Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/154



“Why does n’t one of you say something?” demanded Harriet, impatiently. Reaching home before the dinner-hour, she had told her story to all the family. As she dwelt on its details, her enthusiasm mounted. She described the sound of the fall, the boy’s cry, his injury, Nate’s helpfulness. Two things, indeed, she did suppress: her own important actions and the wallet. But she expected some comment at the end, some praise perhaps, but certainly much wonderment. Instead, the others all looked at each other, and let her finish in silence.

“What is wrong with you?” cried Harriet.

Pelham leaned toward her. ‘“Harriet, you ’ve told your story. Now will you listen to ours?”

She stared at him in surprise. He turned to Brian. “Will you tell it, or shall I?”

“I suppose it ’s got to be. told,” answered Brian. “You tell it.”

Harriet listened while Pelham told the story of his own adventure. She had come back from Nate’s with a warm sympathy for the unlucky boy, but at Pelham’s description of the lad whom he and Brian had met, she slowly grew cold with dismay. It was surely the same boy. Then the wallet!

Bob, her oldest brother, nodded cheerfully. “He got pretty well come up with, the young criminal.”

In spite of her dismay, Harriet started indignantly. There rose before her eyes the face of the stranger, strangely appealing in its half wildness. “Oh!” she cried, "he ’s not a criminal!”

Bob smiled at her as older brothers do. “Then what about Brian’s money?"

Doubt crept over hcer. After all, the others must be right. Tears started to her eyes.

Her mother drew her down beside her on the window-seat. “Sometimes, dear,” she said, “we have to believe such things.”

Harriet’s face burned. Within her skirt she felt an unaccustomed lump which she recognized as the wallet. What was she to do?

Brian cleared his throat. *I think, Uncle Robert,” he began, “that I—that we— That is, I think the wallet had better be forgotten. I came upon the boy suddenly. He may not have realized that the wallet—that I was asking him to give it to me. It was my fault. I°’d just like to drop the whole matter.”

“But we can get it from him now,” said Mr. Dodd.

Harriet had clutched at her dress. Ought she to give the wallet up?

Brian spoke again, still hesitatingly. “I—I ’d like to have nothing said about it. Perhaps the boy was poor.”

Mr. Dodd smiled. “That gives him no claim to your money.”

“I feel,” Brian explained, “as if I somehow had something to do with this accident of his. As if he thought we were still following him, and so slipped and fell. I ’d like to make him a present of the money.”

Mr. Dodd considered. “Well,” he said presently, “he can’t get away from us. When I telephoned the doctor just now, he said that among other injuries the lad seems to have a sprained ankle. He must stay here for a while, then. If he ’s treated well, it may be that his conscience will work.”

“You know, sir,” still persisted Brian, “some fellows think they may keep anything they find.”

“Well,” said Mr. Dodd, “for the present I will say nothing to him about it. But in the meantime—" He drew out his own pocket-book and took from it a five-dollar bill.

Brian flushed scarlet. “Oh, no, sir!”

“Nonsense,” said his uncle. “Brian, I want vou to take it. Five dollars is a whole month’s allowance. Besides, I feel responsible for the loss, in a way.”

Harriet’s heart had been warming toward Brian. His forgiveness pleased her, especially when it enabled her to think better of the stranger. Brian’s willingness to lose the money seemed very generous. Further, although she knew that when a boy objects to receiving money from an older relative he is seldom really unwilling, she now saw Brian, red to the ears, take the money with genuine reluctance. She nodded her approval.

Bob, who had subsided into a newspaper, now came suddenly out of it. “Are you people through with this question of ethics, so that I may throw some more light on this matter?”

“Go ahead,” said his father.

“Have you considered,” inquired Bob, “how this young highwayman—excuse me, Harriet,