CHAPTER VIII – THE MISFORTUNES OF A RUNAWAY
In this present instance Sammy Pinkney was not obliged to exert his imagination to any very great degree to make himself believe that he was having real adventure. Romance very soon took the embryo pirate by the hand and led him into most exciting and quite unlooked-for events.
Sammy’s progress was slow because of the weight of the extension-bag. Yet as he trudged on steadily he put a number of miles behind him that afternoon.
Had his parents known in which direction to look for him they might easily have overtaken the runaway. Neale O’Neil could have driven out this road in the Kenway’s car and brought Sammy back before supper time.
Mr. Pinkney, however, labored under the delusion that because Sammy was piratically inclined, he would head toward the sea. So he got in touch with people all along the railroad line to Pleasant Cove, suspecting that the boy might have purchased a ticket in that direction with a part of the contents of his burglarized bank.
The nearest thing to the sea that Sammy came to after passing the canal on the edge of Milton was a big pond which he sighted about mid-afternoon. Its dancing blue waters looked very cool and refreshing, and the young traveler thought of his bathing suit right away.
“I can hide this bag and take a swim,” he thought eagerly. “I bet that pond is all right. Hullo! There’s some kids. I wonder if they would steal my things if I go in swimming?”
He was not incautious. Being mischievously inclined himself, he suspected other boys of having similar propensities. The boys he had observed were playing down by the water’s edge where an ice-house had once stood. But the building had been destroyed by fire, all but its roof. The eaves of this shingled roof, which was quite intact, now rested on the ground.
The boys were sliding from the ridge of the roof to the ground, and then climbing up again to repeat the performance. It looked to be a lot of fun.
After Sammy had hidden his extension-bag in a clump of bushes, he approached the slide. One boy, who was the largest and oldest of the group, called to Sammy:
“Come on, kid. Try it. The slide’s free.”
It looked to be real sport, and Sammy could not resist the invitation given so frankly. He saw that the bigger boy sat on a piece of board when he slid down the shingles; but the others slid on the seat of their trousers – and so did Sammy.
It proved to be an hilarious occasion. One might have heard those boys shouting and laughing a mile away.
A series of races were held, and Sammy Pinkney managed to win his share of them. This so excited him that he failed for all of the time to notice what fatal effect the friction was having upon his trousers.
He was suddenly reminded, however, by a startling happening. All the shingles on that roof were not worn smooth. Some were “splintery.” Sammy emitted a sharp cry as he reached the ground after a particularly swift descent of the roof, and rising, he clapped his hand to that part of his anatomy upon which he had been tobogganing, with a most rueful expression on his countenance.
“Oh, my! Oh, my!” cried Sammy. “I’ve got two big holes worn right through my pants! My good pants, too. My maw will give me fits, so she will. I’ll never dare go home now.”
The big boy who had saved his own trousers from disaster by using the piece of board to slide on, shouted with laughter. But another of the party said to Sammy:
“Don’t tell your mother. I aren’t going to tell my mother, you bet. By and by she’ll find the holes and think they just wore through naturally.”
“Well,” said Sammy, with a sigh, “I guess I’ve slid down enough for to-day, anyway. Good-bye, you fellers, I’ll see you later.”
He did not feel at all as cheerful as he spoke. He was really smitten with remorse, for this was almost a new suit he had on. He wished heartily that he had put on that cowboy suit – even his bathing suit – before joining that coasting party.
“That big feller,” grumbled Sammy, “is a foxy one, he is! He didn’t wear through his pants, you bet. But me– ”
Sammy was very much lowered in his own estimation over this mishap. He was by no means so smart as he had believed himself to be. He felt gingerly from time to time of the holes in his trousers. They were of such a nature that they could scarcely be hidden.
“Crickey!” he muttered, “she sure will give me fits.”
The boys he had been playing with disappeared. Sammy secured his bag and suddenly found it very, very heavy. Evening was approaching. The sun was so low now that its almost level rays shone into his eyes as he plodded along the road.
A farmer going to Milton market in an auto-truck, its load covered with a brown tarpaulin, passed Sammy. If it had not been for the holes in his trousers, and what his mother would do and say about it, the boy surely would have asked the farmer for a ride back home!
His hesitancy cost him the ride. And he met nobody else on this road he was traveling. He struggled on, his courage beginning to ebb. He had eaten the last crumbs of his lunch. After the pond was out of sight behind him the runaway saw no dwellings at all. The road had entered a wood, and that wood grew thicker and darker as he advanced.
Fireflies twinkled in the bushes. There was a hum of insect life and somewhere a big bullfrog tuned his bassoon – a most eerie sound. A bat flew low above his head and Sammy dodged, uttering a startled squawk.
“Crickey! I don’t like this a bit,” he panted.
But the runaway was no coward. He was quite sure that there was nothing in these woods that would really hurt him. He could still see some distance back from the road on either hand, and he selected a big chestnut tree at the foot of which, between two roots, there was a hollow filled with leaves and trash.
This made not a bad couch, as he very soon found. He thrust the bag that had become so heavy farther into the hollow and lay down before it. But tired as he was, he could not at once go to sleep.
Somewhere near he heard a trickle of water. The sound made the boy thirsty. He finally got up and stumbled through the brush, along the roadside in the direction of the running water.
He found it – a spring rising in the bank above the road. Sammy carried a pocket-cup and soon satisfied his thirst by its aid. He had some difficulty in finding his former nest; but when he did come to the hollow between two huge roots, with the broadly spreading chestnut tree boughs overhead, he soon fell asleep.
Nothing disturbed Sammy thereafter until it was broad daylight. He awoke as much refreshed as though he had slept in his own bed at home.
Young muscles recover quickly from strain. All he remembered, too, was the fun he had had the day before, while he was foot-loose. Even the disaster to his trousers seemed of little moment now. He had always envied ragged urchins; they seemed to have so few cares and nobody to bother them.
He ran with a whoop to the spring, drank his fill from it, and then doused his face and hands therein. The sun and air dried his head after his ablutions and there was nobody to ask if “he had washed behind his ears.”
He returned to the chestnut tree where he had lain all night, whistling. Of course he was hungry; but he believed there must be some house along the road where he could buy breakfast. Sammy Pinkney was not at all troubled by his situation until, stooping to look into the cavity near which he had slept, he made the disconcerting discovery that his extension-bag was not there!
“Wha – wha —what?” stammered Sammy. “It’s gone! Who took it?”
That he had been robbed while he went to the spring was the only explanation there could be of this mysterious disappearance. At least, so thought Sammy.
He ran around the tree, staring all about – even up into the thickly leaved branches where the clusters of green burrs were already formed. Then he plunged through the fringe of bushes into the road to see if he could spy the robber making away in either direction.
All he saw was a rabbit hopping placidly across the highway. A jay flew overhead with raucous call, as though he laughed at the bereft boy. And Sammy Pinkney was in no mood to stand being laughed at!
“You mean old thing!” he shouted at the flashing jay – which merely laughed at him again, just as though he did know who had stolen Sammy’s bag and hugely enjoyed the joke.
In that bag were many things that Sammy considered precious as well as necessary articles of clothing. There was his gun and the shot for it! How could he defend himself from attack or shoot game in the wilds, if either became necessary?
“Oh, dear!” Sammy finally sniffed, not above crying a few tears as there was nobody by to see. “Oh, dear! Now I’ve got to wear this good suit – although ’tain’t so good anyway with holes in the pants.
“But all my other things – crickey! Ain’t it just mean? Whoever took my bag, I hope he’ll have the baddest kind of luck. I – I hope he’ll have to go to the dentist’s and have all his teeth pulled, so I do!” which, from a recent experience of the runaway, seemed the most painful punishment that could be exacted from the thief.
Wishing any amount of ill-fortune for the robber would not bring back his bag. Sammy quite realized this. He had his money safely tied into a very grubby handkerchief, so that was all right. But when he started off along the road at last, he was in no very cheerful frame of mind.
CHAPTER IX – THINGS GO WRONG
Of course there was no real reason why life at the old Corner House should not flow quite as placidly with Ruth away as when the elder sister was at home. It was a fact, however, that things seemed to begin to go wrong almost at once.
Having written the notice advertising the silver bracelet as though it had been found by chance, Agnes made Neale run downtown again at once with it so as to be sure the advertisement would be inserted in the next morning’s Post.
As the automobile had not been put into the garage after the return from taking Ruth to the station, Neale used it on this errand, and on his way back there was a blowout. Of course if Ruth had been at home she could scarcely have averted this misfortune. However, had she been at home the advertisement regarding the bracelet might not have been written at all.
Meanwhile, Mrs. McCall’s preserve jars did not seal well, and the next day the work had to be done all over again. Linda cut her finger “to the bone,” as she gloomily announced. And Uncle Rufus lost a silver dollar somewhere in the grass while he was mowing the lawn.
“An’ dollars is as scarce wid me as dem hen’s teef dey talks about,” said the old darkey. “An’ I never yet did see a hen wid teef – an’ Ah reckon I’ve seen a million of ’em.”
“Oh-oo!” murmured Dot Kenway. “A million hens, Unc’ Rufus? Is there that many?”
“He, he!” chuckled the old man. “Ain’t that the beatenes’ chile dat ever was? Always a-questionin’ an’ a-questionin’. Yo’ can’t git by wid any sprodigious statement when she is around – no, suh!”
Nor could such an expression as “sprodigious” go unchallenged with Dot on the scene – no, indeed! A big word in any case attracted Miss Dorothy.
“What does that mean, Unc’ Rufus?” she promptly demanded. “Is – is ‘sprodigious’ a dictionary word, or just one of your made-up words?”
“Go ‘long chile!” chuckled the old man. “Can’t Uncle Rufus make up words just as good as any dictionary-man? If I knows what Ah wants to say, Ah says it, ne’er mind de dictionary!”
“That’s all very well, Unc’ Rufus,” Tess put in. “But Ruthie only wants us to use language that you find in books. So I guess you’d better not take that one from Uncle Rufus, Dottie.”
“Howcome Missy Ruth so pertic’lar?” grumbled the old man. “Yo’ little gals is gettin’ too much l’arnin’ – suah is! But none of hit don’t find de ol’ man his dollar.”
At this complaint Tess and Dot went to work immediately to hunt for the missing dollar. It was while they were searching along the hedgerow next to the Creamers’ premises that the little girls got into their memorable argument with Mabel Creamer about the lobster – an argument, which, being overheard by Agnes, was reported to the family with much hilarity.
Mabel, an energetic and sharp-tongued child, and Bubby, her little brother, were playing in their yard. That is, Bubby was playing while Mabel nagged and thwarted him in almost everything he wanted to do.
“Now, don’t stoop over like that, Bubby. Your face gets all red like a lobster does. Maybe you’ll turn into one.”
“I ain’t a lobs’er,” shouted Bubby.
“You will be one if you get red like that,” repeated his sister in a most aggravating way.
“I won’t be a lobs’er!” wailed Bubby.
“Of course you won’t be a lobster, Bubby,” spoke up Tess from across the hedge. “You’re just a boy.”
“Course I’s a boy,” declared Bubby stoutly, sensing that Tess Kenway’s assurance was half a criticism. “I don’t want to be a lobs’er – nor a dirl, so there!”
“Oh-oo!” gasped Dot.
“You will be a lobster and turn all red if you are a bad boy,” declared Mabel, who was always in a bad temper when she was made to mind Bubby.
“Why, Mabel,” murmured Dot, who knew a thing or two about lobsters herself, “you wouldn’t boil Bubby, would you?”
“Don’t have to boil ’em to make ’em turn red,” declared Mabel, referring to the lobster, not the boy. “My father brought home live lobsters once and the big one got out of the basket on to the kitchen floor.”
“Oh, my!” exclaimed the interested Dot. “What happened?”
With her imagination thus spurred by appreciation, Mabel pursued the fancy: “And there were three little ones in the basket, and that old, big lobster tried to make them get out on the floor too. And when they wouldn’t, what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” breathed Dot.
“Why, he got so mad at them that he turned red all over. I saw him – ”
“Why, Mabel Creamer!” interrupted Tess, unable to listen further to such a flight of fancy without registering a protest. “That can’t be so – you know it can’t.”
“I’d like to know why it can’t be so?” demanded Mabel.
“’Cause lobsters only turn red when they are boiled. They are all green when they are alive.”
“How do you know so much, Tess Kenway?” cried Mabel. “These are my lobsters and I’ll have them turn blue if I want to – so there!”
There seemed to be no room for further argument. Besides, Mabel grabbed Bubby by the hand and dragged him away from the hedge.
“My!” murmured Dot, “Mabel has such a ‘magination. And maybe that lobster did get mad, Tess. We don’t know.”
“She never had a live lobster in her family,” declared Tess, quite emphatically. “You know very well, Dot Kenway, that Mr. Creamer wouldn’t bring home such a thing as a live lobster, when there are little children in his house.”
“M – mm – I guess that’s so,” agreed Dot. “A live lobster would be worse than Sammy Pinkney’s bulldog.”
Thus reminded of the absent Sammy the two smaller Corner House girls postponed any further search for Uncle Rufus’s dollar and went across the street to learn if any news had been gained of their runaway playmate. Mrs. Pinkney was still despairing. She had imagined already a score of misfortunes that might have befallen her absent son, ranging from his eating of green apples to being run over by an automobile.
“But, Mrs. Pinkney!” burst forth Tess at last, “if Sammy has run away to sea to be a pirate, there won’t be any green apples for him to eat – and no automobiles.”
“Oh, you can never tell what trouble Sammy Pinkney will manage to get into,” moaned his mother. “I can only expect the very worst.”
“Well,” Dot remarked with a sigh, as she and Tess trudged home to supper, “I’m glad there is only one boy in my family. My boy doll, Nosmo King Kenway, will probably be a source of great anxiety when he is older.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Tess told her placidly. “If he is very bad you can send him to the reform school.”
“Oh – oo!” gasped Dot, all her maternal instincts aroused at such a suggestion. “That would be awful.”
“I don’t know. They do send boys to the reform school. Jimmy Mulligan, whose mother lives in that little house on Willow Wythe, is in the reform school because he wouldn’t mind his mother.”
“But they don’t send Sammy there,” urged Dot.
“No – o. Of course,” admitted the really tender-hearted Tess, “we know Sammy isn’t really naughty. He is only silly to run away every once in a while.”
There was much bustle inside the old Corner House that evening. Because they really missed Ruth so much, her sisters invented divers occupations to fill the hours until bedtime. Tess and Dot, for instance, had never cut out so many paper-dolls in all their lives.
Another telegram had arrived from Cecile Shepard (sent, of course, before Ruth had reached Oakhurst), stating that she had been allowed to see her brother and that, although he could not be immediately moved, he was improving and was absolutely in no danger.
“If Ruthie had only waited to get this message,” complained Agnes, “she would not have gone up there to the mountains at all. And just see, Neale, how right that Gypsy girl was. There was news on the way that changed the whole aspect of affairs. She was quite wonderful, I think.”
By this time Neale saw that it was better not to try to ridicule Agnes’ budding belief in fortune telling. “Less said, the soonest mended,” was his wise opinion.
“I like Cecile Shepard,” Agnes went on to say, “and always shall; but I don’t think she has shown much sense about her brother’s illness. Scaring everybody to death, and sending telegrams like a patch-work quilt!”
“Maybe Ruth will come right home again when she finds Luke is all right,” said Tess hopefully. “Dear, me! aren’t boys a lot of trouble?”
“Sammy and Luke are,” agreed Dot.
“All but Neale,” said the loyal Agnes, her boy chum having departed. “I don’t see what this family would do without Neale O’Neil.”
In the morning the older sister’s absence seemed to make quite as great a gap in the household of the old Corner House as at night. But Neale rushed in early with the morning paper to show Agnes their advertisement in print. Under the “Lost and Found” heading appeared the following:
“FOUND: – Silver bracelet, antique design. Owner can regain it by proving property and paying for this advertisement. Apply Kenway, Willow and Main Streets.”
“It sounds quite dignified,” decided Agnes admiringly. “I guess Ruth would approve.”
“Crickey!” ejaculated Neale O’Neil, “this is one thing Ruth is not bossing. We did this off our own bat, Aggie.”
“Just the same,” ruminated Agnes, “I wonder what Mr. Howbridge will say if he reads it?”
“I am glad,” said Neale with gratitude, “that my father doesn’t interfere with what I do. And I haven’t any guardian, unless it is dear old Con Murphy. Folks let me pretty much alone.”
“If they didn’t,” said Agnes saucily, “I suppose you would run away as you did from the circus.”
“No,” laughed her chum. “One runaway in the neighborhood is enough. Mr. Pinkney has been up half the night, he tells me, telephoning and sending telegrams. He has about made up his mind that Sammy hasn’t gone in the direction of Pleasant Cove, after all.”
“We ought to help hunt for Sammy,” cried Agnes eagerly. “Let us take Mrs. Pinkney in the auto, Neale, and search for that little rascal.”
“No. She will not leave the house. She wants to greet Sammy when he comes back – no matter whether it is day or night,” chuckled Neale. “But Mr. Pinkney is going to get away from the office this afternoon, and we’ll take him. He is afraid his wife will be really ill.”
“Poor woman!”
“She cannot be contented to sit down and wait for Sammy to turn up – as he always does.”
“You mean, he always gets turned up,” giggled Agnes. “Somebody is sure to find him.”
“Well, then, it might as well be us,” agreed Neale. “I’ll tune up the engine, and see that the car is all right. We should be able to go over a lot of these roads in an afternoon. Sammy could not have got very far from Milton in two days, or less.”
CHAPTER X – ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS
Quite unsuspicious of the foregoing plans for his apprehension, Sammy Pinkney was journeying on, going steadily away from Milton, and traveling much faster now that he did not have to carry the extension-bag.
The boy had no idea who could have stolen his possessions; but he rubbed his knuckles in his eyes, forced back the tears, and pressed on, feeling that freedom even without a change of garments was preferable to the restrictions of home and all the comforts there to be found.
He walked two miles or more and was very hungry before he came to the first house. It stood just at the edge of the big wood in which Sammy had spent the night.
It was scarcely more than a tumbled-down hut, with broken panes of glass more common than whole ones in the windows, these apertures stuffed with hats and discarded garments, while half the bricks had fallen from the chimney-top. There were half a dozen barefooted children running about, while a very wide and red-faced woman stood in the doorway.
“Hullo, me bye!” she called to Sammy, as he lingered outside the broken fence with a longing eye upon her. “Where be yez bound so airly in the marnin’?”
“I’m just traveling, Ma’am,” Sammy returned with much dignity. “Could – could you sell me some breakfast?”
“Breakfast, is it?” repeated the smiling woman. “Shure, I’d give yez it, if mate wasn’t so high now. Come in me kitchen and sit ye down. There’s tay in the pot, and I’ll fry yez up a spider full o’ pork and taters, if that’ll do yez?”
The menu sounded tempting indeed to Sammy. He accepted the woman’s invitation instantly and entered the house, past the staring children. The two oldest of the group, a shrewd-faced boy and a sharp-featured girl, stood back and whispered together while they watched the visitor.
Sammy was so much interested in the bountiful breakfast with which the housewife supplied him that he thought very little about the children peering in at the door and open windows. When he had eaten the last crumb he asked his hostess how much he should pay her.
“Well, me bye, I’ll not overcharge ye,” she replied. “If yez have ten cents about ye we’ll call it square – an’ that’s only for the mate, as I said before is so high, I dunno.”
Sammy produced the knotted handkerchief, put it on the table and untied it, displaying the coins it held with something of a flourish. The jingle of so many dimes brought a sigh of wonder in unison from the young spectators at door and windows. The woman accepted her dime without comment.
Sammy thanked her politely, wiped his mouth on his sleeve (napery was conspicuous by its absence in this household) and started out the door. The smaller children scattered to give him passage; the older boy and girl had already gone out of the badly fenced yard and were loitering along the road in the direction Sammy was traveling.
“Hullo! Here’s raggedy-pants,” said the girl saucily, when Sammy came along.
“How did you get them holes in your breeches, kid?” added the boy.
“Never you mind,” rejoined Sammy gruffly. “They’re my pants.”
“Stuck up, ain’t you?” jeered the girl and stuck out her tongue at him.
Sammy thought these were two very impolite children, and although he was not rated at home for his own chivalrous conduct, he considered these specimens in the road before him quite unpleasant young people.
“Ne’er mind,” said the boy, looking at Sammy slyly, “he don’t know everything. He ain’t seen everything if he is traveling all by himself. I bet he’s run away.”
“I ain’t running away from you,” was Sammy’s belligerent rejoinder.
“You would if I said ‘Boo!’ to you.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Ya!” scoffed the girl, leering at Sammy, “don’t talk so much. Do something to him, Peter.”
Peter glanced warily back at the house. Perhaps he knew the large, red-faced woman might take a hand in proceedings if he pitched upon the strange boy.
“I bet,” he said, starting on another tack, “that he never saw a cherry-colored calf like our’n.”
“I bet he never did,” crowed the girl in delight.
“A cherry-colored calf,” scoffed Sammy. “Get out! There ain’t such a thing. A calf might be red; there are red cows – ”
“This calf is cherry-colored,” repeated the boy earnestly. “It’s down there in our pasture.”
“Don’t believe it,” said Sammy flatly.
“’Tis so!” cried the girl.
“I tell you,” said the very shrewd-looking boy. “We’ll show it to you for ten cents.”
“I don’t believe it,” repeated Sammy, but more doubtfully.
The girl laughed at him more scornfully than before. “He’s afraid to spend a dime – an’ him with so much money,” she cried.
“I don’t believe you’ve got a cherry-colored calf to show me.”
“Gimme the dime and I’ll show you whether we have or not,” said Peter.
“No,” said the cautious Sammy. “I’ll give you a dime if you show it to me. But no foolin’. I won’t give you a cent if the calf is any other color.”
“All right,” shouted the other boy. “Come on and I’ll show you. Come on, Liz.”
“All right, Peter,” said the girl, quite as eagerly. “Hurry up, raggedy-pants. We can use that dime, Peter and me can.”
The bare-legged youngsters got through a rail fence and darted down a path into a scrubby pasture, as wild as unbroken colts. Sammy, feeling fine after the bountiful breakfast he had eaten, chased after them wishing that he had thought to remove his shoes and stockings too. Peter and Liz seemed so much more free and untrammeled than he!
“Hold on!” puffed Sammy, coming finally to the bottom of the slope. “I ain’t going to run my head off for any old calf – Huh!”
From behind a clump of brush appeared suddenly a cow – a black and white cow, probably of the Holstein breed. There followed a scrambling in the bushes. Liz jumped into them with a shriek and drove out a little, blatting, stiff-legged calf. It was all of a glossy black, from its nose to the tip of its tail.
“That’s him! That’s him!” shrieked Liz. “A cherry-colored calf.”
“What did I tell you?” demanded the boy, Peter. “Give us the dime.”
“You go on!” exclaimed Sammy. “I knew all the time you were story-telling. That’s no cherry-colored calf.”
“’Tis too! It’s just the color of a black-heart cherry,” giggled Liz. “You got to give up ten cents.”
“Won’t neither,” Sammy declared.
“I’ll take it off you,” threatened Peter, growing belligerent.
“You won’t,” stubbornly declared Sammy, who did not propose to be cheated.
Peter jumped for him and Sammy could not run. One reason why he could not retreat was because Liz grabbed him from the rear, holding him around the waist.
She pulled him over backward, while her brother began to pummel Sammy most heartily from above. It was a most unfair attack and a most uncomfortable situation for the runaway. Although he managed to defend his face for the most part from Peter’s blows, he could do little else.
“Lemme up! Lemme up!” bawled Sammy.
“Gimme the dime,” panted Peter.
“I won’t! ’Tain’t fair!” gasped Sammy, too plucky to give in.
Liz had now squirmed from under the struggling boys. She must have seen at the house in which pocket Sammy kept the knotted handkerchief, for she thrust her hand into that pocket and snatched out the hoard of dimes before the owner realized what she was doing.
“Hey! Stop! Lemme up!” roared Sammy again.
“I got it, Peter!” shrieked Liz, and, springing up, she darted into the bushes and disappeared.
“Stop! She’s stole my money,” gasped Sammy in horror and alarm.
“She never! You didn’t have no money!” declared Peter, and with a final blow that stunned Sammy for the moment, the other leaped up and followed his wild companion into the brush.
Sammy, weeping in good earnest now, bruised and scratched in body and sore in spirit, climbed slowly to his feet. Never before in any of his runaway escapades had he suffered such ignominy and loss.
Why! he had actually fallen among thieves. First his bag and all his chattels therein had been stolen. Now these two ragamuffins had robbed him of every penny he possessed.
He dared not go back to the house where he had bought breakfast and complain. The other youngsters there might fall upon and beat him again!
Sammy Pinkney at last was tasting the bitter fruits of wrong doing. Even weeding another beet-bed could have been no more painful than these experiences which he was now suffering.