CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST PLAGUE

The inhabitants of the east entry of Hale were enjoying a season of unusual quiet. Duncan Peck, because of unacceptable work, lay under the ban of study hours,—a fact which damped the ardor of both the brothers. Clarence Moon had apparently learned wisdom from experience, for he had much less to say about the exalted state in which he lived at home, and in general bore himself with more becoming modesty. Lindsay and Owen and their room-mates had other ambitions than to be disturbers of the peace, and Payner lived solitary and secure in his fortress. There remained but the conscientious Smith and Crossett the absentee, neither of whom was likely to spend time in fomenting discord in the dormitory.

Smith studied continuously. His lamp was[Pg 75] lighted at five every morning, he was always in bed at ten at night; but between these two periods, except for the time inevitably wasted on meals and devoted to school exercises, he plodded unweariedly at his books. And did he accomplish great things? I wish I could answer yes. I would not willingly detract one jot from the value of habits of industry. They are rough diamonds which Young America is too prone to throw aside for the flashing brilliants of smartness and wit. But the truth must be spoken. Smith's industry earned no apparent dividends. With the gift of great perseverance, nature had also bestowed on him a very thick head, through which ideas soaked but slowly. He rarely got a conception right without having first tried all the possibilities of error. His influence was ambiguous: some jeered at him as an example of the ineffectualness of grinding; others, among whom was Owen, felt a kind of reproof in the patient, untiring, undiscourageable zeal of this oft-discomfited drudge. To most who knew him he was merely "Grinder Smith."

Owen came in one day from cage practice with[Pg 76] Patterson, who had fallen into the habit of doing his afternoon study in Rob's room. At the head of the stairs they met a tall, light-haired boy coming out of Payner's room. Owen nodded.

"Who was that?" asked Patterson, as soon as they were out of hearing. "I didn't suppose Payner had callers."

"His name's Eddy," Rob replied. "No, Payner doesn't have many callers. Eddy and I are about the only ones, I guess."

"Who's Eddy, anyway?"

"He's a senior. I met him once over at Poole's room."

"I wonder what he can find in a freak like Payner," pursued Patterson.

"Payner isn't such a freak as you think," returned Owen. "I couldn't make anything of him for a long time; but when once you've broken through his shell you'll find there's something in him."

"I never shall. No fun in a sour apple like him. Give me the Pecks every time. Payner's just a snapping turtle."

[Pg 77]

A door slammed in the entry; quick, elastic footsteps, accompanied by a whistle, passed.

"Lindsay," observed Owen.

"Wasn't it great the way he blocked that kick in the Hillbury game!" exclaimed Patterson. "If I could play football as he does, I'd be willing to work a hundred years."

"I'd rather play on a winning nine, myself," observed Rob.

"Would you? I wouldn't. You see, in football you catch the spirit of the thing, and you're swept right along with the gang. There's a swing that carries you. You just rush in and give a big drive for all that's in you. But in baseball it's different. Everybody has to stand around waiting and watching and quivering while one man does the work. When you pitch a hard baseball game, every ball's got to go just so. If it's two inches too high, or two inches wide, or an out when it ought to be an in, it's all wrong. And then there are about a thousand things that can happen whenever a man hits the ball."

Rob nodded in agreement. "And you've got[Pg 78] to be ready for any one of those thousand things. That's where the fun comes in, and the skill. When you know you can handle any ball that's likely to come your way and handle it right, there's fun just in waiting."

"I suppose that's true. I wish I knew as much baseball as you do. Honestly, now, do you think I'm ever going to learn to pitch?"

This was one of the times when Patterson needed encouragement.

"Yes, I do," Owen replied earnestly. "You're gaining all the time. If you're willing to count by the weeks instead of the days, you'll see a gain yourself. You may never be able to do the things with a ball that Carle can do,—he's got a wonderful wrist, that fellow!—but you may be just as good a pitcher."

"As good as Carle!" cried Patterson, with a grin of incredulity. "You're jollying me!"

"Not a bit!" Owen retorted. "You never will see that it isn't what you do to the ball, but what the batsman doesn't do to it, that shows that you are a pitcher. Suppose Carle has ten chances and throws five of them away, and you have[Pg 79] eight and throw away only two, who is the better man?"

Patterson shook his head doubtfully. "It's one thing to stand in the cage and put 'em where you say; it's a different thing to face a batter in a game and feel that he may drive the next one over the fence."

"You can put 'em where I say just the same, can't you?" retorted Owen, sharply, as he opened his books. There was good promise in Patterson, but these attacks of despondency were of distinctly bad omen.

"You didn't tell me how Payner got hold of Eddy," said Patterson, returning again to the topic from which he had been diverted by the ever recurrent baseball.

"Didn't I? Well, Payner is a great fellow for bugs,—in fact, for every kind of animal, big or little, that has more than two legs; and Eddy is cracked on trees and birds. Payner spent all his half-holidays last fall, when he ought to have been at the football games, up the river looking for bugs and slugs. He found Eddy up there watching birds. So they got acquainted."

[Pg 80]

Patterson emitted a little sniff, midway between a sneer and a chuckle.

"Oh, you needn't laugh! He doesn't loaf away his Saturday afternoons like the rest of us. Why, he's got one of the best collections of coleoptera in existence!"

"Oh, has he!" exclaimed the bewildered Patterson.

Owen swung round as if to end the conversation, and raising his book to the level of his eyes, sniggered covertly into its pages. Opposite him sat Patterson, awed into silence by the ponderous polysyllable, of whose meaning he was loth to confess his ignorance. So the study began.

That evening Eddy came in after dinner to see some new specimens that Payner had just received from Florida. It was lecture night, and the bell sounded just as Payner opened the case.

"Look here, Eddy, I want to go to that lecture to night. It's on the Grand Canyon, you know. Are you going?"

"I don't believe I shall," said Eddy, absent-mindedly, as he picked up a card to which was[Pg 81] pinned a beetle with a rainbow stripe down his back. "That's a beauty, isn't it?"

"Yes, they're all fine. I think I'll hurry over and get a seat. You won't mind, will you? Look at them as long as you want."

"Thank you!" said Eddy.

"And be sure you latch the door, do you hear?"

"All right," said Eddy, passing on to the next card.

Payner hesitated as if not entirely satisfied with Eddy's answer; then turned to the door.

"Just let down the catch, see?" he called once more, pausing with his hand on the fastening.

"Yes, yes, I'll do it," returned Eddy, with a little petulance. It seemed hardly necessary that the injunction should be so often repeated. Payner went out, shutting the door behind him.

Duncan Peck stood in the entry hallooing to some one below. He waited until the steps of the collector of coleoptera died away at the entrance of the building, then crept softly up to the door just closed, and gently tried it as he had done many times before. To his surprise it yielded to the pressure of his hand. Made cautious[Pg 82] by a former experience, Duncan pushed the door very slowly until, through the widening crack, he perceived Eddy, standing before the table intent on the specimens. At this sight the evil-doer closed the door as softly as he had opened it, slipped back to his room, found his brother, and sent him over to the lecture to make sure of Payner's presence there. With great foresight, the Pecks had invented a device suited to just such an emergency as the present. They had prepared a little wooden plug which would almost fill the socket into which the door-latch springs, leaving but a thin edge to catch the latch. This slight hold of the latch would be sufficient to keep the door shut, but quite incapable of resisting pressure. As the locks of all the rooms were uniform, the plug which had been made to fit the Pecks' door could be counted on to produce the same effect on any door in the dormitory. Armed with this burglar's contrivance, Duncan crept back across the hall, pushed Payner's door ajar once more, and inserted his plug; then closed the door again and sneaked back to safety. In a few minutes the twins, secretly watching[Pg 83] from their room, saw Eddy come out, slam the door, and go whistling downstairs. His whistle was still audible in the distance when Duncan stole down the entry and gave a hard push at Payner's knob. The door swung on its hinges. The long-desired opportunity had come at last!

The ripping up of Payner's room was not as thorough a job as that by which the unhappy Moons had suffered. The twins were too much excited, and their eagerness to finish was too great to permit much elaboration. They dragged the chief articles of furniture around the desk; piled the bedding on the heap, and wet it down with a dash of water; smashed the lamp-shade in trying to make it sit securely on top, and filled the fireplace with pictures from the wall. To give distinction to the effect, the precious beetles were taken from their case, and pinned up over the fireplace in a hasty attempt to form the letters of the Latin Salve.

When Payner returned from the lecture, half an hour later, he ran into the outworks of the heap, and sent the ruins of his shade crashing to the floor. The twins listened through the crack[Pg 84] of their door, and trembled with excitement and eagerness, lashed by guilty consciences and yet defiant. But this one crash was all they heard. The door did not reopen, and no other sound came from within to indicate the feelings of their victim.

Next morning when they went out to breakfast, they noticed that the card in the indicator at the entrance to the dormitory on which had been written opposite No. 7, D. and D. Peck, now bore the legend The D—D Pecks. It was Payner's defiance, his challenging gauntlet! But the Pecks, in their vainglory, laughed loudly and feared nothing.

Two nights later when Donald, who was the first undressed, jumped into bed and thrust his feet down into the depths, he uttered a shriek and sprang headlong out.

"What is it?" cried Duncan, turning around in amazement.

"Some awful, clammy thing in the bed!" gasped Donald, shivering convulsively.

Duncan instantly swept down the covers, and displayed a long, serpent-like, dark thing stretched across the bed.

[Pg 85]

"What is it?" shrieked Donald, dancing on one foot.

"An eel!" replied Duncan, calmly. "It's the season for eels. I wonder if I drew one, too."

He threw open his own bed. At its foot lay a similar reptile. To the neck of each was attached a ribbon of paper bearing in neatly printed letters the legend: "The First Plague."