THE DEAD LETTER
Although Kewpie made no secret of his acceptance on the baseball team,
in fact gave a certain amount of publicity to the fact, his appearance
on the diamond the next afternoon created a distinct sensation. Aware
of the sensation, Kewpie became suddenly taciturn, and when he did
speak he clothed his words in mystery. Laurie, seeing an opportunity to
render Kewpie’s advent more spectacular, seized it. During Craigskill’s
practice on the diamond the Hillman’s pitchers warmed up in front of
the first base stand. Beedle and Pemberton pitched to Cas Bennett and
Elk Thurston. As Croft was not to be used, Laurie’s services were
not required, and he sat on the bench. But when the opportunity was
glimpsed he arose, picked a ball from the old water-bucket, drew on
his mitten, and signaled to Kewpie. Then he took his place beyond
Cas, and Kewpie ambled to a station beside Nate Beedle, and a ripple
of incredulous delight ran the length of the bench. Kewpie tossed a
ball into Laurie’s mitten, and the bench applauded with a note of
hysteria. Not until then did Coach Mulford, who had been talking to
the manager, become aware of the fact that something of interest was
taking place. He looked, saw, stared. Then the ends of his mouth went
up a little, tiny puckers appeared at the corners of his eyes, and he
chuckled softly. Around him the players and substitutes were laughing
uproariously. They had reason, it seemed. The sight of the short and
rotund Kewpie in juxtaposition to the tall and slender Beedle might
have brought a smile to the face of a wooden statue. But Kewpie seemed
unaware of the amusement he was causing. He pitched his slow balls into
Laurie’s mitt gravely enough, finishing his delivery with his hand
close to his left side, as though, as one facetious observer put it, a
mosquito demanded attention.
Laurie laughed inwardly, but outwardly his expression and demeanor were
as sober and as earnest as Kewpie’s. Mr. Mulford’s countenance showed
him that that gentleman appreciated the humor of the incident and that
he was to be allowed to “get away with it.” Beside him, Elk Thurston’s
face was angry and sneering.
“Some pitcher you’ve got,” he said, speaking from the corner of his
mouth. “You and he make a swell battery, Turner.” Then, as he sped the
ball back to Nate, he called: “Guess it’s all up with you, Nate. See
what the cat brought in!”
Nate smiled but made no answer.
Then Hillman’s trotted out on the diamond, and the pitchers retired
to the bench. Laurie chose a seat well removed from Mr. Mulford, and
Kewpie sank down beside him. Kewpie was chuckling almost soundlessly.
“Did you see Elk’s face?” he murmured. “Gee!”
Laurie nodded. “He’s awfully sore. He thought we’d given up, you know,
and when he caught sight of you coming out of the gym his eyes almost
popped out of his head. There’s Ned over there in the stand, and George
and the girls. Say, Kewpie, you’ve just got to get into a game before
the season’s over or I’ll be eternally disgraced!”
“I’ll make it,” answered Kewpie comfortably. “You heard what he said.”
“Yes, but he didn’t make any promise. That’s what’s worrying me. Wonder
how it would be to drop poison in Nate’s milk some day. Or invite him
to ride in Mr. Wells’s roadster and run him into a telegraph-pole!” It
was the sight of Mr. Wells coming around the corner of the stand that
had put the latter plan into his head. “Got to manage it somehow,” he
ended.
“That’s all right,” said Kewpie. “Don’t you worry about it. He’ll give
me a chance soon. He didn’t say much yesterday, Nod, but I could see
that he was impressed.”
“You could, eh?” Laurie viewed the other admiringly. “Say, you just
hate yourself, don’t you?”
Craigskill Military College took a three-run lead in the first inning
and maintained it throughout the remaining eight innings. The game was
mainly a pitchers’ battle, with the enemy twirler having rather the
better of the argument, and, from the point of view of the onlooker,
was decidedly slow and uninteresting. Kewpie’s presence on the bench
supplied a welcome diversion at such times as Hillman’s was at bat.
Almost every one liked Kewpie, and his performance as center of the
football team had commanded respect, but he came in for a whole lot of
good-natured raillery that afternoon. So, too, did Laurie. And neither
of them minded it. Elk glowered and slid in sarcastic comments when
chance afforded, but they could afford to disregard him.
When the game was over the substitutes held practice, and the few
spectators who remained were rewarded for their loyalty if only by the
spectacle of Kewpie Proudtree sliding to first during base-running
practice! Kewpie at bat was another interesting spectacle, for there
was a very great deal he didn’t know about batting despite having
played scrub ball to some extent. But Kewpie believed firmly in Kewpie,
laughed with the others at his own expense, and stored up knowledge. He
was, however, heartily glad when the brief session came to an end, for
some of the requirements had been extremely novel to him.
Saturday’s game, played down the river at Melrose Ferry, resulted in a
ten-inning victory for Hillman’s. To his surprise and chagrin, Kewpie
was not taken with the team, but he went along nevertheless and viewed
the contest with ironical gaze from a seat in the stand. It is probable
that he felt no consuming grief when, in the fifth inning, Nate Beedle
was forced to give way to Pemberton. It is equally likely that he would
have managed to dissemble his sorrow had Pemberton been knocked out of
the box and a despairing coach had called loudly for “Proudtree! Find
Proudtree! We must have him! He alone can avert defeat!” Nothing of
that sort happened, though. George Pemberton finished the game nicely,
even bringing in one of Hillman’s four runs with a safe hit to the left
in the eighth. It remained to Captain Dave himself, however to secure
the victory in the tenth inning with a home run. Returning to Orstead,
Kewpie attached himself to Laurie and was very critical of the team’s
performance. Laurie, who had pinch-hit for Murdock in the eighth and
had popped up a weak in-field fly, was gloomy enough to relish the
conversation until Kewpie became too caustic. Then Laurie sat on him
cruelly and informed him that instead of “panning” the team he had
better be thinking up some way of persuading Pinky to let him pitch a
couple of innings in one or other of the two games that remained before
the Farview contest. Thereupon Kewpie subsided and gazed glumly from
the car window. His chance of pitching for the team that season didn’t
appear so bright to him to-day.
Sunday afternoon they took their accustomed walk, Polly, Mae, Ned,
Laurie, and Bob, and as usual they stopped for a while at the _Pequot
Queen_. The afternoon was fair and warm, and the _Pequot Queen_――or the
_Lydia W. Frye_, if you prefer――made a very attractive picture. The
new white paint and the golden yellow trim were still fresh, the gay
red and white awning stretched above the upper deck, the flower-boxes
were green and promising――there was even one pink geranium bloom in
sight――and the beds that Brose Wilkins had made at each side of the
gangway were filled with plants. Miss Comfort wore an almost frivolous
dress of blue with white figures and her best cameo pin, the one nearly
as large as a butter-chip, that showed a cheerful design of weeping
willow-tree and a tombstone. A yellow and white cat sat sunning
itself on the railing and submitted indifferently to the caresses of
the visitors. The cat was a gift from Brose, and Miss Comfort who had
lived some sixty-odd years without such a thing, had not had sufficient
courage to decline it. She had however, much to her surprise, grown
very much attached to the animal as she frequently stated. She had
named it Hector.
To-day Miss Comfort had news for them. The letter she had written to
her brother-in-law in Sioux City had returned. She handed it around the
circle. It had been opened, and its envelope bore an amazing number of
inscriptions, many undecipherable, the gist of them being that Mr. A.
G. Goupil had not been found. The missive had now been sent back by the
Dead Letter Office in Washington. It was, Miss Comfort declared, very
perplexing. Of course, she had always written to her sister at her home
address but the firm name was just as she had told it.
“He might have moved away,” suggested Bob, “after your sister died.”
Miss Comfort agreed that that was possible, but Laurie said that
in that case he would certainly have left an address behind him,
adding, “Well, if he didn’t get that letter he probably didn’t get our
telegram, either!”
“Why, that’s so,” said Polly. “But wouldn’t they send that back, too,
if it wasn’t delivered?”
“I reckon so. I’ll ask about it to-morrow at the office. Maybe you
should have put the street and number on your letter, Miss Comfort.”
“Why, I never knew it. That’s the address my sister sent me. I supposed
it was all that was necessary.”
“It ought to be enough,” said Bob. “How big’s this Sioux City place,
anyway? Seems to me they ought to have been able to find the Goupil
Machinery Company, even if they didn’t have the street address.”
“Well,” said Miss Comfort, “I’m relieved to get it back. I thought it
was strange that Mr. Goupil didn’t take any notice of it. Now I know it
was because he never received it. You see.”
“Tell you what we might do,” offered Laurie. “We might find out Mr.
Goupil’s address from the lawyers who wrote you about it and then you
could write to him again, ma’am.”
“Oh I shouldn’t care to do that,” replied Miss Comfort. “I’m settled
so nicely here now, you see, Laurie. In a great many ways it is better
for me than my other home was. There were so many rooms there to keep
clean, and then, in winter, there were the sidewalks to be looked
after, and the pipes would freeze now and then. No, I think everything
has turned out quite for the best, just as it generally does, my dears.”
“Just the same,” quoth Laurie as they returned up the hill past the
telegraph office, “I’m going in there to-morrow and find out what
happened to that message we sent.”
“That’s right,” assented Bob. “They ought to give us our money back,
anyway!”
They learned the fate of the message without difficulty the following
morning, although they had to make two calls at the office. On the
second occasion the manager displayed a telegram from Sioux City.
Laurie’s message had been delivered to A. T. Gompers, Globe Farm
Machinery Company, Sioux City. The date and even the time of day were
supplied. At first the manager appeared to consider Laurie and Ned
over-particular, but finally acknowledged that perhaps a mistake had
been made. If, he said, the sender cared to put in a claim the company
would take up the matter and make a thorough investigation, and if
it found there really had been an error in delivery the price of the
telegram would be refunded. But Laurie shook his head.
“We’re a short-lived family,” he explained. “Few of us Turners live to
be over eighty, and so I guess there wouldn’t be time. Thank you just
as much.”
“What it amounts to,” said Ned, as they hurried back to a recitation,
“is that Miss Comfort got the fellow’s name wrong somehow. Or maybe his
initials. Or maybe the name of his company.”
“Or maybe there ain’t no such animal,” said Laurie. “I always did sort
of doubt that any one could have a name like Goupil. It――it isn’t
natural, Ned!”
“Oh, well, as Bob says, ‘All’s swell that ends swell,’ and Miss
Comfort’s satisfied with the way it’s turned out, and so we might as
well be.”
“Sure,” agreed Laurie. “We don’t own it.”
In front of the school entrance Mr. Wells’s blue roadster was standing,
a bit faded as to paint, a bit battered as to mud-guards, but having
the self-assurance and poise of a car that has traveled far and seen
life. Laurie, to whom automobiles were ever a passion, stopped and
looked it over. “Nice old bus,” he observed, laying a friendly hand on
the nickeled top of the brake-lever. “Let’s take a spin, Ned.”
[Illustration: “Nice old bus,” Laurie observed, “let’s take a spin,
Ned”]
Ned laughed. “Think you could drive it?” he asked.
“Why not? I don’t believe it’s locked. Kick on the switch, push down on
the starter, put her into first――I wonder if the clutch works the same
way as dad’s car. Yes, forward, back and across――All right, let’s go!”
Ned pulled him toward the gate. “You’d better come along. First thing
you know you’ll be yielding to temptation, old son.”
“I sure would like to try the old boat out,” acknowledged Laurie. “Some
time he’s going to look for it and find it missing. He’s always leaving
it around like that, putting temptation in my way!”
Examinations began two days later, and Laurie had other things to
worry about than blue roadsters or even Kewpie’s non-participation in
baseball games, for, just between you and me, Laurie and mathematics
were not on very friendly terms, and there was at least one other
course that caused him uneasiness. Yet, should I fail to mention it
later, he did scrape past, as did Ned and, I think, all others in whom
we are interested. But he wasn’t certain of his fate until a week
later, which accounts in part for the somewhat perturbed and unsettled
condition of mind that was his during the rest of the present week.
On Wednesday Hillman’s scored another victory, and Laurie aided. Mr.
Mulford put him to catch at the beginning of the sixth inning, and
he performed very creditably during the remaining four. He made one
“rotten error”――I am repeating his own words――when, in the eighth he
pegged the ball a yard over Lew Cooper’s yearning glove and so allowed
a steal to second that, a few minutes later, became a tally. But
otherwise he did very well behind the bat and made one hit in two times
up. George Pemberton pitched the game through, and Kewpie remained
lugubriously on the bench. Afterward he had quite a good deal to say
about Mr. Mulford, none of which was very flattering. Hillman’s had put
the game on ice in the fifth inning, Kewpie averred feelingly, and it
wouldn’t have hurt Pinky or the team’s chances to have let him pitch a
couple of innings!
“And there’s only Saturday’s game left,” mourned Kewpie, “and that’s
with Crumbie, and she’s better than we are and there isn’t one chance
in a hundred of my getting into it! Gee, I should think folks wouldn’t
make promises if they don’t mean to keep ’em!”
Laurie, who was half of Kewpie’s audience, Hal Pringle being the other
half, reminded the speaker that Pinky hadn’t really promised, but his
tone lacked conviction. He, too, thought that the coach might have
used Kewpie that afternoon. Kewpie was still plaintive when Laurie
remembered that the morrow held two examinations and hurried off for a
brief period of study before supper.
I have already intimated that Laurie was not quite his usual care-free
self that week, and the same is true to a greater or lesser degree
of most of the other ninety-odd students. Finals are likely to
put a fellow under something of a strain, and, as a result, normal
characteristics are likely to suffer a change. The sober-minded become
subject to spells of unwonted hilarity, the normally irrepressible are
plunged in deepest gloom, and the good-natured develop unsuspected
tempers. All this is offered as plausible partial excuse for what
happened on Friday.