“Well, for crying out loud!” Chips remonstrated. “We’ll be glad to leave, and we won’t come back either!”
Indignant over the rebuff, the four boys paid their bill and left the drugstore. However, Brad was deeply disturbed by what had occurred.
“We weren’t doing anything,” he said. “Chips barely had glanced at the magazine when the proprietor jumped him.”
“Just another old crab!” declared Red. “This town’s full of ’em.”
“I’m afraid there’s more to it than that,” Brad said uneasily. “When we first went into the drugstore, the proprietor glanced at our uniforms in a rather odd—almost contemptuous way.”
“Our uniforms?” Dan repeated, puzzled. “What’s wrong with the Cub uniform?”
“Nothing. But he looked at us almost as if he were down on Cubs in general. And earlier, that grocery store owner seemed to give us the cold shoulder.”
“He did at that,” recalled Red. “The last time we were here with Mr. Hatfield he was beaming at us as if we were favorite sons.”
“Even strangers on the street grinned at us and acted friendly just because we were Cubs,” Dan added. “How do you explain the sudden change?”
“I don’t know, but I have a hunch—” Brad began, only to allow his voice to trail off.