“They’ll be foldin’ up their tents and silently stealin’ away, as the poem has it,” Lanky continued; “and then where’d I be if I got word, when it was too late, that the lost child did wear that same kind of a little bonnet, with the blue ribbon on it?”
“Perhaps there might be some way to coax them to stay a while longer,” suggested Frank, thoughtfully.
“How, for instance?” questioned Lanky, eagerly.
“Well, they’re sharp enough to know that with a big event coming off, like our athletic meet, a crowd of people will be coming to Columbia; and such a time is always good for horse trading, and such things. I’m going to set the wheels going, so as to make them see this. One camp is just as good as another to them, I guess, and so they’ll be glad to stay over.”
“Well, if you ain’t the greatest hand at gettin’ up schemes I ever knew!” declared Lanky, warmly, as he gripped his chum’s hand and shook it. “Now, why didn’t I think of that plan? A gay old head I’ve got; ain’t worth shucks sometimes. Reckon some people are just about right in shaking such a fellow!” he added, gloomily.
“Cheer up!” said Frank, slapping him on the back. “All this is going to be changed, just as if a wizard touched it with his magic wand. You wait and see what’s going to happen. I just feel it in my bones.”
Lanky did brighten up a little; and then, as he happened to catch sight of that aggravating couple ahead, Dora chattering away like a little magpie, and that handsome curly head of Walter so close to her brown tresses, he gritted his teeth again and lapsed into his former gloomy state.
So Frank went back to Minnie and the laughing group of which the gay girl was the center and the life.
No call came over the wire from Lanky that afternoon or evening, much to Frank’s disappointment. And when he met his chum at school on Wednesday morning, there was a skeptical look on the thin countenance of Lanky that told of “hopes deferred making the heart sick.”
“No use talking,” the other declared, in a disgusted tone, “I’m a regular Jonah nowadays. Never touch a thing but it flops upside-down. Now, if it’d been only you connected with this racket, Frank, chances are you’d ’a’ had a message before now; and the father and mother’d be on their way here. But I’ve just queered the game, that’s what. Everything’s against me, I do believe.”