The Flag Part 2

January 12th.

Colonel Butler read the letter over slowly aloud, folded the subscription paper on which it had been written, and handed it to Aleck.

"There, young man," he said, "are your credentials, and my offer."

The shrieking whistle had already announced the approach of the train, and the easy puffing of the locomotive indicated that it was now standing at the station. The colonel rose from his chair and started across the room, followed by Aleck.

"You're very kind to do that," said the boy. And he added: "Have you a grip that I can carry to the train for you?"

"No, thank you! A certain act--rash perhaps, but justifiable,--in the civil war, cost me an arm. Since then, when traveling, I have found it convenient to check my baggage."

He pushed his way through the crowd on the platform, still followed by Aleck, and mounted the rear steps of the last coach on the train. The engine bell was ringing. The conductor cried, "All aboard!" and signalled to the engineer, and the train moved slowly out.

On the rear platform, scanning the crowd at the station, stood Colonel Butler, tall, soldierly, impressive. He saw Aleck and waved his hand to him. And at that moment, capless, breathless, hopeless, around the corner of the station into sight, dashed Pen Butler.

CHAPTER II

Pen was not only exhausted by his race, he was disappointed and distressed as well.

Whether or not his grandfather had seen him as the train moved out he did not know. He simply knew that for him not to have been there on time was little less than tragical. He dropped down limply on a convenient trunk to regain his breath.

After a minute he was aware that some one was standing near by, looking at him. He glanced up and saw that it was Aleck Sands. He was nettled. He knew of no reason why Aleck should stand there staring at him.

"Well," he asked impatiently, "is there anything about me that's particularly astonishing?"

"Not particularly," replied Aleck. "You seem to be winded, that's all."

"You'd be winded too, if you'd run all the way from Drake's Hill."

"Too bad you missed your grandfather. He was looking for you."

"How do you know?"

"He told me so. He wanted to know if I'd seen you."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you'd gone to Drake's Hill, coasting."

Pen rose slowly to his feet. What right, he asked himself, had this fellow to be telling tales about him? What right had he to be talking to Colonel Butler, anyway? However, he did not choose to lower his dignity further by inquiry. He turned as if to leave the station. But Aleck, who had been turning the matter over carefully in his mind, had decided that Pen ought to know about the proposed gift of the flag. He ought not to be permitted, unwittingly, to go on securing subscriptions to a fund which, by reason of Colonel Butler's proposed gift, had been made unnecessary. That would be cruel and humiliating.

So, as Pen turned away, he said to him:

"I've put in some work for the flag this afternoon."

"I s'pose so," responded Pen. "But it does not follow that by getting the first start you'll come out best in the end."

"Maybe not; but I'd like to show you what I've done."

He took the subscription paper from his pocket and began to unfold it.

"Oh," replied Pen, "I don't care what you've done. It's none of my business. You get your subscriptions and I'll get mine."

Aleck looked for a moment steadily at his opponent. Then he folded up his paper and put it back into his pocket.

"All right!" he said. "Only don't forget that I offered to show it to you to-day."

But Pen was both resentful and scornful. He did not propose to treat his rival's offer seriously, nor to give him the satisfaction of looking at his paper.

"You can't bluff me that way," he said. "And besides, I'm not interested in what you're doing."

And he walked around the corner of the station platform and out into the street.

When Aleck Sands tramped up the hill to school on the following morning it was with no great sense of jubilation over his success. He had an uneasy feeling that he had not done exactly the fair thing in soliciting a subscription from Pen Butler's grandfather. It was, in a way, trenching on Pen's preserves. But he justified himself on the ground that he had a perfect right to get his contributions where he chose. His agency had been conditioned by no territorial limits. And if, by his diligence, he had outwitted Pen, surely he had nothing to regret. So far as his failure to disclose to his rival the fact of Colonel Butler's gift was concerned, that, he felt, was Pen's own fault. If, by his offensive conduct, the other boy had deprived himself of his means of knowledge, and had humiliated himself and made himself ridiculous by procuring unnecessary subscriptions, certainly he, Aleck, was not to blame. Under any circ.u.mstances, now that he had gone so far in the matter, he would not yield an inch nor make a single concession. On that course he was fully determined.

On the walk, as he approached the school-house door, Pen was standing, with a group of Hill boys. They were discussing the accident that had occurred on Drake's Hill the day before. They paid little attention to Aleck as he pa.s.sed by them, but, just as he was mounting the steps, Pen called out to him.

"Oh, Aleck! You wanted to show me your subscription paper last night.

I'll look at it now, and you look at mine, and we'll leave it to the fellows here who's got the most names and the most money promised. And I haven't got my grandfather on it yet, either."

Aleck turned and faced him. "Remember what you said to me last night?"

he asked. "Well, I'll say the same thing to you this morning. I'm not interested in your paper. It's none of my business. You get your subscriptions and I'll get mine."

And he mounted the steps and entered the school-room.

Miss Grey was already at her desk, and he went straight to her.

"I've brought back my subscription blank, Miss Grey," he said, and he handed the paper to her.

She looked up in surprise.

"You haven't completed your canva.s.s, have you?" she asked.

"No. If you'll read the paper you'll see it wasn't necessary."

She unfolded the paper and read the letter written on it. Her face flushed; but whether with astonishment or anxiety it would have been difficult to say.

"Did Colonel Butler know," she inquired, "when he wrote this, that Pen also had a subscription paper?"

"Yes. I met him at the station last night, when he was starting for New York, and I told him all about it."

"Was Pen there?"

"No; he didn't get there till after the train started."