The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm | Page 7

peep into one of the beautiful store windows--and she did. For a moment she stood there, and then, suddenly, she felt a hand in her pocket. She turned to see whose it was--and looked up into the evil eyes of Farmer Weeks!
"Stop her!" he cried. "She picked my pocket!"
CHAPTER III
AND AN OLD FRIEND HELPS
Bessie gasped in sheer terror, and for a moment she couldn't open her mouth. Farmer Weeks, his weather-beaten face twisted into a grin of malice and dislike, stood looking down at her, his bony hand gripping her wrist. Even had it been in Bessie's mind to run away, she could not have done it. And, as a matter of fact, the shock of hearing his voice, of seeing him, and, above all, of being accused of such a thing, had deprived her for the moment of the use of her legs as well as of the power of speech.
Then, while Farmer Weeks lifted his voice again, calling for a policeman, Bessie got a vivid and sharp lesson in the interest a city crowd can be induced to take in anything out of the ordinary, no matter how trifling. The pavement where they stood was densely crowded already. Now more people seemed to spring up from nowhere at all, and they were surrounded by a ring of people who pressed against one another, calling curious questions, all trying to get into the front rank to see whatever was to be seen.
"Gosh all hemlock!" Farmer Weeks confided to the crowd. "They told me to look out fer them scalawags when I come to town, but I swan I didn't expect to see a gal like that tryin' to lift my wallet. No, sir! But they got to get up pretty early in the mornin' to fool me--they have that!"
Even in her fright, Bessie divined at once what the old rascal was trying to do. He was playing the part of the green and unsuspicious countryman, the farmer on a trip, usually the easy prey of sharpers of all sorts, and he was doing it for a purpose--to win the sympathy of the crowd. In her new clothes Bessie looked enough like a city girl to pass for one easily, while Farmer Weeks wore old-fashioned clothes of rusty black, a slouch hat, and a colored handkerchief knotted about his neck in place of a scarf. He carried an old-fashioned cotton umbrella; too, a huge affair--a regular "bumbleshoot," and he was dressed to play the part.
"Hey, mister, gimme a nickel an' I'll call a cop for you!" volunteered a small, sharp-faced boy, with a bundle of papers under his arm. Somehow he had managed to squirm through the crowd.
Weeks looked at him reproachfully.
"You call a constable--an' I'll give you the nickel when you come back with him," he said.
In spite of her deplorable situation, Bessie wanted to laugh. It was so like Farmer Weeks, the miser, to be unwilling to risk even five cents without being sure that he would get value for his money! The boy darted off, and Bessie heard half a dozen of the crowd make remarks applauding the good sense of her supposed victim.
"Ain't it too bad?" said Weeks tolerantly to the crowd, as he waited for a policeman, still clutching Bessie's hand tightly. "Who'd ever think a pretty young gal like her would try to rob an old man--hey?"
"Never can tell, Pop," said a keen-eyed youth, who was standing near. His eyes darted nervously about from one face to another. "Them as you wouldn't suspect naturally is the worst, as a rule--it's so easy for them to make a get-away."
Then the crowd gave way suddenly for a man in a blue uniform, but Bessie, still unable to say anything, saw at once it was not a policeman. But it was not until he was quite close to her that she recognized him with a little thrill of joy. And at the same moment he recognized her, too, as well as Farmer Weeks. It was Tom Norris, the friendly train conductor who had helped Zara and herself to escape to Pine Bridge, and out of the state in which Hedgeville was situated.
"Come, come; what's this?" asked the train conductor sharply. "Let go of that girl's arm, you Weeks!"
"What business is it of your'n!" asked Weeks, angrily.
"You let her go," said Norris, with determination, "or I'll pretty soon show you what business it is of mine--I'll knock you down, white hair and all! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pickin' on the girl this way!"
He advanced, threateningly, and none of the crowd undertook to protect Weeks from his obvious anger. Norris was a big, strong man, and, for all his kindly ways, it was evident that he could fight well if he saw any reason for doing