“Just so; by that I mean all that good furniture you set fire to along with your house.”
Slocum turned ghastly white and almost staggered, but quickly recovering himself, he sprang forward furiously, and for a moment Mrs. Lane thought he was going to strike her, but glancing out the window she saw that Selectman Penfield was below, and this reassured her.
“I’ll have you arrested for slander as sure as my name’s Abiram Slocum,” he gasped, trying to get out the door in front of which she stood.
“I wouldn’t be too hasty; if you wait, you will hear more to get up that slander claim on, mostlike. Jest you go back and set down while I have my say, and if you want witnesses to it, Judge Ricker will step in, I’m sure, or Mr. Penfield either; they are both real handy. As you said yesterday, there’s underhand business been goin’ on in town if the light o’ truth could be let in, which I’m now doin’.”
So Abiram hesitated, and sank back into the chair, casting an uneasy look at his visitor, who proceeded to state her case both rapidly and clearly.
“’Twas Friday, the 10th of June, you fired that house, though you did give into the insurance company ’twas the 9th.” (Here again Slocum jumped, and his hands worked nervously.)
“The 10th was circus day, and most all the town had gone to Northboro. Likewise Lockwood’s field-hands went, and so there were no men folks working up beyond four corners; this gave you a clear coast.
“You started for the circus with Mis’is Slocum and ’Ram; you turned back, giving it out you’d got important business at the Mill Farm. But you didn’t go, and turned up before noon at the turnpike store, where you never trade. There you bought a new gallon can of kerosene, saying you was going up to the north lots to make a wash of it fer tent-worms in the apple trees. Now there ain’t even a wild crab tree in the north lots—only corn-fields.
“You went up that way all right, and a-spookin’ around the house. Everything was tight fast, and so the only place you could get in was by crawlin’ through the cellar winder, which you did, tearin’ a new pair o’ herrin’-bone pattern trousers so doin’.”