“Thought I’d get an early start so I could sit awhile with you,” she called breezily. “The Judge had to go to court at Putnam. Real sad case, too. Some of our home boys in trouble. I told him not to dare send them up to any State homes or reformatories, but to put them on probation and make their families pay the fines.”
Kit was just getting into her school rig, ready for her long drive down to catch the trolley car to High School.
“Oh, what is it, Cousin Roxy?” she called from the side entry. “Do tell us some exciting news.”
“Well, I guess it is pretty exciting for the poor mothers.” Mrs. Ellis got out of the carriage and hitched Ella Lou deftly, then came into the house. “There’s been considerable things stolen lately, just odds and ends of harness and bicycle supplies from the store, and three hams from Miss Bugbee’s cellar, and so on; a little here and a little there, hardly no more’n a real smart magpie could make away with. But the men folks set out to catch whoever it might be, and if they didn’t land three of our own home boys. It makes every mother in town shiver.”
“None that we know, are there?” asked Helen, with wide eyes.
“I guess not, unless it may be Abby Tucker’s brother Martin. There his poor mother scrimped and saved for weeks to buy him a wheel out of her butter and egg money, and it just landed him in mischief. Off he kited, first here and then there with the two Lonergan boys from North Center, and they had a camp up towards Cynthy Allan’s place, where they played they were cave robbers or something, just boy fashion. I had the Judge up and promise he’d let them off on probation. There isn’t one of them over fifteen, and Gilead can’t afford to let her boys go to prison. And I shall drive over this afternoon and give their mothers some good advice.”
“Why not the fathers too?” asked Jean. “Seems as if mothers get all the blame when boys go wrong.”
“No, it isn’t that exactly.” Cousin Roxy put her feet up on the nickel fender of the big wood stove, and took off her wool lined Arctics, loosened the wide brown veil she always wore tied around her crocheted gray winter bonnet, and let Doris take off her heavy shawl and gray and red knit “hug-me-tight.” It was quite a task to get her out of her winter cocoon. “I knew the two fathers when they were youngsters too. Fred Lonergan was as nice and obliging a lad as ever you did see, but he always liked cider too well, and that made him lax. I used to tell him when he couldn’t get it any other way, he’d squeeze the dried winter apples hanging still on the wild trees. He’ll have to pay the money damage, but the real sorrow of the heart will fall on Emily, his wife. She used to be our minister’s daughter, and she knows what’s right. And the Tucker boy never did have any sense or his father before him, but his mother’s the best quilter we’ve got. If I’d been in her shoes I’d have put Philemon Tucker right straight out of my house just as soon as he began to squander and hang around the grocery store swapping horse stories with men folks just like him. It’s her house from her father, and I shall put her right up to making Philemon walk a chalk line after this, and do his duty as a father.”
“Oh, you glorious peacemaker,” exclaimed Mrs. Robbins, laughingly. “You ought to be the selectwoman out here, Roxy.”
“Well,” smiled Cousin Roxy comfortably, “The Judge is selectman, and that’s next best thing. He always takes my advice. If the boys don’t behave themselves now, I shall see that they are squitched good and proper.”