An Act of Mercy

A police siren splits the quiet morning at Tom Riley's farm, and Tom hurries outside to find Officer Patrick O'Ryan waiting by his patrol car. A few days earlier Tom had called the police about somebody tearing up his apple trees, and now the officer has caught the culprit red-handed: Rodney Rathbone, scrambling through the branches like a squirrel in winter and breaking the fence on his way over. The siren, O'Ryan admits, was pure showmanship. Rodney had asked to hear what it sounded like.

Rodney climbs out of the car insisting he is a victim of circumstance. The apples and the broken fence, he says, were both accidents. Tom points out that while a person can certainly break something by accident, stealing by accident is a new one on him. He explains the two things that matter: the apples are still so green they would give anyone a stomachache, which is part of why the no-trespassing sign is there, and, far more important, nobody has the right to take what does not belong to him. When O'Ryan suggests Rodney make restitution - pay back the roughly thirty dollars the damage is worth - Rodney protests that he does not have that kind of money. Tom lets the whole thing go. Rodney promises he will never forget it.

At Whit's End, John Whittaker and Connie Kendall are hunched over a checkerboard in the kitchen, Connie having declared the game beneath her and then set out to prove she can win it anyway. Tom stops in and tells them about the morning's excitement. Then the bell rings, and it is Rodney, who walks past the counter to Peter Holt, sitting alone with a book. Peter owes Rodney two dollars, borrowed after Peter spent his lunch money on comic books, and his allowance has not come yet. Rodney gives him until that afternoon.

Later, with Jimmy Barclay standing watch, Peter meets Rodney in the alley with one dollar and a promise for the rest. It is not enough. Rodney shoves him into the trash cans and stalks off. When Tom passes the boys on the street a little while afterward, Peter claims he tripped, but Jimmy tells the truth. Tom sends Peter home to clean up and says the boys have nothing more to worry about. First, though, he has a phone call to make to Rodney's father.

That evening Officer O'Ryan appears at the Rathbone door and asks for Rodney by name and address. Bart Rathbone tells his son to go along, and the squad car carries a bewildered Rodney back to the farm, where Tom is waiting with an itemized bill: twenty-seven dollars and forty-two cents, give or take a penny. Since Rodney has no money, he will work it off instead, picking up every apple under the tree and rebuilding the fence he broke. Tom tells him he is being exactly as fair with Rodney as Rodney was with Peter Holt. Hammer, nails and wood are waiting, and if Rodney hurries he might finish by sundown.

Back at the shop that night, with the floors freshly mopped and the checkers match somewhere around six games out of seven, Whit asks whether Tom had Matthew 18 in mind. Tom had forgiven Rodney completely and let him off the hook, and Rodney had turned around and refused the smallest bit of the same mercy to a boy who owed him one dollar. Whit, hurrying across the wet floor to inspect Connie's winning move, slips and lands squarely on the checkerboard, which means the two of them will simply have to play the best seven out of eight.