CHAPTER XV THE MYSTERY OF THE DUN HEIFER

“Brother Todderley,” said Zeb to the miller, “we’re defeated in our benevolent intentions. Puff’s boat went for twenty-two dollars.”

“Who got it?” asked the miller.

“A bloated young aristocrat from the city,” said Zeb. “I suspect him of being one of the new boarders. The Academy’s going to ruin, Gershom. There’s your twelve dollars, with my sincere thanks.”

“Sorry, Zeb, very sorry,” remarked the miller; but another voice broke in with:

“Who’d ha’ thought that of him? Thryin’ to rob a poor chap like Poof Evans! It’s worrus than wantin’ to dhrown old Docther Dhryer.”

“Patrick Murphy,” replied Zeb, “what do you know about war? Hullo, there goes poor Puff on his way home. I haven’t the heart even to try and comfort him. Tell you what I’ll do, Brother Todderley, I’ll give my share towards buying him the timber to build another boat.”

[Pg 188]“You’re a good boy, Zeb,” responded the miller. “I’ll do my share, and he can have anything he wants out of my lumber. Do you hear that, Pat?”

“Troth an’ I do, sor,” replied Pat. “Wull it be the crukked shticks I’ll give him?”

“Crooked sticks!” exclaimed the miller.

“Sure an’ he’s one of ’em,” said Pat. “He niver’d worruk well with straight ones.”

“Never mind, Pat,” replied Zeb, “it’s a solemn thing for Puff. Just look at him. I never saw him walk so fast before.”

“Indade,” said Pat, “it’s ginerally walkin’ behind he’s been iver since I’ve known him.”

Plenty of sympathy poor Puff was getting, though he knew it not, but it would all have been too late to save his boat for him if it had not been for Bar and Val.

These latter had put in their time, before dinner, in a very vigorous process of taking possession of their room, which was all a schoolboy could or should have asked for, though hardly as luxurious in its aspect or appliances as the one Val Manning had been accustomed to at home.

As for Bar Vernon, he had seen all sorts of accommodations[Pg 189] in his day, and was disposed to take a rose-colored view of every item belonging to his present quarters.

By dinner-time the boys were in a high state of preparation for it, so far as appetite went, but they were hardly expecting the sort of company that awaited them on their entering the dining-room.

“Mr. Manning! Mr. Vernon! My name is Brayton. Glad to see you both. My mother and sister have written me about you.”

It was a bit of a surprise to find that their teacher was also to be their fellow-boarder, but neither Val nor Bar was the kind of boy to repel so very frank and kindly a greeting.

In fact, before the meal was over, Brayton had even heard the story of the boat, as well as Bar’s repeated lamentations over his deficiencies.

“Come up into my room,” he said, with reference to the latter. “I can hardly advise you what to do till we’ve had some further talk.”

Up they went, and they saw quite enough, at once, to give them a good opinion of their new friend.

[Pg 190]Bar picked up a book which was lying on the table.

“French,” said Brayton. “One of George Sands’s novels. One of these days you’ll get ready to take hold of such things.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Val, “he’s picked up French. He talked German, too, for an hour at a time, with an old fellow we met at the seashore.”

“Indeed,” exclaimed Brayton. “Do you know anything of Greek or Latin, Mr. Vernon?”

“No, not a word; but I understand Spanish, and can talk it a little.”

“English, French, German, Spanish, at seventeen! That’ll do. I’m not afraid of the rest. Your trouble won’t be in languages, but you’ve plenty of work cut out for you. I’ll take you in hand, at once, myself. Three hours’ study a day, my young friend, from now till school opens.”

“There goes the fishing, Bar,” exclaimed Val, mournfully.

“No, it don’t,” said Brayton. “To-morrow morning, Bar, you are to take your Latin grammar with you and go to the lake. I’ll hear you recite when you get home. Next day, Greek.[Pg 191] Next, something else. Read right ahead, whether you understand it or not. We’ll see about that afterwards.”

It seemed a curious way to begin with a new scholar, but it was the only method Brayton could think of for finding out precisely where Bar was, intellectually, and what he had better try to do with him. Such an odd fish of a scholar he had never before come in contact with.

That afternoon the boys went over to the Academy with their new friend, and became as well posted as Zeb Fuller himself in the quantities and qualities of the various apparatus, old as well as new. Val took Bar, while Brayton was busy in the lecture-room, and showed him over the whole building.

“Have you cut your name anywhere?” asked Bar.

“No,” said Val, “but every boy is expected to before he goes away. If he does it too soon they expel him.”

“I see,” laughed Bar. “Is that the bell-rope?”

They were near the great front door of the main hall as he spoke, and Val answered:

[Pg 192]“Yes, but I wonder what it’s down for. If Zeb Fuller knew it there’d be music before twelve o’clock to-night.”

“Who’s Zeb Fuller?”

“The boy that chaffed you about Puff Evans,” said Val. “He’s one of the crowd that was too much for me last term. He’s a queer duck, but we must give him a lesson before long.”

“Or he’ll give us one,” said Bar. “Well, we’ll see about that.”

Val Manning was more than half right about that bell-rope. Zeb Fuller did know that it was “down,” and there was “music” before twelve o’clock that night.

“Hiram Allen,” Zeb said to his next friend, as they came back from driving the cows to pasture, “this is a sad piece of business about Puff Evans and his boat. I think the Academy bell ought to be tolled.”

“Maybe he won’t drown himself, after all,” said Hy.

“Perhaps. Indeed, I fear not,” replied Zeb; “but he ought to, and so we must do our duty, not only by him but by the bell. It must be tolled, Hiram.”

[Pg 193]“If we can get in.”

“I ascertained the condition of one of the front windows the day the new apparatus came,” said Zeb.

That was quite enough, under the circumstances. The people of Ogleport retired to slumber as usual that night, only to be awakened a little after eleven by a most unusual, irregular, spasmodic chaos of sound from the one bell in the village which they had last dreamed of hearing from.

Bar and Val were both awakened by it, and dressed themselves with a truly boyish instinct that there was some kind of fun abroad.

“What can it be?” asked Bar.

“Zeb Fuller, of course,” said Val; “only there isn’t the least chance in the world of his being caught at it. We must get out on the green and see what we can see.”

They were joined on the stairs by George Brayton, but he at once understood their entire innocence in the matter of the bell.

A hideous, intermittent clamor was that which was now pouring down from the old belfry, and various half-dressed figures were beginning to flit[Pg 194] through the moonlight that was pouring over the wide and shadowy green.

One of these figures, full of extraordinary wisdom, made its way straight to the front gate of Deacon Fuller’s residence.

Hardly had a hand been laid upon the gate-latch, however, before the door of the house swung open and the agile form of Zebedee Fuller, busily tugging at his half-donned trousers, stood on the threshold, with his father close behind him.

“Ah!” exclaimed Zeb. “The Rev. Dr. Dryer? Isn’t there something the matter with the Academy bell, doctor?”

“Matter?” repeated the astonished principal. “Are you really here? I freely confess that the occurrence exceeds the moderate capacity of my comprehension. Just listen to that bell!”

“Something the matter with it, beyond a doubt,” said Zeb. “It don’t toll as if it was meant for a funeral. If it is, I should say that funeral had been drinking too much.”

Dr. Dryer could not wait for any more of Zeb Fuller’s moralizing, but pulled his cotton night-cap[Pg 195] closer over his ears as he hurried away towards the Academy.

Others, less thoughtful than himself of the probable source of all Ogleport mischief, had directed their steps and energies to what seemed the sure capture of the untimely bell-ringer, whoever he might be.

There came in the puzzle.

Not a door was open, front or rear. Every window was closed. There was not a sign of human entrance about the entire exterior of the Academy building.

George Brayton had the key of the rear entrance, but even while some of the rest had gone for lights, the doctor arrived, and with him the means of throwing open the great front doors.

Then, indeed, a flood of splendid moonlight was poured in upon the mystery—only moonshine leaves every mystery as badly off as it finds it.

There, in the middle of the main hall, from which on either side the schoolrooms opened, a few paces only from the front doorway, stood Dr. Dryer’s favorite dun heifer, with the bell-rope firmly webbed around her horns and a[Pg 196] peck-measure of green apples on the floor within what would have been easy reach but for the hindrance of that rope.

Small blame to the heifer if she smelled those apples and strove to reach them, and even less to the rope and the bell if among them they waked up all Ogleport as a consequence.

Loud and long laughed the hitherto indignant representatives of the Board of Trustees. Clear and ringing was the laugh of George Brayton. Only less decided was that of Val Manning, but Bar Vernon was as mute as Dr. Dryer himself, and did but move around and look and search and study, for he had unconsciously undertaken the problem which was shortly to baffle entirely the mental acumen of his elders.

“How did that heifer get into the Academy?”

There was not a dissenting voice, when some one suggested:

“Zebedee Fuller!”

But Dr. Dryer had already ascertained that the evil genius of Ogleport had been at home and in bed, and, granting as an axiom his agency in the matter, the question clouded down upon them with a yet more Egyptian darkness.

“How Did Zeb Fuller Get That Heifer Into the Academy?”

[Pg 197]“How did Zeb Fuller get that heifer into the Academy?”

The doctor had released his tantalized property quickly enough, and there were boys at hand to volunteer her escort to her own “lot,” but he himself remained to grapple with the mystery.

“Only one safety just now,” remarked Brayton. “We must take away the rope altogether till school begins. I’ll go up and do it at once.”

“And I’ll go with you,” said Bar.

Val’s services were also offered, but Dr. Dryer remarked that “two would be as large a number as the occasion demanded,” and Val was compelled to remain below.

The steeple was not a very lofty affair, but there was some climbing to be done, nevertheless, and both Bar and Brayton paused for breath on a sort of “deck,” twenty feet at least above the ridge of the main building, and as many more below the bell.

“What’s this wheel for?” asked Bar, as he closely scrutinized a bit of machinery firmly set on the deck. “It seems not to be used.”

“Looks like an old tolling gear,” said Brayton. “There’s another pulley-wheel to match it, up[Pg 198] there by the bell, I fancy. They’ve changed the gearing now, and don’t use this any more. That’s a pokerish sort of place to climb into by moonlight, and those cleats are frail things to step on.”

“I’m lighter than you are,” said Bar, and, without another word, up he went.

“That’s no ordinary boy,” said Brayton to himself, and in another minute or so the rope, disengaged from the bell-gearing, came rattling down upon the deck beside him, and could be slipped through to the lower floors and removed beyond the reach of mysterious heifers and evil-disposed boys.

Bar followed the rope quickly, and George Brayton’s keen eyes noted with what an easy, confident, unhesitating movement the boy glided down the frail and quivering framework.

The Academy bell-tower had been standing a long time, and, although it was stanch enough, it could hardly be called immovable.

The greatest trial of that night to the Rev. Dr. Dryer was the fact that Zebedee Fuller had been in bed, and that so he had no decent excuse for any attempt to question him concerning the misdeeds of the dun heifer.