Rosie"s parents would have been pleased at how completely proper their behavior was, while they took the three bank robbers into town and turned them over to the sheriff.
That night, Rosie sat out on the porch with Sam and they discussed the particular event of the day in some detail. But Rosie was still concerned about the other Sam. So Sam decided to a.s.sert himself.
About half-past nine, he said firmly, "Well, Rosie, I guess I"d better be getting along home. I"ve got to try one more time to call myself up on the telephone and tell me to mind my own business."
"Says who?" demanded Rosie. "You"re staying locked up right here tonight and I"m riding with you tomorrow. If I kept you honest this far, I can keep it up till sundown tomorrow! Then maybe it"ll stick!"
Sam protested, but Rosie was adamant--not only about keeping him from being a crook, but from having any fun to justify his virtue.
She shooed him into her brother"s room and her father locked him in. And Sam did not sleep very well, because it looked as though virtue wasn"t even its own reward.
He sat up, brooding. It must have been close to dawn when the obvious. .h.i.t him. Then he gazed blankly at the wall and said, "Migawd! O"course!"
He grinned, all by himself, practically from head to foot. And at breakfast, he hummed contentedly as he stuffed himself with pancakes and syrup, and Rosie"s depressed expression changed to a baffled alarm.
He smiled tenderly upon her when she came doggedly out to the truck, wearing her blue jeans and with the monkey wrench in her pocket. They started off the same as any other day and he told her amiably, "Rosie, the sheriff says we get five thousand dollars reward from the bankers"
a.s.sociation, and there"s more from the insurance company, and there"s odd bits of change offered for those fellas for past performances. We"re going to be right well off."
Rosie looked at him gloomily. There was still the matter of the other Sam in the middle of the week after next. And just then, Sam, who had been watching the telephone lines beside the road as he drove, pulled off the road and put on his climbing irons.
"What"s this?" asked Rosie frightenedly. "You know--"
"You listen," said Sam, completely serene.
He climbed zestfully to the top of the pole. He hooked in the little gadget that didn"t make private conversations possible on a party line, but did make it possible for a man to talk to himself ten days in the future.
Or the past.
"h.e.l.lo!" said Sam, up at the top of the telephone pole. "Sam, this is you."
A voice he knew perfectly well sounded in the receiver.
"_Huh? Who"s that?_"
"This is you," said Sam. "You, Sam Yoder. Don"t you recognize your own voice? This is you, Sam Yoder, calling from the twelfth of July. Don"t hang up!"
He heard Rosie gasp, all the way down there in the banged-up telephone truck. Sam had seen the self-evident, at last, and now, in the twelfth of July, he was talking to himself on the telephone. Only instead of talking to himself in the week after next, he was talking to himself in the week before last--he being, back there ten days before, working on this very same telephone line on this very same pole. And it was the same conversation, word for word.
When he came down the pole, rather expansively, Rosie grabbed him and wept.
"Oh, Sam!" she sobbed. "It was you all the time!"
"Yeah," said Sam complacently. "I figured it out last night. That me back there in the second of July, he"s cussing me out. And he"s going to tell you about it and you"re going to get all wrought up. But I can make that dumb me back yonder do what has to be done. And you and me, Rosie, have got a lot of money coming to us. I"m going to carry on through so he"ll earn it for us. But I"m warning you, Rosie, he"ll be back at my house waiting for me to talk to him tonight, and I"ve got to be home to tell him to go over to your house. I"m goin" to say "ha-ha, ha-ha" at him."
"A-all right," said Rosie, wide-eyed. "You can."
"But I remember that when I call me up tonight, back there ten days ago, I"m going to be right busy here and now. I"m going to make me mad, because I don"t want to waste time talking to myself back yonder.
Remember? Now what," asked Sam mildly, "would I be doing tonight that would make me not want to waste time talking to myself ten days ago? You got any ideas, Rosie?"
"Sam Yoder! I wouldn"t! I never heard of such a thing!"
Sam looked at her and shook his head regretfully. "Too bad. If you won"t, I guess I"ve got to call me up in the week after next and find out what"s cooking."
"You--you _shan"t_!" said Rosie fiercely. "I"ll get even with you! But you shan"t talk to that--" Then she wailed. "Darn you, Sam! Even if I do have to marry you so you"ll be wanting to talk to me instead of that dumb you ten days back, you"re not going to--you"re not--"
Sam grinned. He kissed her. He put her in the truck and they rode off to Batesville to get married. And they did.
But you"re not supposed to believe all this, and if you ask Sam Yoder about it, he"s apt to say it"s all a lie. He doesn"t want to talk about private party lines, either. And there are other matters. For instance, Sam"s getting to be a pretty prominent citizen these days. He makes a lot of money, one way and another. n.o.body around home will ever bet with him on who"s going to win at sports and elections, anyhow.