Battling the Clouds Part 9

With a bitter feeling of disappointment and shame, Frank took the proffered twenty-five dollars, after a long wrangle had convinced him that there was positively no more to be wrung from the p.a.w.nshop man. He left the shop with dragging feet, half inclined to go back and throw down the money with a demand for his watch. But the thought of Jardin deterred him. As he went out he could see the man leaning into the window where he rearranged the group of watches already displayed there, and placed the watch, Frank's beautiful watch, in the place of honor on a purple velvet cushion in the center.

Two weeks pa.s.sed, and one day remained before the boys were to start to school. Frank finally heard from Horace Jardin. Horace urged him again to collect what he termed a "_wad_," a.s.suring him that life would be really terrible without a lot of money. Also he hinted darkly of something very surprising that he would have to tell later. That it only concerned Jardin himself Frank did not question, as Jardin was never interested in anything concerning other people except as it had some bearing on himself in one way or another.

Money--money! Frank thought of nothing else. Then, as though it had been a terrible unseen monster waiting to spring on the boy, his temptation leaped upon him.

Temptation only attacks the weak. If we allow ourselves to harbor unworthy or wicked thoughts, if we pave the way with wicked and unworthy deeds, temptation has an easy time. Temptation is like a big bully. He does not like to be laughed off, or to be scorned. He prefers to be parleyed with. Then there is always a good chance for him. Better still, he prefers to dash up to the weak and sinning, and say hurriedly, "Here: quick, quick! Here's the easy way out! It's the _only_ way out! Just you tell this lie, disobey your parents, or take this money. It isn't stealing, you know, because you mean to put it back as soon as you can and everything will be all right."

That is the way temptation talks, and on that last day before the boys started off to school Frank listened.

He was over at Bill's quarters, in B2, when the telephone rang. Now there are just two telephones to each building at the School of Fire, one upstairs and one down. They are wall phones, fastened on the outside of the buildings, midway of the porch that runs the whole length. When the bell rings, whoever is nearest answers and calls the person who is wanted. So Frank, standing in Bill's doorway and close to the phone, stepped out and took down the receiver. While he waited for an answer, he leaned his elbow on the sill of the window beside him and idly scanned the confusion of papers on the big desk shoved close to the sill inside. A strong wind fluttered the papers.

Frank, waiting on a dead line, stared at the desk and his eyes grew wild. Down at the end of the porch a grey-haired Colonel sat with his eyes glued to the _Army and Navy Journal_. He was reading about a proposed increase in pay, and he had no interest in small boys. Across the sandy s.p.a.ce on the porch of the opposite quarters two ladies sat embroidering.

In the Sherman quarters, he could hear Mrs. Sherman and Bill and Lee talking as they finished packing Bill's trunk.

No one noticed Frank. No one saw what he did next, so stealthily and rapidly. But in a moment he put the receiver down on the shelf, hurried to the Shermans' door, and called for Lee.

"Someone wants you on the phone," Frank said, and as Lee hurried out, Frank sat down on the door sill and whistled shrilly to the Shermans'

Airdale, who was trying to chum with the pretty ladies across the way.

They looked up, saw Lee at the phone but did not see Frank who had dodged inside the door. The Colonel looked up from his paper, scowling.

He laid the whistle to Lee and glared.

Lee called "h.e.l.lo!" half a dozen times. He too leaned on the sill of the open window. No one answering the phone, he hung up and went back to the packing.

And the next morning, Bill and Frank, feeling fearfully overdressed in new suits, and bearing spotless shiny yellow suitcases, stood on the train waving to two rather damp looking mothers and two fathers who stood up almost _too_ straight, and started away on their long journey.

Lee did not wave at them. The half of Lee that was Indian was afraid that the half that was white would look too sorry and lonesome if he stood on the platform watching the two small figures waving on the train while a friendly porter clutched a shoulder of each. So Lee stayed in the machine and listened as the train pulled out, and felt very blue and lonesome, and fell to planning how he would ask for a furlough and go shoot some wildcats to make rugs for Bill's room. And he wondered how soon the boys would look inside their suitcases. Lee had opened both those suitcases!

The boys, wildly excited over the charm and novelty of travelling alone, went to their seats and gravely studied the flat bleakness of Oklahoma.

As yet they had no regrets at leaving the Post, although Bill felt rather low whenever he thought of his mother. Her picture, as radiant and lovely as any of the girls who came visiting on the Post, he had pasted on the dial of his wrist watch, the Major helping. They had had lots of fun doing it, the Major pretending to be awfully jealous. But when the picture was fastened safely on the dial, it was the Major, who was something of an artist, who got out his color-kit and delicately tinted the lovely features until the cut-out snapshot looked rare and lovely as a portrait painted right on the watch. Then he carefully fastened the crystal, and Frank slipped it on his wrist, more than pleased.

"In old times," said the Major, washing his brushes in the tumbler of water, "the knights always wore a ribbon or a glove belonging to the lady they loved the best. They did not hide their keepsakes in their inside pockets but bound them boldly on their helmets, to remind themselves that they must be loyal, faithful, fearless, brave and true for her sake, and to show all who cared to look that they were proud to do their best for one so fair. No doubt there were dark days and hard times when they needed every ounce of support and encouragement they could get.

"You will find it so, old man. I can't help you, but," he gently touched the watch, "_she_ will, always. You know it, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, I do!" said Bill, looking down on the smiling face.

"Then you don't need another word from me, son," said the Major. They were alone. He bent and kissed the boy on the cheek. Then he smiled.

"That is allowable between men, you know, son, on the eve of battle. Put up a good fight." He left the room, and something that was part promise and part prayer went up from his soul.

"I _will_ put up a good fight!" he whispered.

Frank had spent his last evening alone, a throng of distressful thoughts crowding in on him. His father was on some official business in town and his mother had not thought it necessary to break her weekly engagement with her bridge club. Frank wandered over to the hangars but he missed Lem and Chauncey and soon returned home. He was greatly excited over the coming trip, and had other and most serious reasons for wishing to go away. So many unpleasant thoughts crowded upon him that it was not until ten o'clock that he happened to think of his watch, still in Lawton at the p.a.w.nshop. He had not redeemed it, and the twenty-five dollars reposed in the bottom of his kit bag, in an envelope that had thread wound around it.

He reflected that he could send the money and his ticket back to the p.a.w.nshop man, for it was too late to take the trip to town. His parents were apt to return at any time. They did not come very soon, however, and Frank went to bed, a lonely, unhappy and sinning boy.

The boys had so much to look at that for awhile they were quite silent.

Then Bill remembered something.

"Say!" he suddenly exclaimed. "We are having the deuce of a time at the school. Right in our quarters, too. Did you hear?"

"No," said Frank, still staring out. "What was it?"

"Somebody stole six hundred dollars from Captain Jennings next door to us. It was money he had to pay the Battery, and it is gone. There is an awful fuss about it."

"Will they arrest him?" asked Frank.

"Why, no; they won't do that, of course. He didn't steal it from _himself_, and Dad says he has money besides what he gets as captain, but I don't suppose he likes the idea of making it good. There is going to be an _awful_ fuss about it."

"Did he lose it out of his pocket?" asked Frank.

"No; that's the funny part," said Bill. "He had it on his desk in his study, under a paperweight, in an envelope, and that's the last he ever saw of it. Oh, there will be an _awful_ fuss over it! Whoever took it will go to Leavenworth for so many years that he will have a good chance to be sorry about it. It is an awful thing."

"Do they suspect anyone?" asked Frank.

"I didn't hear anything this morning," said Bill. "We left too early.

But there will be an awful fuss. Why, it is an _awful_ thing, you know.

I didn't know there was anyone over there low enough to steal. It makes me feel kind of queer!"

CHAPTER VIII

The day pa.s.sed rapidly. The boys were the first in the dining-car when a meal was announced, and be it said they were almost the last to leave.

They had been provided with plenty of money for "eats," as the two Major-fathers wisely remembered that a boy is never so hungry as when travelling. Also their section was the first one made up. They were tired, and sleepy.

They tossed up to see which should take the upper berth, both boys wanting it, and Frank won.

They spread their suitcases out on Bill's bed to open them, then Frank decided to take his up with him and climbed up into his lofty berth while Bill boosted and lifted the suitcase after him. Bill had packed his own suitcase for the first time, and his mother had smiled as she saw him carefully plant his pajamas on the very bottom. She said nothing, however, as she knew that another time he would lay them on the top where he could get them without any trouble. Frank had done the same thing, so for a little there was silence as the boys spread everything on the beds in a wild effort to locate the missing garments. At last they were found, and the suitcases repacked, hair brushes and tooth paste being salvaged as they went.

As Bill slipped into his pajama coat something p.r.i.c.ked him. The pocket was pinned together with a large, rusty pin. He drew it out and from the pocket took a folded envelope.

"What in time is this?" he murmured to himself, then smiled as he reflected that it must be a little love letter from his mother. He winked mischievously at her picture on his wrist as he tore open the envelope. But there was no letter from mother in the envelope. Instead it was stuffed with perfectly new, crisp five-dollar bills. There were twenty of them. Twenty! Bill counted them twice. Then still disbelieving his eyes, he laid the beautiful green engravings all over his sheet and counted them one by one with his forefinger. Twenty! He noticed a small piece of paper in the envelope and examined it. It read briefly:

"BILL:

"i looked all over Lawton for sumething nise for you to take to school. So please spend this on something you like. I will tell your mother what I done so she wont kick. Anyhow I aint afraid of her kicking ever since the day i broke her big gla.s.s dish that you said was cut. It cut me all right, but she never said a word, and I bet she wont now when i explane. So remember when this you see, remember Lee. That is some poetry partly mine and partly out of a book. If I had kept at school the way I should of, I could have made the whole piece up myself. Rite soon to yours as ever,

"LEE."

Bill gasped. Then he gathered the precious money tight in his hand and standing on the edge of his berth, hoisted himself up to Frank's level.

"Glue your eye to this!" he whispered loudly over the racket of the train. "Gee, have you got the same?"

At the sound of Bill's voice, Frank, who was staring at a handful of bills, started violently, then forced a rather shaky smile.