The Lucky Seventh

“I get paid for teaching, not for loafing,” responded Dick sharply. “I shall want to see you when I come back. So don’t go off, please.”

“I shall if I want to. You don’t own me, Lovering. Besides, study time’s up, anyway.”

Dick, disdaining to answer, set off to find Mrs. Townsend. The conference took place on a corner of the hotel veranda. Mrs. Townsend was a sweet-voiced, pretty woman, with a tired air. At first she seemed to resent Dick’s charge against her boy. Then she grew pathetic, and bewailed the fact of her husband’s death.

“If he had lived,” she sighed, “Harold would have been a different boy. I’ve never been able to do anything with him. He needs a stronger hand, I fear. Perhaps – that is, possibly – er – it would have been better to have found someone – someone a little older to take him in hand. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that you haven’t done excellently, Mr. Lovering, for I’m quite sure you have; but, of course, as you are so little older than Harold, he may feel – er – you see what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yes’m, but I don’t think that’s the trouble. Harold doesn’t want to study, doesn’t seem to see the necessity of learning and won’t. If I had full authority over him – ”

“Oh, but you have! I thought that was understood.”

“Oh, for two hours, perhaps, Mrs. Townsend; but what I mean is that if I – well, if you’d just back me up, I’m sure I could accomplish something.”

“Please explain. I don’t think I understand.”

“Why, it’s like this,” replied Dick desperately: “He knows now that if he doesn’t want to learn his lessons he doesn’t have to. So he doesn’t do any work. If – if you’d make him understand that he does have to, Mrs. Townsend, that if he doesn’t he will be – punished – ”

“Oh, but I’ve never punished Harold!” she protested. “I don’t believe in punishment; that is, other than verbal. A high-spirited boy such as he is – er – ”

“Yes’m, I know, but you want him to go to Rifle Point, and he will never get there if he doesn’t take some interest in his lessons and do some work. See here, please.” Dick had provided himself with a Rifle Point School catalogue, and now he went over for Mrs. Townsend’s benefit the list of studies required for entrance. Mrs. Townsend listened with a puzzled, tired frown on her pretty forehead.

“And you think he isn’t far enough advanced, Mr. Lovering, to enter this Fall?”

“He isn’t advanced at all!” blurted Dick. “What he has learned he has forgotten. He – he’s two years behind those requirements, Mrs. Townsend.”

“Dear me! And I had hoped – ” She sighed tremulously. “What do you advise?”

“I advise you to make Harold understand that he’s got to do what I tell him to, and that if he doesn’t he will be punished.”

“But I never could punish him!”

“No’m, I’m sure of that,” agreed Dick. “You let me do it.”

“You?” she faltered. “Could you – that is – ”

“I don’t mean whip him, Mrs. Townsend, or anything like that. I’ll find a way that will answer quite as well.”

“Could you really? But how?”

“I don’t know just yet,” Dick owned. “But I’ll find a way. Really, Mrs. Townsend, you’ll have to do something of that sort. Harold’s just wasting his time and mine. And I can’t take your money when I’m not earning it.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you are! Even if – if Harold doesn’t get on very fast, it is a great relief to me to know that for two hours a day at least he is in good care and not – not running around with those horrid bell-boys. I’m sure that’s worth every penny of the money!”

“Not to me, ma’am. I mean I wouldn’t be satisfied to go on with things as they are now. I wish you’d try my way, Mrs. Townsend. All I’d want you to do would be just to tell Harold that he is to do absolutely as I tell him to, and that there is no use in his appealing to you.”

“We – ell, if you’re quite certain it won’t break his spirit or – or anything like that,” agreed Mrs. Townsend doubtfully. “I do want him to get on, Mr. Lovering. If only he had half the studiousness that Loring has!”

“He can study very well when he wants to,” replied Dick dryly. “And I’m pretty sure I can make him want to if you will just stand back of me, Mrs. Townsend.”

“I will, really and truly,” she said. “Thank you so much, Mr. Lovering. I – I’ll speak to Harold this evening, and – ”

“Couldn’t you speak to him now just as well, please?”

“Now? Why, I suppose so. If you wish. Perhaps I’d better, and get it over with.” Mrs. Townsend sighed deeply. “Will you send him to me, Mr. Lovering?”

“Yes’m, if I can find him,” answered Dick. “I’m afraid, though, he’s gone off somewhere. I’ll look him up, Mrs. Townsend. Thank you very much for – for helping me.”

Harold was not in his room where Dick had left him, and inquiry around the corridor of the hotel at first failed to elicit any information. Ultimately, however, Dick found a boy who had seen Harold walking down the beach about a half hour before and Dick set off in the indicated direction toward the distant point of rocks that jutted out into the sea.

CHAPTER XV

ON THE ROCKS

It was hard going for Dick, for his crutches sank into the sand nearly to the depth of their rubber tips, but he persevered, and after some ten minutes of “crutching” arrived at the end of the beach where the point of rock from which the place received its name advanced from the grassy bluff and waded far into the breakers. Harold was not in sight when Dick reached the bottom of the ledge; but a few moments later when by careful climbing Dick had reached the seaward end of the rock, he came into view. The receding tide had left a long and narrow pool in a cleft of the ledge, a pool whose sides were festooned with delicate seaweed and set with purple mussels and green and brown snails and in whose bottom pink starfish crawled. Harold, perched at the edge of the pool, was looking fascinatingly into the clear green depths and didn’t hear the soft tap of Dick’s crutches until the older boy was almost beside him. Then he turned startledly, narrowly escaping a bath in the pool, and scowled at the intruder.

“Had to hunt for me, anyway, didn’t you?” he asked sneeringly.

Dick paid the question no heed. Instead, he moved to the edge of the pool and peered interestedly into it. He didn’t have to feign interest, he was interested. It seemed a long time to Dick since he had crouched, as Harold was crouched now, and gazed fascinatingly at the wonders of a rock pool. Nor had he done it very frequently, for climbing over the ledges is hard and risky work for a boy without two good legs. Harold continued to frown at a wavering starfish in the depths, but presently, as Dick did not speak, he shot a curious glance at him.

“Gee,” he said to himself, “you’d think he’d never seen starfish and things before!”

Dick took off his hat and wiped his moist forehead. Then he lowered himself cautiously to a seat on the rock. “Regular natural aquarium, isn’t it?” he asked pleasantly. Harold’s reply was an unintelligible growl. “Lots of queer things in there,” went on Dick musingly.

“Sure; I just saw a whale,” replied Harold sarcastically.

“Did you? Your eyes must be pretty good,” returned Dick, with a smile. “I dare say, though, I see something you don’t.”

Harold viewed him suspiciously. Finally: “What?” he asked.

“A sea-anemone.”

“A sea-what?”

“Sea-anemone.” Dick laughed. “I sea-anemone; what do you see?”

“That’s a punk joke!” scoffed Harold.

“I’m not joking. I’ll point him out to you. Lean over this way. See that purplish-brown thing on the side near the bottom? Looks like a flower, sort of. See?”

“Sure! Is that it? It isn’t a flower, though; it moves, don’t it?” Harold was interested in spite of himself.

“Yes, it moves, and it isn’t a flower. It’s a polyp. It’s name is Metridium something or other; I forget the rest of it.”

“What’s a polyp? An animal?”

“Y-yes, of a low order. About as much as a sponge is.”

“Pooh, a sponge is a vegetable!” derided the other.