“I’ll talk to Dick about it,” he said to himself. “He always knows what to do.”
The Loverings lived in the third house from the corner, one of a half-dozen modest abodes occupying that side of the block. All the houses were painted white, although differing slightly in the simplicity of their architecture, and all were more or less hidden from view by hedges of lilac or arbor-vitæ. Old-fashioned white picket fences peeked out between the leaves of the hedges. The street itself was old-fashioned. Ten years before it had been in the desirable part of Clearfield, but since then the residential center had worked westward and the row of quiet, green-shuttered cottages was being closed in by such unsavory neighbors as livery stables and dye works and tenements.
Dick Lovering hailed Gordon from the vine-screened porch as the latter jumped from his bicycle and leaned it against the hitching-post in front of the little gate. “Hello, Gordie! Come on up.”
Dick was seated at the cool end of the porch, which stretched the width of the house. There was a table beside him which held a few flowers in a quaint old green vase and many books and magazines. Dick’s crutches stood against the wall within reach, for Dick, as he put it, was “very fond of his crutches and never went anywhere without them.” He was seventeen, a tall, nice-looking boy with dark hair and eyes and just the smallest suggestion of pallor on his lean cheeks. As Gordon came up the steps Dick laid down the magazine he had been reading and smiled his pleasant smile.
“Been in the pond?” he asked, viewing the other’s wet trousers.
“Watering cart soused me at the corner. How are you, Dickums?”
“Fine. Swell weather, isn’t it? You look warm, though.”
“So would you if you’d been riding all over town. Say, I got a letter from Bert Cable this morning and I want you to see what you think about it. I’ve got it here somewhere.”
“Where is Bert?” asked Dick as Gordon searched his pockets.
“Bridgeport, Connecticut. He’s working for his uncle in some sort of a factory over there. He told me he was going to get eight dollars a week. Here it is. You’d better read it.”