VIII.
_A KIND WORD FOR LEM._
The path up the mountain could be plainly seen from below for nearlyhalf its length; then it was often hidden by many a sharp turn andcorner, or the trees and bushes which bordered it on either side. AsJohn Porter and the two gentlemen stood at its foot and gazed upward,they could see nothing of Lem; and they went on cautiously, lookingfrom side to side lest he should be hiding among some one of the manynooks and crannies of the rocks. But they did not find him till theyreached the very crown of the "Chief's Head," where they came uponhim lying full length upon his back beneath the shade of a pine-tree,eating an apple.
They had mounted so quietly that not even his quick ear had heard themtill they were close upon him, and he caught sight of John Porterturning a corner of the rock. Then he sprang to his feet, and, with aguilty but fierce look, darted around so as to bring the pine-treesbetween him and his pursuers.
But there was no chance of escape on this bare, high point of themountain. To throw himself down, or go rushing and scrambling overthe rocks and every thing else that lay in his way, as he would havedone in another place, would not do here, where a false step or a slipwould carry him to certain death; and, in a moment, John Porter hadhis hand upon his collar, and giving him a rough shake, ordered him togive up the cup.
"What cup? I aint got no cup," answered Lem.
"None of that; give it up now," said John, and plunging his handseveral times into Lem's pockets, he brought out, no silver cup, buthalf a dozen large bough apples.
"My own Osborn apples!" exclaimed John, quite forgetting the cup atthis sight. "I'd know them anywhere. The rascal must have stripped thetree, and it is the first year it has borne. I set so much store bythem! I'll fix you for this," and John gave his prisoner two or threehard cuffs.
"Stop, John," said Mr. Bradford, "that is not the way to deal withhim;" and speaking gently but firmly to Lem, he told him that if hewould tell where the cup was to be found he should not be punished soseverely as if he still continued to keep it concealed.
But the boy still declared he knew nothing of any cup; and, afterhunting in vain for it among all the clefts of the "Chief's Head,"they had to give up the search. There were a thousand places on theway up where he might have hidden it, and it was useless to lookwithout some clew.
So, having picked up his beloved apples, John Porter led his prisonerdown the mountain, followed by Mr. Bradford and Mr. Stanton. Theyhad nearly reached the end of the path, when Dolly suddenly appearedupon it. She was about to start aside, and either run or hide herself,after her usual fashion, when her eye fell upon Lem in John Porter'sgrasp. Now Dolly had heard nothing of the cup, but she knew that Lemhad meant to rob John Porter's tree of its tempting fruit, and shewas on her way to meet him at the "Chief's Head," according to hisbidding, and have a share of the ill-gotten prize. When she saw him,she supposed that John had taken him prisoner for stealing his apples;and Lem had too often before been in such trouble for her to think ita very serious matter. She did not look for any thing worse, as theconsequence of this wickedness, than a whipping, or perhaps that heshould be shut up for a few hours; and, although she scowled angrilyat her brother's captors, she said nothing to them or to him, butturned and followed at a little distance.
When they reached the house, Mrs. Bradford came out, and begged herhusband and brother not to be too hasty in making up their minds thatLem had stolen the cup. For, when they had started to go after theboy, it was supposed that Fanny had seen him take it, but it appearedshe had not.
Fanny, though kind and good-natured, was not a very wise young woman;and when she had rushed into the house in such an excited manner, shesaid that she had put the cup on the shelf of the little window, thatLem had come over the rocks at the back of the dairy, put his hand inat the window, snatched out the cup, and run up the mountain with it.
Now Fanny fully believed that Lem had done all this; but she did not_know_ that he had, for she had not seen him. Wicked boy though sheknew him to be, she would not have willingly accused him of that ofwhich he was not guilty; but she had spoken as if she knew it to beso, and the two gentlemen, thinking there was no time to lose if thecup was to be recovered, had at once set out after the supposed thief.
But when Maggie and Bessie had been quieted and questioned, theiranswers showed that no one of the three had seen the cup go; but whenthey missed it, they had gone out to look for it behind the dairy.Then Fanny, noticing the traces on the rocks, and next seeing Lemclimbing the mountain-path, had at once concluded that the bad boymust be the thief.
Next it came out there was another person who might have made his wayto the back of the dairy and stolen the cup, and this was the man withthe pack on his back, whom they had all three seen going down the lakeroad. This proved to have been a pedler, who had been up to the house,and whom Mrs. Porter, who never suffered such people about, and whodid not like the man's looks, had warned off the place.
Still, every one believed that Lem had been the thief. The boystoutly and fiercely denied it; and Dolly, when she heard of whathe was accused, went into a violent rage, crying and screaming, andthreatening, if he was not allowed to go, all manner of revenge,especially against the children, whom she seemed to think were chieflyto blame for this. Mrs. Bradford and the other ladies tried to comfortthe poor, desolate child; but she would suffer no one to come nearher, cursing and striking about her in a way which made every one fearto approach her. Mrs. Porter carried her some dinner, but she threw itin the kind old lady's face, and then ran off as fast as she could.Mr. Porter sent Bob and one of his older brothers to search once morefor the lost cup, and John Porter went down to the village to see ifhe could find any trace of the pedler.
Meanwhile Mr. Porter said he should shut Lem up until the nextmorning: a punishment which he deserved for the theft of the apples,which he could not deny, since they had been found upon him, and thetree was entirely stripped.
"Maybe it was that which frightened him, and made him look so guiltywhen you came upon him," said Mr. Porter; "I am sure, bad andtroublesome as he is, I hope it may be so."
"I wasn't scared, neither," said Lem, sullenly; "takin' a few applesaint no great; but I knowed for sure they was after me for some harm.Nobody ever comes after Dol and me for no good."
Though this was said in a sulky, defiant way, there was somethingin the speech which went straight to Bessie's tender little heart.Perhaps it also touched more than one grown person there, and madethem wish, more earnestly than before, that they might do somethingfor these two poor, neglected children.
But Mr. Porter was no hard jailer. Lem was taken to a little disusedtool-house, where he was locked up, and one of the hired men put onguard outside, so that he might do no mischief; Mr. Porter havingfirst provided him with a good meal, if he chose to eat it.
"Maggie," said Bessie to her sister that afternoon, "did you hear whatLem said when Mr. Porter spoke about his being frightened when papaand Uncle Ruthven found him?"
"Yes," said Maggie, "and it made me very sorry for him, and that thingcame into my throat that comes when you want to cry, and you're afraidsome one will ask what you are crying about."
"I wonder if we could not do something to show him we would like to bekind to him," said Bessie.
"But he is shut up," said Maggie.
"Yes; but you know that there is a pile of logs by the window of thatlittle house, and we could get up on it and speak to him, and let himknow we would like to come near him to do him good. We'll go and tellhim we will ask Mr. Porter to let him out if he will promise not tosteal any more."
"Yes," said Maggie, "Mr. Porter said he would do any thing for me formy birthday that I asked him, if it was reasonable; and I s'pose hewouldn't mind doing it a little before, and I think this is prettyreasonable, don't you, Bessie?"
"Yes, and that's a very nice idea of you, Maggie," said Bessie; andthis being agreed upon, they went off together.
The pile of logs which lay at the side of the too
l-house was nothard to climb, and they had more than once played upon it with theirbrothers, and now they mounted upon it, and put their two littlefaces close to the wooden bars which crossed the small window. It wasgrowing late, and the tool-house was rather dark, but they could justsee the boy's figure as he sat all in a heap upon the floor. As thelittle light which came through the bars was partly darkened by thetwo small faces, he started up, saying roughly, "Clear out now!"
At this, Maggie ducked, fearing she scarcely knew what; but Bessie,though she also was rather frightened, held her ground, and said,gently,--
"We want to speak to you, Lem."
"None of your speaking. Be off with you, will you?" said the boy,looking around for something he might throw at the window.
But there was nothing on which he could lay his hands. Mr. Porter hadtaken care to carry off every thing which could possibly be turned tomischief.
"But we are going to do you a favor," said Bessie.
"I want none of your favors; let me alone now," answered Lem.
"But we are going to do it to you whether you think you want it ornot," said Bessie; "'cause you _will_ be glad of it. We are going toask Mr. Porter to let you out. Will you promise not to steal any more,Lem?"
"I didn't touch your cup," said Lem.
"Well, maybe you did not," said Bessie; "I'd rather think you did not.I'd rather think it was the pedler-man."
"Much you'd care who took it, if you once got it back," said the boy,sulkily.
"But I would care, and so would Maggie," said Bessie. "I'drather--yes--I think I would--I'd rather be sure you hadn't taken itand never find it, than to find it and know you did steal it. Yes, Iwould, Lem, and I do love my cup very much."
"Oh! come now," said Lem, "you aint goin' to make me say I took it byany of that cant. Are you goin' or not?" and he came closer to thewindow, with a threatening look.
"We'll go in a minute," said Bessie. "This is my Maggie," and she puther arm about the neck of her sister, who had summoned up courageto peep in at the window again. "Pretty soon she is going to have abirthday, and Mr. Porter said he would do any thing she asked him for,and so she is going to ask him to do it for her now, and to let youout. Will you be glad of that, Lem?"
"You aint a goin' to make me say I took your old cup," persisted Lem,with some very bad words; and, too much shocked to talk to him anymore, the little girls slipped down from the logs and ran away.
But shocked and frightened though they were, they did not forget theirkind purpose; and a couple of hours later, Mr. Porter unlocked thedoor of the tool-house. His son John stood by, a lantern in his hand.
"I am going to let you out," said Mr. Porter to Lem; "not that youdeserve it, if it was only on account of the apples, and I did meanto keep you here till to-morrow night at least; but those dear littlegirls that you've plagued so, have begged you off, and I couldn'trefuse them. So just you bear that in mind, my lad, and let them alonefor the time to come, or you won't find me so easy when next you fallinto my hands. Here," and Mr. Porter put a package of food into theboy's hands, "take this, and be off with you. My son will see you safehome; for it's an awful dark night, and you might break your neck onthe rocks without a light."
Had Lem done as he wished, he would have rushed off without waitingfor company or light; but it was a terribly dark night, not a starwas to be seen, for the whole sky was covered with the black cloudswhich told that a storm was coming, and he knew well enough that hecould never find his way home over those dangerous rocks, without thelight of the lantern. John Porter, though a good-natured man, was notat all pleased that his father had let Lem off so easily. The lossof the first of his much-prized Osborn apples, while they were yethalf-ripe, had vexed him sorely, and he would have liked that Lemshould have been severely punished for that theft, even had he not, incommon with the rest of the household, believed that he had stolen thesilver cup.
So, although he had agreed to his father's wish that he should see theboy safely over the most dangerous part of his way home, he did itwith no good-will, and trudged along in silence, turning over in hismind whether or no he could resolve to let Lem go without giving hima good thrashing. But he had been in the kitchen that evening, whenMaggie and Bessie had gone to the porch to speak to his father forLem, and he had heard all that had passed; and now, as he rememberedhow sweetly and generously the two dear little girls had pleaded forthe boy who had treated them so badly, he could not resolve to givehim even a part of the punishment he so richly deserved.
"The little dears mightn't like it if they knew it," he said tohimself, "and I wouldn't like to be outdone in forgiveness by twobabies such as they are, so I'll keep my hands off him, though it doesgo against the grain to do it."
Perhaps Lem guessed something of what was passing in John Porter'smind, for he took good care to keep beyond the reach of his powerfularm until they reached the miserable hovel which served him for a home.
"Well," said John, raising his lantern so as to throw its light withinthe crazy door, "this is a pleasant kind of a place to pass such anight as this is like to be. I'm thinking you'd have done better inour old tool-house, my lad. Where's t'other one?" meaning Dol.
"Dunno, and don't care," answered Lem.
"Off on some new mischief, I'll be bound," said John. "Well,good-night to you, if you can pass a good night here," and he walkedaway, in haste to be home before the storm should break.
Dol was, alas! in some new mischief,--mischief such as John didnot dream of; or, although the gust swept through the forest andover the lake, and the rain poured heavily down just as he set hisfoot upon the threshold, he had not gone so quietly to his mother'ssitting-room, and read the paper aloud to her, as she knitted away onhis next winter's stockings.