CHAPTER XV.
WHEN A GRANT FIGHTS.
Rod Grant appeared at school the following day apparently none theworse for his unpleasant experience. Ben Stone congratulated him on hisescape, but his distant and repellant air held the other boys aloof, ifany of them were disposed to make advances.
As soon as he had concluded a hasty supper that night, Stone set outfor the home of Priscilla Kent. Following the dark footpath upon whichGrant had been ambushed by the hazers, Ben reached the lonely littlecottage and knocked at the door.
Miss Priscilla Kent answered the summons, a lamp in her hand and herpet monkey perched upon her shoulder. As she opened the door the callerwas startled to hear a harsh voice within the house crying:
“Up with the anchor! Heave ho! Shake out another reef! Salt horse formess! Kill the cook! Kill the cook!”
“I beg your pardon,” said the spinster in a surprisingly mild andgentle tone of voice; “it’s only my parrot. I got him from an old seacaptain.”
“Oh!” said Ben, plainly relieved. “I didn’t know. I thought——”
“Some one was being murdered, I s’pose,” smiled Miss Kent. “Livingalone, as I have, my pets have served as company. Won’t you step in?”
Was this mild, fragile, gentle woman the person all Oakdale declaredcracked in the upper story? Ben wondered; and then he rememberedhearing it said that she was afflicted only at intervals.
“My name is Stone,” he explained. “I’m a scholar at the academy, and Ithought I’d call on Grant.”
“You’re the first caller he’s had. I think he’ll be s’prised to seeyou.”
A door opened at the head of the stairs, and Grant appeared in thelight that shone from a room beyond.
“Who is it, aunt?” he asked.
“A caller to see you, Rodney. He says his name is Stone.”
“Oh, Ben!” exclaimed Rod, in apparent wonderment. “Is that you, Ben?Come up.”
“All right,” said Stone, starting to mount the stairs as Miss Priscillaclosed the door.
“You’re off your course, you lubber!” squawked the parrot. “Salt horsefor mess! Kill the cook!”
“Polly is very noisy to-night,” remarked the spinster apologetically.
Involuntarily Stone dodged as something went darting past him up thebalustrade. Then he laughed a bit, beholding the monkey perched on thenewel post at the head of the stairs.
“Come down, Nero! Come back here, sir!” called Miss Priscilla. “Hewants to get inter your room, Rodney.”
“And tear up my books and papers again,” laughed Grant. “Chaseyourself, you Roman emperor!”
The monkey dodged, chattered, and slid tauntingly down the balustrade.
“He’s a lively rascal and sure plumb full of mischief,” said Rod. “Comeinto my den, Ben. Hardly expected to receive a caller here to-night—orany other time.”
The room was small but comfortable, being warmed by a tiny air-tightstove. Two Navajo rugs brightened the old-fashioned rag carpet on thefloor, and there were some pictures on the walls which plainly had beenhung there by Grant himself. An old oak bedstead took up considerablespace, although it had been set as far back as possible in a corner. Ona table, bearing a shaded lamp, were books and papers and some playingcards carefully laid out face upward in a series of small piles. Achair stood where Rod had pushed it back from the table on hearing someone at the door.
“Just amusing myself for a few moments with a little game ofsolitaire,” explained the boy from Texas, observing the visitor glancetoward the cards. “Have to do something to pass away the time, youknow. Have the easy chair, won’t you?”
“I—I’m not going to stop long,” faltered Ben. “The other chair will dojust as well.”
But Rod laughingly forced him to take the easy chair. “If you’recomfortable, perhaps you won’t be in such a great hurry. It’s a sureenough novelty for me to receive a visitor, and you’ve got me wonderinga plenty how you chanced to come round.”
“I wanted to see you,” said Ben slowly. “I wanted to have a talk withyou, Rod.”
“Well, we can talk ourselves black in the face, and nobody to bother.Go ahead and string it off.”
“You were lucky to escape being drowned last night.”
“Sure thing. I reckon I’d gone under right there if it hadn’t been forBunk Lander. He stood by like a man.”
The embarrassment of the visitor became more apparent.
“Doubtless Lander deserves all the credit you give him, Rod.”
“He certain does.”
“But if you had not been with those fellows——”
“Oh, I know what you’re driving at now. Look here, Stone, I like you;you’ve treated me like a white man. I can’t say as much for some otherchaps around here. Just because I kept my mouth shut and minded my ownbusiness when I came here, a lot of pin-heads began to sneer about meand say I was a fake who’d never even seen the State of Texas. I wasborn in Rogers County, which is located in the Panhandle of the LoneStar State. Those fellows didn’t disturb me a whole lot, Ben; but, justfor a joke, I decided to give them something really worth talkingabout. As long as they had the notion that every Texan must talkdialect and act like a half-civilized man, I took a fancy to play thepart for them. It was a sort of a joke with me. I’ll say right here andnow that I reckon we’ve got as decent and refined people in Texas asyou can find anywhere around these parts, though doubtless it would beright difficult to pound this fact into the heads of some chaps.”
“That’s not what I’m driving at,” said Ben, “and I don’t believe yourstatement that you hail from Texas had anything to do with turning thefellows against you. The team needed strengthening; they wanted you toplay football, and——”
“I claim, as a free and independent individual, that I have a right toplay football or not, just as I choose.”
“Of course you have, but loyalty to the school——”
“Whatever I may do or decline to do, Stone, you may be sure I have goodand sufficient reasons. A fellow’s motives are sometimes misunderstood.”
“That’s quite true,” agreed Stone. “I had an experience decidedly moreunpleasant than yours when I first came to Oakdale.”
“But you pulled out on top. Why? Because you played football?”
“No, not that; because circumstances and events made me understood atlast. I’ve never questioned your courage, Grant, but you know lots oftimes a fellow has to prove himself before he’s estimated correctly. Idon’t believe you’re a quitter; I don’t believe you’ve a yellow streak.”
“Thanks,” said Rod, with a slight touch of sarcasm which he could notwholly repress.
“But you know how most fellows estimate a chap,” Ben went on hastily;“they judge by outward appearances.”
“Evidently my appearance is decidedly against me,” laughed Rod.
Involuntarily the visitor lifted a hand to one of his ears, half ofwhich had been cut away cleanly at some time by a sharp instrument. Hecould not have been called a prepossessing or attractive lad, but therewas a certain rugged honesty and frankness in his eyes and his mannerwhich stamped him as the right sort. Nevertheless, during the firstweeks of his life in Oakdale, being misunderstood and misjudged bynearly every one, he had passed through a cloudy and bitter experience.
“It’s not wholly by a fellow’s looks that he’s estimated, Rod; actionscount, you know. I came here an unknown, just as you did; but you havethe advantage of me, for you’re a good-looking chap, and I’m simplyugly. Now if you’d happened to hit the fellows just right at first, andyou’d deported yourself according to their views regarding the code ofbehavior for an Oakdale Academy man, you might have become popular atonce.”
Rod snapped his fingers, rising to fling a leg over one corner of thetable, on which he half seated himself, the other foot upon the floor,leaning forward toward Ben.
“Who are these narrow-minded, Puritanical, half-ba
ked New England cubsthat allow they have a right to lay out a code of deportment andbehavior to be followed by me?” he cried scornfully. “It was chancethat corraled me in this wretched hole, not choice. What do thesefellows here really know about me, anyway? Nothing. Disgusted withtheir nosey, prying ways, I’ve amused myself by stringing them—bytelling preposterous tales of my wild adventures and hairbreadthescapes. Evidently it hasn’t helped my cause much, for the blockheadsseem to lack imagination and a real sense of humor. Why, they reallythought I was trying to make them believe those yarns, while all thetime it was apparent on the surface to any one with the slightest horsesense that I was joshing. They think me a braggart. Bah!”
Ben twisted uneasily upon his chair. “They don’t understand you, Rod,any more than they understood me at first,” he said soothingly. “NowI’m willing to take your word for it that you had some good reason forrefusing to play football—even for swallowing the slurs and insults ofHunk Rollins and Berlin Barker.”
The eyes of the young Texan flashed and a flush deepened in his bronzedcheeks.
“Rollins is a cheap bully,” he declared, “and it seems to me Barkershowed himself up for a coward when he ran away from Oakdale with theidea in his head that he had been chiefly concerned in driving medotty.”
“Your estimation of Rollins is pretty near correct,” nodded Ben,remembering his own experience with the same fellow; “and if you hadcome out boldly and faced Barker when he returned from Clearport I’msure the situation would be different to-day.”
“That would have made it necessary for me to fight him,” said Rod, “andI have my reasons for avoiding anything of that sort. It may make melook like a coward, but if anybody will take the trouble to look up therecords of the Grants in Rogers County, Texas, he will find there neverwas a cowardly drop of blood in one of them. Beginning as a nester orsmall rancher, my father found himself up against the big ranchers whowanted his acres and were determined to drive him out. He’s there now,and he owns a pretty sizeable ranch for these days. But he had to fightfor his rights, and I don’t allow the remembrance of some of the thingshe went through is any too agreeable. He’s carrying a bullet in hisright hip which made him lame for life, and his left arm is gone at theelbow, the result of a gun fight, in which he received a wound thatdidn’t get proper attention for three days. You haven’t heard meblowing about these things, but they’re straight facts, with no fancytouches added for effect. And as long as I have said this much, let meadd that the other man, whose name, by the way, was Jennings, didn’tcome out of it as well. There’s been a white stone standing over himfor a good many years.”
“Gracious!” muttered Ben.
“This is between us, Stone. I’ll ask you not to repeat it, for if youshould, the fellows around here would believe it another of my fancifulfabrications. Things are somewhat more peaceful in Texas these days,but the old grudge, a sort of feud between the Jennings and the Grants,has never died out. I was sent to school in Houston before I came here.Fred, the only son of old man Jennings, attended that same school. Iwon’t go into detail, but he picked his time to get at me. They tookhim to a hospital, and I went home to the Star D Ranch in something ofa hurry. When a Grant finds it necessary to fight, usually somethinghappens to the other fellow.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------