Chapter XV: Counter Currents in the “gym”

“How are you coming on with your farce, Dick?” asked Mr. Holwell, the next evening, as he stepped in at the Y. M. C. A. building to see how the boys were coming on, and also to fulfill several errands.

“Oh! I seem to be forging right ahead, sir,” laughed Dick, “though I find it a pretty hard proposition to get up the songs and choruses. I don’t believe I could have tackled the job only for your permission to get such assistance in the song part that we could from any of our young companions.”

“Yes, you told me before that one of the girls had been helping you there,” remarked the minister, who was showing a very deep interest in all of the boys belonging to the new department of the association. “I have given the same permission to all who intend to compete. But it is expressly understood that the words of the songs and choruses, as well as everything save the musical score, must be entirely original with the ones who submit their farces to the committee, or else they will be thrown out.”

“Sometimes I am almost tempted to tear mine up,” admitted Dick, frankly; “because it reads silly to me; but my folks at home seem to like it, and my chum Leslie says it is fine. But then, I guess he only tells me that because he is my chum.”

“Don’t think of tearing it up, my boy,” urged the minister, earnestly. “Many a famous man has had his hours of doubt, and come near abandoning the career he had marked out for himself. You are no judge of your own productions. Older heads must decide on the merits of the compositions. Promise me that no matter what you think you will finish the farce and hand it in.”

“Oh! I can promise you that, sir,” replied Dick, flushing with pleasure, since he felt that Mr. Holwell had a certain amount of confidence in him.

Shortly afterward the minister left the building, having accomplished what errands he had in view when entering. It was the one evening in the week when the juniors were allowed the freedom of the gymnasium, and a dozen fellows had already donned their “gym” garments, so that they could have perfect freedom of movement when exercising in their favorite ways.

Nat and Dit were on hand, for they never missed an opportunity to be present on “gym” night. Indeed, Dick strongly suspected it was this very thing that had tempted Nat and his cronies to swallow their pride, and send that apology to Mr. Holwell.

Being quite an athlete, Nat always took a leading part in the varied exercises of the gymnasium. He could do many feats that caused some of the other less muscular and agile boys to envy him very much.

Mr. Holwell, who read boys so well, understood that it was only a slender hold the association had on such a wild fellow as Nat. He hoped, however, that by degrees the influences of the new life might serve to tone the other down, and cause him to change his ways.

After some of the boys had tired themselves out in their exercises with the parallel bars, the swinging hoops, the lifting weights, and many other devices calculated to make them stronger in every way, they clustered around Nat, who was holding forth on the subject of his farce.

“Wait till you hear it,” he was telling them in his exultant and superior way. “Chances are you’ll double up like a hinge with every page that’s read. Am I right, Dit?” and as he said this last he turned on his “shadow,” Dit Hennesy, who, as always, was hovering close by Nat.

“Say, it’s sure a screamer,” asserted the other, vigorously. “Talk to me about funny business, Nat’s got every minstrel show beat to a frazzle. He read some of the stuff to me last night, and I’m giving you the straight thing when I tell you my mother says she heard me laughing in my sleep ever so many times.”

Nat grinned happily as he looked around. Then his eye fell on Dick, who he very well knew was also writing a farce so as to enter the competition for the golden prize.

“I reckon that makes you feel some sore, eh, Dick?” he sneered, as though delighted at the opportunity to pay back some of the long score he thought he owed the other. “Course you’re doing your level best; but shucks! you’re only wasting your time let me tell you. There never was, and there never will be as funny a farce as I’m goin’ to spring on the committee. Huh! even makes me laugh myself when I get off a rattlin’ good joke, and hurry to write it down before I forget it.”

To tell the truth, Dick did feel as though he hardly had the ghost of a chance in the competition, after hearing all this boasting. Not for worlds, however, would he let that fellow see him look downcast. So he laughed good-naturedly as he went on to say in reply:

“Oh! well, I’m doing my level best, and that’s all any fellow can do. If the committee turns down my effort, all right. I’ll take my medicine without whimpering. I believe the best original farce ought to win, and that’s all there is to it.”

Nat looked keenly at him as though he wondered whether Dick could have any hidden meaning back of his words.

“Well, you see,” he continued, “I’m one of the kind of fellows always on the lookout for a chance to get off a crackin’ good joke on people. That helps me a heap in doin’ my writin’. Right now I’ve been thinking up a little scheme to give old Limpy Peters, the shoemaker, the scare of his life.”

“How’s that, Nat?” asked Dit Hennesy, as he invariably did when the other showed signs of having conjured up some scheme that promised to give them the selfish enjoyment felt by the boy who was stoning the frogs.

“I’ll tell you,” chuckled Nat, who seemed to be feeling particularly jolly on this occasion. “You know Limpy Peters lost his wife some years ago. He always goes to the graveyard on nights when there’s a full moon, and sits there a long time like a silly old fool. Well, I’m thinking what fun it’d be to hide near that place and start to groaning when he comes. Say, just try to picture that cripple makin’ tracks for the gate, will you? It’d be enough to make a mummy grin to see him tumblin’ all over himself.”

Dit, of course, laughed as though he thought it a good idea. Several other boys being thoughtless, also chuckled, as they mentally pictured the poor cobbler stumbling and falling in his fright and mad desire to escape.

Others, however, frowned on the foolish scheme, and could be heard muttering the word “shame.” Nat stiffened up, and his cheeks flamed with anger. He looked at Dick, as though believing that he had been loudest in his condemnation.

“Seems you don’t like my little joke any too well, hey, Dick Horner?” he demanded, with a scowl. “Well, mebbe you can originate a better one yourself.”

“I don’t understand what it’s got to do with getting up a farce, and I’d like you to explain that part to me,” Dick told him, calmly.

“Oh!” exclaimed the other, with a scornful laugh, “that shows that you don’t appreciate the glorious possibilities a situation like that offers a real author of farces. I’m deep in it right now, and the conversation that is carried on between the poor scared chap in the graveyard and the supposed ghost would make you split your sides laughing, just to hear it.”

“Why,” spoke up the dutiful Dit, “I wanted him to read it to me, but he just wouldn’t. He said it’d make me so weak with laughin’ I never could walk home. Say, if it’s any better than what I did hear it sure must be a corker.”

“But why frighten poor Limpy Peters when you’re getting on so well as it is?” demanded Dick.

“Huh! shows your ignorance when you say that,” snorted Nat. “When a dramatist gets up a show he always wants to try it on the dog first, before it’s played in a big city. So I want to get what they call _inspiration_ by seeing just how scared Limpy Peters will be when I groan, and carry on.”

“Shame on you, Nat!” said Leslie Capes, indignantly.

“Yes, and a whole lot of us echo that sentiment,” Dick went on to say. “Poor old Limpy Peters has suffered terribly in his life. Nearly every boy in Cliffwood thinks a heap of the old man, and for one I won’t stand by and hear of his being pestered, as you say, just to give you ‘inspiration.’”

“Huh! you talk pretty big, Dick Horner,” snapped Nat, with one of his lofty looks. “What’d you do about it if I said I’d carry on as I pleased?”

Dick faced him with flashing eyes. Somehow he was fully aroused by now, and meant to give the other a piece of his mind.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do for one thing!” he exclaimed, “and unless I miss my guess, there are a lot of other fellows here who feel the same way. I’ll tell Mr. Holwell about your scheme, and he’ll see to it that old Peters is warned. Then if you try what you threaten you may get in a peck of trouble.”

“That’s my way of thinking, too!” asserted Leslie, instantly ranging alongside of his chum. “We listened to you on Hallowe’en, and came near getting arrested for entering Mr. Nocker’s house to give him a scare.”

“Better forget about this idea, Nat,” warned Peg Fosdick. “For one I’d never stand to hear of poor old Peters being scared half to death. I know what it is to limp myself, and can feel for the lame cobbler.”

“Count me in as being opposed to that sort of cruel joke!” declared Andy Hale.

“Ditto here!” sang out Clint Babbett. “Time’s gone by when I could get any real fun out of giving pain to other people.”

“Plenty of other ways to find amusement, so far as I’m concerned, and so put me down as being with you, Dick, if you feel that you’ve got to give Nat away to Mr. Holwell,” observed Elmer Jones, positively.

Nat glared around him. To tell the truth every one seemed against him save his crony Dit Hennesy.

“Oh! well,” he laughed harshly; “seein’ that you’re so timid a bunch, I’ll call the joke off. Reckon I can finish my little imaginary conversation between the ghost and the cobbler without tryin’ it on the dog. And you needn’t say a word to Mr. Holwell about it, Dick; unless you’re itchin’ to get me put out of the game so you could have a walk-over.”

Dick felt the sneer, and turned red, but held his ground.

“I’ll promise not to say a word to Mr. Holwell,” he told Nat. “But I mean to let Limpy know some boys are thinking of playing a practical joke on him one of these nights, so he can carry a pistol along with him when he goes to sit by the grave of his wife. That’s all I’ve got to say about it.”

“Oh! forget it,” sneered Nat. “I don’t take any chances with a shooting-iron. Limpy needn’t bother, for I won’t molest him.”

The look he gave Dick as he turned away was an ugly one.

“Better watch out more than ever for Nat, Dick,” cautioned Leslie, as the two of them walked home together that evening. “He’s got it in for you as sure as anything.”

“Oh! I’m not bothering my head about his ever laying a hand on me,” declared the other boy, indifferently. “I only wish I could be as sure that his farce wouldn’t make my effort look silly. From what they say, Nat must be a rattling good hand at writing that sort of thing. Of course, I’ll keep on trying my best, but I’m afraid there isn’t much chance of my winning those twenty-five gold dollars.”