The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant | Page 5

wipe the tears from his eyes, after he had
succeeded in regaining his breath, following the coughing spell.
The man put a dirty hand in the region of his heart and winced.
"Hurts most around my lungs," he said, "and mebbe I've got the con. I
spent some time in a camp where fifty poor folks was sleeping under
canvas down in Arizona, and I'm a whole lot afraid I may have caught
the disease there. So, being afraid my time would soon come I just
made up my mind to look up a sister of mine that I ain't heard a word
from for twenty years or more, and see if she was in a position to
support me the short time I'd have to live."
Thad heard this with evident interest. At the same time it occurred to
him the stalwart tramp was hardly a fit subject for a speedy death;
indeed, he looked as though he might hold out for a good many years
still, except when he fell into one of those coughing spells, and seemed
to be racked from head to foot with the exertion.
Hugh saw that the fellow had an engaging manner, and a smooth
tongue. He was trying to make out just what sort of a man this same Lu
might be, if one could read him aright. Was he crooked, and inclined to

evil ways; or, on the other hand, could he be taken at face value and set
down as a pretty square sort of a fellow?
"Listen, young fellers," remarked the still eating hobo, later on, "didn't
you tell me you lived in the place called Scranton, when you're to
home?"
"Yes, that's so," Thad assured him. "Know anybody there, Lu, and do
you want us to take him your best compliments?"
The tramp grinned amiably.
"I reckon you're something of a joker, younker," he went on to say.
"Now, about the folks in Scranton, I suppose you boys know about
everybody in town?"
"Well, hardly that," Hugh told him, "since Scranton is a place of some
seven or eight thousand inhabitants, and new people are constantly
coming in."
"All the same," added Thad, "we do know a good many, and it's just as
likely we might be acquainted with your friend. What's his name,
Wandering Lu?"
"First place, it ain't a he at all, but a lady," the other explained, looking
a little serious for once.
"Oh! excuse the mistake, will you?" chuckled Thad, highly amused at
the airs the disreputable looking grizzled old chap put on when he made
this statement. "Well, we have some acquaintance among the ladies of
the town also. They're nearly all deeply interested just now in helping
Madame Pangborn do Red Cross work for her beloved poilus over in
brave France. I suppose now you've traveled through that country in
your time, Lu?"
"Up and down and across it for hundreds of miles, afoot, and in trains,"
quickly replied the old fellow, "and say, there ain't any country under
the sun that appeals more to me than France did. If I was twenty years

younger, hang me if I wouldn't find a way to cross over there now, and
take my place in the trenches along with them bully fighters, the French
frog-eaters. But I'm too old; and besides, this awful cough grips me
every once in so often."
Even the mention of it set him going again, although this time the
spasm was of shorter duration, Hugh noticed; just as though he had
shown them what he could do along such lines, and did not want to
exhaust himself further.
"But about this lady friend of yours, Lu, would you mind mentioning
her name, and then we could tell you if we happen to know any such
person in Scranton?" and Thad gave the other a confiding nod as if to
invite further confidence.
"Let's see, it was so long back I almost forget that her name was
changed after she got hitched to a man. Do you happen to know a chap
who goes by the name of Andrew Hosmer?"
The boys exchanged looks.
"That must be the sick husband of Mrs. Hosmer, who sews for my
mother," remarked Thad, presently. "Yes, I remember now that his first
name is Andrew."
"Tell me," the tramp went on, now eagerly, "is his wife living, do you
mean, younker, this Mrs. Hosmer, and is her name Matilda?"
"Just what it happens to be," Thad admitted. "So she is the lady you
want to see, is she, Lu? What can poor old Mrs. Hosmer, who has seen
so much trouble of late years, be to you, I'd like to know?"
The man allowed a droll look to come across his sun-burned face with
its stubbly