CHAPTER III.
AN INVOLUNTARY HAY-RIDE.
Louder and louder came the shrieks and cries, and the party, all of themconsiderably alarmed, rushed around to the front of the house toperceive what this new uproar might mean. They beheld a sight that madeMrs. Soopendyke begin to cry out in real earnest.
One of her family had, in a playful mood, removed the stones which heldHamish's hay wagon stationary on the steep grade. As a natural result,it began to slide backward down the hill. But what had thrilled the goodlady with horror, and the others with not a little alarm, was the sightof three other young Soopendykes, including the baby, on the top of theload. It was from them and from Master Courtney Soopendyke, whoperceived too late the mischief he had done by removing the stones, thatthe ear-piercing yells proceeded.
"Oh, save them! Oh, save my bee-yoot-i-ful children!" screamed Mrs.Soopendyke, wringing her hands, as the ponderous wagon, with itsscreaming load of children, began to glide off more and more rapidly.
"Great Scott!" shouted Mr. Dacre. "That deep hole in the creek is at thebottom of the hill!"
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrilled Mrs. Soopendyke, and fainted just in time to fallinto the arms of Hamish, who came running round from the barn.
"Help! Fire! Murder! Send for the fire department!" screamed Mrs. Bijur,with some confusion of ideas.
In the midst of this pandemonium Tom and Jack and their uncle alone keptcool heads. Before the wagon had proceeded very far, the two BungalowBoys were off after it, covering the ground in big leaps. But fast asthey went, the wagon rumbled down the grade--which grew steeper as itneared the creek--just a little faster seemingly--than they did. Itstongue stuck straight out in front like the bowsprit of a vessel. It wasfor this point that both lads were aiming. Tom had a plan in his mind toavert the catastrophe that seemed almost inevitable.
Mustering every ounce of strength in his body, he made a spurt andsucceeded in grasping the projecting tongue. In a second Jack was at hisside.
"Swing her!" gasped out Tom. "It's their only chance."
But to swing over the tongue of a moving wagon when it is moving awayfrom you is a pretty hard task. For a few seconds it looked as if,instead of succeeding in carrying out Tom's suddenly-thought-of plan,both Bungalow Boys were going to be carried off by the wagon.
But a bit of rough ground gave them a foothold, and, exerting everyounce of power, the lads both shoved on the springy pole for all theywere worth. Slowly it swung over, and the wagon altered its course.
"Steer her for that clump of bushes. They'll stop her!" puffed out Tom.
"All right," panted Jack, but as he gasped out the words there came anominous sound:
Crack!
"Wow! The pole's cracking!" yelled Jack.
The next instant the tough wood, which, strong as it seemed, wassun-dried and old, snapped off short in their hands under the unusualstrain.
A cry of alarm broke out from the watchers at the top of the hill asthis occurred. It looked as if nothing could now save the wagon from adive into the creek.
But even as the shout resounded and the boys gave exclamations ofdisgust at their failure, the wagon drove into the mass of brush atalmost the exact point for which they had been aiming. At just thatinstant a big rock had caught and diverted one of the hind wheels, andthis, combined with the swing in the right direction already given thevehicle, saved the day.
With a resounding crashing and crackling, and redoubled yells from theterrified young Soopendykes on the top of the load, the wagon, as itplunged into the brush, hesitated, wavered, and--came to a standstill.But as the wheels ceased to revolve, Hamish's carefully piled load gavea quiver, and, carrying the terrified youngsters with it, slid in amighty pile off the wagon-bed.
Fortunately, the children were on top of the load, and they extricatedthemselves without difficulty. Hardly had they emerged, however, beforea violent convulsion was observed in the toppled off heap, and presentlya hand was seen to emerge and wave helplessly and imploringly.
"Who on earth can that be?" gasped the boys, glancing round to make sureall the group was there. Yes, they were all present and accountedfor,--Mrs. Soopendyke, sobbing hysterically in the midst of her reunitedfamily, the lads' uncle, Mrs. Bijur, Hamish, and several other boarderswho had been aroused by the explosion, and had set off on a run down thehill as the wagon plunged into the brush.
Before they could hasten forward to the rescue of whoever was strugglingin the hay, a bony face, the nose crowned with a pair of immense hornspectacles, emerged. Presently it was joined by a youthful, pug-nosedcountenance.
"Professor Dalhousie Dingle?" cried everybody, in astonishment. "Andthat dratted boy, Douglas Dingle!" echoed Mrs. Bijur.
"Yes, madam," said the professor solemnly, emerging with what dignity hecould, and then, taking his boy by the hand and helping him forth, "Itis Professor Dingle. May I ask if this was intentional?"
"Why, dear land, perfusser, you know----"
"I only know, madam, that while my lad Douglas here and myself weresearching for specimens in the thicket we suddenly found ourselvesoverwhelmed with an avalanche of dried grass--or, as it is commonlycalled--hay. Bah! I am almost suffocated!"
The professor carefully extricated a "fox tail" from his ear and thenperformed the same kind office for his son and heir.
"Pa-pa," piped up the lad, "may I ask a question?"
"Yes, my lad," beamed the professor amiably stepping down from the pileof hay, which Hamish was regarding ruefully.
"Well," spoke up Douglas, "if we had not gotten out from under that hay,would we have been suffocated?"
"Undoubtedly, my boy--undoubtedly," was the rejoinder. "Grosscarelessness, too."
He scowled at the assembled group.
"Would it have hurt, pa-pa?"
"Surely, my boy. Suffocation, so science tells us, is a most painfulform of death."
"Worse than measles, pa-pa?"
"Yes, my child, and----"
"Perfusser," interrupted Mrs. Bijur, with firmness, "I want to know whatyou intend to do about my roof?"
It was the professor's turn to look astonished.
"What roof, madam?" he asked, still brushing hay-seed from hislong-tailed black coat.
"Ther roof of my extension whar you hed thet thar lab-or-at-ory--wharyou was making them messes that was liable to blow up."
"Well, madam?"
"Wall, sir--they done it!"
"They done--did what, madam?"
"Blowed up!" responded Mrs. Bijur, with deadly calm.
"Good heavens, madam--impossible!"
"Not with them Soopendykes around!" was the confident response. "It's mybelief they'd a turned the Garden of Eden inter a pantominium. They----"
But the professor rushed off dragging Douglas by the hand, his long coattails flapping in the air as he sped up the road as fast as his lankylegs would carry him.
"The greatest invention of the age has gone up in smoke!" he yelled, ashe flew along.
Laughing heartily over the comical outcome of events that might haveproved tragic, Mr. Dacre and the boys rendered what aid they could inreplacing the hay load, and then started back for the bungalow. The lastthey saw of the professor he was crawling about on his hands and knees,scooping up fragments of the explosive with a tin teaspoon in one hand,and waving Mrs. Bijur indignantly to one side with the other. Theylittle imagined, as they shook with amusement at the ludicrous picture,under what circumstances they were to meet the professor again, and whata singular part his explosive was destined to play in the not very fardistant future.
The Bungalow Boys in the Great Northwest Page 3
