CHAPTER XXTHE FRESHMAN ELECTION
The night was cold, but delightful. Nancy Nelson had never felt so sure upon her skates, or so able to keep up her steady stroke for a long distance, as she did now.
The struggle earlier in the evening had seemed to put the right temper into her muscles. Having been relieved by Miss Etching of the two girls—her own classmates—who had attempted to retard her progress, Nancy kept on and on, seeing the distance between herself and the leaders in the race diminishing—by no effort of her own, it seemed—and just enjoying herself.
She skated past Judy Craig, and saw that that eager sophomore was sobbing for breath, and could hardly stand. Nancy felt little weariness and still enjoyed the pace. She had not spurted in the beginning and waited for that wonderful “second wind” that is the help of all long-distance racers, before increasing her first easy pace.
Now she increased her stroke for a second time,and almost at once flashed past two of the older girls. One of them was a senior.
The crowd began to shout for her when Nancy came around the home stake now. Jennie Bruce led the freshmen rooters, and the volume of sound they made showed that there were few “dyed-in-the-wool” Montgomeryites, after all.
Nancy Nelson, the single remaining freshman on the ice, was the hope of the class. Corinne and Carrie and one of the juniors were still struggling far ahead; but the school as a whole soon began to be more deeply interested in the progress of Nancy than in the struggle of the leading girls.
“That little Nelson is making them all look sick,” declared the stout soph, Belle Macdonald. “I hated to see our Judy drop out; but I’d rather see a freshman win over those juniors and seniors, if a sophomore can’t do it.”
“Pah!” exclaimed Cora Rathmore, “Nelson hasn’t a chance with that Canuck. None of us had.”
“Nancy is skating easier than all of them,” observed one of the other girls.
“Wouldn’t it be odd if a freshmanshouldwin?” cried Sally.
“It wouldn’t be funny at all if that Nancy Nelson won,” snapped Cora. “That nobody!”
“There’d be no living with her at all, then,” added Grace Montgomery.
“Hurrah for Nance!” shouted Jennie Bruce, when the contestants swung past the home stake again. “She’s going to win!”
The racers began their eighth lap. Not until now had Jennie really believed her own statement—that Nancy had a chance to win. But it actually began to look so.
They came around again. Carrie had dropped far behind Corinne and the junior. Nancy was swinging along, hands clasped behind her back, taking each stroke firmly—rolling just a little, indeed—and seemingly almost as fresh as when she began.
“Bully for you, Nancy Nelson!” many of the freshies cried. “Show ’em what you can do! Don’t give up, Nancy!”
But Nancy had no intention of giving up. She believed she could keep on to the end, and without reducing speed. And on the ninth lap she passed Carrie.
Only two were ahead of her now. As she swung down the home-stretch behind the senior and junior, Nancy’s mates began to shout like mad girls:
“Come on! Come on! Don’t let ’em freeze you out, Nancy Nelson!”
“You’re going to beat, Nance!” cried Jennie Bruce, fairly jumping up and down. “Show ’em what you can do!”
There was only one more lap—one-fifth of a mile. Nancy drew in a long breath as she rounded the stake, and looked ahead. Corinne and her nearest antagonist had spurted a little; but Nancy put her head down, and darted up the course at a speed which equalled what the other girls had done at their best.
It was really wonderful how swiftly the freshman overtook her older rivals. Nancy skated more swiftly than she had in that first dash of the evening.
There was nobody to shut her off now. Cora was not here to foil or trip her. Corinne and the junior played fair.
Before the older girls reached the rounding stake, Nancy flashed past them. The junior spurted, came even with Nancy for a moment at and turn, and then dropped back, to become a bad third in the race. She could never recover after that spurt.
But the French-Canadian girl held on grimly. Slowly she crept up on the freshman. The seniors shouted for their champion; but the rest of the school was calling Nancy home!
“Oh, Nancy! Oh, Nancy! Come on!”
Nancy heard Jennie Bruce’s voice above all the turmoil ahead. Her eyes had begun to water, and the white, badly cut-up ice of the straight course seemed to waver before her.
At her ear she could hear Corinne’s labored breathing. The ring of her rival’s skates rasped upon the younger girl’s nerves, too.
She was under a great strain now. Another full lap would have been more than she could have skated without a breakdown. It was being pressed so close and hard that was wearing Nancy down. She was not used to such contests.
But her roommate’s cracked voice, shouting again and again for her, kept Nancy to the mark. Corinne shouldnotpass her!
She flung herself forward against the wind and worked with teeth that sank into her lip and drew the blood! On—on—on——
She felt something against her hands—against her breast—she was tangled up in it! Something had fouled her, and she had failed, for Corinne swept by at that moment.
And then the girls caught her—Jennie and many of her own class, as well as some of the older girls. They were cheering her, and praising her work—for it was the tape she had run against.
The race was finished and Nancy had won!
Three-quarters of the school were on the ice.Something like three hundred girls can make a lot of noise!
And there was only a tiny group that broke away from the main body and went home in the sulks because Nancy had won the race. Of course this was the Montgomery clique.
“I can tell you right now whowon’tbe president of our class,” whispered Jennie to Cora Rathmore before the latter got away in Grace Montgomery’s train.
“I suppose you think Nancy Nelson will!” snapped Cora.
It was the first time the idea had come into Jennie’s mind.
It was only three days before the breaking up for the holidays. Everybody was so enthusiastic about Nancy, that Jennie’s work was half done for her.
To see the quietest girl in the school, yet the one who stood highest in her own class, praised and fêted by the seniors, made Nancy’s fellow-classmates consider her of more importance than ever before.
So Jennie’s work was easy. She went among the freshies and whispered—first to one alone, then to two together, then to little groups. And the burden of her tale was always the same:
“The Madame will stand for her—you see!She’s the best little sport there is in the class. She’s scarcely had a mark against her, yet she’s no goody-goody.
“See how she stood for those other girls who treated her so meanly—and never opened her mouth. Why, the Madame could have burned her at the stake and Nance would never have said a word to incriminate that Montgomery crowd.
“And there won’t be a teacher to object. She’s on all their good books. Me? Of course I’ve an axe to grind,” and Jennie laughed. “She’s my roommate, and if she gets the ‘high hat’ I’ll hope to bask in her reflected glory.”
Jennie Bruce was an excellent politician. Had it lain with the girls alone, lively Jennie might have been president of the freshman class herself. But the girls knew that the Madame would never allow it. Jennie’s record for the weeks she had been a student at Pinewood Hall precluded such an honor.
The day before the break-up the members of the freshman class voted for president. Each girl sealed her vote in an envelope and the numbered envelopes were passed into the Madame’s office.
At supper that night, at the time when the school captains marched around the room “to inspect the girls’ hair-ribbons,” as Jennie said, Corinne brought a high, old-fashioned, much dented beaver hat in her hand.
NANCY FLASHED PAST THEM. _Page 215._NANCY FLASHED PAST THEM. _Page 215._
Thatdidn’t tell the eager freshmen anything, for both the principal candidates for president of the class had been from the girls rooming on the West Side, and therefore were under Corinne’s jurisdiction.
Grace Montgomery’s friends began to cheer for her. The friends of the other candidates—and there were several—kept still.
“Wait!” advised Jennie, in a stage whisper. “We can afford to yell all the louder a little later—maybe.”
But Corinne tantalized the smaller girls by walking all around the tables the first time without putting the tall hat on any girl’s head. Once or twice she hesitated behind a girl’s chair; but that only made the others laugh, for they knew thatthoseparticular girls had had no chance of election anyway.
“Come on!” shouted Cora. “You might as well bring it over here where it belongs,” and she put an arm over the blushing Grace’s shoulders.
But Grace did her blushing for nothing. Corinne crossed the room swiftly, came straight to the corner where Jennie sat, and——
Drew the hat firmly down over Nancy Nelson’s ears!
Nancy could scarcely believe it. She—Miss Nobody from Nowhere—the most popular girl in her class? It was like a dream—only, as she admitted to Jennie, laughing, it was a dreadfully noisy dream!
Corinne could scarcely command silence long enough to read the result of the balloting. Nancy had received nearly one-half of the freshman vote. Grace Montgomery had mustered only eight ballots, while the remainder were scattered among half a dozen other candidates.
The disappointed girls, all but Grace, cheered Nancy, too—and hugged her, and made her march ahead of the class, all around the big dining room, and then into the hall, which was given up to the use of the freshman class for that particular evening.
There the complete organization of the class was arranged, and Nancy presided with pretty dignity, and even Grace Montgomery and her friends had to acknowledge the leadership of the girl whom they had so ill-treated for the past weeks.
Many of the girls went home the next day for the ten days’ vacation. Those who lived at a distance, however, remained at Pinewood. So Nancy was not alone over the short vacation as she wont to be at Higbee School.
Jennie lived not far from Cincinnati, and she couldn’t remain away from home at Christmas.
“I wish you were going with me, you dear old thing!” she said to Nancy, hugging her. “You wait till I tell mother about you! You shall go home with me at Easter—if that Old Gordon will let you; and if you like it at my home we’ll have you part of the long vacation, too.
“And I’m going to get my big brother, John, to take me into the city while I’m home, and I’m going to see Scorch. Just think! Maybe we can find out all about what Mr. Gordon is hiding from you.”
“If he is hiding anything, Jennie,” said Nancy, shaking her head.
And yet, after all the wonderful things that had happened to her of late, Nancy could almost believe that even the mystery of her identity might in time be solved.
CHAPTER XXISENATOR MONTGOMERY
But Jennie Bruce came back to Pinewood Hall after the holidays with no news of importance for her roommate and chum.
“I saw that red-headed boy,” she said. “My goodness me, Nance! what a freak he is,” and Jennie burst into laughter at the remembrance of Scorch O’Brien. “John and I took him to luncheon and John couldn’t eat for laughing at him.”
“Ithink Scorch is real nice,” said Nancy, smiling reflectively.
“Oh, he’s strong foryou, all right,” admitted Jennie, nodding. “He thinks you are about the only girl who ever came into his sweet young life——”
“What nonsense!” said Nancy, blushing, but smiling, too.
“All right. He’s willing to go to desperate lengths to help you, just the same,” and Jennie smiled in remembrance of the red-haired youth’s enthusiasm.
“I guess it’s mostly talk. Scorch dearly loves to talk,” said Nancy.
“He wanted John to help him rob ‘Old Gordon’s’ private safe,” laughed Jennie. “He says he believes there are papers in that safe that would explain all about you. He wanted John to stay over that night and stand watch while he, Scorch, opened the safe with something he called a jimmy!”
“The ridiculous boy!” said Nancy.
“But I tell you!” exclaimed Jennie, “John works for a man who knows your Mr. Gordon. John is going to get Mr. Pennywell to find out—if he can—from Mr. Gordon if he really knows more about your folks than he is willing to tell you. Mr. Pennywell is a client—and a good client—of your Mr. Gordon. Hateful old thing!”
“But perhaps heisn’thateful,” Nancy objected, shaking her head.
“I bet he is. Scorch says he is hiding something. That boy is bright.”
“Really brilliant—when it comes to his hair,” suggested Nancy, laughing.
But there were so many other things to take up the thoughts of the two chums after this brief separation, that the mystery about Nancy figured little in their activities for a time.
Nancy’s new dignity as president of the class bore heavily upon her at first, for she feared that she would not discharge her duty to the other freshmen in a proper way.
The Montgomery clique was of course a continual thorn in her side. It never numbered, however, more than eight or ten girls of that class. Grace made many of her friends in the sophomore class.
The teachers, however, were decidedly in favor of Nancy. She gained the head of her classes in most studies, and did not slight lessons to join in the fun of the other girls. Yet she was no prig—no matter what Grace and Cora said.
A rather solemn thought had come to the girl on the night of that day when she had started to run away from Pinewood Hall. Suppose she should, suddenly and without warning, be thrown upon her own resources?
Most girls of Nancy’s age do not think of such unpleasant things. Nor, in many cases, could such an unhappy turn of circumstances affect them.
Yet it might happen at any time to Nancy. That was the way she felt about it.
Suppose the mysterious fountain from which, through the channel of Mr. Gordon, flowed the money to support her, suddenly should dry up?
She could be pretty sure that Mr. Gordon wouldnot go on supporting her and paying for her schooling, and all. No, indeed! He had not struck Nancy in her single interview with him as being that sort of a man.
So with this thought hovering in the background Nancy made the most of her opportunities as the days passed. She was determined to learn everything Pinewood Hall and its mistress and instructors had to teach her.
She learned to be an expert typewriter before Easter, and improved her spelling immensely. Other girls had the same opportunity, if they cared to exercise it; for there were plenty of machines they could learn on as Nancy did. But few of the girls at Pinewood Hall cared to take “extras.” Most of their parents were very well-to-do, and why should they exert themselves to merely practical things?
Nancy took up stenography with gentle Miss Meader, too. The latter acted as the Madame’s secretary, so she had practical use for shorthand. She and Nancy corresponded daily in the “pothooks,” as Jennie Bruce called the stenographic signs.
Nevertheless, Nancy managed to cram into her waking hours an immense amount of fun as well as lessons. The Madame did not believe that allwork was good for Jill, any more than it is good for Jack.
When the snow came there was sleigh-riding, class parties being made up while the moon was big, the girls going off in great “barges,” which would hold from forty to sixty of them, and stopping at a certain country tavern, of which Madame Schakael approved, where hot oyster stews were served.
Then, before Lent, there was the big dance of the year, when the girls of Pinewood Hall and the boys of the Clinton Academy mingled under the shrewd eyes of their respective heads.
Dr. Dudley was a solemn, long-faced, stiff-looking old gentleman, with a great mop of sandy hair brushed off his high brow, who never looked really dressed unless he had on a tall hat and a frock coat. In dancing pumps and a white waistcoat and tail coat he looked rather ridiculous.
And when he led out Madame Schakael—who looked like a sweet-faced French doll—for the grand march, they really did look funny together.
But it was no stiff and formal ball after the “heads” of the two schools were off the floor. The boys and girls had a most delightful time—even Nancy enjoyed it, although she, like most of the freshmen, played wallflower a good part of the time.
Nancy saw Bob Endress, but merely to bow to. He seemed always to have his “hands full” with the older girls, or with Grace Montgomery and her satellites. But Nancy’s mind lingered upon boys very little. She danced with other girls and had quite as good a time, she was sure, as she should have had had Bob Endress danced every number with her.
So passed the winter and the spring, and the Easter holidays came. Nancy had received a very prettily-worded invitation from Jennie’s mother to spend these with them.
It was the first invitation of the kind Nancy Nelson had ever received, so you can imagine how overjoyed she was. Madame Schakael approved. Then it was necessary to get Mr. Gordon’s permission.
Nancy had thanked Mr. Gordon for the twenty-dollar bill he had sent her, but had not heard personally from him in reply. She had broken an understood rule, too, to write twice to Scorch O’Brien—just little notes thanking him for remembering her.
By the way, the twenty dollars that had been lent to Cora Rathmore to pay for the famous supper in Number 30 when Nancy had been frozen out, had never been returned, either completely, or in part. Cora Rathmore seemed to have forgottenher debt to Nancy when she returned from her holiday at Christmas time.
Corinne suspected that Nancy had not been repaid; but nobody else really knew anything about it—not even Jennie. Nancy would not talk about it when some of the girls became curious.
She had not needed the money for anything. At New Year’s Mr. Gordon had sent her a ten-dollar note, but through Madame Schakael. When she asked him if she could go home with Jennie Bruce over Easter, he sent her at once another twenty dollars and his permission—the latter just as short as it could be written.
Scorch evidently watched the mail basket on Mr. Gordon’s desk with the eye of an eagle. A second letter with the card of the law firm upon it was put into Nancy’s hand almost in the same mail with Mr. Gordon’s letter. Such letters passed through the Madame’s hands without being opened. It was a secret that troubled Nancy sometimes; yet she could not “give Scorch away.” This was Scorch’s letter:
“Dear Miss Nancy:
“I see Old Gordon has risked another perfectly good yellow-back in the mail. He’ll ruin the morals of the mail clerks (I rote that word ‘mail’ wrong before) if he keeps on. Know how I seenthe yellow-back in the letter? I punched a hole with a pin in the crease of the envelope at each end. Squeeze the sides of the envelope together a little and then squint through from one hole to the other. That’s an old one.
I want you to know I’m on the job. That Jennie girl you sent to me is some peach; but she ain’t in your class for looks, just the same. Her brother is a pretty good feller, too; but we couldn’t get together on any scheme for jolting what you want to know out of Old Gordon. The time will come, just the same. When it does, I’m little Johnny On-the-Spot—don’t forget that.
So no more at present, from
“Yours very respectfully,
“Scorch O’Brien.”
There was not time to answer Scorch at once; but when Nancy was at Jennie’s home the girls wrote to the office boy of Ambrose, Necker & Boles and invited him to come out to see them. But Scorch was bashful and did not come; so Nancy returned to Pinewood without seeing her champion.
A great many things happened after that spring vacation—the last half of Nancy’s freshman term—which might be told about; but we may only relate a few of them.
Her record was splendid. Her government of her class satisfied everybody but the Montgomeryfaction. Grace and Cora did all they safely could throughout the term to trouble Nancy. Sometimes they succeeded; but she had learned not to “carry her heart on her sleeve.”
Corinne, Carrie, and the rest of the seniors were all in a flutter because of approaching graduation. The other girls—junior, sophomore, and freshman—often discussed eagerly what the summer vacation had in store for them.
For the first time in her young life, Nancy Nelson looked forward, too, to the summer with delight. She was going home with Jennie just as soon as school closed—that is, unless Mr. Gordon should object. And it was not believed that he would.
Jennie’s parents and brothers and sisters were just as well pleased with the quiet little orphan as Jennie herself had been. They were glad to have her in their big house between terms.
So June approached, and the yearly exams, and other finishing work, loomed ahead.
Pinewood Hall was a beautiful place now. The park was in its very best condition. Mr. Pease and Samuel, and their helpers, made every path straight and clean, raked the groves of all rubbish, and the two horse mowers and the roller were at work on the lawns, making them like velvet carpets.
Nancy came out of Jessie Pease’s cottage one day to see a handsome man in a gray suit, with gray spats, and gray hair, and even a gray silk shirt, walking slowly up the drive toward the Hall. In the shade of the trees (it was a hot day) he removed his gray, broad-brimmed hat. And out of that hat fell his handkerchief.
When Nancy, hastening, picked up this article, she found that it was silk, with a gray border, too, and an initial in one corner. The initial was “M.”
“You dropped this, sir, I think,” she said, timidly, coming abreast of the stranger.
He turned to look at her. He had heavy, smoothly-shaven jowls and not a very healthy complexion. His eyes were little, and green. Nancy had expected to see a very handsome, noble-looking old gentleman. Instead, she saw a very sly-looking man, with something mean and furtive in his manner, despite his fine build and immaculate dress.
“Ah! thank you, thank you, my pretty miss,” he said, accepting the handkerchief. “It is a very warm day.”
“Yes, sir,” responded Nancy, politely.
“And you, I suppose, go to school here at Pinewood?”
“Oh, yes.”
“A beautiful place! A very beautiful place,” said the stranger. “You may be acquainted with a girl named Montgomery, now?”
“Yes, sir,” said Nancy, with gravity.
“Now, where might she be found at this hour?”
Nancy chanced to have seen Grace and some of her satellites sitting in a pergola on a mound not far away. She pointed out the path to the stranger.
“Thank you—thank you, my dear,” said the gray man, and insisted upon shaking hands with her.
Indeed, he looked curiously after her as she passed on. Then, as he turned to follow the path pointed out to him, he shook his head, saying, under his breath:
“Strange! Familiar, somehow. Looks familiar——”
A cry warned him that he was seen. Flying down from the pergola came Grace, with Cora close behind her.
“Oh, Father! you dear! I’m so glad to see you!” exclaimed Grace.
“So unexpected, dear Senator Montgomery,” said Cora, in quite a grown-up way.
The Senator welcomed them; but he looked again after the retreating Nancy.
“Who is that pretty girl, Grace?” he asked, pointing out the object of his interest.
“Pretty girl, indeed!” ejaculated Cora, under her breath.
“Why it’s nobody but that Nelson—Nancy Nelson. A mere nobody.”
“What name did you say?” demanded the senator, his green eyes very bright for a moment, and a little color coming into his face.
“Nancy Nelson.”
“Who is she?”
“That’s what we all ask,” remarked his daughter, with an unpleasant laugh.
“Why do you say that, Grace?”
“Why, she’s a nobody. She’s got no friends, and no home—it’s a disgrace to have her here at Pinewood. I wish you’d say something to the Madame about her.”
“They tried to makemeroom with her,” said Cora Rathmore, boldly; “but I wouldn’t stand for that long.”
The Senator looked grave. “Come, tell me all about Nancy Nelson,” he enjoined them, and sat down on a neighboring bench to listen.
Grace and Cora told their highly-colored version of the story circulated about Nancy during the first few weeks of her sojourn at Pinewood Hall.
“And do tell Madame Schakael what you think of her letting such a girl into the school,” begged Grace, as the Senator arose and started towards the Hall again.
He did not say that he would. But to himself the Senator muttered, with puckered brow and half-shut eyes:
“Who would have thought it! That girl here—right where I sent Grace! I—I certainly shall have to see Gordon about this. Hang his impudence! What does he mean by sending that girl to a place like this?”
"YOU MAY BE ACQUAINTED WITH A GIRL NAMED MONTGOMERY?" _Page 232._"YOU MAY BE ACQUAINTED WITH A GIRL NAMED MONTGOMERY?" _Page 232._
CHAPTER XXIIIS IT A CLUE?
The most beautiful sight she had ever seen! That was what Nancy Nelson enthusiastically called it when, from the end of the long line of girls, walking two by two, she saw the flower-crowned seniors winding from the Hall, through the sun-spattered grounds, to the old brick church on the highway, beyond the estate, where the baccalaureate sermon was always preached.
No girl, she was sure, could ever be disloyal to Pinewood Hall, after having once seen the graduation procession. And then, the graduating girls themselves! Why, they were all ready for college!
How much they must know! Nancy sighed with envy, and hoped heartily that she would be able to remain at Pinewood long enough to be a chief figure in a similar spectacle.
Corinne Pevay looked like an angel. And Carrie Littlefield read the valedictory. To the mind of the girl just finishing her freshman year, these great girls—real young ladies, now!—wereso far above her that it almost made her blink to look at them.
At Higbee School class after class had been graduated above Nancy, and she had seen the day approach—even her own graduation—without much excitement. But this was an entirely different occasion.
She had something to look forward to this summer. At the break-up for the long vacation she was going to have just as much part in the bustle as anyone.
Jessie Pease had already looked over her wardrobe, and there were several new summer dresses, including swimming and boating costumes. Mr. Gordon had sent the extra money needed without comment or objection.
And now Nancy’s trunk was packed, and her bag, and with Jennie Bruce she was ready to take the first ’bus that left for the Clintondale station in the morning.
How different from her coming to the school in September!
She was at the head of her class. The freshmen had given her an overwhelming vote for class president for the soph. year. And Corinne had prophesied that she would yet be captain of the West Side—when she grew to be a senior.
Girls ran to kiss her before she got into the’bus, and stood and waved their hands after her as it rolled away. And when she had arrived at the Hall, she stood on the porch in the rain without a soul to speak to her. Ah! this change was enough to turn the head of even a sensible girl.
However, Nancy was much too affectionate by nature and tender of other people’s feelings to be made haughty or vain by her schoolmates’ kindness to her. It continued to be a wonder to her how a “mere nobody” had managed to gain such popularity.
And she was welcomed in Jennie’s home as though she really was one of the family.
Jennie’s home was a lovely, rambling old house, standing well back from the High Street in its own grounds, and affording ample space for the young folk to have fun in innumerable ways.
There was a lake not far away; and Mr. Bruce owned a pair of ponies that even the younger children could drive. There was a trip almost every day to the swimming place; then there were picnics, and visiting back and forth with other girls whom Jennie and her sisters knew. And nowhere did Nancy hear a word about her not being “just as good” as her comrades.
The mystery of her identity, however, was seldom buried very deep under other thoughts. And Jennie retained her interest in the puzzle, too.
Nancy had written to Scorch O’Brien to arrange for a meeting; as the red-headed youth seemed too bashful to come out to Jennie’s house, the girls planned to meet him in the city. They got a most mysterious note in reply:
“Dear Miss Nancy:
“You and your friend meet me at 307 Payne Street on Saturday afternoon. You can whistle outside; I’ll hear you. Can’t see you at Old Gordon’s office for fear of spies. Did you ever see the Gray Man? He and Old G. has had a fight about you. It was a peach! They says when thieves fall out honest folks gets what’s coming to them. Mebbe you’ll get yours.
“Most respectfully yours,
“Scorch O’Brien.”
Jennie’s big brother John, who had already taken some interest in Nancy’s mystery, took the girls to town with him. His employer, who knew Mr. Gordon, had never been able to get the lawyer to talk about Nancy Nelson, although he had started the subject with him several times.
The girls did a little shopping for themselves, and some errands for Mrs. Bruce, and then had a nice luncheon. It was past noon then and they were sure that Scorch would be at home—for it was evidently his home address that he had given to them.
They asked a policeman how to find Payne Street and he kindly put them on a car which took the two girls to the corner of that thoroughfare. It was a street of small cottages, and empty lots, and goats, and many, many dirty-faced children. Some of these last ran after Nancy and Jennie and made faces at them as they sought out Number 307.
“But as long as the goats don’t run after us and make faces, I don’t care,” declared Jennie.
Just then one nanny looked over a fence and said “Ba-a-a-a!” in a very loud tone, and Jennie almost jumped into the middle of the street.
“Come out! Come on!” she cried, urging her friend onward. “Goats are always butting in.”
A derisive chorus of “ba’s” followed them as they hurried along the street.
“There’s 307!” cried Nancy, pointing.
The cottage in question was a rather neater-looking place than its neighbors. There was a fence which really was strong enough, and had pickets enough (if some of themwerebarrel-staves) to keep wandering goats out of the yard. There was a garden at the back, and a bit of grass in front, with a path bordered by half bricks painted with whitewash a dazzling white.
The porch and steps were scrubbed clean, too; it might have been a sign of Mrs. O’Brien’s trade, that porch.
There were ducks, and geese, and poultry, too; but all fenced off with wire from the front and from the garden. And the girls heard the hungry grunting of a pig in its sty.
There was a good deal of noise within the house, too. The girls could hear childish voices in a great hullabaloo, a good-natured, but broadly Irish voice chiming in with them, and likewise a scampering across the floor which must have made the cottage rock again.
“He’d never hear us whistle in the world!” giggled Jennie.
“How funny we’d look standing here on the street and whistling, anyway!” replied Nancy.
“And then,Inever could whistle,” confessed Jennie. “Somehow I can’t get my lips to pucker right.”
“Why! neither can I!” cried Nancy. “I didn’t think of that. We couldn’t signal to Scorch by whistling, anyway.”
“Unless we borrowed a policeman’s whistle—or a postman’s,” said Jennie. “What’ll we do?”
“Come on and knock,” said Nancy. “We can make them hear somehow.”
Which proved to be true. The girls madethose inside hear at their first summons. Silence fell upon the O’Brien cottage on the instant.
There might have been some whisperings and soft commands; but then, in a moment, a good-looking, black-haired girl, in a clean apron and with her sleeves rolled up over her dimpled elbows, opened the front door.
“You’re Norah O’Brien, I know,” said Nancy, putting out her hand.
“You’re a good guesser, Miss,” returned the girl, who might have been sixteen or seventeen. “And who might you be—and the other pretty lady?”
“Why—didn’t Scorch tell you——”
“Sarsfield, do ye mane?” asked Norah, her eyes twinkling.
“I mean Scorch O’Brien,” declared Nancy.
“Patrick Sarsfield is his name,” declared Scorch’s big sister. “Here! P. Sarsfield O’Brien!” she shouted into the house. “It’s coompany ye’ve got.”
“Gee!” drawled the voice of the red-haired youth. “What did they come to the door for?” and he made his appearance, looking very sheepish.
“How could you expect us to whistle, Scorch?” demanded Nancy, while Jennie bubbled over with laughter. “Girls can’t whistle.”
“I never thought,” admitted Scorch, shaking hands awkwardly with both visitors.
“Bring thim inter the house, P. Sarsfield,” said Norah. “Have ye no manners?”
“There’s too many kids,” said the tousled Scorch, who had evidently been playing with the younger children, too.
“I’ll shoo ’em out into the yard,” promised Norah, and went away upon this errand while Scorch ushered his visitors into the tiny front room, which was evidently kept shut up save when the priest came, or some special visitor.
The girls sat down on the stiffly-placed chairs and looked about at the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien when they were first married—he very straight and stern-looking in his policeman’s uniform, with very yellow buttons, and Mrs. O’Brien with very red cheeks and much yellow jewelry painted into the picture by the artist at the bride’s request. Mrs. O’Brien had never owned any trinket of more value than her wedding ring!
There was a wreath of everlastings in a glass case, which had lain on the good man’s coffin. And there was a framed “In Memoriam” card on the wall, together with a “Rock of Ages” worked on cardboard in red worsted by Norah herself, no doubt.
Everything was as clean as could be, however. And Nancy, on her part, was much more interested in the change she saw in Scorch, than in anything else.
“Why, Scorch! how you’ve grown!” she exclaimed.
“That’s in spite of the way they overwork me at the office,” he replied, grinning.
“And you’ve had that tooth put in!”
“Yep. Ye see, missing that tooth, when I bit into anything it seemed like I was tryin’ to make a sandwich look like a Swiss cheese. It troubled my aesthetic taste. So I let the tooth carpenter build me another.”
“And your hair stays lots flatter than it did,” declared Nancy.
“Yep. Sweet oil. It works all right.”
“Nonsense, Scorch! You talk just as slangily as ever.”
“But he writes a lot better than he did,” said Jennie, suddenly. “Did you notice in his last letter?”
“You’re practising, Scorch,” said Nancy.
“I’m goin’ to night school, Miss Nancy,” admitted the boy, with a grin.
“That’s a good boy!” exclaimed Nancy.
“Well, learning is all right—even if a feller’s goin’ to be a detective,” declared Scorch, earnestly.
“And I expect you’re learnin’ a lot yourself, Miss Nancy?”
“Some,” returned his friend.
“She’s at the top of her class,” Jennie declared, proudly. “Oh, she has us all beaten, Scorch.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “I knowed how ’twould be. There ain’t nobody going to get the best of Miss Nancy.”
“Unless it’s that horrid Mr. Gordon,” suggested Jennie, bringing the conversation around to the subject uppermost in all their minds.
“Ha!” exclaimed Scorch, looking mysterious at once, and hitching his chair nearer to the girls. “Were you on to what I said in my letter?”
“About the gray man? Yes!” cried Jennie.
“Did you ever see him?” asked Scorch.
“I—I don’t know that I have,” said Nancy, slowly.
“He ain’t been snooping around that school?”
“Why, I haven’t noticed anybody like that.”
“A big man all in gray. He’s some nobby dresser! I thought he was the President—or Secretary of State at least—when he came into the office and asked for Old Gordon. I takes him in at once.
“Now, they knowed each other well, those two did. Old Gordon was startled and he tried to heave up out of his chair. But you know howheis,” added Scorch, with scorn. “Takes him ten minutes to work his way out from between the arms when he wants to get up. Don’t know what hewoulddo if there was a fire any time.”
“Why, Scorch!” admonished Nancy.
“Well,” said the boy, “he tries to heave up, and can’t, and sings out:
“‘Why, Jim!’
“‘Hello, Hen,’ says the man in gray.
“I hadn’t shut the door—quite. Sometimes I don’t,” admitted the boy, with a wink. “I hears the gray feller say:
“‘I just got back from Clintondale, Hen. What did you send that girl up there for, I want to know?’
“‘What girl?’ asks Old Gordon.
“‘Nancy Nelson,’ says the gray man
“‘Sh!’ sputters Gordon. ‘Shut the door, Jim, if you’re here to talk abouther.’
“But before the other feller shut the door I heard him say:
“‘Wouldn’t no other school but Pinewood Hall do forher?’ and Old Gordon snaps right back at him:
“‘Nothing’s too good for her, Jim, and you know it.’
“Well!” continued Scorch. “I could havebit off the doorknob; I was so mad when they shut the door on me. I couldn’t hear another thing.
“The gray man was in there a long time. When he come out he looked mad, too. I didn’t hear Old Gordon’s buzzer for a long time, and so I slipped down to his door and tried it.
“When I peeked in, what do you think?” asked Scorch, mysteriously.
“What was it?” gasped Nancy.
“I never could guess!” exclaimed the eager Jennie.
“The old man had his head down on the desk, and his shoulders was heavin’ like he was cryin’. Now, what do you know aboutthat?” demanded the boy, with the air of one throwing a bomb.
The girls were speechless with surprise.