CHAPTER I

The boy was taller than the girl, this could be noticed from quite a distance, but other marks of difference, such as Gloria’s red cheeks and Tom’s brave freckles, her black eyes flashing while Tom’s were meek, blue and shadowy; these distinct and contrary characteristics were only observable when one looked under Gloria’s floppy white hat, or glimpsed Tom’s quaint, boyish person at a little distance.

There was that about Gloria which compelled a close scrutiny, under the brim of her hat seemed the very point of vantage, while Tom—one would hate to scrutinize Tom. Even the friendliest notice would seem rude if too closely given. He was not bashful, really, nor was he in any way stupid, on the contrary, his alert mind that only flashed out in moments of unchecked enthusiasm was the magnet that held Gloria Doane to his companionship, ever since they had both toddled off to their first battle with learning, in the back room of Miss Mary Drake’s Fancy Store. But few others understood Tom, they were generally too busy condemning Gloria’s lack of discrimination in her selection of such a companion.

Besides those shadowy blue eyes Tom also had freckles—a real saddle of them across his nose; splendid, healthy, ginger brown freckles. They were rather unfair to the nose, however, destroying what might have been an aristocratic outline; but freckles are like that—ruthless when once they get a footing. Being tall, having freckles and possessing a musically liquid voice, gave Tom his chief claim to personality, but his own mother called him Tommy-lad and declared he was a fine, upstanding little youngster.

Just as Gloria Doane had a father and no mother, so Tom Whitely had a mother and no father. This similarity of parental privation may have forged the bond of companionship stronger; at any rate, Gloria and Tom were chums.

All the joys of country life ever piped in poet’s tunes would be flat and monotonous if unshared by a chum. You may talk of the music of the birds and the magic of the running brook, even of the glory of wild daisy fields and the beauty of sovereign sunsets, but to youth, to the eager young and even to childhood, these would be all rather stupid in solitude. There is no solitude in the city—that can be said in its favor. Even a sick boy or girl may be shut up in narrow quarters there, but somehow the hum of companionship will reach in and sometimes cheer. But in the country it is very different.

Without a chum would be like being without a roof, or even without a family dog. That life around a fishing village is not apt, however, to be so solitary as is found inland, and it was in the seaside town of Barbend that our interesting little friends lived.

Vacation had been particularly merry; picnics, lawn parties, launch trips and even city scouting parties filled the days with continual change and thrilling variety. Tom had earned more than ever before in any vacation, and Gloria felt like a pinwheel revolving in golden sprayed breezes of good times and surprise adventures. Only a few weeks remained now, then the new adventure of fresh school days, with brand new programmes and mysterious possibilities in new teachers (two were due at Barbend this year), these delights, in spite of dreaded routine and perhaps hated studies, beckoned every girl and boy in the township; to say nothing of the hurried last stitches being put in new blouses for the boys and into new dresses for the girls, by anxious mothers.

The launch Finnan-Laddie was lapping the dock just after Gloria had stepped ashore, and Tom happened to be passing from the swamp with a great basket of pond lilies for his next day’s sales. Automatically they fell into step, if that could be said of their peculiar motion, Gloria sort of easing into Tom’s shuffle with a queer little grace note trick that kept the tempo going.

No greetings were exchanged. Would one say hello to the sun, or to the moon or even to some familiar star?

“How did you make out?” asked Gloria, eagerly.

“All right,” replied Tom.

“Can it be fixed?”

“Sure.”

“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”

Tom grinned. “That wasn’t anything.”

“It wasn’t!” Gloria’s voice boomed. “Well, if it wasn’t, then I don’t ever want to see another bicycle spill.”

“Not even at the races?”

“No. I hate spills anyhow. They make you gulp and you can’t see anything but dust.”

“You saw my basket go, didn’t you?”

“I should say I did. I thought it would never stop bumping over the stones until it went straight into the brook. But, Tom, honest, you ought to be more careful.”

“Oh, listen who’s talking!”

“Just the same, I never ride over that hill with a clothes basket full of pond lilies and an arm full of papers.”

“But you do ride over there with trees full of blossoms—”

“Oh, well. That was only when we had to get the school decorated—”

“And this was only when I had a big order—”

They laughed, gave in and changed the subject.

“What if your mother finds out?” persisted Gloria.

“She won’t.”

“A lot of folks saw you. They were down waiting for the launch.”

“Well, ’twasn’t anything.”

“Tom Whitely! You almost rolled over on the railroad track and Mrs. Trivett nearly had a heart spell.”

“Oh, Mrs. Trivett!”

“But she talks more than half of the town.”

“Who listens to her?”

“Folks can’t help it. She’s so—pesky.” Gloria dropped a spray of golden rod.

“My mother never bothers with her.”

“But you know, Tom, others listen to her, and then—then. Just suppose someone tells your mother you rolled down that hill when the Flyer was whistling—”

“Say, Glo. Who’s been stringing you?”

“Tom Whitely, that’s no way to talk.” Gloria’s nose seemed to sniff her hat brim, and her black eyes flashed at the willows they were passing.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it.” Tom’s voice was caressing now. His eyes blinked and he changed his big basket to the other arm in spite of Gloria’s blue gingham dress and her own armful of sweet-flag roots being on that side. There was plenty of room now, however, for she had edged off toward the stone wall.

The road turned at the creek—Tom would go one way and Gloria the other, but before they separated they had made up the momentary difference. Just as it began it ended. Neither boy nor girl was subject to any nonsensical apologies or explanations over such silly little trifles.

“If I were you, Tom, just the same, I’d tell my mother I had a spill and that your bike is broken. Then—”

“Oh, yes, I know, Gloria. That’s easy enough to say. But you don’t know my mother.”

“I do so.”

“I mean, like I know her.”

“Of course I don’t know her as well as you do.”

“Then you can’t know how she fusses. I don’t want her to know I had that spill, Gloria, and if you hear folks talking about it just hush them up. I didn’t get hurt—”

“You did, too, Tom Whitely!”

“Oh, that!” scoffed Tom. “I don’t call that getting hurt.”

“Just the same, I’ll bet you don’t swim for a week.”

“I don’t have to.”

“All right,” conceded Gloria with a show of impatience. “Of course you don’t have to—”

“Say, Glo!” Again Tom’s voice mellowed. “You know I’m not—not forgetting your kindness. I always count on that,” he said a little awkwardly. “But you see how it is. If mother ever hears I spilled I’ll have the awfullest time getting her to believe that I don’t spill every day just for fun, you know. Mother’s a brick, but gosh! She can stew.”

“I know, Tom, and you’re just a brick, too, trying to save her.” Gloria always talked very slowly when a parent was under discussion. “I know how it is with my dad—”

“Oh, you’re dad is a peach.”

“He sure is. A perfect peach.” Every word was beautifully rounded and just rolled from Gloria’s lips like solid balls of tone. “I often think how your mother has to be father and mother, and my dad has to be both, just the same.” She stopped and almost sighed, but Gloria Doane was not the sighing kind. “Anyhow, Tom, we’ve got a wonderful pair between us,” she boomed.

“That’s right.” Tom shifted the basket again and the effect of the much discussed spill was not completely hidden in the frown that scattered with the effort, his freckles. “That’s why, Glo, I hate to worry mother.”

“Then take my advice.” Gloria laughed that she should indulge in advice. “Tell her about it.” Tom attempted to speak but the girl hurried on. “That is, tell her something about it.”

“Well, maybe.”

“And, Tom,” her sweet-flag roots were shedding their damp grains of earth over her checked gingham, “how are you going to get the bike fixed?”

“Got to wait—till I earn it, extra.”

“Then you’ll have to walk.”

“That’s nothing.”

“It will take twice as long.”

“I know. But the chain’s broke.”

“Where is it?”

“Up at Nash’s.”

“How much will it cost?”

“How much do you think?”

“I couldn’t guess. Millie had hers overhauled and the bill was ten dollars.”

“Gee whiz! Glad mine won’t be that much. But it will be three dollars,” said Tom ruefully.

“I’ll tell you, Tom. I’ve got five dollars—”

“As if I’d borrow money from a girl!”

“It isn’t borrowing. I’m just offering it to you till you earn it,” insisted Gloria. “It doesn’t make one bit of difference to me.”

Tom looked thoughtfully far ahead—clear past the blackberry clump. He needed that wheel. He was earning something worth while. He carried all the orders for the vegetable store in his handle-bar basket. Gloria saw his indecision and eagerly followed it.

“Go ahead, Tom. This is my own money—”

“Oh, I know that. You wouldn’t offer anyone else’s.”

“And I’ve just got it along with me. The folks who had our launch out just paid—”

“Wouldn’t that be your dad’s?”

“No. He owes it to me and said I was to collect it.”

“Of course, I know,” agreed Tom affably.

“But I can earn it—”

“If you don’t take it, Tom, perhaps you will never get another chance to refuse.”

“Why? Going up in the air?”

“No, not up in the air—but perhaps,” Gloria’s face suddenly became a mysterious casket of secrets, “I’ve got a big thing to tell you.”

Tom looked at his companion eagerly. It was as if his boyish sense of alarm had sounded a gong some place around his indefinite heart. “Going away?” he asked very slowly.

“It’s more than that.” Girls love to tease boys. “But I won’t tell you one word now. Are you going to take this money?”

She was holding out her brown hand; on its palm rested two green bills.

Tom set his basket down and looked very serious. He kicked his sneakers into the soft earth, he swung his uninjured arm like a pendulum, he opened and closed his lips a number of times. Then he put out his hand and took the money over.

CHAPTER II

Just as any boy or girl, or any boy and girl, could deceive a mother about a thing like that! Tom Whitely was painted up like an Indian before he even had his supper, and not satisfied with the iodine and arnica in the house, Mrs. Whitely had asked Pete Duncan to get more from the drug store when he went in to the post-office for the evening mail.

“Tommy-lad, you’re too reckless altogether,” she scolded affectionately. The bandage on the bruised arm was patted gently but fondly, and then the sleeve was slipped over it without so much as brushing the lint.

“’Tisn’t anything, mother,” protested the boy repeatedly.

“Too reckless and anxious for the dollar. Why, son, you don’t have to do all the supporting, you know. Mother is able and quite popular yet with them who didn’t have the chance she had to learn how to sew.” Mrs. Whitely was shaking her brown head with a show of pardonable pride, and anyone could have seen by the shadows that made her blue eyes look gray, just whom Tommy looked like.

“That’s all right, ma, but Summer’s the time, you know,” argued the boy. There was a favorite supper simmering on the stove, its appetizing odor provoking Tommy to impatience.

“And old Sam Powers was here a while ago. Didn’t say what he wanted, but from the way he worked his handsome face,” she chuckled, “it must have been something mighty important.”

“I’ll have to go up—”

“Now, we’ll just see about that, Tommy-lad,” interrupted the well-meaning little mother. How could she know Tommy was anxious to go out and see about that bicycle chain? She couldn’t and he didn’t want her to.

“But there might be a special letter for me to deliver,” argued Tom, slyly.

“There’s more boys than one in Barbend, and besides, you haven’t your wheel.”

“My basket was so full of the lilies—”

“Yes, I know, and it shakes them to a frazzle, the little beauties.” She glanced at the tub which made a nest for the lilies. The fragrant blooms now closing their waxy petals looked so cool, comfortable and happy there, it was easy to see that no root had been cruelly dislodged in their gathering, and to understand that a pond lily can make a home anywhere in water.

As always happens when one tries to tell part of the truth, Tom’s story to his mother, that the slight injuries and serious number of scratches had resulted from a toss into a clump of briar bushes, wove a web of complications which only entangled him more as he tried to escape from it. Sam Powers, the man who ran the general store and helped out Postmaster Johnston by supplying the special delivery boy, would not have called at the Whitely home for anything trifling. Even Tom’s mother suspected trouble and perhaps that was one reason why she tried to keep her son home just now. He was young, and to her, very tender; the only child she had, and he constituted her entire family and likewise the object of her entire heroic devotion. As Tom had told Gloria “she fussed a lot”—but even fussing did not always keep Tommy-lad at the end of her neat apron strings. So, with supper over, the table cleared and his mother installed on the side porch where no vines obscured the late twilight as she read the weekly paper, Tom was slipping off, slowly but surely village-ward.

At the creek he met Sidney Brown, a boy who “dressed up” and wore a hat week days.

“Hey, Tom! Sam’s looking for you,” called out Sidney.

“I’m going there,” answered Tom sharply, his wonder increasing. Why had Sam scattered the news? Couldn’t he wait until Tom had his supper down?

Up at the village, the little triangle composed of a group of stores and including the post-office, Tom found things still closed up for supper. Sam Powers’ store was locked, just a little girl was “minding” the grocery store next door, but there was no sign of life around the post-office. Only the bicycle repair shop showed any activity, and that consisted in Abe Nash, the proprietor, spilling some rubbish into a broken soap box at the side door.

Tom hurried over. “Hello, Abner!” he called. “Got that bike fixed yet?”

The man in the oily duster looked over his specks. Then he kicked the splintered side of the unfortunate soap box. “Fixed!” he repeated, sending the word out with a hiss from the corner of his mouth. “What do you think this is?”

“Oh, I was down to Sam’s and I thought I’d just ask,” put in Tom humbly.

“Did-ju see Sam?”

“No. He’s not around.”

“Well, y’u better wait. He’s a-huntin’ fer y’u.”

“What for? What does he want?” demanded Tom.

Abner Nash stuck his hands deep into the duster pockets. “Somethin’ lost, I guess,” he muttered.

“Oh,” said Tom. He was holding the two green bills Gloria had given him, very tightly in his hand and his hand was in his pocket.

“When do y’u want the wheel?” asked Abner.

“Quick as I can get it.”

“How y’u goin’ to pay for it? Three dollars for that new chain.”

“Oh, I’ve got the money right now,” said Tom, innocently producing the bills.

“You have, eh! Humph! Well, you’re pretty smart. Sell all them lilies since you picked them?” Tom’s shadowy eyes glared. He saw now what Abe Nash meant.

“No, I didn’t,” he retorted. “But I’ve got the money to pay for that wheel when it’s ready.”

“So I see.” The man turned toward the patched netting door. “Well, it’ll be ready by tomorrow noon.”

Tom looked attentively at the money that he had smoothed out on his hand. Then glancing up, he felt a breath almost over his shoulder.

It was Sam Powers!

“Where’d you get that money?” The man’s voice was full of threats.

“Where did I get it?” gasped Tom. “What’s that to you?”

A big hand was settling heavily upon his shoulder.

Indignantly he drew back and confronted the man who was attempting to seize him. Tom wanted to “haul off” but instinctively he dropped his hands and relieved his emotion with full, long, audible breaths.

For a few moments neither spoke. Powers was not usually a bully, and even now something like a smile played around his square mouth.

“Come over here and talk it over, Tommy,” he said. “No need to get excited.”

Boyish indignation choked Tom’s reply. Why do grown folks always accuse children first and investigate later?

Tom finally spoke: “What’s all this about, anyway?”

“It’s about Mrs. Trivett’s money.”

“I don’t know anything about her money.”

“Now wait a minute, Tommy. Wait a minute.” Each word was separated with a provoking sing-song drawl. It mocked every instinct of justice surging over the boy. “You see—well, you know what old Nancy Trivett is—”

“Sure I do,” retorted Tom.

“Now, don’t get excited, son.” He had unlocked the store door and Tom, helpless to do otherwise, followed him inside. “She came in here this mornin’ jest after we packed the first orders. Yes, it was jest after that because—”

“Say, Sam,” interrupted Tom. “I’ve got to get back home. Can’t you hurry some?”

“I could, but I was jest tryin’ to be polite—”

“Don’t bother to be,” growled Tom.

“All right, son,” Sam continued. “We’ll jest cut out the po-lightness and get down to hard tacks. Where’d y’u get that money?”

“Well, I didn’t get it around here—”

“Now, I’m not accusin’ you, Tom.” Again the square smile. “But you see, this ain’t pay day and three dollars—”

“Can’t anybody in Barbend have three dollars ’cept old Nancy Trivett!”

“Not at the same identical time—’cordin’ to Nancy.” The chuckle that followed this was drowned in a noisy shuffle of Tom’s impatient feet.

“I tell you, Sam, I don’t know anything about Trivett’s money. This is mine.”

“But where’d y’u get it?”

“I got it to pay for my bike—it’s broken.”

“Oh, I know it’s broken. Good thing your neck ain’t broke with it. Nancy saw you roll under the car wheels—”

“Is that what gave her a fit? Thought she saw me go under the wheels?”

“No, Tom. No, Tom—son—” a kindness crept into old Sam’s voice, “even her best friend would not be good-natured enough to say she thought she saw you. The fact is—well, you know Nancy.”

It was growing dark. Tom would have hurried off and left Sam to his drawl but he knew better. That would simply have been to invite Sam to go up to Tom’s mother with the same drawl and more mischievous insinuations. So, he said:

“I can’t just tell you exactly where I got this money, Sam, but did you ever find me short a cent?”

“Not a red.”

“Then why do you suspect me?”

“I don’t.”

“All right. That settles it. I’ve got to get home.”

“But you know old Abe Nash. He said you was goin’ to get your wheel fixed and he said, right to Nancy, that you didn’t have any money to pay for it. And now you go and show him a roll.”

“How’d she lose her old money?”

“Says she left it on the basket of tomatoes. You took them over.”