Chapter 22. All Roads Lead To The Swimming Pool

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_ CHAPTER XXII. ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE SWIMMING POOL

In the next few weeks, if Fred Ripley didn't improve greatly in popularity, he was at all events vastly quieter and more reserved in his manner.

Tip Scammon had vanished, so far as common knowledge went. Mr. Ripley, feeling somewhat responsible for that scamp's wrong doing, in that Fred had put him up to his first serious wrong doing, had given Scammon some money and a start in another part of the country. That disappearance saved Scammon from a stern reckoning with Prescott's partners, who had not forgotten him.

Fred was again a well-dressed boy, also a well-mannered one. He had very little to say, and he kept his snobbishness, if any remained, well concealed.

Dick & Co., after the scene in the lawyer's office, if not exactly cordial with the unhappy junior, at all events remembered that they had agreed to "forget." Nor were Prescott and his chums priggish enough to take great credit to themselves for their behavior. They merely admitted among themselves that any fellow ought to have the show that was now accorded to the younger Ripley.

Baseball had gone off with an hurrah this season, though there had been an enormous amount of hard work behind all the successes.

Now, but one game remained. Out of fourteen played, so far, only one had resulted in a tie; the others had all been victories for Gridley.

With the warm June weather commencement was looming near. One Wednesday morning there was a long and tedious amount of practice over the singing that was to be offered at the close of the school year.

"Huh! I thought we'd never get through," snorted Prescott, as he raced out into the school yard. "And we were kept ten minutes over the usual time for recess."

"Gee, but it's hot to-day," muttered Tom Reade, fanning himself with his straw hat.

"Oh, what wouldn't I give, right now, for a good swim down at Foster's Pond!" muttered Purcell moodily.

"Well, why can't we have it?" suggested Gint.

"We couldn't get back by the time recess is over," replied Purcell.

"The end of recess would be when we _did_ get back, wouldn't it!" asked a senior.

"Let's go, anyway!" urged another boy, restlessly.

As students were allowed to spend their recess quietly on the near-by streets, if they preferred, the girls generally deserted the yard.

The spirit of mischievous mutiny was getting loose among the young men. Nor will anyone who remembers his own school days wonder much at that. In June, when the end of the school year is all but at hand, restraints become trebly irksome.

Dick's own face was glowing. As much as any boy there he wanted a swim, just now, down in Foster's Pond. Oh, how he wanted it!

"See here, fellows," Prescott called to some of the nearest ones. "And you especially, Charley Grady, for you're studying to be a lawyer."

"What has a lawyer to do with the aching desire for a swim?" inquired Grady.

"Well, post us a bit," begged Dick. "What was it the great Burke had to say about punishing a community?"

"Why," responded Grady thoughtfully, "Burke laid down a theory that has since become a principle in law. It was to the effect that a community cannot be indicted."

"All of us fellows---_all_ of us might be called a community, don't you think?" queried Dick.

"Why---er---aha---hem!" responded Grady.

"Oh, come, now, drop the extras," ordered Dick. "Time is short. Are we a community, in a sort of legal sense? Just plain yes or no."

"Well, then, yes!" decided Grady.

"Whoop!" ejaculated Dick, placing his straw hat back on his head and starting on a sprint out of the yard. His chums followed. Some of the fellows who were nearer the gate tried to reach it first. In an instant, the flight was general.

"Come on, Rip! You're not going to hang back on the crowd, are you?" uttered one boy, reproachfully. "Don't spoil the community idea."

So Fred Ripely tagged on at the rear of the flight.

"What is it, boys---a fire?" called Laura Bentley. A dozen girls had drawn in, pressing against the wall, to let this whirlwind of boys go by.

"Tell you when we get back," Purcell called. "Time presses now."

It took the leaders only about four minutes to reach Foster's Pond. Even Ripley and the other tail-enders were on hand about a minute later. There was a fine grove here, fringed by thick bushes, and no houses near. In a jiffy the High School boys were disrobing.

"And the fellow who 'chaws' anyone else's clothes, to-day," proposed Dick, "is to be thrown in and kept in, when he's dressed!"

"Hear! hear!"

Dick was one of the first to get stripped. He started on a run, glided out over a log that lay from the bank, and plunged headlong into one of the deepest pools. Then up he came, spouting water.

"Come on, in, fellows! The water's _grand_!" he yelled.

Splash! splash! The surface of the pond at that point was churned white. The bobbing heads made one think of huckleberries bobbing on a bowl of milk.

Splash! splash! More were diving in. And now the fun and the frolic went swiftly to their height.

"This is the real thing!" vented one ecstatic swimmer. "Down with 'do-re--mi-fa-sol!"

"As long as we're all to be hanged together, what say if we don't go back at all to-day?" questioned Purcell.

There were some affirmative shouts, but Dick, who had just stepped back on the bank for a moment shook his head.

"Don't be hogs, fellows!" he urged. "Don't run a good thing into the ground. We'll have our swim, get well cooled off---and then we'd better go back looking as penitent as the circumstances seem to call for."

"I guess it's the wise one talking," nodded Purcell, as he climbed to the bank preparatory to another dive.

For at least twenty minutes the High School boys remained at their delightful sport. Then cries started here and there:

"All out! All out!"

Reluctantly the youngsters began to leave the water.

"Now, don't let anyone lag," begged Purcell. "As we ran away together, we ought all to go back together."

So dressing went on apace. Then the fellows began to look at each other, wonderingly. To be sure, they didn't stand so much in personal awe of the principal. But then Mr. Cantwell had the Board of Education behind him. There was Superintendent Eldridge, also, and back of it all, what parents might---oh, hang it, it began to look just a bit serious now.

"Who are the heroes here?" called out one fellow.

"Why?" demanded another.

"Well, we need our assured brave ones to lead going back."

"That's where the baseball squad comes in, then," nodded Purcell. "School nine and subs first, second team following. Then let the chilly-footed ones bring up the rear."

"We can go back in column of fours," proposed Dick, as he fastened on his collar, "with no leaders or file-closers. Then it will be hard to guess at any ring-leaders."

"That's the best idea yet," agreed Purcell. "Then, fellows, a block from the school, let the baseball squad form first, and then all of the rest of you fall in behind in column of fours, just as you happen along."

"And keep good ranks, and march the best you know how," urged Dick. "Unyielding ranks may suggest the community idea to Prin."

"Then we won't have to explain it," laughed Grady.

"Oh, come, now," shouted another, "don't flatter yourselves that we're going to get out of some tall explaining."

A block from the school the order was given to form fours. This was quickly done. Purcell, Dick, Darrin and Dan Dalzell composed the first four as the line turned into the yard.

There at the main doorway the culprits beheld the principal. And that gentlemen certainly looked almost angry about something. The weather indications were for squalls in the High School.

"Go to your seats in the assembly room," said the principal, coldly, as the head of the line neared him. As the boys wore no overcoats it was not necessary to file down to the locker rooms first. They marched into the hat room just off of the assembly room. And here they found Mr. Drake on duty.

"No conversation here. Go directly to your seats," ordered Mr. Drake.

The few girls who were not at classes looked up with eyes full of mischievous inquiry when the boys entered the big room. The principal and Mr. Drake took their seats on the platform. The late swimmers reached for their books, though most of them made but a pretense of study. Almost at once there was another diversion made by the girls who were returning from recitations.

Then the bell was struck for the beginning of the next period. Out filed the sections. The boys began to feel that this ominous quiet boded them no good. Not until closing time did the principal make any reference to the affair.

"The young ladies are dismissed for the day," he remarked. "The young gentlemen will remain." Clang!

Then a dead silence fell over the room. It was broken, after a minute, by the principal, who asked:

"Where were you, young gentlemen, when the end of recess bell rang this morning!"

No one being addressed, no one answered.

"Where were you, Mr. Purcell?"

"Swimming at Foster's Pond, sir."

"All of you?"

"All of us, sir, I think."

"Whose idea was it?"

"As I remember, sir, the idea belonged to us all."

"Who made the first proposal?"

"That would be impossible to say, now, sir."

"Do you remember anything about it?"

"Yes, sir."

"What was it?"

"I believe the fellows voted that Mr. Grady, who is studying to be a lawyer, should represent us as counsel."

"Ah! I shall be very glad, then, to hear from Judge Grady," the principal dryly remarked.

"Judge" Grady bobbed up, smiling and confident---or he seemed so. As for the rest of the fellows, the principal's frigid coolness was beginning to get on their nerves.

"Mr. Principal," began Grady, thrusting his right band in between his vest buttons, "the illustrious, perhaps immortal Burke, once elucidated a principle that has since become historic, authoritative and illuminating. Among American and English jurists alike, Burke's principle has been accepted as akin to the organic law and the idea is that a community cannot be indicted."

It was a fine speech, for Grady had real genius in him, and this was the first chance he had ever had. The principal waited until the budding legal light had finished. Then Mr. Cantwell cleared his throat, to reply crisply:

"While I will not venture to gainsay Burke, and he is not here to be cross-examined, I will say that the indictment of the community, in this instance, would mean the expulsion of all the young men in the High School. To that form of sentence I do not lean. A light form of punishment would be to prohibit absolutely the final baseball game of the school season. A sever form would be to withhold the diplomas of the young men of the graduating senior class. I think it likely that both forms of punishment will be administered, but I shall not announce my decision to-day. It will come later. The young men are dismissed." Clang!

Dismay would have been a mild name for what the fellows felt when they found themselves outside the building. Of the principal, in a rage they were little afraid. But when the principal controlled his temper he was a man in authority and of dangerous power.

After his own meal, and some scowling reflection, Mr. Cantwell set out to find his friend and backer in the Board of Education, Mr. Gadsby. That custodian of local education heard Mr. Cantwell through, after which he replied:

"Er---um----ah---my dear Cantwell, you can't very well prohibit the game, or talk of withholding diplomas from the young men of the graduating class. Either course would make you tremendously unpopular. The people of Gridley would say that you were lacking in---era sense of humor."

"Sense of humor?" raged the principal, getting up and pacing the floor. "Is it humorous to have a lot of young rascals running all over one's authority?"

"Certainly not," responded Mr. Gadsby. "You should---er---preserve discipline."

"How am I to preserve discipline, if I can't inflict punishments?" insisted Mr. Cantwell.

"But you should---er---that is---my dear Cantwell, you should make the punishments merely fit the crimes."

"In such an outrageous case as to-day's," fumed the principal, "what course would have been taken by the Dr. Thornton whom you are so fond of holding up to me as a man who knew how to handle boys?"

"Dr. Thornton," responded Mr. Gadsby, "would have been ingenious in his punishment. How long were the boys out, over recess time?"

"Twenty-five minutes."

"Then," returned Mr. Gadsby, "I can quite see Dr. Thorton informing the young men that they would be expected to remain at least five times as long after school as they had been improperly away from it. That is---er---ah---he would have sent for his own dinner, and would have eaten it at his desk, with scores of hungry young men looking on while their own dinners went cold. At three o'clock---perhaps---Dr. Thornton would have dismissed the offenders. It would be many a day before the boys would try anything of that sort again on good old Thornton. But you, my dear Cantwell, I am afraid you have failed to make the boys respect you at all times. The power of enforcing respect is the basis of all discipline."

"Then what shall I do with the young men this time?"

"Since you have---er---missed your opportunity, you---er---can do nothing, now, but let it pass. Let them imagine, from day to day, that sentence is still suspended and hovering over them."

Wily Dick Prescott had been to see Mr. Gadsby, just before the arrival of the principal. In his other capacity of reporter for "The Blade" the High School pitcher had said a few earnest words to his host. Mr. Gadsby, with his eye turned ever toward election day and the press, had been wholly willing to listen. _

Read next: Chapter 23. The Agony Of The Last Big Game

Read previous: Chapter 21. Dick Is Generous Because It's Natural

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