Silencing his adversary.
Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit; the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring advertisements, "Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker," "Trade at the corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices," "Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera supplies," and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp "rap-rap-rap," which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main floor.
"Gallery," explained John. "Fellow knocks on the back of one of the benches to make the boys behave." His jaws resumed the burden of reducing that persistent caramel to a swallowable state.
The orchestra of five filed solemnly in through the little door beneath the stage and took their accustomed places. A dart, propelled by an urchin of the upper regions who evidently had no fear of the monitor's stick, sailed serenely downward and found a resting place in a blonde lock of the salesgirl's hair. The footlights flashed on, and the musicians struck up a lilting, popular air, as Sid cleared his throat.
"Then the cowboy—" he began.
"Have another?" interrupted John, extending the box of tenacious goodies.
"Sh-h," whispered Louise. "There goes the curtain."
Why Martha had selected the hapless vocation of milliner's apprentice, John could not understand. For it was in Madame's little millinery shop in New York that Mordaunt Merrilac, gentleman by appearance, and leader of a desperate band of counterfeiters, met and became infatuated with the heroine. This he revealed in a soliloquy punctuated by frequent tugging at his black mustache, and strode majestically to the rear of the long, gloomy basement in which the first act was laid. There he joined three overalled mechanics in shirtsleeves, who puttered gingerly about a table on which were mysterious vats and a brightly glowing electric crucible.
"Is all in readiness?" growled Mordaunt.
"Aye, master."
"Into the acid vat with the plate, then." He drew out a jewelled watch and studied the dial with knitted brows. "Ten long minutes before we know of our success."
A muffled scream, long-drawn and filled with terror, broke in upon the silence which followed. Louise, Sid, and John leaned anxiously forward on the very edges of their seats.
"What's that?" gasped the tallest of the workmen.
"'Tis nothing," sneered the villain. "Come, Ralph, draw out the die."
The group gathered anxiously around the bit of metal. Mordaunt scrutinized it carefully, and strode swiftly over to an opposite corner of the stage where an ancient letterpress stood. Running an inked roller over the surface of the etching, he placed it on the bed of the press, revolved the wheel rapidly in one direction, reversed, and drew forth a slip of white paper.
"The face of a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he examined the dark oblong at one end. "Men, you may go."
Thus was the intricate process of counterfeiting depicted, and the audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the thing seem plausible.
Mordaunt raised his voice. "Dolores!" he called, once, twice, thrice.
A tall, lithe creature in dark, clinging robes, with the black hair of all villains and villainesses, responded.
"Yes, brother?" she whined from the head of the basement stairway.
"Bring me Martha."
The ogre had commanded, therefore the maiden was flung down the steps before him—slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly.
"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!
"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.
The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.
"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.
"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind to you."
She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such wedlock."
Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher, dashed down into the room.
"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"
Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"
Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet. That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.
"Look you to your automatics!" he shouted. "And up with the trapdoor, Ralph. The acid vats must be hidden."
But the police were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly nerveless right arm.
"I'm wounded," he bellowed, "but after them! Let not that arch villain escape!"
A bluecoat sprang forward, halted, and fell flat on his face. Ralph, a heroic sacrifice in spite of his guilt, intercepted a bullet meant for Mordaunt. Then the master counterfeiter, realizing that his cause was hopeless, raised a hand as a token of surrender, and advanced slowly to receive the waiting handcuffs. As the policeman raised his hands to slip them on, he dashed suddenly past to the stairway, and slammed the door behind him. A key squeaked in its little-used lock, and the representatives of the law stared at each other for one dazed, dragging moment.
Suddenly Harkness flung his muscular form against the door again and again until it broke from its hinges. As his subordinates dashed up the stairway in futile pursuit, he dallied in the bullet-marked room that he might walk to the center of the stage and wave his unwounded arm melodramatically.
"I will rescue her," he vowed solemnly. "I will rescue my little Martha though the chase leads to the burning, sand-strewn deserts of Africa!"
There was tumultuous applause and the curtain. Louise leaned back in her seat with shining eyes. John drew a deep breath.
"Isn't it just peachy?"
Sid DuPree nodded. "Makes me think of the way the cowboys used to shoot off their revolvers on the ranch."
"Have another candy," suggested John promptly. Again was the flow of reminiscences successfully checked.
But the author of "Martha, the Milliner's Girl," was too considerate of the welfare of his hero to lead him on an expensive trip to Africa; for that worthy, as are all such stage beings, was poor and otherwise honest. So the second act revealed a richly furnished room in Dolores' apartment, not many miles away from the scene of act one. Martha threw herself on the luxuriously upholstered lounge in a paroxysm of sobs. Dolores entered, still clothed in dark, clinging robes. Entered also Mordaunt Merrilac, as beetling of brow as ever. Perfervid conversation ensued between the trio in which little Martha tearfully ordered the villain to release her.
"My detention here will avail you naught, Mordaunt Merrilac," she quavered. "In spite of all you can do, some day, my hero, Jack Harkness, will find this den and rescue me!" Prolonged handclapping came from the more genteel portion of the audience, mingled with cheers and cat-calls from the gallery.
The villain laughed sardonically. "Still you hope for rescue by him?"
"I do."
"Then wait." He pressed a convenient button. Through the heavily curtained doorway, closely guarded by the two remaining members of the gang, walked Jack Harkness.
"Gee!" gasped John, consternation-struck by this new development. It was evident that the same stupidity which had allowed Merrilac to make his escape in the first act, had led this singularly wooden-headed hero into that villain's trap.
"So, my proud beauty," hissed Mordaunt, "you expect this man to save you? 'Tis futile. At twelve, tonight, we shall plunge him into the Hudson River, and you, Martha, shall see him die!"
Whereupon Martha gave a piercing shriek, swooned, and the curtain fell.
"Crickets!" sighed John, as a prodigious bumping behind the lowered curtain told of scenery that was being shifted, "I wish they'd hurry up." Louise nodded silently, while the box of carmels lay neglected on her lap; and for once during the evening, Sid could find no parallel for such thrilling events in the scenes of his last vacation trip.
Almost before they realized it, the curtain rose again and revealed the hut on the Hudson. In one corner of the dismal interior stood Jack Harkness, bound, but appropriately defiant. In the other, on the floor lay the weak, sobbing little heap that was Martha. In the center stalked a triumphant Mordaunt with his two confederates.
"Jack Harkness," he hissed, "your time has come. Men, throw back the trapdoor." Ah, those ever-present trapdoors!
He walked over to the opening. "The Hudson runs muddy tonight," he murmured, as a shudder ran through the audience, "and very cold. 'Tis well. Drag forth the prisoner and loose his bonds."
He stooped to jerk Martha to her feet. The rude door at the rear sprang open, and the police burst in upon the scene. The two counterfeiters sought for an escape, and Jack, sudden strength returning to his immobile limbs, sprang upon the startled Mordaunt. A terrific struggle ensued, and a tender scene between the two lovers as the police dragged their three captives from the stage.
"At last, little Martha," Harkness murmured as he looked down at her.
"At last," she murmured, gazing shyly into his face. Then came a long, passionate kiss—and the curtain.
Sid sprang to his feet and helped Louise on with her coat, but John, stumbling after them up the aisle and out on the crowded street, neither noticed nor cared. The play triangle of two men and a maid seemed strangely analogous to his own love affairs. Sid was Mordaunt Merrilac, Louise was little Martha, and he was the heroic Jack Harkness. Neither counterfeiters nor police would participate, but that did not diminish the tenseness of the situation, nevertheless. He was roused from his revery by Sid's voice as they came to the street car corner.
"Here's a drug store, Louise. Let's go in and have a soda."
Dreaming again, and Sid had stolen another march on him! He trailed sulkily in and the trio sat down in the little wire-backed chairs before a round, shiny table. The drug clerk came forward ceremoniously and stood beside them.
"My treat," said Sid grandly. "What'll you have, Louise?"
She wasn't certain. A feeling of dull resentment took possession of John. If Sid was going to act this way, he'd make it as costly an affair as possible.
"Chop-suey sundae," he announced, after a hasty glance at the printed menu.
"What?" stammered Sid. Such a delicacy cost a whole quarter, the most expensive treat that the soda fountain purveyed.
"Yes," said John calmly. "Better take one, too, Louise," he added maliciously. "They taste just peachy."
She accepted his suggestion gratefully.
"Give me a glass of water," ordered Sid weakly. It is an awful thing to possess soda liabilities of fifty cents when you have but three dimes and two nickels in your pocket.
John sensed his rival's predicament and smiled. Slowly, with manifest enjoyment in every mouthful, he devoured the tempting, frozen treat. Then he leaned back in his chair contentedly and waited for Louise to finish. The white-coated soda clerk approached the table for payment, and the terror which crept into Sid's face was strangely like that on Mordaunt's when the police had broken into the river hut. He drew out his inadequate supply of small change and looked at it blankly.
"Come, boys," prompted the man of syrups and sodawater, "I can't wait all day."
"I haven't enough money," whispered Sid at last.
John turned, a hint of the stage hero's mannerisms in his dramatic gesture. "What? Invite us for a treat and then can't pay for it? You're a fine one, Sid." He drew a half-dollar from his own pocket and flung it down on the table. "Never mind him," he turned to Louise. "I'll pay your car fare home!"
And with the crushed and humiliated Sid following them miserably, he led the way from the drug store to the waiting car.
CHAPTER XIV
HE BUYS VALENTINES
Sid made one more effort to cope with Miss Martin's suddenly aggressive fiancé. John came upon the couple one late, crisp January afternoon, as he was leaving for the paper route. Louise did her best to appear nonchalant as he picked his way carefully across the slippery, wagon-rutted road, and Sid, after a longing glance toward the iron fence which surrounded the home lot, decided to brazen matters out.
"'Nother chop-suey sundae?" John sneered as he eyed his rival scornfully.
"'Tain't fair, always talking about that," blurted Sid. "How'd I know the money I'd need when I left home?"
John deemed the excuse unworthy of notice, and turned to Louise.
"What's he want this time?"
"Go skating with him," she replied after a moment's hesitation.
"Then ask you to have a treat in the warming house, and let you pay for it 'cause he didn't bring enough money. I'll teach you to skate—tonight if your mother'll let you. Silvey said the ice was fine yesterday, and everything'll be peachy. Want to come?"
What maiden wouldn't? John glanced at his watch. The paper wagon was due in five minutes.
"I've got to run," he said hastily. "See you tonight!" He left on the dogtrot for the corner.
His school books eyed him reproachfully as he hunted for his skate straps after supper. An arithmetic test impended, and he had a composition to write. Nevertheless, he disregarded both tasks serenely and called for his lady. With her skates swinging with his over one shoulder, they started for the park.
"Ever been skating before?" he asked casually as he took hold of her arm that she might pass a slippery bit of walk in safety.
Louise shook her head. "Once a mud puddle froze in front of the house where I used to live, and I got a broom and tried. That's all."
Then, for an instant, John regretted the invitation. To teach an absolute novice, no matter what the age, to skate with a passable degree of security is no light task. But his hesitation vanished, ten minutes later, when he fastened her skates on and helped her through the doorway of the warming house. It is no unpleasant thing for a small boy's best girl to cling to his arm as did his when they walked, oh so cautiously, down the skate-chopped steps from the boat landing.
As they stepped out on the slippery ice, Louise made a last, despairing grab for the step rail.
"You go on and skate, Johnny," she pleaded. "I'll just stay here for a while."
"Shooting the duck."
Nothing loath, he sped off in and out among the swiftly moving, ever changing throng of people. In a moment he shot back to a less crowded space near her, where he "shot the duck," balanced himself first on one foot and then on the other, and finally came to an abrupt halt, leaving a trail of ice shavings in his wake.
"My!" said Louise as he stood beside her, panting a little. "I wish I could do those things."
He beamed. "They're easy. Hang on to my arm and I'll show you. Now, step out with me. One-two, one-two, one-two."
Her ankles bent over until they touched the ice, and her breath came in quick, nervous gasps. Nevertheless, she followed bravely over a scant ten feet of the rink.
"Isn't that easy?"
She nodded with an assurance which she was far from feeling. "My skate strap hurts. The right one. Loosen it, John."
He knelt to make the necessary alteration. As he stood up, one of his lady's feet started off on an unauthorized expedition, and she grabbed him by the arm with a fervency which nearly proved disastrous.
"Don't start again just yet," she begged. "I'm tired."
As they stood there, a pounding, scurrying figure in black, Red Brown, sped past at top speed. Silvey followed closely, noted the situation, and slowed up.
"Leave her in the skating house and come on," he called. "Red's got it and we're having heaps of fun."
Skinny Mosher and Perry Alford came, both in pursuit of the fleet-footed Brown. Sid DuPree, puffing audibly, stopped just out of reach, glad of any pretext to halt long enough to catch his breath.
"Let's see her skate," he sneered, knowing that Louise dared not release her escort for pursuit. "You're a fine teacher, you are. Don't you wish you were with us?"
John's eyes followed him longingly as he skated off. The temptation of Silvey's invitation was great, and with any other maiden, would have proved fatal. But the lure of the rosy dream for the future was still strong. He freed himself gently from her grasp, and was two yards away before she realized what he had done.
"There," he said with satisfaction. "I knew you could stand up. Now, skate to me."
"Aw-w-w, Johnny, come on back. I'm going to fall!"
"No you're not," said John decisively. "Try and you'll see."
Louise essayed one ineffectual stroke and stood helpless. "I t-think you're just horrid," she whimpered.
He grew a trifle impatient. "You'll never learn that way." Why were girls always so afraid to try things, anyway?
She made another halting attempt, reached forward to catch him, and felt herself slipping, then straightened up, leaned too far backwards, and her feet shot suddenly out from under her. Pupil and teacher crashed to the ice. John was the first to recover himself, although the unexpected fall had been a severe one. He stooped over his lady in spite of strangely shaky knees, and found her sobbing, partly from nervous shock and partly from mortification.
"Hurt, Louise?" She sat up angrily and dug her mittened hands into her eyes. He caught a murmur of "Horrid old thing!" and she began to sob. The boy knelt and removed her skates gently.
"Come," he suggested wisely. "We'll go into the warming house and have something to eat. Then you'll feel better. Catch hold of my hand. One, two, three! Up you come."
They sat down on one of the gray, wooden benches which lined the big room. Louise studied the dingy sign on the post by the counter.
"Aren't mad, are you?" he asked anxiously. "I didn't do it on purpose."
The easy tears had dried and she shook her head cheerfully.
"Give me some apple pie," she began. Thus peace was concluded.
When she had drained the last drop of cider from the glass and dropped the pasteboard pie plate on the floor, John kicked it under the seat with his heel and leaned over to her.
"Take some more," he urged. "I'm not Sid DuPree."
Since the disastrous one in late December, there had been two exceedingly prosperous snowfalls to supplement the newspaper revenue, and he had plundered the pig bank for funds for the evening with a clear conscience.
Again Louise eyed the placard. Coffee was for grown-ups, and strictly forbidden at home; therefore she would sample a cup of it. "And a red-hot sandwich and some more apple pie, Johnny."
When she had finished, they started for home. Their feet were still unaccustomed to the difference between walking and skating and they stumbled now and then along the path. As they came to the road, John looked down at her anxiously.
"Have a good time?"
"It was peachy."
"Aren't you glad you didn't go with Sid?"
She nodded.
"Have enough to eat?"
She assented heavily. Strange how the taste of that forbidden coffee lingered in her mouth.
In the morning as Miss Brown called the roll, John gave a quick glance backward along the aisle. His lady was absent. The strangely assorted meal had been too much for her.
But attacks of indigestion rarely last more than a day, and this one proved no hindrance to the series of tri-weekly skating parties, minus refreshments, in which the pair participated. After two weeks of laborious lessons, Louise found that she was able to take a few sure strokes without gulping and calling for masculine aid. The first trip around the rough ice about the island followed, sure test of a beginner's prowess, and, behold! the youthful mentor found the lessons no longer irksome.
As they sauntered home, skates clashing merrily at every step over the arc-lit snow of the park driveway, one starlit February night, Louise broke into a sudden delighted giggle.
"Day after tomorrow's Lincoln's birthday. Aren't you glad?"
Glad? Was ever a schoolboy sorry for an added day of freedom?
"Two days after that's St. Valentine's day. We'll have a box up at school then. What kind of valentines do you like best?" he quizzed in return. "Paper hearts and things with lots of lace on them, or celluloid ones in boxes?"
Louise hesitated for a moment.
"I like," she said finally, "any kind of valentines, but best I like lots and lots of them—more'n anyone else in the room gets. Last year I was third, and in second grade a girl got one more valentine than I did. It was only a comic, but that gave her nine, and I had eight. This year I want to be first!"
It was no small honor which the girl craved. To lead in the valentine distribution is to be acknowledged the belle of the room until the June examinations break up the little, pupil cliques and send their members to the different higher-grade rooms. John resolved that her wish should be fulfilled, but that achievement lay at the end of a path beset with pitfalls. Let rumor make the rounds that he purposed stuffing the box, and others would play at the same game. Witness a girl in an early grade, the homeliest of the room, who begged a dollar from her father and filled the box to overflowing with a hundred penny valentines addressed to herself.
He left for his paper route half an hour earlier, that Lincoln's birthday afternoon, and turned abruptly westward as he reached the corner where the wagon drove up with his nightly bundle. He halted a moment in front of the school store. In the window was the usual display of rubber balls, penny trinkets, and magazines, and beyond them, he could see the deserted interior. As he had foreseen, the holiday had brought the usual lack of juvenile trade, and investment in the valentine market could be made without fear.
He swung the door back. The trip bell rang noisily, and tall, angular Miss Thomas came out from the suite of little rooms in the rear.
"Valentines," said he briefly. She reached a shallow box containing a dozen or so of the little printed love missives to the glassy-topped counter, where he pawed them over with one half-washed hand.
"I want more than these!"
The look of boredom, bred by long months of finicky penny purchasers, vanished. She stooped for one of the packets of fresh stock on the lower shelf. As he broke it open, she readjusted her heavy-rimmed spectacles, and watched his actions with amusement.
Hearts of cardboard with crudely pierced edges of blue forget-me-nots, little square folders bearing pictures of doves, a cottage, an old mill, or a bit of idealistic scenery—he sorted them all. Each appropriate sentiment on the inner leaf, "To one I love," "To my true love," and the like, was read and approved before he shoved the packet away from him.
"Let's see your two-penny ones."
Gorgeously laced, these, with cut-outs in the center to reveal butterflies, arrow-pierced hearts, or Dresden Shepherdesses. He selected three of the gaudy creations.
"The nickel ones—in boxes."
Thus did he aspire to brilliantly-colored celluloid for the crowning jewel of the St. Valentine's sacrifice. He handed the assortment to Miss Thomas with a sheepish grin.
"Envelopes for them, too. How much?"
She counted them with gaunt, practiced fingers.
"Sixteen penny ones, three two-centers, and one at five. Do you want one or two-cent envelopes?"
He gazed at the assortment of paper containers. Monstrosities of hearts, cupids, and entwining fretwork were embossed on each, but save for the intricacy of design, there was little difference between them. He indicated his choice.
"Forty-three cents," said Miss Thomas.
John paid the sum without a tremor and dashed for the door. The selection had taken longer than he had planned and he was afraid he would miss the paper wagon.
That evening was passed in addressing the envelopes at his father's library desk. Five of them were scrawled in a heavy backhand, with the aid of his mother's broad, stub pen, and five more in his normal handwriting. He finished the others in a variety of huge pothooks with blackly crossed "T's" and dotted "I's," and viewed the result of his labors with great satisfaction. Louise would never guess that they had come from the same donor.
Their despatch to the valentine box was the next thing to trouble him. If he deposited so large a number of love tokens in one, or even two installments, it would certainly attract attention. He took Silvey into his confidence.
"Why don't you want Louise to know where they came from?" asked his chum thoughtfully.
"'Cause getting the most valentines in the room won't be half the fun if she knows I sent 'em all."
"Give 'em to me," said Silvey. "I'll put half in, myself, and Red can take the rest."
Promptly at two-thirty, that Fourteenth of February, Miss Brown brought the recitations to a close and laid her little, black record book in the desk drawer, then drew the big, slotted cardboard box toward her and smiled down at the expectant pupils.
"I'll ask you to keep as quiet as possible," she requested. "Otherwise, we may disturb some of the grown-up, eighth-grade classes who are too old for these things."
No need of any such caution. The children were quiet as the proverbial mice as they waited for the first name to be called.
"John Fletcher."
He stumbled to his feet in amazement. Had Louise sent him a valentine? As he opened the envelope, a gaudy caricature of a gentleman with reddened nose, paste-diamond pin, and flowered vest met his eyes. Underneath was a bit of doggerel elaborating certain traits ascribed to "The Rounder." He twisted suddenly in his seat and surprised a smile of exultation on Sid's face.
Just wait until school was over. He'd fix him for that.
"Olga," called Miss Brown with a smile, some moments later.
Flaxen-haired Olga simpered up to receive her missive. The excited buzz of conversation which arose claimed John's attention.
"That makes eight for her."
"But Louise has nine!"
Names of several girls who were popular only in the eyes of their youthful swains followed. The teacher shuffled the remaining valentines hastily.
"Four more for Olga, and three for Louise."
John turned anxiously and encountered a look of placid satisfaction on Olaf's stolid face; that same Olaf who had offered to sell his symptom list for a fifth of the market price.
"Louise Martin, two more."
"Six for Olga!"
John leaned tensely forward. He had sent but an even twenty of the gaudy trinkets, and this sudden influx of rival valentines threatened dangerously to pass that number. More envelopes were passed out. From behind him, he caught the excited whisperings of two girls.
"Louise has twenty!"
"And Olga, twenty-one!"
Miss Brown stooped to turn a broad box right side up on her desk.
"The last valentine," she concluded. "Here you are, Louise."
Had Sid sent that? He'd smash his face in if he had. The unexpected addition had saved the day for his sweetheart, but that kid had no business butting in, anyway! Miss Brown watched the buzzing groups of pupils.
"There's just fifteen minutes left before dismissal," she said considerately. "You may spend it in looking at each other's valentines if you wish."
The pupils crowded back to his lady's seat, while he stood on a chair near the wall and craned his neck to see the vision of celluloid and pink and blue ribbon which had come in that last box. She examined the wrappings again, but no identifying mark could be found. As John stepped down, Sid DuPree tried to edge past him, and found his way blocked immediately. Louise looked up at her youthful fiancé.
"Oh, Johnny, Johnny," she smiled delightedly.
"I sent—" began Sid from behind his shoulder. Then was John filled with sudden wrath. He would squelch this persistent rival once and for all.
"You sent it?" he sneered.
"I did," DuPree replied. Louise watched the two eagerly.
"Why that cost all of a quarter. And kids who asks folks to have sundaes and then can't pay for them, don't spend that much for valentines. Cheapskates never do!"
Sid scowled. Before he could make suitable reply, Miss Brown rapped for order and he had to go back to his seat. There, as he squirmed in his seat while waiting for the dismissal bell, he caught John looking at him and stuck out his tongue as a manifestation of his scorn. But that gentleman only grinned. Wrongfully or no, he knew that the credit for the twenty-five cent valentine had been given to him, and he was content to let matters rest as they were.
Valentine's day past, Washington's birthday was the one festive oasis left for the children in the desert of school days. Though the cold weather held marvelously well, little by little the thermometer beside the drug store's door showed rising-temperature levels as John stopped to look at it on the way to school. The long, northern shadows which the houses and apartments cast against the soot-grayed snow were shortening rapidly, and his paper route, so long patrolled in entire or semi-darkness, was now completed just as dusk set in.
Then Miss Brown reached back in her desk drawer for a certain packet of narrow manila envelopes, that last February afternoon, and brought to a certain small boy who occupied the seat just in front of her desk, sudden realization that March was upon the class.
"Please have them signed and returned by Monday," she told the pupils as she distributed them.
John drew the white, finger-marked card from the ragged envelope, and his face went first white and then scarlet as his eye followed the long column of marks. Accusing memories of lessons half done or postponed with a hope that teacher wouldn't call on him, of a skating party with Louise when a geography map should have been outlined, and of arithmetic papers hurriedly done in the half-hour "B" class recitation period, to be returned with a heavily penciled "20" or "30" across their surfaces, arose to annoy him. His teacher spoke again.
"There are one or two boys and girls in the 'A' class who will have to do better next month," John fancied that she was looking squarely at him, "or they'll be sent down into the 'B' division."
That wasn't the worst of the matter. He had to take that testimonial of disgrace home to be signed, and duly commented upon, by his mother.
The card reposed safely in his pocket over Saturday, while he pondered now and then upon the least painful method of breaking the news to her. Sunday passed. On Monday morning, as he stood up from the breakfast table, he broke out,
"Mother!"
"Yes, son?"
His courage vanished, and he was unable to go any further.
"What is it?" she asked.
"N-nothing. It was a peachy breakfast." He kissed her nervously and went into the hall for his coat.
"I forgot to bring it," he told Miss Brown that morning school session. At noon, he had the same excuse.
"Well, if it isn't here tomorrow morning, I'll send you home after it," that sophisticated supervisor of juveniles replied. And with this uncomfortable fact ever in his mind, he set out on the afternoon journey with the newspapers.
The weather seemed to have shaped itself for his mood. A curious, raw dampness had crept into the still air, and overhead was a level, sullen expanse of gray vapor. Locomotive smoke showed that the light breeze had shifted suddenly to the south, and there was an indefinable attitude of expectancy about, as if the big city with its varied expanse of buildings and vacant lots and snow-filled parks was waiting for something. As he stamped up the front porch steps and kicked the snow from his shoe soles, a fine, almost invisible drizzle began.
Blame that report card, anyway. Perhaps if he presented it with the "hundred" spelling paper that very day, his mother wouldn't be too severe with him. He'd try that experiment in the morning, anyway.
But upon waking, he stared from his window in delight at the spectacle which the capricious weather had formed for him. The rain had increased as the night passed, and had frozen upon the chilled trees and house roofs. The linden on the Fletcher lawn was coated with fairy lace work, and the denuded lilac bush across the way shone black through its glassy covering. The long expanse of dark, cement walk which flanked each side of the snowy road was coated with ice and made walking for pedestrians a matter of some danger. As he jerked his tie into position, Perry Alford shot past on his skates, and he hurried down to breakfast. He'd have a little of that sport before school, himself.
But as he rose joyously from the table, he stopped short. There was that report card; and he knew that his plans were shattered. Mrs. Fletcher's remarks upon his many deficiencies would consume every minute of the time before school.
"My report," he said briefly. She looked at it.
"John!"
He gazed out of the window in a forlorn effort to appear unconcerned.
"Reading, 'F'," quoted Mrs. Fletcher, "and last month it was 'G'."
He drew out his watch and set the big hand forward ten minutes. If he used a little strategy, he could at least shorten the lecture by that amount of time.
"Arithmetic, 'P'," she went on. "And geography, 'P'. And you told me you had all your lessons done when I gave you permission to go skating those evenings. I'm very much displeased with you."
He grew desperate. When Mrs. Fletcher began to talk about being displeased and grieved, there was trouble ahead. He drew a much-chewed pencil from his coat pocket and handed it to her.
"Hurry and sign, Mother," he begged. "It's school time."
She scribbled a reluctant signature at the bottom and looked at it thoughtfully. "I'll keep this to show to your father this evening."
"I've had it three days already," he blurted. "It's got to go back today."
He snatched the card from her hand, showed his watch as she protested, and fled for his coat. Once at the corner, he stopped running and smiled. The escape had been fairly easy and with a minimum of fuss, and he was immeasurably light-hearted, now that the report card bugaboo was off his mind.
At Southern Avenue, he caught up with Sid, Silvey, and Perry Alford. Bits of ice dropped from the trees to the walk as they sauntered along, and water dripped from the icicles on the eaves of the apartments and stores as the morning rise in temperature began to take effect.
"Feel's as if it's going to thaw," said Silvey as they came to a very slippery stretch of walk. So the quartette slid up and down on the ice as long after the second assembly bell as they dared, and with the fear of tardiness upon them, dashed for the school yard.
His pocket was empty, and his conscience clear, and the morning session passed swiftly for John. At noon, as the long lines filed into the school yard to freedom, he looked about him with delight.
The winter's deposit of snow was melting into little rivulets which trickled merrily along wagon ruts until they came to the street drains. First-graders stopped to splash soggy snowballs into a huge puddle which had collected in the street just beyond the alley, and the drip-drip-drip of the water, from the trees and buildings to the wet, glistening sidewalks was as music to his ears. He broke into a run toward home from pure exuberance of feelings, and halted now and then to fill his lungs with the sunlit, pregnant air which the south wind had brought.
The thought of the continuation of the "penny lecture" which was waiting failed to dampen his spirits, even though it threatened curtailment of his evenings with Louise. For if the skating parties were over, spring with its marbles, tops, and kindred delights had arrived and all sorrow fled before it.
CHAPTER XV
THE SPRING BRINGS BASEBALL
Little by little the snow disappeared. During the first days of the thaw, lethargic city employees chopped paths through the melting ice to the street drains. Bare edges of the cement walks appeared in places, and at night the puddles and pools in the street hollows bore a thin, frozen covering. As the month passed, the crystals became more and more rare, and green areas of grass appeared on the more exposed portions of the neighborhood lawns. The children turned from their sport of sailing sticks and improvised boats down the trickling, artificial brooklets to take part in games of "Run, sheep, run" and "Hide-and-seek" over the rapidly softening turf. A pelting, refreshing rain from the south drove away the last soot-stained vestiges of the snow lying in the protecting shadows between the houses, and presto, Miss Thomas' little store displayed a window stock of agates, catseyes, and common clay marbles to tempt pennies from boyish pockets.
Then, after school, during recess, and for long minutes before the afternoon session, the alley which flanked the school yard was marked with rings of varying dimensions. The air resounded with cries of, "No hudgins," "H'ist," "Your shot," or "You dribbled," as the players contested for prizes of five- and six-for-a-cent clay marbles. Occasionally two of the big eighth-grade boys would draw a six-foot circle in the earth and play for "K'nicks, dime ones," and the game would bring a crowd, three deep, from the neighboring players to applaud or gasp at each shot.
Even John, man of business that he was, could not resist the temptation. The last traces of that autumnal scorn toward "such foolishness" vanished as he became the owner of two shooters and a pocketful of the more common marbles.
The clan spirit among the different boyish cliques at school revived again. Skinny Mosher, who had hugged the warm house during the coldest days of the winter, caught suddenly up with John and Silvey as they frolicked home for dinner, and brought the news that a "Jefferson Tough" had threatened to punch his face in, with no provocation whatsoever. The long-discussed secret code took a new lease on life, and cipher messages passed to the various corners of room ten with a frequency which drove Miss Brown nearly to distraction.
That early April afternoon saw the reunion of the "Tigers" in the Silvey back yard. They viewed the dilapidated, weather-beaten club house with reawakened interest. Quoth John,
"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix her up." Down into the basement went Bill at the words, and reappeared with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.
"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the implements.
Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning assignments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of the house to occupy the customary position of state.
Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building. John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.
"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to the cause for the summons of the clan.
"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.
Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one. Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine voice pierced the sun-filled air.
"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."
The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.
"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you home in a minute!"
They all rose at this. Truly, modern electrical inventions widen the maternal scope of authority.
"Shucks!" said Skinny, as he brushed some dead grass from his coat. "Now she's spoiled it all. What'll we do?"
John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home! Beat you home!"
They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and into the front hall.
"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"
"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.
"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the stairway impatiently.
"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."
"Y-yes."
"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you want."
He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.
"Now, what is it?"
"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know where it is?"
"Where did you leave it?"
"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.
"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"
He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's, and I've got to get it quick!"
Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet shelf, the other day."
A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.
When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.
"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny was first at bat, wasn't he?"