CHAPTER XI
GETTING ACQUAINTED
Pee Wee was the boy who first "took up" the chums from Clinton. The fatboy sat on the steps of the doctor's house, idly whistling and twiddlinghis fingers when Bobby and Fred came out. Perry Wise never stood whenhe could sit, and never walked when he could stand, and never ran whenwalking would get him to his goal just as well. He was the picture ofpeace just now.
"Hello, fellows!" he said.
"Hello!" returned Bobby.
"Is the Old Doc goin' to let you stay?" grinned the fat boy.
"Huh! why shouldn't he?" demanded Fred, quick to take offense.
"Cause you're so terrible green," chuckled Pee Wee. "They let the sheeploose sometimes to crop the lawn, and they might eat you."
"Aw--you're too smart," said the abashed Fred.
Bobby only laughed. He was glad to have his mind taken up by somethingbeside the fact of his father's going away.
"Say!" said Pee Wee, cordially. "Don't you want to look over theplace?"
"We'd be very glad to," admitted Bobby.
Pee Wee made no effort to rise at first. He merely bawled after anotherboy who was some distance away:
"Hey, Purdy! Don't you want to beau the greenhorns around?"
Fred Martin doubled his fist again and scowled at the placid fat boy,but Bobby warned him by a shake of the head. The boy addressed, who wassmaller than Pee Wee, but who was well out of his reach, turned and madea face at the fat boy, saying:
"Do your own work, Fatty. Don't try to put it off on me."
Pee Wee was quite unmoved by this rough retort. He looked around andhailed another lad:
"Jimmy Ailshine! come on and show the newsies all the lions, will you?"
"For why?" demanded the boy addressed.
"Aw--well--I have a stone bruise," explained Pee Wee, hesitatingly.
"You must have it from sitting so much, then," declared Jimmy, with aloud laugh. "You better take them around yourself, or the captain willbe after you."
"You needn't show us about if it is very, very painful," suggestedBobby, beginning to understand the fat boy now.
"Guess we can find our way around alone," grunted Fred.
"Aw well! we won't row about it," said Pee Wee, getting up slowly. "Butthat stone bruise--"
However, the trouble in question seemed, later, to be of a shiftingnature, for first Pee Wee favored his right foot and then his left.
It must be confessed that Perry Wise was a very lazy boy, but he was agood natured one, and when once the exploration party was started, heplayed the part of show-master very well indeed.
They went through the school rooms and up to the dormitories first. Inthe second dormitory, where the smaller boys slept, in a pair of twinbeds in one corner, Bobby and Fred were billeted.
"And no pillow fights, or other ructions, after 'lights out,' unless youask the captain first," warned Pee Wee.
"Seems to me this captain has a lot to say around here," growled Fred.
"You bet he has. And what he says he means. And it's not healthy foranybody to do a thing when he says '_don't_.'"
"Why not?" queried Master Fred.
Pee Wee grinned. "You try it if you like," he said. "Then you'll findout. Dr. Raymond says experience is the surest, if not the best,teacher."
The dormitory was a big, light room, cheerfully furnished, with a lockerbeside each bed for the boy's clothes and personal possessions, and achair at the head of the bed.
That wall-space over the heads of the beds was considered the privatepossession of each couple, for the flaunting of banners, photographs,strings of birds-eggs, shells, pine-cone frames, and a hundred otherobjects of virtu dear to boyish hearts.
"You see, we can hang up a lot of stuff, too, when our trunks come,"whispered Fred to Bobby, pointing to the blank spaces over their beds,lettered only with the names: "Blake" and "Martin."
"You can see clear across the lake from the window here," drawled PeeWee, lolling on a sill.
The chums came to see. Lake Monatook was spread before them--abeautiful, oval sheet of water, with steep, wooded banks in the east,and sloping yellow beaches of sand at the other end.
Where the Rockledge School stood, a steep sandstone cliff dropped rightdown to a narrow beach, more than fifty feet below. A strong,two-railed fence guarded the brink of this cliff the entire width of theschool premises, save where the stairs led down to the boat-house.
In the middle of the lake were several small islands, likewise wooded.The lake was quite ten miles long, and half as wide in its broadestpart.
Across from Rockledge School was the village of Belden. On a high bluffover there the new boys saw several red brick buildings among the trees.
"That's Belden School," explained Pee Wee. "We have to beat them atfootball this fall. We did them up at baseball in the spring. They'rea mean set of fellows anyway," added the fat boy. "Once they came acrosshere and stole all our boats. We'll have to get square with them forthat, some time."
"Come on," said Fred, who had begun to enjoy pushing the fat boy,now--knowing that he had been set the task of showing them around--andwas determined to keep their guide up to the mark. "We don't want tostay here till bedtime, do we?"
"Aw-right," returned Pee Wee, with a groan. "That's my bed next toyours, Blake. Mouser Pryde is chummed on me this year. We call himMouser because he brought two white mice with him to school when hefirst came.
"Shiner and Harry Moore have the beds on your other side. Shiner's thechap you saw down stairs--Jimmy Ailshine. He's a good fellow, butawfully lazy," remarked the fat boy, with a sigh.
"What do you call yourself?" demanded Fred, rather impolitely.
"Oh, _me_? I'm not well--honest. And that stone bruise--"
It was then he began to favor the other foot, and Bobby giggled. PeeWee looked at him solemnly. "What are you laughing at?" he asked.
Bobby pointed out that the stone bruise seemed to have shifted.
"Aw, well! it hurts so bad I feel it in both feet," returned the fatboy, grinning. "Come on."
They went down to the gymnasium. It was a dandy! Bobby and Fred sawthat it was a whole lot better than the one Mr. Priestly had for hisBoys' Club in the Church House at home.
Then they inspected the outside courts, the ball field, and the cindertrack--which was an oval, on the very verge of the cliff.
They met boys everywhere, and Pee Wee told them the names of some ofthem, while a few of about their own age stopped to speak to Bobby andFred.
Jack Jinks and the yellow-haired youth, Bill Bronson, came up to thetrio of smaller boys as they stood by the railing that defended thecliff's brink.
"So you're showing the greenies around, are you, Fatty?" proposed Jack."Shown them the stake where the Old Doctor ties up fresh kids and givesthem nine and thirty lashes if they as much as whisper in class?"
"Yes," said Pee Wee, nodding. "And I showed them the straps there where_you_ were tied up last term, Jinksey."
"Aw--smart, aren't you?" snarled the squint-eyed boy, while Bill Bronsongrinned.
"This red-headed chap's going to be a favorite--I can see that," saidBill, rolling the cap on Fred's head with one hand, but pressing hardenough to hurt.
"Let go of me!" cried Fred, hotly, jerking away.
"Don't you get too presumptuous, sonny," advised the yellow-hairedyouth. "There's lots of chance for you to get into trouble here."
"If I get into trouble with _you_," snapped Fred, "it won't all be onone side."
"Keep still, Fred!" said Bobby. "Let's come on away," and he tugged athis chum's sleeve.
"That's a pretty fresh kid, too," said Jack, eyeing Bobby with disfavor.
But the trio of younger boys withdrew. "Those fellows," said Pee Wee,"are always picking on fellows they think they can lick. If you don'ttoady to them, they'll treat you awfully mean!"
"I won't toady to anybody--not even
to that captain," declared Fred.
"What! Barry Gray?" cried Pee Wee, in surprise.
"Yes. I don't like him--much," confessed the belligerent Fred.
"You'll be dreadfully lonesome, then," chuckled the fat boy. "For 'mostevery fellow in the school likes Barry. He's captain of the baseballteam, and center in the football team. He can do anything, Barry can.And the Old Doctor thinks he is about right. He was next choice afterTommy Wardwell last year for the Medal of Honor, and he'll likely get itthis year."
"What's the Medal of Honor?" asked Fred, curiously.
Pee Wee grinned. "It's something that no red-headed boy ever won," hedeclared, mysteriously.