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Oh, I set up such a screetch; and young Dobbins was a-taking his cow out of the field, and he perked up over the hedge when he heard me; and the cow, too, with her horns, Lord bless her! So the fellow stopped, and I bustled through the gate, and got home. But la, miss, if we are all robbed and murdered?"
"Hi, Frank," a voice hailed him as he made a short cut through a little grove at the rear of the house, and a familiar form emerged from some bushes. "Why, it's Mr. Dobbins!" exclaimed Frank in some surprise. He had expected to find the miserly old fellow in the depths of despair over the loss of his house, but Dobbins was grinning and chuckling at a great rate.
The men were loud in their praises of the young woman who had sat up all night with Mrs. Dobbins, and had made herself so agreeable and helpful. "I guess she's there to stay," one of them remarked. "Wonder where in the world she dropped from. Ye don't see the likes of her every day, 'specially in a place like this." "She and young Hampton seem to be very thick," the other volunteered.
"So 'tis Frank," he bobbed with a broad smile. "Was looking for you." "What for, Mr. Dobbins?" The old man blinked. Then he laughed in a pleased, crafty way and put his hand in his pocket. "See here," he cried, and Frank noticed that he held three coins in his palm. There was a twenty, a ten and a five-dollar gold piece. "Um-m," observed Dobbins.
Frank got back to the road ten minutes later and started on a run toward the town. Taking the middle of the road, he nearly bumped into a man where the highway turned. "Hi, there!" challenged the latter. "Hello!" responded Frank, recognizing a truck gardner who lived just beyond the Jordan place. "What's happened, Daley?" "Old Dobbins' house." "What, the one they're moving?" "Yes.
Westcote questioned as Dobbins paused and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a big red handkerchief. "This is the part, sir, which I am ashamed to tell," the man continued. "I heard the crash of that log down the bank and the splash in the water. Then there fell upon my ears a shriek of terror. I knew it was a woman's voice and I leaped from my hiding place and peeked down the bank.
They allus make me think o' Dombey." "What was th' about that buckskin mustang to make you think of a business man?" sez I, thinkin' she meant a little ridin' pony she used to have. "I don't mean Dobbins," sez she, "I mean a character out of a book. He was such a good business man that he let most of life slip by him. I don't want you to do that."
Dobbins kindly replied, looking with admiration upon the excited young figure before him. "Remember, I've nothin' against your father. Haven't I shod every horse he had since he came to this place, long before you were born. He's been a good customer of mine, and I ain't got nothin' agin him. I'm only doin' my duty as a constable." "But I don't understand, Mr. Dobbins.
As he politely lifted his cap to a bevy of girls, he imagined that they were rather constrained in their return greeting and looked at him queerly. Beyond the schoolhouse was Bolter's Hill, a famous place for coasting in the winter time. Just now it had a new power of attraction for the schoolboys. An old hermit-like fellow named Clay Dobbins had lived for years at the other side of the hill.
"That's so," echoed Dobbins; "inasmuch as you showed it to me this morning." "Well, if I have," observed the judge, bracing up a little, "I hold it as evidence of a crime. As an emissary of the law " "That's the right word, judge," grinned Dobbins "'emissary' fits. It don't go in this instance, though. The evidence is all on Frank's side, as I have found out.
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