good cheer and abundance! He remembered the
sauerkraut and the sausages which Bill had told him of, and he had not
believed Bill's extravagant declaration that "at Schmitt's you could
have all you want to eat." To poor Tom, living with his wretched father
in the two-room tenement in Barrel Alley, with nothing to eat at all,
these accounts of the Schmitt household had seemed like a tale from the
Arabian Nights. Once his father had sent him there to get fifty cents
from thrifty and industrious Bill, and Tom remembered the shiny oilcloth
on the kitchen floor, the snowy white fluted paper on the shelves, the
stiff, spotless apron on the buxom form of Mrs. Schmitt, whom Mr.
Schmitt had called "Mooder."

Tom Slade, of Barrel Alley, had revenged himself on Bill and all the
rest of this by stealing apples from the front of the store and calling,
"Dirty Dutchman"--a singularly inappropriate epithet--at Mr. Schmitt.
But he realized now that Mr. Schmitt had been a kind and hospitable man,
a much better husband and father than poor Bill Slade, senior, had ever
been, and an extremely good friend to lucky Bill, junior, who had lived
so near to Heaven, in that immaculate home, as to have all the
sauerkraut and sausage and potato salad and rye bread and Swiss cheese
and coffee cake that he could possibly manage--and more besides.

CHAPTER II

HE DOES A GOOD TURN AND MAKES A DISCOVERY

"What became of the Schmitts?" Tom asked.

"It's aisy ter see ye've ben away from here," said Pete.

"I've only been back five days," Tom explained.

"Wal, if ye'd been here two weeks ago, ye'd know more'n ye know now
about it. Ye're a jack ashore, that's what ye are. Ye've got ter be
spruced up on the news. Did ye know the school house burned down?"

"Yes, I knew that."

"Wal--about this Schmitt, here; thar wuz two detectives come out from
Noo Yorrk--from the Fideral phad'ye call it. They wuz making inquiries
about Schmitt. Fer th' wan thing he wuz an aly-_an_, 'n' they hed some
raysons to think he wuz mixed up in plots. They wuz mighty close-mouthed
about it, so I heerd, 'n' they asked more'n they told. Nivir within half
a mile uv Schmitt did they go, but by gorry, he gits wind uv it 'n'
th' nixt mornin' not so much as a sign uv him wuz thar left.

"Cleared out, loike that," said Pete, clapping his hands and spreading
his arms by way of illustrating how Adolf Schmitt had vanished in air.

"Thar wuz th' grocery full uv stuff and all,