Judy was sitting up in bed, the moon lighting her enough for Molly to
see a wild, startled look on her face.
"Molly, Molly, I hear something!"
"You hear me making more noise than I have any business to at this time
o' night. I have been having a good old talk with muddy."
"Oh, no, it wasn't that. I knew you were downstairs. I haven't been
truly asleep. I was 'possuming.' It is out by the chicken yard, and I am
so afraid it is burglars after the pullets Aunt Mary told me she was
saving for chicken salad for the wedding supper. Lewis was to kill them
to-morrow."
Judy had entered so intensely into the Browns' household affairs that
Molly herself was no more interested in the festive preparations than
was her guest. Molly drew cautiously to the window and peeped out; she
beckoned Judy, and the excited girls saw a sight to freeze the marrow in
their chicken-salad-loving bones: the thief had a wheelbarrow, and some
great gunny sacks over his arm, and was in the act of boldly opening the
chicken-yard gate.
"If we call he will get away, and how else can we let the boys know? The
wretch may have those sacks full of chickens even now," moaned Molly.
There was a three-room cottage or "office," as they called it, on the
side of the house next the garden where all of the young men slept in
summer. The girls feared that, in trying to let them know of the
burglar, if they went out of the front door they would startle Mrs.
Brown. And if they should try to go out the back door, in getting to the
cottage they would have to run across a broad streak of moonlight in
plain view of the thief, and thus give him ample time to get away with
his booty before they could arouse the boys.
"Why shouldn't we take the matter in our own hands and make him drop his
sacks and run?" said Molly. "I am not afraid, are you?"
"Me afraid? Bless your soul, no. I am only afraid he will get off with
the chickens," replied the intrepid Judy. "I have my little revolver in
the tray of my trunk, the one papa gave me when we were camping in
Arizona. I can load it in a jiffy. But what weapon will you take?"
"I don't see anything but my tennis racket. I'll take that and some
balls, too, in case I have to hit at long range. There is really no
danger for us, as a chicken thief has never been known to go armed with
anything more dangerous than a bag."
They slipped on their raincoats, as they were darker than their kimonos,
and crept softly down the back stairs, out on the back porch, and down
the steps into the yard, keeping close in the shadow of the house until
they came to an althea hedge. Skirting this, still in the shadow, they
got near enough to the chicken-yard gate to have a good look at the
burglar. That burly ruffian, instead of bagging the pullets that were
peacefully roosting in a dog-wood tree, totally unconscious that they
were sleeping the last sleep of the condemned, had taken a spade from
his wheelbarrow, carefully spread out his gunny sacks and was digging
with great care around the holly-hocks, digging so deep and so far from
the roots that he soon got up a great sod without injuring the plants.
This he placed with great care in the barrow, and as he stepped into the
broad moonlight the girls recognized Kent. They clutched each other and
were silent, except for a little choking noise from Judy which might
easily have come from one of the condemned, having premonitory dreams of
the morrow.
Kent worked on until his wheelbarrow was full of the lovely flowers.
Then he stuck in the spade and trundled it away toward the garden, the
girls silently following, still keeping as well in the shadow as was
possible, and holding tight to their weapons, although they no longer
had any use for them. On reaching the garden, they realized that Kent
must have been working many hours. He had already moved dozens of the
stately plants, and they now stood in the garden where they belonged, no
doubt glad of the transplanting from their former homely surroundings.
So deeply and well had Kent dug that they were uninjured by the move,
and he completed the job by dousing them plentifully with water from a
great tub that he had filled at the cistern.
The effect was wonderful, as Judy had known that it would be, but her
surprise and pleasure that Kent should be so anxious to gratify her
every wish was great. She felt her cheeks glowing with excitement and
her heart pit-a-patting as it would not have done, even had Kent proved
to be the chicken thief they had imagined him to be.
That young man finished his job, cleaned his spade, shook out the gunny
sacks, raked the debris from the walk, and then, giving a tired yawn and
stretching himself until he looked even taller than the six feet one he
measured in his stocking feet, he said out loud in a perfectly
conversational tone:
"Now, Miss Judy, you may have the master mind that can imagine things
and see beforehand how they are going to look, but I'll have you know it
takes work to create and drudgery to accomplish; and only by the sweat
of the brow can we 'give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.'
You and Molly can step out of the bushes and view the landscape."
"Oh, Kent, did you know we were there all the time?"
"Certainly, little Sister, from the time Miss Judy went like a chicken
with the gapes, I have known you were with me; but you seemed to be
having such a good time I hated to break it up. You might have stepped
in and helped a fellow, though."
"Oh, we were doing the head work," retaliated Judy.
Kent laughed, and then he had to tease them about their adventure and
their weapons, especially Molly's racket and balls.
"We had better crawl into the hay now, however. It is getting mighty
late at night, or, rather, mighty early in the morning, and where will
our beauty be if we don't get to sleep? I'll see you to the back door."
"You needn't," said Molly. "You must be dead tired, and here is the
office door open for you. There is no use in your coming any farther. We
can slip around the front way and be in the house in no time."
"Well, good morning. I am dead tired, and such brave ladies as you are
need no escort. Better luck to you next time you go burglar hunting."
It was a wonderful night, or rather morning, as Kent had indicated. The
moon hung low on the horizon ready for bed, as an example to all up-late
young ladies. The stars, with their rival retiring, were doing their
best to get in a little shine before daylight. Everything was very
still. The tree frogs and crickets and Katy-dids had suddenly ceased
their incessant noise. There was a feel in the air that meant dawn.
What was it that greeted the ears of the tired Kent? Old tennis player
that he was, it sounded to him like the twang of a racket in the hands
of a determined server who means to drive a ball that the champion
himself could not return. Then came the dull thud of the ball, a groan,
a scream; then the sharp crack of a pistol, more screams from inside the
house; lights, doors opening, all the household awake, and Paul and John
and Crit, who had spent the night at Chatsworth, tumbling out of the
office almost before Kent could get around the house. There he found
Judy fallen in a little heap on the grass, and Molly carefully and
coolly aiming a second tennis ball, this time at a real burglar.
The man climbing from the upper gallery of the house had been surprised
by the girls as they came from the garden. At Molly's first ball he had
dropped to the ground, and Judy had caught him on the fly, as it were.
The second tennis ball got him square on the jaw, but he was already
down and out. Kent declared afterward, when the smoke of battle had
cleared away, that it was not like Molly to hit a fellow when he was
down. She had always been a good sport until now.
Mrs. Woodsmall, it seems, had talked too much about the weight of
Mildred's silver, and had dwelt too long on the recklessness of the
Browns in having all of those fine things in the little hall room with
the window opening on the upper gallery, where anybody with any
limberness could climb up that twisted wisteria vine and get away with
anything he had a mind to. A tramp, hanging around the postoffice
window, had overheard her and, having more limberness than any other
commodity, had endeavored to help himself.
Dr. John came with first aid to the injured, and found the man more
scared than hurt. It was hard to tell which ball had done most damage;
certainly Molly's was the more effective in appearance. Her first she
had served straight at his nose, so disfiguring that member that the
rogues' gallery officials would have had difficulty in identifying him.
The second found his jaw and gave him so much pain that John feared a
fracture. Judy's little pistol had done good work. A flesh wound on the
arm was the verdict for her.
The ground was strewn with silver in every kind of fancy novelty that a
bride is supposed by her dear friends to need--or why else do they give
them to her?
Then Crittenden Rutledge opened his mouth and spoke. As usual when he
did such a thing it was worth getting up before dawn to hear him.
"Don't you think, Mildred, darling, we might give the poor fellow three
or four cheese scoops and several butter knives and a card tray or two?
A young couple could easily make out for a while with one of each, and
if he will promise to go back to Indiana and stay---- You did come from
Indiana, didn't you?" The man gave a grin and nodded. "Well, if you
promise to go back and never put your foot in Kentucky again, I'll go
wrap up Aunt Clay's vases for you."
Mrs. Brown, thankful that her brood was safe and no more damage done the
poor, wicked tramp than a sore shoulder, a swollen nose and a fractured
jaw, sent them all to bed with instructions to sleep late, and told
Molly and Judy to stay in bed for breakfast. The burglar was put in the
smokehouse for safekeeping until sun-up, when John and Paul expected to
take him to Louisville, swear out a warrant against him and land him in
jail. When the time came, however, to transfer their prisoner from
smokehouse to jail, they found the door open, the man gone and a fine
old ham missing.
"An' they ain't a single pusson in the whole er Indianny what knows how
ter cook a ham, either," bewailed Aunt Mary.
"To think the ungrateful wretch went off without Aunt Clay's vases,"
muttered Crittenden Rutledge.