CHAPTER IV
MRS. POGRAM CONFIDES
Half an hour afterward Mrs. Pogram, unconscious of Miss Foster’s yearning to administer to her portly person a vigorous movement cure, walked leisurely up the village street. From one hand depended a long slender package which she held away from her black shawl by a string loop around her forefinger.
A merry whistling attracted her, and she perceived coming along the walk, at a swinging gait, a bareheaded young man in a sweater. In a few days the streets of the village would be largely populated by girls and men, all with an aversion to hats and sleeves. Mrs. Pogram was familiar with the type, and noted that this care-free person was an advance guard proving that the summer was here.
She eyed him, however, with lack-lustre eyes until he stopped suddenly before her.
“You don’t know me,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets.
The corners of Mrs. Pogram’s lips drew down and her chin drew in.
“Why, Irvin’ Bruce, it’s you!” she declared. “We haven’t seen you in these parts for so long I didn’t know but you’d given up Fairport.”
“Couldn’t do that, Mrs. Pogram. You know how a man always returns to the scene of his crimes.”