On our return, we called at the Post Office which was at Tibbetts'
grocery. The semi-weekly mail had come that afternoon, and quite a
number of people were standing about. I went in to inquire for our
folks' papers and letters; and as I came out, I saw the grocer emerging
from the grocery portion of the store.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Tibbetts," cried Addison. "I'm afraid your dog has
been killing two of our lambs."

"Ye don't say!" said Tibbetts. "What makes ye think so?"

"Why, I thought it might be he; I saw him gnawing the bone of a
smut-legged lamb like ours," replied Addison, with every appearance of
extreme candor. "Cannot say certain of course, but I feel quite sure
'twas from one of ours."

Tibbetts looked at Addison a moment, then replied, "Wal, now, if ye can
prove 'twas my dog killed 'em, I'll settle with the Squire."

"I'm afraid we cannot prove it," replied Addison and drove off.--"I
thought that I would blame it all on the dog," he said, laughing.

Two or three days after that, Theodora, Ellen and Kate Edwards went out
to the Corners to purchase something at the store and, instead of
returning by the road, came home across lots, following the brook up
through the meadows. They often took that route to and from the Corners;
both enjoyed going through the half-cleared land along the brook.

Beside an old log in the meadow, where evidently someone had recently
sat, they picked up and brought home with them, the bottom and about
half the side of one of our lost honey-boxes; bits of fresh comb were
still sticking to it. The rogues who took it had manifestly sat on that
log while they regaled themselves.

After dark that evening, Addison and I carried the fragment out to
Tibbetts' grocery and stuck it up on his platform. Addison also wrote on
it with a blunt lead pencil, "To whom it may concern. This honey box was
picked up on a direct line between the hives from which it was stolen
and this place."

"Even if we cannot prove anything," he said, "I want to let them know
that we've got a good idea who did it."

We thought that we had done a rather smart thing; but when the Old
Squire heard of it, he told us that we had done a foolish one.

"Better let all that sort of thing alone, boys," he said. "Never hint,
or insinuate charges against anybody. Never make charges at all, unless
you have good proof to back you up. Tibbetts and his cronies are too old
birds to care for any such small shot as that. They