Don Gordon's Shooting-Box, Harry Castlemon [first ebook reader .TXT] 📗

yet recovered from their amazement. They 57stood gazing after the rescued boy and his champion until they disappeared in the darkness, and then they turned and looked at one another.

“I declare, Duncan,” exclaimed Tom Fisher, who was the first to speak. “You’ve met your master at last, have you not?”

The defeated bully growled out something in reply, but his friends could not understand what it was. Like every boy who prides himself upon his strength and skill, he did not like to acknowledge that he had been beaten.

“Did he hurt you?” asked one of the students. “I noticed that you didn’t get up right away.”

“How in the name of all that’s wonderful did he do it?” inquired another. “I didn’t see him clinch or strike you.”

“He did neither,” replied Duncan, “and that’s just what bangs me. I am willing to swear that he did not touch me anywhere except on the hand, and he took hold of that just as though he wanted to give it a friendly shake. It’s a trick of some kind—a boss one, too—and I will give him my next quarter’s spending money if he will teach it to me.”

58“Humph!” exclaimed Tom Fisher. “You needn’t expect to him to do that. He doesn’t look to me to be such a fool. You and he may come together in earnest some day—if you don’t, he will be about the only boy you haven’t had a fight with since you have been a student at this academy—and then you will probably find out what his tricks are.”

“He didn’t hurt me at all,” continued Clarence; “but he could if he had been so disposed. If he had used a little more exertion he could have thrown me into that air-hole; and if I had happened to come up under the ice—ugh!” exclaimed Clarence, shivering all over as he looked down into the dark water.

“Is there no way in which we can get even with him?” asked Fisher.

“Is there!” replied Clarence, angrily. “Do you suppose that I am going to submit tamely to an insult like that? We’ll make a way to get even with him. Things have come to a pretty pass if a plebe is going to be allowed to come here and run this school to suit himself.”

The mere reference to such an unheard-of thing was enough to raise the ire of Tom Fisher 59and all his companions, who with one voice declared that the Planter, having presumed to lay violent hands on an upper-class boy, and to set at defiance one of the old-established customs of the academy, must be made to suffer the consequences. They held a long and earnest consultation there on the ice, and Fisher and Duncan, who were fruitful in expedients, soon hit upon a plan which promised, if skillfully managed, to bring Sam Arkwright’s champion into serious trouble. It was a most dangerous plan, because it was to be carried out under the guise of friendship.

“That’s the only way to do it, fellows, you may depend upon it,” said Duncan, after their scheme had been thoroughly discussed. “We must bring him into trouble with the faculty, and let them do the hazing, for we couldn’t do it if we wanted to. I was nothing but a child in his grasp, and, to tell the honest truth, I have no desire to face him again.”

“I hope we shall succeed,” said Fisher. “But if the Planter turns out to be one of those good little boys who never do anything wrong, then what?”

60If Tom had only known it, he need not have bothered his head on this point. Unfortunately for Don, something happened that very night which made it comparatively easy for the conspirators to carry out the plans they had formed regarding him.

Meanwhile Don and Bert were walking briskly toward the academy in company with the rescued boy, who was somewhat protected from the keen wind by Bert’s muffler, which the latter had wrapped about his neck, and by Don’s gloves which he wore upon his hands. He was lost in admiration of his new friend’s prowess, and complimented him in the best language he could command.

“Are you an Irishman, sir?” Sam asked, at length.

“Look here,” answered Don, “my name is Gordon—there’s no ‘sir’ about it. No, I am not an Irishman. I am an American, I am proud to say; but I understand the Irish ‘hand and foot’ well enough to give it to such fellows as that Clarence Duncan. I can throw a man weighing two hundred pounds in that way if he will let me take hold of his hand.”

61“It was well done,” said Sam. “I never saw it done better.”

“I learned it of one of my father’s hired men—a discharged Union soldier who came to our plantation penniless and hungry, and asked for work,” said Don. “I always make it a point to pick up any little thing of that kind that happens to fall in my way. It may come handy some day, you know.”

Perhaps you will now understand how Don had managed to throw the bully of the school so easily; but if you do not, we can only say that it cannot be described on paper so that you can gain even a faint idea of it. If you want to know just how it was done, the easiest way to learn is to ask some Irishman—the fresher he is from the old sod the better—to give you a practical illustration of the “hand and foot.” Simply give him your hand, and if his feelings toward you are friendly, he will send you flying through the air without hurting you in the least; but if he is not friendly, we would not advise you to go to him for information, for he can turn you heels up in an instant, and land you on your head with force 62enough to knock all your brains into your boots. Don had become so expert in this novel way of wrestling, and so prone to put it into practice at every opportunity, that none of the boys about Rochdale could be induced to shake hands with him.

“How did you ever happen to find your way to this school!” inquired Don, after Sam had exhausted his vocabulary in praising his new friend’s skill as a wrestler. “Were you really a New York boot-black?”

“Yes, I was,” answered Sam, hesitatingly.

“It is nothing to be ashamed of,” said Bert, who thought from the way Sam spoke that he did not like to confess that he had once occupied so lowly a position in the world.

“Of course not,” Don hastened to add. “Any honest work is honorable. Your presence here proves that you didn’t want to remain a boot-black all your days.”

“No, I didn’t. I was ambitious to be something better,” said Sam, who then went on to give Don and his brother a short history of his life. He said that his father, who followed the sea for a livelihood, had gone down with 63his vessel during a terrific storm off Cape Hatteras; that his mother had survived him but a few months; and that after her death a grasping landlord had seized all the household furniture as security for the rent that was due and unpaid, turning him (Sam) into the streets to shift for himself. He spent the days in roaming about the city, looking in vain for work, and his nights in a lumber-yard to which he had been invited by a friendly boot-black, who found free lodgings there every night, and who, seeing Sam’s forlorn condition, gave him a plate of soup to eat and furnished him with a plank to sleep on. Finding that work was not to be had, Sam at last ran in debt for a boot-black’s “kit,” which he procured from one of the fraternity who had saved money enough to open a corner peanut stand, and after a score or more of battles with boys whose “claims” he unwittingly “jumped,” he succeeded in establishing himself in front of a popular hotel in the city, where he was to be found early and late. It was there he met the Superintendent of the Bridgeport Military Academy, who patronized him twice every day, never failing to give him a quarter 64for each “shine,” or to spend a few minutes in conversation, with him after the boy’s work was completed.

From the day he was six years old up to the time his father was lost at sea, Sam attended the district school regularly; and as he was a very faithful student, and tried hard to learn, he knew more about books than boys of his age generally do. He felt that he was out of place among the ragged, ignorant little gamins with whom he was daily and hourly thrown in contact, and they, realizing that he was not one of them, and that he believed himself to be fitted for something better than the life of a boot-black, tormented him in every conceivable way. He was so often called upon to protect his brush and his box of blacking from the young rowdies who would have despoiled him of them, that he became an adept at fighting, and it is probable that he would have opened the eyes of Tom Fisher and his crowd, had they not pounced upon him while he was asleep, and overpowered him before he could raise a hand to defend himself.

“I am sure I don’t know what it was that 65made the Professor take a liking to me,” said Sam in conclusion, “but it was something; and when he asked me if I wouldn’t like to quit that miserable business and go to school and learn to be a civil or a mining engineer, I tell you it almost took my breath away. I jumped at the chance. I gave my kit to a boy who was too poor to buy one, and came out here; and I am very sorry for it. The fellows don’t want me here, and they didn’t want me in New York, either. I hope I shall some day find a place where I shall not be in everybody’s way.”

“Don’t get down-hearted,” said Don, taking one of his hands out of his pocket long enough to give Sam an encouraging slap on the back. “Of course your tuition is free?”

“Yes, everything is furnished me. If it wasn’t I couldn’t stay here, for I have no money to speak of. The boys in New York badgered me so, and ran such heavy opposition to me that I couldn’t earn enough to buy a warm suit of clothes.”

“You will have an abundance of them in a day or two,” said Don, “for our uniforms will be along by that time. You couldn’t get an education on better terms than the Professor offers it to you, 66could you? And so long as he is willing that you should stay here, you can well afford to let the fellows grumble to their hearts’ content. Show the Professor that you appreciate his kindness by doing your duty like a man, and look to me for help whenever you get into trouble. Now the next thing is something else,” added Don, as he and his companions came to a halt in front of the high picket-fence which inclosed the academy grounds. “Where’s your room, Sam?”

“I haven’t any yet. I sleep in the attic. The rooms on the floor occupied by our class are all taken except one. That has been used as a store-room, and as soon as it is cleared out I am to have it for my own.”

“Well, do you want the teachers to know anything about this night’s work?”

“Of course not,” returned Sam, who had all a decent boy’s horror of tale-bearing.

“Because, if you do,” continued Don, “you can walk up to one of the guards, let him report you for being outside the grounds without a pass, and when you are hauled over the coals for it, you can say that you were taken out against your will.”

67“But I don’t want to say that,” answered Sam, quickly. “It would bring Tom and the rest into trouble. I have nothing against them, and I should be glad to be friends with them if they would only let me.”

“You’ll do to tie to,” said Don, approvingly. “Bert and I have a pass that will see us through all right; but what are you going to do? Do you think you can make your way to the attic without being seen by any of the sentries or floor guards?”

“Tom and his crowd brought me out without attracting the attention of any of them, and I don’t see why I can’t get back without being caught. At any rate I shall try my best. Good-night. I hope that neither of you will ever stand in need of such aid as you have rendered me to-night; but if you do, you may count on me every time.”