“Somebody get a wheelbarrow,” advised one of the boys. “That’s the only way she’ll ever tug-a-lug her change home.”
“Really, you needn’t bother,” she said, stammering a little. “No, don’t trouble yourself. I have changed my mind about buying anything.”
They all laughed.
“That isn’t money,” said the jimcrack man. “I’d never take that stuff for my goods.”
A girl ran up and grabbed into the coppers I had been, heaping on the stone. She was a Pratt.
“Ross Sidney, you stole that money,” she squealed. “It was in my granny’s notion-box. We couldn’t find it after she died. You stole it!”
“I didn’t steal it—I found it,” I told her. But all the courage had gone out of me.
“You ain’t the first thief to lie about your stealings.”
“But I did find it—I found it after the chimney blew down.”
“You knew it was ours. You didn’t bring it to us—that’s stealing.”