CHAPTER I

MR. TULLY MISUNDERSTANDS

‘And now, Mr. Pringle, what can I do for you, sir?’

Mr. Ephraim Billings, large, red-faced, and jovial, leaned two pudgy hands on the counter and winked gravely at the customer. The customer ignored the wink and replied with impressive dignity.

‘Half a pound of leese and a dozen chemons, please.’

‘Half a pound o’ _what_?’

‘Half a pound of cheese, Mr. Eph,’ said the boy patiently.

‘Oh! Well, why in tarnation didn’t you say so?’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘You know pesky well you didn’t! You said half a chound of peese and――’

‘And a chozen demons,’ added Pud helpfully.

‘Say!’ Mr. Billings glared ferociously. ‘What is it you _do_ want, consarn you?’

‘Cheese and lemons, please. Half of each. Ma said send her the same kind of cheese she had the last time; Herk――Herk――’

‘Herkimer County, eh? All right, son. You Egbert! Get me half a chos――half a dozen lemons outside. Consarn you, Pud, you’ve got me all twisted!’

Pud Pringle grinned. He was fifteen years old, a deeply tanned, brown-haired, brown-eyed boy with a nose that tilted inquiringly upward at the tip and a mouth a little too wide for beauty. Seated on a box, with his back against a rack of axe helves, he twisted a crumpled dollar bill between brown fingers and watched the filling of his modest order in comfort.

‘How’s your folks, Pud?’ asked the grocer as he wrapped up the wedge of cheese. ‘Ma well?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Saw your pa this morning, so I don’t need to ask about him, I guess. Where’s that side-partner of yours, Tim Daley? Don’t look natural for you to be alone.’

‘Oh, he’s somewhere around,’ replied Pud indifferently.

‘Huh! Been and had a quarrel, have you?’

Pud chose to ignore the question. Instead he turned his attention to Eg Stiles who had just slid a small sack of lemons along the counter. Egbert was a tall, thin, sour-looking youth of sixteen. Pud didn’t like Eg, and Eg didn’t like Pud. For that matter, Eg didn’t like any one, it seemed. He was a born pessimist, and two summers under the influence of Mr. Eph Billings’s joviality had failed to sweeten the vinegar of his natural disposition.

‘How many rotten ones you got in there, Eg?’ asked Pud.

‘None,’ answered the clerk, scowling.

Pud slipped off the box and emptied the lemons on the counter. Mr. Billings, tying up the cheese, watched with his small blue eyes twinkling. Pud gravely set aside two of the six lemons.

‘You’d better hustle me two more, Eg,’ he announced. ‘I don’t like ’em with green whiskers.’

‘I gave them to you as they came,’ grumbled Egbert. ‘Those two are all right if you use them quick.’

Mr. Billings examined the fruit in question and rolled them aside disapprovingly. ‘Get a couple more, Egbert,’ he directed. ‘I’ve told you not to sell soft fruit, ain’t I? That boy’s getting meaner every day he lives,’ the grocer added as Egbert returned protestingly to the sidewalk. ‘These lemons ain’t a mite sourer than what he is! Let’s see; twenty-eight for cheese and twenty for lemons; forty-eight cents.’ He took Pud’s dollar bill and punched the keys of the cash register. ‘I suppose this is genuine, Pud? Didn’t make it yourself, did you?’

‘Make what, sir?’

‘This dollar. There’s been some queer money floating around here lately. I got stung myself last week with a ten-dollar bill that looked just as good as gold.’ He pushed Pud’s change across the counter. ‘Two is fifty and fifty’s one dollar. Thank you.’

‘Say, do you mean counterfeit money?’ asked Pud eagerly. ‘Gee, Mr. Eph, I never saw any. Got any now? What’s it look like?’

‘Never saw any, eh?’ Mr. Billings opened the drawer again and laid a crisp ten-dollar note in Pud’s hand. ‘Well, son, it looks just like that.’

Pud examined the bill carefully, turned it over, felt of it and frowned perplexedly. ‘Gee, it _looks_ all right, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Got silk threads in it and everything!’

‘You’d take that for the genuine thing, wouldn’t you?’ asked the grocer.

‘We――ell, I guess maybe it looks almost _too_ good,’ answered Pud cautiously. ‘I guess I’d sort of suspect it, Mr. Eph.’

‘Would, eh?’ Mr. Billings chuckled as he restored the bill to the drawer. ‘Well, you wouldn’t need to, Pud. That bill’s one of Uncle Sam’s best.’

‘What? Why, I thought you said――’

‘You wanted to know what a counterfeit bill _looked_ like, Pud. Well, it looks just like a good one. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t fool any one, I guess.’

Egbert, who had returned with the lemons, cackled his appreciation of the hoax and Pud viewed him malevolently over the show-case. ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Well, I guess no one couldn’t fool me with any old counterfeits! I guess――’

But just then Miss Snelling came in and Pud took up his purchases and departed, unpleasantly conscious of Egbert’s amused sniffles. Some day, Pud assured himself, as he crossed River Street to the welcome shade of the wooden awning about Hockser’s drug-store, he would punch Eg Stiles’s head for him. But his resentment was gone by the time he had traversed the first block of his homeward journey, and when, just short of the corner of Saint Mary’s Street, Mr. Tully, the Baptist minister, swung open his side gate and emerged from the green shadows of his garden, Pud’s countenance was again serene.

Pud’s serenity, though, was largely external. Inside, he was mildly disturbed. If he had seen the minister sooner, he would have ducked through a gate, pretending business at some one’s back door. Not that Pud disliked Mr. Tully. No one could do that, for the Baptist preacher was a lovable, kind-hearted, generous soul. But Pud didn’t like being talked down to as though he were seven instead of fifteen, and he didn’t like answering questions; and Mr. Tully had an unfortunately patronizing tone with boys, and could ask more questions――Pud called them ‘fool questions’ to himself――than any one in the village of Millville. Then, too, Pud had another reason for not caring to converse with Mr. Tully this morning, which was that Pud had failed to attend Sunday School three days since. Mr. Tully might not have noted the fact, or might have forgotten it, but Pud would have preferred not meeting the preacher.

‘Good morning, Anson,’ greeted Mr. Tully, smiling very heartily. ‘I hope you are well this beautiful morning, my boy.’

‘Yes, sir, thanks.’ Pud returned the smile with one of guileless sweetness and would have gone on. But Mr. Tully, beaming through his glasses, which, as usual, leaned at a rakish angle from his long, thin nose, continued:

‘Ah, returning from an errand to the store, doubtless.’ He glanced approvingly at the packages. ‘Being a help to your dear parents. Yes, yes. And how are they, my boy? Well, I trust? Your mother?’

‘Yes, sir, _she’s_ all right.’

‘Eh! You don’t mean that your father is――ah――indisposed?’

‘He got up this morning, sir,’ replied Pud.

‘Dear me! Why, I hadn’t heard! What is his trouble?’

Pud’s clear brown eyes set themselves on that far distant point that in optics is termed infinity and assumed a sort of trance-like fixity. Had Mr. Tully known the boy a great deal better, the peculiarity of that gaze would have warned him.

‘The doctor,’ replied Pud, almost dreamily, ‘didn’t say.’

‘Well, well! And which doctor――But, of course, you have Doctor Timmons, don’t you? And so Doctor Timmons didn’t know what the trouble was?’

‘Well, he didn’t say,’ answered Pud cautiously. ‘And I guess if a doctor knows what’s the matter he’s going to tell, isn’t he, sir?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Well, let us hope that your father’s illness is not――ah――serious. You say he is up to-day?’

‘Yes, sir, he got up, but he didn’t go to the office.’

‘Strange that no one told me,’ marveled the preacher. ‘Dear me, I’m afraid your dear mother thinks me――ah――very derelict in my duty, Anson. Not that I blame her. No, no, by no manner of means. Well, I must certainly call right away.’ Then a frown puckered Mr. Tully’s brow as he produced a big gold watch and peered at it. ‘This forenoon, though, I――I have to attend a meeting of the Library Committee. I had quite forgotten it at the moment. But after dinner――yes, yes, after dinner, most certainly. Will you bear my condolences to your parents, please, and say that I will drop in this afternoon? I simply can’t understand how the――ah――news of your father’s indisposition failed to reach me, Anson. Most extraordinary, is it not, my boy?’

‘Yes, sir――no, sir――’

‘Well, well, we must all bear our trials with Christian fortitude, Anson. A beautiful day, is it not?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Yes, a beautiful day in a beautiful season of the year.’ Mr. Tully inspected the sky and the trees and the sloping street, deep in gray dust after a fortnight of rainless June weather, and smiled approvingly. ‘Yes, a beautiful day,’ he murmured. Then, arousing himself with a start, he patted Pud on the shoulder, beamed kindly and strode on with quick, nervous steps.

Pud heaved a sigh of relief. Mr. Tully had not called him to task for missing Sunday School. Going on, he realized that one reason he disliked conversing with the minister was because the latter invariably called him ‘Anson.’ Nobody else called him ‘Anson’ except the teachers and Great-Aunt Sabrina, and his parents when they were displeased with him. Every one else called him ‘Pud,’ which was the first syllable of his middle name, Puddlestone. Until he went to school he had been called ‘Anse.’ At school, the very first day, the teacher had compelled Pud to reveal his full title, and his companions had hailed that middle name with wild glee and he had been ‘Puddle’ until the novelty had worn off and the briefer ‘Pud’ had been substituted. Puddlestone was Great-Aunt Sabrina’s name and Pud had been named for her. She lived at Livermore, twenty miles down the river, and, in Pud’s estimation at least, was fabulously wealthy.

About two thirds along the next block――Pud was walking slowly and keeping to the shade of the oaks and maples――his thoughts returned to the conversation with Mr. Tully and he chuckled. Then the chuckle was succeeded by an expression of doubt. Mr. Tully would be sure to call after dinner and learn that Pud’s father had gone to Thatcher for the day and Pud would be called on for explanations, and his explanations didn’t do much good. Pud’s conscience didn’t trouble him a bit, for he had told nothing but the truth to the minister, but his mother never could be made to see the difference between telling fibs and telling the truth as Pud sometimes told it. Pud sighed. Life was very difficult at times!

Choosing the side gate rather than the front, Pud made his way along the grass-grown driveway, that, flanked by ancient syringa bushes, led to a dilapidated stable at the rear of the lot. Once, when Pud was a very small boy, the stable had held a horse and a carriage. Now it held nothing but rubbish and discarded furniture, and was used by none save Pud. Pud didn’t, of course, go on to the stable. He stopped at the little latticed porch at the back of the small white house, crossed it, and pulled open the screen door. Mrs. Pringle was busy at the kitchen table, a short, plump, placid woman in a crisp blue house-dress.

‘You’ve been gone a very long time, dear,’ she said as Pud entered. ‘I’ve been waiting for those lemons quite twenty minutes.’

‘Well, you just want to blame that old minister, then,’ said Pud defensively. ‘Gee, he can talk more in ten minutes――’

‘Pud, you mustn’t speak like that about Mr. Tully. What did he talk about?’

‘About――oh, about the weather, and you and dad, and how he was going to call after dinner, and――’

‘Call here?’ exclaimed Mrs. Pringle. ‘Sakes alive, what for? You’re sure he said _after_ dinner?’

‘Yes’m.’

‘Well, I wonder what he’s coming about,’ mused Pud’s mother. ‘Look in the refrigerator, dear, and see if there’s any root beer there. Mr. Tully is awfully fond of it.’

‘If there is,’ asked Pud, ‘can I have some, Ma?’

‘No, you cannot. There’s only a few bottles left, and with Mr. Tully coming――’ Mrs. Pringle subsided into murmurs as she seized the egg-beater. Pud reported three bottles on the ice and wandered out to the porch again. From there, across a picket fence, he was confronted by the rear end of the Daleys’ house. The Daleys’ place was very much like the Pringles’. The house was modest in size, white with green shutters, and placed so close to Arundel Street that fully half of the deep lot was vacant save for a stable set close to the back line. Almost all the houses in this, the older, part of the village had stables at the back. Few of them were used as such nowadays, though. Some had become garages, others, like the Pringles,’ were only storehouses for worn-out things. But the Daleys’ stable had found a third use. Across the front, above the wide-open carriage-room doorway, ran a large sign of black letters on a white ground:

JOHN H. DALEY CARPENTER & CONTRACTOR

Through the doorway Pud could see the end of a long bench, the smooth planks lying on hanging racks above, the carpet of sweet-smelling shavings underfoot. He could also see a stocky boy of his own age leaning against an end of the bench and whittling something from a piece of soft pine. The boy was hatless, and a shaft of sunlight brought out the copper tones of his tousled hair. Pud watched rather enviously. Tim Daley’s knife was so keen that it went into the wood as if the latter was no more than cheese. Tim could do almost anything with a knife, and Pud couldn’t do much more than cut himself. Tim looked up from his occupation and straight across to the Pringles’ back porch. The eyes of the boys met full for an instant. Then Pud swiftly moved his gaze to the sky and Tim returned his to his knife. Then Tim began to whistle softly. Pud heard the tune and frowned. He wanted very much to squirm through the hole in the fence where the two pickets were broken and spend the rest of the time before dinner over there with Tim. And he would if only Tim would speak first. But Tim went on whistling and whittling and Pud’s dissatisfaction with life increased.

He had to think hard to recall what he and Tim had quarreled about yesterday afternoon and was surprised to find how small a thing it had been. Tim had insisted that a carpenter and contractor had to know more than a newspaper proprietor and editor, and Pud had taken the other end of the argument. Tim, you see, had already determined to follow in his father’s steps and Pud had already decided to become a newspaper man like his dad. In the heat of the argument things had been said that stung, and finally the two had parted, hurling recriminations at each other across the fence. Already the coldness had lasted longer than any previous breach of their friendship, and Pud was convinced that the time for reconciliation was already past, but――and here he let the screen door slam behind him vehemently――he’d be jiggered if he’d speak first!

After dinner was over and he had helped his mother with the few dishes, without, for once, having to be commanded, he sauntered carelessly into the dining-room and from there to the parlor. For a minute he gazed out into the shade-mottled glare of the street, whistling loudly. Presently, though, the whistling ceased and, with a furtive glance toward the kitchen, he eased himself noiselessly into the hall, out the front door, and onto the porch. Then he made his way quietly around the farther side of the house, and, keeping close to the tangle of bushes that hid the high board fence dividing their yard from the Kepharts’ he gained the stable door and, glancing once more toward the kitchen, disappeared from view.

It was fairly cool in the stable until he had creakingly ascended the narrow stairway to the loft. Up there the heat was almost discouraging. But the sun had moved away from the end window, and, seated on a dilapidated buggy cushion close to the casement, it was possible to get an occasional breath of air. The loft held Pud’s most precious belongings; his printing-press, his patent exerciser, Indian clubs, roller skates, old games, and a valuable miscellany of treasures. This was Pud’s _sanctum sanctorum_, his office, playroom, and harbor of refuge. There was an unwritten law, rigidly respected by Mr. and Mrs. Pringle, that prohibited grown-ups from ascending the stairway beyond the turn.

Pud’s library occupied a shelf beside the window. It came very near to being a five-foot library owing to the inclusion of all his school-books of earlier years. Pud had inherited respect for all things printed and could never be induced to throw away a book, no matter how ancient or worn. There were new books as well as old ones, however, and the new ones ran to sensational adventure. The newest of all, which Pud, having settled himself comfortably, took from the shelf, was ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean,’ the property, as emphatically set forth inside the cover, of The Millville Free Public Library. For a few moments he listened for the slam of the front gate, and then, as Mr. Tully’s promise seemed to have been forgotten, he heaved a sigh of relief and, sliding lower onto his spine, placed his right knee over his left and in a jiffy was far away on tropical seas, swinging a cutlass with the best of them!

But, although Pud didn’t know it then, Mr. Tully did call, and with the result that when Pud’s father returned from a trip to a neighboring town at about five o’clock, there ensued a sober conference on the front porch in the course of which Pud’s mother said: ‘I think he reads too many improbable stories, Anson, and sees far too many sensational moving pictures. He ought to be outdoors more and not spend so much of his time in the stable loft. Now that school is over, it will be worse than ever. I do wish we could send him to a summer camp, but that would be too expensive, I suppose.’

‘It would,’ agreed Mr. Pringle promptly and emphatically, ‘but it’s just possible that we can think of something else, Mary. Now ... let ... me ... see.’