"Well, this time, sis, I will be at home when they call, unless something very unforeseen happens."
Jack pushed the bolt on the heavy door, and Cora went over the first floor of the house, attending to the duties, with which her mother, upon her departure for the city, had entrusted her.
Then, handing the silver to Jack, she put out the lights, and bade him an affectionate good-night.
CHAPTER XI
ANDY"S WARNING
The parlor maid tapped at Cora"s door. Gentle as was the touch, it awakened the girl, who answered quickly.
"Miss," said the maid, "there is a little boy downstairs who says he must see you at once. He simply won"t take no for an answer."
"A little boy?" repeated Cora, sleepily. "Why, it"s only six o"clock!"
"Yes, I know that, miss," went on the girl, "but Mary says he was outside on the step when she came down at five. He"s a poor-looking little boy, but he doesn"t want anything to eat. He says he must speak to you."
Without the slightest idea who her caller might be, Cora hurried into a robe and went down.
"He"s on the side porch, Miss Cora," said the maid.
Cora went out through the opened French window.
"Why, Andy!" she exclaimed, for her early visitor was none other than the boy from the strawberry patch. "Whatever brought you into Chelton so early?"
"It"s about the girls," he said under his breath, looking around suspiciously. "And it"s about that old Mrs. Blazes!"
"No one will hear you," Cora a.s.sured him, taking a seat by his side.
"What about the girls, and Miss Schenk?"
"Yes, and I was afraid I would not get here in time. She"s comin" in here--to scare you. I heard her tell Mrs. Ramsy so."
"And you hurried in to warn me!" cried Cora, much amused at the lad"s simplicity. "I am sure I am very, very much obliged. But tell me, what did she say?"
Andy shifted about uneasily. Evidently the information he had was not of the nature pleasant to impart.
"It was awful late last night when I heard it," began the boy. "Mrs.
Ramsy owed mother for some washing, and she said if I went after the money late, when she had time to--bother with me, she would give it to me. Well, I waited until I saw she had slicked up the work the girls used to do, and I was going to knock at the side door, when I saw two strange men get out of an automobile, and make for Ramsy"s front door."
Andy paused, evidently expecting some show of surprise at this information.
"Well, go on, Andy," urged Cora. "What did the strange men have to do with it all?"
"They asked for Miss Schenk, and I just guessed right. They were detectives!"
Andy"s eyes opened and closed in nervous excitement. To talk of detectives! To have seen them and to have heard _them_ talk!
"Well," spoke Cora, almost smiling, "it was certainly right for Miss Schenk to have detectives look for her valuables."
"That"s all right," a.s.sented the boy, "but wait till you hear! They told her--them two big fellows, that you--had the empty earring box, and that they got it from you!"
For a moment Cora was quite as indignant as she rightly supposed Andy to be.
"Did they say they got it from me?" she questioned.
"They said they were on the right track and would have the diamonds back to Miss Schenk in one day. Then, when I heard them say your name, and that they had got the box out here, I just rubbered fer fair, I did."
"Now, are you sure, Andy, that you understood just what they said?"
asked Cora, to whom the actual report of the detectives to Miss Schenk meant so much. "Try to tell me word for word."
"Oh, I heard them all right," replied the lad, "fer I crawled straight under the window, and I was as close as if I was in the old rocking chair under Mrs. Ramsy"s arm. The thin fellow said he had found the box. Mrs. Ramsy asked where, and I thought she would swallow her new teeth the way she--gulped. Then the fellow said he had got them from a young lady out in Chelton. This was like a firecracker to the women, and they both went off at such a rate, that the fellows had to stop until they cooled off. Then, when they had said about all they could think of about girls in automobiles, and girls that came out makin"
believe to buy berries, and just to steal--then, the other fellow--he has young whiskers--he said, that he couldn"t say any more just then, but he did have to say that he got the box from Miss Cora Kimball."
This was a very long, and trying explanation for a boy like Andy, and he showed how the effort affected him. He jabbed his hands into his pockets, crossed and recrossed his sunburned legs, then at last, with one final attempt at self-possession, he got up and deliberately chased the cat off the porch.
"Was that your cat?" he asked sheepishly, realizing that he had no right to interfere even with a cat on another person"s stoop.
"Why, yes," replied Cora, "but it is too early for his breakfast, and he knows he is not fed--here. So it"s all right."
Then Andy sat down again, a little shy from his error, for he suddenly remembered a story his mother used to tell him of a rich young lady and her pet cat.
"But you were saying," Cora reminded him, her voice kinder if possible than before, "that these detectives claimed I gave them the box. Or did you say they claimed to have taken it from me?"
Andy scratched his head, right at the left ear which always served as a cue to the forgotten thing.
"They didn"t say neither one," he replied finally. "They--said--they got the box in Chelton--off a young lady!"
Cora never before realized what an error in speech might involve, but she knew it was useless to question the boy further.
"Well, don"t worry about it," she said, "and I think now you ought to be ready for breakfast. Come, I guess Mary has something ready."
The boy stood up beside Cora, then, following an impulse that he plainly could not resist, he stepped between her and the door to the dining room.
"I ain"t hungry, miss," he said, "but I want to warn you. You better git out of the state!"
So sudden and so unexpected was this bit of advice that Cora almost laughed, but looking into the earnest face before her she was constrained to repress even a smile.
"Why, Andy," she cried, "I am not afraid of any one. I don"t have to run away."
"Well, you better be," he declared, his cheeks reddening to the very tint of his hair. "You better be afraid of Ramsy and Schenk. They"re a hot team."
"But what have I done?" continued Cora, for the boy"s manner demanded attention.
"My uncle didn"t do anything either when he got out of the state. And if it hadn"t been for that he would have been sent up. Fer nothin", too."