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Bacheldor was certain as to the time because he had been "layin' down two or three minutes on the sofy afore goin' out to look at some wood there was to cut in the shed, and I'd just got up and looked at the clock afore I looked out of the settin'-room winder" looking out of that window he had seen a cat running from his henyard with one of his recently hatched Plymouth Rock chickens in its mouth.
"David!" she panted. "Oh, don't, David! Please be still! They shan't hurt you; I won't let 'em. Please!" Through the bushes above the wall appeared the freckled face of Con christened Cornelius Bacheldor. Con was Jimmie's elder brother. "He must have got through," he shouted. "He no, there he is. She's got him, Pop. Make her put him down." Mr. Abner Bacheldor crashed through to his son's side.
Her meditations were interrupted in a startling manner. She was midway of the field, upon the other side of which was a tumbledown stone wall, and a cluster of wild cherry trees and bayberry bushes marking the boundary of the Bacheldor land. From behind the wall and bushes sounded the loud report of a gun; then the tramp of running feet and an excited shouting: "You missed him," screamed a voice.
He was carrying a gun. "You put that cat down," screamed Con, threateningly. Mary-'Gusta said nothing. Her heart was beating wildly but she held the struggling David fast. "It's that kid over to Shad Gould's," declared Con. "Make her give you a shot, Pop." Mr. Abner Bacheldor took command of the situation. "Here, you!" he ordered. "Fetch that critter here. I want him."
"It wasn't David at all. 'Twas somebody else's cat, Mr. Bacheldor." "Somebody else's nothin'! Don't you suppose I know " "Hold on! Heave to, Ab. Mary-'Gusta, how do you know 'twasn't our cat?" "'Cause 'cause David was with me from four o'clock till most five; that's how. He was in the in our house with me. So," triumphantly, "he couldn't have been anywhere else, could he?"
Bailey's honeymoon had been spent at the real Niagara; the King's palace; the den of the wicked witch; Sherwood Forest; and Jordan, Marsh and Company's store in Boston. Jimmie Bacheldor liked the garret well enough, but imagination was not his strongest quality and the best parlor had more charms for him.
Abner himself opened the door and he looked rather embarrassed when he saw the pair on the steps. Captain Shad did not wait for an invitation to enter; he walked in and Mary-'Gusta followed him. "Now then, Ab," said the Captain, briskly, "what's this about our cat stealin' your chickens?" Mr. Bacheldor and Con, separately and together, burst into a tirade of invective against the offending David.
Miss Plank told me in confidence, and on the hair-cloth sofa in the upper hall, that it would be a big wrench if he ever left there. She said, "She didn't say it because he wuz a bacheldor and she a widder, she said it out of pure-respect." And I believed it, a good deal of the time I did; for good land! she wuz old enough to be his ma, and more too.
Hobbs to nag and find fault, there were no lonely meals, no scoldings when stockings were torn or face and hands soiled. And as a playground the beach was a wonderland. She and Jimmie Bacheldor picked up shells, built sand forts, skipped flat stones along the surface of the water at high tide, and picked up scallops and an occasional quahaug at low water.
She looked awful apprehensive towards them swimmers and board riders and then at her niece. But when she catched sight of Robert by her side a look of warm relief swep' over her anxious face, as if in her mind's eye she see Dorothy by his help walkin' through the future a prosperous and contented bacheldor maid. Tommy wuz kinder talkin' to himself or to his invisible playmate.
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