Three Young Knights | Page 3

It isn't under the pin-cushion where we left it! It's gone! We've been robbed, Kent Eddy!"
The limp figure strengthened as if electrified and rose to a sitting position. Kent's eyes flew open.
"What?" he cried.
"Get up quick, Kentie, and we'll wake Old Tilly up! Maybe we can catch 'em!"
"Catch who? I wish you'd talk English, Jot Eddy!"
Old Tilly was slumbering peacefully, oblivious to thieves and five-dollar bills alike. It took a long time to wake him and longer yet to make him understand the dire thing that had happened.
"Get up! Get up! We've got to catch 'em!" concluded Jot.
"Yes, the thieves--catch the thieves, you know!" Kent explained. "I don't s'pose you'll lie there all night and let 'em cut off with our money, if you are Old Tilly!"
Then something funny happened. Anyway, it seemed funny to Old Tilly. He buried his face in the pillow and choked with laughter.
"It's gone to his head!" whispered Jot, in alarm.
"No, to his t-toe!" giggled Old Tilly, purple in the face.
"Yes, sir, he's crazy as a loon. Let's call father, Jot!"
"Hold on!--wait! It's all right, boys! The money is, and I am, and everybody is! Just wait till I get my laugh out, won't you?"
"No, sir, but we'll wait till you get out o' bed and that's this very minute!" Jot exclaimed wrathfully. He was dancing up and down with impatience.
Old Tilly slowly brought a lean, shapely leg into view from beneath the sheet. To the boys' amazement it was covered with a long black stocking. Old Tilly, like the other boys, had been barefooted all day.
"Thought I might as well get a good start in dressing!" he chuckled. "Nothing like being read--"
"Oh, come off!"
"Well, I wish it would; there's something in the toe that hurts. Ow!"
He drew off the stocking and gravely examined the snug little wad in the toe.
"The money!" cried Kent.
"Yes, sir, the money!" Jot echoed in astonishment.
"Why, so it is!" Old Tilly said in evident surprise. "Then the thieves didn't get away with it, after all! I call that a lucky stroke--my getting partly dressed overnight! No, hold on, you little chaps--don't get uppy! I'll explain, honest I will! You see, I got up after a while and put the money there for safe-keeping. I'd like to see the thief that would look there for it! He'd get a good kick if he did!"
It was half an hour later when the trio settled back into sleep again. In the east already there were dim outriders of day trailing across the darkness.
Without further incident the three knights-errant got under way next day. In a glare of July sunshine they rode away in search of adventures, while Father and Mother Eddy in the kitchen doorway looked after them a little wistfully.
"Bless their hearts!" mother murmured tender-wise.
"Good boys! Good boys!" said father, coughing to cover the break in his voice.
"I say, this is great!" called Jot, who led the van, of course. "This is the way to do it!"
[Illustration: "I say, this is great!" called Jot.]
"Yes, sir!" Kent cried in high feather, "it feels as if you were reg'lar old knights, you know! Isn't it jolly not to know what's going to happen next?"
Old Tilly's wheel slid up abreast of Kent's and proceeded sociably.
"Esau Whalley's farm 'happens next,' and then old Uncle Rod King's next," Old Tilly said calmly. "I guess we better wait till we get out o' this neck o' woods before we settle down to making believe!"
But three wheels driven by three pairs of sturdy, well-muscled legs get over miles swiftly, and by ten o'clock the boys had turned down an unfamiliar road and were on the way to things that happened. Before noon knightly deeds were at their hand. Jot himself discovered the first one. He vaulted from his bicycle suddenly, as they were bowling past a little gray house set in weeds, and the others, looking back, saw him carrying a dripping pail of water along the path to the kitchen doorsteps.
"The pail was out there on the well curb, asking to be filled," he explained brusquely, as he caught up with them, "and the old woman pumping into it didn't look as if lugging water agreed with her. Besides, I wanted a drink."
"You didn't get one," retorted Kent, wisely.
Jot cast a sidewise glance upon him.
"I said I wanted one, didn't I? Anybody can want a drink."
"And take your remedy. Dose: lug one pail o' water for an old woman. If not successful, repeat in ten min--"
Jot made a rapid spurt and left his teaser behind. When Old Tilly had come abreast of him again, he reached out a brotherly hand and bestowed a hearty pat on his arm.
"Good boy!" he said, and unconsciously his voice was like father's, miles back in the kitchen doorway. It was the way