LITMIR.BIZ

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thoughtfully, “if perhaps we haven’t been a bit too lax in our discipline, Agnes. Too much of the ‘velvet glove’ and too little of the ‘iron hand,’ eh? What do you think?”

      “Perhaps–a little,” she assented dubiously. Then, defensively, she added: “But, after all, where do you find better boys anywhere than ours? Fred scarcely gives us a particle of trouble, and as for Teddy”–here she floundered a little–“of course, he gets into mischief at times, but he has a good heart and he’s just the dearest boy,” she ended, in a burst of maternal affection.

      “How about that boarding school idea?” suggested Mr. Rushton.

      “I don’t like it at all,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I simply can’t bear to think of our boys a hundred miles away from home. I’d be worrying all the time for fear that something had happened to them or was going to happen. And think how quiet the house would be with them out of it.”

      “I know,” agreed her husband, “I’d feel a good deal that way myself. Still, if it’s for the boys’ good – ”

      But here they were interrupted by a commotion on the stairs, and as they rose to their feet, Aaron came bouncing into the room. His coat and vest and collar and tie were off, but he was too stirred up to bother about his appearance. He was in a state of great agitation.

      “What’s the matter?” they asked in chorus.

      “Matter enough,” snarled Aaron. “I was just getting ready for bed, when I thought of some papers in the breast pocket of my coat. I just thought I’d take a last look to make sure they were all right, but when I put my hand in the pocket, the papers weren’t there. What do you make of that now?” and he glared at them as though they had a guilty knowledge of the papers and had better hand them over forthwith.

      “Papers!” exclaimed Mrs. Rushton, her heart sinking at this new complaint. “What papers were they?”

      “I hope they weren’t very valuable?” said Mr. Rushton.

      “Valuable!” almost shrieked Aaron Rushton. “I should say they were valuable. There was a mortgage and there were three notes of hand and the transcript of a judgment that I got in a court action a little while ago. I can’t collect on any of them, unless I have the papers to show. I’m in a pretty mess!” he groaned, as he went around the room like a wild man.

      “We’ll make a careful search for them everywhere,” said Mrs. Rushton. “They must be somewhere around the house.”

      “House, nothing!” ejaculated Aaron. “I know well enough where they are. They’re down in the river somewhere, and I’ll never clap eyes on them again. They must have fallen out of my pocket when I jumped. Oh, if I just had the handling of that imp”–and his fingers writhed in a way that boded no good to Teddy, if that lively youth were luckless enough to be turned over to his uncle for punishment.

      “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Aaron,” his brother assured him. “We’ll have a most careful search made at the place where the accident happened, the first thing to-morrow morning. I’ll also put up the offer of a reward in the post office. The papers are not of much value to any one except you, and if somebody has found them, they’ll be glad enough to bring them to you. In the meantime, we’ll take one more look about the house.”

      But the search was fruitless, and, at last, Aaron, still growling like a grizzly bear, went reluctantly to his room to await developments on the morrow.

      In the meantime, Teddy, the cause of it all, although cut off from the rest of the household, had shared in the general gloom. He was devotedly attached to his father and mother, and was sincerely sorry that he had so distressed them. He would have given a good deal if he had never yielded to his sudden impulse of the afternoon.

      Fred had spent most of the evening with him, and had done his level best to cheer him up. He had succeeded to some extent, but, after he had left him and gone to his own room, Teddy again felt the weight of a heavy depression.

      It must be admitted that not all of this came from conscience. Some of it was due to hunger.

      He had never felt so hungry in his life. And it seemed an endless time from then till breakfast the next morning.

      He had just turned out his light, and was about to slip into bed when he heard a soft knock on his door. He opened it and peered out into the dark hall.

      “It’s me, honey,” came a low voice. “Take dis an’ don’t say nuffin’.”

      The “dis” was a leg of chicken and a big cut of peach pie!

      The door closed, and old Martha went puffing slowly to her room in the attic.

      “Ah doan’t care,” she said to herself defiantly. “Ef it wus right fer de ravuns ter take food ter de prophet ‘Lijuh in der wil’erness, et’s right fer me ter keep mah po’ lam’ frum starvin’. So, dere, now!”

      CHAPTER VIII

      A FRUITLESS SEARCH

      There were no traces left the next morning of Martha’s stealthy visit. The chicken bone had gone out of the window, but all the rest had gone where it would do the most good. And Teddy had slept the sleep of the satisfied, if not exactly the sleep of the just.

      Breakfast was served at an unusually early hour, as there was a great deal to be done to right the wrong of the day before, and it was very important that the boys get an early start in the search for Uncle Aaron’s missing papers.

      He himself had little hope of finding them. If they were in the river, which seemed to him most likely, they might have been carried down the stream. And, even if they were found, they might be so spoiled by the soaking that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make them out.

      In any event, it meant for him a lot of trouble, and he was in a fiendish temper, when, after a sleepless night, he came downstairs. He responded gruffly to the greetings of the others, and favored Teddy with a black stare that showed that he had not forgiven him.

      “What have you got up your sleeve for to-day?” he growled. “Some more mischief, I’ll be bound.”

      “I’m going to look for your papers,” answered Teddy promptly, “and I won’t stop until I find them.”

      His mother shot him a bright glance at the respectful reply, which rather took the wind out of Aaron’s sails.

      “Humph,” he muttered. “Talk is cheap.” But he became silent and devoted himself to the breakfast, which Mrs. Rushton, with Martha’s help, had made unusually tempting in order to coax him into good humor.

      “Now,” said Mr. Mansfield Rushton when they had finished, “your Uncle Aaron and I are going down to the village. He’s going to leave his watch to be repaired, and I’ve got to see Jed Muggs and settle with him for the damage to his coach and horses”–here he looked sternly at Teddy, who kept his eyes studiously on the tablecloth–“from the runaway. I’m going, too, to put up a notice in the post-office, offering a reward to any one who may find and return Uncle Aaron’s papers.

      “As for you boys, I want you to get some of the other boys together and go over every foot of ground down near the river, where the accident – ”

      “Accident!” sneered Aaron contemptuously.

      “Where the accident happened,” went on Mr. Rushton, taking no notice of the interruption. “Look in every bush on both sides of the road. Slip on your bathing suits under your other clothes, and if you can’t find the papers on land try to find them in the water.

      “In most places it isn’t so deep but what you can wade around. Get sticks and poke under the stones and in every hole under the bank. In places where it’s over your heads, dive down and feel along the bottom with your hands.”

      “But do be careful, boys,” put in Mrs. Rushton. “I’m always nervous when you get where the water is deep.”

      “Don’t worry, Agnes,” were her husband’s soothing words. “Both of them can swim like fish, and now they’ve got a chance

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