CHAPTER IX

OFF FOR ROCKLEDGE

Trade at the peep-show was brisk until mid-afternoon. Bobby and Fred had been able to get only a bite of luncheon from the store "in their fists," and had compared notes but seldom.

Bobby's trouser-pockets were borne down with the weight of pennies. In refusing to make change it soon became very hard along Hurley Street to obtain pennies at all. All the copper money in the town was fast coming the way of the proprietors of the peep-show.

Neither Bobby nor Fred realized this fact--nor what it meant to them--until after the First National and the Old Farmers' Banks had closed their doors for the day. The storekeepers then began running around to borrow copper money, and it was some time before anybody knew what made the scarcity of pennies in the storekeepers' tills!

Meanwhile the financial adventure of Bobby Blake and Fred Martin was prospering.

Bobby suddenly saw the long-armed, white-headed Applethwaite Plunkit standing in the crowd eying him while he delivered his talk. The crowd before the rostrum laughed as usual, and those who had been in to see the show urged their friends to venture likewise.

The white-headed farm boy from Plunkit's Creek was pushing forward to enter the show. Bobby had hoped he would not venture, but when Ap approached, Bobby made up his mind quickly.

"You can't go in, Applethwaite," he said, decidedly. "We don't want you."

"Why not!"

"Never mind why not," said Bobby, firmly, looking straight into the flushed face of the boy who had treated him and Fred so meanly just a week before. "But you can't go in."

"Ain't my cent just as good as anybody else's?"

"Not here it isn't," declared Bobby, who knew very well that if the white head appeared in the tent where the red head was, there would be an explosion! Besides, he did not trust Ap. He believed Ap would do all he could to break up the show after he had seen it.

Ap began to bluster and threaten, but there were too many grown folk around for him to dare attack Bobby. "You jes' wait," he whispered. "I'll fix you some time."

Bobby did not know what Applethwaite might try to do, and when he saw him a little later with a group of boys who were pretty rough looking, he was worried. These boys stood across the street from the show and Bobby was afraid they were waiting for some slack time, when there were no grown folk about, to "rush" the tent.

He called Fred out and told him what he feared and Fred went through and told the biggest clerk in his father's store. The clerks were interested in the two young showmen, for they had been into the tent and were delighted with what they had seen.

The big fellow promised, therefore, to come running and bring the other clerks to help, if the boys whistled for assistance. This plan quieted Bobby's fears, and he gave his mind to the lecture, and to coaxing the audience into the show, one by one.

Suddenly the young lecturer saw Mr. Priestly in the crowd. He flushed up pretty red when he saw him, for Mr. Priestly was the minister at the church the boys attended, and Bobby thought he was about the finest man in town.

The clergyman was a young man who had made a name for himself in University athletics, and he had the biggest Boys' Club in town. Bobby and Fred were particular friends of the young minister, and for a moment Bobby wondered if Mr. Priestly would approve of the peep-show.

The gentleman's ruddy, smoothly shaven face was a-smile as he listened to Bobby's speech, and his blue eyes twinkled. He was the first to reach the tent entrance when Bobby stepped down from the platform.

"Which wonder am _I_ to see, Bobby?" he asked, as he presented his penny to the youthful showman.

"We--we favor the clergy, Mr. Priestly," said Bobby, hesitatingly, yet with an answering smile. "_You_ shall see two wonders." Then he called in to his partner: "Hey, Fred!"

"Hullo!" returned the red-haired one, coming to the entrance.

"Here's Mr. Priestly," said Bobby, in a low voice. "I want you to show _him_ the strongest man in the world, and the very best man in Clinton!"

"Oh-ho!" cried Mr. Priestly. "_That's_ the way of it, eh?" and he pinched Bobby's cheek as he went into the tent. "I believe I can guess your joke, boys."

"Never mind! nobody else has guessed it," chuckled Fred, going before him. "Stand right there, Mr. Priestly."

The oil lamp was in a bracket screwed to a post in the back of the tent. Just where its light shone best was a narrow red curtain. Fred became preternaturally solemn as he stepped forward and laid his hand upon the cords that manipulated the curtain.

"We will show you, Mr. Priestly," he said, "the Strongest Man in the World--and as Bobby says, the very _best_ man in Clinton!"

He pulled aside the curtain and Mr. Priestly saw his own reflection in a long mirror that had been borrowed from the Martin attic.

"Well, well!" exclaimed the minister, nodding. "And is this all your show?"

"Anybody who is not satisfied with what he _sees_," returned Fred, chuckling, "can have the entrance fee refunded."

At that the clergyman burst into a great laugh. "You boys! you boys! You certainly have them _there_. One must be dissatisfied with himself to ask for the return of his penny. I--I am not altogether sure that this doesn't smack of a swindle; but it certainly _is_ smart. You should show your own face in the glass, Fred, when the younger victims come in to see the Smartest Boy in the World."

"No, sir," grinned Fred. "Every fellow that comes in is better satisfied to see his own reflection, I reckon."

The clergyman went out, laughing. That the joke had kept up all day was the wonder of it. The audience became smaller as supper time drew near.

Then came Mr. Harrod, who kept the variety and ice cream store down the street. "Say," he said to Bobby. "You boys must have cornered all the pennies in town. I've got to have some. I'll give you a dollar bill for ninety cents, Bobby Blake."

"All right, sir," cried Bobby. "Is a dollar's worth all you want? I'll send them down to your store in a few moments."

"Send two dollars' worth," returned Mr. Harrod, hurrying away.

"Hi, Betty Martin!" shouted Bobby to Fred's "next oldest sister," who was on the fringe of the crowd. "Come here and count pennies--do, please!"

"Hi Betty Martin" stuck out her tongue promptly and did not stir. "Call me by my proper name, Mister Smartie!" she said, sharply.

"Oh, me, oh, my! I beg your pardon," laughed Bobby. "Miss Elizabeth Martin, will you please count some of these pennies and roll them into papers--right there on the box, please?"

"All right," said Betty, who did not like to be called after any Mother Goose character.

She was a bright girl and she counted the pennies correctly into piles of thirty, rolled them up that way, carried six of the rolls down to the variety store, and brought back a two dollar bill.

Then Mr. Martin needed copper money, and Betty counted a dollars' worth out for him--at the rate of exchange established by Mr. Harrod.

"Wow, Bobby!" murmured Fred, at the door of the tent. "We get them coming and going, don't we? Ten cents on the dollar, too! We're getting rich."

But the peep-show had had its run. Not many could be coaxed in after supper, and the boys were tired, too. They had not eaten a proper meal all day, and Mr. Martin advised them to shut up shop.

They took down the signs, put out the lamp, and went into the back room of the grocery to count the receipts. The amount was far beyond their expectations, and naturally Bobby and Fred were delighted.

"It takes you to think up the bright ideas, chum," said Fred, admiringly.

But Bobby looked thoughtful. "I wonder if Mr. Priestly thought it was just right?" he murmured. "I suppose we _did_ fool them all," and he sighed.

"Shucks!" exclaimed Fred. "They didn't have to be fooled if they didn't want to. And even Prissy Craven didn't come back for her penny, did she?"

Only a few days more before they would start for Rockledge School. The chums bought the bats and mask and other things they craved. They packed their trunks two or three times over. They carried the books they liked best, and many treasures for which their troubled mothers could see no reason whatsoever.

"Now, this can of pins and nails, Bobby," urged Mrs. Blake, helplessly. "What _possible_ good can they be? I do not see how I am to get your clothing into the trunk."

"Aw--Mother!" gasped Bobby. "Don't throw them away. A fellow never can tell when he'll want a pin--or a nail--or a button--or something. Never mind putting in so many stockings. Leave the can--do, Mother!"

All the Clinton boys who had been the chums' particular associates at school were greatly interested in what they termed Bobby's and Fred's "luck." They all had to be told, over and over again, of the expected wonders of Rockledge School.

"And I bet you and Fred turn things upside down there," said "Scat" Monroe, with an envious sigh.

"I bet we don't!" responded Bobby, quickly. "Dr. Raymond is awfully strict, they say. We'll have to walk a chalk line."

"Well, if Fred Martin ever walks a chalk-line," scoffed another of the fellows, "it'll be a mighty crooked one!"

However, the night before the boys were to start for Rockledge, the good natured groceryman gave his son a long talk, and Fred went to bed feeling pretty solemn. For the first time, he began to realize that he was not going away to boarding school merely for the fun there was to be got out of it!

"You haven't made much of a mark for yourself in the Clinton Public School, Frederick," said Mr. Martin, sternly; "but I do not believe that is because you are either a dunce, or stubborn. You have been frittering away your opportunities.

"I am tired of seeing your name at the foot of your class roster--or near it. Inattention is your failing. You are going where they make boys attend. And if you do not work, and keep up with your mates, you will be sent home. Do you understand that?

"And if you are sent home, you shall be sent to another school where you'll have very little fun at all for the rest of your life. I mean the School of Hard Experience!

"You shall be set to work in my store half of each day, like a poor man's son, and go to the public school the other half day, and your name will be on the truant officer's list."

"And I guess he meant it," said Fred to Bobby the next morning. "Father doesn't often scold, but he was mad at me for being so low in my classes last term."

The boys started for the railroad station with Mr. Blake, gayly enough, however. When Bobby had parted from his mother, he had to swallow a big lump in his throat, and he hugged her around the neck _hard_ for a minute. But he had forced back the tears by the time they got to the Martins' house.

There the other children were all out on the front porch to bid their brother and Bobby good-by. "Hi Betty Martin" threw an old shoe after them.

"For luck," she said. "That's what they do when folks get married."

"But Bobby and I aren't getting married," complained Fred, rubbing his right ear where the shoe had landed. "And, anyway, no girl's got a right to shut her eyes tight and throw an old boot like _that_. How'd you know you wouldn't do some damage?"

"That's the luck of it," chuckled Bobby. "It's lucky she didn't hurt you worse."