Few customers patronized the little blue shop on Pine Street between five and six. Hillman’s discouraged the consumption of sweets so close to the school supper-hour, and, while there was no rule against it, the fellows felt themselves more or less on honor to observe the doctor’s frequently expressed wish. Neighbors ran in at intervals for a loaf of bread or cake or ten cents’ worth of whipped cream, but for the most part, as six o’clock approached, the bell tinkled infrequently. Consequently the conference held this afternoon in the Widow Deane’s sitting-room, which was also kitchen and dining-room and parlor, was almost undisturbed. The conference was participated in by four persons, Polly, Ned, Laurie, and Mae Ferrand. Mae’s presence had been unforeseen, but as she was Polly’s particular chum and, as Laurie phrased it, “one of the bunch,” it occasioned no embarrassment. Mae was about Polly’s age and perhaps a bit prettier, although, to quote Laurie again, it all depended on whether you liked light hair or dark. Mae’s hair was pure sunshine, and her skin was milk-white and rose-pink; and, which aroused Polly’s envy, she never freckled.
As the four had known each other since autumn there was no stiffness apparent in either speech or action. Ned lolled back in the comfortable old patent rocker, with his legs over one arm of it, and Laurie swung his feet from the table, secure in the knowledge that Polly’s mother was up-stairs. Laurie had a weakness for positions allowing him full liberty for his feet. Polly was talking. She and Mae, arms entwined, occupied the couch between the windows. A shining kettle on the stove hissed cozily, and a big black cat, Towser by name, purred in Ned’s lap as he scratched her head.
“There’s something wrong with him,” stated Polly convincedly. “I’ve noticed it for quite a while, more than two weeks. He looks dreadfully gloomy and unhappy, and he—he’s absent-minded, too. Just this afternoon he went off without thinking a thing about paying for a sundae and some cakes he had.”
Ned grinned but said nothing. Laurie winked gravely.
“And that’s another thing,” continued Polly. “It’s perfectly awful the way he eats sweet things, Laurie. He comes in every day and, if I’d let him, he’d make himself sick with cream-puffs and tarts and candy. It just seems as if he didn’t care what happened to him, as if he was—was desperate! Why, he told me to-day that maybe he wouldn’t play football any more!”
“I guess he was just talking,” said Mae.
“I don’t think so.” Polly shook her head. “He acts funny. Haven’t you noticed it, Laurie?”
“Yes, but he always did act funny. He’s a nut.”
“No, he isn’t; he’s a real nice boy, and you oughtn’t to talk like that. He’s unhappy, and we ought to help him.”
“All right,” agreed Laurie cheerfully. “What’ll we do?”
“Well, I suppose that first of all we should find out what’s worrying him,” answered Polly thoughtfully. “You—you have to know the disease before you apply the remedy.” Polly was plainly rather pleased with that statement, and so was Mae. Mae squeezed her friend’s arm in token of appreciation. Laurie allowed that it was a “wise crack” but wanted to know how Polly proposed to make the discovery. “Far as I can see,” he added, “Kewpie’s much the same as usual, if not more so. Although, to tell the honest gospel truth, I haven’t seen an awful lot of him just recently. I’ve been sort of keeping out of his way because he’s after me to see him pitch so’s I can ask Pinky to let him on the baseball squad.”
“It couldn’t be that, do you think?” asked Polly of the room at large. “I mean, you don’t suppose he’s hurt because you’ve been avoiding him? He might think that you’d gone back on him, Laurie, and I guess that Kewpie has a very sensitive nature.”
Ned snorted. “Kewpie’s nature’s about as sensitive as a—a whale’s!”
“I don’t know anything about whales,” declared Polly with dignity, “but I do know that very often folks who don’t seem sensitive are actually the very sensitivest of all. And I am quite sure that if Kewpie thought Laurie had—had deserted him—”
“Hey, hold hard, Polly! Gee, I haven’t deserted the poor prune. I—I’ve been busy lately and—and—well, that’s all there is to it. Gosh, I like Kewpie. He’s all right, isn’t he, Ned?”
“Yes. Look here, Miss Chairwoman and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention, the only thing that’s wrong with Kewpie is that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Ever since he stopped playing football he’s been like a chap who’s lost his job and can’t find another one. Of course, at first it wasn’t so bad, for Christmas vacation was coming. But for the last couple of months he’s just sort of mooned around, getting sore-headed because he couldn’t make the basket-ball team or the hockey team or anything else. Give the old chap something to do and he’ll snap out of it. He comes over here and fills up on pastry and stuff because he hasn’t anything better to do and has a sweet tooth, anyway. Laurie and I have told him often enough that he ought to cut it out, but he says he doesn’t care whether he gets on the eleven next fall or not. That’s just guff, of course. If they had spring football practice here he’d behave himself, but they don’t. Only trouble with Kewpie is he’s lost his ambition.”
After that long speech Ned subsided further into the rocker. Mae looked across at him admiringly. “I’m sure Ned’s quite right, Polly,” she declared.
“Well, I’m glad if he is,” said Polly with a sigh of relief. “I was dreadfully afraid that he had some—some secret sorrow in his life, like—like a cruel stepmother or—or a father who drank or something. If it’s only what Ned thinks it is, why, everything’s quite easy, because getting on the baseball team will be just the thing for him.”
“How’s he going to get there?” asked Laurie suspiciously.
“Why, I thought you said he wanted you to help him!”
“I did, but what he wants and what I aim to do—”
“Kewpie couldn’t play baseball, Polly,” said Ned. “Look at him!”
“But I’ve seen stout boys play baseball plenty of times,” Polly protested. “Two years ago we had a first baseman on the high school team who was every bit as fat as Kewpie Proudtree. You remember George Wallen, Mae.”
“But it isn’t only his fatness, or stoutness, or whatever you like to call it,” insisted Laurie. “He isn’t built right for baseball. Gee, think of Kewpie trying to beat out a bunt or sliding to second! Besides, hang it, I couldn’t get him on the team if he really could pitch! Pinky said positively—”
“Is he a pitcher?” asked Polly eagerly.
“No, but he wants people to think he is.”
“But that would make it lots easier, Laurie! A pitcher doesn’t have to run much, and—”
“Why doesn’t he? Don’t you think he has to take his turn at the bat sometimes?”
“But he never hits the ball,” replied Polly triumphantly, “and so he doesn’t need to run!”
“She had you there, partner,” laughed Ned.
“Well, just the same,” answered Laurie, grinning, “I’ll be hanged if I’m going to ask Pinky to let Kewpie on the squad just so he won’t be lonesome. Pinky wouldn’t listen to me, anyway.”
“You don’t know,” said Polly. “And I think you really ought to try. Yes, I do! Kewpie’s having a miserable time of it, and he’s ruining himself for football, and it’s our duty to the school to do everything we can so he won’t!”
“Say that again,” begged Ned, but Polly paid no heed.
“Besides,” she went on warmly, “we all pretend to be his friends, and I guess a friend ought to be willing to make some sacrifices for you, and it wouldn’t be very much for Laurie to get him on the baseball team and—”
“But I tell you I can’t do it!” wailed Laurie.
“You don’t know. You haven’t tried. Don’t you think he ought to try, Mae?”
“I certainly do,” said that young lady decisively.
“Don’t you, Ned?” persisted Polly earnestly.
“Not a doubt of it in the world,” answered Ned gravely.
Laurie glared indignantly at him, but Ned was looking at Towser. After a brief silence Laurie sighed gloomily.
“All right,” he said. “But I can tell you right now that it won’t do any good. Mr. Mulford said he wouldn’t take on any fellow who didn’t report for early practice, and he means it. Besides, Kewpie’s no more of a pitcher than—than I am!”
“I know, Laurie,” said Polly persuasively, “but maybe with practice, and if you showed him—”
Ned chortled. Laurie, although he wanted to smile, kept a straight face.
“Of course,” he agreed, “I might do that. Well, I’ll do it, though I’ll feel like a perfect ass when I speak to Pinky about it.”
“There,” said Polly in triumph. “I knew we could do something if we all put our heads together! And I do hope it will be all right. Kewpie’s really a very dear boy, and he certainly did wonderfully at football last fall and he’s just got to keep on. I do think, though, that we should keep this quite to ourselves, don’t you, Ned?”
“Don’t just see how we can. If Kewpie gets on the baseball squad he’s almost sure to know something about it. He’s not such a fool as he looks sometimes, Polly.”
Polly stared. “I don’t see—” she began. Then the twinkle in Ned’s eye explained. “Of course I didn’t mean that, silly! I meant that Kewpie shouldn’t know that we—that we’d been discussing him and that we had—well, conspired, Ned. Don’t you see? He might resent it or something.”
“I get you! We’ll make a secret society out of it, eh? Association for the Restoration—no, that won’t do.”
“Advancement,” suggested Mae.
“Association for the Reclamation of Kewpie Proudtree!” pronounced Ned. “And the password—”
“Association for the Degradation of Laurence Turner, you mean,” said Laurie dejectedly. “And there isn’t any password, because he won’t pass!”
“All right,” agreed Ned. “But the dues are twenty cents. Here you are, Polly. You’ve got ‘treasurer’ written all over you.”
“But—but what is it?” asked Polly, refusing to accept the two dimes that Ned proffered.
“Madam, I am settling the debt of none other than our distinguished and rattle-brained friend Kewpie. At his request. It seems he—er—he neglected to settle for the entertainment you provided him this afternoon, and, torn by remorse—”
“Oh, I knew he forgot!” exclaimed Polly gladly.
“He would,” said Laurie pessimistically. “He has a perfectly remarkable forgetory. I guess he’s the champion long-distance forgetter—”
“Don’t be horrid,” begged Polly. “With so much on his mind, it’s no wonder he—”
“On his what?” exclaimed Laurie. “Ned, did you get that? Kewpie has so much on his mind! Honest, Polly, when Kewpie takes his cap off he hasn’t—”
The kettle caused a diversion by boiling over just then, and the conference broke up.
Kewpie awaited Laurie in No. 16, and as the twins entered he broke into speech. “Say, Nod, when—”
“To-morrow morning. Half-past ten. Back of the gym,” replied Laurie promptly. Kewpie stared, puzzled.
“What?” he demanded suspiciously.
Laurie performed an exaggerated parody of a pitcher winding up and delivering a ball. Then, assuming the rôle of catcher, he leaped high off his feet and pulled down a wild one that would undoubtedly have smashed the upper pane of the further window had it got by him.
“Honest?” cried Kewpie. “Me and you?”
“No, you and me.”
“But—how did you know what I was going to ask?”
Laurie viewed him sadly. “Kewpie,” he replied, “it’s a mighty good thing you decided to be a pitcher. That’s the only position that doesn’t call for any brain!”