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“ DO YOU SUPPOSE HE WAS WATCHING ME, MR. HALLIDAY?" Andy Blake's Secret Service. Frontispiece ( Page 144)

ANDY BLAKE’S

SECRET SERVICE

BY

LEO EDWARDS

AUTHOR OF'

THE JERRY TODD BOOKS THE POPPY OTT BOOKS THE ANDY BLAKE BOOKS

ILLUSTRATED BY

BERT SALG

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

i

Copyright, 1929, by GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.

Made in the United States of America

To

DOROTHY and her daddy E. L. M.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/andyblakessecretOOedwa

OUR CHATTER BOX

IT will be a surprise (I trust it

will be a pleasant surprise) to many of the young readers of my books (and this is Leo Ed¬ wards speaking) to find a Chatter Box in an Andy Blake book. For it was stated that the Chat¬ ter Box was to be an exclusive feature of the Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott books.

But countless Jerry Todd fans have told me that they have ex¬ tended their interest to Andy Blake; and I get so many corking good letters from boys that I simply must find room for them.

In our initial Chatter Box I explained the purpose of this department. To be composed chiefly of contributions from my many hundreds of boy pals (and I always feel that every boy who reads one of my books is my pal for life), it will give us a chance to sort of get together in a huge friendly circle, first one of us “speaking his piece,” and then another.

So, if you have something short and snappy to submit — something that you feel will in¬ terest other boys — send it in. By reading the three Chatter Boxes published to date, in “Poppy Ott and the Tittering Totem,” “Jerry Todd and the Bob-Tailed Elephant” and “Andy Blake’s Secret Service,” you’ll get a comprehensive idea of the kind of stuff that we can use. There should be no dis¬ appointment on your part, how¬ ever, if you submit stuff that we

cannot use. Getting several thousand letters yearly from boys, you can understand how impossible it would be for me to reproduce all of these letters. I pick out those that contain something of general interest. Letters praising my books are pleasing; but these will be given small space in our “letter” col¬ umn. We want snappy, newsy stuff.

WHITE BATS A WHITE BAT!

It was worth seeing, Robert Adcock told me. So, like a big boob, I let this young Florida cracker drag me into the country — where I was shown a white brick in a cage.

A brickbat!

Robert is representative of the many fine boys that I have met in St. Petersburg, Florida, where Mrs. Edwards and I are spending the winter. They’re all real he-boys. And I wouldn’t trade their friendship for a chance to be President.

Ralph Clark is another St. Petersburg boy whom I particu¬ larly like. He’s planning to work his way through college; so you can see what kind of a guy he is.

PICTURES

jpIRST on the list (and this is a partial list of the Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott fans who sent me pictures of themselves during the past few weeks)

v

VI

OUR CHATTER BOX

comes Jack Rudolph of Lyn- brook, N. J. As a Freckled Goldfish, Jack is fulfilling one of the rules of the order — he is grinning from ear to ear.

Next comes Bob James of Valparaiso, Ind., who sends me a peachy picture of himself (he’s ten years old) and his dog. And Bob asks me what so many, many boys have asked me — is there such a town as Tutter? — and will I please include him in Jerry’s gang and write a story about him.

Here, too, right under my very appreciative eyes (I almost said my nose!) is a snapshot of Caleb F. Enix, Jr., Chicago, Ill., also a picture of his sister, Mary Rose, still another of Rose her¬ self and a fourth of Caleb, Rose, Robert Donahue and Joan Wal- kowiak dressed up like pirates. Caleb’s daddy is editor of the Chicago Daily News. Authors are lucky; and here’s the luck in this case: Both Caleb and Rose want me to visit them at their summer home near White Pig¬ eon, Mich. How I would love to! And who knows but what these Jerry Todd fans will come to see me in Wisconsin?

Seldom do I receive a picture of a finer looking boy than this picture in front of me of George Downs of San Antonio, Texas. Many thanks, old pal, both for the picture (how I’d love to meet you!) and the pleasing words about Poppy and Jerry.

Also I have here a picture of Leon E. Bowes of Providence, R. I. He was twelve when this picture was taken, and so far as I can see to the contrary he has arms, legs, a nose and everything <else that an up-and-coming boy

should have. If you were to ask me I would say that Leon is a very good-looking boy. And now that he has sent me his picture we are pals for life.

Kenneth Koupp of Fremont, Ohio, is another likely looking young American who honors me with one of his pictures. As bright as a dollar!

And from Fred Walker, Jr., of Los Angeles, Calif., comes a pic¬ ture of a different sort — a picture of a classy boat and outboard motor, a present, Fred tells me, from his dad. Bully for you, Dad. Every boy near a stream or lake ought to have a boat and an outboard motor. Outboard motoring is my chief hobby, as many boys will suspect who read the “Tittering Totem” book.

LETTERS

A^S a Boy Scout,” writes Walter von Lindenberg, Baltimore, Md., “I would like to start up a correspondence with the Boy Scout in your family to whom (with his chums) the book en¬ titled ‘Jerry Todd, Pirate’ is dedicated. I am sixteen years old and have been in scouting three years. Our troop has a scout library and I am librarian and Troop Scribe. As soon as the current issue of Scout Life (our official troop paper) is out I’ll send you a copy.”

Well, Walt, write a letter to Beanie Lee, Cambridge, Wise. He’s the Boy Scout in our family. I imagine he’ll tell you all about his scout work.

“I have started a Freckled Goldfish club,” writes Francis Smith, Chambersburg, Penna., “and would like a letter from

OUR CHATTER BOX

you giving advice on how to manage such a club. We have a room in the attic of my house which has been converted into a club room. In our small library we have every book you have written. If possible, we would like to have your picture to put on the wall. Your letter will be kept in our club treasure chest. I am launching a campaign for new members in our school and soon you will have a flock of let¬ ters arriving at your residence.”

Bully for you, Francis! Sorry I hadn’t a “pitcher” to send you. But you got your personal letter — hey? Here are the names of Francis’ chums who signed the letter: Maurice Brown, Clarence Baer, Paul Detrich, George Knoll, Herbert Stoner, Clarence Levy, Reynolds Nichols, Paul Kraiss and Jerry Miller.

William Gracy, Wilkensburg, Penna., tells me in a very inter¬ esting letter that he is writing a book entitled “The Secret of the Old Mill” — and the story, I understand, is about Skippy Spencer. “I’ve written only a couple of chapters,” advises Bill. “When I have finished the story I’ll send it to you for your comments.”

Well, good luck, Bill. I get so many letters from boys in¬ terested in story writing that I was tempted, in our initial Chat¬ ter Box, to give these aspiring young authors some helpful ad¬ vice. At least I hope that a few of the boys who read my com¬ ments will find them helpful.

Alas, the world is to have one less doctor and one more lawyer — at least so advises Jack Davis, Utica, N. Y. “I wanted to be a lawyer or a surgeon,” writes

• • VU

Jack. “But I changed my mind about being a surgeon when I saw an animal doctor put a dog to sleep. I’ve decided to be a lawyer.”

“During Christmas vacation,” writes Lawrence Doherty, Chi¬ cago, Ill., “the teacher in my room told each pupil to make a book report, so I wrote on ‘Jerry Todd, Pirate.’ Concluding the report, I told about your Freckled Goldfish club and urged the other boys to join.”

Fine work, Lawrence.

And do these loyal little Jerry Todd fans ever check up on me! Wough! Clean out your ears and listen to this one: “I would like to ask you a question,” writes Don Syska, Maplewood, N. J. “In your book, ‘Poppy Ott’s Seven-League Stilts,’ you stated that Red, Scoop and Peg had gone to Red’s uncle’s farm; and in ‘Poppy Ott and the Freckled Goldfish’ R.ed appears. How is it that he should come home and leave Scoop and Peg on his uncle’s farm?”

You know, Don, a writer has “impressions.” That is, he has a sort of layout of things in his mind, as he writes a story, but he does not put all of the stuff in his head down on paper. My “impression” in this case is that all three of the boys came home from the farm in due time; Scoop and Peg were in town at the time the “Goldfish” adventures took place, but evidently I felt that it wasn’t advisable to bring them into the story. I needed Red on account of his freckles. It isn’t my purpose to have all of the Tutter boys comprising Jerry’s gang in all of my Poppy Ott books. In fact, Poppy Ott

Vlll

OUR CHATTER BOX

rarely has an active part in the Jerry Todd stories. Hereafter, though, I expect to use Red and Rory (see “Poppy Ott and the Tittering Totem”) in many of the Poppy Ott books.

And here’s another Jerry Todd fan who wants to know “how Jtis?” “How could (I think it was Peg) be reading the Waltzing Hen book in the Oak Island Treasure story,” writes Marion Paddis, Oklahoma City, Okla., “when the latter book comes first?”

Guilty, judge! But please be merciful with the prisoner.

As a matter of fact, Marion, the “Hen” story was written first. The publishers held the manuscript for a year, until I had completed the third and fifth books of the series, at which time the third, fourth and fifth books were brought out together.

Further, Marion wants to know (like ’steen hundred other fans) if Jerry, Scoop, Peg, Red, Poppy, etc., are real boys. See my answer to that in our initial Chatter Box.

“I have never read a Poppy Ott book,” writes William Paul, Brooklyn, N. Y., “but I have read some of the Jerry Todd books. I am eleven years old.”

Well, Bill, I’m glad you’re only eleven — I’d hate to think that you had been reading books for ten or more years without brushing up against Poppy Ott. For the boy who hasn’t made a story-book pal of Poppy sure is missing a lot of fun. Any boy who likes the Jerry Todd books is bound to like the Poppy Ott series. The books are written for your entertainment. So don’t miss the fun they provide.

“I wish you would have Poppy Ott invent a rubber automobile, so it wouldn’t hurt people who get bumped,” writes William Wade, New York City, N. Y. “I just got out of the hospital for a ‘slight’ occurrence with one. It is my ambition to become an author when I’m older.”

Poppy, do you hear what Bill says? He wants you to start an epidemic of rubber automobiles. And here’s good luck to you, Bill, when you start “authoring.”

And now I suppose all the cats and dogs in the country will be named Jerry Todd, Poppy Ott and Red Meyers, with the news¬ papers publishing tearful ac¬ counts of how “Jerry Todd” lost three legs in a street-car accident and also how “Poppy Ott” got his tail caught in a trap. At least we know of one dog named Jerry Todd.

“I have read all of the Jerry Todd and Andy Blake books,” writes Robert Smith of Chicago, Ill., “and enjoyed them very much. I have a police dog and I named it Jerry Todd.”

“There’s a boy in our neigh¬ borhood,” writes Barrett Geehan (he gives no address on his letter¬ head), “who never cared to read books. I told him some things that happen to Jerry Todd and his chums, and now this neighbor boy borrows books about Jerry and Poppy and enjoys them a lot. I’m eleven years old, but so big for my age that one time dad and I wore each other’s shirts for a week and never knew the difference. The boys call me Tubby.”

Well, Tubby, old pal, you de¬ serve a great deal of credit — not for letting your pa wear your

OUR CHATTER BOX

IX

shirt, but for making a book reader of your chum. For there is fine fun and lots of it in books. All boys should read good books.

“I have read all of your Jerry Todd books except ‘Jerry Todd in the Whispering Cave,’ ” writes Howard Baker of Glen Ellen, Ill. “I usually get most of my books either on my birth¬ day or at Christmas. I find that the Oak Island Treasure story is very exciting, especially where Jerry and his friends are locked in the house and see the piano tuner trying to get the piano leg which has the money in it.”

And won’t Howard be pleased when he learns that “Jerry Todd in the Whispering Cave” is a continuation of the Oak Island Treasure story! Then, of course, he’ll want to read “Jerry Todd, Pirate,” which is the third book of my “Oak Island” series.

My, how swelled-up I am. For Clinton Smullan of New York City, N. Y., writes as follows :

“I want to congratulate you, for yours are the best books in the United States, Canada, Africa, Asia, South Pole and North Pole.”

“I know how Jerry Todd and his gang felt when they fitted up their old scow with a swell engine — even if it did gag and die a lot,” writes Walter Abron- ski, Philadelphia, Penna., “for one summer, while visiting a cousin at Beach Haven, N. J., we bailed out and made use of an old square-ended rowboat that had belonged to the yacht club. A king couldn’t have had a better time in a swell motor boat than we had in that leaky tub, for we could ride the high-

and-wide waves with perfect ease.”

Walt is one of the many thou¬ sands of oys who have learned that you don’t have to be rich and own all those expensive things that riches provide in order to have fun. The most popular boy in our town is the owner of a rickety old Ford. His pals are crazy to ride with him . . . and almost always they have to walk home, or push. I’ve done both. And it was great sport. Make your own fun, boys; it’s the best fun after all.

And if you doubt what I have just said, read this:

“My parents have a large and beautiful summer home at a lake in Maine,” writes a boy whose name I will withhold. “I have for my own use a rowboat, a motorboat and a sailboat, all kept at my own wharf, which has on it swimming chutes, div¬ ing towers, springboards, car chutes and about everything a boy could want. But that’s nothing like having real fun like Jerry Todd, and being at your liberty.”

“Last June,” writes Barton Bland, Bellwood, Penna., “our gang had a club in a barn down town. It was square (meaning the barn) and red, so we called it the ten-by-ten room, like in trie Talking Frog book. Right above us was a smaller room that we called the small ten-by-ten room. In one corner of our club room was a table and chairs, there was a junk pile in another corner, straw in a third and steps in the fourth corner. We had a big skull and crossbones. Also we had pictures on the walls and secret places. Our laws were:

X

OUR CHATTER BOX

(1) No smoking.

(2) No swearing.

(3) No spitting on the floor.

(4) No telling the club’s se¬

crets.

“Our chief duty was to protect our honorary members. That is: We picked out weak, small and sick kids, made a list of their names, then we swore to stick by them in all cases. We kept their membership a secret from them. Another duty was to break up gang, like Bid Strieker’s — and believe me we have plenty of them around here.

“Here’s our roll-call:

Roy Becktol, Chief.

Edward Leddy, Assistant Chief.

Russel Noel, 2nd Assistant Chief.

Samuel Noel, Treasurer.

Paul Noel, AssistantTreasurer.

Barton Bland, Secretary, Chief Reporter, Scribe, etc.

“We have our meetings once a week. And in our play we take names out of your books. Roy is Peg, Sam is Scoop, I am Jerry, Ed is Red and Paul is Poppy.”

“I made up a ‘fish’ name for myself,” writes Freckled Gold¬ fish Jerry Haxby of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The name is Codfish, Jr. Is it all right for a Freckled Goldfish to miss Sun¬ day school now and then; and do I have to take a bath twice a week? I grin lots of the time but not all of the time. I grow, but not very fast. I don’t keep my ears very clean because I can’t get behind them very well. I’ll try to be good, but I won’t promise. I went skiing this after¬ noon and took a belly-flop that knocked all the wind out of me.”

Well, Jerry, I’m glad that

you’re trying to observe the rules of our secret lodge. Two baths a week are not too many for a Freckled Goldfish. As for getting behind your ears, trying using a stepladder; or let yourself down from the ceiling with a rope.

And here’s a letter from an¬ other boy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“I like to grin — and boy can I grin!” writes Jack Myers, with reference to the rules of our Freckled Goldfish lodge. “I’ve got a grin too big; but I don’t seem to grow very much — I’m really short and fat. Jerry Haxby and I started a club at home called the Jack and Jerry Lodge. We meet every Saturday. I never cared for the Jerry Todd or Poppy Ott books before this year, but now I’m wild about them.”

How I would like to look in on one of those weekly meetings of the Jack and Jerry Lodge — or when Mother Myers says: “Young man, remember what Mr. Edwards told you about washing your ears. March right to the bathroom.”

“I am a city boy,” writes Melvin Binder of Jersey City, N. J., “with a great longing to live in the country (like Jerry Todd) and go barefooted, fishing, and swimming in my birthday suit (because a fellow can swim faster that way). One day, at Eagle Beach, where we swim city fashion, my brother Harry says to me, ‘Why don’t you learn to swim faster?’ So I says, ‘All right.’ So he takes me out to the channel on a raft and says, ‘Dive in.’ I did. But I couldn’t keep up. I swallowed nearly the

OUR CHATTER BOX

xi

whole channel. Harry had to save me.”

Three cheers for Harry! And would that I could move a nice dusty country lane up in front of your door, Melvin, for going barefooted, in the way that small-town boys do, is bully good fun. I’ve done it, and I know.

And just to prove to you that my home town (Cambridge, Wise.) pals can write just as funny letters as boys from other sections, here’s a letter, addressed to me at St. Petersburg, from Bob Billings, one of my Wiscon¬ sin buddies.

“The other night Beanie came down to my house and we made some candy — that is, you can call it candy if you want to. Here’s the recipe: cups of

brown sugar, Y2 cup of white sugar, ¥2 CUP of milk, cup of water. Dump it in a pan. Cook till it hardens in water. Then burn it for awhile. Then dump in a dime’s worth of nut meats. Stir awhile. Then set it out to harden. When you want to eat it, take a good sharp axe — but be careful you don’t break the axe. Then cut it up (not the axe, but the candy) and feed it to the alligators — if you want to kill them.”

FRECKLED GOLDFISH

VEP! The little old Freckled Goldfish lodge is still doing business at the same old place. In January (1929) alone we booked more than 400 new members. Pretty good, hey?

If you are not a member of our fun lodge, the Secret and Mysterious Order of the Freckled

Goldfish (which lodge was in¬ spired by the Poppy Ott book of that title) I would like to leave the thought with you that we’re anxious for you to join. The sole purpose of the lodge is to provide added fun for boys. So every Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott fan ought to join.

If you are too busy to write, ask Mother or Dad to write for you. Or maybe Mother will write and surprise you with your membership card. We have a big registration book at head¬ quarters in which are recorded the names and addresses of all members. I think you will be proud to have your name in this book, one of my choicest pos¬ sessions.

Then, too, each new member receives a unique numbered membership card designed by Bert Salg, the popular illustrator of these books. Containing a comical picture of Poppy’s Freckled Goldfish, together with our secret rules (all printed on the card), each card also bears my own personal autograph, if that is of any importance to you.

Any boy anywhere, of any age, size or color, who has a friendly feeling toward Jerry and Poppy is welcome to join. It will cost you four cents in stamps — four one-cent stamps or two two-cent stamps. One red stamp will pay the postage on your membership card; and the other red stamp will partly cover the cost of the envelope and the illustrated card.

In applying for membership please observe these simple rules:

(1) Print or write your name plainly.

XU

OUR CHATTER BOX

(2) Supply your complete ad¬

dress.

(3) Give your age.

(4) Enclose two two-cent United States postage stamps — or four one-cent stamps.

(5) Address your letter to,

Leo Edwards, Cambridge,

Wisconsin.

In applying for membership in our lodge, boys not infrequently make a scribble of their signa¬ tures; and then they don’t like it because we misspell their names. We do the best we can. And we are very glad to issue corrected membership cards at our own expense in every case where an error is brought to our attention. But, boys, why not PRINT your name and address, if you are a poor writer? It will make it easier for us; and your card will be wholly satisfactory to you.

LOCAL CHAPTERS

J)OZENS of boys have asked me if they might organize local chapters, as a part of our international Freckled Goldfish lodge. Permission was granted in all cases; but I was unfortu¬ nate in being unable to give these boys much help in the organiza¬ tion of such chapters.

But now we have a printed ritual, which any boy who wants to start a Freckled Goldfish club in his own neighborhood can’t afford to be without. This book¬ let tells how to organize the club, how to conduct the lodge meetings, how to transact all club business, and, probably most important of all, how to initiate candidates.

The complete initiation is given, word for word. Naturally these booklets are more or less secret. So, if you send for one, please do not show it to anyone who isn’t a Freckled Goldfish. The initiation will fall flat if the candidate knows what is coming. Three chief officers will be re¬ quired to put on the initiation, which can be given in any boy’s home, so, unless each officer is provided with a booklet, much memorizing will have to be done. The best plan is to have three booklets to a lodge. These may be secured (at cost) at six cents each (three two-cent stamps) or three for sixteen cents (eight two-cent stamps).

Address all orders to,

Leo Edwards, Cambridge, Wisconsin.

EDWARD SCHELLHAAS SAYS:

AM sending this letter to you asking you to send me one of the membership cards of the Freckled Goldfish lodge,” writes Edward Schellhaas of Albany, N. Y. “I am twelve years old. I want you to send me all of the rules and secrets.

“My aunt owns the typewriter with which I am typing this letter. I thought I would type instead of write. Even if I did write I don’t think you could make out much anyway. You might think it was hen scratch¬ ing. I like all of your books very much. In the book, ‘Jerry Todd and the Whispering Mummy,’ it was interesting where the boys got mixed up with the mummy. It sure was mysterious where

OUR CHATTER BOX

they heard the mummy whisper. Gee, they sure were scared. Well, to tell the truth, I was kind of scared myself, not so much when I read the book but when I went to bed at night. I dreamed that a mummy was chasing me. . . . In ‘Jerry Todd and the Rose- Colored Cat’ I liked it where Jerry and his chums got in that mix-up with the cats. Boy, they sure did have some trouble with those cats. I hope I never get in a mix-up like that. I like it where Jerry set that trap and got caught in it himself. And those pink pearls! Well, I was glad when that mystery was over. . . . And then the mys¬ tery of the Oak Island Treasure. I like real mystery stories with ghosts in them, where you don’t find out who the ghost is until near the end of the book. I have all of the Jerry Todd books. Every time I hear about a new book coming out I don’t let the dealer rest until he gets it. The first time I heard about the Freckled Goldfish lodge I didn’t pay much attention to it. Then I read about it again. I then made up my mind to join and learn more about you and the books you write. Well, now to get back to where I was talking about the books. In the third book, ‘Jerry Todd and the Oak Island Treasure,’ it was good where that friendly ghost came aboard and scared the Strickers away. And the fun Jerry, Scoop, Red and Peg had making ready for the show and how they later gave a show. Boy, that was a good show. And then that bug had to bite Jerry and that ended the headless act. That’s what made a good end for the show.

• • • Xlll

And how they later went to Oak Island and had fun burying the treasure. And the other adven¬ tures they had on the island. . . . And in the book, ‘Jerry Todd and the Waltzing Hen,’ it was good about the prowling peril and the yellow face. How¬ ever, this book does not have as many mysterious adventures as some of the other books. The waltzing hen itself was good. . . . In ‘Jerry Todd and the Talking Frog’ it was good where the boys heard footsteps outside, yet when they went outside no one was there. And the mystery of the puzzle room; and how they climbed up the rope to the puzzle room. . . . And ‘Jerry Todd and the Purring Egg!’ Well, that was some egg. And the tomato fight and how the boys went back to the barn, finding that the barn was on fire. I got kind of scared when they went up in the haymow and found the blood on the floor.

. . . And in ‘Jerry Todd in the Whispering Cave,’ where Jerry got under the bed and the mys¬ terious man and his hidden money — that was good. . . . And the adventures that the boys had with those dishes in ‘Jerry Todd, Pirate,’ and how they were captured by Bid Strieker and his gang and how, later, Jerry and his gang dressed up like pirates and had that rotten-egg fight — I like that.

. . . And I like the Poppy Ott and the Andy Blake books. Now I’m eagerly waiting for the Bob - Tailed Elephant book. Please write and tell me what new books are coming out after the Bob-Tailed Elephant.”

LEO EDWARDS’ BOOKS

Here is a complete list of Leo Edwards’

Published books:

THE JERRY TODD SERIES

Jerry Todd and the Whispering Mummy Jerry Todd and the Rose-Colored Cat Jerry Todd and the Oak Island Treasure Jerry Todd and the Waltzing Hen Jerry Todd and the Talking Frog Jerry Todd and the Purring Egg Jerry Todd in the Whispering Cave Jerry Todd, Pirate

Jerry Todd and the Bob-Tailed Elephant

THE POPPY OTT SERIES

Poppy Ott and the Stuttering Parrot Poppy Ott’s Seven-League Stilts Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail Poppy Ott’s Pedigreed Pickles Poppy Ott and the Freckled Goldfish Poppy Ott and the Tittering Totem

THE ANDY BLAKE SERIES

Andy Blake

Andy Blake’s Comet Coaster Andy Blake’s Secret Service

The following titles are in preparation:

Jerry Todd, Editor-in-Grief

Poppy Ott and the Prancing Pancake

Andy Blake and the Pot of Gold

i

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I	Andy’s Continued Success				PAGE 1
II	A Strange Disappearance .				17
III	Eddie Garry .				25
IV	The Two Cousins .				36
V	A Wedding Picture . .				51
VI	Aunt Hattie’s “Ghost” .				61
VII	The New Boarder .				72
VIII	Mystery .				82
IX	The Coming Convention .				95
X	Orange Pumpkins .				110
XI	Father and Son ....				122
XII	The Face in the Window				136
XIII	The Jyrasticutus .				151
XIV	Eddie’s Misfortune . ..				162
XV	Unexpected Victory .				173
XVI	Winter .				182
XVII	Friday the Thirteenth .				196
XVIII	Eddie Learns Startling Facts			205
XIX	Changed Fortunes . .				218
XX	Amazing Developments .	[•i	:•!	i •	225
XXI	Conclusion . . . .: uh	M	:®j		233

ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

CHAPTER I

andy’s continued success

Andy Blake was in a particularly jubilant mood.

For earlier in the day, as sales promotion manager of the Boy Products Company, manu¬ facturers of coaster wagons and similar juvenile products, it had been his privilege to turn over to the order department one of the largest coaster-wagon contracts yet received by the grow¬ ing young business.

And now it was swimming time !

Merchandising was Andy’s chosen work. Big indeed had been his youthful dreams. And at times, as he looked back, it seemed almost un¬ believable to him that he had made such marked progress in so short a time. Three years ago, at the age of seventeen, as recorded in the initial volume of this series, he had been a delivery

clerk in a small-town general store — an inexperi-

1

2 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

enced lad in his final year of high school. And now he was a merchandising executive !

Hard work had done it — consistent hard work coupled with good judgment and an open studi¬ ous mind. Nor is it to be construed from Andy’s marked success that his way had been made easy for him. No, indeed. A poor boy, with limited schooling, yet possessed of dauntless determina¬ tion and unbounded ambition, he had been forced to make his own way.

And how he had enjoyed it! Forgotten now were the early blunders that he had made, so bitter and humiliating to him at the time. He thought only of what lay ahead of him. Ad¬ vertising Andy! That is what the Cressfield boys had laughingly called him when he worked on the delivery wagon. But now these same early com¬ panions spoke of him with more respect. For it was generally conceded throughout the home town that Andy was fast making a mark for him¬ self in the business world. His friends were very proucf of him.

As a youth he had stood without the great gates of Industry, as pictured in the advertising pages of national magazines, eagerly looking in. Motor cars! Machinery! Food! Clothing! Such, in composite form, was Industry. He had longed to be a part of it. And now, as a young business man of rare promise, he was a part of it. But by no means had his dream been real-

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS 3

ized. The higher he climbed on the rungs of merchandising success, the higher he wanted to climb. Ambition was a spur to still greater achievement.

Which might make it appear to some that Andy’s life was wholly made up of staid adver¬ tising procedures and business responsibilities. But such was not the case. When the day’s work was done he loved his fun, the same as any normal-minded boy. And it was to his credit that he sought the kind of fun that matched his years.

For the past eight or ten months his chief companion, outside of business hours, had been a wealthy boy by the name of Rodney Chadwick, whose parents had sensibly encouraged the grow¬ ing intimacy between the two young men. Char¬ acter meant a great deal more to Mr. Charles Chadwick, president of the Rainbow Tire Com¬ pany, Manton’s foremost industry, than mere social standing. And Mrs. Chadwick, kindly gracious lady that she was, had been as quick as her more experienced husband to recognize the fine qualities in the young advertising special¬ ist. They jointly felt that Andy, with his big advertising and merchandising dreams, would be a steadying influence in their son’s life. And it was pleasing to them, moreover, to have a young man of such gentlemanly deportment in the family circle.

1

4

ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

On this particular June afternoon (and what normal-minded boy isn’t attracted to the water in June!) Rodney had promised to be on hand at five o’clock with his new high-powered road¬ ster, after which it was the plan of the two in¬ separable chums to speed away to one of the many natural swimming pools that the friendly river provided. Enterprising community that it was, Manton, of course, had its supervised bath¬ ing pools as a part of its park system. But the two boys preferred the open stream, where, in certain secluded spots of recent discovery, ham¬ pering woolen bathing suits were not always necessary. Then, too, they enjoyed being by themselves. For they found keen delight in each other’s society.

A tall, light-haired stenographer brought Andy a handful of letters for his departmental signa¬ ture. And hurrying with his final duty, he quickly left the stuffy office, with its clicking type¬ writers and general bustle, so characteristic of each day’s close, when he caught the sound of a familiar automobile horn.

Rodney was watching the office door.

“Hi,” he cried, his face lighting up, when Andy came briskly into sight in the cindered fac¬ tory court.

It is doubtful if the bareheaded young driver realized the pleasing picture he made as he sat at the steering wheel of his natty green roadster,

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS 5

the nickeled trimmings of which glistened in the afternoon sunlight like a collection of rare gems. On the way here the wind had played havoc with his black hair, which now stood up in ripples and ringlets all over his boyish head. The open throat of his spotless sport shirt gave him an added touch of sheer boyishness. Small wonder indeed that his father and mother idolized him. For he was a son to be proud of. And it was to his credit that his parents’ attentions had not spoiled him.

Andy, too, natty and neat in his trim business suit and well-groomed footwear, was bareheaded. But the wind having had no chance as yet to muss up his curly hair, he seemed a bit less boyish than his companion and more mature. His round ruddy face, though, with its dancing brown eyes, betrayed his true age. Two boys were they at heart, each appreciative of the other’s manly qualities; boys who achieved to be men of the highest type. Truly an ideal comradeship, the only discontenting factor of which was the pos¬ sibility of later separation.

The roadster’s young owner stiffened in pre¬ tended indignation when the newcomer, after a word or two of warm greeting, swung his long legs over the low door.

“Say! How do you get that way?”

“What’s the matter?” grinned Andy, sinking into the luxurious cushions.

6 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Hurdler!”

“I always climbed over the door of Denny Landers’ car,” Andy further grinned, referring to his early job on the delivery wagon.

Rodney was well informed on his chum’s early advertising activities.

“This is no truck,” he grunted, putting the sleek-lined roadster into velvety motion.

“Well,” was Andy’s complacent rejoinder, as he further settled himself in comfort, “it looks as good as a truck to me.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Say, Rod, have you got a chocolate bar parked in your clothes? I’m as hungry as a bear.”

“You shouldn’t eat before you go in swim¬ ming.”

“Bu-lieve me, kid,” Andy’s thoughts returned to his work, as was frequently the case when the two were together, “plenty of things happened around the old joint this P.M. to stir up my ap¬ petite.”

“Somebody order a coaster wagon?” Rodney inquired cheerfully, as the roadster further gained speed, a cloud of dust arising behind it like a misshapen genie.

“Huh! You should have seen the order that we got from New York City. Seven thousand coasters.”

“Do they know you?”

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS f

“Who?”

“The people who gave you the order.”

“I should hope to snicker. For I called on them in person last month. I didn’t get much encouragement, though. Never having dealt with us, they seemed skeptical of our product. So, was I ever elaborately teakettled when their order came in? Which proves, old kid, that qual¬ ity is the deciding factor after all.”

“What did they do?” laughed Rodney. “Take one of your Comet Coasters apart, piece by piece, thus comparing it with other coasters?”

“That is what I asked them to do,” Andy nodded. “For I had a hunch that they discounted a great deal of my selling talk. ‘Oh, he’s a boy,’ was the thought that I read in their minds. ‘We can’t depend on him.’ ”

The lure of spring was in the air. Both boys felt it. And though they made no mention of it, as is the nature of youth, the beauty of the coun¬ tryside, with its emerald carpets and lush foliage, filled them with pleasing contentment.

“Want to drive?” Rodney spoke generously, as they left the flats of the valley and entered a road that wound here and there among the wooded hills.

“No, thanks,” Andy spoke lazily.

“I suppose you’ll be buying a car of your own one of these days,” was Rodney’s natural com¬ ment.

8 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Not this year,” Andy spoke earnestly. “For I’m paying for a home.”

“Where?”

“In Cressfield.. At my suggestion Mother traded in our old house in Channery Court to¬ ward a modern bungalow. And I’m paying the difference.”

“I’ve often wondered why your mother never moved to Manton,” Rodney continued the inti¬ mate conversation.

“She’s bound to Cressfield by many close ties, Rod. It was there that she spent the most of her married life; and it was there that my father was buried. Besides,” and here Andy disguised the real thought in his mind, “I haven’t a life’s con¬ tract with the Boy Products Company. I stand in with them to-day. But to-morrow they may replace me with an older and more experienced man at the business.”

“As though I’d believe that,” scoffed the driver.

“It’s a possibility, Rod.”

“But I thought you had stock in the com¬ pany?”

“I have.”

And Andy told in detail how the twenty shares of common stock, now worth one hundred and ten dollars a share, had been given to him as a bonus by old Mr. Warman, whose grandson,

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS 9

George Warman, the heaviest stockholder, was now in charge of the business.

As has been recorded in the preceding volume of this series, Andy, then associated with the Rollins and Hatch advertising agency of Chicago, had launched an ill-advised carriage-marketing campaign. It was soon learned, however, that there was no market for carriages. Either the old carriage company had to completely dissolve; or adopt a new line.

When Andy suggested coaster wagons, Mr. Warman quickly picked up the idea, agreeing to finance the proposed new company if the young advertising specialist would consent to locate in Manton and take charge of the merchandising, the aged manufacturer having reached the age where he wanted to “go fishing,” as he expressed it, leaving the business in the capable hands of his grandson.

After the way in which he had bungled the carriage campaign — thanks to the trickery of a junior partner! — it never had occurred to Andy for a single instant that anybody connected with the old carriage company, least of all its wealthy owner, would tender him a job. But he was glad to learn that the manufacturer still had confidence in him. And wanting to correct his blunder, as best he could, he had gratefully accepted their offer.

10 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

So the new company had been organized, with a paid-in capital of twenty-five thousand dollars. Less than twenty years old himself, George Warman had picked another young man (Harry Harnden) to head the accounting department, and still another (Tim Dine) to run the fac¬ tory. So, with Andy at the head of the mer¬ chandising department, it was truly a company of boys engaged in the manufacture of products for boys. There had been times when disaster threatened the struggling concern. But the young executives under George’s gritty leadership had battled against all obstacles, even patent liti¬ gation. And now it was generally conceded in Manton business circles that the ultimate success of the company was assured.

Brusque in speech and manner, even rough at times so aggressive was he by nature, the young president praised his capable advertising assist¬ ant on all sides, rightly crediting Andy with a leading part in the company’s success. Rodney knew this. Which explains why he had refused to take Andy seriously when the latter spoke of the uncertainty of his present position.

It was far more probable, the Manton boy struck at the truth of the matter, that the rest¬ less young advertising executive was beginning to tire of his present work. For the new company’s biggest merchandising problems had been solved. And having performed his work here, what more

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS n

natural than that Andy should want to return to the city?

“Does George Warman know?” Rodney finally spoke up.

“Know what?”

“That you’re going to quit?”

It was now Andy’s turn to be silent.

“How did you guess it, Rod?”

“Oh,” the word was spoken with peculiar fer¬ vor, “I know you, Andy. . . . Gee! I hate to think of you going away. What’s the matter, anyway? — isn’t your present job big enough for you?”

There was an uneasy laugh.

“I guess I’m like my father, Rod.”

“What do you mean?”

“I like to tackle new problems and assume new responsibilities.”

“But you told me yourself that your father never accumulated anything.”

Which was true, as Andy made no attempt to deny.

“Dad was tied down to Cressfield, Rod. And there’s nothing much for a fellow in a small town — I soon found that out.”

•“But you’ve got a good job, Andy.”

“I know it,” came the reflective admission. “But I’m young. And there are bigger jobs to be had.”

Rodney was struck by a sudden happy thought.

i2 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“How would you like to work for Dad?”

“No, Rod,” Andy slowly shook his head. “I want to go back to the city.”

“To work for Mr. Rollins?”

“I have a job waiting for me there whenever I choose to accept it. Then, too, old man, you must remember that it never was my intention to stay here indefinitely. I’ve told you that right along.”

“Yes,” Rodney spoke in a doleful voice. “I know. But I’ve been hoping that you’d change your mind. For you’re the best pal I ever had, Andy.”

“Thanks, Rod.”

“A lot of fellows hang around me because I have a car and money. As though I don’t know it! But I never had that feeling about you.”

“What a fellow is at heart means a whole lot more to me than what he has in his pockets,” Andy spoke sensibly; then added reminiscently: “Did I ever tell you about Clarence Corey? I used to hate him when I lived in Cressfield. Not so much because he was rich, but because of his bossy arrogant ways. Somehow I got the idea that all rich kids were like him. So, as you can imagine, it was a real treat to me when I met you.”

“Dad says that riches are a responsibility. He could build a million-dollar palace, if he wanted to, and live accordingly. But instead, he prefers

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS 13

to put his major earnings back into the business, so that still more men can find employment there at good wages. Which, I think, is the right idea.”

“You and your dad are friends worth hav¬ ing, Rod.”

“That’s what we think about you.”

Andy was human.

“Does your dad really care for me, Rod?”

“You should know that he does,” the other boy spoke simply. “And Mother, too.”

Then both boys lapsed into silence.

The brakes squealed as the car swung down a winding hill. And there in front of them, visible through the trees that lined its banks, was the river. Opening a gate, they followed a rutted wood-lot road with its bordering wild flowers to a sheltered cove where for more than thirty min¬ utes they splashed in the water with the abandon of ten-year-olds. Then, dressing, they took a different route back to town where Mrs. Chad¬ wick had supper waiting for them.

“What do you know about it, Dad,” Rodney disconsolately addressed his father later in the evening, the two boys having separated for the night. “Andy’s going to quit.”

Mr. Chadwick was engaged with some busi¬ ness papers at the big library table.

“What seems to be the trouble?” the financier glanced up from his work.

14 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Oh, he thinks he can get a better job in the city.”

“Considering his age, I would say that he has a very good job where he is. Not many young men of twenty are as well situated.”

That s exactly what I tell him. He has stock in the company, too. You see, when the new company was organized Mr. Warman, after giv¬ ing George one hundred and ninety shares, set aside sixty shares, which were to be divided among Andy, Harry Harnden and Tim Dine in case the company succeeded. They did fine the first year, as you know. And on top of distrib¬ uting the bonus stock, a dividend of ten per cent was declared on the total stock, which netted Andy another two hundred dollars. I think he’s lucky, Dad. And I further think he ought to content himself where he is. For he’s got a good job. And Manton is a good town. So what more can he ask for?”

There was pride in the manufacturer’s eyes.

“You’re right, Rodney. Manton is a good town. I know of none better in the whole state. And I’m glad to learn that you have the same feeling toward it that I have. According to my notion too many boys respond to the some¬ what theatrical lure of the great cities. As a matter of fact, the smaller towns contain more real opportunities in proportion to the popula¬ tion than the larger places. I’ve found that to

ANDY’S CONTINUED SUCCESS 15

be true. And certainly we have need of bright boys like you and Andy in the smaller centers. I hope we can keep him here. And it isn’t im¬ probable that I will broach the subject to him if the opportunity presents itself.”

Rodney’s eyes were noticeably happier in their expression.

“He’ll listen to you, Dad. For he thinks you’re the cat’s elbows.”

“My word! The cat’s elbows! What do you mean?”

“To-morrow noon,” planned the laughing son, “I’ll bring him home to lunch. And then you can talk to him.”

“Andy is a very promising boy,” the manufac¬ turer further contributed to the conversation. “He has good judgment for one of his years; and he backs this up with tremendous ambition. I’m wondering, though, if his somewhat unusual success isn’t liable to work him harm in the end. We should all be conscious of our limitations. Yet he seems to feel that his capacities are

boundless.”

Rodney spoke eagerly.

“You tell him, Dad. As I say, he’ll listen to you.”

Again that humorous expression crossed the financier’s face.

“The cat’s elbows! I fancy that I shall have various things to discuss with this restless young

16 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

friend of yours at the lunch table to-morrow noon.”

Rodney slipped an arm around his father’s neck.

“You’re bully, Dad. I wish that Andy had a father like you.”

It was a sultry evening. And to invite the fragrant evening air, as it first caressed the lush foliage in the surrounding garden, the room’s windows had been thrown open. But neither the manufacturer or his son suspected at the moment that their words had fallen upon a pair of out¬ side ears.

A strange chapter having opened in his young life, without a moment’s warning, Andy Blake, dazed and bewildered by the dramatic turn of his personal affairs, had come here to say good-by to his beloved chum.

But later the shadowy figure left the fragrant garden as quietly and as stealthily as it had come. And thus did Andy drop out of the lives of those who knew and loved him.

CHAPTER II

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

Not until the following noon was the alarm spread throughout the coaster-wagon factory that the company’s popular young advertising manager had mysteriously disappeared.

George Warman was the first one in the or¬ ganization to discover that the advertising executive wasn’t at his desk. It was odd, the young president thought, that the important de¬ partment head should elect to spend the morning in his room without sending some word to the office in explanation of his absence. Was he ill? At nine-thirty George telephoned to the Y.M.C.A. where Andy roomed. Later Harnden was summoned to the president’s private office.

“Say, Harry,” came the terse inquiry, “how are Blake’s departmental accounts?”

“In excellent shape, so far as I know to the contrary.”

“I wish you’d check up on things in his depart¬ ment. See if you can find any reason why he should want to disappear.”

“Disappear?” the accountant repeated, anx-

17

x8 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

iously searching the other’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It is the report of the desk clerk at the Y.M.C.A. that Blake has suddenly left town.”

Hamden leaned forward.

“And you suspect irregularities in his ac¬ counts?”

George vigorously shook his head.

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I’d trust that boy with the company’s last dollar. For I know — and you, too, for that matter — that he's absolutely on the square. But when the news of his strange disappearance gets noised around town, people are going to talk — those local wise¬ acres, I mean, who think that boys are duds — or even worse. You know how they’ve been talking about us, predicting that each month would see our finish. Boy managers I And boy salesmen! Particularly have these old mossbacks maintained that Andy was riding for a fall. And how lovely for them now to start the report that he skinned out with a big wad of the company’s money. It’s up to us to forestall any such damaging lies. So get me the facts, Harry. In the meantime I’ll wire Blake’s mother and Mr. Rollins, hoping that one or the other of them will be able to clear up the mystery.”

Neither spoke for a moment.

Harnden was not of the emotional type. Few bookkeepers are. For as a rule the handling of

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE 19

prosaic figures gives one a decidedly matter-of- fact view of life.

“Instead of jumping to the conclusion that Blake has skinned out,” the accountant spoke sen¬ sibly, “I’d sooner think he’s on the track of an¬ other big order.”

“But why didn’t he telephone to us before leaving town?”

“Maybe he left in the middle of the night while we were asleep.”

“It is suspected,” George’s earnestness deep¬ ened, “that he did leave town in the middle of the night. At ten-thirty he went up to his room, stopping at the registration desk for his key, where, in his usual jolly style, he joked with the clerk. It is known that he entertained a visitor in his room between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock. And here is where the mystery begins — for the visitor so completely escaped observation as to lead to the theory that he entered and left the room by way of the fire escape.”

“Did the desk clerk tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“And he knows for certain that there was a visitor in Andy’s room at the time specified?”

“Two voices were heard in the room.”

“By whom?”

“One of the other lodgers.”

“Did this lodger get the drift of the conversa¬ tion?”

20 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“It’s his statement, as passed along to me by the desk clerk, that Andy and his visitor talked in low tense tones.”

uAnd is it further presumed that Andy ac¬ companied his mysterious visitor down the fire escape?”

“Yes.”

“But nobody actually saw him leave the building?”

“No.”

“Did anyone see him after he entered his room?”

“No.”

George then got Rodney Chadwick on the telephone. But instead of helping to clear up the mystery, the Manton boy was literally dumb¬ founded when told that his chum had disap¬ peared over night. Throughout the balance of the day Rodney haunted the room that the miss¬ ing one had so strangely vacated, hoping to pick up a clew of some sort that would aid in the mys¬ tery’s solution. A brief note (evidently written in great haste or under conditions of extraordi¬ nary excitement) had been found on the dresser, requesting that the room’s contents be kept intact until their owner returned — and a check attached to the note paid the room rent many weeks in advance.

Rodney in time enlisted the aid of the local police. For he began to suspect foul play. But

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE 21

the police scoffed at this theory, giving as their collective opinion that the popular young ad¬ vertising man had disappeared voluntarily. Something had turned up on a moment’s notice to make him want to disappear; and he had acted accordingly. The fact that he was holding his room (with its closetful of clothing) proved that he intended to return.

The police having dropped the case, Rodney motored to Cressfield to question the vanished one’s mother. And this being his first visit to his chum s birthplace, he experienced peculiar emo¬ tions as landmarks that had been described to him so vividly now came to his attention. There on opposite sides of the rather shabby main street were the Landers and Hazzel stores. And there in the next block, facing the small park, where a weathered fountain functioned dispirit¬ edly, was the printing office in the back of which, in a small room used principally by the printer’s son, the delivery clerk and his enthusiastic chums had worked out those early advertising cam¬ paigns.

Ouija boards! Aunt Tillie’s Taffy Tarts! Fresh-roasted coffee! Hot-cross buns! Rodney had heard the details of these exciting campaigns many times. And now his memory of the cam¬ paigns seemed particularly vivid.

But no one in Cressfield knew where Andy Blake was. And when Rodney finally located the

22 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

new bungalow on Walnut Street he found it locked and deserted. Mrs. Blake, the next-door neighbor freely told the disturbed investigator, was spending the summer with relatives in On¬ tario, Canada.

This caused Rodney further thought.

Was Andy, too, in Ontario? Rodney won¬ dered. Plainly, was his conclusion, some strange disaster had befallen the little family. As though drawn by an invisible magnet he turned in at the white arched gateway of the roadside cemetery where Andy’s father had been buried. Little did the visitor dream, though, as he stood beside the low mound, how very close he was to the truth of his chum’s disappearance. Afterwards he recalled that trip to the cemetery with its peculiar accompanying emotions. And he mar¬ veled at his stupidity.

Andy had made it appear that he was dissatis¬ fied with his present position. He had spoken of going to the city. Could it be, Rodney asked himself, as again and again he turned over in his mind the events of that memorable afternoon, trying to attach a hidden meaning to his friend’s words, that the young advertising man had known that sooner or later he would have to change locations? Then, had some unexpected premature development sent him flying into the north with his peculiar secret?

But who was the mysterious visitor? And

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE 23

how had the pair left town? Further, had Mrs. Blake joined them in their flight into Canada? Or had she followed them north?

Rodney seemed unable to dismiss from his mind the thought that the chum he had loved and trusted had failed him. And distressed by the marked change in their son, over whom a noticeable sadness and depression had settled, like a leaden blanket, Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick decided to spend the balance of the summer in Italy, hopeful that a change of scene would bring forgetfulness. But Rodney, loyal pal that he was, refused point-blank to go abroad. A motor trip into Ontario would be much more to his lik¬ ing, he said. So the family car was made ready; the big house was closed for the summer; and the family of three set forth on their journey.

At the coaster-wagon factory the missing one’s work was carried on by his assistant, a bright¬ eyed, capable girl. And things went well with the company as a whole, for Andy had planned his work with great care and foresight. But the conferences in the president’s office seemed in¬ complete and spiritless without the ruddy, glow¬ ing face that the others had come to know so well.

Each morning George Warm an eagerly searched the incoming mail for some word from the missing executive whose position was being held open for him. But no word was received,

24 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

the mystery seemingly deepening with each suc¬ cessive day.

“I’m going to hire a private detective,” George thus disclosed his plans to Harnden one morning in early July. “For I’ll never rest easy until I know what became of that kid. If you must know the truth, Harry, I feel lost without him. I’m never satisfied that we’re making the most of our opportunities. We need him. And I’m going to try and find him and bring him back to his desk. Or if harm has befallen him, as I sometimes think, the sooner we learn the truth of the matter the better for us.”

And now, as our story takes us into the adjoin¬ ing state of Indiana, new characters step into the foreground, chief among them a boy by the name of Eddie Garry, through whom we will learn the truth about the unusual mission — the peculiar secret service — that was intrusted to Andy the night he disappeared.

Had not an adverse Fate interfered with his secret affairs, the perturbed young advertising man might have returned to Manton within a week. But, as his business associates had begun to suspect, a strange misfortune had befallen him, as will be revealed through the following chapters. And just as he had schemed to move secretly in the background, to the full accomplish¬ ment of his purpose, he involuntarily became a part of the story’s background.

HE HATED THE MONOTONY OF TRAMPING AROUND AND

AROUND A FIELD.

Andy Blake' s Secret Service.

Page 25

CHAPTER III

EDDIE GARRY

Even before Eddie Garry came quietly into the hot farmhouse kitchen for dinner he knew that his aunt and uncle had received some un¬ usual word through the morning mail. For he had seen the rural mail carrier stop at the road¬ side mail box. And later on he had seen his excitable aunt fly to the barn with a fluttering paper in her hand, obviously in quest of her hus¬ band.

Something about Herb ! It must be that, Ed¬ die concluded. His thoughts filled him with bitterness. And going back to his work he was more discontented than ever.

Oh, how he hated the monotony of tramping around and around a field, with the cultivator’s dry dust seeping through his patched overalls and the stench of the sweating horses in his nostrils. He hated the tang of the tilled earth and the smell of farm animals. He hated every¬ thing that was a part of farm life. At the moment, as he unhappily compared his own dis¬ couraging circumstances with those of his more

fortunate cousin, he told himself that he even

25

26 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

hated the two elder relatives who had opened their plain home to him when the death of his widowed mother had left him an orphan in his first high-school year.

‘‘All I am is a drudge,” he complained to him¬ self J^itterly. “I stay at home and slave, with nothing ahead of me but hard work, while Herb has it easy at college. He gets all the chances, and everything else. Aunt Hattie sends him money every week. But does she ever give me money? Or is anything ever said about me going to college?” The questions were answered with a harsh laugh.

But some of the discontented one’s bitterness had worn off by noon. For he was not an unfair boy — at least he tried not to be. And he real¬ ized, on deeper thought, that he owed a great deal to his uncle and aunt. Poor people, they had cheerfully given him a home on their unpro¬ ductive Indiana farm; and in the four years that he had been under their roof not a single unkind word had been spoken to him. Moreover, they had put him through high school. Remember¬ ing these things, he suddenly felt ashamed of him¬ self for his morning’s bitter thoughts. He hadn’t any right to expect as much as Herb, for he was only a penniless nephew while the other boy was an only child. Anyway, in another three years he would be twenty-one. Then he would be free to do as he pleased. It wouldn’t kill

EDDIE GARRY

27

him to put in these few intervening years on his uncle’s farm, even though he hated farm work. Still, he wished . . .

Dinner was on the table — steaming dishes of potatoes and ham and cabbage. There was a dish of carrots, too, and a thick rhubarb pie cut in four big pieces. It was Aunt Hattie’s notion that her “men folks” needed a lot of cooked food, and three times a day, winter and summer, her table was laden with steaming dishes. To¬ day her face was flushed from bending over the hot stove. But instead of complaining about the heat, and the monotony of her farm work, she sang snatches of a church song as she quickly moved back and forth between the pantry and the table.

“Oh, Eddie!” she cried, as her nephew came quietly into the kitchen. “Guess who’s coming to-morrow.”

The boy hung up his straw hat.

“Herb?”

The mother’s face was radiant.

“We got a letter from him this morning. His college closed on the twelfth. And he’s start¬ ing home to-day.”

“On the train?”

“No. He’s catching rides with passing tour¬ ists.”

Eddie looked into the sitting room, where a tall, gaunt, weary-eyed man sat reading a news-

28 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

paper. A canary in a flower-filled bay window lifted its voice in a burst of song at sight of the rugged, healthy boy. A cat came and rubbed against his legs.

It purred as he looked down at it.

Lifting the purring animal into his bare arms, the reflective farm boy sought the shade of a spreading elm tree in the grassy front yard, where he stretched himself on his back, the cat settling in lazy comfort on his bronzed breast. This was a pretty good home after all, was his earnest thought, as he listened to the continued dinner preparations in the near-by kitchen. Certainly, no mother could be kinder to him than Aunt Hattie. She had her odd ways, of course. But they were loving ways. Dear old Aunt Hattie I Always looking after the welfare of others with no thought seemingly of her own pleasures or conveniences. True, she favored Herb. But that was all right. She should favor him, for he was her own son.

The cat’s presence under the tree drew the attention of a pair of pursy robins. And while Eddie knew that their chattering tirade was di¬ rected at the sleeping animal, he let himself be¬ lieve that the birds were scolding him for his unjustified discontentment. “Don’t act like a child,” they were saying. “You’re a young man now. And until you are twenty-one it is your duty to stay on the farm and thus repay your

EDDIE GARRY

29

hard-working uncle and aunt for all that they have done for you.”

There was a flash of green as a humming bird passed over his head. And his attention thus drawn to a gorgeous flower bed a few feet away (for Aunt Hattie gave her yard the same strenu¬ ous care that she gave her house, rambling weath¬ ered structure that it was, and badly in need of paint), he lazily watched a huge yellow-barred bumblebee as it vainly sought to get at the honey in a deep-throated star flower. Again and again the burly worker tried to penetrate the flower’s store-house, buzzing angrily over its failures. The air was full of other sounds, too — the dis¬ tant plaintive call of a quail; the pleading notes of a mournful turtle dove; the discordant chorus of persistent crickets. Clucking hens worked up and down the wire fence that protected the flower garden. Combined, it was the song of summer; the song of the countryside. The magic of June lay everywhere.

“Yes,” Eddie repeated to himself, “this is a good home. No boy, especially an orphan boy like me, could ask for a better one.”

But his youthful discontentment was too deeply rooted to be dismissed on a moment’s notice. And in his heart he knew that the old longings would return. But it was his determina¬ tion now to keep a better check on himself. His chance would come later on.

3o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Dinner’s ready, Pa,” came the summons from the bustling housewife as the farm boy returned to the kitchen. “And when you come, bring Herb’s letter for Eddie to read.”

There was a snatch of song.

“Oh, I’m so happy! To think that my boy will be home to-morrow! I haven’t seen him since last Christmas. He was intending to work on the Great Lakes this summer— you remember what he wrote to you a few weeks ago, Eddie. But now he says he’s coming home for the summer.”

The three were soon seated at the table.

“I suppose he’ll get a job in town,” said Eddie, bending over his plate.

A job in town! That is what he had wanted to do in concluding his high-school studies — work in town instead of on this hated farm. He had thought about it untold times and had dreamed of it nights. There were factories in Sun Prairie — factories and real opportunities.

“I tell Pa,” Aunt Hattie ran on, more talka¬ tive to-day than usual, “that we’ll have to be very saving this summer so that we can do more for Herb when he goes back to college in the fall. For I’ve heard that the third year in college is always the hardest. And if we can send him more money he won’t have to do so much outside work.”

In spite of himself Eddie winced under his

EDDIE GARRY

3 1

breath. And then, in a feeling of queer reck¬ less humor, he wondered if he would have to go without shoes ! Oh, well, he should worry. Three more years . . .

But how silly of him to think about going with¬ out clothing of any sort. He was acting the baby again.

An observing man of quiet, studious character¬ istics, Alexander Garry seemed more interested in the changing moods of his nephew than in his wife’s flow of conversation. He silently studied the younger one across the table. And a troubled look came into his grizzled, sun-browned face.

“Don’t you feel well, Eddie?” came the quiet earnest inquiry.

The boy glanced up quickly at the unexpected question. And at the moment he saw something m the faded blue eyes that strangely reminded him of his father. He thought hungrily of his early boyhood — of how he used to crawl into his father’s lap and go to sleep.

“Why . . . sure thing. I feel all right.”

“You aren’t eating.”

There was a forced laugh.

“I haven’t got started yet.”

Aunt Hattie beamed as the young farmer filled his plate.

“That’s it, Eddie. Take a big helping. For growing boys like you need plenty of food.”

“Sometimes I think I eat too much,” grinned

32 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

the farm boy. “But if I do it’s your own fault, Aunt Hattie. For everything you cook tastes bully.”

The simple compliment filled the housewife with added happiness.

“Your pa used to say that I was the best cook in the whole state. And what a pleasure it was to prepare meals for him. For a better feeder never sat at my table. Still, that’s characteristic of all railroad men, I guess. There was my sister Kate. Thought, when she started a board¬ ing house in Kansas City, that she was going to get rich. But when I heard that her boarders were all railroad men, I told your Uncle Alex what to expect. Nor was I wrong. As I under¬ stand it, they fairly ate her out of house and home. And now she and her husband are back on a farm.”

Railroad men ! The younger one winced with inward pain as a picture arose in his mind of crumpled passenger coaches and twisted steel rails. For it was in such a wreck as this that the beloved male parent had lost his life. Which explains why the orphaned boy never had wanted to follow railroading. The intersecting railroads, with their throbbing locomotives and rumbling coaches, an industrial atmosphere so appealing to most imaginative boys, filled him with fear and horror.

The farmer cleared his throat.

EDDIE GARRY 33

“How would you like to go to town this after¬ noon, Eddie?”

“There’s nothing going on in town.”

“You’ve been working pretty steady lately. And all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Yes,” the farmer wisely decided, nodding his shaggy head, “you can make the trip to town this afternoon instead of me. And you can take the eggs along.”

Eddie grinned.

“Do you think I can get ‘Lizzie’ started?”

“I’d sooner walk,” Aunt Hattie spoke petu¬ lantly, “than to ride in that rickety old truck. Everything rattles. And it always stops just when you least want it to.”

“Eddie can make it run,” waggled the farmer, regarding the boy with affectionate eyes. “And the more it rattles the better he likes it.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed the weary wife, resting her head in her hands. “I do wish we were rich. Then we could have a decent car like the other people around here. Herb would enjoy a new car. In fact,” the doting mother ran on, “we ought to buy a new car for him if he’s going to work in town this summer. Otherwise, how will he be able to get back and forth?”

“He can use the truck.”

“Oh, Pa! Herb ride in that old rattletrap!”

“We ride in it.”

“I know. But Herb’s been away to college.

34 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

And that makes a difference. ... I wonder if we ought to buy a new mattress for his bed.”

“Why can’t he sleep with Eddie?”

“Oh, he’ll want a room by himself — where he can keep his books and study. He’ll have a lot of college trinkets, too. So I think I’ll fix up the east bedroom for him — it’s the most pleasant room we have. I’ll do it right after dinner so that everything will be ready for him when he gets here to-morrow. And maybe you had better let Eddie cultivate this afternoon, Pa, and go to town yourself, as you had planned on doing. For I feel that we should see about getting a new mattress.”

“Let Herb have our mattress, Mother,” said the farmer dryly, “arid we’ll sleep on the floor.”

Eddie laughed gently at the blank expression on his aunt’s face. Then he left the table and went outside. After considerable fussing and tinkering he got a few encouraging “barks” out of the rickety farm truck. Changing his clothes, he listened patiently while his aunt instructed him about the marketing of the eggs. They ought to bring thirty cents a dozen, she said. But he was told to inquire around among the various dealers as it frequently happened that one paid a cent or two more than the others. There were things to buy with the egg money — everything was written down on a slip of paper.

Eddie glanced at the slip and laughed.

EDDIE GARRY

35

“Three kinds of cookies! Are we going to have a party, Aunt Hattie?”

“Herb likes cookies. . . . Now, I wonder if IVe forgotten anything. Dear me! I’m so ex¬ cited I hardly know which end I’m standing on. Oh, yes, Eddie, you might get a dozen bananas. For Herb likes banana pie. And be sure and go to the post office. There may be a later letter from him.”

CHAPTER IV

THE TWO COUSINS

Eddie wouldn’t have been a real boy if he hadn’t enjoyed the three-mile ride to town, with the truck’s motor missing fire like a snorting colt and a million things rattling. Swinging down a rocky sun-baked hill, he suddenly remembered about the two crates of eggs. Then, as he turned to see if the eggs were riding safely, a sudden “pop !” lifted him off the seat.

“Dog-gone! A blow-out! If this isn’t the worst old junk-pile in seventeen states,” he com¬ plained. But he said it with a boyish laugh.

There was a small wooden bridge at the foot of the hill, spanning a creek that ran prettily in curves in a sandy, willow-fringed bed, and in jacking up the truck’s right front wheel, to re¬ move the flattened tire, Eddie thoughtlessly took up so much of the narrow country road directly in front of the bridge that another car, coming down the opposite hill, had to stop.

“Why, it’s Eddie Garry!” came a pleased youthful voice, and craning his neck over the wheel the young tire repairer recognized Laura

Salzar, the only child of the president and gen-

36

THE TWO COUSINS

37

eral manager of the Electro-Call Company, one of Sun Prairie’s leading industries.

“I was dumb,” he grinned, going forward, tire tools in hand, “to take up the whole road. If you’ll wait a moment I’ll let the jack down and pull to one side.”

It isn’t within the talents of a healthy boy to change a tire without getting his face dirty, es¬ pecially on a hot June day. And not only was Eddie’s forehead streaked with grime, where he had wiped away the sweat, but his nose was daubed with black grease. How pleasingly boy¬ ish he looked, the girl thought, as he stood in the bright sunshine, bareheaded, his hair ruffled, his shirt open at the throat. Yet she smiled at the grease spot.

“Oh, we aren’t in any hurry,” she said gayly. “Are we, Mr. Halliday?”

The young farmer had been wondering, in nat¬ ural curiosity, who the broad-shouldered, black- eyed stranger was in the right-hand front seat. Some out-of-town business man probably. The quick young eyes took in the neat-fitting check¬ ered suit and the modish straw hat. And in look¬ ing into the future, in wistful boyish dreams, he suddenly wondered if ever he would come back to Sun Prairie looking as polished and business¬ like as this.

“I would like to have you meet Mr. Thomas Halliday,” the smiling girl introduced. “He is

38 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

the manager of our Chicago office and one of Daddy’s star salesmen. This is Eddie Garry, Mr. Halliday. If you can coax him to wipe the grease from the end of his nose you’ll find that he’s quite good-looking.”

This was one of the greatest moments in Ed¬ die’s life. To be thus introduced to the Elec¬ tro-Call Company’s star salesman — the Mr. Halliday, of whom frequent mention was made in the Sun Prairie newspaper! A branch man¬ ager, too. The farm boy hadn’t dreamed that any such honor could befall him.

“I can’t shake hands with you,” he grinned, showing his dirty palms. “But I’d like to,” he added boyishly, unable to remove his shining eyes from the successful man.

“Come across,” laughed the pleasant sales¬ man, putting out his hand.

“Oh, I’ll get you all dirty.”

“I’m not afraid of a little dirt. Come on.”

There was a warm hand-clasp. A thrill ran up and down Eddie’s spine. v It was as though he had just shaken hands with royalty. Yet, boy that he was, and uninformed on many subjects, it puzzled him that a man of Mr. Halliday’s excep¬ tional talents could act so common. He had yet to learn that a salesman’s greatest personal asset is humanness.

“Tire trouble?” the man inquired genially, thinking to himself, as a quick, keen judge of

THE TWO COUSINS

39

character, that here was a mighty likeable, bright-faced boy.

“A blow-out. It’s an old tire.”

uI’ve fixed dozens of blow-outs,” laughed the salesman, getting to work with the tire tools in spite of the boy’s almost pained protests. Soon the worn casing lay on the grass beside the road. Then the little vulcanizing tool was brought out. Having recovered from the shock of having a twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year business man help him with his damaged tire, Eddie was enjoying the situation. Yet he still was puzzled. He never had dreamed that a big man could act like this .

“I was taking Mr. Halliday out to see Daddy’s stock farm,” informed the girl, while the ce¬ mented patch was “cooking.”

Eddie looked at the salesman in quick surprise.

“Are you interested in farms?”

“Oh, yes. Very much so. Mrs. Halliday and I dream of the time when we’ll be able to retire to the country with our family of boys. Do you live on a farm?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I envy you.”

“You wouldn’t,” the boy burst out, hardly realizing what he was saying, “if you knew how I hated it.”

“Why do you hate it?”

N“It’s drudgery.”

4o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

There was a brief silence as the trained char¬ acter reader studied the flushed face.

“You don’t look like a lazy boy.”

Eddie stiffened (to the girl’s inward amuse¬ ment). And his mouth settled firmly.

“I’m not lazy,” he said doggedly. “But if you were to give me my pick of all the jobs in the world, farming would be my last choice.”

“And what would be your first choice?”

There was a wistful, yet bashful look in the boy’s warm eyes.

“Shall I tell you, Mr. Halliday?”

“Why not?”

“I’d like to be what you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d like to be a salesman.”

There was another brief pause.

“A salesman, eh? Do you know anything about selling?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what makes you think you’d prefer that kind of work?”

“Oh, I just have that feeling. I look through the newspapers and see the advertising. And then I imagine myself selling those products.” There wTas a quick embarrassed laugh as the boy realized what he was saying. “I suppose I sound silly to you.”

“Not at all,” the words were spoken quickly. “I think you’re an exceptional boy.”

THE TWO COUSINS

4i

There was eagerness in the young face now.

“Do you think I’ll ever make a salesman, Mr. Halliday ?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, gee ! If only I could. Do you hire boys, Mr. Halliday?”

“We have an office boy,” was the bland reply.

Eddie accepted the rebuke.

“I guess you think I’m cuckoo, all right,” he spoke quietly.

“If you don’t like farming,” Laura Salzar spoke up, “why don’t you see Daddy about get¬ ting a job in his factory?”

Eddie didn’t say anything.

“The Electro-Call Company is a good concern to work for,” put in the salesman loyally. “And if you make good in the factory I dare say they’ll give you a trial on the road. For they’ve done that with other young men.”

The boy’s continued sober silence gave the wise executive a clew to the situation.

“Are your folks keeping you on the farm?” came quietly.

“I live with my uncle and aunt. They’re poor. The farm isn’t much — just forty acres. Every¬ thing dries out in the summer time. Maybe I wouldn’t hate it so if it was a good farm. But it seems as though the harder I work the less I have to show for it.”

It was on the tip of the discontented one’s

42 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

tongue to say something about his cousin. But he refrained. However, the girl seemed to read his thoughts.

“Is Herb coming home this summer, Eddie?”

“Yes. We expect him to-morrow.”

“Well, why can’t he run the farm and let you work in town for a change?”

“He wouldn’t want to do that — after being away to college. And I don’t think Aunt Hattie would want him to do it. No, I’ve got to stick to the farm — till Herb’s through college, at least, or till I’m twenty-one. I hate it, though. There’s no use denying it. You can’t imagine how I feel, Mr. Halliday, when the factory whistles blow in the morning, calling the men to work. I always listen for the whistles. And it seems to me as though they’re calling me, too. They keep calling, morning after morning.”

It seemed to the warm-hearted girl that never had she seen a more dramatic, appealing picture than was presented by the farm boy, as he stood there in the June sunlight. One forgot his grimy face in looking into his emotional eyes. Even the experienced business man was strangely stirred.

“Eddie,” said the salesman slowly, putting a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder, “I felt at first that you were foolishly dissatisfied with your farm work. I felt that you weren’t trying to take an interest in things, as you should. But I see now where your heart is. You were born to

THE TWO COUSINS

43

be a part of Industry. And whether it’s this summer, or when you’re twenty-one, I hope that you get your chance. ... I’d like to have you write to me occasionally, telling me how you’re getting along. Will you do that?”

The boy couldn’t trust himself to words. And his hand trembled as he took the calling card that the manager held out to him.

“I’m going to try and be less discontented,” he said huskily. His eyes were wistful. “And some day . .

“And some day,” the salesman picked up, spir¬ itedly patting the boy on the back, “you may be my right-hand man, eh?”

“I hope so,” came earnestly.

“Get into the factory and learn the line,” was the experienced manager’s parting advice. “The more you learn about the stuff the better equipped you’ll be to sell it later on. One of the first things I tell a new salesman is know your line . Study everything, inside of the factory and out, from a selling standpoint. Talk with salesmen when you get the chance. Listen to their stories about their work. You’ll find they like to talk about themselves ! Get some good books on sell¬ ing, written by practical men. This ought to keep you busy for a few years, and prepare you for later big things. And, finally, good luck, Eddie.”

“Lizzie” performed nobly throughout the bal-

44 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

ance of the afternoon. And haying purchased the last item on his aunt’s list, Eddie started for home.

A mile outside of town he overtook a long- legged, broad-shouldered young college man, swinging down the middle of the sun-baked road.

“Herb!” came the driver’s surprised cry, as he brought the rattling truck to a sharp, shiver¬ ing pause.

“Hi, Eddie,” was the walker’s hilarious greet¬ ing. “Didn’t expect to see me so soon, hey?” and a grin spread from ear to ear.

“Aunt Hattie got a letter this morning telling her to look for you to-morrow.”

Herb Garry threw his traveling bag into the truck.

“I got away a day sooner than I expected. How are you, old top?”

“Oh, fine and dandy.”

“How’s ‘Lizzie?’”

“As wabbly as ever.”

“Let me drive, will you?” The truck was put into motion. And as though the worn-out engine realized that there had been a change of drivers, it snorted worse than ever. “Hot dog!” shrieked the boy at the wheel, putting his cap on back¬ wards. “This is the berries.”

Eddie grinned.

“You’ll shock Aunt Hattie to death if you drive into the yard in this old rattletrap.”

THE TWO COUSINS

45

“Ma well?”

“Sure thing.”

“Pa, too?”

“He’s cultivating this afternoon.”

“What have you been doing all spring? — currying the chickens?”

“Oh, working in the field mostly.”

“Everything all right?”

“I guess so. How did you come out at col¬ lege?”

“Lovely. Had to work like a nailer, though. Say, I had a card from Laura Salzar the other day. She was in Chicago. Is she home yet?”

“I saw her driving one of her father’s cars this afternoon.”

“She’s a good kid. Guess I’ll run down and see her to-night. I want to see Mr. Salzar, too.”

Eddie was steadily determined to let no jeal¬ ous or envious thoughts come between himself and his cousin.

“We figured you’d get a summer job with the Electro-Call Company,” said he quietly.

Crossing the creek bridge, the loose planks of which rumbled like a terrific thunderclap, the college boy stopped the truck beside the road in the identical spot where Eddie had earlier made his tire repairs.

“How’s the swimming hole?”

“The one up the creek?”

“Sure thing.”

46 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“I haven’t been there this summer,” Eddie confessed.

“Why not?”

“Oh . . . I’ve been pretty busy.”

“But you still like to swim?”

“Sure thing.”

“Well, then, let’s pile out.”

Crawling under the barbed-wire fence, the two cousins hastened along the bank of the winding creek until they came to a secluded spot, several rods from the country road, where the swift cur¬ rent had dished out a huge basin in the sandy soil. And what fun they had! Before dressing they sat in the sun, Herb entertaining the other with an account of his studies and various col¬ lege activities. Then, on the way back to the truck, they took a side trip into a shaded ravine, where the wild life of the forest scattered at their approach, some of the creatures disappearing into burrows in the ground and others under rocky ledges, and where the boys found great patches of ferns, shooting stars and red honeysuckle, with which they loaded their arms.

“Boy,” cried Herb, filling his lungs with the invigorating air, in which was combined the tang of the woodland and the fragrance of the adja¬ cent meadows, “the country sure is wonderful.”

There was a small waterfall at the head of the rocky ravine. And here, at Herb’s suggestion, they sat on a huge mossy bowlder, tossing pebbles

THE TWO COUSINS

47

into the pool that the falling water, through countless ages, had gouged into the sandstone.

“There’s fish here,” cried Herb, pointing into the depths of the pool.

“Sure thing.”

“What are they? — -bass?”

“Those black ones are suckers. But there’s bass here, all right. A club of Sun Prairie sports¬ men has been stocking the streams.”

“Bu-lieve me, Eddie, I’m coming back here with a pole and line. For a little old fried bass won’t taste so worse, eh?”

“The best time to get a strike,” spoke the ex¬ perienced farm boy, “is just before sunrise.”

Herb laughed.

“It sounds lazy to hear me tell it, but I haven’t seen the sun rise since last winter.”

“Uncle Alex always gets up at sunrise the year around,” Eddie spoke simply.

“He wouldn’t,” Herb grunted, “if he had to sit up till midnight with a textbook under his nose. You can say all you’ve a mind to, Eddie, about the thrill of college life, but I’m here to tell you that it’s a grind. I’m glad I’m home.”

“And is it your intention to pile out at sunrise with the rest of us?” Eddie inquired curiously.

“Nothing else but.”

Old “Lizzie” presented a distinctly festive ap¬ pearance throughout the balance of the home¬ ward trip, the boys having laughingly made

48 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

windshield decorations of their ferns and flowers. Then, from a rise, the rambling two-story farm¬ house came into sight. But however shabby it may have appeared to the college boy, it was home. And he further increased the motor’s speed.

Indiana, as a whole, is a state of good farms. But many poor farms are contained within its borders. And it seemed to Alexander Garry that his was the most unproductive farm of them all. He worked hard. No man in the neighbor¬ hood worked harder. But the thin topsoil was unable to supply the growing crops with the needed nourishment. A prolonged dry spell wrought disaster. For directly below the top¬ soil (which seemed to grow thinner each succeed¬ ing year) was an immense deposit of gravel — a gigantic sponge, as it were, that quickly drained the topsoil of its moisture.

It was the constant struggle to eke out a liv¬ ing that had broken the farmer’s spirits. But he struggled on. And now, as solace of a sort, he had his “boys,” as he expressed it — his own son, of whom he was justly proud, and the or¬ phaned son of his younger brother. Yet however deeply he loved them, always when he was near them he experienced a definite uneasiness. For he knew that in their eyes he was a business failure.

There was “company” at the farmhouse. Ed-

THE TWO COUSINS

49

die saw a man and woman on the front porch. And a strange automobile was parked in the lane under the spreading elm trees.

At Herb’s lusty shouts Aunt Hattie came run¬ ning from the garden with an apronful of green peas.

“Oh, Herbie ! My boy ; my big boy !”

“Good old Mum,” the son spoke with similar affection, as he in turn clasped the excited parent in his strong young arms. “I fooled you, huh? —got here a day ahead of time.”

Never completely forgetful of her housewifely duties, the parent then discovered that her apron was empty.

“Laws-a-me ! Where are my peas?”

“Never mind, Mum,” laughed the happy son, who had caught sight of the scattered peas. “I’ll pick them up for you.”

“And did Eddie know that you were coming to-day?”

“No. He overtook me on the road.”

“But what has happened to you, Herbie? Your hair is wet.”

“Oh, Eddie and I stopped in the hollow for a swim.”

“A swim? Without a suit?”

“Good heavens, Mum! Why look so shocked? Do the kids around here wear suits?”

“I should think that you would want to wear a suit, now that you’re a young college man.”

So ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Herb laughed gayly.

“Oh, Eddie,” the elder’s thoughts then turned. “I almost forgot to tell you that there’s a man and woman waiting for you on the front porch. They’re people you knew in Ohio. I’ve urged them to stay over night. But they seem to feel that they must go on.”

Ohio people ! Eddie quickly tried to place the pair in his memory.

“They’re the folks you stayed with after your ma died. And they have something for you, they told me, which largely explains why they stopped here. I think it’s a chest of books.”

Mr. and Mrs. Brantingham! Eddie felt cha- grinned, in a way, that he hadn’t recognized the visitors at first glance. For Mrs. Brantingham in particular was an outstanding figure ! Still, he had not seen them for more than four years.

He dutifully hurried into the farmhouse to welcome the tourists. And he further thanked them for coming out of their way to see him when he learned that they were on their way to Texas, where they expected to make their home.

But if the truth must be told the emotional boy found no pleasure in their company. For they brought to mind those dark days when he had lost his father and mother, the first of whom had met his death on the railroad, as has been mentioned, and the other of whom had later died of a broken heart.

CHAPTER V

A WEDDING PICTURE

“My father made it when he was a boy,” Ed¬ die spoke simply, when shown the small wooden chest that the visitors had in their car.

A squat, fleshy woman, noticeably fond of showy clothing and gaudy jewelry, Mrs. Brant- ingham was quite content to do the talking for both she and her hard-of-hearing husband, the latter of whom used an old-fashioned ear trumpet.

“That’s just what I told my husband,” the woman loosened her ready tongue. “You know what I said, Henry,” she spoke directly into the ear trumpet. “That’s the chest, I said, that Mr« Garry made himself when he was a boy. Land of livin’ I Hadn’t I seen the chest a hundred times in Mrs. Garry’s bedroom? And hadn’t she told me herself that her husband made it? Sell a chest like that? No, indeed, I said. It belongs to Eddie, I said, and I’m going to see that he gets it. So here it is. As for coming out of our way, you should realize, Eddie, that we were only too glad to do this for you. So don’t

say another word about it. If you must know the

51

52 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

truth, I feel almost like a second mother to you. And Henry — you never would believe, Eddie, how much he missed you after you left us to come here. If he said it once he said it a hun¬ dred times: ‘Mother, I wish we had adopted that boy. I do for a fact.’ And I said: ‘Henry, his relatives have first claim on him.’ . . . How long was it, Eddie, that you lived with us after your ma died?”

“Four months.”

“And you were such a skinny boy then. Just like a rail. Henry, did you ever see a boy fill out like he has? Eddie, you’re a man. I hon¬ estly believe you’re taller than Henry. You are, for a fact. Now, what do you know about that? But, then, you should be tall, for I see by this uncle of yours that you come of tall stock. Do you remember your father, Eddie? He was tall, too.”

The boy winced.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I remember him well.”

“Dear me! Those were terrible days — when they brought your pa home, I mean. I never saw a woman take on worse than your ma did. And what a beautiful wreath the railroad men sent. I wanted your ma to take a picture of it. But when I suggested it to her she just looked at me. As I told Henry — you remember what I said, Henry — if it was my wreath, I said, I’d want a picture of it — for it must have cost at

A WEDDING PICTURE

53

least a hundred dollars. The biggest calla lilies that I ever saw in all my life. And everybody who has had a death in the family knows what calla lilies cost. But your ma, of course, was the best judge of what she wanted or didn’t want. Certainly, if she didn’t care for a picture of the wreath it was none of my affairs. . . . Have you got a good home here, Eddie?”

“Yes,” the boy spoke feelingly.

“As I told Henry when I first looked around — and you mustn’t mind if I speak the truth, Eddie, for I’m no hand to beat about the bush — things could look more prosperous. Certainly, your relatives aren’t wasting any paint! If this house was mine I wouldn’t live in it a week before I gave it a coat of paint. Still, your uncle doesn’t look like a shiftless man.”

Eddie had a sense of humor.

“My uncle and aunt are very hard-working people,” he concealed a smile. “But the land is poor. That’s why things look run down. For a farmer can’t spend more, in keeping things up, than he earns. And sometimes our crops are a complete failure.”

“But why doesn’t your uncle sell out and buy a better farm?” came the natural question.

Eddie gave a queer laugh.

“Sell this farm? He hasn’t a chance in the world. . . . May I take the chest up to my room, Mrs. Brantingham?”

54 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Her attention thus drawn to the chest, the talkative visitor lifted the cover.

“It’s full of your old toys, Eddie. There’s the jumping-jack that Henry put in your stocking the Christmas he froze his nose. And here’s your ma’s plush album.”

Eddie recognized the album. And when he opened it, with a trembling hand, the first thing that he saw was his parents’ wedding picture. Dear old Dad and Mum! What happiness was revealed in the pictured faces . . . what high hopes and glowing ambitions.

“I always said,” the woman ran on, looking particularly at the picture of the tall, dark-haired husband, “that your pa was the best-looking man in town. And the wonder was to me that your ma didn’t scratch his eyes out with jealousy, for he was always palavering some other woman. Why,” the speaker smirked, with a side glance at her stoop-shouldered husband, who, during his mate’s frequent long-winded recitals always stood patiently attentive, ready to nod his shaggy head at the proper time, “he even made eyes at me. And Henry — yes you did, Henry Branting- ham — Henry, as I say, was mad enough to fight wildcats.” There was a deep sigh. “Oh, dear! I’ve often wondered what it would seem like to have a husband whose thoughts rose above beef¬ steak and gravy. If I must say so, Henry has about as much romance inside of him as a droopy

A WEDDING PICTURE

55

caterpillar. . . . What was that, Eddie? Oh!

. . . Yes, as you may remember, we stored your ma’s things in our attic following her death. There wasn’t much. And having sold out every¬ thing, our own stuff and yours combined, Henry has over a hundred dollars for you. But I real¬ ized that it wasn’t right to sell your ma’s album. You would want it, I said. And the chest, too. So here they are, Eddie. And while it isn’t my intention to come between uncle and nephew, or stir up family discord, I would like to leave the thought with you that any time you want to make your home with us the doors are open to you.”

“That’s mighty kind of you,” Eddie spoke earnestly. “But I imagine that this will be my home until I have one of my own.”

“Are you going to be a farmer, Eddie?”

A farmer !

“No,” the boy spoke quickly. “I’m going to be a salesman.”

“A salesman! Did you hear that, Henry? Eddie says he’s going to be a salesman. Well,” came the fluent advice, “I hope you don’t go around cheating people, like that cross-eyed scal- lawag who sold me my electric curling iron. It never has done the things for my hair that he promised. In fact, it isn’t even dependable. And every time I use it- — had you noticed, Eddie, that my hair is bobbed? — I’m on needles and pins for fear it will flare up and do to my hair

56 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

what it did to cousin Ella’s when she used it on her last visit. Poor Ella ! She went home the next day, madder than a wet hen. Nor has she written a line to me since. As though I were to blame. Henry said that on top of losing half of her hair she even singed her scalp. But he never could tell anything without making it sound worse than it really was.”

Here Aunt Hattie bustled into sight.

“Even if you can’t stay over night with us,” the housewife smoothed the creases out of her clean apron, “I’m going to insist that you stay to supper. Nor will you have to wait long. For the potatoes are on cooking and the strawberry shortcake is in the oven.”

There was merriment in the farmhouse that evening. The supper table groaned with its extra load of good things to eat. Throughout the meal the housewife and fleshy visitor kept up a running lire of conversation ranging from politics to home-made rag rugs. At the request of the others the returned college boy gave an interesting account of his past year’s work, the loving mother beaming with pride as the story continued to its conclusion. Eddie did his share of the talking. He was glad, he told himself stoutly, that his cousin was home again — he wouldn’t let any other thought enter his mind. And, further, he hoped that the other boy would get a good summer job in the Electro-Call plant.

A WEDDING PICTURE

57

Yet there were moments when he wanted to steal away by himself.

Having made arrangements to spend the night with relatives in a near-by town, the visitors drove away shortly after supper, the fleshy one’s tongue running till the last moment, and the stooped one nodding. Invited to go to Sun Prairie with his cousin, Eddie declined, offering as an excuse that he was tired. Shortly after eight o’clock he went up to his room. Lighting a hand lamp on the dresser, he studied the call¬ ing card that the salesman had given to him. Then he slowly put the card away in a small box where other boyish treasures were kept — his mother’s Bible; the watch his father had carried. Into this box he now put his parents’ wedding picture, the album itself and accompanying chest of toys having been put away in a dark corner of the closet. Dropping onto the edge of the bed, with its showy home-made quilt, he slowly unlaced his shoes, letting them fall one after the other to the carpeted floor. Then in the same methodical way he got out of his pants and shirt, putting them away in the closet. He stood be¬ fore the window in his night clothes for several minutes, listening to the plaintive call of an owl in the forest on the other side of the road. Then he blew out the lamp and got into bed.

At ten o’clock he still was wide awake. For his thoughts wouldn’t let him go to sleep. The

58 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

familiar rattle of the farm truck came to him as it turned into the lane under his window. There was a care-free boyish whistle — a door slammed — feet stumbled on the stairs.

“Hey, Eddie,” came in a heavy whisper.

“Yes?”

“Where’s the matches?”

“Feel up and down the wall inside the door.”

“I got ’em.”

A feminine voice came up the stairs.

“Herbie.”

“Yes, Ma.”

“I left a light for you in the east bedroom.”

“All right. I’ll blow it out.”

“Aren’t you going to sleep there?”

“Not if Eddie will let me sleep with him.” A cap sailed toward the bed. “How about it, old shoe polish?”

“Why . . . sure thing.” Eddie sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I want you to,” he added feel¬ ingly.

There was a low chuckle.

“Ma’s funny. I bet a cookie she’s been work¬ ing all the afternoon in that east bedroom, doll¬ ing it up for me. And you should have heard her sputter when I started to town in the old truck. I guess she was ashamed of me.” A paper rustled. “I got some new work clothes in town to-night. Want to see ’em, Eddie?”

“Sure thing.”

A WEDDING PICTURE

59

The package was unwrapped.

“Overalls!” cried Eddie in surprise. And then, in his kind-hearted way, he was pained by the thought of how disappointed the other one must be. “Wouldn’t they give you an office job?”

“An office job? Me?” and the speaker’s merry laughter was pleasing to hear. “What do I want of an office job? Look me over, kid. A farmer, and nothing else but.”

Eddie could only stare. And then, in sudden quietness, the other boy, partly undressed, came over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Say, kid, Laura told me something about you to-night. You know — what you and the sales¬ man talked about this afternoon. Gee, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” echoed Eddie, with whirling thoughts.

“I never dreamed that you hated farm work. I don’t think Dad suspected it, either. Or else he would have - ”

“Oh!” cried Eddie in sudden misery. “Don’t talk that way. Please. I don’t hate it. I just let myself think so. I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Good old pal!”

“Don't” and the voice choked. “If you knew how I have been feeling toward you- - ”

“Let me get my arm under you, Eddie. There. Gee, this is just like old times. We’re good pals, eh? And we’re always going to be good pals.”

6o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

The light was blown out.

“Mr. Salzar wants you to come down to the factory to-morrow and see him, Eddie. He’s in¬ terested in you from what that salesman told him about you.” There was a quick change in the tone of the voice. “Hey! Who’s got my pil¬ low? Come across with it, you hunk of cheese, or I’ll kick you through the ceiling.”

CHAPTER VI

aunt hattie’s “ghost”

It isn’t the nature of energetic growing boys to awaken at summer sunrise without being called, though in Eddie’s case it may be stated to his credit that he seldom had to be called more than once. Deeply conscientious as well as in¬ nately ambitious, he was never unmindful of the duty he owed these hard-working relatives who had opened their home and hearts to him. Nor had he ever hinted to them that the imposed farm work was distasteful to him. The work had to be done. And manfully he had performed his just share of it.

But now, with a possibility of engaging in work more to his liking, how changed were his feelings ! Every sound that came to him through the open bedroom window, the cracking of a twig, the scampering of flying squirrels on the shingled roof, the rasping chorus of garrulous katydids, all so distinctive of the countryside, filled him with added happiness. That plaintive call of the owl! Earlier he had let himself imagine that the lonely bird, like himself, was

voicing its discontentment. Its song was one of

61

62 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

mingled sadness and rebellion. But now he found a new uplifting note in the repeated call. Pic¬ tures of living, growing things came into his mind. Like the owl and others of its kind, he was part of a vibrant, pulsing, creative world.

“When I was tied down to the farm I hated it,” he thus spoke to himself in sensible philoso¬ phy. “But I don’t hate it now. And even if I have to go back to farm work this fall I’m not going to hate it. Somehow I — I feel changed, about the farm and everything else. I don’t know what came over me. But the change is there. And I’m the better for it.”

Kept awake by his new-found happiness, he got up and dressed when the growing light of the new day, as it magically crimsoned the eastern sky, made discernible the familiar objects in his room. And very careful was he not to awaken his bedfellow. Good old Herb ! The farm boy wondered at the mist in his eyes as he looked down at the well-formed, pleasing face of his sleeping cousin. Manliness and high ideals show. And Eddie saw only such qualities here. For a moment or two, as he stood there in the grip of emotion, he was strangely tempted to awaken the sleeper, to make sure of the other’s promise that always they should share the same walks in life, chums as well as cousins, each help¬ ing the other, and both striving constantly for bigger and nobler things.

AUNT HATTIE’S “GHOST”

63

Mr. Garry heard his nephew’s light step on the carpeted stairs. But before the farmer could get into his worn work clothes the boy was well started down the long lane that led to the cow pasture.

“Laws-a-me, Pa,” the housewife spoke sleepily, having heard the kitchen door close lightly be¬ hind her nephew. “Whatever got into Eddie this morning to get up without being called?”

Mrs. Garry yawned.

“Eddie’s a good boy,” was the farmer’s quiet comment, as he laced his heavy shoes.

“Of course. And I’m glad now that he and Herbie are going to sleep together. It was silly of me to think of putting Herbie in a separate room. But I didn’t know — I thought maybe we’d find a big change in him. And naturally I wanted to fall in with his plans.”

“Had you ever thought of renting our spare room, Ma?” the farmer then inquired, in his slow reflective way.

Aunt Hattie raised herself in bed.

“Renting our spare room?” she repeated, searching her husband’s eyes, the sleep gone now from her own. “What do you mean?”

“We might get some tourist business if we put up a sign.”

“But we’re on a byroad.”

“I was told last week by the road commis¬ sioners that the regular detour between Sun,

64 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Prairie and Ashford is going to pass our place while the new hard road is going in.”

The woman sighed.

“Tourists seldom stop at places as shabby- looking as ours, Pa. You know that as well as I do. For they sensibly figure that the inside will look like the outside. Besides, we have no bath.”

The farmer came over and sat down on the edge of the bed, seemingly more ungainly in his manner than usual.

“Hattie,” he spoke listlessly, “I sometimes wish that you and I never had met. All I’ve brought you is poverty. We get poorer each succeeding year.”

Capable soul that she was, Aunt Hattie quickly got the situation in hand.

“Look here, Pa,” she spoke severely. “If you ever make another remark like that I’ll box your ears. I will for a fact. The idea of you talking that way. And just when we have Herbie with us again. I married you because I loved you. And I still love you. You and the boys mean more to me than all the riches in the world. It does seem at times as though we have more than our just share of poverty. But the good Lord knows best. We’re going to come out all right, Pa. I want you to believe that. For / believe it. No one can ever make me think that the Lord has forsaken us.”

AUNT HATTIE’S “GHOST”

65

As was her regular custom, Aunt Hattie made the rounds of her prized flowers while breakfast was cooking. And on this particular morning she stepped from the dew-laden garden, with its tang of lush foliage and fragrant blossoms, into the road, from where she tried to picture the home that she had learned to love so dearly through the unemotional eyes of a tourist. The result was not encouraging.

“But we never know what we can do till we try,” was her practical decision.

The two cousins playfully cuffed each other on their way from the barn to the house, from the back porch of which the call to breakfast had been sent out.

“When are you going to town to see Mr. Sal- zar?” Herb inquired.

“Right after breakfast.”

“Are you acquainted with him, Eddie?”

“Not as well as you are.”

“Well, don’t be afraid of him. Talk to him the same as you would to Dad.”

“Do you really think he’ll give me a job, Herb?”

“Sell yourself to him,” the other laughed. “You say you want to be a salesman. Here’s a chance to prove what you can do.”

Sell himself! Eddie had imaginatively pic¬ tured himself selling motor cars and various kinds of specialties. But he never had thought of sell-

66 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

ing himself. In a way, the idea startled and unnerved him. For he saw the possibility of fail¬ ure. Still, what would a practical business man like Mr. Salzar expect to find in a boy just out of high school? Certainly, not wide experience in selling or any other line of work.

“If he likes my appearance, and I can make him realize how eager I am to work myself up, he’ll give me a job,” was the boy’s sensible con¬ clusion.

Right there Eddie struck at the heart of a great truth. And it will profit every growing schoolboy to stop here for a moment or two and think. The great world of Industry is constantly in need of new materials. Send us more iron and steel! Send us more men! Send us more boys! Such is the insistent cry. And of the great army of boys knocking at Industry’s gates, who are the ones most eagerly received? The youth whose pasty face tells the story of fast living? Oh, no! The laggard who wasted his time in school, or, even worse, who refused to go to school? Oh, no! Men who hire boys read boys’ minds and faces. Thus is youth appraised. And exactly as Eddie had mentally settled to his own satisfaction, personality is a thing that counts — the kind of a clear-eyed, straightforward per¬ sonality that comes from clean living, right thinking and high ideals.

What is it the Boy Scout says in part in taking

AUNT HATTIE’S “GHOST”

67

his oath? “I will keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” There you are ! A boy’s face may be covered with freckles; he may have a pug nose; he may be a runt or a bean-pole; but if he’s clean in heart and spirit, it shows. Employers of boys are not de¬ ceived. Industry wants boys of promise — pur¬ poseful boys like Eddie Garry and Andy Blake — and little interest is shown in the boy who hadn’t enough gumption to complete his high- school work. Industry is fast becoming special¬ ized. And to compete with others of his kind, a boy, to succeed, must be equipped with the funda¬ mentals supplied by the nation’s great public- school system. Pity the uneducated young man, therefore, who, in his twenties, awakes to learn that the golden eggs are beyond his reach. He killed the goose in quitting school. Oh, if he could go back! If he could have those high- school days to live over again. But he can’t go back — not one in a thousand goes back. There is a place in Industry for even the dullard. For there is need of strong backs as well as strong minds. But the plums go to the youthful work¬ ers who made the most of their opportunities in school; the boys who entered Industry eager to learn; and well equipped to learn.

There was further talk at the breakfast table about the suggested “tourist” sign, which the farmer agreed to make that morning.

68 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“I’ll paint it,” offered Herb, wanting to share in the work.

Eddie was a generous boy. And the word “paint” having aroused a certain train of thoughts in his mind, he inquired enigmatically:

“Say, Aunt Hattie, if a wizard came along and offered to paint your house by a single stroke of his magic brush, what colors would you choose?”

“Laws-a-me !” cried the practical woman. “What a silly question.”

“Would you like yellow and purple?”

“Oh, Eddie ! Who but a boy wopld think of such a heathenish color combination as that?”

“Purple’s pretty.”

“Of course — but not for a house.”

“Well, what’s your choice?” the nephew pressed, to a secret purpose.

“White and green.”

“White would look pretty,” considered Herb, having in mind the surrounding foliage, a frame, as it were, for the house itself.

“It would take at least fifteen gallons of paint to make this house white,” sighed the unenthused woman.

“That’s only sixty dollars,” said Eddie.

“Only sixty dollars. Laws-a-me! You talk like Henry Ford, himself.”

“But if you did have sixty dollars to spare,

AUNT HATTIE’S “GHOST” 69

isn’t it true, Aunt Hattie, that you’d buy house paint first of all?”

“Eddie, what are you driving at?”

“I’ll soon be working in town,” the nephew made quick use of his wits. “And I’ll have to spend my money for something.”

Aunt Hattie stared. Then she looked from her husband to her son.

“Now that I have a vacation,” Herb spoke up, “I think it’s only fair that I help Dad and thus give Eddie a chance to earn some money in town. Anyway, we’ve so settled it between us; and he’s going to town this very morning to get a job.”

Aunt Hattie had a noble spirit.

“I’m glad, Eddie,” she showered her bright¬ eyed nephew with loving glances. “Somehow I have the feeling that you’ll enjoy working in town for a change. And every cent that you earn is yours.”

The boy’s secret gave him great happiness.

“Won’t you let me buy you some white paint, Aunt Hattie?” he grinned, thinking of the roll of bills that Mr. Brantingham had left with him.

“Not a pint,” the words were spoken firmly. “First of all, I want you to buy a new suit. You’re a nice-looking boy, Eddie; your uncle and I are very proud of you; and we are anxious to see you looking your best.”

7o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Paint, though, was a far more important item in Eddie’s mind just then than a new suit. How¬ ever, he wisely dropped the subject.

“By the way,” Aunt Hattie inquired, alter¬ nately searching the boys’ faces, “which of you two young scallawags was walking around the farmyard last night in your shirt-tail?”

“It was Eddie,” laughed Herb, in his quick, nonsensical way.

“Aw! . .

“Were you downstairs last night, Eddie?” “No.”

“Don’t let him stuff you, Ma,” the college boy kept up the fun. “He’s deep.”

“How about yourself?” came the pointed question from the inquiring elder.

“Me?” In my shirt-tail? Why, Ma! I’m sur¬ prised that you should feel the need of asking such a question.”

“It’s generally conceded,” Eddie put in ma¬ liciously, “that all college guys are nuts.”

“Answer me,” the woman then injected a sharper tone into her voice. “Were either of you two boys downstairs last night? Say yes or no.”

“No,” the pair spoke together.

“That’s queer. I saw some one in white in the moonlit yard when I raised up in bed shortly after midnight. And when I got over the first silly thought that it was a ghost (I was half

AUNT HATTIE’S “GHOST”

7i

asleep myself) I laid it to you boys. It was one of you in your long white nightshirt, I told myself.”

A queer sound issued from the farmer’s throat.

“This morning when I threw out feed to the chickens it seemed to me that fewer of them gathered around than usual. Do you suppose, Hattie, that the prowler you saw was a thief?”

“Land of Goshen!” cried the excitable woman. “I never thought of that.”

Hurrying upstairs to change his clothes, want¬ ing to look his best, Eddie found his aunt in tears upon his return to the kitchen. More than twenty young chickens were missing. The “ghost” was indeed a despicable thief.

“But how anybody could have the heart to steal from us, poor as we are, is beyond my com¬ prehension,” sobbed the discouraged farm woman. “And I worked so hard to raise those chickens. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! It does seem as though everything is against us.”

This was not the first time that chicken thieves had visited the premises. Other farmers in the neighborhood had suffered similar losses.

But a chicken thief who disguised himself as a ghost! No wonder Eddie was bewildered.

CHAPTER VII

THE NEW BOARDER

As A schoolboy Eddie had often passed the big plant of the Electro-Call Company, hoping that some day he, too, would be permitted to share in its industrial activities.

It was here that most of the local high-school graduates sought employment. And many of the town’s youth had made marked advancement. Without conceit, Eddie felt that he could do the same.

But the chance had been denied him.

Now, though, the cherished dream was about to be realized. And great indeed was the boy’s inward happiness as he stopped in front of the main office.

Eddie Garry, factory boy! That was a mil¬ lion times more pleasing to him than Eddie Garry, farmer. Still, he wouldn’t always be a factory boy. For his main interest lay not in manufacturing but in selling.

“I don’t know how they work it,” was the thought in his mind, as he gave his clothes final

critical inspection before entering the office, be-

72

THE NEW BOARDER

73

yond the open door of which he could hear a battery of clicking typewriters. “But they prob¬ ably have some kind of a definite scheme of mak¬ ing junior salesmen out of factory boys. Certainly, I’ll be only too glad to do what they say, even to scrubbing the floors.”

Oh, Eddie! You indeed had the right spirit.

The girl at the information desk recognized the young visitor, having graduated a year ahead of him. He was much better looking, she thought, as she swiftly appraised his personal appearance with critical feminine eyes, though a trifle too sun-browned. And how neat he ap¬ peared, with his carefully pressed trousers and polished shoes. She didn’t know, though, that the young applicant had left his suit coat at home because he had outgrown it. His neec of a suit was no idle fancy of his aunt’s.

Having stated his errand, Eddie nervously shifted his weight from one sturdy leg to the other as he listened to the conversation between the switchboard operator and the company’s chief executive.

Then another old schoolmate breezed into sight.

“Hi,” greeted Morris Hebby, an exuberant youth. “What’s on your mind? — a job?”

Eddie nodded, wishing that the other boy had spoken in lower tones. For it seemed^to the em-

74 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

barrassed young visitor that a thousand pairs of amused eyes were directed at him from vari¬ ous sections of the general office room.

And how awkward he felt when he later crossed this big room to the indicated door of the general manager’s private office. Once he stubbed his toe against the leg of a typewriter desk. Strangely, though, none of the typists tit¬ tered, as he had expected them to do. As a mat¬ ter of fact, the office employees were paying a great deal less attention to him than he imagined.

Howard Salzar had spent a fortune on his fac¬ tory. For he liked to combine the practical with the beautiful. And the result showed in the con¬ tentment and loyalty of his working people.

“I have no right to ask men and women to work for me in surroundings any the less pleas¬ ing than their own homes,” was his expressed philosophy. And so he had built up a great in¬ dustrial “home,” carefully lighted and ventilated, with every possible working convenience, sur¬ rounded in season by well-kept lawns (open to all the employees during rest periods) and gor¬ geous flower gardens. The Electro-Call plant, in fact, was one of the show places of the town. And the gray-haired, kindly-faced man who now rose to greet the youthful caller, who faltered in the doorway of his office, was justly proud of his work.

“Well, Eddie,” the conversation quickly took

THE NEW BOARDER

75

a business turn, when the two were seated, the elder very much pleased with the younger one’s general appearance, and the latter a bit dazed by the luxury of his immediate surroundings, “I hear some mighty fine reports about you. As you can imagine, we’re always in need of the right kind of boys here. And particularly are we pleased to get in touch with boys who are in¬ terested in selling. For ours is a distinctly selling proposition. ... I assume that you have a high-school diploma.”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie found his voice.

“We seldom hire a boy who hasn’t. . . . What subjects did you specialize in?”

These were named in order.

“Do you like machinery?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Most boys do. . . . Have you ever been through our factory?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, as you may know, we specialize in elec¬ trical signaling units — paging and interior fire- alarm systems, watchmen’s recording systems, and the like. A strictly technical product. If we were to hire you, with the thought of work¬ ing you out in the field later on, I dare say our sales manager would expect you to spend at least a year in the plant, familiarizing yourself with our line and processes. Are you willing to start in at the very beginning?”

76 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Eddie was, and said so.

“In fact, if you don’t start me in at the be¬ ginning,” he spoke with pleasing boyish candor, “I’m afraid I won’t be of much use to you.”

“How old are you?” the executive then in¬ quired.

“Seventeen.”

“You’re a big boy for your age. You’d easily pass for eighteen; or even nineteen. Laura speaks very highly of you.”

Eddie blushed. And more favorably impressed still by the youth’s appearance, the very human executive found difficulty in withholding a smile. As for the young applicant himself, great indeed would have been his confusion could he have known the full extent of the praise that the warm¬ hearted girl had accorded him. “Oh, Daddy,” she had told her amused parent. “He’s per¬ fectly adorable . And so modest . If you hire him, don’t be surprised if you find me on the pay-roll, too. For I’m perfectly crazy over him. Alas, though, he’s too wrapped up in big ideas to notice a mere girl like me.”

Mr. Salzar wanted boys who were “wrapped up in big ideas.” So, when Eddie left the office that morning, it was understood that he was to report for work the following Monday.

Turning into Main Street, the driver parked his truck in front of the town’s leading hard¬ ware store, from the main door of which he

THE NEW BOARDER

77

and a clerk later carried five three-gallon cans of white paint and three two-gallon cans of green paint. Also he bought two big brushes, for surface painting, and a smaller brush for trim¬ ming. His list of purchases further included a supply of painter’s oil, for it was explained to him by the experienced dealer that the paint would need thinning down for the first coat, thus permitting the oil to soak into the wood; and other treatment was recommended for places where the surface to be covered was badly weathered.

Aunt Hattie was overcome with emotion when it was explained to her that the paint unloaded on the side porch of the farmhouse had been paid for out of money that the starry-eyed nephew had received from the sale of his mother’s furniture.

“You shouldn’t have done it, Eddie,” she re¬ peated over and over again, as she dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her apron. But deep in her motherly heart she was glad that he had done it. For she loved him dearly. And it pleased her to know that he took this interest in his home.

And what a pleasing home it would be, she visualized, with its snow-white walls and dark- green trimming. Surely the morning’s suggested money-making scheme was no longer a vain hope.

There were ladders on the farm. And that afternoon Eddie and his cousin set to work, suit-

78 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

able old clothing having been laid out for them.

“Do you expect to finish the job by the end of the week?” Herb inquired, as the work pro¬ gressed.

“If we don’t,” returned Eddie, “you and Uncle Alex will have to finish it yourselves. For I’m going to work in the factory next Monday morning.”

“Hip, hip hurray!” cheered Herb. And then a sound scolding was administered to the young painters by their elder as they began flipping paint at each other, Herb evidently feeling that some such boyish antic as this was necessary to properly celebrate his cousin’s first “selling” victory.

The finished sign having been mounted con¬ spicuously on the front fence, Mr. Garry took complete charge of the farm work. And so the boys were privileged to give their undivided at¬ tention to the painting job.

“It’s going to look beautiful,” Aunt Hattie told them that evening. And then, as though to further express her appreciation, she drew the paint-spattered nephew into her motherly arms. “Oh, Eddie,” she cried. “What a good boy you are. No wonder we all love you.”

Grinning, Eddie ran a sticky green finger over her nose. And later, when the others laughed at her, she playfully took after them, her hus¬ band included, chasing them out of the house

THE NEW BOARDER

79

with a broom. Such happiness the farmhouse had not known in years.

And now an added element of mystery enters into our story.

“Somebody was peeping in our windows last night,” Herb told his cousin, when the boys re¬ sumed work the following morning.

Eddie gave a peculiar laugh when shown the two hand prints on the freshly-painted sitting- room window-sill.

“Maybe it was Aunt Hattie’s ghost,” he vol¬ unteered.

“By George!” cried Herb, with sudden excite¬ ment. “I never thought of that.”

Told about the peculiar hand prints on the window-sill, the unnerved farm woman, at her son’s suggestion, hastened into the barnyard to check up on her feathered stock, later reporting a further loss of approximately ten young fowls.

“Such daring!” she cried, her eyes betraying the agitated state of her mind. “It seems almost unbelievable. Certainly, I never dreamed that

the thief would come here two nights in succes-

• »» sion.

It was settled in Eddie’s reflective mind that there was something decidedly queer about the midnight visitor. In the first place, instead of trying to work unseen, after the established man¬ ner of his kind, he had openly paraded across the moonlit barnyard. Even more surprising, he

8o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

had worn a long white robe of some sort. Now there was evidence that he had been window peeping. Could it be, Eddie asked himself, in a queer turn of his thoughts, that the prowler was principally concerned with playing ghost? But what rational man or woman would do a thing like that? And what could be the motive for such a ridiculous act?

Agreeing to stand guard that night with his cousin, Eddie was convinced that strange dis¬ closures would follow the thief’s arrest. In a way he looked forward to the proposed night’s work. For it was adventure of a sort. And boys are inherently fond of adventure. Yet, strangely, he was uneasy.

That afternoon the two painters ran out of oil. So Eddie got into the truck and hurried off to town where the necessary purchase was made. Upon his return to the farmhouse he found one of the porch chairs occupied by a young man whose eyes, concealed behind huge colored glasses, curiously followed the truck as it turned into the lane. Not then did the young farmer suspect that the glasses were a disguise. But he was soon to learn strange things.

Aunt Hattie was in high feather.

“Can you imagine it, Eddie,” she spoke hap¬ pily to her young nephew, when he tiptoed into the kitchen to question her, “we’ve got a boarder already. His name is Horace Hunter; and he’s

THE NEW BOARDER

81

a botanist. I saw him walking down the road, carrying a grip. ‘Now,’ says I to myself, ‘who can that be?’ He stopped when he came to our new sign. Then, having scrutinized the house, he came to the side door, where I was ironing, ask¬ ing me if he could secure board here as well as a room. He was making a study of ferns, he said, and probably would be in the immediate neighborhood for several weeks. For goodness’ sake, Eddie ! Quit peeking at him. I know he looks funny, with those big tortoise-shell glasses. But he might not stay here if he caught us grin¬ ning at him. Remember, young man, that he’s paying us ten dollars a week.”

CHAPTER VIII

MYSTERY

“Laws-a-me !” the farm woman spoke across the supper table to the new boarder, who already had been secretly nicknamed the Owl by the amused cousins. “You aren’t eating enough to keep a sparrow alive. Won’t you let me help you to another dish of peas?”

Motherly soul that she was, and generous to the core, Aunt Hattie was never able to quiet the foolish fear that her family was liable to starve to death, notwithstanding her strenuous efforts to provide ample prepared food. And particularly zealous was she in attending to the wants (real and fancied) of her guests. On such occasions she exhibited many of the characteris¬ tics of her brood hens.

“No?” she spoke with noticeable disappoint¬ ment, when the boarder declined to relinquish his empty pea dish. “Then let me help you to more meat and potatoes.”

“I’ve had a great plenty, thank you.”

“But you must make out a meal. Still,” the concerned face brightened, “I can give you a

82

Andy Blake's Secret Service.

Page 81

MYSTERY 83

double helping of shortcake, if you are as fond of dessert as most boys.”

“You are very kind, Mrs. Garry. But I as¬ sure you that a single helping will be sufficient.”

Stilted words truly, thought Eddie. Then, as the meal continued, he found himself wondering, in mounting curiosity, why the big colored glasses so frequently turned in his direction.

“Either I look as freakish to him as he does to me,” was the farm boy’s conclusion. “Or he’s peculiarly studying me.”

Aunt Hattie enjoyed company. She enjoyed getting up big meals. And particularly did she enjoy the conversation that accompanied these meals. For conversation is usually informative. And human nature, whether presented to her in the form of a learned elder or an unsophisticated youth, invariably piqued the farm woman’s curiosity.

“I wouldn’t care to live,” she was wont to re¬ mark in the privacy of her family, “if I couldn’t find out things.”

Now, as she further engaged the new boarder in conversation, open curiosity was pictured in her eyes.

“I imagine,” she began, hoping to draw the other out, “that you and Herbie are about the same age.”

Having been introduced to the various mem-

u ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

bers of the family, the Owl, of course, knew who “Herbie” was.

“I am twenty,” the words were spoken with marked gravity.

Which brought Herb himself into the con¬ versation.

‘‘College man?” he inquired briefly.

“No,” the Owl gravely shook his head.

“I’ve had two years at Purdue,” Herb in¬ formed proudly. “Just got home yesterday.”

“Mr. Garry and I have been wondering where your home is,” Aunt Hattie gave the visitor further chance to disclose his personal affairs.

There was a brief silence.

“I have no home,” the newcomer finally vouch¬ safed, in his habitual grave manner.

Did this mean that he was an orphan? The farm woman so took it. And at once her moth¬ erly instincts were aroused.

“You poor dear!” she spoke feelingly. “We can all sympathize with you. For Eddie, too, is an orphan.”

Their eyes meeting, the elder of the two par¬ entless boys inquired:

“Have you been living here long?”

“About four years.”

“And before that ... ?”

A noticeable eagerness accompanied the un¬ completed yet comprehensive sentence.

“I lived in Weston, Ohio.”

MYSTERY

85

“Eddie’s pa died first,” Aunt Hattie hastened into an account of the orphaned nephew’s private affairs, reticence being an unknown part of her make-up. “And following his ma’s death — pass Mr. Hunter the toothpicks, Herbie — he lived with a family by the name of Brantingham. Not, however,” the explanation was quickly annexed, “that we didn’t want him to live with us — but the news of his ma’s death never reached us until four months after her burial.”

Again the big glasses were turned on the younger farm boy.

“Was your mother laid to rest beside your father?”

Which, Eddie thought, was a peculiar question. Then, as a vision arose in his mind of shattered railroad coaches and mangled bodies, he abruptly got to his feet and left the room, unwilling to make a public show of his emotions.

Nor did Aunt Hattie continue the subject. For Eddie’s moods always disturbed her. And she saw now that the inquisitive boarder had carried his inquiries too far.

“I wish he’d quit boring holes into me with those hidden eyes of his,” Eddie later complained to his relatives. “He gives me the fidgets.”

Aunt Hattie was a trustful soul.

“He’s interested in you,” was her practical view.

“Yes,” Herb volunteered the information, in

86 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

his merry way, “and I know some one else who’s interested in you, too.”

Eddie quickly sought his cousin’s eyes, little dreaming that the other boy was referring to the attractive heiress of the Salzar fortunes.

Eddie’s curiosity was aroused.

“Who do you mean?” came the natural in¬ quiry.

“As though I’d tell,” laughed Herb.

The cousins then got into the old truck and hurried away to the swimming hole in the hol¬ low where they were joined by other lads from the neighborhood. The fun continued until dark, the group then breaking up, part going one way and part another.

Aunt Hattie met the returned swimmers in the kitchen door.

“Did you see anything of Mr. Hunter on the road?” she inquired.

“No,” Herb shook his head, the glossy hair of which still showed the affects of its recent immersion.

“He came downstairs shortly after you boys left. And when I told him that you had gone swimming, he started off in that direction.”

Later the young botanist came home with an armful of ferns, reporting that he, too, had stopped in the darkened hollow for a brief swim.

“To-morrow night,” said Herb, in whom col-

MYSTERY 87

lege life had developed many companionable characteristics, “we’ll all go together.”

And Eddie found himself wondering curiously what the Owl would look like without his col¬ ored glasses.

When told that the two cousins were planning to stand guard in the moonlit barnyard, Aunt Hattie experienced a thousand hysterical fears. And her words of counsel were many and scat¬ tered, to all of which Eddie and Elerb listened with a patient smile. Then, to the surprise of the farm boys, the new boarder offered to share in the proposed vigil. So at eleven o’clock the three guards armed themselves with stout clubs and sought separate hiding places, Eddie in the wood pile, Herb behind the smoke house and the Owl behind the corn crib.

“Lay low until he enters the hen house,” Herb gave the others final instructions bearing on the thief’s capture, “then close in on him.”

“Is there a reward for the first one who cracks him over the head?” the Owl spoke with more true boyishness than the cousins gave him credit for, as he ran his fingers up and down the handle of his weapon.

“Well,” said Herb, “if you do lay him out with your club, you can depend on it that you’ll get your name in the local newspaper.”

Eddie was still obsessed by peculiar thoughts.

88 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“We’ll get a shock,” said he, “if the thief turns out to be one of our own neighbors.”

“I’d sooner think it’s some scallawag from town,” Herb gave as his opinion.

“But what’s his idea in playing ghost?”

“He wants to do the job up artistically, I guess.”

Reflecting on the peculiar mystery, as he lay in the wood pile, Eddie was led to the sensible conclusion that the thief would be most unlikely to return to the scene three nights in succession. Only a simpleton would do that; and much less /than being simpletons, thieves, as a rule, were sharp-witted.

But had they an ordinary thief to cope with? Eddie felt not. Undoubtedly possessed of keener intelligence than others of his kind, the prowler seemed to have no regard whatsoever for mat¬ ters of form. And it was this exceptional daring of his — his utter disregard for the rules of the game — that made him particularly dangerous.

Eddie therefore prepared himself for excep¬ tional developments. Nor was he disappointed. For at midnight a tall, white-robed figure came into sight around a corner of the barn.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” cried the startled boy in a quivering voice.

Crossing the open barnyard, now bathed in the bright light of a full moon, the ghost moved with swift gliding steps in the direction of the

MYSTERY

89

poultry house. With the flowing white robe and outstretched hands, a more fearsome spectacle could hardly be imagined. Eddie in spite of him¬ self experienced a chill of fear.

Crouched in the shadow of the smoke house, Herb signaled to his cousin. Then, as the ghost opened the door of the poultry house and dis¬ appeared inside, the two boys quickly left their hiding places and started across the farmyard on the run.

As though aware of the trap set for him, and fully prepared, the thief, darting from the poul¬ try house, disappeared in a flash behind the adja¬ cent corn crib. There was an ear-splitting, agonized scream. And when Herb and Eddie turned the corner of the building, they found their new comrade lying on the ground, blood oozing from a gash in his forehead.

Herb ran on, calling to Eddie to stop and care for the stricken one. But all trace of the ghost was lost. Had he been capable of dissolving into thin air, in true ghostly form, he couldn’t have effected a more complete disappearance. It was baffling.

Having heard the commotion, Aunt Hattie and her husband got quickly out of bed. The thief, they were told, had come and gone, the efforts of the guards to apprehend him having failed. Even worse, one of the watchers had been struck down by the escaping law breaker.

go ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Later Eddie raced to town in the old truck for a doctor. And then for many days the injured youth lay in a coma. The attending physician seemed unwilling to commit himself to a direct statement bearing on the probable outcome of the case. But it was adjudged from his vague words and grave manner that the patient was liable to suffer a more or less permanent loss of memory.

During these eventful days Eddie seemed strangely drawn to the invalid, who, without his disfiguring glasses, was seen to be a handsome round-faced youth of ruddy complexion.

“He came to see me,” the farm boy told him¬ self over and over again. “There was something he wanted to ask me — something he wanted to find out. And his big glasses were a disguise.”

Strangely, these glasses had disappeared. The farm boys searched high and low for them. But to no success. So the conclusion was drawn that the thief had picked them up in his continued flight.

Warned that a peculiar thief was at work in the neighborhood, the farmers grimly loaded their guns with buckshot and otherwise sought to apprehend the law breaker. There was a week or two of feverish excitement and conjec¬ ture. But as nothing developed, quiet again set¬ tled over the usually peaceful neighborhood.

In the meantime Eddie had gone to work in

MYSTERY

9i

the factory. Glowing indeed were the reports that he brought home. Yet constantly he seemed to be touched by uneasiness bordering on depres¬ sion.

On the night of the tragedy he had uncovered a most bewildering secret. But with the loyalty so common among boys he had said nothing about his discoveries to his relatives, preferring to let the stricken one, upon his recovery, speak for himself.

But the doctor’s worst fears were realized. The patient’s brown eyes never regained their natural luster. Nor could the convalescent re¬ member his name, or the slightest thing pertain¬ ing to his history.

“Horace Hunter? No,” he shook his head, “that isn’t my name.”

Aunt Hattie was greatly perturbed.

“But that is the name you gave us.”

“No,” the patient further shook his head. “My name isn’t Horace Hunter.”

“Is your name Alfred?” Eddie inquired, when permitted to talk with the patient.

“Alfred?” the name was given consideration.

“No-o.”

“Alexander?”

“No-o.”

“Arthur?”

“I — I feel dizzy. I can’t think. It hurts me to think.”

92 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

Then, when the patient was further along the road to recovery, Eddie tried him again, having secured a list of masculine Christian names start¬ ing with the letter “a.”

“Is your name Aaron?”

“No-o.”

“Abel?”

“No-o.”

“Abner?”

“No-o.”

“Abraham?”

“No-o.”

“Adam?”

“No-o.”

“Adolph?”

“No-o.”

“Albert?”

“No-o.”

“Algernon?”

“No-o.”

“Alvin?”

“No-o.”

“Ambrose?”

“No-o.”

“Amos?”

“No-o.”

“Andrew?”

“Andrew!” the name was repeated excitedly, as the patient struggled to repair the shattered

MYSTERY 93

wheels of his memory. “Andrew! Andy! Andy!”

And there Eddie stopped.

The doctor came to pay his final call, finding the patient in a cushioned chair on the front porch.

“Well, Horace,” came the jovial inquiry, “how is your head feeling this morning?”

Aunt Flattie quickly sought the physician’s ear.

“He says his name is Andy.”

“Andy, eh? Andy what?”

“He doesn’t know, sir.”

“Can’t you remember your surname, Andy?” the inquiry was couched in kindly tones.

“No-o, sir,” the boy slowly shook his head.

“Nor where you came from?”

“No-o, sir.”

“The poor lamb,” Aunt Hattie leaned over the chair. “My heart bleeds for him.”

“An operation might restore his memory,” the physician later spoke to the farm woman in pri¬ vate. “For miracles are being performed on operating tables. But that is a matter for later consideration. For the present he needs nothing so much as rest and quiet, his brain having suf¬ fered a severe shock. . . . Did you ever find out who struck him down?”

“No, sir.”

“Queer,” the doctor spoke reflectively.

94 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Eddie thinks it was a crazy man.”

The physician reflectively stroked his chin.

“Speaking of Eddie, Mrs. Garry, had you — ah — noticed any special resemblance between your nephew and this unknown boy?”

The woman stared.

“Why, doctor! . . . What do you mean?”

“If you’ll study the boys’ faces, Mrs. Garry, you’ll find that their eyes are very much alike, not only in color but expression. Then they have the same hair and forehead.”

The woman was aghast.

“But Eddie has no relatives except us.”

The doctor shrugged.

“I merely mentioned it. . . . Don’t forget to keep me posted on the case, Mrs. Garry. It holds my deepest interest. And I want to follow it closely.”

That night the farm woman closeted herself with her husband. But the probabilities that they touched on, as they sought to explain the marked resemblance between the two boys, was so horrifying to them, and so nearly denuded the dead of its cloak of decency, that they locked the secret in their breasts, agreeing never to speak of it again.

But they felt obliged now, poor as they were, to give the stricken youth a permanent home. And they even talked of the possibility of a later operation.

CHAPTER IX

THE COMING CONVENTION

After ten weeks of steady absorbing work in the factory of the Electro-Call Company, Eddie was as determined as ever to become a salesman. And now, of course, in having lived with Electro- Call products for ten happy weeks, his greatest ambition was to be an Electro-Call salesman.

One morning in the close of August word was passed through the busy plant that all of the company’s thirty-odd salesmen and branch man¬ agers were coming to the home office to attend an important sales conference. New equipment had been perfected by the engineering staff, and it was the company’s plan to have all of its sales¬ men present when the first complete system was set up and demonstrated. Thus the collective field force would be given a chance to familiarize itself with the electrical and mechanical details of the new units; and while the men were together the sales and advertising departments could ef¬ fectively present comprehensive selling plans, outlining the logical markets for the new equip¬ ment, and explaining how the company was plan¬ ning, with advertising and sales helps, to co-op-

95

96 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

erate with its field men in reaching these markets.

A big fall drive ! Some of the older workmen, who had grown up with the company, laughed scornfully when they heard that the ambitious management was making year-end plans for a million dollars’ worth of business. But in listen¬ ing to the factory gossip Eddie Garry didn’t laugh. If only given the chance, he felt quite sure that he could go out into the field and sell a million dollars’ worth of stuff himself!

“Oh, boy, but our factory is a busy place,” he enthusiastically told his cousin one evening at the supper table. “The engineering department is rushing to get the new sprinkler supervisory system set up for demonstration; and there’s about a hundred committees at work.”

Herb grinned at his warm-faced younger rela¬ tive.

“What committee are you on?” he inquired nonsensically. “The whisk-broom brigade?”

“Me? Oh, I’m the official sweeper and duster in the testing department,” laughed Eddie, nam¬ ing the department in which he worked as a junior tester. “The boss told me to-day that everything in our room had to be spick and span by Thursday morning. Such were his orders from the main office, he said.”

“Do they go to all that extra work just on account of the visiting salesmen?” spoke up Aunt Hattie, from the head of the table.

THE COMING CONVENTION 97

Eddie nodded.

“Bu-lieve me, they turn the plant upside-down for the salesmen. For those are the birds with the real jobs. Sometimes, on just one order, a salesman will earn a commission of a thousand dollars or more. But it takes brains to get these orders. Stuff like ours is hard to sell. That is why Mr. Salzar told me the day he hired me that the business is strictly a selling proposition. Without top-notch salesmen it wouldn’t survive a month.”

Mr. Garry had been listening to the conver¬ sation with an attentive ear.

“Do you seem to be any nearer to a selling job, Eddie, than when you started in last June?” the farmer inquired in his grave way.

The warm glow departed from the factory boy’s face as his eyes fell on the vacant chair at the foot of the table. Then, as though by an effort, he lifted himself from his momentary de¬ pression.

“Shucks ! They wouldn’t put me on the road before I’m twenty-one. Look at Harley Bagley. He’s been trying for four years to get outside. The sales manager keeps telling him: ‘Wait! Wait! Don’t get impatient.’ ” There was a merry laugh. “Golly Ned! Can you imagine what Old Friday would say to me if I hit him for a selling job, after only ten weeks’ factory experience? Say, he’d throw a fit.”

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“Who is Old Friday?” Aunt Hattie wanted to know.

“Mr. Fish, the sales manager. You know him. He’s the big bug who lives in that swell brick house at the corner of Church and Cherry.”

“But why do you call him Old Friday?”

“Because on Friday,” laughed Eddie, “we al¬ ways get fish.”

“I swan!” cried Aunt Hattie. “What boys won’t think of.”

“I bet you don’t call him Old Friday to his face,” Herb put in.

“I was in his office the other day,” Eddie went on. “And does he have everything swell ! Why,” came the boyish exaggeration, “his ma¬ hogany desk is as big as this whole room.”

“Oh,” drawled Herb, “I guess not that big.”

“Well,” grinned Eddie, “it’s the biggest desk I ever saw. He had Harley Bagley look up an order for me. Snappy? Say, he sure knows how to make his clerks step around.”

“He must be a very capable executive,” nodded Mr. Garry, “for he has held the position of sales manager for the past ten years. And see how the company has grown!”

“Oh, he’s got the goods, all right. But he isn’t the kind of a man you can warm up to. He sort of makes you feel that you mustn’t get too close to him. Everybody in the factory likes Mr. Salzar the better of the two.”

THE COMING CONVENTION 99

Aunt Hattie had been thinking.

“Didn’t you tell me the other day that there’s a boy in your department by the name of Fish?”

Eddie nodded.

“Poor Fish, as we call him, isn’t much like his father. He’s all right. You can sure have fun with him.”

“What a name,” cried Aunt Hattie.

“He’s a ‘poor fish,’ all right,” laughed Herb, “as he proved last fall when he meandered down to college. Thought he was heading into a glorious adventure. But with real work to do he didn’t last very long.”

“I don’t hold that against him,” said Eddie loyally.

“How’s he getting along in the factory?”

“Oh, all right.”

“I suppose they’re shoving him along to try and make a salesman of him.”

Eddie nodded.

“He got a slip from the office this afternoon, notifying him that he was on the decoration com¬ mittee. And to-morrow morning he’s got to chase around the country and find four dozen orange pumpkins.”

“For pies?” inquired Aunt Hattie quickly, thinking to herself what an awful job it would be to bake pumpkin pies for such a big crew of men.

“No, for decoration purposes. The entertain¬ ment committee is getting up an old-fashioned

100 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

barn dance, to be held at Mr. Salzar’s stock farm, and the pumpkins are to be used, with corn shocks, for decorations. I thought I’d laugh my head off when Poor Fish got his slip. He’s a comical kid, anyway. And the look that came over his face ! He wanted to know what in heck an orange pumpkin was. We told him it was a pear-shaped pumpkin with a pit like a prune.”

“I never heard of orange pumpkins,” de¬ clared the capable housewife, puzzling her culi¬ nary brain.

“As I understand it,” said Eddie, “there are two kinds of pumpkins — yellow and orange. And Mr. Fish thinks that the orange-colored ones will look the nicest.”

“He must be a fussy old gink,” grunted Herb, to whom pumpkins were pumpkins.

“Is he? Everything has got to be so-so to suit him.”

The conversation continuing, the talkative factory boy told about the woodland camp that was being prepared for the visiting salesmen. Tents had been rented, small ones for sleeping purposes and a big one for general assembly. In previous years the convention guests had been quartered at the local hotel, but it was thought by the management that the important visitors would enjoy being in the open for a change. A sort of brief camping party. Starting Thursday

THE COMING CONVENTION ioi

at ten o’clock, and continuing through Friday and Saturday, morning and afternoon business ses¬ sions were to be held in the assembly tent, with regular hours for lively recreation. Thursday evening there was to be a huge camp lire, to which all of the factory men had been invited. The barn dance was to be held on Friday night. Saturday evening would find the most of the im¬ portant visitors on their way home.

“I sure am looking forward to Thursday night,” Eddie concluded, with a happy face, “It’s going to be fun at the camp fire. For the salesmen will tell stories. And I’ll learn how they act when they get together.”

Herb gave his cousin a quizzical look.

“I suppose you’re anxious to see Mr. Halli- day again.”

Eddie’s eyes danced.

“Gee ! I can hardly wait.”

“Maybe he’ll offer you a job,” laughed Herb.

“Oh, I guess not. He may take on Harley Bagley, though. Harley told me so confiden¬ tially. He saw a letter that Mr. Halliday had written to the sales manager.”

“And who’ll get Bagley’s job?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Poor Fish, I suppose.”

“But weren’t you in the testing department ahead of him?” spoke up Aunt Hattie.

io2 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Sure thing. But he’ll get first chance.”

“Why? Because his father’s an executive in the company?”

Eddie nodded.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” cried Aunt Hattie.

“Poor Fish is all right,” Eddie spoke loyally; and whatever his inner feelings were in the mat¬ ter he kept them carefully concealed.

When the evening chores were done, Herb as usual hurried away to the neighborhood swim¬ ming hole. But Eddie hung around the farm¬ house.

“Say, Aunt Hattie.”

“Well?” the dish washer inquired, as she hur¬ ried to put an end to her day’s work.

“Did Mrs. Barlow say when she’d be home?”

“No.”

“What was her object in taking Andy to town this afternoon?”

“The Barlows are very good neighbors, Eddie. They sympathize with us in our misfortunes, Andy’s included. And I dare say that Mrs. Barlow thought that a trip to town would do the boy good.”

“But he may get lost.”

The dishes clattered in the pan.

“Don’t be silly. Andy isn’t helpless. Besides, you know as well as I do that Mrs. Barlow will give him the best of care. He’s as safe with her as he is with us.”

THE COMING CONVENTION 103

“What did you ever do with his money, Aunt Hattie?”

“Your uncle and I deposited it in the bank.”

“How much was there?”

“A little over a hundred and sixty dollars.”

“Will that pay for the operation?”

“If not,” the farm woman took an indirect way of answering the question, “we’ll have to make up the difference ourselves.”

“I was going to suggest that you let me help,” Eddie spoke eagerly.

“Dr. Crow says that it will be best to wait till winter.”

“I’d give anything,” the nephew spoke emo¬ tionally, “if I could help Andy recover his mem¬ ory. Did — did it ever occur to you, Aunt Hattie,” then came guardedly, “that there might be something queer about him coming here under an assumed name?”

The woman had steeled herself against all such probable questions.

“You have no proof, Eddie,” she hurried with her work, “that his name isn’t Horace Hunter.”

“He says his name is Andy.”

“Andy what?”

“That’s all he can remember.”

For the past three or four weeks Eddie and Andy had been sleeping together, Herb having agreed to take the other boy’s room. Nor had Aunt Hattie objected to the arrangement. Yet

io4 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

there were moments when she was deeply stirred as she watched the growing affection between the two boys.

“Oh!” was her secret thought. “Can it be true? Can it be true?”

A car drove into the lane at eight-thirty. Having gone to his room to write a letter, Eddie heard the sound of voices, chief among them his aunt’s; then a pair of feet clattered boyishly on the stairs.

“Hi,” cried Andy, as he burst into the room.

Eddie’s eyes were warm.

“What’s the matter, did you and Mrs. Barlow have a flat tire?”

“We were over to — to — I forget the name of the town.”

“Sun Prairie?” volunteered Eddie.

“No-o.”

“Ashford?”

“Yes,” Andy’s face lit up. “That’s it. Mrs. Barlow took me over there to supper. And do you know, Eddie, it — it seemed to me that I had been there before. I don’t know — Isn’t it queer I can’t remember?”

“Your memory will all come back some day, Andy. So don’t let it worry you. And until you’re able to take care of yourself I’ll look out for you. But don’t ever go to town alone.”

“Say, Eddie, why doesn’t Uncle Alex let me help him with the farm work?”

THE COMING CONVENTION 105

“The doctor said you’re to keep quiet.”

“But look at me !” the speaker spread his arms. “I’m as strong as an ox.”

And indeed no one could have presented a more perfect picture of physical health. But the eyesl As they met his, Eddie winced. And in¬ stinctively his hand sought the other’s shoulder.

“I can milk cows,” Andy boasted.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. For the doctor knows best.”

Later when the boys got ready for bed, Eddie took from the bottom drawer of his dresser a shirt across the front of which was a bar of green paint.

Paint, it might be added, that matched the trimming of the farmhouse I

Looking at his companion, Eddie asked:

“And you have no recollection of coming here in the dark and peeping in our sitting-room window?”

“No-o,” Andy shook his head. “As I told you last night - ”

“Think hard. You surely must remember this shirt. See ! It has your initial on the sleeve. That is how I knew that your name be¬ gan with ‘a.’ ”

Night after night Eddie thus sought to revive the stunned mind, which was the main reason why he had arranged to have Andy sleep with him. And in doing his part, the latter’s strug-

io6 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

gles to force ajar the jammed doors of his mem¬ ory were often pitiful.

“I — I can’t remember the shirt, Eddie.”

“Nor why you came here?”

“No-o.”

“Wasn’t it to see me, Andy? Didn’t you want to ask me something? And wasn’t the big glasses that you wore a disguise?”

“I — I don’t remember.”

“You asked me at the supper table about my mother — if she and my father were buried to¬ gether. Do you remember that?”

“No-o.”

“I never told the others, Andy, but it wasn’t the chicken thief who peeped into our sitting- room window. It was you, as this shirt that I found in your room proves. You came here on some kind of a secret errand; and I’m still con¬ vinced that it concerns me. Look in the mirror, Andy! Don’t you see, kid — we’re as alike as two peas. We’re related to each other. And in coming here you knewr what that relationship was. Did you come to find me, Andy? — to bring me some strange news about yourself or myself?”

The other boy seemed spellbound by his re¬ flection.

“Yes; yes,” he panted, in the grip of sudden excitement, as he clutched his head with his hands. “It was you that brought me here. I came and looked in the window ... I got against the

THE COMING CONVENTION 107

painted window-sill . . . then the next day I came back. I wanted to talk with you. I — I — Oh, Eddie ! I can remember that much. But the rest is a blank.”

Eddie’s rickety truck was a standing joke at the factory. The workmen told the likeable country boy that they could hear him when he started from home in the morning. But it is doubtful if a shiny new car would have given the young factory worker half the fun that he got out of the wabbly truck. For even with his big dreams he was in every way a real boy at heart.

Rattling down one of Sun Prairie’s principal streets the following morning between the hours of six and seven, he was hailed by a tall, genial- looking boy on the sidewalk.

“Hello, Country Jake.”

“Hello, Poor Fish.”

“How’s the Rolls-Rough this morning?”

“Lovely. Hop in.”

“Give me a hand, kid. I feel kind of weak.”

“Toot ! Toot !” laughed Eddie. “Here we go.”

“Hold up, you big nut.”

“Well,” grinned the young driver, as the other boy scrambled into the truck, “have you got track of any orange pumpkins yet?”

Poor Fish laughed in his characteristic free and easy way. And to see him in this mood one could readily comprehend why he was so popu-

io8 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

lar with his associates, both inside and outside of the factory.

“Orange pumpkins, your granny,” he made himself comfortable. “I’ll stop at the first pumpkin field I come to and load up.”

“But what’ll your father say?”

“Him? Shucks! He’ll never know the dif¬ ference. He’s got too many other things to think about.”

Eddie shrugged thoughtfully.

“I think you ought to try and find the kind of pumpkins he wants.”

“Oh, that’s just a finicky notion of his.”

“I bet you’d do it if Mr. Salzar told you to.”

“Maybe.”

“When are you going after the pumpkins?”

“As soon as I can get the light factory truck.”

Eddie grinned.

“You can take my truck,” he offered gener¬ ously.

“No, thanks,” drawled Poor Fish. “I’d sooner wait an hour and get the factory truck. I know I’ll get home then.”

There was a glorious tang in the morning air. And the warm unshadowed sun gave promise of an ideal late-summer day.

“You’re lucky,” Eddie told the other boy, as they rang in at the time office. “Nothing to do but ride up and down the sunny countryside, in kingly style, while I have to sweep the dirty old

THE COMING CONVENTION 109

test-room floor. And I suppose the boss will come around with a spyglass in search of dust specks.”

“Never mind,” laughed Poor Fish. “We’ll both be star salesmen some day.”

“You tell ’em!” cried Eddie. “You and mes kid; and me and you.”

CHAPTER X

ORANGE PUMPKINS

Salzar established products were divided into three fundamental groups: Paging systems, used in factories and other organizations for locating important executives, sometimes called “Auto¬ call” systems; industrial interior fire-alarm sys¬ tems, also for use in factories and warehouses; and watchmen’s recording systems.

Each completed system was set up on a huge test rack, in the department where Eddie worked. And it was his duty to test the bells and gongs. In this way he had quickly familiar¬ ized himself with the company’s various units, without cluttering up his mind with a lot of need¬ less manufacturing details.

The new equipment that the salesmen were to see for the first time upon their visit to the fac¬ tory at the week end was a system for super¬ vising sprinkler apparatus. A factory might be equipped with a fifty-thousand-dollar sprinkler system, but if the water happened to be shut off when a fire occurred, the elaborate system was worthless as a means of protection. Insurance

companies carried many just such records of dis-

110

ORANGE PUMPKINS

hi

astrous fires. A workman would close a main valve to make some needed repairs in the line and then carelessly forget to turn the water on again.

The new Salzar supervisory system separately recorded the closing of each main valve, and, until the closed valve was opened again, a red light flashed “danger” at the managing executive’s desk. It was felt by the progressive Sun Prairie company that there was a vast field for this new apparatus, hence their determination to “pep” up their selling force, with the hope of ending the year with spectacular selling records.

Shortly after eight o’clock Eddie was surprised, and a bit disturbed, to get a summons from the sales manager. Making sure that his hands and face were clean, he went nervously into the main office.

“I’m sorry, White. You’re a good fellow. Personally, I think a great deal of you. You’re clean all the way through. But from a stand¬ point of sales efficiency you aren’t there. So I’m compelled to let you go.”

Eddie had paused awkwardly in the doorway of the sales manager’s private office upon observ¬ ing that there was another visitor in the room, wondering whether business etiquette required him to withdraw. Then as he got a signal from the waspish, dressy executive at the big mahog¬ any desk, he gingerly seated himself inside the door.

1 12 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

The man to whom the sales manager was talk¬ ing hadn’t looked around.

“What is there about my work, Mr. Fish, that you particularly object to?’’ came quietly and in an unmistakably pained voice.

“You haven’t produced a sufficient volume of business to justify our further confidence in you as a salesman.”

“I came here with a good record.”

“True enough. And I had big hopes in hiring you. But you haven’t delivered . . . not for us. Now, I have nothing but the kindest wishes for you. I would like to see you make good wherever you go. But, to your own interests, I — ah — feel constrained to say this, White: You’ll never be the big success that you want to be, in any line, if you don’t learn to get what you go after”

“But, Mr. Fish - ”

“You have a good approach,” the sales man¬ ager disregarded the interruption. “You quickly gain the prospect’s confidence. But when it comes to closing the deal, and getting the name on the dotted line, you aren’t there. Why is it? Is it timidness? Is it lack of self-confidence? Is it a peculiar nervousness? Is it lack of aggressive¬ ness? I don’t know. You’ll have to find the answer yourself.”

“I think you’re too hard on me, Mr. Fish.”

“Working at this desk, it is my job to see that sufficient orders stream in to keep our wheels

ORANGE PUMPKINS

113

turning profitably. To keep my job I’ve got to have men working for me who deliver. It isn’t a question of my personal likes or dislikes. If a salesman produces, fairly and squarely, in keep¬ ing with our policies, that is what we want. We’ve got to have orders. Otherwise our fac¬ tory would slow down and finally stop. Some uninformed people, even in our own organiza¬ tion, wonder why we cater to our successful sales¬ men. They hear now that we are planning a big convention and it puzzles them that we should spend so much money on our field men, sending for them and entertaining them. They don’t seem to realize that the salesmen are the life¬ blood of .this institution. It is no great trick to manufacture all of the equipment that we can selL The selling is the big trick. Every time. And the salesman who holds our warmest admiration, White, is the fellow, be he tall or short or lean or fat, who consistently gets what he goes after . In fact, we have no room in our selling organiza¬ tion for the man who does not get what he goes after.”

It embarrassed Eddie to sit within hearing of this personal conversation. And as he grasped the situation his impulsive boyish sympathies were wholly with the discharged salesman. For he saw how he himself could fail under unfavorable conditions. He hadn’t thought of it before in that light. Always in his enthusiastic daydreams

1 14 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

he had pictured himself as a nimble-heeled go- getter — a young man of spectacular victories. Now a queer panicky feeling rushed through him as he realized the obstacles that a salesman had to surmount in order to win great success. There was vastly more to selling than he had imagined. And for a moment, at the thought of his own boyish incompetence, he was tempted to rush from the room for fear that the cold-voiced sales executive at the big desk might offer him a selling chance !

With the promise of a field job, Harley Bagley had been kept waiting at the plant for four years. Eddie now saw why. Preparation! Fac¬ tory training first; then office training, with free access to the salesmen’s varied correspondence; the steady building up of technical knowledge and justified self-confidence.

The salesman was gone now, after a curt, cold word of farewell, so Eddie arose and approached the big desk.

“You sent for me, Mr. Fish.”

The sharp black eyes seemed to pierce the faltering boy through and through.

“Are you the boy from the country whom we hired last June?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As I recall, at that time you expressed a de¬ sire to go into training for field work.”

ORANGE PUMPKINS

ii5

Eddie gulped slightly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you still determined to be a salesman?”

“Yes, sir.” There was another perceptible gulp. “But I’m in no hurry, sir.”

The understanding executive smiled in a pe¬ culiar restrained way. Then, for no particular reason, he thought of his own son, who at once was a great pride and a great disappointment to him.

“In that case,” came dryly, “you won’t be dis¬ appointed to learn that I have no immediate thoughts of offering you a selling job. . . . Have you a car?”

It was now the younger one’s turn to smile.

“Yes, sir,” he nodded, thinking of “Lizzie.”

“Would you like to drive into the country this morning and look up some pumpkins for

use during the sales conference?”

The boy stared.

“Pumpkins?” he repeated.

The sales manager briefly explained about the proposed barn dance.

“We thought at first that four dozen medium¬ sized pumpkins would be sufficient for our decora¬ tive scheme. But now I am told by the committee that we’ll need at least eight dozen. Have you any pumpkins on your farm?”

“No, sir.”

n6 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“Do you know anything about pumpkins?”

“Not as much as 1 know about Salzar paging systems,” the younger one smiled.

Which remark seemed to please the executive.

“There are two kinds of pumpkins, yellow and orange. Yellow pumpkins are quite common in these parts. And largely for that reason we pre¬ fer to have the other kind. Mr. Bagley will supply you with sufficient money. And you are to buy four dozen orange pumpkins for us. Try and get back to the factory as soon as possible. And if you meet my son in the country, please explain to him that he got away from here this morning before we could stop him. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to inter¬ rupt your regular work.”

Eddie was vaguely puzzled as he left the sales manager’s private office. It seemed to him that the important executive was giving entirely too much thought to “pumpkins.” And, further, it surprised him that a man holding such a big posi¬ tion could be so finicky over a mere detail. Orange pumpkins ! What salesman would care a rap whether the decorative scheme at the pro¬ posed barn dance embraced orange pumpkins or yellow pumpkins? The sales executive might better be giving his time to more important mat¬ ters, the puzzled boy concluded.

“But it makes me no difference, as the Dutch-

ORANGE PUMPKINS

117

man says. If he wants orange pumpkins I’ll get them for him, for, bu-lieve me, I don’t care to have him read me a lecture like he did that sales- • man. I guess not! Orange pumpkins it shall be, Your Royal Highness, and nothing else but.” The good humor that was an inherent part of the healthy boy’s nature showed in his round face. “I wonder what he’d say if I wired him from Texas that I was still hopefully searching for orange pumpkins. Orange pumpkins ! If there’s an orange pumpkin in this end of the world I’ll find it.” Then the young face grew thought¬ ful. “But I wonder why he sent me out, instead of letting Poor Fish make another trip. That’s queer.”

The genial foreman of the testing department grinned when his young assistant explained that he had to crank up “Lizzie” and scour the country for a supply of orange pumpkins. As for the sales manager himself, that dignitary, no doubt, would have frowned in high dudgeon could he have heard the laughter behind his back as the foreman elaborately “peddled” the story to his cronies.

“Old Friday’s a nut,” was the general opin¬ ion of the workmen. Yet, even though they ridiculed the waspish, pompous executive behind his back, they held him in great respect. For they were conversant with the continued success

n8 ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

that attended his work. Acknowledged to be a high-pressure sales executive, he was getting high- pressure results.

In the meantime Eddie had left the plant. Having no choice of routes, his general impres¬ sion was that the farmers west of town raised considerable truck stuff, so he headed in that direction.

At the end of three hours he had to his credit some twenty-odd “calls” but no “business.” He could have bought a train load of common yellow “cow” pumpkins. But orange pumpkins — the choice “pie” pumpkins — seemed to be scarcer than proverbial hens’ teeth.

“Ask the county agent,” one farmer advised. “Lie’s here, there and everywhere. And if there’s an orange pumpkin in the county he ought to know about it.”

Using the telephone, the young pumpkin buyer got in touch with the county agent’s home.

“I can’t tell you where Mr. Bray is,” a femi¬ nine voice informed. “He may be home to din¬ ner, and he may not. For frequently he goes away in the morning and stays all day.”

“If he does come home at noon,” the boy in¬ structed, “will you please ask him if there are any farmers in this section raising orange pump¬ kins? And I’ll get in touch with you later on.”

Shortly after that, in a lonely section, “Lizzie” gave a peculiar despairing gulp in her mechanical

ORANGE PUMPKINS

119

throat and wearily expired, seemingly glad of the chance to rest her rubber-tired legs. Tinkering the carburetor, Eddie made the not joyful dis¬ covery that he was out of gasoline.

Trudging down the sun-baked country road, a target for the jeering blue jays and flickers, he Anally came to a shabby farmhouse. A dog was on guard. And knowing something about the savage nature of watchdogs, the hot-faced boy decided that it was safer for him to stay on the outside of the woven-wire fence.

“Hello!” he signaled the farmhouse in a lusty voice. But to his disappointment no one came into sight. Plainly the farmer and his family were away from home.

Still sweating from his walk in the hot sun, Eddie groaned at the thought of going on to the next farmhouse, which could easily be a mile away. That blamed dog! Having observed automobile tracks in the farmyard, the boy was confident that there was plenty of gasoline here if only he could get to it.

“Nice doggie!” he palavered. “Nice Bruno! Good old Rover!”

“Gr-r-r-r!” returned the “nice doggie,” show¬ ing its teeth through the fence.

Eddie considered the closed gate. Suppose he opened it? Would the dog rush through and take after him? He shook his fists at the fear¬ less animal. t

i2o ANDY BLAKE’S SECRET SERVICE

“You measly cur! If only I could get you on this side of the fence while I got on the inside.”

He opened the swinging gate an inch or two. Darting at the opening, the dog promptly tried to crowd through. That gave the boy an idea. Getting a big rock he placed it so that the gate couldn’t possibly swing open more than ten inches. Then, getting set for a mighty leap, he lifted the latch, and in the instant that the dog rushed out of the yard he vaulted the gate, jerking it shut.

“Now,” he panted in derision, safe on the inside, “go ahead and bark your head off, your four-legged fool.”

A quick search of the farm buildings disclosed a gasoline tank . . . but it was empty! How¬ ever, there was a can of kerosene on the farm¬ house porch. At sight of the can the boy grinned.

“I bet a cookie that ‘Lizzie’ can run on kero¬ sene. Sure thing. She’ll smoke like sixty, but I should worry. The hard part will be to get the engine started.”

Standing on the back porch, the pumpkin buyer let his eyes sweep down the slope. And what he saw a few rods away almost lifted him from his feet. Orange pumpkins! Hundreds and hun¬ dreds of them. He ran down the slope, fearful that when he came to the field he would discover that his eyesight had played a trick on him. But the pumpkins were indeed of a deep orange color

ORANGE PUMPKINS

1 2 I

— the most beautiful pumpkins, Eddie acknowl¬ edged to himself, his respect growing for the man who had ordered them, that he ever had seen.

The dog was still barking savagely and spring¬ ing against the closed gate. But Eddie gave the animal no attention. Running back to the house he noticed a note pinned on the door:

Dear Carrie: If you happen to come before we get back, go right inside and make yourself at home.

Mae.

Eddie laughed as he opened the unlocked door.

“If they can trust Carrie I guess they can trust me.”

CHAPTER XI

FATHER AND SON

Calling up the telephone operator, Eddie learned that he was in the home of Mr. Ham Brindle. But the girl could supply no information relative to the probable whereabouts of the Brin¬ dle family. And when the young pumpkin buyer became insistent she in turn became caustic. It wasn’t her duty, she said, to keep track of the telephone company’s numerous subscribers. How¬ ever, Eddie was successful in getting a connec¬ tion with the nearest neighbor.

“Hello,” drawled a voice over the line.

“This is Eddie Garry speaking. I’m at the Brindle farm. Mr. Ham Brindle’s place. Do you know - ”

Bang! As the other receiver was angrily jammed onto its hook the boy jumped a foot.

“Hot-doggety!” he grinned, running a hand through his hair, a boyish habit that still clung to him. “I can see plainly enough what those people think of the Brindle family.” Then he called the impatient operator and asked for a con¬ nection with another near neighbor.

122

FATHER AND SON

123

“Fawncy!” the girl drawled. “The little boy is getting up a surprise party.”

“Sure thing,” Eddie returned brightly. “Won’t you come and bring your chewing gum?”

“How you excite me! But really, kid — it’s a clever little invention, I know, and Mr. Alex¬ ander Bell <