Ben Pepper Part 23

"I didn't. 'Twas you knocked me."

"No such thing," said Larry, recovering himself, "and I was going for you; and Van, too."

At mention of Van, Joel's face dropped, and all the color rushed out of it. "O dear me, I forgot; he's in the closet."

"_In the closet?_" repeated Larry, his blue eyes opening their widest.

"Yes, I shut him up. Oh, come with me." In his distress he seized Larry's arm, and together they raced, Joel far in advance, up to the big house.

XII

VAN

Larry, keeping after Joel as well as he could, found him at the head of the back stairs, and gesticulating wildly to "Hurry, you're slow as a snail. Hush, she'll hear you!"

"Who?" cried Larry, breathlessly, as he gained his side.

"Never mind, come along." He hauled him on and into Mother Fisher's room, dashing up to the closet, turned the key with a click, and flung wide the door, "Why, he isn't here!"

"Who?" cried Larry, forgetting all about Van, and not knowing whom he was expected to see.

Joel's teeth were chattering so that he couldn't answer. "He's got out,"

he managed to say.

"Who?" Larry crowded up closer and peered fearfully into the closet depths.

"Why, Van," cried Joel, impatiently; "oh, well, he's got out some way.

Come on," and he turned to go.

"Van!" exclaimed Larry, faintly.

"Yes, I told you so. I shut him up."

"Oh, I thought you meant in your closet," said Larry, the mad race remaining uppermost in his mind to the effect of crowding out other things that now began to a.s.sert themselves. "Well, then, he's here now."

"Phoo, no, he isn't," declared Joel, waving his fingers convincingly; "you can see for yourself. Somebody's let him out, and he's locked the door to cheat me."

But Larry was not to be convinced. "He is, I know he is," leaning forward the better to peer around within the closet.

"Take care," warned Joel, who had good reason to know Van's capabilities along that line, "maybe he's hiding in the corner, and he'll tweak you."

At this Larry, who also had occasion to know Van quite well, bounded back quite suddenly, saying, "I see a shoe sticking out," and pointing to it.

"Oh, that's Mamsie's," said Joel, determined not to believe. Then the moment he had said it he remembered that Mother Fisher's shoes were always kept in the shoe-box over in the corner. "We'll give it a pull,"

he said, doing his best to speak carelessly, which Larry proceeding to do, out came the leg attached which clearly belonged to Van. But it was limp, and lay just where it was dropped with a thud on the closet floor.

Joel, with his heart thumping so he could hardly breathe, sprang into the closet, twitched away Mother Fisher's long black silk gown, seized Van where he lay under its folds, and got him outside to lay him flat on the carpet.

"He's dead, I guess," said Larry, cheerfully.

"Get some water," screamed Joel, "and open the window;" meantime he slapped Van's hands smartly together and called him to open his eyes, and this not succeeding, he ran over to Mother Fisher's medicine closet, rushed back, and in his trepidation emptied a whole bottle of something all over the white face.

"That's no good," said Larry. The window now being open, he advanced with a water pitcher whose contents he promptly distributed in the same way. "See what you've done; that's castor oil."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE; THAT'S CASTOR OIL."]

It was no time to cast criticisms upon each other, and Joel soon had a cologne bottle, and Larry the ammonia, and in two minutes their united efforts had Van sitting up in the middle of the floor with anything but a pleased expression on his face, into which his usual color was slowly creeping.

And just then in rushed Polly.

"Whatever in the world--" she began, stopping in sheer amazement.

"See what they've done," cried Van, in a towering pa.s.sion, shaking his head like a half-drowned rat, and he pointed to his clothes, from which little streams of water were running off to join the pools on the carpet. "_Tchee! Tchee!_ Get away," and he knocked the ammonia bottle out of Larry's hand.

"O dear me!" cried Polly, "pick it up, do; don't let it get spilled," as it spun off.

"Now I should just like to know what all this is about," she demanded indignantly, as she joined the group.

"Well, I guess he'd have been in a tight fix if we hadn't--" began Larry, recovering the ammonia bottle. Then he stopped short.

"Hadn't what? Go on," said Polly.

"Hadn't--hadn't--" Larry, not looking at Joel, floundered miserably.

"I'll tell you," said Van, wishing so much of the ammonia hadn't gone into his mouth, and up his nose, and stopping to cough and splutter. "O dear, wait a minute, Polly, I'll tell you!"

But Polly was fixing her brown eyes sternly on Larry and Joel, who stood with his head cast down, and wringing his hands together miserably.

"Now, you two boys must just stay in this room," at last she said decidedly, feeling quite sure there was nothing more to be gotten out of them, "and sit there," pointing to the wide sofa, "till Mamsie comes home, and--"

"No, no," howled Joel; "I'll tell, I'll tell, Polly. Don't make us sit there."

"Yes, you must," said Polly, firmly, feeling that the responsibility that had fallen upon her in Mother Fisher's absence quite weighed her down, "and when Mamsie comes, she will have to know it all," and her mouth drooped sorrowfully.

"'Tisn't any matter," said Van, getting up to his feet and giving a final shake, so that the little drops flew far and wide, "I don't mind it,--I'm all dry now."

"No, you are not," said Polly, guilty of contradicting, "Vannie, you're just as wet as you can be," feeling of his jacket; "run off and get into dry things as soon as you can. Yes, you two boys must sit there; at least Joel, you must," pointing to the sofa again.

"I'm going to stay if Joel has to," declared Larry, after an awful pause in which he had fully decided to cut and run. And down he sat by Joel, who had flung himself in great distress on Mamsie's sofa.

Van started toward the door, took two steps, turned and rushed back to lean over Joel, "I won't ever tell," he whispered, and ran out as fast as he could go.

And Polly wiped up the carpet and put back the bottles and the water pitcher, and tidied things up, the boys watching her out of miserable eyes.

"Polly," came pealing over the stairs.