She was permitted to read and to weep over Snipe's pathetic letter.
CHAPTER X.
Another month had come and not another word from Snipe. All the Doctor's explorations were in vain. There was grief at the Lawrences', for the poor mother had been visiting her sister, imploring full particulars in one minute and denouncing her informants in the next. The most yielding and self-forgetful of women ordinarily, she had risen in rebellion against those whom she believed had wronged her boy. There was a rupture at Rhinebeck, where George Lawton's step-father was given to understand by George Lawton's mother that she would never believe that her boy had stolen. That he had sold the books and the gun and might have sold the watch was probably true. He had to do it to buy even the coarsest clothes to hide his nakedness. She had come to Shorty's home, and, with that sad-hearted youngster as her guide, had been conducted to the Doctor's study, and there she was permitted to read and to weep over Snipe's pathetic letter. She drew from Shorty all the details of the boy's effort to get along on his scanty allowance, to spare her, and to make his worn shoes and shabby, outgrown garments answer for another year. The interview between the now roused and indignant woman and her husband on her return to Rhinebeck must have been a source of amaze to him as well as discomfiture. In forty-eight hours she was back at Mrs. Lawrence's. "Do not put yourself out for me any more than you did for George," she said to her sister, with a tinge of irrepressible bitterness. "I will sleep in his little hall bedroom and sit at his corner of your table—when you are not entertaining." And Mrs. Lawrence made no reply. She knew well there had been much to warrant the mother's accusation. George might indeed be the culprit her husband, her brother-in-law, and her butler asserted, but he might not, probably would not, have been but for the indifference or neglect which had been his portion. Down at the bottom of her heart Aunt Lawrence was a sympathetic woman, and not entirely unjust, for after the first few days of excitement, at which times those at fault are sure to strive to fix the blame on others, she realized that what she had said of George's playmate and his people, even of George's misguided methods of spending his recreation hours, was something she would gladly recall.
But all this time the search for the absent boy had gone on unremittingly. Shorty had promised faithfully that if another letter came from Snipe he would bring it to the mother at once, and Pop had given his sanction. He refused to promise to come every day to see her, as she had at first almost demanded. He told her frankly that after what Mrs. Lawrence had said of him and his leading George astray, he couldn't come. The Doctor had certain theories about the missing jewelry, and had, on his own account, employed detective aid, and abandoned his theory more perplexed than ever. Privately he let it be known to the police that he would pay a handsome reward for the recovery of Joy's watch and information that would lead to the apprehension of the thief, but not a trace of it had been found. School work had to be kept up, but Shorty's standing suffered. The weekly reports that so often bore in Pop's remarkable chirography the word "Imperator," in Halsey's big, round hand the inscription "Nulli Secundus," and over the sign manuals of the other teachers some tribute to his scholarship and industry, now spoke of him as "falling off," "losing ground," etc., and a gentle hand was laid on his troubled head at home ere it signed the receipt, and kind and sympathetic words would send him hurrying away to his own little den, there to give way to a passion of tears. It was bad enough to lose Snipe. It was cruel to think of the boy's loneliness and suffering, but it was getting to be worst of all at school, where, true to the old, old saying, the absent was sure to be wrong. Little by little sneer, rumor, and insinuation had done their work, and, with no one to defend but Shorty, Snipe's name had become clouded with suspicion that was verging into certainty. If innocent of all the misdeeds laid at his door, why had he run away? Why did he not come home to face his accusers?
And so it happened that Shorty saw less of his schoolmates and more of his and Snipe's old friends, the firemen, than ever before. At home this was looked upon as decidedly unfortunate, but the lad was so unhappy and restless that no active opposition was made. "No good can ever come from such association," said the one oracular and dogmatic member of the household. But that prophecy was destined to be put to the blush.
Quarter day had come at Pop's,—a day marked in the annals of the school and celebrated in its traditions. More stories centred on that momentous date than on all the other school-days combined. On the Friday of the last week of the expiring quarter each of the Doctor's pupils would be handed an envelope addressed to his responsible parent or guardian, and each envelope so addressed contained the school bill for the ensuing quarter, filled out in the Doctor's unique and dainty hand. No writing was ever like it. Pop had a system of penmanship, as he had of punishment, of instruction, and school discipline, peculiarly his own. His capital letters were always large, clear, and well formed. His small letters, except those extending above and below the line, were indicated by tiny, back-handed dashes that individually conveyed no idea and collectively were unmistakable. Not a word of instruction accompanied the presentation of the missive, but every boy knew infallibly what to expect. From time immemorial in the history of the school the unwritten law had been that every boy appearing with the cash or check in payment of the bill early on the following Monday morning might go his way on whole holiday. If the money came on Tuesday the bearer was released at twelve o'clock; but if it failed to come on Wednesday the pupil found himself drifting from one scrape into another until it did come, and old boys used to declare that pretexts were never lacking, when they were of the school, to warrant the Doctor in flogging, every day until the money came, the hapless lad whose parents failed to meet the demand on time. Small wonder that Pop's boys developed phenomenal powers as bill collectors and that Pop himself had no dunning letters to write.