CHAPTER XVII
HEBE POCOCK IN TROUBLE
The big frost came soon after the Keyport game and Eve excitedlyinformed her particular friends when she came in to school that thenuts were falling in showers. It was toward the end of the week whenthis happened and it had already been arranged that a nutting partyshould take an entire Saturday for the trip to Peveril Pond, somemiles beyond the Sitz place.
The Beldings' car and one of Mr. Purcell's sight-seeing autos were tocarry the party from the Hill, with two seats reserved for Eve and herbrother Otto, whom they would pick up at the farmhouse. PrettymanSweet and Lily Pendleton were invited--indeed, Eve had insisted uponall the basketball team being of the party--and Purt was dreadfullyexercised in advance regarding what would be the proper costume towear.
"Oh," said Bobby Hargrew, "when folks go fox-hunting in the fall theywear red coats, because the fox is red, I suppose. Now, you ought towear a nut-brown suit, hadn't you?"
"Yes, Purt," drawled Lance Darby, "something nutty will suit you, allright, all right!"
The girls wore sweaters and old caps and old skirts and lace upboots--all but Lily. She came "dressed to the nines," as Bobbydeclared.
"What under the sun are you supposed to represent, Lil?" demanded JessMorse. "You--you look like a fancy milkmaid."
"Well, I'm going into the country; I shall look the part," said Lily,demurely.
"Oh, say!" continued Jess, in a whisper, "you've got altogether toomuch red on your cheeks for a milkmaid, young lady."
At that Lily flushed deeper than the "fast color" on her cheek.
"Is that so, Miss?" she snapped. "I guess a milkmaid ought to berosy-cheeked."
Chet, going by, overheard this. He glanced at the red spots in Lily'snaturally pale cheek, and laughed.
"On the contrary," he said, winking at Jess.
"What's on the contrary?" demanded Lily, sharply.
"Milkmaids shouldn't be rosy-cheeked, you know," said Chet, gravely.
"Why not, Mr. Funny?"
"Because a milkmaid is naturally a pail girl," chortled Chet.
Lily was rather angry for a while because they joked her about therouge. She was the only girl in all the Junior class who usedcosmetics and, as Chet laughingly said once, "painting the Lily was athankless job--it didn't improve her looks!"
They piled into the two autos and started off with much laughter andblowing of horns. Nellie Agnew was almost the last one to board theBeldings' car.
"I had to run down to Mrs. Doyle's for Daddy Doctor," she explained."Poor little Johnny is dreadfully sick. He never really recovered fromthe shock, or the cold, when he fell into the sewer basin. He's such apoor, weak little thing now. It would make your heart ache to see him,Laura."
"Lil says that Hester goes there all the time, and that she's alwaysdoing something for Rufe, or the rest of them," Jess Morse said.
Laura shook her head. "I know," she said. "I saw Hester and Rufie inthe park together the other day. They seem to be very good friends.And I'm sorry."
"Why--for pity's sake?" demanded Nellie.
"Why, father is on the Board of Education this year, you know, and hetold us--but you mustn't repeat it!--that Bill Jackway had admitted thatthe night the gym. was first raided Rufus slipped into the buildingunbeknown to him early in the evening, and was there until aftermidnight. Then he cried to go home, being afraid, he said. But Jackwaylet him out without ever making the rounds of the gym., and so hedoesn't know for sure whether the damage to the apparatus was donewhile Rufe was there, or afterward."
"My goodness me!" gasped Nellie. "How awful!"
"Could it be that half-foolish boy, do you suppose?" cried Jess.
"He isn't so foolish. Rufe is dreadfully cunning about some things,"replied Laura. "Think of those footprints in the athletic field. I_know_ the person who made them walked backwards. Maybe Rufe got intothe gym. again unknown to his uncle; and he'd be just sharp enough toget out of that window backward and so reach the fence."
"And he could be hired to do that for a little money," said Jess,confidently.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" exclaimed Nellie. "It's too dreadful."
"But Mr. Jackway can't make Rufe admit it. The boy won't speak. Andthe Board doesn't know what to do about it," Laura said. "Now, I'vetold you girls this; don't let it go any farther."
They promised--and they were girls who could keep their word. Lance andChet on the front seat of the machine, with Bobby between them, hadn'theard it at all.
When the cars reached the Sitz place Eve and Otto were taken into thetonneau of the Beldings' car, and they went on, down the leaf-strewnroad, toward Peveril Pond. The forest fire that had threatened allthis side of the ridge had burned out without crossing the widehighway known as "the State Road" and so the lower slope of the ridgeand all the valley had been untouched.
They passed the district school which Eve attended before she came toCentral High.
"And we had a splendid teacher at the last," sighed Eve. "But when Ifirst went to it--oh! the boys acted so horrid, and the girls gabbledso. It wasn't a school. My mother said it was 'a bear garden!'
"You see, there were some dreadfully bad big boys went to the school,off and on. The Four Corners isn't so far away, you know. HebePocock--Laura will remember him?"
"I guess so!" cried Laura.
"Well, he was one of the big boys in school when I first came here. Wehad a new teacher--we were always having 'new' teachers. Sometimesthere would be as many as four in one term. If they were girls theybroke down and cried and gave it up; and if they were young men theywere either beaten or driven out of the neighborhood.
"But I can remember this particular young man pretty well, little as Iwas," laughed Eve. "He wasn't very big, but he didn't look puny,although he wore glasses. But when he opened school he took off theglasses and put them in his desk. He was real mild mannered, and hehad a nice smile, and the big girls liked him. But Hebe and the otherbig boys said they were going to run him off right quick!"
"And did they?" asked Jess, interested.
"Well, I'll tell you. He was taking the names of all us children, andhe got along all right till he came to Hebe. Hebron was the ringleader. He always gave the sign for trouble. When the master asked hisname Hebe leaned back in his seat, put his feet up on the desk, andlooked cross-eyed at the new teacher. Of course, all the littlefollows thought it was funny--and some of the girls, too, I guess.
"'Please tell me your name,' said the master, without seeming tonotice Hebe's impudence.
"'Wal,' drawled Hebe, 'sometimes they call me Bob, and sometimes Pete,and sometimes they call me too late for dinner. But don't you call menothin', Mister!'
"The teacher listened until he got through," said Eve, her eyesflashing at the remembrance of the scene, "and then he doubled hisfist and struck Hebe a blow between the eyes that half stunned him.Hebe was the bigger, but that teacher was awfully strong and smart. Hegrabbed Hebe by the collar and hauled him headlong over the desks andseats, stood him up before the big desk with a slam, and roared athim:
"'What is your name?'
"'He--Hebe Pocock,' exclaimed the fellow, only half sensing what hadhappened to him.
"'Hebe?' repeated the master, with a sneer. 'You look like a 'Hebe.'Go take your seat.'
"And do you know," laughed Eve, "that Hebe was almost the best behavedboy in the school all that term?"
"Oh!" laughed Jess, "it must be lots of fun to go to an ungradedschool like that one."
"It's all according to the teacher," Eve said. "When we had a poorteacher it was just a scramble for the scholars to learn anything. Thebig ones helped the little ones. But our present teacher, Miss Harris,is a college girl and she is fine. But some funny things happenbecause we have the old-fashioned district system of government, with'school trustees' elected every year. This year at the far end of thedistrict they put in old Mr. Moose, a very illiterate man, fortrustee. And one of the girls was telling me about the day he visitedschool to '
examine' it. That is the method, you know; each trusteemakes an official visit and is supposed to find out in that visit howthe teachers are getting along."
"Tell us about it, Eve," urged Laura.
"Why," laughed Eve, "Mr. Moose came in and sat on the teacher'splatform for a while, listening and watching, and showing himself tobe dreadfully uncomfortable. But he thought he had to make someattempt to examine the school, so when Miss Harris called the spellingclass he reached for the speller and said he'd put out a few words. Sohe read to the first boy:
"'Spell "eggpit."'
"'E--double g--p--i--t,' says the boy.
"'Nope,' says Mr. Moose. 'Next.'
"Next scholar spelled it the same way and that didn't suit Mr. Moose,and so it went on down the line, everybody taking a shy at 'Eggpit.'Finally Miss Harris asked to see the book.
"'These young 'uns of yourn air mighty bad spellers,' said Mr. Moose.
"'But they have all spelled 'eggpit' right,' said Miss Harris. 'Whereis the word?'
"And what do you suppose Moose pointed out?" chuckled Eve.
"Give it up!" was the chorus of her listeners.
"'Egypt!'"
"My goodness!" cried Jess, choked with laughter. "Can you beat thatfor a school trustee?"
They arrived at the sloping hollow at the end of Peveril Pond, wherethey proposed to picnic, very soon after this. It was a pretty glade,and the smooth road went down to the shore and skirted it for half amile.
Off on a rocky point were several boys or men fishing; but they werenot near enough to disturb our friends. Of course the boys clamoredfor lunch at once; but while the girls prepared it the boys wereshooed off to begin the nut gathering.
Lance Darby, with a perfectly solemn face, set Pretty Sweet to workthumping an oak tree with a huge club to "rattle off the nuts;" and hemight have been whaling away at the trunk of the tree until luncheonhad not Chet taken pity on him and showed him that neither chestnutsor shell-barks grew on oak trees, and that that particular oak didn'teven have an acorn on it!
Suddenly, just as the girls had the good things spread on the seats ofthe two cars, a chorus of screams arose from the fishermen. There werethree of them, and when our friends' gaze was attracted by the shoutsthey saw that the bigger one was down in the water and the other twowere leaping about on the sands.
"Guess they've caught a whale," said Chet.
"They are in trouble--serious trouble," declared his sister, leavingthe car herself to start for the scene of the difficulty.
"That's little Mike Pocock," said Eve, grabbing her arm. "And Ibelieve the fellow in the water is Hebe."
"Never mind. He's in some difficulty. See! he can't stand up," criedLaura.
"But weally!" gasped Prettyman Sweet. "The lunch is just weady----"
"Come on, you cannibal!" ejaculated Lance. "Let's see what's wantedover there."
The whole party, girls as well as boys, trooped along the shore of thepond toward the rock where the fishermen had been standing. They sawin a moment that this boulder had rolled over--probably while HebePocock was standing upon it to make a cast--and that Hebe was caught bythe rock and held down to the bottom of the pond. He was barely ableto keep his head out of water as the boys and girls of Central Highapproached.