“Yis! Yis!” he snapped, sure now of his triumph.
“Well I’m only sorry the blow was such a light one. I wish it had been struck by a man’s arm and sufficiently powerful to have half killed you! Even that would have been too good for you, you merciless brute! I’ve had you under my eye for your treatment of that poor horse for some time, and now I have you under my hand, and convicted by your own words in the presence of two witnesses, of absolute cruelty. I arrest you in the name of the S. P. C. A.”
For one brief moment Jabe stood petrified with astonishment. Then the brute in him broke loose and he started to lay about him right and left. His aggressiveness was brought to a speedy termination, for at a slight motion from Mr. Stuyvesant the two men sprang upon him, his arms were held and the next second there was a slight click and Jabe Raulsbury’s wrists were in handcuffs. That snap was the signal for his blustering to take flight for he was an arrant coward at heart.
“Now step into my wagon and sit there until I am ready to settle your case, my man, and that will be when I have looked to this little girl and the animal which, but for her pluck and courage, might have died in this ditch,” ordered Mr. Stuyvesant.
No whipped cur could have slunk toward the wagon more cowed.
“Now, little lassie, tell me your name and where you live,” said Mr. Stuyvesant lifting Jean bodily into his arms despite her mortification at being “handled just like a baby,” as she afterwards expressed it.
“I am Jean Carruth. I live on Linden Avenue. I’m—I’m terribly ashamed to be here, and to have struck him,” and she nodded toward the humbled figure in the wagon.
“You need not be. You did not give him one-half he deserves,” was the somewhat comforting assurance.
“O, but what will mother say? She’ll be so mortified when I tell her about it all. It seems as if I just couldn’t,” was the distressed reply.
“Must you tell her?” asked Mr. Stuyvesant, an odd expression overspreading his kind, strong face as he looked into the little girl’s eyes.