Now there were three things which might have happened to Bobby McTabb.
In all justice Kitty should have immediately reported him to the
authorities, but she loved him too much for that, and was too loyal to
herself ever to see him again. Or, in the despair and hopelessness of
the situation, Bobby might have paid penance by drowning himself or
hanging himself. There was one other alternative—flight. But, as we
have stated, Bobby was an original thief, and he did just what no
other thief would have thought of doing.
He turned his properties into cash as quickly as he could, and bought
a ticket for Fawcettville. He arrived in the village on a late night
train, as he had planned. The place was deserted. People were asleep.
With a big throb at his heart he saw that the building which he had
once occupied was empty. It was just as he had left it on that third
of July morning. Something rose in his throat and choked him as he
turned away. After all he loved Fawcettville—loved it more than any
other place on earth, and the tears came into his eyes as he passed
reverently the old familiar spots, and came at last to Kitty Duchene’s
home, with the maples whispering mournfully above him. He almost
sobbed aloud when he saw a light in Kitty’s window. For a long time he
sat under the maples, until the light went out and he could no longer
see Kitty’s shadow against the curtain. All about him were the homes
of the people who had loved and trusted him, and he groaned aloud as
he turned back.
No one in Fawcettville knew of Bobby McTabb’s visit that night. No one
in the world knew of the scheme which Bobby carried away with him. On
the second day the owner of the bank building received a letter,
signed by a stranger, asking him to clean and repair the old building,
and enclosing an one-hundred dollar bill for the first quarter’s rent.
It was twice the rent Bobby McTabb had paid in the old days, and the
mystery became the talk of the village.
Bobby came again on the late night train, got off at Henderson, three
miles west of Fawcettville, and drove over in a rig. The rig was
heavily laden with various things, but chiefly with a big gilt and
gold lettered sign, such as Fawcettville had never known. There were a
few who heard the driving of the midnight nails in that sign as it was
hung over the new building. After that two men went through the
village, as stealthily as thieves, and on every barn and store, and
even on the fronts of houses, were pasted bills two feet square; and
at dawn other messengers began delivering sealed letters to the
farmers for miles around.
The first bright rays of the morning sun lighted up the gilt and gold
letters on Bobby’s sign, and those letters read:
ROBERT McTABB
Loans, Real Estate and Insurance
Sile Jenks, the milkman, was the first to read the bill in front of
his house, and with a wild yell he began awakening his neighbors.
Inside of half an hour Fawcettville was in an uproar. Men and women
came hurrying toward the old bank building, and in front of that
building, with a happy smile on his face, stood Bobby McTabb. Men
rushed up to him and wrung his hands until it seemed as though they
must pull out his arms; women crowded through to his side; children
shouted out his old name; the dogs barked in the old way—he heard the
old laughter, the old voices, the old greetings—even deeper and more
affectionate now; and then there came the first rigs from the country,
followed by others, until they streamed in from all sides, just as
they do when a circus comes to town. For three hours Bobby stood up
manfully, and then the climax came; for straight up to him, with
glorious, shining eyes and love in her face, came Kitty Duchene. She
paid no attention to those about them, but put her arms up about
Bobby’s neck and kissed him.
“NOW I understand,” she whispered, looking at him proudly. “But why
didn’t you tell me—up there, Robert?”
And for the first time in his life Bobby McTabb’s voice choked him
until he could not speak.
This was what the people of Fawcettville and the country round had
read on Bobby’s bills and in his letters: