CHUB TAKES A HAND
And as for Chub—
He had had no idea of going over to the _Journal_ office and showing
off. He hadn’t known precisely how else to get away from Joan, and that
had been as good a way as any. Not that he would really have minded
confiding his scheme to her. She was a good sport, and usually as much
fun as a boy. But somehow he felt in his bones that she might object,
and when Joan felt strongly about anything, she could lay down the law
to him and be as bossy as her friend, Amy. He had decided not to give
her the opportunity. After it was all over and he had the picture safely
in his hands, that was time enough to tell her how he had come by it.
It was the old Doughnut Woman who’d given him the idea of getting into
the King home, disguised, and capturing the picture. He had nearly told
Joan his plan, but hesitated, realizing what a “stickler” for honesty
she was.
No, this was something Joan had better not get mixed up with. Girls
couldn’t do things like this; things like masquerading and snatching
things off people’s mantels were for men to do. Chub had come to the
_Journal_ office, full of stories he had read about newspaper reporters.
Of course, he supposed things like that didn’t really happen in real
life, though old Cookie was always saying stranger things happened than
were ever read in books. Hadn’t Cookie played the rôle of chore boy in
order to get that story when he was on the _New York Banner_? And the
secret about Dummy and the mysterious mistakes—gosh, now, that’d make a
swell detective story.
He had walked as slowly as possible around the house and at Joan’s front
steps his courage had almost given out. Suppose one of the staff should
see him and recognize him even in this get-up! It was one thing to dress
up like an old colored mammy with face black beyond recognition and to
stand on a half-dim street corner at night for a joke on Joan and Amy.
This was different. It was broad daylight. He began to feel just a
little foolish in the outfit. Besides, the skirt was hot and scratchy.
Perhaps he oughtn’t to go. But—he wanted to for Tim. He adored Joan’s
brother.
He stood at the sidewalk, almost ready to turn back, when he caught
Joan’s eyes upon him. He knew that she suspected he was up to something,
but he did not dream she had really guessed his secret. That decided
him, if she was going to start bossing him, that this was his clew to do
exactly as he pleased. He turned and hurried down the street toward the
North Side. Joan wasn’t going to tell him what he could and could not
do.
Anyway, even if some of the _Journal_ people did see him from the
windows, they would think him only some sort of peddler. He looked a
little like a gypsy, he reflected.
Slowly he made his way along North Market Street. After he had passed
several pedestrians who cast only casual glances in his direction, he
felt better and began to walk more confidently. At one corner, just
before he crossed the bridge, right in front of the Plainfield jail, he
met Amy but she did not know him. He could not stifle a giggle. It was a
silly sounding giggle. Perhaps people would think he was a crazy person.
Amy was hurrying along, with a rolled-up something under her arm that he
guessed was her bathing suit. For all her being a perfect lady, Amy was
a good swimmer, and Chub had to admire her for that. Otherwise, he
thought her a total loss and wondered that Joan tolerated her. Would she
be surprised if she knew who he was? What was she looking so scared
about, anyway? Was she scared of him in this rakish get-up? Then he
recalled that Amy always dreaded to pass the jail. Gosh, she sure was a
simp. Why, he bet Joan would just as soon go right up and interview one
of the jailbirds. Joan was a good sport.
How different everything looked when you were pretending to be some one
else. It was almost as though he were walking down a strange street in a
strange city.
Over the bridge, the residential part of Market Street began. Several
more blocks, then around a corner and there on Maple Street was the King
home, a big yellow house with a wide porch across the front, set up on a
terrace. The street was shady and deserted. Except for Amy, he had not
met any one he knew. It hadn’t been so bad, and soon he would have the
picture in his hands. Wouldn’t Joan be surprised, and Tim—just think how
pleased he’d be to have the office boy risk everything for him like
this.
He had his plan all mapped out. He’d go to the front door, and boldly
ask whether doughnuts were wanted. It would probably be answered by a
maid and when she went to ask Mrs. King about the doughnuts, Chub would
seize the picture. If she bought the doughnuts right away, why, Chub’d
sell her the solitary bagful, with the short dozen in it that was in his
basket, and would manage some way to get into the house.
Up the steps and across the porch. Masquerading was fun, after you got
used to it. But the long skirt was swelteringly hot. The panama hat was
tight and hurt him where the bows of the spectacles pressed into his
head.
No one answered his ring right away, so Chub peeped through the door. It
opened into the living room, which looked like a furniture ad. Just
across the room was a red brick fireplace. Chub pressed his face closer
till the spectacles clinked against the glass. There was a picture of a
girl on the fireplace. Just as Miss Betty had said. He had been rather
anxious for fear she had been joking. The _Journal_ folks did joke so
much you never could tell when they weren’t stringing you.
He waited and then pressed the bell again—hard. Perhaps it didn’t ring
unless you pressed it very hard.
Some one came across the room and the door was opened suddenly. It was a
maid, big and fat and as black as the ink he used to put on the
advertising roller. She almost filled the doorway. It would be hard to
pass her.
“D-do you want any doughnuts?” Chub’s chin quivered now when he began to
speak, in spite of himself.
The colored woman eyed him, and took in every detail from the glasses
down to the sport hose and oxfords. “What you mean, ring ma do’bell like
dat?”
“Why—I thought maybe it was broken,” Chub explained.
“Hit will be broken, if you keep on ringing hit like dat,” she snapped.
“What’s the idea of ringing hit dat way?”
Chub remembered his character. “Do you want some doughnuts? Nice, fresh
doughnuts, only thirty cents a dozen.”
“No, we don’t.” The door began to shut.
“I use the best of everything in them,” Chub persisted, recalling the
Doughnut Woman’s chatter. “You can feed them to the baby.”
“Hain’t got no baby,” was the answer. “I wouldn’t feed ’em to no dog.”
Somehow, she reminded Chub so much of himself, as he had looked and
acted April Fool’s Day, that he almost laughed. The door began again to
close.
Chub, frantic that his plan was failing when he was this near his goal,
put one sturdy oxford in the door and held it open. He couldn’t give up,
now. “Just go ask the lady of the house if she’d like some nice, fresh
doughnuts, my good woman.” He had heard that phrase, “my good woman,” on
the stage, and thought it would impress the maid.
He had to get that picture!
“Ma name’s Sarah, and not ‘my good woman’ like dat. I ain’t aiming to
budge. I done told you, we don’t want none of your doughnuts.” She began
mumbling under her breath again.
What should he do? Ideas, usually so ready for him in an emergency,
seemed to have left him stranded, now. Then he had a thought. “But
you’re new here, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Right new,” Sarah admitted. “But what’s dat to you?”
“Well, Mrs. King’s been getting doughnuts for years and years,” Chub
rattled on, with a sick smile. “I’m just sure she wants them. Just ask
her, will you?”
Sarah was unconvinced, but she edged a bit, wheeled around in the
doorway and waddled toward the stairs at the end of the room.
Chub dashed to the fireplace, and grabbed the picture. There was only
one there. He was out of the house like a flash, his tweed skirt
flapping against his legs, the bag of doughnuts rattling around in the
basket.
“Tell Mrs. King I had to have this, but I’ll send it back all right,” he
called over his shoulder in panting gasps, as he hurried down the steps
to the sidewalk.
Fat Sarah loomed in the doorway, calling wild words. Now she was
starting down the steps after Chub, wheezing and groaning and waving her
pink-palmed black hands.
She was coming down the sidewalk! “Stop, thief! Robber! Help! Murder!”
Chub was glad that the street was deserted and that he was a good
runner. He picked up the tweed skirt and went faster.
Black Sarah followed to the corner, but Chub was around it and down an
alley by that time. He could outrun Sarah, even in a gunny sack, he was
sure. Clutching the picture in one hand, the basket bouncing on his
other arm, he trotted down the alleys parallel to Market Street.
Suddenly his skirt seemed to be grabbing him about the ankles, getting
longer and longer. He transferred the picture to his other hand, and
felt at the back of the skirt. The pin was gone, and the skirt was
coming off. Chub let it fall to the ground, stepping out of it as he
ran, kicking it ahead with one foot and catching it up in his arms,
without slacking his speed. He probably looked crazier than ever now,
with his short knickers and that red blouse. Just before the last alley
brought him to the bridge, where he would have to cross into
Plainfield’s business section, he decided to discard his disguise right
there. He peeled off the blouse, flipped off the glasses, and pulled off
the hat. Then he squeezed everything into the basket. He put the picture
inside, too, for safekeeping.
Chub was so elated over his success that he felt like racing when he
came out on the street again. It was so good to be free of those
cumbersome old clothes, too. At the bridge, he passed two men talking
together.
“They’re saying up the street that the King home has just been robbed,”
one of them said.
Chub shuddered as he hurried on. He supposed he was a thief. But he was
merely borrowing the picture for the paper. He would have it back on the
King fireplace, safe and sound, to-morrow. He’d take it back himself.
No, maybe Sarah would recognize him even without his disguise and would
wallop him with her mighty black arm. She was capable of anything. He’d
send it back by a regular messenger.
“Yoo-whoo! Chub, wait!” He heard a call and looked back over his
shoulder. Joan was coming toward him.
* * * * *
Hidden behind a tree, Joan had watched Chub’s encounter with Sarah,
though she could not hear their conversation. When he had disappeared
down an alley, she had started on back home, so she was surprised to see
him hurrying along ahead of her when she reached the bridge. She knew he
had the picture, for she had seen it in his hand when he emerged down
the King steps, tripping over the tweed skirt. But he refused to show it
to her until they reached her own yard, when he transferred the basket
and its contents to her.
Tim was at the editor’s desk when she and Chub came into the office.
“Think we’re getting out a weekly?” the editor was bawling. “Is this all
the copy you can turn in?”
“I would have had more,” Tim defended himself. “But I spent most of the
day hunting for the King girl’s picture.”
“Where is it?”
“I haven’t it,” Tim answered and added, “yet.”
Joan wished they could go over now, but she knew Tim would be provoked
if Editor Nixon found out they had hunted for the picture. They could do
nothing but stand there in the doorway and listen.
“It’s got to be in the hands of the engraver by ten in the morning,” the
editor said. “So get a wiggle on, Martin.”
They reached Tim’s desk before he did, and held out the picture.
“Oh, fine!” Tim did not even say thank you, but the grateful look on his
face repaid them for all their trouble. He went back to the editor’s
desk with the picture.
“Good for you, Martin!” shouted the editor. “I didn’t believe anybody
could get that picture!” He looked at it. “Yes, that’s the girl, all
right. Looks a bit like Jacqueline Joyce, the screen star, doesn’t it,
Betty?”
The society editor looked at it. “A little,” she agreed. “Seems to me
I’ve heard people say that.”
The _Star_ didn’t have the picture, after all. After the _Journal_ was
out, next afternoon, Joan started over to meet Miss Betty, who was going
to treat her at the tea room for helping her yesterday morning. The
_Journal_ staff often went there between meals, and it somehow gave Joan
a deliciously grown-up feeling. Mother, scandalized at the idea, had
said, “There’s toast left from breakfast and plenty of fresh fruit, if
you’re really hungry.” Joan had pointed out, “It isn’t that, Mother. I
just want to eat _out_.”
Besides, she wanted to confide to Miss Betty all about yesterday and to
ask her advice about the best method of returning the picture.
When she entered the front office she found Chub, rather pale beneath
his freckles, laughing away with Gertie, the ad girl.
“Oh, gee, Jo, you’re just about two minutes too late,” he grinned. “You
missed it.”
“What?”
“The grand finale to the King act,” he went on. “Mamma King and Daughter
King—I suppose I should call them the Queen and the Princess—just left
here, with....”
“With the Betrothed Knight,” added Gertie.
“The Kings?” Joan’s mind groped. “Was she provoked about the picture?”
“Well, she was put out,” admitted Chub. “I thought Tim and me’d both
lose our jobs, immediately, if not sooner. But she never got to see Nix,
and everything’s O.K. now. You see, it just happened that the _Journal_
came out with the wrong picture. That was a picture of Jacqueline Joyce
that we—we came across. Mamma King was fit to be tied. But I saved the
day. I told ’em how we wanted to help the cub reporter, and how when an
editor says get it, he doesn’t mean you to come back empty-handed.”
“The wrong picture!” Joan felt a little sick.
“Chub apologized all over the place, ’n’ everything,” put in Gertie,
“but he couldn’t make an impression until _he_ came in—”
“Judge Hal,” Chub explained. “He was just back from Dayton and found out
they were down here. Hadn’t seen the picture, but only laughed about it,
even when I had to admit that I was the ‘queer old character’ who Mrs.
King said hooked it off the mantel. It seems he has a soft spot in his
heart for reporters, ’cause he used to be editor of his college mag.,
and knows how mistakes happen. He was a prince, all right! He said _you_
jumped all over him yesterday and he’d thought over all you’d said, and
decided you were right, and that it was mostly their own fault for not
letting the paper have the picture. Well, somehow or other, _he_
pacified them and took ’em home.”
And they had tried so hard to help Tim. But to get out of it all so
nicely!
“He even got her to promise to give us her latest picture,” he went on.
“He said you were such a spunky kid asking for it, and if no one knew
anything but them, it didn’t need to be mentioned that the wrong picture
was used. They’re both going to pose for Lefty, this afternoon, they
promised.”
Both of them! A special photo with “... by the Staff Photographer”
printed underneath. That would be a real scoop for the _Journal_.
Usually, the society people of Plainfield would smash Lefty’s camera
rather than pose before it.
Gertie was busy now, taking an ad for a customer who’d come in. Chub
whispered above the thump, thump of the stamp he was marking on the ad
sheets, “Well, Jo, there’s another mistake we couldn’t blame on Dummy.
Maybe those others were real ones, too.”
But Joan knew that the story she had typed had been changed.