Chapter III

Now there were three things which might have happened to Bobby McTabb. In all justice Kitty should have immediately reported him to the authorities, but she loved him too much for that, and was too loyal to herself ever to see him again. Or, in the despair and hopelessness of the situation, Bobby might have paid penance by drowning himself or hanging himself. There was one other alternative—flight. But, as we have stated, Bobby was an original thief, and he did just what no other thief would have thought of doing.

He turned his properties into cash as quickly as he could, and bought a ticket for Fawcettville. He arrived in the village on a late night train, as he had planned. The place was deserted. People were asleep. With a big throb at his heart he saw that the building which he had once occupied was empty. It was just as he had left it on that third of July morning. Something rose in his throat and choked him as he turned away. After all he loved Fawcettville—loved it more than any other place on earth, and the tears came into his eyes as he passed reverently the old familiar spots, and came at last to Kitty Duchene’s home, with the maples whispering mournfully above him. He almost sobbed aloud when he saw a light in Kitty’s window. For a long time he sat under the maples, until the light went out and he could no longer see Kitty’s shadow against the curtain. All about him were the homes of the people who had loved and trusted him, and he groaned aloud as he turned back.

No one in Fawcettville knew of Bobby McTabb’s visit that night. No one in the world knew of the scheme which Bobby carried away with him. On the second day the owner of the bank building received a letter, signed by a stranger, asking him to clean and repair the old building, and enclosing an one-hundred dollar bill for the first quarter’s rent. It was twice the rent Bobby McTabb had paid in the old days, and the mystery became the talk of the village.

Bobby came again on the late night train, got off at Henderson, three miles west of Fawcettville, and drove over in a rig. The rig was heavily laden with various things, but chiefly with a big gilt and gold lettered sign, such as Fawcettville had never known. There were a few who heard the driving of the midnight nails in that sign as it was hung over the new building. After that two men went through the village, as stealthily as thieves, and on every barn and store, and even on the fronts of houses, were pasted bills two feet square; and at dawn other messengers began delivering sealed letters to the farmers for miles around.

The first bright rays of the morning sun lighted up the gilt and gold letters on Bobby’s sign, and those letters read:

ROBERT McTABB
Loans, Real Estate and Insurance

Sile Jenks, the milkman, was the first to read the bill in front of his house, and with a wild yell he began awakening his neighbors. Inside of half an hour Fawcettville was in an uproar. Men and women came hurrying toward the old bank building, and in front of that building, with a happy smile on his face, stood Bobby McTabb. Men rushed up to him and wrung his hands until it seemed as though they must pull out his arms; women crowded through to his side; children shouted out his old name; the dogs barked in the old way—he heard the old laughter, the old voices, the old greetings—even deeper and more affectionate now; and then there came the first rigs from the country, followed by others, until they streamed in from all sides, just as they do when a circus comes to town. For three hours Bobby stood up manfully, and then the climax came; for straight up to him, with glorious, shining eyes and love in her face, came Kitty Duchene. She paid no attention to those about them, but put her arms up about Bobby’s neck and kissed him.

“NOW I understand,” she whispered, looking at him proudly. “But why didn’t you tell me—up there, Robert?”

And for the first time in his life Bobby McTabb’s voice choked him until he could not speak.

This was what the people of Fawcettville and the country round had read on Bobby’s bills and in his letters:

Dear old friends—

You will remember one summer day, nearly five years ago,
when I came into your town—Bobby McTabb. I was without
friends, without introductions, without money—but you will
remember, too, how you received me with open arms, and for
two years made life for me here happier than any life that
I had ever dreamed might exist for me. You made me love
you, as I would have loved my father, my mother, my
sister; and I schemed and schemed to think of some way in
which I could repay you. At last the time came. I saw an
opportunity of making a great deal of money, but to make
that money I required a large sum in cash. I believe that
most of you would have responded to my call for that
cash—but, perhaps foolishly, I had the childish desire TO
SURPRISE YOU. So I went away and took your money with me.
I have realized, since then, that the joke was not a good
one—but never for an instant have I believed that you
would lose confidence in me.

Dear old friends, what I went away to achieve I HAVE
achieved, and my heart is near bursting with joy at the
knowledge that once more I am to be one of you—until the
end of life. Friends, I took with me just one hundred and
forty thousand dollars of your money, and I have brought
you back just six dollars for every one that you have
loaned me during that time. Is this work well done? Is it,
at last, a proof of the deep love and reverence I hold for
you all? I have the money in cash, and every depositor of
the old bank, when he calls upon me, will receive just
seven dollars in place of every dollar he had deposited.

But it is not money, but love, that counts, dear friends,
and I ask that you measure me—not by the gift I am making
to Fawcettville—but in that almost immeasurable devotion
which I hold for you all.

Affectionately,
Bobby McTabb.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April, 1912 issue of The Red Book Magazine.]