Take notice all you "bossy" youths."
"Isn"t English the funny language?" demanded Chet, sitting up again. "And spelling! My! Do you wonder foreigners find English so difficult? Here"s one that I found in an almanac at the drug store," and he fished out a clipping and read it to them:
""A lady once purchased some myrrh Of a druggist who said unto hyrrh: "For a dose, my dear Miss, Put a few drops of this In a gla.s.s with some water, and styrrh."""
"Do, do stop!" begged Laura.
"I promise not to offend again," said Lance. "Besides, I hope to taste some of the pie, and a pie-taster should not be a poetaster."
"Oh! Oh! Awful!" Jess cried.
"I"ve run out of limericks myself," confessed Chet.
"But one more!" Bobby hastened to say. Then dramatically she mouthed, with her black eyes fastened on Chet:
""Said Chetwood to young Short and Long, "Just list to my warning in song: If you know of the crime, For both reason and rhyme Betray it--and so ring the gong!"""
The other girls burst out laughing at the expression on the boys" faces.
Chet and Lance looked much disturbed, and Chet finally scowled upon the teasing Bobby and shook his head.
"What do you know about that?" whispered Lance to his chum.
"You are altogether too smart, Bobby," declared Chet. "What do you mean?"
"We know you and Short and Long are trying to hide something from us," said Jess quickly.
"You might as well tell us all about it," Laura put in quietly. "What has Billy really got against Purt Sweet?"
"I don"t admit he has anything against Purt," said Chet quickly.
"Nothing but suspicion," muttered Lance, likewise shaking his head.
"Then there is something in it?" Laura said quickly. "Can it be possible that Purt Sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself before this?"
"There you"ve said it, Laura!" cried Lance. "That is what I tell both Chet and Billy. If Pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never dare go out again in his car."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?"
"Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet.
"Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran the man down?"
"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I suppose."
"Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and Lance will want to sample them."
"Go on. Tell "em, Chet," said Lance.
"Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets" car. You know Purt is too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn"t get out his chains and put "em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening, for he pa.s.sed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage with the radiator blanketed.
"Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt"s."
"Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister.
"So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets". Purt was out with the car. He came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. We tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn"t tell. We had to almost muzzle Billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. And Billy has been savage over it ever since."
"Really then," said Laura, "there is nothing sure about it."
"Well, it is sure the car was a Perriton. And since then we have found out that Purt"s is the only Perriton in town that isn"t out of commission for the winter. You can talk as you please about it: If the police only knew what we know, sure thing Purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!"
CHAPTER XVI
EMBER NIGHT
The three girls of Central High and their boy friends had not come together on this stormy Sat.u.r.day morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry."
The ice carnival had made them so much money that Laura and her friends desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal.
They wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the Red Cross from day to day.
Fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like Janet Steele were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being tried.
And so Mother Wit had evolved what she called "Ember Night," and the young people who helped carry the thing through were delighted with the idea. To tell the truth, the idea had been suggested to Laura Belding during the big storm when the lighting plant of the city was put out of order for one night.
She and her friends laid the plans for the novel fete on this Sat.u.r.day after Laura"s pie baking and after they had discussed the possibility of Prettyman Sweet being the guilty person whose car had run down the strange man now at the Centerport Hospital.
They put pies and poetry, and even Purt Sweet, aside, to discuss Laura"s idea. Each member of the informal committee meeting in the Beldings"
kitchen was given his or her part to do.
Laura herself was to see Colonel Swayne, who was the president of the Light and Power Company and who was likewise Mother Wit"s very good friend. Jess agreed to interview the local chief of the Salvation Army. Chet would see the Chief of Police to get his permission. Each one had his or her work cut put.
"Every cat must catch mice," said Mother Wit.
Plans for Ember Night were swiftly made, and it was arranged to hold the fete the next Tuesday evening, providing the weather was clear. Jess, whose mother held a position on the Centerport _Clarion_, wrote a piece about this street carnival for the Sunday paper, and the idea was popular with nearly every one.
Exchange Place was the heart of the city--a wide square on which fronted the city hall, the court house, the railroad station, and several other of the more important buildings of the place.
In the center of the square a Red Cross booth was built and trimmed with Christmas greens, which had just come into market. Members of the several city chapters appeared in uniform to take part in the fete. There was a platform for speakers, and a bandstand, and before eight o"clock on Tuesday evening a great crowd had a.s.sembled to take part in the exercises.
That one of the Central High school girls had suggested and really planned the affair, made it all the more popular.
"What won"t Laura Belding think of next?" asked those who knew her.
But Laura did not put herself forward in the affair. She presided over one of the red pots borrowed from the Salvation Army that were slung from their tripods at each intersecting corner of the streets radiating from Exchange Place, and for a half mile on all sides of the square.
Under each pot was a bundle of resinous and oil-soaked wood that would burn brightly for an hour. At the booth in Exchange Place fuel for a much larger bonfire was laid.