Jack Chumleigh at boarding-school

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Day Before 7

II. A Terrible Scare 22

I. The Day Before

The boys, Jack Chumleigh, his brother, Thomas Jefferson, his cousin, Baby Maguire, and their friend, Bob Bently, were about to go away to school. The thought of it was not altogether pleasant, although, under the direction of Miss McBride, who had been their teacher for several years, their path had not been entirely strewn with popcorn and peanuts. Still, boys like new places, and, at the end of vacation, they found their sadness tempered by hope.

Still, the best of the year seemed over. Watermelons were ripe, great white lilies, heavy with perfume were blooming in the yards, and the grapes in the Chumleigh yard were growing a rich purple. Baseball games were going on in all the lots, and boys were talking of football ; — the very thought of school made the boys sick. But a new school would be better than the old. And at times Faky Dillon felt positively joyful at the prospect. At such times he burst into song :

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“A new school for me,

Where we shall be free,

With lessons an hour a day ; —

No Latin to speak of.

No Grammar to squeak of,

And little to do but to play.”

Bob Bently shook his head ; “You can’t keep up my spirits with rot like that,” he said. “ We’d better face the worst.”

Little did they dream of what was in store for them.

Jack Chumleigh had grown almost an inch taller during vacation ; Faky Dillon did not seem to have changed very much ; Thomas Jefferson had become so stout that the buttons of his jacket dragged the buttonholes. There was a manlier look about Bob Bently ; Baby Maguire looked very much like himself; — in fact, the boys had grown more inside than outside. They had learned many new things ; but the world to them was a place in which all unpleasant things were to be avoided, and education a puzzling process for forcing them to remember nearly everything they would rather forget.

On this Thursday in September they had paid their farewell visit to Miss McBride. She had been very kind to them, and had presented each of them with her carte de visite — a small oblong photograph, in which she appeared in a black silk gown distended by hoops, her hair smoothed

THE DAY BEFORE.

clown from her brow, a large watch-chain dangling from her waist, her right hand resting on a figured tablecloth, her left grasping a large vase of flowers, and a sweet smile on her face. She had also given good advice to them.

“Be solicitous to show yourselves worthy of the school over which I have presided for so many years ; and never put your hands in your pockets.”

All the boys, with the exception of Thomas Jefferson, simultaneously showed their hands.

“ A graceful deportment when in society will much assist in your success in life. One of my pupils is now first-mate of a large schooner which plies between Wilmington and Philadelphia. He is an ornament to the navy. Do you think,” she said, fixing her eyes on Thomas Jefferson, who had thrust into his breeches pocket a small bottle full of water and a tadpole, and who was compelled to keep the bottle upright, — “ do you think that you will ever arrive to eminence in any pursuit by keeping your hands in your pockets ? ”

Thomas Jefferson blushed painfully. To take his hand off that bottle — which, unhappily, was uncorked — would be to lose a tadpole for which he had swopped a Calcutta stamp. If he had been sure that tadpoles could live without water, he would not have minded a partial bath ; as it was, he was divided between Miss

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McBride’s stern gaze and the fear of losing the tadpole.

“ I hope, Master Thomas Jefferson Chumleigh,” she went on, “ that you look on the politeness of your friends rather as an object of envy than of scorn. I have long observed your sullen disposition, and regretted it. An old pupil of mine, Jonathan McSweeney, has lately been nominated for Congress ; and you need never hope to attain this dignity if you keep your hands in your pockets.”

This was too much for Thomas Jefferson. He drew his hand from the bottle : it sank on its side, and he felt a cool stream of water trickling down his right leg. He imagined, too, that he felt the tadpole wriggling in its death throes ; but he held his hand in full view.

Miss McBride allowed herself to smile. She shook hands with each of the boys, gave them her photographs wrapped in tissue-paper, and hoped that they would call frequently when they came home.

“ Do not forget,” she said, as they were leaving the doorstep, “ among the trials and triumphs, the thorns and roses of scholastic life, that my school, humble as it is, was really your

alma mater”

Faky Dillon was quite touched. Fine language always had a great effect upon him. Tears came to his eyes.

THE DAY BEFORE.

“I always liked Miss McBride,” said Jack. “ It makes me homesick to think of going to a strange school.”

Bob Bently sighed.

“ There was always something homelike about that school. You knew what to expect. We’ve got used to one kind of grown people ; it is rather hard to have to meet a new set. You knew pretty surely what Miss McBride would do next, but you can never tell what new teachers are up to. And men are crankier than women.”

“I tell you, Thomas Jefferson,” said Faky Dillon, hotly, “ if you go on disgracing us something will drop, — that’s all. Why couldn’t you keep your hands out of your pockets while Miss McBride was making her speech?”

“ I Avasn’t going to have my tadpole killed,” said Thomas Jefferson, drawing the half-filled bottle from his pocket. “ It’s all right ! Skinny McMullen caught it down in the Neck, and I gave him one of my Indian stamps for it. I don’t see why Miss McBride need have been so cross. If she had been more polite, I might have given her the tadpole. Skinny’s got a lot of cat-tails, too, he wants to swop for stamps.”

“ You never will have sense,” said Faky Dillon. “ I believe you Avould interrupt George Washington’s farewell address if you could, Thomas Jefferson. If you had not been so silly with your old tadpole, I’d have thought of some-

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thing to say. Yon just bothered me so that when Miss McBride gave me her picture and said, ‘ I hope you are glad to get this little soweneer of your teacher,’ I said, ‘ Oh, not at all !’ I feel like going back to tell her I didn’t mean it.”

“¥e haven’t time,” said Baby Maguire; “the watermelon may be at home. You know Miley Galligan promised to send us a watermelon by express. He said we’d have it to-day, anyway.”

“That’s true,” said Bob Bently, losing his gloom. “He said he’d show us what Fulton Market could do in the way of watermelons. Let’s hurry home.”

The boys invaded the Bently house first. The melon was not there. It occurred to them that it would be great fun to creep along on the shed and the roof of the summer kitchen, and thus enter the Chumleigh house. It was easy to do ; and long experience had taught them that the less attention they attracted to their movements, the better it would be for them. Making their way through the window, over the roof that covered Susan and Bebecca, they carefully sought for the expected watermelon. At last Jack found it near the refrigerator in the cellar. It had arrived during their absence. It was a monster, and carefully cut into its rind were the initials “ M.G.” in the middle of a five-pointed star. The boys stole down to look at it. On a tag tied to its beautiful dark-green rind was the address to

THE DAY BEFORE.

“Mr. J. Chumleigh.” Jack concluded that it would be well to put it on the ice for a while hot melons were not to his taste. With some difficulty the gift was hoisted into the refrigerator. A few other things were displaced in the process, and a plate or two already embedded in the ice broke ; but the melon was at last arranged in its resting-place.

This done, our friends went up to Jack’s room. It was not so splendid as it had been. The baseball bats and masks, the football suit, and a pair of rapiers were visible on the wall ; but the drapery and other pretty things sent by Uncle Ferrier had gone over to beautify little Guy’s new room. The room was neat ; Jack, especially since he had been able to add some adornments to it, and to consider it his own personal property, had taken great pride in keeping it so.

The boys distributed themselves on the chairs and the bed, and their unusual quietness brought thoughts of the terrible to-morrow to them.

“ It is awful to think that this is the last time I shall be here until Christmas,” Bob said. “ I do wonder what Professor Grigg’s school will be like. After all, Miss McBride wasn’t bad. She doesn’t understand boys, that’s all ; but she might have been worse.”

“ Professor Grigg is a man like ourselves,” said Faky. “He’ll know what good interference means, and he won’t talk at you all the time.

JACK CHUMLEIGH.

With Miss McBride, it was ‘ Do this ! ’ or ‘ Do that ! ’ every minute. I don’t say boys are naturally good,” he added ; “ I don’t say they like work ; but grown-ups can’t expect them to be good if they don’t believe there is any goodness in boys. The trouble with Miss McBride was that when she was in a good humor she thought we were all good ; but when she was cross, we were too bad to live.”

“I don’t know,” said Thomas Jefferson. “ Some groAvn-up people seem to forget that they were ever boys ; or they must have been very bad boys in their time, if they judge us by what they were.”

There was silence. Baby uttered a long sigh. The prospect of exile in an unknown land made his heart sink.

“It’s your fault, Baby!” Thomas Jefferson burst out. “ If you hadn’t been so bad, they’d never have thought of sending us away. I was passing the dining-room the other night, and I heard father say, 4 They’re better at home ; or if they must go away, send them to Georgetown or Notre Dame, or some other big Catholic school.’ And then mother said : 4 No : Baby might meet a class of boys who would not understand him. He is a peculiar child. I prefer Professor Grigg’s for him, because he is a sensitive boy. And, of course, his parents would think it strange if we separated the children.’ — ‘Keep

THE DAY BEFORE.

them at home, or send them to one of the great schools,’ said father. — 4 I couldn’t be happy if I thought Baby was among men, and without a woman’s care,’ mother said. 4 You have often told me about your college life, and sometimes I shudder when you tell me of your awful games. If Baby went to one of the big schools, I don’t think that the prefects would see that he had his nerve-drops three times a day, or warm his bed — as his mother insists shall be done — with a hot iron every cold night ; and he must have so many little attentions.’ — ‘I don’t remember,’ father said, 4 that Brother Jovian ever warmed my bed, but I do remember — ’ Father stopped short and asked me what I wanted ; but I heard enough to know that we’ve got to go to a girly-girly school just because Baby is mean.”

44 Maybe he can’t help it,” said Faky Dillon ; 44 but we know all about his nerves, and grown-up people are very strange not to see that he has just been spoiled. I don’t care whether Professor Grigg’s school is girly-girly or not, but I don’t want to leave home, — that’s all. It makes me sick to think of it. We’ve all been good for two weeks. Mother said the other day that I was too good to live. Now, suppose we go and tell all our fathers and mothers that we will be just as good all the time. I’m sure they might let us stay home until next year.”

44 The worst of it is,” said Bob Bently, whit-

JACK CHUMLEICfH.

tling at a piece of wood which he was rapidly turning into the keel of a yacht, “ that you’re not sure when you are good. Now, often when I’ve been really bad — and I used to be awful before I went to confession, — nobody seemed to mind. But now I sometimes do a thing without thinking that it is bad, and everybody just pounces on me. Grown people don’t seem to mind the big things ; but you suddenly do something that doesn’t seem much — and you are gone ! ”

Baby Maguire screwed up his face, as if he were about to utter a piercing howl.

“ What are you all jumping on me for ? ” he demanded. “I don’t want to go to boarding-school. And a boy can’t help having nerves, can he?”

The boys looked sternly at Baby.

“ It wouldn’t be so bad if you could take the ‘extras’ at these boarding-schools. If I could learn only instrumental music and take vocal lessons and a few nice things, I think I’d get on,” said Baby, encouraged by the boys’ silence. “ All the pleasant things are charged extra.”

“They don’t put algebra down as an extra: they make you take thatf said Jack, sadly. “ And ancient history is not an extra. I hoped it might be ; for then father might not let me take it, as he says times are hard. I say, Baby,” Jack broke forth in sudden wrath, “ you ought to

THE DAY BEFORE. IT

be ashamed of yourself! Father would never have thought of school if it wasn’t for you.”

Baby wrinkled his face.

“ I feel the nerves coming on,” he said ; “ and I must not be bothered.”

“ We’ll nerve you,” exclaimed Bob, “ if you go on that way ! We’ll bother you ! ”

Baby retired to a corner of the room, a picture of injured innocence. Faky Dillon went to the table and began to write with a very thick pencil. Jack and Bob sat disconsolately by the window ; and Thomas Jefferson, unable to endure the sadness, volunteered to go down into the cellar to examine the watermelon.

“Well,” said Jack, “we’ve got to do our best. I’ve learned one thing so far — that you must stand and endure things. It is like being in the sea at Atlantic City when you’re a little fellow. A wave comes and fills your eyes and ears with water. Y ou think that everybody ought to know how you feel and help you, but nobody does. You have to stand up against the next wave as best you can. A fellow must feel that he is right, and fight it out. Father doesn’t think I’m much of a boy, but I am going to show him. What I’ve gone through has taught me a good many things, Bob ; and one of these is that God will see you out of every scrape, if you only do your part. Of course, if you lie and sneak, you can’t expect any help.”

1.8

JACK CHUMLEIGH.

“ That’s true,” said Bob. “ Little Guy did me a great deal of good. We’ll go to see him to-morrow morning. Our train,” he added, with a deep sigh, “ doesn’t start until 5:30 in the evening.”

“ It will seem years till Christmas,” said Jack, with another sigh. “ I suppose we’ll have to bow and scrape to Mrs. Grigg, and toe the mark to the professor, and not be able to move without a tag on us. The catalogue says that 4 deportment ’ is regularly attended to. All sorts of frills, I suppose. I wish we were going to one of the big schools you read about, — to a big college. I don’t believe they’ll let us play Rugby at Colonnade House, as they call this school. It will just suit Baby, — all coddling and sissy business.”

Faky raised his head in triumph.

“ I have found it at last ! ” he said. “ Here it

is. It’s my cheef-dever , I think.” And he read :

“ Oh, tell the truth quite frankly, —

Oh, tell the truth, my boys !

You may suffer for a moment,

But long will be your joys.”

u I don’t think much of it,” said Bob, in a lowspirited tone. “ It’s true, but there’s no snap in it.”

“ You don’t know a good thing when you see

it, ” retorted Faky. “ A poet can’t always be making a lively moke of himself to please people.

THE DAY BEFORE.

It took me a long time to find that rhyme, I can tell you. Here’s a light thing that may suit you :

“ If Professor M. Grigg Cuts up a pig.

And gives us the head and the feet,

We’ll cry out aloud :

‘We’re not at all proud,

But we want something else for to eat.’ ”

“No, it won’t do,” said Bob, yawning. “We want a new poet, with some snap in him — hello ! What’s that ? ”

Something heavy had fallen against the door, and the voice of Thomas Jefferson was heard calling for help. Bob threw open the door, and Thomas and the watermelon fell inward. There was a dull, heavy sound, followed by a splash. For a moment it was hard to tell which was Thomas and which was the melon.

Then he arose, panting.

“ I ought not to have tried to carry it upstairs, but I just wanted to show you fellows what I could do.”

“ And you’ve done it ! ” said Bob. “ That watermelon is smashed in half.”

“We can eat it,” said Baby, gouging out a handful of the crimson fruit. “ It is spoiled,” he said. “ Too ripe.”

The boys gathered in sadness about the wreck. They heard Susan and Rebecca talking in the kitchen.

JACK CHUMLEIGTI.

“ Oh, I say,” said Faky Dillon, “let’s drop the halves on the kitchen roof ; they will make an awful bang.”

“Flo,” said Bob. “We’ve got to be good. We’ve had nothing against us for a long time now ”

“ But this is only fun,” Faky said, impatiently. “ Susan and Kebecca will think the world has come to an end, and then we’ll tell them.”

Faky seized half the huge melon and dashed it out the window.

The commotion in the kitchen following the thud and splash charmed them all so much that Jack and Bob, with broad grins, let the other half of the melon fall on the wooden roof. The boys watched, unobserved, the flight of Susan and Bebecca. Jack and Bob looked at each other with despair in their eyes.

“We’re in for it again,” said Jack, sadly. “I wish we hadn’t done it. I do believe they’ve gone for a policeman. I wish I had thought.”

Faky burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“ How Susan ran ! Baby and I had better get out on the roof and throw away the deebriss .”

Faky Dillon and Baby and Thomas Jefferson assented to this, and long before the ambulance had arrived all traces of the fractured watermelon had disappeared.

As the sound of the ambulance reached them, they rushed to the window.

THE DAY BEFORE.

“I think I’d better go home,” faltered Faky Dillon.

“No,” answered Bob. “There are Mr. and Mrs. Chumleigh below. Let us face the music !”

The sad-eyed band slowly descended, to meet them on the front steps.

JACK CHUMLEIGH.

II. A Terrible Scare

“ Nobody knows how I feel,” Susan said, solemnly,— u nobody ! ” She took a flatiron from the rack in the kitchen and ran her fingers across it. “ Sad to the sad ! ” she added ; while Rebecca, the young colored girl from Baltimore, gazed at her in awe. “ In the old country some people call these irons sadirons.”

“ Law sakes ! ” said Rebecca. “ Ain’t that ignorant ! ” And Rebecca showed her teeth cheerfully.

“ It’s not ignorant,” said Susan, with dignity. “ The people in the old country knew what they were talking about before you were born. And when I took down the iron it was a coincidence. ’Tis well it’s called a sadiron in the old country.”

“ I didn’t mean ignorant,” said Rebecca, opening the oven door to see that the pan of apple-dumplings was “ doing well.” “ I meant mighty queer.”

Susan shook her head, with a sigh.

“ Education is lost on the likes of you,” she said. “ I wish the cook was here to understand my feelings. ‘ Be careful of the apple-dumplings,’

A TERRIBLE SCARE.

were the last words she said ; 4 and see that there’s plenty of nutmeg in the sauce, for so ’ — Susan’s voice faltered, — 4 for so he liked them.’ ”

44 Law sakes ! ” repeated Rebecca, opening her eyes wide and looking at Susan, who was slowly drawing a lump of white wax over the surface of the flatiron. “ Law sakes, you talk so sorrowful you make me feel like crying, — shuah ! ”

It was plain that Susan was not altogether displeased by this sympathy.

“Many’s a time this kitchen was different,” said Susan, slowly. “There’s been doin’s here worthy of the Dark Ages, when Malachi wore the collar of gold he won from the proud invader.”

“ Law sakes ! ” exclaimed Rebecca, looking around. “ Spooks ! ”

“ Is it the seventh daughter of a seventh son you’re talking to ? Spooks ! Is it spooks I’d be thinkin’ of, and me with a banshee in the family that I am that intimate with ! Be careful of the dumplings, Rebecca. Sure they’re the last dumplings that he will eat under this roof; for I dreamed of a wedding last night. Be careful of them, Rebecca ; for cook’s heart’s in every one of them, and them were her last words ! 4 Let

everything be done decent and in order,’ she said, as I said good-bye at the door.”

Rebecca had recen tly entered Mrs. Chumleigh’s service, — or, rather the service of Susan and the

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cook. The cook’s rheumatism had made her suffer extremely in September, and Rebecca had been sent by Mrs. Chumleigh’s cousin in Baltimore to assist in the heavier work in the kitchen. The cook had gone out on this Thursday to pay her monthly visit to little Guy, who now lived with Uncle Mike and his wife far up town.

“ If I had spilt the salt this morning, or there had been a dog howling last night, I couldn’t feel worse,” she said. “ Ah ! it’s the likes of you that have a good time, with no thought at all, at all. But when I think of what’s gone before, — when I think of what I’ve gone through, and what I’ve been used to, Rebecca, it’s hard.”

Ro sound, except Susan’s sigh and the soft sound of the flatiron gliding over the linen on the board, broke the silence. Rebecca, who loved to have her feelings “ torn up,” forgot the apple-dumplings and stared at her superior officer.

“ ’Twas in this very kitchen one of the grandest parties of the season took place in honor of one of my cousins from the maythropolis and the cook’s Uncle Mike. ’Twas grand.”

“ Did you have a cake walk ? ” asked Rebecca, showing her teeth.

“ A cake walk ! Is it insulting me you are ? It’s little you know about the ways of society. But how could you — the likes of you f ”

“Well, I’ve lived in the best Ma’yland families,” replied Rebecca, indignantly. “ There

A TERRIBLE SCARE.

ain’t no families like the East’n Sho’ families, shuah ! ”

“ We’ll change the subject; for I might lose my temper before I’ve said my last penance,” said Susan. “ I can point you out where they all sat. There was my cousin Miley, — and he was a little seraphim, smiling, and with his hair greased beautifully. And they were all here — then.”

Rebecca, who was uncertain whether anybody was dead or not, tried to look sad. She had made so many mistakes since she had entered into the sacred domain of the Chumleigh kitchen that she was generally in a dazed state of mind, but always ready to agree with anything that might be said. She had a great fear of Susan’s supernatural gifts as the seventh daughter of a seventh son, and it is to be feared that Susan had discovered this. Rebecca would have been glad to know what dreadful thing had happened or was about to happen, but she was afraid to ask ; for Susan had a way of making her explanations as hazy as possible.

“ It’s education that’s done it,” said Susan ; “ and if only them that could take it had education, ’twould be better for the world. If education were only like vaccination, and would take to them that need it and let other people alone, ’twould be the better for us all. Well, it’s Miss McBride’s fault. She’s the teacher of the angel boys, Rebecca; and she’s one that education

JACK CIIUMLE1GH.

should never have taken to. I knew her when she lived in a little street and hadn’t a Sunday bonnet.”

“ Law sakes ! ” murmured Rebecca.

“ She’s gone and taught the dear children all about Soprates and Julian Caesar and Themistockings, so that their papa and mamma have to send them away to get ’em right again. And it’s just breaking the hearts of me and cook to see them go. And, though I do say it, it’s never a cross feeling or an angry word they’ve had from me or cook. ’Tis been like a bit of paradise with the boys around. To think of Baby Maguire — and him used to so much — going to boarding-school ! Well I mind the day he was sick. If he was my own flesh and blood I couldn’t have been kinder to him. And Bob Bently is to go too ; he’s the neighbor boy, and a better boy never lived. 4 Susan,’ said the cook as she went out — and these were her last words, — 4 see that there’s a big Dutch cake made for Bob Bently ’s box, if I forget it.’ Ah ! cook’s been a mother to him, — that she has. And Faky Dillon, as they call him, — if there was ever a little saint on earth, that’s him! The poetry just gushes out of him ; he’s what they call a jaynus. 4 Susan,’ the cook said as she tied her bonnet strings — and these were her last words — I seem to hear them in my ears yet, — 4 Susan, make the jumbles for Faky Dillon sweet. Maybe he’ll never eat another jumble,’ she said ;

A TERRIBLE SCARE.

‘ for in life we’re in the midst of death, and railroad trains are uncertain.’ ”

“ Mighty me ! ” said Rebecca, shuddering. “ I hope they won’t all die.”

“ There’s no telling. To-day we are what we are, and to-morrow we’re cast into the oven — you Rebecca, you lazy coon ! take a piece out of that broom and see if those loaves of bread are done.”

Rebecca sprang like a frightened rabbit to the oven, and then Susan resumed her confidences.

“ Now I remember it was not exactly in this kitchen we had the party: ’twas in the winter kitchen. This is built out from the house, to be cooler in summer ; but ’tis much the same thing. The cook’s Uncle Mike married a good woman but beneath him, Rebecca, — it’s the one cross of the cook’s life, Rebecca ; and don’t you ever speak of it.”

“ Law sakes ! ” cried Rebecca, who had restored the loaves of bread to the oven. “ I don’t speak to no cook unless she speaks to me. I ain’t say in’ nothing against her, but she looks at me as if I was low-down white trash. I’m quiet enough when she's around.”

“ She’s not used to American ways yet, Rebecca. In the old country she didn’t know what it was to wet her hands, and it took her years to know the difference between a bucket and a dish-pan. But the past is past, and she can’t

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bear to have it mentioned. As I was saying, she does her duty, and treats Uncle Mike’s wife as if she were her equal. She never makes the slightest difference between her and me, but her heart’s palpitating all the time.”