The Eternal Boy: Being the Story of the Prodigious HickeyJohnson, Owen
General
The Eternal Boy: Being the Story of the Prodigious Hickey
Johnson, Owen
Preparatory schools -- Fiction
Baldwin did not answer. He stood meditatively gazing out the window.
From the Dickinson and the Kennedy magic lanterns were flashing
campaign slogans on white sheets suspended at opposite houses. The
uproar of cat-calls and hoots that accompanied the exhibitions left
small reason to hope that they were couched in that clear, reasoning
style which would uplift future American politics.
As he looked, from the Upper House the indignant and now thoroughly
aroused fourth form started to parade with torch-lights and
transparencies. Presently the winding procession, clothed in
super-imposed night shirts, arrived with hideous clamour. Dangling from
a pole were two grotesque figures stuffed with straw and decked with
aprons; overhead was the inscription, "Kings of the Goo-Goos," and one
was labelled Hickey and one was labelled Brother. Opposite his window
they halted and chanted in soft unison:
Hush, hush, tread softly,
Hush, hush, make no noise,
Baldwin is the King of the Goo-Goos,
Let him sleep,
Let him sleep.
Shouted: LET HIM SLEEP!!!
Then the transparencies succeeded one another, bobbing over the rolling
current of indignant seniors.
BACK TO THE KINDERGARTEN!
WE WANT NO BROTHERLY LOVE!
GOOD-BYE, BALDWIN! GOOD-BYE!
Baldwin drew down the shade and stepped from the window. He heard a
familiar step in the corridor, and quickly locked the door. Baronson
knocked; then he knocked again; after which he moved away, chuckling.
* * * * *
When the fourth form procession arrived on its tour around the circle
the Dickinsonians were prepared to welcome it. Crazy Opdyke, head of
the literary bureau, stood by the lantern directing the proclamations
to be flashed on the sheet that hung from the opposite house.
Hickey and Macnooder posted the orators at strategic windows, supplying
them with compressed arguments in the form of eggs and soft apples.
"All ready?" said Opdyke as Hickey returned, chuckling.
"Ready and willing," said Hickey.
"Here they come," said the Big Man.
"Is the Kennedy and the Woodhull with them?" asked Hickey.
"Sure, they're trailing on behind," said Turkey.
A yell of defiance burst from the head of the procession as it reached
the headquarters of the enemy.
"Start the literature," said Crazy.
Egghead, at the lantern, slipped in the first slides, flashing them on
the opposite sheet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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