"We're going swimming," answered Jimmie.

"Can't we go swimming?" inquired Sister hopefully.

"You can NOT!" retorted Jimmie. "Why don't you take a nap, or--something?"

"Come on out to the barn, Roddy," Sister urged Brother when Jimmie and his friends had gone whistling on their way to the river.

"Now don't you be meddling with any of those things out there," warned Molly, clearing the table. "Your brother doesn't like you to touch his exercises, you know."

Molly called all the apparatus the boys used "exercises."

"We're not going to touch 'em!" declared Sister. "We're only going to look."

Jimmie seldom snapped his padlock, for lately the children had not bothered the gymnasium in the barn. They found the door open this afternoon.

"Bet you can't jump off that!" said Sister, pointing to a home-made "horse" that Jimmie had ingeniously contrived.

(If you don't know the kind of "horse" they use in a gymnasium, ask your big brother or sister.)

"Bet I can!" challenged Brother.

They took turns jumping until they were tired, and they went about poking their little fingers and noses into whatever they could find to examine. Sister's investigations ended sadly enough, for she succeeded in pulling down a tray of b.u.t.terflies that Jimmie was mounting (he had thought the gymnasium a safe place to keep them out of everyone's way), and now broken gla.s.s and crumbled b.u.t.terflies were scattered all over the floor.

"Now you've done it!" cried Brother. "Jimmie will be just as mad!"

They found an old broom and swept the broken gla.s.s under one of the heavy floor pads. Then, very much subdued, they went into the house and were so quiet for the rest of the afternoon and through supper that Mother Morrison wondered if they were sick.

They were having dessert when the doorbell rang and Molly went to the door. She came back in a moment, her eyes round with wonder and looking rather frightened.

"It's Mr. Dougherty, sir," she said to Daddy Morrison. "He wants to see you."

Mr. Dougherty was Ridgeway's one and only policeman.

CHAPTER XVI

MISS PUTNAM COMPLAINS

At the mention of the policeman's name, Sister had given a gasp. No one noticed her as Daddy Morrison pushed back his chair and went into the hall.

"I wonder what he wants?" mused Mother Morrison, helping Ralph to blackberries.

"Sister, you're spilling juice on the tablecloth," reproved d.i.c.k. "Look out, there goes another spot."

Sister was trying to eat her berries, and also plan what to say when the policeman should send for her. She was sure that he had heard about the broken case of b.u.t.terflies, for Jimmie, when greatly provoked at her long ago, had threatened to tell Mr. Dougherty of her next misdeed.

"I like Mr. Dougherty," announced Brother sweetly.

No broken b.u.t.terflies lay heavy on HIS conscience.

Louise and Grace finished their dessert and were excused to go upstairs. The others lingered at the table because Daddy Morrison and Mr. Dougherty had gone into the living-room and they did not wish to disturb them.

"Lelia," called Daddy Morrison presently, "will you come here for a moment?"

Leila was Mother Morrison's name, and she rose and went across the hall quickly.

There was a low murmur of talk, an exclamation from Mother Morrison, and then the voice of Mr. Dougherty in the hall.

"Then I'm to tell the Chief that you'll drop in tonight?" he was saying. "All right, sir, that'll be satisfactory, of course. I'm not overly fond of this sort of work, but when a woman makes a complaint, you know, we haven't much choice."

"I understand," Daddy Morrison's deep, pleasant voice answered. "I'll get at the truth, and tell the Chief I'll be down at the town hall before ten o'clock. Good-night, Dougherty."

"Good-night, sir," said Mr. Dougherty and the screen door slammed.

Daddy Morrison came back to the dining-room.

"Rhodes and Elizabeth, I want to speak to you," he said very gravely.

"Come up to my den."

Sister's small face went very white.

"I didn't mean to, honest I didn't, Jimmie!" she cried, hurling herself on that astonished young man and clinging desperately to his coat lapels. "I didn't know they were there till they fell over."

"What ails her?" Jimmie demanded, staring at his father. "What fell over?"

"Your case of b.u.t.terflies," Brother informed him sadly "We were playing out in the barn and Betty reached up to open a window and the pole knocked the box off."

"Well, I must say--" began Jimmie wrathfully. "I must say! If you two don't learn to leave my things alone--"

"Save your lecture, Jimmie," advised his father quickly. "I didn't know about the b.u.t.terflies, but I want to ask the children about something else. Come upstairs, now. You, too, Mother."

Brother and Sister followed Mother and Daddy Morrison upstairs, puzzled to know what was to be said to them. If the b.u.t.terflies made so little difference to anyone--except Jimmie, who was perfectly boiling, it was plain to see--what else was there to scold them about? For that it was to be a scolding neither Brother or Sister doubted--hadn't Daddy called them "Rhodes" and "Elizabeth"?

"Now," said Daddy Morrison, when they were all in the little room he called his den and he had closed the door, although it was a warm night, "what were you doing this afternoon?"

"Playing in the barn," answered Brother. "It wasn't locked, Daddy."

"And then you broke Jimmie's case of b.u.t.terflies," said Daddy. "What did you do then?"

"We swept the gla.s.s under a pad," said Sister, finding her voice. "Did Jimmie tell Mr. Dougherty?"

"Jimmie didn't know, and he certainly would not tell the police,"

declared Daddy Morrison, smiling a little in spite of his evident anxiety. "Miss Putnam, children, has made a complaint to the police that you tracked fresh tar over her porch and sidewalk, and she wants you to clean it off. That was why Mr. Dougherty came tonight."

"We won't either clean it off!" cried Brother angrily. "Serve her right to clean it off herself; mean old thing!"