Peter turned the letter over and over in his hand. He had a sister, but this letter was not from her. It was addressed in pencil and bore the local postmark. Peter held it to the light, playing with the mystery as a cat plays with a mouse, and finally opened it. It was from Mrs. Potter.
"Now I know all about you, Peter Lane," it ran, "and not much good I must say, although I might have expected it, and I am much surprised and such shiftlessness and you might have let me know _that woman_ was sick for I am not a heathen whatever you may think. I want you to come and get your clock out of my sight and if you have time to saw me some wood I will pay _cash_. Mrs. Potter."
Peter folded the letter slowly and put it in his pocket. He knew very well the widow had no cause to single him out to saw her wood, and that she would not be apt to write him for that reason, howevermuch she might underscore "cash." That she should write him about the clock was not sufficient excuse for a letter. There was no reason why she should write to him at all, unless the underscoring of "that woman" meant she had heard how he had taken the woman and her boy in and it had given her a better opinion of him. If that was so Peter meant to keep far from Mrs. Potter! He began to fear George Rapp might be right, and that the widow had an eye on him--a matrimonial eye. When widows begin writing letters!
When Peter entered George Rapp's livery stable, Rapp was superintending the harnessing of a colt.
"Hello!" he called heartily. "How's Peter? How's the boat? Friend of yours was just enquiring for you in here. Friend from up the river road."
"You guess it!" laughed Rapp. "Widow Potter. Say, why didn't you tell me you were married?"
"Me? Married to Widow Potter?" cried Peter, aghast. "I never in my life married her, George!"
"Oh, not _her_!" said Rapp. "Not her yet; the other woman. You with a boy three or four years old, posing around as a goody-goody bachelor. But that's the way with you too-good fellows. Hope you can keep your little son."
"My son?" stammered Peter. "But he's not my son--not my own son."
"Gee whiz! Is that so!" said Rapp with surprise. "She was that bad, was she? Well, it does you all the more credit, taking him to raise. Anybody else would have sent him to the poor farm or to old snoozer Briggles. You beat anything I ever seen, with your wives nobody ever guessed you had, and your sons that ain't your sons. What makes you act so mysterious?"