im why, if he wasn't willing to pay for rope what it was
worth, he didn't use a halter or his clothes-line.

"He whined out that his halter was broke, and he hadn't had a
clothes-line for years. That last I believed, quick enough, for I
knew he didn't ever have any washing done.

"Then I asked him why he didn't steal a rope if he was too poor to
pay for it, and he said he was too poor. He wasn't worth more than
five thousand dollars in the world, and he'd given away all he was
going to of that. When he got started on that, he ripped and raved
the way he did this morning; hang it, if I didn't begin to think he
was out of his mind. Then he went off, about ten minutes past twelve,
without his rope. I suppose there were pieces of rope enough around,
but I got mad, he acted so darned mean about it, and wouldn't hunt it
up for him, and I'm glad now I didn't."

Rachel Blodgett, who had been teetering with eagerness on her thin
old ankles, interposing now and then sharp quavers of abortive
speech, cut short Robinson's last words with the impetuosity of her
delivered torrent. "I washed to-day," said she. "I didn't wash
yesterday because it wasn't a good drying-day, and last week I had my
clothes around three days in the tub, and I made up my mind I
wouldn't do it again. So I washed to-day.

"I got my clothes all hung out before dinner. I had an uncommon heavy
wash to-day, an extra table-cloth--Mr. Means tipped his coffee over
yesterday morning--and the sheets of the spare chamber bed were in,
so I put up a little piece of line I had, between those two trees,
beside my regular clothes-line.

"About an hour ago I thought to myself the clothes ought to be dry,
and I'd just step out and look. So I run out, and there were the
clothes I'd hung on the little line--some dish-towels, and two of my
aprons, and one of Mr. Means's shirts--down on the ground in the
dirt, and the line was gone. Thinks I, 'Where's that line gone to?'

"I stood there gaping, I couldn't make head or tail of it. Then I see
the little Crossman boy out in the yard, and I hollered to
him--'Willy,' says I, 'come here a minute.'

"He come running over, and I asked him if he'd seen anybody in our
yard since noon. He said he hadn't seen anybody but Mr. Basset. He
saw him coming out of our yard tucking something under his coat.

"That put me on the track. If I do say it of the dead, and one that's
gone to his account in an awful way, Mr. Basset had been over her