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But when Libbie had plain sewing to do at her lodgings, instead of going out to sew, she used to watch from her bedroom window for the time when the shadows opposite, by their mute gestures, told that the mother had returned to bend over her child, to smooth his pillow, to alter his position, to get him his nightly cup of tea.
"I figure they'll get a safe distance away and then stop to eat the lunch," said Bob. "It is hardly likely that they will take the stuff back to school with them." "But Ada went to Edentown," protested Libbie. "We saw her in the bus, didn't we, girls? And Ruth, too." "They could easily come back in the same bus," said Betty. "Indeed, I'm willing to wager that is just what they did.
Just before dinner that night there came a knock on Betty's door, and Virgie Smith, one of Ada's friends, thrust a package at Bobby, who had answered the tap. Betty managed to turn aside her chum's curiosity and to get away to Libbie and give her the note. They burned it in the flame of a candle, and counted the money. It was all there, folded just as Libbie had placed it in the bottle.
"You'll have a lark, but I'm not so sure about the teachers," declared Bob enthusiastically, an odd little smile quivering on his lips. "With you and Bobby Littell about, I doubt if the school knows a dull moment." "Bobby is so funny," dimpled Betty. "She writes that if Libbie comes, her aunt expects Bobby to look after her.
But let me make a list, an' even the dust-cloths'll come back home." Everybody had noticed that. Even Libbie Liberty assented, and exchanged with her sister a smile of domestic memories. "An' every single piece has got my initial in the corner, too," Mis' Sykes added; "I wouldn't hev a piece o' linen in the house without my initial on. It don't seem to me rill refined not to."
So, thought Betty, Bobby, too, had noticed Libbie's unnatural behavior. "Oh, it isn't that," sobbed Libbie. "I can't explain but if we go through the woods, I'm sure I shall go crazy." "Well, then, that settles it," said Bob comfortably. "Better to be drowned than to go crazy. Can you turn up your sweater collars, girls? I wish we'd brought some raincoats along."
"Esther and I want to see 'The Heart of June," announced Libbie, who found romance enough to satisfy her in the motion-pictures. Louise was interested, too; but Betty had promised to take some papers for Mr. Littell and see that they reached an architect in one of the nearby office buildings.
Yes, it's all right; let Libbie play her game. In another ten days the cyclone will have passed and we will all be rich men rich as Monte Cristos, dead sure." Oscar could hardly believe his own ears. It was the most wonderful "pick-up" of his whole career; and again was it proven how crime, in spite of the most skillful precautions, is always sure to walk into its own trap in the end.
Even when fogs obscured the Bar so that the distant headland was cut off from view, Sarah Libbie would go through the little ceremony and after it was over return to her knitting with a quiet gladness, although the presence of the other factor in the drama was a mere matter of conjecture.
But Bartley Coffin could not be restrained from lagging behind and whispering confidentially in Jack's ear: "If you want to be truly happy, mate, an' live clear of a life of pesterin', don't you never buy Sarah Libbie a satin dress! Minnie an' I have made it up, thanks to Willie Spence, but 'twas a tussle. I'd come to the jumpin'-off place." The statement was but too true.
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