CHAPTER I A STORM CLOUD GATHERS

When Arthur Trevor caught the flying machine fever and organized the “Young Aviators,” neither he nor the other boys who joined the club meant to do anything but make toy aeroplanes. There was certainly no reason for them to foresee that their first tournament was to turn the young aviators into Boy Scouts, and in the end, into real Boy Scout Aviators owning a practical aeroplane. But there were signs from the first that the “Goosetown gang” was going to make trouble for the “Elm Street boys.” The beginning of everything and the clash between the “Goosetown gang” and the “Elm Street boys” was in this wise:

Arthur Trevor’s father was a lawyer. Like the parents of most of Art’s companions, he lived in the best part of Scottsville. Here, on Elm Street, the trees were large; the residences were of brick, with wide porches; gardeners saw to the lawns, and nearly every home had a new automobile garage. Therefore, the boys living here—although they thought themselves neither better nor worse than other boys—were usually known as the “Swells” or the “Elm Street boys.” As a matter of fact they were just as freckled of face, as much opposed to “dressing up,” as full of boy ambitions and with nicknames just as outlandish as any Goosetown kid.

But the Goosetown boys did not take that view of things. In Goosetown there were no automobiles. Houses were decorated with “lady finger” vines. While there were many gardens, these were devoted mainly to cabbages and tomatoes. If the lads living here had taken more interest in their homes and less in playing hooky they might have felt less bitter toward their supposed rivals. They came to understand this in time, too, but this was not until the Boy Scout movement swept through Scottsville.

Although the two crowds did not mix, and seldom came in contact, in some mysterious boy way each contrived to keep well advised of the doings of the other. For instance, Art Trevor, Frank Ware, Sam Addington and Colfax Craighead, although busy making aeroplanes in the loft of the Trevor garage, were able to discuss the latest Goosetown gossip—how the gang playing cards under the big sycamore beyond the railroad bridge had quarreled with Nick Apthorp because he broke a bottle of beer, and had ducked him below the river dam. This news had become gossip because Nick’s head had come in contact with a submerged log and he had been rescued barely in time to escape drowning.

On the other hand, the latest bit of news from Elm Street to reach Goosetown created a real sensation. Nick Apthorp, who had astonished his Goosetown gang-mates by violating precedent and doing several hours’ actual work (he had accepted an afternoon’s job of distributing free samples of soap in the Elm Street district) was partly excused by his associates when he turned over to them a hand-printed circular. This he had stolen from the door of the Trevor garage. With the circular and some of the perfumed soap that had been entrusted to him, of which he had appropriated half, Nick somewhat placated his jeering gang-associates.

“Well, I guess there’ll be somethin’ doin’ now!” chuckled Mart Clare. “An’ shyin’ their keester right into our own bailiwick, too. What d’ye think o’ that?”

“Rich!” chuckled Jimmy Compton. “A gran’ show free gratis fur nothin’. Don’t fergit the day an’ date!”

“They must be achin’ fur trouble,” suggested Henry or “Hank” Milleson. “I reckon if we went over to Elm Street fur a little game o’ poker they’d put the police on us. And fur them swells to be a-plannin’ to come over to Sycamore Pasture” (Hank called it “paster”) “to pull off a toy airyplane show, don’t mean nothin’ but defyin’ us. Ever’ one of ’em, from little Artie Trevor down to Coldslaw Bighead knows that. But say, kiddos,” went on Hank as he paused in the shuffling of a deck of greasy cards, for several of the gang were whiling away the sleepy June afternoon in the shade of the same big sycamore, “I got a hunch. Them kids are wise. They’re on. They ain’t comin’ over here ’less they’re fixed fur trouble. I’ll bet you they got somethin’ up their sleeves. An’ I’ll say this: Artie an’ his friends ain’t no milksops, ef they do run to makin’ toys. They ain’t got no right to come here a-buttin’ in, but ef they do, an’ it comes to a show-down who’s boss, an’ I got anything to do with the dispute, I ain’t a-goin’ to figure on puttin’ anybody down fur the count by tappin’ him on the wrist.”

“It’d be a crime to do it,” sneered Jimmy Compton, whose only activity, aside from flipping trains and fishing occasionally, was the collection and delivery of linen that his widowed mother washed. “I’ll show you what I think o’ them swells when I meet ’em. Meanwhile, here’s my sentiments.”

As he spoke, Jimmy turned from the card-playing group squatted on the grass, and without rising, took from his mouth a quid of tobacco and contemptuously flung it at the near-by sycamore. There it squashed against the circular that Nick Apthorp had stolen from Trevor’s garage. This, in derision, had been hung against the tree trunk.

The poster, the cause of the gang’s resentful comment, made this announcement:

First Monthly Tournament
Young Aviators Club

Toy Aeroplane Flying For
Distance and Altitude,
Sycamore Tree Pasture,
Saturday 2 P. M. Prizes.

Admission Free

Arthur Trevor, President.

Jim Compton’s moist quid, for which he had now substituted a cigarette borrowed from Matt Branson, splattered against the words “Free Admission.”

“I reckon that’s about right,” yawned Matt. “’Cause there ain’t goin’ to be no free admission. I got a notion to be doorkeeper an’ collect a black eye ur a punched nose from ever’ one ’at can’t give me the high sign.”

“Well,” snorted Hank Milleson, resuming the shuffling of the dog-eared cards. “All I got to say is: ‘Look out fur your change.’ Some of them guys may be shifty with their mitts. Take little Artie himself! When a kid can do a high-jump o’ nearly five feet he might be handy with his fists too.”

“I’ll jump him in the drink,” sneered Compton lazily, as he nodded toward the sleepy Green River flowing near by. “An’ I’ll take mama’s pet’s toys frum him while I’m doin’ it—don’t fergit it.”

“I won’t,” replied Hank significantly. “Saturday’s only day after to-morrow. They won’t be no time to fergit. We all heered what you said.”

“Mebbe you think I can’t!” retorted Compton as he shot a volume of cigarette smoke through his sun-blistered nose, and straightened himself.

“Sure you kin. You kin always tell what you’re a-going to do. Go on. Blow yourself up with brag.”

“Cheese it, kids. Cut it out! Don’t start nothin’,” shouted Mart Clare. “Come on, I’ve got a good hand.”

Jimmy glared at Hank but he seemed glad enough to drop the argument.

“If you think I’m braggin’, wait till Saturday,” was his only response.

“I will,” answered Hank with a new chuckle as he finished the deal of the cards. “But take it from me, Jimmy, when you start little Artie a-jumpin, get out from under. Don’t let him come down on top o’ you.”

“Come off—come off,” yawned Nick Apthorp as he threw his cards towards the next dealer and reached for a string attached to a rotten log against which he had been leaning. “Mebbe this’ll stop the rag chewin’,” and he proceeded to pull on the string, which extended over the edge of the river bank, at the base of which was the gang’s swimming hole, into which Jimmy had threatened to make Art Trevor jump.

As a bottle of beer came in sight all animosities seemed forgotten. Hank Milleson grabbed an empty lard pail. Nick knocked off the top of the bottle on a stone and the lukewarm fluid was emptied into the pail.

“Fair divvies now,” shouted Compton, and the five young loafers crowded about the foam-crusted pail like flies around a molasses jug. In such manner, with few variations, the “Goosetown gang” was accustomed to pass its afternoons.

Others who were accustomed to meet at times to play cards, drink beer and drowse away the hours came only on Saturdays and Sundays. Some of these had light employment in the furniture factories. Like Nick Apthorp, Matt Branson, Mart Clare, Jimmy Compton and Hank Milleson they had grown up without schooling, and they knew few pleasures except those of the young “tough.”

Had the roster of the “Goosetown gang” ever been written, its prominent members would have been in addition to those named, Job Wilkes, Joe Andrews, Buck Bluett, Tom Bates, Pete Chester and Tony Cooper. Of all these the foremost loafer was Hank Milleson. And Hank had a double distinction; he had already been a prisoner in the Scottsville lock-up, for disturbing the peace while intoxicated. At that, he was but seventeen years old. Of the others some were not over twelve years.

Before dark that evening, news of what Jimmy Compton had done reached Elm Street. Sammy Addington was the one who brought the bulletin to the Trevor Garage.

“Jim Compton—Carrots—” reported Sammy, his eyes sparkling, “says he’s goin’ to make you jump in the river,” addressing Art Trevor, who was busy testing rubber cord.

“Me? In the river?” exclaimed Art in surprise. “What’s gone wrong with Carrots?”

“They’re all sore,” went on Sammy. “Nick Apthorp—he’s the guy that pinched our sign—him and Blowhard Compton an’ the gang all give it out—an’ they stuck our sign up on the ole sycamore an’ spit on it; yes that’s what they done,” repeated Sammy rapidly as he saw the news was sensational. “They spit on it an’ give it out if we go over there Saturday it’s goin’ to be rough house an’ that you’ll get yours,” he concluded nodding toward Art.

“They will? Like nothin’!” exclaimed Colly Craighead. “I reckon we can raise as many guys as they can.”

“Anyway,” broke in Art—but thoughtfully—“we’ll have to go ahead now. We can’t back water, can we, kids?”

Two more of the young aviators were present, Frank or “Wart” Ware as he was known, and Alexander Conyers, usually known as Connie.

“Not on your life,” shouted Wart.

But Connie was not quite so sure. Connie, next to Art in age, was perhaps the strongest of all the Elm Street crowd, and somewhat strangely, usually the slowest to get into trouble.

“That’s a tough mob over there,” he ventured at last. “Kid to kid I think they’ve got us outclassed. We’ll save a lot of trouble by goin’ some other place.”

“But it’s the best open ground around town,” argued Art. “Those fellows don’t own it.”

“But they think they do,” went on Connie. “And I don’t know whether we’d be able to show ’em they don’t.”

“Maybe we’d better think this thing over,” answered Art after some thought. “That is, we’d better decide just how we’re to tackle these fellows. But we’ll pull off our show and it’ll be just where we said it would be, if I’m the only exhibitor and I get the lickin’ of my life.”

Instantly all the others protested allegiance—Sammy Addington most vociferously. But it could be seen that a shadow had fallen on the brilliant program announced for Saturday.

“My father knows the town marshal. We could—”

But that idea went no further. To Art and Conyers and Craighead, Sammy might as well have suggested that they call on their mothers for protection. If any hint of the impending embarrassment reached parental ears all knew that the tournament would be squelched.

“Besides,” argued Colly, “if it’s to come to a show-down at last, we might as well go up against it and lick ’em or take our medicine. How do you vote, Connie?”

“Well,” answered the chunky little warrior screwing up his mouth as if yet in doubt, “I ain’t keen for scraps—if they’re real—an’ I guess this’d be more’n just makin’ faces—but I’m tired o’ bein’ called a milksop, whatever that means. If you fellows mean business I reckon you won’t have to get a search warrant to find me.”

“That settles it,” announced Art. “Sammy, you an’ Colly get out and round up the kids. Ever’body’s got to know just what’s comin’ off. We’ll have a special meetin’ o’ the club to-night an’ count noses.”

“Better count ’em before Saturday,” interrupted Connie, “or some of ’em may look like two.”

“Mebbe,” retorted Art, “but Carrots Compton ain’t big enough to make me jump in the river. Don’t forget that.”

It was hardly dark before nearly every Elm Street boy had assembled at the garage. The council of war proceeded without lights and in subdued voices. In fact a few younger members were too agitated to talk above a frightened whisper. Early in the meeting George Atkins, nine years old, and Davy Cooke, who had a withered left arm, were newly sworn to reveal nothing they had heard, “especially to your fathers and mothers,” and excused from the bloody conspiracy.

Then, with varying degrees of valor, they signed the following articles of war: “I hereby give my word of honor that next Saturday I will be present at the Sycamore Pasture at two o’clock and follow each order and command of Arthur Trevor, our president, so far as I am able, and that whatever happens I will not peach.” Then followed the names of eleven boys,—those named before and Lewis Ashwood, Paul Corbett, Duncan Easton, Roger Mercer, Sandy Sheldon and Phil Abercrombie.

When Art finally made his way onto the porch where his mother awaited him, she said:

“Arthur, what was the meeting about? Your tournament?”

“Yes, mother,” responded her son, with a smile, “we’re getting ready to have quite a time.”

“That’s nice,” replied his mother. “I hope the cleverest boys will win.”

“I reckon they will,” answered Art smiling.