# St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 4/B. A.

* related authors: Charles Mark Relyea.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Commons category, Wikidata item.
(Including a facsimile of a letter from General George Washington to Brigadier-General Forman, never before printed.)
That the Wellsburgh Military Academy lacked something in not having any secret societies was becoming more and more clear to the junior class of that popular school. Perhaps the idea would never have occurred to the boys if Rob Pierson had not gone to spend his Christmas holidays with his Philadelphia cousins; but that visit brought the first cloud of dissatisfaction to Rob—and then, of course, to the whole junior class, who always followed Rob’s lead in every thing, without question, from geometry to neckties.
“Got any societies at your old school?” his cousin asked him, one day.
“Societies! No; what for?” exclaimed Rob, in open-mouthed wonderment. “Sounds like girls.” This last with such withering contempt that little Lucy, who had taken a decided liking to him, picked up her book and left the fire-light circle in protest.
“Girls nothing! All the colleges have ’em. We have them at our school; but I suppose you ‘re too busy playing soldiers to find out what college men do.”
“We ‘re too busy with classes and drills to bother with such foolishness,” was Rob’s crushingly delivered answer.
But during the rest of his week in Philadelphia he quietly picked up considerable information about secret societies and how they were run.
A certain subdued air belonging to the return to school and study kept down Rob’s growing discontent with existing things tor a few days. The reaction from two weeks of loafing and fun brought him new energy in the study of geometry, Greek, and Latin, and until Friday night the boys had scarcely a chance to compare notes about their holidays.
A belated Christmas box, coming to a boy from the far West who had spent his two weeks with a friend, gave an occasion for a “pajama party.” Twelve days of rest in the baggage-room of the wrong town not having done serious damage to the comforts in the box, the ten “selectmen,” as those bidden to a feast were called at the Wellsburgh Academy, spent the first ten minutes or so in “sampling” the various good things, regardless of the fine points of manners or table etiquette. Indeed, there was no table—the cookies, figs, nuts, and apples were spread on the counterpane of Willis’s bed, in a medley that would have driven his doting mother mad by its contrast with the daintily wrapped packages which she had so neatly and carefully put up.
“Say, boys,” Rob began when the first edge of his healthy appetite had been dulled, “my cousin goes to Saybrook to school, and they have secret societies, as the men have at college—and at West Point, too, I s’pose. I never thought of it before, but if they have these societies at Saybrook, it stands ta reason we ’ve got to have ’em. We can’t let Saybrook get ahead of us in any way.”
“Right you are, colonel,” murmured the host, rather brokenly by reason of his mouth being stuffed with home-made mince-pie. “I don’t want to get to Yale and find there ’s ​a lot of things I ought to know but don’t know. If secret societies are the thing, let ’s have one of them at once, I say.”
“I heard some chips from St. John’s talking about their Alpha Phi doings the other day,” piped in Jim Martin. “At first I thought they were discussing apple-pie; but when I found it was n’t that, I felt squarely out of it. I did my level best to look knowing; but I could n’t help a sneaking fear that they suspected I was n’t “on.” I think we've got to add ’em to the list. Hope they ‘re more fun than the faculty’s latest additions.”
The next evening a meeting of the junior class was called, at which Jim Martin moved that the junior class of Wellsburgh Academy should have a secret society.
“Second the motion,” came a subdued voice, and in breathless expectancy they waited while the president carefully thought out the correct form for such an important motion.
“Gentlemen, it is moved and seconded that the junior class of Wellsburgh Academy shall have a secret society. All in favor say,‘Ay’—and mind ye don’t make a noise about it, either!” wound up the dignified presiding officer.
There was a subdued rumble of “ays,” and as there was no answer when the “noes” were called for, a count seemed hardly necessary.
A minute’s awkward silence followed the vote. No one seemed to know just what to do next.
And then Rob managed to recall the parliamentary procedure at a meeting to which he had gone with his father. He was a bit rusty, but was at least equal to this occasion.
“The motion having been carried that the academy shall have a secret society, it is the next duty of this meeting to decide on what form that society shall take. The chair is ready for suggestions,”
“What’s the matter with a historical or patriotic society, or something of that kind?” suggested Simmons, who had just come in. A pang of envy shot through Rob’s mind at that idea, for he knew why it had occurred to Simmons. Though Simmons was too much of a gentleman ever to boast, the boys knew from Willis, who had visited at his house, that the proudest possessions of Simmons’s father were the portraits of some Revolutionary ancestors and the sword of his great-grandfather, who had commanded a company at Bunker Hill. To a boy with military aspirations such a record and such ancestral possessions seemed priceless.
“Good idea, seems to me,” Jones said. “Make it in a motion, and that will show the sense of the meeting.”
Great enthusiasm, sternly subdued, greeted Simmons’s suggestion, and in short order it was decided. A historical society it should be. They would collect historical articles, and would have a reference library of their own. It would take time; but future classes would get the benefit, and the class of 1903 would always have the credit of having begun it all.
“Where shall we meet? This pajama. business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on cold nights,” lamented Smithers through chattering teeth.
“There's the old store-room upstairs. Let’s ask Richardson if we may use it,” was Rob’s suggestion.
Just then the opening of a door and an apologetic cough froze the blood of the conspirators. Keasby always coughed warningly before descending “like a wolf on the fold"—he had been a boy once himself, This gave time for a sharp “Shut up, you kids!” from some one, and the light went out suddenly as the tutor’s step was heard at the door. Under the farthest corner of the bed three miscreants were hidden, in the closet were two, and past Keasby at the door shot several. The hand which reached for them did so in a groping way that did not give evidence of any stern determination to catch the offenders; and by the time Keasby had struck a light, and was gazing blinkingly around, only three of the culprits were visible—Potts, whose room it was; Pierson, who, as class president and chairman of the meeting, scored to leave his fellow to face the music alone; and Fatty Wilson, who was rolling on the floor in convulsions of laughter. too weak to get up and run.
“What does this mean, boys?” inquired a stern voice. “This is a wilful disobedience of rules,”
“Well, you see, sir, we were just talking over a secret plan that could n’t be discussed downstairs, This was the only way to do it.”
“Well, the only way now to remedy it is to go and explain to Professor Richardson in the morning. I shall report the breach of rules, and you three may then give whatever explanation you can. Go at once to your rooms, boys.”
“Well,” he said, “while I must seriously protest against any more night meetings, I think your plan is a good one, boys, and I ‘ll do what I can to help you. You can use the lumber-room if the class will spend Saturday afternoon moving the boxes and other things out to the barn-loft. What ’s worth having is worth working for.”
An awed trio escaped at the earliest possible moment from the dread precincts of the office, and groups of laughing and cheering juniors were the feature of the noon recess.
Keen curiosity was rampant, of course, especially among the small boys, as to why the whole junior class was left at home when the rest of the school went skating Saturday afternoon. The seniors were, naturally, too proud to ask questions.
It took all the spring to get the room in order and to plan out the society’s future; and in the meantime it was decided that a temporary president should be elected to serve until commencement day, and that in future the president should be a member of the senior class, as at the autumn opening of the school the society’s organizers would all be seniors. Rob Pierson was elected temporary president because of his having practically suggested the plan and taken so active a part in the organization; and the name of the society was decided on,— the “B, A. Society,"—the meaning of the letters being the chief secret of the secret society, known only to the initiated.
“It will be fairly launched by next fall,” Rob said at one of the meetings; “and we fellows must decide now, or then, what we ‘ll make the entrance qualifications, and for what qualities we ‘ll choose our president. We don’t want to pick a fellow out for such an important position just because he’s popular, you know. I suggest that we make the question of a member‘s standing in history the thing to consider. The president ought to be pretty well up in that.”
​Pierson left school, when commencement day came, with a keenness for vacation and all its The relics laid on the table. fun, but with an underlying determination to do something during the summer that would entitle him to that presidency.
The old farm-house down at Shrewsbury, in its grove of trees, that Uncle Bob had bought and rebuilt, was a delightful place to visit, and the country round was all attractive. There were historical memories to be raked up by a visit to Freehold, with its old church and graveyard, and the quaint, quiet street of old Shrewsbury town. And then when it suddenly dawned on Rob’s mind that a battle of the Revolution had been fought almost on the ground where he was living, even the soil took on a new interest.
“Where was the battle fought, Uncle Bob?” he asked one day.
“Over toward the southwest of us,” his uncle said. “If you 'll go up to the garret some day, and climb over the boxes and trunks there and look out of that funny little round cobwebby window, I think you can see two big trees that, according to the farmers round here, saw considerable fighting one hot June Sunday—if they were there a hundred and twenty five years ago.”
Upstairs and over boxes and trunks to the little round window was a short trip for an eager boy. The window certainly was cob-webby on the inside and streaming wet on the outside; but when he had corralled an old cloth and scrubbed it up a bit, he managed to see two big trees in the distance on a slight rise of ground.
“Oh, glory! I ’m done for now, that ’s sure!” he muttered as he caught his foot in the rope around a roll of old matting and stumbled head first into the boxes and bundles. One hand landed in a basket of last year’s—or last century’s—pine-cones, and the other went crashing against the wall and, woe indeed, right through it! The boards were old and dry and thin, and a good big hole showed where Rob’s muscular fist had struck.
Three beards were broken loose at the floor end and cracked and splintered about three feet up, so they hung loose. Light showed beyond, and Rob could easily grasp the evident fact that a small room was behind the wall. Peering through the hole, he saw that there was a dusty old window like the one through which he had been looking, but so cobwebbed and dusty that one could hardly see the wet gray sky rough it. Curiosity led him on, and with considerable scraping he got himself through the hole. Old broken chairs, boxes, and some barrels stood about—most of them empty. In ​one corner were some rude old hand-wrought andirons, and a queer pair of old glass lamps stood on a shelf. A few odds and ends were flung into boxes, and one barrel seemed to contain old newspapers and letters so covered with dust that he could hardly see what they were.
It must have taken a generation or two for all that dust to collect, he thought, as he plunged in to find the date on the newspapers.
“Gee whizz!” came with a long, low whistle as he found 1823 at the top of the sheet. “That ’s old enough! Uncle ‘ll like to see those, I bet!” he thought; and he dove in again and brought out a handful of letters. Such queer old yellow letters with no envelops, —he remembered hearing his father tell about how they used to fold the letters and seal them before envelops were invented, and some of them were cracking at the folds. Many had names written across the corners instead of having stamps. He stopped to look, and with a jump he was at the little round window, holding the letter close to the cobwebbed pane. It was, surely—the name was George Washington! He was familiar enough with reproductions of the famous George’s signature to feel sure that this was written by the general himself. On it was the address:
The superscription of the Washington letters.
“To Brigr. General Forman,mouth‍ “Monmouth.”
And in the lower left-hand corner was the historic and familiar signature, “Go Washington.”
Near the top, in the night-hand corer, was written, “Public Service.”
Most carefully Rob's trembling, eager fingers opened the worn, cracking folds of the sheet. On the old yellow paper was this letter:
Head Quarters Dobbs Ferry 31 July 1781
Sir
I have requested Capt. Dobbs to assemble at Capt. Dennis s in Baskenridge as soon as possible a Number of Pilots, who are to receive their further Instructions from you.—Imediately upon the Appearance of a Fleet near Sandy Hook, if you are satisfied it is the One we are expecting, you will please to give Orders to the Pilots to repair down where they may be at Hand to be improved as Occasion and Circumstances shall require.———
I am very fearfull that you have met with more Trouble in establishg the Chain of Expresses than you expected—as I have not had the Pleasure of hearing from you since your first Favor of 23d inst—and I am informed from N York that a Fleet with part of the Army of Lord Cornwallis from Virginia arrived at that Place last Friday:—my Anxiety to be early & well informed of the Enemy s Movernents by Water, induces me to wish to hear from you as often & as speedily as any material Circumstance renders it necessary. I am
Sirour most Obedient Servantgton‍ Your most Obedient Servantgton‍ Go Washington
When Uncle Bob reached home that afternoon, an anxious trio of boys awaited him, and he was not even allowed to take off his hat before the important question of ownership was put to him.
Facsimile of the letter from General Washington to Brigadier-General Forman.
Conclusion of the Washington letter.
“Why, I think they ’d be mine. I bought the place, with all it contained,” was the answer; which was greeted, to Mr. Pierson’s amazement, with dancing and howlings of glee from the three boys and from Helen in the background.
And then Rob's wonderful “find” was displayed, and five heads pored over the letter as eagerly as had the first one.
“It surely is—a letter written by George Washington himself! You ’ve made a real discovery, Rob, and I ‘ll have to forgive you for trying to smash down my house.”
Rob’s joy, too, was soon tempered by a sad thought—the letter was n’t his: it was Uncle Bob’s. He did want to be unselfish, and rejoice simply in the pleasure of the find and in his uncle’s fine new possession; but the thought of the value of that letter to the new-fledged B. A. Society was almost too heavy on his spirit to leave any buoyancy.
How could he make his discovery tell for his pet child, the B.A.? In the excitement over his good luck, the thought of the presidency and his ambition to do something to make him eligible for election had entirely slipped from his mind, and the better and less selfish thought of the good of the society was all that remained.
Again he took to lying awake nights and spending long, solitary hours cogitating in the hammock. And finally the plan came to him. He would study up the history of the battle of Monmouth and of the later events of the Revolution involving Monmouth County, and he would write an essay on the subject of that county’s part in the struggle. In this essay he would embody the precious Washington letter, and he would print the whole thing on his own printing-press at home.
School opened on September 30, and the crowd of returning boys had a fine time comparing notes of the summer’s experiences. Wednesday evening was to see the first gathering in the headquarters. Then the seniors would have a talk over the question of what juniors should be admitted to membership, and those who had any gilts for the society saved them to bring out for the first time that night.
It was a jolly meeting, and the harvest of new ​treasures for the B.A. was a big one. Shorty Jones had brought a cannon-ball—“warranted to be from the battle of Bunker Hill”; Fatty Wilson donated a fine tin box, which, he explained, “would be a good place to keep some grub, so a fellow need n’t go hungry in the society rooms”; and Simmons produced a fine old sword that his father had presented—not one of the family heirlooms, but still a sword of Revolutionary times.
New flags and old, bullets, some Indian arrow-heads, several books on history, and a few portraits were laid on the big table, and among them “New Jersey’s Share in the War for Independence” did not feel obliged to hide its head. It looked most impressive in its cover of colonial blue linen with buff-leather back and cross-bands, and Pierson was proud to receive the congratulations of the other boys.
“You must have spent your whole summer on that, I should think,” Simmons, said, with frank envy and admiration. “There ’s a heap of work on it.”
Shorty Jones hung admiringly to the side of his hero, and gazed open-mouthed at the wonderful book, In his heart was the happy conviction that this fine gift ought to settle the question of Rob’s election as president.
Two weeks from that first evening the great election was to come off; and in the meantime the new members were chosen and invited to come in.
Electioneering of a vigorous kind was going on, but the two boys who were considered the main candidates knew little about it. Simmons and Rob were such good friends that the other bays hesitated to let them know they were definite rivals.
The great night came at last.
Just as the members were filing upstairs, followed by the envious eyes of the outsiders, the door-bell rang, and a huge pile of packages of various shapes and sizes appeared, with an expressman behind them.
“Something for you, Pierson,” called Mr. Keasby, holding up a big box, and with two bounds Rob and Shorty were on the hall floor untying the heavy cords.
“It ’s a picture,” Shorty said, lifting the contents out and tearing off the tissue-papers.
But Rob only gasped. There, framed in ebony and set between two sheets of glass, was the Washington letter! He knelt on the floor, with the letter in his hands and such a look of overwhelming joy that Shorty gulped down a queer lump in his throat as he watched his chum’s face.
When the precious letter was laid on the table in the headquarters, and the eager members gathered around to examine it, Rob's joy and pride were tremendous. He was in the midst of explaining all about the letter when he remembered the envelop that had dropped out as he opened the box. In it, he found, was only a card on which was written, in his uncle's hand, “Presented to the B. A. Society by the Discoverer.” This he held clasped in his hand as the meeting was called to order by Shorty, the chairman pro tem.
When the time for the actual election came there were but the two nominations,—Simmons and Pierson,—and Rob, who had hoped he might at least receive a nomination, was surprised by the way the boys clapped and stamped and tooted when his name was put up.
After a bit of a pause, while they got their breath, Simmons stood up and, with a flushed, eager face, exclaimed: “Say, boys, I ’m proud to be even nominated, but I ’m just going to ask that you let me back out and give Pierson a unanimous election. Any fellow who could start this club, nose out a real Washington autograph letter, and write and print and bind that history of his, ought to be the first president of the society, and no mistake!”
The catcalls and howlings of applause that followed were so vigorous that Mr. Keasby came to restore peace.
“No harm done, sir,” they assured him. “But you can come in and help count Pierson’s unanimous vote, if you like,” some one added; and Keasby went away laughing.
The happiest day that Rob Pierson has yet experienced was that one when he stood beside his famous letter and explained to all the boys the circumstances under which it was written—to all the boys of the school, invited, at Professor Richardson’s suggestion, to a reception in the headquarters on Washington’s Birthday.