Things had disappeared around town often, but in the last three years especially. If folks were poor, they needed money.
Then Stellar Bahrr came into the ring.
Jerry had sat and listened to the proceedings as an indifferent spectator to what could in no wise concern her. With the entrance of Mrs. Bahrr to the witness-stand, the girl's big, dreamy eyes grew brighter and her firm mouth was set, but no mark of anxiety showed itself in her face or manner.
Mrs. Bahrr whined a bit as to wishing only to do the right thing, but her steel-pointed eyes, as she fixed them in Jerry, wrote as with a stylus across the girl's understanding:
"You are hopelessly in the minority. Now I can say what I please."
What Mrs. Bahrr really knew, of course, she couldn't swear to in any court, because of Laura and York Macpherson. She wouldn't shame them, because they had befriended a fraud, all with good intentions. She only came now because she'd been promised protection by the board from what folks would say, and she was speaking what must never be repeated.
"Most of us need that kind of protection when you are around," Ponk declared, vehemently, knowing that, while the school board would keep her words sacred, nothing said or done in that trial would be held sacred by her as soon as the decision she wished for was reached.
Stellar, feeling herself safe, paid no heed to Ponk. What she really knew was that a certain young lady had been known to take money from her hostess and, being caught, had been forced to give it up. Stellar herself saw and heard the whole thing when it happened. Laura had told her about the matter, and then, when she was just leaving, Jerry had returned the money. She was right outside of the vines on the porch, and she knew. Stellar knew that dollars and dollars, jewelry, silverware, and other valuables had been taken, and some of them never restored; but some was sneaked back when the pressure got too strong. In a word, through much talk and little sense, Miss Geraldine Swaim was branded a high-toned thief. And worse than that. For three years strange men had slipped to the Macpherson home when the folks were away, and been let out by the side door. Real low-down-looking fellows. Stellar had seen them herself. She had a way of running 'cross lots up to Laury's evenings, and she knew what she was talking about. Stellar dropped her eyes now, not caring to look at Jerry. Her blow had hit home and she was exultant.
"Has the young lady anything to say?" Lenwell of the school board asked, feeling a twinge of pity, after all, because the case was even stronger than he had hoped it could be made.
Jerry looked over at Stellar Bahrr until she was forced to lift her eyes to the girl's face.