University of Virginia Library

IV

Let us, dear reader, pass with brevaty over the next few days. Even to write them is a repugnent task, for having set my hand to the Plow, I am not one to do things half way and then stop.

Every day the Stranger came and gave me to dollars and I took him to the back road on our place and left

him there. And every night, although weary unto death with washing the car, carrying people, changeing tires and picking nails out of the road which the hackman put there to make trouble, I but pretended to slumber, and instead sat up in the library and kept my terrable Vigil. For now I knew that he had dishonest designs on the sacred interior of my home, and was but biding his time.

The house having been closed for a long time, there were mice everywhere, so that I sat on a table with my feet up.

I got so that I fell asleep almost anywhere but particularly at meals, and mother called in a doctor. He said I needed exercise! Ye gods!

Now I think this: if I were going to rob a house, or comit any sort of Crime, I should do it and get it over, and not hang around for days making up my mind. Besides keeping every one tence with anxiety. It is like diving off a diving board for the first time. The longer you stand there, the more afraid you get, and the farther (further?) it seems to the water.

At last, feeling I could stand no more, I said this to the Stranger as he was paying me. He was so surprized that he dropped a quarter in the road, and did not pick it up. I went back for it later but some one else had found it.

"Oh!" he said. "And all this time I've been beleiving that you—well, no matter. So you think it's a mistake to delay to long?"

"I think when one has somthing Right or Wrong

to do, and that's for your conscience to decide, it's easier to do it quickly."

"I see," he said, in a thoughtfull manner. "Well, perhaps you are right. Although I'm afraid you've been getting one fifty cents you didn't earn."

"I have never hung around," I retorted. "And no Archibald is ever a sneak."

"Archibald!" he said, getting very red. "Why, then you are—"

"It doesn't matter who I am," I said, and got into the car and went away very fast, because I saw I had made a dreadfull Slip and probably spoiled everything. It was not untill I was putting the car up for the night that I saw I had gone off with his overcoat I hung it on a nail and getting my revolver from under a board, I went home, feeling that I had lost two hundred dollars, and all because of Familey pride.

How true that "pride goeth before a fall"!

I have not yet explained about the revolver. I had bought it from the gardner, having promised him ten dollars for it, although not as yet paid for. And I had meant to learn to be an expert, so that I could capture the Crimenal in question without assistance, thus securing all the reward.

But owing to nervousness the first day I had, while practicing in the chicken yard, hit the Gardner in the pocket and would have injured him severely had he not had his garden scizzors in his pocket.

He was very angry, and said he had a bruize the exact shape of the scizzors on him, so I had had to

give him the ten plus five dollars more, which was all I had and left me stranded.

I went to my domacile that evening in low spirits, which were not improved by a conversation I had with Tom that night after the Familey had gone out to a Club dance.

He said that he did not like women and girls who did things.

"I like femanine girls," he said. "A fellow wants to be the Oak and feel the Vine clinging to him."

"I am afectionate," I said, "but not clinging. I cannot change my Nature."

"Just what do you mean by afectionate?" he asked, in a stern voice. "Is it afectionate for you to sit over there and not even let me hold your hand? If that's afection, give me somthing else."

Alas, it was but to true. When away from me I thought of him tenderly, and of whether he was thinking of me. But when with me I was diferent. I could not account for this, and it troubled me. Because I felt this way. Romanse had come into my life, but suppose I was incapable of loving, although loved?

Why should I wish to be embrased, but become cold and fridgid when about to be?

"It's come to a Show-down, Bab," he said, ernestly. "Either you love me or you don't. I'm darned if I know which."

"Alas, I do not know" I said in a low and pitious voice. I then buried my face in my hands, and tried

to decide. But when I looked up he was gone, and only the sad breese wailed around me.

I had expected that the Theif would take my hint and act that night, if not scared off by learning that I belonged to the object of his nefarius designs. But he did not come, and I was wakened on the library table at 8 A. M. by George coming in to open the windows.

I was by that time looking pale and thin, and my father said to me that morning, ere departing for the office:

"Haven't anything you'd like to get off your chest, have you, Bab?"

I sighed deeply.

"Father," I said, "do you think me cold? Or lacking in afection?"

"Certainly not."

"Or one who does not know her own mind?"

"Well," he observed, "those who have a great deal of mind do not always know it all. Just as you think you know it some new corner comes up that you didn't suspect and upsets everything."

"Am I femanine?" I then demanded, in an anxious manner.

"Femanine! If you were any more so we couldn't bare it."

I then inquired if he prefered the clinging Vine or the independant tipe, which follows its head and not its instincts. He said a man liked to be engaged to a clinging Vine, but that after marriage a Vine got to be a darned nusance and took everything while giving

nothing, being the sort to prefer chicken croquets to steak and so on, and wearing a boudoir cap in bed in the mornings.

He then kissed me and said:

"Just a word of advise, Bab, from a parent who is, of course, extremely old but has not forgoten his Youth entirely. Don't try to make yourself over for each new Admirer who comes along. Be yourself. If you want to do any making over, try it on the boys. Most of them could stand it."

That morning, after changing another tire and breaking three finger nails, I remembered the overcoat and, putting aside my scruples, went through the pockets. Although containing no Burglar's tools, I found a sketch of the lower floor of our house, with a cross outside one of the library windows!

I was for a time greatly excited, but calmed myself, since there was work to do. I felt that, as I was to capture him unaided, I must make a Plan, which I did and which I shall tell of later on.

Alas, while thinking only of securing the Reward and of getting Sis married, so that I would be able to be engaged and enjoy it without worry as to Money, coming out and so on, my Ship of Love was in the hands of the wicked, and about to be utterly destroyed, or almost, the complete finish not coming untill later. But

This is the tradgic story. Tom had gone to the station, feeling repentant probably, or perhaps wishing to drive the Arab, and finding me not yet there, had conversed with the hackman. And that person, for whom I have nothing but contempt and scorn, had observed to him that every day I met a young gentleman at the three-thirty train and took him for a ride!

Could Mendasity do more? Is it right that such a Creature, with his pockets full of nails and scandle, should vote, while intellagent women remain idle? I think not.

When, therefore, I waved my hand to my fiancee, thus showing a forgiving disposition, I was met but with a cold bow. I was heart-broken, but it is but to true that in our state of society the female must not make advanses, but must remain still, although suffering. I therfore sat still and stared hautily at the water cap of my car, although seathing within, but without knowing the cause of our rupture.

The Stranger came. I shrink in retrospect from calling him the Theif, although correct in one sense. I saw Tom stareing at him banefully, but I took no notice, merely getting out and kicking the tires to see if air enough in them. I then got in and drove away.

The Stranger looked excited, and did not mention the weather as customery. But at last he said:

"Somehow I gather, Little Sister, that you know a lot of things you do not talk about."

"I do not care to be adressed as `Little Sister,'" I

said in an icy tone. "As for talking, I do not interfere with what is not my concern."

"Good," he observed." And I take it that, when you find an overcoat or any such garment, you do not exhibit it to the Familey, but put it away in some secluded nook. Eh, what?"

"No one has seen it. It is in the Car now, under that rug."

He turned and looked at me intently.

"Do you know," he observed, "my admiration for you is posatively beyond words!"

"Then don't talk," I said, feeling still anguished by Tom's conduct and not caring much just then about the reward or any such mundane matters.

"But I must talk," he replied. "I have a little plan, which I darsay you have guest. As a matter of fact, I have reasons to think it will fall in with—er—plans of your own."

Ye gods! Was I thus being asked to compound a felony? Or did he not think I belonged to my own Familey, but to some other of the same name, and was therfore not suspicous.

"Here's what I want," he went on in a smooth manner. "And there's Twenty-five dollars in it for you. I want this little car of yours tonight."

Here I almost ran into a cow, but was luckaly saved, as a Jersey cow costs seventy-five dollars and even more, depending on how much milk given daily. When back on the road again, having but bent a mud guard against a fense, I was calmer.

"How do I know you will bring it back?" I asked, stareing at him fixedly.

"Oh, now see here," he said, straightening his necktie, "I may be a Theif, but I am not that kind of a Theif. I play for big stakes or nothing."

I then remembered that there was a large dinner that night and that mother would have her jewelery out from the safe deposit, and father's pearl studs et cetera. I turned pale, but he did not notice it, being busy counting out Twenty-five dollars in small bills.

I am one to think quickly, but with precicion. So I said:

"You can't drive, can you?"

"I do drive, dear Little—I beg your pardon. And I think, with a lesson now, I could get along. Now see here, Twenty-five dollars while you are asleep and therfore not gilty if I take your car from wherever you keep it. I'll leave it at the station and you'll find it there in the morning."

Is it surprizing that I agreed and that I took the filthy lucre? No. For I knew then that he would never get to the station, and the reward of two hundred, plus the Twenty-five, was already mine mentaly.

He learned to drive the Arab in but a short time, and I took him to the shed and showed him where I hid the key. He said he had never heard before of a girl owning a Motor and her parents not knowing, and while we were talking there Tom Gray went by in the station hack and droped somthing in the road.

When I went out to look it was the key ring I had given him.

I knew then that all was over and that I was doomed to a single life, growing more and more meloncholy until Death releived my sufferings. For I am of a proud nature, to proud to go to him and explain. If he was one to judge me by apearances I was through. But I ached. Oh, how I ached!

The Theif did not go further that day, but returned to the station. And I? I was not idle, beleive me. During the remainder of the day, although a broken thing, I experamented to find exactly how much gas it took to take the car from the station to our house. As I could not go to the house I had to guess partly, but I have a good mind for estimations, and I found that two quarts would do it.

So he could come to the house or nearby, but he could not get away with his ill-gotten gains. I therfore returned to my home and ate a nursery supper, and Hannah came in and said:

"I'm about out of my mind, Miss Bab. There's trouble coming to this Familey, and it keeps on going to dinners and disregarding all hints."

"What sort of trouble?". I asked, in a flutering voice. For if she knew and told I would not recieve the reward, or not solely.

"I think you know," she rejoined, in a suspicous tone." And that you should assist in such a thing, Miss Bab, is a great Surprize to me. I have considered you flitey, but nothing more."

She then slapped a cup custard down in front of me and went away, leaving me very nervous. Did she know of the Theif, or was she merely refering to the car, which she might have guest from grease on my clothes, which would get there in spite of being carful, especialy when changing a tire?

Well, I have now come to the horrable events of that night, at writing which my pen almost refuses. To have dreamed and hoped for a certain thing, and then by my own actions to frustrate it was to be my fate.

"Oh God! that one might read the book of fate!" Shakspeare.

As I felt that, when everything was over, the people would come in from the Club and the other country places to see the captured Crimenal, I put on one of the frocks which mother had ordered and charged to me on that Allowence which was by that time non est. (Latin for dissapated. I use dissapated in the sense of spent, and not debauchery.) By that time it was nine o'clock, and Tom had not come, nor even telephoned. But I felt this way. If he was going to be jealous it was better to know it now, rather than when to late and perhaps a number of offspring.

I sat on the Terrace and waited, knowing full well that it was to soon, but nervous anyhow. I had before that locked all the library windows but the one with the X on the sketch, also putting a nail at the top so he could not open them and escape. And I had the

key of the library door and my trusty weapon under a cushion, loaded—the weapon, of course, not the key.

I then sat down to my lonely Vigil.

At eleven P. M. I saw a sureptitious Figure coming across the lawn, and was for a moment alarmed, as he might be coming while the Familey and the jewels, and so on, were still at the Club.

But it was only Carter Brooks, who said he had invited himself to stay all night, and the Club was sickning, as all the old people were playing cards and the young ones were paired and he was an odd man.

He then sat down on the cushion with the revolver under it, and said:

"Gee whiz! Am I on the Cat? Because if so it is dead. It moves not."

"It might be a Revolver," I said, in a calm voice. "There was one lying around somwhere."

So he got up and observed: "I have conscientous scruples against sitting on a poor, unprotected gun, Bab." He then picked it up and it went off, but did no harm except to put a hole in his hat which was on the floor.

"Now see here, Bab," he observed, looking angry, because it was a new one—the hat. "I know you, and I strongly suspect you put that Gun there. And no blue eyes and white frock will make me think otherwise. And if so, why?"

"I am alone a good deal, Carter," I said, in a wistfull manner, "as my natural protecters are usualy enjoying

the flesh pots of Egypt. So it is natural that I should wish to be at least fortified against trouble."

He then put the revolver in his pocket, and remarked that he was all the protecter I needed, and that the flesh pots only seemed desirable because I was not yet out. But that once out I would find them full of indigestion, headaches, and heartburn.

"This being grown-up is a sort of Promised Land," he said, "and it is always just over the edge of the World. You'll never be as nice again, Bab, as you are just now. And because you are still a little girl, although `plited,' I am going to kiss the tip of your ear, which even the lady who ansers letters in the newspapers could not object to, and send you up to bed."

So he bent over and kissed the tip of my ear, which I considered not a sentamental spot and therfore not to be fussy about. And I had to pretend to go up to my chamber.

I was in a state of great trepidation as I entered my Residense, because how was I to capture my prey unless armed to the teeth? Little did Carter Brooks think that he carried in his pocket, not a Revolver or at least not merely, but my entire future.

However, I am not one to give up, and beyond a few tears of weakness, I did not give way. In a half hour or so I heard Carter Brooks asking George for a whisky and soda and a suit of father's pajamas, and I knew that, ere long, he would be would be

Would or would he not bolt his door? On this hung, in the Biblical phraze, all the law and the profits.

He did not. Crouching in my Chamber I saw the light over his transom become blackness, and soon after, on opening his door and speaking his name softly, there was no response. I therfore went in and took my Revolver from his bureau, but there was somthing wrong with the spring and it went off. It broke nothing, and as for Hannah saying it nearly killed her, this is not true. It went into her mattress and wakened her, but nothing more.

Carter wakened up and yelled, but I went out into the hall and said:

"I have taken my Revolver, which belongs to me anyhow. And don't dare to come out, because you are not dressed."

I then went into my chamber and closed the door firmly, because the servants were coming down screaming and Hannah was yelling that she was shot. I explained through the door that nothing was wrong, and that I would give them a dollar each to go back to bed and not alarm my dear parents. Which they promised.

It was then midnight, and soon after my Familey returned and went to bed. I then went downstairs and put on a dark coat because of not wishing to be seen, and a cap of father's, wishing to apear as masculine

as possable, and went outside, carrying my weapon, and being careful not to shoot it, as the spring seemed very loose. I felt lonely, but not terrafied, as I would have been had I not known the Theif personaly and felt that he was not of a violent tipe.

It was a dark night, and I sat down on the verandah outside the fatal window, which is a French one to the floor, and waited. But suddenly my heart almost stopped. Some one was moving about inside!

I had not thought of an acomplice, yet such there must be. For I could hear, on the hill, the noise of my automobile, which is not good on grades and has to climb in a low geer. How terrable, to, to think of us as betrayed by one of our own menage!

It was indeed a cricis.

However, by getting in through a pantrey window, which I had done since a child for cake and so on, I entered the hall and was able, without a sound, to close and lock the library door. In this way, owing to nails in the windows, I thus had the Gilty Member of our menage! so that only the one window remained, and I now returned to the outside and covered it with a steady aim.

What was my horror to see a bag thrust out through this window and set down by the unknown within!

Dear reader, have you ever stood by and seen a home you loved looted, despoiled and deprived of even the egg spoons, silver after-dinner coffee cups, jewels and toilet articals? If not, you cannot comprehand

my greif and stern resolve to recover them, at whatever cost.

I by now cared little for the Reward but everything for honor.

The second Theif was now aproaching. I sank behind a steamer chair and waited.

Need I say here that I meant to kill no one? Have I not, in every page, shown that I am one for peace and have no desire for bloodshed? I think I have. Yet, when the Theif apeared on the verandah and turned a pocket flash on the leather bag, which I percieved was one belonging to the Familey, I felt indeed like shooting him, although not in a fatal spot.

He then entered the room and spoke in a low tone.

The Reward was mine.

I but slipped to the window and closed it from the outside, at the same time putting in a nail as mentioned before, so that it could not be raised, and then, raising my revolver in the air, I fired the remaining four bullets, forgeting the roof of the verandah which now has four holes in it.

Can I go on? Have I the strength to finish? Can I tell how the Theif cursed and tried to raise the window, and how every one came downstairs in their night clothes and broke in the library door, while carrying pokers, and knives, et cetera. And how, when they had met with no violence but only sulkey silence, and turned on the lights, there was Leila dressed ready to elope, and the Theif had his arms around her, and she was weeping? Because he was poor, although of

good familey, and lived in another city, where he was a broker, my familey had objected to him. Had I but been taken into Leila's confidence, which he considered I had, or at least that I understood, how I would have helped, instead of thwarting! If any parents or older sisters read this, let them see how wrong it is to leave any member of the familey in the dark, especialy in affaires de couer.

Having seen from the verandah window that I had comitted an enor, and unable to bear any more, I crawled in the pantrey window again and went up stairs to my Chamber. There I undressed and having hid my weapon, pretended to be asleep.

Some time later I heard my father open the door and look in.

"Bab!" he said, in a stealthy tone.

I then pretended to wake up, and he came in and turned on a light.

"I suppose you've been asleep all night," he said, looking at me with a searching glanse.

"Not lately," I said. "I—wasn't there a Noise or somthing?"

"There was," he said. "Quite a racket. You're a sound sleeper. Well, turn over and settle down. I don't want my little girl to lose her Beauty Sleep."

He then went over to the lamp and said:

"By the way, Bab, I don't mind you're sleeping in my golf cap, but put it back in the morning because I hate to have to hunt my things all over the place."

I had forgoten to take off his cap!

Ah, well, it was all over, although he said nothing more, and went out. But the next morning, after a terrable night, when I realized that Leila had been about to get married and I had ruined everything, I found a note from him under my door.

Dear Bab: After thinking things over, I think you and I would better say nothing about last night's mystery. But suppose you bring your car to meet me tonight at the station, and we will take a ride, avoiding milk wagons if possible. You might bring your check book, too, and the revolver, which we had better bury in some quiet spot.

FATHER.

P. S. I have mentioned to your mother that I am thinking of buying you a small car. Verbum sap.

* * * *

The next day my mother took me calling, because if the Servants were talking it was best to put up a bold front, and pretend that nothing had happened except a Burglar alarm and no Burglar. We went to Gray's and Tom's grandmother was there, without her cruches.

During the evening I dressed in a pink frock, with roses, and listened for a car, because I knew Tom was now allowed to drive again. I felt very kind and forgiving, because father had said I was to bring the car to our garage and he would buy gasoline and so on, although paying no old bills, because I would have to work out my own Salvation, but buying my revolver at what I paid for it.

But Tom did not come. This I could not beleive at first, because such conduct is very young and imature, and to much like fighting at dancing school because of not keeping step and so on.

At last, Dear Reader, I heard a machine coming, and I went to the entrance to our drive, sliding in the shrubery to surprize him. I did not tremble as previously, because I had learned that he was but human, though I had once considered otherwise, but I was willing to forget.

However, the car did not turn into our drive, but went on. And in it were Tom, and that one who I had considered until that time my best and most intimite friend, Jane Raleigh.

Sans fiancee, sans friend, sans reward and sans Allowence, I turned and went back to my father, who was on the verandah and was now, with my mother and sister, all that I had left in the World.

And my father said: "Well, here I am, around as usual. Do you feel to grown-up to sit on my knee?"

I did not.