One Saturday morning towards the end of March, Marjorie and Eunice and Cricket were all in mamma’s room. Mrs. Ward had not come home from market yet, and Cricket was watching for her from the window, eager to ask permission for something she wanted to do.
“There’s Donald!” she suddenly exclaimed. “How funny! What can he be doing here at this time?”
She ran to the hall, and hung over the banister, calling down a greeting as Donald let himself in. To her surprise, he made her no answer, but with a curt word to Jane to tell his father that he was in the study and wanted to see him as soon as he came in, he bolted into his father’s private room behind the office, and shut the door.
Cricket came back and reported, with much amazement.
“I hope he isn’t going to have mumps again,” said Eunice, anxiously. “Or, perhaps it’s scarlet fever. Did Donald ever have scarlet fever, Marjorie?”
“Yes, I think so. Oh, I don’t suppose he’s going to have any more baby diseases,” said Marjorie. “There’s papa now!”
Doctor Ward entered the house, and the listening girls heard the maid deliver Donald’s message. He removed his coat in his leisurely way, whistling softly in a fashion he had, and went into his office for a moment. Then they heard him go into his study.
The girls waited, breathlessly, but they only heard their father’s cheery:
“Well, my son?” and then the door closed.
The room was directly under them, and they could hear the faint, steady murmur of voices, but nothing more.
Presently Mrs. Ward came home, and the children flew to meet her.
“Donald here, and talking with his father? Well, my little maids, what is the mystery in that? Sick? Oh, I dare say not. Probably he only wants advice from your father about something. Whatever it is, we’ll know presently, if it’s any importance.”
A little later, mamma was called into the conference. She did not stay very long, however, and she soon came out, leaving the door open. The girls, who were now down in the back parlour, could hear their father’s voice distinctly.
“There’s nothing to do but stand it, my son. I’d rather you’d be suspended for a year than have you clear yourself at others’ expense. Loyalty is paramount in this instance, and I’ll support you in the stand you’ve taken.”
“Jove! father, you’re a brick!” said Donald, gratefully. “I was jolly afraid you’d cut up rough, for it’s pretty tough on you to have your son rusticated.”
“A trifle tough on you, my lad,” returned Doctor Ward. “But there are worse things than rusticating for a time. One is—deserving it.”
“The Faculty think I do,” answered Donald.
“Never mind that. Suppose those of you who can, do clear yourselves. That fastens the blame definitely on the few, where now it is distributed among twenty. And the whole thing is not serious in itself, only the Faculty had promised to suspend the next offenders and to expel the ringleaders, if they could be found.”
“This is the next time, as it happens,” said Donald, gloomily. “Worse luck!”
“Yes, worse luck for you. But you are entirely right. Don’t prove your alibi. Do you all stand by the others; you fellows can, as you say, stand three months’ rusticating better than the half-dozen could stand expulsion.”
Donald drummed his heels together. He was seated on a corner of the library table, throwing up a paper-weight, and catching it carefully.
“Oh, we’ll stand by the men,” he said. “See here, dad, you know I didn’t mean to let on all this even to you. I only meant to tell you that your promising son is suspended. But,” he added, ruefully, “somehow I forgot you weren’t one of the fellows.”
Doctor Ward gave his big son a crack on the shoulder that nearly sent him under the table.
“I am one of the fellows, old boy. I wasn’t a college man for nothing; and though it’s twenty-one years since I graduated, I haven’t forgotten college-feeling.”
“And yet,—I did hate to have you think I’d disgraced you,” said Donald, lifting honest eyes to his father’s. “I haven’t done wonders, I know, but still I haven’t done so very badly. And I suppose this will spoil my chances of getting on the team. Hang it all!”
“I’d like to see Professor Croft casually in a day or two, and find out the attitude of the Faculty in the matter. This morning was the sentence read?” And here the door shut again.
The girls looked at each other in horror. What dreadful thing had happened to this big, handsome Donald of theirs, of whom they were so proud? They did not understand all that had passed; and that their father plainly sympathised with Donald did not remove the stubborn fact that he was in some dreadful disgrace.
Eunice and Cricket looked at each other with bated breath. Marjorie flew to her mother.
“Did he say he was going to be—suspended?” faltered Eunice.
“Yes,—or rusty-coated,” said Cricket, her eyes getting large and dark. “Eunice, do you suppose it hurts?”
“I don’t know. Oh, Cricket, isn’t it too dreadful! What can he have done? But papa doesn’t seem to think he’s to blame, anyway,” added Eunice, hopefully. “He said he’d stand by him.”
“But—suspended, Eunice!” repeated Cricket, with a direful vision of a dangling rope. “It—it wouldn’t be by the neck, would it? How long would they keep him there? Oh, Eunice! my heart is all jumpy.”
“It couldn’t be by the neck,” said Eunice, positively. “Because then he’d be regularly—hung, and they only hang people for murder and those things. I’m sure of that.”
“But papa said he might be rusty-coated, and he said that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. What is it, Eunice?”
“I don’t know,” answered Eunice, miserably. “Do you suppose it could be like being tarred and feathered like Floyd Ireson?” she added, almost below her breath.
“Eunice, I won’t let them!” cried Cricket, springing up furiously. “Don’t let them dare to touch my brother! I’d scratch them and I’d bite them and—oh, Eunice! papa wouldn’t let them, would he?”
“Perhaps he couldn’t help it. If the President said he had to be rusty-coated, perhaps it would have to be done,” said Eunice, wretchedly, for she had an exalted idea of the authority of the powers that be. Eunice was a born Tory.
“I don’t care if five billion presidents said so,” cried Cricket, defiantly. She was a born Radical, though her sweet temper and wise training had saved her from any desire to revolt. Now all the love and loyalty of her stanch little soul surged up.
“I’d kick him and I’d bite him,” repeated Cricket, “and I’d—don’t you remember that I made those big boys stop teasing Johnnie-goat?”
“Yes, I know,” returned Eunice, who had been very much impressed by that short scene.
“What can Don have done?” queried Cricket, recurring to the starting-point. “Oh, dear! I wish Faculties would be reasonable!” With this modest desire, she pounded viciously on the window-sill.
“I’ll be so ashamed to have the girls know,” said Eunice. “There’s May Chester. Her brother is in the same class.”
“Perhaps he’ll be suspended, too,” said Cricket, hopefully. Misery loves company. “But—suspended, Eunice,” with a fresh wave of dejection. “And I’m so afraid it will hurt.”
Here the luncheon-bell rang. Directly after, the study door was thrown open, and Doctor Ward and Donald came out. The father’s arm was thrown across his tall son’s shoulder, in a boyish fashion that the doctor often used.
“Don’t tell the kids more than you can help,” said Donald, hurriedly, as they came out, not aware that the children knew anything.
“Well, Lady Greasewrister and Madam Van Twister, her ladyship’s sister,” he called out, as he entered the dining-room, with the assumption of his usual teasing manner. Doctor Ward had stepped into his office for a moment, and the others had not yet come down. To his immense surprise and embarrassment, Eunice instantly burst out crying.
“Hallo, Waterworks! what’s wrong?” he exclaimed, in dismay. Tears were rare with any of the children.
“Oh, Donald, I can’t stand it! Will it hurt you?” wailed Eunice, completely overcome by the sight of the big, handsome fellow, and associating him suddenly with Cricket’s image of a dangling rope. “How long will you have to do it?”
“Do what?” stared Donald.
“And will you have to be rusty-coated, too?” burst in Cricket, very red as to her cheeks and very shiny as to her eyes. “How do they put it on? Donald, I don’t care if the President himself does it, I’ll bite him till he’s all chewed up!”
“Hal-lo!” whistled Donald. The others not having arrived yet, the three were still alone. “What have you two kids got in your heads?”
“We heard what father said when the door was open,” confessed Eunice, honestly. “We couldn’t help it. He said you’d have to be suspended—”
“Or rusty-coated,” put in Cricket.
“And what is it all about? and will it hurt? Oh, Don, tell us!” and Eunice threw a pair of imploring arms around his neck, while Cricket, with a gush of defensive affection, hugged one of his legs.
“We’ll stand by you, too, Don, whatever it is, and papa will, for he said so. Don, don’t go back to that nasty old college, ever. Go to Princeton. It has such pretty colors. I always loved that black and orange,” urged Eunice, tightening her clasp.
Donald, much touched, swept both his loyal little sisters into his muscular arms, and sat down on the window-seat.
“See here, you monkeys, I didn’t mean to tell you, but I must now. There was a jolly row on Wednesday night, and one of the professors caught on, and about twenty of us were hauled up. We’re suspended for the rest of the year,—that is, can’t go back till college opens in the fall. We’re not going to be hung, as you evidently think, if that’s what you’re fussing about.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“But Don, you didn’t do anything?”
“And if you’re rusty-coated, will that hurt you?”
“We thought maybe you’d be tarred and feathered.”
“And suspended! I did think it was some kind of hanging up.”
“Why don’t you tell the President you didn’t do anything?”
Donald put his hands over his ears as the girls poured out their chorus, one on each side. Just then the rest of the family arrived.
“It’s very nice for Donald to have a vacation again,” said mamma, patting her big boy’s shoulder as she passed him. The younger fry fell on him rapturously. Donald was always popular among them.