AT THE “WASHINGTON’S HEAD”
“Won’t start!” exclaimed Ned.
“Won’t start!” cried Dan. “She’s got to start!”
Kendall looked supremely grave. Gerald shrugged his shoulders:
“Well, come and help me put her in the shed and I’ll see if I can find
the trouble.”
Then began a half hour of investigation by Gerald. The others held
lanterns and offered suggestions. Ned was especially helpful.
“The trouble,” he explained airily, “is with your battery. It can’t
bat.”
“I get a perfectly good spark,” replied Gerald with apparent
irritation. “As far as I can see the trouble’s in the engine.”
“Let us take it to pieces,” said Ned.
“Don’t be a silly goat,” growled Dan. “There’s no use spending the
night out here, anyway. Kick the old wagon in the shins, Gerald, and
we’ll see if we can get a carriage to take us back.”
“We won’t get any carriage at this time of night,” said Ned. “Why, it’s
long after nine! Fancy being out so late. It’s me for bed!”
“That’s sensible,” replied Gerald, closing the hood. “We might just as
well stay here and go back early in the morning. We can get to school
by half-past eight. I’ll get Mr. Collins on the telephone and tell him
we’re broken down.”
Dan was silent a moment. Then, “All right,” he agreed, with a shrug of
his shoulders. “But you’d better let me talk to Collins.”
“On the contrary, or, as I say so gracefully in French, _au contraire_,
Gerald had better do it. You see it’s his car and his breakdown. Let
him face the music.”
“All right,” said Dan again. He was much too sleepy to offer further
objections. Even the prospect of having to retire without pajamas
seemed of little moment. If only he could reach a bed! Gerald hid
himself in the telephone booth for five minutes, and, judging from
the mutterings that leaked out, talked to someone. Then he announced
that everything was all right and they climbed the stairs to two big,
low-ceilinged rooms on the front of the house. In one of them Dan
went through the motions of undressing――it was the others who really
performed the task for him――dabbed his face and hands in water, knelt
by the bed to say his prayers and promptly fell asleep there and was
finally lifted between the sheets.
“Night,” he murmured. Then, waking for an instant, “Where’d I get these
pajamas?” he asked.
“They go with the room,” said Ned soothingly.
“That’s――a lie,” sighed Dan. Then he slept.
The others gathered on the bed in the adjoining room and grinned.
“Easy!” said Ned. “We’re a very clever little band of conspirators, we
are.”
“Poor old Dan,” said Gerald softly. “He was certainly sleepy! He hasn’t
slept like that for nights and nights.”
“What about to-morrow?” asked Kendall. “Are you going to let him go
back?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders. “It’s up to him, I guess. We can’t tie him.
Maybe he will be reasonable. Think you can get your car started in time
to take us back, Pennimore?”
Gerald smiled. “I think she will go all right when I put the
connections back.”
“It was a lucky thing that Vinton didn’t know much about autos,”
laughed Ned.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. He was too sleepy to see
anything. Well, let’s get to bed. I’m dog tired.”
“You’re no tog direder than I am,” responded Ned.
Dan slept without moving for nine hours. Then he awoke in a strange
room that was flooded with sunlight. He stared at the white walls and
the cracked ceiling and wondered where he was. Beside him Gerald was
soundly slumbering. While he was still trying to make it out the floor
creaked and Ned appeared. Then Dan remembered.
“Hello!” he said, still somewhat dazed with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty, sir. Will you have your tub now, sir?”
Dan was looking perplexedly at the pajamas he wore.
“Where’d I get these things? They look a whole lot like my own.”
“Why not? Don’t you usually wear your own pajamas?” asked Ned gravely.
Gerald stirred and opened his eyes, sighed and closed them again.
“But how did they get here?” Dan persisted.
“Oh, that’s it? Well, you see, you never can tell when you start out in
your friend’s car where you’ll end up. So we thought we’d better be on
the safe side. You’ll find your toothbrush, hairbrush, comb, a change
of linen and some other trifles on the bureau.”
Dan stared a moment, frowningly. Then,
“I see,” he grunted. “It was a put-up job.”
“A gentle and kindly conspiracy,” replied Ned. “Payson said you must
get away and sleep. He came to me. Pennimore here was with him. We
fixed up the scheme, he got leave of absence for you to visit Pennimore
until Saturday, the rest of us got excused overnight and the rest you
know.”
“Hm; and――and that crazy car wasn’t busted after all?”
“Not a bit. Pennimore――the deceitful youth!――pulled the wires off the
plugs. Now you know all. We throw ourselves on your mercy!”
“You’re a precious lot of――of――”
“Don’t spare us,” said Ned humbly.
“Of kidnappers,” ended Dan. But he didn’t sound very angry, and Gerald,
who had been simulating slumber until the worst was over, awoke
suddenly with a prodigious yawn.
“Hello, you chaps!” he said. “Good morning.”
“Good morning!” grunted Dan. “I’ve a good mind to choke you, you
deceitful pup!” To prove his inclination he reached for Gerald, but
that youth was too quick for him and was in the middle of the floor
in an instant. Then Kendall came in and they settled themselves on
the bed and talked it all over. Dan felt too rested to be angry,
and when Ned broached the programme for the day he was surprisingly
complaisant. The rest of them, Ned explained, had to go back in time
for recitations. But Payson wanted Dan to stay in Lloyd and take things
easy. The others would be back again by five o’clock. They would all
spend the night here and return to Yardley in the morning in plenty of
time for luncheon. What did Dan say?
Dan said: “All right. Tell Payson I slept like a top and am feeling
fine. I’ll call him up after a while and talk with him myself, though.
I guess there isn’t really anything for me to do at school. Now how
about breakfast?”
They all ate hungrily, Gerald brought the car around at half-past eight
and he and Ned and Kendall set off for school. As the car sped out of
sight they turned and waved at Dan on the porch. And Dan waved back
gayly, and then, thrusting his hands into his pockets and whistling
a tune, set off along the quiet street with a delicious feeling of
playing “hookey.” He had the whole day ahead of him and nothing to do
but eat and loaf! No lessons, no practice, no problems to settle with
Payson or Cowles, no nothing! It was simply fine!
Presently he came to a little bridge with stone parapets that seemed
just fashioned for idlers like he. He seated himself on one of them,
his feet dangling above the little stream that went gurgling by to
turn and twist its way through a meadow. Once he saw a fish and he
wished he had a hook and line. Then he gathered chips of mortar from
the wall, dropped them into the water and watched them go sidling down
to the bottom. The sun was warm, although a light breeze rustled the
dead leaves in the roadway. The sky was blue overhead, and Dan thought
thankfully, “A fine day to-morrow for the game.” Then with a start he
realized that he had quite forgotten all about the game for hours!
Hadn’t once thought of it since getting out of bed! And even now it
didn’t trouble him. They might win it. If they didn’t――why, there you
were! After all, it was no matter of life or death. Games had been lost
before. To be sure, he was captain and he meant to do all he could to
win, but if he failed, why, he still would have done the best he knew
how; and that, he told himself philosophically, was all anyone could
do. And then a pair of crows came sailing overhead, cawing loudly, and
he forgot again about the game.
Almost before he knew it, it was noon. A bell somewhere in the little
village struck twelve. He pulled himself lazily off the wall and ambled
back to the inn. There was time before dinner to call up Mr. Payson,
and he did it.
“I’m having a bully time,” he told the coach. “Been sitting on the
bridge all the morning throwing pebbles into the water.”
“Good stuff,” replied the voice at the other end. “Go back this
afternoon and throw the rest in.”
“No, I think I’ll go to sleep!” laughed Dan. “Everything all right? If
you want me, say so and I’ll come over.”
“Don’t want you at all. Don’t want to see you until eleven to-morrow
forenoon. Everything is all right here. And I think we’re going to have
a fine day to-morrow. How’s your appetite?”
“It’s awful! I can’t get enough.”
“Well, don’t overdo it. Better eat light this evening, Vinton. Eat what
you want, though. Feeling pretty well, are you?”
“Like a fighting cock, sir!”
“That’s fine. Keep it up. Go to bed early to-night and get some more
sleep. Good-by.”
Dan had the dining-room pretty much to himself that noon and was rather
glad of it, since he was a little bit ashamed of the way he ate. He
felt like apologizing to Mary, the waitress, and to the proprietor.
After dinner he lounged upstairs to the room, feeling delightfully
sleepy, found a magazine that Gerald had thoughtfully added to the
contents of one of the bags and tried to read. But ten minutes later he
was stretched out on top of the bed fast asleep.