"What! Home so soon!" exclaimed Sube's mother as he came into her presence. Then noting that he was hatless and coatless she became apprehensive. "Why, what has happened?" she asked. "What is the matter?"

Sube swallowed hard. Not without an effort, and a colossal one, could he speak the truth. But at last he managed to get out, "I came home."

"So it would appear," contributed his father, while at the same time his mother was asking apprehensively:

"But why? Tell me what has happened!"

Sube continued the desperate swallowing movements, but no sound came.

Then Mrs. Cane adopted the inductive method, and asked, "Is the party over already?"

Sube shook his head.

"Something terrible has happened!" she cried. "Did the tree catch on fire?"

Then Mr. Cane took a hand in the proceedings.

"Stop that sniveling, and speak up!" he ordered. "What—has—happened?"

Sube drew a deep breath, and said in a husky voice, "I ran away from it."

"Ran away from a party!" cried his father. "You!—What in thunder did you do that for? What had you been doing that you wanted to run away from?"

"I stole the Chris'mus tree—!"

"Stole the Christmas tree!" cried Mr. Cane. "What are you talking about?"

"Yessir; that's what I did—"

"Well, that's a new one on me!" thundered Mr. Cane. "I've heard of stealing a red-hot stove, but as for an illuminated Christmas tree with all the presents on it— That—gets—me!"

"There wasn't any candles or presents on it when I took it," Sube explained weakly.

Mr. Cane stood up. Here was a subject that required very careful investigation, and he was always at his best when on his feet.

"Sit down there." He pointed to a chair directly in front of his wife. "Now, let's get to the bottom of this thing. When did you pull off this—robbery?"

"Yesterday."

Mr. Cane thought he had the witness trapped. "Yesterday, eh?" he demanded. "Why, only last night you were over there decorating this selfsame tree! When did they take the decorations off from it?"

"Didn't take 'em off! I s—s—swiped it before there was any decorations put on it."

The prosecutor was baffled. "How on earth could you decorate a tree when you had stolen it, and there wasn't any tree there to decorate?" he asked irritably.

"You don't understand," Sube explained desperately. "I s—swiped the tree for Nancy. The one that—that somebody else got for her wasn't any good, and she asked me to get her a decent one; and I hunted all over the woods and there wasn't a single one left that was any good, and on the way home I saw this one, and—I didn't think any one would care, so—I took it."

"Well? Where did you take it from?" pursued his relentless father.

Sube's voice died almost to a whisper as he replied, "From the cemetery."

"What's that!" cried the amazed Mr. Cane. "The cemetery?"

Sube nodded guiltily.

"Good heavens, boy!" exclaimed his father. "Don't you know that it's a crime to desecrate a cemetery lot?"

But before Sube could answer, his mother interceded.

"There; that'll do, Father! You seem to have lost sight of one thing."

Mr. Cane turned expectantly towards his wife.

"The boy has told the truth!" she declared, a little tremulously.

"Well, that's so— So he has—that's commendable. That's the only redeeming feature of this lamentable affair—"

"Never mind, Father; we can talk about that later. I want Sube to understand how much we appreciate the fact that he has come to us and told us the truth. Of course it was wrong for you to take the tree, Sube, but since you have been so truthful about it, we shall help you to make amends. Your father and I will do all in our power to set matters right. I promise that for both of us."

"You don't have to make any promises for me," Mr. Cane hastened to say. "Nobody has any greater regard for the truth than I have. I deplore this act of vandalism more than I can say; but since you have told the truth, I give you my word that I will help you clear the thing up. Now let's have the rest of it."

All Sube's doubts had fled. He felt that he was now protected by the panoply of truth, and he came out with the whole story with brutal directness.

"When I took the tree to Guilfords' they was all tickled with it. They thought it was a 'beaut'! But the minute she saw it, she spotted it. And she went up there to the cemetery this afternoon, and when she saw one of her trees was gone, she came back there to the house and took on awful—!"

"Just a minute," his father interrupted. "Who is this 'she' you keep referring to?"

"Why, Nancy's aunt! M's Hotchkiss-Harger!"

"But what had she to do with the case?" his father persisted.

"Why, I cut the tree on her cemetery lot!"

Speechless with horror, Mr. and Mrs. Cane stared helplessly at each other, while Sube, with a feeling of unaccustomed security, laid bare the entire situation.

"Yes," he rattled on, "she spotted it right off. And when she asked me where I got it, I told her you cut it for me." He indicated his father by a movement of the head.

"You told her I cut it for you!" shrieked the stricken parent. "G-o-o-d Heavens!!"

It was with difficulty that Mr. Cane kept from laying violent hands on his son as he paced up and down the room excitedly exclaiming:

"What next!—What next!"

"But we must not lose sight of the fact that Sube has told the truth," Mrs. Cane reminded him from time to time.

"Don't keep harping on that all the while," growled her irate husband. "He's told the truth all right; but it's a pity he couldn't have begun to tell it a little sooner."

After a few more turns up and down the room Mr. Cane came to a stop before his son.

"Are you perfectly certain there hasn't been some mistake about this?" he asked desperately. "Are you perfectly certain that the tree came from the Harger lot?"

Sube hesitated. "Well, I ain't sure," he admitted finally. "It was pretty dark."

"Let's be thankful for that!" exclaimed his father fervently.

"But she is," Sube added after a moment.

"What do you mean by that?" asked his father suspiciously.

"Why, I mean that I didn't know whose lot it was; but she went up there this afternoon and found one of her trees gone—"

"Yes, but somebody else might have taken it! You say you are not certain which lot you took it from."

"But I could tell in a holy minute if I should go up there—"

"Sube!" his father glared at him dangerously. "You are positively forbidden to go anywhere near that cemetery for the next six months! If you do,—I will turn you over to the authorities, and let the law take its course. Don't forget that! I mean it!—And now, you may go to bed just as fast as you can get there."

"But I want to tell you some'pm—"

"I don't care to hear another word. I've heard quite enough for one night. Go—to—bed!"

As Sube dragged himself unwillingly up the stairs, Mrs. Cane said to her husband:

"Well, at last the tide has turned. Sube has discovered the truth."

"Huh! I must say he picked out a fine time to discover it," was her husband's grim rejoinder. "Why, if Mrs. Hotchkiss-Harger should believe I ever did such a thing as rob a cemetery of its shrubbery, she'd never trust me again—and besides, I'd die of shame and mortification."

"Well," comforted Mrs. Cane, "in the first place, she'd never believe such a thing. And in the next place, what does an old evergreen tree amount to compared with the truth? I must admit that I was somewhat surprised to see you trying to lead your own son into evasion when he was doing his best to tell the truth."

Next day, with an armful of packages Nancy Guilford ascended the Canes' front porch and rang the doorbell. And as Annie was stuffing the turkey Mrs. Cane herself opened the door.

"How is Sube feeling to-day?" asked Nancy in her most winning tone.

Mrs. Cane had not heard that he was ill, but she guessed at once that his early retirement of the evening before must have been based on an imaginary indisposition. "Come right in, and see for yourself," she invited cordially.

Sube was cornered in the library; there was no escape. And it was with the face of a desperado at bay that he confronted Nancy as she entered.

"Hello!" she called cheerfully. "Feeling better to-day? I was so sorry you couldn't stay last night."

Sube glared at her in silence as she went on placidly.

"I brought over your presents for you. Most of 'em are jokes. You mustn't open 'em until after I go."

But as Mrs. Cane stepped out of the room Nancy changed her mind, and decided to open one present, a longish package which she tore open and from which she produced the butt of a cypress sapling.

"I tried to tell you about this last night," she whispered hurriedly, "but you wouldn't let me get anywhere near you. There! See where the carpenter sawed it off! There's no little black ring on that end at all!"

Sube took the stick into his hands mumbling dazedly, "Well, what do you know about that!"

Instinctively his gaze went to the other end, which he had hacked off with the ax, and on which he saw something that he hastened to cover with his hand. At this moment Mrs. Cane reËntered the room; but she saw nothing of the stick, nor did she notice the deformity of Sube's left side, which was plainly visible through his jacket.

Nancy at once stood up, and after a fitting exchange of holiday sentiment, announced that she was on her way to slide down hill, and took her departure. But she could not by any possibility have more than reached the gate when Sube threw into the furnace the only existing evidence of his guilt; and as he watched it turn into uncommunicative ashes he muttered to himself, "Nance is all right! But if they ever catch me tellin' the truth again—they'll know it! Here I got to stay in the house all day when I might jus' well be slidin' down hill."

He stood and gazed at the glowing coals long after the piece of wood had been consumed, and as he gazed, he wondered.

"Would Nance 'ave done as much for Biscuit Westfall?" he asked himself.

He didn't believe she would. And he was right.

THE END