Chapter 8

"COASTING"

The key turned in the lock. Andy's candle had remained lighted. As the door was pushed open Andy saw a big portly man standing behind his aunt.

"Put on your clothes, Andy Wildwood," began Miss Lavinia.

"I've got them on," answered Andy. "What do you want?"

"Ask me that," broke in the man, stepping into view. "Sorry, Andy, but it's me that wants you. You know who I am."

"Yes," nodded Andy, staring hard.

He recognized the speaker as Dan Wagner, the village constable. Instantly the truth flashed over Andy. He turned to his aunt with a pale, stern face.

"Are you going to let this man take me to jail?" he demanded.

"Yes, I am," snapped Miss Lavinia. "You've gone just a little too far this time, Andy Wildwood."

"What have I done that's so bad?" inquired Andy indignantly. "What is the charge against me?"

"That's so, Miss Lavinia," observed the constable with a laugh. "There's got to be a specific charge, as I told you."

"Charge!" sniffed Miss Lavinia scornfully. "I'll make a dozen of them. He's a bad, disobedient boy--"

"When did I ever disobey you?" interrupted Andy, calmly keeping his temper.

"Oh, you! He's got himself expelled from school."

"That's no crime, 'cordin' to the statoots," declared the constable.

"I don't care!" cried the angry spinster. "My duty is to keep this boy from going to ruin. You do yours. I explained it all to the judge. He said that if I, as his guardian, swore Andy was an incorrigible, unmanageable boy, he would send him to the parental school at Byron till he was reformed."

Andy grew white to the lips. He fixed such a glance on his aunt that she quailed.

"Shame on you!" he burst forth. "You my guardian! What did you ever guard for me, except too little clothes and victuals? I'm never out of the house after dark. I never refuse to do your hardest work. I even scrub for you. Well, I won't any longer. I have made up my mind to go away."

"You hear that? you hear that?" cried Miss Lavinia. "He's going to run away from home!"

"Home!" retorted Andy scornfully. "A fine home this has been for me--snapped at, found fault with, treated like a charity pauper. Do your duty, Mr. Wagner. But I warn you that no law can send me to the reform school. This woman is not my legal guardian. She is not rightfully even a relative. I have friends in Fairview, I tell you, and they won't see me wronged. I wonder what my poor dead father would say to you for all this?"

Miss Lavinia gave a shriek. She fell into a chair and kicked her heels on the floor and went into hysterics.

The constable looked in a friendly way at Andy. He liked the lad's pluck and independence. He recalled, too, how Andy had once led him to a quiet haystack, where he had slept himself sober instead of risking his position and making a public show of himself on the streets of Fairview.

"See here, Miss Lavinia," he spoke, "I don't fancy treating Andy like a criminal. If I take him with me now I'll have to lock him up with two chicken thieves and a tramp. They're no good company for a homebred boy."

"He deserves a lesson," declared Miss Lavinia. "He shall have it, too!"

"Let him stay here till morning, then I'll come after him."

"He won't be here. Didn't you hear him say he was going to run away from home?"

"Haven't you got some safe place I can lock him up in?" suggested Wagner. "I've got to make you safe and sound, you know," observed the officer quite apologetically to Andy.

"Yes, there is," reported Miss Lavinia after brief thought. "You wait a minute."

She went away and returned with a bunch of keys. The constable beckoned to Andy to follow her, and he closed in behind.

A steep, narrow staircase led to an attic room at the extreme rear of the house. This, as Andy knew, was his aunt's strong room.

It had a heavy door secured by a padlock, and only one window. As Miss Lavinia unlocked the door and the candle illuminated the interior of the apartment, the constable observed grimly:

"I reckon this will keep him safe and sound."

Andy said nothing. He had made up his mind what he would do, and considered further talk useless.

The apartment was littered up with chests, barrels and old furniture. In one corner was a pile of carpets. Andy walked silently over to these, threw himself down, and found himself in darkness as the door was again stoutly padlocked on the outside.

"If anybody cared for me here it might be different," he observed. "As they don't, I must make friends for myself."

In about half an hour Andy went to the window, It was a small one-pane sash. Looking out, he could trace the reflection from a light in his aunt's room on the shrubbery.

Finally this light was extinguished. Andy waited a full hour. He heard the town bell strike twelve.

The lad took out his pocket knife, opened its big blade, and in a few minutes had pried off the strip lining the sash. He removed the pane and set it noiselessly on the floor.

As he stuck his head out through the aperture Andy looked calculating and serious.

It was fully thirty feet to the ground, and no friendly projection offered help in a descent.

It was furthermore a question if he could even squeeze through the window space.

Andy had nothing to make a rope of. The old pieces of carpet could not be utilized in any way. If he could force his body through the window head first, it was a dive to go feet first on a dangerous drop.

Andy investigated the aperture, experimented, took in the situation in all its various phases. Finally he decided what he would do.

He had unearthed a long ironing board from a corner of the room. He pulled a heavy dresser up to the window, and opened one of its drawers a few inches.

By slanting the ironing board, he managed to get its broad end out through the window. Then he dropped it flat, with its narrow end held firmly under the projecting drawer.

Andy got flat on the board, squirmed along it, and just managed to squeeze through the window space.

At the end of five minutes he found himself extended outside on the board. A touch might throw it out of position and drop him like a shot. Very carefully he arose to his feet and backed against the clapboards of the house.

Andy felt sideways and up over his head. He soon located what he knew to be there--two lightning rod staples. The rod itself had rusted away. The staples had been used to hold up a vine. This drew bugs, Miss Lavinia declared, and had been torn down.

Andy hooked his finger around one of the staples. He got one foot on the window sill clear of the board. The other foot he lifted in the air.

Stooping and getting a hold on the side of the ironing board, Andy gently slid it out from its holding place and upright.

He brought it and himself erect. Moving up his hand, he transferred its grasp to the second iron staple higher up the side of the house.

Now Andy rested the board on his toes. He clasped it like a shield against his body, its broad end nearest his face.

Beyond its edge he took a keen glance. The moon shone brightly. The nearest object it showed was a high, broad-branched thorn apple tree.

It stood about twelve feet from the house, and its top was perhaps as far below his foothold.

"It's my only show," said Andy. "I've got to coast it, or get all torn up."

He let go his hold of the staple. Instantly he had a hand firmly grasping either side of the ironing board Andy dropped to a past-centre slant.

Giving his feet a prodigious push against the window sill, he shot forward and downward.

For an instant Andy sailed through the air. He feared he might dive short of the tree. He hoped he would land flat.

The latter by luck or his own precision he did. The board struck the tree top.

There was a sliding swish, a vast cracking of branches.

His weight dropped one end of the ironing board. It landed against a big branch, and Andy found himself safely anchored in the tree top.