Mary Emma & Company Read Online Free PDF

grocery stores in twenty-five-pound sacks. With the weather having turned cold there were lots of orders, and they kept me going right up to seven o’clock; filling sacks, weighing them, and delivering them on a pushcart.
    Supper was over before I’d finished my job and reached Uncle Frank’s house, but Aunt Hilda had saved me a big plateful in the kitchen. I was only halfway through it when the doorbell rang. From the kitchen I could hear only a mumble of voices when Uncle Frank went to the door and showed somebody into the parlor. But what I heard next made me lose my appetite and almost wish I’d never had a Stetson hat. A deep voice asked, “Is this Mrs. Moody what has a boy named Ralph in Franklin School?”
    Instead of answering, Mother asked in a real worried voice, “What has he done, Officer?”
    â€œWell now,” the deep voice went on, “’twas not till I was after finishin’ my beat that I picked up the report at the station house, so I’ve had no chance to investigate, but if the complaint to the department is true, ’tis very serious.”
    â€œHas he been fighting at school?” Mother asked.
    â€œWorse than that,” the deep voice boomed, “or I’d not be comin’ next nor near to disturb you at this time o’ the night. Boys will be boys, and they’ll have a tussle now and again, but ’tis the first time in all my forty years on the force that we’ve had a complaint of a boy attackin’ a teacher—leave alone givin’ the principal a black eye. If the lad’s about, I’d be havin’ a word or two to say to him; we’ll put up with no bullies here—neither in the schools nor out.”
    When I was only nine years old Father had taught me that it was always best to go and meet trouble halfway, so I went into the parlor, and I knew the policeman right away. He was Cop Watson. That afternoon he’d come into the store to buy a plug of chewing tobacco. He knew me, too. He’d just finished speaking to Mother when I came into the parlor, but he turned to me and said, “Hello there, bub. Your brother to home?”
    â€œYes, sir,” I told him, “but he’s gone to bed. It was me that hit Mr. Jackman.”
    â€œYou?” he said, with a funny little quirk to his voice. “Was you standin’ on a table?”
    â€œNo, sir,” I told him, “I was standing on my feet. Al Richardson just happened to duck at the wrong time and I hit Mr. Jackman instead. He must have been bent over. I didn’t mean to hit him, and I told him so, but I guess he didn’t believe me.”
    Cop Watson had a long white mustache, and when I’d finished he stood smoothing both sides of it with his fingers, as if he were thinking, but Mother said quickly, “Then you
did
get yourself into a fight on your very first day in this new school!”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said, “but I couldn’t help it. The boys were yanking my hat down over my face and Mr. Jackman was standing right there and he didn’t stop them and I had. . . .”
    Cop Watson wasn’t paying a mite of attention to either Mother or me. I don’t think he even heard us, because he broke in and asked, “This Richardson lad. Is he the one lives over on Myrtle Street?”
    â€œI guess so,” I told him. “He walked as far as the store with me after school, and then he went up that way.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t fight again?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    Cop Watson smoothed his mustache a stroke or two, then said to Mother and Uncle Frank, “I’ll go have a word with the Richardson lad. I know him; he’s a good lad. If there’s call for any more investigation I’ll be back before bedtime.”
    When he was almost to the door, he turned, shook a finger at me, and said, “This you’ll be havin’ to remember: guilty or no, your