CHAPTER XIIRUNNING AWAY
AS it happened, Bobby could not have chosen a better night for running away. That is, for running away without being found out. Father Blossom hurried off to his lodge meeting directly after dinner, and then the telephone bell rang and Mrs. Ward, a neighbor who lived near, asked Mother Blossom and Uncle Dave and Aunt Miranda to come over to her house and spend the evening.
“I ought to be packing our things,” said Aunt Miranda, when Mother Blossom told her. “But we’re not going till the eleven o’clock train, and I suppose I’ll have time in the morning; I’d like to go, Margaret, and so would Dave.”
That left Norah in charge of the house and of the four little Blossoms, and she sent them to bed the minute the clock struck eight. Norah believed that all children should go to bed earlyand it never did any good to coax her to let one stay up a single second past bedtime hour. She waited till they were all in bed, then put out the lights in their rooms, raised the windows and went downstairs to read her paper in the kitchen.
“It’s an awful long time till ten o’clock,” said Bobby to himself, crawling out of bed as soon as he heard Norah close the door at the foot of the back stairs. “I hope I don’t go to sleep before it’s time to start.”
Bobby had not meant to undress, for when he and the boys talked it over they had decided that the best way would be to go to bed fully dressed and then pull the covers up and if anyone peeped into their bedrooms they would look as usual. But Bobby had reckoned without Norah who announced that she expected to see clothes “folded up as they belong on chairs and not scattered all about.” Bobby knew that if Norah went through his room and saw no clothes neatly folded she would immediately want to know where they were. So he had had to undress and get into his pajamas as he always did.
Bobby had a small room to himself, while thetwins slept in a larger connecting room and Meg had her own little room.
“I s’pose Meg will be kind of sorry,” said Bobby, trying to dress quietly, and without snapping on the light. “But she would be sorrier if I stayed here and Mr. Bennett put me in prison. Mother wouldn’t like that, either. I wonder what Mr. Bennett will say when he finds we’ve gone.”
As soon as he was dressed, Bobby tiptoed into Mother Blossom’s room to look at her little ivory clock. It was only half-past eight!
“I wish I’d told the fellows nine o’clock,” thought Bobby. “But there would be a lot of people coming home from the movies then and they might see us. I guess I can read till a quarter of, and then I’ll go.”
He found a magazine on the table by the bed and he took that and Father Blossom’s pocket flashlight which lay near and went back into his own room and lay down on the floor and read the stories, not daring to turn on the electric light lest someone come home and see a light in his room when he was supposed to be asleep.He had to put the quilt over him, because, even though he had closed the window, the room was cold. Norah had carefully turned off the heat before she went downstairs.
Bobby was so wide awake that he knew he wouldn’t go to sleep and he was very much surprised when his head struck the floor with a bump.
“Why—I guess I went to sleep!” he whispered. “I hope it isn’t after ten o’clock!”
He hurried across the hall to look at the ivory clock. It said twenty minutes of ten. Bobby’s heart thumped a little as he went back to his room and felt around for the handkerchief he had tied up that afternoon and hidden on the floor of his closet. He found it and then crept carefully into the hall, afraid that Dot would hear him and call out. She was a light sleeper and woke easily.
“I’ll slide down the banisters,” he decided when he reached the stairs. “Then the stairs can’t creak and make a noise.”
Once in the downstairs hall, it was easy to get his hat and coat and rubber boots. A lightshone under the kitchen door, proof that Norah was still there. Probably she would sit up till Mother Blossom came home. Bobby let himself out of the front door and closed it very gently. Then he was possessed to run around to the back of the house and make sure that Norah had not taken it into her head to go upstairs and look for him.
“Oh—my!” gasped Bobby with a half grunt as he turned the corner of the house. He had walked into Mr. White, whose existence he had forgotten. There was no moon and the dark was pretty black until one got used to it.
Bobby walked around the snowman and then he could see the light streaming from the kitchen windows. Norah seldom pulled down the shades. He could see her sitting at the table, her paper propped up against her mending basket. Sam sat on the other side of the table, reading a book. Philip was stretched out before the fire, and Annabel Lee dozed in a cushioned rocking chair.
“Sam could take us in the car,” thought Bobby, carefully picking his way out of theyard. “He could take us to—to Mexico, I guess! But he’d want to tell Daddy first, and Daddy wouldn’t let us go, maybe.”
There were not many street lights in Oak Hill and the street where the Blossoms lived was not much traveled after dark. So Bobby had to go slowly, feeling his way till he reached the corner where an arc light burned.
“Hello, Bobby!” whispered a voice, and Fred Baldwin stepped out of the shadows. Palmer Davis was behind him.
“Where’s Bertrand?” asked Bobby.
“Hasn’t come yet—he’s always late,” said Fred, who thought that everyone should be as prompt as he was.
“Maybe he can’t get away,” said Palmer mildly. “My mother most caught me as I was going out the door. Suppose she had!”
“Your father go to lodge meeting?” Fred asked Bobby. “So’d mine and Palmer’s too, and I think Bertrand’s father was going. Wonder where he is now.”
Fred meant Bertrand, not his father, and justas he finished speaking, that small boy came up to them, panting.
“I ran all the way,” he said. “Is it late? My mother had company in the parlor and my big sister was making candy in the kitchen. So I couldn’t get out till I thought of sliding down the porch trellis.”
“Wasn’t it icy?” asked Bobby.
“Oh, yes, it was icy,” admitted Bertrand cheerfully. “But I don’t care, long as I got here!”
“Where we going?” asked Fred, looking at Bobby for directions.
“I think we’d better walk till we come to a barn,” planned Bobby. “Folks always sleep in a barn when they run away from home.”
“Where’ll we get anything to eat?” suggested Palmer Davis. “I’m hungry already.”
“I brought some buns,” said Bertrand, hastily untying a small package he carried. “We can eat these as we go along.”
They started to walk uptown, keeping close together and munching the buns as they walked. The packed snow deadened the noise of theirfootfalls and there was not a sound anywhere. Here and there a light shone out from the houses they passed, but most folk in Oak Hill went to bed before ten o’clock unless there happened to be a party.
“Mr. Bennett has a watchman all night at the shop,” said Bertrand presently. “I saw him when I came out of our house. He has a little shanty to stay in and a stove to keep him warm.”
“What’s he supposed to do?” asked Bobby, wishing that everything didn’t look so queer and spooky at night.
“Why, the grocery boy says Mr. Bennett is trying to get more insurance and he won’t have anything touched till that’s settled,” explained Bertrand, who certainly heard everything that was ever said anywhere in his vicinity. “He thinks we’ll come pawing over the ruins, the grocery boy says.”
They had reached the business section of the town now and Bobby, looking ahead, made out the dim outline of a figure coming toward them. They would meet under the next arc light, unless the boys could hide.
“Sh—there’s somebody coming!” he whispered. “We don’t want ’em to see us. Let’s cross over to the other side.”
“That’ll look funny,” objected Fred. “Just walk ahead and don’t say anything or look up; nobody will know us.”
Alas for Fred’s hope! To Bobby’s terror and despair, as he was doggedly tramping past the stranger, his coat collar turned up and his hands deep in his pockets, he felt a grasp on his shoulder.
“Robert!” said Father Blossom’s voice sternly, “what are you doing out here at this time of night?”
The boys stopped as if they had been shot, and poor Bobby turned furiously on Fred.
“Itoldyou we ought to have crossed over,” he said angrily. “Now see what you’ve done!”
“But what are you doing?” asked Father Blossom. “That’s more important. Does Mother know where you are, Bobby?”
“No, not exactly,” admitted Bobby.
“I’ve just left your father, Fred,” said FatherBlossom, recognizing Fred in the dim light. “Does he know you are uptown?”
Fred stood on one foot and then the other and finally muttered that he supposed he didn’t.
Father Blossom touched the knotted handkerchief Bobby carried, gently.
“What is this, Son?” he asked.
“Things,” said Bobby uncomfortably. “My knife and the kneaded rubber, and—and some more things.”
“Are you running away?” said Father Blossom and the suddenness of the question took Bobby by surprise. The other boys stared in astonishment at Bobby’s father. How in the world had he managed to guess so quickly?
“I see you are,” said Father Blossom, as no one answered. “And what are you running away from, boys?”
“Mr. Bennett,” said Bobby jerkily. “He says he’s going to have us arrested.”
“And we’ll have to go to prison,” put in Palmer Davis.
Father Blossom looked at the circle of worriedlittle faces and smiled. Then he became very grave.
“I doubt very much if Mr. Bennett will have you arrested,” he said. “I have heard a new story tonight that puts the blame on some tramps seen hanging around the shop after you boys went in to get your ball. There is too much doubt about the affair for Mr. Bennett to risk getting out warrants. But, suppose he did: do you think I want my son, and would your fathers want you, to run away instead of facing this trouble and seeing it through?”
“But I thought you wouldn’t like me to be arrested,” cried Bobby. “And all the girls in school would tease Meg.”
“I don’t want you arrested,” said Father Blossom earnestly, “and Meg would feel very bad if that should happen and so would Mother. But, Bobby, that would be something you could not help. People can not help getting into trouble sometimes, but they can always help being afraid. You are running away because you are afraid of what may happen.”
Bobby and the other boys were silent.
“A good soldier always faces the music,” said Father Blossom. “Surely you are not going to turn your backs and run?”
Bobby looked from Palmer to Fred and then at Bertrand. They looked gloomy but not frightened.
“All right,” sighed Bobby, “we’ll go back. Nobody can say we are cowards.”