Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/158

150 barely out of hearing, when the most extraordinary amount of petty thieving commenced. Nothing could be laid down anywhere about the place but that it immediately disappeared. There had been a number of Armenian women in the neighbourhood selling lace, and Peter would have suspected these had not the list of stolen articles been so unusual. It comprised the clothes-line, half a dozen sheets and the wash-boiler, six jars of jam from the cellar, and some bread and cake from the pantry window, a bundle of stakes for training the tomato plants, and Master Wallace's spelling book (he was having to study through vacation, and he bore the loss with composure), a Japanese umbrella-holder from the front veranda, a pair of lap-robes from the stable, and last, most uncanny touch of all, the family Bible! This had stood on the under shelf of the table in the library window, where it could be reached easily from the outside; but, as Peter dazedly inquired of the world in general,