"I am sure he is very good," said Eben, rather overwhelmed. "I didn't do any more than my duty."
"Well, no, perhaps not," replied Jeduthun. "Few of us do, for that matter. Fact is, Eben, you never knew quite how much you did do that night, because it wasn't thought best to tell you while you was so weak, but them fellows had laid all their plans to fire the mill. The next day, when I was hunting round, I found a great bunch of paper and shavings and kindlings soaked with kerosene stuffed in behind Mr. Antis's desk. They meant to get all they could, and then set the mill on fire. If that had gone, the sawmill must have gone too, and nobody knows how much more!"
"Just to think what wickedness folks will do for money!" said Mrs. Fairchild.
"It wasn't altogether for money, either," replied Jeduthun. "One of the men had a spite at the old gentleman for trying to break up the drinking and gambling hole he kept over in Hobartown. He chose his time well, if he had but known it, for the insurance had been run out for two or three days, so if the mills had burned, they would have been a dead loss."
"I shouldn't suppose that Mr. Antis would have let the insurance run out," remarked Flora.
"Well, he oughtn't to, that's so, Miss Flora, but that's about the only fault I ever see in Mr. Antis. He's a little too apt to put things off—to think they can just as well be done another time, when it comes a little more convenient. That was the way about the bell-rope. But he's got a lesson now, the boss has, and I don't think he'll ever forget it. I never saw a man feel so bad as he did that time Eben was crazy, and used to talk so much about the bell."
"Did I?" asked Eben. "I don't remember anything about it."
"Folks don't often remember what they say when they are out of their heads," replied Jeduthun. "But for two or three days you were always talking about that bell-rope, and saying if you could only get at it; it was as much as I could do to keep you in bed sometimes. Well, once I just stepped out of the door to get some ice, and there was Mr. Antis leaning up against the wall listening and as white as a sheet. I made as if I didn't notice him, for folks don't always like to be looked at when they feel bad, but he caught hold of my hands and cried just like a girl. 'Jeduthun,' said he, 'if that boy dies, I shall be his murderer!'"
"I think that was going too far," said Flora. "I suppose it takes intentions to make a murderer?"
"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Fairchild. "Not that I think Mr. Antis a murderer—far from it. But just look at Lucinda Bell's children," alluding to a terrible kerosene tragedy which had taken place in the neighbourhood not very long before. "Lucinda knew how dangerous it was to fill a lighted kerosene lamp. I have told her of it myself many a time, and so had Mr. Fairchild."