Then Jerry tramped off again to the boat, to be sure everything was safely snugged down for the night. Captain Andy had a key, and he and his son would be down the first thing in the morning to take it back to its mooring. Meanwhile Captain Andy’s friend here at the wharf had promised to watch it.
At last Jerry came back and took his place at the wheel and they started off again, not knowing where they were going.
“Seems as if we ought to have at least God to take care of us and show us the way!” said Heather suddenly, out of a long silence, as the old car carried them steadily over the rough woods road.
Nobody answered her at first. Hazel tried to giggle but choked all up instead, and everybody felt tears near the surface, though they couldn’t have explained just why, because they felt they really ought to be laughing that they had escaped Peter Willis so easily. Peter had come to typify to them the whole army of relatives who wanted to separate them.
Then Jerry spoke. “Well, I guess you’re right, Heather. Suppose you all shut your eyes and ask God to look after us.”
Then there was a long reverent silence as the car sped onward through the night.
Chapter 14
Aunt Petra had not given up, even though nearly four weeks had gone by since the exodus of the Graemes, and nothing, simply nothing had been done about it. She had subsided for a brief space because she confidently expected them to turn up very soon. Blakefield Graeme was still at home, going to his office every day, coming home every evening and sitting quietly in his room with his newspaper and his books, always going downtown to his office again at the regular time every morning. He wasn’t acting as if anything out of the way was happening at all. Aunt Petra knew, for she had lain in ambush and come upon him most unexpectedly morning, noon, and night. Never once had he failed to appear at the regular time.
Aunt Petra had fairly haunted his office for the first few days, demanding attention, no matter what important personage he was busy with at the time. She would declaim in a loud tone concerning the ridiculousness of his attempting to be a guardian to such a set of crazy children as the Graemes, and then demanding anew in some unique way to be told where those children were.
But Blakefield had reached the point where he no longer attempted to argue with her. He just smiled and said they were quite well and all right and then went on with whatever business he had in hand. Aunt Petra would talk herself out and threaten and browbeat and finally take herself away until she could think up some new form of attack.
But at last one morning Aunt Petra arrived in the office before Uncle Blake got there, planted herself in front of his desk, and said as he arrived, “Now, Blakefield, I think the time has come to do something strenuous. Those children have been away almost a month, and not one word have any of us heard from them. We have decided that it is high time to bring the law into the matter. I have just come to warn you that if you do not divulge the hiding place of those children we shall not only inform the police, and claim their protection for the children, but we shall also publish this thing far and wide in the newspapers so that you will no longer be able to live in a decent town, or to maintain your position of guardian to them. We think that we have already shown more patience and forbearance in this matter than could possibly be called for, and now we are going to act.”
“Yes?” said Blakefield. “And who is ‘we,’ Petra?”
“We? Why, all of us. All their relatives.”
“Yes?” said Blakefield “Well, have you got that in writing with all their names signed to it, Petra?”
“Well, no, but I can easily get it, if that is what you want.”
“Oh no, I was not particularly wanting it. I was just wondering,” said Blakefield. “I always supposed that most of the Graeme relatives had good sense, and I didn’t quite believe that they would sign their names to any such tomfoolery as that. However, go ahead and get it if that’s what you want, and just take it to my lawyer when you get it. See what he says about it. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, Petra, this is a busy morning. I haven’t any more time to spare.”
“Look here, Blakefield; aren’t you going to be sensible and tell me where those children are?”
“No, not as long as they wish me to keep silence.”
“Well,” said Aunt Petra, rising angrily, “then I shall certainly visit several of the prominent newspapers of the city and give them information at once about what you are doing.”
“Go ahead, Petra! Suit yourself. If that’s the kind of publicity you want for the family, it’s all right with me. I’ll simply put the matter it the hands of my lawyer, and he will inform you what you are laying yourself open to and that you’ll only succeed in delaying the return of the children. You’ll probably have a lawsuit on your hands into the bargain if you keep on. But I suppose you wouldn’t mind that. However, I would suggest it might be good for you to consult my lawyer before you start on this campaign. It might save you some trouble and expense.”
“Lawyer!” said Aunt Petra sharply. “I didn’t know you had a lawyer. What’s his name and address?”
For answer Blakefield handed her a lawyer’s card, and then she said contemptuously, “Well, we have lawyer, too. My lawyer is one of the best in the city.”
“So?” said Blakefield. “Just ask him what he thinks of mine.”
So Petra went to her own lawyer and found that Blakefield’s lawyer, Robert MacKenzie, ranked even as the despised Blakefield had said. Moreover she was advised by her own lawyer to keep out of the affair entirely.
“There is no better lawyer in this part of the country,” he said, “and there is no man more respected in the whole of this city than Blakefield Graeme. He is quiet, but he is solid and absolutely square in everything. If he is guardian you cannot do a thing, and if he warns you to keep out of anything he certainly must have the authority to do it, and you had better be warned.”
Crestfallen, Aunt Petra went home to consider how she might stir some of the men on her side of the case to do further battle.
That was the morning of the day after Jerry and Jennifer piloted their small family down the bay and off the boat into an unknown way.
The ragged clouds of purple had developed into thunderheads of high voltage, and the world was drenched and dark and forbidding as, sometime after midnight, they emerged at last from the woods road to a highway that was under construction.
The little woods road that was scarcely defined enough for even the headlights of a powerful car to discern had a fork in it that Jerry had not noticed the day before when he had driven down with Bert. After a moment’s hesitation he decided to turn left. Right would take him to the highway that led back to Captain Andy’s place. Left must surely open on the same highway, only farther down, which would be even better, for he must go in the opposite direction from where Peter Willis would be. But the left fork opened in a section where the way had been thickly strewn with sharp-cut boulders of granite, pointed and forbidding, set close and deep, awaiting a filling of asphalt or the like, and lined with little red lanterns smoking menacingly.
Coming out of the darkness of the woods, his eyes heavy with sleep, Jerry lurched the car into the midst of this terrifying display of road-mending before he realized what he was doing. Having had to mount up to the highway over a steep and treacherous gully of sand he found he was unable to get back again, for turning on those stones was impossible.
The road at either side went down suddenly into deep mushy sand. Soft Shoulder! a sign announced, and even if the car had been willing on that uncertain bed to veer to the side, it wouldn’t have been safe. Backing was quite as impossible. So Jerry bumped on ahead, uncertainly and fearfully.
He was thoroughly roused by this time and began to realize his predicament, even before Jennifer asked to the lurching of the car and cried out, “Why, where are we? Oh, Jerry! Why did you come up here?”
“Yes, why?” said Jerry solemnly and drove on because there was nothing else to do, yet it seemed tha
t each revolution of the wheels spelled disaster. His lights showed that the rough section lasted only a short distance farther, yet the ten feet ahead seemed miles in perspective, and Jerry felt that every inch he progressed was agony not only to the fine old car he was driving but to his own body as well.
“Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t!” cried out Robin from his uneasy sleep. “I vanta go back! Back to my dear boat. I vanta go ho-oOO-ome!”
Jennifer sat and held her breath until Robin’s wails made it impossible to hold it any longer, and then she tried to soothe him. The rest of the children woke up and clung to the seats, clutching each other’s hands, maintaining a frightful silence.
Jerry, as the car lurched forward like slow sure doom, looked ahead to where the deadly work had apparently begun on the road. He saw the smooth road roll out like a ribbon down below their level at an awful descent. Was he going to make it? Could he ever get down that incline without tearing the heart from his car? The stones seemed sharper the farther he went, and he would gladly have bowed his head on the wheel and groaned aloud, giving up the fight. But he set his firm young lips and went on.
There was the dim shadow of a car ahead, parked on the smooth road, its taillights showing. It must have come up from the other end, met the impassable barrier, and turned to go back. Yet it had not turned all the way, for it stood there as if watching Jerry.
Someone stepped out of the shadow, came slowly forward to the end of the stone bed, and stood.
Jerry sat up and nerved himself for the last effort. He was being watched. He must somehow acquit himself with dignity, if not with success. And then slowly, cautiously, like an old frightened man, the car lurched down with an awful bump, paused a moment with its front wheels on the smooth road, and then dragged the rear wheels down, with a tearing, rending sound.
Jerry paused an instant to take breath and be sure he was over the hard going, and then he cautiously threw in his clutch again, just as the figure at the side of the road stepped nearer and waved a hand.
“Tough going!” called the man. “You did well to get through!”
“Thanks!” said Jerry perfunctorily and then gave attention to his car. He wasn’t just sure yet whether all this was well or not, and he was going cautiously, listening to the engine and the rear. But the children, looking back, noticed that the stranger stood still watching them; then he stooped and looked down at the road, walking along as if he were studying something on the asphalt.
Little by little Jerry increased his speed, watching, listening.
Then suddenly, just at his left a horn sounded sharply, several times, and he jumped, startled! That must be the car that had been standing by the roadside. There had been no other car in sight. Was this a hold-up? His first impulse was to step on the gas and leave the man behind. But the horn sounded again imperatively, and then the man’s voice called, and his voice was pleasant, friendly, not gruff.
“There’s something the matter with your car, brother,” he called. “Better get out and investigate. You’re losing oil badly!”
Jerry didn’t get all the man said, but something in his tone made him involuntarily slow down, and the man called again.
“Something must have happened to your crankcase, friend!” said the stranger. “You are leaving a trail of oil behind you!”
Jerry put on his brakes then, and Jennifer looked up in horror. What did this mean? What was the crankcase, and how important was it to their car? She didn’t know the least little about machinery, but it sounded ominous.
Then suddenly she remembered that this might just possibly be someone trailing them. She must not be recognized. So she drew her silk scarf over one side of her face and snuggled down still farther in the corner of the car, to make it appear that she was asleep.
Jerry was studying the pleasant kindly face of the young man now standing in the road and was at once convinced that the was not a tough character, nor yet someone hired to trace them.
He sprang out of the car and stooped to look down.
The stranger pointed back, along the short distance he had already come, and there, sure enough, was a distinct line of oil, driveling along in the whiteness of the road.
The stranger stepped ahead of the car and stooped down.
“Here, come here!” said the stranger. “Already there is quite a puddle of drippings under the engine.”
Jerry stooped to see and then looked anxiously into the face of the other young man.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “I wonder what’s happened. I thought I heard a strange sound those last few inches before I got into the road.
“Yes,” said the other, “so did I. So I thought I’d better catch you and let you know, because that oil is coming out pretty fast. After it’s gone you’ll burn your bearings out if you try to drive, you know.”
“Gosh!” said Jerry, appalled. “Of course I will! I wonder if there’s a garage, or even a filling station near? Did you come from that way?” He pointed down the good road.
“Yes,” said the other young man. “I hoped there was a way through in spite of the detour sign down there at the edge of town. I have an appointment that I want to keep in the early morning if possible, and I didn’t know about this detour till I got here. But when I looked up and saw you turn into the road I thought, if you could get by, I’d make a stab at it, too. So I came on till I saw what you were up against and then I stopped. Yes, there’s a garage down about half a mile. I didn’t notice whether it was open all night or not, but it’s getting pretty light. It would likely be open pretty soon now, anyway.”
“Do you think I could make it before the oil is all gone? I wouldn’t like to injure the car.”
“Oh yes, I think it will be all right. Unless you’d like to stay here and trust me to send a repairman back. I’ll be glad to do that for you.”
Jerry considered what that would mean.
“No,” he said, “I’d better try to get there before all the oil is gone. It can’t leak out all at once, of course. But thanks awfully just the same. You’re very kind.”
“All right. I’ll trail along behind you in case you need any further assistance.”
Jerry got back into the car and drove cautiously down the road, reflecting on the kindness of the stranger and the predicament he had got his family into now. There had been one minute before he landed on those awful stones that he had almost dropped back. He could have done it then, why hadn’t he? Just because he was too sleepy to know what he was doing. And now the poor children would have to wait a long time for the repair to be made. What would they do? And what might not happen? This was ordinarily a fairly well-traveled highway. He had hoped to get beyond it into a back road before daylight. Well, the detour would stop at least part of the traffic.
They hurried on and found the garage was open. All but Jerry got out and went into a little restaurant that served midnight and early morning breakfasts for railroad men. It was hot and sticky. They had cereal and weak cream, and Robin feel asleep again before he finished his.
The stranger soon drove up and followed Jerry into the garage. Jennifer saw him from the window of the restaurant. He seemed very kind and pleasant, but she warned the children not to say anything about themselves or where they came from, if he should speak to them.
There were two holes in the crankcase, torn by the stones they had crossed. Jerry came in and told her about it while he swallowed a cup of the bitter, muddy coffee. He said the stranger had been very kind and helped with the mending. He seemed to know how to do everything.
When at last the car was finished and they might start on again, Jennifer and the children were waiting at one side of the road, sitting under some inhospitable poplar trees with their backs turned to the road. Jennifer was taking no risks about being recognized even in the dark of this unlikely hour in the morning.
They got into the car, pausing a moment to thank the stranger.
Jennifer had instructed the children what seats to take and
had hidden herself in the corner of the backseat, but as the stranger stood there for that minute talking to Jerry she could see his face clearly, and she was haunted with the feeling that she had seen him before, or else he reminded her of someone she had known a long time ago. Then he bowed and smiled, tipped his hat in a general gesture to the whole carload, got into his car, and sped away, while they followed more slowly behind him.
“What was he? What’s his name?” asked Jennifer.
“Why, do you know, I never asked him! I was so afraid he would ask me who I was that I kept off topics like that as well as I could. But he’s all right! He’s a real clean-cut man. Why, he lost a whole hour and a half on our account, just because he thought we might possibly need him. And as it turned out, we did. That fellow in the garage was only an apprentice, and he was afraid to tackle our car. He said it was ‘too ritzy’ for him. He said his boss wouldn’t be here until eight o’clock, and he guessed he’d leave it till he came. And then this other fellow spoke up and said, ‘Oh, that’s not such a hard job. Here, I’ll help you. Get your solder ready,’ and he just kidded him along till he got to work, and they did it together. Gosh! I was ashamed! Nice fellow like that getting down under our car on his back in all that dirt, getting his hands and face all greasy! And he’s on his way to speak at a conference or something in the mountains! I got that much information from him about himself. Good night! He’ll be a mess when he gets there! And he thinks he’s going to be late to his meeting, too. I tried to make him let me pay him something, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Just smiled and said I could return the favor someday if he got into trouble. I think he was great! I’d like to get to know a fellow like that.”
“Where was it he was going?” asked Jennifer.
“Why, I don’t remember the name. Maybe it’ll come back to me. He spoke as if we would know where it was. Said it was up in the mountains. I think I’d know the name if I saw it. I’ll get a map and try to look it up when we get somewhere. But say, Jen, where are we going?”