The Dozen from Lakerim | Page 2

a more peaceful manner.
The trouble was this: Some of you who are up on the important works of history may have heard how these twelve youth of the High School at Lakerim organized themselves into an athletic club that won many victories, and how they begged, borrowed, and earned enough money to build themselves a club-house after a year of hard work and harder play.
Well, now, after they had gone to all this trouble and all this expense, and had enjoyed the fruits of their labors barely a year, lo and behold, one third of the Dozen were planning to desert the club, leave the town, and take their good muscles to another town, where there was an academy! The worst of it was that this academy was the very one that had worked hardest to keep the Lakerim Athletic Club from being admitted into the league known as the Tri-State Interscholastic.
And now that the Lakerim Club had forced its way into the League, and had won the pennant the very first year, it seemed hard that some of the most valuable of the Lakerimmers should even consider joining forces with a rival. The president of the club himself was one of the deserters; and the rest of the Dozen grew very bitter, and the arguments often reached a point where it needed only one word more to bring on a scrimmage--a scrimmage that would make a lively football game seem tame by comparison.
And now the president, or "Tug," as he was always called, had been baited long enough. He rose to his feet and proceeded to deliver an oration with all the fervor of a Fourth-of-July orator making the eagle scream.
"I want you fellows to understand once for all," he cried, "that no one loves the Lakerim Athletic Club more than I do, or is more patriotic toward it. But now that I have graduated from the High School, I can't consider that I know everything that is to be known. There are one or two things to learn yet, and I intend to go to a preparatory school, and then through college; and the best thing you follows can do is to make your plans to do the same thing. Well, now, seeing that my mind is made up to go to college, and seeing that I've got to go to some preparatory school, and seeing there is no preparatory school in Lakerim, and seeing that I have therefore got to go to some other town, and seeing that at Kingston there is a fine preparatory school, and seeing that I want to have some sort of a show in athletics, and seeing that the Athletic Association of the Kingston Academy has been kind enough to specially invite three of us fellows to go there--why, seeing all this, I don't see that there is any kick coming to you fellows if we three fellows take advantage of our opportunities like sensible people; and the best advice I can give you is to make up your minds, and make up your fathers' and mothers' minds, to come along to Kingston Academy with us. Then there won't be any talk about our being traitors to the Dozen, for we'll just pick the Dozen up bodily and carry it over to Kingston! The new members we've elected can take care of the club and the club-house."
Tug sat down amid a silence that was more complimentary than the wildest applause; for he had done what few orators do: he had set his audience to thinking. Only one of the Twelve had a remark to make for some time, and that was a small-framed, big-spectacled gnome called "History." He leaned over and said to his elbow-companion, "Bobbles":
"Tug is a regular Demoskenes!"
"Who's Demoskenes?" whispered Bobbles.
"Why, don't you remember him?" said History, proudly. "He was the fellow that used to fill his mouth full of pebbles before he talked."
"I'll bet he would have choked on some of your big words, though, History," growled a little fellow called "Jumbo."
But the man at his side, known to fame as "Punk," broke in with a crushing:
"Aw, let up on that old Dutchman of a Demoskenes, and let's talk business."
So they all got their heads together again and discussed their affairs with the solemnity due to their importance. They talked till the janitor went round lighting up the club-house, which reminded them that they were keeping dinner waiting at their various homes. Then they strolled along home. They met again and again; for the fate of the club was a serious matter to them, and the fate of the Dozen was a still more serious matter, because the Dozen had existed before the club or the club-house, and their hearts ached at the mere thought of breaking up the