He looked so kindly and humorously up at Agnes standing before him, that the troubled Corner House girl almost broke out into weeping. She gripped her fingers into her palms until the nails almost cut the tender flesh. Her heart swelled and the tears stung her eyelids when she winked them back. Agnes was a passionate, stormy-tempered child. This was a crisis in her young life. She had always been open and frank, but nobody will ever know what it cost her to blurt out her first words to Mr. Bob Buckham.
"Oh, Mr. Buckham! do you _hate_ anybody who steals from you?"
"Heh?" he said, startled by her vehemence. "Do I hate 'em?"
"Goodness me, gal! I hope not. I'm a communin' Christian in our church, an' I hope I don't have no hatred in my heart against none o' my fellermen. But I hate some things that poor, weak, human critters does--yes, ma'am! 'Specially some of the ornery things Bob Buckham's done."
"Oh, Mr. Buckham! _you_ never stole," blurted out Agnes.
"Ya-as I have. That's why I hate stealin' so, I reckon," said the farmer, slowly.
"Yep. 'Twas a-many year ago. Marm and me had jest come on this farm. She was young an' spry then, God bless her! And it was well she was. Bob Buckham wouldn't never have owned the place and stacked up the few dollars he has in bank, if it hadn't been for her spryness.
"I'd jest got my first strawberry patch inter bearin'----"
"Ya-as'm. Them's what I've made most of my money on. I only had a small patch. They was fust-class berries--most on 'em. They packed well, and we had ter put 'em into round, covered, quart boxes to ship in them days. I got a repertation with the local shipper for havin' A-number-one fruit.
"Wal! Marm an' me was mighty hard up. We was dependin' on the _re_-turns from the strawberry crop to pay mortgage, int'rest and taxes. And one end of the strawberry patch--the late end--had the meachinest lookin' berries ye ever seen."
Old Bob chuckled at the remembrance. His gaze sought the firelight flashing through the bars of the grate of the big cookstove.
"Wal!" he said. "That was a bad time. We needin' the money so, and the berry crop likely to be short of what we figgered. Them little old barries at that last end of the patch began to ripen up fast; but I see they wouldn't bring me no price at all--not if the shipper seed 'em.