ABOUT SOME INVESTMENTS
“Spouter, you said yesterday you had news for us,” remarked Jack on
the following morning while he and the twins were showing their chums
the radio aërial which had to be fixed. Fred was not present, having
gone on a walk with May. The other girls were upstairs discussing the
question of what to wear on such an unusually warm day.
“I think it will be news that will please you,” returned Spouter.
“Anyway, it pleases me and Gif.”
“Oh, I know they’ll like it! They spoke about it once before,” put in
Gif. “It’s in regard to our dads’ investments.”
“Oh, are they going into The Rover Company with our folks?” broke in
Randy eagerly.
“That’s it,” answered Spouter. “My father has already invested thirty
thousand dollars and is going to invest another twenty thousand very
soon.”
“And my father has put up his full fifty thousand already. Did it two
days ago,” announced Gif a bit proudly. “So you see we have quite an
interest in The Rover Company,” and he strutted around with his head in
the air and his thumbs in his armholes.
“Will that mean that you’ll go into the business with Fred and me later
on?” questioned Jack eagerly, looking at both of his chums as he spoke.
“I’ve been thinking of something of that sort,” answered Gif slowly.
“But I’m thinking also of taking up civil engineering.”
“I don’t think I want to go into Wall Street,” answered Spouter. “I’m
not going to make up my mind this year, but I’m inclined to think I’ll
take up law. I’d like to go into a court room and address a judge and
jury on an important case.”
“You could do it all right enough, Spouter,” answered Randy. “So far as
I know, you were never at a loss for words when talking.”
“You could talk a jury right into doing whatever you wanted,” added
Andy merrily. “All you’d have to do would be to keep on spouting until
they wanted their dinner or their supper, or wanted to retire for the
night, and then you’d have ’em promising you anything, if only you’d
let up.”
“Humph!” snorted Spouter. “A fine opinion you have of my oratorical
ability! Of course I might use an extended argument, but it would be
in strict accordance with the facts of the case. I’d lay down a plain
proposition, then go into the various and clinching particulars, and
after that――――”
“Please, Spouter, don’t start so early in the morning,” pleaded Randy,
for he as well as the others knew that if their chum ever got going
he would not stop talking for a long while. He had not been nicknamed
“Spouter” for nothing.
As had been said, Gif was something of an expert when it came to
radio, and soon he located the trouble, both in the radio itself and
in the way the aërial had been put up. He and Jack, by the aid of a
long ladder manipulated by all of the crowd, managed to get the aërial
properly fastened and then the radio was tried out on a distant station
and found to work to perfection.
Presently Fred and May came back and the other girls came downstairs,
and then the whole crowd took a walk over to the new Stevenson estate.
Here the foundations had been put down for the new building and the
carpenters were ready to erect the first of the big timbers.
“But dad wrote that the carpenters have another job to finish first,”
said Ruth; “so they won’t do any more here for several weeks. Then
they’re going at it and keep going until it’s finished.”
Ruth had studied the blue prints thoroughly, and it was not without
considerable pride that she explained how the house was to look when
finished and where the various rooms were to be located.
“My room will be right over here on this end, and will have a nice
sleeping porch attached,” she said. “Won’t it be a lovely view? I’ll be
able to see for miles and miles.”
“And you’ll be able to swallow ozone by the bushel and the ton,” added
Andy, with a grin.
After inspecting the spot where the building was to stand the young
folks broke up into little groups, and presently Jack found himself
walking by the side of Ruth and in the direction of a little brook that
wound in and out among the trees. This was near a point where the Rover
estate and the Stevenson estate joined.
“Did Spouter and Gif tell you the news about their folks?” questioned
Jack, as they strolled along.
“What news, Jack?”
“I mean about their dads investing in The Rover Company. Gif’s dad has
put up fifty thousand dollars and Spouter’s dad has put up thirty
thousand and is going to put up the other twenty very shortly.”
“Yes, I heard about that, Jack,” and then Ruth began to color a
little. “I suppose you heard about what my father is going to do?” she
continued after a moment’s pause.
“Your father? No, I didn’t hear about that.”
“He’s going to take fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stock, too. In
fact, I think he has already done so,” and Ruth cast down her eyes
while she blushed more than ever.
“Ruth! You don’t mean it!” Involuntarily Jack caught her by the arm.
“And you never told me!”
“I――I thought――dad ought to speak about it first,” faltered the girl.
“You know, I didn’t want you to think that――――” and then she stopped
abruptly.
“Why, Ruth, it’s wonderful! Just wonderful!” cried Jack, his face
glowing. “It shows what faith your dad has in our concern. I guess he
knows I’m going in with my father and Fred is going in too, doesn’t he?”
“He said that your father had written that you were going into the
business later on.”
“Why, your dad and my folks and myself will be sort of partners later
on, Ruth! Won’t that be great?”
“My dad thinks you are all going to make a lot of money,” went on the
girl.
“We’ll sure hope to,” answered Jack. He was trying to catch her eyes,
but Ruth was now looking down into the stream.
“Do you think you’ll like to be in Wall Street, Jack?”
“I don’t know why not.”
“Didn’t you used to think something of going into law or becoming a
doctor――or something like that?”
“Oh, I used to think all sorts of things, Ruth, just like any other
fellow. But somehow neither doctoring nor the law appeals to me. The
folks have a real good business in Wall Street, and I think I might as
well go in with them as not. Of course I sha’n’t spend all my time down
there grubbing for money. I’m going to take an interest in our gold
mine in the West, and our oil fields in the South, and I think between
all of them I’ll have plenty to do.”
“If you travel South and travel West all the time you’ll not be at home
very much,” was the girl’s comment. “I guess you don’t care much for
society, Jack?”
“Not a great deal. I always thought it was rather a hardship to get
into a dress suit, especially in hot weather,” and Jack smiled a
little.
“Did you get an invitation to the dance over at the Blue Mountain Golf
Club next Saturday?”
“No. None of us belongs over there, you know. How did you hear about
it?”
“Why, Joe Sedley spoke about it. He said nearly all the best people
around here went there.”
“Well, there are some nice people go there, but others are not so
nice――in fact, the club is getting the reputation for being a little
bit swift.”
“Mr. Sedley said it was the finest club anywhere around here. He said
it was a great honor to belong to it.”
“Did he ask you to go to the dance with him, Ruth?” questioned Jack
bluntly.
“Yes.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. It was on the tip of Jack’s
tongue to say a number of things, but he did not utter a word.
“But I’m not going to the dance,” went on Ruth. “I don’t want to leave
the other girls. And, anyway, the girls are all getting ready, as you
know, to visit my home. But I think it was very nice of Joe Sedley to
ask me to go,” she added.
How far this conversation might have extended there is no telling,
because at that moment several of the others came up with the
announcement that it was time to return to Valley Brook Farm for
lunch, and after the repast Ruth went off with the other girls to
complete the arrangements for going home and taking her former school
chums with her.
But the conversation made Jack more thoughtful than ever. He wondered
if Ruth had not been drawing him out on purpose and wondered also if
she would have been better pleased had he announced his intention of
taking up some profession.
“Maybe now that her family is well fixed she would like to shine
socially,” he told himself. “Well, lots of people like that, so I
couldn’t blame her. But I’m afraid I’d make a poor showing trailing the
élite four hundred. And then, what did she mean about traveling out
West and down South? Maybe she would prefer somebody who stuck at home.
But I couldn’t do that――not all the time. It’s not in my nature.”
But Jack was not left to meditate long. Gif and Spouter claimed his
attention and reminded both him and the other boys that they had been
promised an outing in the woods back of the farm if they came there for
a vacation.
“Both of us are a bit tired of running the car,” explained Spouter.
“We’d like to get into the wide-open spaces, as they call it, and rough
it a bit as we used to on Snowshoe Island and on our big hunt.”
“We’ll start out on a little trip just as soon as the girls leave,”
said Randy.
“Provided Fred can break away from May,” put in his twin slyly.
“May has certainly got him hypnotized,” laughed Jack.
“Humph! What about Ruth having you under her thumb?” retorted the
youngest Rover, and then he added quickly: “But you had better watch
your step, Jack, or Joe Sedley will be walking off with the prize.”
“If Ruth really wants Joe Sedley she can have him,” answered Jack
irritatedly. He was still thinking of the conversation down at the
brook.
The boys were standing at a corner of the old farmhouse while speaking,
and just as the last remark was made Ruth passed by one of the open
windows. She heard Jack’s rather ill-advised words and her cheeks
flushed deeply. She had been on the point of joining Martha in the
sitting room, but now she came to a sudden standstill, bit her lip
deeply, and then, looking straight ahead with her cheeks still flaming,
marched up to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
That same day, to add to his worries, Jack received a rather formal
note from Joe Sedley in which the rich young man stated that he
considered the race had been a tie and asked Jack to set a date for
riding it over again. Jack immediately showed the letter to his cousins.
“I wouldn’t do it!” said Randy quickly. “Why, if you agreed to that it
would tend to show that you were not willing to back up the judges of
the contest. They gave the race to you.”
“Tell him to take a walk to the north pole and cool off,” was the way
Andy expressed himself.
“I don’t think I’d notice the communication,” put in Fred.
“Oh, I’ll have to answer it,” said Jack, and a little later he
addressed a note in reply to Joe Sedley’s stating that he would abide
by the decision of the judges, and as a consequence that race could not
be ridden again. However, if Sedley wanted another contest, Jack would
be willing to arrange for it as soon as he returned from the outing he
was going to take with his cousins and their visitors.
To this Sedley answered abruptly: “It is the first race or nothing. I
shall always claim it was a tie.” And there the unfortunate incident
rested.