CHAPTER XXIII
GOOD NEWS TRAVELS SLOWLY
The crowd of scatterbrained youngsters were smitten speechless for themoment. They stared at Bobby Blake, and then looked at each othercuriously. Pee Wee was the first to find his voice.
"Aw, cheese it, Bobby!" he drawled. "You're kidding us."
"No. We've done a mean thing. We'll get them into trouble over totheir school--"
"Good enough!" cried Howell Purdy, in delight.
"And maybe we'll get into trouble because of it, too," went on Bobby,seriously. "But whether we do, or we don't, we oughtn't to leave thosefellows over there on the island all night. It's a mean trick."
"Say! haven't they played many a mean trick on us?" demanded Pee Wee,excitedly.
"That has nothing to do with it," said Bobby, still seriously. "It'scold and wet on that island. Maybe they are all soaking wet from therain-storm. Suppose they should get cold--all of them--some ofthem--only _one_ of them?"
This was rather a grave way to put it. Bobby was not much morethoughtful than other boys of his age--and he not eleven; but the thinghad gripped him hard.
"I tell you," he said, quietly, "if none of you will go back with me,I'll go alone."
"Shucks!" exclaimed Pee Wee, "you couldn't row up there alone, BobbyBlake, let alone tugging those four boats after you."
"Well! and he doesn't have to--see?" snapped Fred Martin, dragging onhis cap over his red hair. "I guess _two_ of us can do something." Hegrinned rather sheepishly at Bobby.
"Three," said Sparrow Bangs, briefly.
"Me, too," said the Mouser. "You can stay home, if you want to, PeeWee. _I'm_ going."
"Oh--very well!" groaned the fat boy. "You can count me in."
"And me! And me!" cried several.
In the end there were two boats full of volunteers who left theRockledge boathouse, known only to the man who had charge of it, androwed up to Monckton's farm. There they dragged the four Belden boatsout of the mud, and towed them across to the island.
It was pretty dark, for there was no moon. The marooned youngstersheard them coming and began to shout, believing that it was a rescueparty from their own school.
Bobby and Fred stood up and yelled to them to come down to the shore fortheir boats. There was a good deal of bandying talk, and the two setsof boys said some sharp things to each other, but they separated withouta fight.
"They'll tell, of course, and the Old Doctor will make aninvestigation," said Fred, as they pulled for home.
"Sure!" groaned Shiner.
"But it won't be so bad for us as it would have been if we'd left themthere for their own folks to find, and kept their boats hid," Pee Weeobserved, with more thoughtfulness than he usually showed.
"And the Belden boys will be a deal more comfortable, eh?" chuckledBobby.
There _was_ an investigation. The Doctor conducted it himself. He went"back to the year one," as Barry Gray said, and considered all thecauses of the rivalry between the two schools, and what each had done tothe other.
The hot potato fight was taken into consideration, as well as the factthat the Belden schoolboys had once stolen every boat the Rockledge boyspossessed, and hidden them for a week.
Then he rendered his decision: No party of boys without a teacher was togo to any of the islands. None of the boys were to venture across thelake to the Belden shore.
These decisions were repeated by the head of the Belden School, and fromthat time on there was less friction between the two institutions.
But, meanwhile, Dr. Raymond had heard all about Bobby Blake's action inthe matter of the return of the boats to the marooned boys. He saidnothing to Bobby about it, but he talked with his assistants.
This, too, made Bobby more popular with his mates. It had been theright thing to do, and, after all, boys respect a boy who is willing todo the right thing, even if it may make him unpopular for the timebeing.
The popularity that Bobby was winning at Rockledge School, however, wasof a lasting kind. If Bobby said a thing, he meant it. If he made apromise, he stuck to it. He was no shirk, and no "goody-goody," and itbegan to be whispered around (goodness only knows how the story started)that Bobby might have a chance for the Medal of Honor if it was not for"Old Leith."
"What's Leith got it in for him for?" demanded the hot-headed FredMartin. "What's Bobby ever done to him?"
"Something about Bobby's not giving away a fight," said Pee Wee, who hadgot the news pretty straight from a waitress, who had heard Mr. Leithand Mr. Carrin talking about it.
"Aw, get out!" muttered Fred, rather abashed. He suddenly remembered thefight he had started with Sparrow.
"Never was a Lower School boy yet that won the medal," said How Purdy.
"But we'd all pull for him--wouldn't we?" demanded Mouser. "I like Boball right."
"I do, too," said Skeets Brody. "He was the only fellow that would stayin and play checkers with me, when I had the sore throat."
"He's done a lot of things for me," admitted Howell. "I haven'tforgotten them."
"Well!" sighed Pee Wee. "I couldn't count the times Bobby's given mehis pudding at supper."
"I guess we all like him," Sparrow said. "He's square as he can be. OldLeith hasn't anything against him, I don't believe. It's just hismeanness."
"No," said Pee Wee. "It's because Bobby wouldn't tell on somebody. Iput it up to Bobby myself, and he got mad and told me to mind my eye,"and the fat boy grinned.
"Well! it gets me," said Shiner. "There haven't been many fights thisyear that Bobby could have been in. And he's not quarrelsome."
Fred said nothing. He was thinking hard, and from the expression on hisface, it was apparent that his thoughts were not of a pleasant nature.
Bobby Blake certainly would have been surprised, had he known how hismates were talking about him. He went on his usual course now-a-dayswithout much thought for the Medal of Honor.
Only, he did his best. For his absent mother's and father's sake, hedid his best.
Where were they? The question was with him always. Deadened somewhatby time, the pain of his loss smarted just the same. He seldommentioned the mystery, even to Fred. Nevertheless, there was at leastone time in every day when he remembered it.
He was as earnest in his prayers at night for his parents' safety asever he had been. He believed that some time he should hear good news.
It is famous that bad news travels quickly, while good news has leadenfeet. It was so in this case.
The spring advanced. Mr. and Mrs. Blake had sailed from New York earlyin September, and nine months had nearly gone since then. The discoveryof burned wreckage from the ship on which they had sailed was all thenews that had ever come back to the United States regarding it.
There arrived in the port of Baltimore one day a bluff-bowed,frowsy-looking old two-stick schooner, with a tarnished figure-headunder her patched bowsprit, dirty sails, and a bottom undoubtedly thickwith barnacles.
She was the _Ethelina_, and she loafed into her dock as though she hadnever hurried within the knowledge of her owners. One of her ownersstood upon her deck and gave orders--Captain Adoniram Speed.
His crew was partly made up of South American half-breeds, and the bulkof the crew of the steamship on which the Blakes had sailed, so longbefore, from New York.
The captain brought letters for various people from a trading stationfar up a tributary of the Amazon. Had not a sharp reporter, nosingabout for news on the Baltimore docks, gotten into conversation withCaptain Speed, it is likely that the newspapers would never haveobtained the full story of the loss of the steamship in question.
She had burned only a few hundred miles off the mouth of the Amazon. Itwas rough weather at the time and two of the boats' crews and most ofthe passengers had lost their lives before the _Ethelina_ came loafingalong and had taken the remainder of the survivors aboard.
The _Ethelina_ was bound for
an up-river station. She had no reason fortouching at Para or any other big city of Brazil. She kept right on hercourse, and her course chanced to be the route to be followed by Mr. andMrs. Blake, who were among the few passengers rescued.
The old hooker sailed up the Amazon, and several hundred miles up thetributary on which was situated the town of Samratam, which was theBlakes' goal.
The Blakes left letters for the captain of the _Ethelina_ to bring backto civilization. Captain Speed had not considered it necessary to hurrythese letters along.
He had waited to bring them himself, to mail at Baltimore. Good newssurely had traveled slowly in this case. Almost at the time the oldschooner was being warped into her dock at Baltimore, Mr. and Mrs.Blake, in good health, expected to leave Samratam for the United States!
The letters came in good time to Clinton, and to Rockledge School. Dr.Raymond sat before his great, flat-topped desk one warm May morningstaring at a letter written on thin notepaper, with a packet of similarletters, wrapped in an oiled-paper wrapper, before him on the desk.
Somehow his spectacles were clouded, and he had to take them off andwipe them twice before he could finish reading the business-like lines.
The second time he wiped the glasses and set them astride his big nose,he saw a small figure standing in the open doorway.
"Ha! Robert!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, sir."
"I sent for you, Robert," said the master of Rockledge School, in a verygruff voice--gruffer than usual, in fact.
"Yes, sir?" returned Bobby, timidly.
In spite of everything, he could not help being more than a littlefrightened of Dr. Raymond. He was so big, and he was so gruff when hespoke, and he had such searching eyes--usually--when he looked at one.
But stop! There was something entirely different about Dr. Raymond'seyes on this occasion. If Bobby Blake had not known that it wasimpossible, he would have believed that there were tears in the Doctor'seyes.
"Robert," the gentleman said, finally, seeming to have some difficultyin getting his words out. "Robert, did you ever hear the old saying that'no news is good news'?"
Bobby had no answer. His lips opened. He really _thought_ he said"Yes, sir." But there was such a roaring in his ears, and his heartsuddenly pounded so hard, that he could scarcely hear.
The furniture began to go around him in a sort of stately dance--and thegood doctor went with the furniture! It was very curious. Bobby triedto rub his eyes free of the water that welled up, with his coat sleeves.
"Yes, Robert; 'no news is good news.' We haven't heard for months fromthose whom we wished to hear from. But always I have told you to keepup heart--"
Bobby could stand no more. He flung himself forward, around the cornerof the great desk. He grabbed at the Doctor's coatsleeve before he couldswim away from him again.
"My mother! my father! You've heard--?"
"They're all right, Robert! they're all right!" exclaimed theDoctor--and did his voice break strangely as he said it? "There, there,my boy! They're safe as can be and here's a whole packet of letters foryou from them. Don't cry, my boy--"
But Bobby wasn't crying. It seemed to him that he never should cryagain.
"Tell me!" he gasped, still clinging to the Doctor's arm. "Did--did sheget her feet wet? Or is she all right? She didn't get the--thebron-skeeters, did she? Father was always afraid of that, if she gotcold."
Bobby Blake at Rockledge School; or, Winning the Medal of Honor Page 23
