“Jess so; Joel Butterfield; funny I couldn’t remember his name. I did think of cheese. Wall, he was wonderful for smellin’ a rat, jess like Dot; she’s allus smellin’ things when there’s nothin’ to smell. Says he,—that’s Joel, I mean,—says he to Mari, says he, ‘Was anybody to your house last night?’ First she said there wasn’t; then she said there was, but she didn’t see ’em. ’Twas Monday, washin’ day, and Miss Dalton’s washin’s was big; allus wore white gowns in the summer. Had two in the wash that day, and four white skirts, and Mari was tired and went to bed early and dropped asleep at once. Bimeby she waked up and heard a man’s voice speakin’ to Miss Dalton, low like. Thinkin’ it was Mr. Dalton, she went to sleep agin, and didn’t wake till mornin’, but had bad dreams, as of a scuffle of some kind. When she asked Miss Dalton who was talkin’ if ’twasn’t Mr. Dalton, Miss Dalton said ’twas a stranger who wanted to see Mr. Dalton. She didn’t know his name, but sent him to the tarvern, where she s’posed her husband was, sayin’ he was to tell him to come right home, for she was afraid in the storm. This looked queer, and Joel and the bartender started post haste for the Dalton House.
“It was a beautiful mornin’, but it had rained so hard the night afore that the road in the lane was soft as putty, and they see plain the mark of wheels and horses’ feet which went up to the house, turned round, went out of the lane and off toward East Ridgefield. Joel noticed it and p’inted it out to the bartender, whose name I don’t know, and it don’t matter,—he was no kin to Dot. They went into the house,—Joel and the bartender,—and found Miss Dalton fresh as a pink in a white gown, with a blue ribbon round her waist and a rose stuck in it, and she a workin’ a sampler. Know what that is?”
Craig confessed his ignorance, and Uncle Zach explained: “They used to work ’em years ago in school, and at home on canvas with colored yarn or silk. Sometimes the Lord’s Prayer; sometimes a verse of scripter, but oftenest the names of the family, and when they was born. Dot’s got one, but she hid it away after she got to be forty. Wall, Miss Dalton set in a rockin’ chair, workin’ Mr. Dalton’s name, and when he was born, and lookin’ as innocent as the baby playin’ on the floor. I forgot to tell you there was a little boy two years old, with eyes like his mother. That’s Mark’s grandfather. When Miss Dalton see Mari, who came in fust, she asked as chipper like, ‘Did you find him? Was he there?’
“‘No,’ says Mari. ‘It’s mighty curis, too, for he started for home about eleven o’clock.’
“‘Yes,’ says Joel and the bartender, comin’ in behind her. ‘He started home at eleven o’clock. I’m afraid there’s been foul play somewhere.’
“‘Foul play,’ Miss Dalton gasped, and her face began to grow white, and there was a scared look in her eyes, which rolled round as if lookin’ for some place to hide.
“‘Yes, marm,’ says Joel. ‘Foul play of the wust kind. Whose buggy track is that up to the door and back, and off to the east? Who was here last night? They didn’t come to the tarvern.’
“Then she turned whiter, and wanted a glass of water, and told of the strange actin’ man who had asked for Mr. Dalton, and began to wonder if anything could have happened to her John. The bartender had gone into the yard, and was lookin’ round near the well,—one of them old-fashioned kind, with a curb and sweep and bucket. It is there now,—the well, I mean. Of course, there’s been a new curb and bucket.
“‘Great Scott’ says ’ee, faint like and sick at the pit of his stomach.
“All round the well in the mud and grass was the tracks of men’s feet, as if there had been a hard scuffle.