CHAPTER XI
NED GETS A LETTER
For an instant silence followed the startling announcement, silence inwhich the wind seemed to join, for there came a lull in the gale. Then,as the gale resumed its furious blowing, the audience became fear-crazedand a mad rush ensued.
Women and girls were screaming at the tops of their voices. Men wereshouting to one another to know what had happened. Boys were dartinghere and there seeking a means of escape from what they believed wouldprove a death-trap. The noise of bricks clattering to the floor could beheard and the school-house seemed, at least to the excited imaginationsof some, to be on the point of toppling down.
The four chums, who were seated near each other, had jumped up at thefirst crash. Bart reached over to grab Alice and prevent, if possible,her being trampled under foot. Fenn had Jennie by the arm. Then thelight from the moving picture machine, which had served to dispel thegloom, went out. The maddened rush became worse.
"Quick!" cried Frank. "Let's give the school yell! Maybe it will quietthe rush until we can turn on the lights! There's a switch on the wallhere! Now, fellows altogether!"
His three chums heard him as if in a dream, but they comprehended.
"One, two, three!" cried Frank.
Then, above the noise of the gale, above the shrieks of the women andgirls, above the hoarse calls of frightened men, arose the yell, givenwith all the power of the lungs of the four boys:
"Ravabava--Havabava--Hick! Hick! He! Dabavaba--Nabahaba--Snick! Snack! Snee! Why do we thus loudly yell? 'Tis for our school: old Darewell!"
Never had the call been given under such circumstances. Never had itsounded more strangely. Never had it been more welcome.
For an instant there was a silence following the yell. It had momentarilydrowned the cries from the panic-stricken ones. Before there was a chancefor a continuance of the panic that had been halted, if only for aninstant, Bart cried:
"There's no danger. Wait until the lights are turned on!"
In another moment Frank had reached the switch and the place wasbrilliant with the gleam from scores of incandescent lamps. The rushhad been stopped, for, as the crowd looked about, they saw there was noimmediate danger.
In one corner of the auditorium there was a gaping hole in the roof,where the top part of the tower had crashed through. The floor in thatsection was covered with bricks and mortar, and several seats werecrushed, but the audience had crowded up front and no one was hurt.
A moment later some of those in charge of the entertainment hurried tothe platform and made an announcement.
A hasty investigation showed, it was said, that the tower had fallenmostly outward instead of toward the school, which accounted for only asmall part of it hitting the roof. Had the entire pile of masonrytoppled over on the auditorium there might have been a great loss oflife. As it was the main school was in no danger, but, for fear thestructure might have been weakened it was decided best to dismiss theaudience at once.
"That wind must be pretty strong," observed Bart as he and his chums,with Alice, Jennie, and some of the other girls, got outside.
"Oh! It certainly is!" cried Jennie as she stepped from the doorway."I'm being blown away."
The wind had caught her long cloak and whipped it up around hershoulders so that it acted like a sail. Jennie was being fairly carriedalong the street.
"There's your chance, Fenn!" cried Frank. "Rescue a maiden in distress."
Fenn did not stop to reply to his tormenter but caught Jennie by the armand helped her to straighten her garment.
"Noble youth!" exclaimed Bart. "You shall be suitably rewarded."
They all laughed, rather hysterically, it is true, at the nonsense talk,but it was a relief to their over-strained nerves for the shock of theaccident had been a severe one.
They passed along and, as they got beyond the shelter of the school thefull force of the wind was felt. It was almost a hurricane, and it wasall they could do to walk along.
"No wonder it blew the tower down," observed Ned. "Let's take a look atthe wreck."
They walked around to the other side of the school. There, prone on theground, though but a confused mass of bricks and mortar, was what hadbeen the tower.
"There's the clock!" exclaimed Frank, as he saw the dial of thetimepiece some distance from the big mass of masonry. "See, it stoppedjust at ten."
There were four dials to the clock, one for each side of the tower. Thedials were of sheet iron with big gilt hands which were workedsimultaneously by the one set of wheels and springs. This dial, to whichFrank called attention, had fallen from its place, with the hands stillattached to it, the rods to which they were fastened, and which servedto turn them, having been cut off close to the back of the face.
"I'm going to take it home for a souvenir," Frank said. "If they want itback they can have it."
He picked up the dial, which was painted white with black numerals onit. As he did so he uttered an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Ned.
"It's all mud, or something black," Frank replied. "I've got it all overmy hands."
"Better let it alone," advised Bart. "The wind will blow it away, andyou with it, if you try to carry it."
"I guess I can manage," Frank responded, and though the gale did get agood purchase on the flat surface of the dial which was two feet indiameter, Frank clung to it and took it home with him.
"See you to-morrow!" called Fenn to Frank, as the latter turned off on astreet that led to his uncle's house. The others went in the oppositedirection.
"We'll come and take a look at the ruins by daylight," suggested Frank."Good-night."
"Good-night," called his chums, and the girls.
"Queer sort of a relic he's got," observed Bart.
"It's just like him," Ned rejoined. "Frank's a queer chap anyhow."
"I think he's nice," remarked Alice.
"So do I," chimed in Jennie.
"Who said he wasn't?" demanded Bart. "Can't a fellow make a remark abouthis chum without being found fault with?"
"I don't think it's nice to say he's queer," Alice said.
"Why he admits it himself," her brother put in. "He doesn't care what wesay about him. We call him queer about twice a week; don't we fellows."
"Sure," replied Ned, coming to his chum's support.
"Well, never mind," Alice rejoined. "Let's hurry home or we'll be blowninto the next county."
It was such a cold blustery night, with the wind seeming to increase inviolence rather than diminish, that all were glad when they reachedtheir houses.
"It's a pretty fierce gale," remarked Mr. Keene, when his son anddaughter had told him what had happened, "but I wouldn't think it wasstrong enough to blow the tower down. Must have been weak somewhere."
"The janitor said some of the chimneys needed new mortar in the cracks,and maybe the tower did also," Bart said.
"I suppose the school authorities will investigate and see what causedit to fall," his father went on. "It was a dangerous thing to let such aweak tower stay up."
Bart stopped at Ned's house the next morning to call for him, and thenthey intended to get Frank and Fenn to go together and take a look atthe tower.
"Come on in," Ned invited his chum at the door. "I've got a letter."
"Who from?"
"My aunt, Mrs. Paul Kenfield, of New York. She wants me to come down fora week or two. You know, she wrote me some time ago inviting me fornext summer. Now she says she wants me to come right away, and to bringyou three fellows. I wrote her, after I got the first invitation thatI'd like to take my chums with me."
"That's very kind of you," replied Bart. "I guess I can go. When are yougoing to start?"
"Monday."
"That will give you a week there. I don't believe I could get ready sosoon. I've got to help dad Monday."
"Then you and the other boys could come afterward. Say on Tuesday orWednesday," suggested Ned.
"I'll thin
k about it," his chum replied. "But come on, let's go take alook at the fallen tower."