CHAPTER XV
THE PUZZLE IS FAR FROM BEING SOLVED
When, a little later on, the two chums came away from the Hosmer home, Thad seemed unusually quiet, for him. Hugh, noticing this, and wishing to ascertain whether the other had begun to get on the track of the truth, presently remarked:
"What makes you so glum, Thad? Coming over you rattled away like a blue streak, and now you haven't so much as said ten words since we started back home?"
"Well, to tell you the truth," admitted Thad, shaking his head after the manner of one who is sadly puzzled, "I just don't know what to say, after seeing that little affair."
"Do you mean you feel badly because Matilda was so reduced in finances that she couldn't even meet a small account like her milk bill?" asked Hugh, fishing for a bite.
"Why, yes, partly that," said Thad, slowly; "but it knocked me all in a heap to see that old rascal of a Brother Lu walk out with the last dollar he had in the wide world, and gladly hand it over to liquidate that same account. Say, if we didn't just know he was a bad one, I'd call that a really generous act."
"Oh," chuckled Hugh, "not so very generous, after all, when you come to examine things closer. Don't forget, Thad, that he's been sponging on that poor couple for a good many weeks already; and then, if our calculations are correct, he means to fasten on them for keeps."
"That's so," agreed the other, heaving a sigh as though he felt somewhat relieved in his mind to have his comrade point out a solution to the problem. "Of course, he's imposing on his relatives something shameful, and the least he could do was to toe the scratch when an emergency came along. But he did the thing up brown, I must admit."
"And then again, how do we know that five dollars was every cent he had in the world?" asked Hugh, insinuatingly.
"He said as much," declared Thad, instantly; and then laughed as he hastened to add: "though for that matter what would one little white lie mean to a fellow as case-hardened as an old hobo? There's another thing I'm thinking about, Hugh."
"I can guess it," the second boy immediately told him. "You're wondering what it was Brother Lu meant to buy with his little fortune, eh?"
"Well, five dollars isn't so very much when you come to think of it, Hugh, but to a tramp it might seem a pile. But didn't he tell us he and Brother-in-law Andrew had some sort of a little scheme hatched up to give Matilda a surprise on her birthday, tomorrow, Saturday?"
"Just what he did," admitted Hugh. "They've been plotting how to spend five dollars recklessly, so as to get the most for their money. Such men are apt to find heaps of enjoyment in blowing in their money a dozen times, and changing off just as often. I wouldn't be surprised a bit if they even calculated whether they could run across a nice little home that they could buy and present to Matilda for a birthday present—-faithful, big-hearted Matilda."
"What! for five dollars!" ejaculated Thad, and then he laughed; "but, of course, you're joking, Hugh. Still, it looks like a big sum to men who've seldom handled as much at a time; and I guess a confirmed tramp never does. I hope, though, he didn't steal that money."
"What makes you say that, Thad?"
"Oh! I don't know, but it looked so nice and fresh and new. Great Jupiter! Hugh, you don't think for a minute, do you, that it might have been a counterfeit bill?"
Hugh shook his head.
"Lots of things may turn out to be counterfeit, Thad, men as well as bank bills, but that one was perfectly good. I could even see the colored threads of silk fiber that the Government uses in the paper to protect the currency. So don't let that bother you again."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, because it would be terrible if poor
Matilda should get into more trouble on account of passing bad money.
But is this going to alter our plans any, Hugh?"
"I don't see why it should," came the steady reply.
"We'll continue to do business at the old stand, shall we, then?" pursued Thad; "and try our level best to find out some way to force that leech to let go the hold he has secured on his sister?"
"We'll keep on trying to learn something about Luther that will give us an advantage, so we can make him do just what we want," explained Hugh; and it might have been noticed that he was now very particular just what words he used when he spoke of the reformed tramp.
"Huh! there's only one answer to that," grunted Thad; "which is to influence him to move on his way, and clear out. Scranton will never miss Brother Lu; and the wide world he loves so well beckons to him to come on. After all, once a tramp always a tramp, they say; and as a rule such fellows die in the harness."
"It's really a disease, I've read, like the hookworm down South, that makes so many of the poor, underfed whites in the mountain districts seem too lazy for any use. It gets in the blood when they are boys, and they feel a strong yearning just to loaf, and knock around, and pick up their meals when and where they can."
"Well, I can believe a part of that, Hugh, but the meal end is too much for me to swallow. Whoever heard of a tramp who didn't respond to a dinner-bell on a farm? Eating and sleeping are their long suits, and they can beat the world at both. When it comes to going in swimming now, they draw the line every time, for fear of taking cold, I reckon. But I own up Brother Lu Isn't a bad looker, now that he's reformed far enough to keep his face and hands clean, and wear Mr. Hosmer's Sunday-go-to-meeting suit of clothes, which just fits him by squeezing, and turning up the trouser-legs several inches at the bottom."
"Yes, he isn't a bad-looking man, and if we didn't know how fierce he seemed at the time we first ran across him in the patch of woods, we'd hardly dream he'd ever been down and out. Matilda's cooking seems to agree with him."
"Shucks! it agrees too well with him, and that's the trouble. Now, I wonder if there could be any way to make him sicken on his bill of fare. I'm going to think it over, and see if I can evolve a scheme along those lines."
"You'll find it hard to do," suggested Hugh, "because he eats just what Andrew does, I suppose; as for Matilda, I do believe she stints her appetite so as to be able to give her sick charges their fill."
"She does look thinner than before, that's a fact!" exclaimed the indignant Thad. "What a burning shame all this is, Hugh! Surely there must be some remedy for it. I've got a good notion to have a talk with Dominie Pettigrew, and spin him the whole painful story. He might find a way to separate Brother Lu from his quarry."
"Take my advice, Thad, and wait a little longer," Hugh told him. "Tomorrow will be Saturday and we play Belleville again in the afternoon. Besides, didn't he tell us it was going to be Matilda's birthday, and that he and Andrew had fixed it to surprise her a little? Well, don't say anything to the Parson until next week, and by that time perhaps we'll know a heap more than we do now."
Thad looked keenly at the speaker, but Hugh kept a straight face. If a glimmering suspicion that Hugh might know of something he was averse to confiding to even his best chum darted through Thad's mind just then he allowed it to slip past.
"All right, Hugh, I guess it won't do any harm to hold up a few more days. Matilda has stood it so long now that it isn't going to hurt her to endure another week or so of her brother's company, and his appetite in the bargain. I'll try and forget all about it in thinking of our game with Belleville. We've just got to clinch that, as sure as anything, if we hope to have a look-in at that pennant."
"We're going to do it, Thad," said Hugh, with set teeth. "Once we put Belleville in the soup for keeps we can devote our undivided attention to Allandale. They have the jump on us, of course, owing to hard luck. But, thank goodness, Alan Tyree is all right again, and he told me this morning he felt that his arm was better than ever before. That means Belleville won't be able to do anything with his delivery tomorrow afternoon."
"This time we play on our own grounds," suggested Thad, "and the advantage is all in our favor. Everybody seems to think we should have an easy snap."
"I rather think everybody stands for Ivy Middletown, Sue Barnes and Peggy Nolan," jeered Hugh, causing his chum to give a confused little laugh, as though the shot had gone home. "But what do girls know about baseball? It's a game of uncertainties all the way through. Many a time a pitcher, believing himself safe and invincible, because his club is away ahead, has eased up a trifle, and the other fellows start a batting bee that nearly puts the fat in the fire, and gives him the scare of his life. Belleville went down to defeat last Saturday before Allandale, and the score looks rotten, but you remember they fought like tigers."
"You're right, Hugh."
"And only for some hard luck they would have started a streak of hitting that might have pulled them out of the hole. Half a dozen fierce drives were taken on the run by Allandale fielders, any one of which, if sent ten feet one way or the other, would have counted for a three-bagger easily. That's how luck has a hand in defeating a team, and there's no way of denying it, either."
"Well, we mean to put up our best sort of game, and not count it won till the last man goes down in the final inning," avowed Thad.
"It's always wise to play safe in baseball," declared the field captain of the Scranton High team, "and take nothing for granted. Hit as hard as you can every time you're at bat, and don't allow yourself to be tempted to ease up out of sympathy for the other fellows. It's scant sympathy they'll show you, once they get at your prize pitcher, to knock him out of the box. Instead it'll be jeers, and taunts, and every sort of thing calculated to sting."
"But after the game's been won?" expostulated Thad.
"Oh, that's a different thing," admitted his chum. "Then we feel that we can afford to be generous without being put in a possible hole. Every true player is ready to take off his cap and give a beaten rival a hearty cheer. It sort of eases up the sting of defeat a bit, too, as all of us know."
As they parted at the gate in front of Thad's home he once more returned to the subject that had such a strong hold on his mind.
"If anything crops up that you think would interest me, about that tramp, of course, I mean, Hugh, please give me the sign, won't you?" Thad asked.
Hugh did not seem disposed to take his chum into his confidence just then; perhaps he wanted to make more certain that his faint suspicions were well grounded before committing himself to a disclosure.
"Sure I will, if I learn anything positive, Thad," he merely said; "and in the meantime we'll keep tabs on Brother Lu's eccentric actions, hoping to catch him off his guard," and later on Thad realized that these last words were rather significant.