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Read Ebook: In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner Terrapin by Kloss C Boden Cecil Boden
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Ebook has 1779 lines and 164213 words, and 36 pages
"Jes so, jes so," sleepily croaked the crow.
In the mean while Harry had gone to get his treasure. He opened the bureau, put his hand to the accustomed place, and lo! the treasure was gone. With a trembling hand Harry tossed every article over a dozen times. He looked, as people will for missing articles, in all sorts of out-of-the-way and impossible places. At length he yielded to the fact that the locket was gone. The little treasure was lost at the one moment that it was of priceless value to him; for he could get nothing now to take its place. It was too late to secure the cheapest trinket. For the first time since he could remember he must go empty-handed on Christmas to his mother. Tears of grief, of rage, of disappointment, burst from his eyes. How in the world could it have gone? Nobody knew it was there but himself, nobody but--Jo.
"Darkies love trinkets," he muttered, bitterly. "Jo is the only living soul that could possibly have taken it."
Then he jumped upon his feet, and went down stairs.
"Oh, mamma," he faltered, "I had something for you that I know you'd like, but it's gone, it's stolen."
Then with clinched fists and streaming eyes, Harry told her of his loss.
"My dear boy," said Mrs. Malcom, "don't grieve; above all, don't lose your temper on Christmas-eve, of all times in the year. I'm just as glad as if I had the pretty picture in my hand; and as for poor Jo, if he did take it, it was from love of your dear face and ignorance of the crime he was committing. But now that you have as good as given me your present, you shall have mine."
She went into her little sitting-room and put her hand into the work-box for her purse. Only that morning she had put in the gold pieces--it ought to be an easy thing to feel them in the dark. But it was not. She lit the lamp, and even then her search was vain. The purse was gone. A serious, sad, and pained expression overshadowed her face. Nobody knew even of the existence of the purse. Nobody had seen it, nobody but--Jo.
Sighing heavily, she went back into the parlor. "Harry, my son," she said, "it is so sad to have such a thing happen upon Christmas-eve! I would not have believed it possible; even now I can scarcely credit my senses."
Then she told him all.
Harry's face lit with sudden wrath.
"Come, mamma, let's go to Jo's room. I believe he's run away with them. I don't believe he's there."
Mrs. Malcom followed Harry to the kitchen, and up the back stairs to the little garret. Her heart smote her as she saw the miserable rags upon which Dinah and Jo and 'Thus'lem were all sleeping. For Jo was there, soundly sleeping as if innocent of everything of which they thought him guilty. How cold it was in that miserable place! How the wind whistled through the unplastered beams! How scant and wretched was their bed, their covering! How wicked she had been not to look after these poor creatures who had served her so long and faithfully! The crime, the fault, was partly hers.
But Harry had shaken Jo rudely by the shoulder. The startled crow limped out of his warm black resting-place and blinked maliciously at the intruders. Jo started to his feet in surprise.
A loud chink upon the old floor was distinctly heard, and by the light of Harry's lamp could be plainly seen the lost treasures. From under the ragged quilt had fallen the locket and the purse.
"Oh, you miserable thief!" said Harry to Jo.
Jo's teeth began to chatter in his head, his eyes to roll wildly. He looked from one to the other in a dazed and bewildered way.
"Wot in de canopy's de matter?" said Aunt Dinah, rubbing her eyes.
"Matter enough," said Harry. "Jo's a mean, sneaking thief. See what he has stolen from mamma and me."
When Harry held up the little locket and the purse, it seemed as if Jo's eyes would start out of his head.
"Mas'r Harry, Mas'r Harry," he cried, "I neber fotched 'em here. I neber laid a finger on 'em; wisher may die on dis berry spot ef I did!"
The poor black had crouched upon the floor, and held up his shaking hands in entreaty. His teeth chattered in his head, and his face was overspread with that ashen hue that can make even a black skin pale.
Harry had never seen such abject misery. It blunted the edge of his rage and disappointment. "Jo, Jo," he said, "don't add lying to your other crimes. Didn't we find the things here where you had hidden them?"
"Dis beats creation!" said Aunt Dinah. "In all de bressed borned days ob my life, I neber see de like ob dis. Jes you leab him to me, Mas'r Harry. I'll wollup de trufe out ob him, ef it takes me all night."
But Mrs. Malcom stepped forward and held her hands over the poor shrinking head of the little black boy.
"No," she said, "he shall no longer be treated like a brute. I will find another way to reach his heart. Oh, Harry! oh, my son! the fault is mine. I have cared nothing for poor Jo--for his body or his soul. Our dumb, soulless animals are better cared for. I'll wait awhile, Jo; I'll go away, and leave you to think it over. By-and-by you'll remember all about it, won't you, Jo?"
Jo shook his head to and fro hopelessly. "Ef you wait until de day ob judgment, missus, I neber can 'member. It's a mos' drefful mystery how dem dar tings got here."
"Come, mother," said Harry, in disgust. "I wouldn't have had this happen for ten times the worth of the things."
"Nor I," said his mother, and they both sat sadly down to wait for the Judge, who had been detained in town. He was surprised and vexed, when he came, to find that Christmas-eve was being rapidly spoiled.
"That's the worst of these blacks, they will steal," said the Judge. "But don't you want to see my presents? They have been kept out of the reach of thieves."
The Judge took from his vest pocket a tiny jewel-box containing a ring. Mrs. Malcom had never seen a finer diamond. She quite forgot poor Jo in her delight and surprise. Then the Judge took from his other vest pocket an American watch. As he handed it over to Harry, the lad's clouded face was bright with joy.
But as the Judge was placing the ring upon his wife's finger, it suddenly slipped from his hold, and rolled away upon the floor. All three of them stooped to look for it. It seemed scarcely to have left their sight. They lifted chairs and tables, looked closely around the solid base of the Christmas tree, but the ring had vanished. Again and again they fruitlessly hunted. Tired, vexed, bewildered, they looked at each other in dismay.
"Jo is not the thief, anyway. He didn't take it."
"I give it up," said Harry. "The place is bewitched."
The Judge looked blankly around the room, in utter bewilderment. Suddenly, he put his finger upon Harry's arm.
"Hush!" he said. "Be perfectly quiet. I think I've got your thief as well as mine. He's black, but he isn't Jo. Look over there in that corner; don't you see a spark of light? Don't frighten the scoundrel. I'll lay a dollar he'll make off with that ring when I give him the chance."
True enough, a black object moved slowly along the floor, and with it something that shone like a star.
The Judge softly opened the parlor door. Out hopped 'Thus'lem, with the ring in his beak.
"It's worth the risk of the diamond to clear poor Jo," said the Judge to Harry, and carefully they followed the sly old crow. Up the back stairs he limped, through the hole in the plaster he squeezed his way, and soon he was clasped to the bursting heart of his master.
"Why, why, 'Thus'lem," faltered poor Jo, "I woz afeard you'd turned agin me, an' believed all de slanderizin'. 'Pears like as ef I don' care to lib much longer, 'Thus'lem; my pore heart is 'mos' broke. Mas'r Harry he's done gone agin me, an' missus she's done gone wuss 'n Mas'r Harry; an' dem dar tings dat fell out o' my bed-quilt goes fur to show I'm a burgular, 'Thus'lem, even ef I don't know nuffin 'bout it. I s'pect I'll be put in jail; dere ain't nobody to help a pore black boy. 'Pears like as ef dat dar sky woz so fur away dat no star of Bethlehem eber shined dar--leastways for pore black people like you an' me, 'Thus'lem. Yer don' somehow tink dat yer could scrape 'long in a jail, does yer, 'Thus'lem? Yer could squeeze in an' out de bars, yer know."
"Yes, take him off to jail," said the voice of the Judge. "That's where he belongs, the rascal. 'Thus'lem's the thief, Jo. Look at him there with the ring still in his beak. I've heard that crows will steal, but 'Thus'lem beats all the 'burgulars' I know."
"Jes so, jes so," chuckled the crow; and down fell the diamond ring, and rolled to the feet of the Judge.
Up jumped Jo in wonder and affright. Down he fell upon his knees, and begged harder for 'Thus'lem than he ever did for himself.
"He's on'y a pore ole crow, Mas'r Jedge, an' don' know no better. He mus' hab thought I woz mos' drefful pore, an' he'd try to help me. He won't do so no more, Mas'r Jedge. Will yer, 'Thus'lem?"
"Jes so, jes so," croaked the crow.
"He's chock-full ob inikity," said Aunt Dinah, "an' his neck ought to be twisted dis berry minute."
"Jes so, jes so," chuckled the crow.
So the Christmas mystery was cleared up, and everybody was thoroughly happy at last, particularly Jo, who had plenty of presents. But dearer to him than the apple of his rolling eye was the gift of Mas'r Harry's second-best watch, which made the fastest time on record, and carried Jo along into the next week in a single day.
'Thus'lem waxed old in years, sharing his master's prosperity; and I shouldn't wonder if he was alive and "chock-full ob inikity" this very day.
THE TALKING LEAVES.
Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.
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