“Like enough we’ll be murdered in our beds,” said a woman, pushing her way into the center of things, “an’ ’twon’t be safe to live in Badgertown.”
And a thin voice on the fringe of the crowd piped out, “I warrant it’s the same man that stopped to my house this mornin’ for somethin’ to eat.”
“What did he look like, Grandsir Tibbs?” cried two or three.
“I dunno no more’n th’ dead,” said Grandsir querulously. His voice shook worse than ever, under the excitement of the thing. “His cap was drawed over his face—I shet th’ door on him.”
“Well, we’ve got to catch th’ feller,” declared a stalwart farmer, “an’ this boy,” laying his hand on David’s small shoulder, “is th’ only one who knows what th’ tramp looks like. Come on, youngster,” and before he knew what was going to happen, Davie was lifted up and dumped into a wagon, the owner jumping in and gathering up the reins.
“Stop!” cried the storekeeper’s wife, when she saw this, trying to break through the crowd.
“Catch th’ feller—come on—” the cry was taken up, and the other farmers in the wagons drove off after the one carrying Davie, Mrs. Atkins running along as far as her breath would permit, crying, “Stop—you mustn’t—take th’ boy! He’s David Pepper,” and sometimes she said, “He’s Mis Pepper’s boy.” But no matter how she screamed it, the wagons rolled on, and at last she sank down by the roadside.
“He’d take to th’ woods mos’ likely,” said the farmer who had David as a companion and thus was the leader, pointing off with his whip as he stood up in the wagon and looked back at the procession.
“Yes—yes,” they called back. So to the woods they whipped up.
When they drew up to a thick grove of pines skirting Badgertown, they all tumbled out of the wagons and peered cautiously in.