Five Little Peppers Midway Part 44

"Come then."

"O, dear, dear!" grunted Joel, "I'd rather chop wood as I used to, years ago, to help the little brown house out," swinging his arms up over his head. "Why"--

And he was left in darkness, his arms falling nervously to his side, while a cautious step across the room made his black eyes stand out in fright.

"A burglar--a burglar!" flashed through his mind. He held his breath hard and his knees knocked together. But Mamsie's eyes seemed to look with scorn on him again. Joel straightened up, clenched his fist, and every minute expecting to be knocked on the head, he crept like a cat to the further corner, even in this extremity, grumbling inwardly because Mr. King would not allow firearms. "If I only had them now!" he thought. "Well, I must get my club."

But there was no time to get it. Joel creeping along, feeling his way cautiously, soon knew that there were two burglars instead of one in the room, and his mind was made up.

"They'll be after Grandpapa's money, sure," he thought. "I have got to get out, and warn him."

But how? that was the question.

Getting down on all-fours, holding his breath, yet with never a thought of danger to himself, he crept along toward the door leading into the hall, then stopped and rested under cover of the heavy window drapery.

But as quick as a flash, two dark figures, that now, his eyes becoming more accustomed to the darkness, he could dimly distinguish, reached there before him, and the key clicking in the lock, Joel knew that all hope from escape by that quarter was gone.

Like a cat, he sprang to his feet, swung the drapery out suddenly toward the figures, and in the next second hurled himself over the window-sill, hanging to the edge, grasping the blind, crawling to the next window, and so on and over, and down, down, by any friendly thing he could grasp, to the ground.

Two black masks hung over the deserted window-edge.

"Joe--Joe! it's only we boys--Percy and Van. Joe--Joe!"

"He'll be killed!" gasped Van, his face as white as Joel's robe fluttering below them in his wild descent. "Stop him, Percy. Oh! do stop him."

Percy clung to the window-sill, and danced in distress. "Stop him!" he was beyond uttering anything more.

"Yes, oh, Joe! don't you see it's only Percy and Van?" cried Van persuasively, and hanging out of the window to the imminent danger of adding himself to Joel's company.

Percy shoved him back. "He's 'most down," he said, finding his breath.

"Now we'll run downstairs and let him in."

Van flew off from the window. "I'll go; it's my sc.r.a.pe," and he was unlocking the door.

"I'm the oldest," said Percy, hurrying to get there first. "I ought to have known better."

This made Van furious, and pushing Percy with all his might, he wriggled out first as the door flew open, and not forgetting to tiptoe down the hall, he hurried along, Percy behind him, to hear the noise of men's feet coming over the stairs.

Van tried to rush forward shouting, "Thomas, it's we boys--Percy and Van." Instead, he only succeeded in the darkness, in stumbling over a chair, and falling flat with it amid a frightful racket that drowned his voice.

Old Mr. King who had been awakened by the previous noise, and had rung his burglar alarm that connected with Thomas's and Jencks's rooms in the stable, now cried out from his doorway. "Make quick work, Thomas,"

and Percy saw the gleam of a pistol held high in Thomas's hand.

Up with a rush came bare feet over the back stairs; a flutter of something white, and Joel sprang in between them. "It's Percy--it's Percy!" he screamed, "don't you see, Thomas?"

"I'm Percy--don't shoot!" the taller burglar kept saying without intermission, while the flaring of candles and frightened voices, told of the aroused household.

"Make quick work, Jencks!" shouted Mr. King from his doorway, to add to the general din.

Thomas, whose blood was up, determined once for all to put an end to the profession of burglary as far as his master's house was concerned, now drew nearer, steadying his pistol and trying to sight the nearest fellow. This proved to be Van, now struggling to his feet.

Joel took one wild step forward. "Thomas--don't shoot! It's Van!"

"Make quick work, Thomas!" called Mr. King.

There was but a moment in which to decide. It was either Van or he; and in an instant Joel had stepped in front of the pistol.

XXIII

OF MANY THINGS

Van threw his arms around Joel. "Make quick work, Thomas," called Mr.

King from his doorway. The pistol fell from Thomas's hand. "I've shot one of the boys. Och, murther!" he screamed.

And everybody rushing up supposed it was Van, who was writhing and screaming unintelligibly in the corner.

"Oh! I've killed him," they finally made out.

"Who--who? Oh, Van! who?"

"Joey," screamed Van, bending over a white heap on the floor. "Oh! make him get up. Oh! I've killed him."

The mask was hanging by one end from his white face, and his eyes protruded wildly. Up flew another figure adorned with a second black mask.

"No, no, it was I," and Percy rushed forward with an "Oh, Joel, Joel!"

Somebody lighted the gas, that flashed suddenly over the terrified group, and somebody else lifted the heap from the corner. And as they did so, Joel stirred and opened his eyes.

"Don't make such a fuss," he said crossly. One hand had gripped the sleeve of his night-dress, trying to hold it up in a little wad on the shoulder, the blood pouring down the arm. At sight of this, Van collapsed and slid to the floor.

"Don't frighten Mamsie," said Joel, his head drooping, despite his efforts to hold it up. "I'm all right; nothing but a scratch. Ugh! let me be, will you?" to Mr. Whitney and Jasper, who were trying to support him.

And Mother Fisher, for the first time since the children had known her, lost her self-control.

"Oh, Joey! and mother was cross to you," she could only sob as she reached him.

Polly, at a nod from the little doctor's night-cap and a few hurried words, ran as in a dream for the case of instruments in his bedroom.

"All right, Mamsie!" exclaimed Joel in surprise, and trying to stagger to his feet.

"Good heavens and earth!" cried old Mr. King, approaching. "What? oh!

it's monstrous--Joel!"

"Och, murther!" Thomas sidled along the edge of the group, rolling fearful eyes at them, and repeating over and over, "I've shot that boy--that boy!"

All this occupied but an instant, and Joel was laid on his bed, and the wound which proved to be only a flesh one, the ball cutting a little furrow as it grazed the shoulder, was dressed, and everybody drew a long breath. "Tell Van that I'm all right," Joel kept saying all the time.