ishing Teddy--Jerusha
Darby's niece and heir some fine day, if she only chose, to all of the
Darby dollars.

"I can't never explain to you, lady. They's troubles in everybody's
lots, I reckon. Mine ain't nothin' but a humble one, but it ain't so
much different from big folks's in trouble ways. An' we all have to do
the best we can with what comes to us to put up with. I 'ain't never
harmed nobody, nor kep' a thing 'at wa'n't mine longer 'n I could git it
back. You ask York Macpherson, an' he'll tell ye the truth. He never
sent ye down here, York didn't."

The old man ceased squeaking and looked down at his stubby legs and old
shoes. Was he lying and whining for mercy, being caught with the spoils
of his thieving?

Jerry's big eyes were fixed on him as she tried to fathom the real
situation. The bunch of grubs on the Winnowoc local--common country and
village folk--had been far below her range of interest, to say nothing
of sympathy. Yet here she sat in the miserable shack of a hermit
fisherman, an all-but-acknowledged thief, with his loot discovered,
studying him with a mind where pity and credulity were playing havoc
with her better judgment and her aristocratic breeding. Had she fallen
so low as this, or had she risen to a newer height of character than she
had ever known before?

Suddenly the old grub hunched down on the table before her looked up.
Jerry remembered afterward how clear and honest the gaze of those faded
yellow eyes set in a multitude of yellow wrinkles. His hands let go of
the table's edge and fitted knuckle into palm as he asked, in a
quavering voice:

"Be you really Jim Swaim's girl who used to live up in that there
Winnowoc country back yander in Pennsylvany?"

Jerry's heart thumped violently. It was the last word she had expected
from this creature. "Yes, I'm Jim's only child." The same winsome smile
that made the artistic Eugene Wellington of Philadelphia adore her
beamed now on this poor old outcast down by the deep hole of the Sage
Brush.

"An' be you hard up, an' earnin' your own livin' by yourself, did ye
say? 'Ain't ye got a rich kin back East to help ye none?" The voice
quavered up and down unsteadily.

"Yes, I have a rich aunt, but I'm taking care of myself. It makes me
freer, but I have to be particular not to--to--lose any money right
now," Jerry said, frankly.

"Then ye air doin' mighty well, an' it's the thing that 'u'd make your
daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It