Centerport was advantageously located for both land and water sports, being situated on the level shore of a beautiful lake, many miles in extent, with a range of low hills behind it to shelter the city from the north.
The boys of the three High Schools of the city – East, West and Central – were rivals in baseball, football, rowing, and track athletics; and on this particular Saturday the first baseball game of the season was to be played between East and West High School nines. Central High, which Laura Belding and Bobby Hargrew attended, had a good team, too, and the girls – loyal to their boy friends – would have “rooted” for the home team had the Central club been playing.
However, the girls of Central High – especially the Sophomores and Juniors – had a particular reason for attending no baseball game on this afternoon. As soon as her luncheon was finished, Laura excused herself and hurried away from Mostyn’s restaurant toward the schoolhouse.
Her route lay past Mr. Hargrew’s grocery – one window of which was the scene of Bobby Hargrew’s latest practical joke. The sun was very hot for so early in the year, and the grocery was on the sunny side of the street. It was long enough past noon for the sun’s rays to pour into the wide window.
Just before Laura reached Mr. Hargrew’s store she saw a tow-headed boy, with a baseball cap stuck on the very back of his head, coming whistling along the hot walk with his hands in his pockets.
“Billy Long might just as well not have any hat on at all,” thought Laura, smiling as she beheld the freckled, good-natured face of the towhead.
And then, quite suddenly, Billy Long’s actions amazed Laura Belding.
He halted, as though struck motionless by the sight of Bobby’s joke in the store window. Then he leaped to the window, leaped back, turned to look up and down the almost deserted street (there was nobody in sight but Laura for two or three blocks) and then dashed toward the corner which the girl had but a few seconds before passed.
“What’s the matter with you, Billy Long?” cried Laura.
“Fire!” bawled the boy. “Mr. Hargrew’s store’s afire! Fire!”
“Nonsense!” cried Laura, and ran forward. “Are you fooling me, Short and Long?”
But in a moment she saw smoke rising from the very middle of the show window – in the heart of the bed of tissue paper.
CHAPTER II – ATHLETICS – PRO AND CON
Billy Long (called “Short and Long” because of his diminutive stature) galloped on to the street corner, shouting “Fire! Fire!” in an astonishingly weak voice. Billy was so excited that it choked him!
On the corner was one of the city fire-alarm boxes. There was no place of deposit of the key indicated upon the box; but it had a glass front. Billy looked wildly about for a stick, or stone, with which to break the glass. There appeared to be nothing of the kind at hand.
Down the side street, not half a block away, was the fire station; but that fact never crossed Master Billy’s mind. Besides, the importance of having a legitimate reason for sending in an alarm was the prominent idea in Short and Long’s mind at that moment.
He glanced back once and saw the spiral of smoke rising behind the broad plate glass window of the grocery store. Laura Belding stood before it unable, as he had been for the moment when he first sighted it, to do a thing. Indeed, what was there to do but turn in the alarm for the department?
The loaf of bread nestling in its bed of tissue paper was already burned to a cinder; the paper would soon be in flames.
Billy hesitated only a moment when he reached the box and found no weapon with which to break the glass. He pulled out his handkerchief, wrapped it about his knuckles, and splintered the glass with one blow. At that he cut his hand a little; but he scarcely noticed this in his eagerness.
Standing on his tiptoes he was just able to pull down the hook inside. He could hear the alarm bell sound in the station half a block away at almost the instant he set the telegraph to working.
By this time several citizens had run to the store front. They were all quite as excited as Billy Long, the short boy.
“Tom’s locked up and gone!” cried one, shaking the latch of the store door.
“Of course he has – gone to the ball game!” said another.
“This door’ll have to be smashed in.”
“No! break the window pane!”
“Lock will cost less than the glass,” cried another man.
“That burning glass is what did it,” said one more reflective man. “Fool trick – that was.”
“That young one of his did it,” declared the first speaker. “Always up to some trick or other.”
“Say! where’s the fire department? They must have all gone to the ball game, too.”
“I’m going to break the glass in this door!” shouted the first man to arrive.
“What good will that do?” cried his friend, mopping his brow. “There’s the wire screen behind it. You can’t bust that with your fist.”
“Break the big window, then!”
“No! Smash the lock of the door.”
But they had no tools with which to do this. Had there been a loose paving block in the street the urgent man would surely have burst in the big plate glass. Just then a man with a helmet on his head and an axe in his hand rushed around the corner – the first fireman on the scene.
“Where is it, boy?” he demanded of Billy Long. “You rang in the alarm, didn’t you?”
“Here it is, Ned!” yelled one of the men in front of the grocery store. “You’ve got to break down this door to git to it.”
“You got to break the window – that’s quickest!” declared the insistent man.
The fireman ran to the door. He poised his axe for a blow as the others stood back. But suddenly Laura Belding halted the whole proceedings.
“Wait! wait a moment!” she cried, darting to the side of the window.
The fireman looked over his shoulder at her. The girl, with nimble fingers, released the awning ropes. In half a minute the heavy awning dropped over the walk and shut out the hot rays of the sun. The cinder of bread stopped smoking. The fire was out!
“Well! don’t that beat all?” cackled one of the men.
The fireman grinned sheepishly and walked to the middle of the show-window to make sure that the danger was really over.
“You’ve got a head on you – that’s what you’ve got!” he said to Laura.
“She’s Belding’s daughter – a smart little girl,” declared another of the men.
The engine and hose carriage came tearing around the corner just then. From up the street thundered the ladder-truck, three huge horses abreast. A crowd came running to the scene.
Laura slipped away, and found Short and Long at her side.
“Huh!” he said, with a grimace. “I thought I was going to be a hero. You’ve got me beat, Laura. You stole my laurel wreath right off my head!”
“You ought to have used what’s in your head a little better, Billy,” returned the girl, laughing. “What is your gray matter for? – as Professor Dimple would say.”
“Huh! Old Dimple! That’s exactly what he would say. He certainly does stick the gaff into us,” grumbled the short boy. “I’ve got a page of Virgil extra to translate between now and Monday morning. He’s a