CHAPTER VII

WAITING FOR TROUBLE

Lem Wacker rolled over, then sat up, rubbed his head in a half-dazed manner, and muttered in a silly, sheepish way.

"Lem Wacker," said Bart, "I have got just a few words to say to you, and that ends matters between us. I am sorry I had to strike you, but I will have no man interfering with the express company's affairs. I want you to go away, and if you ever come in here again except on business strictly there will be trouble."

Lem did not put up much of a belligerent front, though he tried still to look ugly and dangerous.

He got his balance at last, and extended his finger at our hero.

"Bart Stirling," he maundered, "you've made an enemy for life. Look out for me! You're a marked man after this."

"What am I marked with," inquired Bart quickly--"burnt cork?"

"Hey! What?" blurted out Lem, and Bart saw that the shot had struck the target. Wacker looked sickly, and muttered something to himself. Then he took himself off.

Bart's worries were pleasantly broken in upon by the arrival of his sister Bertha. She brought him a generous lunch, the first food Bart had tasted that day, and his appet.i.te welcomed it in a wholesome way.

He put in the time planning what he would do if he was lucky enough to be retained in his father's position, and what he might do in case someone else was appointed.

At half-past two Bart loaded the two ice cream freezers on the cart and started for the picnic grounds.

Juvenile Pleasantville had somewhat subsided for a time in the fervor of its patriotism. There was a lull in the popping and banging, nearly everybody in town being due at the time-honored celebration in the picnic grove.

When Bart reached the grove, someone was making an address, and he piloted his way circ.u.mspectly up to the side of the platform where the speaking was going on.

He deposited the freezers inside the bunting-decorated inclosure, where half a dozen young ladies were posted to dispense the refreshments after the literary programme was finished.

Bart started to return with his empty cart the way he had come, but about ten feet from the platform paused for a moment to take in the exceptionally flowery sentiment that was being enunciated by the speaker of the day.

Colonel Harrington, it seemed, was the self-appointed hero of the occasion. The great man of the village was in his element--the eyes and ears of all Pleasantville fixed upon him.

In rolling tones and with magnificent gestures he was paying a lofty tribute to the immortal Stars and Stripes waving just over his head, when, his eyes lowering, they focused straight in a fixed stare on Bart.

The colonel gave the young express agent an awful look, and in an instant Bart knew that the military man had been informed of the ident.i.ty of the audacious cannoneer of the evening previous.

Like some orators, the colonel, once disturbed by an extraneous contemplation, lost his voice, cue and self-possession all in a second.

It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from the innocent and embarra.s.sed author of his distraction.

He spluttered, the rounded sentence on his lips died down to measly insignificance, he stammered, stumbled, and sat down with a red face, his eyes darting rage at poor Bart.

Some of the boys in the crowd "caught on" to the situation, and giggled and made significant remarks, but the chairman on the platform covered the colonel's confusion by announcing the national anthem, and Bart effected his escape.

"He'll never forgive me, now," decided Bart. "The damage to the statue was bad enough, but breaking him up as my appearance did just now is the limit. I hope Mr. Leslie doesn't hear of my unfortunate escapade, and I hope the colonel doesn't undertake to hurt my chances. He's an irrational firebrand when he takes a dislike to anybody, and Mrs.

Harrington is worse."

Bart had a foundation for this double criticism. The colonel was a pompous, self-important individual, intensely selfish and domineering, and his wife a thoughtless devotee of fashion and society.

Mrs. Stirling did some very fine fancy work, and a few months previous to the opening of this tale the magnate's wife had asked as a favor that she embroider some handkerchiefs as a wedding present for a relative.

She never visited the Stirling house but she left some sting or sneer of affected superiority behind her, and when the work was done took it home, and the next day sent a note complaining that the handkerchiefs were spoiled, inclosing about one-fifth the usual compensation for such labor. But she did not return the handkerchiefs.

Mrs. Stirling later learned that their recipient had expressed herself perfectly delighted with the delicate, beautiful gift, but, being a true lady, Bart's mother said nothing about the matter to those who would have been glad to spread a little gossip unfavorable to the dowdy society queen of Pleasantville.

The village hardware store was open for the sale of powder, and Bart stopped there on his way back to the express office and purchased a padlock, two keys fitting it, and some stout staples and a hasp. He carried these articles into the office when he reached it.

The thoughts of his father's plight, a haunting dread that Colonel Harrington might make him some trouble, and the uncertainty of continued work in the express service, all combined to depress his mind with anxiety and suspense, and he tried to dismiss the themes by whistling a quiet, soothing tune as he started to get the hammer to put the padlock in place.

The minute he opened the door, however, the whistle was instantly checked, and a quick glance at the impromptu desk told Bart that the place had welcomed a visitor since he had left it.

On a sheet of blank paper was scrawled the words: "Express safe was locked last night--contents all right."

And beside it was a heap of account books--the entire records of the office, which Bart had supposed were destroyed in the fire at the old express shed the evening previous.

CHAPTER VIII

THE YOUNG EXPRESS AGENT

Our hero regarded the little pile of account books as if they represented some long-lost, newly-found treasure.

He was very much astonished at their presence there. They were a tangible reality, however, and no delusion of the senses, and his ready mind took in the fact that someone had in an unaccountable manner rescued them from the burning express shed, and mysteriously restored them to the proper representative of the express company in the nature of a vast surprise.

The edges of one of the books was scorched, which was the only evidence that they had been in the flames.

They were all there, and Bart was very glad. He now had in his possession every record of the transactions of the Pleasantville express office since the last New Year's day.

"And the contents of the safe are all right, too, that writing says!"

exclaimed Bart; "now what does all this mean?"

The handwriting of the announcement was crude and labored, and the boy felt sure he had never seen it before.

He glanced with some excitement at the ruins of the old express shed, then he went over there. The embers had died down entirely, and the ma.s.s of ashes and debris was sparkless and cold.

Bart went to a near railroad sc.r.a.p heap and selected a long iron rod crowbar crooked at the end. He returned to the ruins and began poking the debris aside. He was thus engaged when some trackmen, lounging the day away over on a freight platform, sauntered up to the spot.

"Why don't you work holidays, Stirling?" asked one of them satirically.

"Somebody has got to work to get this mess in shipshape order," retorted Bart. "The writing said what was true!" he spoke to himself, as his pokings cleared a broad iron surface. "The safe door is shut."

The safe lay flat on its back where it had fallen when the floor had burned away. It was an old-fashioned affair with a simple combination attachment, and so far as Bart could make out had suffered no damage beyond having its coat of lacquer and gilt lettering burned off.