So I slipped out and ran through the orchard to look at the Station,and sure enough!the stone was rolled back,the door open and the can lying on the floor.I slid down and picked it up,and there was one sheet of paper money left in it stuck to the sides.It was all plain as a pikestaff.Leon must have thought the money had been spent,and showed the traveller the Station,just to brag,and he guessed there might be something there,and had gone while we were at church and taken it.He had all night the start of us,and he might have a horse waiting somewhere,and be almost to Illinois by this time,and if the money belonged to father,there would be no Christmas;and if it happened to be the money the county gave him to pay the men who worked the roads every fall,and Miss Amelia,or collections from the church,he'd have to pay it back,even if it put him in debt;and if he died,they might take the land,like he said;and where on earth was Leon?Knew what he'd done and hiding,I bet!He needed the thrashing he would get that time,and I started out to hunt him and have it over with,so mother wouldn't be uneasy about him yet;and then I remembered Laddie had said Leon hadn't been in bed all night.He was gone too!
Maybe he wanted to try life in a city,where the traveller had said everything was so grand;but he must have known that he'd kill his mother if he went,and while he didn't kiss her so often,and talk so much as some of us,I never could see that he didn't run quite as fast to get her a chair or save her a step.
He was so slim and light he could race for the doctor faster than Laddie or father,either one.Of course he loved his mother,just as all of us did;he never,never could go away and not let her know about it.If he had gone,that watchful-eyed man,who was lame only part of the time,had taken the gun and made him go.I thought I might as well save the money he'd overlooked,so I gripped it tight in my hand,and put it in my apron pocket,the same as I had Laddie's note to the Princess,and started to the barn,on the chance that Leon might be hiding.I knew precious well I would,if I were in his place.So I hunted the granaries,the haymow,the stalls,then I stood on the threshing floor and cried:"Leon!If you're hiding come quick!Mother will be sick with worrying and father will be so glad to see you,he won't do anything much.Do please hurry!"Then I listened,and all I could hear was a rat gnawing at a corner of the granary under the hay.Might as well have saved its teeth,it would strike a strip of tin when it got through,but of course it couldn't know that.Then I went to every hole around the haystack,where the cattle had eaten;none were deep yet,like they would be later in the season,and all the way I begged of Leon to come out.Once a rooster screamed,flew in my face and scared me good,but no Leon;so I tried the corn crib,the implement shed,and the wood house,climbing the ladder with the money still gripped in one hand.Then I slipped in the front door,up the stairs,and searched the garret,even away back where I didn't like to very well.At last I went to the dining-room,and I don't think either father or mother had moved,while Sabethany turned to stone looked good compared with them.Seemed as if it would have been better if they'd cried,or scolded,or anything but just sit there as they did,when you could see by their moving once in a while that they were alive.In the kitchen Candace and May finished the morning work,and both of them cried steadily.I slipped to May,"Whose money was it?"I whispered."Father's,or the county's,or the church's?""All three,"said May.
"The traveller took it."
"How would he find it?None of us knew there was such a place before.""Laddie seemed to know!"
"Oh Laddie!Father trusts him about everything.""They don't think HE told?"
"Of course not,silly.It's Leon who is gone!""Leon may have told about the Station!"I cried."He didn't touch the money.He never touched it!"Then I went straight to father.Keeping a secret was one thing;seeing the only father you had look like that,was another.I held out the money.
"There's one piece old Even So didn't get,anyway,"I said.
"Found it on the floor of the Station,where it was stuck to the can.And I thought Leon must be hiding for fear he'd be whipped for telling,but I've hunted where we usually hide,and promised him everything under the sun if he'd come out;but he didn't,so I guess that traveller man must have used the gun to make him go along."Father sat and stared at me.He never offered to touch the money,not even when I held it against his hand.So I saw that money wasn't the trouble,else he'd have looked quick enough to see how much I had.They were thinking about Leon being gone,at least father was.Mother called me to her and asked:"You knew about the Station?"I nodded.
"When?"
"On the way back from taking Amanda Deam her ducks this summer.""Leon was with you?"
"He found it."
"What were you doing?"
"Sitting on the fence eating apples.We were wondering why that ravine place wasn't cleaned up,when everywhere else was,and then Leon said there might be a reason.He told about having seen a black man,and that he was hidden some place,and we hunted there and found it.We rolled back the stone,and opened the door,and Leon went in,and both of us saw a can full of money.""Go on."
"We didn't touch it,mother!Truly we didn't!Leon said we'd found something not intended for children,and we'd be whipped sick if we ever went near or told,and we never did,not even once,unless Leon wanted to boast to the traveller man,but if he showed him the place,he thought sure the money had all been spent on the wedding and sending Shelley away."Father's arms shot out,and his head pitched on the table.
Mother got up and began to walk the floor,and never went near or even touched him.I couldn't bear it.I went and pulled his arm and put the bill under his hand.
