Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/135

 THE STORY OF A DESERTED FARM-HOUSE.

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��" Night came on and he did not re- turn, and although the old man and his wife worried about him that night and all day Sunday, they were just stupid enough to keep the affair to themselves. Monday morning came and Mudgett did n't get round to his school, and as a natural result his friends were alarmed and parties were sent out from the village to search for bim. Early in the day 1 discovered what was going on, and in the most innocent manner possible told what I had seen. Then the situation was talked over by the authorities, and finally a demand was made on old Steve and he was frank in telling all he knew. The result of it all was they found the missing man's money, his watch and fishing rigging in the pos- session of the old folks, and, what was a good deal more, they discovered blood on the old man's frock. They did n't, however, find Mudgett's body or get any satisfaction as to his mys- terious disappearance. It looked pretty suspicious for old Steve, and although he told a straight story no body believed a word of what he said. He stoutly maintained that the valuables were left for safe-keeping, told what about the lines, and accounted for the blood on his garments by claiming that he killed a chicken so as to have proper food for Mudgett. He showed some of the cooked fowl and also the feathers ; but every body shook their head and said that was a cunning dodge which he had resorted to on Sunday just to cover his tracks. He could n't get out of it that easy."

" No, gentlemen, they just stuck to it that it was as plain as the alphabet that old Steve had put the schoolmas- ter out of the way for his money, and no amount of explaining or reasoning could convince the most of the people to the contrary. They just gathered around in knots and talked the matter over, and the more they talked the more satisfied they became that some- thing had happened that ought not to have happened. He showed guilt, they said, he was a guilty man and should

��be hanged for it. In fact they would have liked the job to hang the old man then and there without jutige, jury or the benefit of the clergy."

" It caused the neighbors to feel pretty bad I can assure you. They had known old Steve for nearly fifty years, they had n't particularly respected him, — though they could n't tell why — but when it came right down to speak- ing out like honest men, they could n't point their finger to one mean act he had ever done, nor call to mind a cruel or unprincipled transaction

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��which he had been engaged. And beside he had fought for the independ- ence of the country, and had claims on every body who had a spark of patriotism in their souls. No, strangers, he had been fair and above-board with the community ; he had been accom- modating as a neighbor and to strangers ; he had been kind, attentive and generous in cases of sickness ; he had been liberal in every thing but for the meeting-house and the gospel, and he had n't opposed them nor his folks from doing just as they liked about it. In short they could n't bring nothing against him except that he was old Steve Waldron, and celebrated the Fourth, and on other great occa- sions, by taking a drop too much, which was n't an uncommon thing fifty years ago among those who imagined them- selves a good deal better than the old man. But the more they thought about it the more convinced they became that there was an awful mis- take some where. The village people, though, would not allow that a mistake was possible or an explanation valid, and so they had him arrested for murder."

" Now if I live to be a hundred years old — and it is pretty certain that I shall not, for nature is occasionally reminding me that the time is getting short — I shall never forget the day when they carried old Steve off. It was raining great guns and was cold and raw ; the ice was breaking up in the lake, and every body and every thing had on a gloomy look like a funeral.

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