"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"
A few hasty strokes of the broom—his mother's best, taken unknown to her—obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to find Silvey.
A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.
"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be back until dinner time."
Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have to pitch in alone.
Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he found a prospect of employment.
He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door opened.