A band concert in Long Leigh was plainly an important event, and the numbers of persons crowding about the band-stand on the village green attested hearty appreciation for the musical efforts. The firemen, however, seemed to draw out the heaviest applause, but that was because old Jake Jacobs, the best piccolo player around, had been training them. Still, there was Pete Van Riper, the drummer on the baseball side of the platform. He certainly could drum, and the small boys around kept calling to him in baseball parlance such encouragements as "Make it a homer, Pete! Hug the mat! Hit her hard!" and such outfield coaching. Ruth had met a number of her friends and some she introduced to Nancy, but the concert was spoiled for Nancy. She could see and actually feel her mother working in that little country place to which she had come, just to give Ted and Nancy a happy vacation. When her worry was becoming so keen that she felt she must ask Ruth to go home with her, there pushed into the crowd an old man in a broad-brimmed straw hat, although the sun was well out of all mischief. "Look!" whispered Ruth. "There's Mr. Townsend! And that's Mr. Sanders--with him!" Just then the two men stepped over to the little mound where the girls were. They did not see the girls, but Mr. Sanders drew Mr. Townsend to a sudden stop in a space directly in front of Nancy and Ruth. "I tell you, Sanders," Mr. Townsend said, in a voice not at all suitable for his surroundings, "the whole town is talkin'. They say all kinds of things and you had better out with the whole thing." Mr. Sanders laughed as if he enjoyed the joke. "Keep cool, keep cool, friend," he said. But Mr. Townsend was by no means keeping cool, and he said so, sharply. "And I've left my home, got my sister on her ear, made a poor man's name for myself--" Mr. Sanders grasped his arm with a sudden movement, perfectly evident to the astounded girls. "When you are tired of your bargain, Elmer Townsend," he said, "just let me know." CHAPTER VII THE SPECIAL SALE They had worked like slaves, according to Nancy, while Ted insisted he was too tired even to eat. "But it's going to be a grand success," promised Ruth. "I can hardly wait until morning for the doors to open." "Sale now going on!" chanted Isabel, a friend of Ruth's, who had come in to help. "Ladies and gentlemen! Step this way for your fish lines!" she called out, testing the possibilities of the next day's special sale. "Here's where you get your fish-hooks that never slip, and your tackle that always tacks, and as for sinkers--" "You'll sink, first shot," Ruth interrupted, from her perch on the stepladder, where she was waving a Japanese lantern as if that flimsy article had anything to do with fishing tackle. "Oh say! Look here! Who took my best reel?" cried Ted. "I want that for myself. It was in a dollar box--"