CHAPTER XX THE BOXING MATCH

The rest of that night was reasonably calm, and Bar and Val slept soundly, without any fear of trouble in the belfry, nor did they fail to promptly answer the bell for breakfast.

After that, a trip to the lake, a look at Puff Evans and his workshop, and a few hours of fishing, followed, as a matter of course, only Bar Vernon discovered that he was not going to go through the Greek grammar “across lots,” as he had begun to do with the Latin.

They found Puff rapidly becoming absorbed and enthusiastic about his new boat.

“I’ll hev to go over to old Todderley’s after some more lumber to-morrow,” he said; “but ’pears like I can’t bear to leave it for a moment.”

“Isn’t there some danger that old Skinner might get wind of it and try to take it away from you?” suggested Bar.

[Pg 243]The boat-builder blew out his flabby cheeks with a most mournful puff, and the saw he was using dropped from his hand.

“Then, what on ’arth is the use?” he exclaimed, as if all the beauty and glory had suddenly been knocked out of his life.

“I was thinking of that last night,” said Bar. “I’ll write out a bill of sale for the boat, when I get home. Call it mine till it’s sold. I’ll swap you the Mary for it, now, if you want.”

“Ain’t that there a leetle crooked?” slowly responded Puff.

“Yes, a little,” said Bar. “He means to steal the boat and we mean to hide it, that’s all. Send him to me if he troubles you and I’ll fix him. You needn’t be afraid, though. He won’t dream of coming.”

“I don’t mind doing that,” said Puff. “Reckon I kin go to work agin now. Hope you’ll have a right good day’s fishin’.”

So they did, so far as it went, but the boys had made up their minds to be on the green in time to take a look at the game of baseball as well as at the boys who came to play it.

On their return home they found that George[Pg 244] Brayton had gone for an afternoon drive, and that Mrs. Wood was inclined to scold a little at their being so late for their dinner.

“Never mind her, Bar,” said Val, when she was out of hearing.

“I don’t,” said Bar; “but I’ll kill some of her ghosts for her if she isn’t good to me.”

“It’s clearing up a little,” replied Val. “The ghosts may be heard from sooner than people think.”

By the time the boys came out again the usually deserted green began to put on a somewhat lively appearance.

The two friends had hardly supposed Ogleport could turn out so many “young men” of all ages, from twenty years down, and Val declared that several of the older ones were “boarders,” like themselves, while others had come in from the surrounding farms and were there by accident.

Bar noticed, however, that the one “pervading spirit,” busiest and most controlling, but without being either talkative or meddlesome, was that odd chap, Zeb Fuller.

“Has something on his mind to-day, or I’m[Pg 245] mistaken,” he remarked to Val. “I never saw just such another. Was he the fellow that thrashed you last term?”

“Yes,” said Val; “he once and that big fellow there another time. That’s Hy Allen, and he’s a sort of bully of the Academy.”

“Then, Val, my boy,” said Bar, “I’m afraid those two have made up their minds to try it again.”

“Had we better keep away?”

“By no manner of means,” said Bar; “only you must promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me give ’em their first lesson, if they’re bound to have one. You’re enough for either of them, now, I think, but I want to take the conceit out of them in a way of my own.”

“Well,” said Val, “all right; only I don’t mean to be counted out.”

“Wait and see,” said Bar.

Nearer and nearer the two friends were strolling, as they had a perfect right, to the spot where the preliminaries of the game were being arranged, when they were suddenly greeted with these words from Hy Allen:

[Pg 246]“Hullo! you fellows, are you going to play?”

“Not this time,” said Bar, quietly; “we prefer to look on.”

“You prefer to look on?” very mockingly responded Zeb Fuller himself, for there was a good deal in Bar Vernon’s manner that he had made up his mind not to like. “If you’re above playing ball with us, what are you here for?”

“Oh,” said Bar, “you may play. We don’t want the green for anything to-day. Go on with your game.”

There were enough boys among the bystanders who were glad to hear Zeb Fuller answered in his own peculiar way, and the laugh that followed was not a feeble one.

“We may play, may we?” began Zeb, but just then a peculiarly mocking and jeering laugh sounded in his very ears, and he wheeled around with:

“Hy Allen!”

But Hiram was also seeking for the source of a very similar insult, and it seemed to Bill Jones as if some one behind him asked him for his head.

[Pg 247]“Play football, you know,” added the insulting stranger.

“Look here, boys,” said Zeb, “this looks like a conspiracy.”

“It’s a ghost,” seemed to come from the open mouth of Hiram.

“Don’t be a fool, Hy,” said Zeb; “all the ghosts are at Mrs. Wood’s. Have you seen any?” he asked, turning again to the chums.

“Saw one last night,” said Val, “down by the river, catching eels.”

“Look here, you fellows,” again began Hy Allen, when the derisive laugh once more interrupted him. It was not a loud one, but it was extremely tantalizing, and the Academy “bully” looked angrily but vainly around for the source of it.

“Why don’t you go on with your game?” asked Bar. “Didn’t you hear me say you might? Even if you don’t know how, you’re old enough to learn.”

Exasperatingly polite was Bar. Zeb Fuller himself, at his very best, could not have been more so, and again there was a laugh at Zeb’s expense from among the outsiders. Zeb was[Pg 248] altogether too popular with his own set, and they had carried things with too high a hand not to have stirred up jealousies against them. As for Hy Allen, there were a dozen of boys, at least, on that green who had felt the weight of his hand at one time or another. It was evident to all the onlookers, as far as appearances went, that neither Bar nor Val had the shadow of a chance in any physical encounter with Hy, and not much more with Zeb Fuller or Bill Jones, but all the more for that there was a strong feeling of admiration for the cool self-possession of the two strangers. Even their somewhat fashionable, citified dress was halfway forgiven them.

“Game!” exclaimed Hy Allen, as angry as if he had received some genuine injury. “This is our green. I’ll teach you a game, one you won’t forget right away.”

“Give ’em a chance, Hy,” exclaimed Zeb Fuller. “You two, Val Manning and Cash—Bar whatever your name is—go home now and keep your clothes clean. Tell him what a licking you got last time, Val.”

“He has,” said Bar, “and he liked it so[Pg 249] well, I thought I’d come over and get one like it.”

Again the mocking laugh chuckled in Hy Allen’s ears.

Bar Vernon was scarcely six paces distant now, with that polite, deferential smile of his, and as Hiram turned again to get a look at his tormentor, Zeb Fuller’s long bottled-up temper got the better, or the worse, of him, and made a sudden rush, as if to grapple with Bar.

“Hold him, Val!” shouted Bar, and Val was almost as much surprised as Zeb himself to find that young genius whirled backward into his arms, so that he had only to pin him and hurl him flat upon the grass.

Hy Allen had followed his friend almost instantly, and so had Bill Jones, and the “rush” of the former might have had danger in it, he was so big and strong, but he seemed to catch his foot in something, as Bar dodged under his arm, and the next thing he knew, as he lay prone on the grass, Bill Jones came tumbling over him with a very unpleasant-looking nose.

The first impulse of the other boys of Zeb Fuller’s set had been to “follow their leader,”[Pg 250] but not one of them had the remotest conception of such a thing as the art of boxing, and four or five of them, one after another, went down like so many nine-pins.

It really seemed as if Bar Vernon had hardly made an effort, until, as Hy Allen struggled to his feet, there was a sudden bound forward, a cracking “spat” as if something hard hit something else pretty hard, and the redoubtable Hiram was down again.

Poor Zeb, too, had just such another experience with his own antagonist, and it is greatly to be feared that Val Manning made things about even for that “last term’s licking.”

“You’ll all be perfectly safe,” remarked Bar, “if you’ll only lie still when you’re down.”

“What’s this? What does all this mean?” suddenly exclaimed an excited voice behind him, and Bar turned to find himself in no less a presence than that of the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer.

“What does this mean, sir?” again demanded the Doctor, and Zebedee Fuller remarked to himself:

[Pg 251]“Not a single long word! That looks very bad.”

But Bar Vernon calmly and politely touched his hat, saying:

“Lessons in boxing, Dr. Dryer. Are they contrary to the rules of the Academy?”

“He’s a trump, anyway!” said Zeb to himself. “I couldn’t have beat that.”

“Boxing lessons?” said the Doctor, incredulously. “What are those boys doing on the grass?”

“Get up, boys,” shouted Bar.

Several were already so doing, but Hy Allen was the last to resume his perpendicular, for his blow and fall had been of an unusually heavy kind.

Never in all his life, however, had Zeb Fuller learned so much in so short a time, and never did he “come to the front” so very ably.

“None of us knew anything about boxing, Dr. Dryer,” he said, very gravely. “If I’d have had such a lesson a few weeks ago, I’d never have had so hard a time with those Rodney fellows that stole your cows. I hope sincerely you won’t think of forbidding it.”

[Pg 252]Poor Bill Jones was wiping his bloody nose at the moment, and the Doctor exclaimed:

“Do you not observe that cruel and disgusting spectacle? You, sir; what’s your name?”

“Vernon, sir. Barnaby Vernon,” responded our hero. “I’m very sorry I had no gloves on, sir.”

“Vernon? Ah, indeed. I see now. Mr. Manning, is that you? I am astonished beyond measure! And this is the young gentleman, your father’s ward, concerning whom he sent me a written communication. I will see you both again about this business. In the meantime let us have no more boxing lessons. I felt almost sure you were all fighting.”

“Fighting! Indeed!” exclaimed Zebedee Fuller. “Why, Doctor, do you suppose all Ogleport would assail, with one accord, two innocent and unoffending strangers?”

“Zebedee,” replied the Doctor, “I should be rather inclined to the opinion that the two unoffending strangers had been administering wholesome admonition to a part, at least, of the population of Ogleport.”

With that, the Doctor turned upon his heel[Pg 253] and strode away, but Zebedee walked up to Bar Vernon and held out his hand, remarking:

“Solomon is right, for once. If ever a man like him can acquire wisdom, I should be ashamed of myself to exhibit a lower order of intelligence. I have no longer the least disposition to give you a thrashing.”

“Nor I either,” said Bill Jones.

Hy Allen was a little slower, but in a moment more he came in with:

“Zeb, ask him how he does it. I own up. It beats me.”

As for the other boys, none of them had suffered more than a sharp and sudden upset, with a “contusion” or so, as a surgeon would have described it, and they were quite willing to join their comrades in calling it a drawn battle.

“That is,” explained Zeb Fuller, “our side’s drawn out. And now I hope we’ll be able to make it all right with old Sol. Mr. Vernon, it would delight me exceedingly if you would persuade Solomon to let you give him a boxing lesson and allow me to be personally present as spectator.”