“Yes, mother, you predicted that I wouldn’t feel quite so spry this morning as last night. All the same, if it wasn’t for the word just sent me by the general superintendent, you would see me on the regular Overland trip.”
“It wouldn’t be right,” dissented Mrs. Fairbanks. “Suppose your arm gave out at a critical moment of your run?”
“I shouldn’t let it,” declared Ralph. “It puzzles me, though--the word from headquarters.”
“It was rather strange,” assented his mother.
“The superintendent simply ’phoned me that I was to remain on the invalid list for a day or two. He said he was going to Rockton, and would be back tomorrow morning, and would expect me then at a conference at ten o’clock. In the meantime all I need to do, he said, was to hang around town, show myself about the yards and the general offices, but to be sure to wear my arm in a sling.”
“He has some purpose in view in that last direction, believe me, Ralph,” said Mrs. Fairbanks.
“Yes,” replied the son thoughtfully, “I’m beginning to guess out a certain system in his methods. I shouldn’t wonder if something lively were on the programme. Well, I’ll try and put on the enforced vacation as the superintendent suggests. Hello, there’s a fine hullaballoo!”
Ralph walked down the steps and to the street to trace the cause of a great outcry beyond the cottage grounds. As he passed through the gate he made out a haggard looking urchin standing on the planking of the crossing crying as if his heart would break.
“Why, it’s Ted Rollins, our little neighbor who lives over near the flats,” said Ralph, recognizing the ragged and begrimed lad.
The latter was half bent over as if squinting through the cracks in the sidewalk. Then he would let out a yell of distress, dig his fingers into his eyes, resume his looking, and wind up with a kind of frenzied dance, bewailing some direful disaster at the top of his voice. Ralph approached him unobserved.