If it was a skunk, he was peeping through a knot-hole in the back barn-door.
As they came in with their milk, Joe Griffin was approaching the door, having come to borrow a chain and canting dog.
Charlie now perceived that the cunning old wretch had shut up this pest, and feigned reluctance to part with her, on purpose to draw him on.
“I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Bell, “but what his wife was at home all the time. He knew, if you spoke to her, she would tell you the whole truth, for she is an excellent woman.”
Charlie resolved to keep the thing from the knowledge of every one, especially of Uncle Isaac, whose assertion, “He has cheated as smart men as you are,” recurred most unpleasantly to his recollection.
“Mary,” said he,” we must not breathe a word of this to any soul,—father’s folks, Joe Griffin, or, above all, Uncle Isaac. I had rather pocket the loss than have it known that I got so taken in. I’ll dry her up, and fat her. She’s a large cow, and will make a lot of beef.”
But such things will always, in some way or other, leak out. While Charlie imagined that himself and wife alone possessed the secret, it was known to half the town, and they were chuckling over it. Indeed, it had come to the ears of Lion Ben, on Elm Island, whose adopted son he was.
A fortnight after the occurrences related, Fred Williams and Joe Griffin were standing in the doorway of Fred’s store, when they espied Lion Ben coming from Elm Island in his big canoe, which he was forcing through the water with tremendous strokes.
Landing, and dragging the heavy craft out of the water as though she was an egg-shell, he merely nodded to Joe and Fred, and proceeded with rapid strides in the direction of Charlie Bell’s.
“What can that mean, Joe?” asked Fred. “He never spoke to us.”