The Grammar School Boys of Gridley Part 34

"Wife!" he called back into the house. "Come and see who's here!"

"Who is it?" hailed a voice from inside. "Cousin Jenny?"

"No; it isn't."

"Who? The minister?"

"No; you just come and see."

Then Mrs. Crossleigh came down the hallway and out on to the porch.

"Now, who do you think it is?" chuckled Mr. Crossleigh, lifting the basket.

"Henry Crossleigh, where on earth----"

"Don't ask me where it came from, wife. I found it here on the stoop when I answered the bell."

"Well of all the----" gasped the woman in wonder.

"Ain't it!" agreed her husband.

"It's--it's--why, I do believe it's a real cute little shaver,"

continued the woman hesitatingly.

"Fine little fellow, I should say, though I'm no judge," continued Mr.

Crossleigh.

"And it isn't crying a bit. Do you suppose it's a foundling, left on our stoop, as we sometimes read of in the papers, Henry?"

"That's just what it is, of course. Folks don't leave small children around for a joke, wife."

"And have we got to take it in and keep it?"

"The law doesn't compel us to."

"But--Henry----"

"What is it, wife?"

"Do you suppose--we've never had any children. Do you think we could----"

"We can do whatever you say, wife," nodded

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Is This the Brother You're Looking For?"]

Mr. Crossleigh. "If you say that you want to----"

Here he came to a pause. The new idea was so wholly strange that he couldn't grasp it all at once.

Here Hoof Sadby, straining his ears from the distance, judged that it was high time for him to use his slice of onion. Then his doleful voice was heard as he came wailing along.

"Why, who's that out there?" cried Mrs. Crossleigh.

"Say, have you got my baby brother!" demanded Hoof, halting at the gateway, then running forward for a minute. "Some fellers----

"Is this the brother you're looking for?" asked Mr. Crossleigh, stepping toward Hoof, basket in hand.

"Yes!" snapped Hoof, giving a pretended gulp of joy. But, truth to tell, he felt so ashamed of himself that he was a poor actor at this moment.

Had the Crossleighs been more suspicious they would have detected something sham in Hoof's beginning grief and his swift change to joy.

"Oh, thank you, sir," awkwardly sobbed Hoof, taking the basket. "I know the fellows that did this to me. They think this is a good Hallowe'en joke."

"I'm glad, boy, that you didn't have a longer hunt," remarked Mr.

Crossleigh. "Good night!"

Then Hoof and the peepers across the way saw Mr. Crossleigh throw an arm around his wife's waist and draw her into the house, closing the door.

"Say, who said they were cranks?" demanded Greg Holmes, when the abashed Hallowe'eners had gathered a little way down the street. "Why, those folks would have been only too glad to take the little shaver in and----"

"Adopt it," supplied Dan Dalzell.

Truth to tell, d.i.c.k and all the Grammar School boys had seen the beginning of a scene that made their joke look small.

"If I ever catch any fellow trying to sneak the Crossleigh's gate,"

warned Dave loftily, "I'll give that fellow all that's coming his way!"

"They're the right sort of people," confessed d.i.c.k. "Fellows, we've all got to make it our business to see that the Crossleighs are never bothered again by fellows out for larks. Say, they showed us that playing a joke with a baby is only a clownish trick, didn't they?"

"I'm going home," announced Hoof. "This little shaver has been out long enough. It's time he was in his crib."

To this no objection was offered. As Wrecker Lane was near his home he ran off with the basket, which he tossed into the yard, after which he overtook his companions.

"What are we going to do, now?" Ben Alvord wanted to know.

"Let's prowl around and see what other Hallowe'eners are doing,"

proposed d.i.c.k.

Apparently there was enough going on. The Grammar School boys came across one party of grown young men who had climbed to the top of a blacksmith shop and had hoisted a wagon into place on the ridge pole. At another point they came across a group of High School boys who, with bricks done up in fancy paper, and with a confectioner's label pasted on the package, were industriously circulating these sham sweets by tying the packages to door-k.n.o.bs, ringing the bells and then hurrying away. In another part of the town the Grammar School boys came upon a bevy of schoolgirls engaged in the ancient pastime of "hanging baskets."

In time d.i.c.k and the rest of the crowd found themselves down by the railroad, not far from the railway station. Lights shone out from the office where the night operator was handling train orders and other telegrams.

"What can we do here?" demanded Ben Alvord.

"I don't know," returned Dave.

"It's a bad place to play tricks," advised d.i.c.k. "Railway people are in a serious line of business, and they don't stand for much nonsense."

"Green is the night operator, and I don't forget the switching he gave some of us a year ago," muttered Ben Alvord bitterly.