The Rival Campers Ashore: or, The Mystery of the Mill. Smith Ruel Perley

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СКАЧАТЬ Then, clear across on the other side, one watching sharply might have seen a child's head appear out of the pool, at the edge of a clump of bull-rushes; might have seen her emerge half out of water, and hide herself from view of anyone on the opposite shore.

      She had swum the entire width of the pool under water.

      From her hiding-place she saw Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from cover upon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run, furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane, shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest disappointment and chagrin.

      Up and down the shore of the pool he travelled, searching every clump that might afford shelter.

      "Well," he exclaimed finally, "I must be going wrong, somehow. First it's the mill I hear, when it isn't grinding, and now I see somebody fishing when there isn't anybody. I'll go and take some of them burdock bitters. Guess my liver must be out of order."

      Farmer Ellison, shaking his head dubiously, and casting a backward glance now and then, strode up the hill, looking puzzled and wrathful.

      When he was a safe distance out of the way, a little figure, dripping wet, scrambled in across the bog on the other side, and stole up through the fields to the old tumble-down house.

      "What's that you're cooking, child?" called out a voice, some time later, as the girl stood by the kitchen stove.

      "M-m-m-m gran', it's something awful good. Do you smell 'em?" replied the child, gazing proudly into the fry-pan, wherein the three fat trout sizzled. "Well, I caught 'em, myself."

      "I do declare!" exclaimed Grannie Thornton. "I didn't know the trout would bite now anywhere but in Jim Ellison's pool."

      The girl made no reply.

      "You like 'em, don't you, gran'?" she said, gleefully, some moments later, as she stood watching the old woman eat her breakfast with a relish. Grannie Thornton had eaten one trout, and was beginning on the half of another.

      "They're tasty, Bess," she replied. "Where did you catch 'em? I thought the fishing in the brook wasn't any use nowadays."

      The girl stood for a moment, hesitating. Then she thought of the old woman's words of the night before.

      "I caught 'em in the pool, gran'," she said.

      The iron fork with which Grannie Thornton was conveying a piece of the trout to her mouth dropped from her hand. The last piece she had eaten seemed to choke her. Then she tottered to her feet with a wrench that made her groan.

      "You got 'em from the pool!" she screamed. "From the pool, do you say? Don't yer know that's stealing? Didn't I bring you up better'n that? What do you mean by going and being so bad, just 'cause I'm crippled and can't look after yer? Would you grow up to be a thief, child?"

      The old woman's strength failed her, and she fell back on the couch. The girl stood for a moment, silent, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

      "But you said 'twas all ours, anyway, gran'," she sobbed. "Will I have to go to prison, do you think?"

      "Nonsense!" cried Grannie Thornton. "But if Ellison found it out – "

      Bess Thornton was darting out of the doorway.

      "He'll find it out now," she said, bitterly. "I'll tell him. I don't care what happens to me."

      Benjamin Ellison, James Ellison's nephew, a heavy-set, large-boned, clumsily-built youth, lounged lazily in the dooryard of the Ellison homestead as the girl neared the gate, a quarter of an hour later.

      "Hello, Tomboy," he said, barring her entrance, with arms outstretched. "Don't know as I'll let you in this way. Let's see you jump the fence. Say, what's the matter with you? Ho! ho! Why, you look like that cat I dropped in the brook yesterday. You've got a ducking, somehow. Your clothes aren't all dry yet. Who – ?"

      The youth's bantering was most unexpectedly interrupted. He himself didn't know exactly how it happened. He only knew that the girl had darted suddenly forward, that he had been neatly tripped, and that he found himself lying on his back in a clump of burdocks.

      "Here, you beggar!" he cried, spitefully, scrambling to his feet and making after her. "You'll get another ducking for that."

      But the girl, as though knowing human nature, instinctively ran close beside another youth, of about the same size as Benjamin, who had just appeared from the house, caught him by an arm and said, "Don't let him hurt me, will you, John? I tripped him up. Oh, but you ought to have seen him!"

      Her errand was forgotten for an instant and she laughed a merry laugh.

      The boy thus appealed to, a youth of about his cousin's size, but of a less heavy mould, stood between her and the other.

      "You go on, Bennie," he said, laughing. "Let her alone. Oh ho, that's rich! Put poor old Bennie on his back, did you, Bess? What do you want?"

      The girl's mirth vanished, and her face flushed.

      "I want to see your father," she said, slowly.

      "All right, go in the door there," responded John Ellison. "He's all alone in the dining-room."

      Farmer Ellison, finishing his third cup of coffee, and leaning back in his chair, looked up in surprise, as the girl stepped noiselessly across the threshold and confronted him.

      "Well! Well!" he exclaimed, eying her somewhat sharply. "Why didn't you knock at the door? Forgotten how? What do you want?"

      The girl waited for a moment before replying, shuffling her bare feet and tugging at her damp dress. Then she seemed to gather her courage. She looked resolutely at Farmer Ellison.

      "I want a licking, I guess," she said.

      Farmer Ellison's face relaxed into a grim smile.

      "A licking," he repeated. "Well, I reckon you deserve it, all right, if not for one thing, then for something else."

      "I guess I do," said Bess Thornton.

      "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" queried Farmer Ellison, looking puzzled. "Can't old Mother Thornton give it to you?"

      "No," replied the girl. "She's sick. And besides, she didn't know what I was going to do. I did it all myself, early this morning."

      Farmer Ellison looked up quickly. An expression of suspicion stole over his face. He looked at the girl's bedraggled dress.

      "What have you been up to?" he asked, sternly.

      "I've been stealing," replied the girl. "'Twas – 'twas – "

      Farmer Ellison sprang up from his seat.

      "'Twas you, then, down by the shore?" he cried. "Confound it! I knew I didn't need them burdock bitters all the time I was takin' 'em. Stealing my trout, eh? Don't tell me you caught any?"

      "Only three."

      The girl half whispered the reply.

      Farmer Ellison seized the girl by an arm and shook her roughly.

      "Bring them back!" he cried. "Where are they?"

      "I can't," stammered the girl; "they're cooked."

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