ACCUSED OF THEFT.

As the customer departed with the jug of molasses, a lad named Joe Fletcher entered the store.

"Hello, Dick," said the newcomer, walking toward the rear of the place.

"Hello, Joe," replied Dick, in a pleased voice, for he and Joe were chums.

"I didn't know whether I should find you in here or not," said Joe.

"Want to see me about anything particular?" asked Dick, in some surprise.

"Yes. I've come to say good-bye."

"What!" exclaimed Dick, his face clouding. "You don't mean to say you're going away?"

"Yes. I left Boggs for good a couple of hours ago. He's a hard, cruel, grasping tyrant—that's what he is. You know I threatened to cut loose from him weeks ago, but somehow I didn't seem to be able to muster up the backbone to do it. But it's all over now. He beat me black and blue with a whip this morning because one of the cows broke down the corner of the pasture fence and got into the truck patch. I think he'd have killed me only I hit him over the head with the handle of a rake. Then I got my clothes and ran away."

For a moment Dick was silent.

He felt sad at the thought of losing the best friend he had in the neighborhood.

It is true he had only known Joe Fletcher five months, which was about the length of time Joe had been working for Farmer Boggs, but a natural sympathy had drawn the two boys together.

Both early in life had been thrown upon their own resources, and both were subservient to hard taskmasters, though if there was any choice in the matter, Silas Maslin was perhaps a shade better than Nathan Boggs.

The latter was notorious throughout the county for the way he treated his hired help, particularly if that help happened to be a boy.

Boggs' method was to hire a stout boy or an able-bodied, newly arrived foreigner for a period of six months, with the understanding that if the hand quit work before the end of the stipulated term of service he was to forfeit all his pay.

The farmer then managed to make things so hard for his help as the weeks went by that they found the place simply unendurable and were glad to disappear of a sudden without making any very serious demand for what was due them.

Fletcher had managed to weather the ills that clung about Boggs' farm for five months, for he was blessed with a good temper and much patience, and Nathan, fearing the boy would last the limit and that he would be obliged to pay him the sum of $60 for which he had contracted, adopted a specially rigorous line of conduct toward him, which culminated that morning with a most inhuman beating, after which Joe gave up the struggle.

"Where are you going?" asked Dick, at length.

"I haven't decided yet but the canal-boat Minnehaha is taking on a load of shingles at Norton's Lock, a few miles above, and Captain Beasley told me he'd take me down to New York if I wanted to go."

"I wish I were going with you, Joe," said Dick, wistfully.

"I wish you were."

"I'm sick of this place. They treat me like a dog, and I won't stand it much longer. Had a run-in with Luke a little while ago."

"I don't see that it's doing you any good to hang on here," said Joe. "Maslin hasn't any claim on you, has he?"

"Not a bit; it's all the other way. He hasn't paid me a cent all these years I've been working for him. All I've ever got has been the clothes he grudgingly gave me—none of the best, at that—and my board, and I guess you know what sort of a table they set here."

"I've heard enough from you to make me believe it isn't much of an improvement on Boggs' bill of fare—and that's about the worst ever!"

"You never told me how you came to live with the Maslins," said Joe, curiously.

"I didn't know myself till a couple of months ago."

"Is that a fact?" said Joe in surprise.

"I asked Mr. Maslin and his wife a number of times, but they never would give me any satisfaction. About two months ago I was up in the garret one rainy Sunday afternoon, and I found an old diary in which Mr. Maslin kept a record of important matters in which he was interested when we lived up in New Hampshire some twelve years ago. I've a faint recollection myself of the farm he owned in the neighborhood of a place called Franconia. In this diary I found a long entry relating to myself."

"You must have been surprised," said Fletcher, who was listening eagerly.

"Well, I guess I was. Of course I knew I was no relation of the Maslins, for they had long since taken care to impress that fact on me. The diary states that a gentleman named George Armstrong, whom Mr. Maslin wrote down as being tall and fine-looking, but with a melancholy face, as though he was in trouble or had lately been subject to some misfortune, boarded at the farm with his little son, Richard, at that time aged five years, for several months. That one day he received a letter which Mr. Maslin noticed bore the Boston postmark, and that its contents disturbed him very much. He immediately started off without mentioning his destination, leaving the little boy in Mr. Maslin's care, with a small sum of money to pay his board for about the time he expected to be away. He did not return within the time he set, and from subsequent entries on the same page it would seem that Mr. Maslin never saw him again."

"It's a good thing you learned that much about yourself. I suppose something must have happened to your father or he would have come back after you," said Joe.

"I suppose so," replied Dick, soberly.

"What did you do with the diary?"

"I've got it in the box where I keep my clothes."

"You'd better hold on to it. Might possibly be of value to you one of these days."

"It has a value for me, as it shows to some extent who I am," replied Dick. "Luke called me a charity boy, and that taunt caused the scrap. I've worked like a slave for the Maslins without pay, but I've received any amount of abuse. Some morning Mr. Maslin will get up and find me missing."

"What's that you say, you young villain?" yelled the strident tones of the storekeeper, behind them.

He had entered the store and approached them unobserved.

"Don't you let me catch you tryin' to light out of here before I give you leave, or I'll be the death of you. What do you mean, anyway, by hangin' over the counter and idlin' your time away when there's a dozen things you might be doin'? Go into the kitchen now and peel the taters for Mrs. Maslin; d'ye hear?" And he seized the boy roughly by the arm and swung him into the middle of the store.

"I'll try and see you later, Dick, before I go," said Joe, holding out his hand to his chum.

"I don't think you will, young man," said Silas Maslin, significantly. "My help hain't got no time to waste on visitors."

"I guess he's got a right to say good-bye to a friend," retorted Joe, indignantly.

"Then he'd better say it right now afore you go," said the storekeeper, ungraciously.

"Well, Dick," said Joe, bottling up his wrath, for he realized that Mr. Maslin was master of the situation, "good-bye, if I don't see you again."

"Good-bye, Joe," and the two boys clasped hands sadly.

"I'll write to you and let you know where I am and what I'm doing," said Joe.

"I hope you will. Be sure I sha'n't forget you."

"And I won't forget you."

And thus the two boys parted, for how long they could not guess.

As it proved, however, they were shortly to be reunited in a somewhat startling way.

Dick went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Maslin handed him a tub of potatoes and a knife.

"Take the jackets off 'em, and see you lose no time 'bout it nuther," said the lady of the house sharply.

Dick made no reply, but seated himself on a stool in a corner and began his work.

"You 'most ruined Luke's new suit of clothes this arternoon," snapped Mrs. Maslin. "Ef I wuz Silas I'd take it out'r your hide. It seems to me my boy can't ask you to do the simplest thing for him eny more but you must fly at him."

Dick knew it was useless to enter into any explanation with her.

Luke had evidently told the story in his own way, and whatever he might say now wouldn't count.

"Don't you know it's your place to do whatever he asks of you?" asked Mrs. Maslin, shrilly.

"I've never refused to do anything for him when he asked me civilly," said Dick.

"Hoighty toighty!" exclaimed the lady, sarcastically. "Must my boy bow down before you, you young whipper-snapper? The idea! Who are you enyway? Ef it hadn't been for Silas and me, where'd you been now, you ungrateful cub? We've clothed you and fed you and eddicated you, and now you turn on us."

"I think I've worked pretty hard for all I've received," replied Dick, doggedly.

"What ef you have? It ain't more'n you ought to do. You've finished the taters, hev you? Put 'em down, then, and don't stare at me in that way. Go out and fetch me a pail of water."

Dick obeyed without a word and then, as the mistress made no further demand on his services for the moment, went up to his bare little room just over the kitchen.

He opened the box where he kept his things and, diving down into a corner, fished up a small buckskin bag in which he kept the pennies, dimes, quarters, and several half-dollars he had been slowly accumulating from odd jobs he had done for various persons during the last three or four years.

He counted his little store slowly over.

"I've a great mind to——"

He never finished that sentence, for suddenly the door was thrown open with a bang and Silas Maslin rushed furiously into the room.

"You thief! Give me back the money you took from the store-till this afternoon!"

"This is not your money," said Dick, dropping the coins into the bag and holding it behind him.

"I'll see whether you'll give it to me or not!"

As Silas Maslin sprang at him Dick thrust the bag into his pocket and proceeded to defend himself as well as he could.

This would not have been an easy job, for Mr. Maslin was strong and wiry; but chance aided the boy.

The storekeeper's foot caught on a rent in the rag-carpet, he pitched forward and struck his forehead against a corner of Dick's box with such force as to cause a nasty wound that stretched him, stunned, on the floor.

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