Mr. Carson brought his fist down on the table.
“Now, that can’t be,” he cried. “I won’t have that! I simply won’t. No matter what risk I run of doing the man an injustice, I won’t have him leave this community. He’s under suspicion and he’s got to stay here. I’m sorry for him, sometimes, when I see him walk into town and all the men turn their backs on him and walk away. Of course, it isn’t really fair—or at least, it may not be fair, for it is possible that he is as innocent as you or I. But if he is guilty, he’s getting only a small part of what he deserves. At any rate, I can understand that he’s very uncomfortable in this town nowadays, and that he’d like mighty well to get out of it. But he shan’t, if I have anything to say about it.”
The next morning, however, Annie Laurie came with startling news.
“They’re gone!” she cried as she dashed into the schoolroom.
“Who?” the girls asked in unison.
“The Disbrows.”
“No!”
“Yes, they have. I was walking along the road and I happened to look over toward their house, and there wasn’t any smoke coming from the chimney. And there was something about the place—I can’t describe it, because the curtains are forever down anyway—but something that looked deserted. So I pelted across the field and knocked at the door and no one answered. And then I tried the door and it was locked. I saw the chickens were gone, too, and the cow and the horses. They all went in the night.”
“But do you think Sam would let his family act like that?”
“Sam went to Rutherford yesterday to the academy. No, I don’t think he knew a thing about it. He came over after I got home from school to say good-bye, and he was very happy and—oh, well—good, you know. No one could have looked as he did if he had thought his father was a thief and his family sneaks.”