The head counselor kept his eyes on his desk. “Can't say. About the money from the Ride, possibly. Hurry, boy.”
There was in Uncle Sandy's manner a sudden aloof cautiousness that Herbie didn't like. He left the tent and trotted up the hill, feeling the gloom of his dream stealing upon him again. He came to the steps of the guest house panting and red-faced, and as he paused for breath he was surprised to see Yishy Gabelson issue from the doorway of the camp office, shaking his head and grinding his teeth.
“Oh, that ——! Oh, that fat old ——!” muttered the Super-senior, using two epithets from the very bottom of the barrel of bad language. “Oh, that ——!” he added, using one even worse, and actually strange to Herbie's ears.
“Hey, Yishy, what's the matter?” cried Herbie anxiously, as the other strode past him unseeing. Yishy glanced around at him, startled.
“What are you still doing here? You know what's happened.”
“No, I don't,” quavered Herbie.
“WHAT? You mean he hasn't spoken to you about the money yet?”
Herbie's stomach contracted into a stony lump. “No, Yishy, honest.”
“Oh, that old liar!” Yishy staggered, put his hand to his forehead, and groaned. “Oh, that ——! That ——!” He repeated one old epithet and a brand-new one. Then he stumbled off down the hill, blaspheming and shaking his fists in the air. Herbie looked after this wild sight in wonder, and trudged unhappily up the steps and into the office.
An even greater surprise awaited him. Mr. Gauss was smiling as usual behind his desk, and seated near him on a dirty old plush chair—Herbie almost fainted as he beheld the man—was the emaciated driver, skinny and queer as ever, who had given him and Cliff the hitch from New York to Panksville!
“Ah, good morning, Herbie,” Mr. Gauss beamed. “And let me introduce you to Mr. Drabkind. Mr. Drabkind, this is one of our finest, cleverest, most outstanding campers. Herbie Bookbinder—I'm proud to say, also a pupil at my school.”
Mr. Drabkind extended a bluish hand to Herbie. The boy grasped the cold finger tips, pumped them once, and dropped them. The thin man peered at him through glasses thick as the bottoms of bottles.
“I don't see too well,” he apologized in his unforgettable reedy voice, “but it seems I've met you, Master Bookbinder, rather recently.”
Herbie shrugged and tried to still the quivering of his knees. “I don't see how that's possible,” said Mr. Gauss, looking hard at Herbie. “Do you, Herbert?”
Herbie shook his head, unable to utter a sound.
“You must be mistaken, Mr. Drabkind,” said the camp owner. “This is your first visit here this summer. Unless,” he added archly, “Herbie has been out traveling, unbeknownst to me.”
Was it a cat-and-mouse game, Herbie wondered through the fog of fear that enveloped his mind? He waited for the blow, if one was to fall.
“Well, I see so many boys—so many boys,” sighed Mr. Drabkind. He sat in the chair again, his frame curved like a wilting flower. “Though I don't somehow remember him as being in a crowd.”
“No, you wouldn't. Our Herbert stands out very much from the crowd,” said Mr. Gauss, and both men giggled politely and, Herbie thought, somewhat eerily. There was a short silence.
“Well, Mr. Gauss, we may as well come to the point,” piped the frail man. “I can't stay long, you know.”
“Herbie, you don't know who Mr. Drabkind is, do you?” said Mr. Gauss, looking down at his finger tips clasped before him.
As emphatically as he could, Herbie shook his head again.
“Of course he wouldn't,” said Mr. Drabkind. He took a card from a black wallet and handed it to Herbie. The boy read:
HENRY JUNIUS DRABKIND
Field Representative
Berkshire Free Camp Fund
“Mr. Drabkind represents one of the worthiest causes I know of, Herbert,” said Mr. Gauss. “The Berkshire Free Camp gives several hundred poor city boys just the same kind of wonderful vacation you're having—well, of course, not as fine as we can give you in Manitou, but for a charity camp, as I say, a wonderful vacation.”
“Thanks in good part to men like you, Mr. Gauss—and to boys like Master Bookbinder,” interposed the wispy Mr. Drabkind.
Mr. Gauss directed a mechanical nod and smile at the visitor.
“Now, Herbie, if you had been here in previous years you'd know that we take a collection every summer for the Free Camp. We who are fortunate enough to have parents who can pay to give us a wonderful vacation at Manitou ought to help the boys who are not so lucky—don't you agree?”
Though not understanding the camp owner's drift, Herbie sensed that it would be better for him not to agree. But there seemed no help for it. He nodded.
“Fine. You see, you don't have to work very hard, Mr. Drabkind, to make a boy of the mental caliber of Herbert Bookbinder understand a simple matter.… Then I take it, Herbie, you approve of what I have done in writing this check.”
He held toward the boy a green slip. Herbie did not take it, but read the writing. The check was made out to the Berkshire Free Camp Fund, in the sum of two hundred dollars. He looked questioningly at Mr. Gauss.
“That sum of two hundred dollars, Herbie, represents the total earnings of your Ride, Yishy Gabelson's Freak Show, Gooch Lefko's House of Mirrors, and—ah—thirty-five dollars and fifty cents out of my own pocket. There were other little booths that took in some money, but they were not important enough, I feel, to be invited to share in this privilege.… Were you about to say something, Herbie?”
The boy had indeed opened his mouth to protest. But he glanced fearfully at Mr. Drabkind, shut it again without a word, and shook his head.
“Ah, then to go on. You understand, Herbie, that the money you earned at the Ride came out of the campers' pockets to begin with. You had the glory of—shall I say—assembling it. And I want to know, will you join Yishy, Gooch, and myself in contributing your collection to Mr. Drabkind's poor boys?”
Torn between anguish at the thought of losing the seventy-five dollars he must have to wipe out the theft, and fear that Mr. Drabkind would recognize his voice and betray him, Herbie was the most miserable boy in those mountains. How could he risk having Mr. Gauss, and thereafter his parents, learn that he had been picked up hitchhiking on Bronx River Parkway on the night of the robbery at the Place? His head buzzed with rage, frustration, and dread.
“Well, Herbie, shall I assume you approve, and hand Mr. Drabkind this check?” said Mr. Gauss, waving the fatal document in the direction of the thin man. “Yishy and Gooch have already gladly, I may say enthusiastically, contributed their entire earnings. It's all up to you now.”
Herbie thought of Yishy's actions, which had been enthusiasm of a sort, but hardly a glad enthusiasm. It was clear to him that Mr. Gauss must have told Yishy that he, Herbie, had already contributed his hundred and thirteen dollars.
What had actually happened was that Yishy, backed into the same corner that Herbie was in now, but not having his situation complicated by terror of Mr. Drabkind, had ventured an objection: “Shucks. I dunno. You mean to say Herbie Bookbinder's gonna give every nickel he made?” To this Mr. Gauss had replied, “I certainly would not ask you to do so if that were not the situation.” Yishy had surrendered with a surly “O.K., then,” and rushed from the office, to encounter Herbie in the way we have seen. Now, to be strict, Mr. Gauss had perhaps lied to Yishy. But he had phrased his answer carefully, and if caught in the apparent discrepancy, would have at once explained that his reply meant that he intended to ask Herbie to give all his money, just as he was asking Yishy.
The gray world of half truth, in which our gray Mr. Gausses spend their gray hours, fumbling for little gray advantages! Mr. Gauss's purpose in this complicated maneuver was simply to save himself about fifteen dollars, and at the same time gain a little prestige. The collection for the Free Camp in previous years had always netted about the same amount—fifty dollars—to which Mr. Gauss added fifty ou
t of the camp treasury to make the round sum of a hundred. This equaled the regular contribution of Penobscot and other institutions of the size of Manitou. When Mr. Gauss had collected the cigar boxes the previous evening, he had fully intended to return the money to the boys. But next morning the Tempter brought Mr. Drabkind. It occurred to the camp owner, upon a rapid mental calculation, that he could double the Manitou contribution and lessen the usual cost to himself by the simple device of inviting the three most successful Mardi Gras enterprises to donate their earnings. He justified the act to himself and to Uncle Sandy by pointing out that the money was not “really” Herbie's, Yishy's, or Gooch's, but had come out of the payments of the campers. In any case (he declared in explaining the scheme to the head counselor) the boys would be given a free choice of contributing or declining to do so, therefore no objection could possibly be made. Uncle Sandy, a weary workhorse who knew his master well, bent a little lower under the burden of the summer and said nothing. He was counting the hours to his release. Only forty-eight remained.
And so Herbie was offered the free choice of contributing or not. With the check written out and hovering a few inches from the charity collector's hand, with two grown men cajoling him and prodding him, he had the choice of consenting to something practically done, or of trying to reverse events at the last instant, thus bringing on himself the odium of being uncharitable. There was the added pressure, though Mr. Gauss cannot be blamed therefor, of possible recognition by Mr. Drabkind at any moment. Wonderful to relate, the boy in these circumstances still managed to produce an ounce of resistance. He tried to disguise his voice by pitching it very high, and almost neighed, “Do I have to give all of it?”
“Pardon me?” said Mr. Gauss.
Herbie repeated, “Do I have to give all of it?” still sounding more like Clever Sam than himself. Mr. Drabkind looked amazed at the sound, but there was no light of remembrance in his expression, which was all that mattered to the boy.
“Why, no, Herbert, of course you don't,” said Mr. Gauss, also puzzled by the queer tones, but attributing them to nervousness. “Let me be perfectly clear on that point. You don't have to give one single solitary penny, Herbert. I know you received your materials for nothing through Elmer Bean's friend, otherwise I would of course suggest deducting about seventy-five dollars for expenses. But you may have all your money back if you wish.” He held the check pinched between thumbs and forefingers as though to tear it down the middle. “Say the word, and I'll send Mr. Drabkind away without this check. Say the word, and I'll give Gooch and Yishy their money back, too, and simply say, ‘Herbie Bookbinder has different ideas about charity than the rest of us.’ Say the word, Herbie, and the Free Camp gets not one cent of yours. It's all up to you, as I have said before. Shall I tear the check up or shall I hand it to Mr. Drabkind?”
Herbie, loaded down with his own lies, weakened by his fears of the gaunt man who had come back from his buried night of crime to haunt him, pressed without mercy by Mr. Gauss, caved in. He shrugged and nodded his head. At once the camp owner put the check in the hand of the charity collector.
“Thank you, Herbert!” he exclaimed. “You're the sort of young man I've always thought you were.”
“And let me thank you, Master Bookbinder,” shrilled Mr. Drabkind, folding the check carefully into his black wallet, “in the name of two hundred poor boys who will benefit by your—”
But Herbie was tottering out through the doorway. He bore a face of such utter tragedy that the camp owner felt an unfamiliar momentary sensation in his heart: doubt of his own rectitude.
“Herbie, come back here!” he called. “You shouldn't go like that.” The boy tramped down the steps and did not turn back.
“Well, thank you once more, Mr. Gauss, for an extraordinarily generous contribution, and good-by,” said Mr. Drabkind hurriedly. “Admirable boy, that Master Bookbinder. Admirable camp you run, indeed, Mr. Gauss. No, please don't trouble to see me out; my car's only a few feet from the house. Good-by, good-by.” In his haste, jamming his hat on his head and putting his wallet in his pocket, the willowy charity collector omitted to shake the camp owner's hand and took a quick departure.
When Herbie arrived back at Uncle Sandy's tent, it was five minutes to ten. Cliff was already there, dressed in the head counselor's famous old blue sweater and gray baseball cap, holding his megaphone and wearing the whistle, emblem of boys' camp sovereignty, on a thong around his neck. Sandy was earnestly giving him a multitude of last-minute suggestions as he struggled into a gray and green jersey of Cliff's that was laughably small on him. Herbie stood around feeling dull and useless.
“How 'bout me, Uncle Sandy?” he said at last.
“Why, you really have nothing to do, Herb, except be boss—just like the Skipper. Cliff does all the work,” said the head counselor with a grin at his own wit. He took a pair of large green sun glasses and Mr. Gauss's feather headdress from the shelf. “Put these on. Then just walk around, looking important. All right, Cliff, it's ten o'clock. Take over.”
The head counselor and his successor went outside. Herbie threw aside his costume and lay on the cot face upward. The sun fell in a flecked orange square on the canvas above his eyes. The air was hot in the tent. He heard the familiar three blasts of the whistle that summoned the bunks into two lines along Company Street, the running of feet on gravel, the slamming of many doors, and a thousand squeals and yelps of mirth as the campers saw the counselors in their silly boys' clothes. The entire joke seemed flat and stale to the Skipper-for-a-Day. He put his hand to his eyes and involuntarily moaned. He was a wretch who had stolen money from his own father, and could never pay it back.
“All right, fellows!” he heard Cliff shout. “Now I want you to show some real camp spirit when you greet Uncle Gus—I mean the Skipper. Here he comes now—our own dear Skipper.”
Herbie rose heavily and dashed the tears from his face. He donned the glasses and the feather headdress as he walked to the entrance of the tent. He contorted his body so that he jutted to a remarkable extent before and behind. Then he stepped out into the sunshine, and waddled majestically down Company Street, holding up the corners of his mouth in a fixed smile with two forefingers, and pointing his feet outward like a duck's.
The campers screamed and danced, and so did the counselors. Several of them fell to the ground and rolled around, giggling. Uncle Sandy, standing among the boys of Bunk Thirteen, maintained a straight face for perhaps ten seconds, then burst out in helpless bellow after bellow which touched off a perfect riot of hilarity. Herbie waggled his behind impassively as he strolled between the lines, nodding his head here and there. When he reached the end of the street he vanished in the direction of the lake, leaving the camp still in disorderly convulsions of mirth.
He was not seen again that merry morning, for he spent it lying on a flat rock near the shore, hidden by underbrush. A lonesome, quiet situation, you might say, yet he had plenty of company. Misery sat at the fat boy's right hand, and Shame at the left; and they made the morning mighty lively for Herbie between them.
TWENTY-FOUR
Lennie and Mr. Gauss Take Falls
So the day of Herbie's greatest success turned into the bitterest of his young life, because the fruit of triumph had a rotten core. Probably he should have hardened his heart and enjoyed himself, but he could not. Remorse ate him. To a better judge of crime—let us say, a policeman—this remorse might have seemed some days late in setting about its gnawing, but to Herbie his offense had been no offense until Mr. Gauss deprived him of the means to repay with interest the “borrowed” money.
Now, here the boy showed himself of pretty good mettle, for he wasted little breath blaming the camp owner, but took the disaster on his own conscience. A thousand weaklings, of either sex and all ages, will commit a misdeed which they plan to make up for later. Then if someone happens to prevent them from covering, they will throw all the blame for the original offense on that someone, and hold themselves virtuou
s. If you have not seen this happen yet, watch the feeble ones around you today and tomorrow. Herbie digested the thought of his own wickedness all during Campers' Day, and had a colicky time of it, and never sought the relief of saying “It's really Gauss's fault.”
Herbie and Cliff were eating lunch in grandeur at the head counselor's table. They still wore their costumes. Herbie's many-colored feather headdress provided a gay touch to the bleak dining hall.
“What are we gonna do during rest hour?” said Herbie to his cousin.
“Don't we have to stay in our bunks, same as always?” said Cliff.
“What, and us the bosses of the camp? Cliff, you don't use your head sometimes.”
The boys both gloated over the prospect of not being compelled to spend the hour after lunch on their cots in silence with shoes and stockings off.
“Hey, know what, Herb?” Cliff suddenly smiled. “Let's go up the hill an' say good-by to Elmer Bean an' Clever Sam. We won't hardly get to see 'em tomorrow, everything'll be so rushed goin' to the train.”
“Good,” said Herbie. “Why don't we go right now? I ain't hungry.”
A tumult of whistles, jeers, and flirtatious calls distracted them. Lennie, his face red, was sidling into the dining room in his white nurse's cap and gown. Baseball sneakers and stockings completed his costume and added to its foolishness. He was looking here and there, trying to smile and flinging an occasional answer to the jibes.
Herbie said, “Where the heck has he been, comin' in so late?”
“Aw, the poor guy's been hidin'. He probably didn't even hear the bugle,” said Cliff.
Lennie sat at the table of Bunk Thirteen, and the din ebbed. In his case the exchange of identity was incomplete. The camp nurse was not required to become a boy. But dressing up a well-known athlete in feminine garb was too rich a comic idea to be sacrificed for a point of logic, and the mock nurse was always a feature of the day. Lennie was an angry, slow-witted butt, therefore an exceptionally good one. After being heavily badgered for an hour he had disappeared, not to be seen until lunch time.