Kit of Greenacre Farm | Page 2

spraying, but Mr. Robbins was anxious to experiment with some of the newer methods advocated by the government.
All unconscious of Kit's intentions or Shad's eagerness to abet them, the two rambled off towards the upland orchards. Kit had started Shad after the trespasser, while she went back to telephone to Mr. Hicks. The very last thing she had said to Shad was to put the vandal in the corn-crib and stand guard over him until Mr. Hicks came.
"Don't you worry one bit, Miss Kit," the constable of Gilead Township assured her over the wire. "I'll be there in my car in less than twenty minutes. You folks ain't the only ones that's suffering this year from fruit thieves, and it's time we taught these high fliers from town that they can't light anywhere they like and pick what they like. I'll take him right down to the judge this afternoon."
Kit sat by the open window and fanned herself with a feeling of triumphant indignation. If Jean or Helen had been home, she knew perfectly well they would have been soft-hearted and lenient, but every berry on every bush was precious to Kit, and she felt that now was the appointed hour, as Cousin Roxy would have said.
Inside of a few minutes, Shad came back, perspiring and red faced, but filled with unholy glee. He dipped a tin bucket into the water pail.
"I've got him," he said, happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed riotously at the recollection. "Did you call up Han Hicks?"
Kit nodded, looking out at the corn-crib. The midsummer sun beat down upon it pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the barn.
"Do you suppose he'll survive, Shad? I'll bet a cookie it's a hundred and six inside there."
"Do him good," retorted Shad. "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt on him."
"Oh, Shad," exclaimed Kit. "I didn't want you to touch him, you know."
"I didn't," Shad laughed. "I just gave him a bit of sound scripture reasoning, aided by fist persuasion when he was inclined to put up an argument. I'll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and takes him quietly off our hands. I reckon he didn't think we had any majesty of the law here in Gilead."
Kit looked after his retreating figure somewhat dubiously. It was one thing to act on the impulse of the moment and quite another to face the consequences. Now that the prisoner was safe in the corn-crib, she wondered somewhat uneasily just what her father would say when he found out what she had done to protect the berry patch. But just now he was safe in the upper orchard with old Mr. Weaver, deep in apple culture, and she thought she could get rid of the trespasser before he returned.
Mrs. Gorham was in the kitchen putting up peaches. Her voice came with droning, old-fashioned sweetness through the screen door.
"When I can read my title dear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes."
Kit slipped around the side drive behind the house out to the hill road. Mr. Hicks would have to come from Gilead Green in this direction, and here she sat on one of the high entrance posts, waiting and cogitating.
The woodbine that clambered over the two high, white posts was still green, but scrambling along the ground were wild blackberry runners just turning a rich brown crimson.
The minutes passed and still Mr. Hicks failed to appear. If Kit could have visualized his journey hither, she might have beheld him, lingering here and there along the country roads, stopping to tell the news to any neighbor who might be working out his road tax in the lull of the season between haying and harvest time. Beside him sat Elvira, his youngest, drinking in every word with tense appreciation of the novelty. It was the first chance Mr. Hicks had had to make an arrest during his term of office, and as a special test and reward of diligence, Elvira had been permitted to come along and behold the climax with her own eyes. But the twenty minutes stretched out into nearly an hour's time and more, and Kit's heart sank when she beheld her father strolling leisurely down