CHAPTER XV
JOE OVERHEARS SOMETHING
"Are you the boys who threw the baseball through my kitchen window intomy kettle of apple sauce?" demanded Mrs. Peterkin, as she confronted thetwo culprits.
"I threw it," admitted Joe.
"But we didn't know it went into the apple sauce," added Tom.
"Nor through the window," spoke Joe for want of something better to say."It was a wild throw."
"Humph!" exclaimed the irate lady. "I don't know what kind of a throw itwas but I know _I_ was wild when I saw my kitchen. I never saw such asight in all my born days--never! You come and look at it."
"If--if you please I'd rather not," said Joe quickly. "I'll pay youwhatever damages you say, but I--I----"
"I just want you to see that kitchen!" insisted Mrs. Peterkin. "It'ssurprising how mischievous boys can be when they try."
"But we didn't try," put in Tom. "This was an accident."
"Come and see my kitchen!" repeated Mrs. Peterkin firmly and she seemedcapable of taking them each by an ear and leading them in.
"You--you'd better go," advised Mr. Peterkin gently.
So they went, and truly the sight that met their eyes showed them thatMrs. Peterkin had some excuse for being angry. On the stove there hadbeen cooking a large kettle of sauce made from early apples. The windownear the stove had been left open and through the casement the ball,thrown with all Joe's strength, had flown, landing fairly into themiddle of the soft sauce.
The result may easily be imagined. It splattered all over the floor,half way up on the side walls, and there were even spots of the sauce onthe ceiling. The top of the stove was covered with it, and as the lidswere hot they had burned the sugar to charcoal, while the kitchen wasfilled with smoke and fumes.
"There!" cried Mrs. Peterkin, as she waved her hand at the scene ofruin. "Did you ever see such a kitchen as that? And it was cleanscrubbed only this morning! Did you ever see anything like that? Tellme!"
Joe and Tom were both forced to murmur that they had never beheld such asight before. And they added with equal but unexpressed truth that theyhoped they never would again.
"I'm willing to pay for the damage," said Joe once more, and his handwent toward his pocket. "It was an accident."
"Maybe it was," sniffed Mrs. Peterkin. "I won't say that it wasn't, butthat won't clean my kitchen."
Joe caught at these words.
"I'm willing to help you clean up!" he exclaimed eagerly. "I often helpat home when my mother is sick. Let me do it, and I'll pay for the applesauce I spoiled."
"I'll help," put in Tom eagerly.
"Who is your mother?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, looking at Joe.
"Mrs. Matson," he replied.
"Oh, you're the new family that moved into town?" and there wassomething of a change in the irate lady's manner.
"Yes, we live in the big yellow house near----"
"It's right back of our place, Mrs. Peterkin," put in Tom eagerly.
"Hum! I've been intending to call on your mother," went on Mrs.Peterkin, ignoring Tom. "I always call on all the new arrivals in town,but I've been so busy with my housework and Spring cleaning----"
She paused and gazed about the kitchen. _That_, at least, would needcleaning over again.
"Yes," she resumed, "I always call and invite them to join our Sewingand Dorcas Societies."
"My mother belonged to both!" exclaimed Joe eagerly. "That is inBentville where we lived. I heard her saying she wondered if there was asociety here."
"There is," answered Mrs. Peterkin majestically, "and I think I shallcall soon, and ask her to join. You may tell her I said so," she addedas if it was a great honor.
"I will," answered Joe. "And now if you'll tell me where I can get someold cloths I'll help clean up this muss."
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Peterkin slowly. Clearly her manner hadundergone a great change. "I suppose boys must have their fun," she saidwith something like a sigh. "I know you didn't mean to do it, but myapple sauce is spoiled."
"I'll pay for it," offered Joe eagerly. He was beginning to see a riftin the trouble clouds.
"No," said Mrs. Peterkin, "it's all right. I have plenty more apples."
"Then let us help clean the place?" asked Tom.
"No, indeed!" she exclaimed, with as near a laugh as she ever indulged."I don't want any men folks traipsing around my kitchen. I'll clean itmyself."
"Well, let us black the stove for you," offered Tom.
"That's it, Alvirah," put in Mr. Peterkin quickly. He rather sided withthe boys, and he was glad that the mention of Joe's mother, and thepossibility of Mrs. Peterkin getting a new member for the societies, ofboth of which she was president, had taken her mind off her desire forrevenge. "Let the boys black the stove. You know you always hate thatwork."
"Well, I suppose they could do _that_," she admitted somewhatreluctantly. "But don't splatter it all over, though the land knowsthis kitchen can't be worse."
Behold then, a little later, two of the members of the Silver Star nineindustriously cleaning hardened apple sauce off the Peterkin kitchenstove, and blackening it until it shone brightly.
"I'm glad Sam Morton can't see us," spoke Tom in a whisper.
"Yes; we'd never hear the last of it," agreed Joe.
They finished the work and even Mrs. Peterkin, careful housekeeper thatshe was, admitted that the stove "looked fairly good."
"And be sure and tell your mother that I'm coming to call on her," sheadded, as Joe and Tom were about to leave.
"Yes, ma'am," answered the centre fielder, and then he paused on thethreshold of the kitchen.
"Have you forgotten something?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, who was preparingto give the place a thorough scrubbing.
"We--er--that is----" stammered Joe.
"It's their baseball, I guess," put in Mr. Peterkin. "It is in thekettle of apple sass, Alvirah."
"Oh, yes; so it is," she agreed, and this time she really laughed."Well, you may have it," she added. "I don't want it." With a dipper shefished it up from the bottom of the kettle, put it under the waterfaucet to clean it, and held it out to Joe.
"Thanks," he said as he took it and hurried off with Tom, beforeanything more could be said.
"Whew!" exclaimed Tom, when they were out in the lots again. "That was ahot time while it lasted. And we got out of it mighty lucky, thanks toyour mother. Mrs. Peterkin is great on the society business, and I guessshe thought if she gave it to us too hot your mother wouldn't call onher. Yes, we were lucky all right. Want to practice some more?"
"Not to-day," replied Joe with a smile. "I've had enough. Besides, thisball is all wet and slippery. Anyhow there's lots more time, and I guessthe next day we do it we'll go down to the fairgrounds."
"Yes, there's more room there, and no kettles of apple sauce," agreedTom, with a laugh.
As Tom had an errand to do down town for his father he did not accompanyJoe back to their respective homes.
"I'll see you to-night," he called to his chum, as they parted, "andwe'll arrange for some more practice. I think it's doing you good."
"I know my arm is a bit sore," complained Joe.
"Then you want to take good care of it," said Tom quickly. "All theauthorities in the book say that a pitching arm is too valuable to letanything get the matter with it. Bathe it with witch hazel to-night."
"I will. So long."
As Joe had not many lessons to prepare that night, and as it was stillrather early and he did not want to go home, he decided to take alittle walk out in the country for a short distance. As he trudged alonghe was thinking of many things, but chief of all was his chances forbecoming at least a substitute pitcher on the Silver Stars.
"If I could get in the box, and was sure of going to boarding school, Iwouldn't ask anything else in this world," said Joe to himself. Like allboys he had his ambitions, and he little realized how such ambitionswould change as he became older. But they were sufficient for him now.
Before
he knew it he had covered several miles, for the day was a fineSpring one, just right for walking, and his thoughts, being subject toquick changes, his feet kept pace with them.
As he made a turn in the road he saw, just ahead of him, an old buildingthat had once, so some of the boys had told him, been used as aspring-house for cooling the butter and milk of the farm to which itbelonged. But it had now fallen into disuse, though the spring was thereyet.
The main part of it was covered by the shed, but the water ran out intoa hollowed-out tree trunk where a cocoanut shell hung as a dipper.
"Guess I'll have a drink," mused Joe. "I'm as dry as a fish and that'sfine water." He had once taken some when he and Tom Davis took acountry stroll.
As he was sipping the cool beverage he heard inside the old shed themurmur of voices.
"Hum! Tramps I guess," reasoned Joe to himself. But a moment later heknew it could not be tramps for the words he heard were these:
"And do you think you can get control of the patents?"
"I'm sure of it," was the answer. "He doesn't know about the revertingclause in his contract, and he's working on a big improvement in acorn----"
Then the voice died away, though Joe strained his ears in vain to catchthe other words. Somehow he felt vaguely uneasy.
"Where have I heard that first voice before?" he murmured, racking hisbrains. Then like a flash it came to him. The quick, incisive tones werethose of Mr. Rufus Holdney, of Moorville, to whom he had once gone witha letter from Mr. Matson.
"And if you can get the patents," went on Mr. Holdney, "then it means alarge sum of money."
"For both of us," came the eager answer, and Joe wondered whom the otherman could be.
"You are sure there won't be any slip-up?" asked Mr. Holdney.
"Positively. But come on. We've been here long enough and people mighttalk if they saw us here together. Yet I wanted to have a talk with youin a quiet place, and this was the best one I could think of. I own thisold farm."
"Very well, then I'll be getting back to Moorville. Be sure to keep meinformed how the thing goes."
"I will."
There was a movement inside the shed as if the men were coming out.
"I'd better make myself scarce," thought Joe.
He had just time to drop down behind a screen of bushes when the two mendid emerge. Joe had no need to look to tell who one was, but he wascurious in regard to the other. Cautiously he peered up, and his heartalmost stopped beating as he recognized Mr. Isaac Benjamin, the managerof the Royal Harvester Works where the boy's father was employed.
"There's some crooked work on hand, I'll bet a cookie!" murmured Joe, ashe crouched down again while the two men walked off up the countryroad.