Part 9 (1/2)
ADVENTURE NUMBER ELEVEN
”JUST FOR FUN”
The twins missed Chance Carter during the next few weeks. The boy had been a regular nuisance in some ways, for he was always getting into sc.r.a.pes; but he was a clever lad and had a way of making up games that n.o.body else seemed able to think of.
”It does seem lonesome without Chance,” Bob told Sure Pop when the broken leg had kept their friend tied up indoors for a week or more.
”And yet we don't get into half as much trouble when he isn't round.”
Sure Pop looked wise. ”Perhaps it's because Chance hasn't learned that he must play according to the rules,” he said. ”The fellow who is always taking chances isn't playing up to the rules of the game.”
”Anyhow,” said Betty, ”Chance has had his lesson now. By the time he's able to run around again, he will be ready to quit taking chances.”
Sure Pop changed the subject, though a shrewd twinkle seemed to say that it would take more than one lesson to teach Chance how to play life's game according to the rules. ”How'd you like to take a trip with me today?”
”Fine!” exclaimed Bob and Betty. ”Where?”
”To a kind of moving picture show,” answered Colonel Sure Pop. ”Let's start right away, then. And be sure you wear your Safety First b.u.t.tons.”
The twins couldn't help smiling at the idea of going anywhere without their magic b.u.t.tons. They boarded the crowded street car with Sure Pop and stood beside the motorman all the way to the railroad yards. It seemed as if somebody tried to get run over every block or two, and the way people crossed the crowded streets in the middle of blocks was enough to turn a motorman's hair gray.
”How'd you like to be the motorman, Bob?”
”Well, I tell _you_, Sure Pop, I don't believe it's as much fun as it looks from the outside. If fellows like Chance and George would ride beside the motorman for just one day, seeing what he has to see right along, they'd be Safety workers forever after. Look at that, now! Those chaps have no business to cross in the middle of the block.”
”n.o.body has,” agreed Sure Pop, with a keen glance at Bob. The boy flushed as he remembered what he himself had been doing when he first felt the warning touch of the Safety Scout's hand.
He and Betty noticed, too, how carefully Sure Pop looked all around him before leaving the car, and they did likewise. Two short blocks more and they were in sight of the railroad roundhouse. The Safety Scout stuck his head inside the great doorway and peered around at the smoking engines that impatiently awaited their turn. ”There she is!” he exclaimed. ”There's old Seven-Double-Seven!” And he waved his hand at the engineer up in the cab.
The three climbed into the engine cab, where the fireman stood waiting with his eye on the steam gauge. From the way the engineer shook hands with Sure Pop, the twins decided they must be old friends.
”Got my orders?” asked the engineer. He ripped open the envelope Sure Pop handed him, glanced at the message, nodded to the fireman, and gently pulled open the throttle. The big, powerful engine answered his touch like a race horse. With a warning clang of the bell, they slipped down the s.h.i.+ning track, through the crowded yards, and toward the city limits.
”Bob, what are you looking for?” asked Sure Pop.
Bob went on looking in all the corners of the cab as if greatly puzzled.
”Looking for the moving picture machine,” he said with a grin. ”I thought I heard you promise us a moving picture show.”
”You just wait. Be ready to rub your magic b.u.t.tons when I say the word, both of you, and you'll see some moving pictures you'll never forget--pictures of what _might_ happen to boys and girls like yourselves. The pity of it is, it does happen, every day of the year.”
Sure Pop paused to call their attention to some little blurry patches of blue scattered along the track. ”Wild flowers,” he said. ”Pretty things, aren't they? If we weren't going so fast, we'd stop and get some.”
The engineer scowled. ”Pretty? They don't look pretty to me any more.
Look there, now!”
The brakes jarred as he spoke, and the shriek of the whistle scattered a group ahead. Several young couples, going home from town by way of the railroad track, had stopped to gather wild flowers. One couple were walking hand in hand over the railroad bridge, deaf at first to whistle and bell and everything else. Suddenly they heard, looked up, and turned first one way and then another, uncertain whether to jump off the bridge or stand their ground.