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A voice stopped him as he was emerging on to the main road, just below Witham's Half Way House. He turned and saw Bess Thornton. "Hello, Tim," she called, "what's the matter? Anybody after you? My, but I guess you've been running fast." Tim Reardon, wiping his face with his sleeves, told her what had happened. The girl danced with glee, while her bright eyes sparkled. "Oh, goody!" she exclaimed.
And he added, quickly, as the thought occurred to him, "Perhaps the fortune-teller you saw at the circus will tell me more than she told you. Perhaps she'll tell me where the papers are." For a moment Colonel Witham's heavy face turned deathly pale, and he leaned for support against one of the beams of the mill.
"I've heard that talk, around Benton, and it's all nonsense. You couldn't find anything in there, if you hunted a hundred years." "But we did find something," said Henry Burns, in a matter-of-fact way. Colonel Witham's jaw dropped, and he looked at Henry Burns almost helplessly. He couldn't speak for a moment. Then he asked, huskily, "What was it you found?
He stumbled on blindly, till his progress was suddenly arrested by his bumping into an object that proved, most fortunately, to be Colonel Witham's flag-pole. Even at that short distance, the inn was now hidden; but he knew where it must be, and presently stood safe upon its piazza. It was an odd situation for Henry Burns.
Again the woman appeared to remonstrate. She pointed a bony finger at Colonel Witham and spoke excitedly. Colonel Witham's face flushed with anger. "I tell you you've got to give her to me," he cried. "I'll swear you put her in my charge. I'll take her. It's that, or I'll pack you both off to the poorhouse. I'll make out the papers for you to sign. You'll do it; you've got to."
I'm big enough and strong enough to work, now, and I heard you wanted a man. I came to see if you wouldn't hire me." Colonel Witham's face was a study. Taken all by surprise, he seemed to know scarcely what to say. He shifted uneasily and the drops of perspiration rolled from his forehead. He mopped his face with a big, red handkerchief, and looked shiftily from one boyish face to the other.
"Past Perkins's house again," suggested young Joe Warren. "No, we've been by there twice already," answered Henry Burns. "He won't like Fourth of July if we give him too much of it." Young Joe grinned behind his mask. "I'll tell you," he said, excitedly. "We've got time to do it, too, before the parade begins Witham's! Bet he's sound asleep what do you say?" "Come on," cried Henry Burns.
But I don't know as we've got any right to it though these bills aren't Witham's, and I suppose the money isn't. The mill is his now, and I guess we haven't any right to come in here and take this." "Well," suggested Henry Burns, "why not ask Witham about it?" "Ask Witham!" exclaimed John Ellison. "I won't. I don't want ever to speak to him again. You can, though, if you want to."
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 perhaps it'll come out right in the end." "I don't see how," said John Ellison. "Witham's got the mill, and the big wood lot where we used to cut most of the wood we sold every fall, and the great meadow up opposite old Granny Thornton's, with the hayfield in it. We've got enough left close by here to keep us from starving, all right; but it isn't what it ought to be.
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