Just then the door flew open with a bang and Edna Crow, Anderson"s eldest, almost flopped into the store, her cap in her hand, eyes starting from her head. She had run at top speed all the way from home.
"Pop," she gasped. "Ma says fer you to hurry home! She says fer you to _run_!"
Anderson covered the distance between Lamson"s store and his own home in record time. Indeed, Edna, flying as fast as her slim legs could twinkle, barely beat her father to the front porch. It was quite clear to Mr. Crow that something unusual had happened or Mrs. Crow would not have summoned him so peremptorily.
She was in the hallway downstairs awaiting his arrival, visibly agitated. Before uttering a word she dragged him into the little sitting-room and closed the door. They were alone.
"Is it dead?" he panted.
"No, but what do you think, Anderson?" she questioned excitedly.
"I ain"t had time to think. You don"t mean to say it has begun to talk an" c"n tell who it is," he faltered.
"Heavens no--an" it only six weeks old."
"Well, then, what in thunder _has_ happened?"
"A _detective_ has been here."
"Good gosh!"
"Yes, a _real_ detective. He"s out there in the kitchen gettin" his feet warm by the bake-oven. He says he"s lookin" for a six-weeks-old baby.
Anderson, we"re goin" to lose that twenty thousand."
"Don"t cry, Eva; mebby we c"n find another baby some day. Has he seen the--the--it?" Anderson was holding to the stair-post for support.
"Not yet, but he says he understands we"ve got one here that ain"t been _tagged_--that"s what he said--"tagged." What does he mean by that?"
"Why--why, don"t you see? Just as soon as he tags it, it"s _it_.
Doggone, I wonder if it would make any legal difference if I tagged it first."
"He"s a queer-lookin" feller, Anderson. Says he"s in disguise, and he certainly looks like a regular scamp."
"I"ll take a look at him an" ast fer his badge." Marshal Crow paraded boldly into the kitchen, where the strange man was regaling the younger Crows with conversation the while he partook comfortably of pie and other things more substantial.
"Are you Mr. Crow?" he asked nonchalantly, as Anderson appeared before him.
"I am. Who are you?"
"I am Hawkshaw, the detective," responded the man, his mouth full of blackberry pie.
"Gee whiz!" gasped Anderson. "Eva, it"s the celebrated Hawkshaw."
"Right you are, sir. I"m after the kid."
"You"ll have to identify it," something inspired Anderson to say.
"Sure. That"s easy. It"s the one that was left on your doorstep last night," said the man glibly.
"Well, I guess you"re right," began Anderson disconsolately.
"Boy or girl?" demanded Mrs. Crow, shrewdly and very quickly. She had been inspecting the man more closely than before, and woman"s intuition was telling her a truth that Anderson overlooked. Mr. Hawkshaw was not only very seedy, but very drunk.
"Madam," he responded loftily, "it is nothing but a mere child."
"I"ll give you jest one minute to get out of this house," said Mrs. Crow sharply, to Anderson"s consternation. "If you"re not gone, I"ll douse you with this kettle of scalding water. Open the back door, Edna. He sha"n"t take his dirty self through my parlour again. _Open that door, Edna!_"
Edna, half paralysed with astonishment, opened the kitchen door just in time. Mr. Hawkshaw was not so drunk but he could recognise disaster when it hovered near. As she lifted the steaming kettle from the stove he made a flying leap for the door. The rush of air that followed him as he shot through the aperture almost swept Edna from her feet. In ten seconds the tattered Hawkshaw was scrambling over the garden fence and making lively if inaccurate tracks through last year"s cabbage patch.
CHAPTER VII
The Mysterious Visitor
The entire Crow family watched him in stupefaction until he disappeared down the lane that led to Hapgood"s grove. It was then, and not until then, that Anderson Crow took a breath.
"Good Lord, Eva, what do you mean?" he gasped.
"Mean?" she almost shrieked. "Anderson Crow, didn"t you recognise that feller? He ain"t no more detective than you er me. He"s the self-same tramp that you put in the calaboose last week, and the week before, too.
I thought I"d seen his ugly face before. He"s--"
"Great jumpin" geeswax!" roared the town marshal. "I recollect him now.
He"s the one that said he"d been exposed to smallpox an" wanted to be kept where it was warm all winter. Well, I"ll be--I"ll be--"
"Don"t say it, pa. He said it fer you when he clumb over that barb-wire fence out there," cried Edna gleefully.
Several days of anxiety and energy followed this interesting episode. In that time two tramps attempted to obtain food and shelter at Crow"s home, one on the plea that he was the father of the unfortunate child, the other as an officer for the Foundlings" Home at Boggs City. Three babies were left on the doorstep--two in one night--their fond mothers confessing fessing by letters that they appreciated Anderson"s well-known charitable inclinations and implored him to care for their offspring as if they were his own. The hara.s.sed marshal experienced some difficulty in forcing the mothers to take back their children.
In each instance he was reviled by the estimable ladies, all of whom accused him of being utterly heartless. Mrs. Crow came to his rescue and told the disappointed mothers that the scalding water was ready for application if they did not take their baskets of babies away on short order. It may be well for the reputation of Tinkletown to mention that one of the donors was Mrs. Raspus, a negro washerwoman who did work for the "dagoes" engaged in building the railroad hard by; another was the wife of Antonio Galli, a member of the grading gang, and the third was Mrs. Pool, the widow of a fisherman who had recently drowned himself in drink.
It is quite possible that Anderson might have had the three infants on his hands permanently had not the mothers been so eager to know their fate. They appeared in person early the next morning to see if the babies had frozen to death on the doorstep. Mrs. Pool even went so far as to fetch some extra baby clothes which she had neglected to drop with her male. Mrs. Raspus came for her basket, claiming it was the only one she had in which to "tote" the washing for the men.
After these annoying but enlivening incidents Anderson was permitted to recover from his daze and to throw off symptoms of nervous prostration.
Tinkletown resumed its tranquil att.i.tude and the checker games began to thrive once more. Little Rosalie was a week older than when she came, but it was five weeks before anything happened to disturb the even tenor of the foster-father"s way. He had worked diligently in the effort to discover the parents of the baby, but without result. Two or three exasperated husbands in Tinkletown had threatened to blow his brains out if he persisted in questioning their wives in his insinuating manner, and one of the kitchen girls at the village inn threw a dishpan at him on the occasion of his third visit of inquiry. A colored woman in the employ of the Baptist minister denied that Rosalie was her child, but when he insisted, agreed with fine sarcasm to "go over an" have a look at it," after his a.s.surance that it was perfectly white.
"Eva, I"ve investigated the case thoroughly," he said at last, "an"
there is no solution to the mystery. The only thing I c"n deduce is that the child is here an" we"ll have to take keer of her. Now, I wonder if that woman really meant it when she said we"d have a thousand dollars at the end of each year. Doggone, I wish the year was up, jest to see."
"We"ll have to wait, Anderson, that"s all," said Mrs. Crow. "I love the baby so it can"t matter much. I"m glad you"re through investigatin".
It"s been most tryin" to me. Half the women in town don"t speak to me."
It was at the end of Rosalie"s fifth week as a member of the family that something happened. Late one night when Anderson opened the front door to put out the cat a heavily veiled woman mounted the steps and accosted him. In some trepidation he drew back and would have closed the door but for her eager remonstrance.
"I must see you, Mr. Crow," she cried in a low, agitated voice.