The Mark of the Knife Part 16

CHAPTER XIII

DAYS OF PLEASURE

The holiday migration from Ridgley School began six days before Christmas. Within a few hours the dormitories on the hill, which for months had resounded to the sound of voices, suddenly became silent and almost deserted; a few members of the school lingered and half a dozen of the faculty remained to spend a part or all of the vacation on the hill, but the great majority set forth to the four quarters of the wind.

Among those who took the morning train on that day of great exodus were Neil Durant and Teeny-bits Holbrook. Within three hours, as the engine dragged its load westward, the Ridgleyites who at the start had crowded two cars had diminished in number to no more than a score. Every large station along the way claimed two or three and as they left they shouted back farewells and, loaded down with suitcases, went out to greet the friends and relatives who had come to meet them. They all had a word for Neil Durant and Teeny-bits--a special word it seemed--for there was no question that recent events had ripened the friendships and enhanced the popularity of these two members of "the best school in the world."

What happiness this was, Teeny-bits said to himself, to be going on a vacation with a fellow like Neil Durant and to have evidence at every moment of the friendship of such a "good crowd" as these fellows who were piling off the train and yelling out their good-bys. It all made him feel how much the last three months had brought into his life, how much he owed to the generosity of old Fennimore Ridgley who, though long ago laid to rest in his grave, had made it possible by his gift for Teeny-bits to come to Ridgley School.

At two o'clock the train pulled into the station of Dellsport where Teeny-bits and Neil said good-by to the half dozen of their schoolmates who were going farther west. They found waiting for them in a closed car Mrs. Durant and Sylvia Durant, Neil's sister, who immediately made Teeny-bits feel at ease by talking about school affairs. It had been a tremendous disappointment, it seemed, to both Mrs. Durant and Sylvia that they had been unable to come to the football game which had resulted so gloriously for Ridgley.

"If it hadn't been for the influenza," said Sylvia, "you would have heard some terrible shrieking on the day of that game--I know I'd have yelled loud enough so that every one would have heard me, because there was nothing in the world that I wanted quite so much as to have Ridgley come through. And when we got Neil's telegram maybe I didn't make the windows rattle! And mother _almost_ yelled, too."

"We had a terrible quarrel over the newspaper the next day," said Mrs.

Durant, "and I finally compromised by letting Sylvia read the whole story aloud, so we know just what happened and how one of you evened the score at the crucial moment and how the other fellow carried the ball across at the end of the game."

Almost before Teeny-bits realized it he was talking to these two pleasant persons as if he had known them all his life.

"I want you to act just as if this were your own home," said Mrs. Durant when she had led the way into the Durant house on Bennington Street. "I shall have to call you Teeny-bits--and I hope you won't mind--because Neil has always spoken of you that way in his letters and 'Mr. Holbrook'

_would_ sound formal, wouldn't it?"

"It would make me feel like a stick of wood," said Teeny-bits. "I don't think any one ever called me that in my life. I've just been Teeny-bits and I guess I always shall be."

But Teeny-bits Holbrook could not help contrasting this luxurious home where every reasonable comfort was in evidence, where there were fireplaces and soft rugs and rich paintings, with his own poor little home in Hamilton where Ma Holbrook did the work and with her own hands kept everything shining and clean.

For six days he lived a life that he had never lived before. They skated at the country club where the new ice had formed over an artificial pond, drove out in the car over frozen roads to Waygonack Inn for dinner and danced in the evening, went to the theater and "took in", as Sylvia called it, two or three parties that were important incidents of the holiday festivities at Dellsport. Everywhere they encountered jolly crowds of young fellows and girls.

"Every one seems to fall for you, Teeny-bits," said Neil to the new captain of the Ridgley team one day, "and they all call you by your nickname. If you stayed round here very long you'd have them all wearing a path to our front door."

"You know why it is," replied Teeny-bits, "it's because I'm a friend of _yours_."

"You're off the track," said Neil, "you're _wild_, man. You've got a way with you without knowing it, and as for the girls around here--oh, my heavens!"

"I never realized before what an awful kidder you are, but anyhow I know I'm having the time of my life," said Teeny-bits.

But in spite of the gayety, Teeny-bits thought often of Ma Holbrook and old Dad Holbrook who for the first time in many years were spending Christmas alone. Early in the week he went down to the Dellsport shops with Neil and selected presents which he thought would please them both.

On the day before Christmas, Major-General Durant, who had been attending a conference in Washington, came home. Teeny-bits had expected to stand in awe before this high official of the United States Army; he was therefore somewhat surprised to find him a genial, easy-to-talk-to man who took obvious delight in getting back to the freedom and informality of his home. He was full of stories and keenly interested in Ridgley School affairs. He himself was the most prominent alumnus of Ridgley and had many an incident to tell Neil and Teeny-bits about the days when he himself had played on the football team.

Christmas pa.s.sed all too quickly. The Durants celebrated it in the good, old-fashioned manner with a big tree in the living room where a roaring fire of logs sent myriads of sparks leaping up the chimney. There were gifts from all the family to Teeny-bits and not the least appreciated of the presents that came to the visitor was a pair of fur-lined gloves from Ma and Pa Holbrook, just such a pair as they would select,--warm and substantial.

Sylvia Durant seemed to have a way of understanding what a person was thinking about. "Isn't that a good present!" she said. "They're so warm and comfortable feeling. They'll be just what you'll need for the winter sports up at the Norris place."

There was not so great a difference after all, Teeny-bits said to himself, between this Christmas and other Christmases; though the surroundings were different, the same genial, kindly spirit brooded over this luxurious home in Dellsport as always brooded at Christmas time over the humble home in Hamilton. He could shut his eyes and imagine that Ma and Pa Holbrook were in the room taking it all in and looking about them with beaming faces.

And then it was all over. On the morning after Christmas Major-General Durant went back to Washington and Mrs. Durant and Sylvia went with him to spend the rest of the holidays in the Capitol City.

Neil and Teeny-bits, having seen them off, prepared to start northward to the Norris place in the Whiteface Mountains. Teeny-bits felt none too glad to leave the Durant home; those six days had been filled to overflowing with happiness.

"You're coming again," Sylvia had said, and when Teeny-bits had replied, "I hope so," she had added, "Why, of course you are. Every one wants you to."

It was a four-hour run by train to Sheridan and an hour by sleigh to the Norris cabin at Poca.s.sett, a little settlement of camps and cottages at the foot of the Whiteface range of mountains. In the early afternoon Neil and Teeny-bits had arrived in the snow-covered country and were receiving the greetings of their Jefferson School friends. Ted Norris had driven down to the station to meet them in a two-seated sleigh and had brought with him Whipple, whom both Teeny-bits and Neil remembered as the Jefferson punter.

"How do you fellows feel--pretty husky?" asked Norris as they were going back toward the mountains. "Some of the crowd up at the camp want to tramp over the range on snowshoes to-night if it's clear and I didn't know but what we'd join them."

"That sounds good to me," declared Neil. "Teeny-bits and I have been leading the social life down in Dellsport and we're all fed up with parties and so on."

"Sounds good to me, too," said Teeny-bits, although he had to admit to himself that he wasn't exactly "fed up" with the good time in Dellsport.

The Norris place was a cabin built of spruce logs with an immense stone fireplace at one end of a long living room,--a comfortable backwoods place where one felt very close to the out-of-doors. Here the new arrivals found awaiting them Phillips, another member of the Jefferson eleven, and an athletic looking middle-aged man whom Norris introduced as his uncle, Wolcott Norris. There was no one else at the cabin except Peter Kearns, the cook and helper.

"It's all fixed up for to-night," said the older Norris; "we're going up the gulf and over the shoulder of Whiteface and then down to the Cliff House, where a sleigh will meet us and bring us back."

That evening tramp over the slopes of Whiteface Mountain was the beginning of a wonderful series of winter sports at Poca.s.sett. The party that made the climb consisted of the six from the Norris place and twice as many more from other cabins and cottages that nestled in the snow at the foot of the mountains. While the growing moon hung overhead and shed its silver radiance over the white world, the snowsh.o.e.rs climbed the gulf by way of a trail that led among spruces and hemlocks, then up and out to the great, bare shoulder of the mountain. Gaining the ridge, they crossed and went plunging, sliding and leaping down in the soft snow that clothed the farther slope. It was a night to make one's blood run fast, and the whole crowd came back to the settlement at Poca.s.sett in high spirits. The days that followed were filled with similar sports,--skating where the snow had been cleared from the surface of the Poca.s.sett River, snowshoeing in all directions over the hills, fishing through the ice at Lonesome Lake and Wolf Pond and, on one or two nights, get-togethers with the crowd of young people who were occupying other camps near by.

Teeny-bits soon discovered that the vigorous, middle-aged man who had been introduced to him that first day as Ted Norris' uncle was in reality taking the place of the Jefferson football captain's father, who had died several years before. It seemed to him that here was the most intensely interesting man he had ever met. He was a mining engineer, and from little things that were said now and then it was evident that there was scarcely a quarter of the world into which he had not penetrated. A casual remark about India aided by a question or two from Phillips and Neil Durant brought forth a story of a trip into the jungles of that distant country; at another time the sight of a bare mountain-side called forth reference to a snow-covered range in China and led to interesting details of life in the Far East.

"Sometime you will have to take us on a trip to j.a.pan or China or India or somewhere," said Ted Norris one night when the six of them were at supper.

"Well," said the mining engineer, "I'd like to do it. Who knows, perhaps sometime I can."

Teeny-bits Holbrook would have liked nothing better than to "pump" this man who had traveled so much, for he found stories of far lands intensely interesting, and when the first mishap of the vacation occurred he was somewhat envious of the victim, to whom it opened up an opportunity for closer acquaintance. On Thursday Neil Durant, in trying out a pair of skis on a steep slope behind the camp, crashed into a thicket of young pine trees and, although he came through with a grin on his face, he discovered that he had sprained his ankle and would not be able to join the crowd on the ski party that had been planned for Thursday evening. Wolcott Norris announced at supper that he also would stay behind; and thus it happened that the former captain of the Ridgley team sat with his bandaged ankle propped up on a chair in front of the fireplace while Wolcott Norris settled back comfortably to enjoy an evening of conversation. They talked about many things--travel, business, college and sports--before the subject got around to the Ridgley-Jefferson game.

"You know I was there," said the mining engineer, "and I don't think I ever spent a more interesting two hours. You fellows certainly had the game developed to a fine point and though of course I, as an old Jefferson boy, was yelling hard for the purple, I couldn't help handing you chaps a bit when you came through. And your friend Teeny-bits--now that I know him--measures up to the idea of what he was like, which I got from watching him play."

"Yes," said Neil, "he comes through--you can always count on him. Every one down at school fell for him from the start, partly, I suppose, because he was different from most of the fellows and then, of course, because he made good. Certain things about him attracted attention before he'd been in school very long."

"What things?"

"Well," said Neil, "a lot of things--one is the knife mark on his back."

"The what?" asked Wolcott Norris.

"Why a sort of birthmark that looks like a knife."

The mining engineer had been looking into the embers of the fire rather dreamily and talking in a low tone to Neil. He now half turned round and said in a voice that showed more than casual interest, "Tell me about it. It sounds interesting."

"Well," said Neil, "it's a mark, sort of brick colored, on his shoulder, that looks exactly like a knife or a dagger. I noticed it one day in the shower-bath room when Teeny-bits first came out for the football team."

"Has he always had it?"

"Yes, I guess so. I suppose it's just chance--the shape of it, but it is such an unusual looking thing that the fellows got interested in him and then of course there was the story about his mother being killed in a railroad wreck. That got around school some way; Teeny-bits himself told it, I think; so there isn't any harm in my repeating it. Some mighty nice people in Hamilton picked him up after a train accident which killed his mother and took him home. They finally adopted him, and gave him their name when they weren't able to find any of his relatives, and of course the mystery of that made the fellows all the more interested in him."

While the former captain of the Ridgley team had been saying these words the mining engineer had looked at him with an intentness that Neil had attributed to the fact that Teeny-bits' story was as interesting to him as it had been to the sons of Ridgley.

"You said that it was his mother who was killed in the railroad accident?"

"Yes," replied Neil, "I guess they never found out what her name was.

That seems pretty horrible, but the Holbrooks, who adopted Teeny-bits, are mighty fine people. Daniel Holbrook is the station agent at Hamilton."