“Yes, indeed!” sniffed Harry Vedder. “He’s a regular dog in the manger. It wouldn’t hurt him to let us swim there in the summer, or camp once in a while. He doesn’t use it himself.”
“Use it!” exclaimed Frank Sanson. “Why, they don’t even cut ice off it.”
“He’s just downright mean, that’s all!” put in Rex Slater. “Say, fellows, what a chance this would be to get ahead of the old chap and camp out Friday or Saturday–if Mr. Curtis would only let us.”
“He won’t,” said Sherman Ward, decidedly. “Besides, it’s a lot too cold and looks like snow. How did he manage, Ted? Living alone with only those dogs, it must have been some stunt to get word to anybody.”
“He got out to the road and waited for the first team that came along,” explained Ted. “The people took him into the house, and then sent Dr. Maxwell out from town. He wanted somebody to come and look after him, but old Grimey wouldn’t hear of it. Said he couldn’t stand the expense.”
“The old miser! How does he manage to get his meals and look after the stock?”
“Eats bread and milk and canned stuff, I guess. Bud Hinckley comes in night and morning, I understand, to look after the horse and cow and wash dishes and all that, but you know what Bud is.”
“So lazy he’d like somebody else to draw his breath for him!” said Court Parker, promptly. “Whew! What a lovely time the old man must be having–and to-morrow Thanksgiving!”
As they trooped into school, the last words lingered in Dale Tompkins’s mind. To-morrow would, indeed, be Thanksgiving–the day of turkey, and mince-pie, and good cheer generally. He had no more cause than the others for sympathizing with Caleb Grimstone, but somehow the mental picture of the soured old man sitting alone in his slovenly kitchen, one arm in a sling, and eating bread and milk, with perhaps a can of lukewarm tomatoes or corn, when every one else was feasting merrily in company, made him vaguely uncomfortable.
He forgot it, however, in the excitement of a brisk game of land-hockey up at Sherman’s that afternoon, but after supper the picture returned with renewed vividness, and with it something the scoutmaster had said when he passed his second-class examinations a few days ago.