“So far as you know.”
“If the money has really disappeared, madam, you had better ask your own boy about it.”
“This is insufferable!” exclaimed Mrs. Crawford, her light eyes emitting angry flashes. “Who dares to say that Peter took the wallet?” she went on, rising to her feet.
There was an unexpected reply. Jane entered the room at this moment to ask a question.
“I say so, ma'am,” she rejoined.
“What?” ejaculated Mrs. Crawford, with startling emphasis.
“I didn't mean to say anything about it till I found you were charging it on Master Carl. I saw Peter open your bureau drawer, take out the wallet, and put it in his pocket.”
“It's a lie!” said Mrs. Crawford, hoarsely.
“It's the truth, though I suppose you don't want to believe it. If you want to know what he did with the money ask him how much he paid for the gold ring he bought of the jeweler down at the village.”
“You are a spy--a base, dishonorable spy!” cried Mrs. Crawford.
“I won't say what you are, ma'am, to bring false charges against Master Carl, and I wonder the doctor will believe them.”
“Leave the house directly, you hussy!” shrieked Mrs. Crawford.
“If I do, I wonder who'll get the dinner?” remarked Jane, not at all disturbed.
“I won't stay here to be insulted,” said the angry lady. “Dr. Crawford, you might have spirit enough to defend your wife.”
She flounced out of the room, not waiting for a reply, leaving the doctor dazed and flurried.
“I hope, sir, you are convinced now that Carl did not take Mrs. Crawford's money,” said Gilbert. “I told you it was probably Peter.”
“Are you sure of what you said, Jane?” asked the doctor.
“Yes, sir. I saw Peter take the wallet with my own eyes.”
“It is his mother's money, and they must settle it between them I am glad Carl did not take it. Really, this has been a very unpleasant scene.”
“I am sorry for my part in it. Carl is my friend, and I feel that I ought to stand up for his rights,” remarked Gilbert.
“Certainly, certainly, that is right. But you see how I am placed.”
“I see that this is no place for Carl. If you will allow me, I will send an expressman for the trunk, and take it with me to the station.”
“Yes, I see no objection. I--I would invite you to dinner, but Mrs. Crawford seems to be suffering from a nervous attack, and it might not be pleasant.”
“I agree with you, sir.”
Just then Peter entered the room, and looked at Gilbert with surprise and wrath, remembering his recent discomfiture at the hands of the young visitor.
“My stepson, Peter,” announced Dr. Crawford.
“Peter and I have met before,” said Gilbert, smiling.
“What are you here for?” asked Peter, rudely.
“Not to see you,” answered Gilbert, turning from him.
“My mother'll have something to say to you,” went on Peter, significantly.
“She will have something to say to you,” retorted Gilbert. “She has found out who stole her money.”
Peter's face turned scarlet instantly, and he left the room hurriedly.
“Perhaps I ought not to have said that, Dr Crawford,” added Gilbert, apologetically, “but I dislike that boy very much, and couldn't help giving him as good as he sent.”
“It is all very unpleasant,” responded Dr. Crawford, peevishly. “I don't see why I can't live in peace and tranquility.”
“I won't intrude upon you any longer,” said Gilbert, “if you will kindly tell me whether you will consent to make Carl a small weekly allowance.”
“I can't say now. I want time to think. Give me your address, and I will write to Carl in your care.”
“Very well, sir.”
Gilbert left the house and made arrangements to have Carl's trunk called for. It accompanied him on the next train to Warren.
CHAPTER VI.
MRS. CRAWFORD'S LETTER.
“HOW did you like my stepmother?” asked Carl, when Gilbert returned in the afternoon.
“She's a daisy!” answered Gilbert, shrugging his shoulders. “I don't think I ever saw a more disagreeable woman.”
“Do you blame me for leaving home?”
“I only wonder you have been able to stay so long. I had a long conversation with your father.”
“Mrs. Crawford has made a different man of him. I should have no trouble in getting along with him if there was no one to come between us.”
“He gave me this for you,” said Gilbert, producing the ten-dollar bill.
“Did my stepmother know of his sending it?”
“No; she was opposed to sending your trunk, but your father said emphatically you should have it.”
“I am glad he showed that much spirit.”
“I have some hopes that he will make you an allowance of a few dollars a week.”
“That would make me all right, but I don't expect it.”
“You will probably hear from your father to-morrow or next day, so you will have to make yourself contented a little longer.”
“I hope you are not very homesick, Mr. Crawford?” said Julia, coquettishly.
“I would ask nothing better than to stay here permanently,” rejoined Carl, earnestly. “This is a real home. I have met with more kindness here than in six months at my own home.”
“You have one staunch friend at home,” said Gilbert.
“You don't allude to Peter?”
“So far as I can judge, he hates you like poison. I mean Jane.”
“Yes, Jane is a real friend. She has been in the family for ten years. She was a favorite with my own mother, and feels an interest in me.”
“By the way, your stepmother's charge that you took a wallet containing money from her drawer has been disproved by Jane. She saw Peter abstracting the money, and so informed Mrs. Crawford.”
“I am not at all surprised. Peter is mean enough to steal or do anything else. What did my stepmother say?”
“She was very angry, and threatened to discharge Jane; but, as no one would be left to attend to the dinner, I presume she is likely to stay.”
“I ought to be forming some plan,” said Carl, thoughtfully.
“Wait till you hear from home. Julia will see that your time is well filled up till then. Dismiss all care, and enjoy yourself while you may.”
This seemed to be sensible advice, and Carl followed it. In the evening some young people were invited in, and there was a round of amusements that made Carl forget that he was an exile from home, with very dubious prospects.
“You are all spoiling me,” he said, as Gilbert and he went upstairs to bed. “I am beginning to understand the charms of home. To go out into the world from here will be like taking a cold shower bath.”
“Never forget, Carl, that you will be welcome back, whenever you feel like coming,” said Gilbert, laying his band affectionately on Carl's shoulder. “We all like you here.”
“Thank you, old fellow! I appreciate the kindness I have received here; but I must strike out for myself.”
“How do you feel about it, Carl?”
“I hope for the best. I am young, strong and willing to work. There must be an opening for me somewhere.”
The next morning, just after breakfast, a letter arrived for Carl, mailed at Edgewood Center.
“Is it from your father?” asked Gilbert.
“No; it is in the handwriting of my stepmother. I can guess from that that it contains no good news.”
He opened the letter, and as he read it his face expressed disgust and annoyance.
“Read it, Gilbert,” he said, handing him the open sheet.
This was the missive:
“CARL CRAWFORD:--AS your father has a nervous attack, brought on by your misconduct, he has authorized me to write to you. As you are but sixteen, he could send for you and have you forcibly broug
ht back, but deems it better for you to follow your own course and suffer the punishment of your obstinate and perverse conduct. The boy whom you sent here proved a fitting messenger. He seems, if possible, to be even worse than yourself. He was very impertinent to me, and made a brutal and unprovoked attack on my poor boy, Peter, whose devotion to your father and myself forms an agreeable contrast to your studied disregard of our wishes.
``Your friend had the assurance to ask for a weekly allowance for you while a voluntary exile from the home where you have been only too well treated. In other words, you want to be paid for your disobedience. Even if your father were weak enough to think of complying with this extraordinary request, I should do my best to dissuade him.”
“Small doubt of that!” said Carl, bitterly.
“In my sorrow for your waywardness, I am comforted by the thought that Peter is too good and conscientious ever to follow your example. While you are away, he will do his utmost to make up to your father for his disappointment in you. That you may grow wise in time, and turn at length from the error of your ways, is the earnest hope of your stepmother,
ANASTASIA CRAWFORD.”
“It makes me sick to read such a letter as that, Gilbert,” said Carl. “And to have that sneak and thief--as he turned out to be--Peter, set up as a model for me, is a little too much.”
“I never knew there were such women in the world!” returned Gilbert. “I can understand your feelings perfectly, after my interview of yesterday.”
“She thinks even worse of you than of me,” said Carl, with a faint smile.
“I have no doubt Peter shares her sentiments. I didn't make many friends in your family, it must be confessed.”
“You did me a service, Gilbert, and I shall not soon forget it.”
“Where did your stepmother come from?” asked Gilbert, thoughtfully.
“I don't know. My father met her at some summer resort. She was staying in the same boarding house, she and the angelic Peter. She lost no time in setting her cap for my father, who was doubtless reported to her as a man of property, and she succeeded in capturing him.”
“I wonder at that. She doesn't seem very fascinating.”
“She made herself very agreeable to my father, and was even affectionate in her manner to me, though I couldn't get to like her. The end was that she became Mrs. Crawford. Once installed in our house, she soon threw off the mask and showed herself in her true colors, a cold-hearted, selfish and disagreeable woman.”
“I wonder your father doesn't recognize her for what she is.”
“She is very artful, and is politic enough to treat him well. She has lost no opportunity of prejudicing him against me. If he were not an invalid she would find her task more difficult.”
“Did she have any property when your father married her?”
“Not that I have been able to discover. She is scheming to have my father leave the lion's share of his property to her and Peter. I dare say she will succeed.”
“Let us hope your father will live till you are a young man, at least, and better able to cope with her.”
“I earnestly hope so.”
“Your father is not an old man.”
“He is fifty-one, but he is not strong. I believe he has liver complaint. At any rate, I know that when, at my stepmother's instigation, he applied to an insurance company to insure his life for her benefit, the application was rejected.”
“You don't know anything of Mrs. Crawford's antecedents?”
“No.”
“What was her name before she married your father?”
“She was a Mrs. Cook. That, as you know, is Peter's name.”
“Perhaps, in your travels, you may learn something of her history.”
“I should like to do so.”
“You won't leave us to-morrow?”
“I must go to-day. I know now that I must depend wholly upon my own exertions, and I must get to work as soon as possible.”
“You will write to me, Carl?”
“Yes, when I have anything agreeable to write.”
“Let us hope that will be soon.”
CHAPTER VII.
ENDS IN A TRAGEDY.
CARL obtained permission to leave his trunk at the Vance mansion, merely taking out what he absolutely needed for a change.
“When I am settled I will send for it,” he said. “Now I shouldn't know what to do with it.”
There were cordial good-bys, and Carl started once more on the tramp. He might, indeed, have traveled by rail, for he had ten dollars and thirty-seven cents; but it occurred to him that in walking he might meet with some one who would give him employment. Besides, he was not in a hurry to get on, nor had he any definite destination. The day was fine, there was a light breeze, and he experienced a hopeful exhilaration as he walked lightly on, with the world before him, and any number of possibilities in the way of fortunate adventures that might befall him.
He had walked five miles, when, to the left, he saw an elderly man hard at work in a hay field. He was leaning on his rake, and looking perplexed and troubled. Carl paused to rest, and as he looked over the rail fence, attracted the attention of the farmer.
“I say, young feller, where are you goin'?” he asked.
“I don't know--exactly.”
“You don't know where you are goin'?” repeated the farmer, in surprise.
Carl laughed. “I am going out in the world to seek my fortune,” he said.
“You be? Would you like a job?” asked the farmer, eagerly.
“What sort of a job?”
“I'd like to have you help me hayin'. My hired man is sick, and he's left me in a hole. It's goin' to rain, and----”
“Going to rain?” repeated Carl, in surprise, as he looked up at the nearly cloudless sky.
“Yes. It don't look like it, I know, but old Job Hagar say it'll rain before night, and what he don't know about the weather ain't worth knowin'. I want to get the hay on this meadow into the barn, and then I'll feel safe, rain or shine.”
“And you want me to help you?”
“Yes; you look strong and hardy.”
“Yes, I am pretty strong,” said Carl, complacently.
“Well, what do you say?”
“All right. I'll help you.”
Carl gave a spring and cleared the fence, landing in the hay field, having first thrown his valise over.
“You're pretty spry,” said the farmer. “I couldn't do that.”
“No, you're too heavy,” said Carl, smiling, as he noted the clumsy figure of his employer. “Now, what shall I do?”
“Take that rake and rake up the hay. Then we'll go over to the barn and get the hay wagon.”
“Where is your barn?”
The farmer pointed across the fields to a story-and-a-half farmhouse, and standing near it a good-sized barn, brown from want of paint and exposure to sun and rain. The buildings were perhaps twenty-five rods distant.
“Are you used to hayin'?” asked the farmer.
“Well, no, not exactly; though I've handled a rake before.”
Carl's experience, however, had been very limited. He had, to be sure, had a rake in his hand, but probably he had not worked more than ten minutes at it. However, raking is easily learned, and his want of experience was not detected. He started off with great enthusiasm, but after a while thought it best to adopt the more leisurely movements of the farmer. After two hours his hands began to blister, but still he kept on.
“I have got to make my living by hard work,” he said to himself, “and it won't do to let such a little thing as a blister interfere.”
When he had been working a couple of hours, he began to feel hungry. His walk, and the work he had been doing, sharpened his appetite till he really felt uncomfortable. It was at this time--just twelve o'clock--that the farmer's wife came to the front door and blew a fish horn so vigorously that it could probably have been heard half a mile.
“The old woman's got dinner ready,�
�� said the farmer. “If you don't mind takin' your pay in victuals, you can go along home with me, and take a bite.”
“I think I could take two or three, sir.”
“Ho, ho! that's a good joke! Money's scarce, and I'd rather pay in victuals, if it's all the same to you.”
“Do you generally find people willing to work for their board?” asked Carl, who knew that he was being imposed upon.
“Well, I might pay a leetle more. You work for me till sundown, and I'll give you dinner and supper, and--fifteen cents.”
Carl wanted to laugh. At this rate of compensation he felt that it would take a long time to make a fortune, but he was so hungry that he would have accepted board alone if it had been necessary.
“I agree,” he said. “Shall I leave my rake here?”
“Yes; it'll be all right.”
“I'll take along my valise, for I can't afford to run any risk of losing it.”
“Jest as you say.”
Five minutes brought them to the farmhouse.
“Can I wash my hands?” asked Carl.
“Yes, you can go right to the sink and wash in the tin basin. There's a roll towel behind the door. Mis' Perkins”--that was the way he addressed his wife--“this is a young chap that I've hired to help me hayin'. You can set a chair for him at the table.”
“All right, Silas. He don't look very old, though.”
“No, ma'am. I ain't twenty-one yet,” answered Carl, who was really sixteen.
“I shouldn't say you was. You ain't no signs of a mustache.”
“I keep it short, ma'am, in warm weather,” said Carl.
“It don't dull a razor any to cut it in cold weather, does it?” asked the farmer, chuckling at his joke.
“Well, no, sir; I can't say it does.”
It was a boiled dinner that the farmer's wife provided, corned beef and vegetables, but the plebeian meal seemed to Carl the best he ever ate. Afterwards there was apple pudding, to which he did equal justice.
“I never knew work improved a fellow's appetite so,” reflected the young traveler. “I never ate with so much relish at home.”
After dinner they went back to the field and worked till the supper hour, five o'clock. By that time all the hay had been put into the barn.
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