Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work
He paid Doc Squiers an' got
a receipt an' giv it to Lucy. Then we thought th' trouble was over, but
it had on'y just begun. Monday mornin' Tom was arrested over t' the mill
fer passin' a forged check an' gettin' sixty dollars on it. Lucy was
near frantic with grief. She walked all the way to Fairview, an' they
let her see Tom in the jail. He tol' her it was true he forged th'
check, but he did it to save her. He was a man an' it wouldn't hurt fer
him to go to jail so much as it would a girl. He said he was glad he did
it, an' didn't mind servin' a sentence in prison. I think, miss, as Tom
meant thet--ev'ry word uv it. But Lucy broke down under the thing an'
raved an' cried, an' nuther Nell ner I could do anything with her. She
said she'd ruined Tom's life an' all thet, an' she didn't want to live
herself. Then she took sick, an' Nell an' I nursed her as careful as we
could. How'n the wurld she ever got away we can't make out, nohow."
"Did she get away?" asked the girl, noting that the old man's eyes were
full of tears and his lips trembling.
"Yes, miss. She's bin gone over ten days, now, an' we don't even know
where to look fer her; our girl--our poor Lucy. She ain't right in her
head, ye know, or she'd never a done it. She'd never a left us like this
in th' world. 'Taint like our Lucy."
Kenneth had turned around on his stool and was regarding old Will Rogers
earnestly, brush and pallet alike forgotten. Beth was trying to keep the
tears out of her own eyes, for the old man's voice was even more
pathetic than his words.
"Ten days ago!" said Kenneth. "And she hasn't been found yet?"
"We can't trace her anywhere, an' Nell has broke down at las', an' don't
do much but cry. It's hard, sir--I can't bear to see Nell cry. She'd
sich high sperrits, onct."
"Where's the boy Tom?" asked Kenneth, somewhat gruffly.
"He's in the jail yet, waitin' to be tried. Court don't set till next
week, they say."
"And where do you live, Rogers?"
"Five miles up the Fairview road. 'Taint much of a place--Nell says I've
always bin a shif'les lot, an' I guess it's true.
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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