CHAPTER XIX
THE BOXWOOD PICTURE
But there was no need to ask Jerry what had happened to the chemistryprofessor. Soon after the relieved youths poured out of the examinationroom they observed, coming along the street and stopping in front ofthe house of Professor Snodgrass, an automobile containing that littlescientist, Professor Baldwin and Jerry himself.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass, looking at his watch, “wehave been gone a long time. I had no idea it was so late, and I hadsome research work I wanted to do.”
Something seemed to strike Professor Baldwin suddenly.
“Late!” he exclaimed, also looking at his watch. “So it is late. Ihad--let me see--I had something special on for this afternoon. Whereis my memorandum book?”
He consulted it, and a look of consternation came over his face.
“Well, well!” he cried. “I was to have conducted a chemistryexamination this afternoon, but I forgot all about it. Pshaw! Howforgetful I am becoming! It is too late, now, though,” he added with asigh. “Too late!”
Jerry Hopkins smiled, and had it not been so near dusk Bart and some ofthe others would have seen him winking at them.
“How ever did you manage it?” asked Bart, becoming exceedingly friendlywith Jerry all of a sudden. “Did you kidnap Baldy?”
“Well, you _might_ call it that,” admitted Jerry. “But he himselfhelped some. This is the way it was. I knew you had to play on theteam, and you told me you would surely flunk in chemistry. So I arguedthat the only way to do was to have the exam postponed.
“Now, if there is one professor here that is as absent-minded andforgetful as Professor Snodgrass, it is the dean. And I happened toknow something else about them. They hold radically different views onfossil shell formations. In fact, they come about as near to quarrelingon that subject as two such delightful old gentlemen ever do come. SoI knew if I could get them started on a discussion about fossils theymight keep it up and the dean forget all about the passage of time. Ialso knew that I had to get the dean away from the college, or, even inthe midst of a hot discussion, something might break in on it to remindhim of the exam.
“Now I happened to know where there was a bed of fossils over near FoxSwamp. So I got a few specimens, and took them to Professor Snodgrass,pretending to be puzzled on a point concerning them. I mildly differedwith him in some of his statements, and said that Professor Baldwinheld different views, which, by the way, he did. He wouldn’t agree withProfessor Snodgrass in a thousand years, so I knew I was safe.
“I pretended to be very much interested and puzzled, and I suggestedthat it would be a good thing if Professor Snodgrass and ProfessorBaldwin would accompany me to Fox Swamp, where we could go into thematter more thoroughly.”
Jerry paused to chuckle.
“Go on,” urged Bart. “What happened?”
“Well, they fell into the trap as easily as Chunky here can eat pie.I brought around the machine, got them in and off we went for theswamp. When I got them to the fossil bed, wild horses couldn’t havepulled them away, for I’d unearthed some new specimens. And then thefun began. The two professors went at each other with pet theories forweapons, and pointed out minute indications in geology that I had neverdreamed of. I was completely out of it, so I wandered off in the woodsand waited for them to finish.
“I guess they would have been at it yet, only they dug up a queer kindof rock that stumped them both to tell what it was, and they yelled forme to hurry with them back to the college so they could look it up inthe dictionary--or whatever book they use for such things.
“And there you are, boys. We just got back, and it’s up to you chaps toprovide some amusement for me in return for listening to a lot of dryrock-talk all afternoon, besides losing my fun.”
“Oh, we’ll take care of you all right!” laughed Bart. “That sure wasone dandy little trick! It worked like a charm. Shake!”
Bart and Jerry clasped hands in a most friendly fashion, to the nosmall disgust of Frank.
“Great work, Jerry!”
“This will go down in college history!”
“The best ever!”
Thus Jerry’s chums congratulated him.
“Say, don’t let it get out--I mean my part in it!” begged Jerry. “I’dbe jugged if it were known.”
“Oh, we’ll keep it dark,” promised Bart. “The faculty will never know.”
It is hard to say whether this state of affairs existed long, butone is inclined to think that some, at least the proctor, must havesuspected. But he could do nothing, for Professor Baldwin had remainedaway of his own accord. And he was the dean.
“Say, why do you want to get so thick with that Jerry Hopkins?” askedFrank of Bart that evening.
“Because he did me a big favor. I’d never have been able to play in thegame to-morrow if he hadn’t held that exam off the way he did.”
“Um,” was all Frank said.
That Thanksgiving Day game with Kenwell was a good one, though atfirst, when the military lads rolled up two touchdowns and a goalagainst Boxwood Hall, it looked black for the latter. And then Bartcut loose, and in each of the second, third and fourth quarters made atouchdown, while another was scored on a forward pass, and thus BoxwoodHall humbled her ancient enemy.
“That’s the way!”
“Whoop her up!”
“We’ve beat ’em, boys!”
“Three cheers for Bart Haley!”
They were given riotously.
“Three cheers for Jerry Hopkins!”
There was no apparent reason why they should be given, for Jerry wasnot on the team.
But they were given with resounding echoes, for the story of how Jerryhad saved Bart to the team was all over the school by then. Only onelad refrained from joining in the cheers for Jerry, and he was FrankWatson.
“Oh, forget your grouch,” suggested Bill Hamilton. “Jerry and hischums aren’t such bad fellows, Frank.”
“I’ve got my own opinion,” was the answer of the headstrong lad.
There was a great celebration that night over the football victory, andif there were midnight lunches, Proctor Thornton did not surprise anyof the feasters. Perhaps he purposely kept away.
Life went on at Boxwood Hall. It became too cold for motor boating, andthe _Neboje_ was hauled out, for the lake would soon be frozen over.But the automobile was kept in use.
The Christmas holidays came, bringing a vacation which enabled themotor boys to go home, where they had glorious times.
It was a week after their return to Boxwood Hall, and the new year’sschedule of lessons was under way. President Cole, on the reassemblingof the college classes, had made a plea for harder mental work, andmost of the boys were buckling down to their lessons, at least for atime.
Bob, Ned and Jerry were sitting in their rooms, or rather, in Jerry’sroom, one evening, studying. Finally Jerry flung his book away fromhim, upsetting a tumbler of water over Bob, who yelled out:
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve just thought of something,” said Jerry.
“Well, I wish you’d keep such thoughts to yourself,” grumbled the stoutlad, as he sopped up the water.
“What’s the idea?” asked Ned.
“This,” replied Jerry. “Things have been too slow around here of late.Everything has a flat taste. We are getting into a rut. No one hasbrought a cow, or even a goat, into a class room.”
“I was a goat in French to-day,” declared Ned. “I couldn’t get a singleverb right. But go on.”
“Merely this,” said Jerry. “Let’s do something.”
“What?” asked Bob.
“You know the Boxwood picture that hangs in chapel; don’t you?”
“That big oil portrait of Ebenezer Boxwood, founder of the college?”Ned inquired.
“Yes,” nodded Jerry. “That’s the sacred cow I refer to. Now what is thereason we can’t take that picture and hang it where all who wish mayadmire it? Say ho
ist it up on the flagpole, where it can be seen. Ithangs in such a dark corner in chapel that the full beauties of it arenot brought out. On the flagpole they could be seen.”
“You mean to hang the sacred Boxwood Hall picture on the pole?” askedNed.
“I do,” said Jerry.
“Who’ll do it?” asked Bob.
“We will,” said Jerry, calmly.
Ned, Bob and Jerry at Boxwood Hall; Or, The Motor Boys as Freshmen Page 20
