AN INVOLUNTARY HAY-RIDE.
Louder and louder came the shrieks and cries, and the party, all of them
considerably alarmed, rushed around to the front of the house to
perceive what this new uproar might mean. They beheld a sight that made
Mrs. Soopendyke begin to cry out in real earnest.
One of her family had, in a playful mood, removed the stones which held
Hamish’s hay wagon stationary on the steep grade. As a natural result,
it began to slide backward down the hill. But what had thrilled the good
lady with horror, and the others with not a little alarm, was the sight
of three other young Soopendykes, including the baby, on the top of the
load. It was from them and from Master Courtney Soopendyke, who
perceived too late the mischief he had done by removing the stones, that
the ear-piercing yells proceeded.
“Oh, save them! Oh, save my bee-yoot-i-ful children!” screamed Mrs.
Soopendyke, wringing her hands, as the ponderous wagon, with its
screaming load of children, began to glide off more and more rapidly.
“Great Scott!” shouted Mr. Dacre. “That deep hole in the creek is at the
bottom of the hill!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” shrilled Mrs. Soopendyke, and fainted just in time to fall
into the arms of Hamish, who came running round from the barn.
“Help! Fire! Murder! Send for the fire department!” screamed Mrs. Bijur,
with some confusion of ideas.
In the midst of this pandemonium Tom and Jack and their uncle alone kept
cool heads. Before the wagon had proceeded very far, the two Bungalow
Boys were off after it, covering the ground in big leaps. But fast as
they went, the wagon rumbled down the grade—which grew steeper as it
neared the creek—just a little faster seemingly—than they did. Its
tongue stuck straight out in front like the bowsprit of a vessel. It was
for this point that both lads were aiming. Tom had a plan in his mind to
avert the catastrophe that seemed almost inevitable.
Mustering every ounce of strength in his body, he made a spurt and
succeeded in grasping the projecting tongue. In a second Jack was at his
side.
“Swing her!” gasped out Tom. “It’s their only chance.”
But to swing over the tongue of a moving wagon when it is moving away
from you is a pretty hard task. For a few seconds it looked as if,
instead of succeeding in carrying out Tom’s suddenly-thought-of plan,
both Bungalow Boys were going to be carried off by the wagon.
But a bit of rough ground gave them a foothold, and, exerting every
ounce of power, the lads both shoved on the springy pole for all they
were worth. Slowly it swung over, and the wagon altered its course.
“Steer her for that clump of bushes. They’ll stop her!” puffed out Tom.
“All right,” panted Jack, but as he gasped out the words there came an
ominous sound:
Crack!
“Wow! The pole’s cracking!” yelled Jack.
The next instant the tough wood, which, strong as it seemed, was
sun-dried and old, snapped off short in their hands under the unusual
strain.
A cry of alarm broke out from the watchers at the top of the hill as
this occurred. It looked as if nothing could now save the wagon from a
dive into the creek.
But even as the shout resounded and the boys gave exclamations of
disgust at their failure, the wagon drove into the mass of brush at
almost the exact point for which they had been aiming. At just that
instant a big rock had caught and diverted one of the hind wheels, and
this, combined with the swing in the right direction already given the
vehicle, saved the day.
With a resounding crashing and crackling, and redoubled yells from the
terrified young Soopendykes on the top of the load, the wagon, as it
plunged into the brush, hesitated, wavered, and—came to a standstill.
But as the wheels ceased to revolve, Hamish’s carefully piled load gave
a quiver, and, carrying the terrified youngsters with it, slid in a
mighty pile off the wagon-bed.
Fortunately, the children were on top of the load, and they extricated
themselves without difficulty. Hardly had they emerged, however, before
a violent convulsion was observed in the toppled off heap, and presently
a hand was seen to emerge and wave helplessly and imploringly.
“Who on earth can that be?” gasped the boys, glancing round to make sure
all the group was there. Yes, they were all present and accounted
for,—Mrs. Soopendyke, sobbing hysterically in the midst of her reunited
family, the lads’ uncle, Mrs. Bijur, Hamish, and several other boarders
who had been aroused by the explosion, and had set off on a run down the
hill as the wagon plunged into the brush.
Before they could hasten forward to the rescue of whoever was struggling
in the hay, a bony face, the nose crowned with a pair of immense horn
spectacles, emerged. Presently it was joined by a youthful, pug-nosed
countenance.
“Professor Dalhousie Dingle?” cried everybody, in astonishment. “And
that dratted boy, Douglas Dingle!” echoed Mrs. Bijur.
“Yes, madam,” said the professor solemnly, emerging with what dignity he
could, and then, taking his boy by the hand and helping him forth, “It
is Professor Dingle. May I ask if this was intentional?”
“Why, dear land, perfusser, you know——”
“I only know, madam, that while my lad Douglas here and myself were
searching for specimens in the thicket we suddenly found ourselves
overwhelmed with an avalanche of dried grass—or, as it is commonly
called—hay. Bah! I am almost suffocated!”
The professor carefully extricated a “fox tail” from his ear and then
performed the same kind office for his son and heir.
“Pa-pa,” piped up the lad, “may I ask a question?”
“Yes, my lad,” beamed the professor amiably stepping down from the pile
of hay, which Hamish was regarding ruefully.
“Well,” spoke up Douglas, “if we had not gotten out from under that hay,
would we have been suffocated?”
“Undoubtedly, my boy—undoubtedly,” was the rejoinder. “Gross
carelessness, too.”
He scowled at the assembled group.
“Would it have hurt, pa-pa?”
“Surely, my boy. Suffocation, so science tells us, is a most painful
form of death.”
“Worse than measles, pa-pa?”
“Yes, my child, and——”
“Perfusser,” interrupted Mrs. Bijur, with firmness, “I want to know what
you intend to do about my roof?”
It was the professor’s turn to look astonished.
“What roof, madam?” he asked, still brushing hay-seed from his
long-tailed black coat.
“Ther roof of my extension whar you hed thet thar lab-or-at-ory—whar
you was making them messes that was liable to blow up.”
“Well, madam?”
“Wall, sir—they done it!”
“They done—did what, madam?”
“Blowed up!” responded Mrs. Bijur, with deadly calm.
“Good heavens, madam—impossible!”
“Not with them Soopendykes around!” was the confident response. “It’s my
belief they’d a turned the Garden of Eden inter a pantominium. They——”
But the professor rushed off dragging Douglas by the hand, his long coat
tails flapping in the air as he sped up the road as fast as his lanky
legs would carry him.
“The greatest invention of the age has gone up in smoke!” he yelled, as
he flew along.
Laughing heartily over the comical outcome of events that might have
proved tragic, Mr. Dacre and the boys rendered what aid they could in
replacing the hay load, and then started back for the bungalow. The last
they saw of the professor he was crawling about on his hands and knees,
scooping up fragments of the explosive with a tin teaspoon in one hand,
and waving Mrs. Bijur indignantly to one side with the other. They
little imagined, as they shook with amusement at the ludicrous picture,
under what circumstances they were to meet the professor again, and what
a singular part his explosive was destined to play in the not very far
distant future.