CHAPTER V
THE RUINED HOUSE
"Well, it's been a pretty lively day for me, and every move I make I seemto be getting deeper and deeper into trouble."
This was the sentiment expressed by Frank as he retired to rest at the endof the most eventful day in his young life. The hours had indeed been fullof incidents. He reviewed them all as he lay, his head on his pillow.
Frank smiled to himself as he remembered Gill Mace. The boy who had calledFrank a thief was unable to repeat the vile accusation when he emerged fromthe puddle into which Frank had pushed him. His mouth was full of mud, hishair was a dripping mop, his clothes were plastered with it. Frank hadwaited to respond to any later move that Gill might decide on. Thejeweler's nephew, however, made none. As he emerged from the puddle threeschoolgirls, arms linked in friendly companionship, passed the spot. Theynoticed Gill and tittered, and Gill sneaked away without so much as evenglancing at Frank again.
"I always thought you three fellows a pretty good lot," Frank spoke to thecompanions of Gill. "I'd hate to change my opinion by thinking you believewhat Gill Mace said about my being a thief."
Frank looked so manly and earnest as he spoke these words that his hearerswere impressed. One of them stepped up and shook hands with him. Anotherremarked that he believed no story until he had evidence of itstruthfulness, and a third half intimated that he would have served GillMace just as Frank had done if he made an untrue accusation.
When Frank got home he discovered that his pocket knife was missing. Hetried to remember what had become of it, and finally decided that he musthave left it on the log frame or dropped it to the ground when he hadstarted out to meet Gill Mace. Frank valued the knife as a pleasantreminder of Ned Foreman, and planned to get up extra early the next morningand make a search for it.
He was pretty well satisfied as he closed his eyes in sleep that thejeweler would not dare to have him arrested for the theft of the diamondbracelet.
Nothing would probably come of the ridiculous charge, except that theunderhanded public insinuations of Mace would damage Frank's character. Nowthat he had taught Gill Mace a needed lesson, of course his family would bemore bitter against Frank than ever.
"The thing will die down," decided Frank. "If they get too rampant,I'll--yes, I'll actually sue them for slander."
It must have been about midnight when Frank awoke with a shock. The echo ofa frightful rumble and crash deafened his ears, and he fancied that the bedwas vibrating. A scream inside the house made him sit up and listen. He wasstartled and bewildered.
"Frank! Frank!" quavered the terror-filled tones of his aunt, as sheknocked sharply at the door of his bedroom, "get up at once!"
"What has happened?" inquired Frank quickly.
"I don't know--something dreadful, I am sure!" gasped the affrightedspinster. "It felt like an earthquake. It shook the whole town. It musthave been an explosion."
"Humph! Good thing you know I'm in the house," observed Frank, as he jumpedto the floor and hustled into his clothes.
"Why is that, Frank?"
"Because it may have been a dynamite explosion blowing up somebody's safe,and of course Mace would say I did it."
"Don't jest, Frank," pleaded his aunt. "I'm chilled through and shaking allover. Get outside and see if you cannot learn what it all means."
"I think myself it was probably an accidental blast at the quarry down theriver," said Frank; "but I'll soon find out."
He did not dress fully, and let himself out on the porch in his slippers.As he walked down to the gate Frank noticed lights appear in many housesnearer the village, as if their inmates had been suddenly aroused fromsleep.
Then distant voices, a rumbling wagon, people talking in loud tones, boyishshouts and a vague chorus of sounds unusual for the midnight hour, weredrifted to Frank's hearing. From all this, however, he could think out nocoherent idea as to what might be going on nearer town.
"It's not a fire, for there's no glare," he decided. "There's some kind ofa commotion over near the schoolhouse, it seems. Reckon I'll dress fullyand investigate."
There was a certain attraction for Frank in the distant bustle and turmoil.He went back into the house to find his aunt seated in the front hall. Shewas wrapped up in a shawl, pale and shivering.
"Oh, Frank, what is it?" she chattered.
"I didn't find out, but I'm going to," he announced, as he hurried on tohis room.
"Is--is it coming here?"
"Is what coming here?"
"The--the--whatever it is."
"It hasn't hurt us any, has it? And I don't think it will."
Frank got back to the road ten minutes later and started on a run towardthe town. Taking the middle of the road, he nearly bumped into a man wherethe highway turned.
"Hi, there!" challenged the latter.
"Hello!" responded Frank, recognizing a truck gardner who lived just beyondthe Jordan place. "What's happened, Daley?"
"Old Dobbins' house."
"What, the one they're moving?"
"Yes. It broke loose from its bearings and has rolled right back to whereit stood."
"You don't say so?" exclaimed Frank, with something of a shock.
"Yes, it has," asserted Daley, "only it's the greatest wreck of bricks andplaster now you ever saw."
"No one hurt, I hope?"
"No, except old Dobbins' feelings. He's capering around at a great rate,saying that the town, or the county, or the government, will have to payhim for the damage."
"The movers couldn't have understood their business very well to have sucha thing happen." said Frank.
"Looks that way," acceded Daley, and they parted at the gateway of theJordan home.
Frank advised his aunt of the state of affairs and went back to bed.Naturally he was curious to have a view of the wrecked house. He got upearly before breakfast and took a stroll over to the scene of the disaster.The lad, too, thought of his lost knife and bore that fact in mind.
He gave up all hopes of recovering the knife, however, as he reached thespot where he believed he had lost it the afternoon previous. Where theDobbins house had been anchored on the hillside the ground was torn up anddisturbed as though a cyclone had passed over the place. At the bottom ofthe hill, jammed half way through the rickety old stable, was what was leftof the dismantled house.
Miss Brown made Frank stay in the house and study from eight until tenevery morning. With all the exciting thoughts that were passing through hismind, Frank found it difficult to fix his attention on his books thatmorning. He was glad to get out of the house when ten o'clock came. His petpigeons were his first care. Then he started for the post-office, hopingthat he would find a letter from his father.
"Hi, Frank," a voice hailed him as he made a short cut through a littlegrove at the rear of the house, and a familiar form emerged from somebushes.
"Why, it's Mr. Dobbins!" exclaimed Frank in some surprise. He had expectedto find the miserly old fellow in the depths of despair over the loss ofhis house, but Dobbins was grinning and chuckling at a great rate.
"So 'tis Frank," he bobbed with a broad smile. "Was looking for you."
"What for, Mr. Dobbins?"
The old man blinked. Then he laughed in a pleased, crafty way and put hishand in his pocket.
"See here," he cried, and Frank noticed that he held three coins in hispalm. There was a twenty, a ten and a five-dollar gold piece.
"Um-m," observed Dobbins. "Double eagle a good deal of money, isn't it now,Frank?"
"Why, yes," assented Frank wonderingly, and the old fellow picked out thetwenty-dollar gold piece with his free hand and put it in his vest pocket.
"It would be extravagant for a boy to squander even as much as ten dollars,hey?"
Frank did not answer, for he could not surmise what the old fellow wasgetting at.
"So, if you'll consider this five-dollar gold piece the right thing,"resumed Dobbins, "you're mightily welcome to it, and say, Frank--you're abully boy!"
"Oh, you know," asserted Dobbins. "Take it quick, before I change my mind."
"Take the five dollars, you mean?" questioned Frank.
"Exactly."
"Why should I do that? You don't owe me anything."
"Don't?" cried Dobbins. "Why, boy, I owe you everything. No nonsensebetween friends, you see."
"I don't see--" began Frank.
Old Dobbins placed a finger beside his nose in a crafty, expressive way. Hewinked blandly at Frank, with the mysterious words:
"That's all right, Frank, boy. No need of going into particulars, but--youknow right enough. Mum's the word. Take the five dollars."
The Boys of Bellwood School; Or, Frank Jordan's Triumph Page 5