Steve and the Steam Engine | Page 6

with him.

It helped his self-respect to feel that at least the servants were in
ignorance of what he had done. Nobody knew--nobody at all!
With an interval of rest and a dash of cold water upon his face
gradually the act he had committed began to sink back into normal
perspective and loom less gigantic in his memory. After all was it such
a dreadful thing, he asked himself. Of course he should not have done it
and he fully intended to confess his fault and accept the blame. But was
the folly so terrible? He owned that he regretted it and admitted that he
was somewhat troubled over the probable consequences, and every
time he awoke in the night a dread of the morrow came upon him. In
the morning he rushed off to school, found the team had won the game,
and came home feeling even more justified than before. Why, if he had
not taken the car, the school might have forfeited that victory!
All the afternoon as he sat quietly at his books he tried to keep this
consideration uppermost in his mind. Then at dinner time there was a
stir in the hall and he knew the moment he feared had arrived. The
family were back again! Slowly he stole down over the heavily
carpeted stairs. Yes, there they were, just coming in at the door,
laughing and chatting gaily with Julia, who had let them in. The next
instant his mother had espied him on the landing and had called a
greeting.
There was a smile on her face that reproached him for having yielded to
the temptation to deceive her even for a second.
"Such a delightful trip as we have had, Steve!" she called. "We wished
a dozen times that you were with us. But some vacation you shall have
a holiday in New York with your father to pay for what you have
missed this time. You shall not be cheated out of all the fun, dear boy!"
"Everything been all right here, son?" inquired his father from the foot
of the stairs.
"Yes, Dad."
"Havens has not showed up yet, I suppose."

The boy flushed.
"No, sir."
"It seems to take him an interminable time to have his tonsils out. If he
does not appear pretty soon I shall have to get another man to run the
car. We can't be left high and dry like this," fretted the elder man
irritably. "Suppose I knew nothing about it, where would we be? I
wished to-day you were old enough to have a license and could have
come to the station to meet us. I believe with a little more instruction
you could manage that automobile all right. Not that I should let you go
racing over the country with a lot of boys. But you might be very useful
in taking your mother and sister about and helping when we were in a
fix like this. I think you would enjoy doing it, too."
"I--I'm--sure I should," replied the lad, avoiding his father's eye and
studying the toe of his shoe intently. It passed through his mind as he
stood there that now was the moment for confession. He had only to
say,
"I had the car out yesterday," and the dreaded ordeal would be over.
But somehow he could not utter the words. Instead he descended from
the landing and followed the others into the library where the
conversation immediately shifted to other topics. In the jumble of
narrative his chance to speak was swallowed up nor during the next few
days did any suitable opportunity occur for him to make his belated
confession. When Mr. Tolman was not at meetings of the railroad
board he was at his office or occupied with important affairs, and by
and by so many events had intervened that to go back into the past
seemed to Stephen idle sentimentality. At length he had lulled his
conscience into deciding that in view of the conditions it was quite
unnecessary to acquaint his father and mother with his wrong-doing at
all. He was safely out of the entanglement and was it not just as well to
accept his escape with gratitude and let sleeping dogs lie? All the
punishments in the world could not change anything now. What would
be the use of telling?
CHAPTER II

A MEETING WITH AN OLD FRIEND
The day of the excursion to Northampton was one of those clear
mornings when a light frost turned the maples to vermilion and in a
single night transformed the ripening summer foliage to the splendor of
autumn. The Tolman family were in the highest spirits; it was not often
that Mr. Tolman could be persuaded to leave his business and steal
away for a