Crowded Out o' Crofield Part 15

"Now!" said Jack to himself.

Off he went with a quick grasp, and then another lower along the branch, before it had time to break, but his third grip was on a larger limb, below, and he believed he was safe.

"I must be quick!" he said. "Somebody is striking a light in that room!"

Hand over hand for a moment, and then he was astride of a limb. Soon he was going down the trunk; and then the window (which he had closed behind him) went up, and he heard Deacon Abrams exclaiming:

"He couldn't have got out this way, could he? Stop thief! Stop thief!"

"Let 'em chase!" muttered Jack, as his feet reached the ground. "This is the liveliest kind of news-item!"

Jack vaulted over the nearest fence, ran across a garden, climbed over another fence, ran through a lot, and came out into a street on the other side of the square.

"I've got a good start, now," he thought, "but I'll keep right on.

They don't expect me at Murdoch's to-night. If I can only get to the _Eagle_ office! n.o.body'll hunt for me there!"

He heard the sound of feet, at that moment, around the next corner.

Open went the nearest gate, and in went Jack, and before long he was scaling more fences.

"It's just like playing 'Hare-and-Hounds,'" remarked Jack, as he once more came out into a street. "Now for the _Eagle_, and it won't do to run. I'm safe."

He heard some running and shouting after that, however, and he did not really feel secure until he was on his bed, with the doors below locked and barred.

"Now they can hunt all night!" he said to himself, laughing. "I've made plenty of news for Mary."

So she thought next morning; and the last "news-item" brought out the color in her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes.

"I'll write it out," she said, "just as if you were the real robber, and we'll print it!"

"Of course," said Jack; "but I'd better keep shady for a day or so. I wish I was on my way to New York!"

"Seems to me as if you were," said Mary. "They won't come here after you. The paper's nearly full, now, and it'll be out to-morrow!"

Mr. Murdoch would have been gratified to see how Mary and Jack worked that day. Even Mr. Black and the type-setters worked with energy, and so did Mr. Bones, and there was no longer any doubt that the _Eagle_ would be printed on time. Mr. Murdoch felt better the moment he was told by Mary, at tea-time, that she had found editing no trouble at all. He was glad, he said, that all had been so quiet, and that n.o.body had called at the editor's office, and that people did not know he was sick. As to that, however, Mr. Bones had not told Mary how much he and Mr. Black had done to protect her from intrusion. They had been like a pair of watch-dogs, and it was hardly possible for any outsider to pa.s.s them. As for Jack, he was not seen outside of the _Eagle_ all that day.

"If any of Deacon Abram's posse should come in," he remarked to Mary, "they wouldn't know me with all the ink that's on my face."

"Mother would have to look twice," laughed Mary. "Don't I wish I knew what people will think of the paper!"

She did not find out at once, even on Thursday. Jack had the engine going on time, and as fast as papers were printed, the distribution of them followed. It was a very creditable _Eagle_, but Mary blushed when she read in print the account Mr. Murdoch had written of the doings in Crofield.

"They'll think Jack's a hero," she said, "and what will they think of me?--and what will Miss Glidden say? But then he has complimented her."

Jack, too, was much pleased to read the vivid accounts she had written of the capture and escape of the daring young burglar who had broken into the house of Mrs. McNamara, and of the falling of Link's bridge.

Neither of them, however, had an idea of how some articles in the paper would affect other people. Before noon, there was such a rush for _Eagles_, at the front office, that Mr. Black got out another ream of paper to print a second edition, and Mr. Bones had almost to fight to keep the excited crowd from going up-stairs to see for themselves whether the editor was there. Before night, poor Mrs. Murdoch went to the door thirty times to say to eager inquirers that Mr. Murdoch was in bed, and that Dr. Follet had forbidden him to see anybody, or to talk one word, or to get himself excited.

"What's the matter with the people?" she said wearily. "Can it be possible that anything's the matter with the _Eagle_? Mary Ogden said she'd taken the very best editorials from the city papers."

The _Inquirer_ was nowhere that Thursday, and the excitement over the _Eagle_ increased all the afternoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Just out_.]

"It's all right, Mrs. Murdoch," said Jack, at supper. "Bones says he has sold more than two hundred extra copies."

"I'm glad of that," she said, "and I'll tell Mr. Murdoch; but he mustn't read it."

When she did so, he smiled faintly and with an effort feebly responded:

"Thank Mary for me. I suppose they wanted to read about the flood."

Mr. Bones had not seen fit to report to Mary that a baker's dozen of old subscribers had ordered their paper stopped; nor that one angry man with a big club in his hand had inquired for the editor; nor that Deacon Abrams, and the Town Constable, and three other men, and a lawyer had called to see the editor about the robbery at Mrs.

McNamara's; nor that the same worthy woman, with her arms akimbo and her bonnet falling back, had fiercely demanded of him:

"Fwhat for did yez print all that about me howlin'? Wudn't ony woman spake, was she bein' robbed and murdhered?"

Bones had pacified Mrs. McNamara only by sitting still and hearing her out, and he would not for anything have mentioned it to Miss Ogden.

She therefore had only good news to tell at the house, and Mrs.

Murdoch's replies related chiefly to the Union Church Sociable at Judge Edwards's.

"Mr. Murdoch is quiet," she said, "and he may sleep all the time we're gone."

"I'll be on hand to look out for him," said Jack, "I'm not going anywhere."

That rea.s.sured them as to leaving home, and Mrs. Murdoch and Mary departed without anxiety; but they had hardly entered the Edwards's house before they found that many other people were very much less placid.

The first person to come forward, after Mrs. Edwards had welcomed them, was Miss Glidden.

"Oh, Mary Ogden!" she exclaimed, very sweetly and benevolently. "My dear! Why did you say so much about me in the _Eagle_?"

"That was Mr. Murdoch's work," said Mary. "I had nothing to do with it."

"And that robbery and escape was really shocking."

"Exactly!" They heard a sharp, decided voice near them, and it came from a thin little man in a white cravat. "You are right, Elder Holloway! When a leading journal like the _Eagle_ finds it needful to denounce so sternly the state of the public streets in Mertonville, it is time for the people to act. We ministers must hold a council right away."

Mary remembered a political editorial she had taken from a New York paper, and had cut down to fit the _Eagle_; but its effect was something unexpected.

A deeper voice on her left spoke next.

"There was serious talk among the hotel-men and innkeepers of mobbing the _Eagle_ office to-day!"

"That," thought Mary, "must be the high-license editorial from that Philadelphia weekly."

"We must _act_, Judge Edwards!" exclaimed another voice. "n.o.body knows Murdoch's politics, but his denunciation of the prevailing corruption is terrible. There's a storm rising. The Republican Committee has called a special meeting to consider the matter, and we Democrats must do the same. The _Eagle_ is right about it, too; but it was a daring step for him to take."

"That's the editorial from the Chicago daily," thought Mary; "the last part was from that Boston paper! Oh, dear me! What have I done?"

She had to ask herself that question a dozen times that evening, and she wished Jack had been there to hear what was said.