He had done his best, in his room, to keep up with his class, but his books, studied ”in prison,“ as he had learned to call it, and in the sitting-room, with his sister Nellie and his mother to help him, were very different things. Still, ”doing your best“ always brings its reward; and let me say in passing, before the close of the month Fred had won his place again.
This was more easily done than satisfying the kind inquiries of the boys. So after trying the first day to evade them, Fred made a clean breast of it and told the whole story.
I think, perhaps, Mr. Sargent’s severe and unjust discipline had a far better effect upon the boys generally than upon Fred particularly. They did not know how entirely Fred had acted on the defensive, and so they received a lesson which most of them never forgot on the importance which a kind, genial man, with a smile and a cheery word for every child in town, attached to brawling.
After all, the worst effect of this punishment came upon Sam Crandon himself. Very much disliked as his wicked ways had made him before, he was now considered as a town nuisance. Everybody avoided him, and when forced to speak to him did so in the coldest, and often in the most unkind manner.
Sam, not three weeks after his wanton assault upon Fred, was guilty of his first theft and of drinking his first glass of liquor. In short, he was going headlong to destruction and no one seemed to think him worth the saving. Skulking by day, prowling by night–hungry, dirty, beaten and sworn at–no wonder that he seemed God-forsaken as well as man-forsaken.
Mr. Sargent had a large store in Rutgers street. He was a wholesale dealer in iron ware, and Andrewsville was such an honest, quiet town ordinary means were not taken to keep the goods from the hands of thieves.
Back doors, side doors and front doors stood open all the day, and no one went in or out but those who had dealings with the firm.
Suddenly, however, articles began to be missed–a package of knives, a bolt, a hatchet, an axe, a pair of skates, flat-irons, knives and forks, indeed hardly a day passed without a new thing being taken, and though every clerk in the store was on the alert and very watchful, still the thief, or thieves remained undetected.
At last matters grew very serious. It was not so much the pecuniary value of the losses–that was never large–but the uncertainty into which it threw Mr. Sargent. The dishonest person might be one of his own trusted clerks; such things had happened, and sad to say, probably would again.
”Fred,“ said his father, one Saturday afternoon, ”I should like to have you come down to the store and watch in one of the rooms. There is a great run of business to-day, and the clerks have their hands more than full. I must find out, if possible who it is that is stealing so freely. Yesterday I lost six pearl-handled knives worth two dollars apiece. Can you come?“
”Yes, sir,“ said Fred, promptly, ”I will be there at one, to a minute; and if I catch him, let him look out sharp, that is all.“
This acting as police officer was new business to Fred and made him feel very important, so when the town clock was on the stroke of one he entered the store and began his patrol.
It was fun for the first hour, and he was so much on the alert that old Mr. Stone, from his high stool before the desk, had frequently to put his pen behind his ear and watch him. It was quite a scene in a play to see how Fred would start at the least sound. A mouse nibbling behind a box of iron chains made him beside himself until he had scared the little gray thing from its hole, and saw it scamper away out of the shop. But after the first hour the watching for nothing became a little tedious. There was a ”splendid“ game of base ball to come off on the public green that afternoon; and after that the boys were going to the ”Shaw- seen“ for a swim; then there was to be a picnic on the ”Indian Ridge,“ and–well, Fred had thought of all these losses when he so pleasantly assented to his father’s request, and he was not going to complain now. He sat down on a box, and commenced drumming tunes with his heels on its sides. This disturbed Mr. Stone. He looked at him sharply, so he stopped and sauntered out into a corner of the back store, where there was a trap-door leading down into the water. A small river ran by under the end of the store, also by the depot, which was near at hand, and his father used to have some of his goods brought down in boats and hoisted up through this door.