"You bet it was!" murmured Pippin. "Go on, sir!"
"'Twas hayin' last year done the mischief. Myron hired out to a man over Tinkham way—that was after he'd got through with the hayin' here—and there he met up with some that was no better than they should be by all accounts. Pippin, that boy left us an innocent boy, that never had a bad word in his mouth that ever I heard, nor no one round here. He come back—" the gruff voice faltered—"he come back different, sir. He'd slap through his work and then off he'd go and set down behind the shed and read. He'd got a lot of books from some one he'd met up with; them Sleuth stories, you know, and like that, little paper books. You've seen 'em?"
"I've seen 'em!" Pippin nodded.
"He'd set there by the hour, readin' and readin', and oftentimes the cows bellerin' their hearts out to be milked. I'd come back from the field and find him with his nose in the book, and his eyes startin' out of his head. There warn't no cows nor no farm nor nothin' for him those times. I'd get real worked up, now and then, and give him a good callin' down, and he'd do better for a spell; but that was only the beginning." He glanced round again, and his voice dropped to a whisper.
"There's more to it. Things begun to be missed round here! It's been goin' on all winter; nothin' great, just a little here and a little there. Folks begun to talk, and some claimed 'twas tramps, and some begun to wonder—He's only a boy, you understand, Pippin! Oftentimes the thinkin' part grows up slower than what the bodily part does, ain't that so?"
Pippin met the anxious eyes cheerfully.
"That's so! Why, likely he wasn't more than ten years old, come to look inside of him. Where you'll find one boy that knows just where hookin' ends and stealin' begins, you'll find a dozen that don't. And there's more to it than that; but go on, sir! I'm just as interested as I can be!"
"This spring, a feller come along, and Myron knew him; he was one of them he had met over Tinkham way, and he was trampin'. Lookin' for work, he said, but if I ever saw a countenance that said lookin' for mischief, 'twas his. Young man, too! Well, Myron brought him in and we treated him well, because Myron seemed so taken with him. We give him a bed, and next day I set him to work hoein'—said he wanted work, you understand—and he appeared pleased as pie. Myron was hoein', too; we can't keep the witch grass out of that field, try our best. I was busy in the barn that day, choppin' hay, but yet I'd come out now and then jest to let 'em know I was round, and every time I'd find 'em with their heads together, tongues doin' the work and hoes takin' a noon spell: quick as they saw me they'd shut up and go to work. Well! I'd ought to have known then that they was plottin' mischief, but you don't look for your own folks—"
He broke off, and was silent a moment. Pippin assured himself that it was all right; it hurt, and thank the Lord it did! How'd he feel if it didn't?