ered at once that they were paying Steve Pennyphair, the
stage-driver, too much for carrying the berries to the Port. Freedom
Towle, the milkman, would carry them among his cans for half as much.
Gideon had thought of asking Towle, but the fact was Bobby Towle often
went on the route instead of his father, and Bobby was known to be
greedy. Jicksy managed that difficulty by fastening some canvas (old
hay-caps) securely over the tops of the baskets. Gideon had thought of
the plan; he had lain awake half of two nights reckoning how large a
hole the price of canvas enough would make in that seven dollars and
fifty-nine cents; he hadn't thought of these old hay-caps that Jicksy
had found in the barn chamber.

Jicksy was truly honest, and before the end of the second week of the
partnership he began to wonder whether an ability to think of things
ought not to offset experience; and he had brought home from the Port
library a very large book on the relations of capital and labor. But
before he had settled these knotty problems of the partnership in his
mind something happened that caused a great excitement at Bayberry
Corner, and made many people say they were glad they had known better
than to take country-week children, for if the girl had not been sent to
Sweet Apple Hill the boy would not have come. Jicksy had gone to the
canning factory at the Port to collect a bill, and he had not returned.
The amount of the bill was twenty-four dollars and sixty-four cents;
Gideon had "done" the addition seven times over, and then had Phemie do
it; strangely enough, thought Gideon, Phemie had "a head for figures."
He had run a pitchfork into his foot, so he could not go and collect the
money himself, and although he had a prudent mind, he had not thought of
distrusting his partner. But he had heard from the factory that Jicksy
had collected the money--and he had disappeared.

As soon as the fact became known there was another development; the
minister's watch was also missing. Jicksy had blown the organ for three
services with fidelity and success; only once had that fatal scream
interrupted the devotions of the congregation, and then it was in a mild
and mitigated form. But after the evening service the minister had
thrust his watch, which he kept on the desk while he preached, into the
absurd little pocket with a tight little elastic and a blue ribbon bow
which his wife had made in the embroidered cover of his sermon-case. He
explain