Jerry Todd and the Talking Frog

It was Scoop’s scheme, as he now explained to us, to fly a kite to a purpose over the old mill. So, upon our arrival at the brick house, he and I went guardedly to an open spot on the windward side of the mill and from there released the kite into the air.

“Fine!” he chuckled, when the sagging string touched the mill roof.

I had told him that I would have no part in his proposed invasion of the enemy’s territory. I had declared that it was entirely too risky for my blood. But what I had said had been largely a matter of talk. I’m no coward. I was ready, as his loyal chum, to stand by him.

As a matter of fact, in my courageous decision, I was even more impatient than he was for night to come. I’m that way by nature. Sometimes it takes me quite a while to make up my mind, but once I have decided to do a certain thing I like to go ahead and do it. I don’t like to wait around. [130]

And having completed our plans, I was impatient, as I say, for nightfall. For it was our intended scheme to climb a rope in the darkness to the mill’s flat roof, gaining secret access at that unguarded quarter to the enemy’s territory. The spy, of course, would be expecting us to come up the stairs—would probably have several hidden traps in readiness for us there. He never would think of the roof. That was the fun of it.

The kite properly raised, we had now to wait for the wind to go down, which it undoubtedly would do at sunset. And when Tom called us to supper, which he and Peg had prepared, we tied the kite string to a bush, hoping that in the time we were eating that the kite would “die,” leaving its string on the mill roof. It was by the aid of this string, of course, that we expected to secretly raise our rope, pulling it up the east wall of the mill, over the top, then down the west wall, tying it to a tree.

Supper over, Tom and I called on the soap man, at Scoop’s directions, not only to settle up with our employer and pay him the money due him, but to hold him in spirited conversation, in the mill, until our leader had returned from town with the necessary rope.

“If you hear me at work,” Scoop had instructed, [131]“sing a song or dance a jig. Do anything,” he had added, with a grin, “that will make a lot of noise, I’ll give two owl hoots when I’m through.”

So we told the soap man funny stories, thereby keeping him in the mill until dusk. Shortly after eight o’clock a near-by owl went, “Hoo-o! Hoo-o!” At least the soap man thought it was an owl. We didn’t tell him anything different. And in keeping with our leader’s instructions, we yawned, telling the mill’s tenant that it was time for us to go home.

“Everything’s ready,” Scoop told us, when we had joined him near the inventor’s workshop.

“Rope up?” I inquired.

“Sure thing.”

“We never heard you,” said Tom.

“It was no trick to get it up. First, I pulled up a heavier cord, one that wouldn’t be likely to break under the rope’s weight, and then I pulled up the rope with the stronger cord.”

We waited in the brick house until the clock struck nine. It was now dark enough for our purpose. There was some final conversation between the four of us. As on the preceding night, Scoop told Peg and Tom to be sure and keep the house doors locked, letting us in only on signal. [132]Then he and I set forth. Coming into the mill yard, we saw a light in the windows on the second floor. Thump! thump! thump! The spy was at work.

“I’ll go up first,” Scoop whispered, gripping the rope, which vanished into the overhead darkness. “Hold it tight, Jerry. When I get to the top I’ll give it three quick jerks.”

Two-three minutes passed. Then I got the signal. It was my turn now.

I had a queer feeling as I left the ground. It was as though I were climbing into space. What if the rope should break? I tried not to think about it, especially when I was ten or fifteen feet from the ground. It was a strong rope. Scoop had told me so. It had held him. I wasn’t any heavier than he was. Certainly it ought to hold me.

But what if the spy, in suddenly detecting me, should reach out of a window and slash the rope with a knife? I shivered in the thought of it. Then I told myself that I was foolish to let such thoughts come into my head. I was in no danger from the spy. For I could hear his steady thump! thump! thump! With his stair traps, he felt quite secure, and wasn’t giving any thought to what was going on outside of his windows. [133]

I got out of breath after a minute or two. My arms began to ache. I wasn’t used to doing this. Climbing a rope, let me tell you, is hard work. There is a trick to it, too. A lot of boys can’t do it.

Twisting my feet into the rope to keep from slipping, I rested myself, then, after a few moments, continued my climb. I was even with the second-story windows now. It was on this floor that the spy was working. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him.

Scoop was waiting for me at the roof edge. He gave me a lift. I was glad, let me tell you, when I had something firm under my feet once again.

“Jinks!” I panted. “That was hard work.”

“S-h-h-h! Get your wind, Jerry. Take your time. We’ve got all night.”

I sat down on the roof, concluding that this was the quickest way to rest myself and get rid of the trembling in my arms.

As my wind came back, and the trembling diminished, I gave a curious eye to my surroundings. It didn’t seem so dark now. I could trace the rectangle of the mill’s roof. And I could distinguish the shape of near-by tree tops. In the direction of town I could see dozens of lights in [134]houses and on street corners. This wasn’t the first time that I had been on the mill roof—one time, in our play, the fellows had shut me up there for nearly an hour—but somehow the surroundings seemed strange and unfamiliar to me in the darkness. I had the feeling, too, that I was in danger of falling.

After a little bit I got up, ready for business.

A box-like shape stood out in the darkness ahead of us. This was the office that Mr. Matson had added to his mill. He had built it on the flat roof. There was no door opening onto the roof, but there were four windows, one on each side of the small building, and it was through one of these windows that we had planned to enter the mill.

But, to our disappointment, the windows were locked.

“Dog-gone!” muttered Scoop. “He’s fastened them on the inside.” There was a moment’s silence. “Well,” he added, “what are we going to do?”

“You’re the leader,” I reminded.

“That doesn’t prevent you from speaking up if you get an idea.” [135]

My hand touched something on the roof building’s outside wooden wall. I felt around for a moment or two.

“All right,” I laughed. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I’m listening.”

“We’ll go down the office chimney. Santa Claus stuff.”

“Jinks!”

“Here’s ladder steps,” I told him, “leading to the roof. See? And you know how big the chimney is.”

That was another queer thing that Mr. Matson had done: The fireplace that he had built in his crazy roof office had a chimney as big as a sugar barrel.

Having suggested the idea, I led the way.

“Get the rope,” I whispered to Scoop from the small building’s roof, “and come up and let me down the chimney.”

With the rope tied under my arms, I got on the chimney edge and swung my legs into the black hole, sort of measuring the chimney with my feet. It was plenty big enough for me, I concluded, though it wasn’t as roomy on the inside as I had thought it would be.

“As soon as I’m down,” I told Scoop, “pull up [136]the rope and drop it to the ground where it was. For we may have to use it in a hurry. I’ll let you in the east window.”

“Check,” said Scoop, meaning that he understood.

I had figured that the chimney, long unused and open to the weather, would be washed clean of soot. But that shows how little I knew about chimneys!

Soot! Man alive, in less than ten seconds I was plastered with it. I hardly dared to breathe. Blinded, my ears stuffed full of the nasty black stuff, I opened my mouth to tell Scoop to haul me up in a hurry. But I had so much soot in my mouth that I couldn’t say a word.

Halfway down I got hooked on a nail that had been plastered into the bricks.

“Untie the rope,” Scoop hissed down the black hole, thinking, of course, that I had landed at the bottom.

“Blub-blub-bub,” I spit.

“What’s that?” the rope handler hissed quickly.

“Blub-bub.”

“What the dickens?… Are you trying to kiss yourself on the back of the neck?”

“I’b studk,” I got out. [137]

“Oh!…”

“Pud me ub,” I gagged. “I’b fud ud sud.”

He gave a quick jerk on the rope. Unhooked, I went kerplunk to the bottom of the chimney.

Sifting myself from the soot, sort of, I untied the rope and gave it a sharp jerk. Getting the signal, Scoop pulled the rope up the chimney. I heard him getting down from the roof. A few moments later he came to the east window, which I managed to get unfastened.

“Where are you?” he whispered.

“Here,” I said, from in front of him.

“I can’t see you.”

Of course he couldn’t see me! How could he, when I was seven shades blacker than the night, itself?

I told him what had happened to me. I told him how miserable I felt with the soot in my eyes and nose and mouth and ears. There was pecks of it down the back of my neck, I told him, and bushels of it clinging to my clothes.

He said he was sorry for me. But I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was giggling to himself. Well, to that point, I guess that I would have giggled if he had been the unlucky one to get into the soot.

Thump! thump! thump! The spy was at work [138]directly below us. There was need for caution. The wonder was that I hadn’t been heard before this. For I hadn’t landed quietly at the bottom of the chimney. Two skinned knees and a skinned nose gave testimony to that.

Moving stealthily to the door that opened onto the stairs, we squinted down. His candle stuck in an ink bottle, the old man was standing on a box tapping the stone wall with a hammer. In the flickering light he seemed to be more shabby and more hairy than ever. A wolf! That is what he was—a two-legged wolf. As we watched him, he tapped over a space two yards square. Marking the spot, he moved his box, beginning work on a new square. Plainly he was going over every inch of the mill wall in a systematic search for the puzzle maker’s hidden fortune.

Did he have a clew to the money’s hiding place? Did he know to a certainty that the money was cemented into the stone wall? I wondered to myself as I watched him.

If the money were in the wall, he would be sure to find it sooner or later. We had bragged to Mrs. Kelly and the granddaughter that we wouldn’t let the uncle get away from us with the hidden fortune. But now I was suddenly uneasy in the thought that he might find the money ahead [139]of us and escape us. It would be hard to keep track of him every minute.

“ ‘Ten and ten,’ ” Scoop whispered in my ear. “Do you see anything down there, Jerry, that looks like ‘ten and ten’?”

“No,” I breathed.

“ ‘Ten and ten.’ Um.… Let me have your flashlight. I’m going to look around. Keep your eye on him, Jerry.”

Ten-twenty-thirty minutes passed. I could hear Scoop tiptoeing around the office. But I didn’t turn my head to see what he was doing. For the spy needed constant watching. Our goose would be cooked, as the saying is, if he came upstairs and surprised us.

Scoop touched me on the back.

“Jerry, do you notice anything peculiar about this room?”

“It has an awfully sooty chimney,” I grumbled.

He chuckled.

“I wasn’t thinking of the chimney.”

“Huh!”

“The room is square.”

“I knew that.”

“Ten feet by ten feet.”

“What?”

“I measured it. ‘Ten and ten.’ I bet anything [140]you want to bet that the money is hidden in this room.”

“In the wall plaster?”

“Probably.”

There was a sudden silence from below. Then we heard quick footsteps on the stairs.

“Out through the window, Jerry. Quick!”

We weren’t a moment too soon.

“Let’s go down the rope,” I shivered, scared clear through.

“You go down. I’ll follow in a few minutes. I want to peek through the windows.”

Sliding to the ground, I waited there until my companion joined me.

“He came upstairs and went to bed,” Scoop told me. “So I guess he won’t need any more watching to-night.”

“He’ll get up at midnight,” I said.

“What for?”

“He’s been coming to the brick house every night at midnight.”

“That’s so. I wonder why he waits till midnight to try the doors. Queer.”

“Everything he does is queer,” I returned.

Scoop nodded.

“Gennor must have been hard up for a spy to hire him.” [141]

We went to the tree where the rope was tied.

“Do you really believe,” I inquired, “that the money is hidden in the office?”

“I’d sooner think it’s there than in the stone wall.”

“The spy must have a clew though.”

“He probably thinks he has. But it’s plain that we’ve got a better clew than he has.”

“How are we going to get the money?” I then inquired.

Scoop was pulling down the rope, coiling it on his left arm.

“What puzzles me more than that,” he joked, laughing, “is how in Sam Hill we’re going to get you cleaned up. You’re a sight, Jerry. Just wait till Peg and Tom see you! They’ll laugh themselves into a fit.”

“But you haven’t answered my question,” I hung on.

“I can’t tell you how we’re going to get the hidden money,” he said, “for, truthfully, I don’t know. Come on. It’s bedtime.” [142]