The poor kid was willing to go with us because I guess he thought we
were a couple of wild adventurers. As soon as he saw we were all right
and believed in pirates and highwaymen and things, he was with us. He
saw we were strong for the SKYHIGH SAM SERIES too, and so he knew it
would be all right to trust us. I told him that he was even greater than
Skyhigh Sam. That wasn’t saying much, but he thought it was.
On the way up and after we got to the car we found out all about the
poor little duffer. He said he had started out from the Boys’ Home up in
Willisville. He said that some people had sent a lot of books there for
the kids, and that was how Skyhigh Sam got into the Boys’ Home.
It’s too bad they didn’t keep him there.
That poor kid sneaked out one night and started off to conquer the world
with fifty cents a lady gave him. He had Skyhigh Sam with him. Then he
bought four packs of cigarettes and a big box of matches. He picked up a
cigar in the street, too.
He walked to Bridgeboro in the night and nobody stopped him. He didn’t
know where he was going, but anyway he was going to invent a submarine.
After that he was going to sell it to the government—that’s what he
told us.
That first night he crawled through a place where one of the boards was
broken under Tony’s Lunch Wagon. He said he was pretty hungry. That’s
just like great inventors. He said there were all toadstools under the
wagon. Maybe if he had been a scout he would have known that the kind
under there were good to eat. Even raw they’re better than nothing. But
anyway he didn’t eat any. And he was good and hungry. He could hear
people above him in the wagon, and he knew they were eating. I guess he
saw it was a hard life starting out to be an inventor.
The next morning he didn’t dare to go out because he was afraid some one
would see him and send him back to the Home. So he stayed there all day.
In the night he heard some good news. He heard that he was worth three
hundred dollars. He heard them talking up in the lunch wagon about a kid
running away from the Home up in Willisville and he heard them say how
three hundred dollars’ reward was offered to any one who brought him
back. I guess the poor kid never knew he was worth so much money. I
guess up to then he thought he wasn’t worth more than about nineteen
cents, wholesale.
He was pretty hungry, but he decided that he’d stay there till he
thought of a good submarine, for then he’d get a thousand dollars, on
account of the government always paying that much to Skyhigh Sam for
inventions. He told us that if he could get the thousand dollars before
anybody found him around there, then he could give that to anybody that
found him and they’d keep still because a thousand dollars is better
than three hundred. Poor little kid, you can laugh, but honest, that’s
just what he told us.
Pretty soon came the terrible moment in his career. I got that out of
the movies—_terrible moment in his career_. Tony moved the lunch wagon
away and the first thing our brave young hero knew there he was right
out in the light of day. By that you can see he was up against the
housing problem, too.
Anyway he showed more sense than Skyhigh Sam ever had. He took off his
funny looking orphan asylum jacket, so nobody would notice him, and
while everybody was laughing and shouting over in the field, on account
of Tony moving over, he picked up a part of a sandwich that somebody had
thrown away, and I guess it tasted pretty good to him.
After that he went over to the station and hid under the platform of the
freight house. He was a greater inventor than Edison because Edison
never even did that. Gee whiz, it’s a wonder he didn’t set the freight
house on fire. All the while he kept watching our car being moved and I
bet he wished he could come out and be with us, poor little kid. Believe
me, we could have used his appetite that afternoon if we had only known.
After the circus was all over and we fellows left the car to go home, he
sneaked over and went into it. He picked up some odds and ends of
sandwiches and things that were left around after the terrible battle. I
hope he got the cheese sandwich that I dropped by accident, because it
was a dandy one—good and thick.
I asked him how he liked the car when he first went inside it and he
said it was like a castle. Believe me, it’s more like an insane asylum
half the time. He said he played it was a submarine and when it began to
get dark he made believe it was going down, down, under the ocean. Gee,
he’s an awful funny kid. Even now he talks that way.
Anyway, then he started smoking cigarettes. I guess he ate them alive.
After a while the submarine came up and there was a big British ship
right near. That was Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop. If he only could have
torpedoed the shop it would have saved a lot of trouble, but he decided
that he’d set fire to it instead. He didn’t exactly decide that he
would, but he did just the same. Actions speak louder than thoughts.
He went over and climbed into the shop through the window, Skyhigh Sam,
cigarettes, matches and all. Underneath the work bench was some nice
cotton waste and he lay down on that and went to sleep. He must have
been there when we were there, but he was dead to the world. I guess
maybe he was dreaming about submarines and things.
He said he didn’t know what time it was when he woke up, but he was
hungry. He said it was all dark all around. He said it smelled like
kerosene. No wonder. Gee, I’ve slept on balsam and moss and all kinds of
things, but I never slept on cotton waste. So then, _g-o-o-d night_, he
struck a match!
And pretty soon after that was when I heard the fire whistle.