"It was an intensely hot day. How the gra.s.s got on fire I do not know, but about noon I heard a cry from Dean, who had been lying for hours on the ground in the shade of the shack reading a book of poetry that a traveling missionary had brought to him. He had visited us six months before and had promised the next time he came that he would bring a book for my brother.

"When I heard Dean's cry of alarm and saw him leap to his feet and run toward a swiftly approaching column of smoke, I also ran, but not being as fleet of foot, I was soon far behind him. He had caught up a burlap bag as he pa.s.sed a shed; then, on he raced toward the fire. I, too, paused to get a bag, but when I started on I saw my brother suddenly plunge forward and disappear.

"He had caught his foot in a briar and had fallen into a thicket which, a moment later, with a crackle and roar leaped into flame.

"His cap had slipped over his face, thank heaven, and so his truly beautiful eyes and features were spared, but his body was badly burned when the fire had swept over him.

"The wind had veered very suddenly and turned the flame back upon the charred land and so, there being nothing left to burn, it was extinguished.

"It was at that moment that Daddy Eastland returned. He lifted my unconscious brother out of the black, burnt thicket and carried him to the shack.

"'Boy! Boy!' he said, and I never will forget the sob there was in his voice. 'Why did you say ye'd take care of the old place with your life?

'Twasn't worth one hair on yer head.'

"But Dean was not dead. Slowly, so slowly he came back to life, but his left arm was burned to the bone and his side beneath it. Then, because of the pain, his muscles tightened and he could not move his arm.

"We were so far from town that perhaps he did not have just the right care. Once a month a quack physician made the rounds of those remote farms.

"However, he did the best that he could, and a year later Dean was able to walk about. How like our mother he was, so brave and cheerful!

"'I am glad that it is my left arm that will not move, Sister,' he often said. 'I have a use for my right arm.'

"Our foster-father, noting how it pleased the lad, invented tasks around the farm that a one-armed boy could do to help, but when he was fourteen years of age I discovered what he had meant when he said that he had a use for his right arm. He had a little den of his own in the loft of the old barn with a big opening that overlooked meadow lands, a winding silver ribbon of a river and distant hills, and there he spent hours every day writing.

"At last he confessed that he was trying to make verse like that in his one greatly treasured book. It was his joy, and he had so little that I encouraged him, though I could not understand his poetry. I am more like our father, who was a faithful plodding farmer, and Dean is like our mother, who could tell such wonderful stories out of her own head.

"At last, when I was eighteen years old, I told Daddy Eastland that I wanted to go to the city to earn my own way and send some money back for Dean. How the lad grieved when I left, for he said that he was the one who should go out in the world and work for both of us, but I told him to keep on with his writing and that maybe, some day, he would be able to earn money with his poetry.

"So I came to town and began as an errand girl in a big department store.

"Now I earn eighteen dollars a week and I send half of it back to the little rocky farm in New England. Too, I send magazines and books, but now a new problem has presented itself. Mr. Eastland has died, and Dean is alone, and so I have sent for him to come and live with me.

"How glad I shall be to see him, but I dread having him know where I live. He will guess at once that I chose a bas.e.m.e.nt room that I might have money to send to him."

It was Miss Selenski who interrupted: "Miss Wiggin," she said, "while you have been talking, I have chosen you to be my successor. Tomorrow I am to be married, and I promised the ladies who built the model tenements that I would find someone fitted to take my place before I left. The pay is better than you are getting. It is twenty-five dollars a week, with a sunny little apartment to live in. I want all of you girls to come to my wedding and then, when I am gone, Miss Wiggin, you can move right in, and you will be there to welcome that wonderful brother of yours."

It would be hard to imagine a happier girl than Nell when she learned that a brighter future awaited her than she had dared to dream. She tried to thank her benefactor, but her sensitive lips quivered and the girls knew that she was so overcome with emotion that she might cry, and so Miss Selenski began at once to tell them about her wedding plans, and then, soon after she had finished, the girls who had been invited for tea arrived. Miss Selenski knew many of them, and so the conversation became general and little Nell Wiggin was permitted to quietly become accustomed to her wonderful good fortune before she was again asked to join in the conversation. Bobs walked with her to the elevated, and merry plans she laid for the pleasant times the Vandergrifts were to have with their new neighbors.

CHAPTER XV.

THE DETECTIVE DETECTED

One Monday, at high noon, the pretty Miss Selenski was married in the Hungarian church and her four new friends were among the many foreign women who came to wish their kindly neighbor much happiness in her new life.

Gloria had been pleased with the earnest face of the man who had won the love of little Miss Selenski, and when the smiling pair rode away on an automobile delivery truck, which was their very own, the Vandergrift girls, with Nell Wiggin, stood on a crowded street corner and waved and nodded, promising that very soon they would visit the little home, with a yard around it, that was out near the woodsy Bronx Park.

Bobs at the last moment had tied an old shoe to the back of the truck with a white ribbon, and there it hung dangling and bobbing in a manner most festive, while through a small hole in the sole of it a stream of rice trickled, but in the thronging, surging ma.s.ses of East Side humanity this little drama was scarcely noticed.

When Mr. and Mrs. Cheniska had disappeared up Third Avenue, Gloria turned to smile at little Nell Wiggin.

"Now, let us make haste to get your new apartment in order that you may wire your brother to come at once; that is, if a wire will reach him."

"Yes, indeed it will, and he is eagerly awaiting it," Nell happily replied. "Since our foster-father's death my brother has been living in town with the missionary of whom I told you, the one who used to visit the remote farms and who brought my brother, years ago, his first book of poetry. They have been close friends ever since."

But when the girls reached the little apartment, they found that there was nothing to be done. It was in perfect order, and the thoughtful bride had even left part of her wedding flowers that they might be there to welcome the new agent of the model tenements.

"There seems to be nothing to do here," beamingly Miss Wiggin said.

"Perhaps I would better go at once to my room and pack."

"I will go with you and help," Bobs told her.

"Then both of you come to the Pensinger mansion for lunch," Lena May suggested.

"What did you do about notifying Mr. Queerwitz?" Bobs inquired an hour later as the two girls started down Fourth Avenue toward the bas.e.m.e.nt home of Nell Wiggin.

"Nothing as yet. That is, I merely telephoned that I would not be there today. I suppose I will have to give two weeks' notice. Let us go there at once and I will do so."

When the two girls entered the Queerwitz Antique Shop, Miss Peerwinkle seemed to be much excited because of their arrival and, hastening to the rear door, which was labeled "No Admittance," she gave three sharp raps and then hurried back and took up her post near the front door, as though to prevent escape in that direction.

Bobs looked all around, wondering if there was a customer in the store who was being watched, but she and Nell seemed to be the only other occupants of the place. To add to the mysteriousness, Miss Harriet Dingley, upon receiving a nod from the head lady, walked to the entrance of the cloakroom, deliberately turned the key and put it in her pocket.

Bobs, always on the alert, noted all this and marveled at it. Surely Nell Wiggin had done nothing to arouse the suspicion of Mr. Queerwitz! Then, suddenly, a very possible solution of the mystery flashed into Roberta's consciousness.

Undoubtedly Mr. Queerwitz suspected that the late Miss Dolittle had something to do with the disappearance, reappearance and subsequent sale of the rare old book. She well knew how enraged the grasping shopkeeper would be if he learned that he had received only half as much for the second volume as had been paid by Mr. Van Loon for the first, and if that gentleman had described the girl who had sold the book to him! Bobs actually smiled as she thought, "I guess I'm trapped all right. A fine detective I would make when I never even thought to wear a disguise.

Well, the game's up!"

She knew that she ought to feel troubled when she saw Mr. Queerwitz emerge from his secret sanctum and approach her, looking about as friendly as a thunder cloud, but, instead, that irrepressible girl felt amused as though she were embarking upon another interesting adventure, and she actually smiled to greet him. Bobs was depending upon her natural quick-wittedness to save her from whatever avalanche of wrath was about to descend upon her.

She had glanced beyond the man, then suddenly she stared as though amazed at what she saw back of him. The shopkeeper, noting this, turned and observed that in his haste he had neglected to latch the door labeled "No Admittance," and that a draught of air had opened it.

Beyond plainly were seen several workmen engaged in making antique furniture. Mr. Queerwitz looked sharply at the girl, trying to learn, if possible, how much of his secret had been revealed to her.

His anger increased when he saw that her eyes were laughing. "What puzzles me," she was saying, innocently, "is how you can make things look worm-eaten as well as time-worn."

Whatever accusations might have been on the lips of Mr. Queerwitz when he approached Roberta, they were never uttered. Instead he turned and walked rapidly back to his workshop and closed the door, none too quietly, but in a manner that seemed to convince Miss Peerwinkle that she and Miss Dingley need no longer guard the entrances.

How Bobs wanted to laugh, but instead she walked over to Nell Wiggin, who had been collecting the few things that she had at the shop.

"Have you given notice?" Roberta inquired.

"I wrote a note and asked Miss Peerwinkle to give it to Mr. Queerwitz.

Come, let us go."

Half an hour later Nell Wiggin was packing her few garments in a suitcase, while Roberta tied up the precious books. Two hours later the new agent of the model tenements was established in the sunny apartment and her row of red-bound books stood on one shelf of the built-in bookcase.