Chapter 24

ANDY'S AUNT

Andy went straight to an old dwelling house in a retired part of the town.

He had been there twice before when younger, and remembered that an old couple named Norman lived there.

The Normans were distant relatives of his Aunt Lavinia. She had other acquaintances in Tipton, but, Andy recalled, usually made the Norman home her headquarters, paying them some small sum for board and lodging whenever she visited them.

The old ramshackly house stood far back from the street. Its front fence was broken down, and Andy crossed the lot from the side.

There was no light downstairs except in the kitchen at the rear. An upstairs middle room, however, seemed occupied, for chinks of light came through the half-closed outside shutters.

The slats of these were turned upwards, to catch light in the daytime and shut out a view from street and garden.

Just beneath this window was a door and steps. The latter had nearly rotted away, and the door was nailed up and out of use. A framework formed of hoop poles rose up from the steps. Once green vines had enclosed these. At present, however, only a few dead strands clung to the original framework.

The half-open top of this framework was not three feet under the window sill of the lighted room. Across it lay some fishing poles and nets, also some old garden tools, it apparently being used as a catch-all for useless truck about the place for a long time past.

"I'll assume that aunt is in that room," thought Andy, halting near the hoop-pole framework and looking up at the window. "She always has the middle room here. Yes, she is there, and a man with her. Maybe I'd better skirmish around a little, instead of running the risk of being nabbed before I can have an explanation. I want a little private talk with aunt, alone, if I can get it."

Andy bent his ear. He caught no words, only the sound of human voices. His aunt's high, strained tones were unmistakable.

He seized one of the supporting poles of the framework. It rattled and quivered, yet he believed it would hold him if he proceeded carefully. It was no trick at all for Andy to make a quiet and rapid ascent. He perched across the top of the framework and raised his head.

Andy saw his aunt closing up a packed satchel on a chair. She had her bonnet on, as if just going out.

At the hallway door was a man taking his leave.

He was excessively polite, hat in hand, and making a most respectful bow.

"Well!" commented Andy, fairly aghast.

Andy recognized the man instantly. He was the individual he had seen in the hay barn. He was Daley's companion, the man who had "doctored" the Benares Brothers' trapeze in the circus at Centreville.

In a flash Andy fancied he understood the situation, the motive of this fellow's presence here and now.

"Jim Tapp found out my aunt," theorized Andy rapidly. "He, this fellow, and the mail thieves are all in a crowd. Murdock here has probably come to tell my aunt that he knows where I am. She may have made a bargain to pay him well if he will kidnap me, or in any way get me back to Fairview. It's a fine fix to be in!" concluded Andy bitterly.

He was for getting back to the ground, going to the circus, turning in the contract, giving up all hopes of show life, and getting to a safe distance before his enemies could capture him.

"No, I won't!" resolved Andy a second later, acting on a new impulse. "At least, not right away. I'll turn one trick on my enemies, first. The circus detectives want this scoundrel, Murdock, bad. I'll get down, follow him, and have him arrested the first policeman we meet."

Andy, bent on a descent, paused. Murdock was speaking.

"Are you going back home to Fairview to-night, Miss Talcott?" he asked.

"Yes," snapped Andy's aunt in her usual quick; sharp way.

"Then I will call on you at Fairview."

"If you want to," was the ungracious answer.

"No, no," softly declared the oily rogue--"if you want me to, madam. This is your business, Miss Talcott."

"Oh," observed Andy's aunt snappily, "you're working for nothing, I suppose?"

"I'm not," frankly answered Murdock. "I'm working for a fee. What I get, though, is so small compared with what you may get--"

"Very well," interrupted Miss Lavinia, "when you have this matter in a clear, definite shape, I shall be ready to listen to you."

"Good evening, then, madam."

"Evening," retorted Andy's aunt with a curt nod, going on with her packing.

Andy rested his hand against the house to get a purchase and leap to the ground.

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed abruptly.

One of the hoop poles bent nearly in two, throwing him off his balance.

Andy caught at the window sill, and his body slipped to one side. He tried to drop, found himself impeded, and held himself steady, looking down.

His rustling about had made something of a racket. As he was seeking to determine what had caught and held the side of his coat, one of the wooden shutters was thrust violently open.

Its edge struck his head. He dodged aside. Then he sat staring, the full light from within the room showing him to its occupant as plain as day.

"Um!" commented Miss Lavinia, simply. "Some one was there. And you, Andy Wildwood!"

Andy was taken aback. His aunt was not particularly startled. She rather looked stern and suspicious. She did not grab him, or call for help, or seem to care whether he came in or stayed out.

"Yes, it's me, Aunt," said Andy, a good deal crestfallen and embarrassed. "You see, I wanted to see you--"

"Then why didn't you come like a civilized being! The house has doors. Tell me, do you intend to come in?"

"If you please, aunt."

"You may do so."

"Thank you," fluttered Andy.

He now discovered that his coat had caught in half-a-dozen fish hooks attached to an eel line all tangled up in the framework. It took him fully two minutes to get free. Andy climbed over the window sill and stood fumbling his cap. His old awe of his dictatorial relative was as strong as ever within him.

"Can't you sit down?" she demanded, sinking to a chair herself and facing him steadily. "How long have you been outside there?"

"Only a few minutes," answered Andy.

"Did you see anybody in this room beside myself?"

"Yes, ma'am--a man."

"And eavesdropping, I suppose?" insinuated Miss Lavinia.

"I heard him say 'good night,'"

"Um!" commented Miss Lavinia. That closed the subject for the present. She had always known Andy to be a truthful boy, and his reply seemed to satisfy her and relieve her mind.

Andy wondered what he had better say first. The fixed, set stare of his stern, uncompromising relative made him nervous.

"See here, aunt," he blurted out at last, "I've never seemed to do anything right I did for you, and you don't care a snap for me. I don't see why you keep hounding me down and wanting me back home."

"I don't."

"Eh?" ejaculated Andy.

"No, I don't," declared Miss Lavinia.

"You don't want me back at Fairview?"

"I said so, didn't I?" snapped Miss Lavinia.

"Then--then--"

"See here, Andy Wildwood," interrupted his aunt in a tone of severity, "you have been a disobedient, ungrateful boy. You deserve to be locked up. I've tried to have you. I am so satisfied, however, on reflection, that you will have a bad ending anyhow, that I have decided to wash my hands of you."

"Glory!" uttered Andy to himself, in a vast thrill of delight.

"Have you joined the circus?" continued Miss Lavinia.

"They won't have me--"

"Why not?"

"Without your sanction. They want you to sign away any claims as to damages, if I get hurt. I knew you wouldn't do that."

"You are mistaken, Andy Wildwood--I will do it."

"It's too easy to be true!" breathed Andy, in wild amazement. "You--you will sign such a paper?" he stammered.

"Didn't I say so? Let me understand. You wish to cut loose from home and friends for good, do you? You don't want to ever return to Fairview?"

"Not till I'm rich and famous," answered Andy.

"H'm! Very well. What have I got to sign?"

"That's it," said Andy, with eager hand drawing a written sheet from his pocket.

Miss Lavinia opened the document, read it through, went to the table, took a fountain pen from her reticule, signed the paper, returned it to Andy.

"I'm dreaming! it's a plot of some kind!" murmured Andy, lost in wonderment.

Miss Lavinia took out her pocket-book.

"Andy Wildwood," she said, her harsh features as mask-like as ever, "here are ten dollars. It is the last cent I will ever give you. When you leave here you sever all ties between us. I have only one stipulation to make. You will not disgrace me by having anything to do with anybody in Fairview."

"That's all right," said Andy. "I'll agree, except that I've got to write to Mr. Graham on business."

"What business?"

Andy explained in full. If he had been more versed in the wiles of the world, less astonished at his aunt's strange compliance with his dearest wishes, he would have noticed a keen suspiciousness in the glance with which she continually regarded him.

"I must insist that you do not write even to Graham," she remarked. "About what you owe--I will pay that. Yes, I'll start you out clear. You won't write to Graham?"

"No," said Andy slowly--"if you insist on it."

"I will settle the five dollars you owe Graham," promised Miss Lavinia, "I will pay the bill of damages at the school and to Farmer Dale, and send you the receipts. Does that suit you?"

"Why--yes," answered Andy in a bewildered tone.

"You take that pen and a sheet of paper. Write an order on Graham to deliver to me those old family mementos you pawned to him. Also, give me your address for a few weeks ahead."

Andy did this.

"And now, good night and good-bye," spoke his aunt. "I hope you'll some day see the error of your ways, Andy Wildwood."

Miss Lavinia did not offer to shake hands with Andy. She nodded towards the door to dismiss him, as she would have done to a perfect stranger.

"Good-bye, Aunt Lavinia," said Andy. "You're thinking a little hard of me. But you've done a big thing in signing that paper, and I'll never do anything to make you ashamed of me. Ginger! am I afoot or horseback? Permission to join the show! Ten dollars! Oh my head is just whirling!"

These last sentences Andy tittered in a vivid gasp as he went down the stairs and once more reached the outer air.

He hurried from the vicinity, fearful that his aunt might change her mind and call him back.

"I don't understand it," he mused. "I can't figure it out. That paper fixes it so she can't stop me joining the show, nor force me back to Fairview. Then what is she having dealings with Murdock for?"

Andy could not solve this puzzle, and did not try to do so any further.

Within an hour the two precious documents were "signed, sealed and delivered," and Andy Wildwood entered on his career as a salaried circus acrobat.