CHAPTER III
A MOONLIGHT PLUNGE
Coach Bonner passed out briskly and the fellows, with much scraping of chairs and good-natured horseplay, followed. Twilight was settling over the world. The sun had just dropped behind the distant spires and tree-tops of the village and on Mt. Grafton, the sugar-loaf hill behind the school, its last rays rested on the spindley observatory crowning the rocky summit. The campus was fast filling with shadows, and along the streets and walks the lamps made lemon-yellow points in the purple dusk. In Manning and Trow and Lothrop lights glowed wanly at the entrances, but School Hall and the gymnasium were dark. Doubtless there were lights, too, in the Principal’s residence, far to the right, but the clustering maples hid all of that but the roof. A faint breeze fluttered from the southwest, but the evening was still oppressively hot. By twos and threes and in larger groups the fellows wandered away, some turning their steps toward the village, a half-mile distant, others seeking the dormitories. Bert, Nick and Ted, however, still loitered on the steps of Morris, waiting for the moon to rise, and with them loitered Pop Driver.
“It’s frightfully hot over in my room,” observed the latter, sprawling his big form over the steps. “I’m on the wrong side of the building tonight.”
Bert prodded Nick with his foot. “Guess I’ll bunk in with you, old man,” he said.
“You’ll bunk on the window-seat, then. Why don’t you sleep in one of the rooms across the hall? No one would care.”
“Perhaps I will. Where’s that moon? Coming along with us, Pop?”
“I guess so. I’d like to stay in the water all night.”
“There’s the moon now, isn’t it?” asked Ted lazily.
“Someone lighted up in Fuller,” replied Bert. “Let’s go along down. We don’t have to have the moon, anyhow.”
“It’s a lot more fun,” said Nick drowsily, settling back against Bert’s knees. “Say, fellows, isn’t it nice that school begins day after tomorrow? Aren’t you all tickled to death?”
“Let’s not talk about it,” yawned Pop.
“No, come on and get that swim,” agreed Ted, getting to his feet and ungently tousling Bert’s hair. “If we wait for the moon we never will get in. And I’m hot and uncomfortable and——”
“Something’s happened to the moon,” murmured Nick. “Probably got a hot-box.”
“What about towels?” Bert got up, letting Nick subside violently against the steps.
“We can dry off on the float,” said Ted. “Come on. All in!”
Nick, rubbing the back of his head, arose with groans and protests and draped himself against Pop Driver.
“Nick wants to be carried,” he whimpered. “Pop, please carry Nick. He’s so ’ittle!”
Pop complacently gathered the other in his big arms and bore him away around the corner of the house, Nick babbling nonsense. “Pop likes to carry his ’ittle Nick, doesn’t he? Pop loves his ’ittle Nick.”
“Pop loves him to death,” grunted Pop, depositing him suddenly in a barberry hedge. There arose a piercing wail from Nick as he came into contact with the thorns, the sound of cracking shrubbery and the thud of Pop’s feet as he hurried off into the darkness.
“Oh, you big brute!” shouted Nick. “You wait till I get hold of you! I’m full of stickers! Which way did that big, ugly hippopotamus go, Ted?”
“Straight on into the engulfing gloom,” answered Bert. “Look out for that clothes-line, Nick.”
“Pop!” called Nick sweetly. “Pop, come back to me, darling! Honest, Pop, I haven’t a thing in my hands! I just want to love you!”
“I’m busy,” responded Pop from the darkness ahead. “I got some of those old thorns myself.”
“Oh, Pop, I’m so sorry! Do they hurt, Pop? Come back here and let me drive them in for you!”
Peace was restored by the time they were passing the tennis courts. Eastward, above the trees beyond the little river, a silvery radiance heralded the moon. They skirted the running track and made their way to where, dimly, the dark form of the boathouse loomed ahead of them. When they reached it Pop experimentally tried all the doors, but found them fast. They disrobed in the shadow of the building and then, making certain that there were no passers on the road, a few rods distant, they raced down the float and plunged into the water with whoops of glee. When their heads emerged the moon had topped the trees and, save where the shadow of the covered bridge lay across it, the stream was bathed in silver. The water was warm, but far cooler than the air, and Pop grunted ecstatically as he rolled over on his back and floated lazily, blinking at the moon. It was then that Nick obtained his revenge. Sinking very quietly, he swam across under water, emerged behind the unsuspecting Pop, and—
“Glug-gug-gug!” observed Pop, as his head went suddenly under and his feet flashed white in the radiance. When he arose again, sputtering and gasping, Nick was far across the stream, paddling gently and crooning a little song.
“There was an old man and his name was Pop.
His head went down and his feet went up!”
Stirring moments then, ending in the terrestrial flight of Nick, Pop begging him to come back and be drowned! Finally they all gathered under the bridge and lolled on a crosspiece and dabbled their legs in the cool water and talked. Once a team went past overhead, and once an automobile sped across, roaring fearsomely and threatening to bring the old structure down on top of them. Then quiet again, and the winding stretch of the river below, black and silver. With the rising of the moon the little breeze had found courage and now blew cooler from the west. Nine o’clock struck in the village and they splashed back into the water and swam to the float. Half an hour later they parted in front of Trow, Ted and Pop turning in there and Bert and Nick going on to Lothrop.
Nick turned off at the top of the second flight and Bert continued to his room. But when he had donned pajamas the latter descended again, the slate steps gratefully cool to his bare feet, and he and Nick stretched out on the window-seat and talked while the breeze blew past them and softly rustled the papers on the table. Ten o’clock struck. The conversation became fitful. Once Nick snored frankly and then jerked himself awake again, and replied brightly to an observation of Bert’s made five minutes before. Through the window they could look for nearly a mile over fields and tree-bordered roads. A little way off the buildings of a small farm were clustered about the black shadows of a group of elms. Beyond that two streaks of silver glittered where the moon glinted on the railroad tracks. Bert wondered if, after all, the view from this side of the building was not more attractive than that from the front, wondered what sort of a chap this new roommate of his would turn out to be, wondered if he had not taken a pretty big chance in accepting him sight-unseen, wondered why Nick didn’t wake himself up with his own snoring, wondered—
Some time in the early morning he disentangled himself from the encumbering Nick and groped his way down to his own room. He didn’t remember much about it afterwards, though.