All things must have an end, and finally they started toward home, burdened with nuts, though the distance to town was not great.
As they trooped in a group down the broad walk of the avenue toward Frank’s house, whither it had been determined they would go for a short while, the girls to make fudge while the boys cracked the nuts, they spied Mr. Allen, Frank’s father, coming slowly along the street from town.
Helen left the others and ran ahead to meet her father.
Mr. Allen, who had almost lost his life in the fire at his department store on the night of the robbery of Mrs. Parsons, and to save whose life Frank had raced his Rocket down the Harrapin River to the town of Coville to obtain a heart stimulant which could not be found in Columbia or near-by towns, still carried a heavy stick. He leaned on this and he and Helen waited at the front walk for the others.
“How do you feel, dad,” said Frank, coming up with the crowd.
“Fine. Getting stronger every day. What have you been doing—target practice, nutting, and all that? Fine! It’s worth while to be young.”
Frank asked how repairs were going on at the store, and learned that the work was almost finished. The place had been quite seriously damaged by fire and water in the conflagration, and the cellar timbers had been weakened to a very considerable extent. It was the weakening of these timbers during the fire that had caused the accident to Mr. Allen.
Into the house trooped the crowd, led by Frank. The noise of the young folks called Mrs. Allen to the front of the house, with her long apron as evidence that she had been in the kitchen getting something good to eat ready for her brood.
“Out of the kitchen, mother!” called Helen, as she ushered every one in. “We’re making fudge while the boys crack the nuts, and you and dad are to wait in the living room until we’re done.”
So it went, and in a short while the girls came into the spacious front room with the plates of chocolate fudge, while the boys brought in a few extra nuts beyond those which had been used in the fudge, with salt generously sprinkled over them.