A BROKEN WINDOW, AND GLORIOUS NEWS
“Gee whiz! Look who’s coming out of the house on the rampage, will
you!” cried Bluff Masters, as the front door was flung open and an
excited man hurried down the steps toward the spot where the four
chums stood breathing hard after their recent exertions.
“It’s old Isaac Chase, the meanest man in Centerville!” exclaimed
Jerry, in dismay.
“But we didn’t break his old window, you know,” expostulated Will
Milton. “Here are lots of witnesses to prove it came from the other
side.”
“Little he’ll care about that,” Bluff told him. “He must have seen us
in the fight, and that settles it. Frank, you talk with him. I’d be
apt to get sassy if he scolded too hard.”
So it usually came about. Upon Frank’s shoulders was laid the burden
of extricating them from numerous mishaps. But Frank rather liked
being made the scapegoat; he certainly faced the angry old miser of
Centerville without showing a sign of alarm.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, you young rapscallions!” cried Isaac
Chase, so excited that he could hardly control his trembling voice. “I
don’t know what this town is coming to, when a pack of boys are
allowed to fight battles right on the public streets, and with stones
in their snowballs at that!”
He held up something he had in his hand, so that every one could see.
It was a stone, there could be no doubt about that, with some of the
snow still adhering to its sides.
Bluff rubbed the side of his head at seeing this, as though wondering
whether the missile that had struck him there had also been loaded in
that way.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Chase, that your window was broken,” said Frank
steadily; “it was an accident, I give you my word about that. I
happened to dodge a ball fired from the other side, and it went
through the glass.”
“What! You here in this rowdy business, Frank Langdon!” exclaimed the
other, as though more than surprised. “I shall have to see your father
and make complaint, if the Chief of Police declines to back me up and
arrest a few of you.”
“As to that, Mr. Chase, I will tell my father all about it as soon as
he comes home from the bank. I know what he will say, though, and it
doesn’t frighten me one bit. My father was a boy himself once, not
like some people who forget that they once used to play themselves.”
“Don’t be impudent to me, boy!” snapped the old miser angrily.
“I don’t mean to be so, Mr. Chase,” Frank continued; “and as for your
window, we will send a glazier around right away to put in a fresh
pane, and pay for it, too. I’m sure that is all you could expect from
us.”
“That’s a measly shame, Frank!” objected Bluff impetuously.
“When it was Andy Lasher who broke the window,” added Jerry, filled
with righteous indignation. “You only ducked, Frank, when you saw it
headed your way. Perhaps Mr. Chase thinks you should have stood up and
got that snowball with the stone in its heart smashed in your eye. It
isn’t fair for you to pay the bill. Let him go after Andy.”
“No, I prefer settling the account myself, and not having any trouble
about it,” Frank told his objecting chums. “Besides, we’ve had enough
fun out of the business to stand a little expense like that. The
innocent often have to suffer for the guilty.”
Some of the bystanders at this point tried to convince Mr. Chase that
Frank was entirely innocent of the whole transaction; but the miser,
acting on the principle that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush,” declined to let the generous offer Frank had made slip from his
grasp.
“Someone’s got to pay for my broken window,” he insisted stubbornly,
“and these boys admit they were connected with the rowdy crew that
made themselves a disgrace to the town in front of my door. I shall
expect him to fulfill his offer, which you heard him make, Mr. Jenkins
and Mr. Mole. The sooner that window pane is replaced the better I
shall be pleased. That’s enough.”
With that he turned his back upon the group and hurried to reenter his
house, as though fearful lest some of the spectators might endeavor to
shame him out of accepting pay from an innocent party.
Frank and his three comrades stood talking with some of those who had
gathered when the crash of broken glass, followed by angry words in
the high-pitched voice of the miser, drew attention to the scene of
action.
“Come, let’s be moving along, fellows,” Bluff finally remarked. It
galled him to think they had been made the scapegoats by Andy Lasher
and his set, though he knew only too well that once Frank’s mind was
made up to pay for the broken window nothing could change him.
True to his promise, Frank first of all visited the hardware store,
and engaged the owner to send a man around at once to the home of the
miser, so as to replace a twelve-by-twenty pane of glass.
“I expect to have a good many orders like that, Frank, before the day
is over,” remarked the dealer, laughingly. “They always come with the
first snow, for you boys must have your fling. A ball went wide of the
mark, did it, and picked out the window of Miser Chase’s house to
smash?”
“But the trouble is, none of us threw it!” burst out Jerry, determined
that the true facts should be known at any rate, even if they did have
to foot the bill. “Andy Lasher hid a stone in his last ball, and
expected to do Frank damage, for he shied it straight at his head; but
Frank dodged, and bang went the glass!”
“Andy and his cowardly bunch pulled out like fun,” Bluff hastened to
add; “and so we had to stand for it. But then Frank says we were in
the crowd that was fighting, and it wasn’t fair that Mr. Chase, who
was an innocent party, should suffer from our fun. So I reckon we’ll
have to put our hands in our pockets and pay your bill, Mr. Benchley.”
The hardware man nodded his head. There was a twinkle in his eye as he
observed Frank Langdon. He knew the sort of reputation Frank had in
Centerville, although the latter had not been a resident there much
more than three years, having come from away off in Maine at the time
his father took the local bank over.
“Believe me, I’ll let you boys off as lightly as I can, and not lose
by it,” was what he told them. “I like the manly way you stand up and
take hard knocks. If I had a boy, I’d want him to be just your style,
Frank.”
As the four chums went away, Jerry chuckled.
“That was as neat a compliment as you ever had paid you, Frank, do you
know it?” he asked the other.
Frank smiled, but he did not look displeased.
“I’m glad Mr. Benchley has such a good opinion of the outdoor chums,”
he remarked, “for he meant every one of you, as well as me, when he
said that. We try to do the right thing most times; and yet there
never were four boys more fond of having a jolly time than this
bunch.”
“That’s so,” Bluff declared sturdily, “and we’ve had lots of dandy
vacations in the past, too. What’s bothering me is where we ought to
go to spend this unexpected time that’s been given to us through the
fire at the college.”
“We’ll figure all that out in a day or so, never fear,” Will observed.
“Yes,” added Jerry, “leave it to Frank, and he’ll arrange the details.
Chances are we’ll be dropping in to see how old Jesse Wilcox is
getting on with his muskrat trapping. I think I’d enjoy another turn
up there in the woods.”
“One thing sure,” said Frank, “we must arrange to go away
_somewhere_, and do a little hunting again. Just the thought of
it gives me a warm feeling around my heart.”
“Same here,” Bluff told him cheerfully; “I never feel happier than
when I smell the woods and get on the trail of game. That glorious
spell we had out on Mr. Mabie’s ranch among the Rockies has haunted me
ever since.”
They talked it over as they sauntered in the direction of their homes.
It happened that Will Milton’s house was the first they came to.
“I saw the postman come out of our gate,” Will commented. “I wonder if
he brought Uncle Felix the letter he’s been expecting for some days.
You see, he’s got a bad attack of rheumatism; yet he says he must try
to get away Down East on some very important business. Between you and
me, he never will be able to do it for days or weeks, he’s that
doubled up.”
“Run in, if you feel like it, Will,” Frank told him. “We’ll wait out
here for you.”
“Yes,” added Jerry, as if it might be an afterthought, “and while
you’re about it, Will, just mention to Uncle Felix that there are four
husky boys around, with considerable time to burn just now, and if he
wants anybody to take that trip for him we might be coaxed into doing
it, if he’d stand for expenses.”
At that all of them laughed, as though they considered it a joke. Will
left them shying a few snowballs at a tin can Bluff had set on a
fence-post.
“If we’re going to get in many affairs like the one we just had with
Andy Lasher and his crowd,” the latter remarked, “it stands to reason
we want to tune up some in our heaving. My baseball arm is out of
practice, and I’m ashamed to say that three out of four balls I fired
missed their mark.”
“Oh, well, I noticed a lot of dodging being done,” commented Frank;
“and only for that all of us might have made more bull’s-eyes.”
“Chances are that Andy will have a circle around _his_ left eye
after that smash he got,” observed Jerry. “A hard snowball can sting
like fun when it catches you there.”
“Yes, look at my right cheek, if you want to prove that,” Bluff
advised them. “I got caught there, and it keeps on burning like a hot
iron. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a piece of coal or a stone
in that ball. They must have fixed up a lot of ammunition that way
before they tackled us.”
“Seems to me Will’s a long time coming out again,” complained Jerry.
“He’s always so much taken up with that photography of his that any
old time he’s liable to remember something and go to work at it,
forgetting all about his chums, who may be kicking their heels in the
back yard waiting for him.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’s quite that forgetful!” laughed Frank. “You
know he said Uncle Felix, who loaned us his houseboat to make that
trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans, was expecting some important
mail to-day. Perhaps he’s held Will up to tell him about something.
You know Uncle Felix thinks heaps of our chum; yes, and of all the
rest of us in the bargain.”
“There he comes!” exclaimed Bluff.
“And, say, he seems to be in a terrible hurry,” added Jerry, beginning
to show a touch of excitement himself. “Look at him waving his hat
over his head? And do you see how he’s grinning from ear to ear? Now
what d’ye reckon can have happened?”
“Oh, Uncle Felix, don’t I love you!” muttered Bluff, as if a sudden
brilliant idea had come into his mind.
“What’s Uncle Felix got to do with it?” demanded Jerry.
“Hold your horses a minute, and listen to what Will’s going to give
us,” was all the other would say; for, to tell the truth, he himself
had not been able to more than dimly suspect what was coming.
Will came hurrying up, and when he spoke his words gave them a thrill.
“What d’ye think, fellows,” he exclaimed joyously; “we’re on the
highroad to another glorious trip like some of the ones we’ve enjoyed
in the past!”
“Is it Uncle Felix?” gasped Jerry.
“Yes,” came the quick response; “he wants all four of us to go up to a
logging camp in Maine and do that important business for him!”