IN AMIABLE CONFERENCE
BETTY'S sole idea of a court had been gained from a scene or two in the
once-a-week Pineville motion picture theater, and Bob had even less
knowledge. They both thought there might be a crowd, a judge in a black
gown, and some noise and excitement.
Instead Recorder Bender unlocked the door of a little one-story
building and ushered them into a small room furnished simply with a
long table, a few chairs, and a case of law books.
Presently two men came in, nodded to Mrs. Bender, and conferred in
whispers with Mr. Bender. There was a scuffling step outside the door
and Mr. Peabody entered.
"Huh, there you are!" he greeted Bob. "For all of you, I might have
been hunting my horse and wagon all night. Mighty afraid to let any one
know where you are."
"Mr. Peabody?" asked the recorder crisply, and suddenly all his quiet
friendliness was gone and an able official with a clear, direct gaze
and a rather stern chin faced the farmer. "Sit down, please, until
we're all ready."
Mr. Peabody subsided into a chair, and the two men went away. They were
back in a few moments, and with them they brought Wapley and Lieson and
a lad, little more than a boy, who was evidently the truck driver.
"Close the door," directed the recorder. "Now, Mr. Peabody, if you'll
just sit here--" he indicated a chair at one side of the table. With a
clever shifting of the group he soon had them arranged so that Wapley,
Lieson, the truck driver, and the two men who had brought them in were
sitting on one side of the table, and Betty, Bob, Mrs. Bender and Mr.
Peabody on the other. He himself took a seat between Betty and Mr.
Peabody.
"Now you all understand," he said pleasantly, "that this is merely an
informal hearing. We want to learn what both sides have to say."
Mr. Peabody gave a short laugh.
"I don't see what the other side can have to say!" he exclaimed
contemptuously. "They've been caught red-handed, stealing my chickens."
The recorder ignored this, and turned to Lieson.
"You've worked for farmers about here in other seasons," he said. "And,
from all I can hear, your record was all right. What made you put
yourself in line for a workhouse term?"
Lieson cleared his throat, glancing at Wapley.
"It can't be proved we was stealing," he argued sullenly. "Them
chickens was going to be sold on commission."
"Taking 'em off at ten o'clock at night to save 'em from sunburn,
wasn't you?" demanded Mr. Peabody sarcastically. "You never was a quick
thinker, Lieson."
"Now, Lieson," struck in Mr. Bender patiently, "that's no sort of use.
Miss Gordon here overheard your plans. We know those chickens came from
the Peabody farm, and that you and Wapley had a bargain with Tubbs to
sell them in Petria. What I want to hear is your excuse. It's been my
experience that every one who takes what doesn't belong to him has an
excuse, good or bad. What's yours?"
At the mention of Betty's name, Lieson and Wapley had shot her a quick
look. She made a little gesture of helplessness, infinitely appealing.
"I'm so sorry," the expressive brown eyes told them, "I just have to
tell what I heard, if I'm asked, but I wouldn't willingly do you harm."
Lieson threw back his head and struck the table a sounding blow.
"I'll tell you why we took those blamed chickens!" he cried. "You can
believe it or not, but we were going to sell 'em in Petria, and all
over and above twenty-five dollars they brought, Peabody would have got
back. He owes us that amount. Ask him."
"It's a lie!" shouted Peabody, rising, his face crimson. "A lie, I tell
you! A lie cooked up by a sneaking, crooked, chicken-thief to save
himself!"
Lieson and Wapley were on their feet, and Betty saw the glint of
something shiny in Peabody's hand.
"Sit down, and keep quiet!" said the recorder levelly. "That will be
about all the shouting, please, this morning. And, Mr. Peabody, I'll
trouble you for that automatic!"
The men dropped into their chairs, and Peabody pushed his pistol across
the table. The recorder opened a drawer and dropped the evil little
thing into it.
"Can you prove that wages are owed you by Mr. Peabody?" he asked, as if
nothing had happened.
Wapley, who had been silent all along, pulled a dirty scrap of paper
from his pocket.
"There's when we came to Bramble Farm and when we left, and the money
we've had," he said harshly. "And when we left, it was 'cause he
wouldn't give us what was coming to us--not just a dollar or two of it
to spend in Glenside, Miss Betty can tell you that."
"Yes," said Betty eagerly. "That was what they quarreled about."
The recorder, who had been studying the bit of paper, asked a question
without raising his eyes.
"What's this thirty-four cents subtracted from this two dollars
for--June twenty-fourth, it seems to be?"
"Oh, that was when we had the machinist who came to fix the binder stay
to supper," explained Wapley simply. "Lieson and me paid Peabody for
butter on the table that night, 'cause Edgeworth's mighty particular
about what he gets to eat. He'd come ten miles to fix the machine, and
we wanted him to have a good meal."
Mr. Peabody turned a vivid scarlet. He did not relish these disclosures
of his domestic economy.
"What in tarnation has that got to do with stealing my chickens?" he
demanded testily, "Ain't you going to commit these varmints?"
The truck driver, who had been studying Mr. Peabody with disconcerting
steadiness, suddenly announced the result of his scrutiny, apparently
not in the last in awe of the jail sentence shadow under which he stood.
"Well, you poor, little, mean-livered, low-down, pesky, slithering
snake-in-the-grass," he said slowly and distinctly, addressing himself
to Mr. Peabody with unflattering directness, "now I know where I've
seen your homely mug before. You're the skunk that scattered ground
glass on that stretch of road between the crossroads and Miller's Pond,
and then laughed when I ruined four of my good tires. I knew I'd seen
you somewhere, but I couldn't place you.
"Why, do you know, Mr. Bender," he turned excitedly to the recorder,
"that low-down coward wouldn't put ground glass on his own road--might
get him into trouble with the authorities. No, he goes and scatters
the stuff on some other farmer's highway, and when I lodge a complaint
against the man whose name was on the mail box and face him in
Glenside, he isn't the man I saw laughing at all! I made a complete
fool of myself. I suppose this guy had a grudge against some neighbor
and took that way of paying it out; and getting some motorist in Dutch,
too. These rubes hates automobiles, anyway."
"It's a lie!" retorted Mr. Peabody, but his tone did not carry
conviction. "I never scattered any ground glass."
The recorder fluttered a batch of papers impressively.
"Well, I've two complaints that may be filed against you," he announced
decisively. "One for uncollected wages due James Wapley and Enos
Lieson, and one charging that you willfully made a public highway
dangerous for automobile traffic. Also, I believe, this boy, Bob
Henderson, has not been sent to school regularly."
This was a surprise to Bob, who had long ago accepted the fact that
school for him was over. But Mr. Peabody was plainly worried.
"What you want me to do?" he whined. "I'm willing to be fair. No man
can say I'm not just."
The recorder leaned back in his chair, and his good wife, watching,
knew that he had gained his point.
"Litigation and law-squabble," he said tranquilly, "waste money, time,
and too often defeat the ends. Why, in this instance, don't we effect
a compromise? You, Mr. Peabody, pay these men the money you owe them
and drop the charge of stealing; you will have your chickens back and
the knowledge that their enmity toward you is removed. Tubbs, I'm sure,
will agree to forget the broken glass, and the schooling charge may
lapse, provided something along that line is done for Bob this winter."
Mr. Peabody was shrewd enough to see that he could not hope for better
terms. As long as he had the chickens to sell to Ryerson, he had no
grounds for complaint. He hated "like sin" as Bob said, to pay the
money to Wapley and Lieson, but under the recorder's unwavering eye,
he counted out twenty-five dollars--twelve dollars and fifty cents
apiece--which the men pocketed smilingly. A word or two of friendly
admonition from Mr. Bender, and the men were dismissed.
"I'm so glad," sighed Betty as they left the room, "that I didn't have
to say anything against them."
"Well, are you coming along with me?" asked Peabody, almost graciously
for him. "There's a letter there for you, Betty. From your uncle, I
calculate, since the postmark is Washington. And my word, Bob, you
don't seem in any great hurry to get back to your chores; the sorrel
must be eating his head off in Haverford's stable."
The recorder exchanged a look with his wife.
"Mr. Peabody," he said, "I shall be detained here an hour or so, and I
don't want these young folks to leave until I have a word with them.
Mrs. Bender will be only too glad to have you stay for lunch with us,
and I'll meet you up at the house. My wife, Mr. Peabody."
"Pleased to meet you, Ma'am," stammered Mr. Peabody awkwardly. "I ought
to be getting on toward home. But I suppose, if the chickens were fed
this morning, they can wait."
"I'm sure you're hungry yourself," answered Mrs. Bender, slipping an
arm about Betty. "Suppose we walk up to the house now, Mr. Peabody,
and I'll have lunch ready by the time Mr. Bender is free."
Betty looked back as they were leaving the room and saw the truck
driver slouched disconsolately in a chair opposite the recorder.
"Is--is he arrested?" she whispered half-fearfully to Mrs. Bender. Mr.
Peabody and Bob were walking on ahead.
"No, dear," was the answer. "But Mr. Bender will doubtless give him a
good raking over the coals, which is just what he needs. Fred Tubbs
is a Laurel Grove boy, and his mother is one of the sweetest women in
town. He's always been a little wild, and lately he's been in with all
kinds of riff-raff. Harry heard rumors that he was trucking in shady
transactions, but he never could get hold of proof. Now he has him just
where he wants him. He'll tell Fred a few truths and maybe knock some
sense into him before he does something that will send him to state's
prison."