Ben Stone at Oakdale

“Say,” drawled Crane, “perhaps this Stone ain’t such an awful bad feller after all. Jack Walker tol’ me he pitched into Hunk Rollins hammer an’ tongs ’cause Hunk was plaguing Jimmy Jones, and he said he was a-going to tell the professor the whole business. Bern Hayden is pretty top-lofty, and he’s down on Stone for somethin’, so he wants to drive Stone outer the school. I tell you fellers right here that I hope, by Jinks! that Stone don’t go.”

“’Sh!” hissed Sleuth mysteriously, glancing all around, as if fearful of being overheard. “Draw back from this bright glare of light, where we may be spied upon by watchful and suspicious eyes.”

When they had followed him into the shadow at the corner of the building and he had peered and listened some moments, he drew them close together and, in a low, hoarse voice, declared:

“It is perfectly apparent to my trained observation that there is more in this case than appears on the surface. I have struck a scent, which I am working up. I pledge you both to secrecy; betray me at your peril. Between Hayden and Stone there is a deadly and terrible feud. Sometime in the dark and hidden past a great wrong was committed. I feel it my duty to solve the problem and right the wrong. I shall know neither rest nor sleep until my task is accomplished and justice is done.”

“Well,” said Sile, in his quaint, drawling way, “you may git allfired tired an’ sleepy, Sleuth; but I agree with Chub in thinkin’ it pritty likely Roger is a-takin’ Stone up to his haouse.”

The boys were right in this conviction, although Ben did not suspect whither he was being carried until they were passing the Methodist church and approaching Roger’s home.

“I am taking you to dinner,” said Roger, in answer to Ben’s questioning. “Mother asked me to bring you in order that she may thank you for your brave defense of Amy against old Fletcher’s dogs; and father wishes to see you, too.”

Ben was filled with sudden consternation.

“Oh, say, Eliot,” he exclaimed, “I can’t go there!”

“Why not, old man? My mother is an invalid, you know, and she can’t come to you. It will be a pleasure to her to meet you, and she has few enough pleasures in life.”

“But – but,” stammered Ben, remembering that Urian Eliot was known to be Oakdale’s richest man and lived in the finest house in the village, “I am not prepared – my clothes – ”

“Nonsense!” heartily returned Roger. “You will find us plain people who do not go in for ceremony and style. Your clothes are all right. Just you be easy and make yourself at home.”

Little did Roger know of his companion’s inward quaking and apprehension, but it seemed too late to get out of it then, and Stone was compelled to face the ordeal.

A stableman took charge of the horse and carriage, and they were met at the door by Amy Eliot, who had been watching for them.

“Here he is, Sis,” said Roger. “I captured him and brought him off without letting him know what was up, or I’d never got him here.”

Amy shyly, yet impulsively, took Ben’s hand.

“You were so good to come and save me from those dreadful dogs!” she said. “I was nearly frightened to death. I know they would have eaten me up.”

As Ben’s chained tongue was seeking to free itself a stout, square, bald-headed, florid man, with a square-trimmed tuft of iron-gray whiskers on his chin, appeared in the doorway of a lighted room off the hall, and a healthy, hearty voice cried:

“So this is the hero! Well, well, my boy, give me your hand! I’ve heard all about it from Roger and Amy. And you actually killed old Fletcher’s big dog with a club! Remarkable! Amazing! For that alone you deserve a vote of thanks from every respectable, peaceable citizen of this town. But we owe you the heaviest debt. Our Amy would have been mangled by those miserable beasts but for your promptness and courage. Lots of boys would have hesitated about facing those dogs.”

“This is my father, Stone,” said Roger, as Urian Eliot was earnestly shaking the confused lad’s hand.

Ben managed huskily to murmur that he was glad to meet Mr. Eliot.

From the adjoining room a woman’s low, pleasant voice called:

“Why don’t you bring him in? Have you forgotten me?”

“No, mother,” answered Roger, taking Ben’s cap from his hand and hanging it on the hall tree.

“No, indeed!” declared Mr. Eliot, as he led the boy into a handsome room, where there were long shelves of books, and great comfortable leather-covered chairs, and costly Turkish rugs on the hardwood floor, with a wood fire burning cheerfully in an open fireplace, and a frail, sweet-faced woman sitting amid piled-up cushions in an invalid’s chair near a table, on which stood a shaded lamp and lay many books and magazines. “Here he is, mother.”

“Yes, here he is, mother,” said Roger, smiling that rare, slow smile of his, which illumined his face and made it seem peculiarly attractive and generous; “but I’m sure I’d never made a success of it in bringing him if I had told him what I wanted in the first place.”

“My dear boy,” said Mrs. Eliot, taking Ben’s hand in both her own thin hands, “mere words are quite incapable of expressing my feelings, but I wish I might somehow make you know how deeply grateful I am to you for your noble and heroic action in saving my helpless little girl from those cruel dogs.”

At the sound of her voice Ben was moved, and the touch of her hands thrilled him. Her tender, patient eyes gazed deep into his, and that look alone was a thousand times more expressive of her gratitude than all the words in the language, though chosen by a master speaker. He thought of his own kind, long-suffering mother, now at rest, and there was a mist in his eyes.

“Believe me,” he managed to say, “I didn’t do it for thanks, and I – ”

“I am sure you didn’t,” she interrupted. “You did it just because it was the most natural thing for a brave boy like you to do.”

It was quite astonishing to him to have any one regard him as brave and noble, for all his life until now everybody had seemed to look on him as something quite the opposite; and, in spite of what he had done, he could not help thinking he did not deserve to be treated so kindly and shown so much gratitude.

“Sit down, Stone, old man,” invited Roger, pushing up a chair.

“Yes, sit down,” urged Mrs. Eliot. “I want to talk with you.”

In a short time she made him feel quite at ease, which also seemed surprising when he thought of it; for to him, accustomed to poverty all his life, that library was like a room in a palace. And these people were such as circumstances and experience had led him to believe would feel themselves in every way his superiors, yet they had apparently received him as their equal and made no show of holding themselves far above him.

Urian Eliot, who stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire and his hands behind him, joined freely in the conversation, and Ben could not help wondering if this was really the rich mill-owner whom the greater number of the people of Oakdale regarded with an air of awe. He was very free and easy and plain-spoken, yet he had the reputation of being a hard business man, close-fisted to the point of penuriousness in all his dealings.

Amy came and stood close beside Ben, while Roger sat on the broad arm of a chair, gravely satisfied in his demeanor.

They talked of many things, and there was no suggestion of idle curiosity on the part of Mrs. Eliot when she questioned the visitor about himself.

Ben told of his home with Jacob Baldwin, an unsuccessful farmer, who lived some ten miles from Oakdale, explaining how he had done his best to carry on the little farm while Mr. Baldwin was down with rheumatism, how he had planned and saved to get money to attend school, and how he had finally set by a small sum that he believed was sufficient to carry him through a term at the academy by strict economy.

Listening to this, Urian Eliot nodded repeatedly and rubbed his square hands behind his broad back with an atmosphere of satisfaction. When the boy had finished, Mr. Eliot surprised him by saying:

“That’s the right sort of stuff – it’s the kind that real men are made of. I like it. I was a poor boy myself, and I had a pretty hard time of it cutting cordwood and hoop-poles in winter and working wherever I could earn a dollar in summer; but I stuck to it, and I managed to pull through all right. You stick to it, my boy, and you’ll win. I admire your grit.”

Such complimentary words from a man like Urian Eliot meant a great deal, and they sent a glow over Ben. For the time he forgot the cloud hanging over him, forgot Bernard Hayden and the blighting past, forgot that he was an outcast who could never again cross the threshold of Oakdale academy save to face disgrace and expulsion.

Finally dinner was announced, and Roger carefully wheeled his mother in her chair from the library to the dining room, while Urian Eliot followed, offering advice and calling to Ben to come.

Amy’s little hand stole into Ben’s, and she pressed close to his side, looking up at him.

“I’m going to sit by you,” she said. “I like you, Ben. I think you’re just the best and bravest fellow in the world – except Roger,” she finished, as an afterthought.

It was a happy hour for Ben.

CHAPTER IX.

PROFFERED FRIENDSHIP

That dinner was one never forgotten by Ben. The softly, yet brightly, lighted table, with its spotless napery, shining silver, fine china and vase of flowers, caused him to feel suddenly overcome as he thought of his own poor, plain clothes and natural awkwardness. On the sideboard facets of cut glass sparkled and gleamed with many diamond colors. Above the wainscoting a few tasty pictures hung on the dark red walls.

Never before had the boy dined in such a room and at such a table, and the fear that he might do some awkward thing to make him blush with shame was painful upon him. By resolving to watch the others and follow their example he got along very well, and by the time the second course had disappeared their pleasant chatting and perfect freedom had loosened the strain so that he was once more somewhat at ease.

If he was awkward with his fork, no one noticed it, and finally he quite forgot his embarrassment in the realization of the, to him, remarkable fact that he was among friends, none of whom were seeking to discover his shortcomings that they might laugh over them and ridicule him behind his back.