I was soon out of breath, and nervous at the thought of leaving the
motel and the baby for so long, but I plugged on. I couldn't see that I
was gaining on the boys, but they must have thought I was, because
finally they let go of the wagon and ran on without it, disappearing
behind a group of houses.
Then I still had to trot the remaining quarter of a mile, or however
far it was, get the wagon, and trudge wearily homeward with it.
When I got home I discovered that Moejy, who had stayed with David, had
locked the office doors and the bathroom door, and hidden the keys.
When I tried to make him tell me what he had done with the keys, the
wiry little creature ran outside and down the edge of the highway
toward the Peacock. David had been giving the baby a piece of bread, he
said, when Moejy hid the keys; he hadn't seen where he put them.
I was frantic. If a customer should come, what would I do? With the
outer office door, and the one leading to the living room, locked, I
wouldn't be able to get the keys to the cabins or a master key. I
wouldn't be able to show a cabin to a prospect; even if I could, I
wouldn't be able to get at the change or the registration blanks. "I
won't be able to even show one cabin!" I wailed.
And as for the bathroom being locked--well, that situation, too, might
become acute. But so far I wasn't worried about that.
Just then a bright red roadster pulled into our driveway. I opened the
living room door and stepped out, so that they wouldn't go to the
office.
"Gotta single?" asked the driver.
I gulped helplessly.
Just then David nudged me from behind, and handed me the three keys
Moejy had hidden.
"I just remembered," David hissed, "Moejy was fooling around by the
fork drawer in the kitchen. I looked, and there were the keys! And you
split your infilitive a minute ago."
That wasn't the end of our run of trouble. The night before the
wedding, the fields out back caught fire. Someone driving along
Williams street must have thrown a cigarette or a lighted match from a
car window. Any fire in Banning is a menace because of the brisk,
whipping wind, and this one was no exception.
Grant was shaving when David clattered in to tell me about the fire. I
called the fire department quickly, after a glance out the door; the
licking flames were dramatic and beautiful out there in the blackness
behind Moe's restaurant.
I ran toward the fire with David, beating Grant to the draw. One of us,
naturally, had to stay with the baby and the motel, and I knew I'd be
the one if I didn't hurry!
The fire department was there within five mintues, and before long they
had the blazing weeds under control. The next morning we went out to
inspect the path of the fire, marked by black weeds and burnt earth,
and we saw that the fire had come up almost exactly to our property
line, where it had been stopped.
"See, we aren't jinxed, after all," Grant said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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