officer in the English army, had attained a peculiar kind of notoriety in the school, by catching flies and bottling them.

Then there was Larry Saunders, the dandy of the school, although undoubtedly one of the very plainest boys in it, who kept a tiny square of looking-gla.s.s in his desk, and would carefully arrange his toilet before leaving the school in the afternoon, to saunter up and down the princ.i.p.al street of the city, doing his best to be captivating.

Two hot-tempered, pugnacious chaps, by name Bob Morley and Fred Short, afforded great amus.e.m.e.nt by the ease with which they could be set at punching one another. It was only necessary for some one to take Bob Morley aside and whisper meaningly that Fred Short had been calling him names behind his back, or something of that sort equally aggravating, to put him in fighting humour. Forthwith, he would challenge Master Fred in the orthodox way--that is, he would take up a chip, spit on it, and toss it over his shoulder. Without a moment's hesitation, Fred would accept the challenge, and then the two would be at it, hammer and tongs, fighting vigorously until they were separated by the originators of the mischief, when they thought they had had enough of it. They were very evenly matched, and as a matter of fact did not do one another much harm; but the joke of the thing was that they never seemed to suspect how they were being made tools of by the other boys, who always enjoyed these duels immensely.

Another character, and a very lovable one this time, was a nephew of the doctor's, Will Johnston by name, but universally called "Teter," an odd nickname, the reason of which he did not seem to understand himself.

This Teter was one of those good-natured, obliging, reckless, happy-go-lucky individuals who never fail to win the love of boys. His generosity was equalled only by his improvidence, and both were surpa.s.sed by his good luck.

Bert conceived a great admiration for Teter Johnston. His undaunted courage, as exhibited in s...o...b..ll fights, when, with only a handful of followers he would charge upon the rest of the school, and generally put them to flight; his reckless enterprise and amazing luck at marbles and other games; his constant championing of the small boys when tormented by the larger ones, more than one bully having had a tremendous thras.h.i.+ng at his hands;--these were very s.h.i.+ning qualities in Bert's eyes, and they fascinated him so, that if "f.a.gging" had been permitted at Dr. Johnston's, Bert would have deemed it not a hards.h.i.+p, but an honour, to have been Teter's "f.a.g."

In strong contrast to his admiration for Teter Johnston was his antipathy to Rod Graham. Rod was both a sneak and a bully. It was in his character as a sneak that he showed himself to Bert first, making profuse demonstrations of goodwill, and doing his best to ingratiate himself with him, because from his well-to-do appearance he judged that he would be a good subject from whom to beg lunch, or borrow marbles, and so on. But Bert instinctively disliked Rod, and avoided him to the best of his ability. Then Rod revealed the other side of his nature.

From a sneak he turned into a bully, and lost no opportunity of teasing and tormenting Bert, who, being much smaller than he, felt compelled to submit, although there were times when he was driven almost to desperation. It was not so much by open violence as by underhanded trickery that Rod vented his spite, and this made it all the harder for Bert, who, although he was never in any doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the person that stole his lunch, poured ink over his copy-book, scratched his slate with a bit of jagged gla.s.s, tore the tails off his glengarry, and filled the pockets of his overcoat with snow, still saw no way of putting a stop to this tormenting other than by thras.h.i.+ng Rod, and this he did not feel equal to doing. Upon this last point, however, he changed his mind subsequently, thanks to the influence of his friend Teter Johnston, and the result was altogether satisfactory as will be shown in due time.