THEIR UNACCOUNTABLE BEHAVIOR

My orders were explicit.

I was to take a note up to the Bigelow's house on Elm Street, and I was to give the note to Miss Carew. There was no answer. After delivering the note I might do as I pleased, but I must not be late for dinner.

The member of my family who issued these directions was one with whom it paid to keep on good terms. I might have felt grieved about this errand on such a morning, but I had already found that Jimmy Toppan and Ed Mason had departed from their homes on some private mission which did not seem to include me. Bereft of playmates I had spent a lonely half-hour in the side yard, blowing on blades of grass, and raising fiendish shrieks therewith. So my employment on business which would send me far from home was mutually agreeable. I had only one request to make.

"Can I go on my velocipede?"

"Yes; but don't go too fast and get overheated, and don't lose the note."

The prohibition about going too fast was superfluous. The velocipede had tires which were but bands of iron. Progress upon it, over the uneven brick sidewalks, was slow and not altogether painless. The pedals (they looked like large spools) were attached at such an angle that a thrilling speed was hard to attain.

But to me, as I rode it along the pleasant, shaded sidewalks of Elm Street on that morning, it was a chariot of joy.

Naturally, I paused for a moment at Mr. Hawkins's gate to exchange salutations with that gentleman. Mr. Hawkins did not believe that it would rain: though it might. Fortified with this information, I continued past Jimmy Toppan's house, past the frog pond and the school. I proceeded at a moderate rate,—not over three-quarters of a mile an hour. At the street crossings, paved as they were with cobblestones, it was, on the whole, easier to dismount and wheel my velocipede.

When I reached Higginson's toy-shop I stopped again, flattened my nose against the window, and observed the condition of the market. There had been a sharp break in marbles, evidently,—they were now offered at fifteen for a cent. Return-balls remained firm, however; and tops had advanced. After I had noted these facts, and concluded, further, that some one had, since yesterday, purchased two of the five sticks of striped candy from the glass jar in the window, I continued on my journey.

Fifteen minutes later I reached the Bigelow house,—a square, three-storied residence set a little back from the street. The front door was open, and you could look right through the broad, cool hall, through a back door, and down the garden path. Everything about the house was big, and quiet, and cool, and there was no one to be seen, and no sign of any one,—except for a tall bicycle which stood at the curb-stone.

I knew that bicycle: it belonged to a neighbor of mine,—Mr. Dennett. He was a grave, elderly man of nearly twenty-one years. Before him I stood in speechless awe. Most of the time, except in summer, he was away at a place called Harvard, which drew many of his kind.

In summer he, with others like him, rode about on bicycles, and did various interesting things. Often they played tennis at a place farther up Elm Street. Sometimes, on these occasions, Ed Mason and I had been allowed to stand outside the high wire nets, and fetch back balls when they were knocked into the street,—a privilege which we especially esteemed.

The balls were of the most fascinating kind imaginable: they would bounce to a tremendous height, and it was rumored that they cost thirty cents apiece.

I wondered why Mr. Dennett was at the Bigelows'.

However, there was my note to deliver. I left my red velocipede standing beside the enormous bicycle, and rang the front door-bell. After a long wait, a very red-faced, cross-looking woman—not Mrs. Bigelow at all—came to the door.

"A letther fer Miss Keroo? Well, ye'd betther be afther takin' it to her yersilf. She's out in the garrden, there. An' no more time have I to waste in runnin' fer this bell ivry foive minutes!"

And she went away, muttering. I was not surprised to see her so cross. They always were cross; it was their normal condition. I walked through the hall and took the garden path.

It was lined on both sides with box, and beyond were flower-beds. Also there were apple trees, and cherry trees, and peach trees,—the last full of red and yellow fruit. A number of bees were inquiring into the hollyhocks, and on a stalk of Canterbury bells sat a brown and black butterfly, slowly opening and closing his wings.

But I could not see Miss Carew. Near the foot of the garden the path was arched by a summer-house. Its latticed sides were covered thick with clematis and trumpet-vine. I kept on down the path and walked into the summer-house.

There was a quick exclamation, and Miss Carew arose hastily from a seat in the corner. Mr. Dennett was sitting there, and he had a curious expression on his face, which made him rather more terrible to me than usual. Miss Carew, like the cross woman who had let me into the house, had very red cheeks. But in the case of Miss Carew the color was not permanent. It was more noticeable at this moment than I had ever seen it before; but it did not last.

"Why, it's Sammy!" said Miss Carew, with a laugh.

I disliked being called "Sammy" before Mr. Dennett, and I felt my face grow red also. I remembered that Miss Carew was a stranger, who had been visiting the Bigelows scarcely two months, but I corrected her just the same.

"Sam," I remarked, with dignity.

"Sam," she repeated apologetically.

Then I took the note out of my jacket pocket, and handed it to her. She thanked me, opened the envelope, and read the message. Then she said that it was "all right," and added that I was a good boy to bring the note.

Encouraged by this flattery, I backed to a bench on the other side of the summer-house, and sat down facing them. Miss Carew had seated herself again,—though at a somewhat greater distance from Mr. Dennett than before.

There was a slight pause.

Miss Carew asked me how I came,—had I walked all the way?

"No," I replied, "I rode my velocipede."

"Did you, really?" she said; "that's a long ride for you, isn't it?"

It interested me to hear Miss Carew talk,—she came from some part of the country where they have a greater respect for the letter R than was usual with us. But I denied that I was fatigued.

"No'm; it ain't far at all! Once," I continued, growing reminiscent, "I rode nearly up to Chain Bridge!"

"Is that so?"

"Yes'm; but when I got up to the Three Roads, Mr. Titcomb came along, an' said I'd better go back,—it was so hot."

"Did you go back?"

"Yes."

There was another silence, which Miss Carew again broke.

"What kind of a velocipede is yours?" she asked.

"A wooden one," I assured her.

Then it struck me that the conversation was becoming a trifle inane, and I tried to make things more interesting.

"My velocipede is out in front of the house now,—you can come out and see it, if you want to."

But Miss Carew thought she would defer that pleasure till another time.

Mr. Dennett took the witness.

"Do you go to school, Sam?"

Really, it seemed that he might have done better than that. I had that question asked me about five hundred times a year by grown-ups. Evidently this Harvard was not the place I had thought. But I answered him.

"Not now: it's vacation."

"Yes, I know. But you go when it isn't vacation?"

"Oh, yes."

"What school,—the Jackman?"

"No; the Kelley."

"Oh! Whose room?"

"Last year I was in Miss Temple's, an' next I'll be in Miss Philipps's."

I had apparently satisfied Mr. Dennett's curiosity, for he relapsed into silence. There was a long pause, while I swung my legs, and looked at them expectantly. I was quite ready to answer more questions if they had them to put.

They did not seem to think of any point on which they required information for two or three minutes. Then Mr. Dennett did make an inquiry,—or, rather, a suggestion.

"Perhaps your mother may want you for something, Sam?"

But I was able to set his mind at rest instantly.

"Oh, no; she don't want me till one o'clock, an' it's only half-past ten, now."

"Later than that, isn't it?"

"No, sir. I saw the 'Piscopal clock when I came by."

He seemed to be relieved at this, but presently he had another question to ask:

"Do you care for blackberries, Sam?"

"Yes! Have you got any?"

"There are some down the hill, there,—against the fence. Why don't you go and get them?"

"Thank you,—shall I bring some of them back to you?"

"No,—just eat 'em yourself, and have a good time."

This was by far the most sensible thing he had said, and I hurried down to the blackberry bushes. But when I got to them, and inspected the long, thorny branches, I found that my expectations were to be disappointed. If there had been any good berries they had been picked. All that remained were unripe.

I hurried back to the summer-house, and burst in upon its occupants. They seemed to be having some kind of a misunderstanding: Miss Carew had a book in her hands, which Mr. Dennett was trying to take from her.

"Hullo! Back already? What was the matter with the blackberries,—are they green?"

"No," I replied, "they are red,—but they're red when they're green, you know."

And I climbed back to my former place on the bench opposite them. Immediately, Mr. Dennett became concerned about my velocipede.

"Did you leave your velocipede in the street, Sam? Aren't you afraid some one will steal it?"

I laughed.

"Oh, I guess not. I left it right beside your bicycle, an' there wouldn't any one dare to touch it,—would they, Miss Carew?"

The lady agreed that it would require great boldness, but still, she thought, it might be well for me to go and see if it were safe.

To allay her uneasiness I went back as far as the house, and looked through the hall. Both the machines were there, in perfect safety. I returned to the summer-house, and reported the fact, pleased at being able to tell my friends that they need not worry.

As I was climbing to my seat again, Mr. Dennett had another suggestion.

"Look here, Sam, we saw a squirrel in Mr. Moulton's trees when we came out here. Don't you want to go and see if you can find him?"

A squirrel is always worth seeing. I asked one or two questions concerning his whereabouts, and then departed, promising to return as soon as I found him. Mr. Moulton's trees were many, and after I had gone through the hole in the hedge, I instituted a careful inspection of each tree.

Mr. Moulton came down the drive, and when I told him what I was looking for, he joined in the hunt. I can truthfully say that we examined each branch with care.

But no squirrel appeared at all, though we saw three blackbirds, and plenty of robins. When I got back to the summer-house Miss Carew and Mr. Dennett were both gone, although they had left the book behind. I searched and called, but could not find them any more than I had found the squirrel.

As I departed down Elm Street again on my velocipede, I thought the matter over at some length. Mr. Dennett had not left the premises, unless he had done so without his bicycle, for that remained where I had first seen it.

There was something singular about their behavior. Had they, perchance, picked all the ripe blackberries before I arrived, and had they been trying, with so much artifice, to conceal that fact from me?

That was the most reasonable explanation I could devise,—and, certainly, the circumstances demanded some kind of explanation.