Holler-days
Were made for boys to holler!
Jim's room was a rather vast place, with two long windows opening upon the balcony, two exceedingly plain iron bedsteads in different corners, and in the midst a wide, vacant space, where a punching-ball was fixed whenever the owner was at home. There was a very shabby old leather armchair by one window, and near the other an even shabbier leather couch, very wide and solid. Jim used to declare that they were the most comfortable in the house, and nothing would have induced him to have them altered in any way.
One wall held a medley of various articles: Jim's rifle, the sporting gun his father had given him when he was fifteen, a revolver that had been through two wars, and a cavalry sword his grandfather had carried, together with an assortment of native weapons from various countries—assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were weapons of peace—hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats—the latter an assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at the age of eight to the full sized beauty that had split honourably in an inter-State school match the preceding summer.
All over the other walls were plainly framed photographs. Mr. Linton and Norah were there, in many positions, with and without horses; then there were pictures of all the favourite horses and ponies and dogs on the place, and a big enlargement of Billabong house itself. The others were school photographs, mostly football and cricket teams, tennis fours, the school crew, and some large groups at the yearly sports. In nearly all you could find Jim himself—if you looked closely enough. Jim loathed being photographed, and always retired as far out of sight in a group as his inches would permit.
The room held many of Jim's own manufactured ideas—his "contraptions," Brownie used to call them. There was a telephone he had rigged up when he was twelve, communicating with Norah's room by the balcony; and outside was a sort of fire escape, by which he could—and generally did—descend without using the stairs. There were various pieces of bush carpentry—a table, a candlestick and a book-case of his own construction, which in Norah's eyes were better than beautiful. There was an arrangement by which he could open his door or his windows without getting out of bed—which was ingenious, but quaint, since Jim was never known to shut his windows, and very rarely his door. Altogether it was an interesting room, and very typical of Jim.
At present it resembled a maelstrom, for Wally and Jim were unpacking. Brownie, putting in her head, described it as "a perfick shambles," and affected great horror at the havoc occasioned by having boys in the house—beaming all the while in a manner calculated to destroy the effect of any lecture. Norah, perched on the end of the sofa, which was the only free spot in the room, looked on at the operations with deep interest. Occasionally, when some special parcel was unearthed, one of the boys diverted her attention laboriously, since it was near Christmas-time, which is ever a season of mysteries. The parcel stowed away hastily in a cupboard, Norah was permitted to gaze once more, unrestricted.
"What's that, Jim?" she asked, catching a glimpse of silver in the recesses of a suitcase.
"Oh, nothing."
"I believe it's your cup," said his sister excitedly. "Do make him show me, Wally!"
"The mug it is!" said Wally, diving in under Jim's nose, and snatching the article in question. "Don't be an ass, Jimmy—d'you expect to keep it always in your boot-bag?"
"Very nice place for it," Jim was understood to mutter.
"Ripping—but you'll want it for your boots. Catch, Norah!"
The big silver cup flew across the room, and was deftly fielded by the lady on the end of the sofa.
"Oh, isn't it a beauty!" she said delightedly. "Jimmy, I'm so proud to know you!"
"You ought to have seen him going up to get it," Wally said. "Lovely sight—he blushed so prettily!"
"Blush be hanged!" said the victim.
"Don't be ashamed, my child; it's a very nice thing to be able to blush," Wally grinned. "No one would ever dream you could, either, so it's a happy surprise as well!"
"There's not a blush about you, that's one thing," said Jim, from the depths of his big box.
"Wore out all my powers that way blushing over you!" was Wally's prompt reply. "Norah, will you use that thing for cocoa, or what?"
"Don't be disrespectful—I'm admiring it," Norah answered, turning the cup round. "Dad will like it awfully."
"Has he shown you his prizes?"
"Prizes!" Norah exclaimed, falling off the arm of the sofa in amazement. "Jim, you horrid boy, you never told us. Show me at once!"
"Never thought about 'em," said the unhappy Jim, un-earthing two resplendent books. "Here you are, anyhow—and Wally needn't talk; he's got three!"
"I'm faint in the presence of so much learning!" Norah said, sitting down on a golf bag. "Who'd ever have suspected you? French and Prefect's Prize—oh, I'm so glad you got that one, Jim, dear." Her quick ear caught a step, and she called her father excitedly.
Mr. Linton entered, to be greeted by incoherent tidings of his son's success, to the meaning of which the two books lent aid.
"That's especially good news, old chap," he said quietly, whereat Jim grinned happily, blushed with fervour, and muttered something entirely inaudible. "The cup, too! that's a beauty, and no mistake!" He looked round the "perfick shambles," and laughed a little. "I don't think they're very safe here," he said. "With your permission, I'll take charge of them." He left the room, carrying the books and the cup with him.
At the door he paused.
"Don't forget Cecil," he said quietly, and was gone.
The trio looked blank.
"Cecil!" said Wally.
"Hang Cecil!" from Jim disgustedly.
"Oh, he's such a bore!" Norah said. "And he'd simply hate to be in here—he wouldn't see any fun in it. I—I really think I've had an overdose of Cecil."
"Poor old kid!" said Jim. "Well, we'll hurry up unpacking and then find him." They dismissed the "bit of a drawback" airily from their minds, and proceeded with the business in hand, hampered slightly by much energetic conversation. Jim's boxes were full of interesting things, the result of his six years at school; his packing, he said, with pained recollection, had been a "corker."
"Lucky I had that extra chest of drawers put in here," remarked Norah, stowing away numerous small articles. "Jim, how many boys gave you knives as farewell gifts?"
"Sorra a one of me knows," said her brother. "I lost count—and lost some of the knives, too. I've an idea Bill Beresford picked up one I dropped—the one Lance Western gave me; it's got a tortoise-shell handle, and a nick out of the big blade—and gave it to me for himself."
"It sounds the sort of economical thing Bill would do," Wally remarked.
"Then there are five magnifying glasses, seven pencil cases, and six pens," said Norah. "All tokens of affection, Jim? I'll put them in the middle drawer."
"What on earth I'm going to do with 'em all," said their harassed owner, "I'm sure I don't know. Does any one chap use five magnifiers in his life? Never used one yet! I wish the fellows hadn't been so kind—it was awfully brickish of them, though, wasn't it? And the Doctor gave me this." He held up a large and solemn—looking book.
"What is it?"
"'Self Help,' by a chap named Smiles. Shouldn't have thought there were many smiles about a book looking like that, but it shows you can't tell everything by the cover. And Mrs. Doctor gave me this tie—knitted it herself. It was jolly decent of her, wasn't it? She's always been awfully kind to me," said the big fellow, who had no idea of what "Mrs. Doctor" thought of his cheerful habit of picking up two or three of her babies and treating them to a wild ride round the school grounds on his back; and who had on one occasion sat up all night with a sick three-year-old who had cried unreasonably for "Yinton" to come and carry him. The boy had recovered, somewhat against expectations, and Jim had thought no more of the matter, except to drop gently and firmly into a gorse bush a fellow who had chaffed him for being a nursemaid. He had been amazed, and greatly embarrassed, by the tears in little "Mrs. Doctor's" eyes as she bade him good-bye. Nothing on earth would have induced him to mention them.
"If the Doctor ever gives me anything barring the length of his tongue, I'll have apoplexy!" remarked Wally. "We don't twin-soul a bit better than we did. He caught me beautifully the other day. Three or four of us were going to have a supper. I'd been into town to the dentist, and was bringing home a lobster. Coming out, that idiot Bob Greenfield was next me on the train, and he amused himself by rubbing the lobster gently until the thin brown paper they wrap 'em in had worn through in places. I was talking cricket for all I was worth, and never noticed him. I'd bought an evening paper, and given him my lobster to hold while I looked up some scores."
"Yes?" said Norah, happily.
"Well, we came to the school, and off I jumped, and just inside the gate I ran into the Doctor. He was very affable, and we walked up together, and he asked me quite affectionately how I'd got on with the dentist, and altogether he might have been my long lost uncle! Presently he glanced down at my parcel, and said, 'Been getting a boot mended, Meadows?' I didn't know what to say for a moment. And while I was floundering in my mind the string broke, and down went my parcel with a clatter on the asphalt!"
"Why do I miss these things?" asked Jim, plaintively.
"I wish I'd missed it instead of you!" said his chum. "I picked it up in a hurry, and the paper had burst pretty well all over-and-well, you know, there's no disguising the colour of a lobster! I just held it, and looked a fool, and the Doctor put up his eyeglass and looked it and me all over. Then he said, 'Curious colour for a boot, Meadows'—and I promptly turned the same shade as the lobster."
"Did you get into a row?" Norah asked.
"No; I will say for the old chap that he was a perfect brick," Wally said. "He just grinned, and walked off, remarking that there was no need to push investigations too far. And I fled, and the lobster was tip-top, thank you."
"I don't see why you've any cause to grumble at the Doctor," was Norah's comment.
"That's your feminine ignorance," returned Wally. "He made me feel small."
"Well, if I get a head mistress as easy-going—" said Norah, dolefully.
"Don't you get the idea into your mind that our revered Head's easy-going!" Wally retorted. "He thinks nothing of skinning a fellow on occasion—only he didn't happen to think a lobster was occasion—that night, anyhow. You see, it was near the end of term, and even Heads get soft!"
"Lots of em," said Jim; "look at your own!" He dodged a hairbrush neatly. "Have a little sense, young Wally; don't you see I'm busy? Norah, old chap, did you see my blazer?"
"I hung it in your wardrobe," said Norah promptly "Also your overcoat, also your straw hat, also your cadet uniform—what are you going to do with that, by the way, Jim?"
"Get photographed in it," said Wally, wickedly.
"I'm likely to!" Jim said, with fine scorn. "Goodness only knows—I may find some fellow it'll fit. It certainly wouldn't fit me much longer."
"It's been the anxiety of the whole battalion," said Wally. "It creaked and began to split whenever he drilled in it, and for the last six parades we've always taken out a blanket in case we should need to drape his tattered form on the way home! It's an uncommonly good thing he's left. Most demoralizing for a young corps to see its corpulent lieutenant bursting out of his uniform!"
"He's not corpulent," said Norah indignantly, whereat Jim, who personified leanness with breadth of shoulder, grinned even more widely than Wally, and patted her on the head as he passed with an armful of clothes, which he stowed into his wardrobe much as he might have dumped sacks of potatoes into a barn. Even Norah's wide and free views on the subject of garments were not proof against the sight.
"Are those your good suits, Jim?"
"Yes," said her brother, cheerfully. "They're used to it. Chuck me that coat, Wally."
Wally complied, and the coat—which happened to be the one belonging to its owner's evening suit—was added to the heap in the wardrobe.
"I'll sort 'em out some time or other," said Jim. "I'm so jolly sick of unpacking. Wally, you animal, you're not finished, are you?"
"Ages ago," said his chum. "Hadn't anything like your quantity, you see. My clothes are neat and trim, and my pyjamas have blue ribbon in them and I have put out my lace pin cushion and my tulle slippers, and all is well! Now I feel I can go and play with Cecil with a quiet mind!"
"I really don't know why I brought a lunatic home with me," Jim said, patiently. "Sorry, Nor.; but we'll take him out in the scrub and lose him. Meanwhile—" He closed the last drawer with a bang, and advanced with slow deliberation upon the hapless Mr. Meadows.
For the next few minutes the air in the room was murky with pillows, other missiles and ejaculations. Out of the turmoil came yelps, much energetic abuse, and shrieks to Norah for aid to which that maiden, who was enjoying herself hugely, lent a deaf ear. Finally, the combat restricted itself principally to Wally's bed, from which the bedclothes gradually disappeared, until they formed a tight bundle on the floor, with Wally in the centre. Jim piled the mattress on top, and retreated to the door.
"Beast!" said Wally, disentangling himself with difficulty, until he sat on the pile, considerably dishevelled, and wearing a broad grin. "It's only your vile brute force—some day I'll get even with you!" He rose, hurled the mattress upon the bed, and looked inquiringly at his blankets. "How do you imagine I'm going to sleep there to-night?"
"Oh, we'll fix it up when we come to bed," laughed Jim. "Come on—we ought to go down to Cecil."
"Hold on till I brush my hair," said Wally, attacking his disturbed locks, and settling his tie. "All right; lead on, Macduff!"
"Ready, Nor.?"
Norah hesitated.
"I'm going to my room for something," she said. "I'll be after you in a few minutes, boys."
She disappeared within her room, and the boys clattered downstairs. When they had gone, Norah slipped back noiselessly to Jim's apartment, which gave the impression of having recently been the scene of a cyclone. She laughed a little, looking at it from the doorway.
"It certainly is a 'perfick shambles'," she said. "Poor old chaps—and they'll be so tired when they come up to bed!"
Moving quietly, she sorted out the tangled bedclothes and made up the bed, and reduced to order some of the chaos in the room. Then she opened the wardrobe and took out the mass of clothes, sorting out the suits and putting them away carefully, with a shake to the coats to remove creases. The dress suit she laid in a drawer, running to her own room for a tiny lavender bag to keep away the moths. She was closing the drawer when she started at a step, and Jim came in.
"What on earth are you up to?" was his question. His eye travelled round the room, taking in the open door of the wardrobe, and the dress coat in the drawer, where stood his small sister, rather flushed.
"Well!" he said, and paused. "Weren't we beasts?"
"No, you weren't," said Norah indignantly.
"H'm," said Jim. "It's a jolly good thing when a fellow has a sister, anyhow." He came over to her and put his arm round her shoulders. "Dear old chap!" he said. They went down the stairs together.
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