Airship Andy: or, The Luck of a Brave Boy

Webster Frank V.

Airship Andy; Or, The Luck of a Brave Boy

CHAPTER I – THE YOUNG CHAUFFEUR

“Hand over that money, Andy Nelson.”

“Not on this occasion.”

“It isn’t yours.”

“Who said it was?”

“It belongs to the business. If my father was here he’d make you give it up mighty quick. I represent him during his absence, don’t I? Come, no fooling; I’ll take charge of that cash.”

“You won’t, Gus Talbot. The man that lost that money was my customer, and it goes back to him and no one else.”

Gus Talbot was the son of the owner of Talbot’s Automobile Garage, at Princeville. He was a genuine chip off the old block, people said, except that he loafed while his father really worked. In respect to shrewd little business tricks, however, the son stood on a par with the father. He had just demonstrated this to Andy Nelson, and was trying his usual tactics of bluff and bluster. These did not work with Andy, however, who was the soul of honor, and the insolent scion of the Talbot family now faced his father’s hired boy highly offended and decidedly angry.

Andy Nelson was a poor lad. He was worse off than that, in fact, for he was homeless and friendless. He could not remember his parents. He had a faint recollection of knocking about the country until he was ten years of age with a man who called himself his half-brother. Then this same relative placed him in a cheap boarding school where Andy had to work for a part of his keep. About a year previous to the opening of our story, Dexter Nelson appeared at the school and told Andy he would have to shift entirely for himself.

He found Andy a place with an old farmer on the outskirts of Princeville. Andy was not cut out for hoeing and plowing. He was willing and energetic, however, and the old farmer liked him immensely, for Andy saved his oldest boy from drowning in the creek, and was kind and lovable to the farmer’s several little children. But one day the old man told Andy plainly that he could not reconcile his conscience by spoiling a bright future for him, and explained why.

“If I was running a wagon-shop, lad,” he said enthusiastically, “I’d make you head foreman. Somehow, you’ve got machinery born in your blood, I think. The way you’ve pottered over that old rack of mine, shows how you like to dabble with tools. The way you fixed up that old washing-machine for marm proves that you know your business. Tell you, lad, it’s a crying wrong to waste your time on the farm when you’ve got that busy head of yours running over with cogs, and screws, and wheels and such.”

All this had led to Andy looking around for other employment. The old farmer was quite right – Andy’s natural field was mechanics. He felt pretty happy the day he was accepted as the hired boy in Seth Talbot’s garage.

That position was not secured without a great deal of fuss and bother on the part of Talbot, however. The latter was a hard task-master. He looked his prospective apprentice over as he would a new tool he was buying. He offered a mere beggarly pittance of wages, barely enough to keep body and soul together, and “lodgings,” as he called it, on a broken-down cot in a dark, cramped lumber-room. Then he insisted on Andy getting somebody to “guarantee” him.

“I’ll have no boy taking advantage of me,” he declared; “learning the secrets of the trade, and bouncing off and leaving me in the lurch whenever it suits him. No sir-ree. If you come with me, it’s a contract for two years’ service, or I don’t want you. When I was a boy they ’prenticed a lad, and you knew where you could put your finger on him. It ought to be the law now.”

Fortunately, Andy’s half-brother happened to pass through the village about that time. He “guaranteed” Andy in some manner satisfactory to the garage proprietor, and Andy went to work at his new employment.

Talbot had formerly been in the hardware business. He seemed to think that this entitled him to know everything that appertained to iron and steel. When roller skating became a fad, he had sold out his business, built a big rink, and in a year was stranded high and dry. The bicycle fever caught him next, but he went into it just as everybody else was getting out of it. The result was another failure.

Now he had been in the automobile business for about six months. He had bought an old ramshackly paint-shop on the main street of the town, and had fixed it up so that it was quite presentable as a garage.

There were not many resident owners of automobiles in Princeville. Just at its outskirts, however, along the shore of a pretty lake, were the homes of some retired city folks. During the vacation months a good many people having machines summered at the town. Some of them stored their automobiles at the garage. Talbot claimed to do expert repairing, and as a good road ran through Princeville he managed to do some business with transient customers who came along.

Before he had been in the garage twenty-four hours, Andy was amazed and disgusted at the clumsy clap-trap repairing work that Talbot did. He half-mended breaks and leaks that would not last till a car reached its destination. He put in inferior parts, and on one occasion Andy saw his employer substitute an old tire for one almost new.

Andy tried to remedy all this. He was at home with tools, and inside of a week he was thoroughly familiar with every part of an automobile. He induced Talbot to send to the city for many important little adjuncts to ready repairing, and his employer soon realized that he had a treasure in his new assistant.

He did not, however, manifest it by any exhibition of liberality. In fact, as the days wore on Andy’s tasks were piled up mountain high, and Talbot became a merciless tyrant in his bearing. Once when Andy earned a double fee by getting out of bed at midnight and hauling into town a car stuck in a mud-hole, he promised Andy a raise in salary and a new suit the next week. This promise, however, Talbot at once proceeded to forget.

It was Andy who was responsible for nearly doubling the income of his hard task-master. He heard of a big second-hand tourist car in the city, holding some thirty people, and told Talbot about it. The latter bought it for a song, and every Saturday, and sometimes several days in the week, the car earned big money taking visitors sight-seeing around the lake or conveying villagers to the woods on picnic parties.

Later Andy struck a great bargain in two old cars that were offered for sale by a resident who was going to Europe. He influenced Talbot to advertise these for rent by the day or hour, and the garage began to thrive as a real money-making business.

This especial morning Andy had arisen as usual at five o’clock. He cooked his own meals on a little oil-stove in the lumber room behind the garage, and after a cup of coffee and some broiled ham and bread and butter, went to work cleaning up three machines that rented space.

It was a few minutes before six o’clock, and just after the morning train from the city had steamed into town and out of it again, when a well-dressed man, carrying a light overcoat over one arm and a satchel, rushed through the open door of the garage.

“Hey!” he hailed. “They told me at the depot I could hire an automobile here.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Andy promptly.

“I want to cut across the country and catch the Macon train on the Central. There’s just forty-five minutes to do it in.”

“I can do it in twenty,” announced Andy with confidence. “Jump in, sir.”

In less than two minutes they were off, and the young chauffeur proved his agility and handiness with the machine in so rapid and clever a way, that his fare nodded and smiled his approval as they skimmed the smooth country road on a test run.

Andy made good his promise. It was barely half-past six when, with a honk-honk! to warn a clumsy teamster ahead of him, he ran the machine along the side of the depot platform at Macon.

“How much?” inquired his passenger, leaping out and reaching into his vest pocket.

“Our regular rate is two dollars an hour,” explained Andy.

“There’s five – never mind the change,” interrupted the gentleman. “And here’s a trifle for yourself for being wide-awake while most people are asleep.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” exclaimed Andy, overjoyed, but the man disappeared with a pleasant wave of his hand before the boy could protest against such unusual generosity.

Andy’s eyes glowed with pleasure and his heart warmed up as he stowed the handsome five-dollar tip into his little purse containing a few silver pieces. He had never had so much money all his own at any time in his life. Once a tourist in settling a day’s jaunt with Talbot in Andy’s presence had added a two-dollar bill for his chauffeur, but this Talbot had immediately shoved into his money drawer without even a later reference to it.

Andy got back to the garage before seven o’clock. He whistled cheerily as he made a notation on the book of his fare and the collection, unlocked the desk, put the five dollars in the tin cash box, and relocked the desk.

Then he busied himself cleaning up the machine that had just made such a successful spin, for the roads were pretty dusty. As he pulled out the carpet of the tonneau to shake, something fell to the floor.

It was an old worn flat leather pocketbook. In a flash Andy guessed that his recent passenger had accidentally dropped it in the car.

He opened it in some excitement. It had a deep flap on one side. From this protruded the edges of a dozen crisp new banknotes. Andy ran them over quickly.

“Two hundred dollars!” he exclaimed.

“What’s that?” spoke a sharp, greedy voice at his ear.

It was Gus Talbot, his employer’s son, who had just appeared on the scene. It was pretty early for him, for Gus paraded as the cashier of his father’s business and stayed around the garage on an average of about three hours a day. Most of his time was spent at a village billiard room in the company of a bosom chum named Dale Billings.

Andy was somewhat taken off his balance by the unexpected appearance of his employer’s son. It was really the shock of recognizing in the face of the newcomer the manners and avarice that he shared with his father. Almost instinctively Andy put the hand holding the pocketbook behind him. Then he said simply:

“I took a quick fare over to Macon to catch a train. He paid me five dollars. It’s in the cash drawer.”

“Oh, it is,” drawled out Gus, “and what about all the money I just caught you counting over?”

“It’s a pocketbook containing two hundred dollars,” replied Andy clearly, disdaining the slur and insult in the tones of his low-spirited challenger. “It was dropped by the man I just took over in the machine. I’ve got to return it to him some way. I might get to the station here in time to notify him by telegraph before his train leaves Macon that I’ve found the pocketbook.”

“Hold on,” ordered Gus Talbot. “Hand over that money, Andy Nelson.”

And then followed the conversation that opens this chapter, and Andy had barely announced that the pocketbook would go back to its owner and to no one else, when Gus made a jump at him.

“Give up that money, I say!” he yelled, and his big, eager fist clutched the pocketbook.

CHAPTER II – BREAKING AWAY

“Let go of that pocketbook!” ordered Gus Talbot angrily.

“When I do, tell me,” retorted Andy.

The young chauffeur knew that once the money got into the hands of the Talbots, father or son, its return to its rightful owner would be extremely dubious. He had proven himself a match for Gus in more than one encounter in the past, and that was why Gus hated him. Andy reached out one hand not at all gently. He gave his opponent a push under the chin.

Gus Talbot went flat to the floor of the garage with a howl. He had not, however, let go his grip on the pocketbook. The result was that it had torn squarely in two. Andy directed a speedy glance at the half in his own hand. He was reassured, for he had retained the part holding the banknotes.

“You can keep what you have got,” he advised Gus, with a little triumphant laugh. “I’ll put this where you won’t get your paws on it.”

With the words Andy ran through the front open doorway of the garage and down the street in the direction of the business section of the village.

Primarily anxiety to bestow the money in a safe place impelled his flight. Three other reasons, however, helped to influence him in leaving the field ingloriously.

In the first place, Gus Talbot was a wicked terror when he got mad. It was nothing for him to pick up a hatchet, a wrench or an iron bar and sail into an enemy when his cowardly fists failed him. Andy might have remained to give the mean craven a further lesson, but chancing to glance through a side window he saw the chosen crony of Gus approaching. Dale Billings was the bully of the town. He had left Andy severely alone after tackling him once. With Gus and Dale both against him, however, Andy decided that there would be little show of retaining possession of the money.

The third reason was more potent and animating than any of the others. Just crossing lots from his home and headed for the garage direct was its proprietor. If Andy had had any confidence in the sense of justice and rectitude of Talbot he would have stood his ground. He had none, and therefore made a rash resolve. It was open defiance of his harsh employer, and there would be a frightful row later on, but Andy’s mind was made up. He had reached the next corner and flashed around it and out of sight before Gus Talbot had gained his feet.

Fifteen minutes later Andy Nelson reappeared at the end of a secluded street near the edge of the village. He was slightly breathless, and looked excited, and glanced back of him keenly before he sat down on a tree stump to rest and think.

“I’ve done my duty,” he murmured; “but it will make things so hot at the garage I don’t think I’ll go back there.”

Andy indulged in a spell of deep reflection. For some time he had realized that he was giving his best energies to a man who did not appreciate them. His work had grown harder and harder. Whenever a complaint came in about imperfect work, due to the sloppy methods of Talbot, the garage owner made Andy shoulder all the blame.

“He talks about a two-years’ contract, and tries to scare me about what the law will do to me if I leave him,” soliloquized Andy. “Has he kept his part of the bargain? Did he give me the increase in pay and the suit of clothes he promised? No, he didn’t. I’ve got something in me, but it will kill it all out to stay in this place. I’ve got five dollars as a nest-egg, and I’m going to start out on my own hook.”

Andy was fully determined on his course. Perhaps if the incident of the morning had not come up, he might have delayed his decision. He knew very well, however, that if he went back to the garage Talbot would raise a big row, and he would also get hold of the two hundred dollars if it were possible for him to do so. Some day Andy feared the Talbots would play one too many of their uncertain tricks and involve him in an imputation of dishonesty.

“It’s straight ahead, and never turn back,” declared Andy decisively, and started down the road.

“Hold on there, young man!” challenged a voice that gave Andy a thrill.

Running around the curve in the road Andy had just traversed, red-faced and flustered, Seth Talbot came bearing down upon him.

Andy might have halted, but the sight of Gus Talbot and Dale Billings bringing up the rear armed with heavy sticks so entirely suggested an onslaught of force that he changed his mind. He paid no attention whatever to the furious shouts and direful threats of Talbot.

Andy put ahead at renewed speed. At a second turn in the highway a man was raking up hay, and he suspended his work and stared at the fugitive and his pursuers, as Talbot roared out:

“Stop him, Jones – he’s a runaway and a thief!”

Farmer Jones was not spry enough to shorten the circuit Andy made, but he thrust out the rake to its full length. Andy’s foot caught in its tines, dragged, tripped, and the boy went flat to the ground.

“I’ve got him!” hailed Jones, promptly pouncing down upon him.

“Hold him!” panted Talbot, rushing to the spot, and his hard, knotty fingers got an iron clutch on Andy’s coat collar and jerked him to his feet.

“What’s the trouble, neighbor?” projected the farmer curiously.

“A thief isn’t the matter!” shot out Andy hotly, recalling the words of his employer.

“You’ll have to prove that,” blustered Talbot. “If you’re innocent, what are you running for?”

“I was running away from you,” admitted Andy boldly, “because I want to be honest and decent.”

“What’s that?” roared the irate Talbot. “Do you hear him, Jones? He admits he was going to break his contract with me. Well, the law will look to that, you ungrateful young cub!”

“Law! contract!” cried Andy scornfully, fully roused up and fearless now. “Have you kept your contract with me? You don’t want me, you want that two hundred dollars – ”

“Shut up! Shut up!” yelled Talbot, and he muzzled Andy with one hand and dragged him away from the spot. Farmer Jones grinned after them, and he shrugged his shoulders grimly as he noticed Gus Talbot and Dale Billings halted down the road, as if averse to coming any nearer.

“’Pears to me you’re having a good deal of trouble with your boys, Talbot,” chuckled Jones. “That son of yours got a few cracks from my cane last evening when he was helping himself to some of my honey among the hives.”

Once out of hearing of the farmer, Gus Talbot edged up to his father.

“Has he got the money?” he inquired eagerly. “Make him tell, father, search him.”

“I’ll attend to all that,” retorted the elder Talbot gruffly. “Here, you two fall behind. There’s no need of attracting attention with a regular procession.”

Talbot did not relax his hold of the prisoner until they had reached the garage. He roughly threw Andy into the lumber room. Then, panting and irritated from his unusual exertions, he planted himself in the doorway. Gus and Dale hovered about, anxious to learn the outcome of the row.

“Now then, Andy Nelson,” commenced the garage owner, “I’ve just a few questions to ask you, and you’ll answer them quick and right, or it will be the worse for you.”

“It has certainly never been the best for me around here,” declared Andy bitterly, “but I’ll tell the truth, as I always do.”

“Did you find a pocketbook with some money in it in one of my cars?”

“I did,” admitted Andy – “two hundred dollars. It belonged to my fare, who lost it, and it’s going back to him.”

“Hand it over.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” demanded Talbot stormily.

“Because I haven’t got it.”

“Who has?”

“Mr. Dawson, the banker. I took it to him when I left the garage.”

“Oh, you did?” muttered Seth Talbot, looking baffled and furious.

“Yes, sir. I told him that it was lost money, explained the circumstances, and that if a certain Mr. Robert Webb called or telegraphed for it, to let him have it.”

“Is that the name of the man you took over to Macon?”

“That is the name written in red ink on the flap of the pocketbook,” and Andy drew out the former receptacle of the banknotes. “‘Robert Webb, Springfield.’ I shall write to him at Springfield and tell him where the money is.”

Seth Talbot fairly glared at Andy. He got up and wriggled and hemmed and hawed, and sat down again.

“Young man,” he observed in as steady tone of voice as he could command, “you’ve shown a sight of presumption in taking it on yourself to lay out my business system. Here you’ve gone and implied that I was not fit to be trusted.”

Andy was silent.

“I won’t have it; no, I won’t have it!” shouted the garage-keeper. “It’s an imputation on my honor! I’ll give you just one chance to redeem yourself. You go back to the bank and tell Mr. Dawson that we’ve got on the direct track of the owner of the money, and bring it back here.”

“That would be a lie,” said Andy.

“Don’t we know where he is?”

“In a general way, but so does the bank. It would be a cheat, too, for I don’t believe you want to get the money back to its rightful owner any more than you wanted to pay me the tip that passenger left here for me last week.”

Andy had been too bold. Talbot rose up, towering with rage. He sprang upon Andy, and threw him upon the cot, holding him there by sheer brute strength.

“Here, you Gus – Dale!” he shouted. “Off with his hat and shoes. And his coat – no, let me look that over first. Aha!”

Gus Talbot considered it high sport to assail a defenceless and outnumbered adversary. He and Dale snatched off cap and shoes without gentleness or ceremony. Talbot had got hold of Andy’s little purse and had brought to light the five dollars so carefully folded and stowed away there.

“Honest? Ha, ha! Decent? Ho, ho!” railed the old wretch. “Where did you get this five dollars without stealing it?”

“Bet he got ten dollars for the run to Macon and held back half of it,” chimed in Gus.

“My fare gave it to me for making good time,” explained Andy. “If you don’t believe it, write to him.”

“Yah!” jibed Talbot; “tell that to the marines!”

He kicked Andy’s shoes and cap under a bench in the outer room and threw his coat up among a lot of old rubbish on a platform under the roof.

“Get the strongest padlock and hasp in the place,” he ordered his son, “and secure that door. As to you, young man,” he continued to Andy, “I’ll give you till night to make up your mind to get back that money.”

“I never will,” declared Andy positively.

“Boy,” said Seth Talbot, fixing his eye on Andy in a way that made his blood chill, “you’ll do it, as I say, or I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.”

CHAPTER III – RUNAWAY AND ROVER

The door of the lumber room was slammed shut on Andy and strongly locked, and the lad resigned himself to the situation. The Talbots, father and son, aided by brutal Dale Billings, had handled him pretty roughly, and he was content to lie on the cot and prepare for what was coming next.

“They’ve pretty nearly stripped me, and they’ve got all my money,” reflected Andy. “I wish now I had dropped a postal card to Mr. Robert Webb at Springfield. I’ll do it, though, the first thing, when I get out of this fix.”

Andy was bound to get out of it in some way. It would be rashness complete to try it right on the spur of the moment. However, he had till night to think things over, and the youth felt pretty positive that long before then he would hit upon some plan of escape.

In a little while Andy got up and took stock of his surroundings. The partition that shut in the lumber room was made of common boards. With a good-sized sledge, Andy could batter it to pieces, but he had no tools, and glancing through a crack he saw Talbot and his son in the little front office ready to pounce on him at a minute’s notice.

There was a long narrow box lying up against the inside surface of the partition boards. Andy had used this to hold his little kit of kitchen utensils. He removed these now, and lifted the box on end under the only outside aperture the lumber room presented. This was a little window, way up near the ceiling. When Andy reached this small, square hole, cut through a board, he discerned that he could never hope to creep through it.

Glancing down into the rear yard he made out Dale Billings, seated on a saw-horse, aimlessly whittling at a stick, and he decided that the ally of the Talbots was on guard there to watch out for any attempted escape in that direction.

However, when Andy had done a little more looking around in his prison-room, he made quite an encouraging discovery. Where the box had stood originally there was a broad, loose board. Dampness had weakened one end, and a touch pulled it away from the nails that held it. With one or two vigorous pulls, Andy saw he might rip the board out of place its entire length. This, however, would make a great noise, would arouse his captors, and he would have to run the gantlet the whole reach of the garage space.

“It’s my only show, though,” decided Andy, “and I’ll keep it in mind for later on.”

Towards noon Andy made a meal of some scraps of food he found in his little larder. It was not a very satisfying meal, for his stock of provisions had run low that morning and he had intended replenishing it during the day.