Next morning Mark and Plunk and I went out to the Wigglesworth farm to see Rock. We walked right into the yard like we always do, now that Jethro thinks we’re working for him, but Rock wasn’t in sight. Jethro was, though. He was fussing around the side yard and we walked over to where he was.

“Howdy, Jethro!” says Mark, and Jethro turned his face toward us. He had one of the biggest and best black eyes I ever saw. It was a regular socdolager of a black eye—one of the kind that runs way down on your cheek and that starts to wiggling and twitching every once in a while like a blob of jelly.

“Howdy!” says Jethro, short-like.

“Run into somethin’?” says I.

“Yes,” says he, and felt of his eye.

“I run into one of them things once,” says Plunk, who talks sometimes when he ought to keep his mouth shut. “There was a boy on the other end of it, and he was mad at me.”

“There wasn’t no boy on the other end of this,” says Jethro.

“Where’s Rock?” says Mark.

“Around the house somewheres,” says Jethro. “Yell and he’ll come.”

So we left Jethro and went around back of the house and yelled for Rock. In a minute he came, and you could see right off that he was either sick or something. He wasn’t exactly pale, but he looked like he’d like to be pale. His eyes was kind of big and hollow like he hadn’t slept much.

“Never was so glad to see anybody in my life,” says he, and he said it like he meant it.

“How d-d-did Jethro git his b-black eye?” says Mark.

“I don’t know,” says Rock, and he shivered a little. “Something has been happening. I don’t know what. I’m scared, and I’m not ashamed to own it up. Last night, just after I went to bed, somebody came to the door. After that I heard voices down-stairs, and then a whopping racket like somebody was smashing the furniture. Then there was a noise like a man was dragging a bag of flour up-stairs—way up into the third story. I didn’t dare sneak out to see what it was, but I couldn’t get to sleep. In about an hour I heard something moving around over my head somewhere. And then somebody began to thump on a door and yell, ‘Hey, there. Lemme out of here. Lemme out of here.’”

“Yes,” says Mark, eager-like.

“Then Jethro went banging up-stairs and there was a lot of yelling and banging, and then Jethro came down again. Since then I’ve heard somebody moving around up there. Every once in a while, whoever it is, takes a crack at the door and yells a little.”

“Um!” says Mark. “T-that’s what Jethro run into, Plunk. It was a f-feller’s fist, which is what causes most black eyes. I’ve heard of folks gittin’ ’em by f-fallin’ out of bed, and by runnin’ into a d-d-door in the dark, and by havin’ a bird fly into their face, and by stoopin’ over quick and buttin’ their own knee. I’ve heard of all those ways, but when you come to git the f-f-facts, most gen’ally you find out it was a fist they run into. I f-figgered it was that way with Jethro, and I guess I kin n-name the fist.”

“Go on,” says Plunk.

“It b’longed to a f-feller named Pekoe,” says Mark.

“Pekoe!” says Rock.

“That’s the f-feller.”

“He’s the man that brought me here,” says Rock.

“Jest so,” says Mark.

“What is he back for? And why did Jethro shut him up?” says Rock.

“That,” says Mark, “is what it’s our b-b-business to find out.”

“Easy,” says I. “Jest go up to his door and ask.”

“Sure,” says Plunk. “Jethro’s out in the yard.”

“M-maybe,” says Mark, with a sort of grin, “we might try.”

We went to the back door and started in, but just as, we opened the door Jethro came into the kitchen and looked at us, standing between us and the door toward the front of the house.

“Better play outdoors to-day,” says he. “I’m goin’ to clean house, and I don’t want you kids underfoot.”

So out we went.

“Hum!” says Mark. “Jethro’s out in the yard. Easy to g-g-git to see this Pekoe. Easy l-like turnin’ three summersets in the air without a spring-board.”

“I guess he don’t want us messin’ around,” says I.

“Didn’t judge he would,” says Mark, “so it must be there’s s-somethin’ to find out. As soon as you see a f-f-feller tryin’ to keep somethin’ away from you, why, you want to git to work to find out what it is. ’Cause, m-m-most gen’ally it’s somethin’ you’ll be glad to know.”

“What room was he shut up in?” says I.

“Somewhere on the third floor,” says Rock. “It sounded almost over my head.”

“Where’s your room?” says Mark.

“Other side of the house,” says Rock. “I’ll show you.”

“Not too s-s-sudden,” says Mark. “We don’t want to let on to Jethro we’re up to anythin’, or suspect anythin’. Let’s go to the other side of the house and p-play around awhile first.”

So we did. We played tag, which wasn’t much of a game for Mark Tidd, though he moved a lot faster than you’d have thought. But when he ran he looked like it was going to bust him all to pieces, and the sight of it generally made you laugh so you couldn’t run yourself. That kind of evened things up.

After a while Mark says, “N-now, Rock, you run like the d-dickens, around the other side of the house, with Binney chasin’ you. Go over by that l-little grape-arbor where we used to m-meet you, and then l-lay down like you was tired out. We’ll come along behind.”

Rock and I tore off, with Plunk and Mark coming along behind, and all lay down like we were tired right in front of the arbor.

“Don’t l-look at the house,” says Mark. “Probably Jethro’s watchin’.”

“There’s your cat,” I says to Mark, pointing over where his stone cat was.

“Huh!” says he. “N-n-ninety degrees in the shade. There’s where you quit walkin’ where she l-looks,” says he. “Right under that tree there.”

The tree was back toward the rear of the house, but out quite a ways from it. We all looked at it.

“I can’t make out,” says Mark, “what the weather has to do with it. Hot or cold, it gits me.”

“Ninety degrees in the shade is pretty hot,” says Plunk.

“Maybe,” says I, “it hain’t got anything to do with how hot it is. Maybe he wrote it that way just to fool folks and make it harder to know what he was tryin’ to tell.”

Mark he looked at me a minute like he was mad. Then he reached over and banged me on the back, and says: “Binney, I sh’u’dn’t be s’prised if you amounted to s-somethin’ some day. Weather was what Mr. Wigglesworth wanted f-folks to think of that happened to see the writin’. So,” says he, “it wasn’t weather he meant at all. I was a noodle not to think of that. Um! ... Ninety degrees. What’s ninety degrees except weather?”

I didn’t think of anything, and nobody else did, either. We thought quite a while, and then Mark slapped his fat leg’ and started to shake all over with one of them still laughs of his. “Why, you boobs,” says he, “ninety degrees is m-measurin’! That’s it. You know a circle? Well, there’s three hunderd and sixty degrees around one. In ’rithmetic or somethin’ they divide up a circle l-like a clock, only, instead of havin’ minutes marked off, they have degrees. Ninety degrees.... Um! ... That’s a quarter of the way around a circle. If you walk to the middle of a circle, and then turn off to the place on the circle that’s ninety degrees from the place where you first stepped on the circle, why, it’s a right angle. See?”

“No,” says I, “my eddication hain’t got that far.”

He drew it out on the ground, and then it was as plain as plain could be.

“You walk where the c-c-cat looks,” says he, excited and stuttering like the mischief. “When you’ve walked as far as the writin’ says—a hunderd and t-ten feet, wasn’t it?—you turn off at a right angle, and there you are.”

“Which way d’you turn?” says I.

That stopped him a minute, but he recited over Mr. Wigglesworth’s writing: “‘Where p-pussy looks she walks. Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six. N-ninety degrees in the shade. In. Down. What color is a b-brick? Investigate. B’lieve what t-tells the truth.’”

“Yes,” says I.

“What comes after ninety degrees in the shade?” says he.

“‘In,’” says I.

“In what?” says he.

“I dunno,” says I.

“Well,” says he, “use your b-brains. If you turn to the left what is there to go in?”

“Nothin’,” says I, looking over that way.

“If you turn to the right, what is there to g-g-goin?”

“Why,” says I, “the house is that way.”

“Well,” says he, “then I guess you t-turn to the right, don’t you? If directions tell you to go in, and there hain’t anythin’ to go into, why, then, you’re turnin’ wrong. Whatever it is we’re l-lookin’ for is in the house.”

“Looks that way,” says I.

“What doors are on the back of the house?” says Mark to Rock.

“Kitchen door, and a door that goes down cellar,” says Rock.

“The cellar d-d-door’s the one,” says Mark, “because the next word in the writin’ is ‘Down.’ You got to go in and down, which m-m-means you go in the cellar door and down cellar. We’re gettin’ it, Rock. I knew we would if we stuck to it long enough. Now we’ve got to get into that cellar. Can’t f-f-figger out the rest of that writin’ till we do.”

“If you say so,” says I, “I guess it must be so.” Maybe I was a little sarcastic, but he didn’t pay any attention to me; he was too interested. That’s the way with him. When he gets his mind settled down to thinking about a thing, you could shoot him out of a cannon and he wouldn’t pay any attention to it. Concentrate is what Tecumseh Androcles Spat calls it. He says Mark is one of the greatest concentrators he ever saw.

Pretty soon he sort of waggled his head as if he was shaking a fly off his nose, and says, “Well, we can’t do any m-more about that to-day. Besides, we’ve got this Pekoe on our hands. Rock, turn around gradual, like there wasn’t any reason for it, and tell me how many windows from the back yours is.”

“It’s the fourth, on the second floor,” says Rock.

“All right. Now which s-s-side of you did that noise come from, or was it r-right straight on top?”

“Sounded like it was almost over my head. It may have been to one side. I was pretty excited, you know. Come to think about it, it might have been a little toward the front of the house.”

Mark got up slow and went into the grape-arbor. When he got inside we saw him turn around, back in the shadows where nobody could see him from the house, and look careful up toward the windows on the third floor.

He wasn’t gone but a minute. Then he came waddling out and says: “He’s in a room with the blinds shut. Fifth window from the back. Blinds closes t-t-tight. That’s what makes me think he’s there. Maybe they’re n-nailed.”

I sneaked a look, and sure enough, the window he was talking about did have its blinds closed. That made it hard for anybody inside to see out, and impossible for anybody outside to see in, or to make any signals or anything.

“Fine chance,” says I, “of getting at anybody up there. There ain’t a ladder in town that’ll reach him.”

“There’s things b-besides ladders,” says Mark. “Say, Binney, if you was s-shut in a room, and something came and rapped on your window like this, rap-rap-rap, then rap-rap-rap, what would you think?”

“I’d think somebody was doin’ it to make me take notice,” says I.

“That’s what this Pekoe would t-t-think,” says Mark.

“But,” says I, “you can’t reach him. If you tried it with a long pole Jethro’d catch you at it.”

“Yes,” says Plunk, “and if you tried it by throwing stones, he’d catch you at that too.”

“Maybe,” says Mark. “But I got a d-d-dodge that’ll work, maybe, and Jethro won’t see it, either. Let’s all git into the arbor where we can’t be seen.”

We went in and Mark asked if Plunk and I had our sling-shots. We had, because we always had them along. You can never tell when you may need a sling-shot in your business.

“Now,” says Mark, “here’s the notion. We shoot at Pekoe’s window. I shoot, then Plunk, then Binney. One, two, three. L-l-like that. Then stop a m-minute, and do it right over—one, two, three. See? Jethro won’t be able to see that,” says he.

“Go ahead,” says I, getting a good stone in the leather, and another in my hand to be ready for the second volley.

Mark shot, then Plunk, then me. Pat-pat-pat, the three stones sounded. Then we did it again. Pat-pat-pat. After that we waited with our eyes glued to the window, and our ears, too. Pretty soon we heard a noise like glass breaking, and then Pekoe, if it was Pekoe, began pushing and banging at the blinds.

“Hope he don’t make too m-m-much noise,” says Mark.

It seemed like he couldn’t open the blinds, so they must have been nailed or fastened somehow, and they were strong, heavy blinds, but he could work the shutters up and down so as to get a better look outside, and we could see his fingers reaching through. We knew he must have his eyes right there, looking, so Mark went to the door of the arbor and stood there quiet. Pekoe couldn’t miss seeing him any more than he could miss seeing the new post-office in town if he was standing right in front of it. That’s one good thing about being fat—it’s easy for folks to see you when you want them to. But, on the other hand, it’s hard to hide from folks you want to keep away from.

Mark looked at the house careful, but Jethro wasn’t in sight.

“Rock,” he says, “you and Plunk go to the kitchen and yell to Jethro that you’re hungry. If he comes, one of you back over to that kitchen window there and waggle your hand behind you.”

Off they went, and pretty soon Plunk showed up in front of the window and waggled his hand. So we knew Jethro was in there where he couldn’t see. Then, quick as a wink, Mark looked up at the window and waggled his hand. The man inside saw it, because he shoved as much of his hand through the shutters as he could, and wiggled it as hard as he could wiggle. Mark nodded his head.

Plunk was still standing in the kitchen window, so we knew Jethro was there yet. Mark gave a look, and then started making letters with his fingers. You know that sort of deaf and dumb alphabet that every boy in the United States can use if he wants to—mostly behind his geography in school. Well, that’s what Mark was doing now. He was trying to talk to Pekoe.

“Is your name Pekoe?” he spelled out as slow as time. Then he spelled out, “If you can read what I say wiggle one finger.”

Just one finger came through the blinds and wiggled.

“Are you a friend of Rock’s? If you are show two fingers,” Mark signaled.

Two fingers came into sight.

“If you know who he is, and why he’s kept here, show two fingers again. If you don’t know, show one finger.”

Just one finger came through.

“I wonder what he’s g-g-got to do with it, then,” says Mark to me.

And then Plunk and Rock and Jethro all came around the corner of the house, and Mark didn’t dare make another move. We didn’t stay long after that, because we had a lot of work at the Trumpet office, so we went along. But we promised Rock we’d be back next day, some of us, and for him to lay low and not to try monkeying with Pekoe unless he got a good chance and was sure Jethro wasn’t around.

While we were walking home Mark says, “P-p-perty good day’s work. Got the worst part of Mr. Wigglesworth’s writing f-f-figgered out, and had a l-little chat with Pekoe.”

“There’s some bridges to cross yet,” says I.

“Yes,” says he, “but we’ll cross ’em. You bet.”