CHAPTER XXVIII—“FINDINGS, KEEPINGS”
Now comes the big court scene. It’s short, that’s one good thing. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I guess that’s why they called it a hearing. No wonder you couldn’t hear it, because there wasn’t anything to hear.
Recorder Van Wort sat behind a desk up on a platform and he was hammering with a mallet. He said everybody should keep still.
I whispered to Westy, “That’s a good idea, having that mallet. I think I’ll get one for our patrol meetings.”
“You’d better get an ax,” he said, under his breath.
Recorder Van Wort was making a man pay twenty-five dollars for stopping his automobile in the wrong place in front of a fire hydrant.
I whispered to Westy, “That would be a good place for the inventor to park, in front of a fire hydrant.”
Westy kind of giggled and Recorder Van Wort began pounding with his mallet.
I said, “Keep still; the first thing you know he’ll throw it at you.”
That room was full of people and I could see my father sitting with Mr. Martin. I could see Mr. Slausen, too, sitting on the other side of the room, and Charlie alongside of him. One thing, I was glad Charlie hadn’t run away. But he looked mighty scared and nervous as he sat there. No wonder, because he knew that as soon as we told about seeing him in the garage every one would suspect him. I guess he knew no one would believe him if he denied he had been there. I guess he was afraid of what might happen after Recorder Van Wort got through with us. We weren’t afraid on account of ourselves, but I felt awful sorry for that fellow.
Westy and I and the inventor sat down in the back seat, and it made me feel as if I had failed in arithmetic. That’s what Miss Munson calls a punishment. Gee whiz, in the movies that’s the seat I like best. Mr. Ellsworth came over and spoke to us, very serious. He didn’t know the kid was with us. I guess he couldn’t see him on account of not having a telescope. In the seat the poor little kid looked about as big as Bridgeboro on the map of the world.
Mr. Ellsworth whispered, “Boys, you mustn’t be afraid; you mustn’t be afraid of the recorder——”
I said, “Do you think I’m afraid of him just because he’s got a mallet? I should worry. I’m sorry I didn’t wear my belt-ax.”
He didn’t laugh, he just put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Your fathers and I have trusted you. We know that you’re not guilty——”
“Yes, and you think you know who is,” Westy whispered.
“Sh-h,” I said.
“You boys, you scouts, wouldn’t shield a guilty man?” Mr. Ellsworth whispered.
I had to laugh when I thought of the inventor as a man.
Mr. Ellsworth whispered, “You needn’t be afraid, just tell the truth. Tell why you were there and who you saw, if anybody, and—and—if it should appear that that person——”
Just then he had to stop whispering on account of the judge pounding with his mallet. Anyway, from what he said I knew that they were trying to wish that fire on Charlie Slausen, and I knew that poor fellow would be in a dickens of a fix when they began to ask him a lot of questions. Maybe they couldn’t send him to jail yet, but, anyway, they could hold him for the grand jury. Gee, I wouldn’t want to be held for that jury, I don’t care how grand it is. One thing, if they found out Charlie was in there and knew that there were match ends near the cotton waste, that would look pretty bad for him, because he knew enough about that place not to throw match ends into the cotton waste.
I guess it was about ten minutes before our case was called, because Judge Van Wort delivered a lecture and told all about what he was going to do to people who broke the law. He said he was going to put a stop to a lot of things. I whispered to Westy that he ought to be on the High School nine, he was such a good shortstop.
Pretty soon, oh, boy, he said something to Jack Morse (he’s a cop), and Mr. Morse called out:
“Wesleigh Martin and Roy Blakeley! Step down.”
Gee whiz, then I felt kind of nervous. I knew everybody was looking at us. I could just feel my father looking at me. Recorder Van Wort, he didn’t seem to care; he just started reading some papers.
“Come ahead,” I whispered to the kid; “nobody’s going to hurt you.” He looked awful funny and little as he went down front with Westy and me.
There were a couple of cops down there in front of the desk. Mr. Brownell was down there, too. He’s public persecutor, or whatever they call him. His son’s in my class. The recorder just kept on reading the papers while we all stood there. The kid was good and scared, I guess.
Pretty soon the recorder laid down the papers and said, “Are you Roy Blakeley?”
I said, “Yes, sir.” Gee, I was trembling a little.
Then he said, “Are you Wesleigh Martin?”
Westy said, “Yes, sir.”
Then he looked kind of funny and he said. “And who is this boy?”
I was kind of nervous, all right, but I spoke up. I said, “This is the one who set fire to Mr. Slausen’s repair shop. He didn’t do it on purpose, so——”
The judge said, “What do you mean?”
I pulled out of my pocket the big box of matches and the book about Sam and his submarine, and I laid them on the judge’s desk. All around I could just kind of feel people staring and moving in their seats.
I said, “We found traces of him in our car—we found match ends and cigarettes. And we tracked him to Mr. Slausen’s shop.”
“So that’s what you were doing there, eh?” Mr. Brownell said.
The judge just said, “Let him tell his story.” I said, “We tracked him to the shop and from there we tracked him to the river. We found him asleep in the shack down there. That big box of matches belongs to him, so does the book. He admits he fell asleep in the shop, on the cotton waste, and he struck a match there——”
“Do I have to get hung?” the poor little kid cried.
I said, “He comes from the Willisville Home. He’s the kid they’ve been offering three hundred dollars’ reward for, but he’s worth more than that, that’s one sure thing——”
Then everybody began to laugh and the judge started pounding with his mallet. He said, to the kid, “Is all this true?”
“And I’m going to invent a submarine and get a thousand dollars,” the kid piped up. “These boys said I could be their partner.”
Then the judge started to ask him questions, nice and kind sort of, so as not to scare him. And everybody craned their necks and listened. I could see Charlie Slausen and he was smiling; he smiled right straight at me. I guess he saw the worst was over now, no matter what happened.
Gee whiz, nobody could say they didn’t believe that little fellow. He didn’t know how to lie, and besides he didn’t even seem to know it was wrong what he had done. So that way the judge got out of him the whole story, how he had bunked under Tony’s Lunch Wagon and all. The kid said, “So now can I be a bandit?”
The judge just said, “Well, here’s the cause of the fire, and that’s all there is to it.”
I said, “And if Chief O’Day had started to find out the way we did, he’d have been the one to discover it instead of us. You have to look for signs before you look for people. You’re supposed to make up your mind when you get through and not before you start.”
The judge said, kind of laughing, “But you must remember the chief isn’t a boy scout, so you’ll have to forgive him. And you boys will get three hundred dollars, it seems.”
“A lot we care about that,” I said. “We want this little fellow to stay with us. Findings is keepings; everybody knows that’s the rule. We’ve got a lot of room up at our house. I should worry about three hundred dollars. And we’ve got a private alarm and fire extinguishers and everything, so it’s all right. And my sister likes kids, too, but she hates caterpillars. Most everything I want——”
Good night, that was as far as I got. All of a sudden, who should I see but my mother, right there, putting her arms around me, and all that, and giving the inventor a good hug. She said he should go home with her and be a bandit—that’s just what she said. Gee whiz, I guess the kid thought a cyclone struck him.
Mr. Brownell said, “Look out for the matches.”
My mother said, “He shall have an electric light.”
“Will it have a handle to turn it out?” the kid piped up.
The judge said he didn’t know but he would remand (that means put) the inventor in the custody of my mother till they heard from the Home. Gee whiz, I never even knew my mother was there until that minute.
The kid said to my mother, “And I’ll take you in my new car down in the field.”
“Good night,” I said to Westy; “the bandit has taken the car.”
Outside a whole lot of people crowded around and wanted to get a look at the inventor. He was some famous inventor, all right. He was clutching his box of matches in one hand and Submarine Sam in the other, and he looked about as big as a speck. My father was there, and, oh, gee, but he looked happy. He said, “We’d have a famous inventor and a famous discoverer in the house.” Maybe he meant my mother, hey?
There were a lot of ladies around our auto, and gee, but that old Cadillac looked big on account of the inventor looking so little. He sat in the middle of the back seat with my mother. Everybody was crazy about him. That’s the way it is with girls—they’re crazy about people who have had adventures.
I said to Westy, “The inventor started as a poor boy under Tony’s Lunch Wagon, and now look, he has the world at his feet. They go crazy about bandits.”
“Look,” Westy whispered to me.
I was just going to step into the car when I looked where he pointed, and there, standing all by himself, quite a ways off, was Charlie Slausen. He looked as if maybe he was waiting to speak to us, only didn’t dare to come up where all the people were.
“Go ahead,” I said to our chauffeur; “we’ll walk up. You’ve got a heavy enough load with the inventor.”
After the car had started off we went over to where Charlie was standing. He looked awful funny, his eyes kind of, I don’t know——
I said, “Well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. We didn’t get you in dutch, did we? Didn’t I tell you to leave it to us?”
He just began patting me on the shoulder and he kind of put his other arm around Westy’s shoulder.
“We were lucky they didn’t ask us anything more,” Westy said.
I said, “We’re always lucky, we are. We were born on the seventh day of the seventh month, and we always eat seven helpings of dessert.”
He started across the way with his arms over our shoulders, and, gee whiz, we had to go.
“Where are we going?” Westy wanted to know.
“We’re going to get those sodas,” Charlie said. “How about it?”
“Nobody can stand up and say he ever saw me refuse a soda,” I said.