CHAPTER XV.

A DEAL IN TURKEYS.

Saturday was almost over before Renfro got to see the Rev. Mr. Bottleman, who was the clergyman in charge of the church which he and his parents attended. He had made his first trip to the parsonage early in the morning, before he had time to tell Mary about the stranger at the little lunch room on the night before.

And Mr. Bottleman had been out making some early morning calls on the sick. But his wife, a very friendly woman giggled and blushed like a young girl, assured Renfro that he would be back at noon and urged him to come then as she always considered the time, during which a man was eating, the best time to make a request.

She and Renfro had been friends since Renfro’s dog had ruined the garden of the deacon, whose wife criticized the parsonage lady for the length or rather the lack of length to her street costume. Though she didn’t have any idea what sort of a request he was going to make of her minister husband she determined to help obtain it if she could.

From there Renfro had gone direct to a meeting of Morrison’s carriers. Morrison usually had meetings only on great occasions such as giving out Christmas presents or the bestowing of prizes won by his boys or for other events of that order, but this time he felt that one was necessary to stimulate all the carriers in his district to carry away Thanksgiving turkeys.

It was the first time Renfro had seen the boys who worked in his part of town together. They filled Morrison’s room, Boy Scouts in uniform, tall boys out of uniform, little ones in corduroy suits and fat ones in heavy overcoats. The boy next Renfro was a Freshman in high school and the son in a family of eight children, all the boys in which were then or had been newspaper carriers.

“It’s just like joining the army,” he informed Renfro. “Once it gets in your blood you have to enlist. And we kids had to work to pay our way thru high school.”

Morrison began talking. He told them how nearly to the winning mark several carriers on other routes were. Then he gave the rating of the boys in his own section. Renfro smiled when his name was read first on the list. Now if his Sunday idea worked out all right he was sure that he would move up miles ahead by Monday.

“Hooch Horn,” Morrison beamed on Renfro, “has Old Grief, and he got every one of his subscribers out there on that route.”

The boy who had carried the route in the spring laughed derisively. “Gettin’ subscriptions out there,” he said, “is as easy as eatin’ pancakes on a cold morning. But collecting the money for them is just the same as eatin’ them same pancakes when it’s hot in July.”

Renfro stared at him but was silent. He knew that Morrison would tell him how many subscriptions had been paid in advance. And Morrison did. He had big hopes for Hooch he said.

After the talk Renfro noticed that the older carrier boys eyed him with respect. It was a new experience for him to be rated according to his own work and not just according to his father’s reputation, and he liked it. None of the boys there knew whether his father was a financier or a butcher; but they all did know that he was a successful route carrier for The Globe and that was what counted.

The meeting over, Renfro called up the parsonage again but the minister was still away. There was no use for him to come out there to wait, Mrs. Bottleman told him, for her husband had telephoned that he was going out to a country parishioner’s home after some supplies for a poor family.

“He went with the doctor, and his car is pretty much out of order these cold days,” she laughed, “so you just call from time to time today and I’ll let you know when he comes.”

Back at his home Renfro ate his dinner and talked a short time to Mary. The staff of detectives following a clue which they had obtained were leaving for another city, the name of which was a secret. Some of Judge Wier’s enemies had been tracked there.

There had been no more letters from Helen, so they were sure that she was out of town and that these, the family had received, had been brought back to town before they were mailed to avoid suspicion. Mrs. Wier had given up hope of ever seeing her daughter again but the Judge with his grim determination still believed that she would be found.

“And the guilty parties shall be punished,” he ended his declaration sternly. Even his wife’s entreaties and the detectives’ advice to avoid threats could not influence him.

Mary considered this news good news. But as to the man who had been selling rabbits to the restaurant keeper the night before she didn’t believe he would throw any light on their mystery. The town was full of low heavy set men. And did Hooch see his eyebrows?

Hooch had not. He had worn heavy goggles. But still Mary was skeptical. She had definitely arranged in her mind, following more research in her correspondence school books, that the guilty parties would be lodged in the haunted Hall house. Of course, she didn’t expect Helen Wier to be found there. Like the detectives, she believed that the child had been spirited out of the city, but she knew positively that the Hall men knew something about the kidnaping, “Well, all about it,” she added.

That afternoon, the minister still being an absent personage, Renfro canvassed his route for new customers and got just three. “A third of a turkey, almost,” he laughed to himself.

Saturday’s paper was out early so he was thru delivering it by four-thirty. He made it a rule to collect in the mornings. Straight from Washington Street he went across the town to the Methodist parsonage in which the Rev. Bottleman lived. And there he found that that gentleman had just returned.

His smile when he shook his hands with Renfro was encouraging. With spirits rising Renfro put forth a direct question, “Would you like to help get some turkeys for three poor families in your church?”

The minister didn’t smile. “You bet!” he agreed boyishly.

Renfro plunged immediately into the story of the Globe’s offer of a turkey for every ten new subscribers their carrier boys secured. “I’ve made up my mind to have six,” his mouth closed in the firm decisive line Henry Horn’s did when starting a business venture, “And I need some more subscribers.”

“Yes,” Mr. Bottleman raised his eyebrows.

“I want you to announce my proposition to your parishioners after church tomorrow morning. Tell them that the poor get the turkeys. I get the business. That’s what I want.”

“Sure I’ll do it,” a gleam of amusement crossed the minister’s face but Renfro didn’t see it. And immediately the pastor began talking.

“You stand at the little table just inside the outer door as the congregation leaves the church,” he gave definite directions. “Exactly as I do, following a missionary sermon, and preceding the missionary collection. You’ll get some new subscribers I’m sure.”

Back home Renfro ate his supper and planned to have a quiet evening. But there came a complaint from the office. Mr. Bruce had given directions that each boy, on whose route there came any complaint of a missing paper, was to see that that paper was properly delivered.

And there were two missing on Old Grief.

Renfro brought his skates and with them over his shoulder made his way to the street. With the papers in his overcoat pocket he skated out to the two little cottages at whose doors he had left papers earlier in the evening. Either a neighbor’s dog or a neighbor’s boy he felt sure had gotten the papers.

“Gee, I hope this doesn’t last all winter,” John Lehman, the carrier of the best route in town, met Renfro on Main Street with a whole stack of papers in his arms. “I think that the kidnapers must have decided to steal newspapers instead of lawyer’s kids. I’m so dead tired I won’t go to church in the morning,” he complained.

Renfro was glad of that for John went to Dr. Bottleman’s church. And the next morning as he sat in the pew next his mother he looked around and did not see a single Globe carrier whom he knew. He waited impatiently all thru the sermon for Dr. Bottleman’s announcement about the turkey proposition. When it did come he felt that he was blushing to the roots of his hair and wondered why his mother did not put out her hand and say that he could not do that.

But his mother was amazed along with several other members over the peculiar announcement. Nor did she notice when he slipped out of the pew and took his stand at the church door.

He saw neither of his parents until near the end of the processional of people leaving the church. And then he was so excited over his good luck in having gotten enough subscriptions, lacking one, to have won the turkeys. He was counting the list when he happened to look up and see his parents.

His mother’s face was fiery but his father was smiling. Gravely he took out his pocket book and counted out the money for a subscription. “Have it sent to Mary’s mother,” he said, “I heard her say the other day that she wished they could afford the paper at her home.”

Renfro took the money, gravely counted it and then looked up at his father, his eyes twinkling, “Dad,” he said boyishly, “You’re the fellow who put the finishing touches on the flock. Your subscription makes me have the necessary sixty. The turkeys are mine!”