I hesatated. To dollars was to dollars, but I have always been honest, and above reproach. But what if he was the Theif, and now about to survey my own Home with a view to entering it clandestinely? Was I one to a.s.sist him under those circ.u.mstanses?
However, at that moment I remembered the Reward. With that amount I could pay everything and start life over again, and even purchace a few things I needed. For I was allready wearing my TROUSEAU, having been unable to get any plain every-day garments, and thus frequently obliged to change a tire in a CREPE DE CHINE petticoat, et cetera.
I yeilded to the temptation. How could I know that I was sewing my own destruction?
IV
Let us, dear reader, pa.s.s with brevaty over the next few days. Even to write them is a repugnent task, for having set my hand to the Plow, I am not one to do things half way and then stop.
Every day the Stranger came and gave me to dollars and I took him to the back road on our place and left him there. And every night, although weary unto death with washing the car, carrying people, changeing tires and picking nails out of the road which the hackman put there to make trouble, I but pretended to slumber, and instead sat up in the library and kept my terrable Vigil. For now I knew that he had dishonest designs on the sacred interior of my home, and was but biding his time.
The house having been closed for a long time, there were mice everywhere, so that I sat on a table with my feet up.
I got so that I fell asleep almost anywhere but particularly at meals, and mother called in a doctor. He said I needed exercise! Ye G.o.ds!
Now I think this: if I were going to rob a house, or comit any sort of Crime, I should do it and get it over, and not hang around for days making up my mind. Besides keeping every one tence with anxiety. It is like diving off a diving board for the first time. The longer you stand there, the more afraid you get, and the farther (further?) it seems to the water.
At last, feeling I could stand no more, I said this to the Stranger as he was paying me. He was so surprized that he dropped a quarter in the road, and did not pick it up. I went back for it later but some one else had found it.
"Oh!" he said. "And all this time I"ve been beleiving that you--well, no matter. So you think it"s a mistake to delay to long?"
"I think when one has somthing Right or Wrong to do, and that"s for your conscience to decide, it"s easier to do it quickly."
"I see," he said, in a thoughtfull manner. "Well, perhaps you are right.
Although I"m afraid you"ve been getting one fifty cents you didn"t earn."
"I have never hung around," I retorted. "And no Archibald is ever a sneak."
"Archibald!" he said, getting very red. "Why, then you are----"
"It doesn"t matter who I am," I said, and got into the car and went away very fast, because I saw I had made a dreadfull Slip and probably spoiled everything. It was not untill I was putting the car up for the night that I saw I had gone off with his overcoat I hung it on a nail and getting my revolver from under a board, I went home, feeling that I had lost two hundred dollars, and all because of Familey pride.
How true that "pride goeth before a fall"!
I have not yet explained about the revolver. I had bought it from the gardner, having promised him ten dollars for it, although not as yet paid for. And I had meant to learn to be an expert, so that I could capture the Crimenal in question without a.s.sistance, thus securing all the reward.
But owing to nervousness the first day I had, while practicing in the chicken yard, hit the Gardner in the pocket and would have injured him severely had he not had his garden scizzors in his pocket.
He was very angry, and said he had a bruize the exact shape of the scizzors on him, so I had had to give him the ten plus five dollars more, which was all I had and left me stranded.
I went to my domacile that evening in low spirits, which were not improved by a conversation I had with Tom that night after the Familey had gone out to a Club dance.
He said that he did not like women and girls who did things.
"I like femanine girls," he said. "A fellow wants to be the Oak and feel the Vine clinging to him."
"I am afectionate," I said, "but not clinging. I cannot change my Nature."
"Just what do you mean by afectionate?" he asked, in a stern voice. "Is it afectionate for you to sit over there and not even let me hold your hand? If that"s afection, give me somthing else."
Alas, it was but to true. When away from me I thought of him tenderly, and of whether he was thinking of me. But when with me I was diferent. I could not account for this, and it troubled me. Because I felt this way.
Romanse had come into my life, but suppose I was incapable of loving, although loved?
Why should I wish to be embrased, but become cold and fridgid when about to be?
"It"s come to a Show-down, Bab," he said, ernestly. "Either you love me or you don"t. I"m darned if I know which."
"Alas, I do not know" I said in a low and pitious voice. I then buried my face in my hands, and tried to decide. But when I looked up he was gone, and only the sad breese wailed around me.
I had expected that the Theif would take my hint and act that night, if not scared off by learning that I belonged to the object of his nefarius designs. But he did not come, and I was wakened on the library table at 8 A. M. by George coming in to open the windows.
I was by that time looking pale and thin, and my father said to me that morning, ere departing for the office:
"Haven"t anything you"d like to get off your chest, have you, Bab?"
I sighed deeply.
"Father," I said, "do you think me cold? Or lacking in afection?"
"Certainly not."
"Or one who does not know her own mind?"
"Well," he observed, "those who have a great deal of mind do not always know it all. Just as you think you know it some new corner comes up that you didn"t suspect and upsets everything."
"Am I femanine?" I then demanded, in an anxious manner.
"Femanine! If you were any more so we couldn"t bare it."
I then inquired if he prefered the clinging Vine or the independant tipe, which follows its head and not its instincts. He said a man liked to be engaged to a clinging Vine, but that after marriage a Vine got to be a darned nusance and took everything while giving nothing, being the sort to prefer chicken croquets to steak and so on, and wearing a boudoir cap in bed in the mornings.
He then kissed me and said:
"Just a word of advise, Bab, from a parent who is, of course, extremely old but has not forgoten his Youth entirely. Don"t try to make yourself over for each new Admirer who comes along. Be yourself. If you want to do any making over, try it on the boys. Most of them could stand it."
That morning, after changing another tire and breaking three finger nails, I remembered the overcoat and, putting aside my scruples, went through the pockets. Although containing no Burglar"s tools, I found a SKETCH OF THE LOWER FLOOR OF OUR HOUSE, WITH A CROSS OUTSIDE ONE OF THE LIBRARY WINDOWS!
I was for a time greatly excited, but calmed myself, since there was work to do. I felt that, as I was to capture him unaided, I must make a Plan, which I did and which I shall tell of later on.
Alas, while thinking only of securing the Reward and of getting Sis married, so that I would be able to be engaged and enjoy it without worry as to Money, coming out and so on, my Ship of Love was in the hands of the wicked, and about to be utterly destroyed, or almost, the complete finish not coming untill later. But
"Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.
This is the tradgic story. Tom had gone to the station, feeling repentant probably, or perhaps wishing to drive the Arab, and finding me not yet there, had conversed with the hackman. And that person, for whom I have nothing but contempt and scorn, had observed to him that every day I met a young gentleman at the three-thirty train and took him for a ride!
Could Mendasity do more? Is it right that such a Creature, with his pockets full of nails and scandle, should vote, while intellagent women remain idle? I think not.