Читать книгу Our Next-Door Neighbors - Maniates Belle Kanaris - Страница 5

Diogenes finally convalesced to his former state of ruggedness and obstreperousness. He continued, however, to cling to Silvia and to call her “mudder.” To my amusement the other children followed suit and she was now “muddered” by all the Polydores.

“I am glad,” I remarked, “that they scorn to include me in their adoption. I wouldn’t fancy being ‘faddered’ by the Polydores.”

“You won’t be,” Ptolemy, appearing seemingly from nowhere, assured me. “We’ve named you stepdaddy.”

“If it be possible, Silvia,” I implored, “let this cup pass from me.”

“I am going down to the intelligence office today,” replied Silvia soothingly. “Diogenes is well enough to go home now, and I can run over there every evening and see that he is properly put to bed.”

I went down town feeling like a mule relieved of his pack.

When I came home that afternoon, I found Silvia sitting on the shaded porch serenely sewing. A Sabbath-like stillness pervaded. Not a Polydore in sight or sound.

“Oh!” I cried buoyantly. “The Polydores have been returned to their home station!”

“No,” she replied calmly. “They told me at the intelligence office that it would be absolutely impossible to persuade, bribe, or hire a servant to assume the charge of the Polydore place.”

“I suppose,” I said glumly, “that Gladys gave the job a double cross. But will you please account for the phenomenon of the utter absence of Polydores at the present period? Has Huldah at last carried out her oft-repeated threat of exterminating the Polydore race?”

“Pythagoras,” explained Silvia dejectedly, “has gone to the doctor’s. He broke his wrist this morning. Diogenes is lost and Emerald has gone to look for him–”

“Oh, why hunt him up?” I remonstrated. “Maybe Emerald, too, will get lost or strayed or stolen.”

“Huldah,” continued Silvia, “has locked Demetrius in the cellar. I am unable to report on Ptolemy. Huldah is half sick, but she won’t go to bed. She said no beds in Bedlamite for her. But I have a wonderful plan to suggest. There is relief in sight if you will consent.”

“I will consent to any committable crime on the calendar,” I assured her, “that will lead to the parting of the Polydore path from ours. Divulge.”

“We both need a change and rest. Today I heard of a most alluring, inexpensive, unfrequented resort called Hope Haven. Unfashionable, fine fishing, beautiful scenery, twelve miles from a railroad, and a stage stops there but once a day.”

“If there is such a place, we’ll go there at once, though why such an enticing spot should be unfrequented is beyond me. Do we leave the Polydores to their fate, or as a town charge?”

“We’ll leave them to Huldah. She offered to keep them here if we’d take the outing. She said she’d either give them free rein or beat their brains out.”

“Then I see where the Polydores land in a juvenile jail, or else I return to defend Huldah for a charge of murder. We’ll take our departure by night–tomorrow night–and like the Arabs, or the Polydore parents, silently steal away.”