Chapter XI: The Strawberry Mark

Agnes Kenway had never been so uncomfortable in her life as she was sitting at that pleasant tea-table, at which the invalid, Mrs. Buckham, presided. And for once her usually cheerful tongue was stilled.

"What's the matter with Aggie?" asked Neale O'Neil. "Lost your tongue?"

"I believe our pretty one is bashful," suggested Mrs. Buckham, smiling upon the next to the oldest Corner House girl.

"Well, if she is, it's the first time," murmured Neale. But he said no more. Neale suddenly guessed what was troubling his girl friend, and had tact enough to keep his lips closed.

Agnes was just as honest a girl at heart as ever breathed. She did not need the reminder of the farmer's old doggerel to keep her from touching that which was not hers.

At the time when she had led the raid of the basket ball team and their friends upon Mr. Buckham's strawberry patch, she had been inspired by mere thoughtlessness and high spirits. The idea that she was trespassing--actually stealing--never entered her helter-skelter thoughts until afterward.

The field was so large, there were so many berries, and she and her mates took so few, that it really did not seem like stealing to thoughtless Agnes--no, indeed! It was just a prank.

And now to hear Bob Buckham express his horror of a thief!

"And that's what I am!" thought the bitterly repentant Agnes. "No, not a thief _now_. But I was at the time I took those berries. I am awfully sorry that I did such a thing. I--I wish I could tell him so."

That thought took fast hold upon the girl's mind. Her appreciation of the enormity of her offence had not been so great before--not even when Mr. Marks, the principal of the Milton High School, was talking so seriously to the girls about their frolic.

Then she had felt mainly the keen disappointment the punishment for her wrong-doing had brought. Not to be allowed to take part in the play which she felt sure would be enacted by the pupils of the Milton schools for the benefit of the Women's and Children's Hospital was a bitter disappointment, and that thought filled her mind.

Now she felt a different pang--far different. Shame for her act, and sorrow for the wrong she had done, bore Agnes' spirit down. Little wonder that she was all but dumb, and that her flowerlike face was overcast.

Tea was over and Mr. Buckham drew his wife's wheel-chair back to its usual place by the window. The light was fading even there, and Ruth said that they must start for home.

"Don't run away, sis," said the old farmer. "Marm and me don't have many visitors like you; an' we're glad to have ye."

"I fear that Mrs. MacCall will be afraid for us if we remain away much after dark," Ruth said cheerfully. She had already explained about Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah, and even about Uncle Rufus.

"But we all have had such a nice time," Ruth added. "I know we shall only be too glad to come again."

"That's a good word," declared the invalid. "You can't come too often."

"Thank you," said Ruth. "If Neale will get the ponies ready----"

"And while he's doin' so, I'll take a look at that dog's ear again," said Mr. Buckham, cheerfully. "Wouldn't want nothin' bad to happen to such a brave dog as Tom Jonah."

"He's layin' out behind my kitchen stove, and he behaves like a Christian," Posy declared.

"He's a gentleman, Tom Jonah is," said Tess, proudly. "It says so on his collar," and she proceeded to tell the good-natured maid-of-all-work Tom Jonah's history--how he had first come to the old Corner House, and all that he had done, and how his old master had once unsuccessfully tried to win him back.

"But he wouldn't leave us at all. Would he, Dot?" she concluded.

"Of course not," said the smallest girl. "Why should he? Aren't we just as nice to him as we can be? And he sleeps in the kitchen when it's cold, for Mrs. MacCall says he's too old to take his chances out of doors these sharp nights."

"That's very thoughtful of your Mrs. MacCall, I do allow," agreed the jolly invalid. "And do you suppose she will get your doll's cloak done in time for your call on Mrs. Eland?"

"My Alice-doll's cloak? I do hope so," said Dot, with a sigh of anxiety.

"Wouldn't you go to call on the lady without her, if the cloak shouldn't be done?" asked the farmer's wife, much amused.

"Oh, no! I couldn't do that," said Dot, gravely. "You see, I promised her."

"Who, Mrs. Eland?"

"No, ma'am. My Alice-doll. I told her she should go with us. You see," said the smallest Corner House girl, "she was with us when we made the acquaintance of Mrs. Eland--Tess and me. And my Alice-doll liked her just as well as Tess and me. So there you are!"

"I see," agreed Mrs. Buckham, quite seriously. "You couldn't disappoint the child."

"Oh, no indeed!" said Dot. "I wouldn't want to! You see--she's not very strong. She hasn't been since that time she was buried alive."

"Buried alive!" gasped the lady in horror and surprise.

"Yes, ma'am. With the dried apples."

"Buried with dried apples?" repeated Mrs. Buckham, her wonder growing. "What for?"

"It was a most awful cat's-triumph," said Dot, shaking her head, and very, very solemn, "and it makes my Alice-doll very nervous even to hear it talked about. If she were here I wouldn't mention it----"

"What? _What_ did you say, child?" gasped Mrs. Buckham. "About a cat, I mean, my dear?"

"She means 'catastrophe,'" said Tess, coming to the rescue. "I really wish, Dot Kenway, that you wouldn't use words that you can't use!"

Mrs. Buckham's mellow laughter rang out and she hugged the smallest Corner House girl close to her side.

"Never mind, honey," she said. "If you want to make up a new word, you shall--so there!"

Meanwhile Agnes had followed the farmer out into the big kitchen. The old man sat in a low chair and pulled Tom Jonah tenderly between his huge knees, till the dog laid his muzzle in his lap, looking up at the man confidingly out of his big, brown eyes.

Mr. Buckham had put on a pair of silver-bowed spectacles and had the salve-box in his hand. He laid the badly torn ear carefully upon his knee and began to apply the salve with a gentle, if calloused, forefinger.

"This'll take the pizen out, old feller," said the farmer, crooningly.

Tom Jonah whined, but did not move. The application of the salve hurt the dog, but he did not pull away from the man's hand.

"He sure _is_ a gentleman, jest as the little gal says," chuckled Bob Buckham.

He looked so kindly and humorously up at Agnes standing before him, that the troubled Corner House girl almost broke out into weeping. She gripped her fingers into her palms until the nails almost cut the tender flesh. Her heart swelled and the tears stung her eyelids when she winked them back. Agnes was a passionate, stormy-tempered child. This was a crisis in her young life. She had always been open and frank, but nobody will ever know what it cost her to blurt out her first words to Mr. Bob Buckham.

"Oh, Mr. Buckham! do you _hate_ anybody who steals from you?"

"Heh?" he said, startled by her vehemence. "Do I hate 'em?"

"Yes."

"Goodness me, gal! I hope not. I'm a communin' Christian in our church, an' I hope I don't have no hatred in my heart against none o' my fellermen. But I hate some things that poor, weak, human critters does--yes, ma'am! 'Specially some of the ornery things Bob Buckham's done."

"Oh, Mr. Buckham! _you_ never stole," blurted out Agnes.

"Ya-as I have. That's why I hate stealin' so, I reckon," said the farmer, slowly.

"Not, really?" cried Agnes.

"Yep. 'Twas a-many year ago. Marm and me had jest come on this farm. She was young an' spry then, God bless her! And it was well she was. Bob Buckham wouldn't never have owned the place and stacked up the few dollars he has in bank, if it hadn't been for her spryness.

"I'd jest got my first strawberry patch inter bearin'----"

"Oh! Strawberries!" gasped Agnes.

"Ya-as'm. Them's what I've made most of my money on. I only had a small patch. They was fust-class berries--most on 'em. They packed well, and we had ter put 'em into round, covered, quart boxes to ship in them days. I got a repertation with the local shipper for havin' A-number-one fruit.

"Wal! Marm an' me was mighty hard up. We was dependin' on the _re_-turns from the strawberry crop to pay mortgage, int'rest and taxes. And one end of the strawberry patch--the late end--had the meachinest lookin' berries ye ever seen."

Old Bob chuckled at the remembrance. His gaze sought the firelight flashing through the bars of the grate of the big cookstove.

"Wal!" he said. "That was a bad time. We needin' the money so, and the berry crop likely to be short of what we figgered. Them little old barries at that last end of the patch began to ripen up fast; but I see they wouldn't bring me no price at all--not if the shipper seed 'em.

"'Course, he was buyin' from a score o' farmers ev'ry day. My boxes didn't have my name on 'em. They had his'n. He furnished the boxes and crates himself.

"The devil tempted me," said Bob Buckham, solemnly, "and I fell for him. 'Course we had always to 'deacon' the boxes--we was expected to. The top layer of berries had to be packed in careful, hulls down, so's to make a pretty showin'.

"But I put a lot of them meachin' little berries at the bottom of each box and covered 'em with big, harnsome fruit. They looked like the best o' the crop. I knew my man would never question 'em. And it made a difference of ten dollars to me on that one load.

"I done it," said the farmer, blowing a big sigh. "I done it with as little compunction as I ever done anything in my whole endurin' life."

"Oh, Mr. Buckham! Didn't you think it was wicked?"

"If I did," he said, with a grin, "it didn't spile my appetite. Not _then_. Not that day. I seen the carload shipped and never said a word. I went home. I eat my dinner just as hearty as ever and made preparations to work the next day's load the same way. Ye see, marm, _she_ didn't know a thing about it.

"Wal!" continued the old man, "it come bed-time and we went to bed. I was allus a sound sleeper. Minute my head touched the husk piller, that minute I begun ter snore. I worked hard and I slept hard.

"But--funny thing--I didn't git to sleep. No reason--'parently. Wasn't worried. I was kinder tickled at what I'd done, and the slick way I'd done it. I never had cheated before to my knowledge; but I was happy at the thought of that extry ten dollars, and the other extry money that was ter foller."

"And--and didn't your conscience trouble you?" asked Agnes, wonderingly.

"Nope, not a mite. I was jest as quiet and contented as though they'd left a conscience out o' me when I was built," and the old man chuckled again, heartily.

"Marm says she believes more folks lay awake at night because of empty stomachs than from guilty consciences, an' so she always has a plate of crackers by her side o' the bed. Wal! I lay as calm as a spring mornin'; but after a while I gotter countin' sheep jumpin' through a gap in a stone-fence, and had jest about lulled myself ter sleep, when seems ter me there was a hand writin' on the wall opposite the foot of our bed. I didn't see the hand, mind you; but I seen the writin'. It was in good, big print-text, too, or I couldn't have read it at all--for you know I never had no schoolin', an' I kin jest barely write my name to this day.

"But that print showed up plain as plain! And it was jest one word--kinder 'luminated on the wall. It was _strawberry_. That's all, jest _strawberry_. You'd think it would ha' been somethin' like _thief_ or _cheat_. Nope. It was jest _strawberry_. But I had to lay there all night with my eyes propped open, seeing that word on the wall.

"When daylight come it was still there. I seen it when I was dressin'. I carried it with me out to the stable. Everywhere I looked against a wall, I seed that word. If I hung my head and looked at the ground, it was there.

"I knowed if what I'd done about those meachin' little berries was ever knowed in the community, like enough I'd never be called by my right name any more. They'd call me 'Strawberry Bob.' I knowed it. That was goin' to be my punishment fur stealin'."

"Oh, Mr. Bob!" groaned Agnes, much moved by his earnestness.

"It's my belief," said old Bob Buckham, "that we don't hafter wait till the hereafter ter git our punishment for wrong-doin' here. I reckon most times we git it right here and now.

"Wal! I went erbout all that forenoon seein' _strawberry_ marked up everywhere. I snum! it was right acrosst marm's forehead when I looked at her--and there warn't no other mark there in them days, you may be sure.

"I started in to pack berries jest the same as I did the day before. Then, of a sudden, I says to myself, 'Bob Buckham, you derned thief! Stop it! Ten dollars a day won't pay you for bein' called "Strawberry Bob"!'

"So I boxed them poor berries separate and I told the shipper what I'd done the day before. I told him to take ten dollars off my order. He grinned at me.

"'There was a railroad wreck yesterday, Bob, and our car went to pot. I'll git full damages from the railroad company.'

"'Not for them berries of mine, Silas,' I told him. He was Silas Wales. 'You _de_-duct what my berries cost you in full, and I'll turn back my hull order to ye!'

"He hummed and hawed; but he done it. He axed me was I havin' a hard time meetin' the int'rest on my mortgage, an' I told him the trewth. When the mortgage come due that year he come 'round and offered to let me have the money at a cheaper rate than I'd been payin', an' all the time I wanted. Ye see, that was a cheap way of gittin' a reperation for bein' honest, after all."

"And didn't you see the strawberry mark after that?" sighed Agnes.

"Nope. Nor they never called me 'Strawberry Bob,' though I've been raisin' more berries than most folks in this locality, ever since," said Bob Buckham.

"Oh, Mr. Buckham!" exclaimed Agnes. "I ought to be called 'Strawberry Agnes'!"

"Heh? What for?" asked the startled farmer.

"Because I stole berries! I stole them from you! Last May!" gulped the girl. "You know when those girls raided your field? I was one of them. I was the first one over the fence and picked the first berry. I--I'm awfully sorry; but I really didn't think how wrong it was at the time. And I wish I'd come to you and told you before, instead of waiting until the principal of our school--Mr. Marks--and everybody, knew about it."

"Sho, honey!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham, softly. "Was you one o' them gals? I'd no idee. Wal! say no more about it. What you took didn't break me," and he laughed. "And I won't tell nobody," he added, patting Agnes' shoulder.

As Agnes dried her eyes before joining her sisters and Neale O'Neil at the door, she thought that it was rather unnecessary for the farmer to make that promise. When he had caused the list of girls' names to be sent to the school principal, he had assured her punishment.

While Bob Buckham was saying to himself: "Now, that's a leetle gal after my own heart. She's a hull sight nicer than that other one. And she's truly repentant, too."