Chapter 18

The Camphors were at breakfast, and Freddy and Jinx joined them. Georgie had finished and gone for a swim in the lake. “I warned him he oughtn’t to swim on a full stomach,” said Miss Minerva, “but he was rather impertinent to me, so I didn’t insist.”

Mr. Camphor laughed. “What Georgie said was that it depended on what your stomach was full of. He said he realized that with six of Aunt’s flapjacks inside him he’d probably sink before he took two strokes, but he’d take one of the cork canoe cushions to hold him up. He was just trying to be funny, Aunt.”

“I wasn’t angry,” she said. “What’s bothering me is these wasps. There’s one on the edge of your plate now, Freddy.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Freddy said. “He’s come to help us. Hello, Jake. You missed a lot of excitement last night.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” said the wasp. “I can always stir up a little of my own if I feel the need of it. Where’s this guy you want punctured?”

“He’s up at the hotel. Big red-faced man—you can’t miss him. I think you and the boys better go bother him a little—you know our plan—but don’t sting him yet. We’re saving that for later.”

At half-past eight the plumbers and carpenters came back, and after that there was so much hammering and sawing and banging on pipes that Freddy knew Mr. Anderson wouldn’t get much sleep. But what about the DDT? They could put his car out of commission so he couldn’t drive to town for it himself, but he’d only ask the carpenters to bring him a bottle of it.

It was Miss Minerva who solved that problem. And when, at eleven o’clock, the mice reported that Mr. Anderson had started for Centerboro, she said: “You leave it to me. Jimson, I’ll need your help. Come along.” And they started down to Lakeside.

When Mr. Anderson came back an hour or so later, he got out of his car to find Miss Minerva lying at the foot of the porch steps, groaning.

“Well, ma’am, what are you doing here?” he asked unsympathetically.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Miss Minerva moaned; “it’s my ankle. I fell off the porch. I called and called, but the workmen are all inside eating their lunch and they didn’t hear me.”

“I guess you didn’t call very loud,” said Mr. Anderson. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Want you to do!” she snapped. “I want you to pick me up—help me back to camp. What sort of man are you anyway, when you see a lady in trouble, to stand there and ask questions?”

“I’m a very busy man,” he replied. “You had no business on my porch in the first place. I’ll send one of the men for your nephew.”

Miss Minerva didn’t want that at all. “You’ll help me yourself—now,” she said. “Or I’ll sue you for damages. This porch is unsafe and I can prove it.”

It probably occurred to Mr. Anderson that to have to defend a lawsuit against a former guest wasn’t the best way to open a hotel season. “Very well,” he said grudgingly, and put down his packages on the porch.

Mr. Camphor, hiding behind a bush, watched them start up the path. Mr. Anderson’s arm was about Miss Minerva’s waist, and hers was about his neck, as she hobbled along, leaning heavily on him. “Looks like Lovers’ Lane,” said Mr. Camphor sentimentally. Then as they disappeared, he came out, picked up the bottle of DDT and poured the contents out on the ground, after which he took it down and filled it with lake water. When Mr. Anderson came back a little later he carried the bottle into the hotel.

The hourly reports from the mice were as follows: One o’clock: Mr. Anderson spraying room. Two o’clock: After giving the carpenters some instructions, Mr. Anderson lay down for a nap, but was disturbed by wasps, which kept zooming down at him from the ceiling, then flying away before he could swat them. Three o’clock: Mr. Anderson still awake. Tried to smoke, but crickets had chewed holes in the sides of his cigars so they wouldn’t draw. Four o’clock: A Mr. and Mrs. Edipus came from Centerboro to take the place of the Joneses. Mr. Anderson told them what they were expected to do, then went for a walk in the woods. We have now lost contact with the enemy.

So Freddy sent the wasps to reconnoiter, and presently they came back to report that Mr. Anderson was lying down asleep under a tree. “Shall we poke him up a little?” Jacob asked.

“You save your stings till he’s so sound asleep we can’t wake him any other way,” Freddy said. “Georgie, where are those squirrels who were around begging for cold flapjacks this morning? Get hold of them, will you?”

So Georgie rounded up the squirrels, and Freddy made a deal with them. They took some small stones in their cheek pouches, and went up in the tree under which Mr. Anderson was asleep—with his mouth open, as usual. They got on a branch right over his head and tried to drop the stones in his mouth.

Squirrels are pretty good at this. The first two stones hit Mr. Anderson’s chest and only made him grumble a little, but the third one was a bull’s-eye, and he gave a gulp and started up to glare wildly around and wonder what it was that he had swallowed, and that he could still feel going down. Then he looked up and saw the squirrels. He yelled at them and shook his fist, but squirrels just think that kind of thing is funny; they chattered back mockingly, so he got up wearily and went in search of another tree. And the squirrels followed him.

Squirrels are pretty good at this.

After about an hour of this Mr. Anderson went back to the hotel. The workmen had gone, and the mice reported at six o’clock that Mrs. Edipus was cooking supper. At seven, Mr. Anderson went to bed, giving the Edipuses strict orders that he was not to be disturbed. At seven-five the crickets tuned up.

Jinx kept watch again that night. “I wouldn’t miss it for eight pounds of prime catnip and two quarts of cream,” he said. “I haven’t had so much fun since Mrs. Wiggins fell out of the swing.” The others went to bed, but about one in the morning Jinx waked them up. “Anderson just came out and got in his car and drove off,” he said. “He’s probably gone home to Centerboro to get a good night’s sleep in his own bed.”

“Good gracious, that’ll spoil all the good work we’ve done,” said Freddy. “How about the Edipuses?”

“Oh, they weren’t as tough as the Joneses. They left at midnight.”

Mr. Camphor crawled out of his sleeping bag. “I know what we can do,” he said. “Come on, Freddy. Aunt Minerva, you build up the fire—big, big, so it looks like a house burning up from off Centerboro way.” Without explaining further, he ran down and he and Freddy got into the canoe and paddled across to his house. “We don’t really need to hurry,” he said. “It’ll take Anderson half an hour to get home and we’ll allow about twenty minutes more for him to get to bed and asleep, before we phone. It’ll make him madder if we wake him up than if we catch him just as he gets in.”

They went up to the house and roused Bannister, and Mr. Camphor gave him his instructions. Then, when they figured Mr. Anderson had had time to get to bed, Bannister phoned.

He had to ring about twenty times, but at last Mr. Anderson answered.

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” said Bannister. “This is Mr. Camphor’s butler, up at the lake. There’s a big fire over on the north shore—looks like a house burning. I understand you’ve bought Lakeside, and I thought.… Oh no, sir; I’ve never seen a campfire as big as that, and Mr. Camphor and his friends should be asleep at this hour.… I can’t see, sir; Mr. Camphor has our telescope with him. It’s right in the direction of Lakeside.… No sir, I didn’t call the fire department; I thought I should call you first.… Yes sir? Thank you, sir.” And Bannister hung up.

“Well, Bannister—thanks,” said Mr. Camphor. “We’ll have to get back. Anything new?”

“No, sir. Miss Elmira got off safely this morning. Very quiet day, sir. Very pleasant.”

“Good. Come along, Freddy.”

Miss Minerva had certainly built up a real fire. The flames leaped to treetop height, and the glare must have been visible for miles. The canoe was almost back to the camp when Freddy heard in the distance the faint wail of a siren. “They’ll have seen the glow by this time,” said Mr. Camphor as they beached the canoe. “Well, let’s pull it apart a little, and get into our bags.”

Ten minutes later, when the fire truck came roaring and shrieking and bounding down the rough road and pulled up beside the hotel, the fire had sunk down, and everyone in the camp was apparently asleep. Everyone except Freddy and Jinx, who had circled around through the woods back of the hotel, and were hiding behind a shed near the end of the road.

The firemen piled off the truck, whose searchlight was playing over the front of the building. Then Mr. Anderson drove up behind them, and they surrounded him in an angry group, demanding to know why they had been pulled out of bed when there wasn’t any fire.

“You saw it yourselves,” he protested. “The sky was all red.”

There was plenty of argument back and forth, and then the firemen called Mr. Anderson a lot of names and piled on the truck and drove roaring and shrieking and bounding home.

As soon as Mr. Anderson went indoors, Freddy came out of hiding. Very cautiously he lifted the hood of the car, disconnected all the wires he could reach, unscrewed everything unscrewable and loosened everything loosenable, and then went back to camp.