"Ya-a-ah," John taunted, as he heard heavy breathing through the door.

"What'll you do now?"

"Just wait until dinner time."

"Not going to make us stay that long, are you? Please don't be mean."

The elder boy deigned no reply. John raised the little window which fronted the street and grinned. One by one the gang climbed through the narrow opening to the sidewalk and left their vindictive enemy guarding the empty storeroom.

Across the street from the flats stood the building which housed the corner drug store and "Neighborhood Hall," used according to season for high-school dances, minstrel shows, and fraternal meetings. They a.s.sembled at the entrance, which commanded an excellent view of all approaches leading from the flats, and awaited developments.

A little girl rounded the corner with sundry grocer's packages in her arms. She noticed that the boys were gathered in the excited group, which always spelled danger to unescorted maidens, but held bravely on.

As she pa.s.sed, Silvey yelled exultantly. Perry Alford threw wildly and hit the ground by her feet. Red's missile caught one nervous, white little hand and made her drop a bag of eggs to the sidewalk. John raised his arm, then lowered it as if paralyzed.

It was Louise!

"Quit that fellows," he cried, seizing on the first excuse which came into his mind. "She's a little girl."

Silvey looked at him in blank amazement. "What of it?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Ain't the first time you've made one cry."

John's lips tightened. "Don't care if it isn't," he snapped. "Stop that, Sid, or I'll punch your face in."

He threw his own cuc.u.mber into the gutter to show that his was a peaceful errand and walked hastily over to the sobbing figure.

"They'll leave you alone," he a.s.sured her. "Let me pick up your eggs."

They were smashed beyond all hope of salvage, but he gathered the fragments of sh.e.l.l, with as much of the dust-laden yolks as he could sc.r.a.pe up, and placed them gravely in the torn, soggy bag. Then he took the bread and the b.u.t.ter from her very gently and turned his back on the gang.

"I'll carry them all for you," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let's go home now."

She acquiesced silently. They strolled down the leafy walk. John's back tingled unpleasantly, for he expected a shower of missiles. Louise's weeping ceased, save for an occasional sniffle. At last Silvey roused himself from the amazed silence into which his chum's actions had thrown him, and seized upon the solution of the mystery.

"Johnny an' Lou-i-ise! Johnny an' Lou-i-ise!"

Louise flushed scarlet and bit her lip. John turned and stuck out his tongue defiantly. An awkward silence followed.

"I'll punch that kid's head off when I catch him," he growled as the shouts continued. Louise looked up at him shyly.

"I don't mind," she said.

They halted in front of the three-story apartment where her parents lived. John shifted clumsily from one foot to the other, not knowing how to make a graceful adieu. The maiden came to his rescue with a parrot-like imitation of Mrs. Martin's formula for such occasions.

"Thank you very much--and--I'm so glad to make your acquaintance."

Though the words were ridiculously stilted, John turned with a song on his lips and skipped across to the home porch swing, where his mother found him a moment later, and made him come in and get washed for dinner.

That afternoon he walked north to the branch library to turn in his book on which a six-cent fine impended. With the yellow card in his hand, he went over to the fiction section of the open shelves. No more Hentys, no more Optics. He was in love, and love stories he must have.

Silvey, Perry Alford, and Red sauntered up just before supper to find out how the land lay. They found him stretched out on the porch swing with the latest acquisition from the library beside him.

"Say, John," Silvey began nervously. He was afraid he had gone a little too far that morning.

John raised dreamy eyes. What did he care about commonplace declarations of friendship such as Silvey was making? His head was a-riot with the thrilling words of the latest love pa.s.sage between the hero and a heroine so perfect that her like never existed beyond the covers of a novel, and the interruption bored him.

"So you see," Perry chimed in as Bill finished, "we didn't want you to be mad about it."

John waved a magnanimous dismissal. "But don't do it again," he cautioned apathetically, "'cause--well--she's my girl. That's all."

And again his eyes sought the alluring pages of the book.

CHAPTER V

HE COMPOSES A LOVE MISSIVE

Sunday afternoon, Mr. Fletcher took his son for a long stroll in the park. They joined the throng of people who promenaded up and down the broad cement walk along the beach, and watched the antics of the children with their transitory castles until this pleasure began to pall. Then they retraced their steps westward to the big island and explored the fascinating, winding paths along the shrubbery-covered sh.o.r.es. Everywhere were signs of autumn. A light carpet of half-dried leaves had already covered the ground. The song birds in the fast yellowing, graceful willows were supplanted by silent, migratory groups of somber juncos, who fled at their approach. Here and there, they surprised a squirrel adding another peanut to his well-buried winter cache. But a little later, a pair of lovers on a narrow peninsula bank separated awkwardly as the two sauntered up, and John laughed joyously.

The spirit of summer was as yet far from dead.

Still they wandered on as their fancy pleased them. Far to the south of the park, John collected an armful of cat-tails from a bit of marshland, and Mr. Fletcher pointed out to him a strange, spotted lizard, which scurried for shelter from the intruders. As they returned, they loitered by the green, verandaed club house to count the fast diminishing fleet of yachts, and joined an ironic audience who watched the struggles of two motorboat owners with their craft, and a pair of rickety wagon trucks. Sunset found them climbing the home steps to sink into the easy porch chairs and wait blissfully until Mrs. Fletcher announced that supper was ready.

Now by all the laws of small boy nature, John's eyes should have closed that night five minutes after his head had touched the pillow. But then it was that the inexplicable happened. Louise forced a disturbing entrance into his thoughts with a strange insistency. Was she sleeping peacefully or was she thinking of her rescue from the mercies of the gang? Perhaps she had already forgotten him. Still, the boys hadn't.

They would probably spread the details of the love affair all over the juvenile neighborhood. Would she walk with him if they did?

The big clock in the hall of the house next door struck ten. He discovered that a wrinkle in the sheet chafed his back and smoothed it out half angrily.

Why couldn't he go to sleep? Had Louise's mother been vexed at the broken eggs? How pretty the girl's long ringlets had looked as she stood on the sunlit corner that morning. Did she like to fish? An expedition for two could be arranged in spite of the late season. He'd bait her hook and take the fish off if she wished. Lunch could be prepared beforehand and they wouldn't have to worry about meal time.

Again the timepiece next door chimed its message. He counted the strokes--seven--eight--nine--ten--_eleven_! Only twice before had he remained awake so late--once on a railroad trip, and once when Uncle Frank had come to visit them. He rubbed his clenched fists in his eyes and wondered if he dared light the gas to read. He could keep his geography near as an excuse if anyone discovered him. Then, hastened possibly by the soporific influence of that school book, sleep came at last.

In the morning, John tried to a.n.a.lyze the causes for his mental rampage as he drew on one toe-frayed stocking. Now that his mother had roused him for the third and final time, he felt tired enough to sleep another three hours. What had been the matter?

A love scene from that latest public library book flashed into his perplexed brain and he sighed contentedly. Had not Leander sacrificed long hours of precious slumber at the shrine of his beloved Philura? The inference in his own case was both obvious and satisfactory.

To tell Louise of his infatuation seemed the next and most logical step.

He lacked the courage for a verbal declaration; therefore the message must be in writing. But in what form? Letter writing to a girl was a novel experience, and he had a horror of parental laughter if he asked for advice.

"John!" his mother called from the stairway. "Aren't you ever going to get dressed?"

He pulled on his second stocking hastily, with a call of "Down in a minute, Mother."

His grandmother's old _Complete Letter Writer_ was in the library bookcase. That ought to help him out of his predicament. Wasn't it the _Complete_----"

"John!" came a second and more peremptory interruption of his thoughts.

"Get down here this minute."