Mark Tidd, Editor Part 34

"Hum!" says Mark. "Jethro's out in the yard. Easy to g-g-git to see this Pekoe. Easy l-like turnin' three summersets in the air without a spring-board."

"I guess he don't want us messin' around," says I.

"Didn't judge he would," says Mark, "so it must be there's s-somethin'

to find out. As soon as you see a f-f-feller tryin' to keep somethin'

away from you, why, you want to git to work to find out what it is.

'Cause, m-m-most gen'ally it's somethin' you'll be glad to know."

"What room was he shut up in?" says I.

"Somewhere on the third floor," says Rock. "It sounded almost over my head."

"Where's your room?" says Mark.

"Other side of the house," says Rock. "I'll show you."

"Not too s-s-sudden," says Mark. "We don't want to let on to Jethro we're up to anythin', or suspect anythin'. Let's go to the other side of the house and p-play around awhile first."

So we did. We played tag, which wasn't much of a game for Mark Tidd, though he moved a lot faster than you'd have thought. But when he ran he looked like it was going to bust him all to pieces, and the sight of it generally made you laugh so you couldn't run yourself. That kind of evened things up.

After a while Mark says, "N-now, Rock, you run like the d-d.i.c.kens, around the other side of the house, with Binney chasin' you. Go over by that l-little grape-arbor where we used to m-meet you, and then l-lay down like you was tired out. We'll come along behind."

Rock and I tore off, with Plunk and Mark coming along behind, and all lay down like we were tired right in front of the arbor.

"Don't l-look at the house," says Mark. "Probably Jethro's watchin'."

"There's your cat," I says to Mark, pointing over where his stone cat was.

"Huh!" says he. "N-n-ninety degrees in the shade. There's where you quit walkin' where she l-looks," says he. "Right under that tree there."

The tree was back toward the rear of the house, but out quite a ways from it. We all looked at it.

"I can't make out," says Mark, "what the weather has to do with it. Hot or cold, it gits me."

"Ninety degrees in the shade is pretty hot," says Plunk.

"Maybe," says I, "it hain't got anything to do with how hot it is. Maybe he wrote it that way just to fool folks and make it harder to know what he was tryin' to tell."

Mark he looked at me a minute like he was mad. Then he reached over and banged me on the back, and says: "Binney, I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if you amounted to s-somethin' some day. Weather was what Mr. Wigglesworth wanted f-folks to think of that happened to see the writin'. So," says he, "it wasn't weather he meant at all. I was a noodle not to think of that. Um! ... Ninety degrees. What's ninety degrees except weather?"

I didn't think of anything, and n.o.body else did, either. We thought quite a while, and then Mark slapped his fat leg' and started to shake all over with one of them still laughs of his. "Why, you b.o.o.bs," says he, "ninety degrees is m-measurin'! That's it. You know a circle? Well, there's three hunderd and sixty degrees around one. In 'rithmetic or somethin' they divide up a circle l-like a clock, only, instead of havin' minutes marked off, they have degrees. Ninety degrees.... Um! ...

That's a quarter of the way around a circle. If you walk to the middle of a circle, and then turn off to the place on the circle that's ninety degrees from the place where you first stepped on the circle, why, it's a right angle. See?"

"No," says I, "my eddication hain't got that far."

He drew it out on the ground, and then it was as plain as plain could be.

"You walk where the c-c-cat looks," says he, excited and stuttering like the mischief. "When you've walked as far as the writin' says-a hunderd and t-ten feet, wasn't it?-you turn off at a right angle, and there you are."

"Which way d'you turn?" says I.

That stopped him a minute, but he recited over Mr. Wigglesworth's writing: "'Where p-p.u.s.s.y looks she walks. Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six. N-ninety degrees in the shade. In. Down. What color is a b-brick? Investigate. B'lieve what t-tells the truth.'"

"Yes," says I.

"What comes after ninety degrees in the shade?" says he.

"'In,'" says I.

"In what?" says he.

"I dunno," says I.

"Well," says he, "use your b-brains. If you turn to the left what is there to go in?"

"Nothin'," says I, looking over that way.

"If you turn to the right, what is there to g-g-goin?"

"Why," says I, "the house is that way."

"Well," says he, "then I guess you t-turn to the right, don't you? If directions tell you to go in, and there hain't anythin' to _go_ into, why, then, you're turnin' wrong. Whatever it is we're l-lookin' for is in the house."

"Looks that way," says I.

"What doors are on the back of the house?" says Mark to Rock.

"Kitchen door, and a door that goes down cellar," says Rock.

"The cellar d-d-door's the one," says Mark, "because the next word in the writin' is 'Down.' You got to go in and down, which m-m-means you go in the cellar door and down cellar. We're gettin' it, Rock. I knew we would if we stuck to it long enough. Now we've got to get into that cellar. Can't f-f-figger out the rest of that writin' till we do."

"If you say so," says I, "I guess it must be so." Maybe I was a little sarcastic, but he didn't pay any attention to me; he was too interested.

That's the way with him. When he gets his mind settled down to thinking about a thing, you could shoot him out of a cannon and he wouldn't pay any attention to it. Concentrate is what Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat calls it. He says Mark is one of the greatest concentrators he ever saw.

Pretty soon he sort of waggled his head as if he was shaking a fly off his nose, and says, "Well, we can't do any m-more about that to-day.

Besides, we've got this Pekoe on our hands. Rock, turn around gradual, like there wasn't any reason for it, and tell me how many windows from the back yours is."

"It's the fourth, on the second floor," says Rock.

"All right. Now which s-s-side of you did that noise come from, or was it r-right straight on top?"

"Sounded like it was almost over my head. It may have been to one side.

I was pretty excited, you know. Come to think about it, it might have been a _little_ toward the front of the house."

Mark got up slow and went into the grape-arbor. When he got inside we saw him turn around, back in the shadows where n.o.body could see him from the house, and look careful up toward the windows on the third floor.

He wasn't gone but a minute. Then he came waddling out and says: "He's in a room with the blinds shut. Fifth window from the back. Blinds closes t-t-tight. That's what makes me think he's there. Maybe they're n-nailed."