Chapter XVII: Defiance

“Well, what do you want?” demanded the bully, halting.

“I want to know where you’re going,” replied Tom.

“I don’t know that it’s any of your affair.”

“Well, it is, and the affair of every member of this class. We want to know who is with us, and who against us. And it looks, the way you were sneaking off just now, as though you weren’t going to be with us.”

“I don’t care how it looks,” retorted Sam, and his tone was not as defiant as it had been, “I’ve got some studying to do, and I want to get at it.”

“Well, we’ve no objection to you doing all the studying you want to,” went on our hero, “but if things turn out the way I expect we won’t do much more Latin boning--until things are different.”

“That’s what!” came in a chorus from the others.

Sam Heller started to walk away, but Tom was not done with him yet.

“Look here. Heller,” went on his questioner. “What we want to know is, whether you’re with us or against us?”

“Why shouldn’t I be with you?”

“That’s not answering the question. We know how you trained in with the Sophomores at the hazing, and that doesn’t look as though you considered yourself a Freshman, though I know why you did it, all right,” and Tom looked at his enemy significantly.

“That’s what!” shouted Jack Fitch.

“Now, as I said,” went on Tom, “if we do strike, and refuse to recite to Skeel, it won’t amount to anything unless the class stands together. If even one member backs down it will look as though he didn’t believe our cause right and just, and we can’t afford to have that. Now, are you with us or against us? We want to know before we go any further.”

“And if you’re not with us, it won’t be healthy for you, Heller!” exclaimed Frank Ralston.

“Hold on!” cried Tom. “We mustn’t have any threats. If he doesn’t want to join he doesn’t have to, in which case, of course, he can no longer consider himself a Freshman in the real sense of the word.”

“Coventry for his, if he doesn’t join!” cried Jack.

Sam started. He knew what it would mean to be given the “silence” by every member of his class. He would be practically ignored. For, in spite of his mean traits, he had a few friends beside Nick.

“Well?” asked Tom. “What about it?”

“I--I’m with you--of course.”

“To the end?”

“Yes.”

“No matter what happens?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean will you chance expulsion if it comes to that in case we strike?”

“I--I suppose so.”

“That’s all I want to know,” went on Tom. “We will have a meeting to-night, and decide on a plan. Then we’ll make a mutual promise to stick together, and we’ll wait our chance. Meeting’s adjourned.”

“Say, Tom Fairfield is all right!” exclaimed Bert Wilson to Jack, as the two walked on together.

“That’s true,” agreed Tom’s special chum. “I’m glad we’ve got him to run things.”

“What makes him that way--always doing things?” George Abbot wanted to know.

“Because, Why,” spoke Jack, “Tom eats rusty nails for breakfast. They give him an iron constitution.”

“Really. Are you joking?”

“Of course not,” replied Jack with a sober face. “Run along now, and ask Demy Miller if he knows his ancient history.”

The studious janitor was observed coming over the campus, a book, as usual, under his arm. He saw the students and turned to meet them.

“What is it now, Demy?” asked Jack, as he saw an anxious look on the man’s face.

“Oh, it’s this proposition about constructing squares on the sides of a right-angle triangle and making the sum of them equal the one constructed on the--er--hippenuse, I think it’s called.”

“Hypothenuse--the hypothenuse!” laughed Jack, as he heard the odd pronunciation. “Why, that’s an easy problem, Demy. George Abbot here will show you how. We’re going for a skate.”

“Oh, I----!” began the human question box. He was going skating also, but now he had to stop and explain to the janitor. And it was well to keep in with the latter, for he often did the boys favors, and many a night he let them in before some prowling monitor could spy them. “Well, come over here, and I’ll do it for you,” ended George, as he saw his chums making appealing signals to him.

Soon he was explaining that comparatively simple geometrical problem while the others, including Tom, went down to the frozen river.

Early that evening there was secret meeting of the Freshman Latin class, and a solemn agreement was entered into that, if they had to strike, they would all stick together. Even Sam Heller was present, though with no very good grace, and he made the promise with the others.

“Now to await developments,” suggested Tom. “We’ll give that old taskmaster one more chance, and if he takes it, and bullyrags us any more, we’ll defy him, and go on strike.”

“Hurray!” yelled Jack Fitch.

“That’s the talk!” came from several.

“Meeting’s adjourned,” said Tom with a smile. “Come on, Jack, I feel just like running the guard.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Where you going?”

“What’s the matter with going into town, and seeing a moving picture show.”

“We may be nabbed.”

“What of it? Might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. If we go into this strike business we’ll get in bad with the powers that be, anyhow. And if we don’t, why I’ll feel so good at the change in Skeel, that I won’t mind a little rigging for being out after hours.”

“All right. I’m with you.”

The two chums went, with some other of their friends, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the show, for the pictures were of a high class. Coming back the boys were almost at their dormitory, when a friendly Senior warned them that some of the proctor’s scouts were on the watch.

“Go around by Skeel’s house, cut through his garden, and you can get in through the cellar, I think,” the Senior advised them.

“Thanks,” called Tom, as he and his chums moved off in the darkness. As they passed the residence of the disliked instructor, they saw a light in his study. The shade was drawn, but the shadow of two figures could be seen on the shade. And, as the lads came opposite it they made out one figure, which plainly was that of the professor, shaking his fist at the other.

“He’s laying down the law to some one,” murmured Jack. “Looks like he’d be in a sweet temper to-morrow.”

“I’m going to see who it is,” whispered Tom. “The shade is up a crack.”

“Better not,” advised Bert Wilson, but Tom was daring. He crept up to the window, and saw that it was Bruce Bennington who was with the professor.

“And it was him whom the professor was shaking his fist at,” thought Tom, as he stole back to his comrades with the information. “I wish I could find out what is up between those two, and what is troubling Bruce.”

Our friends managed to get to their rooms without being caught, though one or two of them had narrow escapes.

Tom’s thoughts, as he dropped off to sleep, were on what might happen the next day. Would it be necessary to strike? He imagined that it would, for it could hardly be expected that Professor Skeel would change his nature in a day.

It was not without a little feeling of nervousness that Tom and his associates filed into their Latin recitation the next morning. There was a grim smile on the face of Professor Skeel as he looked over the lads in their seats, and there was grim menace in the manner in which he opened his book, prepared to go on with the doubly-imposed task.

“Well,” he began, omitting the usual “young gentlemen,” with which jolly Professor Hammond, and the others of the faculty, used to greet their students. “Well, I trust you are all prepared; for if you are not, I warn you all that it will go hard with you.”

There was a subdued murmur. Clearly there was to be no let-up in the manner of conducting the Latin class.

“Silence!” snapped Mr. Skeel. “I have had enough of this insubordination.”

“You’ll have more before we’re through with you,” thought Tom.

“You may recite, Fitch,” spoke Professor Skeel. “And I want a perfect recitation from you to-day.”

Jack began. He did well enough for the first few lines and then began to stumble and hesitate.

“That will do!” snapped the professor. “You try, Fairfield.”

There was an indrawing of breaths. If the clash was to come, it would be with Tom, all thought.

Tom had the one day’s lesson perfectly. He rapidly translated that and stopped.

“Well, go on,” ordered Mr. Skeel, obviously ill-pleased that the student he suspected had done so well.

“That’s as far as I’m going,” said Tom quietly.

“What?”

“That’s as far as I’m going. That is all that is ever assigned to us for one day.”

“But I told you all to learn a double lesson.”

“And I refuse to do it. We all refuse to do it!”

This was the signal Tom had agreed upon as marking the defiance and revolt, in case there was no change in the professor’s manner.

For a moment Professor Skeel was dumb--as if he could not believe what he had heard.

“Will you kindly repeat that?” he asked Tom, in a quiet, menacing voice.

“I said,” began our hero, “that we have agreed that the double lesson was unfair. We have agreed that if you insisted on it that we would not recite. We will go no farther. Either we get better treatment, or we will not come to your class any more.”

“Wha--what?” gasped Professor Skeel, turning pale.

Tom repeated what he had said.

“What does this mean? Have done with this nonsense!”

“It means a strike!” cried Tom, turning to his classmates. “Boys, are you with me? A strike for better treatment in the Latin class! Are you with me?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” came the cries from all parts of the room.

“Silence! Sit down!” shouted Professor Skeel, as he saw the students rise in a body. “Sit down!” He banged his rule on the desk.

“Come on!” ordered Tom, and the boys--every one--followed his lead.