“’Cause you just had to be.  A jumping toothache isn’t funny.  I had one once and it made me almost sick.”

“Um-hm.  W-e-e-ll, Gabe Bearse makes ’most everybody sick.  What set you thinkin’ about him?”

“’Cause I just met him on the way home and he acted so funny.  First he gave me a stick of candy.”

Mr. Winslow leaned back in his chair.

“What?” he cried.  “He gave you a stick of candy?  Gave it to you?”

“Yes.  He said:  ‘Here, little girl, don’t you like candy?’ And when I said I did he gave me a stick, the striped peppermint kind it was.  I’d have saved a bite for you, Uncle Jed, only I and the rest ate it all before I remembered.  I’m awfully sorry.”

“That’s all right.  Striped candy don’t agree with me very well, anyway; I’m liable to swallow the stripes crossways, I guess likely.  But tell me, did Gabe look wild or out of his head when he gave it to you?”

“Why, no.  He just looked—­oh—­oh, you know, Uncle Jed—­MYSter’ous—­ that’s how he looked, MYSter’ous.”

“Hum!  Well, I’m glad to know he wan’t crazy.  I’ve known him a good many years and this is the first time I ever knew him to give anybody anything worth while.  When I went to school with him he gave me the measles, I remember, but even then they was only imitation—­the German kind.  And now he’s givin’ away candy:  Tut, tut!  No wonder he looked—­what was it?—­mysterious. . . .  Hum. . . .  Well, he wanted somethin’ for it, didn’t he?  What was it?”

“Why, he just wanted to know if I’d heard Uncle Charlie say anything about a lot of money being gone up to the bank.  He said he had heard it was ever and ever so much—­a hundred hundred dollars—­or a thousand dollars, or something—­I don’t precactly remember, but it was a great, big lot.  And he wanted to know if Uncle Charlie had said how much it was and what had become of it and—­and everything.  When I said Uncle Charlie hadn’t said a word he looked so sort of disappointed and funny that it made me laugh.”

It did not make Jed laugh.  The thought that the knowledge of the missing money had leaked out and was being industriously spread abroad by Bearse and his like was very disquieting.  He watched Phillips more closely than before.  He watched Ruth, and, before another day had passed, he had devised a wonderful plan, a plan to be carried out in case of alarming eventualities.

On the afternoon of the third day he sat before his workbench, his knee clasped between his hands, his foot swinging, and his thoughts busy with the situation in all its alarming phases.  It had been bad enough before this new development, bad enough when the always present danger of Phillips’ secret being discovered had become complicated by his falling in love with his employer’s daughter.  But now—­ Suppose the boy had stolen the money?  Suppose he was being blackmailed by some one whom he must pay or face exposure?  Jed had read of such things; they happened often enough in novels.