Chapter XVII: Over the Top

There probably was never a boy in the world who rendered so much gratuitous service to his elders as Hervey Willetts. It was not exactly the spirit of service that impelled him. Next to being alone he liked to be mixed up in the manual activities of men and he was wont to constitute himself a sort of utility boy in their labors. Whenever the red wrecking car from the Mohawk Garage arrived upon the scene of a smashup, you would be pretty sure to see Hervey perched upon the seat with the mechanic. His boast that he knew the firemen was well made; he had many times been allowed to ride to fires on the bellowing apparatus. To paraphrase the familiar song _Hervey had no rights at all, but he got there just the same_.

Exactly why he preferred to loll out in the field chasing the balls which escaped the fielders, rather than to pitch or catch on a younger boys’ team, I do not know. He could not get a very good view of the game from his self chosen and remote post. But so it was, he sprawled out there during the whole progress of the game, occasionally running after the fugitive ball, which the players seemed willing enough to let him do.

At intervals, as the spirit moved him, he encouraged caterpillars to walk onto a stick, then dexterously projected them to a selected spot. He seemed captivated by this novel form of outdoor sport. Once a caterpillar alighted on his head and it was quite a stunt without the aid of sight to lay the stick in just the right spot for the caterpillar to proceed upon it. He missed several balls doing this, but no one seemed to care. His contribution to the game was quite voluntary.

Suddenly came the home run, knocked by the young man who was teller in the Farrelton Trust Company. At that moment the score stood three to nothing in favor of Hanniford. Amid frantic cheering the ball sped over the heads of the outfielders, over Hervey’s head--over a fence even-- a fence which no aspiring ball had ventured to sail over in many a long month. And around went the runner, amid deafening yells, past first, past second, past third--and home. It was a spectacular run.

Pell-mell after the ball went Hervey. Before he had reached the fence the pitcher was fondling another ball; there was to be no interruption on account of a lost ball, but if he wished to go after it they would be glad to have it back. Up the high iron fence he scrambled, slipping, straining and catching his trousers on the ornamental pickets. He stood between pickets, balancing himself. If he didn’t jump he would fall. And he had better take care that one or other of his feet did not get caught between those ornamental arrowheads when he did jump. He swayed, swung his arms to get his balance, and jumped. But he was afraid to give a springing jump for fear his feet would catch in the narrow space between those gilded arrowheads.

So he did not jump clear of the trim row of hydrangea bushes which bordered the fence within. Instead he went sprawling down into it and a shower of snowy flakes from the huge flowers besprinkled his clothing and floated away on the air. For a few seconds he literally swam in the yielding bushes, scattering the flaky petals as he trod down the gorgeous clusters. “When you see those things you know school is going to open,” Roy Blakeley of Temple Camp had told him.

But now something even more tragic was going to happen. For a few moments his sprawling legs did not even find the ground. Then one landed on the damp earth underneath the spreading shrubs and he strode out opening and tearing the flowered branches by main strength. He emerged in the very teeth of a huge dog that had run up barking furiously. In sheer self-protection, he backed into the shrubbery and damaged it still more, the dog advancing menacingly, the while barking with increasing excitement. The beast seemed in a very delirium of rage.

Intent as the dog was on challenging Hervey’s progress, the safest course seemed to be to mount the fence again. In having recourse to this retreat he trampled the bushes still more till he had made a sorry wreck of them. The dog’s frantic barking increased till he seemed beside himself with wrath. What might have happened if he had remained master of the situation it would be harrowing to describe, he was deterred from further aggression by a bulky, youngish man in a pair of overalls who came briskly along a flower-bordered walk and dragged him by the collar, then gave him a kick.

He was quite as brisk and vigorous with Hervey as he had been with the dog, reaching across the bushes, grabbing him by the collar, and hauling him out into the path where he continued holding him in a firm grip.

“You let me go,” said Hervey, his anger rising with this indignity. “I’m not going to beat it, but you let me go. You needn’t think I’m like a dog, you big---- You let me go, do you hear!” He accompanied his demand with a vigorous kick in his captor’s shins.

“What are you doing in here?” the young man demanded angrily. “Do you see what you did. I suppose you’re the youngster that was in here last night after grapes.” He held his captive at arm’s length, though indeed Hervey did not repeat the vicious assault with his feet.

“I came in after the ball,” he said.

“Yes, and did you see the sign out there as big as a house, or are you blind?”

It was quite like Hervey that he had seen no sign; he seldom saw them.

“Look at what you’ve done,” said his captor. “How much damage do you suppose you’ve done there? Look at _that_. Look at that other bush. Look at those two there. You’d think an earthquake had struck them. Do you think you can do fifty or a hundred dollars’ worth of damage to get a baseball? What do you think of this?” he added, turning to another man who had just appeared. The man shook his head dubiously. “Well, he’s going to learn his lesson this time.”

“It’s the first time I was ever in here,” said Hervey fearfully.

“And it will be the last,” said his captor. “You heard what the governor told me before he left, Jake, that I should have the law on any more trespassers? I’m expected to run this place, look after fifty acres--cows, horses, poultry, and oversee three acres of this fancy stuff--_and look at it_! Who got blamed about the rhododendrons--you remember? I’ve got to be superintendent and detective and everything else here. Go get Charlie and tell him to come and fix these things up. You’d think a cyclone hit them.”

“I didn’t mean----” Hervey began.

“Oh, I know,” the man snapped. “You didn’t know private property has to be respected. Well, I’m going to do what I was told to do, then maybe you’ll learn a lesson. Every time anybody comes over that fence he lands on my head, it seems. I’m the one to get the blame. You go get Charlie; I’ll take care of this kid.”

If Hervey had not been too fearful to think he might have surmised that the anger of this man, evidently superintendent of a large estate, had not been aroused simply by this particular instance of trespass, even with its destructive accompaniment. The man had evidently been harassed by trespassers on the one hand and by his employer on the other. Hervey had precipitated himself into those beautiful gardens at a most unpropitious time. He was evidently to be the terrible example to others who had made free in those fruited and flowered precincts.

“All right, sir; you come along with me,” said the superintendent briskly.