Bobby Blake at Rockledge School: or, Winning the Medal of Honor

He had not been altogether idle. There was a heavy club of hard wood lying nearby, and he seized it.

"He'd better get down out of that tree or Rove will eat him up," said Ap, boastfully.

"Those branches overhang this land. The apples don't belong to you any more than they do to us," said Bobby, and he thought he was quite right in saying so.

"Yah!" scoffed Ap. "He had to climb the tree-trunk to get there, and the tree's on our side of the fence."

"Didn't neither, Mr. Smartie!" cried Fred, in delight. "I jumped up and grabbed a limb, and pulled myself up. Have an apple?" and he aimed one of the hard, green ones at Ap.

"Don't you do that, Fred!" called up Bobby, in haste.

"Well, then, I'll give it to the dog," said Fred, throwing the apple to Rover.

"You come down out of that tree, and you stop pelting my dog!" commanded Applethwaite Plunkit.

"Yes – I – will!" responded Fred, biting into another apple.

"Well! I'll lick one of you, anyway!" exclaimed Ap, who had been slily stepping nearer.

And immediately he threw himself on Bobby. He caught the latter so unexpectedly that he couldn't have used the club had he wished to.

"Come on, Rove!" shrieked Ap. "Bite him, boy – bite him!"

"You stop that!" shouted the red-haired boy in the tree. "Bobby hasn't done a thing – "

The dog growled and ran around the two struggling boys. Perhaps he was looking for a chance to bite his master's antagonist. At least, it looked so.

Bobby Blake, although never a quarrelsome lad, was no mollycoddle. Attacked as he had been, he struggled manfully to escape the bigger boy. He dropped the club, but he tore off Ap's hat and flung it into the creek.

"Go for it, sir! After it!" he screamed, and Rover heard him and saw the hat. That was one of the dog's accomplishments. He was a Newfoundland, and retrieving articles from the water was right in his line.

He barked and bounded to the edge of the steep bank. He evidently considered that, after all, his master and Bobby were only playing, and this part of the play he approved of.

The instant Bobby heard the splash of the big dog into the water, he twisted in Ap's grasp, tripped him, and fell on top of the larger boy.

"Oh! oh! oh!" gasped Ap. "You're hurtin' me – you're killin' me! I can't breathe – "

"Scubbity-yow!" yelled Fred, giving voice to his favorite battle-cry, and he dropped from the apple tree, running to Bobby's help.

But Bobby got up and released the bawling farm-boy at once. "Come on, Fred," he said. "Let's get out o' here."

"Why, you got the best of him!" cried Fred, in disgust. "Let's duck him! Let's throw him in after his old dog."

"No you don't," declared Bobby, seizing Fred's hand. "We're going to get out while we have the chance. I only tripped him and got the dog out of the way so you could escape."

"Huh!" exclaimed Fred. "I didn't get as many apples as I wanted."

"I don't care. You come on," said his chum.

"Whoever heard of the winning side giving way like this?" grumbled the red-haired boy. "Anyway," he added, picking up the club Bobby had lost, "if that dog comes after us, I'll hit him."

Bobby picked up the box containing the remainder of their luncheon, and led the way through the bushes. The dog had come ashore, and it and Ap Plunkit were quickly out of sight. Fred was still grumbling about leaving the foe to claim "the best of it."

"He'll pitch on us next time, just the same," he declared. "Why didn't you punch him when you had him down, Bob?"

"Aw, come on!" said his chum. "Always wanting to get into a fight. You keep that up when you get to Rockledge School, and you'll be in hot water all the time."

"Shucks!" grinned Fred. "I'd like to be in cold water right now. The swimming hole isn't far away. Let's."

"We can't go in but once – you know we can't," said Bobby.

"Why not?" demanded Fred, quickly.

"Because we promised our mothers we wouldn't go in but once a day this vacation."

"Huh! That ain't saying but what we can take off our clothes and put on our swimming trunks, and stay in all day long."

"That would be just as dishonest as going in two or three times, Fred," exclaimed Bobby. "And you wouldn't do it. Besides," he added, grinning; "you know you tried that last summer, and 'member what you got for it?"

"You bet you!" exclaimed the red-haired one. "I got sunburned something fierce! No. I won't do that again. That's the day we built the raft on Sanders' Pond, and oh, how I hurt! I guess I do remember, all right."

"No," said Bobby, after a minute. "We'll go fishing first, and then take a swim before we go home. That'll clean us up, and make us feel fresh. There's that old stump again, Fred. I believe there's a big trout lives under that stump. Don't you 'member! We've seen him jump."

"Ya-as," scoffed Fred. "But that old fellow won't jump for a worm. He's had too many square meals this summer, don't you know? It'll take a fancy fly, like those my Uncle Jim uses when he goes fishing, to coax Mr. Trout out of the creek."

"I'm going to try," said Bobby, who could be obstinate in his opinion.

"I'll be satisfied if I catch a shiner," declared Fred. "I'll try off that rock yonder. Come on! There's a couple of dandy fishpoles."

Like real country boys, Bobby and Fred cut poles each time they went fishing. No need to carry them back and forth to their homes in Clinton and it did not take five minutes to cut and rig these poles.

"What nice, fat worms," said Bobby, when Fred shook up the tomato can.

"That's what the robin said," chuckled Fred. "Know what my sister, Betty, said yesterday morning? You know it rained the night before and the robins were picking up worms on the lawn right early – before breakfast.

"Bet was at the window and one fat robin picked up a worm, swallowed it, and flew right up into a tree where he began to sing like sixty! Bet says:

"'Oh! that robin gives me the squirms; how can he sing that way when he's all full of those crawly things?'"

"Now hush!" ordered Bobby, the next moment. "I'm going to drop this nice fellow right down beside that stump and see if I can coax Mr. Trout up."

But Mr. Trout did not appear. Bobby, with exemplary patience, tried it again and again. He changed his bait and dropped a fresh worm into the brown, cloudy water where he believed the trout lay.

"You're not fishing," chuckled Fred, from his station on the rock, a few yards away. "You're just drowning worms."

"Huh!" returned Bobby. "I don't see any medals on you. You haven't caught anything."

"But I'm going to!" whispered Fred, swiftly, and holding his pole with sudden attention.

Then, with a nervous jerk, he flung up the pole. Hook and sinker came with it, and a tiny, wriggling, silver fish, about a finger long, shot into the air. But Fred had not been careful to select his stand, and he drove his line and fish up among the branches of a tree.

"Now you've done it – and likely scared my trout," exclaimed Bobby.

Fred, in his usual impulsive fashion, tried to jerk back his line. The hook and sinker were caught around a branch. The shiner dropped off the hook and rested in a crotch of the branch. No fish ever was transformed into a bird so quickly since fishing was begun!

And while Bobby laughed, and held his sides, Fred jerked at the entangled line again and again until, stepping too far back, and pulling too hard, the line chanced to give a foot or two, Master Fred fell backwards and —flop! into the deep pool below the rock he went!

CHAPTER IV

AN EVENTFUL AFTERNOON

"On! oh! oh! – gurgle! gurgle! blob! Help! Give us a hand – "

Down Master Fred went again, and, his mouth being open, he swallowed more of the murky water of the creek than was good for him. He came up, coughing and blowing.

Bobby, although forced to laugh, extended the butt of his own fish pole and Fred seized it. In half a minute he was on the bank, panting and "blowing bubbles," as Bobby said.

"You can laugh – "

"I hope so," returned Bobby, turning to give his attention to his own hook and line. "Oh!"

Something was the matter down under that stump; the water was agitated. The taut line pulled in Bobby's hands.

"Oh! A bite!" cried he, picking up his pole. "Oh, Fred! I've hooked that old trout!"

Master Martin was too much taken up with his own affairs just then to pay much attention. Bobby, all of a tremble (for he had never caught a trout over a finger long), began to "play" the fish cautiously. It seemed to be sulking down in its hole under the old stump. Bobby pulled on the line gently.

Meanwhile Fred, getting his breath, began to remove his saturated garments.

"I guess," he grunted, "we might as well go in swimming right now. Gee! I'm wet. And these things will have to dry before I start home. Oh!"

Bobby's line "gave" suddenly. Bobby uttered a yell, for he thought the trout had jumped.

Whatever was on his hook shot to the surface of the brown pool. Bobby went over backward on the grass. The point of his pole stood straight up, and the hook was snapped out of the water.

There was a long, black, squirmy thing on the hook. As Bobby squealed, the eel flopped right down into his face!

"Aw! ouch! take him off!" shouted Bobby, and flung away his pole.

In a second the eel was so tangled in the fishline that one might have thought it and the line had been tied into a hard knot! Fred was rolling with laughter on the bank, his wet shirt half over his head.

"Scubbity-yow!" he shrieked. "Now you got it. You laughed at me, Bobby Blake. See how you get it yourself."

Bobby began to laugh, too. He could see that the joke was, after all, on him.

"And that's your big trout – ho, ho!" shouted Fred. "An old eel. Kill him with a club, Bobby. You'll never get him untangled if you don't."

"And he'll wiggle then till the sun goes down. Just like a snake," declared Bobby, repeating a boyish superstition held infallible by the boys of Clinton.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Fred, at last pulling the wet shirt off. "I'm aching for laughing. What a mess that line's in."

"And how about your own!" demanded Bobby, on a broad grin again, and pointing into the branches of the tree where Fred had flung his shiner.

"We're a pair of fine fishermen – I don't think!" admitted Fred, in some disgust.

He got off the remainder of his wet clothing, and slipped on his trunks.

"You might as well do the same, Bobby," he advised, while he laid his clothing over the low bushes back from the bank of the creek, where the sun could get at them nicely. "Look at your shirt. All slime from that old eel."

"I wish he'd keep still a minute," said Bobby, with some impatience. "What were eels ever made for?"

"They're good eating, some folks think. But I'd just as lief eat snakes."

"Some savages eat snakes," said Bobby, trying to keep one foot on the tail-end of the eel, and unwinding the fishline.

But the next moment the squirmy creature wound itself up in the line again into a harder knot than before.

"Looks just like the worm he swallowed," chuckled Fred. "There! he's got the hook out of his mouth. Fling him back, Bobby!"

Bobby did so, pitching eel and line into the water. There was a flop or two and the wriggling fish got free. Then Bobby hauled in his line and began to rebait the hook.

"I guess I'll try fishing somewhere else," he said. "I won't try here. If there ever was a trout under that stump, he's scared away."

"There never was a trout where an old eel made his nest," scoffed Fred, struggling with his own line.

"That eel didn't belong here," announced Bobby, with confidence. "What do you bet I don't catch a trout to-day?"

"Never mind. I've landed one fish," chuckled Fred.

"Fish! what's it doing roosting in that tree, then!" demanded Bobby, giggling. "It's a bird."

Fred managed to untangle his own line, and in doing so he shook the shiner out of the branches.

"Catch it!" he shouted. "There it goes!"

"Plop!" the fish went right into the pool, and with a wiggle of its tail disappeared.

"We're a couple of healthy fishermen," scoffed Bobby. "We land them, and then lose them."

"Le's go farther down stream. We've made so much noise here that we couldn't catch anything but deaf fish – that's sure."

Bobby was quite agreed to this, and Fred in his bathing trunks, leaving his wet clothing to dry on the bushes, led the way along the creek bank. Bobby followed with the can of worms.

They found another quiet place and this time both took pains to cast their lines where no overhanging branches would interfere with the tips of their poles. The creek was well stocked with sunfish, yellow perch, shiners, and small brook trout. Once – "in a dog's age," Fred's Uncle Jim said – somebody landed a big trout out of one of the deeper holes in the stream.

The boys fished for an hour, and both landed perch and shiners.

"If we get enough of them we can have a fish supper," declared Fred.

"At home?"

"Sure. We can clean them – "

"Who'll cook them? Our Meena won't," declared Bobby, with confidence.

"And I don't suppose our girl will, either. Besides, we'd have to catch a bushel to give the crowd at our house a taste, even," for there were five young Martins at Fred's house, besides himself, ranging from the baby who could just toddle around, to Fred's fourteen year old sister, Mary. There was another girl older than Fred, who was the oldest boy.

"Just wish Michael Mulcahey would light a fire in his stove and pan them for us," said Bobby, wistfully. "'Member, he did once!"

"Yes. But we haven't caught enough yet."

"Hush!" murmured Bobby. "I got another bite."

In a minute he had landed a nice, big sunfish. He cut a birch twig then, with a hook on the end of it, and strung his three fish. Fred did the same for his two, and the fish were let down into the cool water, and were thus kept alive.

They moved farther down the creek after a bit, and tried another pool. The strings of fish grew steadily. It looked, really, as though they would have enough for supper – and it takes a right good number of such little fish to make a meal for two hungry boys.

Not that they wanted food again so soon. During the afternoon they ate the rest of the lunch and some apples to stave off actual hunger!

"I bet you get sunburned again," said Bobby.

"No, I won't. I'm in the shade all the time."

"The wind will burn as well as the sun."

"But I'm not in and out of the water all the time, like I was that day at Sanders' Pond. Just the same," added Fred, "I'm going into the creek now. There's a dandy place for fish just across there."

"There's some stepping stones below. I'll go over with you," declared Bobby, winding up his line.

Fred was not afraid of splashing himself. He ran across the stones laid in the bed of the creek. Bobby came more cautiously, but he did not see the wide grin on Fred's face as he stood on the far side and watched his chum.

Bobby stepped on the rock in the middle of the stream. Just as it bore his full weight, and he had his right foot in the air, stepping to the next dry-topped rock, the one under him rolled!

The red-haired boy had felt that stone "joggle" when he came across but he had leaped lightly from it. Bobby was caught unaware.

He yelled, and tried to jump, but the stepping stone, under which the action of the water had excavated the sand, turned clear over. "Splash!" went Bobby into the water.

He stood upright, but he was in a pool over his knees, and the agitated water splashed higher. His knickerbockers were as wet as Fred's clothes had been when he waded out.

"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted Fred, writhing on the grass. "Aren't you clumsy? Now you'll have to take off your clothes to dry, Bobby."

"You might have told a fellow that rock was loose," grumbled Bobby.

"And you might have told me that I was stepping off into the old creek when I was jerking at my line," retorted Fred. "I got it worse than you did."

Bobby removed his trousers and wrung them out. Then he put them on again. "They'll dry as good on me, as off," he said. "Now, come on. Let's go up along and see if we can't get some more fish."

They whipped the creek for half a mile up stream, and were successful beyond their hopes. Both boys had a nice string of pan-fish when they came to the deep swimming hole, which was only a few yards below the corner of Plunkit's farm Sphere the apple tree stood.

The sun was then sliding down toward the western horizon. Bobby's trousers were pretty well dried. He put on his bathing trunks, and followed Fred into the pool.

Both boys were good swimmers. There was a fine rock to dive from and a soft, sandy bottom. No danger here, and for an hour the chums had a most delightful time.

Then Bobby brought his own clothes across to the side of the creek where they had begun to fish. Fred brought the fishing-tackle and the two strings of fish. Then he trotted down the bank to get his own clothes and their shoes and stockings.

Bobby was half dressed when he heard his chum shouting. "Bobby! Bobby!" shrieked the red-haired boy.

Fearing that his chum was in trouble, Bobby started for the sound of Fred's voice, on a hard run.

"I'm coming, Fred! Hold on!" he shouted, as loudly as he could.

In a few moments he came out into the open place where Fred had carefully arranged his clothing on the low bushes. There wasn't a garment there, and Fred came out of the brush, his face very red and angry.

"What's the matter?" asked Bobby.

"Matter enough!" returned his chum. "Don't you see?"

"Not – not your clothes gone?" gasped Bobby.

"Yes they are. Every stitch. And your shoes, too. What do you think of that?"

"Why – why – Somebody's taken them?"

"Of course somebody has. And it's your fault," said Fred, very much provoked. "If you had helped me pitch in and lick that Ap Plunkit, he wouldn't have dared do this."

"Maybe – maybe he'd have licked us," stammered Bobby.

"He'll – he'll just have to lick me when I meet up with him next time, or else he'll take the biggest licking he ever took," threatened the wrathful Master Martin, wiping a couple of angry tears out of his eyes with a scratched knuckle.

CHAPTER V

THE TALE OF A SCARECROW

"My goodness! you can't go home that way," said Bobby Blake, faintly.

He did not laugh at all. The situation had suddenly become tragic instead of comic. Fred could not walk back to Clinton in his bathing-trunks – that is, not until after dark.

"I wish I had hold of that Ap Plunkit," repeated Fred Martin. "He did it," he added.

"Oh, we don't know – "

"Of course we do. He sneaked along there after us and found my clothes, and ran away with them – every one. And your shoes and stockings, too!"

"No he didn't, either!" cried Bobby, suddenly, staring up into the tall tree over their heads.

"Eh?"

"There are the shoes and stockings – shoes, anyway," declared Bobby, pointing.

It was a chestnut tree above their heads. It promised a full crop of nuts in the fall, for the green burrs starred thickly the leafy branches.

Whoever had disturbed the chums' possessions had climbed to the very tip-top of the chestnut and hung the two pair of shoes far out on a small branch.

"That's Ap Plunkit's work – I know," declared Fred, with conviction. "He climbs trees like a monkey. You see how long his arms are. I've seen him go up a taller tree than this."

"Maybe he's taken your clothes up there, too," said Bobby, going to the trunk of the tree.

"The mean scamp!" exclaimed Fred. "How'll we get them, Bob? I – I can't climb that tree this way."

"Neither can I," admitted his friend. "But wait till I run and get my clothes on – "

"And you'd better run, too!" exclaimed Fred, suddenly, "or you won't find the rest of yourclothes."

Thus advised, Bobby Blake set out at once for the spot where he had been dressing. There was no sign of Applethwaite Plunkit about – or of any other marauder. Just the same, when Bobby was dressed and went down the creek side again to Fred, he carried all their possessions with him.

That chestnut was a hard tree for Bobby to climb – especially barefooted. There were so many prickly burrs that had dropped into the crotches of the limbs, and, drying, had become quite stiff and sharp. He had to stop several times as he mounted upward to pick the thorns from his feet.

But he got the shoes and stockings, and, hanging them around his neck, came down as swiftly as he could. Both boys at once sat down and put on this part of their apparel. Fred was almost tempted to cry; but then, he was too angry to "boo-hoo" much.

"I'll catch that Ap Plunkit, and I'll do something to him yet," he declared. "I'll have him arrested for stealing my clothes, anyway."

"How can we prove he took them? We didn't see him," said Bobby, thoughtfully.

"Well!"

"I tell you what," Bobby said. "Let's go up to his house and tell his mother. We know he did this, even if we didn't see him. Of course, we got him mad first – "

"We didn't have to get him mad," declared Fred. "He's mad all the time."

"Well, we plagued him. He just was getting square."

"But such a mean trick to steal a fellow's clothes!"

"Maybe his folks will see it that way and make Applethwaite give them back."

"But I can't go up there to the house with only these old tights on!" said Fred.

"No," and Bobby couldn't help grinning a little. "You wear my jacket."

"And if I have lost my clothes," wailed Fred, "and have to go home this way, my father will give it to me good! Come on!"

"Let's each find a good club. That dog, you know," said Bobby.

"Sure. And if we meet up with Ap, I'll be likely to use it on him, too!" growled Fred, angrily.

Bobby decided that it was useless to try to pacify his chum at the moment. It seemed to relieve Fred to threaten the absent Ap Plunkit, and it did that individual no bodily harm!

So the boys found stout clubs and started up the bank of the creek. Fred was feeling so badly that he did not pick more of the "summer sweetnin's" when they came to the apple tree.

They crawled through the hole in the boundary fence of the Plunkit Farm and kept on up the creek-side. First they crossed the pasture, then they climbed a tight fence and entered a big cornfield. The corn was taller than their heads and there were acres and acres of it. It was planted right along the edge of the creek bank, and they had to walk between the rows.

"If old Plunkit sees us in his corn, he'll be mad," said Fred, at last.

"This is the nearest way to the house, and we've got to try and get your clothes," said Bobby, firmly.

After that, he took the lead. The nearer they approached the farmhouse, the more Fred lagged. But suddenly, in the midst of the long cornfield, Master Martin uttered a cry.

"Look there, Bob!"

"What's the matter with you? I thought it was the dog."

"No, sir! See yonder, will you?"

"Nothing but a scarecrow," said Bobby.

"Yes. But it has clothes on it. I'm going to take them. I'm not going up to that house without anything more on me than what I've got."

Bobby began to chuckle at that. It seemed too funny for anything to rob a scarecrow. But Fred was pushing his way through the corn toward the absurd figure.

Suddenly Fred uttered another yell – this time his famous warwhoop:

"Scubbity-yow! I got him!"

"You got who?" demanded Bobby, hurrying after his chum.

"This is some o' that Ap Plunkit's doings – the mean thing! Look here!" and he snatched the cap off the scarecrow's head of straw.

"Why – that looks like your cap, Fred," gasped Bobby.

"And it is, too."

"That – that's just the stripe of your shirt!"

"And it is my shirt. And it's my pants, and all!" cried Fred. "I'll get square with Ap Plunkit yet – you see if I don't. There's the old ragged things this scarecrow wore, on the ground. And he's dressed it in my things. Oh, you wait till I catch him!"

Meanwhile Fred was hastily tearing off the garments that certainly were his own. They were all here. Bobby kept away from him, and laughed silently to himself. It was really too, too funny; but he did not want to make Fred angry with him.