Porter and the boys got down to the ground and made an examination. The shoe of the rear left wheel had been badly cut by the sharp stones and the inner tube had been blown out through the cut.
“We’ll have to put on one of the other shoes,” said Mr. Porter. They carried two with them, besides half a dozen inner tubes.
“All right, here is where we get to work!” cried Dave. “Somebody time us, please,” and he started in by getting off his coat and cuffs and donning a working jumper. His uncle quickly followed suit, while Phil and Roger got out the lifting-jack and some tools.
The girls stood watching the proceedings for a while and then strolled back towards the farmhouse. The boys and Mr. Porter became so engrossed in putting on a new inner tube and a shoe that they did not notice their absence. The new shoe fitted the rim of the wheel rather tightly and they had all they could do to get it into place.
“Phew! this is work and no mistake!” murmured Roger. “I wonder why they can’t get tires that won’t blow out or go down.”
“Maybe some day they will have them,” answered Dunston Porter.
“I reckon this is all my fault,” put in Phil, ruefully. “I must have gone over some extra sharp stone, and it cut like a knife.”
“Oh, such accidents are liable to happen to anybody,” answered Dave. He looked at his watch. “Twenty-five minutes, and we haven’t blown it up yet! No record job this time.”
“Thank fortune we’ve got a patent pump to do the pumping for us,” remarked his uncle. Pumping tires by hand he found a very disagreeable task.
At last the shoe and tube were in place and the pump was set in motion. Dave watched the gauge, and when it was high enough he shut off the air. The tools were put away, and they were ready to go on again.
“The girls went back to that farmhouse,” said the senator’s son, pointing to a small cottage.
“Let us run back and pick them up, and wash our hands at the well.”
Once in front of the house, Dunston Porter, who was at the wheel, sounded the horn. At the same time the boys made for the well, which stood between the house and one of the barns.
“Maybe the girls went inside,” remarked Dave, as he looked in vain for them.
“Must be somewhere around,” returned Phil.
All washed up, using soap and towels carried in the car. Then Dave went to the door of the farmhouse and knocked. In answer to the summons Laura appeared.
“Oh, Dave, come in!” she cried. “I want you to meet the lady here.”
Wondering what his sister wanted, our hero stepped into the sitting-room, which was small and plainly but neatly furnished. In a rocking-chair sat an elderly woman, pale and careworn.
“Mrs. Breen, this is my brother,” said Laura. “And these are his school chums,” she added, nodding towards Phil and Roger.
“How do you do, boys?” said the woman, in a thin, trembling voice.
“We just told her we were bound for Oak Hall,” said Jessie, who was also present. “And she says she knows somebody there.”
“She knows Mr. Job Haskers,” finished Laura.
“Mr. Haskers!” repeated Dave, mentioning the name of one of the teachers – a dictatorial individual nobody liked, and who was allowed to keep his position mainly because of his abilities as an instructor. The chums had had more than one dispute with Job Haskers, and all wished that he would leave the school.
“Yes, yes, I know him,” answered Mrs. Breen, nodding her head gravely and thoughtfully. “He is a great scholar – a very great scholar,” and she nodded again. She was not well and her mind did not appear to be overly bright. She lived alone in the cottage, a neighboring farmer taking care of her few acres of ground for her.
“Dave, come here,” whispered Laura, and led her brother to a corner of the room. “Mrs. Breen tells me that Mr. Haskers owes her money – that he used to board with her and that he borrowed some – and she says he writes that he can’t pay her because he gets so little salary, and that sometimes he has to wait a long while himself.”
“How much is it?” asked Dave, with interest. He remembered how close-fisted Job Haskers had been on more than one occasion.
“Nearly two hundred dollars, so she says.”
“He ought to be able to pay that, Laura. I think he gets a fair salary – in fact, I am sure of it – and I am also pretty sure that Doctor Clay doesn’t keep him waiting for his money.”
“It is too bad! She looks so helpless and so much in need,” murmured the girl.
“I’ll find out about this,” answered Dave.
He sat down, as did the others, and soon had the elderly lady telling her story in detail. It was not very long. Job Haskers had boarded with her one summer, just before obtaining his position at Oak Hall, and he owed her sixty dollars for this. During the time he had spent with her he had spoken of a school-book he was going to publish that would bring him in much money, and she had loaned him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for this. But she had never seen the school-book, nor had he ever paid back a cent. His plea, when she had written to him, had been that his pay was poor and that he had to wait a long time to get money, and that his publishers had not yet gotten around to selling his book.
“I never heard of any book he got out,” said Roger. “And I think I would hear if there was such a book.”
“That’s so,” added Phil. “Old Haskers would be so proud of it he would want everybody to know.”
“It is certainly a shame he doesn’t pay this lady, if he has the money,” was Dunston Porter’s comment. “Did he give you a note?” he asked of Mrs. Breen.
“He wrote out some kind of a paper and was going to give it to me. But I never got it.”
“He’s a swindler, that’s what he is!” murmured Phil, wrathfully.
“It looks that way,” answered Dave, in an equally low tone.
“He knows this lady is next to helpless and he intends to do her out of the money!”
“He ought to be sued,” exclaimed Roger.
“You have no note, or other writing about the money?” questioned Mr. Porter.
“I have his letters,” answered the elderly lady. “They are in the bureau yonder.” And she pointed to an ancient chest of drawers.
“Shall I get them?” asked Jessie, for she saw that it was a task for the old lady to move around.
“If you will, my dear. I am so stiff it is hard to get up.”
Both girls went to the chest of drawers and brought out a small box of letters. Mrs. Breen put on her glasses and fumbled them over and brought forth three communications which were, as the boys recognized, in Job Haskers’s well-known jerky handwriting. She passed them over to be read, and all present perused them with interest.
The contents, however, were disappointing, especially to the boys and Dunston Porter, who had hoped to find something by which legally to hold the school-teacher. Not once did Job Haskers mention that he owed Mrs. Breen any money. He simply stated that he regretted he could do nothing for her, that times were hard, and that his income was limited and hard to get. He said as little as possible, and the tone of the communications showed that he hoped he would hear no more from the old lady who had done what she could to aid him.
“I think this is the limit!” said Dave to his uncle. “Don’t you think he ought to be sued?”
“I don’t know about suing him, Dave; but I think this ought to be put in a lawyer’s hands.”
“He makes money enough to pay this lady,” said Phil. “Say, I’ve a good mind to give him a piece of my mind!” he added, hotly.
“I’ll