CHAPTER XIIITHE SHOE-LACE BOY
Russ, who was nearest the door, went to open it. Afterward Violet said she thought it might be some of the neighbors coming to ask for a piece of Rose’s strawberry shortcake. Laddie said later that he thought it might be Ralph come on the same sort of errand.
Well, it was a boy who had knocked on the door, but it was not Ralph, the master of Jimsie, the dog, nor was it any boy the Bunker children had ever seen around Farmer Joel’s place.
It was a “peddler boy,” as Violet called him—a boy with dark hair, dark complexion, and deep brown eyes, and he carried a pack on his back and a box slung by a strap in front of him.
“Shoe laces, collar buttons, suspenders, needles, pins—anything to-day?” asked the peddler boy, rattling out the words so quicklythat Russ could hardly tell one from another.
“Wha—what’s that?” asked the bewildered Russ.
“Want any shoe laces? Any collar buttons—needles—pins—suspenders—hooks and eyes—court plaster—pocket knives—any——”
“No, we don’t want anything to-day,” said Norah, advancing to the door and looking out over Russ’s head.
“How do you know you don’t want anything, Lady?” asked the peddler boy with a pert and rather smart manner. “I haven’t told you all I carry yet. I have——”
“But I tell you we don’t want anything!” insisted Norah. “I know what you have—notions—and we don’t want any because we’re only visiting here and——”
“I have baggage tags!” interrupted the boy. “If you are only visiting you’ll want to send your trunks back and you’d better put a tag on. I’ll show you!” Quickly he opened the box he carried, slung by a strap about his neck. The other Bunker children, crowding to the door, saw in the box many of the things the boy had named—pins, needles, some combs and brushes, and other things.
The boy took out a package of baggage tags, each tag having a short piece of cord attached to it. These he held out to Norah, at the same time saying:
“Use these and you never lose any baggage.”
“We take our baggage in the automobile,” said Rose.
“Well, maybe a piece might fall out and if it had a tag on it you wouldn’t lose it,” said the boy, who spoke in rather a strange manner, like a foreigner who had recently learned English.
“I tell you we don’t want anything,” said Norah, speaking a little more sharply.
“What about some letter paper and envelopes?” persisted the boy. “You could write, couldn’t you, and I sell ’em cheap——”
“No! No! We don’t want a thing, I tell you!” and Norah spoke very sharply and began to close the door.
“Huh, I guess it wouldn’t be much good to sell you letter paper,” sneered the boy. “You’re so mean you haven’t any friends that’d want you to write!”
The door was closed but the words came through.
“Say,” cried Russ, as he struggled to open the door again, “if you talk like that to our Norah——”
“Never mind,” laughed the good-natured cook. “Such peddlers aren’t worth answering. He’s angry because we didn’t buy something. If he had been polite about it I might, but he was too——”
“Too smart! That’s what he was!” finished Rose, and that about described the shoe-lace peddler.
In the kitchen Norah and the six little Bunkers could hear him muttering to himself as he walked away, but as Daddy Bunker just then called the children to give them some picture papers that had come by mail, they forgot all about the impolite lad.
The Bunker children had fun looking through the illustrated magazine and they were rather glad to sit down and do this, for picking the strawberries on the distant hill had been rather tiring.
“I wish supper would soon be ready. I want some of Rose’s shortcake,” remarked Violet.
“It looked good,” returned Russ. “If ittastes half as good as it looks, it will be great!”
“I hope it will be good,” said Rose modestly.
Six hungry little Bunkers sat down to the supper table, and pretty soon there were no more six hungry little Bunkers, for they ate so many of the good things Norah cooked for them that they were no longer hungry. But there was still six little Bunkers, and they were anxious to try Rose’s strawberry shortcake.
“I’ll bring it in to the table and Rose can cut it,” said Norah.
She went to the pantry, but in less than half a minute she came hurrying back with a strange look on her face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Daddy Bunker. “Did you see a ghost, Norah?”
“No, sir. But—but—didn’t we put the strawberry shortcake in the pantry?” she asked Mrs. Bunker.
“Yes, surely,” was the answer. “I saw you put it there to cool.”
“Well, it isn’t there now!” exclaimed Norah.
“Oh, did some one take my lovely strawberry shortcake?” sighed Rose.
“Russ, you aren’t playing any of your jokes, are you?” asked his father, somewhat sternly. “Did you take Rose’s shortcake and hide it, just for fun?”
“No, sir! I never touched her shortcake. I didn’t see it after Norah put it away!”
“I’ll take a look,” said Mrs. Bunker. “Perhaps Farmer Joel went in and set it on a higher shelf.”
“No, indeed!” declared Mr. Todd. “I never go into the pantry. That isn’t my part of the house. And Adam didn’t touch the shortcake, I’m sure. Did you?” he asked.
Mr. North shook his head.
“I like strawberry shortcake,” he said, “but I’d never think of playing a joke with the one Rose baked.”
By this time Mrs. Bunker came back from the pantry whither she had gone to make a search.
“The shortcake isn’t there,” she said.
“Who could have taken it?” asked Norah.
“Maybe Jimsie!” suggested Russ.
“No dog could reach up to the high sill of the pantry window,” said Mrs. Bunker. “I can see where the cake was placed on the sill, for a little of the red juice ran out and made a stain. The cake was lifted out of the window, perhaps by some one from the outside.”
“I’ll have a look!” exclaimed Mr. Bunker.
He hurried outside to the pantry window at the back of the house, followed by Russ, Rose and the others. Supper was over except for the dessert, and this finish of the meal was to have been the shortcake. With this gone—well, there wasn’t any dessert, that’s all!
Mr. Bunker looked carefully under the window, motioning to the others to keep back so they would not trample in any footprints that might remain in the soft ground. Carefully Mr. Bunker looked and then he said:
“Some boy went there, reached in and took the cake.”
“What makes you think it was a boy?” asked Farmer Joel.
“Because of the size of the footprints. They are not much larger than those Russ would make.”
“I wonder if Ralph was here?” murmured Rose.
“No, I saw Ralph and his Jimsie dog going over to Woodport right after dinner,” remarked Adam North. “He said he was going to be gone all day. Ralph didn’t take the cake, nor did his dog Jimsie. Of that I’m sure.”
“Then I know who it was!” suddenly exclaimed Russ.
“Who?” they all asked.
“That peddler, the shoe-lace boy!” Russ answered. “He was mad because we wouldn’t buy anything, and he sneaked around and took Rose’s shortcake off the window sill.”
Russ started toward the road.
“Where are you going?” asked his father.
“I’m going to chase after that shoe-lace boy and make him give back the strawberry shortcake!” cried Russ.