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CHAPTER XI
THE CAPSIZED BOAT
Allan and Pete didn’t forget that day for a long time. In retrospect, it was the brightest one between the beginning of the college year and the Christmas recess. For long afterward Pete would point with pride to his performance at table on that day, and declare that he believed that should he live to be a hundred he could never eat as much again. Dinner began at two o’clock and ended, not because of lack of further viands but because of inability on the part of the guests, at half-past four.
The family at Hillcrest consisted of Mr. Guild, his wife, a pleasant-faced and sweet-voiced woman several years his junior, and a three-year-old son and heir, who did not make his appearance at table but who was afterward ceremoniously introduced in the nursery. Both host and hostess appeared to have no other desire in life than to make the two guests happy and utterly ruin their digestions.
Even Pete had had momentary qualms over appearing at table in the unconventional attire of shooting-coat and flannel shirt, but their objections had been politely overruled, and by the time the turkey had made its appearance they had both lost sight of the fact that they were not dressed in the mode. It was while carving the turkey that the morning’s episode was recalled.
“This, Mr. Burley,” said their host, “is only turkey. Had there been more time, we would have had a duck prepared for you.”
Allan wondered, while he laughed, whether Mrs. Guild had heard the story of the duck-hunt. The demure expression about her mouth led him to suspect that she had.
After dinner they adjourned to the library again, and Pete was induced to smoke a cigar, although, as Allan guessed, he would much rather have used his corn-cob pipe. Mrs. Guild disappeared for a while, and Pete and Allan stretched themselves luxuriously in front of the fire and listened to their host and did a good deal of talking themselves. Mr. Guild led them to tell of their college life, and displayed such sympathy with their views and ambitions that at the end of an hour the two boys had become his enthusiastic admirers. He knew the West like a book, and Pete became quite excited – for Pete – swapping recollections and stories of “out there.”
After a while Mrs. Guild appeared again, and they went into the drawing-room and sat silent and happy in the firelight while she played for them. She apologized for knowing no college songs, but Pete gallantly assured her that he preferred “straight music.” Still later there was a four-handed game of billiards in an upper hall, in which Mrs. Guild and Allan were badly defeated by the host and Pete. Then came the visit to the pink-hung nursery and the formal introductions to Master Thomas Guild, Junior. And by that time it was after eight o’clock, and a surrey stood at the door, waiting to bear them back to Centerport.
“You must come out some afternoon,” said their host, “and let me show you around. Both Mrs. Guild and I have enjoyed your visit, and we want you again. We don’t have so many callers but what a couple more will be welcome at any time. And when you come, it must be to stay to dinner with us.”
And Allan and Pete readily agreed, and kept to their agreement. They each voted Mr. Guild a fine fellow, and each lost his heart to the hostess. The dollar was duly paid, and they received a receipt “in full for two ducks. Trusting to receive a continuance of your patronage, I remain, Yours faithfully, Thomas A. Guild.” There was another visit to Hillcrest the following week, and several more before the occurrence of the incident which, for a time at least, put thoughts of visiting out of mind.
On the Monday after Thanksgiving and the duck-hunt, the story of which was now college property, Pete stamped into Allan’s room just before dinner, kicked the snow from his shoes against the chimney, tossed his sombrero onto the desk, and subsided into the armchair with a mighty sigh of triumph.
“That’s all right,” he announced, heartily but vaguely.
“What?” asked Allan, momentarily abandoning his struggle with Herodotus.
“Club table. I’ve got my eighth man.”
“Not really? Who have you got?”
“Well, there’s” – he took a list from his pocket – “there’s you, and Hal, and Wolcott, Poor – ”
“Pete, you’re lying!”
“ – and Cooper, Van Sciver, Maitland, and your Uncle Pete.”
“But – but how’d you do it, Pete? How’d you get them to join? Offer to pay half their board, or – or what?”
“Oh, it just took a little dip-lo-macy, my son; just a little dip-lo-macy. I started out with you and Hal. I got Hal to introduce Poor. Then I told Poor I was getting up a representative table, and got him to promise to join if I secured Maitland and Van Sciver. He introduced me to Van Sciver. I told him that you and Hal and Poor had promised, and he came right over to the party. You were quite a card, my son. I had no trouble with Cooper when I told him you were one of our principal sights. And so it went. After I’d got Poor and Cooper and Van Sciver cinched, there was nothing left to do but receive and consider applications. I could have had twenty, but I set out to make this table exclusive, and exclusive it’s going to be, if I have to get the Dean – hang him!” Pete frowned a moment in silence. Then, “Wolcott was the last to join; he agreed ten minutes ago; I just came from his room.”
“Pete, you surely are a lucky dub!” said Allan. “I don’t believe there’s another fellow in college that could have got all those chaps together!”
“There wasn’t much luck about it,” said Pete, calmly. “It just took hard work. Why, I haven’t studied a lick since Wednesday, and I’ve cut half my recitations. I guess that’s why the Dean wants to see me.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“Yes. I had a polite postal card from him yesterday, and an impolite one to-day.”
“But why – ”
“Well, I didn’t have time to call on him yesterday; I was too busy seeing fellows. It seems to have made him some angry.”
Allan whistled expressively.
“You ought to have gone, Pete. He’ll raise thunder with you now; see if he don’t.”
“Oh, that’s all right; he can’t do any worse than expel me. And I’m getting pretty tired of this shop, anyway; there isn’t much doing. And now that I’ve got the table made up, all the excitement’s over with. I’ve thought all along I wouldn’t be here much after Christmas.”
“Oh, shut up that! Who’s going to run the table, if you go and get fired? And what do you suppose I’m going to do, you idiot?”
“Oh, I guess you wouldn’t care,” said Pete, sheepishly. But he seemed rather pleased when Allan threw Fernald’s Selections at his head.
“Well, maybe he’ll let me off easy this time; just suspend me, perhaps.”
“You’d better go and see him right away. But you can’t until to-morrow, now.”
“Oh, yes; I guess I’ll call at his house to-night.”
“He doesn’t like you to, they say,” cautioned Allan. “If I were you, I’d wait until morning.”
“No; better have it over with. I’ll drop around afterward and tell you about it. Coming to dinner?”
Allan pleaded study, and Pete took himself off.
As it turned out, the Dean was merciful and Pete was merely placed upon probation – a fact which appeared to amuse him vastly.
“It’s just like old times,” he explained to Allan and Hal, the latter having come in to recount the wonderful things which had happened to him during his visit home. “Out in Colorado, I was most always on probation. Used to feel downright lonesome when I wasn’t.”
“That’s all well enough,” said Hal, “but you want to be careful, for old Levett’s the very dickens if you get too gay with him. First thing you know, you won’t know anything.”
“Don’t now,” answered Pete, promptly and cheerfully. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if something did drop. The fact is – ” he hesitated, sighed dolefully, and shook his head, “the fact is, I’ve been feeling lately that something unpleasant is going to happen to me. I guess it’s a – a premonition.”
His tone was quite sad, and Allan and Hal stared at him in silent surprise. Then —
“What’s the matter with you, you idiot?” asked Allan.
“Nothing; I dare say it’s just foolishness, but somehow – ” He sighed again. “Well, that’s all right,” he went on, with an evident effort at cheerfulness. “Have a good time, Hal?”
“You’re off your feed, that’s what’s the matter with you,” said Hal, severely. “Your liver’s out of whack. Better see the doctor.”
“What’s probation, anyway?” asked Allan, lightly. “It’s likely to happen to any one.”
“It isn’t that,” Pete replied, dolefully. “But I don’t want to talk of my troubles,” he continued, with martyr-like complacency. “Tell us what you did, Hal.”
“Oh, you’re plumb woozy!” exclaimed the latter. Nevertheless, he consented to tell again of the remarkable events which had transpired during his absence, and Pete’s melancholy disappeared. It was a peculiar feature of it that during the following week it possessed him only occasionally. But when it did, he seemed in the uttermost depths of melancholy – a melancholy quite as mysterious and remarkable to his friends as the celerity with which he recovered on each occasion. Hal declared over and over that he was “woozy” – a term of doubtful significance, but quite satisfying to the user – and Tommy hinted at overstudy. This was among themselves. When Pete was present, they merely called him a fool, and let it go at that.
It was the first day of December that witnessed the advent upon the scene of a new character in our story. A wagon stopped in front of Mrs. Purdy’s in the afternoon and an expressman deposited a small box inside Allan’s door. He found it there when he returned from his last recitation. It had slats nailed across the top, and from its dark recesses came strange sounds. Allan stared. The sounds resolved themselves into the plaintive mewings of a kitten, and Allan recollected his request to his mother – a request long since forgotten by him, but evidently well remembered by her. He tore off a couple of the slats and lifted out a six-weeks-old kitten.
It was a pathetic little white object, with two black spots on its back and weak-looking pale blue eyes which blinked inquiringly at him. Its mouth opened, and the appealing cry was repeated. Allan set it down and raced for the kitchen. When he returned, he carried a huge bowl of milk.
The kitten was roaming disconsolately about the floor, but at sight of the milk trotted up, and apparently strove to commit suicide by overeating – an intention frustrated by Allan, who removed the bowl finally and took the kitten into his lap in front of the fire. It seemed to have suddenly grown to twice its size, and instead of the heart-rending mews, Allan heard a faint but enthusiastic purring as the poor little object curled itself up in his arm and blinked its gratitude. Presently it went fast asleep and, rather than disturb it, Allan sat there for almost an hour, with his books just out of reach.
That evening they named it. Tommy wanted something patriotic: Erskine, he thought, was just the thing. Hal showed the possession of an unsuspected streak of sentiment and clamored for Hortense. Allan, recollecting the fact that the mother’s name was Edith Cinnamon, was in favor of calling the offspring Clove or Nutmeg. But Pete, who had been gravely examining the kitten at arm’s length, took his pipe from between his lips, and with the stem tapped the two black spots on its back.
“Two Spot,” he said, with finality.
Two Spot it was. And a few days later neither of the others would have changed the name for any consideration, since, as Tommy sadly expressed it, “Poor old Pete had named her.”
That first day of December was memorable not only for the arrival of Two Spot, but for the first gathering at Pete’s club table. Of those beside our friends who composed the table, it is not necessary to speak at any length.
Poor we already know very slightly. Wolcott, Cooper, Van Sciver, and Maitland were average fellows who had gained prestige for one reason or another, among their companions. It was a fact that Pete had succeeded in gathering together what might have been called the pick of the freshman class. That he had been able to do so was partly because of his tact and powers of persuasion and partly because freshman club tables were so seldom formed at Erskine that the project had the flavor of the unusual.
Dinner was the first meal, and it was a very jolly one. There were one or two introductions to be made, and these Pete performed with his usual breeziness. After that the eight members sat down, Pete thumped the bell commandingly, and the table began its official existence – an existence which endured for four college years.
By the time the roast beef and vegetables made their appearance the ice was very thoroughly broken. When the cabinet-pudding and fruit came on, good-fellowship reigned supreme, and long after the last plate had been pushed aside the members still sat about the table, as though loath to leave. It is doubtful if there was a single one of them who did not, mentally at least, thank Pete Burley for including him in his club table.
One gusty winter afternoon, four days later, Pete appeared at Allan’s room at about three o’clock. He wore his thickest sweater and a pair of woolen gloves.
“I’m going up to see the Guilds. Want to come along?”
“You know plaguey well I can’t,” said Allan, impatiently. “I’ve got all this stuff to do.” He indicated the litter of books and papers hopelessly. Somehow, of late the Midyears had seemed perilously near.
“Sorry. I’ll tell ’em you said ‘How.’ I think I’ll take a boat and row up.”
“You’ll what?” gasped Allan. “Why, it’s an easy three miles by the river.”
“That’s all right; I feel like a little exercise.”
“You’re a chump if you do,” answered the other, irritably. “How’ll you get the boat back?”
“I’ll let it stay there, maybe. Maybe I’ll come back in it after dinner. It’s easy enough to get down-stream.”
“Not in the dark. You’ll drown your fool self.”
“Oh, I guess not. Sorry you can’t come along.”
“I’m not,” muttered Allan, as the door closed. “Pete’s a perfect idiot lately.”
After dinner the wind increased into a very respectable gale, and Allan fell to wondering whether Pete would be fool enough to attempt the trip back in the boat. At nine o’clock his uneasiness drove him forth. He fought his way down Main Street to Center, and so around to Pete’s lodgings. Lights in the windows reassured him, and he had half a mind to go back to his studies, but after a moment’s indecision he decided to go up for just a moment and tell Pete again what an idiot he had been. So he climbed the stairs and thrust open the door. At the table stood Tommy.
“Oh!” he said, “I thought you were Pete.”
“Isn’t he here?” asked Allan.
“No; I don’t know where he is.”
“I do,” Allan replied. Tommy was plainly uneasy when he learned of Pete’s trip. The two stayed until almost eleven. Then, as Pete had not returned, they went home together.
“He’s probably decided to stay there all night,” said Allan, hopefully. “Like as not, they wouldn’t let him come back.”
“I guess that’s it,” answered Tommy. “Pete wouldn’t be such a fool, anyhow, as to try and come down the river on a night like this.”
But despite his words, Allan went to sleep feeling not a little worried, and awoke the next morning with a feeling of impending misfortune. Pete was not in the dining-hall, but it was after eleven o’clock before Allen had an opportunity to make inquiries. When he did, he could find no news of his friend. No one had seen him that morning. Allan cut a recitation and hurried down to Pete’s rooms. The bed had not been occupied. Allan returned to the yard fighting against fear.
At three he heard the news from Hal, who, white of face, was waiting him on the porch.
“It’s – it’s all up with p-poor old Pete,” he announced, with his mouth working tremulously. “They found the boat he had a mile down the river. It – it was capsized!”
Allan felt his own face go pale, but after a moment he muttered:
“Pete could swim like a fish; you know that.”
Hal shook his head.
“Then why hasn’t he showed up?” he asked, hopelessly. “No, he’s a goner. You remember what he said about premonitions and things going to happen to him? I guess he was right, Allan. Poor old Pete! They – they found his hat, too, down by the wharves.”
CHAPTER XII
TOMMY CORRECTS A REPORT
Allan was almost the last of Pete’s friends to give up hope; but when, by the next morning, Pete had neither returned nor had news of him been received, even Allan accepted the general belief. The janitor at the boat-house readily identified the overturned boat, while as for the hat, which had washed ashore at the foot of Main Street, even if Allan and Hal had been in doubt about it, there was still Pete’s initials marked on the inside. Inquiry at Hillcrest had elicited the information that Pete had never reached there.
The Guilds were deeply concerned, and Mr. Guild not only added a sum to that offered by the college for the recovery of the body, but himself took charge of a boat which all the next day dragged the river between his place and Centerport. The drowned body, however, was never recovered – a fact which surprised nobody, since the current is capricious, and the stream so broad as to preclude the possibility of searching every foot of its bed.
The accepted theory was that Pete had encountered a sudden squall while crossing the river which had either swamped the boat or overturned it. Although Pete was known to have been a capable swimmer and a fellow of more than ordinary strength, yet the fact that he had failed to win the shore from midstream, weighted down as he had been with heavy clothing, was not considered strange.
A telegram was at once despatched to Pete’s father in Colorado, and, since that did not elicit a reply by the following forenoon, a second message was sent. The death was announced in the city papers with much detail, and Pete’s athletic prowess was highly exaggerated. The Erskine Purple, which appeared the second day after the accident, contained a half-column notice of the sad affair, in which Pete’s many estimable qualities were feelingly set forth. Tommy wrote the notice himself, and, as he felt every word he wrote, the article was a very touching tribute.
The club table was a subdued and sorrowful place for several days. Pete’s chair stood pathetically empty until, in desperation, Allan put it away. But as a head to the table was essential, an informal election was taken two days after Pete’s disappearance, and Wolcott was elevated to the place of honor. A meeting of the freshman class was called and a committee was appointed to draw up resolutions of sorrow, to be sent to Pete’s father and to be published in the Purple.
When, after the second day of search, the tug-boat commissioned by the college to drag for the body abandoned its work, the first depression had passed and the college by degrees returned to its usual spirits. But Allan and Hal and Tommy were not so speedily resigned. Tommy, in especial, took the event hard.
Perhaps it had been the utter dissimilarity of Pete’s nature and his own which had drawn him to Pete. That as may be, Tommy was a very grave-faced little chap in those days.
But Allan, if he showed less grief, was sadly depressed. He had not realized before how much he had grown to care in six weeks for the big, good-hearted Westerner. He felt terribly lonely, and besides he blamed himself for not having accompanied Pete; perhaps, he thought dolefully, had he gone along, the accident wouldn’t have happened, and Pete would have been sitting there now across the table, puffing lazily at his evil-smelling corn-cob pipe. But instead of Pete there was only Tommy and Hal – and Two Spot.
Two Spot, grown greatly in bulk since her advent, was snuggled against Tommy’s arm. Outside it was blowing a gale and lashing the rain against the long windows. It was a most depressing afternoon, and the spirits of the three friends were at a low ebb. Tommy looked now and then as though a good cry would do him worlds of good. Hal scowled morosely and drummed irritatingly on the arm of the Morris chair until Allan, in desperation, begged him to “cut it out.” It was at this juncture that Tommy let fall a remark that set Allan thinking hard.
“Poor old Pete got what he was after, though, didn’t he?” asked Tommy, breaking a silence of several minutes’ duration.
“What’s that?” asked Allan.
“Don’t you remember the bet he and I made?” Tommy replied. “Well, he got his name on the first page of the Purple, after all. Wish he hadn’t.”
“That’s so,” said Hal. “I’d forgotten about that bet. I guess you’ll have to pay that wager to us, Tommy, and we’ll drink to Pete’s memory.”
Allan, his heart thumping wildly, looked at the other fellows’ faces, but it was quite evident that the wild surmise which had come to him had not occurred to them. He pushed back his chair abruptly and went to the window.
Was it possible? he asked himself. Surely, Pete would not have gone to such a length merely to win a bet! And yet – Pete was Pete; what another fellow would do was no criterion when it came to Pete’s conduct. Allan’s heart was racing and thumping now. The more he considered the affair in the light of Tommy’s remark the more plausible seemed the startling theory which had assailed him. He turned to blurt out his suspicions to the others, then hesitated. If he should prove to be wrong, he would regret charging Pete with such madness. Perhaps he had better keep his own counsel for a while longer.
To you, respected reader, who have all along known, or at least suspected, the truth of the matter, it probably seems strange that Allan should not have instantly realized the hoax. I have no explanation to offer in his behalf. He was still in doubt when Fate, in the not uncommon semblance of a postman, came to his relief.
When he answered the landlady’s tap on his door, he received a letter the mere sight of which set all his doubts at rest. The envelope was postmarked Hastings – Hastings is a small city eighteen miles down the river from Centerport – and the round, schoolboy writing was unmistakably Pete’s.
Tommy and Hal glanced around when the door opened, but paid no attention while Allan tore open the envelope and rushed through the two pages of writing inside. They only awoke to the fact that something had happened when Allan, waving the sheet above his head, gave vent to a blood-curdling yell of joy that sent Two Spot scuttling out of Tommy’s arms and under the dresser.
“What is it?” they cried in unison.
Allan waved the letter again ecstatically.
“It’s a letter from him!”
“Him? Who?”
“Pete!”
To attempt to describe the subsequent confusion would be absurd. Only a wide-awake phonograph could do it. Two chairs were overturned, Tommy screeched, Hal roared, Allan yelled back. The letter waved in air. Then Tommy danced an impromptu jig and, being quite unconscious that he was doing it, did it with much grace. Unfortunately none noticed it. Hal was struggling for the letter. Allan was fighting to keep possession of it. Tommy danced on. Occasionally he shrieked. His shriek was not nearly so pleasant as his dancing. After many moments comparative quiet settled and three breathless fellows gathered at the window while Allan, holding the precious document in his hands, read aloud. This is what they heard, leaving out, for the sake of clearness, the frequent interpolations of the listeners:
Hastings House, Hastings, Dec. 7, 1903.
Dear Allan – I guess you weren’t fooled, but anyhow it may be best, in case you are getting worried, to write and let you know that I am still alive and kicking like a steer. I would have written before, but only got a copy of the Purp this morning. It was fine. Tell Tommy he did nobly. I know it was Tommy wrote it because of the poetry. I’m going to have that front page framed for my descendants to look upon. They’ll know then what a noble youth I was.
I’m leaving here for New York to-night. The old man’s there. I’m not stuck on telling him about it, you can bet. He will be rip-snorting mad. I had to drown myself when I did because I got a letter saying he was going to be in New York a couple of weeks, and I knew he wouldn’t get any telegrams or things announcing my sad death. I don’t guess they’ll let me come back to college, and I don’t care very much, except that I hate to say good-by to you and Hal and Tommy. But I’ll see you again before I go home, unless they are easy on me, which doesn’t seem likely, does it?
You see, I rowed up to Harwich, turned the boat over and set it adrift, and tossed my hat after it. I had another inside my coat. Then I walked to Williamsport and took the train back to this place. I’ve been here ever since. It’s a dull hole. But I had to wait for the Purple to make sure I hadn’t slipped up. I suppose there was a lot of trouble. I’m sorry if I worried you fellows, but life was getting duller than ditch-water and something had to be done. I wish you would go down to my room and pack up the things that are lying around.
Tell Tommy I’ll come back some day for that dinner, and that it’s got to be a good one. Maybe, if you have time, you’ll write and tell me how you all are. It seems like I hadn’t seen you for a month. Address me, Care Thomas A. Burley, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. You fellows have got to come out to Colorado this summer and visit me if they don’t let me come back to college. If you don’t, I’ll arise from my watery grave and haunt you. Say “How” to Hal and Tommy, and don’t forget your poor old
Uncle Pete.
The news astonished everybody save the Dean, who had already begun to smell a rat. Astonishment gave place to relief or joy, according to the hearer’s degree of intimacy with Pete, and joy gave place to resentment. It is rather annoying to lavish regret over the taking-off of a friend only to discover that the friend has worked a deliberate hoax on you and is still alive to enjoy your confusion. That is why, had Pete put in an appearance at Erskine at that time, he would in all probability have been mobbed.
But Pete didn’t appear, and ultimately resentment gave place to amusement. The general attitude became one of laughing disapproval. After all, Pete was Pete, and even if he had harrowed their feelings considerably at the same time he had supplied interest at a dull season and had worked nobody any harm. This reasoning may have appealed to the faculty as well. At all events, their verdict, when announced, was thought to be amazingly merciful. Peter Burley ’07 was suspended for the balance of the term. As there remained less than four weeks of the term, the penalty would be of short duration.
Allan and Hal were delighted, and even Tommy, after the first day or two of rampant rage, grudgingly acknowledged that he was glad Pete was coming back. This was also after Tommy had written a denial for the Purple of that paper’s announcement of Pete’s death. That denial was very, very simple and brief. There was no mention made of Pete’s many excellent qualities, nor did it express exuberant joy over his restoration. It merely stated that the announcement had proved erroneous and that Mr. Peter Burley was visiting relatives in New York city.
When Allan or Hal mentioned that announcement, Tommy went purple in the face and fell to stuttering. Perhaps, as Allan pointed out, it was just as well he stuttered, since what he had to say was really unfit for polite ears. But Tommy’s anger was too intense to last, and by the middle of the month he was able to smile wanly at Pete’s deception. The awarding to him of a two-hundred-dollar scholarship helped, perhaps, to restore his good humor. Hal said the scholarship would come in very handy in paying for the dinner.
Pete wrote that he had heard the faculty’s verdict, and was glad they were going to let him come back. He was leaving New York for home as he wrote, to be gone until the opening of the winter term. By reading between the lines, Allan surmised that Pete’s father had not been over-much pleased with his son’s escapade; there were signs of a chastened spirit.
The term wore itself to a close, and one sunshiny morning Allan and Hal and Tommy left Centerport for their respective homes, traveling the first part of the journey in company. Two Spot, apparently indifferent to the separation, was confided to Mrs. Purdy, and spent the Christmas holidays in the neighborhood of the kitchen range.
