"Perhaps now, Jo, I might give a pretty good guess about the size of this wonderful fortune you've come into so sudden-like. How would three thousand sound to you, Jo? Is that about the figure now, tell me?"
Jo turned a wondering face toward his old mother.
"Well, did you ever hear the beat of that, maw?" he cried, "Mr. Rollins has just guessed the size of my pile to a dollar, because it was just three thousand old Aunt Libby left me—a few dollars over p'raps. However did you know it, sir?" and he once more faced the sneering farmer.
"I'll tell you, Jo," continued Mr. Rollins, coldly, "I happen to have just had three thousand dollars in bills stolen from my house this very night, by some rascal who first of all set fire to my stable and barn, so that the missus and me'd be so taken up with saving our pet stock we'd leave the farmhouse unguarded. Yes, and there was a few dollars more'n three thousand dollars, Jo. Queer coincidence I'd call it now, wouldn't you?"
Jo turned deathly white, and stared at his employer. His eyes were round with real, or assumed horror. If he was "putting on," as Seth would term it, then this farm hand must be a pretty clever actor for a crude country bumpkin, Paul thought.
"Oh! Jo, my boy, my boy, what does he mean by saying that?"
The little old lady had arisen from her chair, though she trembled so that she seemed in danger of falling; but Paul unconsciously moved a pace closer, ready to catch her in his arms if she swooned. But Jo, quick as a flash, hearing her voice, whirled around, and threw a protecting arm about her.
"It's all right, maw; don't you go and be afraid. I ain't done nawthing you need to be fearful about. This money's mine! Set down again, deary. Don't you worrit about Jo. He ain't agoin' to make your dear old heart bleed, sure he ain't."
And somehow, when Paul saw the tender way in which the rough farm boy forced the little old lady back into her chair, and caught the positive tone in which he gave her this assurance, he seemed almost ready to believe Jo must be innocent; although when he glanced at the money his heart misgave him again.
"Now, Mr. Rollins, please tell me what it all means?" asked Jo, turning and facing his employer again, with a bold, self-confident manner that must have astonished the farmer not a little. "I just come up from town as fast as I could hurry, because, you see, I knew I was bringin' the greatest of news to maw here. I did see a sorter light in the sky when I was leavin' town, and thinks I to myself, that old swamp back of the ten acre patch must be burnin' again; but I never dreamed it was the stable and hay barn, sure I didn't sir."