And the next visitor who came was none other than Uncle Ruben, who looked better natured now than he did the last time we saw him.
“I’ll fix him,” he kept muttering to himself. “I’ll l’arn him to throw away the chance of a good home, when he might have had it jest as well as not. I am his only livin’ relation, so to speak, an’ I had oughter be his gardeen an’ have the profits of his work till he comes of age; but he wouldn’t let me, an’ now I’ll put him where he’ll have to work for nothing.”
Uncle Ruben also carried a bundle under his arm, and, as it was not very neatly made up, the contents of it could have been named by any one who had chanced to meet him on the road. The heads of a couple of chickens, whose necks had been wrung, stuck out of one end of it, while two pairs of yellow legs projected from the other.
The man made his appearance late on Friday afternoon. He was not as stealthy in his movements as the first visitors were, for he knew that the coast was clear, having seen his nephew sail up the lake toward Mr. Stebbins’ farm.
What business the boy had up there Uncle Ruben did not know; but of course his suspicions were aroused, and it was not long before those suspicions gave way to positive conviction.
Having hitched his old clay-bank back in the bushes, out of sight, Uncle Ruben hastened to the rear of the cabin, and, picking up a sharp stick, he began raking away the leaves and digging in the ground, thus making it evident that he was preparing a place of concealment for the chickens he had brought with him.
By the merest accident he struck upon the very spot on which the boys of whom we have spoken had hidden their bundles, and he was not long in bringing them to light.
“What on ’arth is them?” soliloquized Uncle Ruben as the bundles were thrown out of the hole one after the other.
His eyes opened to their widest extent, his under jaw dropped down, and he seemed to be very much disconcerted by the discovery he had made.
He looked all around to make sure that he was alone, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he dropped down on his knees and began untying the strings with which the bundles were fastened.