Page:Poor White.djvu/122

 of the matter to the Reverend Harvey Oxford, the minister of the Baptist Church.

Steve saw to it that although every one was curious the curiosity was unsatisfied. Even his father was left in the dark. The two men had a sharp quarrel about the matter, but as Steve had three thousand dollars of his own, left him by his mother, and was well past his twenty-first year, there was nothing his father could do.

At Pickleville the windows and doors at the back of the deserted factory were bricked up, and over the windows and the door at the front, where a floor had been laid, iron bars specially made by Lew Twining the Bidwell blacksmith had been put. The bars over the door locked the place at night and gave the factory the air of a prison. Every evening before he went to bed Steve walked to Pickleville. The sinister appearance of the building at night gave him a peculiar satisfaction. "They'll find out what I'm up to when I want 'em to," he said to himself. Allie Mulberry worked at the factory during the day. Under Hugh's direction he whittled pieces of wood into various shapes, but had no idea of what he was doing. No one but the half-wit and Steve Hunter were admitted to the society of the telegraph operator. When Allie Mulberry came into the Main Street at night, every one stopped him and a thousand questions were asked, but he only shook his head and smiled foolishly. On Sunday afternoons crowds of men and women walked down Turner's Pike to Pickleville and stood looking at the deserted building, but no one tried to enter. The bars were in place and window shades were drawn over the windows. Above the door that