“WELL, if this ain’t the meanest thing he’s done to me yet!” exclaimed Jack, as the door closed on the retreating form of his crusty guardian. “This is the limit! The boys expect me to the ball game, and I can’t get there. That means they’ll put somebody else in my place, and maybe I’ll have to be a substitute for the rest of the season. I’ve a good notion——”
But so many daring thoughts came into Jack’s mind that he did not know which one to give utterance to first.
“I’ll not stand it,” he declared. “He hasn’t any right to punish me like this, for what I did. He had no right to keep me in. I’ll get out the same way I did before.”
Jack looked from the window of his room. Below it, seated on a bench, in the shade of a tree, was the professor, reading a large book.
“That way’s blocked,” remarked the boy. “He’ll stay there all day, working out problems about how much a dollar will amount to if put out at interest for a thousand years, or else figuring how long it will take a man to get to Mars if he traveled at the rate of a thousand miles a minute, though what in the world good such knowledge is I can’t see.
“But I can’t get out while he’s on guard, for he wouldn’t hesitate to wallop me. And when he comes in to breakfast his sister will relieve him. I am certainly up against it!
“Hold on, though! Maybe he forgot to bolt the door!”
It was a vain hope. Though Jack had not heard him do it, the professor had softly slid the bolt across as he went out of the boy’s room, and our hero was practically a prisoner in his own apartment.
And this on a beautiful Saturday, when there was no school and when the first practice baseball game of the season was to be played. Is it any wonder that Jack was indignant?
“It’s about time they brought me something to eat,” he thought, as he heard a clock somewhere in the house strike nine. “I’m getting hungry.”
He had little fear on the score that the professor would starve him, for the old college instructor was not quite as mean as that, and, in a short time, Miss Klopper appeared with a tray containing Jack’s breakfast.
“I should think you would be ashamed of yourself,” she said. “The idea of repaying my brother’s kindness by such acts! You are a wicked boy!”
Jack wondered where any special kindness on the part of the professor came in, but he did not say anything to the old maid whose temper was even more sour than her brother’s. Since his parents had left him with the professor, Jack had never been treated with real kindness. Perhaps Mr. Klopper did not intend to be mean, but he was such a deep student that all who did not devote most of their time to study and research earned his profound contempt. While Jack was a good boy, and a fairly good student, he liked sports and fun, and these the professor detested. So, when he found that his ward did not intend to apply himself closely to his books, Professor Klopper began “putting the screws on,” as Jack termed it.
Matters had gone from bad to worse, until the boy was now in a really desperate state. His naturally good temper had been spoiled by a series of petty fault-findings, and he had been so hedged about by the professor and his sister that he was ripe for almost anything.
All that day he remained in his room, becoming more and more angry at his imprisonment as the hours passed.
“The boys are on the diamond now,” he said, as he heard a clock strike three. “They’re practicing, and soon the game will start. Gee, but I wish I was there! But it’s no use.”
Another try at the door, and a look out of his window convinced him of this. The professor was still on guard, reading his big book.
Toward dusk the professor went in, as he could see no longer. But, by that time Jack had lost all desire to escape. He resolved to go to bed, to make the time pass more quickly, though he knew he had another day of imprisonment before him. Sunday was the occasion for long rambles in the woods and fields with his chums, but he knew he would have to forego that pleasure now. He almost hoped it would rain.
As he was undressing there came a hurried knock on his door.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My brother wants to see you at once, in his study,” said Miss Klopper.
“Oh, dear,” thought Jack. “Here’s for another lecture.”
There was no choice but to obey, however, for Mr. Allen in his last injunction to his son, had urged him to give every heed to his guardian’s requests.
He found the professor in his study, with open books piled all about on a table before which he sat. In his hand Mr. Klopper held a white slip of paper.
“Jack,” he said, more kindly than he had spoken since the trouble between them, “I have here a telegram concerning your father and mother.”
“Is it—is it bad news?” asked the boy quickly, for something in the professor’s tone and manner indicated it.
“Well, I—er—I’m sorry to say it is not good news. It is rather disquieting. You remember I told you I cabled to the United States Consul in Hong Kong concerning your parents, when several days went by without either of us hearing from them.”
“What does he say?”
“His cablegram states that your parents went on an excursion outside of Hong Kong about two weeks ago, and no word has been received from them since.”
“Are they—are they killed?”
“No; I do not think so. The consul adds that as there have been disturbances in China, it is very likely that Mr. and Mrs. Allen, together with some other Americans, have been detained in a friendly province, until the trouble is over. I thought you had better know this.”
“Do you suppose there is any danger?”
“I do not think so. There is no use worrying, though I was a little anxious when I had no word from them. We will hope for the best. I will cable the consul to send me word as soon as he has any additional news.”
“Poor mother!” said Jack. “She’s nervous, and if she gets frightened it may have a bad effect on her heart.”
“Um,” remarked the professor. He had little sympathy for ailing women. “In view of this news I have decided to mitigate your punishment,” he added to Jack. “You may consider yourself at liberty to-morrow, though I shall expect you to spend at least three hours in reading some good and helpful book. I will pick one out for you. It is well to train our minds to deep reading, for there is so much of the frivolous in life now-a-days, that the young are very likely to form improper thinking habits. I would recommend that you spend an hour before you retire to-night, in improving yourself in Latin. Your conjugation of verbs was very weak the last time I examined you.”
“I—I don’t think I could study to-night,” said Jack, who felt quite miserable with his enforced detention in the house, and the unpleasant news concerning his parents. “I’d be thinking so much about my father and mother that I couldn’t keep my attention on the verbs,” he said.
“That indicates a weak intellect,” returned the professor. “You should labor to overcome it. However, perhaps it would be useless to have you do any Latin to-night. But I must insist on you improving in your studies. Your last report from the academy was very poor.”
Jack did not answer. With a heavy heart he went to his room, where he sat for some time in the dark, thinking of his parents in far-off China.
“I wish I could go and find them,” he said. “Maybe they need help. I wonder if the professor’d let me go?”
But, even as that idea came to him, he knew it would be useless to propose it to Mr. Klopper.
“He’s got enough of money that dad left for my keep, to pay my passage,” the boy mused on. “But if I asked for some for a steamship ticket he’d begin to figure what the interest on it for a hundred years would be, and then he’d lecture me about being a spendthrift. No, I’ll have to let it go, though I do wish I could make a trip abroad. If I could only earn money enough, some way, I’d go to China and find dad and mom.”
But even disquieting and sad thoughts can not long keep awake a healthy lad, and soon Jack was slumbering. He was up early the next morning, and, as usual, accompanied the professor to church.
The best part of the afternoon he was forced to spend in reading a book on what boys ought to do, written by an old man who, if ever he was a healthy, sport-loving lad, must have been one so many years ago that he forgot that he ever liked to have fun once in a while.
Jack was glad when night came, so he could go to bed again.
“To-morrow I’ll see the boys,” he thought to himself. “They’ll want to know why I didn’t come to play ball, and I’ll have to tell them the real reason. I’m getting so I hate Professor Klopper!”
If Jack had known what was to happen the next day, he probably would not have slept so soundly.