BACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN

"That's the strangest thing I ever heard," Jennie Bruce said, the first to break the silence. "Do you really suppose he was crying, Scorch--or was he laughing?"

"Say!" returned the red-haired youth, "Old Gordon never laughed in his life!"

"But why should he cry?" asked Nancy, much disturbed.

"Ask me an easier one," answered Scorch. "It struck me all of a heap. I backed out and waited for him to show up. When he went out to lunch he looked no different from other times."

"And I don't see that what you've told us is a bit of good!" exclaimed Jennie, suddenly. "We don't know who the gray man is."

"You ain't never seen him, Miss Nancy?" asked the boy, anxiously.

"Not that I know of," replied the girl.

"Well! I tried to find out who he was, and n.o.body around the office seemed to know. He'd never been there before. But if he comes again I'm goin' to get on his trail," declared Scorch, nodding emphatically.

"How'll you do that?" asked Jennie, quickly.

"I don't know. But I'll follow him out if I have to," said Scorch. "And he'll have to be pretty smart to lose _me_."

"Don't you do anything, Scorch, to get yourself into trouble,"

admonished Nancy.

"Shucks!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Scorch. "I won't get into trouble. Don't you fear.

But that gray man won't get away from me again."

The girls remained a while longer, getting better acquainted with Norah, and with the brood of younger O'Briens. There was the livestock in the back yard to look over, too; and Norah made tea and cut a cake, doing the honors of the house because Mrs. O'Brien was not at home.

"She does her scrubbin' at the offices Sat.u.r.day afternoon instead of at night. Then we have her home Sat.u.r.day evenings," said Norah, proudly.

"And Patrick Sarsfield does not go to school Sat.u.r.day evenings."

"Oh, say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the red-haired boy. "Call me 'Scorch.' 'Patrick Sarsfield' makes me feel top-heavy. I'd soon get round-shouldered carrying that around."

John Bruce met the girls at the station, to which Scorch escorted them in time for the afternoon train. Nancy shook hands with her champion warmly before they separated.

"You be a good boy and keep out of trouble," she advised him. "Maybe Mr.

Gordon isn't as bad as--as you think. He never refuses me anything, and I feel ashamed to doubt him so."

"Say! what did he ever give you but money?" demanded Scorch.

"But that, you once told me," said Nancy, laughing, "was about the best thing in the world."

"It's good to have, just the same," quoth Scorch. "But perhaps havin'

folks is better. And if Old Gordon has hidden you away from your folks, Miss Nancy, he'd oughter be made to give you up to them."

"That's a _new_ idea, Scorch," returned Nancy, reflectively. "Do you suppose that I might have been stolen from my people for some reason?"

"Maybe you were stolen by Gypsies!" cried Jennie.

"Old Gordon doesn't look like a Gypsy," said Scorch, slowly, "nor yet the gray man I was telling you about."

"Come on and get aboard," said John Bruce, smiling. "I wouldn't worry my head about such things, if I were you, Nancy. We all like you quite as well as we should if you had a family as big as the Bruces'."

That was not the only time the girls saw Scorch O'Brien that summer; and on one occasion the entire O'Brien family--from the fat, ruddy-faced Mother O'Brien, down to Aloysius Adolphus...o...b..ien, the baby--came clear out to Hollyburg on the train, where they were met by the Bruces' man, and Nancy and Jennie, with a two-horse beach-wagon and transported to the lake for a picnic.

But Scorch--greatly to his disappointment--had nothing of moment to communicate to Nancy on that occasion, or on any other that summer. The "gray man" did not again appear at the offices and all he could say was that Mr. Gordon went on in his usual way.

"He lives in an old-fashioned hotel over on the West Side," said Scorch, "and I've been in his rooms two or three times. But it don't look to me as though he could hide the papers there anywhere."

"Hide what papers?" demanded Nancy.

"Why, there's always papers hidden away that would tell the heiress all she wants to know--if she could get at 'em," declared Scorch, nodding.

"You ridiculous boy! You've got your head full of paper-covered story books!" exclaimed Nancy. "Did you ever hear his like, Jennie?"

"Maybe he's right, just the same," observed her chum, slowly. "Mr.

Gordon isn't likely to tell you anything himself. If you ever find out about your folks it will be in some such way as Scorch says."

Bye and bye it was time to go back to Pinewood Hall again. Nancy had remained the whole summer with the Bruces, and she had enjoyed every day of that time. Yet she was glad, too, to go back to her studies.

"And so would _I_ be, if I had a chance of standing anywhere near you in cla.s.ses," agreed Jennie. "But I'm always falling down just when I think I'm perfect in a recitation."

But there was much more dignity in the bearing of both Nancy and Jennie when they approached Pinewood Hall on this occasion. They were full-fledged soph.o.m.ores, and they could not help looking down with amused tolerance on the "greenies" who were timidly coming to the school for the first time.

It was "great," as Jennie confessed, to be able to tell "those children"

where to go, and what to do, and to order them about, as was the soph.

privilege.

But when Nancy found that certain of her cla.s.s were hazing the new-comers in a serious way, she took the cla.s.s to task for it. She called a meeting and reminded them that it would displease both the new captains of the school--Mary Miggs on the West Side and Polly Hyams on the East--as well as Madame Schakael herself, if hazing of the new girls continued.

"Let's do unto others as we would have been glad to have others do to us when we came a year ago," said Nancy.

"Well, the sophs. drilled us, all right!" cried Jennie, who was a bit obstreperous on this point, for she liked to play practical jokes on the younger girls.

"And so," said Nancy, gravely, "we know how mean it was of them. This cla.s.s wants to have a better record than the cla.s.s above it--eh?"

"Talk for yourself, Miss Nancy!" snapped Cora Rathmore. "You're taking too much upon yourself."

"As usual, too," agreed Grace Montgomery, with scorn. "Just because you happen to be cla.s.s president----"

"And quite by a fluke," interjected Cora.

"You needn't suppose that you can boss us in every single particular. If I want to make one of these greenies 'f.a.g' for me, I'm going to do it."

"We have always agreed to be governed by the majority, you know,"

observed Nancy, softly. "Let us put it to vote. If the bulk of the cla.s.s believe it better and kinder to help these younger girls instead of making them miserable for the first few weeks they are at Pinewood, let us all agree to be governed accordingly."