Captain Ted

Front matter

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Class 'PZcj

Book.

CHAPTER I “holding the fort”

T he New Year battle was on. The dazzling stretch of St. Elmer’s campus was white with the smoke of combat, as the snowballs of the a Pubs” thundered against the shining walls of the Fort, that had been the merry work of the college “Preps” all through the Christmas holidays. With its white packed battlements forming a twelve-foot square, its central tower upbearing the blue and white cross of St. Elmer’s, that was to be the prize of the winners, Fort Kostka stood a record-breaker in college annals — a triumph of snow architecture that seemed to defy the powers of sun and storm.

“Holding the Fort” in sturdy pride were twenty Preps under the leadership of Teddy Thornton, the valiant captain of the small boys’ football team, whose antagonists in many a hard-fought field, the Pubs, or public-school boys, had been challenged to make this New Year’s attack.

And now the crests of the hills were lined with

“HOLDING THE FORT”

juvenile spectators, and the wintry air was rent with shout and cheer. In the windows of St. Elmer’s, the cassocked forms of prefects and teachers could be seen looking on with smiling interest in the manly game.

“On, boys — on ! Give it to them again ! Hooray for the Pubs ! Hooray ! Down with the blue banner !” went up the chorused shout, as the besiegers, under burly Bill Briggs, charged the shining battlements.

“Give it back to them, boys, give it back!” rang out Captain Ted’s command. “Plold the Fort for St. Elmer’s! St. Elmer’s! Ho for St. Elmer’s !”

And the white balls flew in glittering showers, while the merry war went on, the blue curve of the frozen river echoing with shout and cheer and boyish battle cry.

Three times the whole force of the Pubs was flung against Fort Kostka; but the white walls, hard packed into mimic marble by the sturdy young builders, stood unmoved. Twice reckless Dick Bentley, in a daring, forlorn hope, leaped the south wall to seize the banner, only to be caught by the heels by its vigorous wardens and tumbled ignominiously into the drifts without.

More than once St. Elmer’s blue and white tottered and went down under the crash of a well-aimed snowball; but it was promptly caught up and replaced in waving triumph on its shining tower. The winter sun had dropped in ruddy glory behind the river hills before the deep-toned college bell called twice to end the combat.

Even snowballs, molded and sped by such sturdy young hands, can do a certain amount of work. Burly Bill’s right eye was closed for repairs, and Dick Barton’s bleeding nose had dyed the last of his ammunition a bright crimson ; while Captain Teddy had a cut upon his cheek from a missile that Jack Frost had sharpened into an edged blade. But the opposing armies met in great good-humor.

“ We’ll get that blue bonnet ribbon of yours to-morrow,” said the Captain of the Pubs, as he pulled himself into his great-coat.

“Try it!” tersely replied Captain Ted, as he shouldered the staff of his banner and prepared to climb the college hill.

“Bill called it a ‘blue bonnet ribbon,’ ” said little Bob, indignantly. “If I had been as big as you, I’d have smashed his nose for it, Ted.”

“And made a row and spoiled all our fun to-

IO morrow ?” answered his officer. “Pooh, no! Never force a fight, Bob. That’s what my father, who is one of the pluckiest men in the world, has always taught me. Never force a fight; but, once you’re in for it, stand your ground, and make the other chap sorry that he tackled you. That’s Shakespeare, father says — though it doesn’t sound like it — and good Yankee grit besides. And that’s what father does, too. Say! if you could have seen how he laid out the burglar that got into our house last winter — floored him with one blow of his fist ! He learned boxing from an English master, and has got it down fine. He gives me lessons when we are down at Edgewater for the holidays.”

“It must be fine to have a father like that!” sighed little Bob, whose parental tuition had been of a rather different order.

“You bet it is!” answered Ted, emphatically. “My dad’s a dandy — not much for talking, but every word he says goes straight.”

“Ever thrash you?” asked Bob, with interest.

“Once,” replied Captain Ted, frankly. “I went in swimming in Six Mile Run, against orders, and then lied about it.”

“Lied?” echoed little Bob, somewhat startled

“HOLDING THE FORT” n

by this open confession. " I didn’t know you ever lied, Ted.”

“I don’t,” answered Ted; “I never have since and never will again, but I did that once, sure. I was a little chap of nine, and got in with some rough country fellows, that called me 'Dolly Boy,’ and 'Miss Prissy,’ because I wore good clothes and minded my mother. And I turned fool and went in swimming with them, where the river was forty feet deep and running like a millrace beneath the cliffs. I was carried half a mile down the stream, and nearly drowned; and I got home so blue and cold and scared that I hadn’t any pluck left in me; and when father asked me where I had been, a lie popped out before I knew it.”

"They will do that sometimes,” said little Bob, seriously.

"But my father knew,” continued Ted. "My! how his eyes did blaze and how he lit into me! ’Twasn’t for the swimming — he wouldn’t have minded that so much — but it was the lie that got him. I wasn’t blue and cold long, I tell you ! And that night, after I was in bed, he came and talked to me. He told me he’d rather have me drowned a thousand times than see me live to be a coward

“HOLDING THE FORT”

and a cad — a liar. And I put my arms around his neck and promised him I would never tell another lie as long as I lived. And I haven’t — I won’t ever again. I’d rather be killed first,” concluded Teddy, as he gave a twitch to his banner that had been caught in a snow-wreathed thorn bush, and, freeing the fluttering colors, bore them up the college hill.

Kind eyes were watching him from the graniteframed windows.

“Here he comes,” said Brother Michael. “And he’s clean done out with the day’s sport, the poor lad ! Sure and me heart went down in me boots when I heard Teddy Thornton was to be left here for the holidays this year. He’d be heading some mad mischief, I knew ; so I told him how the boys had built a fine fort on the campus five years ago, and I wondered if he could beat it; and he went at it as if it were to win heaven itself for him. There’s no half-way for Teddy either in work or play.”

“Poor boy!” Father Bolton’s face was grave and pitiful as he watched the young standardbearer climbing the sunset hill. “This will be a sad change for him, I fear !”

“Sure it will that !” said Brother Michael, with a catch in his voice. "It's he that always had the bold, warm heart and the open hand. You mind, the Finneys were all down with the fever last winter, and you gave orders that no boy was to go near their little place by the south wall ? Didn't I find Teddy Thornton with all his month's pocket-money tied to the end of a pole reaching it to Micky Finney's window to buy oranges? And we all know he took penance for three days and paid damages rather than tell it was little Bob Connors that broke the chapel window with his baseball. 'My father won't mind a few dollars,' he said; 'but Bob's got a dad that would kick at a dime.' And now — now! Sure couldn't you keep the bad news from him until to-morrow, Father? The creature is worn out with the sport to-night."

"I’m afraid not. Teddy's mother will be expecting him at once."

"The poor woman! It's the black sorrow that she is supping this night. And how many children are there besides Teddy?"

"Three, I think — two girls and a baby boy. Ted is the oldest."

"And he not fourteen," sighed Brother Michael. "Ochone! ochone! The ways of the

Lord are wonderful, indeed ! Here the lad comes now. You’ll not be wanting me any more, Father?”

“No,” answered the Rector. “Just tell Teddy I want to see him here.”

And, feeling very much as if he were luring a young lamb to slaughter, Brother Michael slipped out on the broad porch, just as Captain Ted, bearing his colors, came up the steps, flushed and breathless.

“There it is, Brother — there’s the flag! Those fellows didn’t lay a finger on it, did they, Bob? My! it was a fine fight! We just knocked the Pubs to flinders. They couldn’t get an inch on us. And Fort Kostka is standing without a crack or a hole, for all their pounding. Did you see the fun?”

“I did, Teddy dear — I did,” said Brother Michael tremulously. “And — and” — he paused, choked somehow by the sight of the bright, boyish face so radiant in its triumph.

“We got those Ninety-Six boys you brag on all beaten to bang, haven’t we now?”

“Sure you have, Teddy — you have,” said the old Brother, with a break in his voice. “I’ll never brag on the Ninety-Sixers again. You’ve got them all beat this day, sure. And, Teddy lad, the Father Rector is ”

“He saw it, too,” interrupted Teddy, jubilantly. “He was up at his window, waving his handkerchief. And Father Roland and Father Murray, too. I got a cut from a frozen snowball that made the blood fly ; but I didn’t even feel it, I was in such a whirl. We’ll hold that Fort against the Pubs all winter. Brother Michael. Oh, it’s the jolliest sport I ever tried! If you’ll take care of this flag until I want it again ”

“I will, Teddy — I will take care of it for you,” said the old Brother huskily, as he took the staff with its white Crusader’s cross from the boy’s hand. “I’ll keep it for you, lad, until you want it again. And now, Teddy, sure the Father Rector is asking for you, lad.”

“Asking for me!” exclaimed Teddy, in amazement. “The Father Rector asking for me! Where?”

“Up in his room, lad. I’m thinking — ” there was no mistaking the break in Brother Michael’s voice now — “I’m thinking, Teddy, it’s news from home.”

CHAPTER II eddy's brown eyes cast one bewildered look

-A- at Brother Michael — a look that went to that good old man's heart — and then the boy was up the granite steps, into the Father Rector's room with a bound. The red glow of the sunset sky through the stone-arched window, the snow-wreathed vine tapping against the pane, the grave, clear-cut, kindly face that turned at his brusque entrance, made a picture on our young Captain's memory forever.

“Is there — bad news for me, Father?" he panted.

“Yes, Teddy," a kind hand was laid on his shoulder, “bad news, my boy !"

“My mother?" gasped Teddy quickly.

“Not of your mother, my son : your father."

“My father!" a low, sharp cry broke from the boy's lips. “Dad!"

“He is very ill," the Rector went on with merciful haste. “He had a stroke of paralysis this morning. It was brought on by business losses.

i7

Your mother has sent for you, my boy. You must go home and comfort her.”

“Will — will dad die?” asked Ted, in a voice that sounded strange and hard to his ears.

“That I can not say, my son,” was the grave answer. “The doctors fear the worst, but God is good. We will all pray for him. In any case, your place is by your mother's side. You must be strong, brave, manly for her sake; you will be a true son to her I know. And, remember, if St. Elmer's can do anything for you, my boy, you have friends here, friends who never forget. There — there! let the tears come, Ted. Don't mind me.”

“Thank you, Father, but they won't,” said the boy, huskily. “I — I — dad isn't — isn't dead yet, is he, Father?”

“Oh, no, no; and there is still hope for him, my boy ! There is always hope while there is life. I have had your gripsack packed, and there is a train within the hour that will get you home at midnight. You have no time to lose.”

Then it was all like a dim twilight dream to Teddy: the hurried parting from St. Elmer's in the gathering dusk of the white evening; the brief, hushed preparation, so different from the usual i8 riotous joy of "going home”; the tender sympathy of his teachers’ hand-clasp; the odd constraint of the boy’s good-bys; the sudden, solemn silence that seemed to have fallen on the glad music of his young life.

The supper bell clanged its cheery summons as he passed down the wide staircase; the merry shouts of the little boys echoed from their playroom; the deep, clear note of the Angelus came from the high clock tower — -all the old familiar sounds seemed strange and far away to-night. It was as if he had been lifted into ways apart that they did not clearly reach.

Little Bob Connors, waiting at the end of the long corridor, slipped a small, half-frozen hand into Teddy’s and said in an awed voice:

"You’re not going for good, Ted?”

"I — I don’t know, Bobby,” was the low answer. "It’s father, you know — and — and ”

"I know, and I’m sorry for you, Ted!” continued Bob, rushing in with ten-year-old daring where neither angels nor Father Bolton just now dared tread. "I’m — I’m sorrier than I can tell, Ted. And here’s the fountain pen Uncle Rob sent me Christmas. I want you to take it, Ted, for keeps. I ain’t never forgot about the chapel window.” And poor little Bob broke down with an irrepressible sniffle.

“Shoo! we’re square on that long ago,” said Ted gruffly. “I don’t want to take your pen, Bobby.”

“Please, Ted, please! I want you to have it. It’s a fine one, never squirts or blots. Take it to remember me by, Ted.”

“All right, then!” was the answer, and Ted gave a hard squeeze to the little frozen fingers that held the gift ; and Bobby seemed to vanish in the twilight shadows as Father Bolton stopped to speak a paternal good-by and “God bless you, Ted !”

And then the college sleigh, that had carried off so many merry, whooping crowds to the depot, was at the door; and, springing into the silent, empty seat, Ted was whirled off down the snowy avenue ; while the lights twinkling from the gray stone windows of St. Elmer’s seemed to glimmer through a mist — a new, strange mist — in Captain Teddy’s eyes.

But the plunge into the life, the light, the roar, the bustle of the great depot, was a bracer. A night journey alone was something new and stirring in Ted’s experience. The mists cleared from his eyes under the flash of the arc lights, and the strange weight on his heart lifted as he felt the strong, cheery pulse of the life around him. “There is still hope,” Father Bolton had said, and at fourteen a whisper of hope is enough. One does not need a whole brass band to quicken the young heart-beats again.

And there was a big rush at the ticket window, and our young Captain had to hold his place strenuously against the push behind; for there was a great political convention in Teddy’s native city that was drawing excited crowds, and the thrill of it all was in the air. Extra trains were on, and the great engines on the tracks were shrieking and puffing impatiently.

“A dollar for your place, youngster!” said a big, brown-faced man, who had just dashed in, breathless with haste and excitement. “I’ve a lot of baggage to check, and want my ticket right off. A dollar!”

“No, thank you, sir!” said Teddy, flushing. “I don’t want a dollar, but you can have my place. I have no baggage to look after.” And he stepped out of line.

“Thanks!” said the other. “You haven’t learned the grab game yet, I see, my lad. Hustle to the end of the line, or you’ll get left, as generally happens to boys of your pattern. Or stay ! Til buy your ticket for you. Where are you going ?”

“New York by the next train/’ answered Ted.

“All right! I’ll fix things for you. Never mind the money now. Just take Dolly out of this push and wait in the ladies’ room for me.”

“Dolly?” exclaimed Ted, looking around blankly.

“That’s me!” said a little voice from between two stout ladies at his right. “Oh, take me out of this crowd, please! I’m being just mashed to death.” And a very small young person, who seemed chiefly furs and curls, looked up at him beseechingly.

The two stout ladies held their own, and feathers and furs seemed mixed inextricably. But Captain Ted was equal to the emergency. With a sudden swing of his arm, he caught Miss Dolly out of the crush, and, perching her on his broad shoulder, bore her triumphantly into the clear space beyond, where he set her down to straighten her ruffled plumage like a bewildered little pigeon.

“It was the only way to get you out,” he apologized. “You mustn’t mind. I’ve whisked my little brother through a push that way many a time.”

“But I’m not your little brother,” said Miss

Dolly, severely. “I suppose, though, you had to get me out, or I would have been squeezed to death. I ought to have staid in the carriage, as Jack told me.”

“Jack?” echoed Ted in surprise.

“Yes; my father. I always call him Jack. He likes it best. It was mama’s name for him, and she is dead.”

“Oh, I see!” muttered Ted softly.

“We were in such a hurry!” said Miss Dolly in her silvery treble. “Jack had a telegram that he must come right back. We’ve been spending the Christmas holidays with grandma in the country. She wanted to keep me, but Jack said, ‘No, siree! I couldn’t do without my little housekeeper.’ And he couldn't continued Miss Dolly, with a shake of her curls. “He is such a stupid old Jack! He can’t even sweeten his tea. And when I am at grandmother’s he never goes home at all — just stays at his club with men. He says things don’t go right at all when I’m away.”

They had reached the ladies’ room, and Miss Dolly swung herself up into a cushioned seat, looking small but important.

“Aren’t you a little young for that sort of business?” asked Ted curiously.

“I'm seven and a half,” answered the young lady. “How old are you?”

“Nearly fourteen,” said Ted.

“That’s a great deal older than seven and a half, isn’t it?” asked Miss Dolly reflectively. “It’s almost grown up.”

“Well, it’s getting there,” replied Ted, who felt ten years older since the sun went down on Fort Kostka this evening.

“I thought you were a boy,” said Miss Dolly in a disappointed tone.

“I am,” answered Ted, “just a big boy yet. Teddy is my name, Teddy Thornton.”

“A good name!” said a hearty voice behind him, and Miss Dolly’s “Jack” clapped him on the shoulder. “A good name, and a good fellow, I’ll be bound; though I haven’t time to improve our acquaintance, for my train is being called now. Here’s your ticket, my boy; and thank you!”

“And the money for it, sir!” said Ted, taking out his pocketbook.

“God bless me, I forgot the money! I haven’t time to wait for it now. Send it to me some other time. Here’s my card. Dolly dear, we haven’t a moment to lose ! Come !”

“Good-by! good-by! good-by!” called the sweet little voice, as “Jack’s housekeeper” was whisked through the opening gates where so many ways touch for one swift moment to part forever. “Good-by, Teddy.” And, with a last glimpse of the fluttering feathers, Ted’s quaint little fairy friend vanished.

He looked at the card he held. “John J. Jarvis, Dunmore,” was its inscription. And then his own train was called, and he hurried on to take his place, and be whirled away through the darkness to meet the Sorrow whose thrilling whisper, reaching over these long miles of space, had called him home.

And as he sped along over the shadowy hills and faint-gleaming river, through the flashing lights of city and town, and out into the calm, starlit spaces beyond, the fear and grief that had been stifled for a few bright moments woke again in Ted’s heart. His father, his brave, strong, loving, tender dad — dying; perhaps — perhaps — ah, Teddy’s thoughts and lips could not shape the terrible word — dead!

If it had been his mother — his gentle, frail, delicate mother — it would not have seemed so strange, so bewildering, so incomprehensible. She was ill so often ; ever since he could remember he had been hustled off so that his shouts and noise should not reach her ear. But his father, his big, six-foot dad, who was always cheery and well, who never had aches or nerves, dad stricken down in all his health and strength and cheery life! It seemed impossible.

And then — for it had been a tough day on him — Captain Ted’s curly head sank back on the velvet-cushioned seat, and he drifted off into a dreamland, where Burly Bill and his Pubs were charging a snowy ticket office, and a little golden-haired fairy sat under a blue banner pouring out “Jack’s” tea; while Teddy himself, armed with a fountain pen, was squirting ink on all who came near.

And then — then — was it Brother Michael shaking him from his pillow in the dormitory? Was it the rising bell of St. Elmer’s clanging so loudly in his ear?

“Wake up, youngster, wake up !” The gilt buttons of the conductor flashed before his half-open eyes. “You don’t want to stay here all night!”

The lights of the great station were gleaming around him. His journey was at an end, he was home.

Chapter III

H ow Captain Ted made the rest of the journey he never knew, his brain was in such a whirl, his heart beating so wildly with love and hope and sickening fear. It seemed all a mad dash and scurry through the midnight streets, until he stood breathless before his father's house, that rose tall in the darkness, and still with an awful silence which he trembled to break.

But no black pennant as yet fluttered from its door, and Ted's heart gave a wild bound of relief as he sprang up the steps and touched the bell. There was a patter of little feet in the hall, the big door swung open, and then his two sisters, Kit and Nell, were hugging Ted hysterically; while curly-haired Rick, aroused from the unusual experience of a midnight nap on the hearth rug, sleepily rubbed his eyes in the background.

“Dad?" questioned Ted, breathlessly.

“He is better, Ted — better!"

“Whoop-a-loo !" cried the young Captain, in irrepressible delight.

(( 0 Ted, hush ! hush !" exclaimed little Kit, in a scandalized whisper. “We mustn't make a breath of noise, the nurse says, or he'll get worse. Mama said we might all wait up for you, because they've taken our room and we were afraid to go up in the third story alone."

“And the doctors have been here all evening — three of them," continued little flaxen-haired Nell, as her sister paused in her excited story. “And Father Bryan came, too. And we didn't have any real dinner at all, Ted. Margaret was too done out, she said, to cook. And, oh, everything is going wrong !"

“Let it go!" said Ted, dropping down on the big lounge in the library, and mopping his brow, where, despite the wintry night, great drops of sweat stood out like beads. “As long as dear old dad is all right, nobody cares. Cracky! I never had such a scare in my life!"

“Oh, but dad isn’t all right!" said Kit, solemnly. “He won't be well for a good while, Aunt Fan says."

“Oh, she is croaking around, is she?" said Ted bluntly.

“She's been expecting this a long time," said Nell, shaking her head.

“Of course she has!” replied Ted. “For downright black-crow croaking, Aunt Fan has that Cassandra we were studying about the other day beaten to a finish.”

“You see, it was losing all his money that nearly killed dad,” continued Nellie. “He put all he had in socks, and they fell down and ”

“ Stocks you mean, Nell,” put in Ted.

“Well, maybe; it was something to wear, I know. And we’re all going to be beggars now. Where mama will get bread to put in our mouths, Aunt Fan says she doesn’t know.”

“Oh, cut all that out, girls!” said Ted cheerily. “You’ve got things mixed up bad.”

“No, indeed, we haven’t — we haven’t, Ted!” was the eager answer. “Aunt Fan said so this evening. We heard it plain.”

“We won’t be beggars, will we, Ted,” said little Rick, nestling close to his brother, “because we're boys?”

“That we are!” said Ted, drawing the curly head to his breast; “and the right kind of boys, Rick. There will be no begging done in this family while you and I are around to manage things, you can bet. Now, girls, see if you can’t take a clear, straight start and tell me all you know.”

And then Ted learned, with many breaks and dashes from the point, that dad had gone to his office that morning apparently well, and had been brought home at noon in a carriage, voiceless and senseless, while the whole great city was thrilling with the fall in the stock market that had brought ruin to thousands of homes.

And while Ted was still sitting, blank and dismayed under this new phase of family trouble, Aunt Fan appeared. Aunt Fan's appearance in the family circle, even on the most roseate occasions, was always rather depressing. She was “dad's” widowed sister, who lived in a small apartment of her own, but had kept a disapproving eye upon her brother’s household ever since his marriage. Everything had gone wrong there, according to Aunt Fan, who never had any children of her own, and who felt that measles and mumps and tumbles down the back stairs were all the result of bad management.

“Poor, dear Laura,” as Aunt Fan called Ted’s gentle invalid mother, was responsible for all — responsible even, the good lady felt, for the fall in stocks and poor “brother's” illness.

“Goodness gracious! you children up yet!” exclaimed Aunt Fan, as she saw the group in the library. “There is no law or order in this unhappy house ! Go to bed at once ! And, and, Theodore, I did not know you had come! Your poor mother has been asking for you.”

“May I go to her?” inquired Ted eagerly.

“Not yet. She is with your father and you might disturb him. The blow has fallen just as I expected it, Theodore — the blow that I have been looking for all these years. My poor, poor brother !”

And Aunt Fan, who was fat and flabby, with dull gray eyes and a face creased into unhappy lines, sank down into a chair with a dismal sigh that made Ted's heart sink.

“But he is better, the girls say, Aunt Fan.”

“Better!” echoed that lady, shaking her head. “I don’t see it. He may pull through, as the doctors declare; but I doubt it. I am prepared for the worst, Theodore, the very worst. And what is to become of this hapless, helpless family, I am sure I don’t know.”

Ted felt that he did not know, either, as he looked at Aunt Fan sitting, heavy and dreary, in her drab flannel wrapper. Hope seemed to die in his young heart.

“Not a dollar of life insurance, your poor mother tells me! Everything in his business,” Aunt Fan went on, with a despairing sigh. “And that business is a wreck, I understand — a perfect wreck. Mr. Wirt was here this evening and I questioned him closely. He says everything has been swept away — everything; that your poor father went down under the shock that left him beggared and ruined. And the doctors say that, even if he recovers, he will be a helpless invalid for months, maybe years.”

“Beggared! ruined! helpless!” Awful words that seemed to thunder into Ted’s ears as Aunt Fan droned drearily on. Beggared ! ruined ! helpless ! Sturdy, plucky fellow that he was, a sickening sense of weakness came over him. What could he do? What could a boy not fourteen do, with the strong master of the wrecked ship lying senseless at his post, and the breakers dashing over the drifting hulk?