A FRIEND AND A FOE
Splashing about in his watery quarters Glen speedily discovered that he
had fallen into an enormous rain barrel. He was able to reach the top
with his hands, and lost no time in drawing himself up and crawling over
the side. Then he stood in the shelter of the barrel and wrung a gallon
or so of water out of the doctor's clothes. When the job was finished he
had pretty well destroyed the identity of that suit of clothing. The
draggled, wrinkled and stained garments bore no resemblance to the neat
office suit. His mishap had given material help in effecting a disguise.
He struck out away from the town and met no one to interfere with him as
he walked along the quiet residence streets. Just at the edge of the
city he was attracted by a great illumination. It was the electric
lighting of a park, which even at that hour was thronged with visitors.
The boy who had been shut up for a year and more looked hungrily through
the great entrance way. It was free to all. He walked cautiously in,
keeping a suspicious eye wide for policemen; for though he thought he
was free he was in bondage to his guilty conscience.
Of the many attractions the one which made the greatest appeal to
Glen--and the only one he could afford, for his sole fortune was the
nickel he had for car-fare--was the merry-go-round with its gaudy horses
and its gurdy tunes. He bought a ticket and mounted one of the turbulent
steeds with a little thrill of anticipatory pleasure. The music began,
the movement gradually quickened, and he was just giving himself up to
the pleasure of it when he saw working toward him, on the inside
running-board, a man collecting tickets. On his coat was the nickeled
badge of a constable. Glen did not know that he was a special officer
for the sole purpose of protecting his own outfit against rowdies. In
his eyes it was the approach of the law. Although they were now swinging
round at a good rate he slipped from his horse and jumped, at peril of
his neck. The sight of an official badge struck terror to his soul.
So it was wherever he went. He saw in every man an officer. One might
have supposed the park policed by an army. He had just dodged one of the
two real park policemen when he overheard a momentous conversation.
A man from the bathhouse came by.
"Anything doing, Jake?" he asked the officer.
"Nothing much," replied the policeman. "They 'phoned us a boy got away
from the reform school. They think he might just have come out to the
park for fun and overstayed. Ain't seen any one, have ye?"
"Not me."
"Well, if he's in here we'll get him as he goes out. I'll watch one gate
and Barney the other."
So they were on the look out for him. But there was nothing in his
present clothing to suggest the reform school boy, and though he was
hatless there were numbers of hatless boys in the park. There were many
people of all kinds, in fact, and if he went with the crowd, he could
surely slip out unnoticed. Yet he feared to attempt to pass the
representative of the law at the gate. How conscience doth make cowards
of us all!
It was a good deed, done impulsively, that solved Glen's problem. An
automobile was passing. The occupants were all watching the bathers in
the lake, excepting a little chap of three who had seized the
opportunity to climb over the door with the evident idea of jumping to
the ground. When Glen saw him he was poised on the running board ready
for his jump. Like a flash Glen jumped for the footboard of the moving
car and interposed his body as an obstacle to the little fellow's leap.
The women in the car screamed and the man who was driving stopped his
car in surprise at the intrusion. It was only when Glen hauled the
little boy up to view that they saw what he had done.
"I am Jonathan Gates," said the man, offering Glen his hand, "and this
is my wife and daughter. We don't know how to thank you for saving that
little scamp from harm."
"We might at least take you back into town," suggested Mrs. Gates.
"But I am going west, into the country," said Glen.
"That is still better," said Mr. Gates. "We live eight miles west of
here and will take you wherever you say."
"I'll go just as far as you go," Glen replied. "I live away out west and
am on my way on foot. Every mile is a help."
They passed through the gates without any notice from the officer who
was watching for an escaped Reform School boy, and Glen felt safe again.
"We have not visited the park in a long while," explained Mrs. Gates,
"and it was all new to us. That is why we lost sight of Jack. He was
very anxious to run back and see the monkeys again."
"I have never been there before at all," said Glen. "And I am glad I saw
this monkey. I was passing and I just went in by chance."
"Not chance," said Mr. Gates. "Let us say Providence. Our boy might have
been badly hurt or even killed. Certainly you were led by Providence, or
I would rather be more definite and say the hand of God."
"Oh I don't know. I guess not," stammered Glen, greatly embarrassed. He
wondered what Mr. Gates would say if he knew that he came to the park in
running away from the reform school. He had not yet learned that the
power of God may even overrule our evil for good. But he was quite
willing to agree that his good fortune in meeting the Gates family might
be God's providence.
He felt his good fortune still more when Mrs. Gates insisted that he
must stay with them at least one night. He yielded, thinking that he
would get up very early and slip away before they were astir in the
morning. But the excitement of the day had such an effect that he
overslept and did not waken until called to breakfast.
The effect of this family was something such as Glen had never known.
All they knew of him was his name, but they took him at his word. They
accepted his statements without a question--a most unusual thing in his
experience. They showed him every kindness. At breakfast Mr. Gates
heaped his plate with good things. They were so cordial in their
invitation to stay and rest for awhile that he could not refuse them.
They showed to him such a spirit of love as made him feel that, after
all, Christian people were different from others, and to begin to be
sorry that he had taken advantage of the good, old superintendent. They
planted in his softened heart seeds of kindness and love which were
bound to blossom.
Glen stayed two days, and might have remained longer, but on the morning
of the third day, coming down early, he picked up the day-old paper
which Mr. Gates had been reading. It was folded back at a place which
told of his disappearance from the reform school. He was ashamed to look
again in their faces, so he stole out the back way, passed through the
barn, and thus made his way out into the dusty road.
His thoughts, as he trudged along, were far from cheerful. Although he
had strong, boyish desires to fare forth into the world alone, he much
disliked to leave this cheery home. Had he been a clean, honorable boy
with a good record he might have stayed there and learned to be a man.
His gloomy thoughts were diverted by the sight of a man who seemed to be
having troubles of his own. He was down at the side of an automobile,
perspiring freely and vexed with the whole world as he unsuccessfully
labored at changing a tire. The automobile was no ordinary car. It had a
driver's seat in front and a closed car behind like the closed delivery
wagons Glen had seen in town. Bright colored letters announced to the
world that J. Jervice supplied the public with a full line of novelties,
including rugs, curtains, rare laces and Jervice's Live Stock Condition
Powders.
"Can I help you," volunteered Glen. It is worthy of note that the
service was freely offered before the man spoke so much as a word. It
had not been Glen's habit to volunteer help. He was feeling the
influence of the home he had just left.
The offer was not kindly received. The man's reply was so churlish as to
leave open the suspicion that he was not naturally a man of pleasant
ways.
"Garn away f'm here," he snarled. "I don't need no boys spyin' around my
car."
"Who's spyin'?" asked Glen defiantly. "You seem to need somebody pretty
bad. You ain't man enough to strip that tire off."
"Nor nobody else wouldn't be," declared the man. "Leastways nobody with
jest one pair of hands. While I pry it off one end it slips back on the
other. Are you strong?" he asked, stopping to look at Glen.
"I'm pretty stout for my age," admitted Glen, modestly, "but I don't
want to help nor spy, if you don't want me."
"I could use another pair of hands," the peddler admitted. "I can't pay
you nothing for it, though, unless it be a ride to town."
"That is just what I want," agreed Glen. "It's a bargain."
The perspiration of Mr. J. Jervice had not been without occasion. The
tire he was trying to change had done good service--it was, in fact, the
very first tire that wheel had ever carried. Perhaps it cherished fond
hopes of remaining in service as long as the wheel to which it clung--at
least it resisted most strenuously all efforts to detach it. Both Glen
and the man were moist with their efforts before it came away, and they
accumulated still more dirt and moisture in applying its successor. But
at last it was all done, and Glen had already mounted to the seat, while
his companion was putting away his tools, when a cart drove up alongside
and Glen recognized in the driver, Mr. Gates.
"What's the matter?" he asked, as Mr. Gates pulled up his horse.
"What's the matter?" echoed Mr. J. Jervice; "this boy been doing
anything?"
It was not an unnatural question for there was something in Mr. Gates's
look and in Glen's questioning tone that betokened affairs out of the
ordinary; furthermore, Mr. J. Jervice seemed to be so suspicious of
people in general that one might well think he had something to conceal.
"The boy's all right," replied Mr. Gates. "I have something to say to
him, that's all. If he will come over here we will drive on a few feet
while I say it."
Glen's thoughts flew back to the folded newspaper and he was instantly
suspicious.
"I don't want to get down," he said. "This gentleman's agreed to give me
a ride to town and I don't want to keep him."
"But I want you to stay," replied Mr. Gates. "I will take you to town if
you wish, but first I want you to go back home with me and I will tell
you something important."
Glen felt one of his old, unrestrained passions rising within him.
"I know what you want," he cried. "I saw the newspaper. You want to
send me back to the reform school."
"I want to help you make a man of yourself," asserted Mr. Gates, unmoved
by the boy's passion. "It's true I want you to go back to the school,
but I will go with you and speak for you. You must go back because it is
the only right way out. Let me tell you, Glen, you will never get over a
trouble by running away from it. The manly and Christian thing to do is
to go back. And that is why I want you to do it."
"And of course you don't want the reward of ten dollars that's always
paid for returning a boy. You wouldn't take the money, would you?"
If the eyes of Mr. Gates were saddened by this mean sneer those of Mr.
J. Jervice were not. They lightened with a sudden interest, and he
jumped into the battle for the first time.
"This boy's a goin' with me," he told Mr. Gates. "He's earned a ride and
I promised it and I'm a man of my word. You be off, now, and leave him
alone."
"You are spoiling his best chance," said Mr. Gates. "I am not interested
in the school or the reward. I am simply trying to do my duty to the
boy."
"Well, you've done it," cried Mr. J. Jervice, as his car gathered
headway. "Good-by to ye."
He turned to Glen as the car got into its speed.
"So you've run away from the reform school, eh? And he was goin' to make
ten dollars taking you back?"
"Oh, he didn't want the ten dollars," said Glen, his rage all gone. "He
treated me awful fine while I was at his house. I just said that because
I was mad. But he can't get me to go back; nor nobody else unless they
tie me up first."
"I don't know?" said Mr. J. Jervice. "Ten dollars is pretty near a
week's pay for most men."
"That wouldn't make any difference with him," said Glen. "He's straight
as a string."
Mr. Gates would have been gratified to know how deep an impression his
Christian character had made on this boy who had flouted his kindness.
Mr. J. Jervice was not inclined to conversation--he was puzzling over a
problem something akin to that of the fox and the geese (he to be the
fox). So they drove along in comparative silence until, topping a hill,
Glen exclaimed at the sight of the buildings of a large town.
"Are we almost there?" he asked.
"About three miles yet," said Mr. J. Jervice. "What you going to do when
we get there?"
"I'm not sure, but I think I'd better leave you before we get to town.
I don't believe Mr. Gates would telephone the police but somebody else
might."
"You can ride with me a couple o' miles yet. Tell ye what ye can do.
S'pose'n you get inside. There's lots o' room and there's a ventilator
back o' this seat will give ye air. You be real careful and not go
fussing around disturbing things. There's things there I wouldn't want
ye to touch."
It seemed a good idea. Mr. J. Jervice unlocked the doors in the back and
Glen stepped inside. The doors slammed behind him and he heard the heavy
steel bar drop into its slots. Then he heard something like a laugh--a
foxy laugh. Why should Mr. J. Jervice laugh? At once his suspicions were
awakened.
As Mr. J. Jervice climbed to his seat again Glen shouted to him through
the ventilator.
"Stop," he shouted. "I've changed my mind. I don't like being in here
and I believe I'll take my chance with you on the front seat."
Mr. J. Jervice paid no attention.