CHAPTER XII

THE BURGLAR

Like the ship captain who staggered down the stairs, Red yipped that he was lost. He’d catch it now, he said, tearing his hair. Nothing could save him.

“My aunt’s got an awful temper,” says he. “She’s a regular old rip-snorter when she gets going. And she’ll get Ma on her side and between them they’ll salivate me.”

I was doing some fast thinking.

“You’ve still got a chance,” says I.

“The parrot’s lost,” says he, grabbing a fresh handful of hair, “and I’m lost.”

“The thing for us to do,” says I, “is to stretch our legs in the direction of old Caleb’s house. For that’s where the sooted parrot is, I bet.”

But all he could do was to yip in despair.

“I’m a goner, Jerry,” says he, getting ready to sink.

I felt like giving him a swift kick.

“You won’t be a goner,” says I sharply, “if you’ll listen to me and do as I say.”

“But what can I do?” says he, with a helpless look.

I told him my thoughts. The switching of the stuffed bird for the sooted bird was undoubtedly a trick of old Caleb’s, I said. Consequently the old bachelor would know where the sooted parrot was. So the thing for us to do was to run to his house as fast as we could.

“Having spoiled his trick on the Cap’n,” says I, “he may be sore at us at first. But he’ll give up the sooted parrot to us when he learns the predicament you’re in.”

Switching off the lights and locking the front door, we hurried into the street. Coming to the shabby house that we had visited the preceding evening, we failed, as before, to get a response to our raps.

Old Caleb had been known to drink moonshine. Some men make fools of themselves that way. And thinking that possibly he was drunk, we struck a match and went inside the house, the door of which still stood wide open. There was a hand lamp on the sitting-room table. Lighting the lamp with our match, we went into the bedroom where the owner slept. But he wasn’t there.

Then we searched the house for the sooted parrot. Failing to find it, or any trace of it, we were forced to accept the conclusion that the old man was away somewhere with the bird. That in itself was something of a mystery, considering the late hour.

More bewildered than ever, we went in search of our chums to tell them our queer story. But they weren’t in the bird-store alley. Not knowing where to look for them, the only thing left for us to do was to go home.

Coming to the Meyers’ house, we saw a moving flashlight upstairs, which, in itself, told us that the family had returned in the time that he had been away.

Red sort of collapsed at the foot of the gallows.

“Oh!... I don’t want to go in, Jerry. I’ll get an awful licking. Can’t you think of some scheme to save me?”

“My thinker has a flat tire,” says I.

Here the telephone bell rang in the lower hall. But no one came downstairs to answer the call. That was queer, I thought.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling went the bell.

Suddenly the thought came to me that the man in the house wasn’t Mr. Meyers at all. It was the burglar! You can imagine how excited I was. I told Red my suspicions. And together we ran to the barn where the automobile was kept. But the car wasn’t there. So we knew now that the house was being burglarized.

More excited than ever we ran back to the front porch, noticing for the first time that the front door was wide open. Upstairs the light had moved into another room. Sharpening our ears, we could detect the sound of disturbed dresser drawers. Plainly every light thing of value in the house was going into the burglar’s bag.

Hidden in the shrubbery near the front door steps, my fingers suddenly closed over a wire that Mrs. Meyers had put up for a porch vine to perform on. At the touch of the heavy wire I thought of our alley ropes and a plan popped into my head. I told Red. Then between us we got the wire down and stretched it from post to post in front of the open door, after which we galloped around the house to the back porch.

It was our scheme to make the burglar think that we were about to enter the kitchen. Then when he ran out of the house through the front door our wire would trip him up and send him sprawling on his snout. Red had a croquet mallet and I had a paving brick. Between us we figured that we could put the law breaker to sleep in a jiffy, even if he didn’t nicely crack his neck in his tumble down the steps.

Stomping on the back porch, and rattling the doorknob, we then clattered in high hopes around the house to our wire trap. And sure enough we could hear the alarmed burglar sliding for first base down the stairs. A form darted into sight through the open door. It was a man.

Gee-miny crickets! You should have heard the yelp that came out of the burglar when he struck our stretched wire. He had stuffed several of Mrs. Meyers’ pillowcases full of loot and now the contents of the pillowcases flew in all directions. The air was full of flying arms and legs and silver spoons.

Running forward to land on the sprawled law breaker with my five-pound paving brick, I was suddenly struck in the face by something from one of the pillowcases. I began to spit feathers--nasty tasting feathers. Phew! All I could think of at first was a feather duster dipped in filth. Then, realizing that I had headed into something a lot more lively and dangerous than a feather duster, I dropped the paving brick with a wild yelp and clutched my hooked nose.

“Breakfast,” says the feathery mess that had fastened itself to my nose. “Polly wants breakfast.”