Chapter XVIII: Jerry Issues Invitations

Jerry arose the next morning very happy in the knowledge that he was the possessor of his own home. He had long since ceased to entertain the thought of any one else having the least claim to it. It was his, he considered, by the right of discovery, preëmption, possession and by every other right. Or perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that he would have so considered had he given any thought to the matter. Which he didn’t. In the bathtub that morning he found his happiness dimmed by the reflection that he had no one with whom to share his pleasure. There was young Pringle, a decent fourth class lad whom he rather liked, but something told him that Archie Pringle would be unable to understand and sympathize with his enthusiasm for a weather-beaten, sway-backed, shack two miles from civilization. Jerry wished that Tom was there. Tom would kick like a steer at walking the distance, but, once there, he would like that cabin nearly as much as Jerry did. Well, Tom would be back the next day, which was Thursday, and surely no later than Sunday Jerry could hale him off and exhibit his new treasure to him. Comforted by that thought, Jerry realized the fact that he was still in the bathtub.

Mr. Hiltower, to whom Jerry applied for another day’s leave after breakfast, showed mild surprise and some hesitation. “Aren’t you overdoing it, Benson?” he asked. “You were away all day yesterday, were you not?”

“Yes, sir.” Jerry would have liked to explain to the instructor, but he somehow feared that the latter wouldn’t understand much better than young Pringle.

“Hm,” mused Mr. Hiltower. “Going to the city?”

“No, sir, to the――the country.”

Mr. Hiltower seemed to find that slightly amusing. “Well, you oughtn’t to have to go very far to do that,” he chuckled. “What do you do in the country, Benson? Commune with Nature and all that sort of thing?”

“I just walk, sir, and――and sometimes I take a book with me and read.” Then, reflecting that possibly the reply was a trifle misleading, he added: “To-day I’m going to an old cabin back in the woods, sir. I found it yesterday.”

“An old cabin? Quite interesting! Well, well, all right, Benson. Pursue your adventures, my boy. But see that you’re back by five.”

Jerry had his troubles that morning. By the time he had collected as many of the articles on the vanished list as he could remember and piled them into an empty soap box in the stable his movements had been observed by his companions and he had become an object of much interest. While he was endeavoring to induce a borrowed saw to live in peace at the bottom of the box with the hatchet and the cups and many other articles, the doorway was darkened and three inquisitive youths demanded enlightenment.

“What are you doing, Benson?” asked one.

“Putting some things in a box,” answered Jerry truthfully.

“What for? What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going into the woods for the day. Going to camp.”

“Honest? Say, let me go along, will you?”

“Me, too, Benson!”

Jerry shook his head, “This is a one-man camp,” he answered coldly. “Anyway, I’m tramping too far for you fellers.”

“Oh, come on! Take me with you! I don’t mind walking, and I’ll tote part of the stuff. What you got to eat?”

“Only enough for me, sonny.” Jerry’s load was ready and he removed it from under the eager eyes of the boys and put it on his shoulder. They followed him as far as the road, reënforced by several others from the tennis courts, plaintively begging to be allowed to accompany him. Jerry, however, was obdurate, even if smilingly so, and plaints became complaints and he took his departure pursued by gibes and insults. One small youth capped all the expressions of hostility by shouting shrilly: “_Hope you sit on a snake!_”

Another busy and happy day followed for Jerry. He performed a delicate operation with the saw that left the table without a limp, he made a short, low bench to sit on, he cleaned the stove and greased it, he tidied up outside and he transformed the soap box he had brought with him into a wood box by filling it with dry branches and twigs. He had brought no food to cook, but he had four sandwiches and another cake of chocolate and he made himself some coffee as before. This time he drank in a civilized fashion from a cracked cup that had no saucer――tin cups were not to be had short of purchase――but he wasn’t sure that the coffee tasted any better. The two eggs left from yesterday he still treasured. The birds had apparently discovered that the queer little house was inhabited, for they were far more numerous than yesterday and Jerry divided his fourth sandwich with them, sprinkling the crumbs before the door. He had another visitor, too, in the small shape of a red squirrel who came almost to the door and there sat himself up on his hind legs and scolded roundly. Having neither nuts nor corn, Jerry offered him a piece of bread, but Mr. Squirrel would have none of it.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Jerry placatingly. “Next time I come I’ll bring you a potato. Like that, would you?”

The squirrel appeared to consider and then began to scold again as loudly as before.

“Well, then, I’ll see can I find some nuts for you,” said Jerry. “But you ain’t going to get anything by calling me names, neighbor!”

After his dinner he built a fire in the outdoor fireplace, just to see how it would burn, and was curiously observed by a bluejay from the top of a neighboring tree. The result satisfied Jerry, but the jay laughed derisively. To-day a volume of history had accompanied the boy, and about two o’clock he laid himself down on the slope of the little knoll and read, breaking off at intervals to gaze proudly at the cabin and to think of new ways to make it more attractive and homy. When it came time to go back to school he felt rather forlorn. Leaving the hut was almost like leaving home. As he had not yet brought a padlock, he bolted the door from inside, as before, and emerged through a window. Then, the borrowed tools in hand, he set off with many a backward glance.

It was on that homeward trip that his Great Idea came to Jerry. It appeared first as a very small idea, a mere fancy, and it had almost disappeared into nothingness when Jerry grabbed it back, looked it over and began to build on to it. And as it grew Jerry’s eyes got rounder and rounder, and more than once he stopped short in the road and stared ahead as one who sees visions. At last, the idea having assumed a marvelous shape and a truly stupendous size, he ended the homeward journey at something just short of a trot, so eager was he to reach a piece of paper and a pencil.

Back in Number 7, in the hour that remained before supper time, he did much figuring, covering more than one sheet of paper with numerals and words and meaningless scrawls. Some of the things he figured on may sound strange and unrelated, as, for instance, the number of weeks remaining before school closed for the summer――which was eight――and the price of a smoked ham weighing twelve pounds at, say, forty-two cents a pound! He did much more figuring, and in the middle of it, the supper gong rang and he had to leave his engrossing task with a sigh of regret.

His table companions were full of questions regarding his camping trip, but Jerry was unusually absent-minded and uncommunicative this evening. After supper he hurried back to the room and a half hour later he hurried down again and across to Ellicot House where he, not without trepidation, sought and obtained audience of the Principal. That conference lasted nearly twenty minutes and Jerry emerged from it with a smile and a warm and grateful feeling for Doctor Heidler. It was late when he crawled between the sheets that night and much later when sleep came to him. Even then his busy brain didn’t quite stop its work, for when he awoke in the morning he was conscious of having dreamed many weird and wonderful things, none of which he could recall, however.

At two o’clock the first of the returning students began to arrive and the silence and emptiness of the past ten days was over. Tom didn’t get back until a half hour before supper, and then he had so much to tell that Jerry, himself bursting with news, had to keep his mouth tightly closed lest he interrupt the other’s flow. Tom had had a corking time and Jerry had certainly missed it by not going north with him. It was too bad, and Dad had been mighty sorry when he learned that Jerry hadn’t come. And Jerry must have had a pretty dull old time of it down here all alone!

And Jerry, who had enjoyed himself as he hadn’t done for a long, long time, had to keep still under such provocation as was contained in that last sympathetic statement!

But his time came at last. Supper over, he and Tom went back to the room, Tom to unpack his small trunk and Jerry to sprawl beside him and tell his adventures. Tom opened his eyes very wide and observed his chum with vast respect when Jerry told of that afternoon tea and of the subsequent dinner at the Laurence’s. And a minute later he stood engrossed, a dinner jacket in one hand and a pair of patent leather pumps in the other, while Jerry dramatically recounted his discovery of the deserted cabin. Perhaps he showed a slight disappointment when the narrative developed neither hidden treasure nor bleaching skeletons, but on the whole he was satisfactorily enthralled and enthusiastic. “And what are you going to do with it, Jerry?” he asked eagerly at the end.

“First thing I’m going to do,” answered Jerry, “is give a party Saturday evening.”

“A party? In the cabin? Great! Am I invited?”

“Yes, you and Joke and――and another feller. Reckon there ought to be four of us.”

“How would Tub do? He’s pretty good fun.”

“I――I ain’t――haven’t decided yet,” replied Jerry evasively. “I’ll find some one, though. We’ll go out about five o’clock, say, and that’ll give us an hour to cook supper.”

“Who’s going to cook it?” inquired Tom doubtfully.

“I am. I can cook right smart, Tom. Anyway, we wouldn’t have anything very fancy. Maybe just ham and eggs and coffee and the like. But it’ll taste mighty good after the walk, and eating it in the woods and all.”

“Sure! But――but how far did you say this cabin is?”

“Just a little piece.” Jerry’s eyes twinkled. “’Bout two miles.”

“Gosh! Don’t you know there’s a game Saturday, you long-legged, lopsided mountaineer? Think we’re going to feel like tramping two miles after beating St. John’s?”

“Maybe we won’t beat ’em,” replied Jerry calmly. “Anyway, we can take it easy. You’ll like it after you get there, Tom.”

“Yes, I guess so. Well, I’ll drag myself out there somehow, Jerry. Joke’s coming up pretty soon and you can ask him. Maybe he can suggest a fourth.”

“We-ell, I sort of got a feller in mind, you see. Don’t know yet will he want to go. Reckon he will, though.” Jerry blinked innocently. “There’s a feller here name of Pringle I got to know right well while you were gone. He’s sort of a kid, but he’s nice.”

“Archie Pringle? I know him. Third class fellow.” Tom looked a wee bit dubious. “Sort of――sort of kiddy, isn’t he, Jerry?”

“Maybe so. I sort of like him, though.”

“Well, it’s your party,” returned Tom cheerfully. “You ask whom you like, Jerry boy. Here’s Joke, I guess.”

It was, and Joe, after hearing the story, accepted the invitation with alacrity. “Swell!” he said. “Gee, fellows, I’m crazy about outdoor eats! It’ll be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, won’t it? We’ll make a fire outdoors and sit around it and listen to the――the lapping of the waves――――”

“Whoa!” said Tom. “Where do you get that stuff? There aren’t any waves in the woods, you chump!”

“That’s so!” But Joe was untroubled. “Well, then, we’ll sit and listen to the whippoorwills and feel sort of lonely and sad and everything. Fine, Jerry, fine!”

“Your idea of a perfect time is mighty peculiar, I’ll say,” commented Tom. “Feeling sad isn’t among the things I dote on, son. That ham and eggs makes a bigger hit with me than listening to whippoorwills! Every one to his taste, though. You go the limit on loneliness and the rest of us will attend to the chow.”

“Oh, I’m never too lonely to eat,” said Joe cheerfully. “In fact, I’m always hungriest when I’m sad. Who else is going?”

“Just us three,” replied Tom, “and one other fellow. Jerry’s thinking of asking young Pringle.”

“Sure! He’s a nice kid,” said Joe. “We’ll let him wash the dishes. Good idea, that, Jerry!”

“I didn’t say I was going to ask Pringle,” observed Jerry. “Maybe it’ll be some one else. I ain’t decided yet.”

“Well, all I ask is, don’t get a fellow with a big appetite,” begged Joe. “I never had a meal in the woods yet when there was enough to eat. Seems as if I just can’t get enough!”

“There’ll be aplenty this time,” Jerry assured him.

The next day, which was Friday, Tom saw practically nothing of his roommate until after supper. He caught glimpses of him during practice, but glimpses only, for Jerry worked with the scrubs that afternoon and there was no game. And afterwards he disappeared most mysteriously. Jerry, in fact, spent a busy day. In the morning there was a providential interim of an hour and a half between two recitations, something that occurred on no other morning of the week, and Jerry might have been seen footing it briskly out of the school grounds and down the road toward the station. Possibly he was seen, but certainly not by Tom. At the station, instead of raising the semaphore to stop the next westbound train, Jerry debouched from road to track and set off at a swinging stride. A ten-minute walk brought him to his destination, a small village which boasted, besides a half dozen houses, a real, sure-enough store where you could buy almost anything from a paper of pins to a disk harrow or a cabinet talking machine. Jerry was extremely busy in that store for more than a half hour, and when he finally emerged he was weighed down by a gunnysack whose sides protruded most significantly.

Jerry didn’t foot it back to North Bank, but caught the Annapolis train a minute or two later. On the way he looked thoughtfully into a leather bag-shaped purse, and what he saw appeared to bring him little pleasure. But when he had stowed the purse carefully away in his pocket again some thought brought a satisfied, even happy look to his countenance. From the North Bank station he had to rely on his feet again and he slung the sack over his back and set out, looking not unlike a somewhat lanky and loose-jointed Santa Claus. Back at school, he went straight to the stable with his load. Cicero was there grooming Napoleon, the mule with the thickest tail――even Cicero could only tell them apart by their tails――and with him Jerry carried on a conversation of such length that he had just barely time to hurry up to Number 7 Baldwin House and retrieve his books for a half past eleven recitation. After dinner he again disappeared, though this time he went no further than the stable, and after baseball practice he was missing once more. Search at the stable, or anywhere else about the school, would, however, have failed to find him then, for he was seated on the front seat of the hack, beside Cicero, and the black carriage mules were stepping out smartly in the direction of the blazed tree that stood a mile and a half along the river road. In the back of the hack were two boxes, each well-filled with miscellaneous articles, and these, while Cicero waited in the road, Jerry carried along the trail to the cabin. He was back at school in time for supper, and, afterwards, was annoyingly secretive and mysterious when questioned as to his whereabouts and his doings by Tom. Perhaps Tom was a bit more annoyed than he would usually have been, for he had managed to catch a throw from second on the tip of his third finger that afternoon, which is both an unwise and a painful thing to do.