“I know what you mean by them words, Jonathan, but I don’t take no offense at ’em. I know that there ain’t no other man about here who would be willin’ to take him into his house; but somehow I couldn’t forgit that he’s my brother’s son. He hain’t got no livin’ relations except me, as one may say—seein’ that his mother is dead an’ his father locked up in prison—an’ so I thought I had oughter do something for him.”
“That shows your goodness of heart,” said Mr. Brown, who was well enough acquainted with his friend Ruben to know that the latter never would have offered George a home under his roof if he had not believed that he could make something by it. “But it’s my opinion that that there nephew of yourn will be shut up in prison, same as his father is, before many days more have passed over his head.”
“Sho!” exclaimed Uncle Ruben, who was greatly astonished. “You don’t tell me! What’s he been a-doin’ of?”
“I don’t say that he’s been a-doin’ of anything,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m only givin’ you my opinion; an’ it’s the opinion of more’n one man in town, too. Now jest listen to me while I tell you. You know that there was a heap of stealin’ goin’ on about here a while back, don’t you?”
Yes, Uncle Ruben knew all about it. He knew that burglaries had been of so frequent occurrence that the village merchants had clubbed together and hired a couple of night watchmen to patrol the streets.
“Well,” continued Mr. Brown, “you remember that while all them stores were bein’ broke into an’ robbed, our hen-roosts an’ spring-houses didn’t escape, don’t you?”
Uncle Ruben remembered it perfectly, and he thought of it now with no little bitterness of heart.
He had missed more than one tub of butter from his spring-house, and nearly all his fine Plymouth Rock chickens had disappeared, and left no trace behind.
“All that was mighty curious, seein’ that we couldn’t find no track of the robbers; but something that happened arterward was still more curious. When George’s mother was took sick, an’ he had to stay to home an’ look out for her, there wasn’t no more stealin’ done. You remember that, too, don’t you?”
Uncle Ruben fairly jumped from the ground, so great was the surprise occasioned by these words.