The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House | Page 9

folks thought wasn't worth worryin' 'bout--just his pa all over.
"Only, I remember one time," the bent old form straightened up proudly and the bright old eyes gleamed, "when the other boys started pushin' things too far an' begun callin' my boy names--no names that a boy with any pride in him would stand for--I heard them--they was jest around the back o' the house, an' I came to the door with my mad up to the boilin' point, but what I saw made me stop right short an' wait for what I knew was goin' to happen.
"Willie, he was sittin' on a log by the barn, jest wrapped up in a new book he'd found, an' it was some time before just what those ragamuffins was sayin' seeped in. When it did was when I came to the door, boilin' with rage.
"Very quiet, but with a sort o' bulldog set to that chin o' his, just like his pa, he closed his book an' laid it down beside him.
"'I'll be askin' you,' he said, drawlin' very marked and facin' the bully o' the crowd that was at least two or three years older than he was--'I'll be askin' you to say what you been sayin' all over again.'
"The bully did, with trimmin's, an' Willie listened without turnin' a hair till he got all through.
"'Now,' he says, more quiet than ever--I can see him now, with his big eyes blazin' black out o' his white face and his little hands that seemed to me scarce more'n a baby's clenched tight at his side--'Now, I guess, I got to lick you!'
"An' he did!"
"He beat him?" cried Mollie excitedly. "Oh, weren't you proud?"
"I guess I was!" answered the little old woman, her eyes snapping with the memory. "That was the day my boy showed what was in him, an' after that the other boys never called him any more names.
"But, o' course," she added, while the old cloud erased the glow from her face, "that didn't keep the boys from wantin' to get even.
"Well, then came the awful day when Abner Conway's barn burned an' Abner himself came over to accuse my Willie of havin' started the fire, bringin' with him two or three o' the boys who had tried to call Willie names to swear they'd seen him do it.
"O' course Willie denied it an' I backed him up by sayin'--an' there never was truer word spoken--that Willie was with me before an' at the time the barn took fire.
"But it didn't do any good. Abner was ragin' because it meant considerable loss to him, an' so much blame had been laid at Willie's door by the other boys that he declared this time he was goin' to have him punished.
"'I'll have the law on him!' he shouted, rampagin' round my kitchen like a wild animal. I'll show that boy o' yours if he can go round settin' folks' barns on fire an' not get come up with! I'll give him a taste o' what it feels like to be behind bars. It's time somethin' was done, an', by Jerry, I'm the one to do it!'
"An' without another word he slammed out with those grinnin' imps that was makin' all the trouble followin' at his heels. Well, there isn't very much more to tell."
Here she paused, the animation left her face and she looked pityfully old and weary. Betty reached over and patted her hand, and finally she resumed her story.
"Abner kept his word and brought the sheriff around that same afternoon, but they couldn't find Willie--he was gone. He'd left a note for me--full o' love--but sayin' that he couldn't bear to bring disgrace on me an' so he'd gone away. When he'd done what his pa wanted him to, he said, he'd come back an' then we could live in the big house an' be happy.
"An' from that day to this, I've never heard a word from my little boy."
"Oh," cried Betty, pityingly, "what a terrible thing! I should think he could have written. But maybe he did, and his letters never reached you."
"That old Abner must have been a beast," cried Mollie, clenching her hands belligerently. "And those boys! Wouldn't I like to put them behind the bars?"
"You see," the old lady went on tonelessly, "it was only a little while after Willie ran away that they found out that tramps started the fire. Of course Abner was sorry then, but it was too late. My boy was gone."
"But you'll find him yet," cried Betty hopefully, springing to her feet. "I'm quite sure you will."
But the old lady shook her head sadly.
"I don't think so, my dear," she said slowly. "If my Willie boy had been alive I'm sure he would have come to me. He's--he's--almost certain--to be--dead."
The girls