Bobby Blake at Rockledge School; or, Winning the Medal of Honor Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

  Two boys in Clinton did not go to Sunday School that day with minds muchattuned to the occasion. Fred could scarcely restrain himself withinthe bounds of decent behavior as they walked from Merriweather Street,where both the Blakes and the Martins lived, to Trinity Square, wherethe spire of the church towered above the elms.

  The thought that Bobby was going with him to Rockledge (Fred had jumpedto that conclusion at once) put young Martin on the very pinnacle ofdelight.

  "Of course, it would be great if your folks would take you to SouthAmerica," admitted Fred, after some reflection. "For you could bringhome a whole raft of marmosets, and green-and-gray parrots, and iguanas,and the like, for pets. And you'd see manatees, and tapirs, and jaguarsand howling monkeys, and all the rest. But crickey! you wouldn't havethe fun we'll have when we get to Rockledge School."

  _Fun_ seemed to be all that Fred Martin looked forward to when he got toboarding school. Lessons, discipline, and work of any kind, neverentered his mind.

  That evening Mr. and Mrs. Blake, with Bobby, went up the street to theMartin house, and the parents of the two chums talked together a longtime on the front porch, while the children were sent into the backyard--that yard that Buster Shea had cleaned so nicely the day before,being partly paid in rats!

  When the Blakes started home, it had been concluded that Bobby was toattend school with Fred, and that if Mr. and Mrs. Blake did not returnfrom their long journey in season, Bobby was to be under the care of theMartins during vacation.

  "Another young one won't make any difference here, Mrs. Blake," saideasy-going Mrs. Martin. "Really, half the time I forget how many wehave, and have to go around after they are all abed, and count noses.Bobby will make us no trouble, I am sure. And he always has a goodinfluence over Fred--we've remarked that many times."

  This naturally made Mrs. Blake very proud. Yet she took time to talkvery seriously to Bobby on several occasions during the next few days.She spoke so tenderly to him, and with such feeling, that the boy'sheart swelled, and he could scarcely keep back the tears.

  "We want to hear the best kind of reports from you, Bobby--not onlyschool reports, but in the letters we may get from our friends here inClinton. Your father and I have tried to teach you to be a manly,honorable boy. You are going where such virtues count for more thananything else.

  "Be honest in everything; be kindly in your relations to the other boys;always remember that those weaker than yourself, either in body or incharacter, have a peculiar claim upon your forbearance. Father wouldnot want you to be a mollycoddle but mother doesn't want you to be abully.

  "You will go to church and Sunday School up there at Rockledge just asyou have here. Don't be afraid to show the other boys that you havebeen taught to pray. I shall have your father find out the hour whenyou all go to bed, and at that hour, while you are saying your prayersand thinking of your father and me so far away from you, I shall bepraying for my boy, too!"

  "Don't you cry, Mother," urged Bobby, squeezing back the tears himself."I will do just as you tell me."

  It was arranged that Mr. Blake should take the boys to school when thetime came, but there was still a fortnight before the term opened atRockledge. Bobby and Fred had more preparations to make than you wouldbelieve, and early on Monday morning Fred came over to the Blake houseand the chums went down behind the garden to have a serious talk.

  "Say! there's fifty boys in that school," Fred said. "There's anotherschool right across Monatook Lake. They call it Belden School. There'sall sorts of games between the two schools, you know, and we want to bein them, Bobby."

  "What do you mean--games?" asked Bobby.

  "Why, baseball, and football, and hockey on the ice in winter, andskating matches, and boating in the fall and spring--rowing, you know.Lots of games. And we want to be in them, don't we?"

  "Sure," admitted his chum.

  "It's going to cost money," said Fred, decidedly. "We'll have to getbats, and good horse-hide balls, and a catcher's mask and glove, and apad, and all that. We want to get on one of the ball teams. You know Ican catch, and you've got a dandy curve, Bobby, and a fade-away thatbeats anything I've ever seen."

  "Yes. I'd like to play ball," admitted Bobby, rather timidly. "Butwill they let us--we being new boys?"

  "We'll make them," said the scheming Fred. "If we show them we have thethings I said--mitt, and bats, and all--they'll be glad to have us play,don't you see?"

  "But we haven't them," suddenly said Bobby.

  "No. But we must have them."

  "Say! they'll cost a lot of money. You know I don't have but a dollar amonth," said Bobby, "and I know Mother won't let me open my bank."

  "Of course not. That's the way with mothers and fathers," said Fred,rather discontentedly. "They get us to start saving against the timewe'll want money awfully bad for something. And then we have to buyshoes with it, or Christmas presents, or use it to pay for a bustedwindow. _That's_ what cleaned out my bank the last time--when I threw aball through Miklejohn's plate-glass window on the Square."

  "Well," said Bobby, getting away from _that_ unpleasant subject, "I havemost of my dollar left for this month, and Pa will give me another onthe first day of September."

  "I haven't but ten cents to my name," confessed Fred.

  "Then how'll we get new bats, and the mask, and pad, and all?"

  "That's what we want to find out," Fred said, grimly. "We'll have tothink up some scheme for making money. I wish I'd cleaned our yardSaturday instead of hiring Buster Shea."

  "_That_ didn't cost you much," chuckled Bobby. "Only a cent--and youcouldn't have sold the five rats for anything."

  "Aw--well--"

  "Let's start a lemonade stand," suggested Bobby.

  "No. It's been done to death in Clinton this vacation," Fred declared,emphatically. "Besides, the sugar and lemons and ice cost so much. Andyou're always bound to drink so much yourself that there's no profitwhen the lemonade's gone."

  Bobby acknowledged the justice of this with a silent nod.

  "Got to be something new, Bobby," urged Fred, with much belief in hischum's powers of invention. "_You_ think of something."

  "Might have a show," said Bobby.

  "Aw--now--Bobby! you know that's no good," declared Fred. "We'd have tolet a lot of the other fellows into it. Can't run a circus--not even aone-ring one--without a lot of performers. And they'd want the moneysplit up. We wouldn't make anything."

  "A peep-show," said Bobby, still thoughtfully chewing a straw.

  "Aw, shucks! that's worse. The kids will only pay pins, or rusty nails,to see _that_ kind of a show."

  "No. That's not just what I mean," Bobby said, thoughtfully. "Let'shave a show that will only need us two to run it, Fred. Then we won'thave to divide the money with anybody else. And let's have a show thatgrown up folks will want to see."

  "Great, Bobby! That's a swell idea--if we could do it."

  "I believe we _can_ do it."

  "Tell a fellow," urged Fred, excitedly. "Grown folks have money. Wecould charge them a nickel--maybe a dime--"

  "No. A penny show," said Bobby, still chewing the straw. "Of course,it's got to be worth a penny--and then, it'll have to be sort of a joke,too--"

  "Whatever are you trying to get at, Bobby Blake?" demanded his chum inwonder.

  "Listen here. Now--don't you tell--"

  He pulled Fred down beside him and whispered into his ear. Thered-haired boy looked puzzled at first. Then he caught the meaning ofhis chum's plan, and his eyes grew big and he began to grin. Suddenlyhe flung his cap into the air and seized Bobby round the neck to hughim.

  "Scubbity-_yow_!" he yelled. "That's the greatest thing I've everheard, Bob! And we can have it right down 'side of my father's store."

  Mr. Martin kept a grocery store on Hurley Street, in a one-storybuilding on one side of which was an
open lot belonging to the storeproperty. There was a side-door to the store-building opening upon thislot, but not far back from the street.

  For the next two or three days Bobby and Fred were very busy indeed atthis place and, with some little help, they managed to erect a structurethat was made partly of old fence-boards and partly of canvas.

  The half-tent, half-shack was about ten feet wide. It had a slopingcanvas roof. It ran back from the sidewalk far enough to mask theside-door into Mr. Martin's store.

  Mr. Martin was not in the secret of the nature of the boys' proposed"show," but he was a good natured man and made no objection to his sonand Bobby utilizing his side door.

  "You see, we must have an 'entrance' and an 'exit'," Bobby explained."Folks can pass out through the store after seeing our show."

  "Sure," chuckled Fred. "As long as we don't call it 'egress,' nobodywill be scared that it's some strange and savage animal. All right.'Exit' it is," and he proceeded to paint the sign, per Bobby'sinstructions.

  And that was not the only sign to be painted. Fred was rather handy witha brush, and when all the sign-painting was done, Bobby pronounced thework fine.

  In front of the tent, Bobby had built a little platform with a box,waist high, before it. Bobby was to be the lecturer, or "ballyhoo," andwas, likewise, to sell the tickets. The other boys were eaten up withcuriosity about the show, but neither Bobby nor Fred would give them achance to get a look inside the shelter after the roof was on.

  There was a canvas wall in the front, with a very narrow entrance.Inside that was a canvas screen so that nobody peeking into the doorwaycould see much of what lay beyond. They had one kerosene lamp to lightthe interior.

  They made several other arrangements for the opening of the show, andthen there was nothing to do but wait for Saturday to arrive. On thatday many people from out-of-town came into Clinton to market, and theHurley Street stores were well patronized all day long. Bobby and Fredknew they would not lack a curious company outside the tent, whetherthey tolled many within or not.