He enjoyed these after-dinner naps, and the place was conducive to them.
The long stretch of highway leading up from Benton had scarcely a country wagon-wheel turning on it, to stir the dust to motion. In the distance, the mill droned like a big beehive. Near at hand only the fish moved in the stream--the fish and a few rowboats that swung gently at their ropes at the end of a board-walk that led from the hotel to the water"s edge.
The colonel slumbered on. But, far down the road, there arose, presently, a cloud of dust, amid which there shone and glittered flashes of steel. Then a line of bicyclists came into view, five youths, with backs bent and heads down, making fast time.
On they came with a rush and whirr, the boy in front pointing in toward the Half Way House. The line of glistening, flying wheels aimed itself fair at Colonel Witham"s dog, who roused himself and stood, growling hoa.r.s.ely, with ears set back and tail between his legs.
Then the screeching of five shrill whistles smote upon the summer stillness, the wheels came to an abrupt stop, and the five riders dismounted at a flying leap at the very edge of Colonel Witham"s porch.
The colonel, startled from sweet repose by the combined noise of whistles, buzzing of machines, shouts of the five riders and the yelping of his frightened dog, awoke with a gasp and a momentary shudder of alarm. He was enlightened, if not pacified, by a row of grinning faces.
"Why, h.e.l.lo, Colonel Witham," came a chorus of voices. "Looks like old times to see you again. Thought we"d stop off and rest a minute."
Colonel Witham, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and mopping the perspiration from his brow with an enormous red handkerchief, glared at them with no friendly eyes.
"Oh, you did, hey!" he roared. "Well, why didn"t you bring a dynamite bomb and touch that off when you arrived? Lucky for you that dog didn"t go for you. He"ll take a piece out of some of you one of these days."
(Colonel Witham did not observe that the dog, at this moment, tail between legs, was flattening himself out like a flounder, trying to squeeze himself underneath the board walk.) "What do you want here, anyway?"
"Some bottled soda, Colonel," said the youngest boy, in a tone that would seem to indicate that the colonel was their best friend. "Bottled soda for the crowd. My treat."
"Bottled monkey-shines and tomfoolery!" muttered Colonel Witham, arising slowly from his chair. "I wish it would choke that young Joe Warren.
Never saw him when he wasn"t up to something."
But he went inside with them and served their order; scowling upon them as they drank.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Making a fifty mile run, Colonel," replied one of the boys, whose features indicated that he was an elder brother of the boy who had previously spoken. "Tom and Bob--you remember them--are setting the pace on their tandem for Arthur and Joe and me. Whew, but we came up a-flying. Well, good day, we"re off. You may see Tim Reardon by and by.
We left him down the road with a busted tire."
They were away, with a shout and a whirl of dust.
"Hm!" growled the colonel. "I"ll set the dog on Tim Reardon if he comes up the way they did. Here, Caesar, come here!"
The colonel gave a sharp whistle.
But Caesar, a yellow mongrel of questionable breeds, did not appear. A keen vision might have seen this canine terror to evildoers poke a shrinking muzzle a little way from beneath the board walk, emit a frightened whine and disappear.
Colonel Witham dozed again, and again slumber overtook him. He did not stir when Grannie Thornton, recovered from her attack of rheumatism, appeared at a window and shook a table-cloth therefrom; nor when Bess Thornton, dancing out of the doorway, whisked past his chair and seated herself at the edge of the piazza.
The girl"s keen blue eyes perceiving, presently, an object in the distance looking like a queer combination of boy and bicycle, she ran out from the dooryard as it approached. Tim Reardon, an undersized, sharp-eyed youngster, rather poorly dressed and barefoot, wheeling his machine laboriously along, was somewhat of a mournful-looking figure.
The girl held up a warning hand as he approached.
"h.e.l.lo," said the boy. "What"s the matter?"
The girl pointed at the sleeping colonel.
"Said he"d set the dog on you if you came around the way the others did," replied Bess Thornton. "They woke him up. My! wasn"t he mad?
Here," she added, handing a small box to the boy, "George Warren left this for you. Said they wanted to make time. That"s why they didn"t stop for you."
"Thanks," said the boy. "Thought I"d got to walk clear back to Benton.
But I was going to have a swim first. Guess I"ll have it, anyway. It"s hot, walking through this dust."
"I"ll tell you where to go," said the girl. "Do you know what"s fun? See that tree way up along sh.o.r.e there, the one that hangs out over the water? Well, I climb that till it bends down, and then I get to swinging and jump."
Tim Reardon gave her an incredulous glance, with one eye half closed.
"Oh, I don"t care whether you believe it or not," said the girl. "But I"ll show you some time. Can"t now. Got to wash dishes. Don"t wake him up, or you"ll catch it."
She disappeared through the doorway, and Tim Reardon, leaving his wheel leaning against a corner of the house, went up along sh.o.r.e. In another half hour he returned, took from his pocket the box the girl had given to him, got therefrom an awl, a bottle of cement and some thin strips of rubber, and began mending the punctured tire of the bicycle. The tire was already somewhat of a patched affair, bearing evidences of former punctures and mendings.
"It"s Jack"s old wheel," he remarked by way of explanation to Bess Thornton, who had reappeared and was interestedly watching the operation. "He"s going to give me one of his new tires," he added, "the first puncture he gets."
"Why don"t you put a tack in the road?" asked the girl promptly.
Tim Reardon grinned. "Not for Jack," he said.
"Say," asked the girl, "what"s Witham mad with those boys about? Why did he send "em out of the hotel the other night?"
"Oh, that"s a long story," replied Tim Reardon; "I can"t tell you all about it. Witham used to keep the hotel down to Southport, and he was always against the boys, and now and then somebody played a joke on him.
Then, when his hotel burned, he thought the boys were to blame; but Jack Harvey found the man that set the fire, and so made the colonel look foolish in court."
But at this moment a yawn that sounded like a subdued roar indicated that Colonel Witham was rousing from his nap. He stretched himself, opened his eyes blankly, and perceived the boy and girl.
"Well," he exclaimed, "you"re here, eh? Wonder you didn"t come in like a wild Indian, too. What"s the matter?"
"Got a puncture," said Little Tim.
The colonel, having had the refreshment of his sleep, was in a better humour. He was a little interested in the bicycle.
"Queer what new-fangled ideas they get," he said. "That"s not much like what I used to ride."
Little Tim looked up, surprised.
"Why, did you use to ride a wheel?" he asked.
"Did I!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, reviving old recollections, with a touch of pride in his voice. "Well, now I reckon you wouldn"t believe I used to be the crack velocipede rider in the town I came from, eh?"
Little Tim, regarding the colonel"s swelling waist-band and fat, puffy cheeks, betrayed his skepticism in looks rather than in speech. Colonel Witham continued.
"Yes, sir," said he, "there weren"t any of them could beat me in those days. Why, I"ve got four medals now somewhere around, that I won at county fairs in races. "Twasn"t any of these wire whirligigs, either, that we used to ride. Old bone-shakers, they were; wooden wheels and a solid wrought iron backbone. You had to have the strength to make that run. Guess some of these spindle-legged city chaps wouldn"t make much of a go at that. I"ve got the old machine out in the shed there, somewhere.
Like to see it?"
"I know where it is," said Bess Thornton. "I can ride it."
"You ride it!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, staring at her in amazement.
"What?"
"Yes," replied the girl; "but only down hill, though. It"s too hard to push on the level. I"ll go and get it."