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 nine
o'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 old
lacquer box, and Great-aunt Eunice coming back the last of this week or
the first of next, and everything about to end happily? She was going to
have 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 the
farm pretty soon. After all, in this world one can't have
everything--which is a comforting reflection, and especially so to those
who have a great deal!
Aunt Martha came into the kitchen, about nine o'clock, with her hands
all grimy, where she had been working in the garden.
"Just keep an eye on the babies, will you, Jackie?" she said, as she
filled the blue enamel basin at the sink. "It's too hot for them to run
about 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 in
it, and there was a ripple of wind--hot but at least stirring--which
came 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 her
feet with two cups that had lost their handles, seventeen spools, and a
headless toy horse. Presently, as the sun rose higher and work in the
garden grew out of the question, Dickie and Neil came and dropped in the
shade, like panting puppies. Dickie had his Boy Scout book; but Neil had
nothing to do but whittle with his single-bladed jackknife.
Last of all came Ralph, with the leather strap collar that he wanted to
mend for the brown bossy. He sat on the ground, tailor fashion, and
punched holes in the stiff leather with a stout awl, and made terrible
faces over the work, but Jacqueline knew better than to laugh at him. He
was a frightfully serious person, that Ralph.
They were all busy in the shade, with their work or their play, when a
dusty roadster came chirring down the road from the village, and of all
things, 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 one
foot had gone to sleep, hurried over to the kitchen door where the
roadster had come to a stop. Jacqueline saw him open the door of the
car, and wait for its occupant to alight, and then she saw a tall old
gentleman, clean shaven, in dusty gray clothes, step spryly out, and pat
Ralph's shoulder, as he greeted him.
Aunt Martha must have heard or seen the car turn into the yard, for she
appeared now at the kitchen door, a little flurried, with her apron off.
Judge Holden shook hands with her, and then they both went into the
house, 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, with
a 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 any
such thing."
"Much you know what he said!" retorted Ralph, as he took up his strap
and 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 just
stringing you. I guess the Judge wants Mother to sign something about
the 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 us
since Father died." He bit his lip with the effort of jabbing the awl
through the tough leather, and then resumed: "Mother and Father both
went to school to him, when he was a young fellow, working his way
through college. Your father went to school to him, too, Jackie. Some
day," 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 to
go putting folks in jail."
"Well, you behave yourself," Neil admonished, "and he won't never put
you 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, and
Nellie, quite forgetful of the fact that Dickie was her champion, went
to 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, Jacqueline
and 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 dining
room.
"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 her
mending basket, and trotted off to the house.
Did he want to see her, this strange old gentleman, because he had
taught the father of the little girl she was supposed to be? Or did he
want to see her because--Oh, could Caroline have told Aunt Eunice, and
could Aunt Eunice have written to this man, who was "the biggest man in
town" to set things straight?
With her heart quite thudding at the pleasurable thought, Jacqueline
padded across the clean, familiar kitchen, and into the dining room. The
table stood set for the simple dinner. The blinds were half drawn, and
the light in the room, that came sifting through the leaves outside, was
goldy green. Jacqueline blinked a second, and then made out the face of
the Judge, grave, expressionless, all but the keen eyes that instantly
sought 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 was
strangely flat, not like Aunt Martha's voice at all.
Jacqueline glanced at her curiously. How white and queer Aunt Martha
looked, she thought to herself, but perhaps it was only because of the
dim, queer light in the room.
"So you're Caroline Tait, are you?" said the Judge, with his steady eyes
upon her.
Jacqueline bobbed a curtsy. That wasn't saying yes to his question, so
she hadn't told a fib.
"Sit down," bade the Judge, just as if it were his house, instead of
Aunt Martha's.
Jacqueline sat down in the spiral rocker opposite him, with her dusty
sneakers swinging clear of the floor.
"You go to school, Caroline?"
"Yes, Judge," said Jacqueline. "I'm going into the seventh grade next
month."
"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 locked
together the hands that had been resting idly in her lap. What was he
driving at, in his roundabout, grown-up way? Did he know about
Caroline'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 time
and 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 what
happened. 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's
car, and I did some errands for Aunt Martha at Cyrus Hatton's, and the
Post Office, and Miss Crevey's."
"Then you came straight home, didn't you?" Aunt Martha struck in
eagerly. "Didn't you, Jackie?"
The Judge held up his hand, and frowned.
"If you please, Martha! Let her tell the story her own way. Where did
you go then, Caroline?"
"I came down Longmeadow Street," Jacqueline went on cautiously. Whatever
he was up to, this Judge, she wasn't going to give away the secret that
she 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 the
little 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 she
had a crick in her back so I did up both the bathrooms for her, for
twenty-five cents, and the money is upstairs in my pocket-book this very
minute, Aunt Martha."
She looked hopefully at Aunt Martha, but Aunt Martha sat with her eyes
cast down, and her hands on her lap pressed tight together.
"I--see!" said the Judge. He sat leaning on one elbow, with his chin in
his hand and his deep-set eyes never once wavering from Jacqueline's
face. "Well, when you left the house, what next?"
"I crawled through the hole in the hedge, and I saw the fat little girl
next 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 transaction
with Caroline's beads? Not Jacqueline!
"Then I went back to Miss Crevey's," she said calmly, "after something
I'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. Jacqueline
squirmed beneath his relentless scrutiny. She turned for relief to Aunt
Martha, 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 sharp
cry. "You found them, didn't you? And you didn't realize----"
"Tut, tut! Martha!" the Judge interposed sternly. "You know you
promised. Now, Caroline, when this little fat girl showed you her
presents, there was a handbag among them, wasn't there?"
Jacqueline nodded. She felt her face growing red. Not with fright or
shame, and that old Judge needn't think it. She was just getting mad
clear through, as she realized the treachery with which Eleanor had
treated her.
"There was a five-dollar bill in the bag, wasn't there?" the Judge went
on. "And she gave it to you?"
"I'll say she did!" cried Jacqueline. "The horrid little sneaking
tell-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 gave
her some gold beads, and they're worth more than her nasty old five
dollars."
In the second that followed Jacqueline heard Aunt Martha draw a quick
breath. But she couldn't turn to look at her. She was watching the
Judge, and wondering why he should put his hand into the pocket of his
coat.
"I'm glad you told us this, Caroline," he said. "You see, the little
girl told her mother, and her mother told me all about it. Are these the
beads you gave her for five dollars?"
It was the identical yellow strand--her own beads--that he drew from the
pocket of his dusty gray coat. Jacqueline cast one careless glance at
them.
"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 Aunt
Martha'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't
yell at Aunt Martha, even if you _are_ a judge. They were in the china
box 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 and
dismay. "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 whimpered
the last words, as she flung her arms round Aunt Martha. In half a
minute she knew she was going to cry and it was all that hateful Judge's
fault.
Aunt Martha put her arms round Jacqueline and held her close.
"Oh, Judge!" she said. "There's some mistake--I can't believe it even
now. She's coming down sick or something--she didn't understand--she
never took them wilfully. Jackie! Tell us everything! I can't stand it
to 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 make
you think so!"
Aunt Martha was crying--actually crying! Aunt Martha! Oh, but that
couldn'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't
you cry, Aunt Martha! There's nothing to cry about. I didn't steal those
beads--they're my _own_ beads! I'll tell you all about it, if you won't
cry. It's all right, Aunt Martha--because I'm _not_ Caroline Tait at
all--I'm Jacqueline Gildersleeve."
[Illustration: "Don't! Don't!" wailed Jacqueline and clasped Aunt Martha
tight. "Don't you cry.... There's nothing to cry about."]