The little group had reached Curly’s bedside; but they did not notice that young invalid. Ruth had risen from her seat nervously, wishing that Nettie’s Aunt Rachel had not brought the unpleasant subject to the surface again.
“I could not injure the reputation of a couple of young minxes like these!” declared Miss Miggs, angrily. “I put the ticket in the railroad folder, and laid it on the seat beside me in the steamer’s saloon, and when I got up I forgot to take the folder with me. These girls were the only people in sight. They were watching me, and when my back was turned they took the ticket and folder.”
“Who?” suddenly shouted a voice behind them, and before any of the party could reply to Miss Miggs’ absurd accusation.
Curly was sitting up in bed, his cheeks very red and his eyes bright with fever; but he was in his right senses.
“Those girls did it!” snapped Miss Miggs.
“They didn’t, either!” cried Curly. “I did it. Now you can have me arrested if you want to!” added the boy, falling back on his pillows. “I didn’t know the ticket belonged to anybody. When I was drying my things aboard that fishing boat, I found it in a folder that I had picked up in the cabin of the steamer. I s’posed it was a ticket the railroad gave away with the folder, until I asked a railroad man if it was good, and he said it was as good as any other ticket. So I rode down to Pee Dee on it from Norfolk. There now! If that’s stealin’, then I have stolen, and Gran is right—I’m a thief!”
Even as obstinate a person as Miss Miggs was forced to believe this story, for its truth was self-evident. It completely ended the controversy about the lost ticket; but Curly Smith was not satisfied until enough money was taken out of the fund raised for his benefit to reimburse Mrs. Holloway for the purchase-money of the ticket she had sent to her New England cousin.
“I wish, Martha, I had never invited you down here,” the hotel keeper’s wife was heard to tell the New England woman. “You’ve made me trouble enough. I will never be able to pacify Mrs. Parsons. She is going to take the young ladies and the boy away at once, and I know that she will never again give me her good word with any of her wealthy friends. Your ill-temper has cost me enough, I am sure.”
Perhaps it had cost Miss Miggs a good deal, too; only Miss Miggs was the sort of obstinate person who never does or will acknowledge that she is wrong.