THEIR UNACCOUNTABLE BEHAVIOR
My orders were explicit.
I was to take a note up to the Bigelow's house on Elm Street, and I was
to give the note to Miss Carew. There was no answer. After delivering
the note I might do as I pleased, but I must not be late for dinner.
The member of my family who issued these directions was one with whom
it paid to keep on good terms. I might have felt grieved about this
errand on such a morning, but I had already found that Jimmy Toppan and
Ed Mason had departed from their homes on some private mission which
did not seem to include me. Bereft of playmates I had spent a lonely
half-hour in the side yard, blowing on blades of grass, and raising
fiendish shrieks therewith. So my employment on business which would
send me far from home was mutually agreeable. I had only one request to
make.
"Can I go on my velocipede?"
"Yes; but don't go too fast and get overheated, and don't lose the
note."
The prohibition about going too fast was superfluous. The velocipede
had tires which were but bands of iron. Progress upon it, over the
uneven brick sidewalks, was slow and not altogether painless. The
pedals (they looked like large spools) were attached at such an angle
that a thrilling speed was hard to attain.
But to me, as I rode it along the pleasant, shaded sidewalks of Elm
Street on that morning, it was a chariot of joy.
Naturally, I paused for a moment at Mr. Hawkins's gate to exchange
salutations with that gentleman. Mr. Hawkins did not believe that
it would rain: though it might. Fortified with this information, I
continued past Jimmy Toppan's house, past the frog pond and the school.
I proceeded at a moderate rate,--not over three-quarters of a mile an
hour. At the street crossings, paved as they were with cobblestones, it
was, on the whole, easier to dismount and wheel my velocipede.
When I reached Higginson's toy-shop I stopped again, flattened my nose
against the window, and observed the condition of the market. There
had been a sharp break in marbles, evidently,--they were now offered
at fifteen for a cent. Return-balls remained firm, however; and tops
had advanced. After I had noted these facts, and concluded, further,
that some one had, since yesterday, purchased two of the five sticks
of striped candy from the glass jar in the window, I continued on my
journey.
Fifteen minutes later I reached the Bigelow house,--a square,
three-storied residence set a little back from the street. The front
door was open, and you could look right through the broad, cool hall,
through a back door, and down the garden path. Everything about the
house was big, and quiet, and cool, and there was no one to be seen,
and no sign of any one,--except for a tall bicycle which stood at the
curb-stone.
I knew that bicycle: it belonged to a neighbor of mine,--Mr. Dennett.
He was a grave, elderly man of nearly twenty-one years. Before him I
stood in speechless awe. Most of the time, except in summer, he was
away at a place called Harvard, which drew many of his kind.
In summer he, with others like him, rode about on bicycles, and did
various interesting things. Often they played tennis at a place farther
up Elm Street. Sometimes, on these occasions, Ed Mason and I had been
allowed to stand outside the high wire nets, and fetch back balls when
they were knocked into the street,--a privilege which we especially
esteemed.
The balls were of the most fascinating kind imaginable: they would
bounce to a tremendous height, and it was rumored that they cost thirty
cents apiece.
I wondered why Mr. Dennett was at the Bigelows'.
However, there was my note to deliver. I left my red velocipede
standing beside the enormous bicycle, and rang the front door-bell.
After a long wait, a very red-faced, cross-looking woman--not Mrs.
Bigelow at all--came to the door.
"A letther fer Miss Keroo? Well, ye'd betther be afther takin' it to
her yersilf. She's out in the garrden, there. An' no more time have I
to waste in runnin' fer this bell ivry foive minutes!"
And she went away, muttering. I was not surprised to see her so cross.
They always were cross; it was their normal condition. I walked through
the hall and took the garden path.
It was lined on both sides with box, and beyond were flower-beds. Also
there were apple trees, and cherry trees, and peach trees,--the last
full of red and yellow fruit. A number of bees were inquiring into the
hollyhocks, and on a stalk of Canterbury bells sat a brown and black
butterfly, slowly opening and closing his wings.
But I could not see Miss Carew. Near the foot of the garden the path
was arched by a summer-house. Its latticed sides were covered thick
with clematis and trumpet-vine. I kept on down the path and walked into
the summer-house.
There was a quick exclamation, and Miss Carew arose hastily from a seat
in the corner. Mr. Dennett was sitting there, and he had a curious
expression on his face, which made him rather more terrible to me than
usual. Miss Carew, like the cross woman who had let me into the house,
had very red cheeks. But in the case of Miss Carew the color was not
permanent. It was more noticeable at this moment than I had ever seen
it before; but it did not last.
"Why, it's Sammy!" said Miss Carew, with a laugh.
I disliked being called "Sammy" before Mr. Dennett, and I felt my face
grow red also. I remembered that Miss Carew was a stranger, who had
been visiting the Bigelows scarcely two months, but I corrected her
just the same.
"_Sam_," I remarked, with dignity.
"Sam," she repeated apologetically.
Then I took the note out of my jacket pocket, and handed it to her. She
thanked me, opened the envelope, and read the message. Then she said
that it was "all right," and added that I was a good boy to bring the
note.
Encouraged by this flattery, I backed to a bench on the other side
of the summer-house, and sat down facing them. Miss Carew had seated
herself again,--though at a somewhat greater distance from Mr. Dennett
than before.
There was a slight pause.
Miss Carew asked me how I came,--had I walked all the way?
"No," I replied, "I rode my velocipede."
"Did you, really?" she said; "that's a long ride for you, isn't it?"
It interested me to hear Miss Carew talk,--she came from some part of
the country where they have a greater respect for the letter R than was
usual with us. But I denied that I was fatigued.
"No'm; it ain't far at all! Once," I continued, growing reminiscent, "I
rode nearly up to Chain Bridge!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes'm; but when I got up to the Three Roads, Mr. Titcomb came along,
an' said I'd better go back,--it was so hot."
"Did you go back?"
"Yes."
There was another silence, which Miss Carew again broke.
"What kind of a velocipede is yours?" she asked.
"A wooden one," I assured her.
Then it struck me that the conversation was becoming a trifle inane,
and I tried to make things more interesting.
"My velocipede is out in front of the house now,--you can come out and
see it, if you want to."
But Miss Carew thought she would defer that pleasure till another time.
Mr. Dennett took the witness.
"Do you go to school, Sam?"
Really, it seemed that he might have done better than that. I had
that question asked me about five hundred times a year by grown-ups.
Evidently this Harvard was not the place I had thought. But I answered
him.
"Not now: it's vacation."
"Yes, I know. But you go when it isn't vacation?"
"Oh, yes."
"What school,--the Jackman?"
"No; the Kelley."
"Oh! Whose room?"
"Last year I was in Miss Temple's, an' next I'll be in Miss
Philipps's."
I had apparently satisfied Mr. Dennett's curiosity, for he relapsed
into silence. There was a long pause, while I swung my legs, and looked
at them expectantly. I was quite ready to answer more questions if they
had them to put.
They did not seem to think of any point on which they required
information for two or three minutes. Then Mr. Dennett did make an
inquiry,--or, rather, a suggestion.
"Perhaps your mother may want you for something, Sam?"
But I was able to set his mind at rest instantly.
"Oh, no; she don't want me till one o'clock, an' it's only half-past
ten, now."
"Later than that, isn't it?"
"No, sir. I saw the 'Piscopal clock when I came by."
He seemed to be relieved at this, but presently he had another question
to ask:
"Do you care for blackberries, Sam?"
"Yes! Have you got any?"
"There are some down the hill, there,--against the fence. Why don't you
go and get them?"
"Thank you,--shall I bring some of them back to you?"
"No,--just eat 'em yourself, and have a good time."
This was by far the most sensible thing he had said, and I hurried
down to the blackberry bushes. But when I got to them, and inspected
the long, thorny branches, I found that my expectations were to be
disappointed. If there had been any good berries they had been picked.
All that remained were unripe.
I hurried back to the summer-house, and burst in upon its occupants.
They seemed to be having some kind of a misunderstanding: Miss Carew
had a book in her hands, which Mr. Dennett was trying to take from her.
"Hullo! Back already? What was the matter with the blackberries,--are
they green?"
"No," I replied, "they are red,--but they're red when they're green,
you know."
And I climbed back to my former place on the bench opposite them.
Immediately, Mr. Dennett became concerned about my velocipede.
"Did you leave your velocipede in the street, Sam? Aren't you afraid
some one will steal it?"
I laughed.
"Oh, I guess not. I left it right beside your bicycle, an' there
wouldn't any one dare to touch it,--would they, Miss Carew?"
The lady agreed that it would require great boldness, but still, she
thought, it might be well for me to go and see if it were safe.
To allay her uneasiness I went back as far as the house, and looked
through the hall. Both the machines were there, in perfect safety. I
returned to the summer-house, and reported the fact, pleased at being
able to tell my friends that they need not worry.
As I was climbing to my seat again, Mr. Dennett had another suggestion.
"Look here, Sam, we saw a squirrel in Mr. Moulton's trees when we came
out here. Don't you want to go and see if you can find him?"
A squirrel is always worth seeing. I asked one or two questions
concerning his whereabouts, and then departed, promising to return as
soon as I found him. Mr. Moulton's trees were many, and after I had
gone through the hole in the hedge, I instituted a careful inspection
of each tree.
Mr. Moulton came down the drive, and when I told him what I was looking
for, he joined in the hunt. I can truthfully say that we examined each
branch with care.
But no squirrel appeared at all, though we saw three blackbirds, and
plenty of robins. When I got back to the summer-house Miss Carew and
Mr. Dennett were both gone, although they had left the book behind. I
searched and called, but could not find them any more than I had found
the squirrel.
As I departed down Elm Street again on my velocipede, I thought the
matter over at some length. Mr. Dennett had not left the premises,
unless he had done so without his bicycle, for that remained where I
had first seen it.
There was something singular about their behavior. Had they, perchance,
picked all the ripe blackberries before I arrived, and had they been
trying, with so much artifice, to conceal that fact from me?
That was the most reasonable explanation I could devise,--and,
certainly, the circumstances demanded some kind of explanation.