Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/117

108 Miss Bessie gave a little shriek. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Well," said Jack, "they think by what they discovered, that he planned to pack his bag with silver, and carry it off; but just before he did so he would pour oil around the room, and set fire to it, so people would not find out that he had been robbing you."

"Why we might have all been burned to death," said Miss Bessie. "He couldn't burn the dining room without setting fire to the rest of the house."

"Certainly not," said Jack, "that shows what a villain he is."

"Do they know this for certain, Jack?" asked Miss Laura.

"Well, they suppose so; they found some bottles of oil along with the bag he had for the silver."

"How horrible! You darling old Joe, perhaps you saved our lives," and pretty Miss Bessie kissed my ugly, swollen head. I could do nothing but lick her little hand, but always after that I thought a great deal of her.

It is now some years since all this happened, and I might as well tell the end of it: The next day the Drurys came home, and everything was found out about Jenkins.

The night they left Fairport he had been hanging about the station. He knew just who were left in the house, for he had once supplied them with milk, and knew all about their family. He had no customers at this time, for after Mr. Harry rescued me, and that piece came out in the paper about him, he found that no one would take milk from him. His wife died, and some kind people put his children in an asylum, and he was obliged to sell Toby and the cows. Instead of learning a lesson from all this, and leading a better life, he kept sinking lower.