Part 11 (2/2)
”Oh, no,” replied Bart sarcastically. ”There wasn't any trouble when you put the live frogs in Miss Mapes's desk and scared her and all the other women teachers nearly into fits. There wasn't any trouble when you let a lot of mice loose in the girls' department. There wasn't any trouble when you brought Jimmy Dodger's pet c.o.o.n in and yelled that it was a skunk. We didn't get blamed for it all, did we? Oh, no, I guess not.
Say, Ned, if you're going to cut up, send in an advance notice that it's your own doings and none of ours.”
”All right,” responded Ned. ”If I get up the scheme myself I'll take all the credit.”
”You're welcome to it,” spoke Frank. ”The credit--and what comes after.”
”Are you going to do anything?” asked Bart.
”Witness is not prepared to answer,” was Ned's reply. ”I may and I may not.”
If Ned's chums could have seen him an hour later, talking to a farmer who lived about a mile outside of the town, they would have had grave suspicions regarding what he proposed to do to make the last day of school memorable.
The morning session of the last day pa.s.sed off quietly enough. There was not much done in the way of lessons. Some students arranged with their teachers to do some studying during vacation to make up ”conditions,”
and others were consulting with the instructors about the work for next term.
Professor McCloud announced that the closing exercises would be held in the afternoon, the boys and girls a.s.sembling in the large auditorium on the second floor.
”I don't see that you're going to make good about that trick of yours,”
observed Fenn to Ned at the noon recess.
”Who said I was going to play any trick?”
”Why I thought--”
”The day isn't over yet,” said Ned, with a wink.
At one o'clock the boys and girls gathered in the large hall. Ned's chums noticed he was not on hand, and they looked wonderingly at each other. There was no telling when or where Ned would break out.
A program of vocal and instrumental music was rendered and then came several recitations. It was while Jennie Smith was in the midst of a dramatic rendering of a poem telling of a maiden waiting and listening for the approach of her lover. She reached the lines:
”I feel his presence near me in the mystic midnight air I hear his footsteps coming, coming up the castle stair--”
At that moment there were, unmistakably, footsteps on the stair, only they were the stairs leading up from the court and not into a castle.
Heavy footsteps they were, not at all lover-like. Up and up they came, sounding like several men with heavy boots on. Jennie paused, as she stood on the platform, and listened. The steps came nearer.
An instant later the door, which was not closed tightly, was pushed open, and into the big auditorium, in front of the pupils ambled a gentle-eyed cow, that, giving one astonished look around, uttered a loud ”Moo!”
CHAPTER XI
HONORING THE SENIORS
”Oh!” screamed Jennie, as she made a rush from the platform and fell in a faint just as Alice Keene caught her.
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