Stoner's Boy

by Robert F. Schulkers

  “Hello,” said Stoner, “somebody’s been fishing here. This is a nice rod. Guess I’ll add it to my own outfit.”

  He took the rod apart and broke off the line and stuck the rod in his pocket. I felt sore at this, because it was my best fishing rod and I hated to lose it. But Stoner acted as if it was an everyday occurrence. “Come on, Fred,” he said, “give me a lift on this box.”

  But Fred held back. “I don’t like to do this, Stoner,” he said. “I’ve done lots of things for you, but I don’t like to do this. Let me out of it, won’t you?”

  “What’s the matter with you?” growled Stoner. “You ain’t gettin’ chicken-hearted, are you?”

  “No,” said Fred. “I don’t like to do it, that’s all.”

  “Well,” said Stoner, “you will do it, no matter how you feel about it. Come on, lend a hand.”

  Fred got up, and the two of them lifted the bamboo box out of the boat onto the shore.

  “Wait here a minit,” said Stoner. “I’ll see if any of those mutton-heads are sneaking around first.”

  Stoner ran up the path, and as soon as he was beyond the bushes I stepped out of my hiding place.

  “Hello, Fred,” I said.

  Fred jumped as if someone had struck him. “Oh, Hawkins,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. I want to warn you and the boys not to go into the cave again—never go in anymore; promise me that will you?”

  I looked at him as if I didn’t understand. “What danger is there now,” I asked, “that you should warn us from it?”

  He pointed to the box. “There,” he said, “that’s the danger. It’s poison, I believe, although I don’t know much about it, but Stoner is going to turn it loose in the cave.”

  I walked over and peeped through the cracks in the bamboo box. I could see a dark thing like a big rat moving slowly. It looked as if it were hanging from the top of the box by its feet. “A poll-parrot?” I asked.

  Three-Finger Fred shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “It belonged to a sailor who came to Watertown on the Hudson Lee. Some said the sailor used to work on a ship that went to South America. He came here from New Orleans with some boxes made like that one out of bamboo. They were South American animals, I think, and he was taking them to some zoo in New York. Stoner managed to sneak this box off last night. He’s going to turn this thing loose in the cave so you boys will be afraid to go in. But stay out of it now, won’t you, Hawkins?”

  I looked at Three-Finger Fred for a while without speaking. He didn’t seem to be the kind of a boy like Stoner. His eyes were too soft. “Don’t have anything to do with this, Fred,” I said. “Get out right away, before he comes back. And then don’t ever get into Stoner’s gang again.”

  Fred looked frightened. “He would hunt me down and beat me,” he said.

  “No,” I said, “you mustn’t think that; you must make up your mind to keep out of his way. You will go, won’t you?”

  “If I thought I had the nerve,” he answered, “I’d quit him like Sanders did.”

  “You’ve got the nerve,” I said. “Go right down the bank till you see the houseboat. My own canoe is turned upside down there. Get in and beat it up the river before Stoner gets a start. Cut loose from Stoner right now.”

  Fred looked up at me with flashing eyes. “By jing,” he said, “I’ll do it.”

  I shook him by the hand. The next minit he was flying up the bank. I watched him get into my canoe and hurry up the river. Then I heard a step on the cliff path. It was Stoner. I hurried back to my tree and peeped out. Stoner stood by the boat, scratching his head. “Now where did Three-Fingers go?” he muttered to himself.

  Then he looked up and down the bank. He spied the canoe just turning the upper bend, and he shook his fist at it. “Chicken-heart,” he hollered.

  Then he set himself to the task of picking up the bamboo box. It was not very heavy, for he hoisted it on his shoulders and trudged away with it up the cliff path. I had no desire to follow him. Indeed, I had already made up my mind to follow Three-Finger Fred’s advice; I would not go again into Stoner’s cave.

  The next day was Thursday, and at the meeting Robby Hood told me that the big electric lamp had been set in the cave, right near the place where the big pit was.

  I told them what Three-Finger Fred had told me and what I saw Stoner do. “He has turned something loose in the cave,” I said, “and it may be dangerous, or it may only be a poll-parrot; but whatever it is it would scare any of us to death to meet anything in that gloomy place, so I think we had better follow Three-Finger Fred’s warning. Don’t let’s go into the cave again.”

  Robby Hood laughed. He said he had never been afraid of anything that Stoner ever did, and he was not going to get cold feet now. I saw that I could not change Robby’s mind about this, and I noticed, too, that his bravery was making all the other boys feel, too, that I was too much afraid over nothing. So I said no more.

  The next day was Friday, and when we came down to the houseboat to hold our meeting, it was to be the last meeting we would ever hold in our old headquarters, but none of us dreamed of it then. We had just begun to sit down when through the window came a mudball and flattened itself against the other wall of the houseboat. Jerry Moore and Robby Hood jumped up, and as they did so each of them got a ball of mud, Jerry in his face and Robby on his shoulder.

  The next minit we heard a mocking laugh—I jumped to the window and saw the gray figger of Stoner’s Boy running away.

  “Come on,” said Jerry, “are we going to let him get away with it?”

  He and Robby started for the door, but I stood in front of them. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t go. He wants you to follow him into the cave, to give you a scare. Be sensible and stay here.”

  Dick Ferris rapped on the table with his wooden hammer. “The meeting will please come to order,” he said.

  So Jerry and Robby walked back to their places, and we held our meeting. But I could see that Jerry was angry, and Robby was itching to get to the cave. “No one will go to the cave today,” said Dick, when the meeting came to an end. “Those are your captain’s orders. Anybody breaking these rules will be dismissed.”

  Nothing further happened that day. We did not see anything of Stoner, and Bill Darby took the boys down for a game of scrub in the hollow.

  Then it was Saturday. No school, and our meeting was not to take place until four in the afternoon, so all the boys went for a game of scrub to the hollow as usual.

  Roy Dobel brought down some ears of corn, and some of the boys made a fire and began to roast the corn, eating it while they waited for their turn to bat. Little Frankie Kane, who never cared to take part in a game, kept the fire going and wandered away in search of some firewood.

  We didn’t miss him till we heard a yell. “It’s Frankie,” said Jerry Moore. “Come on, boys.”

  We were all after Jerry in a flash. As I dashed through the tall grass on the heels of Robby Hood, I heard that mocking laugh, which no one could mistake after he once heard it. It was Stoner.

  We came upon him near the cliff path, and he was sitting on Little Frankie Kane, and watching us coming toward him.

  When we were about fifty yards from him he jumped up and ran. “The coward,” hollered Jerry Moore. “Come on; don’t let him get away this time.”

  And indeed we didn’t intend to. Even our captain, Dick Ferris, forgot about orders he had given.

  We sailed after that gray figger as it mounted the rocks of the cliff path, up and up until we saw the gray coattails disappear in the entrance of the cave.

  We slowed up as we neared it, but not one of the boys stopped; we all went in. “Wait till I can get to my big lamp,” hollered Robby, and Jerry slowed up till Robby caught up to him.

  We had our pocket flashlights out and were picking our way slowly, but surely, over the stony floor of the cave. When we came to the deep pit we could hear Stoner’s laugh, but we couldn’t find him. We heard
the sound of a hatchet striking wood.

  “I’ve got the big lamp,” sang out Robby. The next minit a broad ray of light flashed out into the cave. It lit up the whole place, but what struck us was the stooping figure of Stoner, chopping at the bamboo box on the edge of the pit. With a shout he knocked off the last rod of bamboo and the box was open, and Stoner leaped away into the shadows, and we lost sight of him. But what caught our eyes was something ugly crawling out of the bamboo box.

  “It’s a rat,” whispered Jerry to me. But it didn’t strike me as a rat, even though it looked like one.

  It crawled too slow and seemed to have trouble getting along. As it reached the top it lost its hold and flopped with a thud onto the stone floor. Then it seemed to come to life all of a sudden and ran as fast as a rat into the dark, as if it did not like the bright light of the electric lamp.

  “By golly,” I said, “it IS a rat.”

  Just then from the shadows we heard a muffled sound from Stoner, as if he had suddenly been startled.

  “Grab him if he comes out of those shadows,” I said.

  And he did come. The gray figger no longer had the handkachif over his face, and there was a look of terror in his eyes. He ran into the bright ray of light, and we saw him tugging furiously at the rope which was tied to a peg and on which he used to swing himself over the pit. He seemed to be nervous, for he couldn’t get the rope unfastened. As he worked at it there suddenly came a great shadow across the ray of light, and I saw something had come flying in front of the lamp.

  “What was it?” asked Jerry, in a terrified whisper.

  “Good Lord!” hollered Robby Hood, “look at that.” The thing had come back across the light again. It was a bat, the largest bat I had ever seen. It may have seemed larger in that bright light, but I could have sworn its wings stretched out as wide as I could stretch out my arms. We were all frightened then.

  “Get back into the shadow behind the light,” ordered Robby.

  Just then, as we did so, Stoner freed the end of the rope and grasped it in both hands and swung himself across the pit. Just as he reached the middle we saw the big black thing swoop down from somewhere in the dark above our heads. It seemed to strike Stoner’s face, and the wings seemed to close around his shoulders. We heard Stoner scream—oh, he did give an awful scream—the next minit the rope was hanging there in the bright ray of the lamp—empty.

  “Good Lord!” I hollered. “Where is he?”

  Robby Hood was crawling over to the pit. I went down on hands and knees and crawled beside him. He was peeping down over the edge of the pit.

  “He fell, Hawkins,” whispered Robby to me. “Listen.” By that time all of us boys were lying flat on our stomachs, peeping over the edge of the pit. But we saw nothing and heard only the rumbling of the waters of Cave River as it wound its crooked way through the tunnel of the cave down, way down below.

  “It’s the end of Stoner’s Boy,” said Robby Hood.

  At that minit we heard steps coming along the cave floor. Doc Waters and Mr. Kane and Little Frankie stood there.

  “What has happened?” asked Doc Waters quietly.

  We told him as quickly as our excited nerves would let us.

  “Heavens,” he says, “hurry down to the sheriff; maybe we can get that youngster out of that pit! I told you, Hawkins, that there would come a sorry end to this Stoner’s Boy business. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  But I couldn’t answer. The excitement was too much for me. When the sheriff and his rescue party arrived I went home, and so did the other boys, except Robby Hood, who stayed to work the big electric lamp for the rescue party. But they found no trace of Stoner, nor of the big ugly creature that caused his fall.

  Even as I write this I feel sorry for Stoner. He was bad; I will admit that. But not bad enough to deserve such punishment. He always took risks, and the time came when he took one too many. It is the same way all through life. There comes a time for everybody; there is an end to every road, makes no difference which one you travel. Stoner was punished, but so were we. We were punished because we wouldn’t listen to advice from Doc Waters and others, when they told us we had better stay away from Stoner’s Boy. Our old houseboat days are over. They were good days, but they, too, had to come to an end. Everything does.

  WE SAW THE BIG, BLACK THING SWOOP DOWN

  Robby Hood shook hands with me tonight and said it was for the last time. He will never come down here again. This awful accident has taught us all a lesson, one that we will never forget. Robby seemed to stand it better than any of us; he says that we didn’t have any proof that Stoner was gone. He said he wouldn’t be supprised to see Stoner again. But I know different. The pit in the cave is deep, and there is water running at the bottom of it. Maybe Stoner was lucky enough to strike deep water and swim out and get away. But if you ask me, I will say I just don’t know.

  CHAPTER 34

  Robby Saves the Day

  It was a sad sight to see our old houseboat go. We were very much attached to our old headquarters, and the sudden ending of our little meetings caused by the accident to Stoner’s Boy was a great shock to us. Clarence Wilks is gone; his dad got a job up in Watertown, and they moved up there Monday morning. Oscar Koven went to St. Allan’s School; it’s somewhere in Alabama, I believe. His mother wouldn’t let him stay here any longer, because she was afraid that us boys would sooner or later get in trouble or get hurt or something. So there’s two more boys gone, reducing our bunch to nine—Dick Ferris, Lew Hunter, Jerry Moore, Bill Darby, Link Lambert, Johnny McLaren, Hal Rice, Roy Dobel, and myself. We don’t count Little Frankie Kane. He does not come down with us very often, and now he won’t be able to come down at all.

  The licking that Stoner gave to Little Frankie was the last licking Stoner ever gave to anybody. It was just before he ran into the cave to set free the ugly thing that caused his downfall. It was a terrible thing the way Stoner went. But, after all, when I come to think of it, he turned that ugly bat loose in the cave intending that it should git one of us. Instead, it got him. Sometimes things happen that way.

  I wrote a letter to the twins, Harold and Oliver, and told them how it all happened. In a few days I received this answer from Harold:

  Dear Hawkins: I have your letter, and I must say I was surprised and shocked to hear of the end of Stoner. I believe I was even sorry, although he did enough to me to make himself disliked. He was a reckless fellow, and I always knew he would some day come to some bad end.

  Now that this has happened, things won’t be the same around the old river. I know how the old folks will take it, and they will be afraid to let any of the boys out of their sight. You say in your letter that the old houseboat has been removed. I am sorry about that. Don’t let them break up the old crowd, however. Stick together, form a new club, if you must, but stand fast. This life up here has taught me that sticking together is the only way of life. It would be too bad if you and Dick and Johnny and Jerry Moore and Bill Darby would let somebody separate you. Do this for me, Hawkins, keep the bunch together till I can get home. Oliver and I both will be home by Christmas, anyway. Write me, and let me know what you are going to do.

  Tell all the boys I miss them, and same to you.

  Your friend,

  Harold Court.

  When I read Harold’s letter, I felt blue. The dear old fellow always was a strange sort, and none of the boys knew how to take him, but I always knew he liked every one of us, even though he sometimes acted as if he didn’t. I felt too, that I wanted to follow his advice and keep the boys together. But how to do it? Every boy’s mother and daddy had forbidden them to play on the riverbank, and as for the cave in the cliff—ah! my daddy told me that if he ever caught me there, or ever heard of me being there again, it would mean the worst whipping I ever knew.

  But Lew Hunter—he was not tied to a mother’s apron string. No, he lived at the preacher’s house, and worked for the preacher, who never gave him any orders. Lew was a sort o
f help to the preacher. He could play the organ, and he could sing. And Lew knew that the preacher did not want to lose him. Many offers from Watertown had been made to Lew, and even a singing teacher in Cincinnati had come to get him, but Lew said he would rather stay with the preacher. So on the whole, the preacher thought it best to let Lew alone. Anyway, he knew Lew was big enough to take care of himself.

  So it was to Lew I went, and I showed him Harold’s letter. He smiled when he read it. “Harold’s a fine kid,” he said, “and if we can, Hawkins, we ought to do something to keep the boys together, as Harold says.”

  “Sure,” I said, “you and the Skinny Guy can do as you please, but how about us? We have to mind our parents, don’t we?”

  “The Bible says so,” answered Lew, smiling, “and it’s right too. But let’s see if there isn’t some way out of it—”

  For days I didn’t see a single one of our bunch. They stayed away. I sneaked down to the river one day, and oh Lord! how gloomy and deserted it looked! The vacant place where the houseboat used to stand has changed it. Only a few Pelham boys on the other side, and a solitary steamboat plowing her way upstream.

  I rambled on down the bank, until I came to the lower bend of the river. I saw a boy standing on the bank with his back to me, watching something on the river. I could see that he was smoking. I coughed. He turned around and threw a pipe into the weeds. It was Jerry Moore. “What do you mean, scaring me like that, Hawkins?” he asked.

  “Jerry,” I says, “you know what your dad would do to you if he caught you smoking a pipe?”

  Jerry grunted and began to hunt for his pipe in the weeds. “You haven’t got anything on me, Hawkins,” he said. “Suppose your dad found you down here on the river again. You would catch it, too.”

  “Yes,” I said, “he doesn’t want me to come here, Jerry, but honest, the old times are calling me back. It’s hard to give ’em up, isn’t it?”