The strict watch kept by Mr. Joseph, and some of the honest people in the garden, prevented any fruit being taken for some time, but the plum season coming on, and the plums on a tree not being so easily counted, nor so soon missed, as peaches, the children again ventured to take a few, and their father having two fine trees of the kind in his garden, if once the plums could be got home there was no likelihood of their being detected.
I did not watch the children, nor wish to know anything of what they did in the garden, yet somehow it seemed as if I was always to find them out in their thefts, for I one day suddenly came upon them just as they were cramming about a dozen fine Orlean plums into their pockets. I covered my face with my hands, and said:
'Oh, why will you do so? We shall all be discharged.'
'You shall be discharged,' said Susan, darting at me and slapping me with all her strength. 'What business have you to watch us? This is the first bit of fruit we have taken since those nasty peaches, and now, I suppose, you will go and tell.'
'No, I shall not,' replied I; 'but I wish you would not take any more fruit. You know what Mr. Freeman said.'
'Yes, and you shall know what my mother will say. I am not to be followed about and watched, and lose my place, for a tell-tale beggar-girl.'
I again assured her that I should not tell, and went away to a distant part of the garden, my mind being very unhappy, for I thought that if these thefts were discovered we should all be discharged, and again I thought that perhaps I was doing very wrong in concealing them, but then how could I bring people who were so kind to me into disgrace, and even into want of bread? I did not know what to do, but, after much considering in my own mind, I determined that when Saturday night came to ask Mr. Joseph to give me only five shillings, and not to ask me any questions, for I thought that the odd shilling would partly pay for the fruit Mr. Davis's children took. Having made this determination I felt rather happier, though I dreaded the resentment of Mrs. Davis and the children. When night came we went home together, the children not speaking to me once the whole way. When we arrived at the house Mr. Davis was out, and Susan asked her mother to give Tommy his supper, as she had something to say to her. The mother, who saw something particular was the matter, hurried the child to bed, while I sat on a chair near the door sick at my very heart. No sooner had her brother left the room than Susan told of the discovery of the plums, with many additions of her own. Mrs. Davis was in such a passion that she could scarcely speak for two or three minutes; she seized me by the arm, and shook me violently.
'I will put a stop to this,' said she as soon as she had recovered her breath. 'You shall not stay here to be the ruin of my children, you ungrateful creature. Don't we feed you and clothe you? Don't you have all the children's old clothes, and don't you mend them up and make them look so smart that you look as well dressed as they do, though their clothes are new and yours are old? Oh, you ungrateful creature. You would ruin us all for our kindness to you.'
She then ran over the affair of the peaches, and of my refusing to take the money at the market, reproaching me at every sentence, till she increased her anger to such degree that she seemed to lose her reason, and, again seizing me by the arm, she said she would give me cause to repent of my ingratitude to the latest moment of my life, when at the instant I expected to be dashed to the ground, to her great dismay, and to my great relief, an inner door opened, and her husband entered the room.
'Stop, mistress,' said he, 'do not dare to hurt that child. I came in by the wash-house, and have heard all Suke's story, and have heard who stole the peaches. Little did I think, when there was such a piece of work about them, that my own children were the thieves, and little did I think, when Suke was so pleased at going to market, that it was because she was to go shares with a parcel of thieves in robbing her master.'