“One of us must set out here with th’ boy—we ain’t a-goin’ to drag him in.”
“I’ll set,” offered one man, coming up to Davie’s wagon.
“Yes, I know you’d offer,” said the farmer to whom that vehicle belonged, “but all th’ same, you ain’t a-goin’ to have that easy part. Simeon Jones—you come an’ take keer o’ this boy, will you, till we fetch out th’ feller?”
“All right,” said Farmer Jones, driving up. “Come, git in here;” he again came perilously near to saying “Hop o’ my Thumb,” but he coughed and just saved himself.
David, being in that position where there was nothing to do but to obey, jumped out of his wagon and into that of Farmer Jones, who received him gladly.
“Sho now!” began Mr. Jones, clearing his throat, “th’ tramp robbed Mr. Atkins—eh?”
“He didn’t get any money,” said David, folding his small hands.
“That’s good!” cried Farmer Jones, slapping his leg. “Well, I ’spect you kept him from it,” he said, looking down admiringly at the little figure on the other half of the old leather seat. “Gosh! You ain’t bigger’n a half a pint o’ cider, but I b’lieve you did it—eh?”
David fought shy of this question and said nothing. But it was no use. By little and little, Farmer Jones, being a man who, to put it into his own words, “stuck to a thing like an old dog to a bone,” wormed the story out of David, helplessly miserable at being obliged to tell it.
Suddenly the body of Badgertown citizens trooped out from the woods. In the midst of them was the young man with the evil eyes, who had visited Mr. Atkins’ store.