RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE

Leaving Mary Cody to watch over the house, Mrs. O'Neil, the instant dinner was over, threw something over her head and hurried to the post-office.

Mrs. Ray met her at the door. "What is it?" was her greeting; "I know it's come out about the case-knives! Hasn't it?"

"You'll never guess what they are," said Mrs. O'Neil, entering the house and closing the door behind her. "Mrs. Ray, they're swindlers!"

"I knew it; I knew it all the time. How did you find it out?"

Mrs. O'Neil told her.

"Give me the paper."

The paper was unfolded, but as she unfolded it Mrs. Dunstall and Pinkie came running in one way, and Mrs. Wiley rushed panting up the other steps.

"Have you heard?" Mrs. Dunstall cried.

"Heard! I've heard it a dozen ways." Mrs. Ray was devouring the article as she spoke. "Sit down," she said briefly, without looking around.

"They can't be arrested till Saturday," Mrs. O'Neil said. "There isn't a mite of doubt but what it's them, but Mr. Pollock told Jack that the law is that he must give them notice, and then he must let them go before he can arrest them."

"Why, I never heard the equal," exclaimed Mrs. Wiley. "I didn't know that you must let anybody who'd done anything go, ever! What will Uncle Purchase say to that!"

"Well, if that isn't the greatest I ever heard, either," said Mrs. Ray, never ceasing to read; "that's a funny law. If the United States Government run its business that way, every one would be skipping out with the stamps."

"And Mr. Pollock said," broke in Mrs. O'Neil, "that no matter how big swindlers they were, we couldn't arrest them until some one whom they'd swindled swore to the fact."

"Well, why don't you swear, then?" interrupted Mrs. Ray still reading.

"Because Mr. Pollock says they haven't actually swindled us, till they really leave without paying, you see," explained Mrs. O'Neil.

"Lands!" commented Pinkie.

"Which means," said Mrs. Ray, always reading, "that the law is that you mustn't try to catch 'em until after you let 'em go."

"Seems so," said Mrs. O'Neil.

"I never hear the beat!" exclaimed Mrs. Ray. "Why, this paper says they'd been jumping their board all summer!"

"All summer?" said Pinkie.

"Well, I always knew they were no good," said Mrs. Ray, still reading; "they never got any letters. They come to the post-office sometimes to try to give themselves a reputation, but they didn't fool me, for they never got any letters. I don't misjudge folks if they don't get many, and if they cancel up good it says just as much for their characters as if they got a lot—maybe more, for a lot of letters may be just duns—but when there's no income and no outgo, better look out, I say. Yes, indeed. Do they owe you much, Nellie?"

"About thirty-five dollars," said Mrs. O'Neil; "but oh, dear! Why, they've made fudge and worn my shawls and roasted chestnuts—"

"Nellie, Nellie," it was a strange voice at the kitchen door. Everybody looked up to see Mrs. Kendal, almost purple from rapid walking. "I've just heard! Lucia Cosby ran down to tell me. We've got a Foxtown Signal that's got some more about them in. I run right over to bring it to you. I was sure I'd find you here. That's why the old lady always wore her rubbers—her shoes were clean wore through with walking, skipping out, all the time."

Mrs. Kendal sank on a seat, and the Foxtown Signal was spread out upon the table with the other paper.

"I thought that was a funny story about the trunks," said Mrs. Wiley.

"They've worn the same clothes for three weeks, to my certain knowledge," said Mrs. O'Neil, "and not so much as an extra hairpin!"

"And they haven't any toilet things except a hair-brush that isn't good enough to throw at a cat, and a mirror that's broken," interposed Mrs. Ray; "you said so, Nellie, and I saw it, too."

"A broken mirror's bad luck," said Mrs. Wiley; "I hope you'll see that it's bad luck for you too, Nellie. Your husband's too soft-hearted to keep a hotel as we always tell every one who goes there to board."

"Well, he isn't soft-hearted this time," said his wife; "he's mad enough to-day, and he says he'll pay for his own ticket to Geneseo to bear witness against them."

Just here Mrs. Wellston, who lived in the first house over the hill from the schoolhouse, came rushing in.

"Oh, I just heard!" she panted, "they left a lot of bills at King's and at Race's Corners, where my sister Molly lives, they left a board-bill of eighteen dollars! They're known all over!"

"What do you think of that?" Mrs. Ray said, turning to Mrs. O'Neil.

Mrs. O'Neil gasped.

"The man who told Jack told Nathan and Lizzie that the old woman's husband died in the penitentiary," she said. "That's a nice kind of people to have around your house."

Mrs. Wiley gasped this time. Mrs. O'Neil gasped again.

"Jack said we must tell you all the first thing for fear she'd try to borrow money of some one. I told him he was foolish, because if they borrowed money of any one then they could pay us."

"He was only joking," said Mrs. Ray; "if they paid you, you wouldn't really take the money, for you'd know that they must have gotten it from some of us."

"On the contrary, you ought to have taken it, I think," said Mrs. Dunstall solemnly, "and then returned it to whoever give it to them."

Lottie Ann and Uncle Purchase now arrived to add to the festivity of the occasion.

"I guess nobody need worry over that pair's paying anybody any money they get their hands on," observed Mrs. Ray, fetching a chair for Uncle Purchase. "What are you going to do about it, when they come down and want to go out to walk next time, Nellie? Give 'em your shawls the same as usual, I suppose."

"Why, we've got to let 'em go or they can't skip and make themselves liable to arrest, of course, but the old lady said she could surely get money by to-morrow, and Jack has hired a boy to hang around the house and if they go out, track them."

"My sakes, ain't it interesting?" said Mrs. Dunstall. "And to think that they're up there this minute and have no idea of it all."

"I dare say they have been laughing at you all the time they were off chestnutting our chestnuts," said Mrs. Wiley. "My husband says if they'd sold all they've picked up, they could have paid their board honestly."

"But they weren't honest, you see," said Mrs. Ray; "honest people all get letters, or anyhow they buy postal cards of the Falls. And you ought to have taken my word for it when I suspected them, Nellie; those case-knives ought to have set you on to them."

"Well, well, and us seeing them walking all around for a fortnight," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and we so innocent, and they swindlers, and you boarding them for nothing,—dear, dear!"

"Well," said Mrs. Ray, "here's your paper, Nellie; what will happen next, I wonder?"

"Yes, I do, too," said Pinkie.

"You'd better all come down about five, and see if they did go out," said Mrs. O'Neil, with the air of extending an invitation to a party. "Why, that old lady told me that she'd been to the Boston Academy of Music."

"Boston!" said Mrs. Dunstall with a sniff; "they never saw Boston. Not those two. Not much."

"Oh, but they have," said Mrs. O'Neil; "I know that they have, for I've been there myself, and we talked about it."

"Well, I guess Boston has its crooks as well as other places," said Mrs. Ray, pacifically; "I guess if we can harbor swindlers and not know it, Boston can, too."

"I wouldn't believe it," Mrs. O'Neil said again. "But these papers make me have to; you see, there's the names, and Hannah Adele, and no paper would dare to print that if it wasn't true."

"True! Of course it's true," said Mrs. Ray; "I never would be surprised over anything anybody 'd do that would wear brown laces in black shoes and go in out of the rain at a strange house at midnight."

"Did she have brown laces in black shoes?" asked Lottie Ann, in a tone penetrated with horror.

"She did, and what's more, she pinned herself together. I see the pins sticking out of her, time and again, when she come in to stand around and wait for mail like a honest person would. No man is ever going to marry a girl who bristles with pins like that,—it'll be a job I wouldn't like myself to be the sheriff and have to arrest her. He'd better look sharp where he lays his hand on that girl, I tell you."

"Will she really be arrested?" Lottie Ann cried.

"Why, I should hope so," said her mother.

"As a law-abiding citizen yourself, who may take boarders some day, you wouldn't wish her not to be, would you?" said Mrs. Ray.

"I don't know," said Lottie Ann; "it seems to me very—very terrible to think that two women should go to jail."

"But they haven't any money, and they're swindlers," said Mrs. Dunstall; "they belong in jail. That's why we have jails."

"If they'd had money, they'd have received at least two or three letters," said Mrs. Ray. "If people have any money at all, there's always some one who wants to keep posted as to their health. Yes, indeed. No, they haven't any money. People that have money and never get up till noon is generally buying tea and matches, at any rate, but they didn't even do that. No, they ain't got any money."

"I couldn't believe it myself at first," repeated Nellie O'Neil; "and they certainly ate like people that aren't holding anything back. Two helps of everything, and didn't she go and take half a loaf of gingerbread up-stairs yesterday afternoon? As cool as a cucumber."

"They were both cool as cucumbers," said Mrs. Ray; "that's why they borrowed your shawls all the time, I guess. Cooler than cucumbers they would have been without them, I reckon."

"Jack went up and gave the old lady warning right after dinner," said Mrs. O'Neil. "He only stopped to just get a bite first."

"Well, I hope he didn't get a bite last, too," said Mrs. Ray, tucking in the ends of her shawl. "That pair was too comfortable with you to want to be warned to leave. Making fudge, indeed! I'm surprised at you, Nellie; I'd no more think of letting my boarders make fudge than I would of keeping them for nothing. You and Jack don't belong in the hotel business. You can't possibly make boarding people pay, unless you make them pay for their board."

"No, you can't," said Pinkie.

"Josiah was driving down to North Ledge yesterday, and he saw them getting over a fence in that direction," said Mrs. Wiley, rising. "He said they seemed to be learning the country by all means, fair or foul."

"Well, I don't want to seem unfriendly," said Mrs. Ray; "but I guess you'll all have to go. I found some ants in my grocery business this morning for the first time, and while I'm give to understand it's the regular thing in most grocery businesses, no ant need flatter himself that it is in mine. I'm going to clean out the whole of the three shelves this afternoon and sprinkle borax everywhere where it can't taste. So I must have this room. I'll be down to-night after mail, Nellie; good-by."

Thereupon they all departed.