"Hold on!--wait! It"s all right, boys! The money is, and I am, and everybody is! Just wait till I get my laugh out, won"t you?"
"No, sir, but we"ll wait till you get out o" bed and that"s this very minute!" Jot exclaimed wrathfully. He was dancing up and down with impatience.
Old Tilly slowly brought a lean, shapely leg into view from beneath the sheet. To the boys" amazement it was covered with a long black stocking. Old Tilly, like the other boys, had been barefooted all day.
"Thought I might as well get a good start in dressing!" he chuckled.
"Nothing like being read--"
"Oh, come off!"
"Well, I wish it would; there"s something in the toe that hurts. Ow!"
He drew off the stocking and gravely examined the snug little wad in the toe.
"The money!" cried Kent.
"Yes, sir, the money!" Jot echoed in astonishment.
"Why, so it is!" Old Tilly said in evident surprise. "Then the thieves didn"t get away with it, after all! I call that a lucky stroke--my getting partly dressed overnight! No, hold on, you little chaps--don"t get uppy! I"ll explain, honest I will! You see, I got up after a while and put the money there for safe-keeping. I"d like to see the thief that would look there for it! He"d get a good kick if he did!"
It was half an hour later when the trio settled back into sleep again.
In the east already there were dim outriders of day trailing across the darkness.
Without further incident the three knights-errant got under way next day. In a glare of July sunshine they rode away in search of adventures, while Father and Mother Eddy in the kitchen doorway looked after them a little wistfully.
"Bless their hearts!" mother murmured tender-wise.
"Good boys! Good boys!" said father, coughing to cover the break in his voice.
"I say, this is great!" called Jot, who led the van, of course. "This is the way to do it!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "I say, this is great!" called Jot.]
"Yes, sir!" Kent cried in high feather, "it feels as if you were reg"lar old knights, you know! Isn"t it jolly not to know what"s going to happen next?"
Old Tilly"s wheel slid up abreast of Kent"s and proceeded sociably.
"Esau Whalley"s farm "happens next," and then old Uncle Rod King"s next," Old Tilly said calmly. "I guess we better wait till we get out o" this neck o" woods before we settle down to making believe!"
But three wheels driven by three pairs of st.u.r.dy, well-muscled legs get over miles swiftly, and by ten o"clock the boys had turned down an unfamiliar road and were on the way to things that happened. Before noon knightly deeds were at their hand. Jot himself discovered the first one. He vaulted from his bicycle suddenly, as they were bowling past a little gray house set in weeds, and the others, looking back, saw him carrying a dripping pail of water along the path to the kitchen doorsteps.
"The pail was out there on the well curb, asking to be filled," he explained brusquely, as he caught up with them, "and the old woman pumping into it didn"t look as if lugging water agreed with her.
Besides, I wanted a drink."
"You didn"t get one," retorted Kent, wisely.
Jot cast a sidewise glance upon him.
"I said I wanted one, didn"t I? Anybody can want a drink."
"And take your remedy. Dose: lug one pail o" water for an old woman.
If not successful, repeat in ten min--"
Jot made a rapid spurt and left his teaser behind. When Old Tilly had come abreast of him again, he reached out a brotherly hand and bestowed a hearty pat on his arm.
"Good boy!" he said, and unconsciously his voice was like father"s, miles back in the kitchen doorway. It was the way father would have said it.
"That"s the way to do. We"ll pick up "errands" to do for folks. What"s the use of being knights?"
And Old Tilly"s turn came next, in the way of driving the cows out of somebody"s corn patch and propping up the broken fence. If it took but a few minutes, what of that? It saved a bent old man"s rheumatic leg"s, and the gay whistle that went with it drifted into an open window and pleased a little fretful child.
"My turn next!" shouted Kent, gliding away from them out of sight over the brow of a hill.
"Good luck to you!" called Jot. "We"re going into camp to take a bite.
No use being in such a rush."
"When you come my way, drop in!" floated back faintly. They tilted their wheels against trees and threw themselves down in the shade to rest.
Jot was ravenous with hunger.
"Cakes are all right to begin on," he said, regarding mother"s bountiful store with approval. "But when I strike the next store you"ll see the crackers and cheese fly!"
"I don"t mind taking a hand in the scrimmage myself!" laughed Old Tilly, munching a fat cake. "I say, wasn"t Kent foolish to go scooting off like that? Might as well have begun easy. I move we ride nights and mornings mostly, and loaf noons. There"s a moon, "silver mo-oo-on"--"
His voice trailed lazily into song. It was pleasant lounging in the shade and remembering the hay was all in and adventures ahead.
An hour or so later they moved on at a leisurely pace, looking for Kent.
The general direction had been agreed upon, so they experienced no anxiety. It added to the fun to hunt for him.
"Where in the world did he go to?" queried Old Tilly, laughing. "He disappeared like a streak of lightning!"
"I see him--there, under that tree!" cried Jot, waving a salute. "He"s lying down and enjoying life."
But it was a tired old man under the tree, and, from his forlorn face, he did not seem to be "enjoying life." He was very old, very shabby, very tired. His unkempt figure had collapsed feebly by the way apparently. What astonished the boys was the wheel that lay on its side near him. He did not look like a wheelman.
"Hold on. Old Till, I say!" called Jot in sudden excitement, forging ahead to his side. "I say, that looks like our wheel--mine and Kent"s!
I guess I know our wheel!"
Jot was riding the borrowed machine. Kent had the one they owned jointly.
"You"re right, sonny; it looks that way!" rejoined Old Tilly, excited in his turn. "But we can"t pounce on it and cut, you know. How do we know what Kent"s up to?"
Jot grunted derisively. "Probably he"s given it to the old duffer for a birthday present--hundredth anniversary!" he scoffed. "That would be taking his turn at doing knight-errands. Let"s go right on and not disturb the poor old man--"
"Let"s have sense!" remarked Old Tilly, briefly. "We"ll forge on ahead and hunt Kent up before we arrest tramps for bike-lifting. When he says he"s been robbed it"ll be time to holler "Stop, thief!""
"Yes, come on!" Jot called back as he shot ahead. "I haven"t a doubt but we"ll find Kentie"s got his bike tucked away all safe in the toe of his stocking!"
They came almost instantly into the outskirts of a snug little settlement. The road was flanked on both sides by neat white houses.
Trig little children scurried out of their way, cheering shrilly.