HIS DAY
The handle of a slingshot protruded from Sube's hip-pocket, and money
jingled as he walked a few minutes later when Gizzard Tobin, Biscuit
Westfall and Stucky Richards swooped down on him as he humbly toiled.
The new-comers had their tennis racquets, and Biscuit was resplendent in
a new pair of white knickerbockers.
Sube fixed a disdainful glance on the snowy trousers, instantly
recalling Nancy Guilford's partiality for such raiment, as he inquired,
"What you all dolled up for?"
"Comp'ny," responded Biscuit cheerfully. "We got a missionary visitin'
to our house. But say, see what I got!"
Sube raised his eyes to the speaker's hand and beheld a tennis ball with
the unaccustomed advantage of a cover. "Where'd you get it?" he asked
listlessly.
"Miss Carruthers give it to me. It's only 'bout a year or two old! Ain't
it a peach! Hurry up and get the lawn done and then we'll have some
doubles."
Sube pointed to Biscuit's shoes. "You can't play with those heels on,
you know."
"Well, I can go barefoot, can't I?"
"Not if 'mama' knows it," twitted Sube with an offensive nasal accent on
the mama, as he grasped the handle of the lawn-mower and resumed his
task while his callers disappeared in the direction of the tennis court.
After a few moments Biscuit reappeared on a run, minus his shoes and
stockings. "Hey, Sube!" he yelled. "The net ain't up! Where'll I find
it?"
"I'll tend to that," growled Sube. "You go on back to the court."
And he abandoned the lawn-mower and went into the house. After a long
wait he emerged from the back door and started towards the court. He did
not turn back when Biscuit reminded him that he had forgotten the net,
but proceeded silently to the nearest net post, to which he pinned a
sheet of paper. Then he returned to his work on the lawn.
Three mystified boys scrambled to their feet and hurried over to examine
the paper. It read.
GrOunD RuLeS
ALL tHe WOrK On tHe pLACe MuSt
Be FiniSHied BeFOre tHe teNiS
Nett iS Put uP.
By OrDOR COmm
[Illustration]
"Now what does he mean by that?" asked Biscuit.
"He means they can't nobody play on this here court till his work is
done," interpreted Gizzard.
"Well, you don't catch me doin' any of his work!" cried Stucky. "I got
enough of my own!"
"Me neither--" began Biscuit, when Gizzard interrupted.
"Listen here!" he shouted. "Quit your beefin' and listen here a minute!
I got a scheme!"
"If it's a scheme for us to do his work you needn't tell it!" returned
Biscuit. "I've done more work this mornin' than he does in a week--"
But Gizzard brushed him ungently aside. "Dry up! Dry up! Cut out the
noise and listen a minute! Three people can't play any decent tennis! We
gotta have _four_ if we want to play the game! It wouldn't take us five
minutes to clean up his work--and it's his court, anyway!"
Biscuit yielded ungraciously. He grumbled all the way to the front lawn,
and then suddenly became embued with enthusiasm, and took upon himself
the honor of informing Sube that they were at his service.
Sube was apparently not expecting anything of the sort. "Do you fellows
mean that you're go'n' to help me with my work?" he asked incredulously.
"Sure thing!" cried Biscuit cheerfully. "You don't s'pose we want to be
playin' tennis out there while you're workin', do you? And besides, the
court belongs to you!"
"Say!--You're good scouts, all right!" Sube exclaimed with unguarded
admiration.
"What-all you got t'do?" inquired Gizzard.
"Well, you give this ol' mower a few shoves, Giz, and I'll show the
other fellers what to do," responded Sube genially.
Gizzard seized the handles of the lawn-mower and assiduously applied
himself to the task of depilating the lawn, while Stucky retired to the
garden and began on hands and knees to thin the blushing beets to five
inches, putting the thinnings into a basket for greens.
Biscuit followed Sube about whining repeatedly:
"What am _I_ go'n'ta do? Sube, what am _I_ go'n'ta do?"
"I don't know as you _can_ do the only job that's left," Sube taunted
with a triumphant gleam at the immaculate knickerbockers. "It's pretty
pa'tic'lar work."
"I'll bet y'u I can do it! What is it?" cried the unsuspecting Biscuit.
"Show it to me! I'll eat it alive!"
"Did you ever sprout any potatoes?" inquired Sube as he led the way to
the cellar.
"No; but I'll bet y'u I can do it!"
"Well, we'll see about that," was Sube's dubious-sounding answer as he
guided Biscuit towards the potato bin.
"Gee, but it's dark in here," whined Biscuit.
Sube stopped short. "Look here!" he warned. "If it's too dark for you
down here in this cool cellar, you go on outdoors, and I'll do these
p'tates myself--or let one of the other fellers do 'em."
"Oh, no!" Biscuit hastened to assure him. "It ain't dark at all any
more. It jus' seemed so at first. I can see _fine_ now."
"Well, all right then," muttered Sube. "But if you're goin' to back out,
I want to know it 'fore you begin."
"No, sir! I ain't go'n'ta back out," Biscuit asserted resolutely.
Sube picked up a potato from which several long white sprouts were
dangling. "You jus' give 'em a simple twist of the wrist," he explained
cooerdinating the action with the words, "and there you are!" He held up
the beardless tuber for Biscuit's inspection. "Now, do you s'pose you
can do that?" he asked.
"Of course I can," Biscuit replied disdainfully. "It's jus' like wipin'
dishes; and I've wiped my mother's dishes ever since I was big enough
to walk!"
This burst of confidence was destined to come back to plague Biscuit,
although at the time of its utterance Sube appeared not to have heard
it.
"Let's see you do a few," was all he said.
Biscuit was a little awkward, but he managed to denude a large potato of
its foliage and handed it to Sube for approval. Sube examined it very
carefully.
"That's pretty fair," he admitted; "but you must clean 'em off good.
Chuck 'em in there," he added as he tossed the potato into a bushel
basket.
"How many you got to do?" inquired Biscuit, plunging briskly into his
task.
"Six bushels," replied Sube, with anticipation of the day when he would
be called upon to sprout potatoes on his own account. "And when the
basket's full dump it over there in the corner. As soon as you get the
six bushels done you come out and help Stucky with the beets. It's awful
hot out there in the sun." And Sube withdrew, leaving Biscuit in sole
possession of the musty cellar.
On returning to the lawn Sube found Gizzard busy with the clippers.
"What! Got her all cut!" he cried delightedly.
"You bet y'u!" replied Gizzard. "And I'm pretty near through with the
clippin', too."
"Well, I'll put the ol' mower away and stick up the net. Chuck the
clippers in the barn as you go by. Dad always gets sore if we don't put
the tools away."
He had just finished stretching the net when Stucky walked out on the
court.
"You're not done already!" beamed Sube.
"You _know_ it!" was Stucky's self-important reply.
"What did you do with the greens?"
"Give 'em to Annie."
"Stucky, you're a brick church!"
"Where's Biscuit?" asked Gizzard who at that moment came panting up.
"Down cellar sproutin' p'tates," replied Sube. "But I had him leave the
new ball outside. I was afraid he'd get it dirty."
"Wisht he'd hurry up," said Stucky. "We wanta get to playin'. Don't you
s'pose he's done?"
"Oh, I wouldn't want to bother him right in the middle of a bushel,"
Sube remonstrated. "Let's have a little three-hander while we're
waitin'. I'll stand the two of you."
The little three-hander had become almost a set, and, strange to say,
Biscuit had been entirely forgotten when his mother, accompanied by a
slight, sallow gentleman in a black suit, drew up by the side of the
street in a surrey from the livery.
"Boys!" she called.
The game stopped. There was momentary confusion among the players. Sube
slipped the new ball into his pocket and carelessly kicked his sweater
over a pair of shoes and stockings lying beside the court, before he
appeared to be able to locate the speaker. When at last his eyes
encountered Mrs. Westfall's, he snatched off his cap with elaborate
gusto and sang out politely:
"Good morning, M's Westfall! Did you call us?"
"Yes," she replied sharply. "Where's Karl?"
"Ma'am?"
"Is Karl here?"
"Oh! No, ma'am."
"I gave him permission to come here and play tennis!" she cried with
visible irritation. "Hasn't he been here?"
"No, ma'am. We ain't seen him this mornin'."
Mrs. Westfall was annoyed. "He's going driving with us!" she informed
them. "Do you know where he is?"
"No, ma'am! He hasn't been around here!"
At that moment a movement at the rear of the house and in the immediate
neighborhood of the cellar door caught Mrs. Westfall's eye. An animated
mass of dirt and potato sprouts that might by some stretch of the
imagination have been taken for a human being, emerged and paused to
regard itself. For a moment it brushed desperately at the place where
trousers might have been expected to hang had it been a male member of
the human family. A cloud of stifling dust arose; and out of the midst
of the cloud came a wail of distress that Mrs. Westfall recognized as
the voice of her missing son.
Her astonishment gave way to annoyance, quickly followed by a surge of
red anger. She handed the reins to her escort and leaped from the surrey
with the agility of a tigress.
Sube involuntarily fell back a few steps muttering: "Why! That must be
him! I wonder where he's been!"
But he need have no fear, for this was his day. He was immune from
disaster of any kind. The enraged woman rushed past him, and seizing
Biscuit by the nape of the neck, hauled him over her knee and repeatedly
applied to his person a large red hand, utterly regardless of the
nebulous masses of dust that arose at each stroke.
At first Biscuit put up a terrified resistance, attempting desperately
to get a hearing for his plea of justification; but when the blows began
to rain down on him he gave himself up to such solace as the human voice
affords.
He cried; then he bawled; and as the chastisement proceeded he bellowed
lustily. It was not so much the physical pain, nor the anguish of
outraged innocence, although he felt both keenly, as it was the burning
disgrace of being chastised in the presence of his fellows.
But his lamentations had little effect on his mother. She ceased her
ministrations only when her strength was spent.
"There!" she gasped with her final blow. "You--dirty--boy!!--Look at
your bare feet!"
Biscuit looked at them. They were indeed bare, and very, very dirty.
"You know you are forbidden to go barefooted!" she charged with a
gesture that seemed to indicate that she contemplated a renewal of the
assault. "And look at your beautiful new trousers! They're _ruined_!!"
Biscuit glanced down at them, at the same time keeping up a defensive
blubbering.
"You deceived me!" she continued the arraignment. "You told me you
wanted to come here and play tennis!--And you never came near
here!--When I stop for you I find the other boys playing like little
gentlemen, while you are off by yourself getting into--Goodness knows
what!--Go home, you dirty boy, as fast as ever you can get there! I'll
finish with you in private!"
The thing was beyond Biscuit; it was too much for him. The harm was
done. It was too late for explanations. He made no attempt to reply, but
limped, still blubbering, in the direction of his shoes, the coarse turf
torturing his tender feet.
Mrs. Westfall followed menacingly at a little distance with further
animadversions, when suddenly she remembered her guest, whose presence
she had entirely overlooked in the stress of her emotions. She did not
doubt that he was looking on with mortification and horror; and,
accordingly, with such moderation of her angry voice as she could
command, she added:
"Go home, you wicked boy, and pray to God to forgive you."
As the Westfall family withdrew, practical Sube whispered to his
companions, "If Biscuit's on to his job he'll put on an extra pair of
pants before he does any prayin'."