CHAPTER VI Dissension

The end of the holiday week approached and on the day after New Year’s there would be again a general migration of eager youths, all over the broad land, into the outstretched arms of alma mater. But competing fiercely with all the institutions of learning, a mightier need beckoned the physically able, for there was work to do to make the “world safe for democracy.”

Clement Stapley and Donald Richards heard the call and stopped to consider it. They knew old Brighton was ready to welcome back her knights of brain and brawn, but even more insistently they were aware that far greater institutions controlled by the United States Government were also eager to welcome the same brain and brawn. The Red Cross beckoned them, the Emergency Aid and the Y. M. C. A. wanted the help of strong and willing hands; bigger still loomed the Government itself, with its demands for men, but with a more urgent need. Surely Old Brighton could wait and so could their own desire for learning; at such a time as this the country, all the world indeed, blocked some of its wheels of progress to permit other wheels to turn the faster, to roll along helpfully, determinedly, to reach the hilltop of peace at the end of the fierce journey.

Don sat down to the breakfast table on Monday morning with four younger boys, his brothers, all hungry and noisy. The mother of the Richards boys had long been dead; the aunt, their father’s maiden sister, who presided over the household, had departed a few minutes before upon some important errand, leaving the interior to the tender mercies of the wild bunch who seemed bent on having an especially merry time, for they believed the doctor had gone to attend an urgent case.

Don was the only one of the group who appeared in no mood to raise a rumpus; he busily applied himself to satisfying his very healthy appetite and only switched off at necessary intervals in the attempt to enforce peace and to defend himself against the tussling twins, who would rather scrap than eat. The other two, one older and one younger, but almost the huskiest of the brothers, insisted on having a hand in these athletic performances. And then there came an unpleasant surprise.

Jim and Jake, the twins, in an effort to compel the surrender of a buttered buckwheat cake, toppled over on Merrill, the second son, who in turn flung them against Ernest. That wily youngster was more than equal to such occasions; he dodged out of his chair and when the struggling twins tumbled across his seat he twisted the corner of the tablecloth about the neck of one, quickly wrecking things, as the wrestlers fell to the floor. Don made a wide grab at several things at once, but finding his attempt futile he turned, tore the tusslers apart and sent them sprawling to opposite corners; then he gave Ernest a crack with open hand, which caused that youngster being the baby of the family, to bawl loudly.

Just at that instant Dr. Richards hurriedly entered the room, for he had just been fixing his auto runabout and now came back for a bite to eat.

The sight that confronted the busy man was enough to exasperate a saint. He saw Donald in the midst of the mêlée and jumped at a too hasty conclusion. A man usually of few words, often over-lenient and generally just, he now, let his temper run away with his judgment and his tongue. Grabbing two dried buckwheat cakes that had, by merest chance, remained on the edge of the table, he turned back toward the door.

“You are setting your younger brothers anything but a good example, Donald! We have less of this sort of thing when you’re away. If you carry on this way at Brighton I should think you’d soon be in disgrace. You ought to be a little older and join the army; the discipline there would do you good. A nice breakfast this is!” he added as he began, moodily, to eat.

Don was too proud and too loyal to the joint offenders to explain. It seemed enough for him to know that he was not to blame, that the scolding was not merited and his father would soon find this out. An idea had quickly entered his head.

“I can manage to get into the war, Father, if you’ll sign an application paper.”

“Well, I’ll see about it—haven’t time now.”

“Yes, I think you have. Better sign before we wreck the house, or set fire to it. Here’s the document. Write on the last line, at the bottom.”

Doctor Richards seized the paper that Don shoved at him, but hardly glanced at it. “I suppose you feel mightily independent since you got that five hundred dollars. Well, going will probably do you good.” With that the man of many duties drew forth his fountain pen, placed the paper against the door-jamb, and quickly wrote his name. “Let me know later just what you intend doing; I will help you all I can. But if you like school best, better go back, perhaps.” The doctor stepped out of the room, the front door slammed, there was the chug of a motor and the boys were again left to themselves.

The twins and Ernest sneaked away; Merrill turned to Don, whom he really loved and admired.

“Say, that was rotten! And for me and those kids to let you take that, too! You bet I’ll tell Dad all about it when he comes back.”

“Well, all right, if you want to; but not now. Not one word before I get off, which will be this afternoon probably. I really can’t blame Father much; it was tough for him to miss a decent breakfast and he has a lot to put up with from us kids—with all he does for us! But he won’t be bothered with me for a while and if I get over there maybe he will never again be bothered with me. Well, I’ll see you later, Mel, and let you know. I’m off to see Clem Stapley now; perhaps he will be going, too.”

But on his way Don stopped at the Army and Red Cross recruiting station, in the same busy office, being received with much gusto, both because of his recent heroic conduct in landing the German agent and of his frank engaging manner. He had much to say, found much to learn and got what he was after. Then he climbed the hill toward the Stapley mansion. Clem was at the garage, helping the chauffeur tinker with a crippled motor.

“Hello, old man!” shouted Don, but he noticed that the older lad hardly turned his head. He seemed much interested in his task. “Well, what’s the good word?” continued the visitor. “Anything new?”

“Don’t know a thing,” answered Clem, without looking up.

“Well, things are coming my way,” Don said.

“Yes, I notice,” Clem agreed, with a sneer on his face, “and you’re not dodging them very hard, either.”

“I was speaking of Government duties,” Don offered, ill at ease. He had been satisfied that the old ill feeling had been completely patched up, between Clem and himself, by the heroic episode through which they had just passed, for his own feeling was friendly. But surely Clem’s manner was cool, even more curt than before. However, in the last remark the older lad showed some interest.

“How do you mean, ‘Government duties’?” he asked.

“I’ve just joined the Red Cross ambulance service, Clem. Leave tonight. Thought you’d like to know—”

“I enlisted with the Marines two days ago,” Clem announced rather coolly.

“Good for you! Hurrah! When do you go? We might—”

But Clem, who had turned back to work on the car said curtly:

“When I get ready. In a few days, perhaps.”

“No chance, then, for us to get away together?”

“None in the least.”

“Well, I’m glad you got in. Of course you had no trouble. Your father gave his—”

“Look here, Richards!” Clem turned toward the younger boy almost savagely. “I don’t see that you need to concern yourself with what I’ve done, or doing. As for Dad, you ought to be satisfied after what you got out of the company.”

“Oh! So that’s what’s the matter with you, eh? Sore about that; are you? Well, you know I wanted to divide; I wanted to be fair to you. It was not my—”

“I didn’t see you breaking any bones in an effort to be fair.”

“If you say I didn’t want to be fair, that I was entirely satisfied in taking all that money, then, Stapley, you lie!”

“Say, before I’ll take much of that from you I’ll punch your head!”

“So? Well, the nose is right here when you want to punch it. Come and punch it! But you won’t punch anything. You think you’re some fighter. Come on and punch once; just once!”

Clem was no coward and he possessed the cool judgment of a capable boxer. Moreover, he was taller, with a longer reach than Don. But he had to reckon with superior weight, probably greater strength and what counts more than all else—an indomitable spirit. Long brooding over what he considered an injustice on Don’s part in accepting all the reward for arresting the Germans, and for permitting others to give him more of the credit for personal bravery had made young Stapley more of an enemy than he had ever been.

How the fight would have ended was not to be known, however, for though Clem would have struck Don, he was prevented by the chauffeur who was by no means to be lightly reckoned with.

“Gwan, now, Clement, me boy! An’ you, too, young feller! I’ll mop up the floor here with both o’ you if you begin scratchin’ an’ bitin’! What would Mr. Stapley, me boss, say to me if I let you chaw each other up? Gwan, young feller!”—this to Don. “An’ you come here, Clement, an’ I’ll show you the true insides o’ this critter, from piston head to crank shaft.”

Don took this for both good advice and a logically sound invitation and turned on his heel. But he could not help feeling sorry that again Clem Stapley and himself were “at outs”.