CHAPTER II.
THE PARIAH.
The other boy saw him and halted, staring at him, astonishment andincredulity on his face. In that moment he was speechless with thesurprise of this meeting.
Ben returned the look, but there was in his eyes the expressionsometimes seen in those of a hunted animal.
The boys at a distance continued kicking the football about andpursuing it, but those nearer paused and watched the two lads, seemingto realize in a moment that something was wrong.
It was Roger Eliot who broke the silence. “What’s the matter, Hayden?”he asked. “Do you know Stone?”
The parted lips of Bernard Hayden were suddenly closed and curved in asneer. When they parted again, a short, unpleasant laugh came from them.
“Do I know him!” he exclaimed, with the utmost disdain. “I should say Ido! What’s he doing here?”
“He’s attending the academy. He looks to me like he might have goodstuff in him, so I asked him out for practice.”
“Good stuff!” cried Hayden scornfully. “Good stuff in that fellow?Well, it’s plain that you don’t know him, Eliot!”
The boys drew nearer and gathered about, eager to hear what was tofollow, seeing immediately that something unusual was transpiring.
Not a word came from Ben Stone’s lips, but the sickly pallor stillclung to his uncomely face, and in his bosom his heart lay like aleaden weight. He had heard the boys in the gymnasium talking of“Bern,” but not for an instant had he fancied they were speaking ofBernard Hayden, his bitterest enemy, whom he felt had brought on himthe great trouble and disgrace of his life.
He had come from the gymnasium and onto the football field feeling hisheart exulting with a new-found pleasure in life; and now this boy,whom he had believed so far away, whom he had hoped never again to see,rose before him to push aside the happiness almost within his grasp.The shock of it had robbed him of his self-assertion and reliance, andhe felt himself cowering weakly, with an overpowering dread upon him.
Roger Eliot was disturbed, and his curiosity was aroused. The otherboys were curious, too, and they pressed still nearer, that they mightnot miss a word. It was Eliot who asked:
“How do you happen to know him, Hayden?”
“He lived in Farmington, where I came from when we moved here—before heran away,” was the answer.
“Before he ran away?” echoed Roger.
“Yes; to escape being sent to the reformatory.”
Some of the boys muttered, “Oh!” and “Ah!” and one of them said, “Helooks it!” Those close to Stone drew off a bit, as if there wascontamination in the air. Immediately they regarded him with disdainand aversion, and he looked in vain for one sympathetic face. EvenRoger Eliot’s grave features had hardened, and he made no effort toconceal his displeasure.
Sudden rage and desperation seemed to swell Ben’s heart to the point ofbursting. The pallor left his face; it flushed, and from crimson itturned to purple. He felt a fearful desire to leap upon his enemy,throttle him, strike him down, trample out his life, and silence himforever. His eyes glared, and the expression on his face was soterrible that one or two of the boys muttered their alarm and drew offyet farther.
“He’s going to fight!” whispered Spotty Davis, the words coming with awhistling sound through his missing teeth.
Ben heard this, and immediately another change came upon him. Hishands, which had been clenched and half-lifted, opened and fell at hissides. He bowed his head, and his air was that of utter dejection andhopelessness.
Bern Hayden observed every change, and now he laughed shortly,cuttingly. “You see, he doesn’t deny it, Eliot,” he said. “He can’tdeny it. If he did, I could produce proof. You’d need only to ask myfather.”
“I’m sorry to hear this,” said the captain of the eleven, although toBen it seemed there was no regret in his voice. “Of course we don’twant such a fellow on the team.”
“I should say not! If you took him, you couldn’t keep me. I wouldn’tplay on the same team with the son of a jail-bird.”
“What’s that?” cried Roger. “Do you mean to say his father——”
“Why, you’ve all heard of old Abner Stone, who was sent to prison forcounterfeiting, and who was shot while trying to escape.”
“Was that his father?”
“That was his father. Oh, he comes of a fine family! And he has thegall to come here among decent fellows—to try to attend the academyhere! Wait till my father hears of this! He’ll have something to sayabout it. Father was going to send him to the reformatory once, and hemay do it yet.”
Roger’s mind seemed made up now. “You know where my locker is, Stone,”he said. “You can leave there the stuff I loaned you.”
For a moment it seemed that the accused boy was about to speak. Helifted his head once more and looked around, but the disdainful andrepellant faces he saw about him checked the words, and he turneddespairingly away. As he walked slowly toward the gate, he heard thehateful voice of Bern Hayden saying:
“Better watch him, Eliot; he may steal those things.”
The world had been bright and beautiful and flooded with sunshine ashort time before; now it was dark and cold and gloomy, and the sun wassunk behind a heavy cloud. Even the trees outside the gate seemed toshrink from him, and the wind came and whispered his shame amid theleaves. Like one in a trance, he stumbled into the deserted gymnasiumand sat alone and wretched on Roger Eliot’s locker, fumbling numbly atthe knotted shoestrings.
“It’s all over!” he whispered to himself. “There is no chance for me!I’ll have to give up!”
After this he sat quite still, staring straight ahead before him witheyes that saw nothing. Full five minutes he spent in this manner. Thesound of boyish voices calling faintly one to another on the footballfield broke the painful spell.
They were out there enjoying their sport and football practice, whileBen found himself alone, shunned, scorned, outcast. He seemed to seethem gather about Hayden while Bern told the whole shameful story ofthe disgrace of the boy he hated. The whole story?—no, Ben knew hisenemy would not tell it all. There were some things—one inparticular—he would conveniently forget to mention; but he would notfail to paint in blackest colors the character of the lad he despised.
Once Ben partly started up, thinking to hasten back to the field anddefend his reputation against the attacks of his enemy; but almostimmediately he sank down with a groan, well knowing such an effort onhis part would be worse than useless. He was a stranger in Oakdale,unknown and friendless, while Hayden was well known there, andapparently popular among the boys. To go out there and face Haydenwould earn for the accused lad only jeers and scorn and greaterhumiliation.
“It’s all up with me here,” muttered the wretched fellow, stillfumbling with his shoestrings and making no progress. “I can’t stay inthe school; I’ll have to leave. If I’d known—if I’d even dreamed Haydenwas here—I’d never come. I’ve never heard anything from Farmingtonsince the night I ran away. I supposed Hayden was living there still.How does it happen that he is here? It was just my miserable fortune tofind him here, that’s all! I was born under an unlucky star.”
All his beautiful castles had crumbled to ruins. He was bowed beneaththe weight of his despair and hopelessness. Then, of a sudden, fearseized him and held him fast.
Bern Hayden had told the boys on the football field that once hisfather was ready to send Stone to the reformatory, which was true. Toescape this fate, Ben had fled in the night from Farmington, the placeof his birth. Nearly two years had passed, but he believed LemuelHayden to be a persistent and vindictive man; and, having found thefugitive, that man might reattempt to carry out his once-baffledpurpose.
Ben thrust his thick middle finger beneath the shoestrings and snappedthem with a jerk. He almost tore off Eliot’s football clothes and flunghimself into his own shabby garments.
“I won’t stay and be sent to the ref
orm school!” he panted. “I’d alwaysfeel the brand of it upon me. If others who did not know me could notsee the brand, I’d feel it, just as I feel——” He lifted his hand, andhis fingers touched his mutilated left ear.
A few moments later he left the gymnasium, walking out hurriedly, thatfeeling of fear still accompanying him. Passing the corner of the highboard fence that surrounded the football field, his eyes involuntarilysought the open gate, through which he saw for a moment, as he hastenedalong, a bunch of boys bent over and packed together, saw a suddenmovement as the football was passed, and then beheld them rush forwarda short distance. They were practicing certain plays and formations.Among them he caught a glimpse of the supple figure of Bern Hayden.
“I’d be there now, only for you!” was Ben’s bitter thought, as hehastened down the road.
Behind him, far beyond Turkey Hill, the black clouds lay banked in thewest. They had smothered the sun, which could show its face no moreuntil another day. The woods were dark and still, while harsh shadowswere creeping nearer from the distant pastures where cowbells tinkled.In the grass by the roadside crickets cried lonesomely.
It was not cold, but Ben shivered and drew his poor coat about him.Besides the fear of being sent to a reformatory, the one thought thatcrushed him was that he was doomed forever to be unlike other boys, tohave no friends, no companions—to be a pariah.
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