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“Captain Putnam, I am not guilty, and you ought to know it!” he cried. “It was bad enough to make me resign my position, this is even worse. I shall write to my folks and ask them to take me away from this school!”
“You may do as you please, Grenwood,” was the captain’s cold reply.
“Some day, perhaps, you’ll find out your mistake,” said the cadet, and then, with tears of anguish and indignation standing in his eyes he left the office and ran up the stairs to the dormitory occupied by himself and several others.
Left to himself, Captain Putnam leaned his elbow on his desk and rested his head in his hand.
“These boys! These boys!” he murmured to himself. “I hardly know whether to believe them or not – they are up to so many tricks! Grenwood looks honest enough, and yet – you never can tell!” And he heaved a deep sigh. He was beginning to learn that after all, running a boarding school was not such an easy thing as he had at first supposed. He wanted to do what was just, – but he hated to be imposed upon.
CHAPTER VI
THE NEW TEACHER
The first person the ex-quartermaster encountered upstairs was Jack.
“Hello, Bob,” cried the young major. “Just the person I want to see.”
“I – I – some other time, Ruddy,” stammered the youth, whose eyes were full of tears.
“See here, Bob, what’s your hurry? Anything special on?” And now Jack caught the other boy affectionately by the shoulder.
“I – I am going to leave this school!” was the bitter response. “Captain Putnam hasn’t treated me fairly. I didn’t distribute those blanks, I am certain of it – and I didn’t have anything to do with rough-housing the Hall, either!”
“Who said you played rough-house here?”
“He did – or he said as much.”
“Where have you been?”
“To Cedarville. I walked there directly from the target grounds.”
“Meet anybody on the road?”
“Why – er – yes, a farmer named Laning. He was driving a team of oxen and wanted to know what the shooting meant.”
“Where did you go when first you got to Cedarville?”
“What do you want to know that for?”
“Never mind, just tell me?”
“I went to the steamboat dock. There I met the agent, and helped him tow a boat up to Chase Point. When we got back I went and got supper at Berry’s and then came to the school.”
“Did you tell the captain all that?”
“No – he didn’t give me the chance.”
“Well, you should have told him. It seems to me it would be easy for you to prove an alibi, so far as being here this afternoon is concerned.”
“I am not going to bother with it – I’m going to quit and go home,” answered Bob Grenwood recklessly.
“I wouldn’t do it. Stay, Bob, and face the music. If you go away it will make it look as if you were guilty.”
“But Captain Putnam – ”
“Is all upset on account of this awful mix-up. He’ll calm down by to-morrow – and so will you. And let me say another thing, Bob. None of us fellows thinks you distributed the blanks, – or, if you did, we are sure it was a pure and simple mistake.”
At this moment came a cry from one of the dormitories, followed a second later by a yell from another room.
“This is the worst yet!”
“Every bed sheet is gone!”
“So are all the night clothes!”
“Here is some of the stuff, in the closet, and, yes, it’s tied up in hard knots!”
“Talk about ‘chawin’ on the beef!’ It will take some ‘chawin’’ to get these knots out!”
“Oh, if I only had the fellow who did this, wouldn’t I give him a piece of my mind!”
“I’d give him a piece av me fist!” roared Emerald. “Just be after looking at them beautiful pajamas of mine, toied in about twinty knots!” And he held up the articles of wearing apparel dolefully.
Jack ran into his dormitory, to find Pepper with a bundle in his hand. The bundle consisted of their night clothes and some bed sheets, all knotted together in a hopeless tangle. Several similar bundles were in the possession of other cadets.
The uproar was so great that soon all the teachers and the servants were on the scene. For once Captain Putnam was as furious as Josiah Crabtree had ever been.
“This is the vilest kind of an outrage!” cried the master of the Hall. “If I find out who is guilty I’ll have that person locked up!”
“I fancy more than one person did this,” said George Strong.
“You are right – it would take several at least. What a mess!” The captain glanced from room to room in perplexity. “I hardly know what to do.”
“Please, Captain Putnam, my nightgown is split from top to bottom,” wailed Mumps.
“One of the legs of my pajamas is torn off,” growled Reff Ritter.
“An arm of mine is gone,” added Coulter.
“Boys, you will have to straighten out things as best you can for the night,” said Captain Putnam at last. “To-morrow I’ll have a thorough investigation.”
The cadets went to work “chawin’ good and proper,” as Andy expressed it, and inside of half an hour the sheets and night clothing were straightened out, and then the lads went to bed, tired but highly excited. All voted that this was the most strenuous day that had ever come to them.
“Captain Putnam can think as he pleases,” said Pepper. “I am certain in my mind that the Pornell fellows did this, although how they managed it without being seen is a wonder to me.”
“It wasn’t so difficult, with all the cadets and all the teachers away,” answered Stuffer. “They must have gotten in on the sly and then posted a guard.”
“If we find out it was really the Pornell fellows we ought to pay ’em back,” spoke up Dale.
“We will,” answered Pepper promptly.
On the following morning both the cadets and the teachers had calmed down, and Captain Putnam acted like quite another person. A rigid investigation was held, but nothing came of it, although the missing school books were found in a hall closet. Acting on Jack’s advice Bob Grenwood went to the master of the school and told his story in detail, adding that he could prove by Mr. Laning, the farmer, and by the people in Cedarville how he had put in his time.
“Well, Grenwood, if you are innocent of this rough-house work I am glad to know it,” answered Captain Putnam finally. And so that matter was dropped. But he still believed poor Grenwood guilty of having distributed the blank cartridges and refused to reinstate the ex-quartermaster.
Two days later the new teacher arrived and was introduced to the cadets by Captain Putnam. Mr. Pluxton Cuddle proved to be a large man, fully six feet two inches in height and weighing at least two hundred pounds. He had a shock of heavy black hair, a heavy black moustache, and heavy black eyebrows. When he spoke his voice was almost a rumble, and he had a manner of shifting his eyes constantly and of rubbing his hands together as if soaping them well.
“I am sure we shall get along well together, young gentlemen,” he said in a voice that could be heard out on the campus. “Education is a great thing, a grand thing, and while you are at this institution you must make the most of your opportunities. My heart goes out to all boys who desire to elevate themselves mentally, and you who love to study will find me your best friend. In a few days I shall feel more at home here, and then we will see how much of precious study we can crowd into the all but too short hours of school life.” And having said this he bowed profoundly and sat down.
“Phew! but he’s a corker!” whispered Pepper to Jack. “I rather think he’ll make us sit up and take notice, eh?”
“Right you are, Pep,” answered the young major. “If I am any judge he’ll be even stricter than old Crabtree.”
“Looks like a chap who would carry out his ideas, once he had made up his mind,” came from Andy.
“Silence in the classroom!” called out Captain Putnam, and then, after a few words more, he left the new teacher and the students alone. Mr. Pluxton Cuddle got to work at once, and that day the boys studied more mathematics, astronomy and physics than ever before. They found that Mr. Cuddle was a regular “slave driver,” as Dale called him. Even Joe Nelson, studious as he was, shook his head.
“He’d want to keep a fellow at it every minute,” he observed. “I don’t mind boning away, but I want a breathing spell now and then.”
In the mess hall Pluxton Cuddle made himself even more disliked than in the classrooms. Hardly had the cadets at his table begun to eat when he commenced to find fault.
“The food is really cooked too much,” he said. “It is not healthy for the human stomach to eat food so well-done. And, boys, do not overload your stomachs. An overloaded stomach befogs the brain. To grow up clear-brained one must eat little and only that which is rare-done.”
“Gracious! does he want to starve us?” cried Pepper.
“He shan’t starve me!” returned Stuffer. He looked up to see the eyes of the new teacher fastened on him and his plateful of victuals.
“I say, you!” cried Pluxton Cuddle, pointing a long finger at poor Stuffer. “Do you mean to eat all that food?”
“Ye – yes, sir,” stammered Singleton.
“It is entirely too much, young man, entirely too much. Why, sir, do you know the capacity of the human stomach?”
“I know what mine can hold,” answered Stuffer, and at this answer a titter arose.
“Half of that food is sufficient for any boy,” went on Pluxton Cuddle, and glared around so sharply that the tittering stopped at once. “You cannot have a clear brain if you stuff yourself.”
“Captain Putnam lets me eat what I please,” grumbled Stuffer.
“Then the captain is making a sad mistake, and I feel it my duty to rectify it. Take a saucedish and put half of the food on it, and then eat what is left on your plate and no more.”
After that there was silence, but many of the cadets looked at each other meaningly. Here was a brand-new experience. When they got out on the campus they gathered to talk it over.
“Cut me off on food!” snorted Stuffer. “Say, if this thing keeps up I’ll go home. Why, I ain’t had half enough to eat!”
“Poor Stuffer!” cried Pepper. “Now see what you get for pampering your stomach!”
“I wanted some more rice pudding but I didn’t dare to ask for it,” said Dale.
“I wanted some more meat,” came from Bart Conners. “But he wouldn’t let the waiter bring me any. I think this is the limit!”
“What made me mad was the way Reff Ritter grinned at me from the next table,” continued Stuffer. “He had all he wanted to eat, for they had Mr. Strong there.”
“Too bad Mr. Strong is going away,” was Jack’s comment. “I hope he doesn’t stay long.”
“When does he go?” inquired another pupil.
“To-morrow.”
“The only thing this Cuddle knows is lessons,” said Dale. “There is no denying he is learned – more so even than old Crabtree. But I must say I like him even less than Crabtree – and that is saying a whole lot.”
“I don’t see how Captain Putnam came to pick him out,” said Henry Lee. “There are plenty of good teachers to be had.”
“He came well recommended,” answered Jack. “I heard Mr. Strong say so.”
“Humph! Wish he had stayed home,” growled Pepper. “If this sort of thing keeps on, I’ll rebel.”
“So will I!” cried Andy.
And several others said the same. Little did they dream then, however, of the rebellion so close at hand, and of the adventures which were to follow.
CHAPTER VII
AN ENCOUNTER ON THE LAKE
“I am going out for a sail,” said Jack, on Saturday afternoon. “Will you go along, Pep?”
“Certainly,” was the ready response. “Anybody else going?”
“Yes, Dale and Stuffer. Fred Century is going out in his boat too, and take several others of our crowd.”
“Going to race again?”
“I don’t think so,” answered the young major. “He hasn’t said anything. Of course I’ll race him if he wants to.”
As my old readers know, there had been in the past two races between the Alice, the sloop owned by Jack, and the Ajax, the craft belonging to Fred Century. These had taken place while Fred was a student at Pornell Academy. In the first race a sudden gust of wind capsized the Ajax and Jack and his chums had to go to the rescue of Fred and his friends. In the second race, which included another sloop belonging to a young man who lived near the two schools, the Alice came in ahead, with the Ajax second. On this race Roy Bock and his cronies lost considerable money by betting, and they circulated a story that Fred had “sold out” to the Putnam Hall boys. This caused a great rumpus, and a fight in which Bock and several other Pornell students got a good drubbing. Then Fred had a bitter interview with Doctor Pornell, and left the Academy and came to Putnam Hall.
The two sloops, looking very much alike, now that both flew the colors of the Hall, were soon standing up the lake in a breeze which was just sufficient to fill the sails. Each carried a party of four, and all the boys were in the best of spirits in spite of another “run in” with Pluxton Cuddle over the matter of eating.
“Jack, if you don’t mind, I’ll race you for a couple of miles!” sang out Fred, who was handling the tiller of the Ajax.
“Want to get beat again?” asked the young major, with a grin.
“No, I want to prove to you that the Ajax is just as good a sloop as the Alice.”
“All right, I’ll race if you want to. What’s the course?”
“From here to Borden’s Cove, if you don’t mind.”
