Ingua slowly resumed her seat on the bank beside her friend. It was hard to resist Josie's appeals.  
"The whole thing looks pretty black ag'in Gran'dad," she said. "I s'pose ye can't understand what I mean till I tell ye the whole story, from the beginning 'cause ye didn't live here at the time. If ye lived here," she added, "I wouldn't tell ye anything, but by-'n'-by yer goin' away. An' ye've promised to keep yer mouth shut."
 
"Unless you give me permission to speak."
 
"I ain't likely to do that. I'm tellin' ye this, Josie, so's we kin talk it over, at times. It has got hold o' my mind, somethin' terrible. Once I was goin' to tell Mary Louise, but—she couldn't understand it like you kin. She's—diff'rent. And if Gran'dad ever hears that I blabbed I'm as good as dead, an' I know it!"
 
"He won't hear it from me," promised Josie.
 
"Well, Gran'dad was allus sly. I 'member Marm tellin' him to his face he were cold as ice an' sly as sin. Mann had a way o' sayin' what she thought o' him, an' he'd jes' look at her steady an' say nuth'n back. She was allus tryin' to git money out o' him, Marm was, an' when he said he didn't hev no money she tol' him she knew he did. She ransacked the whole house—an' even tore up the floor-boards—tryin' to find where he'd hid it. Her idee was that if he'd sold his land for a lot o' money, an' hadn't spent a cent, he must hev it yit. But I guess Marm didn't find no money, an' so she lit out. The day she lit out she said to him that he was too slick for her, but she could take care o' herself. All she wanted was for him to take care o' me. Gran'dad said he would; an' so he did. He didn't take any too much care o' me, an' I'd ruther he wouldn't. If I had more to eat, I wouldn't kick, but since Mary Louise come here an' invited me to tea so often I hain't be'n hungry a bit."
 
"Mary Louise likes company," said Josie. "Go on, dear."
 
"Well, after Ann Kenton got married, her new husban' come here, which was Ned Joselyn. I never took a fancy to Ann. She wasn't 'specially uppish, but she wasn't noth'n else, either. Ned made me laugh when I first seen him. He had one spectacle in one eye, with a string to ketch it if it fell off. He had striped clothes an' shiny shoes an' he walked as keerful as if he was afraid the groun' would git the bottoms o' them nice shoes dirty. He used to set in that summer-house an' smoke cigarettes an' read books. One day he noticed Ol' Swallertail, an' looked so hard at him that his one-eyed spectacle fell off a dozen times.
 
"That night he sent a letter to Gran'dad an' Gran'dad read it an' tore it up an' told the man that brung it there was no answer. That's all I knew till one night they come walkin' home together, chummy as a team o' mules. When they come to the bridge they shook hands an' Ol' Swallertail come to the house with a grin on his face—the first an' last grin I ever seen him have."
 
"Doesn't he ever laugh?" asked Josie.
 
"If he does, he laughs when no one is lookin'. But after that day I seen Ned Joselyn with Gran'dad a good deal. Sometimes he'd come to our house an' wait fer Ol' Swallertail to come home, an' they'd send me away an' tell me not to come back till I was called. That made me mighty curious to see what they was up to, so one day I crep' up behind the house an' peeked in the winder. They wasn't in the kitchen, so I went aroun' an' peeked through the winder o' Gran'dad's room, an' there they both sot, an' Gran'dad was countin' out money on the table. It must 'a' be'n gold money, 'cause it was yaller an' bigger ner cents er nickels. Ned put it all in his pocket, an' writ somethin' on a paper that Gran'dad put inter his big pocketbook. Then they both got up an' I made a run fer it an' hid behind the barn."
 
"When did that happen?" asked Josie.
 
"The first summer Ann was married. That was three summers ago, countin' this one. I was only a kid, then," said Ingua, as if realizing she was now two years older.
 
"And after that?" said Josie.
 
"Las' summer it was jes' the same. The two was thicker'n gumdrops, only Ned didn't go to the office no more. He allus came to our house instid. One day, when he was waitin' fer Ol' Swallertail, he says to me: 'Ingua, how'd ye like to be rollin' in money, an' Jive in a big city, an' hev yer own automobile to ride in, an' dress like a queen?'
 
"'I'd like it,' says I.
 
"'Well,' says he,' it's boun' to happen, if Ol' Swallertail sticks to me an' does what I say. He's got the capital,' says Ned, 'an' I got the brains; an' atween the two of us, Ingua,' says Ned, 'we'll corral half the money there is in America.'
 
"'Will he stick?' says I.
 
"'I dunno,' says Ned. 'He's got queer ideas 'bout duty an' honesty that ain't pop'lar these days in business. But I'm gitt'n so now thet I kin lead him by the nose, an' I'll force him to waller in money afore I've done with him.'
 
"'I don't see how that'll make me rollin' in money, anyhow,' I told him.
 
"'The ol' man'll die, pretty soon,' says Ned, 'an' then you'll git the money I make for him. By the time yer growed up, if not afore,' says he, 'you may be the riches' girl in the world. It all depends on how I kin bend that ol' stick of a gran'dad o' yourn.'
 
"That was the day he gimme the dollar, an' Gran'dad come in in time to see it, an' took it away from me. It didn't set me up any, that talk o' Ned's, 'cause I didn't believe in them brains he bragged on, or his bein' able to lead Ol' Swallertail by the nose. Gran'dad begun gittin' kind o' harsh with Ned, afore the summer was o............