Chapter V: A Bright Prospect Ahead

Dick was laughing now. He had had good reason to suspect that Mr. Nocker intended to help them.

Everybody was looking happy after hearing the wonderful offer which the deacon had just made. Led by Dan Fenwick, the boys raised a shout in which the name of Mr. Nocker was plainly distinguishable.

The deacon held up his hand as though he had something more to communicate, so Dick, as chairman of the meeting, knocked on the table with his gavel to bring the wild cheering to an end.

“There are a few things I want to say to you, boys,” began the deacon, evidently enjoying the sensation of being so heartily cheered. “The first is in connection with the expense you will all be under, if you accept my offer. Lake Russabaga is a good many miles away from Cliffwood, and the railroad fare will amount to considerable.”

“We’ll be glad to stand for that, sir!” announced one boy, quickly.

“I have no doubt but the majority of you can spend the money required without feeling it,” continued the deacon, with a quick look toward the three mill boys who were leaning forward and listening eagerly. “But there may be a number who would like to go, and yet who could not spare the money to pay their expenses. I have a little plan to help them out.”

The interest of Eddie Grant and his two companions increased. They seemed to understand that Mr. Nocker had them especially in mind.

“There are some extensive patches of blueberries growing about my property on the lake,” continued the deacon. “Every year up to now I have given permits to certain people to pick all they wanted, and send the results down to the canning factory here in Cliffwood. This season, although the crop I am told is an extra large one, no one has applied for permission to pick it. So I propose that as many boys as wish may spend a portion of their camp time gathering blueberries. I will make arrangements to get them down here, and each boy will be credited with his earnings, which will go to repay the money I agree to advance on tickets and other expenses.”

At that Eddie Grant jumped to his feet with a vim.

“There are some of us here, Mr. Nocker,” he exclaimed, eagerly, “who want to go on this trip, but didn’t feel that we could afford to spend the money that we’ll need a little later for clothes or somethin’. We’ll be mighty willin’ to pick berries, or do anything like that, to help pay our share of the expenses. Isn’t that so, boys?”

“It sure is!” answered one of his mates, and the other nodded his head vigorously, being too agitated to use his voice.

“Well,” continued the deacon, with another smile of satisfaction as though he truly enjoyed being the messenger of good news. “I’ll leave it to you to decide. If your treasury doesn’t hold enough ready cash I’d be willing to help out, or start a collection to tide over.”

“Oh! we couldn’t stand for that, sir!” exclaimed Leslie Capes, quickly. “Nearly all of us can raise the amount needed; and your plan will settle the share of those for whom the expense would be too great. Taking up a collection sounds too much like charity. We’ve got something left from the proceeds of our minstrel entertainment, for one thing, that could be loaned to any member in good standing, to be repaid after we came back from the camp. None of us who hasn’t the money would mind working for it, but I’m sure I can speak for all and say not one of us wants it given to him.”

“There’s another thing I want to mention,” called back the deacon from the open door just before he vanished, “and that is, if you conclude to accept my offer and camp on Bass Island up at Lake Russabaga, you must beware of that thief!”

The boys stared at each other on hearing this, especially since the deacon did not stay to explain what he meant. After he had withdrawn there was considerable discussion as to what his mysterious words signified.

“What sort of people live up that way, anyhow,” one boy asked, “for him to tell us to look out for that thief?”

“If there’s a thief loose up there why haven’t they caught him before now?” another demanded.

“P’r’aps that job is being held off for the Y. M. C. A. boys to tackle,” suggested a third with a grin that told how gladly he would enter into the game if it should really turn out that way.

“It strikes me as a rather poor sort of place for respectable boys to camp in, if there’s such a low character loose in the vicinity. I really will have to think it over before deciding to accompany the rest of you.”

That came from Humbert Loft, a nephew of the librarian whose constant nagging of the town boys, in his desire to have them select only standard works suited to much older heads, rather than the juvenile books they yearned to read, had been the cause of much bad feeling, and had resulted in the boys starting a library of their own.

The peculiar ways of Humbert were well known to the others, so that his present lofty remark did not cause much surprise. Most of the boys indeed could not bear his superior airs, and thus far his associations had not been of a character to give him much joy.

Dick alone stood by him whenever the others started to tease the librarian’s nephew, who had imbibed the notions of Mr. Loft himself. Dick could not agree with the ideas which Humbert advanced, but still he believed he could catch traces of the more natural boy underneath this veneering. Dick hoped that some time or other Humbert might throw off his sham of superior polish and come out as Nature intended boys to be, perhaps rough and careless, but good-hearted, and meaning well even when disposed to be full of boyish pranks.

Asa Gardner in particular heard the remarks made by Mr. Nocker with great joy. As he had told Dick, he often dreamed of enjoying the pleasure of camping out, of which he had read many times; and now that it began to look as though a chance had come for him to experience the sensation he felt very happy.

“The outdoor life is the thing for me,” he remarked to Elmer Jones after the meeting had been adjourned by the temporary chairman.

“Well, for that matter I’m just as crazy about such things as any fellow could be and keep out of the asylum,” remarked Elmer. “I’ve had a few chances to camp out and have managed to pick up some of the tricks of the trade. But there’s a heap I don’t know yet, and I mean to learn it all as fast as I can.”

“But besides the fun of the thing,” continued Asa, seriously, “it’s bound to do me lots of good, you know. My mother told me to keep out-of-doors all I could, because--well, my lungs are a little weak, I guess. You know my brother was taken off that way, and it kind of scares me sometimes when I have a cough.”

Elmer, big and strong, who never had known a sick day in all his life, could still feel for a boy who had not enjoyed such robust health.

“Couldn’t do anything better than to live out-of-doors all you can, Asa,” he went on to say. “They’ve found that fresh air is the best thing going for weak lungs. In fact they’ve stopped giving medicine, and just keep patients in the sunshine and the air all the day, as well as get them to sleep in the open too.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing for a year now,” continued the other, eagerly. “I have a sleeping porch alongside my room, and all last winter I never spent even one night indoors.”

Elmer looked at him with more respect on hearing this.

“And we had several big blizzards at that,” he remarked. “Then you must be in good trim for camping, because you’re used to the night air. But we’re all of us a heap glad we are really going so far away from home, though we’ll miss our moth----”

Elmer stopped suddenly, because he remembered that Asa had lost his mother. He saw the other turn white and gulp hard; but as Elmer walked away just then nothing further was said on the subject.

The boys found it hard to separate that night, there was so much to talk over. Suggestions were made of every kind as to what supplies they ought to take with them and whether this or that would be the right thing.

“Before we leave here, boys,” said Dick as they prepared finally to depart, “it strikes me it would be only fair to give three cheers for Mr. Nocker, one of the best friends the boys of Cliffwood ever had. That is, if Mr. Bartlett doesn’t object.”

The cheers were given with a will, and as the windows of the room were open the man, who happened to be passing, could plainly hear his name mentioned with hearty vigor as the score of lusty voices rang out. And Deacon Nocker felt a warmth in his heart as he listened, such as that organ had never known before.