Spot.
“I KNOW he didn’t do it,” said good Mrs. Martin; “he says he didn’t do it, and I believe him.”
“Then you don’t believe me?” asked Mrs. Turner rather severely. “I wish I had never seen that boy! I’m sure I have done my best by him, and been a mother to him. And now he’s turned out bad, everybody blames me for it. Father says, if he has done it, it is my fault for tempting him; Nelly has nearly cried her eyes out about it; and everybody seems to think it is more wicked to lose a spoon than to steal it—I declare they do.”
“Well, he’s been a good, honest boy ever since he came here—a real nice, obliging, pleasant spoken little fellow; and it stands to reason a good boy don’t turn bad all in a jerk like that,” said Mrs. Martin, shaking her head.
“I don’t know about jerks,” answered Mrs. Turner, “but I do know that, as soon as I had done cleaning that spoon, I put it back in the case, and as I was a-going to put it away, Jim comes in to get a pail, and says he, ‘ain’t it a pretty little box!’ and says I: ‘yes, but what’s in it is prettier.’ Then I smelt my bread a-burning, and I put down the case right here,” said Mrs. Turner striking the corner of her kitchen table, “and I ran to see to my bread, and when I came back Jim was gone, and my spoon was gone too. And I don’t suppose it walked off itself—do you?”
“Of course it didn’t,” said Mrs. Martin; “but some one else might have come in, or it may be somewhere”—
“I’d like to know where that somewhere is, then,” said Mrs. Turner; “I have looked high and low and turned the house upside-down for a week, and I haven’t seen any spoon yet. And nobody could come in without my seeing them because the front door was locked and so was the kitchen door, and anybody who came in or went out had to go through the back kitchen where I was. I saw Jim go out with his pail, but I didn’t suspect anything then—why should I? And it isn’t the spoon I mind so much, it’s the trouble, and the idea of that boy that had been treated like one of the family—but I won’t say anymore about it. I’ll send him back to New York, and”—
“No, don’t do that! I guess I’ll take him,” said Mrs. Martin. “He hasn’t any home to go to, and if you send him back, there’s no telling what will become of him. Where is he?”
“I guess he is sulking about the place somewhere,” said Mrs. Turner. “He said he hadn’t done it, and now he won’t say another word. I’ll call him if you really want him.”