At the bridge he climbed upward to the roadway, where he stood for a few moments, peering and listening.
“I seem to be the only one alive in this old burg.” The thought brought Hooker to his mind—Hooker, dead, perhaps.
Cross Street, which ran back of the town hall and along the shore of the lower pond, would bring him into Lake Street again, near Willow, upon which was the home of the Hookers. He had almost reached Lake Street when he stopped short, halted by the sound of echoing footsteps, which were approaching from that part of the town he had avoided. In a moment he was pressing his body against the bole of a big tree.
The footsteps came nearer. The person began to hum a tune. Here was some one abroad with a light heart and fearless of observation.
“It must be Tuttle,” thought the boy by the tree. “Yes, it is. Why don’t he let his eternal peanuts stop his mouth?”
Chub Tuttle passed on the opposite side of the way, and, ceasing to hum as he trudged serenely homeward, began to whistle not unmelodiously. The notes of “The Last Rose of Summer” came drifting back to the ears of Charley Shultz, growing fainter and fainter in the distance and sounding inexpressibly sad.
Shultz thought it must be getting darker, and was amazed, on rubbing them, to find that his eyes were moist and blurred. He leaned against the tree and listened, almost against his will, as the whistling grew fainter and yet fainter, softened and sweetened by the distance. When he could hear it no longer he gave himself a savage shake.
“You fool!” he rasped. “What’s the matter with you? You never felt like this before. You’re growing silly.”
Reaching Willow Street, he gazed toward Hooker’s home, but, even had the darkness not prevented him from seeing the house, it stood so far back on the Middle Street corner that he could not have surveyed it from his present position. Dread heavily upon him, yet hope not entirely dead, he walked slowly up the street. He had almost reached the corner when he stopped again.
He could see the house now, and his heart hammered furiously as he perceived that something was taking place there. There were lights flashing from room to room; he heard excited voices calling; the house was in a commotion.