The prosecutor was baffled. "How on earth could you decorate a tree when you had stolen it, and there wasn't any tree there to decorate?" he asked irritably.
"You don't understand," Sube explained desperately. "I s--swiped the tree _for_ Nancy. The one that--that somebody else got for her wasn't any good, and she asked me to get her a decent one; and I hunted all over the woods and there wasn't a single one left that was any good, and on the way home I saw this one, and--I didn't think any one would care, so--I took it."
"Well? Where did you take it from?" pursued his relentless father.
Sube's voice died almost to a whisper as he replied, "From the cemetery."
"What's that!" cried the amazed Mr. Cane. "The cemetery?"
"Good heavens, boy!" exclaimed his father. "Don't you know that it's a crime to desecrate a cemetery lot?"
But before Sube could answer, his mother interceded.
"There; that'll do, Father! You seem to have lost sight of one thing."
Mr. Cane turned expectantly towards his wife.
"The boy has told the truth!" she declared, a little tremulously.
"Well, that's so-- So he has--that's commendable. That's the only redeeming feature of this lamentable affair--"
"Never mind, Father; we can talk about that later. I want Sube to understand how much we appreciate the fact that he has come to us and told us the truth. Of course it was wrong for you to take the tree, Sube, but since you have been so truthful about it, we shall help you to make amends. Your father and I will do all in our power to set matters right. I promise that for both of us."
"You don't have to make any promises for me," Mr. Cane hastened to say. "Nobody has any greater regard for the truth than I have. I deplore this act of vandalism more than I can say; but since you have told the truth, I give you my word that I will help you clear the thing up. Now let's have the rest of it."
All Sube's doubts had fled. He felt that he was now protected by the panoply of truth, and he came out with the whole story with brutal directness.
"When I took the tree to Guilfords' they was all tickled with it. They thought it was a 'beaut'! But the minute _she_ saw it, she spotted it. And she went up there to the cemetery this afternoon, and when she saw one of her trees was gone, she came back there to the house and took on awful--!"