The Putnam Hall Rebellion

“Leave it to Captain Putnam!” came from the right.

“Forget it and go on with the lessons,” added a voice from the left.

“Boys!” called out Jack and waved his hand. “Let me do the talking please.” And at once the classroom became silent.

“Ruddy, I want you to sit down!” thundered Josiah Crabtree.

“Perhaps it would be as well to listen to what he has to say,” whispered Pluxton Cuddle, who was growing a little alarmed at the demonstration the pupils seemed to be on the point of making.

“Mr. Cuddle, am I in authority here, or you?” demanded the unreasonable Crabtree.

“You asked me to assist you, sir,” answered Cuddle, sharply.

“So I did, but – but – these young ruffians must be taught to mind! The way they have acted is outrageous!”

“You won’t gain much by bullying them,” went on Pluxton Cuddle. “If I had my way, I know what I’d do, sir.”

“And what would you do?” snapped Josiah Crabtree.

“I should cut down their supply of food. That is the whole fault in this school – the boys get too much to eat, sir, entirely too much. It makes animals of them, yes, sir, animals!” Pluxton Cuddle was beginning to mount his hobby. “I have told Captain Putnam about it already. If the boys had only half of what they get now they would be brighter, quicker to learn, and much more easy to manage. As it is, they get large quantities of meat and it makes perfect bulls of them – and the pastry clogs their brains, and they can’t learn their lessons even if they try. Put them on half rations, and in less than a week you will behold a wonderful change in them.”

“Humph!” mused Josiah Crabtree, struck by a sudden idea. “It might be a good thing to cut down their food – give them say one meal a day until they got to their senses.”

“Two small meals,” interposed Pluxton Cuddle, eagerly. “And meat but once every forty-eight hours – and no pastry of any kind. It would do them a world of good.”

“Well, do as you think best, Mr. Cuddle. You have charge of them outside of the classrooms, remember.”

“Then you agree?” questioned Pluxton Cuddle eagerly.

“You may do as you please – I leave them entirely in your hands, outside of the classrooms. During school hours my word must be law.”

“Exactly, I understand.” Pluxton Cuddle began rubbing his hands together. “We’ll start on the new system of meals this very evening.”

“Do as you like.” Josiah Crabtree paused. “But I must finish what I started out to do.” He looked at Jack. “Ruddy, since you seem so very anxious to talk, what have you to say for yourself?”

“I wish to speak for the whole class – or at least for the majority of the boys,” corrected the young major, with a glance at Ritter, Coulter, Paxton and Sabine.

“Well, out with it!” snapped Crabtree.

“This trouble, sir, is all due to a misunderstanding,” pursued the young major. “We thought you wanted us to study the Latin lesson up to and including paragraph twenty-two. We were not prepared to go any further than that, even though Dave Kearney did get through all right. We think the whole matter might be dropped where it is – and we are willing to go back to our studies.”

“Drop it!” snapped Josiah Crabtree. “Never! If I do nothing more, I am going to thrash the boy who threw that inkwell at me and covered my face with ink.”

He said this so fiercely that Reff Ritter grew pale and looked around anxiously. The bully wondered if the other cadets present would help him to keep his secret.

“I want the student who threw that inkwell to stand up,” went on the teacher, as Jack, having had his way, sat down.

Nobody moved, although several pairs of eyes were turned upon Reff Ritter. Many lads present would have been glad to have seen the bully punished, but they did not consider it honorable to expose him.

Crabtree had Pluxton Cuddle go through the roll, but this gave the teachers no satisfaction. Each and every cadet answered that he had nothing to say.

After the last student had been questioned there was another pause and an ominous silence. The boys were curious to know what Josiah Crabtree would do next. The teacher was in a quandary.

“We will take this up again another time,” he snapped, finally. “You may return to your lessons, and to-morrow we’ll have for a Latin lesson down to the end of paragraph thirty-two. Do you understand? – down to the end of paragraph thirty-two – not thirty or thirty-one, but to the end of thirty-two.” And then turning he wrote the statement on the blackboard. “Now there will be no further misunderstanding,” he added sourly. Then he dismissed Peleg Snuggers and the gymnastic instructor, put away the cat-o’-nine tails in his desk, and turned to talk with Pluxton Cuddle in a whisper, so that the scholars might not hear what was said.

“Phew! I wonder if he really expects us to take such a long lesson?” exclaimed Pepper in a low voice. “Why, from twenty-two to thirty-two are ten paragraphs, and we never had over six before.”

“He is going to get square in one way if not in another,” answered Andy. “Just the same, I’ll wager a lot of the fellows won’t have the lesson to-morrow.”

A few minutes later Pluxton Cuddle hurried out to another classroom, and then the routine for the day went on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The cadets even saw Josiah Crabtree smile to himself. It was a bad sign, and they knew it.

“He’s got it in for us,” whispered Dale. “Look out for a storm.”

“Yes, and a hurricane at that,” returned Stuffer.

The classes were usually dismissed in the morning at ten minutes to twelve, thus giving the cadets ten minutes for exercise before sitting down to dinner. But twelve o’clock came and Josiah Crabtree made no motion to dismiss the boys.

“Hello, this is a new move,” cried Pepper, in a low voice.

“Silence in the room,” called out the teacher sharply. “We will now take up the lesson in algebra. Conners, you may go to the blackboard.”

Somewhat perplexed, Bart Conners arose and walked to the board. He did not know the algebra lesson very well, for he had counted on going over it during the noon hour. He was given a decidedly difficult problem in equations.

“Say, is he going to keep us here all noon?” asked Hogan. “Sure, if he is, ’tis an outrage, so ’tis!”

“He isn’t going to starve me!” answered Stuffer, who, as usual, was very hungry. He raised his hand, and then, to get quicker recognition, snapped his finger and thumb.

“Singleton, what do you want?” asked Josiah Crabtree, tartly.

“Please, sir, it’s after twelve o’clock.”

“I know it.”

“Aren’t we to go to dinner, sir?”

“Not now. Sit down.” And the teacher frowned heavily.

Stuffer sank into his seat, a look of misery on his face. His appearance was so woe-begone Pepper had to laugh outright. At this Crabtree rapped sharply on his desk.

“Silence! I will have silence!” he called. “Conners, go on with the example.”

“I can’t – er – do it,” stammered the captain of Company B.

“Huh! Then take your seat! Ritter!”

“Please, sir, I am afraid I can’t do it either. I was going to study directly after dinner – ” began the bully.

“Never mind the rest, Ritter. Paxton!”