Sube Cane Part 40

By painful stages the victims worked their way downstream until they were out of range. Then they dragged themselves up on the bank and started what looked like a cartoon of a mud-slinging campaign. To an idle pa.s.serby a group of full grown human beings with their heads and often their bodies completely poulticed in black mud would have been an amusing sight. But on this occasion not so much as a suspicion of a smile crossed the face of any person present. An incipient laugh would doubtless have been punished by immediate execution.

The only observers who were not among the suffering partic.i.p.ants were in no mood for smiles. They lay absolutely motionless back in the bushes and devoutly hoped that their labored breathing and pounding heartbeats would not be overheard. The affair had got away from them entirely.

There was no telling what would happen if their part in it should be discovered.

Not until it was quite dark did the badly stung bathers dare to return for their clothes. The hornets were gone. And the languid stillness of the summer night was broken only by their grim tokens of exclamation.

Some time after the last suffering victim had dragged his weary feet down the path leading from the pool, two dark shadows cautiously emerged from the shrubbery.

"Let's beat it for home!" urged a husky voice. "If any one saw us around here they'd prob'ly kill us!"

"All right," breathed the other. "The quicker the better!"

"Do you s'pose any one ever did die from bee-sting?"

"I'm afraid so. One feller said if he didn't die before mornin' he might have one chance in a hundred--"

Next day Sube's face blanched with fear as he saw the undertaker's wagon pa.s.s the house in the direction of the Unionville Mill. When the fearsome news was broken to Gizzard he presented a ray of hope.

"I ast my dad last night if anybody ever died of bee-sting and he said he never heard of any; but he said if a person got enough of 'em he couldn't see why they wouldn't kill just like a charge of birdshot."

"Does he know about everybody that dies in the whole world?" asked Sube incredulously.

"Maybe not all of 'em; but he knows about a good many."

At this point in the discussion Biscuit arrived, and with him came a brilliant idea to Sube.

"How good do you know Hi Wilbur, Biscuit?" he asked.

"How good! Say! He used to work for us!"

"Bet you don't know 'im good enough to nail 'im for a ride when he comes along!" challenged Sube.

"Oh! Don't I! Don't I, now! Well, you just watch me! _Watch_ me! I'll show you if I do or not!" howled Biscuit.

"Well," said Sube, "he jus' went down the street, and when he comes back pretty quick we'll watch you all right!"

"Huh! You watch me! _Watch_ me!"

"Well," taunted Sube, "when you're ridin' with 'im and we're watchin'

you, I'll bet you da.s.sent ask him who's dead down the street--Here he comes now! Get on the job, Biscuit! We're watchin'!"

As the undertaker's service wagon approached with Hi on the lofty seat, Biscuit ran out in the road and hailed him. The team was instantly brought to a standstill and Biscuit clambered aboard.

"Fooled you, didn't he?" jeered Gizzard.

"Not on your life he didn't!" retorted Sube. "When he comes back and tells us who's dead you'll see that I fooled--Look!--He's gettin' down!"

Biscuit came running back to them triumphantly. "Ha-ha! What'd I tell you--!"

"Who's dead?" interrupted Sube.

"n.o.body but ol' Miss Stebbins," replied Biscuit. "But I got some'pm better'n that to tell you!"

Sube and Gizzard waited in breathless suspense until Biscuit should speak. There was no telling what it might be.

"They've took Seth Bissett back to prison--!"

"What's that!" cried Sube and Gizzard in a chorus.

"Yessir! The payroll officer came this mornin' and found Seth's face all blotchy 'cause he'd been on two or three drunks lately, and the officer said there was a lot of complaints against 'im, so he took 'im back to prison!"

"Did they take 'im jus' cause his face was all broke out?" asked Sube weakly.

"Oh, my no!" replied Biscuit. "Hi says he's been drunk every night for a month, hollerin' round and bustin' windows and all like that!"

"Hear that, Gizzard, ol' sock!" cried Sube, l.u.s.tily thumping Gizzard on the chest. "Hear what he said!"

For an answer Gizzard returned a jovial body-blow, after which the two boys clinched and went down rolling over and over in the exuberance of their spirits.

The gang was hastily a.s.sembled for a swim, and soon with unrestrained shouts of joy they were tearing along the narrow path, undressing as they went. Sube was the first one in the water. As he came to the surface his companions thought they detected a peculiar expression on his face, but they threw themselves into the pool without stopping to investigate. Then they were sorry. For the pool was unspeakably polluted.

They hurriedly dragged themselves out on the bank, making faces expressive of disgust and disappointment. Sube was the first to speak.

"It's all off for this year!" he growled. "We might jus' well go up to the spring and wash this smelly ol' water off'm us. That rotten ol'

pickle factory's opened up--"

"Pickle factory?" asked Biscuit. "What's the pickle factory got to do with it?"

"Why, they'll be dumpin' their ol' smelly brine in the creek from now until next winter!... And jus' when we'd got the hole to ourselves, too!"

CHAPTER XXVI

SUBE GOES TO THE MOVIES

Vacation vanished. School opened. Another year of education loomed up before Sube like an impa.s.sable mountain. The weather began to give hints of an approaching winter. Except on rare occasions the evenings were spent indoors. These occasions were usually devoted to attendance at the opera where the Kings and Queens of Filmdom could be seen for the trifling sum of five cents or the one-half part of a dime.

And always--with one exception--these evenings at the movies were the result of earnest solicitation on the part of the boys. The exception was noted on a certain Friday evening when Mrs. Cane had planned to open her parlors for a lecture of the Mothers' Club.

As the Cane family was about to rise from the supper table on that memorable evening, Mrs. Cane announced that she had arranged a pleasant surprise for the boys. Whereupon she distributed largess to the extent of a nickel apiece and told them that as an experiment she had decided to permit them to go just this once unattended to the Theatorium.

If she had let them remain at home they would have paid scant attention to the Mothers' Club; but the moment she showed a desire to be rid of their presence she aroused Sube's suspicions.

"What don't you want us round home for?" he asked as he pocketed his nickel.

"Oh, it isn't that I don't want you here, dears," she replied; "but I knew this dry old lecture wouldn't interest you at all."