CHAPTERXX
Bert knew that he must be very careful and cautious this time. Not only must he watch out for the open trapdoor, but he must take care that Danny neither saw nor heard him.
“For if he hears me,” said Bert to himself, “he’ll run out and then I can’t find why he came in here. Danny’s smart, but I’ve got to be smarter.”
Moving slowly across the vestibule floor and looking back to see that his basket of groceries was safe, Bert soon reached a place where he knew the trapdoor to be.
“It’s closed,” he told himself. “That’s good! No danger now of falling down. And I hope nobody else comes in here. They might take the things in my basket, and Nan and the others would go hungry. But I guessI’d have to go back to the store and get more,” silently chuckled Bert.
Having made sure that the trapdoor, down which he had fallen on his previous visit to the church, was closed, Bert stood near it for a while and listened. He could hear Danny moving about “upstairs,” as you might call it, though really it was in the gallery of the church.
This gallery held the big pipe organ, which made such thunderous music on Sundays, and in this gallery the choir singers also had their places.
The remainder of the balcony was given over to pews for the congregation to sit in, when the pews on the main floor of the church were filled. The boys always liked to sit up in the balcony, for they seemed off by themselves when they did this. But the ushers and some of the deacons did not like the boys to go to the gallery, for fear the lads would “cut up.” And sometimes this very thing happened. And you may easily guess that Danny Rugg was among the “cut-ups.”
“Maybe that’s the reason he’s going upthere now,” thought Bert to himself. “Maybe he’s getting ready to play some trick in church next Sunday—he and Sam Todd. He couldn’t be coming up to mend the broken window. He wouldn’t know how to put in all the different pieces of colored glass, and, anyhow, he didn’t have any glass with him when he came in here.”
Bert’s thought that Danny might be preparing for some trick to be played in church the following Sunday came about because once before, about a year ago, Danny and Sam had hidden a little dog up in the gallery one Saturday night. And the following Sunday, when the minister was preaching, the dog crawled out from beneath a pew, walked downstairs and up the middle aisle of the church, much to the amusement of Danny and his cronies.
But the deacons and the minister did not like this, for it disturbed the congregation, and of course it was a wrong thing for Danny to have done.
Because of that trick, the boys had been forbidden to go up in the gallery unless theirparents were with them. All this Bert thought of as he stood in the silent church, trying to find out what it was that Danny had come in about.
“I’ll follow after him as easy as I can,” said Bert to himself. “Maybe I can watch him. But I mustn’t let him see me.”
Bert wore his rubber boots. So, for that matter, did Danny Rugg, for the snow was so deep that boots were needed. But Bert walked more softly in his boots than did Danny, who tramped around in the balcony as if he did not care who heard him. Bert went on his tiptoes, and the rubber soles of his boots made very little noise.
Up the balcony stairs the Bobbsey boy followed the other lad. It was very still and quiet in the church, and the footsteps of Danny echoed with a strange, hollow sound. On account of the snow covering the ground outside there was no noise of rattling wagons or trucks, so the church was even more quiet than usual.
How different it was from Sundays, when the people were coming in or going out, whenthe place was lighted, and when there was organ music and singing.
“I don’t like church on week days,” thought Bert.
But he had come in for a special purpose, and he was going to carry it out. Step after step he went up to the gallery floor, making no noise. He could still hear Danny moving about.
At last Bert reached a place where, in the dim light that came through the stained-glass window, he could see Danny walking along between the rows of pews.
“He’s right near the broken window,” whispered Bert to himself. “And he’s looking on the floor for something. I wonder what it is? He can’t be looking for the broken bits of stained glass, to put them back—they were picked up long ago. I wonder what it is he’s looking for?”
Danny was certainly looking for something. He bent over and let his eyes rove about the floor, right under the window that had been broken. Closely and carefully Danny searched.
Then, almost as if some one had shouted it at him, there came into Bert’s mind the thought:
“Danny’s looking for his lost birthday ring! It must have slipped off his finger in one of the snowballs he threw that day of the first storm. The gold ring stuck in the snowball, and Danny threw the snowball at the window! The ball broke the glass and came inside the balcony here. And Danny must know that! He hasn’t found his ring anywhere else, and he knows it must have been in that snowball!”
The idea excited Bert and made his heart beat faster.
“When the snowball melted,” thought Bert, still watching Danny eagerly, “the ring would drop out on the floor and stay there. It’s his ring that Danny’s searching for!”
Bert grew so excited at this thought that he made a sudden movement. His foot slipped and banged against a pew.
“What’s that?” cried Danny, jumping up. “Who’s there?”
Bert was quick enough to dodge down behindone of the pews, so that when Danny looked up he saw no one.
But though Danny saw no one, he was frightened because of the noise, and, not stopping any longer to search for his lost ring, or whatever it was he was looking for, he darted out of the balcony and down the stairs, with many a clatter of his rubber boots.
“Say, he’s running like a scared rabbit!” chuckled Bert to himself. “I wish I dared yell at him, so he’d know who it is that’s looking at him. But I guess I’d better not. I want to see if his ring is here.”
Pausing not to look back, Danny ran down to the main floor and out of the side door.
“I hope he doesn’t take my basket of groceries,” thought Bert. But he remembered he had set it over in a dark corner, where it would not be likely to be seen. And, as a matter of fact, Danny Rugg was so frightened that he thought of nothing but taking his own basket of food and hurrying out of the church.
Bert heard the door slam after the otherboy, and then the Bobbsey lad began to wonder what was the best thing to do.
“If Danny’s ring is there and I find it, I can prove that he threw the snowball that broke the window,” said Bert to himself. “But even if I pick up the ring on the balcony floor, Danny might say I found it somewhere else and put it there. I ought to have some one with me when I find it—if I do—and whoever’s with me can say I didn’t put it there. I’ve got to get some one to help me.”
Bert remembered that Mr. Henry Ander, one of the church deacons, a good and kindly man who was well acquainted with the Bobbsey family, lived close to the church.
“I’ll go and get Mr. Ander before I look for the ring,” decided Bert.
He started down the balcony stairs, though he was more than anxious to look for the lost ring, for the finding of that would clear Bert’s name from the suspicion of having broken the window. But knowing that the plan he had made was best, Bert kept on.
As he was crossing the dim vestibule on hisway to the side door, Bert heard some one coming in.
“I hope that isn’t Danny coming back!” Bert whispered.
It was not. It was Mr. Shull.
“Well, Bert, what in the world are you doing here?” asked the sexton, in surprise. “Are you trying to fall down the trapdoor again?”
“No, sir,” answered the boy.
“You couldn’t, very well, anyhow,” went on the janitor. “For the door is closed.”
“I didn’t come in here for that,” said Bert. “Listen, Mr. Shull. Do you remember when the church window was broken?”
“I should say I do remember it, Bert! They said you did it, but I have my doubts of that.”
“I didn’t do it,” said Bert. “But I know who did. It was Danny Rugg, and I can prove it if I can find his gold ring on the floor. It was in the snowball he threw, and Danny was in here just now, trying to find his ring.”
Bert told all that had happened.
“I want to get Mr. Ander,” went on theBobbsey boy. “If he and you see me find the ring, you’ll know I didn’t throw that snowball.”
“It’s a good idea, Bert!” exclaimed the sexton. “Go get the deacon, and we’ll look for the ring together—all three of us.”
Mr. Ander was surprised a few minutes later when Bert, much excited, poured out the story of the snowball, the broken window, and the lost ring.
“All right, Bert,” he said at length. “I’ll go with you and look for the ring. And if we find it, I’ll take it and give it to Mr. Rugg with Danny there looking on. And I’ll take you with me. We’ll clear you of the charge of having broken the window.”
A little later the eager, excited boy and the two men, almost as eager as Bert himself, were looking over the floor beneath the broken window. The sexton got his electric flashlight and the sharp beams of this glinted over the floor.
“Look! I see something glittering like gold!” cried Bert, pointing to a crack under a pew. “See if that’s the ring!”
The sexton focused his light on the object. Mr. Ander took out his knife, and with the blade of it pried the shining object out of the crack.
“It’s a gold ring, all right,” he said, holding it up to the light.
“See if it has any initials on it,” suggested Bert.
“Hold the light closer, Mr. Shull,” said the deacon. When this had been done he slowly said: “It’s got the letters D. R. on it—this ring has.”
“Then it’s Danny Rugg’s ring!” cried Bert. “It was in the snowball that broke the window. That’s what he was up here looking for! Oh, I’m so glad we’ve found it!”