“Oh! that’s nothing unusual!” declared Dick; “they say the old man is awake all hours of the night, making up his accounts and reading. He puts on a bold front, but I reckon when he heard that his boy died away out West it hit him harder than he’ll ever own up.”
“Still he’s as hard as nails,” grunted Dan. “My folks say he had a letter from the girl his son Amos married, telling him that she and her little boy were awful poor; and the old skinflint had the nerve to get Lawyer Bodgkin here to write that if she sent the kid on he’d agree to stand for his education, but that he’d never set eyes on the woman who’d married Amos, thinking she’d fall into all the old man’s money.”
“But she never did send the child, you notice,” said Leslie. “Which proves that she cared more for him than Old Jed’s miser gold.”
“Stop jabbering there, you fellers,” muttered Nat, with a touch of his ordinary bullying authority, for he was used to lording it over Dit Hennesy and several other boys.
“Yes,” Dick went on to say, “let’s creep up close to the house, and find out if we can get in through some window he’s forgotten to fasten. Quiet now, everybody.”
They wriggled their way through the new leafless undergrowth with considerable skill, and soon reached the side of the large building. Then a hasty search was made, which resulted in the discovery that one window fastening had been overlooked by Old Jed when going his rounds earlier in the evening.
Dick soon had the window raised without making any noise. Perhaps the hearts of several of those boys beat faster than customary as they crawled in through the aperture. They knew they were doing something that bordered on the lawless, for to break in and enter a house, even in pursuit of Hallowe’en fun, was an act that no court would sanction or forgive, no matter how lenient the judge might be.
What made it seem more realistic was the fact that Nat had come prepared to show them the way, for he carried a small electric flashlight, which, by constantly keeping in action, he could use to advantage.
“Whee! this makes me feel queer,” whispered Andy in the ear of Elmer, as they started to pick their way across the room, avoiding such obstacles as chairs and tables.
“Wonder if this is the way a burglar always feels,” the other answered, in such a low tone that it could not have been heard three feet away.