CHAPTER XXXVI
CORNERED
The next day was a scorcher, even as Sallie had foretold, but Jacqueline"flaxed round," as Grandma called it, and had her baking done by nineo'clock. She found the work mere play, because she was light-hearted.What else should she be, with Caroline's beads safe upstairs in the oldlacquer box, and Great-aunt Eunice coming back the last of this week orthe first of next, and everything about to end happily? She was going tohave great fun, looking back on this strange summer. As to Caroline--oh,well, Caroline had had the time of her life, and she'd get used to thefarm pretty soon. After all, in this world one can't haveeverything--which is a comforting reflection, and especially so to thosewho have a great deal!
Aunt Martha came into the kitchen, about nine o'clock, with her handsall grimy, where she had been working in the garden.
"Just keep an eye on the babies, will you, Jackie?" she said, as shefilled the blue enamel basin at the sink. "It's too hot for them to runabout in the sun and Nellie can't always manage 'em."
So Jacqueline took the mending basket and went out into the side-yard,where the trees cast a strong shadow, if one had the sense to stay init, and there was a ripple of wind--hot but at least stirring--whichcame across the onion fields from the western mountains.
Jacqueline sat in the old weather-beaten hammock, and darned stockings,and sewed on buttons while Nellie and Freddie and Annie played at herfeet with two cups that had lost their handles, seventeen spools, and aheadless toy horse. Presently, as the sun rose higher and work in thegarden grew out of the question, Dickie and Neil came and dropped in theshade, like panting puppies. Dickie had his Boy Scout book; but Neil hadnothing to do but whittle with his single-bladed jackknife.
Last of all came Ralph, with the leather strap collar that he wanted tomend for the brown bossy. He sat on the ground, tailor fashion, andpunched holes in the stiff leather with a stout awl, and made terriblefaces over the work, but Jacqueline knew better than to laugh at him. Hewas a frightfully serious person, that Ralph.
They were all busy in the shade, with their work or their play, when adusty roadster came chirring down the road from the village, and of allthings, turned in at the Conway farm.
"Gee!" said Ralph. "If that isn't Judge Holden."
He uncoiled himself and rose from the ground, and hobbling, because onefoot had gone to sleep, hurried over to the kitchen door where theroadster had come to a stop. Jacqueline saw him open the door of thecar, and wait for its occupant to alight, and then she saw a tall oldgentleman, clean shaven, in dusty gray clothes, step spryly out, and patRalph's shoulder, as he greeted him.
Aunt Martha must have heard or seen the car turn into the yard, for sheappeared now at the kitchen door, a little flurried, with her apron off.Judge Holden shook hands with her, and then they both went into thehouse, and Ralph came back into the shadow of the trees.
"What does the Judge want?" asked Neil.
"He said you'd got to come to his court in Baring," Ralph answered, witha perfectly sober face, "'cause you cut cross Deacon Whitcomb's field,after Mother said not to."
"G'on," Neil scoffed, but in an anxious voice. "The Judge never said anysuch thing."
"Much you know what he said!" retorted Ralph, as he took up his strapand his awl, and fell to work once more.
"Say, did he say that--honest?" Neil began to whine. "Honest Injun?"
"'Course he didn't, you big baby," Dickie broke in. "Ralph's juststringing you. I guess the Judge wants Mother to sign something aboutthe wood lot or something."
"Is he Aunt Martha's lawyer?" Jacqueline asked innocently.
"Where'd you get that stuff?" said Dickie. "He isn't anybody's lawyer.He's about the biggest man in town."
"He's a good scout," Ralph interrupted. "He's done lots of things for ussince Father died." He bit his lip with the effort of jabbing the awlthrough the tough leather, and then resumed: "Mother and Father bothwent to school to him, when he was a young fellow, working his waythrough college. Your father went to school to him, too, Jackie. Someday," Ralph added, "I'm going to read law in his office."
"I don't want you to be a judge," Nellie burst out. "I don't want you togo putting folks in jail."
"Well, you behave yourself," Neil admonished, "and he won't never putyou there."
At the implication that she might otherwise land some day in jail,Nellie began to whimper.
"Aw, you big cheese, stop teazing the kid!" cried Dickie.
Then he and Neil began to maul each other, regardless of the heat, andNellie, quite forgetful of the fact that Dickie was her champion, wentto help Neil who was getting the worst of it. She got hit on the nose,quite accidentally, but none the less she began at once to cry.
In the confusion of soothing Nellie and scolding the boys, Jacquelineand Ralph didn't hear Aunt Martha call. But Freddie heard and cried:
"Look-it! Look-it! Auntie at the window!"
They looked, and there was Aunt Martha, at the open window of the diningroom.
"Jackie!" she called clearly. "Come here, Jackie!"
"You're the one that's going to jail," laughed Neil.
"Chase yourself!" Jacqueline laughed back at him, and put down hermending basket, and trotted off to the house.
Did he want to see her, this strange old gentleman, because he hadtaught the father of the little girl she was supposed to be? Or did hewant to see her because--Oh, could Caroline have told Aunt Eunice, andcould Aunt Eunice have written to this man, who was "the biggest man intown" to set things straight?
With her heart quite thudding at the pleasurable thought, Jacquelinepadded across the clean, familiar kitchen, and into the dining room. Thetable stood set for the simple dinner. The blinds were half drawn, andthe light in the room, that came sifting through the leaves outside, wasgoldy green. Jacqueline blinked a second, and then made out the face ofthe Judge, grave, expressionless, all but the keen eyes that instantlysought her, from where he sat in the big rocker by the window.
"This is Henry's little girl," Aunt Martha spoke in a voice that wasstrangely flat, not like Aunt Martha's voice at all.
Jacqueline glanced at her curiously. How white and queer Aunt Marthalooked, she thought to herself, but perhaps it was only because of thedim, queer light in the room.
"So you're Caroline Tait, are you?" said the Judge, with his steady eyesupon her.
Jacqueline bobbed a curtsy. That wasn't saying yes to his question, soshe hadn't told a fib.
"Sit down," bade the Judge, just as if it were his house, instead ofAunt Martha's.
Jacqueline sat down in the spiral rocker opposite him, with her dustysneakers swinging clear of the floor.
"You go to school, Caroline?"
"Yes, Judge," said Jacqueline. "I'm going into the seventh grade nextmonth."
"And you go to Sunday School?"
"Yes, Judge."
"Then you've been taught to tell the truth, always?"
"Sure," said Jacqueline, in a steady voice, but as she spoke she lockedtogether the hands that had been resting idly in her lap. What was hedriving at, in his roundabout, grown-up way? Did he know aboutCaroline's gold beads? But she had put them back, safe in the box.
"Now, Caroline," the Judge spoke gravely, "I want you to take your timeand tell your aunt and me just what you did yesterday afternoon."
Jacqueline darted a look about her.
"Don't be afraid, Jackie," Aunt Martha spoke up. "Tell us just whathappened. I know you haven't any call to be afraid."
Jacqueline unclasped her hands on her lap, and clasped them tight again.She was ashamed to feel how they were trembling.
"I went up to the village with Dickie," she said, "in Mr. Zabriski'scar, and I did some errands for Aunt Martha at Cyrus Hatton's, and thePost Office, and Miss Crevey's."
"Then you came straight home, didn't you?" Aunt Martha struck ineagerly. "Didn't you, Jackie?"
The Judge held up his hand, and frowned.
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"If you please, Martha! Let her tell the story her own way. Where didyou go then, Caroline?"
"I came down Longmeadow Street," Jacqueline went on cautiously. Whateverhe was up to, this Judge, she wasn't going to give away the secret thatshe shared with Caroline! "I stopped at the William Gildersleeve place."
Aunt Martha drew a quick breath. The Judge gave her a warning glance.
"I knocked at the door," Jacqueline went on, "and I asked to see thelittle girl."
"Why?"
"I--I knew her on the train, coming from Chicago," Jacqueline answered,feeling her way. "She wasn't there, but the maids were real kind,because I was tired. They asked me in, and they gave me a drink of milk,and I ran an errand to the store, and Sallie gave me ten cents, and shehad a crick in her back so I did up both the bathrooms for her, fortwenty-five cents, and the money is upstairs in my pocket-book this veryminute, Aunt Martha."
She looked hopefully at Aunt Martha, but Aunt Martha sat with her eyescast down, and her hands on her lap pressed tight together.
"I--see!" said the Judge. He sat leaning on one elbow, with his chin inhis hand and his deep-set eyes never once wavering from Jacqueline'sface. "Well, when you left the house, what next?"
"I crawled through the hole in the hedge, and I saw the fat little girlnext door, and she said hello."
"Was that all?"
"She showed me her birthday presents."
"And then----"
Was she going to reveal anything that would "give away" her transactionwith Caroline's beads? Not Jacqueline!
"Then I went back to Miss Crevey's," she said calmly, "after somethingI'd forgotten."
"And you didn't see the fat little girl again?"
"No, Judge, I came right straight home from Miss Crevey's."
Judge Holden's gray eyebrows drew together in a frown. Jacquelinesquirmed beneath his relentless scrutiny. She turned for relief to AuntMartha, and was dismayed to see the misery in her white face.
"Why, what's it all about?" cried Jacqueline defensively.
"Look at me!" said the Judge. "You haven't told us everything, have you,Caroline? Think a little now."
"Oh, Jackie, tell us all about it!" Aunt Martha burst out with a sharpcry. "You found them, didn't you? And you didn't realize----"
"Tut, tut! Martha!" the Judge interposed sternly. "You know youpromised. Now, Caroline, when this little fat girl showed you herpresents, there was a handbag among them, wasn't there?"
Jacqueline nodded. She felt her face growing red. Not with fright orshame, and that old Judge needn't think it. She was just getting madclear through, as she realized the treachery with which Eleanor hadtreated her.
"There was a five-dollar bill in the bag, wasn't there?" the Judge wenton. "And she gave it to you?"
"I'll say she did!" cried Jacqueline. "The horrid little sneakingtell-tale!"
"Hm!" said the Judge. "Gave you a five-dollar bill, did she? What for?"
Jacqueline looked Judge Holden straight in the face.
"If that bawl-baby says I cheated her, it isn't so," she cried. "I gaveher some gold beads, and they're worth more than her nasty old fivedollars."
In the second that followed Jacqueline heard Aunt Martha draw a quickbreath. But she couldn't turn to look at her. She was watching theJudge, and wondering why he should put his hand into the pocket of hiscoat.
"I'm glad you told us this, Caroline," he said. "You see, the littlegirl told her mother, and her mother told me all about it. Are these thebeads you gave her for five dollars?"
It was the identical yellow strand--her own beads--that he drew from thepocket of his dusty gray coat. Jacqueline cast one careless glance atthem.
"Sure," she said.
The Judge's voice was patient, and quite gentle:
"Where did you get them, Caroline?"
Jacqueline looked from the Judge to Aunt Martha, and caught AuntMartha's bloodless lips shaping the one word: "Found----"
"Martha, if you please!" the Judge fairly thundered.
"Well, I did find them, so there!" cried Jacqueline. "And you needn'tyell at Aunt Martha, even if you _are_ a judge. They were in the chinabox in the bedroom next to the bathroom at the Gildersleeves', you know,and I took them----"
"Took them?" Aunt Martha's voice was no more than a gasp of pain anddismay. "Oh, no, Jackie! No!" She hid her face in her hands.
Jacqueline rose to her feet, bewildered.
"Aunt Martha! Don't!" she quavered. "Aunt Martha!" She fairly whimperedthe last words, as she flung her arms round Aunt Martha. In half aminute she knew she was going to cry and it was all that hateful Judge'sfault.
Aunt Martha put her arms round Jacqueline and held her close.
"Oh, Judge!" she said. "There's some mistake--I can't believe it evennow. She's coming down sick or something--she didn't understand--shenever took them wilfully. Jackie! Tell us everything! I can't stand itto have folks calling you a thief."
Jacqueline stiffened in Aunt Martha's arms.
"Me--a thief?" she cried furiously. "They'd better not call me that.Why, Aunt Martha, don't you ever dare think so! Don't you let 'em makeyou think so!"
Aunt Martha was crying--actually crying! Aunt Martha! Oh, but thatcouldn't be allowed. At any cost, even a broken promise to Caroline!What did Caroline matter now? It was Aunt Martha who counted.
"Don't! Don't!" wailed Jacqueline and clasped Aunt Martha tight. "Don'tyou cry, Aunt Martha! There's nothing to cry about. I didn't steal thosebeads--they're my _own_ beads! I'll tell you all about it, if you won'tcry. It's all right, Aunt Martha--because I'm _not_ Caroline Tait atall--I'm Jacqueline Gildersleeve."
"Don't! Don't!" wailed Jacqueline and clasped Aunt Marthatight. "Don't you cry.... There's nothing to cry about."]