Tom and Carl walked along together after the other three boys had dropped off at various stages, taking short-cuts for their homes, as supper-time was approaching.
“What’s gone wrong, Carl?” asked Tom, as he flung an arm across the shoulders of his closest chum.
“I was meaning to tell you about it, Tom,” explained the other, quickly; “but somehow I kept holding back. It seemed as if I ought to find a way of solving that queer mystery myself. But only this morning I decided to ask you to help me.”
His words aroused the curiosity of the other boy more than ever.
“What’s this you’re talking about?” he exclaimed. “A mystery is there now, Carl? Why, I thought it might all be about that coming around so often of Mr. Amasa Culpepper, who not only keeps the grocery store but is a sort of shyster lawyer, and a money lender as well. Everybody says he’s smitten with your mother, and wants to be a second father to you and your sisters and brothers.”
“Well that used to worry me a whole lot,” admitted Carl, frankly, “until I asked my mother if she cared any for Amasa. She laughed at me, and said that if he was the last man on earth she would never dream of marrying him. In fact, she never expected to stop being John Oskamp’s widow. So since then I only laugh when I see old Amasa coming around and fetching big bouquets of flowers from his garden, which he must hate to pull, he’s so miserly.”
“Then what else has cropped up to bother you, Carl?” asked Tom.
The other heaved a long-drawn sigh.
“My mother is worried half sick over it!” he explained; “she’s hunted every bit of the house over several times; and I’ve scoured the garden again and again, but we don’t seem to be able to locate it at all. It’s the queerest thing where it could have disappeared to so suddenly.”
“Yes, but you haven’t told me what it is?” remarked Tom.