The ice carnival had been such a success in a spectacular as well as a monetary way that many of the friends of the Central High girls and boys declared they would like to have it repeated. More than a thousand dollars--to be exact, one thousand and twenty dollars--had been made for the Red Cross.
Centerport was doing its very best to gather its quota for the great institution that was doing so much good in the world. Janet Steele confessed to Laura that she had gained more than one hundred dollar memberships, and that nearly all of these had given something in addition to their membership fee.
"I wish we girls could help," said Laura wistfully.
"And you having done so much already!" cried Janet. "Why, you've already done more than your share! And doing a play, too!"
"I am afraid the play will not be a great success," Mother Wit sighed, but more to herself than to the other girl.
Those who wished to repeat the ice carnival success had to give the idea up, for before the end of the week there swept down over the North Woods and across frozen Lake Luna such a blizzard as the surrounding country had not seen for several years. The street cars stopped running, traffic of all sorts was tied up, and even the electricity for lighting purposes was put out of commission for twenty-four hours.
Of course, it did not keep many of the girls and boys of Central High at home. Snow piled up in the streets did not daunt them at all. But when the amateur actors undertook to rehearse they had to do so by the light of candles and kerosene lamps.
The rehearsal did not go very well, either. The girls were "snippy" to each other--at least, Jess said they were, and Bobby declared she was one of the very "snippiest--so there!"
"Girls! Girls!" begged Laura, "when there are so many other people to fight, let us not fight each other. 'Little birds should in their nests agree,' and so forth."
"Oh, poodle soup!" ejaculated Bobby, under her breath. "Don't anybody dare spring old saws and sayings on me in my present mood."
"I believe you'd bite, Bobby," whispered Nellie Agnew.
A cry went up for Lily Pendleton, and then it was found that she was not present.
"The only girl who is made of either sugar or salt," declared Josephine Morse. "Of course, the snow would keep her away!"
"But where is her friend, Miss Grimes?" asked Mr. Mann, rather tartly. "I shall have my work cut out for me in training her, I fear."
"You will, indeed," moaned Laura.
"Now, Mr. Mann!" cried Bobby boldly, "you are not really going to let that Hester Grimes act in this play, are you? She is perfectly horrid!"
"Miss Hargrew," was the somewhat sharp answer, "I hope you will not let personal dislikes enter into this play. It does not matter who or what Miss Grimes may be, if she can take the part--"
"But she'll never be able to do it in the world!"
"That is to be seen," said Mr. Mann firmly. "Remember, we are working for the benefit of the Red Cross."
"Hear! Hear!" murmured Laura. "Perhaps Hester will do very well."
"And perhaps she won't!" snapped Bobby.
"Why, she can't possiblyact!"Jess Morse said hopelessly.
"You will let me be the judge of that, Miss Morse, if you please," said Mr. Mann, speaking rather tartly.
"Mercy, everybody to-day is as crisp as pie-crust--no two ways about it!" whispered Bobby to Jess.
The girls plowed home through the deep snow, most of them in no mood for amusement. Even Laura Belding had a long face when she entered the house.
"How was the funeral?" asked Chet, who was buried in one of the deep library chairs with a book.
"What?" she asked before she caught his meaning.
"You must have buried somebody by the way you look," declared her brother.
"Don't nag, Chettie," sighed his sister. "We are having terrible times."
"I judged so," Chet said dryly. "Don't you always have sich when you girls go in for acting?"
"Now--"
"I am sympathetic, Laura--I swear I am!" her brother cried, putting up his hands for pardon. "Don't shoot. But of course things always will go wrong. Who is it--Bobby? Or Jess? Or Lil?"
"It is Hester Grimes."
"Wow!" exclaimed Chet. "I didn't know she was in it at all."
Laura told him of the emergency that had arisen and how Hester Grimes seemed certain to be drawn into the affair.
"Why, that big chunk can't act," said Chet quite impolitely. "She looks enough like her father to put on his apron and stand behind one of his butcher blocks."
"Oh, that is awful!" Laura objected. "But I know she will spoil our play."
"Humph! Why didn't you, Laura, suggest somebody else for the part, as long as Margit couldn't take it?"
"I didn't know of anybody."
"I thought they called you 'Mother Wit,'" scoffed Chet. "You're not even a little bit bright."
"No, I guess you are right. I have lost all my brightness," sighed Laura. "It has been rubbed off."
"Then you admit it was merely plate," laughed Chet. "But say! why didn't you think of the girl who helped you out before?"
"Who? What girl?"
"That Red Cross girl. What's her name?"
"Janet Steele!"
"That's the one. Some pippin," said Chet with enthusiasm. "I saw her this afternoon and helped her plow home--"
"Chetwood Belding! Wait till Jess Morse hears about it."
"Aw--"
"Jess will spark, old boy; you see if she doesn't"
"Jess is the best girl in the world; and she's got too much sense to object to my helping another girl home through the snow."
"All right," chuckled Laura, in a much more cheerful mood. "But don't make the mistake of praising Janet to Jess. That is where the crime comes in."
"Oh! Well, I won't," her brother declared thoughtfully.
"And where did you beau Janet from?" Laura asked.
"The hospital."
"Were you there to see that poor man?"
"Rich man, you mean," grinned her brother. "I took him some books and a lot of papers. He is able to sit up and read."
"But he doesn't know who he is?"
"He declares his name is JohnSomething, and that he ought to be in Alaska right now. Says the last he knew he was in Sitka. Something happened to him there. Whatever it was, his brain must have been affected at that time. For he cannot remember anything about the first part of his life."
"But, Chetwood!" exclaimed Laura earnestly, "that man is not a miner. He is not tanned. His hands are not rough. He was as well groomed, the matron says, as any gentleman who ever was brought to the Centerport Hospital."
"But he was in Alaska. You should hear him tell about it."
"He has lived two lives, then," said Laura thoughtfully.
"And must be beginning his third now," put in Chet. "What do you know about that? And him with a roll of more than two thousand dollars--every bill brand-new."
"Oh, Chet!"
"Well, what is it?" her brother asked, looking curiously into Laura's suddenly glowing face.
"Does he know he has so much money?"
"Why, yes. I've been telling him to-day all about that funny bill he passed on me. He says he is glad he has so fat a purse, as he will be obliged to remain in bed long with that leg in a cast."
"But, Chet! has he got the money himself?"
"It is in the hospital safe."
"I wonder! I wonder!" the girl murmured.
"What is it now?" asked Chet
"I wonder if any other bills in his roll are like that hundred-fifty note father swapped with Mr. Monroe for you."
"Huh?" ejaculated her brother, quite puzzled.
"It was on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. I wrote it down, and the names of the cashier and president of the bank. Do find out, Chet, if there are any more of those new bills issued by that bank in his roll."
"What for?" demanded Chet.
That Laura would not tell him, only made him promise to do as she asked. Mother Wit had an idea; but she would not explain it to anybody yet.
"How came you to meet Janet?" asked Laura Belding, remembering what her brother had first told her about the Red Cross girl.
"She was coming my way, of course."
"Coming your way?" Laura repeated, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Oh! I see! You met her at the hospital."
"You said a forkful," declared the slangy youth.
"Dear me, Chet," Laura observed soberly. "I think your slang is becoming atrocious. So Janet was down there!"
"She had been calling on our friend with the broken leg, too," said Chet.
"She does seem interested in him, doesn't she?" Laura said thoughtfully. "I wonder why?"
"Because her mother's half-brother went to Alaska years ago and they never heard of him again," said Chet. "She told me."
"Oh!"
"Nothing wonderful about that," the brother declared.
"It is interesting."
"To them, I suppose," said Chet "But why don't you ask Miss Steele to join you girls in the play you are getting up?"
"I never thought of it," confessed Laura.
"Your thought-works are out of kilter, Sis," declared Chet, laughing again. "I'd certainly play Miss Steele off against the menace of Hester Grimes."
There was something besides mere sound in Chet Belding's advice, and his sister appreciated the fact. But she did not go bluntly to the other girls and suggest the Red Cross girl for the part of "the dark lady." She realized that, if the new girl could act, she would amply fill the part in the play. But Hester was supposed to have it now, and the very next day Mr. Mann gave that candidate an hour's training in the part Hester was supposed to fill.
When they all came together for rehearsal again the second day, Hester Grimes was present and she showed the effect of Mr. Mann's personal help. Yet her work was so stiffly done, and she was so awkward, that it seemed to most of the girls that she was bound to hurt and hinder rather than help in the production.
"She'd put a crimp in anything," declared Bobby Hargrew, as the Hill girls went home that afternoon.
The streets in this residential section had been pretty well cleared of snow, and people had their automobiles out once more.
"Say, Jess!" exclaimed Bobby.
"Say it," urged Josephine Morse. "I promise not to bite you."
"If Hester plays that part, what are they going to do with her hands and feet?" asked the unkind Bobby.
"Oh, hush!" exclaimed Laura.
"Well, when she's supposed to pick the rose and hold it up to the light, and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown lobster--and just as red."
"Girls, we must not!" begged Laura. "Somebody will surely tell Hester what we say, and then--"
"She'll refuse to play," said Jess.
"Oh, fine,fine!" murmured one of the Lockwood twins.
"If we get her mad it will do no good," Nellie Agnew said. "Maybe then she will insist on being 'the dark lady.'"
The boys were on the corner of Nugent Street waiting for the girls to come along.
"How goes the battle, Laura?" asked Lance Darby. "Have you learned your part yet?"
"I thought I had," sighed Laura. "But when I come to take cues and try to remember the business of the piece, I forget my lines."
"This being leading lady is pretty tough on Mother Wit," laughed Chet.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly. "Here comes Pretty Sweet in his car. Why! he's got Lil with him. I thought that was all over."
They gaily hailed the driver of the automobile and his companion as the vehicle passed. Short and Long, with gloomy face, watched the car out of sight.
"Well," he growled, "he's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right."
"Chains on his wheels, Billy?" asked Bobby. "What do you mean? Doesn't he always have them on in winter?"
"Humph! He forgot 'em once, anyway."
"Hey, Billy!" exclaimed Chet Belding, "you are skidding yourself, aren't you?"
"Aw----"
"Least said soonest mended," added Lance, likewise giving the smaller boy a quick, stern look.
"Oh, I see!" muttered Bobby, searching the flushed face of Short and Long. "Say, Billy----"
But Short and Long started on a quick trot for home, and left his friends to stare after him. It was Bobby who did most of the staring, however. She said to Jess and Laura, after they had parted from the other boys:
"What do you know about that boy? I'm just wise to him. I believe I know what is the matter with Short and Long."
"Do you mean," asked Laura, "what makes him act so to Purt?"
"You have guessed my meaning, Mother Wit."
"What is the trouble between them?" demanded Jess. "Although Billy never was much in love with Purt Sweet."
"Don't you two girls remember the Saturday night that man was hurt on Market Street?"
"I should say I do remember it!" Laura agreed. "He is in the hospital yet, and he doesn't know who he is or where he came from."
"Oh, it's nothing to do with his identity," Bobby hastened to say. "It is about the car that ran him down. You know the police never have found the guilty driver."
"Goodness!" gasped Jess. "You surely don't mean----"
"I mean that the car had no chains on its rear wheels. That is all that was noticed about it Nobody got the number. But I heard Short and Long say he knew somebody who had been driving a car that day without chains. And the boys left us, didn't they, to look up the car?"
"What has that to do with Purt Sweet?" demanded Laura.
"Why, you heard what Billy just said about him and his chains!" cried Bobby. "'He's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' Didn't you hear him? And he's had a grouch against Pretty Sweet ever since the time--about--that the man was hurt."
"Oh, Purt wouldn't have done such a thing. He might have run the man down; but he would never have run off and left him in the street!"
"I don't know," Jess said. "He'd be frightened half to death, of course, if he did knock the man down."
"I do not believe Prettyman Sweet is heartless," declared Laura warmly. "The boys are making a mistake. I'm going to tell Chet so."
But when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get Chet to admit a thing. He refused to say anything illuminating about the car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys suspected anybody in particular.
"If we think we know anything, I can't tell you," Chet declared "Billy? Why, he's always sore at Purt Sweet. You can't tell anything by him!"
Just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the more curious.
Laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. There was flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose.
Out-of-doors old Boreas, Jess said, held sway. Shutters flapped, the branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made one think that the Spirit of the Wind was dying there.
"You certainly are poetic," drawled Bobby, who had come into the Beldings' big kitchen, too, and was comfortably seated on the end of the table at which Laura had been rolling out piecrust.
"Now, if that crust is only crisp!" murmured Mother Wit.
"If it isn't," chuckled Chet, stamping the snow off his shoes, "we'll make you eat it all."
"I'm willing to take the contract of eating it, sight unseen, if Laura made the pie," interjected Lance Darby, opening the door suddenly.
"Come in! Come in!" cried Jess. "Want to freeze us all?"
"You would better not be so reckless, Lance," Laura said, smiling. "These are mock cherry pies; and I never do know whether I get sugar enough in them until they are done. Some cranberries are sourer than others, you know."
"M-m! Ah!" sighed Chet ecstatically. "If there is one thing I like----"
Lance began to sing-song:"'There was a young woman named Hooker,Who wasn't so much of a looker;But she could build a pieThat would knock out your eye!So along came a fellow and took 'er!'"
"Oh! Oh! We're all running to poetry," groaned Chet. "This will never do."
"'Poetry,' indeed!" scoffed Jess Morse. "I want to know how Lance dares trespass upon Bobby's domain of limericks?"
"And I wish to know," Laura added haughtily, "how he dares intimate that I am not 'a good looker'?"
"'Peccavi!"' groaned Lance. "I have sinned! But, anyway, Bobby is off the limerick business. Aren't you, Bobby?"
"She hasn't sprung a good one for an age," declared Chet.
"A shortage," sighed Laura.
"Gee Gee says the lowest form of wit is the pun, and the most execrable form of rhyme is the limerick," declared Jess soberly.
"Just for that," snapped Bobby, "I'll give you a bunch of them. Only these must be written down to be appreciated."
She produced a long slip of paper from her pocket, uncrumpled it, and began to read:"'There was a fine lady named Cholmondely,In person and manner so colmondelyThat the people in townFrom noble to clownDid nothing but gaze at her, dolmondely.'
Now, isn't that refined and beautiful?"
"It is--not!" said Chet. "That is only a play upon pronunciation."
"Carping critics!" exclaimed Lance. "Go ahead, Bobby. Let's hear the others."
As Bobby had been saving them up for just such an opportunity as this, she proceeded to read:"'There lived in the City of WorcesterA lively political borcester,Who would sit on his gateWhen his own candidateWas passing, and crow like a rorcester!"
"Help! Help!" moaned Chet, falling into the cook's rocking chair and making it creak tremendously.
"Don't break up the furniture," his sister advised him, as she took a peep at the pies in the oven.
"'Pies and poetry'!" exclaimed Jess. "Go ahead, Bobby. Relieve your constitution of those sad, sad doggerels."
Nothing loath, the younger girl, and with twinkling eyes, sing-songed the following:"'There was a young sailor of Gloucester,Who had a sweetheart, but he loucest'er.She bade him good-day,So some people say,Because he too frequently boucest'er.'
Take notice all you 'bossy' youths."
"Isn't English the funny language?" demanded Chet, sitting up again. "And spelling! My! Do you wonder foreigners find English so difficult? Here's one that I found in an almanac at the drug store," and he fished out a clipping and read it to them:"'A lady once purchased some myrrhOf a druggist who said unto hyrrh:"For a dose, my dear Miss,Put a few drops of thisIn a glass with some water, and styrrh."'"
"Do, do stop!" begged Laura.
"I promise not to offend again," said Lance. "Besides, I hope to taste some of the pie, and a pie-taster should not be a poetaster."
"Oh! Oh! Awful!" Jess cried.
"I've run out of limericks myself," confessed Chet.
"But one more!" Bobby hastened to say. Then dramatically she mouthed, with her black eyes fastened on Chet:"'Said Chetwood to young Short and Long,"Just list to my warning in song:If you know of the crime,For both reason and rhymeBetray it--and so ring the gong!"'"
The other girls burst out laughing at the expression on the boys' faces. Chet and Lance looked much disturbed, and Chet finally scowled upon the teasing Bobby and shook his head.
"What do you know about that?" whispered Lance to his chum.
"You are altogether too smart, Bobby," declared Chet. "What do you mean?"
"We know you and Short and Long are trying to hide something from us," said Jess quickly.
"You might as well tell us all about it," Laura put in quietly. "What has Billy really got against Purt Sweet?"
"I don't admit he has anything against Purt," said Chet quickly.
"Nothing but suspicion," muttered Lance, likewise shaking his head.
"Then there is something in it?" Laura said quickly. "Can it be possible that Purt Sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself before this?"
"There you've said it, Laura!" cried Lance. "That is what I tell both Chet and Billy. If Pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never dare go out again in his car."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?"
"Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet.
"Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran the man down?"
"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I suppose."
"Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and Lance will want to sample them."
"Go on. Tell 'em, Chet," said Lance.
"Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets' car. You know Purt is too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put 'em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening, for he passed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage with the radiator blanketed.
"Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt's."
"Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister.
"So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets'. Purt was out with the car. He came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. We tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn't tell. We had to almost muzzle Billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. And Billy has been savage over it ever since."
"Really then," said Laura, "there is nothing sure about it."
"Well, it is sure the car was a Perriton. And since then we have found out that Purt's is the only Perriton in town that isn't out of commission for the winter. You can talk as you please about it: If the police only knew what we know, sure thing Purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!"
The three girls of Central High and their boy friends had not come together on this stormy Saturday morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry."
The ice carnival had made them so much money that Laura and her friends desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal. They wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the Red Cross from day to day.
Fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like Janet Steele were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being tried.
And so Mother Wit had evolved what she called "Ember Night," and the young people who helped carry the thing through were delighted with the idea. To tell the truth, the idea had been suggested to Laura Belding during the big storm when the lighting plant of the city was put out of order for one night.
She and her friends laid the plans for the novel fête on this Saturday after Laura's pie baking and after they had discussed the possibility of Prettyman Sweet being the guilty person whose car had run down the strange man now at the Centerport Hospital.
They put pies and poetry, and even Purt Sweet, aside, to discuss Laura's idea. Each member of the informal committee meeting in the Beldings' kitchen was given his or her part to do.
Laura herself was to see Colonel Swayne, who was the president of the Light and Power Company and who was likewise Mother Wit's very good friend. Jess agreed to interview the local chief of the Salvation Army. Chet would see the Chief of Police to get his permission. Each one had his or her work cut put.
"Every cat must catch mice," said Mother Wit.
Plans for Ember Night were swiftly made, and it was arranged to hold the fête the next Tuesday evening, providing the weather was clear. Jess, whose mother held a position on the CenterportClarion, wrote a piece about this street carnival for the Sunday paper, and the idea was popular with nearly every one.
Exchange Place was the heart of the city--a wide square on which fronted the city hall, the court house, the railroad station, and several other of the more important buildings of the place.
In the center of the square a Red Cross booth was built and trimmed with Christmas greens, which had just come into market. Members of the several city chapters appeared in uniform to take part in the fête. There was a platform for speakers, and a bandstand, and before eight o'clock on Tuesday evening a great crowd had assembled to take part in the exercises.
That one of the Central High school girls had suggested and really planned the affair, made it all the more popular.
"What won't Laura Belding think of next?" asked those who knew her.
But Laura did not put herself forward in the affair. She presided over one of the red pots borrowed from the Salvation Army that were slung from their tripods at each intersecting corner of the streets radiating from Exchange Place, and for a half mile on all sides of the square.
Under each pot was a bundle of resinous and oil-soaked wood that would burn brightly for an hour. At the booth in Exchange Place fuel for a much larger bonfire was laid.
The crowd gathered more densely as nine o'clock drew near. The mayor himself stepped upon the speaker's platform. The police had roped off lanes through the crowd from the Red Cross booth to the nearest corners.
Janet Steele came late and she chanced to pass Laura's corner, which was in sight of the speaker's stand and the booth. She halted to speak with Laura a moment.
"Isn't it just fine?" she said. "I wish mother could see this crowd."
"I imagine you would like to have her see lots of things," returned Laura. "Our friend at the hospital, for instance."
"Who--who do you mean?" gasped Janet, evidently disturbed.
"The man who was hurt, I mean."
"Oh! He is quite interesting," said the other girl and slipped away. Laura's suggestion had seemingly startled her.
The band played, and then the mayor stepped forward to make his speech. At just this moment a motor car moved quietly in beside the curb near which Laura Belding stood guarding her red pot. Somebody called her name in a low tone, and Laura turned to greet Prettyman Sweet's mother with a smile.
Mrs. Sweet was alone in the tonneau of her car, which Purt himself was driving. The school exquisite, who was so often the butt of the boys' jokes, but was just now an object of suspicion, admired Laura Belding immensely. He got out of the car to come and stand with her on the corner.
"Got your nonskid-chains on, Purt?" asked Laura.
"On the rear wheels? Surely," said Sweet, eyeing the girl in some surprise, because of her question.
"My dear Laura!" cried Mrs. Sweet "Won't you come and talk to me while we are waiting?"
"Can't now, Mrs. Sweet. I am on duty," laughed Laura.
They could not hear what the mayor said, for they were two blocks away. But they had an excellent view of the stand and the Red Cross booth, and the crowd that pressed close to the police ropes.
Suddenly the mayor threw up his hand in command, and almost instantly--as though he had himself switched off the light--all the street lamps in the business section of Centerport went out The arc light over the spot where Laura stood blinked, glowed for a moment, and then subsided. Mrs. Sweet cried out in alarm.
"This is all right," Laura called to her. "Now watch."
The mayor, in the half-darkness, stepped down from the platform and threw into the heart of the big bonfire the combustibles that set it off. The flames leaped up, spreading rapidly. The crowd cheered as eight boys, dressed in the knee-length dominos they had worn on the night of the ice carnival, dashed into the ring with resinous torches. They thrust the torches into the flames and the instant the torches were alight, they wheeled and dashed away through the lanes the police had kept open.
The red flames dancing before the Red Cross booth, and the sparking, flaming torches which the boys swung above their heads as they ran through the crowd to the various corners where the red pots hung, made an inspiring picture in the unwonted gloom of the streets.
"See how the Red Cross spreads!" cried Laura. "There's Nellie's fire going."
They could see the spark of new fire under the pot a block away. A short figure with flaming torch was approaching Laura's corner at high speed.
"Here comes Short and Long, I do believe," drawled Prettyman Sweet.
"My pot will soon be boiling," laughed Laura. "What are you going to throw in, Purt? And you, Mrs. Sweet? Give all you can--and as often as you can."
"Oh, I'll start you off, Laura," declared Purt, pulling out a handful of coins that rang the next moment in the bottom of the iron pot.
"Here's my purse, Prettyman!" called his mother, leaning from the car. "You put in my offering."
The few bystanders around Laura's corner began laughingly to contribute before the torch reached the spot. But Short and Long arrived the next moment. He stooped, thrust the blazing torch into the middle of the fuel under Laura's pot, and wheeled to run to his next comer.
The flames crackled, springing up ravenously. The boy's cotton gown flapped across the fire and before he could leap away the flames had seized upon the domino!
"Oh, Billy!" shrieked Laura Belding. "You are on fire!"
The short boy leaped away; but he could not leave the flames behind him. He threw down the torch and tried to tear off the domino. In a moment he was a pillar of flame!
"A blanket! A robe! Quick, Purt!" cried Laura, and started toward the victim of the accident, bare-handed.
For once Purt Sweet did as he was told, and did it quickly. He ran with the robe from the front seat of the automobile. Laura grabbed one end and together they wrapped their schoolmate in the heavy folds.
Short and Long was cast to the street and they rolled him in the blanket. The fire was smothered, but what injury had it done to the boy?
He was unconscious; for in falling he had struck his head, and the wound was bleeding. Mrs. Sweet was crying and wringing her hands.
"Oh, it's awful! Purt! Purt! Take me home!" she sobbed.
"No, Purt!" exclaimed Laura. "Take him to the hospital"
"Of course we will," gasped the youth. "Help me lift him, Laura. Oh, the poor kid!"
Only the few people near by had seen the accident. Not even a policeman came. Laura and Purt staggered to the car with the wrapped-up body of the smaller lad. His face was horribly blackened, but that might be nothing but smoke. Just how badly Billy Long was injured they could not guess.
Mrs. Sweet shrank back into the corner of the tonneau seat and begged Laura to get in with the injured boy.
"I can't! I can't touch him!" wailed the woman. "It's awful! Suppose he should be dead?"
"He's not dead," declared Purt. "We won't let him die--the poor kid! Here, mother, you hold his head and we'll lay him down on the seat. Let his head and shoulders lie right in your lap."
"Oh, Laura! Do come!" cried the woman.
"I can't, Mrs. Sweet!" returned Laura, sobbing. "I've got to stay and watch my pot boil. Do be quick, Purt!"
She stepped out of the car. Purt slammed the tonneau door and leaped to the steering wheel. In a moment the self-starter sputtered, and then the car wheels began to roll.
Mrs. Sweet was actually forced to do something that she had never done before--personally help somebody in trouble. Perhaps the experience would do her good, Laura thought.
In tears the latter returned to the corner. The fire was brightly blazing underneath her swinging pot. There was already quite a collection of coins and a few bills in the bottom of the receptacle. But although Laura stuck to the post of duty, her heart was no longer in the ceremonies of Ember Night. She wished heartily that she had never suggested the entertainment, even if it did benefit the Red Cross.
It did really prove to be one of the most successful forms of money-raising for the Red Cross that had been attempted in Centerport. And later they tried Ember Night in Lumberport and Keyport.
Laura Belding was not proud of her success, however, for poor Short and Long had been badly burned. Fortunately his face was only blackened, and the doctors decided that he had not inhaled any of the scorching flame.
Laura and Purt had wrapped him in the blanket so quickly that the fire was smothered almost at once. Yet there were bad burns on his arms and body--burns that would leave ineffaceable scars.
The girls of Central High had two interests now to take them to the hospital. The stranger who did not know his name and Short and Long both came in for a lot of attention.
The latter had never known before how popular with his schoolmates he was. Fruit, flowers, candy and the nicest confections from the Hill kitchens found their way in profusion to Billy's bedside.
After a day or two the doctors let him see whoever came, and he could talk all right. It made him forget the smart of his burns.
Of course his sister Alice came frequently, and she had to bring Tommy, the irrepressible, along. Tommy was more interested in the good things to eat at his brother's bedside, however, than he was in Billy's bodily condition.
There was so much jelly, and blanc-mange, and other goodies that the invalid could not possibly consume all. Tommy sat and ate, and ate, until the nurse said:
"Tommy, don't you know that you are distending your stomach with all those sweets? It is not good for you."
When Tommy learned that "distending" meant that his stomach was being stretched, he was delighted.
"Gimme some more, Allie," he begged his sister. "Please do, Allie dear. I want to stwetch my 'tomach. It's never been big 'nough to hold all I want to eat."
The interest of Laura and her close friends in the strange man with the broken leg did not lag. He talked freely with his visitors; but mostly about Alaska and his adventures in the gold mines.
As near as he could guess, he must have come out of the mines with his "pile," as he expressed it, almost ten years before.
"What under the canopy I have been doing since, I don't know. But if I've got down to two thousand dollars capital, I must have been having an awfully good time spending money; for I know I had a poke full of gold dust when I struck the coast and went over to Sitka."
"More likely he was robbed," said Chet.
"He looks about as much like a miner as Pa Belding," Laura declared.
There was too much going on just then, however, for Mother Wit to try out the thought that had come to her mind regarding this man. All these interests had to be sidetracked for school and lessons. And just at this time recitations seemed to be particularly hard. With rehearsals for the play, and all, mere knowledge was very difficult to acquire.
"I know I'm not half prepared in physics," wailed Nellie Agnew, as she and other juniors trooped into school one day, two weeks before Christmas.
"And I," said Jess Morse, "know about as much regarding this political economy as I do about sweeping up the Milky Way with a star brush."
"How poetic!" cried Laura, laughing. "I wonder if we all are as well prepared?"
"They expect too much of us," declared Dora Lockwood.
"Much too much!" echoed her sister.
"I wonder," said Laura, "if we don't expect too much of the teachers?"
In the physics recitation Nellie Agnew, as she prophesied, came to grief.
Miss Carrington seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of whom to call on at such times. She seemed aware that Nellie had not prepared her lesson properly. It might be that the wary teacher read her pupils' faces. Nellie's was so woebegone that it was scarcely possible to overlook the fact that she probably felt her shortcomings in the task at hand.
Miss Carrington called on the doctor's daughter almost the first one in physics. To say "unprepared!" to Miss Carrington was to bring upon one's head the shattered vials of her wrath. There was no excuse for not trying, that strict instructor considered.
So Nellie tried. She stumbled along in her first answer "like a blind man in a blind alley," so Jess Morse declared. It was pitiful, and all the class sympathized. The gentle Nellie was led to make the most ridiculous statements by the silky-voiced teacher.
"And you are a physician's daughter!" Miss Carrington burst out at last. "For shame!"
"If I were Nell," said Dora Lockwood to her twin, "I'd cut pills altogether after this. I'd rather take math with Mr. Sharp himself."
Miss Grace G. Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation was bound to go badly.
When Jess was called on she rose with blazing cheeks and angry eyes to face their tormentor. Miss Carrington saw antagonism writ large upon Jess Morse's face.
"I presume, Miss Morse, you think I cannot puzzle you?" said Miss Carrington in her very nastiest way.
"You can doubtless puzzle me," said Jess sharply. "But you cannot make me cry, Miss Carrington."
"Sit down!" ejaculated the angry teacher. "That goes for a demerit."
"And it is about as fair as your demerits usually are," cried Jess.
"Two, Miss Morse," said the teacher. "One more and you will not act in that play next week."
"If I'd been born dumb," sighed Jess afterward, "it would have been money in my pocket. I almost had to bite the tip of my tongue off to keep from saying something more."
"And so ruin the whole play?" said Laura softly.
"Huh! I guess Hester Grimes will do that," declared Jess. "She moves about the stage like an automaton. She is going to get us a big laugh, but in the wrong place. Now, you see."
The girls rehearsed every afternoon, and the athletic work was neglected. Mrs. Case excused those who were engaged in producing the play. "The Rose Garden" was not such an easily acted play as they had at first supposed. Mr. Mann was patient with them; but in Hester Grimes' case he could not help the feeling of annoyance that took possession of him.
Hester Grimes took offence so easily.
"Every rehearsal I look for her to cut up rusty," Jess cried. "And somebody has got to play the part of the dark lady! It is not a part that can be cut out of the cast, although it is not a speaking part."
Hester had begun to complain, too, because she had no lines. She considered that she was being deprived of her rights, and was of less importance than the other girls, because she was dumb on the stage.
"Why! even Bobby Hargrew," she complained, "with her silly sailor part, has lines to repeat, besides that sailor's hornpipe in the first act. Of course, you girls would wish the least important part onto me."
"What nonsense, Hester!" cried Jess. "If you really understood the play and the significance of your part, you would not say such a thing. And do, do be less like a wooden image."
"Humph! I guess I know my part, Jess Morse," snapped Hester. "It doesn't matter at all what I do on the stage."
"What did I tell you?" groaned Bobby. "'Double! Double!' and-so-forth. There is trouble brewing. If we all had measles or chicken-pox, and so couldn't give the play, we'd be in luck, I verily believe."
"Oh, don't, Bobby!" begged Dora Lockwood. "You are so reckless."
"Just the same, I feel it in my bones that Hester is going to kick over the traces," said Bobby grimly.
"If only Margit Salgo had been allowed to have the part," groaned Dorothy.
"It's Gee Gee's fault if the play is a failure," snapped Bobby.
Never had the disagreeable teacher at Central High been so little liked as at this time. They blamed Miss Carrington more than they did Hester.
As the party of troubled girls left the school-house on this particular afternoon, Lily Pendleton ran after them.
"What do you think has happened?" she cried.
"It's something bad, of course," groaned Nellie Agnew.
"Who is hurt?" asked Laura.
"It isn't that," said Lily. "But poor Purt Sweet!"
"Now what has he done?" asked Jess.
"It is what they say he has done, not what he really has done," wailed Lily. "The police have been to his house. And what do you think?"
"I bet his mother's had a fit!" exclaimed Bobby, in an undertone.
"The police accuse Purt of running down that man on Market Street the other Saturday night," said Lily warmly. "And Purt doesn't know anything more about it than a baby! Isn't it awful, girls?"