A week later, Miss Susan, going to her room to retire after a hard day, picked up her purse. It was lying on her bureau. Lorna had just paid a week's board and Miss Sue took the money from her pocket and opened the purse. Her eyes saw at once that the purse was empty, the five crisp five-dollar bills Lem's father had given her were gone.
For a moment or two she stood, her hand laid along her cheek, thinking. No, she had not taken the money from the purse. She could remember putting it there, but not taking it out again. She opened her door and walked toward Lem's room.
At Lem's door she paused, for she heard the boy moving about. She opened the door suddenly.
Lem stood, as he had stood on that other night, fully dressed and his ragged straw hat on his head. In his hand was a handkerchief, tied together by the four corners and bulging with the food he had purloined to sustain him on his journey. As the door opened he leaped for the window, but Miss Susan overtook him and dragged him back into the room. He kicked and struck at her, but she held fast. Lorna and Henrietta came to the door, and a minute later Johnnie Alberson also came, all fully clad, for these pleasant nights all sat late. Freeman did not appear; he was with Gay, across the street, on her porch.
“You hold the little rat!” Susan cried, and Johnnie grasped the boy from behind. Miss Susan's hands felt the boy's pockets. Unlike that other time Lem did not struggle now.
“You leave me alone!” he kept repeating. “You better leave me alone!”
Not until Miss Susan took the five crisp bills from his pocket did he begin to cry.
“Don't you take that; that's my money, you old thief, you!” he sobbed helplessly. “You stole my dollar, and you want to steal everything, you old thief!”
“Quiet, Lem!” Henrietta said, but this time the boy paid no heed. If she meant to suggest that he “go stiff” again, the hint was lost. All the fight, all hope, all belief that anything would ever be right again in his unhappy life seemed to have deserted the boy. It was Johnnie Alberson who tried to comfort him.
“Oh, here! Come now!” he said, still holding fast to Lem, however. “Don't cry. That's not how big boys do. What's the trouble all about, anyway?”