Chapter 1

INTRODUCES A PAIR OF HEROES

“Jail,” said the boy in the gray flannels.

“School,” pronounced the boy in the blue serge.

“Bet you!”

“No, sir, you owe me ten cents now. You didn’t pay up the last time.”

“It’s wrong to bet for money, Ned.”

The other set down the suitcase he was carrying and scoffed. “Yes, when you lose,” he observed, with deep sarcasm. “That’s thirty-five cents you owe me. You bet in Chicago that—”

“That debt’s outlawed. Chicago’s in Michigan—”

“Bet you!”

“And this is New York, and so—”

“Mighty good thing Dad sent you to school, Laurie. Chicago’s in Illinois, you ignoramus.”

“Is it? Well, who cares?” Laurence Stenman Turner had also deposited the bag he was carrying on the brick sidewalk and was applying a lavender-bordered handkerchief to a moist brow. “Just the same, that’s a jail.”

“If that’s a jail, I’ll eat my hat,” declared the other,

“It’s not a school, though, and that’s flat,” was the prompt retort.

“Huh, that was an easy one!” Edward Anderson Turner retreated to a flat-topped stone wall bordering a well-shaded lawn and seated himself with a sigh of relief. His companion followed suit. Behind them, grass and trees and flower beds made a pleasant setting for a square gray house, half hidden from the street. Overhead a horse-chestnut tree spread low branches across the sidewalk. The quiet village street ascended gently, curving as it went, empty in both directions. Somewhere on a neighboring thoroughfare a scissors-grinder was punctuating the silence with the musical ding—dang—dong of bells. In a near-by tree a locust was making his shrill clatter. Across the way, the subject of contention, stood a large red-brick edifice, stone trimmed, many windowed, costly and unlovely. The boys viewed it silently. Then their glances fell to the two black suitcases on the curbing.

“How far did that hombre say it was to the school?” asked Ned Turner, after a minute of silence.

“Three quarters of a mile.”

“How far have we walked already?”

“Mile and a half.”

“Consequently?”

“Said hombre was a li—was unvoracious.”

“Un-ver-acious is the word, old son.”

“What do we care? We don’t own it,” replied Laurie, cheerfully. “Want to go on?”

Ned shook his head slowly. “What time have you got?” he asked.

“What time do you want?” was the flippant response.

With a sigh, Ned pulled back his left sleeve and looked at his watch. “It’s only about a quarter to twelve. We don’t have to get there until six if we don’t want to.”

“I know, but I couldn’t sit on this wall all that time! Besides, what about lunch?”

“I’m not very hungry,” was the sad reply.

“That’s the trouble with having your breakfast late.”

“That’s the trouble with eating two plates of griddle-cakes, you mean,” retorted Laurie. “Anyway, I’m hungry if you’re not. Let’s go.”

But he made no move, and they continued to dangle their shoes from the wall and gaze lazily across the shady street. The scissors-grinder’s chime died in the distance. Farther down the street the whirring of a lawn-mower competed with the locust.

“Upon a wall they sat them down,” murmured Ned, turning a challenging look on his companion.

“Lost in the wilds of Orstead Town,” added Laurie.

Ned nodded mild approval and once more silence held.

Save that one was dressed in gray and the other in blue, the two boys were strikingly alike. Each was slim of body and round of face, with red-brown hair and a short, slightly impertinent nose. Ned’s eyes were a trifle bluer than Laurie’s and he had the advantage—if advantage it was—of some five pounds of weight. But neither of these facts was apparent at first glance. Faces and hands were well browned and the pair looked extremely healthy. They were dressed neatly, with perhaps more attention to detail than is usual in lads of their age, their attire terminating at one end in well-polished brown shoes and at the other in immaculate black derbies. Their age was fifteen years, three months, and eleven days. Which, of course, leads you to the correct conclusion that they were twins.

“Maybe,” hazarded Laurie, presently, “we’ve lost our way.”

“Don’t just see how we could,” Ned objected. “The old chap at the station said we were to keep right along up Walnut Street. This is still Walnut Street, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.” Laurie’s glance strayed right and left. “Must be; I don’t see any walnuts.”

“Guess the only ‘nuts’ are right here. Come on, let ’s hit the trail again.” Ned slid to his feet and took up his burden. “Why the dickens we didn’t take that carriage the fellow wanted to sell us is more than I see.”

“’Cause we needed the exercise. Also, ’cause we’re down to a dollar and fourteen cents between us—unless you ’re holding out.”

“Well, I’m not!” replied Ned, indignantly. “I paid for the breakfasts in New York—”

“And I paid for dinner on the diner last night—”

“Who said you didn’t?” They went on leisurely, and presently Ned continued: “Say, suppose we don’t like this ranch after we get there—then what, old son?”

Laurie considered thoughtfully. Then, “Two things we can do,” he pronounced. “No, three. We can put up with it, change it to suit us, or leave it.”

“Leave it! Yes, we can! On a dollar and fourteen cents?”

“We’ll have nearly twenty more when we cash Dad’s check and pay the term bill. Twenty dollars would take us back to New York and buy a lot of griddle-cakes, anyway.”

Laurie’s voice was partly drowned by a small delivery automobile that dashed into sight at a corner ahead and sped by with a clamor worthy of a four-ton truck. The brothers looked after it interestedly. “That’s the first sign of life we’ve seen,” said Ned. “Say, I do wish this street would stop twisting this way. First thing we know, we’ll be back at the station!”

“Bet you I’d hop the first freight then. I’ve got a hunch that we’re not going to care for Hillman’s School.”

“Speak for yourself. I am. I like this town, too. It’s pretty.”

“Oh, it’s pretty enough,” grumbled Laurie, “but it went to sleep about a century ago and hasn’t waked up since. Here’s somebody coming; let’s ask where the school is.”

“It’s just a girl.”

“What of it? She probably knows.”

The girl appeared to be of about their own age and wore a white middy dress with black trimming and a scarlet tie knotted below a V of sun-browned throat. She wore no hat and her dark hair was gathered into a single braid. As she drew near she gave the boys a quick glance of appraisal from a pair of gravely friendly brown eyes. It was Ned who shifted his suitcase to his left hand and raised his derby. It was always Ned who spoke first; after that, they alternated scrupulously.

“Would you please tell us where Hillman’s School is?” he asked.

The girl stopped and her somewhat serious face lighted with a smile. “It’s right there,” she replied, and nodded.

The boys turned to the blankness of a high privet hedge behind an iron fence. The girl laughed softly. “Behind the hedge, I mean,” she explained. “The gate is a little way around the corner there, on Summit Street.”

“Oh,” said Laurie. That laugh was contagious, and he grinned in response. “A man at the station told us it was only three quarters of a mile, but we’ve been walking for hours!”

“I guess it’s nearer a mile than three quarters,” answered the girl, slowly. She appeared to be giving the matter very serious consideration and two little thoughtful creases appeared above her nose, a small, straight nose that was bridged by a sprinkling of freckles. Then the smile came again. “Maybe it did seem longer, though,” she acknowledged, “for it’s uphill all the way; and then, you had your bags. You’re new boys, aren’t you?”

Ned acknowledged it, adding, “Think we’ll like it?”

The girl seemed genuinely surprised. “Why, of course! Every one likes it. What a perfectly funny idea!”

“Well,” said Laurie, defensively, “we’ve never tried boarding-school before, you see. Dad didn’t know anything about Hillman’s, either. He chose it on account of the way the advertisement read in a magazine. Something about ‘a moderate discipline rigidly enforced.’”

The girl laughed again. (She had a jolly sort of laugh, they decided.) “You’re—you’re twins, aren’t you?” she asked.

“He is,” replied Ned, gravely.

“Why—why, aren’t you both?” Her brown eyes grew very round and the little lines creased her nose again.

“It’s this way,” explained Laurie. “Ned was born first, and so, as there was only one of him, he wasn’t a twin. Then I came, and that made two of us, and I was a twin. You see, don’t you? It’s really quite plain.”

The girl shook her head slowly in puzzlement. “I—I’m afraid I don’t,” she answered apologetically. “You must be twins—both of you, I mean—because you both look just like both—I mean, each other!” Then she caught the sparkle of mischief in Ned’s blue eyes and laughed. Then they all laughed. After which they seemed suddenly to be very good friends, such good friends that Laurie abandoned custom and spoke out of turn.

“I suppose you know a lot of the fellows,” he said.

The girl shook her head. “N—no, not any, really. Of course, I see most of them when they come to Mother’s, but she doesn’t like me to—to know them.”

“Of course not,” approved Ned. “She’s dead right, too. They’re a pretty poor lot, I guess.”

“Oh, no, they’re not, really! Only, you see—” She stopped, and then went on a trifle breathlessly: “I guess she wouldn’t be awfully pleased if she saw me now! I—I hope you’ll like the school.”

She nodded and went on.

“Thanks,” called Laurie. “If we don’t like it, we’ll change it. Good-by.”

“Nice kid,” observed Ned, tolerantly, as they turned the corner of the hedge. “Wonder who she is. She said most of the fellows went to her mother’s. Maybe her mother gives dancing lessons or something, eh?”

“If she does, she won’t see me,” responded his brother, firmly. “No dancing for mine.”

“Maybe it’s compulsory.”

“Maybe it’s esthetic,” retorted Laurie, derisively. “It makes no never mind. I’m agin it. This must be the place. Yes, there’s a sign.”

It was a very modest sign a-swing from a rustic post beside a broad entrance giving on to a well-kept drive. “Hillman’s School—Entrance Only,” it read. Laurie stopped in pretended alarm and laid a detaining clutch on Ned’s shoulder.

“‘Entrance Only’! Sounds as if we couldn’t ever get out again, Ned! Do you dare?”

Ned looked doubtfully through at the curving drive and the red-brick building that showed beyond the border of trees and shrubbery. Then he threw back his shoulders and set foot bravely within.

“Come, comrade, let us know the worst!”

Laurie, with a gesture of resignation, followed.

“What you durst I will likewise durst!”