Harry Watson's High School Days Part 10

"Do you want to have the boy taken up for this, Jed?" finally asked Mr.

Martin.

"No. I don't want to bring trouble to anyone, but I'm not going to have the house burnt over my head without getting some return. I want to find Pud Snooks and ask him some questions, and then I want to have a talk with his father."

"You're a sensible man, Jed," declared Mr. Martin. "Just come along with me and we will go find Pud's father. Come, Harry! Come, Paul."

Without more words Mr. Martin turned on his heel, and led the way up the street, several of the more curious among the crowd tagging at his heels.

CHAPTER XI-"OLD GROUCH"

"I don't believe it was Pud who set fire to Mr. Brown's house,"

exclaimed Harry, as they walked along.

"Don't you s'pose I know him when I see him? I have good reason to!"

retorted the crippled veteran.

"What makes you think it wasn't he, Harry?" asked Mr. Martin.

"Because he was going on a sleigh ride with Socker Gales and some of the other boys and girls," returned Harry.

"But evidently he didn't go, for he was at the fire after it was burning fiercely," a.s.serted the venerable man. n.o.body knew the cause for the bully's remaining at home.

Stung deeply by the words Nettie had uttered when he had come up behind them when the two girls were walking home, Snooks had asked his father for some money that he might join his friends in driving to the Lake House at Cardell for the dance, only to be gruffly refused.

Angry at his father, his friends and himself, the bully had eaten his supper in sullen hastiness, and then left the house by the back way for the purpose of watching his friends depart on the sleigh ride. The route he took, however, led him past the house of the crippled veteran whom he hated so deeply, and the sight of it suggested to him that he might work off his ill-humor by playing some trick on old Jed.

Entering the shed, he lighted a match and was looking about the shop, when he had heard the crippled veteran opening the door of the kitchen, and, thinking only that he must escape, the boy had thrown the match on the floor and rushed to leave the shed. Instead of going out, the match had fallen into a pile of shavings, quickly igniting them, and the flames found ready food in the pieces of wood, oil-soaked leather and other odds and ends with which the shop was littered, and in a few moments had gained such headway that they were irresistible.

Such was the story which Mr. Martin and the bully's father extorted from the boy after they had questioned him closely in the presence of the crippled veteran for a half hour.

Though the fire was purely an accident, it was so evident that Pud had gone to his arch-enemy's house bent on mischief, that the butcher and Mr. Martin were at a loss how to proceed in the matter of meting out punishment; and as they sat in silence, pondering over the confession, it was Jed himself who solved the problem.

"Well, I'm glad you didn't come to the house with the intention of burning it, Pud," he exclaimed. "You and I know I hadn't occasion for being fond of you, but I'd hate to think there was any boy, or man either for that matter, in Rivertown who was so down on me that he would want to burn the roof over my head.

"Now, I've carried a bit of insurance on the place and I'm not going to live very much longer, so if--"

"Jed, I ain't liked you no better than my boy," interrupted the butcher, "but you've been so decent, and not asked me to punish Pud or send him away where they'll take care of him, that if it's agreeable to you I'll give you two hundred and fifty dollars. Pud, go get my check book."

"No need to bother about that to-night, Snooks. You can give me the money to-morrow," declared Jed. And with this understanding Mr. Martin and the crippled veteran took their departure.

Once they were outside, the village patriarch seized the hand of the crippled veteran and shook it heartily.

"Jed, you certainly are a man!" he exclaimed, feelingly. "But where will you go to live, now?"

Ere the old man could answer, Harry and Paul, who had been waiting outside the house, joined them just in time to hear Mr. Martin ask this question.

"If you'd care to, I should like to have you come around to our house!"

exclaimed Harry. "I know Aunt Mary would like it, and then as you're an old friend of dad's he'd want me to ask you."

"That would be just the thing," a.s.serted Mr. Martin, "and I don't doubt but that you can make arrangements to live at her house with Mary as long as you care to stay in Rivertown. I'll go and explain things."

Surprised at first, after the incidents of the evening had been made clear to her, Mrs. Watson readily agreed to board the veteran as long as he cared to remain; and after bidding them all a cordial good-night, Mr.

Martin and Paul went to their home.

Many were the glances that were cast at the bully and Harry when they appeared at the high school the following day, but no one had the temerity to speak to them about the incident of the fire, although there were many whispered conversations held in which the sympathy was entirely with the new student.

As Paul had said, the only lesson of importance the freshman cla.s.s were called upon to attend was the Latin, of which the crusty old Prof. Isaac Plummer, often called "Grouch" by the students, was instructor.

As the boys and girls filed into the cla.s.sroom, the professor, who was a little squat man, with a scrubby beard, so thin that one of the girls had said it was really an individual beard, glanced at them over the tops of his spectacles.

"There's no use asking any of you, I suppose, whether you have your lesson or not," he snapped, in a high-pitched, jerky voice. "The fire last night would have been a sufficient excuse, I suppose, even if it wasn't for the fact that you never do have your lesson anyway."

Then, his eyes resting on Harry, he exclaimed:

"What are you doing in here?"

"I came to recite, sir."

"Listen, the rest of you. Here's a boy who has come to recite. Do you, by any chance, happen to be a member of the Rivertown High School, or have you just dropped in like manna sent from Heaven to show the rest of these young idiots that it is possible for a child to know its Latin lesson? What's your name?"

"Harry Watson," stammered the boy, his face scarlet at the brusqueness of the Latin instructor's greeting.

"Where do you come from?"

"Lawrenceburgh, sir."

"Do you like Latin?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then that explains it. I don't wonder you left Lawrenceburgh. No man who cared for Latin would ever live there, let alone learn it in any of their schools. How far have you gone in Caesar?"

"Through the first two books."

"Indeed! I didn't suppose anyone ever got beyond the grammar in Lawrenceburgh. Suppose you start in at the beginning of the second book, which is our lesson to-day, and read as far as you can."

During this tirade many were the nudges in which the boys and girls indulged themselves; and Elmer and Pud had reveled in it, gleefully, believing that they were about to witness the discomfiture of the boy for whom they had conceived such a dislike.

But Harry was fond of Latin and was also well grounded in his fundamentals. Opening his book at the part indicated, he began to translate, and Prof. Plummer allowed him to finish two sections before he began to ask him questions on construction. But though he tried his best to confuse the boy, Harry did not get rattled, and acquitted himself creditably.

"Watson, I want you to come up here," the instructor exclaimed, when he had finished. "Let me shake hands with you. I'm glad to know there is one scholar in Rivertown High School who has even the faintest conception of the Latin fundamentals."

Blushing even more furiously than he had while he was being baited, Harry stood in his place uncertain whether the professor meant what he said or not, and hoping in his heart that he did not.

"Ah, you hesitate, I see," grinned Prof. Plummer, sardonically. "After you know me better you will know I never mean what I say. Never to my knowledge have I willingly had one of the pupils of Rivertown High School approach any nearer than you are now. Kindly remember that."