Читать книгу Lefty Leighton - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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Lefty Leighton pushed his coffee cup aside, rose from his chair and escaped to the porch. But even in that cool, quiet retreat he could hear his uncle’s querulous voice trailing out through the open living room windows, the screen door—everywhere.

“Hmph!” came the voice. “You can’t tell me but what it was all cut and dried and everything. Mrs. Cole acted like she was mighty suspicious. . . .”

The boy heard his aunt push her chair from the dining table. “Pshaw, Charles!” said she, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “How on earth could you tell that Mrs. Cole was acting as if she were suspicious; how could you determine a thing like that when you just talked with her over the phone?”

“Do you think I’m such a fool that I couldn’t hear how shaky her voice was?” returned Mr. Hulbert, contemptuously. “I guessed right away that something was in the wind when she said that that young scoundrel son of hers . . .”

“Chilton,” Mrs. Hulbert interpolated patiently.

The irate man ignored the rebuke and rose from his chair also. “It’s enough that she said his bed wasn’t touched last night and that their cook saw him come out of his father’s room, run down the stairs and out of the front door,” said he, tersely.

“And did you say Mr. and Mrs. Cole were in the city last night?” asked Mrs. Hulbert, wearily.

“That’s what, and I’ll wager that the young scoundrel wasn’t snooping in his father’s room for nothing. Just as I said it was all cut and . . .”

“Still I cannot see what that has to do with our Kenneth.”

There was the rattle of dishes, and Lefty smiled. He knew that his aunt was tactfully breaking up a heated discussion by removing the remnants of an unpleasant breakfast into the kitchen. Boylike, the thought of delicious pancakes left untouched by his aunt and himself, took precedence over the unhappy state of affairs that reigned in the Hulbert household that morning. And yet he could not help thinking of the warmth of maternal love that emphasized those two words, “our Kenneth.” A little mist gathered in his eyes and he flung himself into the porch swing hardly knowing whether to cry it out or laugh it out. Certainly, his aunt had championed the cause of his brother, Kenneth.

“But if uncle would only stop harping,” he said aloud. “Ken’s gone and that’s all there is to it. He took his own money—gosh!”

“Kenneth never got in his bed either—the two scoundrels went together!” Mr. Hulbert’s voice droned in upon the boy’s musings. It was like some evil spirit.

“Now he’s at aunt in the kitchen,” said the boy, hopelessly. “He’ll start it right from the beginning—how Mrs. Cole called up at seven o’clock this morning and said she discovered that Chilton hadn’t been in bed at all last night and could Kenneth tell them anything about Chilton—Kenneth and Chilton were pretty good friends—gosh! Aunt will have to jump in the ocean to get away from hearing it.”

“There’s one thing and it isn’t two,” said Mr. Hulbert, “it’s bad enough that Kenneth’s gone, without taking Chilton Cole along. Now we’ll never hear the end of it from Mrs. Cole.”

“That’s absurd,” said Mrs. Hulbert, patiently. “Kenneth’s impulsive, but he wouldn’t be responsible for Chilton Cole; I’m certain of it. They’ve never left Mapletown together.”

“Well, this house wasn’t good enough for Kenneth to stay in evidently,” said Mr. Hulbert, decisively. “He needn’t come back—ever!”

Lefty’s face darkened, but the shadow passed quickly at the sound of a door closing just across the way. He looked up in time to see Fenton Cole, Chilton’s brother, hurry down the steps and across the broad green lawn that spread on either side of the Coles’ pretentious looking home.

“Great doings around here last night, huh, Lef?” said Fenton, as he reached the Hulberts’ narrow little walk.

“GREAT DOINGS AROUND HERE LAST NIGHT—HUH, LEF?” SAID FENTON.

Lefty put his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence and nodded toward the screen door as Fenton was heard coming up on the porch.

“Uncle’s on the rampage,” he said. “Things are bad enough without letting him hear any more. Gosh, I got so tired of hearing him talk about how ungrateful Ken is, I couldn’t eat my pancakes. Neither could aunt. I bet I didn’t have more than a mouthful of coffee, too.”

“Gee, it’s too bad,” said Fenton, sympathetically. “Still, things aren’t much better over at my house. But then, parents—I mean a feller’s mother and father aren’t likely to be so hard about things of this kind—not like an aunt and uncle.”

“Aunt’s been as good to Ken and me as any feller’s mother,” said Lefty, loyally. “It’s uncle. He never reasons anything out; he just starts shouting. Right away he’s thinking the worst of things.”

“I know. My father’s hashing it out with my mother now, too. That’s why I skipped out as soon as I could.” Fenton regarded his home with a thoughtful stare.

“Did you have your breakfast? I mean, did you eat everything?” asked Lefty, ruefully.

“Sure, nothing takes away my appetite.”

“My uncle would if he was around.”

“Well, I’m glad he isn’t then. But say, Lef, to get down to brass tacks—do you think Chilton and Kenneth did go off together last night?”

“No!”

“Hmph, that sounds like as if you didn’t think so,” Fenton said, with a chuckle.

“I know so,” said Lefty, emphatically. “I ought to know my own brother.”

“You ought to,” Fenton said, soberly. “I thought I knew my brother too, Lef, but it seems I didn’t.”

Lefty turned in the swing and looked anxiously at his companion. “What do you mean by that, Fen?”

“Well,” said Fenton, with lowered voice, “it seems that something else disappeared in the house last night too—something besides Chilton.”

“Gosh—what?” asked Lefty in a ghostlike whisper.

“Now, don’t ask me that, Lef, because I don’t know. Father just said that Chilton had something with him and he didn’t mean Kenneth.”

“You don’t mean that he . . .”

“All that father would say was that in Chilton’s case one dollar was as bad as a million and that a safety pin was as bad as a diamond.”

“It sounds like a riddle,” said Lefty.

“It isn’t though. Father never tells riddles, Lef, not about serious things anyway. He’s hopping mad at Chilton and he said that if he doesn’t hear from him by tonight, why, he’ll know that this running away business was intentional.”

“For about two years Ken’s been talking that he would like to go to sea as a cabin boy,” said Lefty. “I always knew that some day he’d get the fever bad enough and go. He and I have been working hard for the last three winters to save up money enough to go to camp this summer. Ken took that money away with him—the money that he earned, and that isn’t any crime, is it?”

“I should say not,” Fenton agreed. “But Chilton didn’t have any money to go anywhere with and that’s what I can’t understand. He never said anything about wanting to go away—he’s always been crazy about planes and being an aviator but he knew he was too young to think of it yet.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said Lefty, decisively, “but it’s one of those things that just happen. I know Ken didn’t have anything to do with Chilton going away—I know it. He always said that when he went away he’d go it alone, and he did.”

Lefty left nothing for Fenton to say. His confidence in his twin brother loomed up between the two comrades like a stone wall and the time was to come when it would thrust itself in the path of their friendship.