The Princess and Joe Potter Part 14

"What?" Dan screamed.

"That's all there is to it. I'll stop here, an' you fellers can keep on if you like."

"But, Joe, if there was woods somewhere near I wouldn't say a word. How can you hide where there's so many houses close 'round?"

"I don't count on hidin', 'cause I can't afford it. Even if them lawyers get hold of me to-morrer mornin', I'm goin' to stop here."

"Right here in the road?" Plums asked, with less anxiety than he would have shown an hour before, when he was not so tired.

"Well, I don't mean to say I'll camp down in the road. But you fellers listen to me. If the detectives are out after us, an' I s'pose, of course, they are, we sha'n't be any safer twenty miles away than in this very spot. We've got to stop sometime, an' it may as well be now. I promised to go back to see the princess in two days, an' I'll keep my word."

"But where'll you stay all that time?" Dan asked, as if believing this was a question which could not be satisfactorily answered.

"I don't know yet; but I'm thinkin' of goin' up to that house," and Joe pointed to a tiny cottage, which in the gloom could be but dimly seen amid a clump of trees. "There's a light in the window, so of course the folks are awake. I'll ask 'em if they haven't got work enough about the place sich as I could do to pay my board over one day, an' if they say no, I'll try at the next house."

"You might as well go right into jail as do a thing like that," Dan said, angrily.

"I ain't so sure but it would have been a good deal better if I had, for by this time the princess would be with her folks, where she belongs."

"It seems to me you're terribly stuck on that kid."

"Well, what if I am!" and Joe spoke so sharply that Master Fernald did not think it wise to make any reply.

During fully a moment the three stood silently in the road looking at each other, and then Joe asked of Master Plummer:

"Will you come with me?"

The possibility of resting his tired limbs in a regular bed appealed strongly to the fat boy, and, understanding that he was about to agree to Joe's proposition, Dan said, gloomily:

"This is what a feller gets for tryin' to help you two out of a sc.r.a.pe.

I've kept the detectives away so far, an' now you're goin' to give me the dead shake."

"There's no reason why you couldn't stay with us--"

"You won't catch me in a house for another month, anyhow."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JOE POINTED TO A TINY COTTAGE."]

The argument which followed this announcement was not long, but spirited.

Joe explained that it was his intention to remain in that vicinity, and within forty-eight hours to return to Weehawken, according to the promise he had made Mrs. Weber.

Dan continued to insist that it was in the highest degree dangerous to loiter there, and professed to believe himself deeply injured, because, after having "taken up the case" in such an energetic fashion, he was probably in danger of arrest through having aided these two supposed criminals.

Master Plummer had but little to say; the thought of walking all night was nearly as painful as that of being imprisoned, and he was willing to throw all the responsibility of a decision upon his friend.

Before ten minutes had pa.s.sed, the matter was settled,--not satisfactorily to all concerned, but as nearly so as could have been expected.

Joe and Plums were to call at the cottage with the hope of finding temporary employment, and the amateur detective was to conceal himself in the vicinity as best he might, until he should be able to learn something definite regarding the purpose of the lawyers who had advertised.

When Joe, followed by Master Plummer, turned from the highway into the lane which led to the cottage, the amateur detective scrambled over the fence on the opposite side of the road, and scurried through the field as if believing he was hotly pursued.

Not until they had arrived nearly at the house did Master Plummer make any remark, and then he said, with a long-drawn sigh:

"Dan Fernald makes too much work out of his detective business to suit me. I couldn't walk all night if it was to save me life."

"I don't believe there's any reason why we should, Plums. Because Dan thinks the cops have followed us over to Weehawken doesn't make it so, an' if we can't hide here, we can't anywhere, 'cordin' to my way of thinkin'. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to go off so far that we can't get back to the princess."

Then Joe advanced to the side door, and knocked gently, Plums whispering, hoa.r.s.ely, meanwhile:

"Be ready to skip, if you hear a dog. I've been told that folks out this way keep reg'lar bloodhounds to scare away tramps."

"I ain't 'fraid of dogs as much as I am that the man who lives here will run us off the place the first minute he sees our faces," Joe replied, and at that instant the door was opened.

Holding a lamp high above her head, and peering out into the gloom as if suffering from some defect of vision, stood a little woman, not very much taller than Joe, whose wrinkled face told she had pa.s.sed what is termed the "middle age" of life.

Joe's surprise at seeing this tiny lady, when he had expected to be confronted by a man, prevented him from speaking at once, and the small woman asked, with mild curiosity:

"Whose children are you?"

This was a question Joe was not prepared to answer, and he stammered and stuttered before being able to say:

"I don't know as we're anybody's, ma'am. You see we ain't got any place to stop in for a day or two, an' thought perhaps a farmer lived here what would have work we could do to pay for our board."

"Are you hungry, child?" the small woman asked, quickly, and, as it seemed to Joe, anxiously.

"Not very much now, 'cause we've had a good supper; but we will be in the mornin', you know."

And Master Plummer interrupted, as he pinched his companion's arm to reduce him to silence:

"We've been walkin' a good while since then, an' it seems like I was most starved."

"You poor child! Come right into the house, an' it'll be strange if I can't find something to eat; though, to tell the truth, I didn't have real good luck with this week's batch of bread; but if custard pie--"

"_If_ custard pie!" Master Plummer cried, ecstatically. "Why, I'd be fixed great if I could have some!"

He was following the small woman as he spoke, and, after closing and barring the outer door, the hostess ushered them into such a kitchen as they had never seen before.

A s.p.a.cious room, in which it seemed as if a hundred persons might have found ample elbow-room, with a yellow, painted floor, on which not a grain of dirt could be seen, and with numerous odd, stiff-looking chairs ranged around the sides at regular intervals. At one end an enormous fireplace, in front of which was a cook-stove actually glittering with polish, and on the mantel behind it an array of shining tins.

As seen from the road, in the gloom, the cottage had not appeared even as large as this kitchen, and because of such fact the boys were more surprised than they otherwise would have been.

Once in the room, where everything was so cleanly that, as Master Plummer afterwards expressed it, "it come near givin' him a pain," the boys stood awkwardly near the door, uncertain as to what might be expected of them.

"You can sit right here while I get you something to eat," and the hostess placed two chairs in front of a small table in one corner of the room.

Master Plummer advanced eagerly, thinking only of the pleasure which was about to be his, when the small lady exclaimed, as if in alarm:

"Mercy on us, child! You're tracking dust all over the floor. Go right back into the entry, and wipe your feet."