Ruel Smith - The Rival Campers Ashore - or, The Mystery of the Mill

The old woman's strength failed her, and she fell back on the couch. The girl stood for a moment, silent, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"But you said 'twas all ours, anyway, gran'," she sobbed. "Will I have to go to prison, do you think?"

"Nonsense!" cried Grannie Thornton. "But if Ellison found it out – "

Bess Thornton was darting out of the doorway.

"He'll find it out now," she said, bitterly. "I'll tell him. I don't care what happens to me."

Benjamin Ellison, James Ellison's nephew, a heavy-set, large-boned, clumsily-built youth, lounged lazily in the dooryard of the Ellison homestead as the girl neared the gate, a quarter of an hour later.

"Hello, Tomboy," he said, barring her entrance, with arms outstretched. "Don't know as I'll let you in this way. Let's see you jump the fence. Say, what's the matter with you? Ho! ho! Why, you look like that cat I dropped in the brook yesterday. You've got a ducking, somehow. Your clothes aren't all dry yet. Who – ?"

The youth's bantering was most unexpectedly interrupted. He himself didn't know exactly how it happened. He only knew that the girl had darted suddenly forward, that he had been neatly tripped, and that he found himself lying on his back in a clump of burdocks.

"Here, you beggar!" he cried, spitefully, scrambling to his feet and making after her. "You'll get another ducking for that."

But the girl, as though knowing human nature, instinctively ran close beside another youth, of about the same size as Benjamin, who had just appeared from the house, caught him by an arm and said, "Don't let him hurt me, will you, John? I tripped him up. Oh, but you ought to have seen him!"

Her errand was forgotten for an instant and she laughed a merry laugh.

The boy thus appealed to, a youth of about his cousin's size, but of a less heavy mould, stood between her and the other.

"You go on, Bennie," he said, laughing. "Let her alone. Oh ho, that's rich! Put poor old Bennie on his back, did you, Bess? What do you want?"

The girl's mirth vanished, and her face flushed.

"I want to see your father," she said, slowly.

"All right, go in the door there," responded John Ellison. "He's all alone in the dining-room."

Farmer Ellison, finishing his third cup of coffee, and leaning back in his chair, looked up in surprise, as the girl stepped noiselessly across the threshold and confronted him.

"Well! Well!" he exclaimed, eying her somewhat sharply. "Why didn't you knock at the door? Forgotten how? What do you want?"

The girl waited for a moment before replying, shuffling her bare feet and tugging at her damp dress. Then she seemed to gather her courage. She looked resolutely at Farmer Ellison.

"I want a licking, I guess," she said.

Farmer Ellison's face relaxed into a grim smile.

"A licking," he repeated. "Well, I reckon you deserve it, all right, if not for one thing, then for something else."

"I guess I do," said Bess Thornton.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" queried Farmer Ellison, looking puzzled. "Can't old Mother Thornton give it to you?"

"No," replied the girl. "She's sick. And besides, she didn't know what I was going to do. I did it all myself, early this morning."

Farmer Ellison looked up quickly. An expression of suspicion stole over his face. He looked at the girl's bedraggled dress.

"What have you been up to?" he asked, sternly.

"I've been stealing," replied the girl. "'Twas – 'twas – "

Farmer Ellison sprang up from his seat.

"'Twas you, then, down by the shore?" he cried. "Confound it! I knew I didn't need them burdock bitters all the time I was takin' 'em. Stealing my trout, eh? Don't tell me you caught any?"

"Only three."

The girl half whispered the reply.

Farmer Ellison seized the girl by an arm and shook her roughly.

"Bring them back!" he cried. "Where are they?"

"I can't," stammered the girl; "they're cooked."

He shook her again.

"You ate my trout!" he cried. "Pity they didn't choke you. Didn't you feel like choking – eating stolen trout, eh?"

"Gran' did," said the girl, ruefully. "But 'twas a bone, sir. She didn't know they were stolen till I told her."

The sound of Farmer Ellison's wrathful voice had rung through the house, and at this moment a woman entered the room. At the sight of her, Bess Thornton suddenly darted away from the man's grasp, ran to Mrs. Ellison, hid her face in her dress and sobbed.

"I didn't think 'twas so bad," she said. "I – I won't do it again – ever."

Mrs. Ellison, whose face expressed a tenderness in contrast to the hardness of her husband's, stroked the girl's hair softly, seated herself in a rocking chair, and drew the girl close to her.

"What made you take the fish?" she inquired softly.

"Well, gran' said we ought to have the whole place by rights – "

Mrs. Ellison directed an inquiring glance at her husband.

"She's been complaining that way ever since I bought it," he said.

"And gran' was sick and I thought she'd like some of the trout," continued the girl. "She's got rheumatics and can't work this week, you know."

"But wouldn't it have been better to ask?" queried Mrs. Ellison, kindly. "Didn't you feel kind of as though it was wrong, eating something you had no right to take?"

"I didn't," answered the girl, promptly. "I didn't eat any. I was going to, though, till gran' said what she did – "

"Then you haven't had anything to eat to-day?" asked Mrs. Ellison, feeling a sudden moisture in her own eyes.

"No," said the girl.

"And what makes your dress so wet? Did you fall in?"

"No-o-o," exclaimed the girl. "I swam the pool. And I did it all the way under water. I didn't think I could, and I almost died holding my breath so long. But I did it."

There was a touch of pride in her tone.

"James," said Mrs. Ellison. "Leave her to me. I'll say all that's needed, I don't think she'll do it again."

"Indeed I won't – truly," said Bess Thornton.

Farmer Ellison walked to the door, with half a twinkle in his eye. "Clear across the pool under water," he muttered to himself. "Sure enough, I didn't need them burdock bitters."

A few minutes later, Bess Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in the Ellison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. A motherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wiped her eyes now and again with a corner of her apron.

"She'd have been about her age," she whispered to herself once softly, and bent and gave the girl a kiss.

When Bess Thornton left the house, she carried a basket on one arm that made Grannie Thornton stare in amazement when she looked within.

"No, no," she said, all of a tremble, as the girl drew forth some of the delicacies, and offered them to her. "Not a bit of it for me. I'll not touch it. You can. And see here, don't go up on the hill again, do you hear? Keep away from the Ellisons'."

She had such a strange, excited, almost frightened way with her that the child urged her no further, but put the basket away, put of her sight.

"Mrs. Ellison asked me to come again," she said to herself, sighing. "I don't see why gran' should care."

It was early of a Saturday afternoon, warm and sultry. Everything in the neighbourhood of the Half Way House seemed inclined to drowsiness. Even the stream flowing by at a little distance moved as though its waters were lazy. The birds and the cattle kept their respective places silently, in the treetops and beneath the shade. Only the flies, buzzing about the ears of Colonel Witham's dog that lay stretched in the dooryard, were active.

They buzzed about the fat, florid face of the colonel, presently, as he emerged upon the porch, lighted his after-dinner pipe and seated himself in a big wooden arm-chair. But the annoyance did not prevent him from dozing as he smoked, and, finally, from dropping off soundly to sleep.