He did not laugh at all. The situation had suddenly become tragic instead of comic. Fred could not walk back to Clinton in his bathing-trunks – that is, not until after dark.

"I wish I had hold of that Ap Plunkit," repeated Fred Martin. "

did it," he added.

"Oh, we don't know – "

"Of course we do. He sneaked along there after us and found my clothes, and ran away with them – every one. And your shoes and stockings, too!"

"No he didn't, either!" cried Bobby, suddenly, staring up into the tall tree over their heads.

"Eh?"

"There are the shoes and stockings – shoes, anyway," declared Bobby, pointing.

It was a chestnut tree above their heads. It promised a full crop of nuts in the fall, for the green burrs starred thickly the leafy branches.

Whoever had disturbed the chums' possessions had climbed to the very tip-top of the chestnut and hung the two pair of shoes far out on a small branch.

"That's Ap Plunkit's work – I know," declared Fred, with conviction. "He climbs trees like a monkey. You see how long his arms are. I've seen him go up a taller tree than this."

"Maybe he's taken your clothes up there, too," said Bobby, going to the trunk of the tree.

"The mean scamp!" exclaimed Fred. "How'll we get them, Bob? I – I can't climb that tree this way."

"Neither can I," admitted his friend. "But wait till I run and get my clothes on – "

"And you'd

better

run, too!" exclaimed Fred, suddenly, "or you won't find the rest of

your

clothes."

Thus advised, Bobby Blake set out at once for the spot where he had been dressing. There was no sign of Applethwaite Plunkit about – or of any other marauder. Just the same, when Bobby was dressed and went down the creek side again to Fred, he carried all their possessions with him.

That chestnut was a hard tree for Bobby to climb – especially barefooted. There were so many prickly burrs that had dropped into the crotches of the limbs, and, drying, had become quite stiff and sharp. He had to stop several times as he mounted upward to pick the thorns from his feet.

But he got the shoes and stockings, and, hanging them around his neck, came down as swiftly as he could. Both boys at once sat down and put on this part of their apparel. Fred was almost tempted to cry; but then, he was too angry to "boo-hoo" much.

"I'll catch that Ap Plunkit, and I'll do something to him yet," he declared. "I'll have him arrested for stealing my clothes, anyway."

"How can we prove he took them? We didn't see him," said Bobby, thoughtfully.

"Well!"

"I tell you what," Bobby said. "Let's go up to his house and tell his mother. We

know

he did this, even if we didn't see him. Of course, we got him mad first – "

"We didn't have to get him mad," declared Fred. "He's mad all the time."

"Well, we plagued him. He just was getting square."

"But such a mean trick to steal a fellow's clothes!"

"Maybe his folks will see it that way and make Applethwaite give them back."

"But I can't go up there to the house with only these old tights on!" said Fred.

"No," and Bobby couldn't help grinning a little. "You wear my jacket."

"And if I have lost my clothes," wailed Fred, "and have to go home this way, my father will give it to me good! Come on!"

"Let's each find a good club. That dog, you know," said Bobby.

"Sure. And if we meet up with Ap, I'll be likely to use it on him, too!" growled Fred, angrily.

Bobby decided that it was useless to try to pacify his chum at the moment. It seemed to relieve Fred to threaten the absent Ap Plunkit, and it did that individual no bodily harm!

So the boys found stout clubs and started up the bank of the creek. Fred was feeling so badly that he did not pick more of the "summer sweetnin's" when they came to the apple tree.

They crawled through the hole in the boundary fence of the Plunkit Farm and kept on up the creek-side. First they crossed the pasture, then they climbed a tight fence and entered a big cornfield. The corn was taller than their heads and there were acres and acres of it. It was planted right along the edge of the creek bank, and they had to walk between the rows.

"If old Plunkit sees us in his corn, he'll be mad," said Fred, at last.

"This is the nearest way to the house, and we've got to try and get your clothes," said Bobby, firmly.

After that, he took the lead. The nearer they approached the farmhouse, the more Fred lagged. But suddenly, in the midst of the long cornfield, Master Martin uttered a cry.

"Look there, Bob!"

"What's the matter with you? I thought it was the dog."

"No, sir! See yonder, will you?"

"Nothing but a scarecrow," said Bobby.

"Yes. But it has clothes on it. I'm going to take them. I'm not going up to that house without anything more on me than what I've got."

Bobby began to chuckle at that. It seemed too funny for anything to rob a scarecrow. But Fred was pushing his way through the corn toward the absurd figure.

Suddenly Fred uttered another yell – this time his famous warwhoop:

"Scubbity-

yow

! I got him!"

"You got who?" demanded Bobby, hurrying after his chum.

"This is some o' that Ap Plunkit's doings – the mean thing! Look here!" and he snatched the cap off the scarecrow's head of straw.

"Why – that looks like

your

cap, Fred," gasped Bobby.

"And it

, too."

"That – that's just the stripe of your shirt!"

"And it is my shirt. And it's my pants, and all!" cried Fred. "I'll get square with Ap Plunkit yet – you see if I don't. There's the old ragged things this scarecrow wore, on the ground. And he's dressed it in

things. Oh, you wait till I catch him!"

Meanwhile Fred was hastily tearing off the garments that certainly were his own. They were all here. Bobby kept away from him, and laughed silently to himself. It was really too, too funny; but he did not want to make Fred angry with

him

"Now I guess we'd better not go to the farmhouse – had we?" demanded Bobby.

"Let's go home," grunted Fred, very sour. "It's almost sundown."

"All right," agreed his chum.

"He tore my shirt, too. And we might never have found these clothes. I'm going to get square," Fred kept muttering, as they struck right down between the corn rows toward the distant roadside fence.

Just as they climbed over the rails to leap into the road they were hailed by a voice that said:

"Hey there! what you doin' in that cornfield?"

There was the Plunkit hopeful – otherwise Applethwaite, the white-headed boy. He sat on the top rail near by and grinned at the two boys from town.

"There you are – you mean thing!" cried Fred Martin, and before Bobby could stop him, he rushed at the bigger fellow.

He was so quick – or Ap was so slow – that Fred seized the latter by the ankles before he could get down from his perch.

"Git away! I'll fix you!" shouted the farm boy.

He kicked out, lost his balance, and Fred let him go. Ap fell backward off the fence into the cornfield, and landed on his head and shoulders.

He set up a terrific howl, even before he scrambled to his feet. By his actions he did not seem to be so badly hurt. He searched around for a stone, found it, and threw it with all his force at Fred Martin. Fortunately he missed the town boy.

Immediately Fred grabbed up a stone himself and poised it to fling at his enemy. Bobby threw himself upon his chum and seized his raised arm.

"Now you stop that, Fred!" he commanded.

"Why shouldn't I hit him? He flung one at me," declared the angry boy.

"I know. But he didn't hit you. And you might hit him and do him harm. Suppose you put his eye out – or something? Come on home, Fred – don't be a chump."

"Aw – well," growled Fred, and threw the stone away.

"You know you are always getting into a muss," urged Bobby, hurrying his chum along the road toward town. "What'll you do when you go to Rockledge – "

"You got to go with me, Bob," declared Fred, grinning.

"Oh! I wish they'd let me," murmured his friend.

But as far as he could see then, no circumstances could arise that would make such a wished for event possible.

CHAPTER VI

A FISH FRY AND A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT

They got home at early supper time, fish and all. But one look into the kitchen assured Bobby that it was useless to expect Meena to pan their catch for them.

The "rabbit ears" stuck up on top of her head at a more uncompromising angle than ever. Mr. and Mrs. Blake had not returned from town. At a late hour Michael Mulcahey had come back with the carriage and announced that his mistress would stay in town for dinner with Mr. Blake and they were to be met at the 10:10 train.

Michael had just finished cleaning the carriage and now sat with his pipe beside the stable door. He was a long-lipped Irishman, with kindly, twinkling eyes, and "ould counthry" whiskers that met under his chin, giving his cleanly shaven, wind-bitten face the look of peering out through a frame of hair.

"'Tis a nice string of fish ye have, byes," he said.

"And I s'pose we got to give them to the cats," complained Fred. "They won't cook 'em at my house, and Meena's got the toothache."

Michael grinned broadly, puffing slowly at his pipe. "Clane the fish, byes. There's a pan jest inside the dure. Get water from the hydrant. Have ye shar-r-rp knives?"

"Oh, yes, Michael!" cried Bobby.

"Scale thim fish, then. I'll start a fire in my stove. An' I've a pan. Belike Meena, the girl, will give ye a bit of fat salt por-r-rk and some bread. Tell her she naden't bother with supper. We'll make it ourselves – in what th' fancy folks calls 'ally-frisco' – though

why

so, I

dun

-no," added Michael.

He knocked the dottle out of his pipe and washed his hands. The boys, meanwhile, were cleaning the little fish rapidly, and whispering together. They were delighted with the coachman's suggestion. It was just what they had been hoping for. Fred even forgot his "grouch" against Applethwaite Plunkit.

Bobby ventured to the kitchen door. Meena was just untying the red bandage, but the moment she caught sight of him she hesitated. She may have felt another slight twinge of "face ache."

"Vat you vant?" she demanded.

Bobby told her what they were going to do. Michael had his own plates, and knives and forks. He had "bached it" a good many years before he came to work for Bobby's father. Meena saw a long, quiet evening ahead of her.

"Vell," she said, ungraciously enough, for it was not her way to acknowledge her blessings – not in public, at least. "Vell, I give you the pork and bread. But that Michael ban spoil you boys. I vouldn't efer marry him."

"What did she say?" asked the coachman when Bobby returned to the room over the harness closets in which Michael slept – and sometimes cooked.

"She says she won't marry you because you spoil us," declared Bobby, winking at Fred.

"Did she now?" quoth Michael. "So she has rayfused me again – though it wasn't just like a proposal

this

time. Still – we'll count it so's to make sure."

He gravely walked to a smooth plank in the partition behind the door, and picked up the stub of a pencil from a ledge. On this board was a long array of pencil marks – four straight, up and down marks, and a fifth "slantingdicular" across them. There were a great many of these marks.

Each of these straight, up and down, marks meant "No," and the slanting mark meant another "No"; so that Meena's refusals of the coachman's proposal for her hand were grouped in fives.

"The Good Book says Jacob sarved siven years for Rachael, and then another siven. He didn't have nawthin' on me – sorra a bit! When Meena's said 'No' a thousan' times, she'll forgit some day an' say 'Yis.'"

He went back to shaking the pan on the stove, in which the cubes of salt pork were sputtering. He mixed some flour and cornmeal in a plate, with salt and pepper. Wiping each of the little fish partly dry, he rolled them in the mixture, and then laid them methodically in rows upon a board. When the fat in the skillet was piping hot, he dropped in the fish easily so as not to splash the hot fat about. Then with a fork he turned them as they browned.

As he forked them out of the hot fat, all brown and crispy, he laid them on a sheet of brown paper for a bit to drain off the fat. Then the boys' plates and his own were filled with the well fried fish.

"There's just a mess for us," said Michael, as they sat down. "For what we are about to rayceive make us tr-r-ruly grateful! Pass the bread, Master Bobby. 'Tis the appetite lends sauce to the male, so they say. Eat hearty!"

Bobby and Fred had plenty of the "sauce" the coachman spoke of. After the excitement and adventures of the afternoon they had much to tell Michael, too, and the supper was a merry one.

Fred had to go home at eight o'clock and an hour and a half later it was Bobby's bedtime. But the house seemed very still and lonely when he had gone to bed, and he lay a long time listening to the crickets and the katydids, and the other night-flying insects outside the screens.

He heard Michael drive out of the lane to go to the station and he was still awake when the carriage returned and his father and mother came into the house. They came quietly up stairs, whispering softly, but the door between Bobby's room and his mother's dressing-room was ajar and he could hear his parents talking in there. They thought him asleep, of course.

"But Bobby's got to be told, my dear. I have bought our tickets – as I told you," Mr. Blake said. "We can't wait any longer."

"Oh, dear me, John!" Bobby heard his mother say. "

Must

we leave him behind?"

"My dear! we have talked it all over so many times," Mr. Blake said, patiently. "It is a long voyage. Not so long to Para; but the transportation up the river, to Samratam, is uncertain. Brother Bill left the business in some confusion, I understand, and we may be obliged to remain some months. It would not be well to take Bobby. He must go to school. I am doubtful of the advisability of taking

you

, my dear – "

"You shall not go without me, John," interrupted Mrs. Blake, and Bobby knew she was crying softly. "I would rather that we lost all the money your brother left – "

"There, there!" said Bobby's father, comfortingly. "You're going, my dear. And we will leave Bobby in good hands."

"But

whose

hands?" cried his wife. "Meena can look after the house, and Michael we can trust with everything else. But neither of them are proper guardians for my boy, John."

"I know," agreed Mr. Blake, and Bobby, lying wide awake in his bed, knew just how troubled his father looked. He hopped out of bed and crept softly to the door. He did not mean to be an eavesdropper, but he could not have helped hearing what his father and mother said.

"We have no relatives with whom to leave him," Mrs. Blake said. "And all our friends in Clinton have plenty of children of their own and wouldn't want to be bothered. Or else they are people who have

children and wouldn't know how to get along with Bobby."

"It's a puzzle," began her husband, and just then Bobby pushed open the door and appeared in the dressing-room.

"I heard you, Pa!" he cried. "I couldn't help it. I was awake and the door was open. I know just what you can do with me if I can't go with you to where Uncle Bill died."

"Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Blake, putting out her arms to him. "My boy! I didn't want you to know – yet."

"He had to hear of the trip sometime," said Bobby's father.

"And I'm not going to make any trouble," said Bobby, swallowing rather hard, for there seemed to be a lump rising in his throat. He never liked to see his mother cry. "Why, I'm a big boy, you know, Mother. And I know just what you can do with me while you're gone."

"What's that, Bobs?" asked his father, cheerfully.

"Let me go to Rockledge School with Fred Martin – do,

! That'll be fun, and they'll look out for me there – you know they are

awfully

strict at schools like that. I can't get into any trouble."

"Not with Fred?" chuckled Mr. Blake.

"Well," said Bobby, seriously, "you know if I have to look out for Fred same as I always do,

won't have time to get into mischief. You told Mr. Martin so yourself, you know, Pa."

Mr. Blake laughed again and glanced at his wife. She had an arm around Bobby, but she had stopped crying and she looked over at her husband proudly. Bobby was such a sensible, thoughtful chap!

"I guess we'll have to take the school question into serious consideration, Bobs," he said. "Now kiss your mother and me goodnight, and go to sleep. These are late hours for small boys."

Bobby ran to bed as he was told, and this time he went to sleep almost as soon as he placed his head upon the pillow. But how he

did

dream! He and Fred Martin were walking all the way to Rockledge School, and they went barefooted with their shoes slung over their shoulders, Applethwaite Plunkit and his big dog popped out of almost every corner to obstruct their way. Bobby had just as exciting a time during his dreams that night as he and his chum had experienced during the afternoon previous!

Nothing was said at the late Sunday morning breakfast about his parents' journey to South America. Bobby knew all about poor Uncle Bill. He could just remember him – a small, very brown, good-tempered man who had come north from his tropical station in the rubber country four years, or so, before.

Uncle Bill was Mr. Blake's only brother, and most of Bobby's father's income came from the rubber exporting business, too. Uncle Bill had lived for years in Brazil, but finally the climate had been too much for him and only a few months ago word had come of his death. He had been a bachelor. Mr. Blake had positively to go to Samratam to settle the company's affairs and Bobby's mother would not be separated from her husband for the long months which must necessarily be engaged in the journey.

Bobby felt that he

must

talk about the wonderful possibility that had risen on the horizon of his future, so, long before time for Sunday School, he ran over to the Martin house and yodled softly in the side lane for Fred.

Fred put his head out of a second-story window. "Hello!" he said, in a whisper. "That you, Bobby?"

"Yep. Come on down. I got the greatest thing to tell you."

"Wait till I get into this stiff shirt," growled Fred. "It's just like iron! I just

hate

Sunday clothes – don't you, Bobby?"

Bobby was too eager to tell his news to discuss the much mooted point. "Hurry up!" he threw back at Fred, and then sat down on the grassy bank to wait.

He knew that Fred would have to pass inspection before either his mother or his sister Mary, before he could start for Sunday School. He heard some little scolding behind the closed blinds of the Martin house, and grinned. Fred had evidently tried to get out before being fully presentable.

He finally came out, grumbling something about "all the girls being nuisances," but Bobby merely chuckled. He thought Mary Martin was pretty nice, himself – only, perhaps inclined to be a little "bossy," as is usually the case with elder sisters.

"Never mind, Fred," Bobby said, soothingly. "Let it go. I got something just wonderful to tell you."

"What is it?" demanded Fred, not much interested.

"I believe something's going to happen that you've just been

hoping

for," said Bobby, smiling.

"That Ap Plunkit's got the measles – or something?" exclaimed Fred, with a show of eagerness.

"Aw, no! It isn't anything to do with Ap Plunkit," returned Bobby, in disgust.

"What is it, then?"

So Bobby told him.

CHAPTER VII

FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

Two boys in Clinton did not go to Sunday School that day with minds much attuned to the occasion. Fred could scarcely restrain himself within the bounds of decent behavior as they walked from Merriweather Street, where both the Blakes and the Martins lived, to Trinity Square, where the spire of the church towered above the elms.

The thought that Bobby was going with him to Rockledge (Fred had jumped to that conclusion at once) put young Martin on the very pinnacle of delight.

"Of course, it would be great if your folks would take you to South America," admitted Fred, after some reflection. "For you could bring home a whole raft of marmosets, and green-and-gray parrots, and iguanas, and the like, for pets. And you'd see manatees, and tapirs, and jaguars and howling monkeys, and all the rest. But crickey! you wouldn't have the fun we'll have when we get to Rockledge School."

Fun

seemed to be all that Fred Martin looked forward to when he got to boarding school. Lessons, discipline, and work of any kind, never entered his mind.

That evening Mr. and Mrs. Blake, with Bobby, went up the street to the Martin house, and the parents of the two chums talked together a long time on the front porch, while the children were sent into the back yard – that yard that Buster Shea had cleaned so nicely the day before, being partly paid in rats!

When the Blakes started home, it had been concluded that Bobby was to attend school with Fred, and that if Mr. and Mrs. Blake did not return from their long journey in season, Bobby was to be under the care of the Martins during vacation.

"Another young one won't make any difference here, Mrs. Blake," said easy-going Mrs. Martin. "Really, half the time I forget how many we have, and have to go around after they are all abed, and count noses. Bobby will make us no trouble, I am sure. And he always has a good influence over Fred – we've remarked that many times."

This naturally made Mrs. Blake very proud. Yet she took time to talk very seriously to Bobby on several occasions during the next few days. She spoke so tenderly to him, and with such feeling, that the boy's heart swelled, and he could scarcely keep back the tears.

"We want to hear the best kind of reports from you, Bobby – not only school reports, but in the letters we may get from our friends here in Clinton. Your father and I have tried to teach you to be a manly, honorable boy. You are going where such virtues count for more than anything else.

"Be honest in everything; be kindly in your relations to the other boys; always remember that those weaker than yourself, either in body or in character, have a peculiar claim upon your forbearance. Father would not want you to be a mollycoddle but mother doesn't want you to be a bully.

"You will go to church and Sunday School up there at Rockledge just as you have here. Don't be afraid to show the other boys that you have been taught to pray. I shall have your father find out the hour when you all go to bed, and at that hour, while you are saying your prayers and thinking of your father and me so far away from you, I shall be praying for my boy, too!"

"Don't you cry, Mother," urged Bobby, squeezing back the tears himself. "I will do just as you tell me."

It was arranged that Mr. Blake should take the boys to school when the time came, but there was still a fortnight before the term opened at Rockledge. Bobby and Fred had more preparations to make than you would believe, and early on Monday morning Fred came over to the Blake house and the chums went down behind the garden to have a serious talk.

"Say! there's fifty boys in that school," Fred said. "There's another school right across Monatook Lake. They call it Belden School. There's all sorts of games between the two schools, you know, and we want to be in them, Bobby."

"What do you mean – games?" asked Bobby.

"Why, baseball, and football, and hockey on the ice in winter, and skating matches, and boating in the fall and spring – rowing, you know. Lots of games. And we want to be in them, don't we?"

"Sure," admitted his chum.

"It's going to cost money," said Fred, decidedly. "We'll have to get bats, and good horse-hide balls, and a catcher's mask and glove, and a pad, and all that. We want to get on one of the ball teams. You know I can catch, and you've got a dandy curve, Bobby, and a fade-away that beats anything I've ever seen."

"Yes. I'd like to play ball," admitted Bobby, rather timidly. "But will they let us – we being new boys?"

"We'll make them," said the scheming Fred. "If we show them we have the things I said – mitt, and bats, and all – they'll be glad to have us play, don't you see?"

"But we haven't them," suddenly said Bobby.

"No. But we must have them."

"Say! they'll cost a lot of money. You know I don't have but a dollar a month," said Bobby, "and I know Mother won't let me open my bank."

"Of course not. That's the way with mothers and fathers," said Fred, rather discontentedly. "They get us to start saving against the time we'll want money awfully bad for something. And then we have to buy shoes with it, or Christmas presents, or use it to pay for a busted window.

That's

what cleaned out my bank the last time – when I threw a ball through Miklejohn's plate-glass window on the Square."

"Well," said Bobby, getting away from

that

unpleasant subject, "I have most of my dollar left for this month, and Pa will give me another on the first day of September."

"I haven't but ten cents to my name," confessed Fred.

"Then how'll we get new bats, and the mask, and pad, and all?"

"That's what we want to find out," Fred said, grimly. "We'll have to think up some scheme for making money. I wish I'd cleaned our yard Saturday instead of hiring Buster Shea."

That

didn't cost you much," chuckled Bobby. "Only a cent – and you couldn't have sold the five rats for anything."

"Aw – well – "

"Let's start a lemonade stand," suggested Bobby.

"No. It's been done to death in Clinton this vacation," Fred declared, emphatically. "Besides, the sugar and lemons and ice cost so much. And you're always bound to drink so much yourself that there's no profit when the lemonade's gone."

Bobby acknowledged the justice of this with a silent nod.

"Got to be something new, Bobby," urged Fred, with much belief in his chum's powers of invention. "

You

think of something."

"Might have a show," said Bobby.

"Aw – now – Bobby! you know that's no good," declared Fred. "We'd have to let a lot of the other fellows into it. Can't run a circus – not even a one-ring one – without a lot of performers. And they'd want the money split up. We wouldn't make anything."

"A peep-show," said Bobby, still thoughtfully chewing a straw.

"Aw, shucks! that's worse. The kids will only pay pins, or rusty nails, to see

that

kind of a show."

"No. That's not just what I mean," Bobby said, thoughtfully. "Let's have a show that will only need us two to run it, Fred. Then we won't have to divide the money with anybody else. And let's have a show that grown up folks will want to see."

"Great, Bobby! That's a swell idea – if we could do it."

"I believe we

can

do it."

"Tell a fellow," urged F