“Well, I did an’ how! By now I bet she’s read that an’ maybe already she’s put it in an envelope an’ it’s on the way to New York.”
Skippy would not have been able to endure the anxiety of the following days if he had not had faith that the note was well on its way. Hope would soon have fled if he had known that the sweet-voiced old lady had not discovered the note that night, nor for many nights to come. She had gone home after her visit to the doctor and, being confined to her bed for the next two weeks with a bad cold, there had been no occasion to use her “best” pocketbook.
Devlin seemed destined to win.
CHAPTER XXVII
ACCUSATIONS
Their hopes flared high, then burned so low that they were beginning to exchange whispers of despair. When a week had passed, then ten days, they looked at each other hopelessly and each knew what was in the other’s thoughts without the exchange of a word. Timmy’s “nerves” had been nothing compared to Nickie’s “jumpiness,” as he called it. He fairly quailed whenever Devlin’s footsteps sounded.
The man kept to his own room, except for three consecutive days when he left the house just before dusk and returned late at night. At those times, the boys hurried to the attic and fell to work at the window bars, only to realize at the end of the week, that it would take more than their inadequate little pot handle to gain freedom.
On Wednesday of the following week, Devlin was plainly angry. The boys knew he was thinking of Frost and they seemed to sense that the man’s unexpected departure was enraging Devlin more and more. He paced the length of the house, muttering to himself and clenching his big hands until his knuckles cracked. This continued throughout the afternoon.
Supper was a disappointment as all the meals had been. Devlin had not again been so generous as to surprise them with any more of the lunchroom delicacies such as he had brought in on that Sunday night. Meal after meal was the same, a monotony of canned beans, bacon and crackers.
Skippy had no appetite that night. The smell of bacon made him sick and he felt that never again in his life would he be able to eat it. Nickie moped dejectedly over his plate and when he did put anything to his mouth he washed it down quickly with coffee as if he dared not taste it.
He looked at Skippy and shook his head. “If there’s two more weeks like this, kid, you’ll need your strength—see. I’m sick, too, but I feel I gotta eat no matter what, so I wash every mouthful down with this rotten coffee. No matter how rotten coffee is, it’s better’n tastin’ them blamed beans and bacon.”