THE PEDDLER AND THE LAWYER'S HALF
Just before leaving Gridley, Greg Holmes had bought a copy of
the "Blade" from a newsboy.
Three miles out, the chums enjoyed their first halt.
"Ten minutes' rest under this tree," Dick announced, for already
the August morning sun was beating down upon them.
Greg drew out his copy of the newspaper, unfolding it.
"Say!" he yelled suddenly.
"Stop that," commanded Tom Reade, "or you'll make the horse run
away and wreck our outfit."
"But this paper says-----"
"Stop it," ordered Tom with a scowl. "I know what you're going
to do. You'll read us some exciting stuff, and get us all worked
up, and then in the last paragraph you'll stumble on the fact
that some well-known Tottenville man was cured of all his ailments
by Brown's Blood Bitters."
"Can you hold your tongue a minute?" demanded Greg ironically.
"Not when I see you headed that way," retorted Reade. "I've been
fooled by the same style of exciting item, and I know how cheap
it makes a fellow feel when he comes to the name of the Bitters,
the Pills or the Sarsaparilla. Holmesy, I want to save your face
for you with this crowd."
"Will you keep quiet, for a moment, and let the other fellows
hear, even if you have to take a walk in order to save your own
ears?" demanded Greg, with sarcasm. "This piece is about Dick
Prescott, and he doesn't sign patent medicine test-----"
"Dick Prescott?" demanded Darrin. "Whoop! Let's have it!"
"It isn't a roast, is it?" demanded Danny Grin solemnly.
"No; it isn't," Greg went on. "Listen, while I read the headlines."
It was a four-line heading, beginning with "Dick Prescott's Fine
Nerve."
"There! I was afraid it was a roast, after all," sighed Danny
Grin.
"Take that fellow away and muzzle him," ordered Greg, then proceeded
to read the other sections of the headlines.
By this time Greg had a very attentive audience. Even Tom Reade
had ceased to scoff.
"Oh, bosh!" gasped Dick, when Greg was about one third of the
way through the column article.
"Isn't it true?" demanded Dave.
"After a fashion," Dick admitted.
"Then hold off and be good while the rest of us hear about yesterday's
doings."
So Dick stood by, his face growing redder and redder as the reading
proceeded.
"That's what I call a dandy story," declared Greg as he finished
reading.
"Dick, why didn't you tell us something about it last night?"
demanded Hazelton.
"What was the use?" asked Prescott. "And, though I've always
thought the 'Blade' a fine local newspaper, I don't quite approve
of Mr. Pollock's judgment of news values in this instance. I
suspect that Mr. Pollock must have been away, and that Mr. Bradley,
the news editor, ran this in."
"It sounds like some of Len Spencer's stuff," guessed Dave. "He's
great on local events."
"If they had to print the yarn, eight or ten lines would have
covered it," Dick declared. "Fellows, we've used up eighteen
minutes for our halt, instead of ten. Come on!"
Greg, however, after rising, and before starting, was careful
to fold the "Blade" neatly and to tuck it away in a pocket. He
meant to save that news story.
All of our readers are familiar with the lives and doings of Dick
Prescott and his friends up to date.
"Dick & Co.," as the boys styled their unorganized club of chums,
was made up of the six boys, who had been fast friends back in
their days of study at the Central Grammar School of Gridley.
They had been together in everything, and notably so in athletics
and sports. All that befell them in their later days at Central
Grammar School is told fully in the four volumes of the "_Grammar
School Boys Series_."
Yet it was when these same boys entered Gridley High School that
they came into the fullest measure of their local fame and popularity.
Even as freshmen they found a chance to accomplish far more for
school athletics than is usually permitted to freshmen. It was
due to their efforts that athletics were put on a sound financial
basis in the Gridley High School. All this and more is described
in the first volume of the "_High School Boys Series_," entitled
"_The High School Freshmen_."
But it was in the second volume of that series, "_The High School
Pitcher_," that our readers found Dick & Co. entered fully in
the training squads of one of the most famous of American high
schools. As described in the third volume, "_The High School
Left End_," Dick & Co. were transferred from the baseball nine
to the gridiron eleven, and by this time had become the undisputed
athletic leaders of Gridley High School. These honors they had
not won without tremendous opposition, especially by the formation
of the notorious "Sorehead Squad" to oppose their hard earned
supremacy in football. Yet Dick & Co. ever went strenuously forward,
in manly, clean-cut fashion, working unceasingly for the furthering
of honest American sport. Between the plottings of their enemies
and a host of adventures on all sides, the school life of Dick
& Co. proved exciting indeed.
In the "_High School Boys' Vacation Series_" our readers have
followed the summer doings of Dick & Co. as distinguished from
the doings of their crowded school years. The first volume devoted
to the vacations of Dick & Co., "_The High School Boys' Canoe
Club_," describes the adventures of our lads in an Indian war
canoe which even their slender financial resources enabled them
to buy at an auction sale of the effects of a stranded Wild West
Show. In the second volume of this series, "_The High School
Boys In Summer Camp_," our readers came upon an even more exciting
narrative of keenly enjoyed summer doings, replete with lively
adventures. In that volume the activities of Tag Mosher, a strangely
odd character, kept Dick & Co. continually on the alert. In the
third volume of the vacation series, entitled "_The High School
Boys' Fishing Trip_," were chronicled the things that befell Dick
& Co. while away on a fishing expedition that became famous in
the annals of Gridley school days. This third volume was full
to the brim with the sort of adventures that boys most love.
Some old enemies of Dick & Co. appeared; how they were put to
rout is well known to all our readers. How Dick & Co. played
a huge joke, and several smaller ones upon their enemies, is described
in that volume.
In this present volume will be recounted all that befell Dick
& Co. in August after completing their junior year in Gridley
High School, just as the preceding or third volume dealt with
the happenings of July of that same summer.
After that first halt Dick & Co. plodded on for another hour.
But Prescott, noting that Hazelton was still on the driver's
seat of the camp wagon, blandly inquired:
"Harry, if you sit up there, lazily holding the reins, how do
you expect to get your share of the training work of this hike?"
"Perhaps I'd rather have the comfort than the training work,"
laughed Hazelton.
"That will never do!" smiled Dick. "Suppose you climb down and
let Danny Grin take your place at the reins until the next halt.
I suspect that Danny boy already has a few pebbles in his shoes,
and that he'll be glad enough to look over the world from the
driver's seat."
"I'm willing to sacrifice myself for the good of the expedition,
anyway," sighed Dalzell, as Harry drew rein. "Come down with
you, Hazy, and begin to share the delights of this walking match!"
The change of drivers made, Dick & Co. plodded on again.
"It seems to me that we ought to put on more speed," suggested
Dave Darrin.
"Are you in a hurry to get somewhere, Darry?" drawled Tom Reade.
"No," Dave replied, "but, if we're out for training, it seems
to me that we had better do brisker walking than we're doing now,
even if the horse can't keep up with us."
"We're making about three miles and a half an hour," Dick responded.
"But will that be work enough to make us as hard as nails?" persisted
Darry.
"We're getting over the ground as fast as the troops of the regular
army usually travel," Prescott rejoined. "I believe our regulars
are generally regarded as rather perfect specimens in the walking
line. We might move along at a speed of six miles, and might
keep it up for an hour. Then we'd be footsore, and all in. If
the first hour didn't do it, the second hour would. But if we
plug along in this deliberate fashion, and get over fifteen, eighteen
or twenty miles a day, and keep it up, I don't believe any one
of you fellows will complain, September first, that he isn't as
hard and solid as he wants to be---even for bucking the football
lines, of other high schools."
"I know that I can be satisfied with this gait," murmured Reade.
"If Darry wants to move faster," suggested Hazelton, "why not
tell him where to wait for us, and let him gallop ahead?"
"I'll stay with the rest of you," Darry retorted. "All I want
to make sure of is that we're going to get the most out of our
training work this summer."
"I'll tell you what you might do, Dave, by way of extra exercise
and hardening," offered Tom.
"What?" asked Dave suspiciously.
"I believe we're going to halt every hour for a brief rest"
"Yes."
"While the five of us are resting under the trees, Darry, you
might climb the trees, swinging from limb to limb and leaping
from tree to tree. Of course you'll select trees that are not
directly over our heads."
"Humph!" retorted Dave.
"Try it, anyway," urged Tom, "it's fine exercise, even if you
give it up after a while."
"I'll try it as often as you do," Darrin agreed with a grin.
Their second halt found the high school boys more than six miles
from their starting point.
On this trip they were not heading in the direction they had followed
on their fishing trip. Instead, they were traveling in the opposite
direction from Gridley, through a fairly populous farming region.
At a quarter-past ten o'clock Dick called for another halt. The
road map that the boys had brought along showed them that they
were now eleven miles from Gridley.
"Pretty fair work," muttered Tom, "considering that these roads
were built by men who had never seen any better kind."
"We can more than double the distance," suggested Dave, "before
we go into camp for the night."
"If we hike a couple more miles this morning, then halt, get the
noon meal and rest until two o'clock," replied young Prescott,
"I think we shall do better."
"If we've gone only eleven miles," protested Darrin, "then I'm
certainly good for twenty-five miles in all to-day, and I believe
the rest of you are, too."
"Wait until we've done eighteen or twenty miles," Prescott proposed.
"Then we can take a vote about making it twenty-five."
"For one thing," Darry objected, "none of us actually walks twenty-five
miles when we cover that distance. We take turns riding on the
wagon, and, as there are six of us, that means that each fellow
rides something like four miles of the distance covered."
"What Darry is driving at," proposed Danny Grin, "is that he wants
to devote himself wholly to walking hereafter. He doesn't care
about driving the horse."
"I'm big enough and cranky enough to do my own talking, when there
is any reason for my entering into the conversation," smiled Dave.
At a little after eleven that morning, when thirteen and a half
miles had been covered, all hands were willing enough to halt
and rest, prepare luncheon and rest again.
"But I still hope we shall cover the twenty-five miles to-day,"
Darry insisted.
"No difficulty about that, either," declared Harry Hazelton.
"Darry, while we are swapping stories over the campfire this evening
you can take a lantern and do an extra five miles by way of an
evening walk. Then you'll be tired enough to sleep."
"I'll see about it," Darrin laughed.
"And that's the last we'll hear about it," Tom predicted dryly.
"It is the experience of every military commander, so I've read,"
Dick went on, "that a long march the first day of a big hike is
no especially good sign of how the soldiers will hold out to the
end. On the contrary, military men have found that it's better
to march a shorter distance on the first day and to work up gradually
to a good standard of performance."
"All right," agreed Hazelton. "For one, I'm willing to take a
rest after eating, and then take the afternoon for getting acquainted
with this pretty grove."
"We won't quite do that, either, if I have my way," Prescott laughed.
"We ought to do a few miles this afternoon, but not set out to
do any record-breaking or back-breaking stunt."
"There goes hazy's dream up in the air," laughed Greg. "I just
knew that Hazy was planning how to spend the afternoon napping."
"I'll volunteer to drive all the way, this afternoon," Harry offered.
"That will give all of you fellows a chance to harden yourselves
more on the first day."
"If you want to know a good definition of 'generosity,' then ask
Hazy," snorted Dalzell.
"Come on!" cried Dick good-humoredly. "Scatter. Some for wood,
some for water. Tom and I will get the kitchen kit ready for
a meal. But we must have the wood and water before we can prepare
luncheon."
At that suggestion of something to eat there was a general rush
to get things in readiness. As soon as a fire was going in the
stove in the wagon, Dick put on a frying pan. Into this he dropped
several slices of bacon. Tom, over a fire built on the ground,
set the coffee-pot going. In a pot on the stove Dick put potatoes
to cook.
Now Dave rattled out the dishes, as soon as Greg and Hazy had
set up the folding table. Dan placed the chairs.
"Get ready!" called Dick, as soon as he had fried two platters
full of bacon and eggs. Tom, will you try the potatoes?"
"Done," responded Reade, after prodding the potatoes with a fork.
"What shall we do with the food that's left over?" asked Danny
Grin, as he began to eat.
"There isn't going to be any food left over," Dick laughed. "You
fellows will be lucky, indeed, if you get as much as you want."
Everyone was satisfied, however, by the time that the meal was
finished.
"Greg and Harry may have the pleasure of washing the dishes,"
Dick suggested.
"Oh, dear!" grunted Hazy, but he went at his task without further
remarks.
Before one o'clock everything was in readiness for going forward
again, save for putting the horse between the shafts of the wagon.
Prescott, however, put a proposition to rest until two o'clock
before his chums. It was unanimously carried.
Despite his desire for a walking record that day, Darry proved
quite willing to lie off at full length in the shade of the trees
and doze as much as the flies would permit.
Dick and Tom strolled slowly down toward the road, halting by
a couple of trees.
"There's something you don't often see, nowadays," spoke up Tom
after a while.
He nodded back up the road. Coming in the same direction that
the boys themselves had traveled was a faded, queer-looking old
red wagon, much decorated on the outside by a lot of hanging,
swinging tin and agate ware.
"That's the old-fashioned tin-peddler that I've heard a good deal
about as being a common enough character some forty years ago,"
said Prescott. "Our grandmothers used to save up meat-bones,
rags and bottles and trade them off to the peddler, receiving
tinware in return."
"The man on that wagon was doing business forty years ago," remarked
Tom. "In fact, judging by his appearance, he must have been quite
a veteran at the business even forty years ago."
A bent, little old man it was who was perched upon the seat of
the red wagon. Once upon a time his hair had been tawny. Now
it was streaked liberally with gray. He was smoking a black
little wooden pipe and paying small attention to the sad-eyed,
bony horse between the shafts. There was a far-away, rather dull
look in the old peddler's eyes.
Just before he reached the boys, whom he had not seen, he took
a piece of paper from his pocket, pulled his spectacles down from
his forehead and read the paper.
"I don't understand it," muttered the peddler, aloud. "I can't
understand it. I wish I had someone to give me the right of it."
"Could we be of any service, sir?" Reade inquired.
Hearing a human voice so close at hand the peddler started for
an instant. Then he pulled in the horse.
"I dunno whether you can be of much use to me," answered the peddler
slowly. "You don't look old enough to know much about business."
"Still, I know more than anyone would think, from just looking
at me," volunteered Reade, reddening a bit as he saw the laughter
in Dick Prescott's eyes.
"Maybe you can explain this riddle," went on the peddler, extending
the sheet of white paper. "It can't do any harm to give you a
chance. You see, I had a bill of twenty dollars against Bill
Peterson. The bill had been running three years, and I couldn't
get anything out of Bill but promises without any exact dates
tied to 'em. I needed the money as bad as Bill did, so at last
I went to Lawyer Stark to see what could be done about it. Lawyer
Stark said he'd tackle the job if I'd give him half. I agreed
to that, for half a loaf is better'n nothing at all, as you may
have heard. Then weeks went by, and I heard nothing from Squire
Stark. So the other night I writ a letter, asking him how the
collection of the bill was coming on. This is the answer he sends
me."
So Tom read aloud, from the typewritten sheet, the following
remarkably brief communication:
"Dear Sir: Answering your letter of yesterday's date, I have to
advise you that I have collected my half of the Peterson bill.
Your half I regard as extremely doubtful."
This was signed with the name of Lawyer Stark.
Tom Reade glanced through the note again, then gave vent to a
shout of laughter.
"Eh?" asked the peddler looking puzzled.
"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Reade instantly. "I shouldn't
have laughed, but this struck me, at first, as one of the funniest
letters I ever saw. So the lawyer has collected his half of the
twenty and regards the collection of your half as exceedingly
doubtful!"
"Shouldn't Lawyer Stark give me half of the ten he got from Bill
Peterson?" asked the peddler anxiously.
"Undoubtedly he should," Tom assented, "and just as undoubtedly
he hasn't any idea of doing so."
"What do you say, young man?" inquired the peddler, turning to
young Prescott.
"Why, sir, if you are asking about your legal chance of getting
half of that ten dollars from the lawyer," Dick answered, "then
I'm afraid you stand a poor show. If the lawyer won't pay you
the money, then you would have to sue him. Even if you won the
suit, the fight would cost you a good deal more than the amount
you would recover. And the lawyer might beat you, even if you
sued him."
"Then---what's the answer?" demanded the peddler slowly.
"I know the answer," said Tom confidently, "but it would be a
shame to tell you, sir."
"Just the same, I wish you would," replied the peddler coaxingly.
"The answer," replied Reade, "is that you have been cheated."
"But it looks to me like a mean trick," Dick went on.
"What am I going to do about it?" asked the peddler wonderingly.
"I don't believe you can do anything about it, sir," Prescott
answered, "unless you are willing to sue the lawyer, or can make
him agree to fair play. But I certainly would drop in to see
him and tell him that you expect just half of what he has so far
collected."
"I believe I'll do that," replied Peddler Hinman, judging from
the address on the letter, that was his name. "I don't like
to be made a fool of by any man---especially when I need money
as badly as any other man on my route."
Dick took a sweeping glance at the peddler's shabby attire. While,
of course, the size of a man's bank account cannot be judged from
his wardrobe, Mr. Hinman had the appearance of needing money as
much as he declared. The horse, too, looked as though a generous
feed of oats would do him good.
"And to think of all the things I know about Squire Stark, too,"
murmured Mr. Hinman, apparently speaking to himself and not realizing
that his words carried to the boys' ears. "If he had a little
more judgment, Silas Stark would treat me with more fairness."
"I'm very sorry if I seemed too much amused," Tom apologized earnestly,
"but that letter, apart from its meaning to you, really is funny."
"I---I suppose so," assented Reuben Hinman sighing, and the far-away
look returning to his eyes. "But I---I need the money!"
"And both of us hope that you will get it, sir, the whole of your
half," said Dick Prescott heartily.
"Anyway, I'm much obliged to both of you boys," said the peddler.
"Giddap, Prince!"
Somehow, both boys thought that Reuben Hinman drooped more on
the seat of his wagon than before. He drove off slowly, evidently
doing a lot of hard thinking.
"Poor old man!" muttered Tom sympathetically.
"He looks a bit slow-witted," Prescott suggested. "I'm afraid
he has always been going through life wondering at the doings
of others, and especially at the success of unprincipled men he
has had to deal with."
"Do you know," remarked Reade, gazing after the bent, huddled
little figure, "I've a notion that there has been a lot in that
poor fellow's life that has been downright tragic."
Tragic? Without doubt! Moreover, though Dick could not guess
it, he and his friends were soon to be mixed up in the tragic
side of Peddler Hinman's life.