DANNY’S RING
Bert knew that he must be very careful and cautious this time. Not only
must he watch out for the open trapdoor, but he must take care that
Danny neither saw nor heard him.
“For if he hears me,” said Bert to himself, “he’ll run out and then
I can’t find why he came in here. Danny’s smart, but I’ve got to be
smarter.”
Moving slowly across the vestibule floor and looking back to see that
his basket of groceries was safe, Bert soon reached a place where he
knew the trapdoor to be.
“It’s closed,” he told himself. “That’s good! No danger now of falling
down. And I hope nobody else comes in here. They might take the things
in my basket, and Nan and the others would go hungry. But I guess I’d
have to go back to the store and get more,” silently chuckled Bert.
Having made sure that the trapdoor, down which he had fallen on his
previous visit to the church, was closed, Bert stood near it for a
while and listened. He could hear Danny moving about “upstairs,” as you
might call it, though really it was in the gallery of the church.
This gallery held the big pipe organ, which made such thunderous music
on Sundays, and in this gallery the choir singers also had their places.
The remainder of the balcony was given over to pews for the
congregation to sit in, when the pews on the main floor of the church
were filled. The boys always liked to sit up in the balcony, for they
seemed off by themselves when they did this. But the ushers and some of
the deacons did not like the boys to go to the gallery, for fear the
lads would “cut up.” And sometimes this very thing happened. And you
may easily guess that Danny Rugg was among the “cut-ups.”
“Maybe that’s the reason he’s going up there now,” thought Bert to
himself. “Maybe he’s getting ready to play some trick in church next
Sunday--he and Sam Todd. He couldn’t be coming up to mend the broken
window. He wouldn’t know how to put in all the different pieces of
colored glass, and, anyhow, he didn’t have any glass with him when he
came in here.”
Bert’s thought that Danny might be preparing for some trick to be
played in church the following Sunday came about because once before,
about a year ago, Danny and Sam had hidden a little dog up in the
gallery one Saturday night. And the following Sunday, when the
minister was preaching, the dog crawled out from beneath a pew, walked
downstairs and up the middle aisle of the church, much to the amusement
of Danny and his cronies.
But the deacons and the minister did not like this, for it disturbed
the congregation, and of course it was a wrong thing for Danny to have
done.
Because of that trick, the boys had been forbidden to go up in the
gallery unless their parents were with them. All this Bert thought of
as he stood in the silent church, trying to find out what it was that
Danny had come in about.
“I’ll follow after him as easy as I can,” said Bert to himself. “Maybe
I can watch him. But I mustn’t let him see me.”
Bert wore his rubber boots. So, for that matter, did Danny Rugg, for
the snow was so deep that boots were needed. But Bert walked more
softly in his boots than did Danny, who tramped around in the balcony
as if he did not care who heard him. Bert went on his tiptoes, and the
rubber soles of his boots made very little noise.
Up the balcony stairs the Bobbsey boy followed the other lad. It was
very still and quiet in the church, and the footsteps of Danny echoed
with a strange, hollow sound. On account of the snow covering the
ground outside there was no noise of rattling wagons or trucks, so the
church was even more quiet than usual.
How different it was from Sundays, when the people were coming in or
going out, when the place was lighted, and when there was organ music
and singing.
“I don’t like church on week days,” thought Bert.
But he had come in for a special purpose, and he was going to carry it
out. Step after step he went up to the gallery floor, making no noise.
He could still hear Danny moving about.
At last Bert reached a place where, in the dim light that came through
the stained-glass window, he could see Danny walking along between the
rows of pews.
“He’s right near the broken window,” whispered Bert to himself. “And
he’s looking on the floor for something. I wonder what it is? He can’t
be looking for the broken bits of stained glass, to put them back--they
were picked up long ago. I wonder what it is he’s looking for?”
Danny was certainly looking for something. He bent over and let his
eyes rove about the floor, right under the window that had been broken.
Closely and carefully Danny searched.
Then, almost as if some one had shouted it at him, there came into
Bert’s mind the thought:
“Danny’s looking for his lost birthday ring! It must have slipped
off his finger in one of the snowballs he threw that day of the
first storm. The gold ring stuck in the snowball, and Danny threw
the snowball at the window! The ball broke the glass and came inside
the balcony here. And Danny must know that! He hasn’t found his ring
anywhere else, and he knows it must have been in that snowball!”
The idea excited Bert and made his heart beat faster.
“When the snowball melted,” thought Bert, still watching Danny eagerly,
“the ring would drop out on the floor and stay there. It’s his ring
that Danny’s searching for!”
Bert grew so excited at this thought that he made a sudden movement.
His foot slipped and banged against a pew.
“What’s that?” cried Danny, jumping up. “Who’s there?”
Bert was quick enough to dodge down behind one of the pews, so that
when Danny looked up he saw no one.
But though Danny saw no one, he was frightened because of the noise,
and, not stopping any longer to search for his lost ring, or whatever
it was he was looking for, he darted out of the balcony and down the
stairs, with many a clatter of his rubber boots.
“Say, he’s running like a scared rabbit!” chuckled Bert to himself. “I
wish I dared yell at him, so he’d know who it is that’s looking at him.
But I guess I’d better not. I want to see if his ring is here.”
Pausing not to look back, Danny ran down to the main floor and out of
the side door.
“I hope he doesn’t take my basket of groceries,” thought Bert. But he
remembered he had set it over in a dark corner, where it would not
be likely to be seen. And, as a matter of fact, Danny Rugg was so
frightened that he thought of nothing but taking his own basket of food
and hurrying out of the church.
Bert heard the door slam after the other boy, and then the Bobbsey lad
began to wonder what was the best thing to do.
“If Danny’s ring is there and I find it, I can prove that he threw
the snowball that broke the window,” said Bert to himself. “But even
if I pick up the ring on the balcony floor, Danny might say I found
it somewhere else and put it there. I ought to have some one with me
when I find it--if I do--and whoever’s with me can say I didn’t put it
there. I’ve got to get some one to help me.”
Bert remembered that Mr. Henry Ander, one of the church deacons, a good
and kindly man who was well acquainted with the Bobbsey family, lived
close to the church.
“I’ll go and get Mr. Ander before I look for the ring,” decided Bert.
He started down the balcony stairs, though he was more than anxious to
look for the lost ring, for the finding of that would clear Bert’s name
from the suspicion of having broken the window. But knowing that the
plan he had made was best, Bert kept on.
As he was crossing the dim vestibule on his way to the side door, Bert
heard some one coming in.
“I hope that isn’t Danny coming back!” Bert whispered.
It was not. It was Mr. Shull.
“Well, Bert, what in the world are you doing here?” asked the sexton,
in surprise. “Are you trying to fall down the trapdoor again?”
“No, sir,” answered the boy.
“You couldn’t, very well, anyhow,” went on the janitor. “For the door
is closed.”
“I didn’t come in here for that,” said Bert. “Listen, Mr. Shull. Do you
remember when the church window was broken?”
“I should say I do remember it, Bert! They said you did it, but I have
my doubts of that.”
“I didn’t do it,” said Bert. “But I know who did. It was Danny Rugg,
and I can prove it if I can find his gold ring on the floor. It was in
the snowball he threw, and Danny was in here just now, trying to find
his ring.”
Bert told all that had happened.
“I want to get Mr. Ander,” went on the Bobbsey boy. “If he and you see
me find the ring, you’ll know I didn’t throw that snowball.”
“It’s a good idea, Bert!” exclaimed the sexton. “Go get the deacon, and
we’ll look for the ring together--all three of us.”
Mr. Ander was surprised a few minutes later when Bert, much excited,
poured out the story of the snowball, the broken window, and the lost
ring.
“All right, Bert,” he said at length. “I’ll go with you and look for
the ring. And if we find it, I’ll take it and give it to Mr. Rugg with
Danny there looking on. And I’ll take you with me. We’ll clear you of
the charge of having broken the window.”
A little later the eager, excited boy and the two men, almost as eager
as Bert himself, were looking over the floor beneath the broken window.
The sexton got his electric flashlight and the sharp beams of this
glinted over the floor.
“Look! I see something glittering like gold!” cried Bert, pointing to a
crack under a pew. “See if that’s the ring!”
The sexton focused his light on the object. Mr. Ander took out his
knife, and with the blade of it pried the shining object out of the
crack.
“It’s a gold ring, all right,” he said, holding it up to the light.
“See if it has any initials on it,” suggested Bert.
“Hold the light closer, Mr. Shull,” said the deacon. When this had been
done he slowly said: “It’s got the letters D. R. on it--this ring has.”
“Then it’s Danny Rugg’s ring!” cried Bert. “It was in the snowball that
broke the window. That’s what he was up here looking for! Oh, I’m so
glad we’ve found it!”