CHAPTER VLAURIE TO THE RESCUE
Laurie’s rush to get back to school did not prevent him from pausing when, having turned the corner into Summit Street and proceeded half-way along the block, he caught sight of Bob Starling in the back garden of the Coventry place. The Coventry place, which consisted of a big square house set at the Walnut Street end of a broad and deep plot of land facing the school property, had been rented by Bob’s father, who was the engineer in charge of the big new railroad bridge in course of construction near Orstead. Bob was entered at Hillman’s School as a day-student. He was sixteen years old, a slim but well built chap with a very attractive countenance. Bob’s mission in life, as he believed, was to play a great deal of tennis and play it better than any one else. In that mission he very nearly succeeded. It was tennis that was accountablefor his presence just now in the back yard, as Laurie well knew.
“How soon are you going to start work?” called Laurie.
“Hello, Nod! Come on in!”
“Can’t. Nearly six. What are you doing?”
“Just looking around,” replied Bob, drawing near. “I’ve got the stakes all set. Gosh, if the ground would dry up so they could begin to dig I’d have the old court ready in a week.”
“I guess so.” Laurie nodded. “Well, a few more days like this will do the trick. Say, remember how we planned to make a pergola out of that old lumber that came out of the arbor you pulled down?”
“Yes, and we’ll do it as soon as the court’s made. Dad’s got me twenty loads of the finest cinders you ever saw.”
“Good work! Reckon you’ll be giving tennis teas in another month, Bob.”
“Before that if the weather behaves. Been over to the Widow’s?” Bob grinned faintly.
“Yes.” Laurie’s reply sounded a trifle defiant.
“How’s Polly? Haven’t seen her for days.”
“Oh, she’s holding up bravely under your neglect,”answered Laurie. Then, having avoided Bob’s playful punch, he added, “she’s sort of broke up, though, over Miss Comfort.”
“Who? Oh, the old dame that makes cake. Yes, my aunt was saying something about her at dinner yesterday. They’re putting her out of her house or something, aren’t they?”
Laurie nodded. “It’s a blamed shame, too,” he said indignantly. “Why, say, Bob, she’s over seventy! And one of the nicest old ladies in town, too. Always cheerful and happy and—and sunny, you know. One of the—er—well, a fine character, Bob.”
“Gosh, I didn’t know you were so well acquainted with her, Nod!”
“Well, I don’t know her so very well personally,” replied Laurie, “but Polly says—”
“Oh!” chuckled Bob.
Laurie scowled. “I don’t see anything very funny in it,” he protested. “A perfectly corking old lady like Miss Comfort having to go to the poor-farm! At her age! Almost eighty!”
“Hold on! She was seventy a minute ago! Who says she’s going to the poor-farm?”
“Pol—everybody! I call it a rotten shame!”
“Why, yes, so do I,” agreed Bob, “but I don’t see why you are so het up about it.”
“You don’t, eh? Well, if she wasyourmother—”
“She couldn’t be, Nod; she isn’t married. And I don’t believe she’s yours, either, no matter what you say.”
“I didn’t say she was,” replied Laurie a trifle irritably. “I only said—I was just trying to make you see— Gee, you haven’t any heart at all!”
“Oh, don’t be an ass,” laughed Bob. “I haven’t said anything against the poor old soul. I’m mighty sorry for her, just as sorry as you are, but I can’t do anything about it, can I?”
“No, but you needn’t laugh at her!”
“I wasn’t laughing at her, you nut! I—”
“Besides,” continued Laurie, “if every one took your attitude about—about things, saying, ‘I can’t help it, can I?’ I’d like to know what sort of a world this would be.”
“Well, hang it, I can’t!” said Bob emphatically, getting a trifle riled at his friend’s unreasonableness. “Neither can you. So why stand there and—”
“How do you know I can’t?” demanded Laurie with much hauteur. “I haven’t said I couldn’t. In fact, I—I’m going to!”
“You are?” exclaimed Bob incredulously. “How, Nod?”
The note of respect in Bob’s voice dispelled Laurie’s annoyance perceptibly. “I don’t know—yet,” he answered. But there was something in his voice, or maybe in the emphasis put on the final word, or possibly in his manner, that caused Bob to think that he did know. “Oh, come on and tell me, Nod,” he asked. “Let me in on it. Maybe I can help, eh? Gosh, I’ll say it’s fierce to use a fine old lady like that! Are you going to get up a subscription or a—I know! A benefit, eh?”
Laurie shook his head, glancing at his watch as he did so. “I can’t tell you anything about it—yet,” he replied. “But maybe—as soon as I get the details settled—I’ve got to do a lot of thinking, you know, Bob.”
“Sure! Well, listen, let me in on it, will you? I’d love to do something, you know. I always thought Miss Comfort was a mighty fine old girl—I mean lady, Nod!”
“She is,” said Laurie almost reverentially.
“Sure,” agreed Bob solemnly.
“Well, I’ll see you to-morrow. Keep it to yourself, though. I don’t want my plans all spoiled by—by a lot of silly talk.”
“I’ll say you don’t! Good night, Nod.”
When he had reached the corner it began to dawn on Laurie that, as Elk had told him yesterday, he talked too much! “Got myself into a nice mess,” he thought ruefully. “Suppose I’ve got to go ahead and bluff it out with Bob now. Wonder what got into me. No—no discretion, that’s my trouble. I ain’t so well in my circumspection, I guess. Better see a doctor about it! Oh, well—”
The next morning Laurie and Kewpie took advantage of an empty period soon after breakfast and again sought the south side of the gymnasium building. To-day Kewpie sought to demonstrate an out-shoot. He was not very successful, although Laurie had to acknowledge that now and then the ball did deviate slightly from the straight line. Sometimes it deviated to such purpose that he couldn’t reach it at all, but Kewpie made no claims at such times. He saidthe ball slipped. In the end, Kewpie went back to his famous drop and managed to elicit faint applause from Laurie.
Laurie couldn’t get his heart into the business this morning. Despite his efforts to forget it, that idiotic boast to Bob Starling kept returning to his mind to bother him. Either he must confess to Bob that he hadn’t meant a word of what he had said or he must think up some scheme of, at least, pretending to seek aid for Miss Comfort. He liked Bob a whole lot and he valued Bob’s opinion of him, and he hated to confess that he had just let his tongue run away with him. On the other hand, there wasn’t a thing he could do that would be of any practical help to Miss Comfort. He would just have to bluff, he concluded: make believe that he was doing a lot of heavy thinking and finally just let the thing peter out. Quite unjustly Laurie experienced a feeling of mild distaste for Miss Comfort.
In the middle of the forenoon, Bob, meeting him in the corridor, would have stopped him, but Laurie pushed by with a great display of haste, briefly replying in the negative to Bob’s mysteriously whispered inquiry: “Anything new,Nod?” After that, not having yet decided on any sort of a scheme to present to the other, Laurie avoided Bob as though the latter had measles.
At practice in the baseball cage he gave so much thought to the matter of saving his face with Bob that he made very poor work of catching and batting. He was, in fact, so detached from what was going on that even Elk Thurston’s gibes fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mulford, the coach, got after him many times that afternoon.
When practice was over Laurie fairly dawdled about the showers and dressing-room, and it was nearly half-past five when he finally set out for the Widow Deane’s, making his way there by a roundabout route that took him nowhere in sight of the Coventry place. He expected to find Ned there before him, but the little shop was deserted save for a small child buying penny candy and Mrs. Deane, who was waiting on the customer. Polly, said Mrs. Deane, had gone to Mae Ferrand’s. Laurie disconsolately ordered a root-beer and, overcoming an inclination to sit on the counter, listened to Mrs. Deane’s unexciting budget of news. He was not very attentive, although Mrs. Deane never suspected the fact, and shemight have shown some surprise when he broke into her account of Polly’s concern over Antoinette, the rabbit who lived in a box in the back yard, because Antoinette hadn’t been eating well for several days, by asking suddenly:
“Mrs. Deane, is it straight about Miss Comfort having to go to the poor-farm?”
“Oh, dear, I’m afraid so.” Mrs. Deane sighed. “Isn’t it a pity? I—we did want to take her in here with us, Laurie, but I suppose we simply couldn’t do it.”
“Well, look; what about this brother of hers?”
“Brother? Why, she hasn’t any—”
“Eh! Oh, brother-in-law, I meant; the fellow who married her sister out in Ohio.”
“Iowa,” Mrs. Deane corrected. “Why, I just don’t know. When she got word from the lawyers that she must vacate the house she wrote to him, but she says he never took any notice of her letter.”
“Didn’t she write again? Maybe he didn’t get it.”
“Why, no, she didn’t. She’s sort of—well, I suppose you might say proud, but I’d almost callit touchy. She just wouldn’t write another letter, although I advised her to.”
“Well, what’s he want the house for?” asked Laurie, frowning. “Is he coming here to live in it, or what?”
Mrs. Deane shook her head. “I don’t know, but I did hear that Mr. Sparks had told some one that they were going to tear it down and put up a two-family house there.”
“He’s the banker, isn’t he? Well, I think it’s mighty funny that this brother-in-law chap doesn’t write to her. She ought to get after him again. Or some one ought to do it for her, if she won’t. It doesn’t seem to me, Mrs. Deane, that any man would want to turn his own sister-in-law into the poor-house. Maybe he doesn’t really know how she’s fixed.”
“Well, maybe so, Laurie. I’m sure I’d like to think so. But letters don’t often go astray, and I’m afraid this Mr. Goupil—”
“Is that his name? I’ll say he’s a goop! How does he spell it?”
“G-o-u-p-i-l, Goupil. A. G. Goupil, I think she said. He’s quite wealthy, or, anyway, I gatheredso from what she let fall. Makes some sort of machinery. The Goupil Machinery Company is the name. I don’t suppose it would hurt him the least tiny bit to let poor Miss Comfort stay right where she is, but sometimes it does seem that the more money folks have the less feeling they’ve got. I don’t know as I’d ought to say that, either, for—”
“Do you know what place in Iowa he lives?”
“Why, I did know, Laurie, but I don’t recall it now. It was a sort of funny name, though I’ve heard it lots of times.”
“Was it—was it—” Laurie realized blankly that he couldn’t remember the name of a single town or city in Iowa. Mrs. Deane watched him expectantly. Laurie concentrated hard and, at last, “Was it Omaha?” he asked. Then, as Mrs. Deane shook her head, “anyway,” he added, “that’s in Nebraska, come to think of it.”
“It seems to me,” mused Mrs. Deane, “that it was a—a sort of Indian name, like—like—”
“Sioux City!” shouted Laurie.
“That’s it,” agreed Mrs. Deane, quite pleased. “I don’t see how you ever thought of it. Sioux City, Iowa; yes, that was it.”
Laurie was writing on the back of a piece of paper with his fountain-pen. “Look here, Mrs. Deane,” he said eagerly, “why don’t we write to this Goop ourselves, if she won’t? Or why don’t we telegraph him? That would be better, because folks always pay more attention to telegrams than they do to letters. Only”—Laurie’s face clouded a trifle—“I wonder how much it costs to Sioux City.”
“Why—why—,” began Mrs. Deane a little breathlessly, “do you think it would be quite right? You see, Laurie, maybe I’d ought to consider what she told me as confidential. I’m not sure she would like it a bit, she’s so sort of touch—proud.”
“Well, you stay out of it, then,” said Laurie resolutely. “I’ll attend to it myself, and if there’s any blame, why, I’ll take it. But I certainly do think that some one ought to—ought to do something, Mrs. Deane. Don’t you?”
“Well, I suppose they ought, Laurie, maybe. But perhaps it’s taking a good deal on yourself—I mean—”
“She needn’t know anything about it unless Goop comes across with an answer, and what shedoesn’t know isn’t going to hurt her. You leave it to me, and don’t say anything about it to Miss Comfort. I’ll send this Goop guy a telegram that’ll wake him up. He ain’t so well in his goop. He ought to see—”
“Hello!”
That was Polly, to the accompaniment of the tinkling bell in the next room.
“Don’t tell Polly!” hissed Laurie, and Polly’s mother somewhat blankly nodded agreement.
“We’ve been talking about Miss Comfort,” announced Laurie as Polly joined them.
“Oh, is there anything new, mama? Has she heard from the lawyers again?”
“Not that I know of,” answered Mrs. Deane. “I haven’t seen her yet. She said she’d bring over those cream-puffs and the layer-cake, but she hasn’t.”
“Shall I run over and ask about them?”
“N-no, I don’t think you’d better, dear. I dare say she’s just too upset to get things baked. I know myself how contrary ovens will act when you can’t give your whole mind to them. Maybe she’ll be over in a little while.”
Miss Comfort remained the subject of conversationfor another ten minutes, and then Laurie, suddenly realizing that it was alarmingly close to dinner-time, winked meaningly at Mrs. Deane, said good night, and bolted. This time he made no attempt to avoid Bob Starling. Bob, however, was not in sight as Laurie sped by the big house.
“I’ll telephone him to come over after dinner,” reflected Laurie. “I sort of promised to let him in on it. Besides, I’ll bet it costs a lot to telegraph to Iowa!”