“Still, I’ll feel better satisfied when Howard gets here, and gives an expert opinion,” Mr. Craig replied. “He wrote he expected to be here today without fail.”
“Well, of course you’re entitled to your opinion, Tom,” Mr. Weaver replied, doubtfully. “But I never did set any store at all by these here government boys with their little satchels and tree doctor books. I’d just as soon walk up to an apple tree and hand it a blue pill or a shin plaster.”
Kit stood up hastily as Mr. Hicks drove in from the road.
“Hello,” he called out, “How are you, Tom? Howdy, Philip? Miss Kit here tells me you’ve been harboring a fruit thief, and you’ve caught him.”
Kit’s cheeks were bright red as she laid one hand on her father’s shoulder.
“Tommy’s got him right over in the corncrib, Mr. Hicks. I haven’t told Dad yet, because it might worry him. It isn’t anything at all, Dad,” she added, hurriedly. “We have been keeping a watch on the berry patch, and today it was my turn. I just happened to see somebody over there after the berries, so I told Tommy and Jack to go and get him, and I called up Mr. Hicks.”
Mr. Craig shook his head with a little smile. “I’m afraid Kit has been overambitious, Mr. Hicks,” he said. “I don’t know anything about this, but we’ll go over to the corncrib and find out what it’s all about.”
Kit and Evie secured a good vantage point up on the porch while the others skirted around the garden over to the old corncrib where Tommy and Jack stood guard.
“My, I like your place over here,” Evie exclaimed, wistfully. “You’ve got so many flowers. Mom says she can’t even grow a nasturtium on our place without the hens scratching it up.”
Kit nodded, but could not answer. Already she felt that all was not as it should be at the corncrib. She saw Tommy stealthily and cautiously put back the wide wooden bars that held the door, then Mr. Hicks, fully on the defensive with a stout hickory cane held in readiness for any unseemly move on the part of the culprit, advanced into the corncrib. Evie drew closer, her little freckled face full of curiosity.