To the girl alone and under suspicion, however kind the friends who were puzzled over her situation, conscious that too many favors were not to be asked of the good-souled Junius Brutus Ponk, the young farmer seemed the only one to whom she could turn. And she had the more readily halted her car to wait for him because she had already begun to weave a romance in homespun about this splendid young agriculturist and the good-hearted country girl, Thelma Ekblad. He, himself, was impersonal to her.
"I"m always needing friends--and I"m more glad than you could know to have you even think of me in your needs. But everybody turns to York Macpherson. He"s the lodestar for every Sage Brush compa.s.s," Joe said, looking earnestly at Jerry.
"I"m on my way to the old Teddy Bear"s house, your Fishing Teddy," Jerry declared, "and I thought you would go with me. I don"t want to go alone."
"Let me take this machinery to the men--they are waiting for it to start to work--and I"ll be glad to go," Joe answered her.
The gray car followed the big wagon down the trail to the deep bend of the Sage Brush in the angle of which Joe"s ranch-house stood; and the load of machinery was quickly given over to the workmen. As Joe seated himself in the little gray car Jerry said:
"You are wondering why, and too polite to ask why, I go to Hans Theodore"s. Let me tell you." Then she told him of her dazed wanderings down the river road two months before, and of her meal near old Teddy"s shack.
"He brought me fried fish on a cracked plate, and b.u.t.termilk in a silver drinking-cup--a queer pattern with a monogram on the side. The next morning I saw another cup exactly like that on the buffet in the Macpherson dining-room. They told me there should be two of them. One they found was suddenly missing. Later it suddenly was not missing. York said their like was not to be had this side of old "Castle Cluny" on the ancient Kingussie holding of the invincible Clan Macpherson"s forebears.
So this must have been the same cup. It was on the morning after you called and took the old Teddy Bear home with you that the missing cup reappeared. You remember he was shambling around the grounds the night before, waiting for you?"
"Yes, I remember," Joe responded, gravely.
"Meantime Laura Macpherson lost her purse. It was found in my hand-bag.
I believe now that the one that took it became frightened or something, and tried to put it on me. Maybe somebody knew how dreadfully near the wall I was. Then York paid me lease money, as I told you--three hundred dollars. It was in my purse last evening when I went out for a ride. As I sat in the side porch alone, earlier in the evening, I saw the old Teddy Bear shamble and shuffle about the shrubbery and disappear down the slope in the shadows on the town side of the place. This morning my money is all gone. I am going down here after it."
"And you didn"t ask York to help you?" Joe queried, anxiously.
"Why, no. I wanted you to help me. Will you do it?" Jerry asked, looking up into the earnest face of the big farmer beside her.
Was it selfishness, or thoughtlessness, or love of startling adventure, or insight, or fate bringing her this way? Joe Thomson asked himself the question in vain.
"I"ll do whatever I can do. This is such a strange thing. I knew things were missing by spells up in town, but we never lose anything down our way, and you"d think we would come nearer having what old Fishing Teddy would want if he is really a thief," Joe declared.
"I am going down to old Teddy"s shack and ask him to give me my money, anyhow," Jerry repeated.
"And if he has it and refuses, I"ll pitch him into the river and hold him under till he comes across. But if he really hasn"t it?" Joe asked.
"Then he can"t give it, that"s all," Jerry replied.
"But how will you know?" Joe insisted.
"I don"t know how I"ll know, but when the time comes I"ll probably find a way to find out," Jerry declared. "Anyhow, I must do something, for I"m clear penniless and it"s this or go mad or go back East. I"m not going to do either. I"m just going to get mad and stay mad till I get what"s mine."
"I"ll be your faithful sleuth, but I can"t believe you"ll find your bag of gold at the end of this rainbow. The old man is gentle, though, and you couldn"t have any fear, I suppose," Joe suggested.
"Not with you along I couldn"t," Jerry replied.
She was watching the road, and did not see how his eyes filled with a wonderful light at her words. She was not thinking of Joe Thomson, nor of York Macpherson, nor yet of Junius Brutus Ponk. She was thinking far back in her mind of how Eugene Wellington would admire her some day for really not giving in. That faint line of indecision in his face as she recalled it in the rose-arbor--oh, so long ago--that was only emphasized by his real admiration for those who could stand fast by a determination. She had always dared. He had always adored, but never risked a danger.
Down by the deep fishing-hole the willows were beginning to droop their long yellow leaves on the diminishing stream, and the stepping-stones stood out bare and bleaching above the thin current that slipped away between them. A little blue smoke was filtering out from the stove-pipe behind the shack hidden among the bushes. Everything lay still under the sunshine of late summer.
"You keep the car. I"m going in," Jerry declared, halting in the thin shade by the deep hole.
"I think I"d better go, too," Joe insisted.
"I think not," Jerry said, with a finality in her tone there was no refuting.
York Macpherson had well said that there was no duplicate for Jerry, no forecasting just what she would do next.
As Jerry"s form cast a shadow across his doorway old Fishing Teddy turned with a start from a bowl of corn-meal dough that he was stirring.
The little structure was a rude domicile, fitted to the master of it in all its features. On a plain unpainted table Jerry saw a roll of bills weighted down by an old cob pipe. A few coins were neatly stacked beside them, with a pearl-handled knife and b.u.t.ton-hook lying farther away.
"I came for my money," Jerry said, quietly. "It"s all I have until I can earn some myself."
The old man"s fuzzy brown cheeks seemed to grow darker, as if his blush was of a color with the rest of his make-up. He shuffled quickly to the table, gathered up all the money, and, coming nearer, silently laid it in Jerry"s hands.
The girl looked at him curiously. It was as if he were handing her a handkerchief she had dropped, and she caught herself saying:
"Thank you. But what made you take it? Don"t you know it is all I have, and I must earn my living, too, just like anybody else?"
Old Fishing Teddy opened his mouth twice before his voice would act. "I didn"t take it. I was goin" to fetch it up to you soon as I could git up there again," he squeaked out at last.
Jerry sat down on a broken chair and stared at him, as he seated himself on the table, gripping the edge on either side with his scaly brown hands, and gazed down at the floor of the cabin.
"If you didn"t take it, why did you have it here? I saw you last night on Macpherson"s driveway," Jerry said, wondering, meanwhile, why she should argue with an old thieving fellow like Fishing Teddy--Jerusha Darby"s niece and heir some fine day, if she only chose, to all of the Darby dollars.
"I can"t never explain to you, lady. They"s troubles in everybody"s lots, I reckon. Mine ain"t nothin" but a humble one, but it ain"t so much different from big folks"s in trouble ways. An" we all have to do the best we can with what comes to us to put up with. I "ain"t never harmed n.o.body, nor kep" a thing "at wa"n"t mine longer "n I could git it back. You ask York Macpherson, an" he"ll tell ye the truth. He never sent ye down here, York didn"t."
The old man ceased squeaking and looked down at his stubby legs and old shoes. Was he lying and whining for mercy, being caught with the spoils of his thieving?
Jerry"s big eyes were fixed on him as she tried to fathom the real situation. The bunch of grubs on the Winnowoc local--common country and village folk--had been far below her range of interest, to say nothing of sympathy. Yet here she sat in the miserable shack of a hermit fisherman, an all-but-acknowledged thief, with his loot discovered, studying him with a mind where pity and credulity were playing havoc with her better judgment and her aristocratic breeding. Had she fallen so low as this, or had she risen to a newer height of character than she had ever known before?
Suddenly the old grub hunched down on the table before her looked up.
Jerry remembered afterward how clear and honest the gaze of those faded yellow eyes set in a mult.i.tude of yellow wrinkles. His hands let go of the table"s edge and fitted knuckle into palm as he asked, in a quavering voice:
"Be you really Jim Swaim"s girl who used to live up in that there Winnowoc country back yander in Pennsylvany?"
Jerry"s heart thumped violently. It was the last word she had expected from this creature. "Yes, I"m Jim"s only child." The same winsome smile that made the artistic Eugene Wellington of Philadelphia adore her beamed now on this poor old outcast down by the deep hole of the Sage Brush.
"An" be you hard up, an" earnin" your own livin" by yourself, did ye say? "Ain"t ye got a rich kin back East to help ye none?" The voice quavered up and down unsteadily.
"Yes, I have a rich aunt, but I"m taking care of myself. It makes me freer, but I have to be particular not to--to--lose any money right now," Jerry said, frankly.
"Then ye air doin" mighty well, an" it"s the thing that "u"d make your daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It "u"d be fulfillin" his own wish. I know it would. I heered him say so onct."
Jerry Swaim"s eyes were full of unshed tears. Keenly she remembered when Uncle Cornie had told her the same thing at the doorway of the rose-arbor in beautiful "Eden" in the beautiful June-time. How strange that the same message should come to her again here in the shadow of New Eden inside the doorway of a fisherman"s hut. And how strange a thing is life at any time!
"Please don"t be unhappy about this." Jerry lifted the money which lay in her lap. "It shall never trouble you."
And then for a brief ten minutes the two talked together, Geraldine Swaim of Philadelphia, and old Fishing Teddy, the Sage Brush hermit.
Joe Thomson, sitting in the gray car, saw Jerry coming through the bushes, her hat in her hand, the summer sunshine on her glorious crown of hair, her face wearing a strange new expression, as if in Fishing Teddy"s old shack a revelation of life"s realities had come to her and she had found them worthy and beautiful.
Little was said between the two young people until they reached the Thomson ranch-house again and Jerry had halted her car under the shade of an elm growing before the door. Then, turning to Joe, she said: