City and town life -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"'Tell me about that baby,' she says to me one noon. 'What's its name?
Does it like to hev its mother love it?' she ask me.
"I knew the truth to be that it didn't let anybody do anything day or
night within sight or sound of it, an' it looked to me like an imp o'
the dark. But I fixed up a tol'able description, an' left out the
freckles an' the temper, an' told her it was fat an' well an' a boy.
That seemed to satisfy her. Its name, though, sort o' stumped me. The
Tomato Ketchup called it mostly 'you-come-back-here-you-little-ape.' I
heard that every day. So I said, just to piece out my information, that
I thought its name might be April. That seemed to take her fancy, an'
after that she was always askin' me how little April was--but not when
Mr. Loneway was in hearin'. I see well enough she didn't want he should
know that she was grievin' none.
"All the time kep' comin', every night, another armful o' good things.
Land! that man he bought everything. Seems though he couldn't buy
enough. Every night the big platter was heaped up an' runnin' over with
everything under the sun, an' she was like another girl. I s'pose the
things give her strength, but I reck'n the cheer helped most. She had
the surprise to look forward to all day, an' there was plenty o' light,
evenin's; an' the stove, that was drove red-hot. The doctor kep' sayin'
she was better, too, an' everything seemed lookin' right up.
"Seems queer I didn't suspect from the first something was wrong. Seems
though I ought to 'a' known money didn't grow out o' green wood the way
he was pretendin'. It wasn't two weeks before he takes me down to the
basement one night when he comes home, an' he owns up.
"'Peleg,' he says, 'I've got to tell somebody, an' God knows maybe it'll
be you that'll hev to tell her. I've stole fifty-four dollars out o' the
tray in the retail department,' says he, 'an' to-day they found me out.
They wasn't no fuss made. Lovett, the assistant cashier, is the only one
that knows. He took me aside quiet,' Mr. Loneway says, 'an' I made a
clean breast. I said what I took it for. He's a married man himself, an'
he told me if I'd make it up in three days, he'd fix it so's nobody
should know. The cashier's off for a week. In three days he's comin'
back. But they might as well ask me to make up fifty-four hundred. I've
got enough to keep on these three days so's she won't know,' he says,
'an' after that--'
"He hunched out his arms, an' I'll never forget his face.
"I says, 'Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says, 'chuck it. Tell her the whole thing
an' give 'em back what you got left, an' do your best.'
"He turned on me like a crazy man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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