FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  
Janice felt, after all, as though she had urged Frank Bowman into the lion's den! The dancers were a rough set. She left the front porch after a while and stole around to the barroom door. The door was wide open, but there was a half-screen swinging in the opening which hid all but the legs and feet of the men standing at the bar. Here the voices were much plainer. There were a few boys hanging about the doorway, late as the hour was. Janice was smitten with the thought that Marty's boys' club, the foundation society of the Public Library and Reading Room, would better be after these youngsters. "Why, Simeon Howell!" she exclaimed suddenly. "You ought not to be here. I don't believe your mother knows where you are." The other boys, who were ragamuffins, giggled at this, and one said to young Howell: "Aw, Sim! Yer mother don't know yer out, does she? Better run home, Simmy, or she'll spank ye." Simeon muttered something not very complimentary to Janice, and moved away. The Howells lived on Hillside Avenue and he was afraid Janice would tell his mother of this escapade. Suddenly a burst of voices proclaimed trouble in the barroom. She heard Frank Bowman's voice, high-pitched and angry: "Then give him his violin! You've no right to it. I'll take him away all right; but the violin goes, too!" "No, we want the fiddle. He was to play for us," said a harsh voice. "There is another feller here can play instead. But we want both violins." "None of that!" snapped the engineer. "Give me that!" There was a momentary struggle near the flapping screen. Suddenly Hopewell Drugg, very much disheveled, half reeled through the door; but somebody pulled him back. "Aw, don't go so early, Hopewell. You're your own man, ain't ye? Don't let this white-haired kid boss you." "Let him alone, Joe Bodley!" commanded Bowman again, and Janice, shaking on the porch, knew that it must be the barkeeper who had interfered with Hopewell Drugg's escape. The girl was terror-stricken; but she was indignant, too. She shrank from facing the half-intoxicated crowd in the room just as she would have trembled at the thought of entering a cage of lions. Nevertheless, she put her hand against the swinging screen, pushed it open, and stepped inside the tavern door. CHAPTER XIV A DECLARATION OF WAR The room was a large apartment with smoke-cured and age-blackened beams in the ceiling. This was the a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Janice

 

Hopewell

 

mother

 

screen

 

Bowman

 
Simeon
 

Howell

 

thought

 

swinging

 
voices

barroom

 
violin
 

Suddenly

 

pulled

 

snapped

 

feller

 

violins

 

flapping

 

disheveled

 

reeled


struggle

 

engineer

 

momentary

 

barkeeper

 

stepped

 

pushed

 

inside

 

tavern

 

CHAPTER

 

Nevertheless


blackened

 
ceiling
 

DECLARATION

 

apartment

 

entering

 
trembled
 

commanded

 

shaking

 

Bodley

 

haired


fiddle

 

interfered

 

intoxicated

 

facing

 

shrank

 

escape

 
terror
 

stricken

 

indignant

 

smitten