Part 5

“Of course you did,” said Joe. “But, tell you what, I’d as lief come back, but then, any fellow’d get away, if he had Jim to show him how.”

“Big adventure!” exclaimed another officer.

That was indeed a part of it, and there was no reason, now, why Joe should conceal anything. He went with them to the dormitory and explained about the locks. Then they walked out into the parade-ground, where the empty boxes still lay at the machine shop wall.

“We went over the roof,” said Joe, and every man who heard him tell how they did it agreed with the Superintendent.

“Jim is a genius!” he exclaimed. “Not one boy in a thousand could have planned and carried out that escape.”

“He’s a captain!” added the skipper of the steam tug. “But we’d have caught ’em, if it hadn’t been for that fog.”

“We shall get them all, before long,” said Jim’s friend, the naval officer. “All but Jim. I’m afraid we’ve lost him. I’m sorry. I did want to do something more for that boy.”

The very kindly man in charge of the House of Refuge printing office also remarked that it was a pity Jim should run away, just when he was learning his trade so fast and so well. He could hardly have guessed that Jim was already at a case in another shop, setting type as busily as usual.

Mr. Kirby himself, a grey-haired, silent man, with a queer kind of smile on his face, was working at the press in another room, but Jim was not the only type-setter. At the next case stood Millie, and between them and the door were other ranges of cases, and two of these were journeymen printers. All were seemingly absorbed in their type-sticking when a man in a blue uniform opened the street door and strolled in.

“Where’s Kirby?” he asked.

“In the press room,” said Millie, but her hand slipped, as she spoke, and all the type in her half filled “stick” went rattling down on the floor.

“That’s all pi,” laughed the policeman as he strode on to the press room door.

“Kirby,” he said, “did you hear about the escape of those young fellows, last night, from the House of Refuge?”

“Got out, did they?” asked Mr. Kirby. “I guess it isn’t in the papers.”

“Too soon,” said the officer. “I don’t believe they want it printed, either. It’s no fault of theirs, but they want to catch the boys. Smartest escape----” and then he went on with an account of it which contained as many blunders as Jim was just then making in his type-setting. At the end of it, however, the officer said:

“You see, two of ’em are printers, and one’s a pretty good one. They’re likely to look for work in their own trade, soon as they can get off their prison rig. If they should come to you, now----”

“A boy’d be just hidden away in one of the big printing houses, down town,” said Mr. Kirby. “You couldn’t find him.”

“Yes, we could,” said the officer. “Every man and boy in each one of them is already registered by the place itself and by the trades unions. We could find out just where he came from.”

“Then why don’t you register my office?” asked Mr. Kirby. “You can take down the name of every fellow here, this morning, so that if any new fellow should come you could mark him. Register me.”

“I don’t need to,” said the officer. “Nor your daughter, nor the hands. I’ll remember all of ’em, well enough. If I see a new boy here, any time, I can ask about him.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Kirby, but Millie was picking up her scattered type and the jour’ printers exchanged winks as the policeman walked out.

Those very printers, that morning, had threatened to leave the shop if Mr. Kirby took in a new boy who was not a member of their Printers’ Union.

“Just you listen to me, boys,” Mr. Kirby had said. “There isn’t one of you mean enough----” and he told them the whole story.

He was right. Not one of them was mean enough to give up Jim. Their very hearts went out to a fellow who had been shut up unjustly and who had made so daring an escape. It was not at all, they said, as if he had really deserved to be shut up.

XII

THE STOLEN MONEY

When Rodney Nelson parted from Jim, at Kirby’s printing office, that morning, he walked away with a strange look of energy and determination on his face. What the meaning of it was did not come out until his mother reached home, after her hard day’s work. She was very tired and for once she actually complained and said how hard it was.

“Mother!” instantly burst from Rodney. “That’s it. I guess you won’t have to work so hard, any more----”

“Why Rodney, what do you mean?”

“I’ve been at it, all day, mother. I’ve found people,--found ’em easy,--that’ll let us have things to sell. Don’t you see? You own your store, and you’ve cash to start with, and you don’t pay rent or clerk hire. Your credit’s good and they want to see you about it.”

“Rodney!” she exclaimed. “Of course we can! But what made you think of it?”

“It was Jim,” said Rodney. “I thought if he could find a way out, I could.”

“I won’t go out to work any more----” and Mrs. Nelson almost cried as she and her boy went over the particulars of it and she saw how easy it would be.

There were days and days, after that, during which nothing exciting happened, but in each of which a great deal of work was done. Aunt Betty Bronson, in her farmhouse home, passed them in a state of half nervous expectation. There was a kind of daily disappointment, too, until one broad, bright noon when she met Uncle John, at the door, with a face that was almost blazing.

“Letter from Jim!” she exclaimed. “He’s safe and they can’t catch him.”

“Stop right there, Betty,” he said. “I don’t want to know where he is. I’m glad he’s doing well. Don’t say any more, now.”

“I won’t, then,” she replied, but it was hard to keep her word.

As for Uncle John, there was something heavy on his mind, for he sat down to his dinner with a face that looked very much as if he were about to be taken sick.

“I know it kind o’ hurts him,” thought Aunt Betty, “but he ought never to have been so hard on Jim about that money. I never believed Jim took it!”

If Uncle John doubted it, he did not say so, but that was an important day for all of them. Just a little after dinner time, Rodney and his mother were in their store. It was getting to look very business like and several customers had been waited on and had gone out, while Billy looked hard at the things in the show window and remarked, repeatedly:

“Ba-a-a-beh!”

Nobody else was there, therefore, when Millie came hurrying up the back stairs and dashed in, exclaiming:

“Mrs. Nelson! Rodney! One of the men told father the police have found out! Jim’s up in the back room, now. They’ve caught three of the other boys that were with him. Father says he mustn’t come back to the shop!”

“He must get out of town!” said Mrs. Nelson, excitedly. “Rodney can go along and help!--He must jump!”

“So they all say,” gasped Millie, all out of breath. “Father and the men gave him ten dollars. He hasn’t any time to spare. They’re watching the shop!”

Rodney had rushed for the back room and there was Jim, looking pretty cool but with a very determined expression gathering around his mouth.

“Jim!” exclaimed Rodney. “I’ll be ready in a minute. I can show you how to get out, if we’re quick about it.”

“All right,” said Jim, and he added, to himself: “I want to see Aunt Betty once more, and tell her I didn’t do it. Then I’ll go somewhere else, where they don’t know me. I won’t let them take me back to the Island.”

In the store, Millie was saying:

“I’ve come to ’tend shop while Rod’s gone. I’d rather, a hundred times, any day, than stand and set type.”

“You stay here, then,” said Mrs. Nelson, “while I go and get a luncheon-tin filled for them to take along. They mustn’t catch Jim!”

It was hardly any time at all before all was ready, but the good-byes were said in a hurry, for Rodney remarked to Jim:

“We can do it, if we’re off before any of ’em see us go. We can catch a train and then we’re all right.”

They had evidently talked it all over before hand, because it was likely to happen, and so they were not altogether taken by surprise when it came.

It was not very late in that afternoon when a pair of young fellows were walking along a country road and one of them turned to the other, saying:

“This road takes us right around the village, Rodney. I guess we won’t meet anybody but we can cut across a field if we do.”

“We can cut before they know who it is,” said Rodney, but he felt a great deal more nervousness than Jim was showing, and he looked at him with open admiration.

“I say, Rodney,” remarked Jim, half a mile further on, “this isn’t night, it’s daytime, but it kind o’ feels as if the House of Refuge dormitory was only a little way behind me----”

“Hope it isn’t catching up,” said Rodney.

Jim said nothing, but it was not long before he led the way through a front gate, around through a shrubberied houseyard, and right in at a kitchen door.

“Aunt Betty?” he exclaimed.

“Jim!” almost screamed Mrs. Bronson, Springing forward to throw her arms around his neck. “You? Here?--O, my boy! My boy! I’m so glad! What would your mother say, if she were alive!--They didn’t catch you, did they?”

“No, Aunt Betty,” said Jim. “This is Rodney Nelson. He isn’t one of the House of Refuge boys. He and his folks helped me. I’ll tell you all about it----”

“Not now!--Not now!” she said, excitedly. “O dear! What shall I do with you! What shall I say to your uncle? It’s awful!”

“I’d say it was!” suddenly broke in a deep, strong voice in the doorway. “Worst thing could ha’ happened to me! Mrs. Bronson, I just don’t want to know it’s Jim. Wish I hadn’t happened to come----”

“Why, Squire,” she said, “it is Jim, and he’s got away from all of ’em.”

“I don’t want to do any such duty,” groaned the Squire. “It’s hard on me to have to take him. I knew his father and his mother.--Wish I wasn’t a justice-peace! Who cares what he stole!--That money----”

“That money----” came like an echo, from a voice that was drawing nearer, in the next room.

“John!” shouted Aunt Betty. “You won’t have the Squire take Jim?”

“O, Betty!” exclaimed Uncle John. “Why, Squire, I don’t know what to say. It’s awful!--Tell you what.--I can’t, but I must.--Jim never stole a cent.--Betty, do you mind those old, blue jeans overalls?--I had ’em on, that day. When the money was missed, I was so torn up by it, I didn’t remember where I’d put ’em. I found ’em, hangin’ up in the barn, three days ago, and there was the fifty dollars, in one o’ the pockets. I was most sick. O, Jim, I’m a poor, old, miserable sinner! I’m glad you got out----”

“Thank God!” ejaculated the Squire. “I haven’t got to do it! Hurrah!”

“Hurrah!” shouted Rodney, but Jim could not have said a word, if he had tried, for Aunt Betty was almost choking him.

“It’s all right, Bronson,” said the Squire. “I’ll telegraph to the New York authorities. ’Twon’t really hurt Jim, in the long run. I’m going----”

“I’ll go, too,” said Rodney. “I want to send word to our folks.”

“Come right back, Rodney,” said Jim.

“I will,” said Rodney, but he was hurrying away with the Squire and one of the consequences was that when, just before supper time, Mr. and Mrs. Kirby came over to the Nelson store to ask if there was any news, a telegraph messenger went in with them.

“Read it aloud! What is it?” exclaimed Mrs. Kirby. “Is it from Rod?”

“O, do hear!” said Mrs. Kirby, and she read:

“Mother. We got here. They found the money. Jim’s all right. He didn’t do it. Tell Millie. Tell everybody.”

“Whoop!” shouted Mr. Kirby, but his wife was reaching out after the telegram that Mrs. Nelson was waving, like a flag, and Millie was dancing.

“Ba-a-a-beh!” remarked a bearded friend of the family, in the doorway.

Away over on Randall’s Island, in the main office of the House of Refuge, a bright-faced officer was reading a very much longer telegram. When it was completed, he remarked, to a pair of his blue uniformed associates and to another pair who were not in uniform:

“I’m glad he is innocent. I’m glad we did our duty by him.--Well, after all, I’m glad the right boy got away.”

* * * * *

Only a few years have gone by. Only long enough for the new avenue to be built up on both sides. In the middle of the western side is a sign that reads “R. Nelson,” and the Nelson family live under that store. They have frequent visits from a young man they call “Jim,” who runs a printing office, in a village about fifty miles up the Hudson. He lives at the Bronson farm, near the village, and when he comes to the city he spends a great deal of his time at the house of Mr. Kirby, the printer, on the other avenue, for he worked in Kirby’s shop, once. He told them, at his last visit, of a grand time he had had with a friend of his named Joe, a junior officer on one of the Sound Steamers, who came all the way up there to let him know how well three of their old friends were doing. Boys who once climbed over walls with them and were now sailors in the Navy.

“Rodney,” said Jim, “I’m glad, for me and for them, that it turned out just as it did. It was best for all of us. But somehow the whole business makes me think of what I heard the Superintendent say, once, to some of those Managers:

“In prison, and ye visited ME.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.