She waited an instant.
“We didn’t know what to do with it,” she went on, speaking more hesitatingly, “because you see my brother doesn’t like us to turn the house upside-down with cleanin’; he hates havin’ things disturbed; an’ we were afraid he would be put out to find what we’d done. So we decided to wait till some time when he wasn’t round an’ make way with it.”
“We’ve tried lots of ways,” she confessed wearily, “but none of ’em seemed to work. First I thought of hidin’ it up near Pine Ridge, but I was afraid some woodsman might happen on it; then I started to take it down to the river in our wagon; but Elias Barnes would get in an’ light his pipe, and I was so afraid a spark from it might——”
“I wish it had!” interpolated Ellen Webster with fervor.
“In order to get rid of him I had to turn round an’ come back,” narrated Jane, paying no heed to the interruption. “Then we tried to bury it, but afterward we dug it up for fear Martin might plow it up sometime an’ get——”
“’Twould ’a’ been an almighty good joke if he had!” again piped Ellen.
“So there didn’t seem to be any other way,” concluded Jane with dignity, “but to drop it in the brook; an’, as you never seemed to use this end of your pasture, we decided to sink it here.”
The narrative was true, every word of it. Ellen knew that. No one who looked into Jane Howe’s frank face could have doubted the story. 106
But Ellen was an ungenerous enemy who saw in the present happening an opportunity to put a screw upon those who had been thus compelled to throw themselves upon her mercy.