The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall: or, Great Days in School and Out

CHAPTER X
BUNK GOES CRAZY

“Hang it all!” exclaimed Teddy, as the Rushton boys and their chums came near their homes. “I hate to own up that we didn’t find those papers.”

“It is too bad,” admitted Bob. “But you did the best you could, and if they’re not there, you can’t help it.”

“I can see the look on Uncle Aaron’s face,” said Teddy. “That sort of I-told-you-so look that makes you wish you were big enough to lick him.”

“You sure do stand well with that uncle of yours,” laughed Jim.

“Yes,” assented Teddy gloomily, “I stand like a man with a broken leg.”

“Oh, brace up,” chirped Jack. “We had the peaches anyway.”

“Bother the peaches!” exclaimed Fred. “I’d give all the peaches in the world just to lay my eyes on those papers.”

“Sam Perkins at one end of the road and Uncle Aaron at the other,” brooded Teddy. “I sure am up against it!”

But the confession of failure had to be made. The boys had cherished a faint hope that somebody in town might have found the papers, and that when they got back at noon, Uncle Aaron might have recovered them. But although he had been downtown most of the morning and had inquired everywhere, there had been not the slightest trace of them, and he had returned tired and angry.

“Rampagin’ roun’ like de bery Ole Nick,” was the way Martha described him, when she had a moment alone with Teddy. “It sho duz beat all, how de good Lo’d lets people like him cumber de earf.”

His greeting was about as genial as Teddy had expected. But he had steeled himself for that and could stand it. What disturbed him much more was the distress his mother felt and the chilly disapproval of his father.

The latter had settled with Jed Muggs that morning for the damage caused by Teddy. Jed had named an excessive price, but Mr. Rushton had been in no mood to haggle and had paid him what he asked. But it was not this that kept him silent and preoccupied.

He was seriously debating with himself whether he would do well to take Aaron’s advice. The boarding school idea had set him thinking. He wanted to do the very best thing for the boys, and he was worried by the thought that perhaps he had been too easy and indulgent.

Several days passed, while he was pondering the matter. Gradually the atmosphere cleared, and the household began to go on as usual. Even Uncle Aaron lost some of his crankiness and seemed at times to be “almost human.”

And then, just as things were going along nicely, Teddy, once more, as Fred sorrowfully put it, had to “spill the beans.”

It was a very warm morning, and most of the family were out on the porch trying to get what air there was. Teddy had occasion to go upstairs, and had to pass the door of his uncle’s room.

The latter had an appointment to meet a little later on, and, as it was an important one, he had arranged to dress with more care than usual. His clothes, including a new white vest, were laid out neatly on the bed, near his writing desk.

But what especially caught Teddy’s eye, was a sheet of fly-paper, laid on a small table close beside the desk.

Such things were a novelty in the Rushton home. There was no need for them, because every window and door was carefully screened during the hot weather, and Martha was death to any unlucky fly that happened to wing its way inside.

But Uncle Aaron was so fidgety and nervous that even a solitary insect buzzing around kept him awake at night, and, at his request, Mrs. Rushton had secured the sticky sheet that now lay glistening on the table.

It must have been Teddy’s evil genius that caused Bunk, the house cat, to come strolling past the door at just that moment. He was so sleek and lazy and self-satisfied that Teddy was strongly tempted to shake him out of his calm.

He hurried down to the kitchen, found a piece of meat on one of the breakfast dishes that Martha was clearing up, and ran upstairs again.

Bunk was still there, putting the last touches on his toilet. His smooth fur, washed and rewashed, shone like silk.

“Here, Bunk,” called Teddy coaxingly, holding the bit of meat just above the little table.

The confiding Bunk looked up lazily. Then his eyes brightened. He measured the distance, jumped and came down with all four paws on the sticky fly paper.

With a yowl of surprise and fright, he tried to free himself from the mess. He used his head to get it away from his feet, and only succeeded in smearing his face and shoulders. At times he would get one foot loose, only to get it stuck again when he tried to free another. In less time than it takes to tell, he was a yellow, sticky mass.

Thoroughly panic stricken, he took a flying leap to the desk, upsetting a bottle of ink in his course and landed on the bed, where he rolled over and over on the white vest and other clothes so carefully laid out by Uncle Aaron.

Teddy was almost as scared as the cat. He dashed after him, grabbing at the paper, getting some severe scratches in the process, and finally yanked it away. As for Bunk, he dashed out of the room like a yellow whirlwind.

Fred, who had heard the racket, came running upstairs and found Teddy standing aghast at the mischief he had caused. The older brother took in the situation at a glance.

“Quick,” he urged, “get out of the window. They’ll be up in a minute.”

The kitchen extension was just under the window of the room. Teddy lifted the screen and dropped to the roof. From there it was only twelve feet to the ground and he made the drop in safety. No one saw him but Martha, and that faithful soul could be depended on to keep silent.

Mr. Mansfield Rushton had already left for the city, but Mrs. Rushton and Uncle Aaron came hurrying up the stairs. The former was in a flurry of excitement, which increased materially when she looked into Uncle Aaron’s room and saw the awful wreck that had been made of it.

“Oh, whatever in the world has happened now?” she gasped.

As for Aaron, he could hardly speak at all. He was speechless with rage, as he picked up his clothes and handled them gingerly.

“Spoiled, utterly spoiled,” he spluttered. Then, he caught sight of Bunk in one corner of the hall.

“It’s that confounded cat,” he shouted, as he made a kick at him that missed him by a hair. “He got tangled up in the fly paper and carried it all over the room.”

But just then he saw the bit of meat that had tempted the unwary Bunk. He picked it up and looked hard at it.

“Um-hum,” he muttered, and the steely look came into his eyes.

He turned sharply on Fred.

“Where’s Teddy?” he asked.

“He doesn’t seem to be around here anywhere,” replied Fred. “I’ll see if I can find him downstairs.”

And he went down with alacrity, but carefully refrained from coming up again. He remembered that he must see Bob Ellis at once. He opened the front door and passed swiftly round the corner.

“He’ll find him,” growled Aaron bitterly. “Oh, yes, he’ll find him! You won’t see either of those boys till lunch time.

“I tell you, Agnes,” he went on fiercely, “one of those young scamps is just as bad as the other. Teddy starts the mischief and Fred does all he can to shield him.”

“You don’t know yet that Teddy had anything to do with it,” protested Mrs. Rushton, in a tone which she tried to make confident, but with only partial success.

“No, of course not,” he answered sarcastically, “he’s never to blame for anything. All the same I’ll bet my life that he and nobody else is at the bottom of this. How did this meat get up here, if somebody didn’t bring it?”

“Perhaps the cat brought it up,” suggested Mrs. Rushton desperately. Then, feeling the weakness of her position, she went on hurriedly:

“But now, I must get busy and clear up this awful mess. Give me those clothes, and Martha and I will fix them up right away.”

But though the damage to the clothes was soon repaired, storm clouds were still hovering over the household when Teddy came in to lunch.

He loafed in with an elaborate pretense of unconcern. Nothing was said at first, and he was beginning to hope when Uncle Aaron suddenly blurted out:

“What’s the matter with your hand?”

Though startled, Teddy lifted up his left hand.

“Why, I don’t see that anything’s the matter with it,” he replied, holding it out for examination.

“I mean the one you’re hiding under the table,” went on Aaron stonily.

“Oh, that one?” stammered Teddy. “Why, it’s scratched,” he added brightly, as he studied it with an expression of innocent surprise.

There was a dead silence. Teddy, not caring to look anywhere else, kept gazing at his hand, as though it were the most fascinating object in the world.

“Oh, Teddy!” moaned his mother.

And then Teddy knew that the game was up.

“Honestly, Mother,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to–that is I meant to make the cat jump on the fly-paper, but I didn’t think he’d – ”

Here was Uncle Aaron’s cue.

“Didn’t think!” he stormed. “Didn’t think! If you were my boy – ” And here he launched into a tongue lashing that outdid all his previous efforts. It seemed to Teddy an age before he could escape from the table, carrying away with him the echo of Uncle Aaron’s final threat to have it out with his father when he came home that night.

It was the last straw. Mr. Rushton’s indecision vanished at the recital of Teddy’s latest prank. Before he slept that night he had written to Dr. Hardach Rally, asking for his catalogue and terms, intimating that if these proved satisfactory, he would send his two boys to Rally Hall.

CHAPTER XI
THE ROBBERY

The answer came back promptly.

In addition to the catalogue and pictures of the Hall and grounds, Dr. Rally wrote a personal letter. It was in a stiff, precise handwriting that seemed to indicate the character of the man.

He would be very glad to take the Rushton boys under his care. He thought he was not exaggerating when he said that the standard of scholarship at Rally Hall was not exceeded by any institution of a similar kind in the entire state. Their staff of instructors was adequate, and their appliances were strictly up to date. There was a good gymnasium, and the physical needs of the boys were looked after with the same care as their mental and moral requirements.

But what he laid especial stress upon was the discipline. This came under his own personal supervision, and he thought he could promise Mr. Rushton that there would be no weakness or compromise in this important particular.

“That’s the stuff!” broke in Uncle Aaron, gleefully rubbing his hands. “What did I tell you? Hardach Rally is the one to make boys mind.”

Fred and Teddy failed to share his enthusiasm, and Mrs. Rushton shivered slightly.

But, taken as a whole, the letter met the views of Mr. Mansfield Rushton, and when the family council broke up, it was definitely settled that the boys should go to Rally Hall.

Old Martha was “dead sot,” as she put it, against the whole plan.

“Ain’ no good goin’ to kum uv it,” she grumbled to herself, as she jammed her hands viciously into the dough. “House’ll seem like a graveyard wen dose po’ boys get shunted off ter dat ole bo’din’ school. Like enuf dey won’t giv’ um half enuf ter eat. An’ all on ’count uv dat ole w’ited sepulker,” she wound up disgustedly.

But Uncle Aaron, wholly indifferent to Martha’s views even if he had known them, was in high feather. He had carried his point, and, in the satisfaction this gave him, he became almost good-natured. He could even allow himself a wintry smile at times, as he reflected that the boys–the “pests,” as he called them to himself–were to get a taste of the discipline that their souls needed.

“He’ll show them what’s what,” he chuckled. “He’ll either bend ’em or break ’em. I know Hardach Rally.”

As for Fred and Teddy themselves, they hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry.

They loved their home and their parents, and then, too, they hated to leave their boy friends with whom they had grown up in the home town.

But, on the other hand, there was the attraction of new sights and places and all the adventures that might come to them. It was another world into which they were going, and it was not in boy nature that they should not be thrilled by the prospect of “fresh fields and pastures new.”

But before the time came for their departure, Oldtown had a sensation that turned it topsy-turvy.

The village store was robbed!

The first thing the boys knew about it was when they heard a whistle under their windows that they recognized as that of Jack Youmans. They stuck sleepy heads out to see what had brought him there at that early hour.

“Hurry up, fellows!” he cried excitedly. “Get your clothes on and come down. There’s something doing.”

“What is it?” they asked in chorus.

“Never you mind,” answered Jack, swelling with a sense of his importance. “You get a move on and come down.”

They slipped into their clothes and in less than three minutes were down beside him. He made them beg a little before he finally gave up his secret.

“The store was robbed last night,” he said importantly.

“The store!” exclaimed the boys. There was no need of specifying, as there was only one store in Oldtown of any importance.

“How did it happen?” asked Fred.

“Did they get much?” questioned Teddy.

“They don’t know yet,” replied Jack to both questions. “A fellow came past our house a little while ago, and he called to my dad, who was working in the garden, that when Cy Briggs went to open up, he found that the front door was already open and everything inside was all scattered about. He can’t tell yet just how much was stolen, but the safe was broken into and everything in it was cleaned out. Cy is awful excited about it, and they say he’s running around like a hen with her head cut off. Get a wiggle on now, and let’s get down there.”

The boys could not remember when anything like a robbery had happened before in the sleepy little town, and they were all afire with excitement.

The family was not up yet, but the boys did not wait for breakfast in their eagerness to be on the scene of the robbery.

A hasty raid on Martha’s pantry gave each of them enough for a cold bite, and, eating as they went along, and running most of the way, they were soon in front of the village store.

The news had traveled fast, and there was an eager crowd already gathered. All sorts of rumors were about, and in the absence of any real news as to the robbers, one guess was as good as another.

The only thing about which there was no doubt at all was that the robbery had occurred. The open safe and tumbled goods were sufficient proofs of that. Cy Briggs, who had run the store for forty years, and had never had a robbery or fire or anything to disturb the regular order of things, was so flustered that he had not yet been able to find out the extent of his loss.

One or two of the cooler heads were going over the stock with him, while the others clustered on the broad porch in front and waited for developments, keeping up a constant buzz of questions and conjectures.

No one had heard any unusual noise the night before. The village constable, who constituted the entire police force of Oldtown, had made his usual round about ten o’clock, and, as a matter of form, had tried the door. But it had been securely fastened as usual, and there had been nothing to rouse his suspicion. Apart from two or three traveling men who had come in with Jed Muggs, and were now staying at the one hotel, nobody had seen any outsiders.

The whole thing was a mystery, and this was increased by the discovery that while the door had been found open, showing that the thieves had come out that way, they must have found some other means of entrance. The door had been fastened by a bolt, which Cy had pushed into the socket the last thing before leaving. This had not been broken, as it would have been, if the robbers had forced their way in from the front. Cy himself had gone out of a back door, which he had locked, carrying the key away with him, and this door was found still locked when he came that morning to open up.

“Well, Cy, how about it?” was the question from a dozen voices, as the old storekeeper, grizzled and flushed, came out on the porch. “How much did you lose?”

“Don’t know yet,” Cy answered, wiping his forehead with a huge bandana handkerchief, “but I reckon it’ll figger up to close on three or four hundred dollars’ wuth.”

A hum of excitement rose from the crowd. To the boys especially, this seemed an enormous amount of money.

“That’s a right smart sum, Cy,” remarked a sympathetic listener. “What was it they got away with?”

“Money, mostly,” mourned Cy. “The goods in the store wasn’t bothered much. Reckon they was lookin’ only for cash. Then, too, they’ve cleaned out a co’sid’able of jewelry and watches. Some of ’em I was gettin’ ready to send away to the city to be repaired, and others had come back mended, but the customers hadn’t called for ’em yet.”

Catching sight at that moment of Fred in the crowd, he added: “One of them watches was your Uncle Aaron’s. It was a vallyble one and I feel wuss over that than almost anything else. I know he set a heap of store by it.”

“Uncle Aaron’s watch!” gasped the boys.

It was a knock-down blow for them, especially for Teddy. Was he never to get away from that miserable runaway? If it had not been for that, the watch would not have been injured, and at this very moment it might have been reposing in his uncle’s capacious pocket. Now the “fat was in the fire” again. The chances were that the watch would never be seen again by the rightful owner.

“I’m the hoodoo kid, all right!” he groaned.

“It sure is hard luck,” sympathized Jack.

“Brace up, Teddy,” urged Jim. “They may catch the fellows yet.”

“Swell chance!” retorted Teddy to their well-meant sympathy. “Even if they do, they won’t get the watch back. Those fellows will make a beeline to the nearest pawnshop, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“I wish we could have caught them at it,” said Fred savagely. “If they’d only been working when we came past last night.”

“What time last night?” asked Cy, pricking up his ears.

“About eleven o’clock, I guess,” answered Fred. “Teddy and I had been over to Tom Barrett’s house. He’s just got a new phonograph, and we went over to hear him try it out. He had a lot of records, and it was pretty late when we came away.”

“And yer didn’t see anything out of the way when you come past?” went on Cy.

“Not a thing. We didn’t meet a soul on the way home.”

Just then there was a stir inside the store, and the constable, Hi Vickers, came to the door.

“Come here a minute, Cy,” he said. “I bet I’ve found out how those fellers got into the store.”

As many as could crowded in after him as he led the way to a little side window.

“They got in here,” he said triumphantly.

“But that’s locked,” said Cy.

“Sure it is,” explained Hi, “but they could have locked it again after they got in, couldn’t they? One thing certain, they’ve unlocked it first from the outside. See here,” and the constable showed where the blade of a heavy knife had left marks on the frame. It had evidently been thrust between the two halves of the window to push back the fastening.

“There you are,” he said. “You see, they clum that apple tree right alongside the winder and – ”

“Say!” broke in Fred, as a thought came to him like a flash of lightning, “I bet I know who the robbers were.”

All eyes were turned on him in surprise.

“It was two tramps that I saw round here a few days ago,” continued Fred. “A lot of us fellows were in Sam Perkins’ barn, and we heard the tramps talking. They didn’t see us, but we saw them. We couldn’t hear all they said, but I did hear them say something about an ‘apple tree’ and ‘side window’ and something being ‘dead easy.’ I’d forgotten all about it till just now. But there’s the apple tree and the side window, and that must have been what they were talking about.”

“By gum, it wuz!” assented Hi. “Tell us what the fellers looked like.”

“One of them was a good deal taller than the other,” said Fred, trying to recall their appearance. “They were both ragged and dirty. And, oh, yes! the tall one had a scar up near his temple, as if he had been stabbed there some time.”

“Well,” commented Hi, “that may help a lot. We know now what we’ve got to look for. I’ll telephone all along the line to the other towns to be on the lookout for them, and some of us will hitch up and drive along the different roads. They can’t have got very far, and we may get ’em yet.”

Later on, as the boys were on their way home, Jim chuckled.

“What are you laughing about, Jim?” asked Bob.

“I was just thinking,” Jim replied, “that it was mighty lucky they didn’t ask Fred how he happened to be in Sam Perkins’ barn.”