Chapter XV: More Trouble

“Freshmen win!”

“Rah, Freshmen! Elmwood forever! Freshmen win!”

“Hurray for Tom Fairfield!”

“And after a foul, too. He won after a foul!”

“Never mind. We won’t claim it. Maybe it was an accident. Heller may be hurt!”

“Seniors Second! Bruce Bennington is second!”

These were only a few of the cries that greeted the achievement of our hero as he won the school race. He had come to a stop amid a knot of his classmates, who gathered about him, clasping him by the hand, clapping him on the back, and generally congratulating him.

“Great work, old man!”

“Magnificent jump!”

“How in the world did you do it?”

“I don’t know myself,” confessed Tom, with a laugh. “I just had to--that’s all.”

“Are you hurt, Tom?” demanded Jack, anxiously, as he skated up to his chum. “Did his skate hit your ankle?” for well he knew the agonizing pain that follows the blow of the point of a skate against that tender part of the foot.

“No, not a bit,” replied Tom. “His skate just glanced off mine, but I’d have gone down if I hadn’t jumped. Is Heller hurt?”

“I guess not much, though he’s limping to the finish. It would serve him right if he was. He deliberately fouled you.”

“I think so myself, but I’m not going to say anything.”

“Well, maybe it’s best. Class honor, you know.”

The officials of the race were marking down the time, and formally declaring Tom the winner, with Bruce Bennington second and Peter Ranson, of the Sophomore class, third. The Juniors were not in the race at all, much to their disappointment.

“I--er--I presume your collision with Fairfield was an _accident_--was it not, Heller?” asked Professor Livingston Hammond, the fat and jolly professor who had acted as one of the officials. “We saw it from here.”

“It was an accident--certainly,” replied Sam, sharply. He had taken off his skates, and came limping up. “I could not help it. My skate struck a small piece of wood, and I slid over toward him. I tried to warn him, but it was too late. If anyone doubts my word--”

“No one dreamed of doubting you--or even mentioned it,” interrupted Mr. Hammond with a smile, yet he looked at Sam narrowly.

“Three cheers for Professor Hammond!” called someone, and they were given with a will. Out on the fringe of spectators stood Professor Skeel, with a frown on his face. No one had cheered him, and he felt no elation that a member of his Freshman Latin class had won the race. In fact, there was a sneer on his face as he saw the ovation accorded to Tom.

“I more than half believe that he wrote that insulting and threatening letter to me,” Professor Skeel muttered. “I must find out, and if he did--” a cruel smile played over his features. “Ah, there is some one else I must have a talk with!” he exclaimed as he saw Bruce Bennington walking along, swinging his skates. “Come here Bennington,” he called, and the face of Bruce went rather white, and there was a nervous air in his manner, not to say a tinge of fear, as he approached the unpleasant instructor.

“Well, sir?” he asked.

“Are you ready to settle with me?” asked Professor Skeel, in a frosty tone.

“No, Professor, I’m sorry to say I am not.”

“When will you be?”

“I can’t say. Really, I am having it harder than you can imagine.”

“Harder? Don’t you suppose that I have my own troubles, too? Have you appealed to your folks?”

“No, and I’m not going to!” Bruce spoke fiercely.

“You may have to,” and the Latin instructor’s tone was threatening. “I shall not wait much longer, and if you do not make the appeal I shall do so myself.”

“Oh, Professor Skeel, surely you wouldn’t do that!”

“I certainly shall, unless you settle with me soon. I will wait but a little longer.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” spoke Bruce, wearily.

“You’d better,” answered the professor significantly, as he turned aside.

Tom, coming along with Jack and some of his chums, heard the last words, though no one else seemed to have done so. He also noticed the threatening attitude of the Latin instructor, and was aware of the despondent attitude of the Senior student.

“I wish I knew what was up between them,” mused Tom. “I would do a lot to help Bruce. Maybe it’s some trouble about examination papers. And yet I know Bruce wouldn’t be guilty of cheating, or anything like that. I wonder what it is?”

But Tom had little time to think by himself quietly, for his chums were jostling all about him, talking of the race, congratulating him over and over again, while some spoke significantly of Heller’s action.

“Oh, forget that,” advised Tom. “He came out of it worse than I did.”

“I should say yes,” agreed Jack. “He might have broken his leg trying a trick like that.”

Tom’s chums crowded into his room, and that night there was an impromptu and surreptitious little spread, held there in violation of the school rules.

Professor Skeel got word of it through one of the monitors, and went to notify Doctor Meredith.

“Hum, some of the Freshmen eating in the room of young Fairfield, eh?” murmured the good doctor.

“Yes. In direct violation of rule twenty-one. If you come with me now, we can catch them in the act.”

“Hum. Yes! Let me see, didn’t Fairfield win the skating race today, Professor Skeel?”

“He did, certainly, but I don’t see what that has to do with it,” snapped Mr. Skeel.

“Well, perhaps it has. I--er--I think--well, on the whole, I think I won’t disturb the boys tonight, Professor Skeel.”

“What! You will suffer a rule to be broken?”

“Well, in view of the facts, and under the circumstances, I guess it won’t do the rule much harm,” spoke the doctor dryly.

Professor Skeel threw up his hands helplessly, and walked off, muttering to himself. And Tom and his chums were not disturbed that night.

“But I’ll take that Fairfield lad down a peg,” the irate Latin instructor muttered as he went into his house. He sat up late that night, evolving a plan to discover who had sent him the threatening letter, and at last he exclaimed:

“I believe I have it. That will give me a clew. And then--!”

He smiled sourly as he took out the screed Tom had printed, and looked closely at it.

“I will find out who composed that!” he went on, “and when I do he shall suffer for it!”

The Freshman class little realized what it was in for at the hands of Professor Skeel.

It was a day or so after the great skating race, when the Freshmen filed into Latin recitation, that they became aware of something unusual in the air. Professor Skeel looked at them individually and collectively with a mocking smile on his face.

“He’s got it in for some of us,” murmured Tom to Jack.

“Silence!” exclaimed the instructor, banging a ruler on his desk. “I will permit no levity!”

The boys filed to their seats more than usually silent. The professor opened his book, and some one sneezed. It was a perfectly natural and unavoidable sneeze, yet it set off the mine that had been smouldering in the professor’s breast for many days.

“Stop that!” he cried. “If I find that any more of that abominable powder has been scattered about I will, on my own responsibility, personally chastise the guilty student!”

He paused and looked about. Suspiciously he sniffed the air, but there was none of the powder in evidence.

“It was well for the entire class--the entire class I repeat,” he said, “that there is none. Now we will proceed!”

He was unusually severe that day. The slightest slip was noticed, and the culprit was made to sit down with a lesson to write out. Scarcely one escaped, and when an error was made the professor, instead of correcting it in a gentle manner, referred sarcastically to the “imbecility” of the lad, and, in bullying language, demanded to know where he had received his early instruction.

There were murmurs of discontent. Tom flushed angrily when he was needlessly insulted, and there came a look on his face that made Jack Fitch think:

“Tom won’t stand much more of this. There’ll be a blow-up pretty soon, and I’ll be glad of it. So will the rest of the class. Tom has something up his sleeve against Skeel, and the sooner it comes out the better. I’m going to sit tight and watch. It’s time for an eruption!”

The recitation went on, from bad to worse. Student after student was rigged and browbeaten, until even those who had come to class well prepared felt their knowledge slipping from them, and they floundered, and made all sorts of wild answers and impossible guesses as to the right translation.

“It is just what I should expect of a class of cowards who would write an anonymous letter!” snarled the professor. “You must have had nice bringings-up--all of you!”

There were one or two hisses.

“Stop!” exclaimed the teacher. “I’ll not permit that! I will have silence in my classes. Now, Fairfield, try again, and see if you can make any more errors than the last boy!”

Tom, with flushed face, began to recite, but he was stopped almost before he had begun.

“How many times must I tell you that your pronunciation of that word is hopelessly wrong?” snarled Professor Skeel.

“I don’t believe that you ever told me so,” answered Tom quietly.

“Sir!” The professor fairly glared at our hero.

Tom repeated his remark respectfully.

“That’s enough!” cried the teacher. “I will not be insulted by you! Nor by any one in the class! It is evident that none of you know this lesson. You will have it again tomorrow, and, in addition twice the usual amount of Latin to do. I will hammer some knowledge into your heads in spite of yourselves!”

It was a most unfair and unjust task to inflict, and every boy resented it. Yet what could they do? All eyes seemed turned on Tom, and our hero bit his lips to keep back his temper.

“We will pass over this part of the lesson,” went on the professor. “I now want you to print out for me--print out, mind, the following sentences in Latin. You will not write them, but you will print them!”

A gasp of surprise ran around the room.