The Last of the Peterkins Part 16

"They are probably at the Pentzes'," said Gertrude. "If our boys are not there, the Pentzes are here; and as long as the Pentzes are not here, I suppose our boys are there."

"I should say they were not likely to get so good a dinner at the Pentzes' as we have here," said Aunt Harriet, as a plate was set before her containing her special choice of rare-done beef, mashed potato, stewed celery, and apple-sauce.

"Who are the Pentzes?" said Mr. Wilson, looking round the table to see if everybody was helped.

"He is a painter and glazier," said Aunt Harriet, "and the mother takes in washing."

"They are good boys," said Mrs. Wilson. "Jonas Pentz stands high in his cla.s.s, and is a great help to our Sam. Don't you remember him? He is the boy that came and spent a night with Sam a week ago. They have their first lesson in 'Caesar' this afternoon; perhaps they are studying up."

"Jack always has to go where Sam does," said Gertrude.

This was the talk at the Wilsons' table. The subject was much the same at the Pentzes'. There was a large family at the Wilsons'; so there was at the Pentzes'. Mrs. Pentz was ladling out some boiled apple-pudding to a hungry circle round her. But she missed two.

"Where are Jonas and d.i.c.k?" she asked.

A clamor of answers came up.

"I saw Jonas and d.i.c.k go off with Sam Wilson after school, and Jack Wilson, and John Stebbins," said Will, one of the small boys.

"You don't think Jonas and d.i.c.k both went to dine at the Wilsons'?" said Mrs. Pentz. "I should not like that."

"I dare say they did," said Mary Pentz. "You know the Wilson boys are here half the time, and the other half our boys are at the Wilsons'."

"Still, I don't like their going there for meal-times," said Mrs. Pentz, anxiously.

"Jonas had a new lesson in 'Caesar,'" said Mary Pentz. "I don't believe they planned to spend much time at dinner."

But at supper-time no boys appeared at the Wilsons'. Mrs. Wilson was anxious. George, the youngest boy of all, said the boys had been home since afternoon school; he had seen Jack in the kitchen with John Stebbins.

"Jack came to me for gingerbread," said Jane, "and I asked him where they had been, and John Stebbins said, with the Pentz boys. He said something about to-morrow being a holiday, and preparing for a lark."

"I don't like their getting all their meals at the Pentzes'," said Mrs.

Wilson, "and I don't much like John Stebbins."

Again at the Pentzes' the talk was much the same.

Mary Pentz reported the boys went through their 'Caesar' recitation well; she had a nod of triumph from Jonas as he walked off with Sam Wilson. "They had their books, so I suppose they are off for study again."

"I don't like their taking two meals a day at the Wilsons'," said Mrs.

Pentz.

"There's no school to-morrow," said Mary, "because the new furnace is to be put in. But I dare say the boys, Sam and Jonas, will be studying all the same."

"I hope he won't be out late," said Mrs. Pentz.

"He's more likely to spend the night at the Wilsons'," said Mary. "You know he did a week ago."

"The boys were round here for a candle," said Will.

"Then they do mean to study late," said Mrs. Pentz. "I shall tell him never to do it again; and with d.i.c.k, too!"

Mr. Wilson came hurrying home for a late supper, and announced he must go to New York by a late train.

"A good chance for you," he said to his wife, "to go and see your sister. You won't have more than a day with her, for I shall have to take the night train back, but it will give you a day's talk."

Mrs. Wilson would like to go, but she felt anxious about the boys. "They have not been home for dinner or supper."

"But they came home for gingerbread," said Aunt Harriet. "I suppose they didn't have too hearty a dinner at the Pentzes'."

"Joanna says they went off with a basket packed up for to-morrow," said Gertrude.

"If the Pentzes did not live so far off, I would send up," said Mrs.

Wilson.

"They will be in by the time we are off, or soon after," said Mr.

Wilson. "It looks like rain, but it won't hurt us."

Mrs. Wilson and he went, but no boys appeared all the evening.

Aunt Harriet, who had not been long in the family, concluded this was the way boys acted.

Jane sat up some time finishing a novel, and hurried off to bed, startled to find it so late, and waking up Gertrude to say, "It is odd those boys have not come home!"

Why hadn't they?

They couldn't.

This is what happened.

Wednesday afternoon, after school, the younger boys had gone to play at the old Wilson house, far away at the other end of the Main Street, beyond the Pentzes'. This was an old deserted mansion, where the Wilsons themselves had lived once upon a time. But it had taken a fortune and two furnaces to warm it in winter, and half a dozen men to keep the garden in order in summer, and it had grown now more fashionable to live at the other end of the town; so the Wilson family had moved down years ago, where the girls could see "the pa.s.sing" and Mr. Wilson would be near his business. Of late years he had not been able to let the house, and it had been closely shut to keep it from the tramps. The boys had often begged the keys of their father, for they thought it would be such fun to take possession of the old house. But Mr. Wilson said, "No; if a parcel of boys found their way in, all the tramps in the neighborhood would learn how to get in too." Still, it continued the object of the boys' ambition to get into the house, and they were fond of going up to play in the broad gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce by the side of the house; and they kept good oversight of the apple crop there.

On this Wednesday afternoon they were playing ball there, and lost the ball. It had gone through a ventilation hole into the cellar part of the house.

Now, everybody knows that if a boy loses a ball it must be recovered, especially if he knows where it is. There is not even a woman so stony-hearted but she will let in a troop of muddy-shoed boys through her entry (just washed) if they come to look for a ball, even if it has broken a pane of gla.s.s on its way. So the boys got a ladder from the Pentzes', and put it up at one of the windows where the blind was broken. Jack went up the ladder. The slat was off, but not in the right place to open the window. There could not be any harm in breaking off another; then he could reach the middle of the sash and pull up the window. No; it was fastened inside. John Stebbins tried, but it was of no use.

"It would not help if we broke the window by the fastening," said John; "for the shutters are closed inside with old-fashioned inside shutters."

Here was the time to ask for the key. They must have the key to find that ball, and the boys trudged back to meet Sam just going home from the Pentzes'.

But Sam refused to ask for the key again, He didn't want to bother his father so soon, and he didn't want the bother himself. He had his new "Caesar" lesson to study; to-morrow, after school, he and Jonas would look round at the house, and find some way to recover the ball, for even the stern and studious Sam knew the value of a ball.

So Thursday noon the boys all hurried up to the Wilson house,--Sam, Jonas, and all. They examined it on every side. They came back to the hole where the ball was lost.

"There's the cold-air box," said Jonas. "Could not d.i.c.k crawl in?"

Now, d.i.c.k was a very small pattern of a boy, indeed, to be still a boy.

Really he might crawl into the cold-air box. He tried it! He did get in!

He had to squeeze through one part, but worked his way down fairly into the cellar, and screamed out with triumph that he had found the ball close by the hole! But how was d.i.c.k to get out again? He declared he could never scramble up. He slipped back as fast as he tried. He would look for the cellar stairs, only it was awful dark except just by the hole. He had a match in his pocket. Jack ran to the Pentzes' and got a candle, and they rolled it in to d.i.c.k, and waited anxiously to see where he would turn up next. They heard him, before long, pounding at a door round the corner of the house. He had found the cellar stairs, and a door with bolts and a great rusty key, which he succeeded in turning.