The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-08-03

crab!
 The club shack brooded with an- tagonisms. The thief might even be among them. Each had vhis own | suspicious. The Coot Club was get l ting worse than a woman's back
 biting garden society! It made Dan Lyons sick. If the Coot club couldn't be peaceful, there was no place he could go. A
 man couldn't steer his boat far out
 into the evenings stiffness, without the rest of the crowd thinking he was the lobster thief. Dan grew
 suddenly wistful for Hedwig with her quiet aristocrat's voice and her lovely young dignity. It wasn't as if he wanted. to put on a stiff collar and white pants and call on her Tn the tall, elegant parlors of her Oldfield home. He couldn't expect the Lowrences to
 receive the boy who had been their
 assistant gardener four years ago.
 All he desired was to be once more
 in her garden, talking flowers with
 her after he'd worked overtime. Once he had thought that if he
 owned greenhouses, he might call her Hedwig instead of Miss He'd wig and tell her of his love. Now he had two greenhouses, and
 only glimpses of Miss Hedwig
 Several times he had seen her at
 the station, meeting smart young friends. She hadn't noticed him at
 the baggage car, loading fertilizer on his truck. Still, he'd been happy just to look at her.
 DAN FINDS HIMSELF UNDER SUSPICION
 It wasn't as if Hedwig were too perfect. Why, he didn't think she could cook chop. Yet that only made him love her the more ten- derly.
 Naive as she was in business. ther wasn't a plant in the seed | catalogue, that wouldn't grow for her. The garden clubs often urged her to enter her unusual flowers in their shows, but she said she didn't like to put her plants on exhibition as if they were animals in zoo. If only he had succeeded in grow ing new lily, he might have taken it up to Hedwig's house to- night. No, he wouldn't have had the courage. He could laugh off Herb Daly's course jokes, but foot as he was, he crimsoned at the thought of MT Lawrence's polite displeas- ure.
 It was painful enough to be in a class apart from Hedwig without
 his beloved Coot Club failing him.
 Every time a man stomped off homeward some one unearthed a story of how he'd stolen pencils or
 marbles in their schools days. They
 were Dams friends, sullen with i'll
 feeling.
 q can tell you who pulled our
 lobster pots," Dan burst out, strug- gling to get back the old good.
 natured fellowship.
 ''Yeah. I got out there too early to see my markers one morning. anchored my boat and fell asleep waiting.
 "Dan's going to make a confess sion," Herb joked i'll naturedly. ''All of a sudden a speed boat whizzed around the point. It woke
 me up, but I kept still. heard it | stop, close to a marker"
 Mine. was it?" demanded old Griffith indignantly. The old fellow couldn't afford a motor boat. He
 had to row six miles back and forth to the point.
 'I raised my head slowly. In the speed boat was an old man, pulling one lobster pot after another. I
 hauled in my anchor and sneaked up on him, quite as could, so could catch him unawares. In an- other second, I would have had my hands on him."
 Muscles taut, every man in the
 room leaned forward, as if to spring on the marauder, too. "He looked up, saw me. Then, before my very eyes, he turned in- to a huge, giant lobster ghost!" A nervous laugh died away in the outraged silence. Their faces were wooden and offended. And then I suppose you woke up and found you'd been pulling
 lobster pots in your sleep," Herb | sneered.
 "You'l better watch that ghost" l old MT Griffith threatened shrilly. You don't think I took them!" |