MISSING PAPERS
Cheered by his victory in this skirmish, Aaron Rushton went on:
“I tell you what it is, Mansfield, what the boys need is to go to some good boarding school, where they’ll be under strict discipline and have to toe the mark. They’ve a soft snap here, and they know it. You let them run the whole shooting match.”
“Nothing of the kind, Aaron,” protested Mansfield. “I don’t believe in the knock-down and drag-out system of bringing up children, but, all the same, the boys always mind when I put my foot down.”
“When you put your foot down!” sneered Aaron. “How often do you put it down? Not very often, as far as I’ve been able to see. They twist you and their mother around their little fingers.
“A boy’s a good deal like a horse,” he continued. “Any horse can tell just from the feel of the reins how far he dares to go with his driver. Now, what your boys need to feel is a tight rein over their backs that’ll make ’em feel that their driver isn’t going to stand any nonsense. They don’t have that feeling at home, and it’s up to you to put them where they will feel it.”
“It might be out of the frying pan into the fire,” objected Mr. Rushton. “There are many boarding schools where the boys do just about as they like.”
“Not at the one I’m thinking about,” rejoined Aaron. “Not much, they don’t! When Hardach Rally tells a boy to do anything, that boy does it on the jump.”
“Hardach Rally,” inquired his brother, “who is he?”
“He’s a man after my own heart,” answered Aaron. “He’s one of the best disciplinarians I’ve ever met. He has a large boarding school on Lake Morora, about a mile from the town of Green Haven, the nearest railway station. I reckon it’s about a hundred miles or so from here. It’s a good school, one of the best I know of. Rally Hall, he calls it, and under his management, it’s made a big reputation. If I had boys of my own–thank Heaven, I haven’t–there’s no place I’d sooner send them.”
Mr. Rushton and his wife exchanged glances.
“Well, Aaron, we’ll think it over,” his brother said, “But there’s no special hurry about it, as they couldn’t start in till next fall, anyway. In the meantime, I’ll write to Dr. Rally and get his catalogue and terms.”
“It’ll be the best thing you ever did,” remarked Aaron.
He yawned and looked at his watch.
A surprised look came into his eyes.
“Why!” he exclaimed, “it must be later than that.”
He looked again, then put it up to his ear.
“Stopped,” he said disgustedly. “I haven’t let that watch run down for five years past. And it hasn’t run down now. That’s some more of Teddy’s work. I must have jarred it or bent a wheel or something when I went over into the river.”
“Let me have it,” said Mr. Rushton, holding out his hand. “I’m pretty handy with watches and perhaps I can get it started.”
Aaron handed the timepiece over. It was a heavy, double-cased gold watch, of considerable value, and he set a great deal of store by it. It was of English make, and on the inner case was an engraving of the Lion and the Unicorn. Under this were Aaron’s initials.
His brother shook the watch, opened it, and made several attempts to set it going, but all to no purpose.
“I guess it’s a job for a jeweler,” he said at last regretfully. “Of course, I’ll pay whatever it costs to have it fixed.”
“By the time you get through settling with Jed Muggs, you won’t feel much like paying anything else,” retorted Aaron, “Give me the watch and I’ll take it down town in the morning and leave it to be mended. Chances are it’ll never be as good again.
“I’m dead tired now,” and again he yawned. “If you folks don’t mind, I guess I’ll be getting to bed.”
They were only too glad to speed him on his way. Nobody ever attempted to stop him, when he was ready to retire. It was the one thing he did that met with everybody’s approval.
His brother went up with him to see that everything had been made ready for his comfort, and then, bidding him good-night, came back to his wife.
He smiled at her whimsically, and she smiled back at him tearfully.
“Been a good deal of a siege,” he commented.
“Hasn’t it?” she agreed. “But, oh, Mansfield, whatever in the world are we going to do about Teddy?”
He frowned and studied the points of his shoes.
“Blest if I know,” he pondered. “The young rascal has been in a lot of scrapes, but this is the limit. I don’t wonder that Aaron feels irritable. Of course, he rubs it in a little too much, but you’ll have to admit, my dear, that he has a good deal of justice on his side. It was a mighty reckless thing for Teddy to do.
“I wonder,” he went on 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
