Barbour Ralph Henry
The Turner Twins

“Why, wasn’t it true?”

“Sure! At least, as true as anything is that folks tell. You know, Nod, after being repeated a couple of hundred times a story sort of grows.”

Lee grunted. “After some smart Aleck has written it up as an English comp. its own mother wouldn’t know it! The real joke would be for Starling to wreck the woodwork and find the money!”

“No, that wouldn’t be a joke,” said George, “that would be a movie! Come on! It’s starting again! Last man in East buys the sodas! Come on, Lee!”

Lee and Laurie ran a dead heat, and all the way to George’s room, on the second floor, each sought to shift to the other the responsibility of providing the soda-water for the trio. In the end, George appointed himself referee and halved the responsibility between them.

When, twenty minutes later, Laurie climbed onward to Number 16, he found a very disgruntled Ned curled up in the window-seat, which was now plentifully supplied with cushions. “Where’ve you been all the afternoon?” he demanded aggrievedly.

“Many places,” replied Laurie, cheerfully. “Why the grouch?”

“You’d have a grouch, I reckon, if you’d messed around with a soggy football for almost two hours in a cloud-burst!”

“Did you – er – get wet?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t get wet! I carried an umbrella all the time, you silly toad! Or maybe you think they roofed the gridiron over for us?”

“Well, I got sort of water-logged myself, and don’t you let any one tell you any different! Wait till I return this rain-coat and I’ll tell you about it.”

“I’ve got troubles enough of my own,” grumbled Ned, as Laurie crossed the corridor.

Kewpie wasn’t in when the borrowed garment was returned, but Hop Kendrick was, and Hop said it was quite all right, that Ned was welcome to anything of Kewpie’s at any time, and please just stick it in the closet or somewhere. And Laurie thanked him gratefully and placed the rain-coat, which wasn’t very wet now, where he had found it. And the incident would have ended then and there if it hadn’t started in to rain cats and dogs again after supper and if Kewpie hadn’t taken it into his head to pay a visit to a fellow in West Hall. Which is introductory to the fact that at eight o’clock that evening, while Ned and Laurie were conscientiously absorbed in preparing to-morrow’s Latin, a large and irate youth appeared at the door of Number 16 with murder in his eyes and what appeared to be gore on his hands!

“That’s a swell way to return a fellow’s coat!” he accused.

He brandished one gory hand dramatically, and with the other exhumed from a pocket of the garment a moist and shapeless mass of brown paper and chocolate creams. “Look at this!” he exhorted. “It – it’s all over me! The pocket’s a regular glue-pot! Ugh!”

Laurie looked and his shoulders heaved.

“Oh, Kewpie!” he gurgled, contrition – or something – quite overmastering him. “I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry!”

Kewpie regarded him scathingly a moment, while syrupy globules detached themselves from the exhibit and ran along his wrist. Finally he exploded: “Sorry! Yes, you are!”

Whereupon the door closed behind him with an indignant crash, and Laurie, unable longer to contain his sorrow, dropped his head on his books and gave way to it unrestrainedly.

CHAPTER IX – LAURIE HEARS NEWS

October arrived with the first touch of cooler weather, and the football candidates, who had panted and perspired under summer conditions for a fortnight, took heart. Among these was Ned. Laurie, who at first had had to alternate sympathy and severity in order to keep his brother’s courage to the sticking-point, now found that his encouragement was no longer needed. Ned was quite as much in earnest as any fellow who wore canvas. Probably he was not destined ever to become a mighty player, for he seemed to lack that quality which coaches, unable to describe, call football instinct. But he had made progress – surprising progress when it is considered that he had known virtually nothing of the game two weeks before.

Laurie, whose afternoons were still absorbed by baseball, viewed Ned’s efforts as something of a joke, much to the latter’s chagrin, and continued to do so until a chance conversation with Thurman Kendrick opened his eyes. Hop had come across one forenoon to borrow some notes and had tarried a moment to talk. In those days, when Hop talked he talked of just one subject, and that subject was football, and he introduced it to-day.

“We’ve got to do better to-morrow than we did last week,” he said earnestly, “or we’ll get licked hard. Cole’s was fairly easy, but Highland is a tough customer. Our trouble so far has been slowness, and Highland’s as fast as they make them. Somehow, Mulford doesn’t seem able to get any pep into our bunch. The line isn’t so bad, but the back field’s like cold glue.”

“That’s up to the quarter, isn’t it?” asked Laurie, anxious to prove himself not absolutely ignorant of the subject.

“Yes, partly; but it’s up to the coach first. If the backs aren’t used to working fast, the quarter can’t make them. Frank Brattle’s a good quarter, Nod. I sort of wish he wasn’t so good!”

“Meaning you’d have a better chance of swiping his job?” smiled Laurie.

“Oh, I’ll never do that; but if he wasn’t so good I’d get in more often. The best I can hope for this year is to get in for maybe a full period in the Farview game. Anyway, I’ll get my letter, and maybe next year I’ll land in the position. Frank’s a senior, you know.”

“Is he? I haven’t seen much practice so far. Baseball keeps me pretty busy.”

“How are you getting on?”

“Slow, I’m afraid. Anyway, you could easily tell Babe Ruth and me apart!”

“I guess you’re doing better than you let on,” said Hop. “If you’re as good at baseball as your brother is at football, you’ll do.”

“I guess I am,” laughed Laurie; “just about!”

“Well, Nid is surely coming fast,” replied Hop, gravely. “He’s been doing some nice work the last few days.”

Laurie stared. “Say, what are you doing, Hop? Stringing me?” he demanded.

“Stringing you?” Hop looked puzzled. “Why, no. How do you mean?”

“About Ned. Do you mean that he’s really playing football?”

“Why, of course I do. Didn’t you know it?”

Laurie shook his head. “He’s been telling me a lot of stuff, but I thought he was just talking, the way I’ve been, to sort of keep his courage up.”

“Nonsense! Nid’s doing mighty well. I don’t know how much experience he’s had; some ways he acts sort of green; but he’s got Mason worried, I guess. If he had another fifteen pounds he’d make the team sure. As it is, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him play a whole lot this fall. You see, he’s a pretty good punter, Nod, and yesterday he blossomed out as a drop-kicker, too. Landed the ball over from about the thirty yards and from a hard angle. Mason doesn’t do any kicking, and it’s no bad thing to have a fellow in the back field who can help Pope out in a pinch. It’s his kicking ability that’ll get him on if anything does.”

“I see,” said Laurie, thoughtfully. “Well, I’m mighty glad. To tell the truth, Hop, Ned hasn’t had an awful lot of experience. He’s had to bluff a good deal.”

“I suspected something of the sort from seeing him work the first week or so. And then Kewpie said something that sort of lined up with the idea. Well, he’s working hard and he’s making good. Much obliged for these, Nod. I’ll fetch them back in ten minutes.”

When Kendrick had taken his departure Laurie stared thoughtfully for a minute into space. Finally he shook his head and smiled. “Good old Ned!” he murmured. “I’m sorry I ragged him so. Gee, I’ll have to buckle down to my own job or he’ll leave me at the post!”

After practice that afternoon, Laurie and Lee picked up George and Bob Starling at the tennis-courts, and, after changing into “cits,” went around to the doctor’s porch and joined a dozen other lads who were engaged in drinking Miss Tabitha’s weak tea and eating her soul-satisfying layer-cake. After a half-hour of batting and fielding practice and a five-inning game between the first team and the scrubs, Laurie was in a most receptive mood as far as refreshments were concerned. Miss Tabitha made an ideal hostess, for she left conversation to the guests and occupied herself in seeing that cups and plates were kept filled. No one had yet discovered the number of helpings of cake that constituted Miss Tabitha’s limit of hospitality, and there was a story of a junior so depressed by homesickness that he had absent-mindedly consumed six wedges of it and was being urged to a seventh when some inner voice uttered a saving warning. In spite of very healthy appetites, none of the quartette sought to compete with that record, but Laurie and George did allow themselves to be persuaded to third helpings, declining most politely until they feared to decline any more. Before they had finished, the doctor joined the group and made himself very agreeable, telling several funny stories that set every one laughing and caused a small junior – it was the cherub-faced youth who sat at Laurie’s table in the dining-hall and whose career thus far had proved anything but that of a cherub – to swallow a mouthful of mocha cake the wrong way, with disastrous results. During the ensuing confusion the quartette took their departure. At the gate Bob Starling said:

“By the way, fellows, I spoke to Dad about that tennis-court, and he’s written to the agent for permission. He says there won’t be any trouble; and if there is, he’ll agree to put the garden back the way we found it and erect a new arbor.”

“What will it be?” asked George. “Sod or gravel?”

“Oh, gravel. You couldn’t get a sod court in shape under a year, and I want to use it this fall. I’m going to look around to-morrow for some one to do the job. Know who does that sort of work here – Lee?”

“No, but I suppose you get a contractor; one of those fellows who build roads and stone walls and things.”

“I’d ask at the court-house,” said Laurie.

“At the court – oh, that’s a punk one!” jeered Bob. “See you later, fellows!”

The game with Highland Academy was played across the river at Lookout, and most of the fellows went. In spite of Hop Kendrick’s pessimistic prophecy, Hillman’s took command of the situation in the first quarter and held it undisturbed to the final whistle. The contest was, if not extremely fast, well played by both teams, and the hosts refused to acknowledge defeat until the end. Captain Stevenson, at left tackle, was the bright, particular star of the day, with the redoubtable Pope a good second.

It was Joe Stevenson’s capture of a fumbled ball in the first five minutes of play and his amazing run through the enemy ranks that produced the initial score. Pope kicked an easy goal after Slavin, right half, had plunged through for a touch-down. Later in the game, Pope had added three more points by a place-kick from the forty-two yards. Highland twice reached the Blue’s ten-yard line, the first time losing the ball on downs, and the next attempting a forward pass that went astray. Her one opportunity to score by a kick was wrecked by no other than Kewpie, who, having substituted Holmes at the beginning of the second half, somehow shot his hundred and seventy pounds through the defense and met the pigskin with his nose. Kewpie presented a disreputable appearance for several days, but was given due honor. Hillman’s returned across the Hudson in the twilight of early October with exultant cheers and songs.

Ned watched that game from the substitutes’ bench, just as he had watched the two preceding contests, but a newly awakened esprit de corps forbade complaining. When Laurie sympathetically observed that he thought it was time Mulford gave Ned a chance in a real game, Ned responded with dignity, almost with severity, that he guessed the coach knew his business.

The first of the month – or, to be exact, the fourth – brought the twins their monthly allowances, and one of the first things Laurie did was to go to the little blue shop on Pine Street and pay his bill, which had reached its prescribed limit several days before. Ned went, too, although he didn’t display much enthusiasm over the mission. Ned held that, having created a bill, it was all wrong deliberately to destroy it. To his mind, a bill was something to cherish and preserve. Laurie, however, pointed out that, since one was prohibited from further transactions at the Widow’s, even on a cash basis, as long as one owed money there, it would be wise to cancel the debts. Ned recognized the wisdom of the statement and reluctantly parted with ninety-seven cents.

Since it was only a little after two o’clock, the shop was empty when the twins entered, and Polly and her mother were just finishing their lunch in the back room. It was Polly who answered the tinkle of the bell and who, after some frowning and turning of pages in the account-book, canceled the indebtedness.

“Now,” said Ned, “I guess I’ll have a cream-cake. Want one, Laurie?”

Laurie did, in spite of the fact that it was less than an hour since dinner. Mrs. Deane appeared at the door, observed the proceeding, and smiled.

“I’m real glad to see you’re still alive,” she said to Ned. “I guess he must take very good care of you.”

“Yes’m, I do,” Laurie assured her gravely.

Ned laughed scornfully, or as scornfully as it was possible to laugh with his mouth full. “You shouldn’t believe everything he tells you, Mrs. Deane. I have to look after him like a baby. Why, he wouldn’t get down in time for breakfast if I didn’t put most of his clothes on.”

“That’s no joke, either,” retorted Laurie, “about you putting my clothes on. You’re wearing one of my collars and my best socks right now, and – yes, sir, that’s my blue tie!”

“Wait a bit, partner! Where’d you get that shirt you’re wearing?”

“That’s different,” answered Laurie, with dignity. “Mine are all in the wash. Besides, it’s an old one and you never wear it.”

“I never get a chance to wear it!”

“It must be very convenient for you,” said Mrs. Deane, smilingly, “to be able to wear each other’s things. Polly, I guess there won’t be any one else in for a while; maybe they’d like to see your garden.”

Being assured that they would, Polly led the way through the back room, a pleasant, sunny apartment evidently combining the duties of kitchen and dining-room, and out to a little back porch shaded by morning-glories and nasturtiums that fairly ran riot over the green lattice. There was a braided rug on the floor and a small rocker and a tiny table on which were books and a magazine or two. The books were evidently Polly’s school books, for they were held together by a strap.

The twins liked that garden. It wasn’t very large, for when the peculiar Mr. Coventry had divided the estate he had placed the high board fence very close to the little frame dwelling; but perhaps its very smallness made it seem more attractive. Narrow beds encompassed it on three sides, and a gravel walk followed the beds. In the tiny square inside, a small rustic arbor, covered with climbing rose-vines, held a seat that, as was presently proved, accommodated three very comfortably.

But before they were allowed to sit down the boys had to be shown many things: the hollyhocks against the back fence, the flowering almond that had been brought all the way from the old home in New Jersey, – and had never quite made up its mind whether to die of homesickness or go on living, – the bed of lilies-of-the-valley that just wouldn’t keep out of the path and many other floral treasures. Nasturtiums and morning-glories and scarlet sage and crinkly-edged white and lavender petunias were still blossoming gaily, and there was even a cluster of white roses on the arbor, for, so far, no frost had come. The twins admired properly and Polly was all smiles, until suddenly she said, “O-oh!” and faced them reproachfully.

“You’ve just let me go on and be perfectly ridiculous!” she charged. “I don’t think it’s a bit nice of you!”

“Why, what – how do you mean?” stammered Ned.

“You have the most wonderful flowers in the world in California, and you know it!” she replied severely; “and you’ve let me show you these poor little things as if – as if they were anything at all in comparison! I forgot you came from California.”

“Maybe we didn’t tell you,” offered Laurie. “Anyway, your flowers – ”

“In California they have hedges of geraniums and roses climb right over the houses, and orange-trees and palms and everything,” interrupted Polly, breathlessly. “Why, this garden must seem perfectly – perfectly awful to you!”

“Don’t you believe it!” denied Ned. “Flowers and things do grow bigger, I suppose, out our way; but they aren’t a bit prettier, are they, Laurie?”

“Not so pretty,” answered the other, earnestly. “Besides, I never saw a geranium hedge in my life. Maybe they have them in some places, like Pasadena, but there isn’t one in Santa Lucia, honest. There isn’t, is there, Ned?”

“I never saw one. And palms aren’t awfully pretty. They get sort of scraggly-looking sometimes. Honest, Polly, I never saw a garden any prettier and cuter than this is. Of course, some are bigger and – and more magnificent – ”

“Who wants a magnificent garden?” demanded Laurie, scornfully. “What have you got in the box, Polly?”

Comforted, Polly smiled again. “That’s Antoinette,” she said. “Come and see.”

Antoinette lived in a wooden box in the shelter of the porch, and had long ears and very blue eyes and a nose that twitched funnily when they approached. In short, Antoinette was a fluffy smoke-gray rabbit. “She has a dreadfully long pedigree,” said Polly, as she took Antoinette out and snuggled her in her arms.

“Has she?” murmured Laurie. “I thought it looked rather short.”

“A pedigree isn’t a tail, you idiot,” said Ned, scathingly. “She’s awfully pretty, Polly. Will she bite?”

“Of course not! At least, not unless you look like a cabbage-leaf.”

“I wouldn’t take a chance,” Laurie advised. “Any one who’s as green as you are – ”

“She tries to eat ’most everything,” said Polly, “but she likes cabbage and lettuce and carrots best.”

“I wish I had a cabbage,” muttered Laurie, searching his pockets; “or a carrot. You haven’t a carrot with you, have you, Ned?”

“You’re the silliest boys!” laughed Polly, returning Antoinette to her box. “Let’s go and sit down a minute.” And when they were on the seat under the arbor and she had smoothed her skirt and tucked a pair of rather soiled white canvas shoes from sight, she announced, “There! Now you can make up a verse about something!”

CHAPTER X – POLLY ENTERTAINS

“Make up a – what did you say?” asked Ned.

“Make up a verse,” answered Polly, placidly. “As you did the other day when you went out. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh!” Laurie looked somewhat embarrassed and a trifle silly. “Why, you see – we only do that when – when – ”

“When we have inspiration,” aided Ned, glibly.

“Yes, that’s it, inspiration! We – we have to have inspiration.”

“I’m sure Antoinette ought to be enough inspiration to any poet,” returned Polly, laughing. “You know you never saw a more beautiful rabbit in your life – lives, I mean.”

Ned looked inquiringly at Laurie. Then he said, “Well, maybe if I close my eyes a minute – ” He suited action to word. Polly viewed him with eager interest; Laurie, with misgiving. Finally, after a moment of silent suspense, his eyelids flickered and:

“O Antoinette, most lovely of thy kind!” he declaimed.

“Thou eatest cabbages and watermelon rind!” finished Laurie, promptly.

Polly clapped her hands, but her approval was short-lived. “But she doesn’t eatest watermelon rind,” she declared indignantly. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be at all good for her!”

Laurie grinned. “That’s what we call poetic license,” he explained. “When you make a rhyme, sometimes you’ve got to – to sacrifice truth for – in the interests of – I mean, you’ve got to think of the sound! ‘Kind’ and ‘carrot’ wouldn’t sound right, don’t you see?”

“Well, I’m sure watermelon rind doesn’t sound right, either,” objected Polly; “not for a rabbit. Rabbits have very delicate digestions.”

“We might change it,” offered Ned. “How would this do?

 
“O Antoinette, more lovely than a parrot,
Thou dost subsist on cabbages and carrot.”
 

“That’s silly,” said Polly, scornfully.

“Poetry usually is silly,” Ned answered.

Laurie, who had been gazing raptly at his shoes, broke forth exultantly. “I’ve got it!” he cried. “Listen!

 
“O Antoinette, most beauteous of rabbits,
Be mine and I will feed thee naught but cabbits!”
 

A brief silence followed. Then Ned asked, “What are cabbits?”

“Cabbits are vegetables,” replied Laurie.

“I never heard of them,” said Polly, wrinkling her forehead.

“Neither did any one else,” laughed Ned. “He just made them up to rhyme with rabbits.”

“A cabbit,” said Laurie, loftily, “is something between a cabbage and a carrot.”

“What does it look like?” giggled Polly.

Laurie blinked. “We-ell, you’ve seen a – you’ve seen an artichoke, haven’t you?” Polly nodded and Laurie blinked again. “And you’ve seen a – a mangel-wurzel?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then I don’t see how I can tell you,” said Laurie, evidently relieved, “because a cabbit is more like a mangel-wurzel than anything else. Of course, it’s not so deciduous, and the shape is different; it’s more obvate than a mangel-wurzel; more – ” he swept his hands vaguely in air – “more phenomenal.”

“Oh, dry up,” said Ned, grinning. “How’d you like to have to put up with an idiot like that all your life, Polly? The worst of it is, folks sometimes mistake him for me!”

“Yes, it’s awful, but I manage to bear up under it,” Laurie sighed.

“How did you ever come to think of making those funny rhymes?” Polly asked.

“Oh, we had measles once, about four years ago,” said Ned. “We always had everything together – measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, everything. And when we were getting over it they wouldn’t let us read and so we made up rhymes. I forget whose idea it was. I’d make up one line and Laurie would make up the other, or the other way round. The idea was to have the last word of the first line so hard that the other fellow couldn’t rhyme to it. But I guess I only stuck Laurie once. Then the word was lemon.”

“You didn’t really stick me then,” Laurie denied. “I rhymed it with demon. You said they didn’t rhyme, but I showed you a rhyming dictionary that said they did.”

“The dictionary said it was an imperfect rhyme, Laurie, and – ”

“Just the same, a rhyme’s a rhyme. Say, Ned, remember the one we made up about Miss Yetter?” Ned nodded and grinned. “Miss Yetter was our nurse. We thought it was pretty clever, but she didn’t like it.

 
“When feeling ill send for Miss Yetter.
If you don’t die, she’ll make you better.”
 

“She was quite insulted about it,” laughed Ned, “and told Dad; and he tried to lecture us, but we got laughing so he couldn’t. We made rhymes all the time for a while and nearly drove folks crazy; and finally Dad said if we didn’t stop it he’d whale us. And I said, ‘All right, sir, we’ll try not to do it’; and Laurie, the chump, butted in with, ‘’Cause if we do, we know we’ll rue it!’ We nearly got the licking right then!”

“You are funny!” laughed Polly. “Is your mother – haven’t you – ”

“She died when we were kids,” answered Laurie. “I just remember her, but Ned doesn’t.”

“You think you do. You’ve just heard Dad, and nurse talk about her. We were only four when Mother died.”

Laurie looked unconvinced, but didn’t argue the matter. Instead he asked, “Your father’s dead, isn’t he, Polly?”

“Yes, he died when I was eight. He was a dear, and I missed him just terribly. Mother says I look like him. He was very tall and was always laughing. Mother says he laughed so much he didn’t have time for anything else. She means that he wasn’t – wasn’t very successful. We were very poor when he died. But I guess he was lots nicer than he would have been if he had just been – successful. I guess the most successful man in this town is Mr. Sparks, the banker, and no one has ever seen him laugh once. And Uncle Peter was successful, too, I suppose; and he was just as sour and ill-tempered as anything. He wasn’t my real uncle, but I called him that because Mother said it would please him. It didn’t seem to.”

“Was that Mr. Coventry?” asked Laurie. “The mis – I mean the man who lived in the big square house over there?”

“Yes. And I don’t mind your calling him the miser, because that is just what he was. He was Mother’s half-brother, but he didn’t act as if he was even a quarter-brother! He was always just as horrid as he could be. When Father died he wrote Mother to come here and he would provide her with a home. And when we came, we found he meant that Mother was to live here and pay him rent. She didn’t have enough money to do that, and so Uncle Peter made the front of the house into a store and bought some things for her and made her sign a mortgage or something. When he died, we thought maybe he had left Mother a little; but there wasn’t any will, and not much property, either – just the big house on Walnut Street and this place and about two thousand dollars. When the property was divided, Mother got the other heirs to let her have this as her portion of the estate, but she had to pay four hundred and fifty dollars for it. That took about all she had saved and more, and so we haven’t been able to do much to the house yet.”

“It doesn’t look as if it needed much doing to,” said Ned, critically.

“Oh, but it does! It needs a new coat of paint, for one thing. And some of the blinds are broken. And there ought to be a furnace in it. Stoves don’t really keep it warm in winter. Some day we’ll fix it up nicely, though. As soon as I get through high school, I’m going to work and make a lot of money.”

“Attaboy!” approved Ned. “What are you going to do, Polly?”

“I’m learning stenography and typewriting, and Mr. Farmer, the lawyer, – he’s the one who got the others to let Mother have the house when Uncle Peter’s estate was settled, – says he will find a place for me in his office. He’s awfully nice. Some stenographers make lots of money, don’t they?”

“I guess so,” Ned agreed. “There’s a woman in Dad’s office who gets eighteen dollars a week.”

Polly clasped her hands delightedly. “Maybe I wouldn’t get that much, though. I guess Mr. Farmer doesn’t pay his stenographer very high wages. Maybe I’d get twelve dollars, though. Don’t you think I might?”

“Sure!” said Laurie. “Don’t you let any one tell you any different. Didn’t folks think that your Uncle Peter left more money than was found, Polly?”

“Oh, yes; but no one really knew. The lawyers looked everywhere. If he did have any more, he must have hidden it away pretty well. They looked all through the house and dug holes in the cellar floor. It was very exciting. Mother thinks he lost what money he had speculating in stocks and things. He used to go to New York about four times a year. No one knew what he did there, not even Hilary; but Mother thinks he went to see men who deal in stocks and that they got his money away from him.”

“Who is Hilary?” Laurie inquired.

“Hilary was a colored man that Uncle had had a long time. It seemed to me that if Uncle had had much money, Hilary would have known about it; and he didn’t.”

“Where is he now? Hilary, I mean,” added Laurie, somewhat unnecessarily.

“I don’t know. He went away a little while after Uncle Peter died. He said he was going to New York, I think.”

“You don’t suppose he took the money with him, do you? I mean – ”

“Oh no!” Polly seemed quite horrified. “Hilary was just as honest as honest! Why, Uncle Peter died owing him almost forty dollars and Hilary never got a cent of it! The lawyers were too mean for anything!”

“There’s a fellow named Starling living there now,” Laurie said. “His father’s rented the house for three years. Bob says that he’s going to find the money and give it to your mother.”

Polly laughed. “Oh, I wish that he would! But I guess if the lawyers couldn’t find it he never will. Lawyers, they say, can find money when nobody else can! Is he nice?”

“Bob? Yes, he’s a dandy chap. You ought to know him, Polly; he’s your next-door neighbor.”

“Back-door neighbor, you mean,” interpolated Ned.

“I think I saw him in the garden one day,” said Polly. “His father is an engineer, Mae Ferrand says, and he’s building a big bridge for the railway. Or maybe it’s a tunnel. I forget.”

“Is Mae Something the girl with the molasses-candy hair you were with at the high school game?” Laurie asked.

“Yes, but her hair isn’t like molasses candy. It’s perfectly lovely hair. It’s like – like diluted sunshine!”

Laurie whistled. “Gee! Did you get that, Neddie? Well, anyway, I like dark hair better.”

“Oh, I don’t! I’d love to have hair like Mae’s. And, what do you think, she likes my hair better than her own!”

“Don’t blame her,” said Laurie. “What do you say, Ned?”

“I say I’ve got to beat it back and get into football togs. What time is it?”

“Look at your own watch, you lazy loafer. Well, come on. I say, Polly, would your mother let you go to the game with me Saturday? That is, if you want to, of course.”

“Oh, I’d love to! But – I’ll ask her, anyway. And if she says I may, would you mind if Mae went too? We usually go together to the games.”

“Not a bit. I’ll be around again before Saturday and see what she says.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she said yes,” remarked Polly. “I think she must like you boys. Anyway, you’re the first of the Hillman’s boys she has ever let me invite out here.”

“Really? Bully for her! Wait till I say farewell to Antoinette, ‘most beauteous of rabbits!’ What does she twitch her nose like that for?”

“I think she’s asking for some cabbits,” replied Polly, gravely.

“She’s making faces at you, you chump,” said Ned, rudely. “Come on.” They returned through the little living-room, empty save for a big black cat asleep in a rocking-chair, and found Mrs. Deane serving the first of the afternoon trade in the shop beyond. They said good afternoon to her very politely, and Polly went to the door with them. Outside on the walk, Ned nudged Laurie, and they paused side by side and gravely removed their caps.

“We give you thanks and say farewell, Miss Polly.”