Our Next-Door Neighbors

Chapter XVIII

In Which I Decide on Extreme Measures

Everyone in our house, which was now filled to overflowing–in fact, there were Polydores on sofas and in beds on the floor–save Silvia and myself, was on the alert for a response to the letter during the succeeding few days. Knowing Uncle Issachar, we felt sure he would make no response, or notice the matter in any way save to cash the check promptly.

The monotony was somewhat relieved by the difficulties under which Beth and Rob were pursuing their courtship. On the third evening succeeding our return, Silvia and I started upstairs early to give them a chance to have the exclusive use of the library, the Polydores having all been sent to bed. As we were making some plausible excuse for going to our room, Beth remarked with a smile:

“Your motive in retiring so early is commendable, but of no particular benefit to Rob and me. The Polydores, like the poor, we always have with us.”

“I saw that every one of them except Ptolemy was in bed at eight o’clock last night and the night before,” said Silvia. “You don’t mean to tell me–”

“Yes, I do mean,” laughed Beth. “Not Ptolemy, though. He has become too dignified to spy on us, but last night as we sat here on the settee, we heard a suppressed sneeze, and Rob pulled Emerald from underneath.”

“How in the world did he ever squeeze under there?” I asked, gazing at the slight space between the floor and settee.

“He did look a little flattened, as if he had been put in a letter press,” said Rob. “I gave him a dime to go to bed and stay there. Beth and I had just resumed our conversation when a still, small voice said: ‘I’ll go to bed for a dime, too.’ I then hauled Demetrius from behind the davenport.”

“And the night before,” said Beth, “when we were sitting on the porch, Pythagoras rolled off the roof, where he had been listening to us, and came down into the vines.”

“Now I’ll stop that,” I declared. “I’ll tie them in their beds and lock the doors and windows.”

“No,” refused Rob. “I’d like to try to circumvent them by their own weapons of wits. I have a little plan which I don’t dare whisper to you lest their long-range ears get in their work. We are just about to start for a walk.”

“In this pouring rain!” protested Silvia.

“We like the rain,” he replied, “and we–are not going far.”

Pythagoras entered the room just then and looked astounded and disappointed when he saw Beth and Rob departing.

“We are going out to a small party,” Rob remarked to me, casually.

It was after eleven when we heard them returning.

“Do you suppose they have been walking all this time?” said Silvia in concern. “Beth wore no rubbers.”

The next day was Sunday and Huldah put into execution a plan for procuring one happy hour each week. This plan was the admission of the Polydores, en masse, to one of the Sunday schools. She chose the church most remote from home so they would be a long time going and coming, which she said would “help some.”

“Now,” said Beth, as she watched them march away, “I can dare to tell you where we spent last evening. We were at the Polydore house next door. There is a little vine-screened porch on the other side of the house. Rob managed to open one of the windows and brought out a couple of chairs. It was as snug as could be.”

“I’ll corral them every night,” I said, “until you make your getaway, and I’ll give you the key so you can go inside when it is cool or stormy.”

“We’ll go around the block by way of precaution,” said Rob.

Presently Huldah returned from the Sunday school with triumphant mien.

“They made them all into one class and put a redheaded woman with spectacles in for their teacher. I gave them street car tickets to come home on.”

When the Polydores returned, however, they were dragging Diogenes along and he looked quite weary.

“Didn’t you come home on the street car?” I asked Ptolemy.

“No; we sold our tickets and got ice cream sodas,” he explained. “We took turns carrying Diogenes on our backs.”

“You only had one ticket for yourself, and two half fares for Thag and Emmy,” said Huldah suspiciously. “I thought Meetie and Di could ride free. You couldn’t have sold them tickets for enough for sodies.”

“Rob gave us three nickels to put in the plate,” said Pythagoras. “We only put in one of them, seeing we were all in one family and one class. That gave us four nickels for ice cream sodas and the clerk gave Di half a glass some one had left.”

“I gave you a penny for Di to put in,” said Huldah. “What did you do with that?”

“We wanted him to put it in, and when they took up the collection, he wouldn’t give it,” said Emerald. “I tried to take it away from him and he swallowed it. The redhead teacher was awful scared, but I told her he was used to swallowing things and that you said he carried a whole department store in his insides.”

“Poor little Di,” said Silvia; “it’s the only way he has of keeping things away from you all.”

That night I saw to it personally that each and every Polydore was in his little bed. It should have aroused my suspicions that none of them rebelled, or had evinced the slightest degree of interest or curiosity when Beth and Rob announced their intention of going out for the evening.

At ten-thirty the lovers returned, bringing in Pythagoras, who was clad in his pajamas.

“Where did you pick him up?” I asked in astonishment.

“He picked us up,” said Beth.

“He was wise, maybe, in discovering where we were,” said Rob, “but he fell down when he tried to work off the ghost screeches on us. We recognized them at once, and ran him down inside, so our party broke up.”

“Come here, Pythagoras,” I commanded.

He obeyed promptly and fearlessly.

“How did you know they were there, and when did you go over there?”

“I was playing over in our house today,” he replied, “and I found one of Beth’s hairpins with the little stones in, in the big chair, so I knew that was where they hid last night. As soon as you went down stairs tonight, I got out the window and slid down the roof and came over to scare them.”

“You’ve missed a lot of sleep the last few nights,” I said quietly, “so you will have to make it up. You can stay in bed all day tomorrow.”

“Hold on, Lucien!” exclaimed Rob. “Tomorrow’s the big baseball game of the season, and I promised to take them all.”

“So much the better,” I said. “He will learn to mind.”

Pythagoras looked as if he had been struck, and quickly put his arms across his eyes. In a moment his shoulders were heaving. At last I had found a vulnerable spot in the stoic, and I began to relent.

“See here, Pythagoras,” I said, “if I let you up in time to go to the game, will you promise me something?”

“Anything,” came in a muffled voice.

“Will you promise not to spy on Beth and Rob and keep Emerald and Demetrius from doing it?”

“Yes,” he promised quickly, his arm coming down and his face brightening. “Sure I will, but I did want to hear what they said.”

“Why?” asked Rob interestedly.

“We’re getting up a show, and Em is going to take the part of a girl and he spoons with Tolly, and we didn’t know what to have them say to each other.”

“I’ll rehearse you on the play, and prompt you,” said Beth with a little giggle.

“Come on upstairs with me now,” I said to Pythagoras.

When I landed him at his door, he leaned up against me, and rubbed his cheek against my arm.

“Thank you for letting me go to the game,” he said.

I found myself responding to his affectionate advance. This would clearly never do. I couldn’t let another Polydore squeeze himself into my regard.

“Silvia,” I said abruptly, as I came into our room, “we must really make some immediate plan for disposing of the Polydores, or, at least, of ‘Them Three.’”

“Huldah is managing them tolerably well,” demurred Silvia. “Since they depreciated in market value from five thousand per to nothing, she has resumed her former harsh treatment of them.”

“Well, we are not going to keep them,” I replied with finality. “We are under no obligations to do so. I am going to put them in a school for boys and use the blank check Felix Polydore left to pay for their tuition.”

“I suppose that is what we will have to do,” she admitted with a little sigh. “Yet, Lucien, it doesn’t seem quite right. If they are in a boys’ school, they will keep on right along the same lines. They need home influence and contact with women. Demetrius is fond of music and will sit still and listen when I play. Emerald obeyed me today the first time I spoke, and I even thought I saw a glimmer of good in Pythagoras.”

I didn’t tell her that this glimmer was what had decided me to dispose of him.

“It would, doubtless, be better for them to stay,” I admitted, “but I am not going to be a martyr to the cause. They are going.”

The next morning I wrote for catalogues and prospectus to the different schools, and I felt as if three old men of the sea had been lifted from my shoulders.

Chapter XIX

Which Has to Do with Some Letters

One morning when I came down to my office, I found a letter postmarked from the city in which Uncle Issachar lived addressed to me. I opened it and found inclosed, with seal unbroken, the letter Silvia had mailed to her uncle and which she had marked “personal.” There was a note addressed to me accompanying it:

“Dear Sir:

“I am returning herewith your personal letter to Mr. Innes, as he has gone to South America and left no forwarding address. Should such be received from him at any future date, you will be duly notified thereof.

I read the above to Silvia at luncheon. She was grievously disappointed because her uncle had not received her letter of explanation.

“It is most fortunate,” she said, “that I sent it in one of your office envelopes.”

As usual, she had found the bright spot she always looked for and generally discovered.

“I wouldn’t care,” she said, “to have Uncle Issachar’s private secretary or the dead-letter office know all our private affairs, but I shall feel like an impostor until Uncle Issachar is undeceived.”

“I feel a hunch,” said Rob, “that Uncle Issachar will run across Doctor Felix and his wife down there in Chili and find you out.”

“He may run across the Polydores,” I replied, “but he’ll never find out from them that they are the parents of Silvia’s children. They would not mention a subject in which they have so little interest.”

“But,” argued Beth, “naturally they’d tell him where they lived, and then, of course, he’d say he had a niece living in the same town. They would inquire her name and inform him that they were her near neighbors, and then he’d tell them what fine sons you have, and then, of course, the Polydores would claim their own.”

“Which theory goes to show,” said Silvia, “how little you know Uncle Issachar and the Polydore seniors. He would not think of speaking to strangers, and if he did, he wouldn’t say any of those usual conversational things you mentioned. The Polydores wouldn’t be interested, in the least, in knowing he had a niece unless she happened to know something about antiques, and if he should describe her children, she wouldn’t recognize them.”

After luncheon I went out on the porch. While I sat there, the mail carrier came along and handed me a letter–a returned letter. It was directed in Ptolemy’s round hand to Mr. Issachar Innes. He had evidently used the envelope to Silvia’s letter to her uncle as his model, for the address was written in the same way. “Personal” was added in the left-hand corner, and his name and our house number was in the upper left-hand corner.

I went into the library where my wife, Beth, Rob, and Ptolemy were sitting.

“Ptolemy,” I said, handing him the letter, “here is your communication to Uncle Issachar, returned.”

He lost some of his usual sang froid and appeared quite disconcerted.

“Why, Ptolemy,” exclaimed Silvia in consternation, “what in the world did you write to Uncle Issachar about?”

Ptolemy had recovered and was quite himself again.

“About us,” he said innocently. “As the oldest of our family, I thought I ought to do a little explaining.”

“And I think,” I said, looking at him keenly, “that we have the right to know what your explanation was.”

Ptolemy handed me over the letter.

“Read it aloud,” he said, with the air of one who is proud of his productions.

Rob’s eyes shone in anticipation.

I broke the seal. A note from the secretary fell out. It was an apology for not returning the letter sooner, but it had been inadvertently mislaid. I then read aloud the letter Ptolemy had written:

“Dear Uncle Issachar

“I am sorry Diogenes and I were away when you were here. You thought the others were fine, but you should have seen–Diogenes. I hope you will send mudder back her check, because there is lots of things she needs, and it takes a lot of money to take care of all us. You see our own father and mother don’t want to be bothered with us and they went away and left us, and so we are living with mudder the same as if we were really her adopted children, and if her own would have been worth five thousand per to you, I think her adopted children ought to be worth half as much anyway, so it would only be fair to send her a check for $12,500 anyway, and if you are a good sport like the kids said you were, you’ll send back her check.

Rob’s laughter was so free and spontaneous that I had to join in against my will. Ptolemy, who had seemed a little apprehensive of the verdict, looked accordingly relieved.

“That’s a fine letter, young man,” approved Rob. “Stepdaddy ought to take you into his law firm.”

“No,” declared Beth. “I think Ptolemy has inherited his mother’s gift. He should be a writer.”

“Not on your life!” cried Ptolemy with feeling. “I want to live things instead of writing about them.”

A tear or two came into Silvia’s eyes.

“It was very sweet in you, Ptolemy, to try to get the money for mudder.”

I felt that all this commendation was bad for Ptolemy, and that it was up to me to take a reef in his sails.

“It was a well-meant letter, Ptolemy,” I said, “and I know that your motive was unselfish, but it is very poor policy to meddle in other people’s affairs. Meddlers are mischief makers in spite of their good intentions. I am very glad it did not fall into Uncle Issachar’s hands.”

Ptolemy looked sufficiently squelched.

“By the way, Silvia,” I said. “I wrote Mr. Winslow and told him not to forget to forward Uncle Issachar’s address as soon as he possibly could do so, as I had matters of importance to communicate to him.”

“He may travel about like father and mother,” said Ptolemy, again regaining confidence, “so why don’t you put that check for twenty-five thousand in the Savings Department and get the interest on it anyway?”

“I think, Ptolemy,” said Rob, “that you are too good a financier, after all, to become a lawyer. I will go back to my first conviction that you should be a promoter.”

“We’ll give him to Uncle Issachar,” I proposed, “for a partner.”

Chapter XX

“The Money We Earnt for You”

Life went on uneventfully save for the dire doings of “Them Three.” Knowing that they were to be sent to school, they were having their last fling at life untrammeled. September came, and Rob set the day for his departure, as he was going home to arrange his affairs, so he and Beth could leave for an extended honeymoon trip. I planned to go with Rob and install the Polydore three in their distant school. They were so despondent at leaving, as the time drew near, that a feeling of gloom hung over the household, all the members of which, even to Huldah, urged me to relent. But I remained adamant until the evening before the day set for the dissolution of the Polydore family, when something happened that changed all our plans.

We were assembled in the library in a state of forced cheerfulness when the doorbell rang. I answered it, and receipted for a telegram which I opened and read in the hall. It was from Chester K. Winslow.

“Silvia,” I said gravely, as I returned to the library, “your Uncle Issachar is dead. Died in South America. Heart disease. Very sudden.”

Conflicting emotions were depicted in Silvia’s expression.

The thought uppermost in all our minds was expressed simultaneously by “Them Three.”

“Gee! Then you can keep the money we earnt for you.”

“You know,” interpolated Rob in soft-pedaled tone, “they are going to train school children toward the military–teach the young ideas how to shoot, as it were. It won’t be long before they are ordered to Mexico to protect us.”

“If Them Three ever meets that there Viller man,” commented Huldah confidently, “the fur will fly some.”

“Lucien,” said Silvia thoughtfully, “we are under obligations to these children, you see, after all.”

“Yes,” I acknowledged with a sigh, “seeing they are now ours, bought and paid for, I suppose we’ll have to treat them as such.”

“You wouldn’t send your own kids away to school,” said Pythagoras significantly.

“No,” I reluctantly allowed, answering the protest of Pythagoras, “and we won’t send you. You will all go to the public school tomorrow.”

The deafening Polydore powwow that followed made me hope that Uncle Issachar had met with his just deserts.