Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip: or, Lost in the Wilderness

“Say, that’s goin’ some!” murmured Jack enviously.

“It sure is,” agreed Tom. “We won’t die of thirst from my olives now,” for Tom had brought a generous supply of those among other things.

Someone leaned against the bed, and the bottles rolled together with many a clatter and clash.

“Easy there!” cautioned Bert. “Do you want to bring the whole building up here? Remember this isn’t the dining-hall. Go easy!”

“I didn’t mean to,” spoke George, the offending one.

Gradually the room filled, until it was a task to move about in it, but this was no detriment at all to the lads. Then in the dim light of a few shaded candles, for they did not want the glimmer of the electrics to disclose the affair to some watching monitor, the feast began.

It was eminently successful, and the viands disappeared as if by magic. The empty bottles were set aside so their accidental fall would not make too much noise.

Gradually jaws began to move more slowly up and down in the process of mastication, and tongues began to wag more freely, though in guarded tones.

“This sure is one great, little Christmas feed!” commented Jack.

“All to the horse-radish,” agreed Tom. “But it’s nothing to what we’ll have when we get up in the Adirondack camp, fellows. I wish you were all coming.”

“So do we!” chorused those who were not going, for various reasons.

“Hark! What’s that?” suddenly cried George. Instantly there was silence.

“Nothing but the wind,” said Tom. “Say, fellows,” he went on, “I have an idea.”

“Chain it!” advised Jack. “They’re rare birds these days.”

“Let’s hear what it is,” suggested Bert. “If it’s any good, we’ll do it.”

CHAPTER V

OFF TO CAMP

Tom Fairfield disposed himself comfortably on the bed before replying. There was room there, now, for the food and drink had been disposed of. Tom stretched out, finished a half-consumed sardine sandwich, and went on.

“You know old Efficiency, don’t you?” began Tom, with tantalizing slowness.

“I should say we did!” came in a whispered chorus.

“The prof who’s always lecturing on improving your opportunities, isn’t he?” asked a student who had not been at Elmwood very long.

“That’s the one,” resumed Tom. “You know he claims we all eat and drink too much. He holds that a person should find the minimum amount of food on which he can live, and take no more than that.”

“I’ve had more than my share to-night, all right,” comfortably murmured Jack.

“And Efficiency, as we call him,” went on Tom, “is a hater of feasting of any sort, unless it be a feast of reason. I think he lives on half a cracker and a gill of milk a day, or something like that.”

“Well, what’s the idea?” asked Bert, impatiently.

“This,” answered Tom, calmly. “We will take the remains of our herewith feast, the broken victuals, the things in which they were contained, the empty tins, the depleted bottles, and deposit them on the doorstep of the domicile of Professor Hazeltine, otherwise known as Old Efficiency. When they are seen there it will show to the world that he does not practice what he preaches.”

There was silence for a moment following Tom’s announcement, and then came chuckles and smothered laughter.

“Say, that’s a good one all right!”

“It sure is!”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! It takes Tom Fairfield to think ’em out!”

“Easy there!” Bert cautioned them. “You’ll give the whole snap away, if you’re not careful.”

“Well, shall we do it?” asked Tom.

“I should say we will!” declared Jack.

“Then gather up the stuff and come along, a few at a time,” advised the ringleader. “We don’t want to make too much noise.”

A little later dark and silent figures might have been observed stealing across the school campus, carrying various objects. The front stoop of the professor, who was such a stickler for efficiency and the maximum of effect with the minimum of effort, was in the shadow, and soon it was piled high with many things.

Emptied sardine tins, olive bottles which contained only the appetizing odor, pasteboard cartons of crackers or other cakes, ginger-ale bottles with only a few drops of the beverage in the bottom, papers and paper bags, the pasteboard circlets from Charlotte russes – these and many more things from the forbidden midnight feast were piled on the steps. Then the conspirators stole away, one by one, as they had come.

Tom Fairfield lingered last to make a more artistic arrangement of the empty bottles; then he, too, joined his chums.

“I rather guess that’ll make ’em lie down and close their eyes,” he said, in distinction to the process of “sitting up and taking notice.”

“It sure will,” agreed Jack, with a chuckle.

There were whispered good-nights, pre-holiday greetings and then the students sought their rooms, for there was a limit beyond which they did not want to stretch matters.

In the morning they were sufficiently rewarded for their efforts – if rewarded be the proper word.

Professor Hazeltine, going to his front door to get his early morning paper, saw the array of bottles and debris. At first he could not believe the evidence of his eyesight, but a second look convinced him that he could not be mistaken.

“The shame of it!” he murmured. “The shame of that disgraceful gorging of food. They must be made an example of – no matter who they are. The shame of it! I shall report them! Oh, the waste here represented! The shameful waste of food! I suppose all that is here represented was consumed in a single night. It might have lasted a month. I shall see that they are punished, not only for their disgraceful action in thus littering my stoop, but for gorging themselves like beasts!”

But the professor forgot one thing, namely, that to punish a culprit one must first know who he is, and how to catch him. It was the old application of first get your rabbit, though doubtless the professor would have changed the proverb to some milder form of food.

However, he took up his paper, ordered the servant to remove the debris, and then proceeded to his simple breakfast of a certain bran-like food mingled with milk, a bit of dry toast and a cup of corn-coffee. After which, bristling with as much indignation as he could summon on such cold and clammy food, he went to Dr. Meredith and complained.

The Head smiled tolerantly.

“You must remember that it is the holiday season,” he said. “Boys will be boys.”

“But, Doctor, I do not so much object to the disgraceful exhibition they made of me. I can stand that. No one who knows me, or my principles, would think for a moment that I could consume the amount of food represented there.”

“No, I think you would be held guiltless of that,” agreed the President.

“But it is the fact that the young men – our students – could so demean themselves like beasts as to partake of so much gross food,” went on Professor Hazeltine. “After all my talks, showing the amount of work that can be done, mental and physical, on a simple preparation of whole wheat, to think of them having eaten sardines, smoked beef, canned tongue, potted ham, canned chicken – for I found tins representing all those things on my steps, Dr. Meredith. It was awful!”