Fairview Boys and their Rivals/Chapter 1
Fairview Boys and Their Rivals
OR
BOB BOUNCER'S SCHOOLDAYS
CHAPTER I
THREE CHUMS
"Well, fellows," said Frank Haven, "the long vacation is over at last."
"And now for school and study," added Sammy Brown.
"And fun!" echoed Bob Bouncer.
He was well named, was this Bob Bouncer. On this bright September morning, Bob looked full of vim and go. He skipped along the pretty village road like the active lad he was, bounding through life with a laugh and a cheer, and getting out of it plenty of fun and frolic.
"Don't look so glum, Sammy!" he cried. "If any fellows had a grand old vacation to brag of, it's us three."
"Yes, that's so, and no mistake," replied Sammy. "I'm not grumbling. I was just wishing that the boating, and the swimming, and getting wrecked on Pine Island, and that dandy time in the mountains, could last forever."
"Well," said Bob, "school isn't going to be a prison, is it? Especially this school. I found something this morning, and they say it's a sign that things will be stirring right along."
"What is it, Bob?" asked Sammy, eagerly.
"A lucky stone," replied Bob, with a chuckle, producing the object in question.
"Maybe it means that you're going to be put into a higher class," spoke Frank, with a smile.
"Or that we're going to get half-holiday Fridays," said Bob.
"Or that Jed Burr is going to leave school," put in Sammy, with a wry grimace.
"Huh! no fear of Jed leaving," said Bob. "He'll stick on till he's too old to stick any longer, and pester the life out of every one he meets."
"Are you afraid of him, Bob?" asked Sammy, slyly.
"Afraid?" cried Bob. "I guess not! He's just like a gnat or a hornet."
"I'm not going to play with him," said Sammy.
"You'll have to, in the football game," replied Frank.
"Well, I won't at other times. He got me in trouble last term in a mean, sneaky way, and I won't give him a chance again. Tell you one thing, fellows."
"And what's that, Sammy?"
"If Jed Burr tries any of his sly tricks on me this term, he'll find me ready for him."
"How ready, Sammy?" asked Bob, with a sharp look at his comrade.
"That's a secret," chuckled Sammy. "But you wait and see."
"There's the half-past bell," sang out Bob. "Let's hurry and see what's going on before school begins."
The Fairview schoolhouse was about half a mile from Bob's home. He, Frank and Sammy lived near together. They had taken the bluff road lining Rainbow Lake. Just beyond the curve they were turning, the schoolhouse would come into view.
Bob broke into a run, swinging his books at the end of a strap gaily. Just past the stone wall and the line of trees shutting out the view, he halted dead short.
"What's he staring at, I wonder?" said Frank.
"Don't know. Let's find out," replied Sammy, and both hurried on.
"The mischief!" shouted Sammy.
He, too, halted. Frank joined them, and the three lads for a moment stood looking in wonder down the slanting road.
"It's a runaway automobile," cried Sammy.
"And a boy in it," added Frank.
"Whew I there's a tumble," shouted Bob, dancing up and down in a state of great excitement. Not fifty feet away from them, near a vacant house, an automobile was coming towards them. A boy in its front seat seemed to have been trying to turn around. When Bob and his chums first caught sight of the machine, they saw that this boy was trying to stop it, but he did not seem to know how to go about the task.
In some way he had gotten mixed up on the steering gear, and the auto crossed the road sideways. As it reached the edge of the road, its front wheels struck a fallen tree. As the auto passed over the log, there was a big jolt. The boy in the machine was lifted up in his seat, and either jumped or fell flat into a great puddle of mud.
"Frank," cried Bob, "see where it's headed!"
"Say, it's a goner!" gasped Sammy.
Frank was the only one of the three who knew much about an automobile, and that was very little. An uncle of his owned a machine, and he had spent a day or two lately with his relatives at Fairview. Frank had gone on several runs with his uncle. He had noticed how his relative had handled the automobile, but in a general way only. As he ran towards the machine now, he hardly knew what he should do to stop it.
The runaway automobile was not going very fast. It was the way it was headed that made Frank realize that something must be done. The machine was tearing up the earth, and running against rocks, and bumping past trees, directly at the edge of the bluff road.
"If it keeps on that way," said Frank to himself, "it will go over the edge of the bluff."
If that happened the auto would be wrecked. It would roll over and over down quite a steep slant until it reached Rainbow Lake.
"Don't get in! don't get in!" shouted Sammy, his eyes nearly bolting out of his head, as he saw no chance to stop the auto.
Frank could hardly have jumped into the machine, it wobbled about so. But he reached its side, ran along with it, and then jumped to the step.
Once Frank had been with his uncle when his auto, turning a sharp curve, nearly ran into a great load of hay blocking the road. Frank remembered that his uncle had acted as quick as lightning. He had shot out his hand and grasped the side brake, at the same time turning off the power at the wheel.
"That was a narrow graze," his uncle had told him, as the machine stopped short. He called it "killing the engine." All this was in Frank's mind as he now gave the brake of the runaway auto a quick wrench and at the same time shoved back the controls on the steering wheel. As a sway of the auto threw him off the step, the chug! chug! of the machine stopped, and so did the auto itself.
The big red car had one wheel wedged between two rocks. Frank breathed pretty hard as he noticed that had the auto gone ten feet farther, it would have toppled over the cliff.
"Oh, say, you've done a big thing," panted Sammy, running up to the spot.
"I'm glad it didn't go over the bluff," said Frank.
He might well say this. As he glanced down the slant, Frank almost became frightened. Three little huts, where some fishermen and their families lived, were right in the course the auto might take. Just now some small children were playing near one of the huts.
"Say, if it hit those houses—say, if it smashed over those children" began Sammy, in a gasp.
"Where is Bob?" asked Frank.
"He's helping the fellow who tumbled out of the auto," explained Sammy.
Frank turned around, to see Bob back at the spot where the boy in the auto had taken his tumble into the mud puddle.
Bob had helped the boy out of the water and mire. Just now he was rubbing the mud from his coat with some dry grass. The victim of the accident was mopping his face with a handkerchief.
"Here comes the man who owns the automobile, I guess," said Sammy.
Frank saw a man rush down the road from the direction of the vacant house. He was in a great hurry, and excited. He shouted some words at Bob and his companion, and, passing Frank and Sammy, gasping for breath, ran to the automobile.
As he looked it over and saw that he could get it back into the roadway without risk or damage, he walked up to the boys.
"One of you stopped that machine," he said, glancing from Frank to Sammy.
"It was Frank, mister," said Sammy, pointing to his chum.
"I haven't got much with me," spoke the man, his voice trembling.
First he shook Frank's hand warmly. Then he groped in his pocket and drew out a bright new silver dollar.
"You take that till I see you again," he said.
"No, no," replied Frank. "I don't want any pay for doing the little I did."
"Little!" cried the man, pressing the coin on Frank. "That machine is worth three thousand dollars, and you saved it."
"Well, I'm glad if I did," said Frank.
"If that boy back there was my boy," spoke the man, with a look at the lad who had tumbled out of the auto, "I'd either teach him how to run the machine, or handcuff him when he was aboard."
"Oh, isn't he your boy?" inquired Sammy.
"No, I'm his father's chauffeur."
They all went up to the mud puddle. Bob was helping his companion get cleaned up in as friendly a way as if they had been chums for years.
"Why," shouted Sammy, in blank surprise, "it's the fat boy."
"So it is," replied Frank, in a wondering tone.
"Hello," spoke the boy who had tumbled out of the auto. "You fellows here, too?"
Bob's face, as were the faces of the others, was set in a broad smile. They all had good reason to remember "the fat boy."
"Yes, it's me," said the victim of the accident, rubbing some dirt out of one ear. "Is the machine all right, Buxton?"
"Yes, the machine is all right," replied the man; "but ten feet more, and it would have been all wrong. What was you trying to do with it, anyhow?"
"I thought I would turn it around. I only touched one little handle, and then the foot-plate, and the pesky auto wouldn't go straight at all. Yes, fellows," smiled the speaker at Frank and Sammy, "I'm like the bad penny, turned up again."
"I'm glad to see you in Fairview," said Frank. "How are you getting on at the academy?"
"Oh, I've quit there," said Tom Chubb, otherwise "the fat boy."
"How is that?"
"They said I wasn't far enough along to keep up with the class."
"I see."
"You know I don't know much," said the fat boy, frankly. "The fellows all made fun of me. Then they got mad. I couldn't hit back when they fought me, I was so fat. Well, all I could do was to get them in a corner and fall on them."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Sammy.
"That's pretty good," chuckled Bob.
"Father is thinking of coming to Fairview to live for the summer," went on the fat boy. "I think we'll take that vacant house Buxton was just looking at."
"Why, then, you may come to our school?" said Sammy.
"I reckon I will," replied the fat boy. "I hope so, for I like you fellows. Say," and he grinned from ear to ear, "remember how you met me in the mountains that night?"
"Of course we do," smiled Frank.
"How you told me how to get even with the students who hazed me? Well, I did it great and grand, and I'll never forget you for that."
In a few minutes the chauffeur got the automobile back into the road. The fat boy waved his hand to the boys until the machine turned out of sight.
"Well, who ever thought of meeting that fellow again!" laughed Frank.
"He's a comical one," said Bob.
"He asked if we remembered that night in the mountains," said Sammy. "Huh! as if we'd ever forget it."
Each one of the boys was busy for the moment thinking of that same night in the mountains. It had brought back some adventure that had made the long vacation a time of great delight to them.
Those of my young readers who have read the first book of the present series, entitled: "Fairview Boys Afloat and Ashore; Or, The Young Crusoes of Pine Island," will recall the exciting but jolly time Frank, Bob and Sammy had when the sail-boat Puff was wrecked on Pine Island.
The three boys had been allowed to make a one day's cruise on Rainbow Lake, They had, however, gotten caught in a big storm, and were marooned on Pine Island for several days.
All the time Sammy Brown's busy head was full of misers' hoards and hidden treasure. In the second book of this series, called "Fairview Boys on Eagle Mountain; Or, Sammy Brown's Treasure Hunt," Sammy induced his two loyal companions to go with him to Eagle Mountain in search of a fancied lot of treasure.
The boys had found no treasure. However, they ran across a stolen horse and got a twenty-five-dollar reward for returning it to its owner.
It was during the first night of their camping out in the mountains that they came across the fat boy, Tom Chubb.
Some school chums of his at a distant academy had made Tom believe they were going to let him help them cut down a bee tree. They induced him to lug along a heavy log chain nearly ten miles. Then they scurried away, leaving him to guess the trick that had been played upon him, and to find his way back home alone at midnight the best way he could.
Bob and his friends had come across Tom, and had given him food and shelter for the night. Bob had told him how to get even with the schemers. This was to buy two pails of fine comb honey from a farmer, and march back with it to the academy just as if nothing had happened.
"He did it, fellows," said Bob now. "He says he gave the whole school a royal treat, never told a word as to how he got the honey, and crowed over the fellows who played the trick till they were as mum as turtles."
"Well, he's a pretty good fellow," said Frank. "I hope he comes to our school."
"So do I," echoed Sammy. "Here we are."
A turn in the road brought them in full sight of the village schoolhouse. They hurried forward eagerly. There was always a novelty in the first day at school. They looked over the bright active scene before them with interest.
"Pretty near the same old crowd," said Sammy. "See, there's Nellie Somers."
"Hum!" spoke Bob, slyly, "how is it you always manage to see her first, Sammy?"
"Don't get smart, Bob," cried Sammy. "Oh, there's little Benny Lane."
"And Jed Burr, big as life," added Bob. "Look at him, Frank. I should think he'd get tired of that same old trick of his."
"What trick, Bob?" asked Frank.
"Watch him and see."
Their eyes were fixed on a boy who was moving from place to place on the playground. This was Jed Burr. He was known as the bully of the school, and, except by a few chums of his own kind, was not very well liked.
As a new arrival came upon the playground, he would go up to him and put out his hand as if to welcome him. Just now an innocent-faced little fellow put out his hand in response. Jed seized it, gave the boy a quick jerk, and sent him flat on his face with a great laugh.
Jed spied the three friends as they came up, and hurried towards them.
"Look out, fellows," warned Sammy.
"Oh, we know his tricks," replied Bob.
"You know, when he can't catch a fellow with the handshake," said Sammy, "he runs up to him when he isn't looking and gives him a slap on the back that nearly knocks the breath out of him."
"Yes, and he calls that fun," said Frank.
"I hope he tries it on me," said Sammy, with a chuckle.
"Hello!" said Bob, with a sharp look at Sammy, "what are you up to?"
"Never mind. You just watch me if Jed Burr tries it," said Sammy.
"Why, hello, Frank!" spoke Jed, reaching out his hand.
"Fine, thank you," smiled Frank, and he shook his own hand.
"Yes, Jed, never better," laughed Bob, putting his hand behind him.
Sammy had turned clear around, facing the schoolhouse. Jed saw this, and his eye brightened. He even drew up his coat-sleeve, winked at Frank and Bob, stole up behind Sammy, and, bringing his hand across Sammy's back, gloated out:
"Hello, Sammy Brown—wow! ouch!"
A wonderful change came over the face of the school bully. He drew back his hand as if it had touched red-hot iron. He wrung it with a pained look on his face.
Sammy turned around, as cool as a cucumber.
"Why, Jed, what's the matter?" he asked, innocently.
Jed Burr grumbled out something, stuck his hand in his pocket, and strode away with a scowl on his face.
"What have you been up to, Sammy?" asked Frank, half guessing.
"Oh, nothing but wearing a pin cushion between my shoulders," chuckled Sammy in reply.
Just then the bell rang, and the scholars began to flock into the little schoolhouse.