“With the Probascos? Yes; it was funny.”
“Funny! They are angels who live in an atmosphere of humor, then. I propose to go over there to-morrow—we’ll all go—and we’ll thank them as never they were thanked before. Shall we, Marcy?”
“Obed must be in bed still, and pretty sick,” Gerald said, “or we’d have heard from or seen them.”
“But why—why didn’t somebody send us word of some sort from the Ossokosee? There was the message to the hotel—”
“Which is shut, I tell you!”
“Mr. and Mrs. Wooden ought to have got theirs! If the house was shut, where was Mr. Fisher or whoever was about the place superintending the winding-up for you.”
“Ah, well, that I can’t altogether explain, I admit,” replied Mr. Marcy. “Of course, there ought to have been people on hand, and I should suppose they would know enough to repeat the message or answer it. We shall find out soon.”
They did, but not until later. Afterward came the story of the complete stoppage of telegraphing in the county (brought about by the wide-spread tempest which had broken wires far and wide in their devious mountain courses); of a new operator, who was a sadly easy-going, inefficient, and unacquainted employee; of a most confused garbling of the messages themselves, in course of their slow progress. When they learned these matters, they all declared it was a wonder that dispatches could endure such persecution and keep their syntax even at the expense of swiftness. Two of these precious communications finally returned from a Knoxport in a western State. But the next morning a reply came in from Mr. Fisher, still at the Ossokosee House, and just after that another from jolly, kind-hearted Mr. Hilliard, dated from a mining-camp in Montana, and its sender direfully distressed at what he inferred must be some bad predicament of Philip and Gerald.
“Of course,” Mr. Marcy observed, “your awkward fix could not have lasted long. But for the life of me, under all the circumstances, I cannot make up my mind on the amount of time it would probably have endured. Certainly we should have learned the news and come flying to you apace. But your trouble was becoming serious, with a vengeance! You were threatened with arrest on false suspicion, or at least with finding yourselves homeless and wronged! We can’t try to determine what length or end affairs might have attained.”
“It’s not pleasant,” Philip said.