CHAPTER IV
GILL MACE
About the middle of the afternoon Frank strolled down to the village. Hehad been worked up a good deal all morning, and when dinner time came hewas made aware that his aunt was determined to treat him as a kind ofculprit.
The cross-grained old maid did not speak to him during the entire meal. Shesat prim and erect, barely glanced at him, and as Frank arose from thetable, half choked with the unwelcome food he had eaten, he resolved tospeak his mind.
"I'd like to say a word or two, Aunt Tib," he began.
"Say it," snapped his ungracious relative sharply.
"About this monstrous charge made against me by Mr. Mace," continued Frank.
"It is indeed a terrible charge," remarked Miss Brown, with a chilling,awesome groan.
"Of course it isn't true, and of course you can't believe it," went onFrank. "I am sure that a day or two will change things that look so blackfor me now. All that I am worrying about is that this affair may get tofather and mother. It would simply worry them both to death, and it mustn'tbe. I hope you wouldn't be so cruel, so wicked, as to add to theirtroubles."
"I shall not write to them until you have confessed."
"Confessed!" cried Frank hotly. "There is nothing to confess. Don't I tellyou that I never saw old man Mace's bracelet? Aunt Tib, I am ashamed ofyou. I tell you, I'm holding in a good deal. If I thought you believed thatman's story I'd leave the house for good."
"You mustn't do that, Frank," she said quickly. "We must bear our crossespatiently."
"It's no use; I'm just fighting mad," declared Frank to himself as he leftthe house. "I just hope Mace and Roseberry will do something to bringaffairs to a focus. If this thing gets around the village, it will be anice, pleasant thing for me, won't it, now? I've half a mind to make abreak and get out of it all."
Frank was in a decidedly disturbed state of mind. From being angry he gotdejected, and for some time he allowed his thoughts to wander unrestrained.He actually envied Ned Foreman and his wandering career. If it had not beenfor his loyalty to his parents he would have hunted up the grinding wagonto ask the man who had relieved Ned to give him a job.
It would not have been so hard for Frank if he had had any close chum towhom he could have confided his troubles. But Miss Brown had spoiled allthat. She kept the garden like a parlor, and scared away what fewacquaintances Frank had with her severe looks and manner. The Jordans hadlived at Tipton for only a year. The greater part of that time Frank hadbeen absent at a boarding-school in a neighboring town. The lads with whomhe had formerly associated in Tipton were away at various academies. Frankdid not know the town schoolboys very well.
He went downtown and strolled about for a time. Defiantly he walked calmlypast Mace's jewelry store, and even paused and looked through its frontplate-glass show window. He passed the usual hangout of Judge Roseberry,and did not hasten his steps a bit when he saw that the judge, lounging ona bench, noticed him.
Frank fancied that after he had passed the tavern the judge said somethingto some of his fellow hangers on, and that they glanced after him with somecuriosity. A little farther on two little schoolboys paused in their walk,stared hard at him and then scooted away, saying something about a"burglary."
"Mace is bluffing, and so is the judge," determined Frank. "They have noevidence against me, and they don't dare to arrest me. If they spread theirfalse stories, all the same, they shall suffer for it."
Frank felt pretty lonesome and gloomy as he passed the schoolhouse. Theboys were rushing out, free from the tasks of the day. It might have beenimagination, but Frank fancied that one or two of them greeted him with acool nod and hurried on. As he politely lifted his cap to a bevy of girls,he imagined that they were rather constrained in their return greeting andlooked at him queerly.
Beyond the schoolhouse was Bolter's Hill, a famous place for coasting inthe winter time. Just now it had a new power of attraction for theschoolboys. An old hermit-like fellow named Clay Dobbins had lived foryears at the other side of the hill. He owned a little patch of ground anda dilapidated house. His wife had died recently, and all the village knewof his two chronic complaints.
The first was that "Sairey had died leaving a sight less money than he hadexpected," and old Dobbins had wondered if the lawyers or the speculatorshad got it.
The second was that the old man had got nervous and lonely living in theisolated spot. So he had rented a hut the other side of Bolter's Hill, nearthe schoolhouse. He planned to have his house moved there, and intendedstarting a little candy and notion store.
There had never been much house-moving in Tipton, and nobody in the villagewas equipped to undertake even the simple task of conveying the Dobbinsdwelling uphill and then down again. A house-moving firm from Pentonville,however, had engaged to perform the work. They had jacked up the house onscrews, chained it securely to a log frame, and, setting a portablewindlass at the top of the hill, operated this by horse power.
An immense rope cable, thick as a man's arm, ran to a pulley under thehouse. It was a novelty to the school youngsters to watch the horse goround and round the windlass, and to see the house come up the hill a slowinch at a time.
Work on the moving had been suspended for the day, but the boys hung aroundthe spot. They raced through the house, clambered over the moving frame,and knocked with the workmen's mallets on the rollers to make the hollowecho that was new to them and sounded like music.
The house movers had set the windlass locked, and the strain on the ropebrought it taut. The house was anchored about half way up the hill,straining at the giant cable dangerously and on a sharp tilt.
A little urchin was trying to "walk the tightrope," as he called it, asFrank came up, shaping a willow stick with his pocket knife.
"Say, Frank Jordan," cried the lad, "won't you make me a whistle?"
"Of course I will," replied Frank accommodatingly, and got astride a movingtimber and set at work. Only a few of the large boys were about the spot.Frank noticed that Gill Mace, the nephew of the village jeweler, was amongtheir number.
Frank soon turned out a first-class whistle for the applicant, who wentaway tooting at a happy rate. A second urchin preferred a modest request,and Frank had just completed the second whistle when the boy he had sentaway contented came back sniveling.
"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Frank sympathizingly.
Between sobs the little fellow related his troubles. Gill Mace had forciblytaken the whistle away from him, and when he had got through testing itsmerits had pocketed it and sent its owner away with a cuff on the ear.
"I'll give Gill Mace a piece of my mind, just now," declared Frank, hastilygetting to the ground. The jeweler's nephew was up to just such mean,unmanly tricks all of the time. Frank felt that he deserved a lesson.Besides, at just the present moment he had no great love for the whole Macefamily.
Frank hurried around to the side of the house, to come upon Gill and hiscompanions, who were engaged in leaping across a puddle near a pit in thehillside. He marched right up to the culprit, the little fellow he hadbefriended trailing after him.
"See here, Gill Mace," cried Frank promptly, "can't you find a littlebetter employment of your time than bullying little children?"
Gill flushed up, but put on a braggart air.
"Any of your business?" he demanded blusteringly.
"I'm making it my business--it ought to be the business of any decent,fair-minded fellow," asserted Frank staunchly.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" demanded Gill, doubling up hisfists.
"I'm going to give you just twenty seconds to give that whistle back tothat boy, or I'm going to take it out of your hide," declared Franksteadily.
"Oho! you are, eh?" snorted Gill, swelling up and glaring wickedly atFrank. "Well, you won't get the whistle, for it's there in the mud."
"I've a good mind to make you go after it," began Frank, when Gill, makinga sudden jump, landed up against him, and dealt him a quick,
foul blowbelow the waist.
"I don't care about dirtying my hands with a thief," answered Gill, "but--"
"What's that?" cried Frank, all the pride and anger in his nature coming tothe front.
"I said it," replied Gill, keeping up his doubled fists, but edging away,for the look in the eyes of his adversary warned and cowed him.
"You call me a thief, do you?" demanded Frank.
"Yes; you stole a diamond bracelet from my uncle's store this morning."
"It's a falsehood!" shouted Frank--"a falsehood as foul and dirty as themuck in that pool! That for you!"
Frank's arm shot out like a piston-rod, and into the mud-puddle, head overheels, went Gill Mace with a frightened howl.
The Boys of Bellwood School; Or, Frank Jordan's Triumph Page 4
