LAURIE TO THE RESCUE
Laurie’s rush to get back to school did not prevent him from pausing
when, having turned the corner into Summit Street and proceeded
half-way along the block, he caught sight of Bob Starling in the back
garden of the Coventry place. The Coventry place, which consisted of a
big square house set at the Walnut Street end of a broad and deep plot
of land facing the school property, had been rented by Bob’s father,
who was the engineer in charge of the big new railroad bridge in course
of construction near Orstead. Bob was entered at Hillman’s School as a
day-student. He was sixteen years old, a slim but well built chap with
a very attractive countenance. Bob’s mission in life, as he believed,
was to play a great deal of tennis and play it better than any one
else. In that mission he very nearly succeeded. It was tennis that was
accountable for his presence just now in the back yard, as Laurie well
knew.
“How soon are you going to start work?” called Laurie.
“Hello, Nod! Come on in!”
“Can’t. Nearly six. What are you doing?”
“Just looking around,” replied Bob, drawing near. “I’ve got the stakes
all set. Gosh, if the ground would dry up so they could begin to dig
I’d have the old court ready in a week.”
“I guess so.” Laurie nodded. “Well, a few more days like this will do
the trick. Say, remember how we planned to make a pergola out of that
old lumber that came out of the arbor you pulled down?”
“Yes, and we’ll do it as soon as the court’s made. Dad’s got me twenty
loads of the finest cinders you ever saw.”
“Good work! Reckon you’ll be giving tennis teas in another month, Bob.”
“Before that if the weather behaves. Been over to the Widow’s?” Bob
grinned faintly.
“Yes.” Laurie’s reply sounded a trifle defiant.
“How’s Polly? Haven’t seen her for days.”
“Oh, she’s holding up bravely under your neglect,” answered Laurie.
Then, having avoided Bob’s playful punch, he added, “she’s sort of
broke up, though, over Miss Comfort.”
“Who? Oh, the old dame that makes cake. Yes, my aunt was saying
something about her at dinner yesterday. They’re putting her out of her
house or something, aren’t they?”
Laurie nodded. “It’s a blamed shame, too,” he said indignantly. “Why,
say, Bob, she’s over seventy! And one of the nicest old ladies in
town, too. Always cheerful and happy and――and sunny, you know. One of
the――er――well, a fine character, Bob.”
“Gosh, I didn’t know you were so well acquainted with her, Nod!”
“Well, I don’t know her so very well personally,” replied Laurie, “but
Polly says――”
“Oh!” chuckled Bob.
Laurie scowled. “I don’t see anything very funny in it,” he protested.
“A perfectly corking old lady like Miss Comfort having to go to the
poor-farm! At her age! Almost eighty!”
“Hold on! She was seventy a minute ago! Who says she’s going to the
poor-farm?”
“Pol――everybody! I call it a rotten shame!”
“Why, yes, so do I,” agreed Bob, “but I don’t see why you are so het up
about it.”
“You don’t, eh? Well, if she was _your_ mother――”
“She couldn’t be, Nod; she isn’t married. And I don’t believe she’s
yours, either, no matter what you say.”
“I didn’t say she was,” replied Laurie a trifle irritably. “I only
said――I was just trying to make you see―― Gee, you haven’t any heart at
all!”
“Oh, don’t be an ass,” laughed Bob. “I haven’t said anything against
the poor old soul. I’m mighty sorry for her, just as sorry as you are,
but I can’t do anything about it, can I?”
“No, but you needn’t laugh at her!”
“I wasn’t laughing at her, you nut! I――”
“Besides,” continued Laurie, “if every one took your attitude
about――about things, saying, ‘I can’t help it, can I?’ I’d like to know
what sort of a world this would be.”
“Well, hang it, I can’t!” said Bob emphatically, getting a trifle riled
at his friend’s unreasonableness. “Neither can you. So why stand there
and――”
“How do you know I can’t?” demanded Laurie with much hauteur. “I
haven’t said I couldn’t. In fact, I――I’m going to!”
“You are?” exclaimed Bob incredulously. “How, Nod?”
The note of respect in Bob’s voice dispelled Laurie’s annoyance
perceptibly. “I don’t know――yet,” he answered. But there was something
in his voice, or maybe in the emphasis put on the final word, or
possibly in his manner, that caused Bob to think that he did know. “Oh,
come on and tell me, Nod,” he asked. “Let me in on it. Maybe I can
help, eh? Gosh, I’ll say it’s fierce to use a fine old lady like that!
Are you going to get up a subscription or a――I know! A benefit, eh?”
Laurie shook his head, glancing at his watch as he did so. “I can’t
tell you anything about it――yet,” he replied. “But maybe――as soon as I
get the details settled――I’ve got to do a lot of thinking, you know,
Bob.”
“Sure! Well, listen, let me in on it, will you? I’d love to do
something, you know. I always thought Miss Comfort was a mighty fine
old girl――I mean lady, Nod!”
“She is,” said Laurie almost reverentially.
“Sure,” agreed Bob solemnly.
“Well, I’ll see you to-morrow. Keep it to yourself, though. I don’t
want my plans all spoiled by――by a lot of silly talk.”
“I’ll say you don’t! Good night, Nod.”
When he had reached the corner it began to dawn on Laurie that, as Elk
had told him yesterday, he talked too much! “Got myself into a nice
mess,” he thought ruefully. “Suppose I’ve got to go ahead and bluff it
out with Bob now. Wonder what got into me. No――no discretion, that’s my
trouble. I ain’t so well in my circumspection, I guess. Better see a
doctor about it! Oh, well――”
The next morning Laurie and Kewpie took advantage of an empty period
soon after breakfast and again sought the south side of the gymnasium
building. To-day Kewpie sought to demonstrate an out-shoot. He was
not very successful, although Laurie had to acknowledge that now and
then the ball did deviate slightly from the straight line. Sometimes
it deviated to such purpose that he couldn’t reach it at all, but
Kewpie made no claims at such times. He said the ball slipped. In the
end, Kewpie went back to his famous drop and managed to elicit faint
applause from Laurie.
Laurie couldn’t get his heart into the business this morning. Despite
his efforts to forget it, that idiotic boast to Bob Starling kept
returning to his mind to bother him. Either he must confess to Bob that
he hadn’t meant a word of what he had said or he must think up some
scheme of, at least, pretending to seek aid for Miss Comfort. He liked
Bob a whole lot and he valued Bob’s opinion of him, and he hated to
confess that he had just let his tongue run away with him. On the other
hand, there wasn’t a thing he could do that would be of any practical
help to Miss Comfort. He would just have to bluff, he concluded: make
believe that he was doing a lot of heavy thinking and finally just let
the thing peter out. Quite unjustly Laurie experienced a feeling of
mild distaste for Miss Comfort.
In the middle of the forenoon, Bob, meeting him in the corridor, would
have stopped him, but Laurie pushed by with a great display of haste,
briefly replying in the negative to Bob’s mysteriously whispered
inquiry: “Anything new, Nod?” After that, not having yet decided on
any sort of a scheme to present to the other, Laurie avoided Bob as
though the latter had measles.
At practice in the baseball cage he gave so much thought to the matter
of saving his face with Bob that he made very poor work of catching and
batting. He was, in fact, so detached from what was going on that even
Elk Thurston’s gibes fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mulford, the coach, got
after him many times that afternoon.
When practice was over Laurie fairly dawdled about the showers and
dressing-room, and it was nearly half-past five when he finally set
out for the Widow Deane’s, making his way there by a roundabout route
that took him nowhere in sight of the Coventry place. He expected to
find Ned there before him, but the little shop was deserted save for a
small child buying penny candy and Mrs. Deane, who was waiting on the
customer. Polly, said Mrs. Deane, had gone to Mae Ferrand’s. Laurie
disconsolately ordered a root-beer and, overcoming an inclination to
sit on the counter, listened to Mrs. Deane’s unexciting budget of news.
He was not very attentive, although Mrs. Deane never suspected the
fact, and she might have shown some surprise when he broke into her
account of Polly’s concern over Antoinette, the rabbit who lived in a
box in the back yard, because Antoinette hadn’t been eating well for
several days, by asking suddenly:
“Mrs. Deane, is it straight about Miss Comfort having to go to the
poor-farm?”
“Oh, dear, I’m afraid so.” Mrs. Deane sighed. “Isn’t it a pity? I――we
did want to take her in here with us, Laurie, but I suppose we simply
couldn’t do it.”
“Well, look; what about this brother of hers?”
“Brother? Why, she hasn’t any――”
“Eh! Oh, brother-in-law, I meant; the fellow who married her sister out
in Ohio.”
“Iowa,” Mrs. Deane corrected. “Why, I just don’t know. When she got
word from the lawyers that she must vacate the house she wrote to him,
but she says he never took any notice of her letter.”
“Didn’t she write again? Maybe he didn’t get it.”
“Why, no, she didn’t. She’s sort of――well, I suppose you might say
proud, but I’d almost call it touchy. She just wouldn’t write another
letter, although I advised her to.”
“Well, what’s he want the house for?” asked Laurie, frowning. “Is he
coming here to live in it, or what?”
Mrs. Deane shook her head. “I don’t know, but I did hear that Mr.
Sparks had told some one that they were going to tear it down and put
up a two-family house there.”
“He’s the banker, isn’t he? Well, I think it’s mighty funny that this
brother-in-law chap doesn’t write to her. She ought to get after him
again. Or some one ought to do it for her, if she won’t. It doesn’t
seem to me, Mrs. Deane, that any man would want to turn his own
sister-in-law into the poor-house. Maybe he doesn’t really know how
she’s fixed.”
“Well, maybe so, Laurie. I’m sure I’d like to think so. But letters
don’t often go astray, and I’m afraid this Mr. Goupil――”
“Is that his name? I’ll say he’s a goop! How does he spell it?”
“G-o-u-p-i-l, Goupil. A. G. Goupil, I think she said. He’s quite
wealthy, or, anyway, I gathered so from what she let fall. Makes some
sort of machinery. The Goupil Machinery Company is the name. I don’t
suppose it would hurt him the least tiny bit to let poor Miss Comfort
stay right where she is, but sometimes it does seem that the more money
folks have the less feeling they’ve got. I don’t know as I’d ought to
say that, either, for――”
“Do you know what place in Iowa he lives?”
“Why, I did know, Laurie, but I don’t recall it now. It was a sort of
funny name, though I’ve heard it lots of times.”
“Was it――was it――” Laurie realized blankly that he couldn’t remember
the name of a single town or city in Iowa. Mrs. Deane watched him
expectantly. Laurie concentrated hard and, at last, “Was it Omaha?” he
asked. Then, as Mrs. Deane shook her head, “anyway,” he added, “that’s
in Nebraska, come to think of it.”
“It seems to me,” mused Mrs. Deane, “that it was a――a sort of Indian
name, like――like――”
“Sioux City!” shouted Laurie.
“That’s it,” agreed Mrs. Deane, quite pleased. “I don’t see how you
ever thought of it. Sioux City, Iowa; yes, that was it.”
Laurie was writing on the back of a piece of paper with his
fountain-pen. “Look here, Mrs. Deane,” he said eagerly, “why don’t we
write to this Goop ourselves, if she won’t? Or why don’t we telegraph
him? That would be better, because folks always pay more attention
to telegrams than they do to letters. Only”――Laurie’s face clouded a
trifle――“I wonder how much it costs to Sioux City.”
“Why――why――,” began Mrs. Deane a little breathlessly, “do you think
it would be quite right? You see, Laurie, maybe I’d ought to consider
what she told me as confidential. I’m not sure she would like it a bit,
she’s so sort of touch――proud.”
“Well, you stay out of it, then,” said Laurie resolutely. “I’ll attend
to it myself, and if there’s any blame, why, I’ll take it. But I
certainly do think that some one ought to――ought to do something, Mrs.
Deane. Don’t you?”
“Well, I suppose they ought, Laurie, maybe. But perhaps it’s taking a
good deal on yourself――I mean――”
“She needn’t know anything about it unless Goop comes across with an
answer, and what she doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt her. You leave
it to me, and don’t say anything about it to Miss Comfort. I’ll send
this Goop guy a telegram that’ll wake him up. He ain’t so well in his
goop. He ought to see――”
“Hello!”
That was Polly, to the accompaniment of the tinkling bell in the next
room.
“Don’t tell Polly!” hissed Laurie, and Polly’s mother somewhat blankly
nodded agreement.
“We’ve been talking about Miss Comfort,” announced Laurie as Polly
joined them.
“Oh, is there anything new, mama? Has she heard from the lawyers again?”
“Not that I know of,” answered Mrs. Deane. “I haven’t seen her yet. She
said she’d bring over those cream-puffs and the layer-cake, but she
hasn’t.”
“Shall I run over and ask about them?”
“N-no, I don’t think you’d better, dear. I dare say she’s just too
upset to get things baked. I know myself how contrary ovens will act
when you can’t give your whole mind to them. Maybe she’ll be over in a
little while.”
Miss Comfort remained the subject of conversation for another ten
minutes, and then Laurie, suddenly realizing that it was alarmingly
close to dinner-time, winked meaningly at Mrs. Deane, said good night,
and bolted. This time he made no attempt to avoid Bob Starling. Bob,
however, was not in sight as Laurie sped by the big house.
“I’ll telephone him to come over after dinner,” reflected Laurie. “I
sort of promised to let him in on it. Besides, I’ll bet it costs a lot
to telegraph to Iowa!”