"My boy!" exclaimed John Coggin, casting an astounded glance upon his son.
Poor Alf was almost stunned. When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally he burst into tears.
"Ax the t'other one—the leetle boy," suggested an old man in the crowd.
Alf's heart sank—sank like lead—when Jim, suddenly remembering the promised "good word" to the witches, piped out, "I war tole not ter tell who teched it,—'kase my dad didn't want nobody ter know 'twar hid thar."
John Coggin's face was rigid and gray.
"The Lord hev forsook me!" he cried. "An' all my chillen hev turned liars tergether."
Then he made a great effort to control himself.
"Look-a-hyar, Jim, ef ye hev got the truth in ye,—speak it! Ef ye know whar I hev hid anything,—find it!"
Jim, infinitely important, and really understanding little of what was going on, except that all these big men were looking at him, crossed the room with as much stateliness as is compatible with a pair of baggy brown jeans trousers, a plaid comforter tied between the shoulder-blades in a big knot, a tow-head, and a tattered black hat; he slipped his grimy paw in the chinking where Amos Brierwood had hid the pocket-book, and drew it thence, with the prideful exclamation,—
"B'longs ter my dad!"