"Oh, Tilly, I'm afraid you don't realize. Uncle Reuben will send a sheriff to arrest you. And the girls have thought so much of you—especially Ruby Nutting."
"You needn't say a word about her." Tilly swallowed a lump chokingly. "You needn't tell her, nor anything. She hasn't got anything to do with it. She's give me all the chance I've had to get good times, and her father has been awful good to us; and now I suppose they won't be any more. But—but poor folks must expect to be called thieves, and took up. The worst is, now they'll be sure Alf broke into that store, and he didn't! no more'n your cousin did! No, that isn't the worst. The worst is that Miss Farnham, the milliner, won't have me now! She was going to take me half a day to do chores and help her; 'twas an awful good chance! It chirked mother right up to think we were going to be so much like folks, and now—" Tilly kept her voice steady, but it was by a strong effort.
"Tilly, it might come right now if you would only tell all about it," said Patty, earnestly. "It seems as if there were some mystery."
"You go 'long home!" cried Tilly, fiercely, and slammed the door upon Patty. Her sharp, hard, little features were working convulsively, and Patty heard a long sob inside the door.
She went home feeling more strongly than ever that there was a mystery, and pleaded earnestly for Tilly. Aunt Eunice joined her, and promised to go and see Tilly's mother, and talk with her about the matter if Uncle Reuben would delay his sterner measures.
They might not have been able to persuade him to do so—his bitter grief for his son had served to harden him against Alf Coombs's relatives—if nature had not seemed to take Tilly's part and enforced a delay; the heavy snow-fall was followed by a pouring rain and what they called at Butternut Corner an old-fashioned January thaw. Uncle Reuben was a mill-owner, and his property was threatened by the freshet, so he had no time to think of Tilly Coombs.
Aunt Eunice had a touch of her old enemy rheumatism, and could not go down to confer with Mrs. Coombs, and so the matter remained unsettled.
On the very first day when the sun shone out Ruby Nutting came up the hill to ask Patty to take a walk. It made no difference that they would go over shoe in mud with every step. Ruby wouldn't take no for an answer; that was the way with Ruby; besides, she said that this was something very particular. When they reached the foot of the hill Patty found herself being led into the road which bordered the old mill-pond, and she shrank back.
"Yes, we're going to miser Jensen's house, but you needn't be afraid; he has gone away for the winter. There won't be any more clothes-lines or hen-roosts robbed now. And that makes me think. Oh, Patty, what did your aunt think of those chickens that were tied to her door-knob? And what did you think of losing your nice roasted ones? But I didn't mean to tell you that I took them until you had seen poor Tramp. Your aunt liked Tramp; she will forgive me when she knows I took them for him."
"You took them—for Tramp?" repeated Patty, in bewilderment. "I heard that Tramp was mad!"