At the Little Brown House Part 27

"Oh, what big ones!" cried the visiting quartette. "Surely you won't sell all these for five dollars?"

"No, only twenty," answered Peace gravely. "You can't have the two biggest ones, and of course you don't want the crooked fellers. Mike says they will sell for twenty-five cents each in Martindale."

So the twenty splendid melons were cut and loaded into the wagon, Peace was paid a spandy new five-dollar bill, and the visitors departed merrily. The child watched them out of sight, still holding fast to her money, and then turned to Gail, sighing contentedly, "Now we can go to the Fair! I've had an awful job getting rid of those things, but they are gone at last, and here is the money. I 'xpect Mike will be mad as hops, but he didn't know beans when he said they weren't ripe. I've raised melons enough so I know."

"But, dearie," interrupted the oldest sister, "you mustn't spend your money so recklessly for our pleasure. It will take almost half of that five dollars just to pay our way into the grounds, and another dollar for carfare."

"Then it's lucky Mike didn't sell the melons for me," said Peace, "or I 'xpect we'd have had to walk. I sold those watermelons just so's we all could go to the Fair, Gail, and now you mustn't say no."

"Then I won't," suddenly whispered the tired mother-sister, seeing the longing in the somber brown eyes, and realizing the child's unselfish love. "When is Mrs. Grinnell to take your big melons away?"

"Tomorrow," she said. "The Fair begins Monday, you know."

"Then you better go say good-bye to them now," teased Faith. "It is nearly supper time, and you will hardly have a chance in the morning."

But Peace shook her head, declaring seriously, "There will be time enough. And if the melons don't win a prize, we'll bring them back home, Mrs. Grinnell says."

When the morning dawned, however, and Peace ran eagerly down to visit her garden, she stopped in dismay at the sight which greeted her eyes.

On the ground, strewn all over the patch, were broken, battered melon-rinds; and the two mammoth b.a.l.l.s were gone.

"Oh, my darlings! my precious melons!" she cried in grief. "Someone has eaten them all up!" Throwing herself flat amid the wreck, she sobbed as if her heart would break, so overwhelmed by her loss that it never occurred to her to report the disaster to the rest of the family. It was too cruel!

When the hot tears had relieved the little heart somewhat, she sat up and looked about her once more, saying, with quivering lips, "I don't s'pose they would have won a prize anyway, but it was hatefully mean of whoever took them. I'll bet Mike O'Hara did it to get even with me for selling the others to the city folks and keeping all the money myself!

I'm going straight over and tell him what a nice kind of a gentleman he is."

She bounced to her feet, started swiftly across the patch, caught her toe in a tough vine and fell sprawling on the ground again, rapping her head smartly on a small, unripe melon at the edge of the field. "Mercy!

you're a hard-sh.e.l.led old sinner!" she exclaimed, rubbing her bruised forehead and glaring at the offending fruit. "Well, no wonder! I hit a knife, as sure as you're alive! It ain't Mike's either. It's--Hector Abbott's! Why didn't I think of him before? Of course he is the _culvert_; but I'll bet he will wish he hadn't seen those melons when I get through with him."

Burning with indignation, she sped away to the village, never pausing until the Judge's house was reached. As she approached the place she could see the family gathered around the breakfast table, set on the wide, screened porch; and forgetting to knock, she threw open the door and rushed in as if on the wings of the wind. Straight to Hector's chair she stalked, and before the surprised family could recover their breath, she clutched the unhappy youth by the hair and jerked him out of his seat, crying accusingly, "Hec Abbott, you disgraceful son of a judge!

You stole my melons, my State Fair melons! You can't say you didn't, 'cause I've found your knife in the garden! I s'pose it walked there, didn't it? Well, maybe it did, but _you_ walked it! You can just settle for damages this very minute!"

By this time the Judge had found his tongue, and loosening the angry fingers from his youngest son's luxuriant topknot, he demanded of Peace, "What do you mean by such actions? Where are your manners? Why didn't you knock? Who brought you up?"

"Why didn't _Hec_ knock when he came for my melons last night? Where are _his_ manners? What did _he_ mean by such actions? _You brung him up!_"

Len Abbott choked over his coffee, Cecile hid her face in her napkin, and even the anxious mother smiled, but the Judge looked more ruffled than abashed, and he fairly thundered, "How do you know the knife is Hector's?"

"Don't you s'pose I have seen it enough to know whose it is? Didn't I grab it from him the day he pretended to cut off Lola Hunt's ears? I cut his hand, too, but he deserved it! He's the meanest boy at school next to Jimmy Jones. Teacher took the knife away one time when he was skinning a frog, and I saw it then. Anyway, it's got his name on it,--not just his 'nitials, but his whole name. And there it is!"

She held out the article for the Judge's inspection, and that worthy gentleman, seeing the look of guilt in his small son's face, pocketed it, saying whimsically to the wrathful accuser, "That is merely circ.u.mstantial evidence. He might yet be innocent of the charge."

"He might," Peace retorted grimly; "but he ain't! Ask him!"

The Judge turned gravely to the crimson-cheeked lad and asked severely, "Son, are you guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty," muttered the miserable culprit.

"Didn't I tell you?" triumphed the girl.

"What would you recommend as his sentence?" asked the Judge.

"Sentence?" repeated Peace, with the uncomfortable feeling that she was being laughed at.

"Punishment, I mean."

"A good, sound thrashing that ain't all show and no hurt," was the harsh verdict.

"Very well! I will administer it now. Len, hand me that strap. Hector, come here!"

Leonard pa.s.sed the strap to his father, the younger son shuffled across the porch to receive his sentence, and Peace stood breathlessly by, watching with frightened eyes. The Judge raised the strip of leather and brought it down with a resounding thwack across the boy's legs. He squirmed, let out a wild yell, and began to blubber. The strap rose and fell the second time, there was a second yell, and Peace, with blazing eyes and blanched face, flew in between man and boy, s.n.a.t.c.hed the upraised strap and flung it clear across the room, screaming in fierce indignation, "Don't you touch him again! You're a pretty kind of a judge! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"You sentenced him yourself," stammered the surprised man.

"Well, I'll let him off this time," she replied slowly, "but he will have to pay for those melons."

"How much?"

"A dollar each."

"Whew! They are pretty expensive fruit, aren't they?"

"I've put more'n a dollar's worth of trouble into getting them ready for the Fair, and now he's et up my blue ribbon."

"Your blue ribbon?"

"Yes, maybe those melons would have won a blue ribbon. Now I'll never know."

"Well, well, that's too bad," sympathized the amused Judge. "Hector will have to pay for them, surely. Son, go get the money out of your bank."

"I didn't eat all of them. Jimmy Jones and Ted Fenton and the Beldon boys helped," said Hector, wiping his eyes sullenly.

"You can c'lect from them later," retorted Peace. "You were at the head of it, I know."

"Get the money, son," repeated the father sternly, and the unhappy boy thought it wise to obey without further demur.

When the two silver dollars were laid in her hand Peace smiled her relief, and with a curt "Thank you," turned to go, when to the utter amazement of the whole family, she whirled suddenly about and confronted Hector again, saying calmly, "While I am here, I might as well c'lect for that cake you stole more'n a year ago."

"Cake?" echoed the group, while the boy's face grew scarlet with guilt once more.

"Yes, cake! We thought my tramp took it at first. Faith made it for the minister's reception and put it on the wash-bench under a dishpan to cool. 'Twas gone when she went to get it again. Hec stole it."

"Hector, did you?"

The boy nodded, too miserable to speak.

"How much was that worth, Peace?"

"It was bigger'n a fifty-cent one. I guess it will be seventy-five cents."