A FRIEND IN NEED
It lacked only five minutes or so of the school hour on the following
morning when Jack Winters, hurrying along, was intercepted by a
disturbed looking boy, who had been impatiently awaiting his arrival.
Of course this was none other than Big Bob Jeffries, who had kept
aloof from all his customary associates ever since arriving, and had
never once taken his eyes off the street along which he knew Jack must
come.
He seized hold of the other eagerly. Jack needed no second look to
convince him that poor Bob had passed a wretched night. His eyes were
red, and there was an expression of mute misery on his usually merry
face, that doubtless had induced more than one fellow to ask if he
felt ill. No doubt Bob had a stereotyped answer to this sympathetic
question, which was to the effect that he was "not feeling himself."
"Oh! I thought you'd never come along, Jack!" he exclaimed, in a voice
that quivered with eagerness and anxiety; "though of course I
understood that you must be waiting for Mr. Dickerson to be free to
talk with you. Tell me what you did, please, Jack?"
"I'm sorry to say I couldn't learn much at the post-office," the other
hastened to say, determined not to keep Bob in suspense any longer
than could be helped.
"But you did ask about the foreign letters, didn't you, Jack?"
"Yes, I worked that part of it pretty well, and managed to get into a
talk about the great difficulty which most foreigners here in this
country found in communicating with their old folks abroad. Mr.
Dickerson said there was a time when every day he had quite a batch of
letters going out to different countries; because you know there are
many foreign workers in our mills here, and they were constantly
sending money home to their poor folks. But as the war went on, he
said, they began to write less and less, because they feared the
letters were being held up by the British, or the vessels being sunk
with all the mail aboard by the German subs. So he said it was a rare
event nowadays for him to cancel the stamps on a foreign letter,
though he had one yesterday, he remembered."
"Yesterday, Jack? Oh! what do you mean?"
"But it was to Italy the letter was going," Jack hastened to explain.
"Mr. Dickerson said he took particular pains to notice it, because the
stamp was put on the wrong end of the envelope. He remembered that
Luigi, the bootblack at the railroad station, always insisted on doing
this. He also read the address, which was to Luigi's parents in
Genoa."
Big Bob's face darkened again.
"Too bad!" he muttered, disconsolately; "why couldn't that letter he
chanced to notice have been my lost one? Hard luck, I must say, all
around."
"Then you didn't meet with anything this morning, I take it, Bob?"
continued Jack, hardly knowing what to say in order to raise the
drooping spirits of his friend.
Big Bob shook his head in the negative.
"Not a thing, Jack," he went on to admit, "though I was really out,
and walking up and down that path at peep of day. I couldn't tell you
how many times I went over the ground without finding anything. Why, I
even remembered which way the breeze was blowing yesterday, and spent
most of my time on that particular side of the path. Think of that,
will you, Jack; and yet for the life of me I can't positively
recollect whether I did drop that letter into the slot along with the
rest. I must be getting looney, that's what."
"Well, you've just got to brace up, Bob, and believe it's all right,"
Jack told him, slapping the other heartily on the shoulder, boy
fashion. "As time goes on you'll sort of get used to it; and then some
fine day your father will speak of having heard from his correspondent
abroad."
"Thank you for trying to bolster up my nerve, Jack It's mighty nice of
you in the bargain. I'll need your counsel more than a few times from
now on, and I'm right glad I can have some one to go to when I feel so
sick with the suspense, All the while I'm waiting and hoping I've got
to tremble every time my father speaks to me That's the result of
having a guilty conscience you know. I've read about such things
before, but this is the first time I've actually had the experience
myself."
"Besides," continued Jack, "even if you did mail the letter, that's no
assurance it would ever reach the party he wrote to. Many a vessel has
gone down before arriving at its destination, a victim to the terrible
policy of the Germans with their U-boats. And of course the mail sinks
when the boat goes down in the war zone. If your father were wise he
would duplicate that letter several times, and in that way make sure
one of them had a chance to reach the party abroad."
"Do you know I thought of that myself, Jack!" exclaimed Bob, quickly;
"but you see it would never do for me to mention it to him. Why, he'd
suspect something lay back of it at once, and ask me the question that
I shall be dreading to hear--'Did you positively mail that letter I
gave you?' Jack, sometimes I can see just those words in fiery letters
a foot high facing me, even when I close my eyes. It makes me think of
the handwriting on the wall that appeared before the eyes of that old
worthy, a victorious general, I believe it was, or an ancient king,
but which spelled his doom."
"If I knew of anything else I could do to help you, Bob, I'd be happy
to try. Now, I do remember reading an account of a gentleman who
carried out the very policy of follow-up letters that I was speaking
about. He explained how to make sure he reached his correspondent
across the water he would send a duplicate letter every week for a
whole month; and so far he had never failed to connect, although more
than one boat carrying his letters went down. Now, perhaps I can find
that same newspaper, and give it to you. If you placed it where your
father would be apt to pick it up, with the article marked a little,
he'd read it, and might act upon it."
"That sounds good to me, Jack. Please look hard, and see if you can
run across that paper. It might be the solution of the whole thing. If
father wrote again and even a third time I'd lose my guilty fears,
because one of his letters would be bound to get across."
"Why, even the possibility of this proving to be a success caused the
boy to smile, though he looked almost comical while so doing, because
his heart still hung like lead in his breast.
"Well, try and forget it all you can, Bob," Jack went on to say,
encouragingly. "I believe I can find that paper, and I'll hunt far and
wide for it, I give you my word. If anything else strikes me
meanwhile, I'll speak to you about it. If I were you I'd throw myself
into the game, and that ought to help you forget your troubles."
"Yes, it's all very good for the time being, Jack," sighed the other,
"but say, after the excitement is all over with, and you find yourself
nearing the house, and father, the most terrible feeling grips you
around your heart. I know I'll have a perfectly terrible month of it,
every day seeming to be forty-eight hours long. But it serves me
right. After this Bob Jeffries will be a reformed boy, I give you my
word for that. Never again can I allow myself to grow careless, and do
important things as though I was in a dream. I've awakened at last,
Jack."
"Then if that is so, Bob, you're bound to profit by your lesson. It
may seem hard, but in the long run it'll pay you many times over. I'll
not mention your trouble to either of my chums, though for that matter
both Toby and Steve would feel just as sorry as I do. Still, there's
no way they could help you, and for your sake and peace of mind I'll
keep mum."
Big Bob impulsively clutched Jack's hand, and squeezed it so fiercely
that it actually hurt.
"You're a friend worth having, Jack Winters!" he exclaimed, warmly,
while his eyes seemed to dim in a strange fashion, though he winked
several times to conceal the fact that tears were near. "You put fresh
heart into a fellow every time. If you can find that paper with the
account of the duplicate letters in it, please let me know, and I'll
run over to your house to get it."
"I'll give a big look tonight," Jack assured him; "and I'm almost sure
I know just where I saw it. Father never allows papers to be destroyed
under a month old, and it'll likely be up in the attic. Depend on me
to get it for you, Bob."
Just then the high school bell started to ring, and both lads had to
hurry to enter in time. Bob braced up and tried to assume his ordinary
look. His pride came to the rescue, for no boy likes to find himself
an object of commiseration among his mates. As for Jack, he had to put
the entire matter from his mind just then, having other things to
occupy his attention.
But every time he chanced to look toward Big Bob during that day's
session it would be to find the other staring eagerly toward him; and
a peculiar smile would creep across the big fellow's face when he
caught Jack's eye. He was depending on this comrade to extricate him
from the pit which his own carelessness had dug for his feet. And Bob
was finding how good it was at such a crucial time in his life to have
a reliable friend upon whom to lean. Again and again he doubtless told
himself how lucky he was to be so favored.
It may be said in passing that Jack did inaugurate a search among the
latest pile of papers in the attic that night, and after a thorough
hunt actually succeeded in locating the article he had mentioned. His
wonderful memory had again served him in good stead, for it turned out
to be in the very periodical he had had in mind.
He even went to the trouble to drop over to give Big Bob the paper,
marking with, a blue pencil the article just above the item in
question. Any one reading this interesting account of something
connected with the war must naturally have his attention arrested by
the heading just below it, which ran: "How to make sure foreign
letters reach their destination in spite of U-boats;" and then went on
to tell how the gentleman in question sent out follow-up letters,
exact duplicates of the original one.
Bob was intensely interested.
"I can fix it," he assured Jack, "so that this paper will be lying on
the floor of the library. I'm glad you had it wrapped around that old
sweater you were returning, because if father should ask me about it I
can truthfully say I believe you brought it here in that way, and that
I must have dropped it in the library; which would be just like my
careless habits of the past, you know, Jack."
Taken altogether Jack thought it a pretty good scheme. It might work,
too, which would be a fine thing for everyone concerned; since Mr.
Jeffries would be sure of having his letter reach its destination, and
poor Bob could be relieved of at least a portion of the load that was
weighing on his mind.
When Jack left Bob after a short stay, he saw that fresh hope had
already taken hold of the other's heart. It had been the fact that he
did not know which way to turn in order to try to remedy his mistake
that had been the chief cause for the boy's desperation. Now that
there was at least a little chance of the ugly affair coming out all
right, Bob was beginning to pluck up fresh courage.