Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 132: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

314 Grant came up the back stairs, she didn’t notice anything. I pretended I was getting my sewing together, though I was shaking so | couldn’t hold on to anything. “I'wa’n’t more than a minute before we heard Mr. Grant call out, and we both went down.” Joel Benton looked at the minister. “ That’s why I couldn’t find my sickle. I was hunting for it in the back yard when Mrs. Winslow and Flora came round there with you. Mrs. Winslow stepped up to me, and.asked me not to say anything about Flora’s having down here with Nathan Swain. She thought you and I were the only ones who had seen them, and if she ' could count on our keeping quiet about it, then other folks need never know.” The constable interrupted him. “But if you couldn’t find your own sickle, where did you get the one you gave me?” “ That’s the one from up m the grave- yard,” Joel answered; “I fetched it after I had taken Lucy home. I promised her I’d think of some way to get Hetty out of the house during the evening. But I didn’t tell her what I meant to do.” For the first time his glance was lowered. He spoke hesitatingly. ‘My own mind was made up, though. My life hasn’t amounted to much. There wasn’t anything left for me to look forward to, and if by coming down here and giving myself up I could help Hetty, why, that was what I was glad to do. I knew she’d never have let me take ‘er place, but perhaps to save Lucy—”’ The figure of the little dressmaker strug- gled up from the couch. “T couldn’t have stood that any better,” she sobbed; “‘ although at first just trying to save Lucy was all I could seem to think of. I told Mrs. Grant I was going home, and then, watching my chance, I crept up to the attic where Lucy was hiding. I made her put on my dress and a clear apron, and J got some things for myself out of an old trunk back under the eaves. Looking out the attic window I could see there wasn’t any one but Joel round behind the house. All the neighbors were in the front yard. So I told Lucy to go down the back stairs and out through the kitchen, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. with ker apron over her head and carrying my rol! of work—pretending she was me. It was her one chance, for I thought any mmute they might start in to search the house. From the window I saw Joel start to walk along beside her, but I knew that with him she was just as safe as she would have been with me. ~ 1 thought maybe after dark, wrapped up queer as I was, I could get away: Sol waited. Every little while there were foot- steps and voices. Finally along m the eve- ning folks must have gone, for the house was quiet. But it wasn’t until later, when -} heard Mr. and Mrs. Grant talking im their bedroom, that I dared risk creeping down. Outside their door, in the upper hall, I listened for a minute, and I heard the min- ister explaining to his wife why it couldn’t be that Joel was guilty. I began to under- stand at last what had happened. Joel had given himself up, and that was why they hadn’t searched any further. I guess I made some sound then, for Mrs. Grant was frightened, and the minister came out. But I’d got to the head of the stairs by that time, and I crept down without his seeing me. It was so dark in the lower hall that at first I couldn’t find the right door. ‘When I got home there was Lucy, almost beside herself with fear. She kept clinging to me and begging me not to tell folks what she had done. I see then for the first time that she was out of her mind, for she’d got to thinking, just as Joel says, that it was years ago, and that Nathan Swam was to have married her. It took me hours to get her quieted, and at last I had to give her one of those powders that the doctor left. “When she’d fallen asleep, I sat up all night in the rocking chair in the kitchen trying to plan out what I’d do. “I knew I’d have to free Joel, and there was only one way of doing that—I’d have to take his place, because I couldn’t give up my own sister; all her life she’s trusted me. I didn’t have any one to turn to—there wasn’t hardly any time. I felt numb, I was so frightened. But toward morning it came to me: why not pretend I was tne same way Lucy was? Withovt. Colin (GLO) Oe Oks aid. | L Ee ww