As soon as he was settled before the fire in the living-room, the four children sitting in a row on the hearth rug and Mother Blossom in her chair opposite, Father Blossom told them what he had learned that afternoon.
“Mr. Baldwin telephoned me as soon as he heard of the arrest of the tramps,” said Father Blossom, “and I came into town at once and met him and Mr. Davis and Mr. Ashe at Recorder Scott’s office. Mr. Bennett was also there. The tramps didn’t seem to be bad fellows, only shiftless and careless. One of them had worked for Mr. Bennett several years ago.
“The recorder gave them an informal hearing and though vagrancy was the charge against them, he began to question them about where they had been and what towns they stopped in during the last few months. He surprised them into admitting that they were in Oak Hill around Thanksgiving time and though they denied they had been in the carpenter shop, he finally drove them into a corner and one of them owned up to having slept in the shop the night it burned. The man said they were cold and they found the shop window open and crawled in, meaning to stay till morning. They smoked a pipe or two and then went to sleep. The crackling of flames awoke them, and they found the shop on fire. Though they were terribly frightened, they were good enough to grope through the smoke and heat till they found the cat and tossed her out of the window. Then they broke down the door and got out and ran for dear life. Naturally they were not anxious to be charged with setting the fire.”
“But if they were seen around the shop, why weren’t they traced?” asked Mother Blossom. “How could Mr. Bennett suspect five little boys?”
“Oh, boys and mischief go together in some people’s minds,” said Father Blossom, smiling at Bobby. “And the tramps were sixty miles away before morning. They caught a fast freight out of town. But now everyone in Oak Hill knows who set the fire, for good news travels fast.”
Bobby felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his mind. Back in his head, ever since the fire and Mr. Bennett’s charge that he and his chums were responsible, had been the question: “Does everyone think I did it?” Now he knew that everyone knew and, best of all, he could go back to school with no fear of being taunted with being a “fire-bug.”
“Will the tramps have to go to prison?” he asked Father Blossom that night.
“No, not to prison, I think,” replied Father Blossom. “It will depend to some extent on Mr. Bennett. But no one can do wrong and not be punished, Bobby. Sooner or later, we have to pay for wrong doing and mistakes.”
Saturday Meg and Bobby went together for the last afternoon of skating they could enjoy before school opened. The holidays were almost over. Bobby had his skates on first and he and Fred and Palmer were racing across the pond to see who could reach the other side and be back before Meg should be ready, when Bobby heard his sister give a little cry.
“Tim’s teasing her!” shouted Bobby angrily. “Just wait till I get him!”