“Won’t start!” cried Dan. “She’s got to start!”
Kendall looked supremely grave. Gerald shrugged his shoulders:
“Well, come and help me put her in the shed and I’ll see if I can find the trouble.”
Then began a half hour of investigation by Gerald. The others held lanterns and offered suggestions. Ned was especially helpful.
“The trouble,” he explained airily, “is with your battery. It can’t bat.”
“I get a perfectly good spark,” replied Gerald with apparent irritation. “As far as I can see the trouble’s in the engine.”
“Let us take it to pieces,” said Ned.
“Don’t be a silly goat,” growled Dan. “There’s no use spending the night out here, anyway. Kick the old wagon in the shins, Gerald, and we’ll see if we can get a carriage to take us back.”
[270]
“We won’t get any carriage at this time of night,” said Ned. “Why, it’s long after nine! Fancy being out so late. It’s me for bed!”
“That’s sensible,” replied Gerald, closing the hood. “We might just as well stay here and go back early in the morning. We can get to school by half-past eight. I’ll get Mr. Collins on the telephone and tell him we’re broken down.”
Dan was silent a moment. Then, “All right,” he agreed, with a shrug of his shoulders. “But you’d better let me talk to Collins.”
“On the contrary, or, as I say so gracefully in French, au contraire, Gerald had better do it. You see it’s his car and his breakdown. Let him face the music.”
“All right,” said Dan again. He was much too sleepy to offer further objections. Even the prospect of having to retire without pajamas seemed of little moment. If only he could reach a bed! Gerald hid himself in the telephone booth for five minutes, and, judging from the mutterings that leaked out, talked to someone. Then he announced that everything was all right and they climbed the stairs to two big, low-ceilinged rooms on the front of the house. In one of them Dan went through the motions of undressing—it was the others who really performed the task for him—dabbed his face and hands in water, knelt by[271] the bed to say his prayers and promptly fell asleep there and was finally lifted between the sheets.
“Night,” he murmured. Then, waking for an instant, “Where’d I get these pajamas?” he asked.
“They go with the room,” said Ned soothingly.
“That’s—a lie,” sighed Dan. Then he slept.
The others gathered on the bed in the adjoining room and grinned.
“Easy!” said Ned. “We’re a very clever little band of conspirators, we are.”
“Poor old Dan,” said Gerald softly. “He was certainly sleepy! He hasn’t slept like that for nights and nights.”
“What about to-morrow?” asked Kendall. “Are you going to let him go back?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders. “It’s up to him, I guess. We can’t tie him. Maybe he will be reasonable. Think you can get your car started in time to take us back, Pennimore?”
Gerald smiled. “I think she will go all right when I put the connections back.”
“It was a lucky thing that Vinton didn’t know much about autos,” laughed Ned.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. He was too sleepy to see anything. Well, let’s get to bed. I’m dog tired.”
[272]
“You’re no tog direder than I am,” responded Ned.
Dan slept without moving for nine hours. Then he awoke in a strange room that was flooded with sunlight. He stared at the white walls and the cracked ceiling and wondered where he was. Beside him Gerald was soundly slumbering. While he was still trying to make it out the floor creaked and Ned appeared. Then Dan remembered.
“Hello!” he said, still somewhat dazed with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty, sir. Will you have your tub now, sir?”
Dan was looking perplexedly at the pajamas he wore.
“Where’d I get these things? They look a whole lot like my own.”
“Why not? Don’t you usually wear your own pajamas?” asked Ned gravely. Gerald stirred and opened his eyes, sighed and closed them again.
“But how did they get here?” Dan persisted.
“Oh, that’s it? Well, you see, you never can tell when you start out in your friend’s car where you’ll end up. So we thought we’d better be on the safe side. You’ll find your toothbrush, hairbrush, comb, a change of linen and some other trifles on the bureau.”
[273]
Dan stared a moment, frowningly. Then,
“I see,” he grunted. “It was a put-up job.”
“A gentle and kindly conspiracy,” replied Ned. “Payson said you must get away and sleep. He came to me. Pennimore here was with him. We fixed up the scheme, he got leave of absence for you to visit Pennimore until Saturday, the rest of us got excused overnight and the rest you know.”
“Hm; and—and that crazy car wasn’t busted after all?”
“Not a bit. Pennimore—the deceitful youth!—pulled the wires off the plugs. Now you know all. We throw ourselves on your mercy!”
“You’re a precious lot of—of—”
“Don’t spare us,” said Ned humbly.
“Of kidnappers,” ended Dan. But he didn’t sound very angry, and Gerald, who had been simulating slumber until the worst was over, awoke suddenly with a prodigious yawn.
“Hello, you chaps!” he said. “Good morning.”
“Good morning!” grunted Dan. “I’ve a good mind to choke you, you deceitful pup!” To prove his inclination he reached for Gerald, but that youth was too quick for him and was in the middle of the floor in an instant. Then Kendall came in and they settled themselves on the bed[274] and talked it all over. Dan felt too rested to be angry, and when Ned broached the programme for the day he was surprisingly complaisant. The rest of them, Ned explained, had to go back in time for recitations. But Payson wanted Dan to stay in Lloyd and take things easy. The others would be back again by five o’clock. They would all spend the night here and return to Yardley in the morning in plenty of time for luncheon. What did Dan say?
Dan said: “All right. Tell Payson I slept like a top and am feeling fine. I’ll call him up after a while and talk with him myself, though. I guess there isn’t really anything for me to do at school. Now how about breakfast?”
They all ate hungrily, Gerald brought the car around at half-past eight and he and Ned and Kendall set off for school. As the car sped out of sight they turned and waved at Dan on the porch. And Dan waved back gayly, and then, thrusting his hands into his pockets and whistling a tune, set off along the quiet street with a delicious feeling of playing “hookey.” He had the whole day ahead of him and nothing to do but eat and loaf! No lessons, no practice, no problems to settle with Payson or Cowles, no nothing! It was simply fine!
Presently he came to a little bridge with stone[275] parapets that seemed just fashioned for idlers like he. He seated himself on one of them, his feet dangling above the little stream that went gurgling by to turn and twist its way through a meadow. Once he saw a fish and he wished he had a hook and line. Then he gathered chips of mortar from the wall, dropped them into the water and watched them go sidling down to the bottom. The sun was warm, although a light breeze rustled the dead leaves in the roadway. The sky was blue overhead, and Dan thought thankfully, “A fine day to-morrow for the game.” Then with a start he realized that he had quite forgotten all about the game for hours! Hadn’t once thought of it since getting out of bed! And even now it didn’t trouble him. They might win it. If they didn’t—why, there you were! After all, it was no matter of life or death. Games had been lost before. To be sure, he was captain and he meant to do all he could to win, but if he failed, why, he still would have done the best he knew how; and that, he told himself philosophically, was all anyone could do. And then a pair of crows came sailing overhead, cawing loudly, and he forgot again about the game.
Almost before he knew it, it was noon. A bell somewhere in the little village struck twelve. He pulled himself lazily off the wall and ambled back[276] to the inn. There was time before dinner to call up Mr. Payson, and he did it.
“I’m having a bully time,” he told the coach. “Been sitting on the bridge all the morning throwing pebbles into the water.”
“Good stuff,” replied the voice at the other end. “Go back this afternoon and throw the rest in.”
“No, I think I’ll go to sleep!” laughed Dan. “Everything all right? If you want me, say so and I’ll come over.”
“Don’t want you at all. Don’t want to see you until eleven to-morrow forenoon. Everything is all right here. And I think we’re going to have a fine day to-morrow. How’s your appetite?”
“It’s awful! I can’t get enough.”
“Well, don’t overdo it. Better eat light this evening, Vinton. Eat what you want, though. Feeling pretty well, are you?”
“Like a fighting cock, sir!”
“That’s fine. Keep it up. Go to bed early to-night and get some more sleep. Good-by.”
Dan had the dining-room pretty much to himself that noon and was rather glad of it, since he was a little bit ashamed of the way he ate. He felt like apologizing to Mary, the waitress, and to the proprietor. After dinner he lounged upstairs to the room, feeling delightfully sleepy, found a magazine[277] that Gerald had thoughtfully added to the contents of one of the bags and tried to read. But ten minutes later he was stretched out on top of the bed fast asleep.