The Grammar School Boys of Gridley Part 27

"Come to order, please," begged d.i.c.k. "Any one who calls names is out of order. It's bad practice."

"Who asked you to run this meeting, anyway, d.i.c.k Prescott?" snapped Martin.

"No one in particular, and I'm willing you should preside if you want to, Martin."

"The Centrals ain't any better stuff than the Souths," observed one of the Norths slightingly.

"Cut that out!" cried Dave, his eyes flashing. He stepped forward, looking for the fellow who had made the remark.

"I call upon the North Grammar delegation to step aside and confer for a few minutes," announced Hi. He led his own schoolmates some two hundred feet away.

"Say, the whole scheme's gone to pieces," grumbled Tom Reade disgustedly.

"Wait, and we'll see," answered Prescott hopefully.

The North Grammar boys talked matters over among themselves for two or three minutes.

"There, see!" grumbled Greg. "Hi Martin is leading his crowd away.

They're all quitters!"

"That always seems to be the way with Grammar School fellows," sighed d.i.c.k. "High School fellows do big things, but you can't ever get Grammar School boys to stick together long enough to do anything!"

So Grammar School football died an almost painless death.

CHAPTER XIV

d.i.c.k STEPS INTO A DEATH-TRAP

"Hullo, Dave!"

"Hullo, d.i.c.k. I've been looking for you. My, but you're dressed up to-night. Going to a party that I haven't heard about?"

"Not exactly," laughed d.i.c.k. "I'm going to call on Mrs. Dexter."

"Oho!"

"She sent a note that she'd like to have me call this evening. What it's about I don't know."

"Then I can guess," offered Dave.

"What?"

"Mrs. Dexter was set on getting football uniforms for us. When the league dropped out at the bottom that spoiled her chance. Mrs. Dexter feels that she's under obligations, and so has sent for you in order to find what she can do in the place of buying uniforms."

"Do you think that's it?" questioned young Prescott, looking bothered.

"I'm sure of it."

"Then I wish I weren't going up there to-night."

"Have you got to?" asked Darrin.

"It would hardly look polite if I didn't go. But I'll tell you what, Dave."

"What?"

"You come along with me."

"Not much!"

"Why not?"

"First place, I'm not invited. Second place, I'm not dressed up, and you are. Extra, I don't want to look as though I were trotting up there after a reward."

"I'm not, either," d.i.c.k retorted with considerable spirit.

"I know you're not, but you can say 'no' for both of us, and for Greg thrown in."

"Then you won't come with me?"

"I'll feel more comfortable down here on Main Street," laughed Dave. "If you get back early enough you can tell me about it."

"If Mrs. Dexter doesn't want anything except to talk about rewarding us," grunted Prescott, "I can promise you that I'll be back bright and early."

"So long, then, and good luck!"

"What?"

"Good luck in getting away, I mean."

So d.i.c.k pursued his course alone, and feeling a good deal more uncomfortable, now that he had a suspicion of Mrs. Dexter's business.

Up at the pretty little Dexter cottage things had been moving serenely of late. Ab. Dexter had not been heard from, and his wife imagined that the fellow had gone to other parts. For weeks she had kept a special policeman in the house at night. On this particular evening the man wanted to be away at a lodge meeting, and Mrs. Dexter had felt that it was wholly safe to let him go, more especially, as resourceful d.i.c.k Prescott would put in part of the evening there.

When the bell rang, Jane being upstairs with little Myra, Mrs. Dexter herself opened the front door.

Then she sprang back suddenly, stifling a dismayed little scream, for Abner Dexter stood facing her.

"Didn't expect me, did you?" jeered the fellow, pushing his way into the hall. "Jennie, I'm at the end of my rope, and of my patience, too. I'm broke--have hardly a dollar in the world, and now you've got to do your duty and provide for me in the way that a rich wife should. In there with you!"

Ab. pushed her into a little room just beyond the parlor, and stepped in after her.

"Nice, comfortable place you have here, while I'm wondering where my next meal is coming from!" sneered the fellow.