Behold then, a little later, two of the members of the Silver Star nine industriously cleaning hardened apple sauce off the Peterkin kitchen stove, and blackening it until it shone brightly.

"I'm glad Sam Morton can't see us," spoke Tom in a whisper.

"Yes; we'd never hear the last of it," agreed Joe.

They finished the work and even Mrs. Peterkin, careful housekeeper that she was, admitted that the stove "looked fairly good."

"And be sure and tell your mother that I'm coming to call on her," she added, as Joe and Tom were about to leave.

"Yes, ma'am," answered the centre fielder, and then he paused on the threshold of the kitchen.

"Have you forgotten something?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, who was preparing to give the place a thorough scrubbing.

"We--er--that is----" stammered Joe.

"It's their baseball, I guess," put in Mr. Peterkin. "It is in the kettle of apple sa.s.s, Alvirah."

"Oh, yes; so it is," she agreed, and this time she really laughed.

"Well, you may have it," she added. "I don't want it." With a dipper she fished it up from the bottom of the kettle, put it under the water faucet to clean it, and held it out to Joe.

"Thanks," he said as he took it and hurried off with Tom, before anything more could be said.

"Whew!" exclaimed Tom, when they were out in the lots again. "That was a hot time while it lasted. And we got out of it mighty lucky, thanks to your mother. Mrs. Peterkin is great on the society business, and I guess she thought if she gave it to us too hot your mother wouldn't call on her. Yes, we were lucky all right. Want to practice some more?"

"Not to-day," replied Joe with a smile. "I've had enough. Besides, this ball is all wet and slippery. Anyhow there's lots more time, and I guess the next day we do it we'll go down to the fairgrounds."

"Yes, there's more room there, and no kettles of apple sauce," agreed Tom, with a laugh.

As Tom had an errand to do down town for his father he did not accompany Joe back to their respective homes.

"I'll see you to-night," he called to his chum, as they parted, "and we'll arrange for some more practice. I think it's doing you good."

"I know my arm is a bit sore," complained Joe.

"Then you want to take good care of it," said Tom quickly. "All the authorities in the book say that a pitching arm is too valuable to let anything get the matter with it. Bathe it with witch hazel to-night."

"I will. So long."

As Joe had not many lessons to prepare that night, and as it was still rather early and he did not want to go home, he decided to take a little walk out in the country for a short distance. As he trudged along he was thinking of many things, but chief of all was his chances for becoming at least a subst.i.tute pitcher on the Silver Stars.

"If I could get in the box, and was sure of going to boarding school, I wouldn't ask anything else in this world," said Joe to himself. Like all boys he had his ambitions, and he little realized how such ambitions would change as he became older. But they were sufficient for him now.

Before he knew it he had covered several miles, for the day was a fine Spring one, just right for walking, and his thoughts, being subject to quick changes, his feet kept pace with them.

As he made a turn in the road he saw, just ahead of him, an old building that had once, so some of the boys had told him, been used as a spring-house for cooling the b.u.t.ter and milk of the farm to which it belonged. But it had now fallen into disuse, though the spring was there yet.

The main part of it was covered by the shed, but the water ran out into a hollowed-out tree trunk where a cocoanut sh.e.l.l hung as a dipper.

"Guess I'll have a drink," mused Joe. "I'm as dry as a fish and that's fine water." He had once taken some when he and Tom Davis took a country stroll.

As he was sipping the cool beverage he heard inside the old shed the murmur of voices.

"Hum! Tramps I guess," reasoned Joe to himself. But a moment later he knew it could not be tramps for the words he heard were these:

"And do you think you can get control of the patents?"

"I'm sure of it," was the answer. "He doesn't know about the reverting clause in his contract, and he's working on a big improvement in a corn----"

Then the voice died away, though Joe strained his ears in vain to catch the other words. Somehow he felt vaguely uneasy.

"Where have I heard that first voice before?" he murmured, racking his brains. Then like a flash it came to him. The quick, incisive tones were those of Mr. Rufus Holdney, of Moorville, to whom he had once gone with a letter from Mr. Matson.

"And if you can get the patents," went on Mr. Holdney, "then it means a large sum of money."

"For both of us," came the eager answer, and Joe wondered whom the other man could be.

"You are sure there won't be any slip-up?" asked Mr. Holdney.

"Positively. But come on. We've been here long enough and people might talk if they saw us here together. Yet I wanted to have a talk with you in a quiet place, and this was the best one I could think of. I own this old farm."

"Very well, then I'll be getting back to Moorville. Be sure to keep me informed how the thing goes."

"I will."

There was a movement inside the shed as if the men were coming out.

"I'd better make myself scarce," thought Joe.

He had just time to drop down behind a screen of bushes when the two men did emerge. Joe had no need to look to tell who one was, but he was curious in regard to the other. Cautiously he peered up, and his heart almost stopped beating as he recognized Mr. Isaac Benjamin, the manager of the Royal Harvester Works where the boy's father was employed.

"There's some crooked work on hand, I'll bet a cookie!" murmured Joe, as he crouched down again while the two men walked off up the country road.

CHAPTER XVI

MR. MATSON IS ALARMED

Joe Matson did not know what to do. He wanted to rush away from where he was concealed, get home as quickly as possible, and tell his father what he had overheard. While Mr. Matson's name had not been mentioned, knowing, as Joe did, that his parent was engaged on some patents, seeing Mr. Benjamin, manager of the Harvester works, and having heard the conversation between him and Mr. Holdney, the lad was almost certain that some danger threatened his father.

"And yet I can't get away from here until they're well out of sight,"

reasoned Joe. "If I go now they'll see or hear me, and they'll be bound to suspect something. Yet I'd like to warn dad as soon as I can. There's no telling when they may put up some job against him."

But Joe could only crouch down there and wait.

At length he could stand it no longer. He reasoned that the men must be far enough away by this time to make it safe for him to emerge.