Chapter 18

THE CHILDREN GO EXPLORING

One hot day soon after the party Dr. Morton handed his wife a letter from Alice.

Mrs. Morton glanced through it while Olga cleared the table for the dessert.

"Poor Alice--she is worried because Mr. Harding can't find either letters or papers to prove her claim to the bank stock. It does seem strange that all the letters from Mr. Gassett to her father should have completely disappeared."

"Well," said Dr. Morton drily, "if you want to know my opinion, I believe that Gassett got hold of them some way and destroyed them."

"It doesn't seem possible he would do anything so dishonest though I don't like the man--he was so very rude the day he came here. Alice wonders if it could be possible there are any of her father's papers hidden away under the roof. You remember almost all of the closets run off under the roof. It is a wonder we don't have rats with them all open that way."

"It would be an unpleasant task to explore. I suppose there's twenty years of dust and cobwebs stored up in those nooks and crannies. There are places where the roof slopes to form the gables where a man could hardly crawl through. I suppose I might hire some boy to go through and see if he can find anything."

Ernest and Chicken Little had been interested listeners to this conversation.

"Say, Father, let me and the boys explore. We could put on some old clothes--it would be loads of fun."

"That might not be a bad idea. You couldn't come to any harm other than a few scratches and splinters. I don't believe you will find anything, but Alice will be satisfied at any rate."

"Can't I go, too?" demanded Chicken Little.

"Oh, dear no," her mother replied, "it would be horribly dirty and cobwebby--no place for little ladies to climb round in."

Jane looked disappointed.

"Why not let the child go, Mother? Put an old dress on her and tie up her hair. She'd enjoy the fun as much as the boys."

"Oh, well, there is that old blue calico in the rag bag you could slip on, I suppose."

"Goody, goody!" Chicken Little didn't wait to hear the subject discussed further lest her mother should change her mind. She started off to don the dress immediately.

Ernest ran over to get Sherm and Carol.

The boys were eager for the hunt.

"You mustn't take matches in there. You might drop one and set the house afire. You can use the little lantern--that will be safe. Be careful you don't come through the plastering--there must be some sort of an open space over the central part of the house though I don't know where there's any way to reach it. It will be stone dark if there is--there are no outside windows."

While the exploring party was trying to decide whether to start in with the front room closet or begin with the one in the maid's room at the back of the house, Katy and Gertie appeared on the scene. They promptly begged to go, too.

"Well, ask your mother and get some old clothes on," Mrs. Morton consented finally after Chicken Little had teased for several minutes.

They were off and back in no time, arrayed in outgrown dresses that gave them the appearance of being all arms and legs.

"Mother said she wished she could come, too. She said it would be almost as much fun as exploring a desert island," reported Katy.

It was finally agreed to try the front room closet first. This closet was a lofty, roomy looking affair for about six feet, then as the roof slanted sharply downward, faded away into darkness. It was floored and ceiled to within three feet of the point where roof and floor met, and it was only by getting down on hands and knees that the children could crawl, through the aperture left unboarded, into the narrow, unused spaces next the eaves.

Sherm and Ernest made the first venture, but their progress was soon cut off short by a partition. So they wriggled back adorned with cobwebs and sneezing from the dust they had stirred up.

"Let's try the closet in Chicken Little's room next--that's one of the biggest."

This time Carol and Katy did the scouting with the same results except that they found an open space between the roof and the uprights and lath and plaster of the partition, which _seemed_ to lead up to some sort of an attic over the main part of the house.

Carol hoisted Katy up on his shoulders to see if she could see anything but she lacked about a foot of reaching the top of the partition. Carol whistled to Ernest to come, but at this moment a voice called up from the foot of the stairs, "Ship ahoy!"

"It's Dick Harding, I do believe!" exclaimed Chicken Little, and she flew down to investigate, closely followed by Gertie.

It was Dick Harding, resplendent in blue overalls and an old cap.

"I met your father down street and he told me what the clan was up to. This is a business I am mightily interested in, so I asked if I might come, too. How do you like my regimentals?"

Mr. Harding surveyed his blue overalls proudly. He followed the little girls upstairs and listened to Ernest's report of their progress.

"Suppose you and I try that. I am taller than Carol and I think I could boost you high enough to get a look round. Got a light?"

They called to Carol and Katy to come out. Carol was quite ready to yield the place of honor.

"Gee, it's hot and stuffy in there!" he groaned, fanning himself with an old shoe he had picked up from the floor of the closet.

"You're so awful fat, Carol. I didn't mind it," said Katy frankly.

"Fat nothing--a shadow would smother in there. Your face looks red where it ain't black, which is pretty much all over," retorted Carol nettled. He didn't enjoy being called fat.

Dick Harding followed Ernest in. There was just about room enough for him to get to his feet. He gave Ernest a lift to his shoulder. This brought the boy's eyes about five inches above the partition. Ernest waved the tiny lantern about distractedly in an effort to pierce the gloom about him.

"Hold the lantern still and just look. Your eyes will grow accustomed to the dimness pretty soon and then you can see if there's anything there."

Ernest obeyed and in a few moments was able to see across to the slanting roof opposite.

"Not a thing but rafters and cobwebs," he reported at last in disgust.

"Shift your lantern and look again carefully--we don't want to miss anything. You don't see any old boxes or piles of papers do you?"

"Nope."

"Nothing that looks like a bundle of old letters? Take the lantern in the other hand and hold it out as far as you can."

"Not a blamed thing but a piece of old board and it's sticking up so there's nothing under it."

"Well, I really didn't suppose there would be. It would be too difficult a place to reach, but I wanted to be sure," returned Dick. "How many more closets are there?"

"Three."

"It's my turn next--and Gertie's!" declared Chicken Little.

"All right, crawl along. Perhaps you won't mind it if I follow, too," Dick replied, smiling.

They took Ernest's room next. Chicken Little slid past the coats and trousers and much accumulated junk which untidy Ernest had piled in on the closet floor. She knocked over a baseball bat in her haste and disappeared in under the eaves so promptly that Gertie felt quite deserted and decided she didn't want to go into that nasty dark place.

It was all Dick could do to follow. In fact he was afraid he was going to stick, the passage was so narrow. His overalls were run through with slivers from the rough boards. Fortunately, only one penetrated his skin.

Chicken Little cheered him on by calling back.

"I've found some newspapers. Hurry up with the lantern."

It was a triangular space made by the gable. Chicken Little couldn't quite stand up and Dick could get no further than his knees. A big pile of dusty newspapers lay on the rafters. They had apparently been shoved carelessly in.

"Let's get them out to the light. I'll back out and you pass them through to me."

Jane did as she was bid, handing out a few at a time but just as she lifted the last layer, gave a squeal.

"There's something alive here!"

Dick started in again.

"Look out, Jane, it might be a house snake, though I didn't know we ever had them here."

"'Tisn't any snake--it's a mouse nest. There are four baby mice--I can feel them. I'm going to put them in my pocket."

The children were so excited over the mice that they left the papers to Dick Harding.

He carried them to the window and ran through them hastily.

"Pshaw, nothing but old newspapers--wartime papers most of them, with long lists of men killed and wounded. Ugh--they certainly are gruesome!"

Dick dropped the pile and turned to have a look at the mice.

"Say," he added a moment later, staring at the minute heap of paper and its tiny occupants which Chicken Little had deposited on a chair, "there's writing on some of those scraps! They aren't all newspapers. Are you sure you found everything there was, Chicken Little?"

Jane wasn't sure, so Sherm took the lantern and went back to look. He found nothing, however, except a few scraps of paper.

In the meantime Dick Harding was running over the newspapers more carefully, taking them one at a time to see if any letters or documents could have been tucked away among them. He straightened up with a sigh of disappointment as he finished.

"Another fond hope blasted," he complained. "I never loved a bug or flower but what 'twas first to fade away."

The children looked at him in astonishment.

"No," he replied to their look of inquiry. "I'm not crazed with the heat, but I was just dead sure we should find something. Let's tackle the other two closets."

The exploring party moved on and made a thorough search of the other closet ends, and the open spaces under the eaves, but without result. One empty and extremely dirty pasteboard box was all they got for their pains.

"There's no other place about the house where anything could be hidden, is there?" asked Dick Harding of Mrs. Morton.

"I have never heard of any secret cupboards, Mr. Harding. The people who lived here before we bought the house might have found letters and destroyed them. But Alice said her mother, at the time of her father's death, searched every place where business letters or papers could possibly be concealed."

"Well, I suppose I'll have to give up," said Dick. "The worst of it is I'm afraid Alice can't hold the stock without further evidence."

"I am glad Alice has her Uncle Joseph to protect her," said Mrs. Morton. "But what black faces and hands, children! Go wash up immediately."

The party did seem a little the worse for wear. It was a warm day and trickles of perspiration had mingled with the dust till their faces resembled a cross-roads map.

Dick Harding looked from one grimy face to another with a twinkle in his eye.

"Suppose we all clean up and go downtown to get some ice-cream. I'll stand treat. Won't you come, too, Mrs. Morton?"

"I don't think I care to risk the walk in the sun. I fear it will take some time to make these children presentable."

Dick pulled out his watch. "Perhaps they might meet me at the ice-cream parlor at four. I certainly need to freshen up myself."

It was so arranged and there was a prompt scattering homeward to get ready. An hour later, shiny from much soap and water, and very stiff and starchy as to waists and dresses, they flocked around Dick Harding.

"I can eat two saucers of cream and three pieces of cake and I'm sure I can depend upon you boys to do as well. We'll limit the ladies to one saucer and two pieces of cake because they are supposed to be delicate. Is that right, Chicken Little?"

Dick joked and the children stowed away the dainties industriously. In the midst of the feast an idea struck Gertie.

"What became of the baby mice?"

Sure enough what had become of them? Nobody seemed to know.

"I guess we just left them up on the chair in the bedroom," said Ernest.

"They weren't big enough to run away," observed Carol.

"Oh, dear, I hope nothing will hurt them--they were so cunning," mourned Chicken Little. She hunted them up the minute she got home. The tiny heap of paper was where they had left it, but the mice were gone. Olga and Mrs. Morton denied having seen them.

Ernest and Jane hunted the room over, but the mice had disappeared.

When they fed Pete that night he seemed droopy and turned up his nose at his best beloved dainties.

"Has Pete been loose today?" asked Dr. Morton.

"Yes, but I don't think he went out of the front room upstairs," replied Mrs. Morton.

"Well, I'd be willing to wager Pete knows what became of the baby mice," laughed the doctor. "Trim him up with flowers, Chicken, and he'll make a nice green grave for the dear departed."

A few days later Jane and Gertie were playing paper dolls in one of the window recesses upstairs and remembering the mice decided to have a doll funeral. But a funeral required mourning and they couldn't find a scrap of black paper. While they were rummaging, they came across their find of old newspapers, which Mrs. Morton had stacked up on a table till Dr. Morton found time to look them over. Jane noticed that some of them had heavy black bands across the front page.

"Say, they'd be fine--we could paste them close together on white paper for the dresses and veils."

She started off to ask her mother's permission to use them.

"Why, I don't know whether your father wants any of them or not. He spoke as if he would like to save a few--you might take the ones the mice nibbled."

There were four or five of these and the children were soon busily engaged in cutting out the black strips. When Gertie unfolded the last one two letters fell out.

Jane pounced upon them with a shriek. "Oh, Gertie, do you s'pose?"

"Maybe they are--let's take them to your mother quick!"

The little girls pattered downstairs to Mrs. Morton, thrilled with excitement.

"Don't get so excited, children. Little ladies should learn to compose themselves."

She slowly put on her spectacles and deliberately examined the envelopes.

"They do seem to be addressed to Mr. Fletcher, but there isn't one chance in a hundred they are of any value. However, I'll turn them over to Mr. Harding."

"Oh, Mother, see what's inside, quick!"

"My dear little daughter, I have no right to read other people's letters. Mr. Harding is Alice's lawyer and it is his place not mine to examine these. You little girls may get your hats and take them down to Mr. Harding's office. I think I can trust you not to drop them."

The children surprised Dick Harding by rushing in waving the letters breathlessly. They had run about half the way in their zeal. He was a more satisfactory listener than Mrs. Morton--he was excited, too. It took him about four minutes to run through the letters, Chicken Little and Gertie explaining how they came to find them while he read.

The first letter he dropped impatiently, muttering, "No good." After a glance at the signature of the second he said "Ah" softly.

When he had finished it, he jumped up and seizing Chicken Little with one hand and Gertie by the other, spun them round the room so fast he made their heads swim.

"Blessed be paper dolls and little girls! One sentence in that letter will do the work or I am no lawyer! Go home and look through the other papers and see if you can find any more, though I don't believe we need them."