Frank Merriwell on the Road; Or, The All-Star Combination — Key Ideas to Explore

“Hee-haw! hee-haw!” brayed the donkey, joyously whisking its heels in the air.

“Hear dot tonkey laugh!” shouted the Dutch boy.

The dogs set up a wild baying, and there was no end of commotion on the street along which the parade had been making its way toward the Thalia Theater. Among the spectators, some of the men laughed, while many of the women screamed and made a scramble to get out of the way of the terrible “bloodhounds.”

The pursuing lad waved his short arms wildly in the air, his face flushed with excitement, his eyes bulging from his head.

The donkey made for a small fruit and cigar store, seeming bent on rushing straight through the large window where the goods were temptingly displayed.

A young man standing near the store placed himself squarely in the path of the little animal, and skillfully caught the dangling halter by which the creature had been led.

The donkey halted abruptly, while the dogs came up and leaped around it, still baying.

Puffing like a pony engine, the Dutch boy dashed up and grasped the donkey’s tail with both hands, shouting:

“Vot der madder vos mit you, ain’d id? I can’t run avay you from uf you vant me to! Now, don’d try any uf my tricks on yourseluf, for uf you do, I vill——Wow!”

Up flew the donkey’s heels once more, and the little beast lifted the fat lad and sent him whirling over in the air.

The creature had seemed to kick with the force of a pile driver, and he fairly flung the Dutch boy into the air.

Down came the lad, plunging headfirst into a garbage barrel that had been standing on the curb, awaiting the arrival of the garbage gatherers.

Into the barrel plunged the boy. Fortunately the barrel was not quite half filled. Down he went till he stuck fast, his fat legs kicking wildly in the air.

The youth who had stopped the donkey now released the animal and started to extricate the boy from the barrel.

A tall, awkward youth, who had been with the parade, forming one of the band, rushed up, brass horn in hand.

“Darn my pertaturs!” he shouted, dropping the instrument. “That ’air donkey will be the death of that feller yit!”

Then he made a grab at the legs of the lad in the barrel and received a kick behind the ear that knocked him over in a twinkling. He struck in a sitting position on the ground, and there he remained, rubbing his head and looking dazed.

The youth who had stopped the donkey succeeded in getting hold of the legs of the unlucky fellow in the barrel, and dragged him out, after upsetting the barrel.

By this time everybody on the street was roaring with laughter, and the donkey joined in with a ridiculous “hee-haw.”

“There, my friend,” said the rescuer, as he released the lad he had extracted from the barrel, “you are all right now.”

The Dutch boy sat up beside his friend who had started to pull him out, and a most wretched spectacle he presented.

“Oxcuse me!” he exclaimed, clawing dirt out of his eyes. “I don’t like dot kindt uf peesness!”

“Waal, what in thutteration did yeou want to kick the head offen me for when I tried to pull yeou aout?” snapped the other lad, glaring at him. “Yeou made me see mor’n four bushels of stars, an’ there’s many’s four hundrud an’ seventeen chime bells a ding-dongin’ in my head naow.”

“Who id vos kicked my headt off you?” spluttered the Dutch boy. “You nefer touched me. Vot der madder vos, anyhow?”

The youth who had extracted the Dutch lad from the barrel laughingly said:

“I see you fellows are up to your old tricks. You are quarreling, as usual.”

“Hey?” cried the tall lad.

“Vot?” squawked the Dutch boy.

“How are you, Ephraim?” laughed the rescuer.

“Jeewhillikins!” yelled the tall youth, jumping to his feet, his face fairly beaming. “Jee-roo-sa-lum! Yeou kin beat my brains out with a feather duster ef it ain’t Frank Merriwell!”

“Shimminy Gristmas!” howled the Dutch boy, wildly scrambling up. “I hope I may nefer see your eyes oudt uf again uf dot ain’t Frank Merriwell!”

“Right,” nodded the rescuer. “I am Frank Merriwell, just as sure as you are Ephraim Gallup and Hans Dunnerwurst.”

“Whoop!” roared Ephraim.

“Wa-ow!” bellowed Hans.

Then they made a rush at the handsome fellow, who had given his name as Frank Merriwell, flung their arms about him, and literally danced as they hugged him.

The spectators looked on in astonishment.

“Oh, great jumpin’ grasshoppers!” shouted the Yankee lad. “Ain’t this the gol dingdest s’prise party I ever struck!”

“I peen so asdonished I vos afraidt you vill die heardt vailure uf britty queek alretty!” gurgled the delighted Dutch lad.

“Break away!” laughed Frank. “You’ll have me off my pins if you keep this up.”

“Gol darned ef I ever saw anybody whut could git yeou offen your pins yit,” declared Ephraim Gallup.

“Yaw, dot vos righdt,” put in Hans. “Nopody peen aple got your pins off you a hurry in.”

“Oh, Jimminy!” squealed the Vermonter. “This is too good to be true!”

“Yaw!” agreed the Dutch boy; “dot vos shust righdt! Id peen too true to peen goot!”

“Haow in thunder is it we find yeou here?” asked the overjoyed Yankee.

“Dot vos vot you’d like to know,” declared Hans. “How id vos you happened to foundt us here?”

“Well, I’d like to know how you two happen to be here,” said Merriwell. “Have you turned showmen?”

“We peen dwo uf der sdars der ‘All-Star Gombination’ in.”

“We’re hot stuff, b’gosh!”

“Efy blays der paratone horns.”

“An’ Hans plays the donkey when the donkey gets sick and can’t come on.”

“Id vos a greadt shnap. We ged our poard vor our glothes.”

“An’ we’re havin’ a high old time travelin’ around over the kentry.”

“Well,” smiled Frank, as they clung to his hands, “I never dreamed of seeing you chaps traveling with a show.”

“We nefer knew vot you had pecome uf since der college left you.”

“An’ we was talkin’ abaout yeou last night.”

“Yaw. We said how you would enjoy yourseluf if dese show vos dravelin’ aroundt mit you.”

“There’s a heap of fun in it, Frank. Whillikins! yeou’d oughter be with us.”

“You come to der theater und let der show seen you to-night,” invited Hans.

“That’s it!” cried Ephraim. “Won’t you do it?”

“Oh, I think so,” smiled Merry. “But I want to see you chaps before that. Have you taken dinner?”

“Then take dinner with me, and we will have a jolly time talking over old times. Will you do it?”

“You pet my life!” shouted the Dutch boy.

“By gum, we will!” vociferated Ephraim. “Jest yeou come up to the theater, an’ we’ll be reddy to go with yeou inside of twenty minutes. Come on.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

One of the other members of the company had secured the donkey and dogs. The little donkey was turned over to Hans again, with a warning not to let the creature get away. Ephraim recovered his horn and took his place in the band. The procession formed, the band struck up vigorously, minus the bass drum, and the “All-Star Combination” moved along the street as if nothing had happened.

In fact, this little affair of the escaping donkey and dogs was regarded as an incident that would serve to help advertise the show, and that was exactly what satisfied and pleased Barnaby Haley, owner and manager of the organization.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FRANK AND HIS FRIENDS.

The band played two pieces in front of the Thalia Theater. The man who was handling the “fierce and untamed bloodhounds” skillfully succeeded in getting all three of them into a fight, appearing nearly frightened to death over it. The donkey walked into the midst of the dogs and separated them by taking the aggressor in his teeth and pulling him away, and Barnaby Haley was well satisfied with the advertising he would receive on account of all this.

Frank, looking on, understood that the same things happened in nearly every town visited by the company.

The donkey was to be taken into the theater by the stage entrance, but Hans found a chance to say to Frank:

“Shust vait here till dot theater comes oudt uf me. I vill peen righdt pack a minute in.”

Ephraim induced one of the musicians to take charge of his horn, and remained with Frank.

Hans soon reappeared.

“Now shust you took dot tinner to me,” invited the Dutch lad. “I pelief a square meal can eadt me a minute in.”

“Eat!” cried the Vermont lad. “Why, that Dutch sausage can eat any gol darn time an’ all the gol darn time! Never see northing like him in all my born days.”

“Oh, shust shut yourseluf ub!” cried Hans, quickly. “Your mouth dalks too much mit you. You don’d peen no ganary pird to eadt. You vos aple to ged der oudtside uf a whole lot.”

“Waal, b’gosh! these air howtels we stop at some of um have pritty blamed poor grub,” confessed the Yankee youth. “Their beefsteak is made of luther, an’ their bread might be bought up by ther loaf an’ used fer pavin’-stuns on the streets.”

“Well, I think I’ll be able to give you something to eat that you can digest, but you mustn’t expect too much.”

“We kin eat any old thing with you, Frank,” declared Ephraim. “Why, when we was campin’ aout at Fardale last summer we hed appetites like hosses, an’ it didn’t make no diffrunce whut there was to eat, we jest et it.”

“Yaw,” nodded Hans; “und some uf der things vot vasn’t to eadt we shust eated all der same.”

“But naow we want yeou to tell us haow it happens yeou are here, Frank,” urged Ephraim, as they walked along together.

Frank, who had formerly been a schoolmate of the boys at Fardale Academy, after which he had gone to Yale, briefly explained that he had been forced to leave college on account of the loss of his fortune, and was now making his own way in the world. The boys knew he had left college, but they had not heard he was working on a railroad. Both were astonished.

“Darn my turnups!” cried Ephraim.

“Shimminy Gristmas!” gurgled Hans.

“Whut yeou been doin’ on the railroad?”

“Running an engine,” explained Merry.

“Come off!” palpitated Ephraim.

“I have come off,” smiled Frank. “I am out of a job now.”

“Railroad made a reduction of wages, there was a strike, big fight over it, rival road scooped all the business, my road went to pieces.”

“The rival road has scooped the road I worked on—absorbed it. A lot of old engineers have taken the places of the men who used to run on the Blue Mountain road. I’ve been trying for a show, but I’m so young they don’t want to give me anything. Looks like I’d have to get out of here and strike for something somewhere else.”

“Waal, that’s too darn bad!” drawled Ephraim, sympathetically. “But haow’d you ever git to be ingineer, anyhaow?”

“Worked my way up. Began as engine-wiper in the roundhouse, got to be fireman, then engineer. Right there came the trouble, and now I’m on the rocks.”

The eyes of the Vermonter glistened.

“If the hanged old railroad hadn’t went up the spaout, you’d bin runnin’ that in a year!” he cried.

“Yeou’re a hummer!” declared Ephraim. “Yeou’ve got lots of git there in ye, an’ that’s whut does the trick. But I swan to man, it must have seemed tough to yeou to have to git right aout an’ work like a Trojan.”

“Yaw,” put in the Dutch boy. “Vork nefer had nottinks to done mit you pefore dot.”

“I don’t see haow yeou brought yerself to it.”

Frank looked grave and not exactly pleased.

“I have always expected to work when the time came,” he asserted. “I hope you didn’t suppose for a moment that I was going to spend my life in idleness?”

“Oh, no, no!” the Vermonter hastily cried; “but yeou wan’t reddy. Yeou was in college an’ havin’ a slappin’ good time. It was mighty rough to have ter break right off from that all to once an’ git out an’ dig fer a livin’.”

“Well,” said Merry, slowly, “I will admit that it was not pleasant at first; but I made up my mind that it was to be done, and I went at it heartily. After a time, I came to enjoy it as I never enjoyed anything before.”

“Whut! Yeou don’t mean to say yeou liked it better than playin’ baseball?”

“Better than anything. Work is the greatest sport in the world, for it is a game at which one plays to win the prize of his life. The winning of all other games are tame in comparison with this. It draws out the best qualities in a man, it tests him as nothing else can. Oh, yes, work is the champion sport, and success is the prize for which all earnest workers strive. The man who shirks and fears honest work can never succeed in the world. Determined men will push him aside, and he will be with the losers at the end of the great game.”

Ephraim Gallup clapped Frank on the shoulder familiarly.

“Yeou are yerself, b’gosh!” he cried. “I kin see that yeou are soberer an’ stiddyer, but yeou are Frank Merriwell jest the same. Yeou was alwus sayin’ things like that that no other feller ever thought to say. There ain’t no danger but yeou’ll be with the winner in this game yeou’re talkin’ abaout.”

“Uf der vinners don’d peen mit him they vill peen der wrong side on,” asserted Hans.

“Come in here,” he said, “and I will introduce you to a particular friend.”

He led them into the small fruit and cigar store in front of which he had been standing when the donkey ran away from Hans.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frank saluted the keeper of the store, who proved to be a bright-faced, lame boy.

“Jack,” said Merry, “did you ever hear me speak of Ephraim Gallup?”

“Of course I have!” exclaimed the boy.

“And Hans Dunnerwurst?”

“Well, here they are.”

Jack Norton stared at Frank’s two companions.

“These are the friends of whom I have told you; and this, fellows, is Jack Norton, a hustling young business man of this city. Some day he’ll be one of the greatest retail merchants in the place.”

“I’m gol darned glad to see ye!” declared the Vermonter, striding up and grasping the lame lad’s hand. “Anybody Frank Merriwell trains with is all right, an’ I’m ready to hitch hosses with ’um.”

He wrung the young shopkeeper’s hand heartily.

“Yaw,” nodded Hans, waddling up. “You vos plamed clad to seen us, Shack. Shust catch me holdt your handt uf. How you vos alretty yet?”

“Frank has told me about you,” said Jack, “but I never expected to see you.”

“Waal, we’re travelin’ araound with the greatest show on earth.”

“Not by a long shot! Barnum’s ain’t in it. Haley’s ‘All-Star Combination an’ Mammoth Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company’ knocks ’em all aout.”

“Dot’s vot der madder vos,” agreed Hans. “Dot gompany has dwo ‘Topsys,’ dwo ‘Marks,’ dwo ‘Gumption Cutes’——”

“An’ two jackasses,” grinned the Yankee youth. “One of them leads the other every day in the street parade.”

“Hey?” exclaimed the Dutch youth. “You don’d mean——Say, you vill lick me a minute in uf I say dot again!”

He squared off in a fighting attitude, seeming ready to go at Ephraim.

“There, there!” laughed Frank. “Up to your old tricks, I see. Why, I believe you two fought a duel once at Fardale.”

“We did, b’jee!” nodded Ephraim.

“Mit eggs,” spoke Hans.

“Ripe aigs, at that.”

“Dose eggs couldt smell me vor a veek.”

“Yaw; id peen a put ub shob us onto.”

“An’ Frank Merriwell was the feller whut put it up.”

“Yaw. I peliefed I vos all ofer plood mit.”

“But I nefer knewed pefore dot plood vos so pad to smell uf anybody like dot.”

“We never got even with him fer that sell, Hans.”

“Well, we’ll eat enough to-day to square the account. He’ll think he’s run up ag’inst a cyclone.”

“Yaw, we vill done dot, Efy. You haf a greadt headt on me, ain’d id!”

“Well, if I can settle the score that way, I won’t kick,” said Merry. “Is Nellie at home, Jack?”

“Yes, she went home to get dinner. You know one of us has to stay here and keep the shop open. We take turns getting dinner. She will have it all ready when you get there, but she may not have enough, for she won’t know anyone is coming with you.”

“I’ll fix that all right,” said Frank. “There is a restaurant on the corner, and I can get all kinds of stuff there to take out.”

“Can’t yeou shut up to-day an’ come with us, Mister Norton?” asked Ephraim.

“Yaw,” put in Hans, “shust haf der shop shut you up und come along us mit.”

“I’d like to do it,” said the lame lad, “but it might hurt my business, and I believe in looking after one’s business before anything else. Frank has taught me that.”

“He’s alwus teachin’ somebody somethin’,” muttered the Vermonter.

Slam!—open flew the door. Bounce!—in popped a lively boy in a neat suit of clothes.

“Hello, Frank!” he cried. “Goin’ by w’en I seen yer t’rough der window, an’ I t’ought I’d stop an’ speak.”

It was Bob, the newsboy, whom Frank had befriended in his railroad days.

“Hello, Bob!” exclaimed Merry. “On the jump, as usual. How do you like your new position in the broker’s office?”

“Great!” was the instant answer. “Der boss treats me fine, an’ he says w’en I’ve been ter night school long ernough ter have der proper eddycashun, he’ll put me onter der turns of der business. Oh, I’ll be a broker meself some day, see if I don’t.”

Frank introduced Bob to Ephraim and Hans.

“Say, dis is great!” cried the former newsboy. “I’ve heard Frank tell heaps of t’ings about youse chaps.”

He seemed genuinely delighted over the meeting.

“I invited them to dinner,” said Merry. “We wanted Jack to come along, but he can’t close up.”

“How long will it take?”

“Oh, he might be back in three-quarters of an hour.”

“If he kin do it in dat time, I’ll stay right here an’ run dis joint. I kin git back on time den. Go ahead, Jack.”

“Oh, but you are out for your own dinner,” protested the lame boy. “It’s too much to expect you to do all that for me.”

“Not by a blame sight! Youse folks didn’t do a t’ing fer me w’en I was down on me luck, did yer? No, not a t’ing but take me in an’ keep me till I could git somewhere. Now, don’t make any talk about dis t’ing, but jest you skip right along with der odders. Only be sure ter git back in time fer me ter git ter der office.”

Bob settled it that way, and Jack was carried off with Frank and his two friends.

On the way home, Merry stepped into a restaurant and ordered plenty of food, which was given him in a large pail, the pail being wrapped to disguise its real nature.

Little Nell, Jack Norton’s sister, was waiting for Frank to appear when she recognized his familiar step on the stairs. She rose hastily to her feet, but paused to listen.

There were other steps, and she realized that several persons were coming. Wondering what it meant, she waited till the door opened and the four filed into the room.

Then there were introductions.

“I am pleased to meet any of Frank’s friends,” declared the girl. “I am very pleased to see you.”

“That’s right,” nodded the lame boy. “She is pleased to see you. Two weeks ago she could not have seen you had she stood face to face with you as she does now.”