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Read Ebook: Carl and the Cotton Gin by Bassett Sara Ware
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Ebook has 1184 lines and 49174 words, and 24 pages
"I'm quiet enough now," grinned Carl sheepishly.
"Quiet, you call it, do you? Quiet! And you prancing home from every ball game with a black eye or else the clothes half torn off you!" She chuckled mischievously. "But you're not telling me where you've been. Up to some deviltry, I'll be bound, or you wouldn't be so anxious to get it off your conscience."
"I haven't been up to any high jinks this time, Ma," protested the lad soberly. "You'll see when I tell you."
Slowly he related his story while his mother bent over her needle, spangling with brilliants a gauze of azure hue. She was a wonderful listener, sympathetic in her intentness.
When the boy had finished her hand wandered to touch his rough sleeve.
"A kind deed is never amiss in the world," observed she briefly. "If we would but pass on to other folks the kindness people do to us the world would soon become a pleasanter place. I'm thankful to know Louise has her job back, or rather that she has a better one. She's a good girl and deserves it. Besides, with Christmas coming, it would be hard to be without money."
"And Mr. Coulter--wasn't he great? And wasn't it all funny?"
"So it would!" answered Carl, leaping up to do his mother's bidding.
"I'm not forgetting you'd like to do a bit of coasting or skating to-day," Mrs. McGregor continued. "If you will fit in a few errands early in the afternoon I'll let you off at two o'clock for a holiday."
"It will be all right, sonny. Tim has had his play this morning and he shall help the rest of the day. Hush a minute! Isn't that Mrs. O'Dowd's knock? Very like she's up to ask me to run down and see little Katie who is laid up with a sore throat. Well, I'll go but I won't be long. Meantime if you can lend Mary a hand dinner will be through the quicker and you will be off to play the earlier."
Thus it happened that before two o'clock Carl McGregor was one of the shouting throng of boys that crowded the small pond in Davis Park. Amid swirling skaters and a confusion of hockey sticks he moved in and out the thick of the game. So intent was he upon the sport that he might have continued playing until dark had not a boy at his elbow suddenly piped:
"There goes Hal Harling! Hi, Hal! Come on down!"
"Harling! Harling!" cried the other boys, taking up the call.
"Come on and play, Hal! You can have Sanderson's skates. He's going home."
"Can't do it!" laughed the giant, waving his hand.
"Oh, come on, old top!"
"Not to-night, fellers! Got to go home."
"I've got to see Harling!" Carl exclaimed, hurriedly loosening his skates.
"You're not going, too!"
"Got to. So long! Hold on, Hal! I'm coming with you."
Scrambling up the bank, Carl overtook his friend.
"Hullo, Carlie! What struck you to quit?" asked he unceremoniously.
"Time I was getting home. Besides, I wanted to see you."
A smile passed between them.
"To tell the truth, I hoped I'd spy you somewhere, kid. I've got great news! Corcoran has been fired! What do you know about that?"
"Corcoran!"
"The old man himself--no other!"
"Jove! Why, I thought you said he'd been at the mills all his life."
"So he has."
"But--but--to fire him now!"
"Well, he hasn't actually been fired," amended young Harling, "but so far as I'm concerned it amounts to the same thing. He's been transferred to another department and he isn't to be a boss any more, poor old chap!"
"But aren't you glad?" questioned Carl with surprise.
"Why, yes, in some ways," returned Hal thoughtfully. "Yes, of course I'm glad not to have him sarsing the girls and pestering me. Still, I'm sort of sorry for him."
Hal nodded.
"I know! I know! I'm not saying he wasn't an awful old screw. But somehow I don't believe he meant to be so flinty-hearted. You see, he came and talked to me to-day--talked like a regular human being. You could have knocked me over. It seems--a funny thing--that kid I picked up out of the street the other day was his."
"Corcoran's kid!"
"Yep! Can you beat it? Of course I hadn't a notion who the little tike belonged to; but even if I had I should have done the same thing. You wouldn't let a kid like that be run over no matter who his father was."
"But--but--Corcoran!" gasped Carl. "How did he know it was you who rescued his baby?"
"Somebody told him. He said it cut him up terribly because of the way he'd treated Louise."
"Served him right."
"But Louise!"
"I know. It was a low-down trick and he said so himself. But he declared it was an ill wind that blew nobody good, and he hinted that maybe in consequence of the trouble she would be better off than if it hadn't happened."
Carl bit his tongue to keep it silent. How he longed to impart to his chum the good tidings that would greet him when he reached home! But he must not spoil Louise's pleasure by telling the story of her good luck for her.
"Oh, somehow things do seem to come round right if you wait long enough," mumbled he.
"So mother says," echoed Hal moodily. "But you get almighty sick of waiting sometimes. Even knowing you were right doesn't put pennies in your pocket." He laughed with a touch of bitterness.
Again Carl was tempted to break the silence and reveal the wonderful secret, and again he clamped his lips together.
Hal would hear the tidings soon enough now and his spirits would soar the higher because of the depths to which they had descended. It was always so. This broad range of mood was one of his chief charms.
Ah, how well he knew his friend and how accurately did he forecast what would happen!
It was not five minutes after the two parted at the corner before Hal Harling came leaping up the McGregors' stairway and gave a loud knock at their door.
"Oh, you old tight-jaw!" announced he, when on entering, he beheld Carl grinning at him from across the room. "You might have put me out of my misery."
The boy laughed.
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