She picked my pocket!"

CHAPTER III

AND AN OLD FRIEND HELPS

Bessie gasped in sheer terror, and for a moment she couldn't open her
mouth. Farmer Weeks, his weather-beaten face twisted into a grin of
malice and dislike, stood looking down at her, his bony hand gripping
her wrist. Even had it been in Bessie's mind to run away, she could not
have done it. And, as a matter of fact, the shock of hearing his voice,
of seeing him, and, above all, of being accused of such a thing, had
deprived her for the moment of the use of her legs as well as of the
power of speech.

Then, while Farmer Weeks lifted his voice again, calling for a
policeman, Bessie got a vivid and sharp lesson in the interest a city
crowd can be induced to take in anything out of the ordinary, no matter
how trifling. The pavement where they stood was densely crowded already.
Now more people seemed to spring up from nowhere at all, and they were
surrounded by a ring of people who pressed against one another, calling
curious questions, all trying to get into the front rank to see whatever
was to be seen.

"Gosh all hemlock!" Farmer Weeks confided to the crowd. "They told me to
look out fer them scalawags when I come to town, but I swan I didn't
expect to see a gal like that tryin' to lift my wallet. No, sir! But
they got to get up pretty early in the mornin' to fool me--they have
that!"

Even in her fright, Bessie divined at once what the old rascal was
trying to do. He was playing the part of the green and unsuspicious
countryman, the farmer on a trip, usually the easy prey of sharpers of
all sorts, and he was doing it for a purpose--to win the sympathy of the
crowd. In her new clothes Bessie looked enough like a city girl to pass
for one easily, while Farmer Weeks wore old-fashioned clothes of rusty
black, a slouch hat, and a colored handkerchief knotted about his neck
in place of a scarf. He carried an old-fashioned cotton umbrella; too,
a huge affair--a regular "bumbleshoot," and he was dressed to play the
part.

"Hey, mister, gimme a nickel an' I'll call a cop for you!" volunteered a
small, sharp-faced boy, with a bundle of papers under his arm. Somehow
he had managed to squirm through the crowd.

Weeks looked at him reproachfully.

"You call a constable--an' I'll give you the nickel when you come back
with him," he said.

In spite of her deplorable situation, Bessie wanted to laugh. It was so
like Farmer Weeks, the miser, to be unwil