Chapter XXXIII: Storm and Calm

Hervey’s fortunes were never at a lower ebb than when he stood in that damp cellar as the night came on and tried to reconcile himself to sleeping on the straw. Even the morrow held only the hope that by chance some one would discover him in his dreadful dungeon. It was not until a rotten board, laid diagonally against the foundation, had collapsed with him that he gave up and threw himself down with a feeling as near to despair as his buoyant nature had ever experienced.

Through the cracks and crevices of the shingles high overhead, he watched the light die away. A ray from the declining sun streamed through the window from which he had fallen, lingered for a few moments, then withdrew leaving the place almost in darkness. Such a price to pay for a merry little game with a snake!

Meanwhile, events occurred which were destined to have a bearing on Hervey’s life. At about half past nine that night, young Mr. Talbot emerged from the Walton house and encountered Wyne Corson coming in through the gateway. They both laughed at the encounter.

“Missionary work?” Mr. Talbot inquired.

“You beat me to it?” laughed Wyne.

“No, I’m through,” Mr. Talbot said. “He isn’t even home; nobody knows where he is. No, I’m through working on that prospect, and I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you, Corson. He’s going to military school and I guess that’s the best place for him.”

“The fellows in my troop are crazy about him,” said Wyne.

“They might better be crazy about you,” Mr. Talbot answered. “If they’re as crazy as all that, they’re better off without another crazy fellow in their troop. Come on, walk along with me; there’s no one inside but Mr. and Mrs. Walton and they’ve decided to send him to Chestnut Hill School.”

“Jiminies, but that chap has possibilities all right,” said Wyne, as they walked down the street together.

“Impossibilities, you mean. Why they don’t even know where he is to-night; hasn’t been home since noontime. You know I had him in my troop; I know something about him.”

“Two fellows in my patrol are so nutty about him that they waited around here in front of his house to-night just to get a squint at him. I don’t know, there’s kind of--oh, I don’t know--something about him; don’t you think so?”

“Oh, there’s plenty about him,” laughed Mr. Talbot, “and I know a few things that nobody else knows. You take my advice and keep away from the buzz-saw. The name of Hervey Willetts means trouble. Corson, when you talk to him and deal with him you get just absolutely no comeback; there’s nothing to work on.”

“Yet look what he did.”

“Does that kind of thing ever get anybody anywhere?”

“That’s some funny hat he wears, hey?”

Mr. Talbot threw up his hands good-humoredly. “I see he’s got you,” said he.

Wyne laughed, “Oh, I don’t know; you just can’t help liking him. He’s different from any fellow _I_ ever knew. He asked the doctor how much it costs to get tattooed.”

“Well, there’s one thing he hasn’t done yet; I’m surprised at that. What does he want; mottoes on his arm like on his hat?”

“The doctor seemed to like him,” said Wyne.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

“I thought I might get him into my troop----”

“You’re wasting your time, boy. Listen.” Mr. Talbot put his arm over Wyne’s shoulder as they walked along the street together. “Now I’m going to tell you something and you mustn’t ever mention it--to anybody.”

“Yes, but you can’t tell me there’s never anything to get hold of. When I was trying to save that girl the other day, I thought there wasn’t anything to get hold of. Well, I got my fingers in her mouth and I grabbed hold of her chin. I found something to get hold of all right.”

“And you’re going to California. You’re the biggest hero that’s ever come under this local council.”

“Yes, because I found something to get hold of.”

“Listen, my boy. Do you think I haven’t tried? Why we had him in our troop. All last summer he was up at Temple Camp----”

“That’s some camp, I guess.”

“I’ll say it is. He’s the only boy in my troop who was lucky enough to go up there. You know, Corson, Mr. Walton is one of the finest men that ever lived--_absolutely_. He’s strong for Temple Camp. You know it costs something up at that ranch--oh yes. He had Hervey up there all summer and the little devil was dismissed at the end of the season. He just did as he pleased all summer. When they were closing up they let him down easy; told him never to come back. And they meant it. Mr. Walton doesn’t know anything about this. And Hervey doesn’t know I know. It came to me indirectly from a scoutmaster in Clover Valley who had a patrol up there. I wrote up to camp, saying I was Hervey’s scoutmaster, and asked them about it. You ought to see the letter I got back. Now Mr. Walton tells me he’s going to send Hervey up to Chestnut Hill Military Academy for the fall and winter and next summer up to Temple Camp----”

“Good night!”

“Interesting? I just smiled. I thought I wouldn’t say anything; just let matters take their course. If I can’t help Hervey, at least I don’t want to hurt him. Mr. and Mrs. Walton are going to Europe next summer and Hervey’s going up to Temple Camp. I think Mr. and Mrs. are entitled to a vacation.”

“But Hervey can’t go up there,” Wyne said.

“Oh, can’t he! Leave it to him.”

“Does he know he’s going to be sent up there?”

“I dare say.”

“I bet he’s worried.”

“I bet he isn’t. He doesn’t know that word is in the dictionary.”

Wyne shook his head.

“I’ll tell you just what Hervey’ll do if you want to know,” said Mr. Talbot. “He’s not giving Temple Camp a thought. They didn’t fire him; he fired them. He’s forgotten all about it. But you know he’s lucky; he always says he’s lucky. When Mr. Walton sends him up there he’ll go and he’ll trust to luck. He can’t say that he’s forbidden to go, not now. He’ll go up there--he’s just reckless enough to do it--and he’ll trust to doing some big daredevil stunt and being allowed to stay.”

“And he’ll succeed, too, I bet,” said Wyne.

“No, he won’t succeed. They’re not falling for things like that up there. He’ll be just packed off home as soon as he gets there. And I don’t know what he’ll do. Mr. and Mrs. Walton won’t be here; the house will be closed up. But I’m not going to poke my nose in Hervey’s concerns. It’s like putting your hand in the fire, you just get burned. There’s nothing to get hold of with Hervey; he’s got to make his own trail. Why look at to-night! Where do you suppose he is?”

Wyne shrugged his shoulders. And so they walked along in silence for a few minutes.

“But I had to laugh how he wanted to know about getting tattooed,” Wyne said finally. He was thinking about Hervey. It was not just that he wanted to help him either. “I’ve often noticed him on the street; he never seems to be in a hurry. He’s always kind of fooling around as he goes along.”

“Oh, he has no idea of time at all,” said Mr. Talbot. “That’s where military school’s going to do him good. He wanted to bet me he’d escape!”

“Well, I bet he will,” said Wyne.

“No siree!”

“I don’t know, I kind of think he’d do anything he tries to do.”

“Hmph, well he usually tries to do the wrong things,” said Mr. Talbot. “But he’s going to do the things that other people want him to do for a while now,” he added with a chuckle.

“Just the same I bet they liked him up there--at that camp.”

Mr. Talbot laughed, it was so palpable that Wyne Corson was under Hervey’s spell.

“What’s the matter?” Wyne asked, with just a suggestion of testiness.

“Nothing. I don’t think they saw a great deal of him up there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Honest, do you think he’ll go up there next summer?”

“He will if you dare him to.”

“No, honest, do you?”

“Of course he will,” Mr. Talbot smiled, then added more seriously. “What else can he do?”

“Jiminies!” said Wyne with a kind of sorrowful shake of his head. “Some fix he’s in; I bet he’s worrying.”

“Yes, that’s the trouble with him,” said Mr. Talbot. “He just wore himself to skin and bone last year worrying about the national debt. I don’t think I’d lose any sleep over him,” he added seriously; “he isn’t worrying at all.”

“But what’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure; stand on his head I suppose. Well, here we are; come in a minute and I’ll show you some scout pictures.”

They lingered for a few minutes in front of Mr. Talbot’s house. “Wait a second, I’ll see if I’ve got a booklet about Temple Camp,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to glance it over. I wish you’d come in.”

“No, I’d better scoot, I think it’s going to rain,” said Wyne.

“Was that thunder?” Mr. Talbot asked. “All right, just wait here a second.”

As Wyne waited, the rumbling of distant thunder could be heard in the sky. He held out his hand, but felt no drop of rain. Presently a flash of zigzag lightning lit the sky and one of the blinds of the Talbot house blew shut, then open again. Soon he was hurrying home to South Farrelton with the Temple Camp booklet stuffed in his pocket and was scarcely indoors when the storm which had been threatening broke in full fury. Wyne’s parents and sister had retired, but his mother called to him to know if he had got wet, and asked him to go up and shut the attic window for the rain seemed to be blowing from the north.

Wyne paused in the dark attic for a few moments, listening to the torrential downpour on the shingles and looking out of the window which was streaming with rain. He wondered where indeed Hervey Willetts could be so late at night. Why did his thoughts dwell on Hervey Willetts? There were fine, brave scouts in his own troop. He went downstairs to his own room, stirred by the heroic fury of the maddened elements and, as he entered, a deafening peal of thunder smote his ears. It seemed to shake the house in its tumultuous frenzy. That was the climax of the storm.

It was odd how two things strangely related to each other occurred immediately upon the waning of that spasmodic storm. And how each of those things was characteristic of the boy concerned in it. At about the same time that Wyne Corson propped himself comfortably up in bed for a leisurely perusal of the beautifully illustrated Temple Camp booklet, Hervey Willetts scrambled up a broken rafter of the old barn roof which had been struck by lightning and had fallen into his dank and streaming dungeon.

Oh, he was lucky! Just as he always said he was, _he was lucky_. But he did not know of his greatest luck. He did not know that a boy down in South Farrelton was sitting propped up in bed looking at the pictures of lake and cabin and reading about the rules and awards and all the pleasurable routine of a great scout community in the sequestered woodland of the Catskills.

Wet, hungry and exhausted, with a stern military school staring him in the face, Hervey Willetts was luckier than he knew. Reading, looking at books even, was something that he never did. He had never even seen that familiar booklet about Temple Camp! Yet that little booklet was destined to influence his future. It is funny, when you come to think of it, how that pretty, tasseled prospectus was to deal this doer of mighty deeds a knockout blow. He had blithely disregarded every by-law and rule that it contained. He had repudiated it in toto. And now, out of its own prosy printed matter, it was to strike him back with a fine retaliatory swat.