JOE OVERHEARS SOMETHING
"Are you the boys who threw the baseball through my kitchen window into
my kettle of apple sauce?" demanded Mrs. Peterkin, as she confronted the
two culprits.
"I threw it," admitted Joe.
"But we didn't know it went into the apple sauce," added Tom.
"Nor through the window," spoke Joe for want of something better to say.
"It was a wild throw."
"Humph!" exclaimed the irate lady. "I don't know what kind of a throw it
was but I know _I_ was wild when I saw my kitchen. I never saw such a
sight in all my born days--never! You come and look at it."
"If--if you please I'd rather not," said Joe quickly. "I'll pay you
whatever damages you say, but I--I----"
"I just want you to see that kitchen!" insisted Mrs. Peterkin. "It's
surprising how mischievous boys can be when they try."
"But we didn't try," put in Tom. "This was an accident."
"Come and see my kitchen!" repeated Mrs. Peterkin firmly and she seemed
capable of taking them each by an ear and leading them in.
"You--you'd better go," advised Mr. Peterkin gently.
So they went, and truly the sight that met their eyes showed them that
Mrs. Peterkin had some excuse for being angry. On the stove there had
been cooking a large kettle of sauce made from early apples. The window
near the stove had been left open and through the casement the ball,
thrown with all Joe's strength, had flown, landing fairly into the
middle of the soft sauce.
The result may easily be imagined. It splattered all over the floor,
half way up on the side walls, and there were even spots of the sauce on
the ceiling. The top of the stove was covered with it, and as the lids
were hot they had burned the sugar to charcoal, while the kitchen was
filled with smoke and fumes.
"There!" cried Mrs. Peterkin, as she waved her hand at the scene of
ruin. "Did you ever see such a kitchen as that? And it was clean
scrubbed only this morning! Did you ever see anything like that? Tell
me!"
Joe and Tom were both forced to murmur that they had never beheld such a
sight before. And they added with equal but unexpressed truth that they
hoped they never would again.
"I'm willing to pay for the damage," said Joe once more, and his hand
went toward his pocket. "It was an accident."
"Maybe it was," sniffed Mrs. Peterkin. "I won't say that it wasn't, but
that won't clean my kitchen."
Joe caught at these words.
"I'm willing to help you clean up!" he exclaimed eagerly. "I often help
at home when my mother is sick. Let me do it, and I'll pay for the apple
sauce I spoiled."
"I'll help," put in Tom eagerly.
"Who is your mother?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, looking at Joe.
"Mrs. Matson," he replied.
"Oh, you're the new family that moved into town?" and there was
something of a change in the irate lady's manner.
"Yes, we live in the big yellow house near----"
"It's right back of our place, Mrs. Peterkin," put in Tom eagerly.
"Hum! I've been intending to call on your mother," went on Mrs.
Peterkin, ignoring Tom. "I always call on all the new arrivals in town,
but I've been so busy with my housework and Spring cleaning----"
She paused and gazed about the kitchen. _That_, at least, would need
cleaning over again.
"Yes," she resumed, "I always call and invite them to join our Sewing
and Dorcas Societies."
"My mother belonged to both!" exclaimed Joe eagerly. "That is in
Bentville where we lived. I heard her saying she wondered if there was a
society here."
"There is," answered Mrs. Peterkin majestically, "and I think I shall
call soon, and ask her to join. You may tell her I said so," she added
as if it was a great honor.
"I will," answered Joe. "And now if you'll tell me where I can get some
old cloths I'll help clean up this muss."
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Peterkin slowly. Clearly her manner had
undergone a great change. "I suppose boys must have their fun," she said
with something like a sigh. "I know you didn't mean to do it, but my
apple sauce is spoiled."
"I'll pay for it," offered Joe eagerly. He was beginning to see a rift
in the trouble clouds.
"No," said Mrs. Peterkin, "it's all right. I have plenty more apples."
"Then let us help clean the place?" asked Tom.
"No, indeed!" she exclaimed, with as near a laugh as she ever indulged.
"I don't want any men folks traipsing around my kitchen. I'll clean it
myself."
"Well, let us black the stove for you," offered Tom.
"That's it, Alvirah," put in Mr. Peterkin quickly. He rather sided with
the boys, and he was glad that the mention of Joe's mother, and the
possibility of Mrs. Peterkin getting a new member for the societies, of
both of which she was president, had taken her mind off her desire for
revenge. "Let the boys black the stove. You know you always hate that
work."
"Well, I suppose they could do _that_," she admitted somewhat
reluctantly. "But don't splatter it all over, though the land knows
this kitchen can't be worse."
Behold then, a little later, two of the members of the Silver Star nine
industriously cleaning hardened apple sauce off the Peterkin kitchen
stove, and blackening it until it shone brightly.
"I'm glad Sam Morton can't see us," spoke Tom in a whisper.
"Yes; we'd never hear the last of it," agreed Joe.
They finished the work and even Mrs. Peterkin, careful housekeeper that
she was, admitted that the stove "looked fairly good."
"And be sure and tell your mother that I'm coming to call on her," she
added, as Joe and Tom were about to leave.
"Yes, ma'am," answered the centre fielder, and then he paused on the
threshold of the kitchen.
"Have you forgotten something?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, who was preparing
to give the place a thorough scrubbing.
"We--er--that is----" stammered Joe.
"It's their baseball, I guess," put in Mr. Peterkin. "It is in the
kettle of apple sass, Alvirah."
"Oh, yes; so it is," she agreed, and this time she really laughed.
"Well, you may have it," she added. "I don't want it." With a dipper she
fished it up from the bottom of the kettle, put it under the water
faucet to clean it, and held it out to Joe.
"Thanks," he said as he took it and hurried off with Tom, before
anything more could be said.
"Whew!" exclaimed Tom, when they were out in the lots again. "That was a
hot time while it lasted. And we got out of it mighty lucky, thanks to
your mother. Mrs. Peterkin is great on the society business, and I guess
she thought if she gave it to us too hot your mother wouldn't call on
her. Yes, we were lucky all right. Want to practice some more?"
"Not to-day," replied Joe with a smile. "I've had enough. Besides, this
ball is all wet and slippery. Anyhow there's lots more time, and I guess
the next day we do it we'll go down to the fairgrounds."
"Yes, there's more room there, and no kettles of apple sauce," agreed
Tom, with a laugh.
As Tom had an errand to do down town for his father he did not accompany
Joe back to their respective homes.
"I'll see you to-night," he called to his chum, as they parted, "and
we'll arrange for some more practice. I think it's doing you good."
"I know my arm is a bit sore," complained Joe.
"Then you want to take good care of it," said Tom quickly. "All the
authorities in the book say that a pitching arm is too valuable to let
anything get the matter with it. Bathe it with witch hazel to-night."
"I will. So long."
As Joe had not many lessons to prepare that night, and as it was still
rather early and he did not want to go home, he decided to take a
little walk out in the country for a short distance. As he trudged along
he was thinking of many things, but chief of all was his chances for
becoming at least a substitute pitcher on the Silver Stars.
"If I could get in the box, and was sure of going to boarding school, I
wouldn't ask anything else in this world," said Joe to himself. Like all
boys he had his ambitions, and he little realized how such ambitions
would change as he became older. But they were sufficient for him now.
Before he knew it he had covered several miles, for the day was a fine
Spring one, just right for walking, and his thoughts, being subject to
quick changes, his feet kept pace with them.
As he made a turn in the road he saw, just ahead of him, an old building
that had once, so some of the boys had told him, been used as a
spring-house for cooling the butter and milk of the farm to which it
belonged. But it had now fallen into disuse, though the spring was there
yet.
The main part of it was covered by the shed, but the water ran out into
a hollowed-out tree trunk where a cocoanut shell hung as a dipper.
"Guess I'll have a drink," mused Joe. "I'm as dry as a fish and that's
fine water." He had once taken some when he and Tom Davis took a
country stroll.
As he was sipping the cool beverage he heard inside the old shed the
murmur of voices.
"Hum! Tramps I guess," reasoned Joe to himself. But a moment later he
knew it could not be tramps for the words he heard were these:
"And do you think you can get control of the patents?"
"I'm sure of it," was the answer. "He doesn't know about the reverting
clause in his contract, and he's working on a big improvement in a
corn----"
Then the voice died away, though Joe strained his ears in vain to catch
the other words. Somehow he felt vaguely uneasy.
"Where have I heard that first voice before?" he murmured, racking his
brains. Then like a flash it came to him. The quick, incisive tones were
those of Mr. Rufus Holdney, of Moorville, to whom he had once gone with
a letter from Mr. Matson.
"And if you can get the patents," went on Mr. Holdney, "then it means a
large sum of money."
"For both of us," came the eager answer, and Joe wondered whom the other
man could be.
"You are sure there won't be any slip-up?" asked Mr. Holdney.
"Positively. But come on. We've been here long enough and people might
talk if they saw us here together. Yet I wanted to have a talk with you
in a quiet place, and this was the best one I could think of. I own this
old farm."
"Very well, then I'll be getting back to Moorville. Be sure to keep me
informed how the thing goes."
"I will."
There was a movement inside the shed as if the men were coming out.
"I'd better make myself scarce," thought Joe.
He had just time to drop down behind a screen of bushes when the two men
did emerge. Joe had no need to look to tell who one was, but he was
curious in regard to the other. Cautiously he peered up, and his heart
almost stopped beating as he recognized Mr. Isaac Benjamin, the manager
of the Royal Harvester Works where the boy's father was employed.
"There's some crooked work on hand, I'll bet a cookie!" murmured Joe, as
he crouched down again while the two men walked off up the country
road.