Sube Cane Part 9

I dont wish n.o.body harm but I hope the rain keeps stinging down for therty days and therty nights S C

As a result of this outburst Sube was compelled to copy the word _thirty_ two hundred times to impress on his memory the correct way to spell it.

Sube's father was late for supper. He was very late; and he came in drenched to the skin. With him came Dr. Richards, also drenched.

"Where _have_ you been!" cried Mrs. Cane. "You've caught your death of cold, I'm sure--"

"Oh, I've taken care of that!" was the doctor's cheery reply. "We stopped in my office and took a little--preventive."

"But where have you been?" persisted she.

"Where haven't we been!" exclaimed the doctor with an irrepressible chuckle at the innocent face of Sube. "In the first place I was in the barber shop being shaved, when a telephone message came that a man had been terribly injured by falling into a threshing machine out at the Shepperd farm."

The doctor cast a sly glance at Sube, and noting the boy's complete immersion in his magazine, winked slyly at his father and went on.

"I took Sam along with me for the ride--and it was _some_ ride! It began to pour just after we started and the trip was simply one big mudhole after another; and when we reached the Shepperd farm and asked about the accident they laughed us out of the house! They wanted to know what we expected them to be threshing in the merry month of May!"

Shouts of laughter from Mr. Cane and the doctor stopped the recital for a time.

"Do tell the rest," urged Mrs. Cane, "so I can laugh too."

"Well," the doctor resumed, wiping his eyes, "I called up my office, and the girl said that just about the time I started, Bill Morton's stenographer called up and warned her to look out for a fake call she heard somebody send in from Morton's private office."

"Oh! Who could have done such a thing!" gasped Mrs. Cane.

"Bill's stenographer didn't know who it was," replied the doctor, watching Sube out of the corner of his eye. "He was too quick for her!

She didn't see him!"

Sube straightened up at once and for the first time appeared to take an interest in the story.

"We had already started!" laughed the doctor uproariously. "And such a time as we had!"

The doctor's laughter was infectious. Mr. Cane had been chuckling throughout the account of their adventures and now Mrs. Cane was beginning.

"The mud was a foot deep!" cried Mr. Cane, taking up the narrative, "and we had to get out and wade around in it twice while we changed a tire. And then to top off the adventure the engine got wet and went out of commission and we had to give up the ship and _walk home_!!"

"But what is so funny about it?" insisted Mrs. Cane. "If I didn't know you were both teetotalers I should certainly think you men had been drinking."

The doctor subdued his laughter with an effort as he said: "It's Sube I'm laughing at!"

Sube's magazine fell to the floor; he half stood up, then dropped back into his chair stiff as a poker.

"Isn't he immense!" howled the doctor. "Isn't he delicious! That boy will make _his_ mark in the world!"

"But what has _he_ to do with it?" asked Mrs. Cane, glancing at the boy's open mouth and popping eyes.

"Oh--oh, nothing to do with _that_," stammered the doctor. "I was just laughing at the way he was sitting there reading. I wanted to come in and get a look at him!"

"A look at him?" asked she, mystified.

"Why, yes!" roared the doctor. "He's had his head shingled and I hadn't seen him!"

As soon as the doctor had gone Mrs. Cane hurried her husband to his room for dry clothing. Sube heard with bitterness the sound of their suppressed laughter.

"That's right," he muttered. "Laugh at some joke of ol' Doc Richards and then come down and whale the daylights out of me--"

He listened. They were coming down the stairs. As his mother entered the room he noticed that there were tears in her eyes, and that the corners of her mouth were twitching. His breath came faster as he observed his father's determined walk.

With a visible effort Mr. Cane controlled his voice. "Sube," he said, extending his hand in which money could be seen, "I want to reimburse you for that haircut you got yesterday."

Sube mechanically took the money as he braced himself for the jolt that he felt sure would follow. But his reckonings went wrong. His father pa.s.sed a friendly hand over the resistless stubble and remarked cheerfully:

"Well, bullet-head, let's eat our supper."

CHAPTER VII

A NEW FACE

Sube had invented a new face. This was not an infrequent occurrence, but it was usually a notable one. Within the week he had presented his family with the "squirrel-face," the "teakettle-spout," the "double-tongue," and one or two minor productions, so they were not entirely unprepared to have him announce that he could make a face like the king of beasts.

During the next few days Mrs. Cane found a lion-face staring at her from all sorts of unexpected places, generally accompanied by a low snarl and a bloodthirsty licking of chops. And on one occasion Mr. Cane had been surprised into boxing the beast's ears and threatening to skin it alive and make a rug of its pelt if it ever sprang out at him again.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the lion-face disappeared and its haunts knew it no more, for Sube had turned to other matters. He was organizing a drum corps. The new enterprise was brought to the attention of his family by a demand for a ba.s.s drum.

"A ba.s.s drum!" his father exploded with a sound not wholly unlike that vast instrument. "What next! I de-clare, that boy beats--"

He gave up in despair.

Sube's mother had stronger nerves and was much less explosive. "What could you possibly do with a ba.s.s drum?" she asked.

"I got to have one for my drum corpse," replied Sube with the air of a man of affairs.

His father gave way to another explosion. "Well, there will be another kind of corpse around here if you ever attempt to perform in this neighborhood!" he threatened.

"Where's the drum your uncle Ned gave you?" asked his mother.

Sube glanced apprehensively at his father. This drum had been heard from before. "It's put away," he mumbled; hastily adding, "That's a snare drum, anyway. What we need is a ba.s.s drum!"

The mere thought of a drum was annoying to his father, who declared in a menacing tone: "I hereby warn you that if I ever find a drum on the premises, snare, ba.s.s, kettle or any other kind, I'll kick a hole through it! Now don't forget that!"

"Kettle? Did you say kettle?" Sube asked eagerly. "What's a kettle drum?"

"Never mind what it is," retorted his father. "The less you know about drums, the better off you'll be."

"It wouldn't bother you just to have me _know_ about it, would it?" Sube persisted.