CHAPTER XIII.
There was a change in the composition of the First Latin when theChristmas holidays came on, and the erstwhile "band of brothers" brokeup for a fortnight of frolic at home. Hoover had not reappeared atschool at all. He had been sent South to visit relatives in Mobile "forthe benefit of his health," the rector said to the class, but there wasno twinkle of merriment in his eye as he spoke, and no responsive laughalong the line of young faces. Strange interviews had occurred betweenthe Doctor, Joy, and Julian, from which "the senate" came forth withsealed lips. Long conferences had taken place between the Doctor,Halsey, and Beach, and twice had Briggs been bidden to stay afterschool. "They wanted me to tell on lots of you fellows," was hisexplanation to the class. "Pop and Halsey tried to get me to tell whereyou spent your time and your money out of school, and threatened todismiss me if I didn't." But the First Latin answered unanimously thatBriggs was a liar. All the same they did wish they knew what was reallythe matter with Hoover. There was one lad who could have given a newdirection to their theories had he not promised both the Doctor andHalsey to say nothing whatever about that ten-dollar gold piece, and ahard time he had keeping his word, and that was Shorty. Neither from theDoctor nor any one, until long after, did he learn nor did the schoolknow that at least one hundred dollars had disappeared from the drawerof the Doctor's desk the eventful morning of the fire. Yet what made itstrange was that rumors of such a thing had been heard, and they camefrom outside the school. Columbia students heard it whispered atMartigny's. Martigny himself admitted, when cornered, that he had had aninterview with the rector at the residence of a gentleman in MadisonAvenue, by request, but he would say no more. One thing was certain.None of the Hulker set reappeared at Martigny's. Another thing wasannounced, that Mrs. Hulker, who for the years that followed herhusband's death had followed his example and consulted Hoover senior inall her investments, etc., had turned against that substantial citizenand was filling the ears of society with tales of his treachery, talesto which Mrs. Lawrence and her coterie listened with bated breath. Then,as has been said, the Hulker boys, too, went South, "visiting relativesin Savannah," and the widow followed a fortnight later. Ten days beforeChristmas, the so-called Hulker gang was without head, foot, orfinances, both Hulker and Hoover having disappeared. There were "no morecakes and ale," no more cigars and tobacco for the few hangers-on aboutthe quarters of Metamora Hose. But, after all, the matter over whichPop's boys talked and wondered most was: Where was Snipe Lawton and whydid nothing further come from him?
There was a mystery about the letter that had taken Shorty up to theDoctor's early that December morning and sent an eager, anxious,loving-hearted woman out on the New Haven Railway by the noon train. Ithad come by post to Shorty just as he was starting for school, and hehad run first to the Lawrences' and then, after five minutes' eager,excited talk with Mrs. Park, nearly all the way to Murray Hill, andcaught the Doctor on his customary tramp to college before he reachedthe reservoir. It was only a little note. It said that Snipe had beenill of some kind of fever, that he had found work and was feelingindependent and happy, hoping soon to make enough to send five dollarsto Seymour, when he was taken ill. Snipe thought he "must have beenflighty a few days," but people had been very kind to him. He had helpedtwo boys--his employer's sons--with their arithmetic every night untilhis prostration, and it had pleased their mother and father both, but hehad let out something about his own mother, and now they were tellinghim how cruel he had been to her and how he ought to go back to her andput an end to her suffering. Snipe said he couldn't go back toRhinebeck and wouldn't go back to Aunt Lawrence, but if Shorty wouldsend the enclosed note to his mother she would know that he loved herand thought of her constantly; and then he asked Shorty to write to himhow the boys were and whether they missed him, and what Seymour said."Address your letter care Massasoit House, Bridgeport, and I'll get itsafely, only don't tell anybody." And, instead of writing, Shorty hadrun to Pop and Pop had turned back with him, had sent notes by him toMrs. Park and to Halsey, bidding the latter give Shorty whole holiday,which, to the astonishment of the school, he had declined.
"Why did you do that?" Halsey had asked him during their memorableconference after the discovery of the gold in his overcoat-pocket, andHalsey was thinking how, unconsciously, the boy was weaving a strongthread in the net of suspicion that would have been thrown about him butfor the lucky accident of the afternoon. "Beyond all question," saidHalsey to himself and to the Doctor, "it was the intention of the thiefto cast suspicion on Prime and divert it from himself," and there werejust three lads, so far as Halsey could figure, who besides "Loquax"were in the room during his few minutes' absence, and had opportunity torob that till,--Briggs, Hoover, and the janitor. The later discovery ofthe gold at Martigny's narrowed the number to Briggs and Hoover, withthe chances in favor of the latter. And all these facts combined hadled to that solemn conference between the Doctor and Hoover senior, and,despite all his protests of innocence, to the withdrawal of theill-favored and unfortunate young fellow from the school. There was tobe no scandal,--no allegation of crime. Pop would have dropped athousand dollars rather than have it openly said that such things hadhappened among his boys. His own suspicions for months past had centredon his hulking, clumsy janitor, and for weeks the detectives had doggedand dogged in vain. What confounded and troubled the Doctor was youngHoover's vehement and persistent denial of guilt, and Hoover senior'sprompt assertion that on the Saturday afternoon previous to quarter day,when giving his son the check for his school bill, he had also given himtwenty-five dollars in gold and silver to pay certain debts the youngman had confessed to him, and he was certain there were two ten-dollarpieces in the lot.
Those were solemn days for the elder Hoover and rueful days for the son.There were conferences, crossexaminations, and almost inquisitions atthe solemn old mansion, Pop, Halsey, Martigny (most unwillingly), andBeach taking part. But the boy stood firm to his first statement. He hadhad no more money from any source than that twenty-five dollars. He longrefused to say what he had done with it, as only a little silverremained, but at last owned that he had given the two tens "forsafe-keeping" to the elder of the Hulker brothers as they stood thereby the hose carriage. There was an unsettled account between them,covering only a few dollars, Hoover claimed, but the Hulkers said agreat deal more, and while they were trying to straighten it out theDoctor swooped down on him and bore him away. This, if true, wouldaccount for the money Hulker gave Martigny. But who took the money fromthe Doctor's drawer? Who put that ten-dollar piece in Shorty'sovercoat-pocket? Why didn't Shorty wish to take the whole holiday withthe other boys as proffered by the Doctor? Halsey had to ask him, and itwas plain the little fellow hated to answer, but answer he did. He wasbeing educated at the expense of his relatives. They had made occasionalcriticism of the Doctor's proclivity as to half-holidays, and when thisquarter day came Shorty had been not unkindly told that the moneyexpended in payment for those school bills was for his instruction, nothis amusement, that Saturday and Sunday were holidays enough in theweek, and, finally, that he should have his check on Wednesday, andmeantime they expected him to attend school.
One more question had Halsey to ask, and over it the youngster ponderedlong, though he answered instantly. "It was not four minutes--not muchmore than three--between the time you came in and the moment of theannouncement of the fire. Was there no sign of it when you crossedTwenty-fifth Street? Didn't you know that the alarm would be given in aminute?"
"No, sir, there wasn't a sign or a sound of it on the avenue; besides, Icame through Twenty-fourth Street, from the direction of theLawrences';" and that ended Halsey's cross-examination. To clinchmatters, he had taken Shorty with him, as has been told, and questioneda fireman of 61 Hose, then sent him home for dry clothing, happy in theimportance of having held 28's pipe a whole half-hour, and hungry as abear. Small wonder that the family decided after dinner that eveningthat it was time to call a halt on this craze for running to fires onthe part of th
eir junior member. But events were looming up that weresoon to spare them further care in that direction.
What the First Latin and Pop and Halsey and Beach now longed to know,however, was, where was Snipe, and why had Mrs. Park failed in hermission? The rector and his head-master had now good reason to know thatwhether Lawton had anything to do with the disappearance of Joy's watch(which none of them could really believe), he was not the only thief inthe school, for the loss of the hundred dollars long after hisdisappearance conclusively settled that. There were now not more thanhalf a dozen lads who believed that Snipe was dishonest to the extent ofstealing a watch, not more than a dozen who doubted his integrity atall, and as for his saying in his letter that he could be reachedthrough the Massasoit at Bridgeport, there were theories in abundance toexplain the fact that neither in person nor by letter had Snipe"reported." He never said where he had found work; he had not given theaddress of his benefactors; he still, it seemed, dreaded that hisstep-father would enforce his return to a life that was torment to a boyof his character and spirit. He had merely told Shorty that a letteraddressed care of the Massasoit, Bridgeport, would reach him; and,learning this through the admissions wrung from his sorely badgered"chum," and never waiting to write, the impulsive woman had gone at oncein person, and the Massasoit people knew nothing whatever of the son. Noone answering his description had been there, and as for letters beingsent in care of the house, they showed her a bundle of missives soaddressed. Every day guests would arrive, register, ask if letters hadcome for them, ransack the packet, select their own, and toss the othersback. Some they showed her had been waiting a month for claimants. Ifshe were to leave a letter addressed in their care for her son and if hewere to call for it, they would telegraph to her, but that was all theycould promise, and, after consulting the city authorities and, ofcourse, the minister of the church to whose doctrines she had pinned herfaith, and all without hearing of a lad who in the least resembled herGeorge, the sad-hearted woman had gone miserably back to Gotham and toPop.
Then, of course, she wrote, and so did Shorty. Both letters begged Snipeto return, but by this time Mr. Park himself had come to New York topersuade his wife to go back to her home and to promise that he himselfwould seek and find the wandering boy and fetch him to her arms,--theworst piece of strategy that could have been adopted, as Shorty, boythat he was, could have told her and would have told Park. Left to hismother and to his chum, the lad's heart might have relented and hisstubborn pride dissolved, but there are men sublimely gifted with thefaith that they alone are competent to deal with affairs, either publicor personal,--that without their aid and guidance everything is sure togo amiss. Park sped away to the Massasoit on the heels of the letters,and when George Lawton drove in with the hope of finding the longed-formessages from home, and went from the stable where they had put up thesleigh straight and eager to the Massasoit, there, with his back to thehuge, red-hot stove and facing the office desk, as though to guard thatpackage of letters, there, grim, unbending, repellent as ever, stoodGeorge Lawton's step-father, and the lad, scenting treachery, turned andfled.
When the school assembled for the eventful year of '61, the First Latinfound itself reduced to twenty-five. Hoover, it was announced, wouldspend some months in Mobile with a private tutor and rejoin afterEaster. From Snipe Lawton there came neither message, missive, nortoken. A rumor flew from lip to lip one April morning that a ladanswering every description of the missing boy had fallen from thesteps of a New Haven train through a gap between the beams of the Harlembridge and was lost in the murky waters. The brakeman who saw theaccident was well known to members of the school who lived at NewRochelle, and so impressed the Doctor with his story that reward wasoffered for the body, and men dragged the river for several days. "Whatyou need," said one of the wiseacres of the First Latin, "is to firecannon over the stream, and that'll bring him up if anything will," andthe words were recalled when, within another day, the guns of Sumterboomed from shore to shore, rousing a nation from its lethargy, bringingmany a man and boy to vivid life and action such as they had never knownor dreamed before.