CHAPTER XII
Russ, Rose, Laddie, and Vi, who had been sitting in chairs on the porch near Mr. Brown, listening to him talk about the uncertainties of an automobile, also jumped up as the boarding-house keeper cried out and left his seat. Russ looked in the direction the farmer pointed and saw, amid the trees in the apple orchard, a boy about his own size running as fast as he could run toward a fence. And, as the boy ran, apples dropped from his pockets to the grass.
"Hi there, stop, you pesky apple-taker of a boy!" yelled Mr. Brown. "What do you mean by coming into my orchard and taking my apples!"
The boy said never a word, but ran all the faster toward the fence.
"Come on!" called Russ to Rose. "Let's go and see if he catches him!"
Laddie and Vi followed their older brother and sister down off the porch, and ran after Mr. Brown into the apple orchard, which was not far from the house.
"What's the matter, children?" cried Mrs. Brown, coming from her kitchen where she was getting dinner ready. "Are you running away?"
"We're going to see Mr. Brown catch the apple boy," Russ answered back over his shoulder.
"Is that pesky apple boy here again?" asked the farmer's wife.
"What's a pesky apple boy?" asked Laddie, as he ran along beside Russ. "Is it a riddle? If it is I wish she or Mr. Brown would tell me the answer."
"No, 'pesky' is sort of mean, I think," explained Russ.
"Hi there! Don't you run off with my apples!" shouted the farmer again, and by this time the boy had reached the fence. He started to climb over it, but it was too high, or else he was too small, and as he wiggled and struggled many more apples kept dropping from his pockets. He seemed to have filled his coat and trousers pockets pretty full with Mr. Brown's apples.
"Now I have you!" cried Mr. Brown, as he rushed up to the boy and pulled him back just as the little fellow might have gotten over the fence if he had had a moment more. "Now I have you! I'll teach you to take my apples! I warned you if I caught you in my orchard again I'd have you arrested, and now I'm going to! I told you to keep out of my orchard!"
"No, you didn't," answered the boy in a sullen voice, as the farmer took hold of his collar and began to drag him toward the house.
"What makes you say I didn't?" demanded Mr. Brown, while Russ, Rose, and the others looked on wonderingly. "Didn't I tell you not to take any more of my apples?"
"No, you didn't!" exclaimed the boy. "And I wish you'd let me go! I never was in your orchard before, and I never took any of your apples before, and I wouldn't have taken any now only I was so hungry I was almost starved!"
His chin began to tremble, and so did his lips, and it was easy to see he was almost ready to cry.
Mrs. Brown came down through the orchard to meet her husband.
"I see you caught him," she said. "We'll teach him not to take any more of our apples! Bring him along and send for the constable. He'll take him to the lockup!"
"Oh, please don't have me arrested!" begged the boy, who was a little older than Russ. "I never took any of your apples before, and I wouldn't have taken any now, only I was so hungry I couldn't help it. I didn't have any supper, and I didn't have any breakfast and I didn't see where I was going to get any dinner, and——"
"Here, Abner Brown, you let that boy go!" suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Brown, and there was a new note in her voice and a different look on her face. "Poor child! He's half starved, anybody can see that! And I have a good dinner almost cooked and ready to serve. You come right along with me, poor child. I'll give you your dinner with these other children."
"Oh, thank you!" said the boy, as the farmer let go of him. "Honest, I never took any of your apples before. I only just got here," he went on. "I've been walking a long way, and when I saw the apples I was so hungry I just couldn't help taking a few."
"Are you sure you were never in my orchard before?" asked Mr. Brown.
"Sure!" was the answer. "I never was in this town before. I don't even know the name of it."
"Of course this isn't the same boy, Abner," went on Mrs. Brown. "A body could see that with their eyes shut. The other boy, who's been taking our apples, has red hair. This boy's is brown. 'Tisn't the same one at all!"
"I'm glad of it," said the farmer. "But I would like to catch that chap who's been stealing from my orchard. Not that I mind a few apples. I'd give 'em to him willingly if he'd come and ask me. But I don't like a pesky apple thief! Though how you can see even red hair with your eyes shut, Mother, I don't know," he added, with a laugh at his wife.
"Never mind about that," she said to her husband. "He isn't the same boy, and I'm glad of it. Come on up to the house," she went on. "I reckon I can give you a better dinner than just apples, though they're good enough to eat when you want 'em."
"Thank you," said the boy gratefully. "I'll do some chores for you to pay for my meal and the apples I took, if you'll let me," he went on. "I offered to work for a man last night, to pay for my supper, but he wouldn't let me, and he said if I didn't get off his place he'd set his ugly old ram after me."
"Maybe that's the same ram that butted Captain Ben!" exclaimed Rose.
"Did that old ram of Hank Yardon's get loose?" asked Mr. Brown, as he walked back to the house with the children.
"Yes," answered Russ, and he told what had happened.
"Well, well!" said the farmer. "It's a good thing the canal mule driver happened along. Hector is a bad one!"
"Do you live here?" asked the "apple boy," as Rose called him. He put his question to Russ, beside whom he was walking to the house.
"No," was the answer. "We're on our way to Captain Ben's at Grand View and——"
"Where'd you say?" interrupted the boy quickly.
"Captain Ben's," said Rose.
"No, I mean the name of the place."
"Oh! Grand View," went on Russ. "It's on the seashore, and we're going there for our second vacation. We had one at Uncle Fred's ranch in the West, but something went wrong with the pipes in our school, and we couldn't go back for a month, so Captain Ben invited us to Grand View."
"Hum! Yes. Grand View," murmured the apple boy, who had said his name was Tad Munson.
"Do you know where it is?" asked Rose, while Laddie and Vi ran on ahead, racing to see who would first reach the front porch of the farmhouse.
"Yes, I know," was the low-voiced answer. "And I wish I was there. But I don't see how I can get there. All my money is gone, and none of the farmers want any work done that I can do. But I'm glad I'm going to have some dinner," he went on. "I can smell it now, and it makes me hungrier than ever."
"I'm hungry, too," said Russ.
"Are you going around in an automobile?" asked Vi, coming back after she had beaten Laddie in a race to the porch.
"An automobile? I should say not!" cried the boy. "I travel on shanks' mules, I do."
"Are they like canal mules?" Vi wanted to know.
"Not exactly," answered the boy, smiling. "They're my legs—shanks I call 'em—and I've walked many a mile on 'em since I—well, for the last week," he said quickly.
Russ looked at the boy sharply. There seemed to be something strange about him—as though he wanted to hide something—to hide something more than the apples he had stuffed into his pockets.
"If I could get back anywhere near Grand View I'd never go away again," said the boy in a low voice. "I guess I did wrong, but it's too late now. I wish——"
Just then the voice of Mrs. Brown was heard calling:
"Come to dinner, children!"
"Ah! That sounds good!" murmured Tad Munson.
Russ, Rose and the others thought the same, and soon they were sitting down to a bountifully supplied table. As the canal mule driver had said, there was roast chicken, hot biscuits with plenty of gravy, and many other good things.
"I wish Daddy and Captain Ben could have some of this," said Rose, as she passed her plate for a second helping.
"Oh, I'll save plenty for them," said Mrs. Brown. "I always cook a lot, because automobile folks are almost always hungrier than the general run. Are you feeling better?" she asked the strange boy who had taken the apples.
"Oh, I feel a lot better," he said. "I can't thank you enough, nor tell you how sorry I am I took your apples," said Tad. "I'll do some chores to pay for my meal."
"I think we shan't worry about that," said Mr. Brown, with a laugh. "I didn't mean to collar you quite so roughly, but I've been bothered a lot with the pesky apple boys."
"I know a riddle about apples," said Laddie.
"Do you?" asked Mrs. Brown. "What is it?"
"It's like this," went on Laddie. "Why is an apple like a wax doll?"
"Why is an apple like a wax doll? I never heard of such a thing!" laughed the farmer's wife. "An apple isn't any like a wax doll that I can see."
"Yes it is," said Laddie. "An apple is like a wax doll 'cause they both have red cheeks. A wax doll has red cheeks, and an apple has red cheeks."
"What about a green apple?" asked Mr. Brown, as the others laughed at Laddie's little riddle.
"Oh, well, I didn't mean a green apple," said the little boy.
Dinner was half over when Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben came in.
"Did you get the auto out of the ditch?" asked Russ.
"Yes. But it's more badly broken than I thought," Captain Ben replied. "It can't be fixed until to-morrow, so we shall have to stay here all night. You don't mind as long as your mother and the other two little Bunkers are all right, do you?" he asked Russ.
"Oh, no," was the answer. "It's fun here!"
"And there was a pesky apple boy, only he wasn't the same one 'cause he didn't have red hair," explained Vi, "and there he is now!" and she pointed to Tad, whose face got as red as the wax doll's cheeks that Laddie told about in his riddle.
"Oh, another youngster," remarked Captain Ben. "Are you a stalled autoist, too?"
"No such luck," replied the boy. "I have to walk when I travel. And I wish I could hurry and travel right now to Avalon."
"Avalon on the coast?" asked Captain Ben quickly.
"Yes," answered the boy. "Avalon is where I want to get to. But I don't see how I'm going to."
"Avalon is only a little distance from Grand View, where I have my summer bungalow," went on the sailor. "If you'd like to get there I can take you as far as I'm going. And you can get a trolley car to Avalon from Grand View."
"Yes, I know I can," went on the boy. "I'd be ever so much obliged if you'd take me as far as Grand View."
"I guess we can do that," promised the captain. "We'll give you help along the way as soon as our car is in shape, which won't be until morning, however."
"I'll wait and ride along with you, if they'll let me sleep here in the barn," said the boy, with a look at Mr. Brown.
"Oh, shucks! We have plenty of room for you in the house," said the farmer's wife. "Stay and welcome!"
"All right, I will, and thank you," the boy replied.
"And now you men folks had better sit up and get your dinner," went on Mrs. Brown. "Getting autos out of ditches is hungry work."
"Indeed it is!" agreed Captain Ben.
He and Daddy Bunker had almost finished their pie, which was the last course of the meal, when a man came rushing up the front path.
"Say, whoever owns that auto that's stuck in the ditch had better hurry back there!" the man called. "Something's the matter! I can hear a lot of yelling around the bend in the road!"
Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben hurried from the table.
"Goodness! what's going to happen now?" said Rose to Russ.