The Safety First Club

It was well after noon when Sam came up the narrow lane behind the Parker place, and scaled the back fence. Hasty observation from its top showed him that the coast was clear. He stole through the yard, kept the house between himself and the barn, and let himself in at the front door.

The house was as quiet as well ordered homes generally are at that hour, when dinner has been disposed of, and supper is still afar off. Sam tiptoed into the library. With feverish haste he put his father’s gun in its place, first removing the cartridges from the breach. Then he opened the desk drawer, and restored his stock of cartridges to their box. He hesitated a moment over the empty shell, being, indeed, tempted to slip it in with the rest. At a casual glance the box would then seem to be full. But Sam, with all his imperfections, was not given to tricks and deceits.

“I won’t do it!” he said, with decision, and slipped the shell into his pocket.

As he stepped into the hall, Maggie hailed him from the top of the stairs.

“Is that you, Sam?” she called. “I thought I heard the front door open, and I wondered who ’twas.”

So she hadn’t seen him enter the house; therefore she could not know that he had been carrying the gun. Thus was another danger of investigation avoided.

“Yes; I came in that way,” he said. “Father home yet?”

“No.”

“Where’s Mother?”

“Lon’s drivin’ her over to see old Mis’ Hardee at Webster Mills.”

There are times when things do seem to have been arranged most fortunately. Sam could have thrown up his cap and cheered. But Maggie was beginning to descend the stairs.

“Look here, Sam Parker! Why didn’t you come home to dinner?” she demanded.

“Oh, I’m all right. I don’t want anything to eat.”

Maggie continued to descend the stairs. “Don’t, eh? Where’d you get dinner? Did the Joneses invite you?”

“No.”

“The Greens, then?”

“Why—why—no; they didn’t.”

Maggie had reached the foot of the flight. “So you come traipsin’ home after everything’s cleaned up and put away, and expect me to muss up my kitchen for you? I like that! Well, you can just guess again, Sam Parker!”

“But I don’t want anything, Maggie!” Sam said pacifically. “Honest, I don’t. I’m not hungry.”

“That’s lucky—seein’s there ain’t anything,” said Maggie drily. However, she was moving toward the kitchen. “Come along with you, though!” she flung over her shoulder.

Sam followed her meekly. “You don’t need to bother,” he insisted.

Maggie paid not the slightest heed to his protests. “Don’t see how folks can expect to keep a house decent, with all the overgrown boys in town runnin’ in for snacks between meals,” she grumbled. “Well, now you’re here, you might as well sit down.” She pointed to a table, bare but spotlessly clean. “S’pose I’ll have to give you some dry bread or a cracker, maybe. And the water from the faucet’s cold enough to drink at this time of year.”

Sam sat down. “Oh, anything’ll do,” he said humbly.

“Umph!” said Maggie, and opened the door of the oven. “Well, I do declare! How’d that happen?” And from the oven she took a plate, on which was a generous slice of steak, also a big potato. “Goodness gracious! but I must be gettin’ flighty! I’d ’a’ said for sure I put those things in the ice chest. Don’t it beat all how things happen! Course, the meat’s cooked hard as a rock, but you might as well have it as Hannibal.” She set the plate on the table with a bang. “Well, now the stuff’s before you, what are you goin’ to do with it?”

Sam showed her. In spite of the morning’s adventures he had an excellent appetite. Maggie, observing, brought a glass of milk and a large piece of pie from the pantry. Then, standing before him, she studied the youth closely.

“Sam, what you been doin’? What mischief you been up to?”

“Noth—nothing,” mumbled Sam.

Maggie shook her head. “Don’t you try to tell me, Sam Parker! I ain’t known you years and years for nothing. Where you been?”

Sam took thought. Maggie was his sworn ally and help in time of trouble, but he feared she couldn’t be brought to look kindly upon the incidents of his morning.

“Oh! I—I went for a—for a walk—out in the woods,” he stammered.

“Then what?”

“Then I came home,” said Sam.

“So I see!” quoth Maggie drily. “But go on! As you were sayin’——?”

Sam wriggled. “This—this is bully pie, Maggie,” said he, in an effort to change the topic.

Her severity of expression deepened. “Mebbe it is, Sam. But you can’t have another piece ’less you ’fess up.”

“But I—I can’t confess.”

“Bosh!” said Maggie tartly.

Sam, in his turn, regarded her gravely. He had no intention of confiding in his old friend, but plainly it was a point of interest to learn if he struck people as one who was burdened with a terrible secret.

“Well, I got awfully tired, for one thing,” said he. “And it was chilly and—er—er—and lonesome. And so I show it, do I?”

“You show something fast enough—I ain’t sure what.”

“Oh!” said Sam, and pushed back his chair. He got upon his feet, and crossed to the door. His hand on the knob, he looked at Maggie, whose brow was furrowed.

“Say, it was mighty clever of you to save my dinner. Thank you a lot!” he cried. Then he opened the door, and went out hurriedly.

The talk in the kitchen had given him warning. If he would not rouse suspicion, he must increase the gaiety of his air and manner. As he strolled down the street, he was whistling shrilly; and he shifted to a merrier tune when he turned in at the gate of the Joneses’ place, and walking up to the door of a small and very trim outbuilding, knocked thrice.

A few months earlier Mr. Jones, disposing of a pony, whose legs had become a good deal shorter than Step’s, had turned the pony’s quarters over to his son, with the understanding that the little house was to be used for a club, which the boys were forming. Step and his chums at once took possession. They worked like beavers, cleaning, sweeping, painting and furnishing the building, and succeeded in making for themselves a very attractive meeting place. The club—it was called the Adelphi—had flourished mightily, and membership in it was highly prized.

Sam’s triple knock brought no response, being, indeed, somewhat of an empty form and ceremony; and after waiting for a moment—this, too, was part of the accepted program—he opened the door and walked in. Step and Poke were in the lounging room, recently the space given to the pony cart. Its walls were gay with college pennants, photographs, and pictures cut from magazines and newspapers; in one corner was a lounge, worn but still useful; the chairs represented contributions from the attics of several families; there was a serviceable table, on which stood a shaded lamp; and an oil heater effectually dispelled the chill of the afternoon air.

“Hi there, fellows!” Sam sang out. “What are you doing to kill time?”

It had been his desire to impress them with his ease of mind, but neither betrayed much interest in his mood. Step, huddled in an old steamer chair, was a picture of depression and angles, with his knees almost on a level with his ears, and his long arms sagging till his hands touched the floor. Poke was standing before a blackboard, which hung on the wall. As he turned to regard the newcomer, his round face was puckered in a frown.

“Oh, you, Sam?” he said absently.

“Oh, you?” croaked Step like a dismal echo.

Sam glanced from one to the other. “What’s the row?” he inquired. “You two look like chickens with the pip.”

“Chickens? Ugh!” Step fairly shuddered.

“Huh!” snorted Poke; and turning to the blackboard, dabbed viciously at it with the eraser which he had in his left hand.

“What are you doing?” queried Sam. He moved nearer to Poke, and glanced curiously at the board. It had borne, in bold lettering:

Adelphi Club
Rules and By-laws.

Now, however, there was only a chalky smear to show where the lines had been. “What are you doing?” he repeated. “Say, you’ve spoiled it!”

“Huh! This club needs a new name,” growled Poke. “I’m trying to think of one that’ll fit.”

Sam wheeled and addressed the youth in the chair. “Step, what ails him? What ails you? What’s the matter, anyway?”

Step clasped his hands about his knees. “What ails us? Guess you wouldn’t be asking if you knew!”

“Course I wouldn’t!” Sam agreed rather testily to what might be called a fairly self-evident proposition.

“Hang the luck!” groaned the doleful Step.

Poke whipped about. “Confound it, but there’s more than luck!” he cried. “You’re letting us off too easy, Step. Oh, I know—I know what you’d say! We didn’t mean to have it happen, but it did happen; so what’s the use in talking? And it was just like a lot of other things that keep happening to us, and will keep on happening till we have more sense.”

“Huh!” came from the depths of the chair.

Sam dropped a hand on Poke’s shoulder. “Translate, won’t you? You’re worse than old Cæsar when he tells about building his bridge.”

“Darn that dog!” wailed Step.

Sam tightened his grip on Poke’s plump shoulder. “So there was a dog, was there?” said he. “That’s a start, anyway. Go on!”

Poke wriggled free. “Yes; there was a dog, and it was that big hound of Mr. Mercer’s. And it came along, and smelled Step’s chicken, and grabbed for it, and gobbled it, and knocked over my basket of eggs, and ran away. And we chased it, but couldn’t catch it. And Step lost his chicken, and every one of my eggs was smashed. And ain’t that trouble enough for one day?”

“But I don’t quite understand. It—it’s sort of complicated. I don’t see how the hound could grab the chicken and upset your basket all at once.”

Poke shifted weight from one foot to the other. “Well—well, you see, we—we’d sort of stopped to look at a knife Tom Appleton had bought; and we’d set the bundle and the basket on a stone wall; and the dog hit both when he jumped for one. That was the way of it. And say! did you ever hear of anything worse?”

Sam’s smile was bitter. “Anything worse!” he repeated scornfully. What was a poor tale of broken eggs and looted chicken to one who, by pure mischance, had shot a man?

Poke resented his friend’s tone. “Huh! Much you know about it! Dollar and ten cents’ worth of eggs gone—just like that!”

“And a five-and-a-half-pound rooster—five and a half pounds dressed!” chimed in Step.

“Oh, well, that was hard luck,” Sam admitted. It had occurred to him that it was not wise to withhold sympathy if he would avoid suspicion of cherishing some terrible secret of his own.

Poke was one of those ordinarily cheery souls who, on occasion, take melancholy consolation in contemplation of misfortunes.

“I’ve been thinking things over,” he declared. “I’ve got an idea. It isn’t the thing itself that bothers, but the consequences. Look here, now! Mother had promised to make two angel cakes—takes eleven eggs for each cake. And she’d promised one for the church supper, and Jennie was to have the other for her club. And now Mother has got to disappoint the supper committee, and they’d told her they set ’special store by her angel cake. And she’s hot! And Jennie—say, Sam, if you had a sister, you’d know the fix I’m in. Jennie’s just sizzling. So I’m keeping away from the house. Gee, I’d never go home if I could help myself!”

Step waved a long and pitiful hand. “Company for dinner to-morrow!” he said simply. “I’m lying low myself.”

Sam meditated briefly. Since that terrible moment on the ridge he had gone through half a dozen phases of emotion. He had ranged from terror to exultation. His plans had varied from full confession to absolute silence. Now he was disposed to follow a course of inaction, based on a belief that the man had not been badly hurt, and that perhaps nothing ever would be heard of the affair. Of course, if report should be made; or if it should prove that the wounds were serious; or if the victim should turn out to be a poor man unable to pay a doctor’s bill—well, he wouldn’t cross bridges till he came to them. And, meanwhile, he would try to bear himself as if nothing untoward had happened—and thank his lucky stars that he could keep his secret, even for a time.

“Well, that was hard luck!” he said again, and put more heart in the speech.

Poke returned to the blackboard. “Might as well learn a lesson when there’s a lesson to be learned,” he rumbled. “Struck me, too, we ought to post something here to remind us that it pays to keep out of trouble. I’d like to give the club a name that’d mean something—see? I can think of mottoes enough—‘Look before you leap, and then go ’round,’ and ‘You never can tell when it’s loaded,’ and a lot of others—but I’m stumped for a name. Now, if I——”

There he broke off. Sam, elbowing him out of the way, stood before the board. For a second young Parker hesitated. Then he caught up a piece of chalk, and scrawled in big letters:

The Safety First Club.

Poke clapped his hands. “Jiminy! but that’s just the idea I was groping for. Prime, ain’t it, Step?”

Step nodded gloomily. “Fa-fair,” he admitted.

Sam laid down his chalk. He dusted his hands a trifle theatrically.

“Like the name, do you?” said he. “Came to me all of a sudden.”

“It’s a crackerjack!” declared Poke warmly. “Hits the nail right on the head. But that makes me think, Sam—where’s that deer you were going to hit? Haven’t got that haunch in your pocket, have you?”

“No,” said Sam curtly.

“Bet you didn’t see a deer!”

“I—I didn’t.”

Poke was beginning to recover his spirits. “Huh! Knew you wouldn’t,” said he, and chuckled fatly. “This country’s hunted to death. Why, so many men with guns were out to-day that one of ’em had to let drive at another, just for something to shoot at.”

“What!” gasped Sam. “What’s that? What do you mean?”

“Just what I say.”

Sam pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped drops of cold sweat from his forehead. “But—but——” he faltered.

“It isn’t a case of ‘but’ or ‘if.’ Step there knows all about it. He saw them bringing him in.”

Sam’s brain was reeling. “Bring-bringing him in?” he quavered. “Then—then he was badly hurt, after all! And who—who was he?”

Poke was staring in bewildered fashion at Sam. “What’s upsetting you? Why, you’re white as a sheet!”

“Never mind me! Who—who was it?”

“Peter Groche.”

“Pe-Peter Groche? And—and he—he’s wounded—maybe dying?”

Poke laughed explosively. “Not he! Old rascal was never born to be shot.”

“But you said they—they were bringing him in?”

“Yes—to the lock-up!”

Sam dropped into the nearest chair. “I don’t—don’t under-understand,” he said weakly.

“It’s clear enough. Peter shot somebody else—or tried to.”

Step joined in the conversation. “Well, he did wing him,” was his contribution.

“Where?”

“Oh, grazed his head, and plunked him in one hand,” said Step.

Sam dug his finger-nails into his palms. “I don’t mean that—at least, that wasn’t what I tried to ask about. Where did the shooting take place?”

“Out beyond Marlow hill somewhere. But you steered that way, didn’t you?”

“In that general direction.” By a mighty effort Sam controlled his voice.

“Then you may have been within a half mile of Peter Groche,” Step went on. “Maybe you heard his gun. Well, if you didn’t, he fired it, anyway. And he ’most got his man for keeps. But the Major wasn’t hurt badly, and he had had a glimpse of Peter a little earlier, and knew about where he was. So he beat it through the woods after him, and overtook him near the back road. And just then, by luck, along came Sheriff Whaley. So the sheriff and the Major asked Mr. Peter a question or two; and, getting no satisfaction, loaded him in the Whaley wagon and brought him in. And there’s going to be a trial Monday morning. And I guess it’s going to go hard with Groche. You see, he’s had a quarrel with the Major, and there are witnesses to testify that he made threats to get even. Then, too, there was an empty shell in one barrel of his gun, and he wouldn’t give any explanation of how it happened to be there. So I reckon he’ll get all that’s coming to him. The Major’s a bad man to have on your trail—hardest man in town, by thunder!”

“Maj-Major——?” Poor Sam’s tone was that of one whose hopes are dwindling fast.

“Yes siree! Hardest man in Plainville is Major Bates!” declared Step. “Anybody that harms him’ll be put through the works, I tell you!”

Sam got upon his feet. With trembling limbs he moved to the door.

“Why, what’s the matter?” Step called after him.

“What’s your burning hurry?” asked Poke.

Sam opened the door. “That stove makes it too stuffy in here,” he told them. “I—I’ve just got to have fresh air.” And out he went, closing the door behind him with a force suggesting that he did not care for company in his rambles.