The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall; Or, Great Days in School and Out

Cheered by his victory in this skirmish, Aaron Rushton went on:

“I tell you what it is, Mansfield, what the boys need is to go to some good boarding school, where they’ll be under strict discipline and have to toe the mark. They’ve a soft snap here, and they know it. You let them run the whole shooting match.”

“Nothing of the kind, Aaron,” protested Mansfield. “I don’t believe in the knock-down and drag-out system of bringing up children, but, all the same, the boys always mind when I put my foot down.”

“When you put your foot down!” sneered Aaron. “How often do you put it down? Not very often, as far as I’ve been able to see. They twist you and their mother around their little fingers.

“A boy’s a good deal like a horse,” he continued. “Any horse can tell just from the feel of the reins how far he dares to go with his driver. Now, what your boys need to feel is a tight rein over their backs that’ll make ’em feel that their driver isn’t going to stand any nonsense. They don’t have that feeling at home, and it’s up to you to put them where they will feel it.”

“It might be out of the frying pan into the fire,” objected Mr. Rushton. “There are many boarding schools where the boys do just about as they like.”

“Not at the one I’m thinking about,” rejoined Aaron. “Not much, they don’t! When Hardach Rally tells a boy to do anything, that boy does it on the jump.”

“Hardach Rally,” inquired his brother, “who is he?”

“He’s a man after my own heart,” answered Aaron. “He’s one of the best disciplinarians I’ve ever met. He has a large boarding school on Lake Morora, about a mile from the town of Green Haven, the nearest railway station. I reckon it’s about a hundred miles or so from here. It’s a good school, one of the best I know of. Rally Hall, he calls it, and under his management, it’s made a big reputation. If I had boys of my own–thank Heaven, I haven’t–there’s no place I’d sooner send them.”

Mr. Rushton and his wife exchanged glances.

“Well, Aaron, we’ll think it over,” his brother said, “But there’s no special hurry about it, as they couldn’t start in till next fall, anyway. In the meantime, I’ll write to Dr. Rally and get his catalogue and terms.”

“It’ll be the best thing you ever did,” remarked Aaron.

He yawned and looked at his watch.

A surprised look came into his eyes.

“Why!” he exclaimed, “it must be later than that.”

He looked again, then put it up to his ear.

“Stopped,” he said disgustedly. “I haven’t let that watch run down for five years past. And it hasn’t run down now. That’s some more of Teddy’s work. I must have jarred it or bent a wheel or something when I went over into the river.”

“Let me have it,” said Mr. Rushton, holding out his hand. “I’m pretty handy with watches and perhaps I can get it started.”

Aaron handed the timepiece over. It was a heavy, double-cased gold watch, of considerable value, and he set a great deal of store by it. It was of English make, and on the inner case was an engraving of the Lion and the Unicorn. Under this were Aaron’s initials.

His brother shook the watch, opened it, and made several attempts to set it going, but all to no purpose.

“I guess it’s a job for a jeweler,” he said at last regretfully. “Of course, I’ll pay whatever it costs to have it fixed.”

“By the time you get through settling with Jed Muggs, you won’t feel much like paying anything else,” retorted Aaron, “Give me the watch and I’ll take it down town in the morning and leave it to be mended. Chances are it’ll never be as good again.

“I’m dead tired now,” and again he yawned. “If you folks don’t mind, I guess I’ll be getting to bed.”

They were only too glad to speed him on his way. Nobody ever attempted to stop him, when he was ready to retire. It was the one thing he did that met with everybody’s approval.

His brother went up with him to see that everything had been made ready for his comfort, and then, bidding him good-night, came back to his wife.

He smiled at her whimsically, and she smiled back at him tearfully.

“Been a good deal of a siege,” he commented.

“Hasn’t it?” she agreed. “But, oh, Mansfield, whatever in the world are we going to do about Teddy?”

He frowned and studied the points of his shoes.

“Blest if I know,” he pondered. “The young rascal has been in a lot of scrapes, but this is the limit. I don’t wonder that Aaron feels irritable. Of course, he rubs it in a little too much, but you’ll have to admit, my dear, that he has a good deal of justice on his side. It was a mighty reckless thing for Teddy to do.

“I wonder,” he went on thoughtfully, “if perhaps we haven’t been a bit too lax in our discipline, Agnes. Too much of the ‘velvet glove’ and too little of the ‘iron hand,’ eh? What do you think?”

“Perhaps–a little,” she assented dubiously. Then, defensively, she added: “But, after all, where do you find better boys anywhere than ours? Fred scarcely gives us a particle of trouble, and as for Teddy”–here she floundered a little–“of course, he gets into mischief at times, but he has a good heart and he’s just the dearest boy,” she ended, in a burst of maternal affection.

“How about that boarding school idea?” suggested Mr. Rushton.

“I don’t like it at all,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I simply can’t bear to think of our boys a hundred miles away from home. I’d be worrying all the time for fear that something had happened to them or was going to happen. And think how quiet the house would be with them out of it.”

“I know,” agreed her husband, “I’d feel a good deal that way myself. Still, if it’s for the boys’ good—”

But here they were interrupted by a commotion on the stairs, and as they rose to their feet, Aaron came bouncing into the room. His coat and vest and collar and tie were off, but he was too stirred up to bother about his appearance. He was in a state of great agitation.

“What’s the matter?” they asked in chorus.

“Matter enough,” snarled Aaron. “I was just getting ready for bed, when I thought of some papers in the breast pocket of my coat. I just thought I’d take a last look to make sure they were all right, but when I put my hand in the pocket, the papers weren’t there. What do you make of that now?” and he glared at them as though they had a guilty knowledge of the papers and had better hand them over forthwith.

“Papers!” exclaimed Mrs. Rushton, her heart sinking at this new complaint. “What papers were they?”

“I hope they weren’t very valuable?” said Mr. Rushton.

“Valuable!” almost shrieked Aaron Rushton. “I should say they were valuable. There was a mortgage and there were three notes of hand and the transcript of a judgment that I got in a court action a little while ago. I can’t collect on any of them, unless I have the papers to show. I’m in a pretty mess!” he groaned, as he went around the room like a wild man.

“We’ll make a careful search for them everywhere,” said Mrs. Rushton. “They must be somewhere around the house.”

“House, nothing!” ejaculated Aaron. “I know well enough where they are. They’re down in the river somewhere, and I’ll never clap eyes on them again. They must have fallen out of my pocket when I jumped. Oh, if I just had the handling of that imp”–and his fingers writhed in a way that boded no good to Teddy, if that lively youth were luckless enough to be turned over to his uncle for punishment.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Aaron,” his brother assured him. “We’ll have a most careful search made at the place where the accident happened, the first thing to-morrow morning. I’ll also put up the offer of a reward in the post office. The papers are not of much value to any one except you, and if somebody has found them, they’ll be glad enough to bring them to you. In the meantime, we’ll take one more look about the house.”

But the search was fruitless, and, at last, Aaron, still growling like a grizzly bear, went reluctantly to his room to await developments on the morrow.

In the meantime, Teddy, the cause of it all, although cut off from the rest of the household, had shared in the general gloom. He was devotedly attached to his father and mother, and was sincerely sorry that he had so distressed them. He would have given a good deal if he had never yielded to his sudden impulse of the afternoon.

Fred had spent most of the evening with him, and had done his level best to cheer him up. He had succeeded to some extent, but, after he had left him and gone to his own room, Teddy again felt the weight of a heavy depression.

It must be admitted that not all of this came from conscience. Some of it was due to hunger.

He had never felt so hungry in his life. And it seemed an endless time from then till breakfast the next morning.

He had just turned out his light, and was about to slip into bed when he heard a soft knock on his door. He opened it and peered out into the dark hall.

“It’s me, honey,” came a low voice. “Take dis an’ don’t say nuffin’.”

The “dis” was a leg of chicken and a big cut of peach pie!

The door closed, and old Martha went puffing slowly to her room in the attic.

“Ah doan’t care,” she said to herself defiantly. “Ef it wus right fer de ravuns ter take food ter de prophet ‘Lijuh in der wil’erness, et’s right fer me ter keep mah po’ lam’ frum starvin’. So, dere, now!”

There were no traces left the next morning of Martha’s stealthy visit. The chicken bone had gone out of the window, but all the rest had gone where it would do the most good. And Teddy had slept the sleep of the satisfied, if not exactly the sleep of the just.

Breakfast was served at an unusually early hour, as there was a great deal to be done to right the wrong of the day before, and it was very important that the boys get an early start in the search for Uncle Aaron’s missing papers.

He himself had little hope of finding them. If they were in the river, which seemed to him most likely, they might have been carried down the stream. And, even if they were found, they might be so spoiled by the soaking that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make them out.

In any event, it meant for him a lot of trouble, and he was in a fiendish temper, when, after a sleepless night, he came downstairs. He responded gruffly to the greetings of the others, and favored Teddy with a black stare that showed that he had not forgiven him.

“What have you got up your sleeve for to-day?” he growled. “Some more mischief, I’ll be bound.”

“I’m going to look for your papers,” answered Teddy promptly, “and I won’t stop until I find them.”

His mother shot him a bright glance at the respectful reply, which rather took the wind out of Aaron’s sails.

“Humph,” he muttered. “Talk is cheap.” But he became silent and devoted himself to the breakfast, which Mrs. Rushton, with Martha’s help, had made unusually tempting in order to coax him into good humor.

“Now,” said Mr. Mansfield Rushton when they had finished, “your Uncle Aaron and I are going down to the village. He’s going to leave his watch to be repaired, and I’ve got to see Jed Muggs and settle with him for the damage to his coach and horses”–here he looked sternly at Teddy, who kept his eyes studiously on the tablecloth–“from the runaway. I’m going, too, to put up a notice in the post-office, offering a reward to any one who may find and return Uncle Aaron’s papers.

“As for you boys, I want you to get some of the other boys together and go over every foot of ground down near the river, where the accident—”

“Accident!” sneered Aaron contemptuously.

“Where the accident happened,” went on Mr. Rushton, taking no notice of the interruption. “Look in every bush on both sides of the road. Slip on your bathing suits under your other clothes, and if you can’t find the papers on land try to find them in the water.

“In most places it isn’t so deep but what you can wade around. Get sticks and poke under the stones and in every hole under the bank. In places where it’s over your heads, dive down and feel along the bottom with your hands.”

“But do be careful, boys,” put in Mrs. Rushton. “I’m always nervous when you get where the water is deep.”

“Don’t worry, Agnes,” were her husband’s soothing words. “Both of them can swim like fish, and now they’ve got a chance to do it for something else than fun.

“And mind, Teddy,” he added, “it’s up to you to get busy and make good for your own sake, as well as Uncle Aaron’s. I haven’t yet decided”–here Aaron grinned, unpleasantly–“just what I shall do to you for what happened yesterday, but I don’t mind telling you that if you come home with those papers it’s going to be a mighty sight easier for you than if you don’t. Now get along with you,” addressing both boys, “and make every minute tell.”

The Rushton boys hurried about, put on their bathing suits under their other clothes, and hastened from the house, eager for action. They were glad to get out of the shadow of Uncle Aaron, and, besides, the task they had before them promised to be as much of a lark as a duty.

“I’ll pick up Jack and Jim as I go along, and you skip around and get Bob,” suggested Fred. “Probably we’ll find some other fellows down by the bridge, and they’ll be glad enough to help us do the hunting.”

Teddy assented, and soon had whistled Bob out of the house.

“Hello, Teddy,” was Bob’s greeting. “You’re still alive, I see. What did that old crab do to you last night?”

“Nothing much,” said Teddy cheerfully. “So far, I’ve only had to go without my supper. Didn’t go altogether without it, though,” and he poured into Bob’s sympathetic ears the story of the pie and the chicken.

“Bully for Martha,” chuckled Bob. “She’s the stuff!”

“You bet she is!” echoed Teddy heartily. “But let’s hurry now, Bob,” he went on. “Fred and the other fellows are down at the bridge by this time, and we’ve got a job before us.”

The two boys broke into a run and soon overtook the three other boys, who were looking carefully among the bushes on each side of the road as they went along. This they did more as a matter of form than anything else, for it was hardly likely that the papers had been dropped this side of the bridge.

It was almost certain that they had left Aaron’s pocket at the moment he had made his flying leap into the stream. In that case, they would be either in the bushes on the bank or in the water itself. It was barely possible, too, that they had fallen in the coach, when the blow of the ball had brought Aaron to his knees. If that were so, they might have been jarred out of the coach on the further side of the road, when it had smashed into the trees.

So when the boys reached the neighborhood of the bridge, the search began in earnest. The boys scattered about under the direction of Fred, who gave each one a certain section to search over.

“Now, fellows,” he urged, himself setting the example, “go over every foot with a fine-tooth comb. We’ve simply got to get those papers, or home won’t be a very healthy place for Teddy.”

Apart from their liking for Teddy, the boys were excited by the idea of competition. To be looking for papers that meant real money, as Fred had carefully explained to them, seemed almost like a story or a play. Each was eager to be the first to find them and stand out as the hero of the occasion.

But, try as they might, nobody had any luck. They reached and burrowed and bent, until their faces were red and their backs were lame. And at last they felt absolutely sure that the papers were not on either side of the stream.

There remained then only the river itself.

“Well, fellows,” summed up Fred, finally, “it’s no go on land. We’ve got to try the water. Here goes.”

And, stripping off his outer clothes, he dived in, to be followed a moment later by Teddy.

“Gee, that water looks good,” said Jim enviously. “I wish I’d thought to bring my bathing suit along.”

“So do I,” agreed Jack, as he looked at the cool water dripping from the bodies of the brothers.

“Well, what if we haven’t!” exclaimed Bob. “Don’t let’s stand here like a lot of boobs. We can take off our shoes and roll our pants almost up to our waists. Then we can wade along near the edge, while Fred and Teddy do their looking further out in the river.”

It was no sooner said than done, and they were soon wading along in the shallower parts, each armed with a long stick, with which they poked into every place that they thought might give results.

Fred and Teddy dived and dived again, keeping under water as long as they could, and feeling along the river bed. They kept this up until they were nearly exhausted, and had to go to the bank to rest.

“It isn’t our lucky day,” said Fred, puffing and blowing. “I’m afraid the river doesn’t know anything about those papers.”

“I hate to go home without them,” said Teddy, as visions of Uncle Aaron flitted across his mind.

“Oh, well, you fellows have certainly worked like truck horses,” remarked Bob, “but if they’re not there you can’t get them, and you might as well make up your minds to it.”

“Phew, but I’m hot!” complained Jim. “Say, fellows, how would some of those peaches taste?” and he cast a longing look toward a peach orchard, across the way from where they were resting.

“How would they taste?” repeated Jack, as he followed the direction of Jim’s glance. “Yum-yum.”

“There’s a lot of big mellow ones lying on the ground,” went on Jim, whose mouth was watering more and more. “They’ll only rot, anyway, so what’s the matter with our getting a few? They’re no good to Sam Perkins, and they’d certainly do us a whole lot of good.”

Fred and Teddy were hurrying into their clothes.

“We want to keep a sharp lookout for Sam,” cautioned Fred. “He’s got a new dog whip, and he said that if he caught any boy in his orchard, he was going to skin him alive.”

“He’s got to catch us first,” said Teddy. “Let’s take a chance.”

They took it. Another moment, and they were over the fence.

The Rushton boys and their chums crouched low in the shadow of the fence, and took a careful look around. All of them knew the violent temper of Mr. Sam Perkins, and none of them wanted to make the acquaintance of that famous dog whip he had recently bought at the village store, loudly declaring at the same time the use he expected to make of it.

But five sharp pairs of eyes could see nothing to cause alarm. A sleepy silence brooded over the orchard, and it looked as though Sam must be busy at some other part of his extensive farm.

“I guess it’s all right,” said Fred, in a cautious whisper.

“Cricky, look at those beauties!” exclaimed Jack Youmans, as he pounced upon a luscious peach that lay within a foot of him.

The others quickly followed his example, and there was soon no sound except the munching of jaws, as they satisfied their first hunger for the delicious fruit.

There was no need to pluck them from the trees, as there were plenty lying on the ground. And since these were doomed to rot in time, the consciences of the boys did not disturb them much. Still, they knew they were trespassing, and at first they kept a keen lookout. Nothing happened, however, and gradually their caution relaxed, and they strayed farther and farther from the road into the heart of the orchard.

Suddenly, a fierce barking made them jump and sent their hearts into their throats. They looked behind them, and saw a big dog rushing toward them. He was between them and the fence, and shut off escape in that direction.

“It’s Sam’s dog, Tiger!” ejaculated Bob, his face growing pale.

“Quick, this way!” cried Fred, grasping the situation at a glance. “Let’s make for the barn. It’s our only chance.”

They were not more than two hundred feet from a big red barn, which had two entrances, one of which faced them. The one at the further end was closed, but the one to which the boys were nearer was open.

They ran with all their might, a wholesome fear lending wings to their feet. There were many stories abroad about the ferocity of Tiger, whose name seemed to fit his nature. Only a week before, he had taken a piece out of a man’s leg, and Sam Perkins had more than once been in danger of lawsuits on account of the dog’s savage disposition. But the farmer was ugly himself, and, instead of trying to curb the brute, seemed to glory in its reputation.

“I ain’t a-goin’ to muzzle him,” he would say, when people complained that the dog was dangerous. “All any one has to do is to keep off my grounds, and he won’t get hurt.”

The dog was gaining at every jump, but the boys had a good start, and the distance to the barn was short. They covered it in fast time, and almost fell inside the door. Fred and Bob had just time to swing it shut and slip the bar in place, when Tiger hurled himself against it.

It was a close call, and for a minute or two they lay there, panting and unable to speak.

The hay scattered on the floor had deadened the sound of their footsteps, as they piled in, and, in the silence of the big barn, the only sound came from their own gaspings for breath.

“Oh!” Jim was beginning, when Fred lifted his hand and put his finger on his lips as a signal to keep still.

“S-sh,” he whispered. “I thought I heard some one speaking over there,” and he pointed to a distant corner of the barn where fodder for the cattle was stored.

“Who can it be?” whispered Teddy in return. “Do you think it can be Sam? If it is, we’re done for.”

“No, it isn’t Sam,” was Fred’s guarded reply. “If it were, he’d come to see what Tiger’s barking about. Let’s creep over there and take a look.”

As silently as Indians, the boys wormed their way across the floor. The only light came from the cracks in the side of the barn, and they had to use great care not to bump into anything that might betray their presence.

Suddenly, Fred, who was leading, stopped.

“Wait,” he breathed. “I just got a look at them. There are two of them there, and they look to me like tramps. Stay here a minute.”

They halted, while he crept on a little farther, until, through a small opening in a stall, he could get a better view.

He glued his eye to the opening and studied more closely the two strangers.

His first guess, that they were tramps, proved to be correct. Both had all the marks of vagrants. Their clothes were ragged and dirty, their hair long and uncombed, and their faces were covered with scraggy beards.

One was tall and lank, and seemed to be the leader of the two. His eyes were little and close together. He had no socks, and his toes showed through his ragged shoes. His only other clothing was a torn shirt, opened at the throat, and a pair of old trousers held up by one suspender. Up near his temple was an ugly scar, that looked as though it had been made by a knife.

His companion was shorter and stockier. His clothes were on a par with those of his “pal,” and he looked equally “down and out.”

A partly emptied bottle stood on the floor beside them, and their flushed faces and the glassy look of their eyes told what had become of most of its contents.

“I tell you, I heard something,” the shorter of the two was saying.

“You’re woozy,” answered the other. “It’s only the dog a-barkin’. He’s treed a squirrel, or he’s diggin’ out a woodchuck, or somethin’.”

But, true to the laziness that had made them what they were, neither took the trouble to go to see what the disturbance was about.

“So you think we can get away with that job all right?” asked one, evidently resuming a talk that had been interrupted.

“Sure thing,” said the other. “Why, it’s a cinch. A blind man can do it. I took a squint at the place this mornin’, an’ it’s like taking candy from a baby.”

Fred strained his ears to listen.

But the men had dropped to a lower tone, and, try as he might, he could only catch a word here and there. Once when the tall man raised his voice a trifle, he heard the phrases “apple tree” and “side window.” But this did not give him any clear idea of what was meant, nor did the shorter man’s grunt of “dead easy” help him out.

He beckoned to his companions, and, one by one, they crept up to take a look at the tramps. Teddy had just taken his turn, when they were startled at hearing a gruff voice, which they knew only too well, speaking to the dog.

“What in thunder’s the matter with yer, Tige?”

A frantic outburst of barking was the response.

“It’s Sam!” murmured Teddy.

“Now we’re in for it!” exclaimed Bob, and his voice was shaky.

“Keep perfectly still,” whispered Fred. “He can’t get in through that door, anyway. He’ll have to come round to the other door, and the minute he does, we’ll take down the bar from this one and bolt for the fence.”

“Sumthin’ doin’, eh!” exclaimed the farmer, as he tried the door. “I might have known that dog wouldn’t have brought me over here fur nuthin’. Come along, Tige,” and the boys heard him running along the side of the barn to the other door.

The tramps too had heard the farmer, and sprang to their feet, confused and panic-stricken. Another instant, and the door flew open, and Sam Perkins rushed in, with Tiger at his heels.

Coming from the bright sunlight into the twilight of the barn, the farmer peered around, not seeing clearly for a moment. But the tramps saw him plainly enough, as they saw also the pitchfork in his hand, and they made a rush past him for the open air. Taken by surprise, Sam was almost upset, and they took full advantage of the chance. A howl of pain showed that Tige had nipped the taller one, but he shook the dog off and ran after his companion, who was making a desperate effort to break the record for speed.

Pulling himself together with a shout of rage, Sam joined in the chase.

Fred slipped the bar from the door, and pushed it open.

“Now’s our chance, fellows!” he shouted. “Sam’ll never catch them, and he’ll be back here in a minute. Let’s beat it while the going’s good.”

He set the pace, and they needed no urging to follow close on his heels. All reached the fence and leaped over it. And not till they found themselves on the other side, did they dare to breathe.

“Jiminy!” gasped Bob, “that was a narrow squeak!”

“A miss is as good as a mile,” panted Jim.

“We didn’t get here a minute too soon, either,” said Teddy. “See, there’s Sam coming back, now.”

“He’s not much of a sprinter,” commented Jack, as the heavily built farmer came lumbering back, muttering angrily to himself.

“No,” assented Jim, “and it’s lucky for those tramps that he isn’t. But Tige had a little better luck,” he added, as the dog came trotting beside his master, holding in his mouth a patch of cloth that he had torn from one of his enemies.

“Chewing the rag, as usual,” chuckled Bob. “They make a sweet pair, don’t they?”

Sam caught sight of them and came over, scowling.

“What are you boys hanging round here for?” he asked suspiciously.

“We were watching you chase the tramps,” answered Fred. “Did you catch them?”

“None o’ yer business,” snarled Sam.

“You certainly ran fine,” said Bob admiringly. “I love to see you run, Mr. Perkins.”

“I’m goin’ to see you run in a minute,” growled the farmer. “Here, Tige.”

But as the boys were not anxious to pursue the conversation, they made a more or less dignified retreat, and Sam, with a parting malediction on all tramps and all boys, went off towards his house.

“Hang it all!” exclaimed Teddy, as the Rushton boys and their chums came near their homes. “I hate to own up that we didn’t find those papers.”

“It is too bad,” admitted Bob. “But you did the best you could, and if they’re not there, you can’t help it.”

“I can see the look on Uncle Aaron’s face,” said Teddy. “That sort of I-told-you-so look that makes you wish you were big enough to lick him.”

“You sure do stand well with that uncle of yours,” laughed Jim.

“Yes,” assented Teddy gloomily, “I stand like a man with a broken leg.”

“Oh, brace up,” chirped Jack. “We had the peaches anyway.”

“Bother the peaches!” exclaimed Fred. “I’d give all the peaches in the world just to lay my eyes on those papers.”

“Sam Perkins at one end of the road and Uncle Aaron at the other,” brooded Teddy. “I sure am up against it!”

But the confession of failure had to be made. The boys had cherished a faint hope that somebody in town might have found the papers, and that when they got back at noon, Uncle Aaron might have recovered them. But although he had been downtown most of the morning and had inquired everywhere, there had been not the slightest trace of them, and he had returned tired and angry.

“Rampagin’ roun’ like de bery Ole Nick,” was the way Martha described him, when she had a moment alone with Teddy. “It sho duz beat all, how de good Lo’d lets people like him cumber de earf.”

His greeting was about as genial as Teddy had expected. But he had steeled himself for that and could stand it. What disturbed him much more was the distress his mother felt and the chilly disapproval of his father.

The latter had settled with Jed Muggs that morning for the damage caused by Teddy. Jed had named an excessive price, but Mr. Rushton had been in no mood to haggle and had paid him what he asked. But it was not this that kept him silent and preoccupied.

He was seriously debating with himself whether he would do well to take Aaron’s advice. The boarding school idea had set him thinking. He wanted to do the very best thing for the boys, and he was worried by the thought that perhaps he had been too easy and indulgent.

Several days passed, while he was pondering the matter. Gradually the atmosphere cleared, and the household began to go on as usual. Even Uncle Aaron lost some of his crankiness and seemed at times to be “almost human.”

And then, just as things were going along nicely, Teddy, once more, as Fred sorrowfully put it, had to “spill the beans.”

It was a very warm morning, and most of the family were out on the porch trying to get what air there was. Teddy had occasion to go upstairs, and had to pass the door of his uncle’s room.

The latter had an appointment to meet a little later on, and, as it was an important one, he had arranged to dress with more care than usual. His clothes, including a new white vest, were laid out neatly on the bed, near his writing desk.

But what especially caught Teddy’s eye, was a sheet of fly-paper, laid on a small table close beside the desk.

Such things were a novelty in the Rushton home. There was no need for them, because every window and door was carefully screened during the hot weather, and Martha was death to any unlucky fly that happened to wing its way inside.

But Uncle Aaron was so fidgety and nervous that even a solitary insect buzzing around kept him awake at night, and, at his request, Mrs. Rushton had secured the sticky sheet that now lay glistening on the table.

It must have been Teddy’s evil genius that caused Bunk, the house cat, to come strolling past the door at just that moment. He was so sleek and lazy and self-satisfied that Teddy was strongly tempted to shake him out of his calm.

He hurried down to the kitchen, found a piece of meat on one of the breakfast dishes that Martha was clearing up, and ran upstairs again.

Bunk was still there, putting the last touches on his toilet. His smooth fur, washed and rewashed, shone like silk.

“Here, Bunk,” called Teddy coaxingly, holding the bit of meat just above the little table.

The confiding Bunk looked up lazily. Then his eyes brightened. He measured the distance, jumped and came down with all four paws on the sticky fly paper.

With a yowl of surprise and fright, he tried to free himself from the mess. He used his head to get it away from his feet, and only succeeded in smearing his face and shoulders. At times he would get one foot loose, only to get it stuck again when he tried to free another. In less time than it takes to tell, he was a yellow, sticky mass.

Thoroughly panic stricken, he took a flying leap to the desk, upsetting a bottle of ink in his course and landed on the bed, where he rolled over and over on the white vest and other clothes so carefully laid out by Uncle Aaron.

Teddy was almost as scared as the cat. He dashed after him, grabbing at the paper, getting some severe scratches in the process, and finally yanked it away. As for Bunk, he dashed out of the room like a yellow whirlwind.

Fred, who had heard the racket, came running upstairs and found Teddy standing aghast at the mischief he had caused. The older brother took in the situation at a glance.

“Quick,” he urged, “get out of the window. They’ll be up in a minute.”

The kitchen extension was just under the window of the room. Teddy lifted the screen and dropped to the roof. From there it was only twelve feet to the ground and he made the drop in safety. No one saw him but Martha, and that faithful soul could be depended on to keep silent.

Mr. Mansfield Rushton had already left for the city, but Mrs. Rushton and Uncle Aaron came hurrying up the stairs. The former was in a flurry of excitement, which increased materially when she looked into Uncle Aaron’s room and saw the awful wreck that had been made of it.

“Oh, whatever in the world has happened now?” she gasped.

As for Aaron, he could hardly speak at all. He was speechless with rage, as he picked up his clothes and handled them gingerly.

“Spoiled, utterly spoiled,” he spluttered. Then, he caught sight of Bunk in one corner of the hall.

“It’s that confounded cat,” he shouted, as he made a kick at him that missed him by a hair. “He got tangled up in the fly paper and carried it all over the room.”

But just then he saw the bit of meat that had tempted the unwary Bunk. He picked it up and looked hard at it.

“Um-hum,” he muttered, and the steely look came into his eyes.

He turned sharply on Fred.

“Where’s Teddy?” he asked.

“He doesn’t seem to be around here anywhere,” replied Fred. “I’ll see if I can find him downstairs.”

And he went down with alacrity, but carefully refrained from coming up again. He remembered that he must see Bob Ellis at once. He opened the front door and passed swiftly round the corner.

“He’ll find him,” growled Aaron bitterly. “Oh, yes, he’ll find him! You won’t see either of those boys till lunch time.

“I tell you, Agnes,” he went on fiercely, “one of those young scamps is just as bad as the other. Teddy starts the mischief and Fred does all he can to shield him.”

“You don’t know yet that Teddy had anything to do with it,” protested Mrs. Rushton, in a tone which she tried to make confident, but with only partial success.

“No, of course not,” he answered sarcastically, “he’s never to blame for anything. All the same I’ll bet my life that he and nobody else is at the bottom of this. How did this meat get up here, if somebody didn’t bring it?”

“Perhaps the cat brought it up,” suggested Mrs. Rushton desperately. Then, feeling the weakness of her position, she went on hurriedly:

“But now, I must get busy and clear up this awful mess. Give me those clothes, and Martha and I will fix them up right away.”

But though the damage to the clothes was soon repaired, storm clouds were still hovering over the household when Teddy came in to lunch.

He loafed in with an elaborate pretense of unconcern. Nothing was said at first, and he was beginning to hope when Uncle Aaron suddenly blurted out:

“What’s the matter with your hand?”

Though startled, Teddy lifted up his left hand.

“Why, I don’t see that anything’s the matter with it,” he replied, holding it out for examination.

“I mean the one you’re hiding under the table,” went on Aaron stonily.

“Oh, that one?” stammered Teddy. “Why, it’s scratched,” he added brightly, as he studied it with an expression of innocent surprise.

There was a dead silence. Teddy, not caring to look anywhere else, kept gazing at his hand, as though it were the most fascinating object in the world.

“Oh, Teddy!” moaned his mother.

And then Teddy knew that the game was up.

“Honestly, Mother,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to–that is I meant to make the cat jump on the fly-paper, but I didn’t think he’d—”

Here was Uncle Aaron’s cue.

“Didn’t think!” he stormed. “Didn’t think! If you were my boy—” And here he launched into a tongue lashing that outdid all his previous efforts. It seemed to Teddy an age before he could escape from the table, carrying away with him the echo of Uncle Aaron’s final threat to have it out with his father when he came home that night.

It was the last straw. Mr. Rushton’s indecision vanished at the recital of Teddy’s latest prank. Before he slept that night he had written to Dr. Hardach Rally, asking for his catalogue and terms, intimating that if these proved satisfactory, he would send his two boys to Rally Hall.

The answer came back promptly.

In addition to the catalogue and pictures of the Hall and grounds, Dr. Rally wrote a personal letter. It was in a stiff, precise handwriting that seemed to indicate the character of the man.

He would be very glad to take the Rushton boys under his care. He thought he was not exaggerating when he said that the standard of scholarship at Rally Hall was not exceeded by any institution of a similar kind in the entire state. Their staff of instructors was adequate, and their appliances were strictly up to date. There was a good gymnasium, and the physical needs of the boys were looked after with the same care as their mental and moral requirements.

But what he laid especial stress upon was the discipline. This came under his own personal supervision, and he thought he could promise Mr. Rushton that there would be no weakness or compromise in this important particular.

“That’s the stuff!” broke in Uncle Aaron, gleefully rubbing his hands. “What did I tell you? Hardach Rally is the one to make boys mind.”

Fred and Teddy failed to share his enthusiasm, and Mrs. Rushton shivered slightly.

But, taken as a whole, the letter met the views of Mr. Mansfield Rushton, and when the family council broke up, it was definitely settled that the boys should go to Rally Hall.

Old Martha was “dead sot,” as she put it, against the whole plan.

“Ain’ no good goin’ to kum uv it,” she grumbled to herself, as she jammed her hands viciously into the dough. “House’ll seem like a graveyard wen dose po’ boys get shunted off ter dat ole bo’din’ school. Like enuf dey won’t giv’ um half enuf ter eat. An’ all on ’count uv dat ole w’ited sepulker,” she wound up disgustedly.

But Uncle Aaron, wholly indifferent to Martha’s views even if he had known them, was in high feather. He had carried his point, and, in the satisfaction this gave him, he became almost good-natured. He could even allow himself a wintry smile at times, as he reflected that the boys–the “pests,” as he called them to himself–were to get a taste of the discipline that their souls needed.

“He’ll show them what’s what,” he chuckled. “He’ll either bend ’em or break ’em. I know Hardach Rally.”

As for Fred and Teddy themselves, they hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry.

They loved their home and their parents, and then, too, they hated to leave their boy friends with whom they had grown up in the home town.

But, on the other hand, there was the attraction of new sights and places and all the adventures that might come to them. It was another world into which they were going, and it was not in boy nature that they should not be thrilled by the prospect of “fresh fields and pastures new.”

But before the time came for their departure, Oldtown had a sensation that turned it topsy-turvy.

The village store was robbed!

The first thing the boys knew about it was when they heard a whistle under their windows that they recognized as that of Jack Youmans. They stuck sleepy heads out to see what had brought him there at that early hour.

“Hurry up, fellows!” he cried excitedly. “Get your clothes on and come down. There’s something doing.”

“What is it?” they asked in chorus.

“Never you mind,” answered Jack, swelling with a sense of his importance. “You get a move on and come down.”

They slipped into their clothes and in less than three minutes were down beside him. He made them beg a little before he finally gave up his secret.

“The store was robbed last night,” he said importantly.

“The store!” exclaimed the boys. There was no need of specifying, as there was only one store in Oldtown of any importance.

“How did it happen?” asked Fred.

“Did they get much?” questioned Teddy.

“They don’t know yet,” replied Jack to both questions. “A fellow came past our house a little while ago, and he called to my dad, who was working in the garden, that when Cy Briggs went to open up, he found that the front door was already open and everything inside was all scattered about. He can’t tell yet just how much was stolen, but the safe was broken into and everything in it was cleaned out. Cy is awful excited about it, and they say he’s running around like a hen with her head cut off. Get a wiggle on now, and let’s get down there.”

The boys could not remember when anything like a robbery had happened before in the sleepy little town, and they were all afire with excitement.

The family was not up yet, but the boys did not wait for breakfast in their eagerness to be on the scene of the robbery.

A hasty raid on Martha’s pantry gave each of them enough for a cold bite, and, eating as they went along, and running most of the way, they were soon in front of the village store.

The news had traveled fast, and there was an eager crowd already gathered. All sorts of rumors were about, and in the absence of any real news as to the robbers, one guess was as good as another.

The only thing about which there was no doubt at all was that the robbery had occurred. The open safe and tumbled goods were sufficient proofs of that. Cy Briggs, who had run the store for forty years, and had never had a robbery or fire or anything to disturb the regular order of things, was so flustered that he had not yet been able to find out the extent of his loss.

One or two of the cooler heads were going over the stock with him, while the others clustered on the broad porch in front and waited for developments, keeping up a constant buzz of questions and conjectures.

No one had heard any unusual noise the night before. The village constable, who constituted the entire police force of Oldtown, had made his usual round about ten o’clock, and, as a matter of form, had tried the door. But it had been securely fastened as usual, and there had been nothing to rouse his suspicion. Apart from two or three traveling men who had come in with Jed Muggs, and were now staying at the one hotel, nobody had seen any outsiders.

The whole thing was a mystery, and this was increased by the discovery that while the door had been found open, showing that the thieves had come out that way, they must have found some other means of entrance. The door had been fastened by a bolt, which Cy had pushed into the socket the last thing before leaving. This had not been broken, as it would have been, if the robbers had forced their way in from the front. Cy himself had gone out of a back door, which he had locked, carrying the key away with him, and this door was found still locked when he came that morning to open up.

“Well, Cy, how about it?” was the question from a dozen voices, as the old storekeeper, grizzled and flushed, came out on the porch. “How much did you lose?”

“Don’t know yet,” Cy answered, wiping his forehead with a huge bandana handkerchief, “but I reckon it’ll figger up to close on three or four hundred dollars’ wuth.”

A hum of excitement rose from the crowd. To the boys especially, this seemed an enormous amount of money.

“That’s a right smart sum, Cy,” remarked a sympathetic listener. “What was it they got away with?”

“Money, mostly,” mourned Cy. “The goods in the store wasn’t bothered much. Reckon they was lookin’ only for cash. Then, too, they’ve cleaned out a co’sid’able of jewelry and watches. Some of ’em I was gettin’ ready to send away to the city to be repaired, and others had come back mended, but the customers hadn’t called for ’em yet.”

Catching sight at that moment of Fred in the crowd, he added: “One of them watches was your Uncle Aaron’s. It was a vallyble one and I feel wuss over that than almost anything else. I know he set a heap of store by it.”

“Uncle Aaron’s watch!” gasped the boys.

It was a knock-down blow for them, especially for Teddy. Was he never to get away from that miserable runaway? If it had not been for that, the watch would not have been injured, and at this very moment it might have been reposing in his uncle’s capacious pocket. Now the “fat was in the fire” again. The chances were that the watch would never be seen again by the rightful owner.

“I’m the hoodoo kid, all right!” he groaned.

“It sure is hard luck,” sympathized Jack.

“Brace up, Teddy,” urged Jim. “They may catch the fellows yet.”

“Swell chance!” retorted Teddy to their well-meant sympathy. “Even if they do, they won’t get the watch back. Those fellows will make a beeline to the nearest pawnshop, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“I wish we could have caught them at it,” said Fred savagely. “If they’d only been working when we came past last night.”

“What time last night?” asked Cy, pricking up his ears.

“About eleven o’clock, I guess,” answered Fred. “Teddy and I had been over to Tom Barrett’s house. He’s just got a new phonograph, and we went over to hear him try it out. He had a lot of records, and it was pretty late when we came away.”

“And yer didn’t see anything out of the way when you come past?” went on Cy.

“Not a thing. We didn’t meet a soul on the way home.”

Just then there was a stir inside the store, and the constable, Hi Vickers, came to the door.

“Come here a minute, Cy,” he said. “I bet I’ve found out how those fellers got into the store.”

As many as could crowded in after him as he led the way to a little side window.

“They got in here,” he said triumphantly.

“But that’s locked,” said Cy.

“Sure it is,” explained Hi, “but they could have locked it again after they got in, couldn’t they? One thing certain, they’ve unlocked it first from the outside. See here,” and the constable showed where the blade of a heavy knife had left marks on the frame. It had evidently been thrust between the two halves of the window to push back the fastening.

“There you are,” he said. “You see, they clum that apple tree right alongside the winder and—”

“Say!” broke in Fred, as a thought came to him like a flash of lightning, “I bet I know who the robbers were.”

All eyes were turned on him in surprise.

“It was two tramps that I saw round here a few days ago,” continued Fred. “A lot of us fellows were in Sam Perkins’ barn, and we heard the tramps talking. They didn’t see us, but we saw them. We couldn’t hear all they said, but I did hear them say something about an ‘apple tree’ and ‘side window’ and something being ‘dead easy.’ I’d forgotten all about it till just now. But there’s the apple tree and the side window, and that must have been what they were talking about.”

“By gum, it wuz!” assented Hi. “Tell us what the fellers looked like.”

“One of them was a good deal taller than the other,” said Fred, trying to recall their appearance. “They were both ragged and dirty. And, oh, yes! the tall one had a scar up near his temple, as if he had been stabbed there some time.”

“Well,” commented Hi, “that may help a lot. We know now what we’ve got to look for. I’ll telephone all along the line to the other towns to be on the lookout for them, and some of us will hitch up and drive along the different roads. They can’t have got very far, and we may get ’em yet.”

Later on, as the boys were on their way home, Jim chuckled.

“What are you laughing about, Jim?” asked Bob.

“I was just thinking,” Jim replied, “that it was mighty lucky they didn’t ask Fred how he happened to be in Sam Perkins’ barn.”

As Teddy had clearly foreseen, all that had happened before was as nothing, when Uncle Aaron learned that his cherished watch was gone, probably forever.

He stormed and raged and wondered aloud what he had done that he should be saddled with such a graceless nephew. It was in vain that Mr. Rushton offered to make good the money loss.

“It isn’t a matter of money,” he shouted. “I’ve had that watch so long that it had come to be to me like a living thing. I wouldn’t have taken a dozen watches in exchange for it. Big fool that I was ever to come to Oldtown.”

All the amateur detective methods of the village constable ended in nothing. And as day after day passed without news, it began to be accepted as a settled fact that the culprits would never be found.

One happy day, however, came to lighten the gloom of Uncle Aaron. And that was the day that the Rushton boys said good-by to Oldtown and started for Rally Hall.

“Thank fortune,” he said to himself, “they’re going at last! A little longer and I’d be bankrupt or crazy, or both.”

But if Uncle Aaron was delighted to have them go, nobody else shared that feeling, except Jed Muggs.

That worthy was in high glee, as he drove up to the Rushton home on that eventful morning, to take them and their trunks to the railroad station at Carlette.

Although he had made a pretty good thing, in a money way, out of the accident, charging Mr. Rushton a great deal more than would have made up the damage, he had by no means forgiven Teddy for the fright and the shock he had suffered on that occasion. The Fourth of July incident of the painted horses, of which he firmly–and rightly–believed Teddy to have been the author, also still “stuck in his crop.”

The old coach and horses swung up to the gate, and Fred and Teddy came out. They had had a private parting with their parents, and now the whole family, including Bunk, had come out on the veranda to see them off.

Mr. Rushton was grave and thoughtful. Mrs. Rushton was smiling bravely and trying to hide her tears. Uncle Aaron looked perfectly resigned. Old Martha was blubbering openly.

The trunks were strapped on and the boys jumped inside the coach. Jed climbed to the driver’s seat, chirruped to his horses and they were off amid a chorus of farewells.

Those left behind waved to them until they were out of sight. But in the last glimpse that the boys had of the old home, they saw that their mother was sobbing on her husband’s shoulder, while Martha’s apron was over her face.

They themselves were more deeply stirred than they cared to show, and for some time they were very quiet and thoughtful.

They chanced to be the only passengers that morning, and Jed, having no one else to talk to, turned his batteries on them.

“So you’re goin’ to leave us, be you?” he remarked, chewing meditatively on a straw.

“Yes,” answered Teddy, the light of battle coming into his eyes, “and we hate to tear ourselves away from you, Jed. You’ve always been such a good pal of ours.”

“It breaks us all up to leave you,” chimed in Fred, “and we wouldn’t do it if it weren’t absolutely necessary. I don’t know how you are going to get along without us.”

“A heap sight better than I ever got along with yer!” snapped out Jed. “I won’t be lyin’ awake nights now, wonderin’ what rascality you kids will be cookin’ up next.”

“And this is all the thanks we get for trying to make things pleasant for you all these years!” exclaimed Teddy, in mock despair.

“The more you do for some people, the less they think of you,” and Fred shook his head mournfully.

“I tell you young scalawags one thing, and that ain’t two,” Jed came back at them. “Ef it hadn’t be’n fer me, you two might be behind the bars this blessed minit.

“I ain’t never writ ter the gover’ment yit, about you interferin’ with the United States mail,” he went on magnanimously. “Yer pa and ma is nice folks an’ I don’t want ter make no trouble fer them. Perhaps I oughtn’t ter hush the matter up, me bein’, as yer might say, a officer of the gover’ment when I’m carryin’ the mails”–here his chest expanded–“an’ maybe the hull matter will come out yet and make a big scandal at Washington. Yer actually busted up gover’ment prope’ty. That padlock on the mail bag wuz bent so that I had ter git a new one—”

“Yes,” interrupted Fred, “father said that he paid you a dollar for that.”

“I’ve seen those same padlocks on sale in the store for twenty-five cents,” added Teddy.

“That’s neither here nur there,” said Jed hastily. “The nub of the hull thing is that if it hadn’t been fer me, yer might be doin’ the lock step in Atlanta or Leavenworth, or some other of them gover’ment jails. How would yer like that, eh? And wearin’ stripes, an’ nuthin’ but mush and merlasses fer breakfast, an’ guards standin’ around with guns, an’—”

But what other dismal horrors might have been conjured up by Jed will never be known, as at that moment they came up alongside the railroad station at Carlette, and more pressing things demanded his attention.

“Great Scott, Teddy!” exclaimed Fred, as they jumped down, “the whole gang is here!”

Sure enough, it seemed as though all the juvenile population of Oldtown had turned out to give them a royal send-off.

They ran up to the boys with a shout.

“It’s bully of you fellows to walk all this distance to say good-by,” said Fred, and Teddy echoed him.

“We’d have come up to the house,” explained Bob Ellis, “but we knew you’d have a whole lot to say to your own folks, and we didn’t want to butt in.”

“We’re all dead sore at your leaving the town,” said Jim. “It won’t seem like the same old place with you fellows out of it.”

There was a general chorus of assent to this from the other boys.

“We hate to leave the old crowd, too,” said Fred. “But, of course, we’ll be back at holidays and vacation times. I only wish you fellows were going along with us.”

“That would be great,” agreed Jack. “But no such luck for us.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to fill your place on the football and baseball teams,” mourned Tom Barrett. “We’ll be dead easy for the other teams now.”

“Don’t you believe it!” said Fred heartily. “You’ll find fellows to take our places that will be better players than we ever dared to be.”

“Nix on that stuff!” said Jim. “You know well enough that you put it all over every other fellow in town.”

The locomotive whistled at the nearest crossing, and a moment later the train came into sight.

There was a perfect hubbub of farewells, and amid a chorus of good wishes that fairly warmed their hearts, the boys swung aboard. Even Jed thawed out enough to wave his hand at them in semi-friendly fashion.

“I’ll keep it dark,” he called after them, “that is unless the gover’ment gits after me, on account of—”

But the rest was lost in the rattle of the train.

The Rushton boys were off at last.