Chapter XX: Ominous

“Well, that’s a pretty good joke,” said Mr. Walton at the breakfast table. “You take my advice and save it for next summer up at camp, Herve. I think after this we’ll call you the missionary, eh mother? Shall we call him the missionary? The scout worker! Toiler in the scout vineyard!” Contrary to his custom, Mr. Walton leaned back and laughed.

“The boy who brought the letter,” said Mrs. Walton, “told me Mr. Talbot thought it was fine that Hervey went to the police and saved an innocent boy from being punished. Poor little Chesty McCullen----”

“I can only hope he proves worthy of the young missionary who converted him,” Mr. Walton interrupted.

So that was the sense in which those appalling words, overheard by Hervey, had been used.

“I was going to take him and give him a good time,” said Hervey.

“I think you’re giving him the time of his life,” said his stepfather.

When Hervey went forth after breakfast the world looked bright. A few days were still to elapse before the opening of school and he was never at a loss for something to do. He did not keenly feel Chesty McCullen’s desertion to the enemy’s camp. And I am sorry to say that he was not deeply touched by the receipt of the much needed five dollars from the Scouts. Hervey could never be won by sentiment. He said he was lucky and there was an end of it as far as he was concerned. Here he had recognition for doing a clean, straightforward thing (for he had not one streak of yellow in him), but he took no pride in it. And when they were thrilled at his essential honor, he was not even grateful. He went upon his way rejoicing. He did not know anything about honor because he never did anything with deliberation and purpose. He had the much needed five dollars and that was all he thought about.

He went to Farrelton Junction that morning and paid his fine, and on the way back he drove a frightened cat up a tree and climbed up after it. It may be observed in passing that he was the sworn enemy of cats. To get one at bay and poke his stick at it and observe its thickened tail and mountainous back was his idea of high adventure. The frantic hissing was like music to his ears. He might have had the stalker’s badge, the pathfinder’s badge, and half a dozen other badges for the mileage and ingenuity wasted on cats.

On that very day he made a discovery which was to keep him right side up for several days. During that time Farrelton and his home saw but little of him. It was the calm preceding the storm. He discovered along the railroad tracks near Clover Valley, a crew of workers engaged in lengthening a siding. They had been brought from distant parts and made their home in a freight car which was converted into a rolling camp. It had a kitchen with an old-fashioned stove in it and pots and pans hanging all about. Partitioned off from this was a compartment with delightfully primitive bunks. The workers hung out their washing on the roof of the car.

Best of all there was a little handcar at their disposal, which was worked by pumping a handle up and down. By this means they could move back and forth from the village of Clover Valley, about two miles up the line. Between two o’clock and five-nineteen each day, this little car was safe on the line and they used it to get provisions from the village. Hervey loved this handcar as no mortal ever before loved an inanimate thing. To propel it by its creaky pump handle was a delight. And the old freight car in which those half-dozen men fried bacon and played cards approximated nearer than anything he had ever seen to his idea of heaven.

These rough, burly men accepted him as they would have accepted a stray dog and called him a mascot. He hiked to their camp each day and stayed among them till sunset. He wandered about and climbed trees and ate with them and fetched saw or sledge-hammer, and was always on the handcar when it went down the line to Clover Valley for provisions. When he told the men his name was Hervey, they dubbed him Nervy and he was fated to deserve the name. Of course, they liked him. He was serviceable when he wanted to be and it was all right when he elected to beguile himself in the dense woods that bordered the tracks.

It was unfortunate that Hervey could not have continued this harmless pastime which was interrupted by Harlem Hinkey. On a certain fateful evening he went to the second show with this young magnate who treated him to ice cream soda on the way home. This delayed his arrival till about eleven o’clock, and Mr. Walton was greatly annoyed. He had an old-fashioned idea that a boy should be home early at night, though occasionally he relaxed in this respect provided Hervey asked permission. But asking permission was a thing that Hervey did not know how to do. He breezed into the living room on this particular night presenting an amusing contrast to the ominous deliberation of his stepfather who leisurely folded his paper, laid it down precisely and addressed him.

“Where have you been, Hervey?”

“I went to the second show with a feller--_some_ picture! Bimbo, all about ranches. That’s where I’d like to go--out west.”

“I wish you wouldn’t throw your cap in a chair, Hervey, dear,” said Mrs. Walton. “Can’t you hang it in the hall as you come in?”

He disappeared into the hall, and as he did go, Mr. Walton with a quietly determined look said, “I want to talk to Hervey alone a few minutes.” Mrs. Walton, with a gentle show of apprehension, went upstairs.