The Hardy Boys

“ People too, were loud in their praises of the Hardy boys, and everybody predicted a bright future for them and said they knew all along that the lads were bound to solve the mystery if they kept at it long enough. All of this the boys took with a grain of salt, as the saying is, for they knew that the public is fickle and as quick to condemn failure as it is to praise success. ”

“ It's probably because the Hardy Boys, Joe and Frank, are fellows like yourself. They like action, plenty of it. They are as full of curiosity as a couple of bloodhounds. And just leave a mystery around and they'll be in it before you can say "Sherlock Holmes!" ”

“ Hardy to take left the school because no one could be found to teach them. And now Bob Wilson has got into trouble and been arrested for petty thieving. It will be a terrible blow to his poor mother. Oh, why is it that men like Mr. Hardy cannot be made to see the importance of work in the Sunday School? With his knowledge of chemistry and geology, he could have reached that class of boys and invited them to his home, up into his laboratory, and exercised an influence over them they would never outgrow. Oh! it's a strange thing to me that men of such possibilities do not realize their power! ”

“ The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving and finally said, "Yes."
"Well, what?"
"The reddleman!" he faltered.
"Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You little children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil, and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."
"Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master? 'Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes."
"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys—only full of red stuff." ”

“ THE MISSING CHUMS
Two of the Hardy Boys’ chums take a motor trip down the coast. They disappear and are almost rescued by their friends when all are captured. A thrilling story of adventure.
HUNTING FOR HIDDEN GOLD
Mr. Hardy is injured in tracing some stolen gold. A hunt by the boys leads to an abandoned mine, and there things start to happen. A western story all boys will enjoy. ”

“ Hardy began in a low, clear tone:
"Men and women of Barton: To-night I am not the man you have known these twenty-five years that I have been among you. I am, by the grace of God, a new creature. As I stand here I have no greater desire in my heart than to say what may prove to be a blessing to all my old townspeople and to my employés and to these strong young men and boys. Within a few short days God has shown me the selfishness of a human being's heart. ”

“ We'll see, Lester. But the chances are we won't have a chance to be detectives for a long while now. Counterfeiters don't start operating around Bayport every day, you know."
"And it's a good thing they don't," Joe added.
But the Hardy boys were destined to have other adventures in which they were to have opportunities of displaying their ability as detectives quite as timely as those which had fallen to their lot in the affair of the old mill. What some of these happenings were will be related in the next volume, called, "The Hardy Boys: The Missing Chums." ”

“ Polly and Margy and Jess were eager to go, but the boys hung back.
"It's no fun going into stores," Fred complained.
"I hate standing around for hours," almost wept Ward.
And Artie, his raft ever in mind, remarked that he didn't feel as though he could spare the time.
"That's a speech you have borrowed from your daddy," laughed Mrs. Marley. "But if you boys want to stay at home, I don't see any reason why you should not. We can leave you a nice lunch on the kitchen table, and perhaps you'll have [Pg 135] a good time without any feminine friends to bother you." ”

“ An inquiry, however, directed to Hardy on the subject, put a stop to all the bustle.
"How many stockings of a thick kind had Karl better take?" asked Helga. "We are preparing his outfit, and there is but a short time to get his clothes and shirts made."
'"The less he takes the better," replied Hardy. "It is better he should get his clothes in England. He will then appear like lads of the same age do in England in dress. It is very galling to a lad not to be dressed as other boys. English boys are apt to tease on the subject of anything foreign in dress and manner. ”

“ But it annoyed him, as a respectable citizen, to have his children making acquaintances that he did not approve, and it grated on his old-fashioned, inherited New England ideas that his boys and girls should be away from home so often in the evening, and especially on Sunday evening. The maxim of Robert Hardy's life was "Self-interest first." As long as he was not thwarted in his own pleasures he was as good-natured as the average man. ”

“ Gudgeon recognized the boys at the same moment.
"Oh, Mr. Hardy, sir!" he said, "you put me in quite a flutter. And you, too, Master Bastable; well to be sure! As if I had not had enough flutters for one night! Did you hear a boat, sir?"
"Saw it, too."
"There now! I was kept up late attending to some lambs" ("Pretty old mutton!" thought Jack.) , "and I thought I heard people moving, and I came out, and I was sure I saw a boat putting out to sea. It gave me quite a start. Perhaps it was some of those smugglers—a rough lot. But gracious me! 'tis very late for two young gentlemen to be out ”

“ The Doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst us—boys of a sort unknown in the last generation—the outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live. ”

“ At that moment hasty steps were heard in the entry, and the door opened to admit the figure of Gabriel Oak, followed by the maid of the inn bearing a candle. He stared sternly at the one lengthy and two round faces of the sitters, which confronted him with the expressions of a fiddle and a couple of warming-pans. Joseph Poorgrass blinked, and shrank several inches into the background.
"Upon my soul, I'm ashamed of you; 'tis disgraceful, Joseph, disgraceful!" said Gabriel, indignantly. "Coggan, you call yourself a man, and don't know better than this." ”

“ When I came down by your garden-hedge, I thought I saw thieves, but it turned out to be—to be—’
Here a lump of earth from the trumpet-major’s hand struck Uncle Benjy in the back as a reminder.
‘To be—the bough of a cherry-tree a-waving in the wind. Good-night.’
‘No thieves are like to try my house,’ said Miller Loveday. ‘Now don’t you come alarming us like this again, farmer, or you shall keep your box yourself, begging your pardon for saying so. Good-night t’ ye!’
‘Miller, will ye just look, since I am here—just look and see if the box is all right? there’s a good man! ”

“ The door was flung back till it kicked the wall and trembled from top to bottom with the blow. Mr. Oak appeared in the entry with a steaming face, hay-bands wound about his ankles to keep out the snow, a leather strap round his waist outside the smock-frock, and looking altogether an epitome of the world's health and vigour. Four lambs hung in various embarrassing attitudes over his shoulders, and the dog George, whom Gabriel had contrived to fetch from Norcombe, stalked solemnly behind.
"Well, Shepherd Oak, and how's lambing this year, if I mid say it?" inquired Joseph Poorgrass. ”

“ Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule."
"Then they must die," she said, in a resigned tone.
"Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way," said Joseph, now just come up. "He could cure 'em all if he were here."
"Who is he? Let's get him!"
"Shepherd Oak," said Matthew. "Ah, he's a clever man in talents!"
"Ah, that he is so!" said Joseph Poorgrass.
"True—he's the man," said Laban Tall.
"How dare you name that man in my presence!" she said excitedly. "I told you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me. Ah!" she added, brightening, "Farmer Boldwood knows!" ”

“ Don’t make your blaring row here! A feller wi’ a headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!”
Slam went the window.
“Hullo, that’s a’ ugly blow for we!” said the tranter, in a keenly appreciative voice, and turning to his companions.
“Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!” commanded old William; and they continued to the end.
“Four breaths, and number nineteen!” said William firmly. “Give it him well; the quire can’t be insulted in this manner!”
A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. ”

“ As bag after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about the room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of Christian's, who shook the contents of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the room became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon the workers like a windless snowstorm.
"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian," said Grandfer Cantle severely. "You might have been the son of a man that's never been outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. ”

“ Was Mother much disturbed when she came to you, Thomasin?"
"Yes."
"Very much indeed?"
"Yes."
Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his eyes with his hand.
"Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends."
He shook his head. "Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs. Well, what must be will be."
"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost." ”

“ She put on youth in her look and air,
And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed
Her form and flesh bloom yet more fair
While he watched her there;
Till she freshed to the pink and brown
That were hers on the night when first they met,
When she was the charm of the idle town,
And he the pick of the club-fire set. . . .
His eyes grew wet,
And he stretched his arms: "Stay—rest!—"
He cried. “Abide with me so, my own!"
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
She had vanished with all he had looked upon
Of her beauty: gone. ”

“ What is it?" said Fairway.
"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness.
"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway.
"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's, of Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct figure approached the barrow.
"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another, you know; run close together, I mean." "Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can see who the man is," said Fairway. ”

“ Well, your traps are coming after you, you said? Get off those boots and I'll introduce you to your cousins. I suppose they're your cousins, if I'm one. Ah! here's the first!"—as the door burst open, and a girl ran in. She wore a white muslin dress with a pink sash, and a chip hat was swinging on her arm. Seeing a stranger she stopped, and her cheeks flushed.
"Come, Kate," said her father, "this is your cousin, Mr. Midshipman Hardy, come to pay us a visit."
Kate Bastable made the formal little courtesy of those days, to which Jack returned his best bow. ”

“ Do you think human hearts are iron-cased safes, that you suppose we can keep this secret for ever?’
‘Yes, I think they are, sometimes,’ said Joshua.
‘No. It will out. We shall tell.’
‘What, and ruin her—kill her? Disgrace her children, and pull down the whole auspicious house of Fellmer about our ears? No! May I—drown where he was drowned before I do it! Never, never. Surely you can say the same, Cornelius!’
Cornelius seemed fortified, and no more was said. For a long time after that day he did not see Joshua, and before the next year was out a son and heir was born to the Fellmers. ”

“ The Figure against the Sky When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse of day. ”

“ Venn is asking Christian Cantle to sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a stave instead of him."
"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. "So there's to be no dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think."
"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at something Fairway has said to her. O my!" ”

“ You be as nervous as a cat to-day.”
“And then, of course, when ’tis all over,” continued the tranter, “we shall march two and two round the parish.”
“Yes, sure,” said Mr. Penny: “two and two: every man hitched up to his woman, ’a b’lieve.”
“I never can make a show of myself in that way!” said Fancy, looking at Dick to ascertain if he could.
“I’m agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!” said Mr. Richard Dewy heartily.
“Why, we did when we were married, didn’t we, Ann?” said the tranter; “and so do everybody, my sonnies.” ”

“ You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school."
"Oh, mercy!" she almost moaned. "Three great girls to teach the rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished—I am, I am!"
"You'll get used to 'em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets—mine against yours—will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I could send for 'em this week very well—and I will! In faith, I could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my difficulty!" ”