I went to bed early that night because I was good and tired. I don’t
know how long I had been asleep, but all of a sudden I was wide awake
listening to the fire whistle. I guess it must have been the fire
whistle that awakened me. I heard four blasts, because I counted them.
That would mean the fire was ’way down South Bridgeboro. Then it started
again, and I realized that I had only heard the end of it. I counted all
the blasts this time. There were two, then seven. I said to myself,
“That’s somewhere near the station.” I could hear the engine siren a
long way off. Then I went to sleep again.
The next day was Sunday, and as long as I live I will never forget it.
When I went down to breakfast there were my mother, father and sister
Marjorie at the table. The sun was shining right through the bay window,
and that made it seem like Sunday, because on Sundays we don’t have
breakfast till about the time the sun gets around there. It made it seem
like Sunday, too, because my father had his smoking jacket on.
As soon as I sat down my father said, kind of offhand, “Did you hear the
fire whistle last night, Roy?”
“Sure,” I said; “I think it was near the station.”
He said, “You didn’t get up and go to it, eh?” He said that because I
always go to fires. I stayed up all night when the High School burned
down.
I said, “Have a heart. I was dead to the world all night. We had some
job getting our car moved.”
My mother said, “Why, of course.”
Then my father said, kind of funny like, he said, “You got it moved all
right, eh?”
“You bet we did,” I said.
“And what’s the next move?” he asked me, very nice and pleasant.
“To get it across Willow Place to the Sneezenbunker land,” I told him.
“I guess maybe we can do that next Saturday.”
I don’t know, but something in the way he looked made me feel awful
funny. Then he pushed back his chair and looked straight at me and said,
“Roy, Mr. Slausen’s repair shop was burned to the ground last night. Did
you boys have any altercation with Mr. Slausen yesterday?”
Gee, you could have knocked me down with a feather. “Burned to the
ground?” I just stammered out.
He said, “Yes; nothing left of it.” He looked awful funny.
My sister said, “I’m glad of it; he’s an old grizzly bear.”
“You had some words with him?” my father asked me.
“I guess there’s nobody in town who hasn’t had words with him,” my
sister said.
“Just let me talk to Roy,” my father told her.
I said, “We were jollying him along because he was mad on account of our
car being in the field. It wasn’t near his building, that’s one sure
thing.”
“And you boys were planning to get the car past his building? You asked
him if you could take some boards down?”
“Yes, we did,” I said; “and he said _no_.”
“Of course,” said my sister; “what did you expect him to say?”
“And you told him you’d think up some other way?” my father asked me.
Then I began to see what he was driving at I said, “If he thinks we had
anything to do with his old shanty burning down, let him think so. Gee
whiz, it wouldn’t make a decent bonfire. We got the car over to the
field all right, and we’ll get it the rest of the way. I told him we’d
think of a way, and we will.”
My father said, “Yes, but I don’t see what sort of plan you could make
to get a railroad car through a building.”
I said, “Do you think I had anything to do with that old place burning
down?”
He said, “No, of course I don’t. Such a thought is absurd. That is not
the way of scouts.”
“You said it,” I told him.
Then he said, “Westy’s father called me up this morning, Roy, and told
me about this fire. He said that Mr. Slausen had just called on him with
another man who claimed to have seen you and Westy climbing out through
a side window of the garage after dark last night.”
“What did Westy say?” I asked my father.
“Westy wasn’t home this morning,” my father said; “and that’s why his
father called me up. He seemed to be very much concerned, but I told
him, of course, that it was all nonsense, that you hadn’t done any such
thing. I told him that if you had climbed out through a window you could
doubtless explain it, but that he needn’t worry, because you hadn’t done
any such thing. I’m afraid Mr. Slausen has lost his sense of reason——”
“He never had any,” my sister said.
“I should think not,” my mother put in, “Climbing out through the side
window after the place had been closed! Who ever heard of such nonsense?
The man is crazy.”
I just sat there and I didn’t say a word.
My father said, “Well, I believe Mr. Slausen is coming up here with this
stranger this morning. I understand he has appealed to the police.”
“Why doesn’t he call out the army?” my sister wanted to know.
I said, “You mean I have to be arrested?” My father just laughed and
said, “Why, certainly not. I’m very glad they’re coming——”
“I hope Duke bites them,” Marjorie said. Duke is our Airedale.
“I don’t see that that would do any good,” my father said, kind of
smiling. “All Roy will have to do is to deny this, and I’ll do the rest.
I just want you to say, Roy, that you didn’t climb out of any window of
Mr. Slausen’s shop after dark or at any other time. I want you to face
these gentlemen——”
“They’re not gentlemen,” my sister said; “they’re hyenas!”
My father just went on and said, “I want you to tell Mr. Slausen and
anybody else who comes here with him that you didn’t do that and that
you weren’t near his place. There’s nothing to be afraid of if you tell
the truth.”
My sister said, “I hope you’re not going to let those men come in the
parlor. Ugh!”
I just sat there, kind of saying _parlor, parlor, parlor_ to myself. I
didn’t know _what_ to say. My father looked at me kind of funny.
Then I said, “I don’t see what it’s got to do with us, anyway, because
the fire didn’t happen till two or three hours after——”
Then I stopped.
“After what, Roy?” my father said.
“After the time he said we were in there,” I kind of blurted out.
My father said, “That hasn’t anything to do with it. The point is that
you weren’t there at all. There’s the beginning and the end of it. This
man thinks you boys did the only thing you could do to get his old shop
out of the way. He doesn’t know anything about scouts. There was a
motive. That’s enough for him. And he thinks a couple of you sneaked
into his place after dark and set fire to it. Now you didn’t, did you?”
“No, we didn’t,” I said, good and loud.
“Well, then,” my father said, “that’s all there is to it.”