“But I cannot take your money, yours of all people’s, to help my grandfather!” protested Pam, in a voice of awe, and she looked up at the kindly old woman, trying to thrust back the little bundle of paper money.
But Mrs. Buckle was obdurate.
“You must take it, please, my dear,” she insisted. “It is my right to spare myself what suffering I can, for I have had enough to bear. I feel that it would be the last straw to my endurance if the police were to find your grandfather, and all that old trouble had to be raked up in a court of justice. It is not likely I have many more years to live, and they might as well be peaceful years, but I should never know another happy hour if your grandfather were put in prison for wounding my husband. I’ve no doubt that poor Sam’s aggravating ways were a sort of infirmity, like a hare-lip or a crooked back, and I would rather leave the punishment of the man who did him to death in the hands of Almighty God; so you will please take the money and say no more about it. Only you must keep it in a place where the poor old man can get it himself if he happens along when there is no one about; for he may break into his own house, don’t you see, because he won’t know how we feel about his escaping.”
“The desk in his bedroom is locked,” said Pam faintly. She could protest no more, and taking the roll of notes, she thrust it for security into the front of her blouse.
“Try if you have got a key that will open it,” said Mrs. Buckle, who was plainly a person of resource. “If not, perhaps I can pick it for you as soon as I get my bonnet and can come to pay a call. Oh, it wouldn’t be the first lock I have picked by a good many. When a woman has a husband who keeps her as short as my man kept me, she is apt to do things that won’t bear daylight; but he is dead now, and his faults ain’t going to be talked about except in the way of stopping other people from having to suffer for them. You are a dear good girl for coming to see me; it has done me a power of good to have you to talk to. I feel better than I have done since Sam was taken.”
“It is very sweet of you to feel like this, Mrs. Buckle, and I thank you for myself and for my mother. But oh, I wish that I had some way of repaying you for your kindness to us!” Pam’s eyes were wet with tears as she leaned forward and warmly kissed Mrs. Buckle’s cheek.
“There is something that perhaps you may be able to do for me if you have a mind,” said Mrs. Buckle slowly.
“Oh, tell me, please, what it is, and I will so gladly do it if it is in my power.” Pam was thinking how she must in her own person expiate what she could of her grandfather’s wrong-doing. She could not bring Sam back to life again, but she might be able to do some service for the widow.
Mrs. Buckle hesitated. She was not a woman of fine feeling, and yet she hated to tell this nice girl, with the straightforward, fearless gaze, that the old man, her grandfather, was a thief. Yet there it was, and although she might soften it down, the ugly fact remained the same. Nervously she cleared her throat, and a hot flush crept over her kindly old face as she burst into speech.
“Sam was found with his pockets cleared out. Some money he had on him, I know, but whether it was much or little I can’t say, and of course I shan’t ever know now; but what upset me more than the loss of the money was that poor Sam’s watch had been taken. A good watch it was, and it had belonged to my father, who gave it to Sam when he died. My word, but I did value that watch! Of course I’m not saying that your grandfather took it for the sake of stealing from the man he’d hurt so badly, but I think perhaps, when he found that he had knocked the sense out of Sam, he just took the money and the watch to make it look as if the whole thing had been done by someone for the sake of stealing. If your grandfather comes creeping back some night, and you see him, I want you to ask him to give you back the watch. Tell him from me that he can keep the money and welcome, for it is sorely he will need it, poor man, if he has got to be a wanderer all through this bitter wintertime that lies before us.”