REIMBURSEMENT
There was something of a sensation at the breakfast table next morning
when sube appeared with his best clothes on, and without waiting for
interrogation modestly explained that his school suit had been
incapacitated by his futile attempt to do the household a real service.
He had arisen early and quietly taken the rake to the attic for the
purpose of dragging the rainwater tank for the remains of an alleged
dead cat.
He had not succeeded in locating the body, but had unfortunately lost
his balance and fallen into the tank, from which he had escaped with his
life only after a terrific struggle (although the tank was not over
three feet deep), and he called Cathead to witness that he had carefully
examined Exhibit A and found it to be a thoroughly saturated and badly
polluted suit of school clothes.
"I declare!" complained Mr. Cane. "I never saw such a household as this.
No sooner do we get rid of one scourge than another is upon us.
Contaminated water is about the worst thing that can happen to a place.
There's no telling when we'll get this thing cleared up. I suppose the
plumber will be round here for the next month. I might as well make him
a present of the house!"
"Oh, well," soothed Mrs. Cane. "It might be worse. We'll miss the rain
water, of course, but we still have the city water to fall back on."
"Yes, but who wants to use that city water?" demanded Mr. Cane. "It's as
hard as a rock! It makes my hands feel chapped just to think of it."
Then turning to Sube he asked, "Didn't you find anything at all that
might have made this trouble?"
Sube appeared to be searching his memory. In reality he was searching
his imagination. Finally he replied, "No, sir; unless maybe it could of
been that little piece of fur I found in one corner."
"There!" cried Mr. Cane. "Why didn't you tell me that before? I might
have spent a hundred dollars having the plumber tear things to pieces in
search of that same little piece of fur!"
"I wasn't sure," muttered Sube. "I didn't know jus' _what_ it was."
"Not sure, eh? Well what did it look like?"
"It _looked_ like a rat," Sube fabricated.
"What did you do with it?"
"Threw it on the ash pile."
"_I_ can soon tell," declared Mr. Cane.
"But an ol' cat grabbed it and carried it away," romanced Sube.
The plumber came and scrubbed the tank, the clothes went to the cleaner,
and Sube proceeded to school hardened and set for the cruel grinding of
another day. And he was not disappointed. Miss Wheeler was very pressing
in her demands for documentary excuses for his absence of the day
before. But when Sube reached home at noon he found his father in no
proper mood to frame diplomatic communications. To be exact, Mr. Cane
was grouchy.
"I don't know what can be the matter with me," he complained as he took
his place at the head of the table. "Do I look sick?"
Mrs. Cane made a very careful examination of his face, and noted the
vigorous erectness of his body, while Sube's gaze was shifting uneasily
back and forth from one parent to the other.
"You haven't looked so well in years," she declared at length. "What's
the matter? Aren't you feeling well?"
"Never felt better in my life. Now I wonder
what's getting into everybody."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Cane nervously.
"Everybody seems to think I'm sick," grumbled Mr. Cane. "Why, the thing
began before I had reached my office this morning. The first person who
spoke of it was Joe McInness, the barber. He stopped me on the street
and asked very particularly how I was feeling to-day. I told him in an
off-hand way that I was never better, and he seemed to be quite
surprised. 'Why, I understood you were--were not feeling well,' he sort
of stammered out.
"I laughed at him. 'Do I look sick, Joe?' I asked.
"'No, you don't _look_ bad,' he said; 'but sometimes folks look
perfectly well physically when they ain't well at all in--in other ways.
And sometimes the worse off they are, the better they _think_ they are.'
"'Well, Joe,' I said as I started on, 'you can mark me down as sound
mentally, morally and physically.'
"He looked at me and said, 'Judge, what day's to-day?'
"'Why, this is Thursday,' I said.
"'And what day of the month is it?' he asked in the strangest way. And,
do you know, for the life of me I couldn't think what day of the month
it was. At that, the idiot shook his head and went into his barber
shop."
"That's the queerest thing I ever heard of," said Mrs. Cane. "You don't
suppose he had been drinking, do you?"
"Why, I did think so until other people began to drop into the office
and ask after my health. At first I was rather amused, and then it began
to annoy me. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that I was afflicted
with some insidious ailment that made me think I was brimming over with
good health when I was really on my last legs. And the most
incomprehensible feature of the thing was that I couldn't seem to
convince them of my soundness of limb and mind!"
"Have you been seen going into any doctor's office lately?" asked Mrs.
Cane apprehensively.
"Why, yes; I've been going to Dr. Richards' office frequently."
Sube sighed and took up the disposal of his neglected food as his father
continued.
"We've been preparing for the defense of that case of Munger against the
railroad company. You know Munger is trying to prove that his injuries
are of a permanent nature, and we are perfectly certain that he is
malingering. I'm in there once or twice every day to consult the
doctor's books. We are preparing a long hypothetical question--"
"What a town this is for talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Cane. "That's undoubtedly
where the report started."
"There or in the barber shop."
"Yes, that barber shop is a regular clearing house for news!" said Mrs.
Cane.
"Yes, it's as good as an afternoon card party," agreed her husband.
"And," he added after a moment, "I'm going to have the place
investigated this afternoon."
At this point something went wrong with Sube's throat. He began to choke
and snort most distressfully, and several severe thumps on the back from
Cathead were required to restore him to normal condition.
"Yes," Mr. Cane resumed, "I'm going to smoke that barber out. Why, the
good-for-nothing ignoramus as much as informed me that I was mentally
unsound! Asking _me_ the day of the week and month! That's what they
always ask an alleged incompetent person who is being examined as to his
sanity! The idea of that know-nothing presuming to ask _me_ such
questions as that!"
"But how are you going to 'smoke him out' as you say?" asked Mrs. Cane.
"I've got that all fixed up with Dr. Richards. He's going to go in there
and pump that barber dry!" replied Mr. Cane determinedly. "The doctor
will drop in for a shave, and he'll find out where McInness heard this
slanderous report--"
Sube was seized with another fit of coughing, and politely asked to be
excused from the table. However, his epiglottic difficulties vanished as
he caught up his cap and dashed out of the house. A few moments later he
made his appearance in the McInness barber shop.
The barber grinned at him. "Want another haircut?" he asked maliciously.
Sube gazed searchingly at the lather-smeared occupant of the chair and,
recognizing Dr. Richards' unmistakable features, realized he was too
late, and turned towards the door with a worried look.
"Lookin' for your father?" asked the barber.
"Huh?--Yes," replied Sube. "Seen 'im?"
"Not sence this mornin'," returned the barber compassionately.
And before the door had closed Sube heard the barber saying:
"Too bad about the judge, ain't it?"
[Illustration]
Desperation was written on Sube's face as he turned from the barber shop
and entered a nearby alley, where he sought to relieve his troubled
spirit by kicking an old tin pail, smashing several bottles, and stoning
a cat. But in spite of these pleasant diversions everything was going
wrong, and everybody was against him.
"Even the weather's gone back on me," he muttered as a raindrop struck
his face.
He was beginning to comprehend why some men turn outlaw. He stepped
into a shed to make up his mind whether to get wet or to be late for
school, although he knew in advance that it would never do for him to
get wet. On entering the shed he observed a threshing outfit that had
been stored for the winter. At the sight an idea began to sprout.
He turned and looked across the alley into the rear windows of Morton &
Company, General Insurance, where his eye fell on a telephone standing
on a desk not far from the back door. Whereupon the idea stepped from
his brain fully grown and ready for action.
Without a moment's hesitation he pulled his cap on securely and made a
dash for Morton's back door. It was unlocked. He opened it cautiously
and peered inside. The office was vacant. He caught up the telephone and
called for McInness's barber shop with a sharp nasal inflection that
sounded not at all like himself.
"Is Doc Richards there?" he asked nervously as soon as he heard the
barber's voice.
The barber turned from the telephone. "Are you here, Doc," he asked.
"They told me at his office he was there!" cried Sube in the strange
voice.
"He wants to know what you want," returned the barber.
"Tell 'im he's wanted at Bert Shepperd's farm jus' fast as he can get
there! There's been a awful accident! A man fell into a thrashin'
machine and was all chewed up--"
"Who is this?" demanded the barber.
"Tell 'im to hurry up or he'll be too late!" shouted Sube as he slammed
on the receiver and slipped quickly out of the door.
He proceeded to a point where he could command a view of the barber
shop, and crouching behind an ash-barrel, watched for developments.
And as he watched he gave way to mutterings of a vengeful nature. "He'll
pump Joe McInness dry, will he!--He will, hey!--An' then he'll tell my
dad all about it, will he!--Well, I'll show 'im!--He can't come that on
_me_--"
At this moment he saw Dr. Richards come hurrying out of the barber shop,
struggling into his overcoat as he came; and as he stood, buttoning it,
beside his runabout which stood at the curb, Sube heard him call to some
one who had not yet come within his range of vision.
"Want to go for a little ride?"
An instant later the person thus addressed came into view. It was
Sube's father. Sube saw him cast an inquiring glance at the sky from
which the rain was no longer falling, and then clamber into the
runabout. He could distinctly hear them laughing as they lighted cigars
and drove rapidly away.
Sube stood up and brushed the moist ashes from his clothes. It was no
use; everything was against him. He was both late and wet when he
reached school, and his brow was more clouded than the sky; but it
cleared wonderfully when a terrific downpour began shortly after he took
his seat. As the deluge continued his spirits rose in spite of the fact
that Miss Wheeler had notified him of her intention to detain him after
school in retaliation for his unexcused tardiness.
As is often the case his mental exaltation took literary form, and, a
forward pass having been fumbled, he was required to pick up from the
floor and read aloud a cryptic epistle intended for the private
consideration of Mr. Gizzard Tobin.
Giz
I dont wish nobody harm but I hope the rain keeps stinging down for
therty days and therty nights
S C
As a result of this outburst Sube was compelled to copy the word
_thirty_ two hundred times to impress on his memory the correct way to
spell it.
Sube's father was late for supper. He was very late; and he came in
drenched to the skin. With him came Dr. Richards, also drenched.
"Where _have_ you been!" cried Mrs. Cane. "You've caught your death of
cold, I'm sure--"
"Oh, I've taken care of that!" was the doctor's cheery reply. "We
stopped in my office and took a little--preventive."
"But where have you been?" persisted she.
"Where haven't we been!" exclaimed the doctor with an irrepressible
chuckle at the innocent face of Sube. "In the first place I was in the
barber shop being shaved, when a telephone message came that a man had
been terribly injured by falling into a threshing machine out at the
Shepperd farm."
The doctor cast a sly glance at Sube, and noting the boy's complete
immersion in his magazine, winked slyly at his father and went on.
"I took Sam along with me for the ride--and it was _some_ ride! It began
to pour just after we started and the trip was simply one big mudhole
after another; and when we reached the Shepperd farm and asked about the
accident they laughed us out of the house! They wanted to know what we
expected them to be threshing in the merry month of May!"
Shouts of laughter from Mr. Cane and the doctor stopped the recital for
a time.
"Do tell the rest," urged Mrs. Cane, "so I can laugh too."
"Well," the doctor resumed, wiping his eyes, "I called up my office, and
the girl said that just about the time I started, Bill Morton's
stenographer called up and warned her to look out for a fake call she
heard somebody send in from Morton's private office."
"Oh! Who could have done such a thing!" gasped Mrs. Cane.
"Bill's stenographer didn't know who it was," replied the doctor,
watching Sube out of the corner of his eye. "He was too quick for her!
She didn't see him!"
Sube straightened up at once and for the first time appeared to take an
interest in the story.
"We had already started!" laughed the doctor uproariously. "And such a
time as we had!"
The doctor's laughter was infectious. Mr. Cane had been chuckling
throughout the account of their adventures and now Mrs. Cane was
beginning.
"The mud was a foot deep!" cried Mr. Cane, taking up the narrative,
"and we had to get out and wade around in it twice while we changed a
tire. And then to top off the adventure the engine got wet and went out
of commission and we had to give up the ship and _walk home_!!"
"But what is so funny about it?" insisted Mrs. Cane. "If I didn't know
you were both teetotalers I should certainly think you men had been
drinking."
The doctor subdued his laughter with an effort as he said: "It's Sube
I'm laughing at!"
Sube's magazine fell to the floor; he half stood up, then dropped back
into his chair stiff as a poker.
"Isn't he immense!" howled the doctor. "Isn't he delicious! That boy
will make _his_ mark in the world!"
"But what has _he_ to do with it?" asked Mrs. Cane, glancing at the
boy's open mouth and popping eyes.
"Oh--oh, nothing to do with _that_," stammered the doctor. "I was just
laughing at the way he was sitting there reading. I wanted to come in
and get a look at him!"
"A look at him?" asked she, mystified.
"Why, yes!" roared the doctor. "He's had his head shingled and I hadn't
seen him!"
As soon as the doctor had gone Mrs. Cane hurried her husband to his
room for dry clothing. Sube heard with bitterness the sound of their
suppressed laughter.
"That's right," he muttered. "Laugh at some joke of ol' Doc Richards and
then come down and whale the daylights out of me--"
He listened. They were coming down the stairs. As his mother entered the
room he noticed that there were tears in her eyes, and that the corners
of her mouth were twitching. His breath came faster as he observed his
father's determined walk.
With a visible effort Mr. Cane controlled his voice. "Sube," he said,
extending his hand in which money could be seen, "I want to reimburse
you for that haircut you got yesterday."
Sube mechanically took the money as he braced himself for the jolt that
he felt sure would follow. But his reckonings went wrong. His father
passed a friendly hand over the resistless stubble and remarked
cheerfully:
"Well, bullet-head, let's eat our supper."