e it was a dreadful shock. You see, he had
taken so little money, not much over two thousand dollars. We
could have borrowed it, I'm sure; he and I could have worked out
the debt together. We could have done it; I would have worked at
anything, no matter how hard, rather than have my brother branded
all his life with the disgrace of having been in prison. But the
man for whom he had worked was furiously angry at what he called
Charlie's ingratitude; he would teach the young thief a lesson, he
said. Our lawyer went to him; I went to him and begged him not to
press the case. Of course Charlie didn't know of my going; he
never would have permitted it if he had. But I went and begged and
pleaded. It did no good. Why, even the judge at the trial, when
he charged the jury, spoke of the defendant's youth and previous
good character. . . ."

She covered her eyes with her hand. Poor Jed's face was a picture
of distress.

"Now--now, Mrs. Armstrong," he urged, "don't, please don't. I--I
wouldn't tell me any more about it, if I was you. Of course I'm--
I'm proud to think you believed I was worth while tellin' it to and
all that, but--you mustn't. You'll make yourself sick, you know.
Just don't tell any more, please."

She took her hand away and looked at him bravely.

"There isn't any more to tell," she said. "I have told you this
because I realized that Barbara had told you enough to make you
imagine everything that was bad concerning my brother. And he is
not bad, Mr. Winslow. He did a wrong thing, but I know--I KNOW he
did not mean deliberately to steal. If that man he worked for had
been--if he had been-- But there, he was what he was. He said
thieves should be punished, and if they were punished when they
were young, so much the better, because it might be a warning and
keep them honest as they grew older. He told me that, Mr. Winslow,
when I pleaded with him not to make Charles' disgrace public and
not to wreck the boy's life. That was what he told me then. And
they say," she added, bitterly, "that he prides himself upon being
a staunch supporter of the church."

Jed let go of his knee with one hand in order to rub his chin.

"I have queer notions, I cal'late," he drawled. "If they wasn't
queer they wouldn't be mine, I suppose. If I was--er--as you might
say, first mate of all creation I'd put some church folks in jail
and a good many jail folks in church. Seems's if the swap would be
a help