Tabitha's Vacation Part 27

"We have no real jail here," explained Tabitha, who chanced to overhear his question. "When a man does anything that he has to go to prison for, they take him to the county seat. This court only tries to prove whether or not there is evidence enough to hold him for trial by the county. Hurry up, they are waiting for us. And children, remember, you must come straight back here after you take a look at the prisoners. Queer how youngsters want to see such things, isn't it?

Perhaps it will be quite a while before I can get back, but I know I can trust you to keep out of mischief and mind Mercedes. Oh, Glory, I've got nervous chills already about taking that dictation. The lawyer who is to defend the robbers can talk like lightning."

"Fudge!" replied Gloriana rea.s.suringly. "You won't have any trouble at all, I know. They will take into consideration the fact that you have no experience outside of school. Is this the place? What a funny looking court! Does he live here, too? The justice of peace, I mean."

"Why, Tabitha!" interrupted Irene, clutching the older girl by the arm.

"Look there! That's our candy man,--the tallest one--and they've got him hand-cuffed. Does-- Is _he_ the man they say robbed the bank? I don't believe he ever did it!"

"Hus.h.!.+" warned Inez, giving her twin a vicious dig in the ribs. But the damage was already done.

"What do you mean?" demanded Tabitha, pausing on the threshold of the tiny, dirty room that served as courthouse for the town of Silver Bow.

"Yes, what do you mean?" asked one of the lawyers, who had chanced to overhear the remark.

"He made candy for us the day you went to the river and left us at home," explained Irene, ignoring the frowns of her partners in guilt.

"Tell us all about it."

Bit by bit the story came out, and to Irene's great grief it forged another link in the chain of evidence already so strong against the cheery stranger. "I don't want him to go to jail," she sobbed. "He's an awfully nice man."

"But, dear, he is a thief," Tabitha told her. "He ought to go to jail."

"If they'd only let him loose this time, I'm sure he would never steal again," the child staunchly maintained. But in spite of her faith in him, the "candy man," as the children continued to call him, was sent to the county seat for trial, convicted, and sentenced to a long term in prison.

"He shouldn't have stolen if he didn't want to go to prison," a.s.serted Billiard virtuously. "If he hadn't robbed the bank, he never would have had to hide in the haunted house and we wouldn't have found them there."

"But as 'tis," added Toady, "they paid Billiard and me each fifty dollars for finding them. I mean the town paid us."

"Though you didn't discover whether there are any ghosts or not," said Susie much disappointed.

"Who cares?" retorted the boys, drawing out their little h.o.a.rd of gold pieces and gloating over them. "I wish there were more haunted houses if they'd all pay us as well as this one did. Now, what shall we do with our money?"

CHAPTER XIV

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

"Only two weeks more of vacation," sighed Tabitha, sinking wearily into the hammock one August afternoon, and looking longingly away to the west where the train was just puffing into view. "I never dreamed we should be here all summer when I offered to take care of the kidlets for Mrs. McKittrick."

"Are you sorry?" asked Gloriana, glancing up from her sewing in surprise at the tone of Tabitha's voice.

"No, oh, no!" she answered hastily, for fear her companion would think she was complaining. "I don't regret staying here at all, for that was the only way Mr. McKittrick could get well; but still--I should have enjoyed getting a peek at the ocean again, and having a good time all around, like we'd surely have had with Myra."

"Yes, that would have been lovely," sighed Gloriana, who could not help feeling sorry that their vacation had not turned out as they had planned, although she admired Tabitha more than ever because of the unselfishness which had prompted her to shoulder such a responsibility in the first place.

"You see, I never have spent the summer at the seash.o.r.e," Tabitha continued; "nor anywhere else, for that matter, except here in Silver Bow, since we came here to live; and I had planned so much on Myra's invitation. She is such a whirlwind for fun."

"It's too bad Miss Davis didn't let us know any sooner that she didn't intend to come back to the desert till fall. Perhaps we could have found someone else--"

"I'm afraid not. It's awfully hard to get anyone dependable away out here. _Hired help_ is simply out of the question. They think Silver Bow is beyond the bounds of civilization, I reckon."

"I don't blame them," began Gloriana impetuously; then blushed furiously, and stammered, "Oh, what did I say? What will you think of me? I didn't mean--"

"Yes, you did mean it," laughed her companion. "And I don't blame _you_. I used to feel the same way myself."

"And did you _really_ get over it?" Gloriana eagerly asked. "Do you truly like this--this desolate place now?"

"I _love Silver Bow_," she answered slowly, yet with emphasis. "I sometimes wonder what kind of a girl I would have been if we had stayed on at Dover or Ferndale, where there was no Carrie. Then there would have been no Ivy Hall, either, I suppose."

"And no me," half whispered the red-haired girl. "Then I should be thankful for the desert, too; because if it hadn't been for you, I never should have been adopted by the best people in the whole wide world, nor found an Uncle Jerry who really belongs to me. And anyway, there will be other summers, and the ocean will keep."

"No, it won't, either!" thrilled a bubbling voice behind them, and a red-faced, perspiring, disheveled figure swept around the corner of the house and plumped itself down in the hammock beside Tabitha whom she proceeded to hug rapturously.

"Myra!" gasped the black-haired girl, trying to return the embrace, but finding herself held fast by a pair of strong, sinewy arms.

"Myra!" echoed Gloriana, dropping her sewing and staring with fascinated eyes at the newcomer, who promptly dragged the lame girl from her chair into the already overloaded hammock and hugged her vigorously. "Where did you come from and _how_ did you get here?"

"On the train," Myra paused long enough to pant, "and as to finding you,--haven't you described and sketched the Eagles' Nest often enough in your letters for me to know it when I saw it? I never even had to ask directions how to find the trail. Now just rustle your things together and we'll catch that train back to Los Angeles this afternoon.

It leaves at three o'clock, doesn't it? I simply had to come after you, but it's too beastly hot to stay here a minute longer than necessary."

"But Myra, the children!" cried the two maids, looking oh! so eager at the mere thought of the seash.o.r.e, but determined to turn their backs on temptation at once.

"Hark ye!" answered Myra in tragic tones. "What sound doth smite your ears? Or be you _deef_?" Her abrupt change of tone and manner was too comical to be resisted, but her upraised hand checked the mirth of the other two, and they dutifully c.o.c.ked their heads on one side and listened intently.

"The youngsters at play," both replied in the same breath.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Then I guess you're _deef_."

At that moment st.u.r.dy Rosslyn flew around the corner of the cottage, and throwing himself into Tabitha's lap shrieked out, "Kitty, Kitty, mamma's come, but papa must stay down there till it gets cooler."

"What!" whispered Tabitha, her face paling. "It can't be! Is she truly?"

Myra nodded solemnly.

"What wonderful things are happening--"

There was an ominous crack, the hammock rope snapped in two, and the quartette found themselves a tangled, huddled heap of arms and legs upon the piazza floor.

"Indeed, and I see nothing wonderful about that," spluttered Myra, who had just opened her lips to speak, when their downfall came, and in consequence she had shut her sharp teeth together on her tongue.

Gloriana scrambled to her feet, then laughed. She could not help it, for long-limbed Myra did look so funny, sprawled on the floor like a huge spider; and amazement was written so large upon Tabitha's face that sterner hearts than hers would have made merry at the picture which they presented. Rosslyn's wail of grief checked her mirth, however, and she came hastily to his rescue, but his mother had heard the outcry, and now appeared on the scene with the remainder of her brood clinging to her skirts, and Billiard and Toady following close at their heels.

"Well, for the land sakes!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, holding up her hands in surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt. "What a sight! Are any of you hurt? That's good! Now, girls, perhaps it will seem rude and ungrateful to rush you off this way, but I had orders to see that you caught the train back to Los Angeles this afternoon. So I reckon you will have to move lively, with your packing and all."