TROUBLE AGAIN
However, they were allowed to go with Ralph to the movies the next
Saturday. Ralph himself explained to Daddy Morrison that he had
promised to take them and then found he had a previous engagement. He
thought, and Daddy Morrison did, too, that having to stay in the yard
for a whole week was punishment enough even if one exception was
permitted.
So Brother and Sister went down to the "big" theatre with Ralph the
next Saturday afternoon, and then they had to stay in their yard all
day Sunday and all day Monday, and after that they might again go where
they pleased.
"Let's go see if Norman Crane's aunt sent him a birthday present,"
suggested Sister the first morning they were free to leave the yard.
Norman Crane was a little friend who lived several blocks away, and
whose aunt in New York City sent him wonderful presents at Christmas
time and on his birthday. He had had a party a few days before, and of
course Brother and Sister could not go--all because they would go to
those unlucky movies!
Brother was willing to stop at Norman's house, but when they reached
there they found Norman had gone to the city with his mother for a
day's shopping.
"I smell tar," declared Brother, as they came down the steps and turned
into the street where Miss Putnam lived in the haunted house--only it
wasn't called that any longer. "Oh, look, Betty, they're mending
something."
There was a little group of children about a big pot of boiling tar and
workmen were mending the roofs of three or four houses that were built
exactly alike and were owned by the same man. These houses were always
repaired and painted at the same time every year.
Nearest to the boiling pot--indeed, with his red head almost in the hot
steam--was the little boy Brother and Sister had noticed walking on
Miss Putnam's picket fence. A puddle of tar had splashed over on the
ground and the red-headed boy was stirring it with a stick held between
his bare toes.
"Now don't hang around here all day," said one of the workmen, kindly
enough. "Run away before you get burned. Hey, there, Red! Do you want
to blister your foot?"
The red-haired lad grinned mischievously.
"I'd hate to spoil my shoes," he jeered, "but you watch and I'll kick
over your old pot! I can, just as easy."
The other children drew nearer, half-believing the boy would tip over
the pot of boiling tar.
"Here," said another and younger workman, "if we give each of you a
little on a stick will you promise to go off and leave us in peace?"
There was an eager chorus of promises, and the good-natured young
roofer actually stuck a little ball of the soft tar on each stick
thrust at him and watched the small army of boys and girls march up the
street, smiling.
"That Mickey Gaffney thinks he's smart," said Nellie Yarrow, who had
found Brother and Sister in the crowd, as the red-headed boy dashed
past them, waving his stick of tar wildly and shouting like an Indian.
"Do you know him?" asked Sister. "Doesn't he ever wear shoes?"
"I guess so--I don't know. I don't like him," replied Nellie
indifferently.
"I don't believe he has any shoes, not even for Sunday," Brother said
to himself. "His coat was all torn and his mother sewed his pants up
with another kind of cloth so that it shows. I wonder where 'bouts he
lives?"
He opened his mouth to ask Nellie, when Miss Putnam swooped down to the
fence as they were passing her house.
"Go way!" she called, leaving her weeding to wave a rake at them. "Go
'long with you! Don't you drop any of that messy tar on my sidewalk!"
"What lovely flowers!" whispered Sister as they obediently hurried past.
Indeed, Miss Putnam had made a beautiful garden and lawn of her small
yard, and she did all the work of taking care of it herself.
Sister and Brother carried their tar home with them and left it in the
sand heap. Jimmie had six boys playing in the gymnasium with him and
they all stayed to lunch. Molly and Mother Morrison were used to having
unexpected guests, and no matter how many there were, in some
mysterious manner plenty of good things to eat appeared on the table.
"Can we come out and watch you?" asked Brother when the boys were going
back to the barn.
"We're going swimming," answered Jimmie.
"Can't we go swimming?" inquired Sister hopefully.
"You can NOT!" retorted Jimmie. "Why don't you take a nap,
or--something?"
"Come on out to the barn, Roddy," Sister urged Brother when Jimmie and
his friends had gone whistling on their way to the river.
"Now don't you be meddling with any of those things out there," warned
Molly, clearing the table. "Your brother doesn't like you to touch his
exercises, you know."
Molly called all the apparatus the boys used "exercises."
"We're not going to touch 'em!" declared Sister. "We're only going to
look."
Jimmie seldom snapped his padlock, for lately the children had not
bothered the gymnasium in the barn. They found the door open this
afternoon.
"Bet you can't jump off that!" said Sister, pointing to a home-made
"horse" that Jimmie had ingeniously contrived.
(If you don't know the kind of "horse" they use in a gymnasium, ask
your big brother or sister.)
"Bet I can!" challenged Brother.
They took turns jumping until they were tired, and they went about
poking their little fingers and noses into whatever they could find to
examine. Sister's investigations ended sadly enough, for she succeeded
in pulling down a tray of butterflies that Jimmie was mounting (he had
thought the gymnasium a safe place to keep them out of everyone's way),
and now broken glass and crumbled butterflies were scattered all over
the floor.
"Now you've done it!" cried Brother. "Jimmie will be just as mad!"
They found an old broom and swept the broken glass under one of the
heavy floor pads. Then, very much subdued, they went into the house and
were so quiet for the rest of the afternoon and through supper that
Mother Morrison wondered if they were sick.
They were having dessert when the doorbell rang and Molly went to the
door. She came back in a moment, her eyes round with wonder and looking
rather frightened.
"It's Mr. Dougherty, sir," she said to Daddy Morrison. "He wants to see
you."
Mr. Dougherty was Ridgeway's one and only policeman.