Dave Porter's Return to School. Winning the Medal of Honor

"I suppose football is being talked about," observed Ben, after a brief pause.

"Yes, some of the boys are playing already," answered Sam Day. "I have been waiting for Roger to get back. He was captain of our eleven last season, you'll remember."

"Yes, and you were right tackle."

"Do you suppose we'll get another challenge from the Rockville Military Academy?"

"Sure we will," burst out Shadow. "They'll want to wipe out the defeat of last year."

"Gus Plum has organized a football team of his own," observed Sam. "He has got Poole and a lot of new students in it. They call themselves the Arrows, and one boy told me they were going to have suits with arrows embroidered on them."

"By the way, what of Chip Macklin?" asked Dave.

"He is around and as bright as a button," answered Sam. "It is simply wonderful what a change there is in that chap since he cut away from Plum."

"Oh, look at the apples!" cried out Ben, as the carryall made a turn in the road. He pointed to a tree in a field loaded with the fruit. "Wish I had one."

"You won't get any there," declared Shadow. "That's Mike Marcy's field and he keeps any number of dogs."

"Well, I never!" burst out Sam, feeling down under the seat. "If you hadn't spoken I should have forgotten them entirely." He brought out a bag containing a dozen big red apples. "I bought them while we were waiting for the train. Here, boys, help yourselves." And he passed them around.

"Thank you, Sam," said Dave, as he bit into one of the apples. "This is fine." And the others said the same.

Each had his story to tell, and Sam and Shadow listened with eager interest while Dave told of his long trip across the Pacific, and his many adventures since he had left the academy.

"Sounds almost like a fairy tale," declared Sam. "I'd like to see something of the world myself."

The carryall made another turn and came in sight of the river, dotted here and there with small craft. Along the shore grew some bushes and a few trees.

"I see some of the fellows are out rowing," observed Dave. "I'd like to go out myself some day, before it gets too cold."

The carryall was passing a point where the road was considerably higher than the surface of the stream. Dave had bitten into a second apple, that proved to be wormy. Now he leaned out of the carryall and sent the fruit spinning down through the bushes toward the river.

"Hi! hi!" came back a voice from the shore below. "Who hit me?"

"Gracious, I must have hit somebody!" exclaimed Dave. "I didn't mean to do it."

"What's the matter?" demanded the driver, pulling his team in.

"You needn't stop," answered Ben. "Dave threw an apple away, that's all."

"I've got to fix the harness – there's a strap loose," went on Lemond, and leaped to the ground. He was at work when a man appeared, climbing up the river bank through the bushes. It was Job Haskers, one of the assistant teachers at the Hall, the only instructor the students did not like.

"Ha! so some of you played a trick on me, eh?" fumed Job Haskers, as he emerged upon the road and strode toward the carryall. "Nice doings, I must say!"

"Did the apple hit you, Mr. Haskers?" asked Dave, mildly.

"Did it hit me? I should say it did, right on top of the head."

"I am sorry, sir."

"So you threw it, Porter. I am amazed that you would dare do such a thing."

"I didn't know you were down there – in fact, I didn't know anybody was there."

"A likely story," sneered the teacher, who was very often hot-headed and unreasonable.

"I am telling the truth, sir," and Dave's face flushed.

"I cannot go out for a quiet stroll by the river side but somebody must hit me in the head with a hard apple," growled the instructor. "Have you just arrived?"

"Yes, sir."

"You ought to be more careful of what you are doing."

"As I said before, I didn't know anybody was down there."

"I presume you didn't want to see me." The teacher turned to all of the boys. "Where did you get those apples?" he asked, suspiciously.

"I bought them in Oakdale," answered Sam.

"Haven't been stopping at some orchard on the way?"

"You may ask Mr. Cassello, the fruit man, if you don't believe me," and Sam drew himself up.

"Well, be more careful after this, or you'll hear from me!" answered Job Haskers, and strode off down the road in a thoroughly bad humor.

"Phew! but we are catching it all along the line," was Ben's comment. "First Plum and Poole, and now Haskers. Wonder what we'll strike next?"

"I didn't mean to hit anybody," said Dave. "How peppery he is!"

"And he thinks we took the apples from some orchard," added Sam.

"Well, such things have happened," observed Ben, with a grin.

"Which puts me in mind of another story," said Shadow. "There was a little boy, and his mother had been away nearly all day. 'Mamma,' said he when she came home, 'can I have two apples?' 'Won't one do?' she asked. 'No, I want two.' 'Very well,' said his mother. Then she saw him go to the basket and get one apple. 'I thought you wanted two,' she remarked. 'Oh,' he answered, 'I had the other one this morning!'"

Sam burst out laughing and so did the others. "I see the drift of that," said Sam. "You haven't forgotten when we went to Japlet's orchard after apples – "

"And the bull cornered Sam," said Ben. "Don't forget that, Sam."

"Nevertheless, Haskers is hard on us, and he had no business to call Dave down as he did, just for throwing the apple into the bushes."

"Perhaps he has found out something about that ram and how he got up in his room," whispered Ben, and then a laugh went up, in the midst of which the driver started up the carryall and the journey to Oak Hall was resumed.

Dave was on the watch, to catch his first sight of the school. They were passing through a bit of woodland. Now they made a turn, and rolled out in front of a broad campus lined on either side with a boxwood hedge. At each corner of the campus were clumps of monstrous oaks, the leaves of which had just begun to turn, and at the entrance were more of the same kind of trees.

The school itself was a thoroughly up-to-date structure, of brick and stone, laid out in the shape of a broad cross. The classrooms, the office, and the dining hall and kitchen were on the ground floor and the dormitories and private bedrooms and the bathrooms were above. Off to one side of the campus was the gymnasium, and down by the river were a boathouse and a row of bathing houses.