SUBE GOES TO THE MOVIES
Vacation vanished. School opened. Another year of education loomed up
before Sube like an impassable mountain. The weather began to give hints
of an approaching winter. Except on rare occasions the evenings were
spent indoors. These occasions were usually devoted to attendance at the
opera where the Kings and Queens of Filmdom could be seen for the
trifling sum of five cents or the one-half part of a dime.
And always--with one exception--these evenings at the movies were the
result of earnest solicitation on the part of the boys. The exception
was noted on a certain Friday evening when Mrs. Cane had planned to open
her parlors for a lecture of the Mothers' Club.
As the Cane family was about to rise from the supper table on that
memorable evening, Mrs. Cane announced that she had arranged a pleasant
surprise for the boys. Whereupon she distributed largess to the extent
of a nickel apiece and told them that as an experiment she had decided
to permit them to go just this once unattended to the Theatorium.
If she had let them remain at home they would have paid scant attention
to the Mothers' Club; but the moment she showed a desire to be rid of
their presence she aroused Sube's suspicions.
"What don't you want us round home for?" he asked as he pocketed his
nickel.
"Oh, it isn't that I don't want you here, dears," she replied; "but I
knew this dry old lecture wouldn't interest you at all."
But Sube was not so easily disposed of. "What's it about?" he asked
casually.
"Nothing that you would care to hear--the proper discipline of children
or something of that sort," returned his mother hurriedly. "Run along
now, boys; mother's very busy. You may stay to see the pictures through
twice if you'll be very quiet and behave like gentlemen. And Henry, you
take good care of Sim. Remember he's a little boy--"
Before starting for the Theatorium, Sube slipped out in the back yard
and made a thorough though futile search for evidences of ice-cream. But
for some reason this did not satisfy him; when once his suspicions were
aroused it was very difficult to allay them. All through the first show
he was pondering over his mother's unprecedented conduct. He felt sure
there was some ulterior motive.
During the intermission Sube announced that he was going to try the
seats further back.
"I know I can't see so good," he explained, "but my neck kinda hurts
from bending it up so far."
"My neck don't hurt," declared Cathead. "I'll stay here."
"My neck don't hurt," echoed Sim. "I'll stay here too."
None of the other youthful occupants of the bald-headed row was willing
to exchange front seats for rear, so Sube was forced to try the
experiment alone. This was as he had anticipated and desired, for he had
deep-laid plans which could best be carried out by himself. As soon as
the second show was under way he slipped out of the theater and started
for home, gliding silently from tree to tree with a skill that had been
acquired by long continued study of the methods of Old Sleuth.
He reached the parlor window just too late to hear the last of a group
of Spanish chansonettes rendered in the original tongue by Miss Netta
Podger, who had spent the summer abroad. This was unfortunate for Sube,
as foreign languages always interested him.
When the applause evoked by Miss Podger's artistry had died away into
random coughings and throat-clearings, Sube heard the president of the
Mothers' Club struggling to give expression to the pleasure she took in
introducing the exceedingly reverend J. Mills Mossman, D.D., who, she
said, would deliver this evening his famous lecture entitled, "Moral
Suasion; or Spare the Rod and Save the Child." Under cover of the burst
of applause which greeted this announcement Sube scrambled up and seated
himself precariously on the window sill. Of course he wanted to see as
well as hear.
He understood that Dr. Mossman was the new Baptist minister. He had seen
the much-discussed gentleman on the street once or twice, but rumors of
football prowess and heavyweight championships during college days had
aroused in Sube a curiosity to look him over at closer range.
As Dr. Mossman began to speak Sube pressed his face against the shutters
and peered in. He found himself perilously near the doctor's large left
ear. Then he noted the enormous size of the white but muscular hands,
little dreaming that he would ever fall into them. But his attention
was not long held by the speaker's personal appearance, for Sube was
electrified by what he was saying.
He began to comprehend at once why his mother had not wanted him to hear
the lecture. He felt outraged at the thought that she should thus seek
to restrict his education, and stunt his mental and spiritual growth. He
was converted to "Moral Persuasion" on first sight, and made up his mind
to affiliate himself with their organization at the earliest
opportunity.
When Dr. Mossman waggishly declared that the hairbrush should be used
solely for arranging one's locks, and that the good old slipper should
be devoted exclusively to the humble task of comforting tired feet, Sube
joined heartily in the laugh that followed. And when the good doctor
concluded his lecture with the impassioned statement that "willfully
inflicted pain never improved anything!" Sube participated so
enthusiastically in the applause that he lost his balance and fell to
the ground, taking with him the greater part of his father's cherished
ivy.
For an instant he was dazed. He could not seem to comprehend where he
was. Then he recovered his bearings and hurried back to the Theatorium.
As he reached the lobby the doors swung open and the crowd began to
emerge. Cathead and Sim were among the last to come out.
"How's your neck?" asked Cathead as he approached Sube, who stood
looking at a poster of the next day's bill.
"My neck?" asked Sube, momentarily off his guard. "Who said
an'thing--Oh! my _neck_! Oh, yes; my neck is fine! It was all right jus'
as soon as I sat in the back seat a little while." He gave his head a
few experimental twists, and then added in confirmation: "Yup, it's all
right."
The hour was late when the theatergoers reached home. The last guest had
departed, and their father was unamiably engaged in carrying out the
folding chairs, which had been donated for the occasion by the local
undertakers, and piling them on the front porch.
The boys, preferring almost anything to going to bed, offered their
assistance, which their father rather reluctantly declined. Cathead
dallied, asking numerous questions about the lecture, but Sube trudged
off to bed without a word.
The following day a cold rain kept the boys indoors. Throughout the
morning frequent observations were made, but no cheering patch of blue
large enough to make the mythical Dutchman's breeches could be seen.
Although the rain began before seven it failed to stop before 'leven. In
fact, it was three o'clock before it let up at all.
By lunch time the boys had resigned themselves to the weather, and with
the aid of the telephone had succeeded in interesting Gizzard and
Cottontop in the "gym" that had sprung into being in the upper story of
the barn.
The earlier part of the afternoon was spent by the four boys in
improving the equipment of the gym and in demonstrating their abilities
as death-defying athletes. It was the performance by Sube of a feat
called the "muscle-grinder or Hindu punishment" that really started the
trouble, for it threw him into a state of perspiration which caused him
to remark that he would enjoy taking a swim.
"I guess you wouldn't find the water pretty cold!" suggested the
practical Gizzard. "Oh, no!"
"But s'posin' we had it fixed so's it would be warm! S'posin' we had a
little shack built right over the swimmin'-hole!"
"Water'd be cold jus' samee!"
"But I can _s'pose_ it would be warm, can't I? I can s'pose anything,
can't I? I can s'pose boilin' ice-water if I want to, can't I?"
"You can s'pose it," admitted Gizzard grudgingly, "but that won't make
it so. Who'd want boilin' ice-water, anyway?"
"But jus' s'posin' we had a place fixed like that," continued Sube quite
unperturbed. "I'd take a swim every day in the year. And when I'm a man
I'm goin' to have a swimmin'-hole made right in my own house, and then I
can go in whenever I want to!"
"You'd oughta be a Baptis'," suggested Gizzard.
"What's bein' a Baptis' got to do with goin' in swimmin'?" asked Sube
cautiously.
"Why, _they've_ got a swimmin'-hole right inside their church!" declared
Gizzard with an air of omniscient loftiness.
"A swimmin'-hole in the Baptis' Church!" howled Sube derisively. "You
make me laugh! Say, Giz, who's been stringin' you?"
"Nobody ain't been stringin' me," defended Gizzard stoutly. "Jus' shows
you don't know much! There's one there, 'cause my dad painted it jus'
last week with two coats of white 'namel and--"
"What in the dickens would they have a swimmin'-hole in a church for?
Jus' tell me that!" demanded Sube conclusively.
"To bap-_tize_ people!" replied Gizzard, apparently greatly bored at
this display of ignorance. "Didn't you know the Baptis'es don't jus'
squirt a little water on a baby's bean? They let 'em grow up and then
duck 'em all over."
Sube had a vague recollection of something of the sort, but his interest
in the matter was material rather than doctrinal. "How big is this
wonderful swimmin'-hole?" he asked guardedly.
"Big enough to swim in, all right," Gizzard assured him.
"Where do they keep it?" Sube was feeling his way carefully, fearing a
hoax of some sort.
"It's down under the minister's desk," Gizzard told him with an air of
vast importance. "You can't see it when you go in the church, but all
you got to do is press a little button, and _Bingo!_--There's your
swimmin'-hole!" A sort of "Behold!--" movement of the hand accompanied
this exposition.
Sube was torn between belief and skepticism. He hoped that what Gizzard
was telling him was the truth. But the appearance of secret places at
the pressing of buttons was associated in his mind with hip-pocket
literature, rather than with the House of God. However, Gizzard's
responses to his persistent questioning were so earnest and so
convincing that Sube had just about concluded to become a Baptist, when
Gizzard chanced to remark that he knew what the mysterious indoor pool
was called.
"What?" asked the others in a chorus.
"My dad says they call it 'mershum,'" was the lofty response.
Sube's Baptist leanings collapsed like a house of cards. "Now I _know_
you're lyin'," he growled disgustedly, "'cause that's a kind of a pipe
you smoke. My father's got one."
For a few moments conflict seemed inevitable. Then the discussion took a
new angle and developed into an argument as to the knowledge of their
respective fathers of the correct meaning of the word "mershum." After
this had waged for a few minutes with honors about equally divided,
Gizzard had a brilliant idea.
"Look here, Sube!" he cried. "We could keep chewin' about this all day
long and not get nowhere. But if I could _show_ it to you, then you'd
have to b'lieve it!"
"I'll b'lieve it jus' soon as I _see_ it," Sube admitted; "and not
before."
"All right!" shouted Gizzard, starting for the stairs. "Come on! I'll
show it to you!"
Sube stirred uneasily. "Yeah, and then when we got there you'd say we
couldn't get in the church 'cause it was locked. You can't bluff _me_--"
"You think so, do you? Well, we ain't goin' in the door at all! We're
goin' in a window with a busted catch! Hope to die and cross my heart if
we ain't! And if you don't come along now we'll know who's the bluffer,
by jingo!"
"All right, kid," grunted Sube as he arose languidly and began to hunt
for his cap. "But if I find out you been lyin' to me,--I'll fix you good
and plenty."