AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
BY
EDITH VAN DYNE (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
1908
Continued....
CHAPTER XXIV.
PEGGY HAS REVENGE.
Joe Wegg made a rapid recovery, his strength
returning under the
influence of pleasant surroundings and frequent
visits from Ethel and
Uncle John's three nieces. Not a word was hinted to
either the invalid
or the school teacher regarding the inquiries Mr.
Merrick was making
about the deed to the Bogue timber lands, which, if
found, would make
the young couple independent. Joe was planning to
exploit a new patent
as soon as he could earn enough to get it
introduced, and Ethel
exhibited a sublime confidence in the boy's ability
that rendered all
question of money insignificant.
Joe's sudden appearance in the land of his birth and
his generally
smashed up condition were a nine days' wonder in
Millville. The gossips
wanted to know all the whys and wherefores, but the
boy kept his room in
the hotel, or only walked out when accompanied by
Ethel or one of the
three nieces. Sometimes they took him to ride, as he
grew better, and
the fact that Joe "were hand an' glove wi' the
nabobs" lent him a
distinction he had never before possessed.
McNutt, always busy over somebody else's affairs,
was very curious to
know what had caused the accident Joe had suffered.
Notwithstanding the
little affair of the letter, in which he had not
appeared with especial
credit, Peggy made an effort to interview the young
man that resulted in
his complete discomfiture. But that did not deter
him from indulging in
various vivid speculations about Joe Wegg, which the
simple villagers
listened to with attention. For one thing, he
confided to "the boys" at
the store that, in his opinion, the man who had
murdered Cap'n Wegg had
tried to murder his son also, and it wasn't likely
Joe could manage to
escape him a second time. Another tale evolved from
Peggy's fertile
imagination was that Joe, being about to starve to
death in the city,
had turned burglar and been shot in the arm in an
attempt at
housebreaking.
"Wouldn't be s'prised," said the agent, in an awed
voice, "ef the p'lice
was on his track now. P'raps there's a reward
offered, boys; let's keep
an eye on him!"
He waylaid the nieces once or twice, and tried to
secure from them a
verification of his somber suspicions, which they
mischievously
fostered.
The girls found him a source of much amusement, and
relieved their own
disappointment at finding the "Wegg Mystery" a
pricked bubble by getting
McNutt excited over many sly suggestions of hidden
crimes. They knew he
was harmless, for even his neighbors needed proof of
any assertion he
made; moreover, the investigation Uncle John was
making would soon set
matters right; so the young ladies did not hesitate
to "have fun" at the
little agent's expense.
One of McNutt's numerous occupations was raising a
"patch" of
watermelons each year on the lot back of the house.
These he had
fostered with great care since the plants had first
sprouted through the
soil, and in these late August days two or three
hundreds of fine, big
melons were just getting ripe. He showed the patch
with much pride one
day to the nieces, saying:
"Here's the most extry-fine melling-patch in this
county, ef I do say it
myself. Dan Brayley he thinks he kin raise mellings,
but the ol' fool
ain't got a circumstance to this. Ain't they
beauties?"
"It seems to me," observed Patsy, gravely, "that
Brayley's are just as
good. We passed his place this morning and wondered
how he could raise
such enormous melons."
"'Normous! Brayley's!"
"I'm sure they are finer than these," said Beth.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" Peggy's eyes stared as
they had never stared
before. "Dan Brayley, he's a miser'ble ol'
skinflint. Thet man couldn't
raise decent mellings ef he tried."
"What do you charge for melons, Mr. McNutt?"
inquired Louise.
"Charge? Why--er--fifty cents a piece is my price to
nabobs; an' dirt
cheap at that!"
"That is too much," declared Patsy. "Mr. Brayley
says he will sell his
melons for fifteen cents each."
"Him! Fifteen cents!" gasped Peggy, greatly
disappointed. "Say,
Brayley's a disturbin' element in these parts. He
oughter go to jail fer
asking fifteen cents fer them mean little mellings
o' his'n."
"They seem as large as yours," murmured Louise.
"But they ain't. An' Brayley's a cheat an' a rascal,
while a honester
man ner me don't breathe. Nobody likes Brayley
'round Millville. Why,
on'y las' winter he called me a meddler--in
public!--an' said as I shot
off my mouth too much. Me!"
"How impolite."
"But that's Dan Brayley. My mellings at fifty cents
is better 'n his'n
at fifteen."
"Tell me," said Patsy, with a smile, "did you ever
rob a melon-patch,
Mr. McNutt?"
"Me? I don't hev to. I grow 'em."
"But the ones you grow are worth fifty cents each,
are they not?"
"Sure; mine is."
"Then every time you eat one of your own melons you
eat fifty cents. If
you were eating one of Mr. Brayley's melons you
would only eat
fifteen cents."
"And it would be Brayley's fifteen cents, too,"
added Beth, quickly.
Peggy turned his protruding eyes from one to the
other, and a smile
slowly spread over his features.
"By jinks, let's rob Brayley's melling-patch!" he
cried.
"All right; we'll help you," answered Patsy,
readily.
"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated Louise, not
understanding.
"It will be such fun," replied her cousin, with eyes
dancing merrily.
"Boys always rob melon-patches, so I don't see why
girls shouldn't. When
shall we do it, Mr. McNutt?"
"There ain't any moon jest now, an' the nights is
dark as blazes. Let's
go ternight."
"It's a bargain," declared Patsy. "We will come for
you in the surrey at
ten o'clock, and all drive together to the back of
Brayley's yard and
take all the melons we want."
"It'll serve him right," said Peggy, delightedly.
"Ol' Dan called me a
meddler onc't--in public--an' I'm bound t' git even
with him."
"Don't betray us, sir," pleaded Beth.
"I can't," replied McNutt, frankly; "I'm in it
myself, an' we'll jest
find out what his blame-twisted ol' fifteen-cent
mellings is like."
Patsy was overjoyed at the success of her plot,
which she had conceived
on the spur of the moment, as most clever plots are
conceived. On the
way home she confided to her cousins a method of
securing revenge upon
the agent for selling them the three copies of the
"Lives of
the Saints."
"McNutt wants to get even with Brayley, he says, and
we want to get even
with McNutt. I think our chances are best, don't
you?" she asked.
And they decided to join the conspiracy.
There was some difficulty escaping from Uncle John
and the Major that
night, but Patsy got them interested in a game of
chess that was likely
to last some hours, while Beth stole to the barn and
harnessed Joe to
the surrey. Soon the others slipped out and joined
her, and with Patsy
and Beth on the front seat and Louise Inside the
canopy they drove
slowly away until the sound of the horse's feet on
the stones was no
longer likely to betray them.
McNutt was waiting for them when they quietly drew
up before his house.
The village was dark and silent, for its inhabitants
retired early to
bed. By good fortune the sky was overcast with heavy
clouds and not even
the glimmer of a star relieved the gloom.
They put McNutt on the back seat with Louise,
cautioned him to be quiet,
and then drove away. Dan Brayley's place was two
miles distant, but in
answer to Peggy's earnest inquiry if she knew the
way Beth declared she
could find it blind-folded. In a few moments Louise
had engaged the
agent in a spirited discussion of the absorbing
"mystery" and so
occupied his attention that he paid no heed to the
direction they had
taken. The back seat was hemmed in by side curtains
and the canopy, so
it would be no wonder if he lost all sense of
direction, even had not
the remarks of the girl at his side completely
absorbed him.
Beth drove slowly down the main street, up a lane,
back by the lake road
and along the street again; and this programme was
repeated several
times, until she thought a sufficient distance had
been covered to
convince the agent they had arrived at Brayley's.
They way was pitch
dark, but the horse was sensible enough to keep in
the middle of the
road, so they met with no accident more than to jolt
over a stone
now and then.
But now the most difficult part of the enterprise
lay before them. The
girls turned down the lane back of the main street
and bumped over the
ruts until they thought they had arrived at a spot
opposite McNutt's own
melon patch.
"What's wrong?" asked the agent, as they suddenly
stopped with a jerk.
"This ought to be Brayley's," said Beth; "but it's
so dark I'm not
certain just where we are."
McNutt thrust his head out and peered into the
blackness.
"Drive along a little," he whispered.
The girl obeyed.
"Stop--stop!" said he, a moment later. "I think
that's them contwisted
fifteen-cent mellings--over there!"
They all got out and Beth tied the horse to the
fence. Peggy climbed
over and at once whispered:
"Come on! It's them, all right."
Through the drifting clouds there was just enough
light to enable them
to perceive the dark forms of the melons lying side
by side upon their
vines. The agent took out his big clasp knife and
recklessly slashed one
of them open.
"Green's grass!" he grumbled, and slashed another.
Patsy giggled, and the others felt a sudden
irresistible impulse to join
her.
"Keep still!" cautioned McNutt. "Wouldn't ol' Dan be
jest ravin' ef he
knew this? Say--here's a ripe one. Hev a slice."
They all felt for the slices he offered and ate the
fruit without being
able to see it. But it really tasted delicious.
As the girls feasted they heard a crunching sound
and inquired in low
voices what it was.
McNutt was stumping over the patch and plumping his
wooden foot into
every melon he could find, smashing them wantonly
against the ground.
The discovery filled them with horror. They had
thought inducing the
agent to rob his own patch of a few melons, while
under the delusion
that they belonged to his enemy Brayley, a bit of
harmless fun; but here
was the vindictive fellow actually destroying his
own property by the
wholesale.
"Oh, don't! Please don't, Mr. McNutt!" pleaded
Patsy, in frightened
accents.
"Yes, I will," declared the agent, stubbornly. "I'll
git even with Dan
Brayley fer once in my life, ef I never do another
thing, by gum!"
"But it's wrong--it's wicked!" protested Beth.
"Can't help it; this is my chance, an' I'll make
them bum fifteen-cent
mellings look like a penny a piece afore I gits done
with 'em."
"Never mind, girls," whispered Louise. "It's the law
of retribution.
Poor Peggy will be sorry for this tomorrow."
The man had not the faintest suspicion where he was.
He knew his own
melon patch well enough, having worked in it at
times all the summer;
but he had never climbed over the fence and
approached it from the rear
before, so it took on a new aspect to him from this
point of view, and
moreover the night was dark enough to deceive
anybody.
If he came across an especially big melon McNutt
would lug it to the
carriage and dump it in. And so angry and energetic
was the little man
that in a brief space the melon patch was a scene of
awful devastation,
and the surrey contained all the fruit that survived
the massacre.
Beth unhitched the horse and they all took their
places in the carriage
again, having some difficulty to find places for
their feet on account
of the cargo of melons. McNutt was stowed away
inside, with Louise, and
they drove away up the lane. The agent was jubilant
and triumphant, and
chuckled in gleeful tones that thrilled the girls
with remorse as they
remembered the annihilation of McNutt's cherished
melons.
"Ol' Dan usu'lly has a dorg," said Peggy, between
his fits of laughter;
"but I guess he had him chained up ternight."
"I'm not positively sure that was Brayley's place,"
remarked Beth; "it's
so very dark."
"Oh, it were Brayley's, all right," McNutt retorted.
"I could tell by
the second-class taste o' them mellings, an' their
measley little size.
Them things ain't a circumstance to the kind I
raise."
"Are you sure?" asked Louise.
"Sure's shootln'. Guess I'm a jedge o' mellings,
when I sees 'em."
"No one could see tonight," said Beth.
"Feelin's jest the same," declared the little man,
confidently.
After wandering around a sufficient length of time
to allay suspicion,
Beth finally drew up before McNutt's house again.
"I'll jest take my share o' them mellings," said
Peggy, as he alighted.
"They ain't much 'count, bein' Brayley's; but it'll
save me an' the ol'
woman from eatin' our own, or perhaps I kin sell 'em
to Sam Cotting."
He took rather more than his share of the spoils,
but the girls had no
voice to object. They were by this time so convulsed
with suppressed
merriment that they had hard work not to shriek
aloud their laughter.
For, in spite of the tragic revelations the morrow
would bring forth,
the situation was so undeniably ridiculous that they
could not resist
its humor.
"I've had a heap o' fun," whispered McNutt. "Good
night, gals. Ef ye
didn't belong to thet gum-twisted nabob, ye'd be
some pun'kins."
"Thank you, Mr. McNutt. Good night."
And it was not until well on their journey to the
farm that the girls
finally dared to abandon further restraint. Then,
indeed, they made the
grim, black hills of the plateau resound to the
peals of their
merry laughter.
AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
Continued....
 
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