ARTHUR AND HIS COUSINS.
As Arthur and Brace Barlow returned from the well-shooting described in
the preceding chapter, the latter set the boy down at a cross-road but a
short distance from the Dustin house. Here the little fellow bade his
“dear giant” good-night, and ran homeward, feeling happier than he had
for a long time. Though he hardly realized the full value of the service
he had just rendered to his friend, he was sure that he had been useful
at a critical moment; he knew that he had been praised for what he had
done, and he felt more manly than ever before.
It was quite late when he reached the front gate, where faithful little
Cynthia was anxiously watching for him and wondering where he could be.
“Oh, Cynthia!” he cried, as he drew near and saw her, “I’ve had such a
lovely time! I have been shooting a well with Brace Barlow, and I
climbed up the derrick and got a hook that had slipped away from him,
and brought it down; and he said I was a brave boy, and had saved his
life, though I don’t see exactly how; and then we had a splendid Fourth
of July time, blowing up the cans; and it sounded like a real truly
cannon; and the very minute I get grown up I’m going to be a
well-shooter.”
It was absolutely necessary for the enthusiastic little fellow to pour
into sympathetic ear the tale of what he had done. He had performed a
brave act, and in the first flush of his excitement he longed to be
praised for it, as we all do whenever we have done anything that we
consider especially good, or worthy of commendation. It is a reward of
merit to which all who have earned it are entitled; and to withhold just
praise is as cruel as to extend unjust censure.
Cynthia would not have been guilty of any such unkindness. Her eyes
opened wide as she listened to the tale her Prince told of his own
deeds, and she was just catching her breath to tell him how splendid she
thought them, when they were startled by the sound of a harsh voice,
calling, “Arthur! Cynthia! come into the house this minute, you naughty
children. Don’t you know better than to be staying out there breathing
the night air?”
“A boy must breathe some kind of air, Aunt Nancy, and when it is night
time I don’t see how he can help breathing night air,” laughed Arthur,
as he reached the house; for not even his aunt’s harsh tones could at
once dispel his good spirits.
“What do you mean by talking back to me?” asked Mrs. Dustin. “I say that
night air is poison, and no member of my family, even if he is a young
interloper, shall breathe a drop of it, not so long as I can help it.
Now, not another word. I know where you’ve been this whole blessed
afternoon. You’ve been off with Brace Barlow, who ought to have more
sense than to encourage your badness, shooting wells, and trying to get
yourself blown into mince-meat, just to make more trouble for me. Yes, I
know all about it, in spite of your sly ways. Now, you may go right to
bed, and not a morsel of supper shall you have this night, which may be
it’ll be a lesson that you will remember for one while, anyway.”
Mr. John Dustin, who sat smoking his evening pipe by an open window,
rarely interfered with his wife’s management of the children; but now he
spoke up saying:
“That won’t do, wife; you only gave the boy bread and water for his
dinner, and it won’t do to send him to bed without any supper. I believe
in proper punishment, where it is deserved, as much as anybody; but when
it comes to starving, that’s quite another thing. It shall never be said
that my brother Richard’s only son was starved in his uncle’s house. So
give the boy his supper, and plenty of it. Then you can send him to bed
if you see fit.”
Mrs. Dustin knew that when her husband spoke in this tone he meant to be
obeyed; so, without a word, she set a plain but bountiful meal before
Arthur. From a long experience of bread-and-water punishments and
supperless nights the boy was wise enough to eat heartily all that he
possibly could, in spite of his heavy heart. He ate in silence, and for
some time nobody else spoke; only Dick, who sat at the farther end of
the room with the other children, chuckled and made faces behind
Arthur’s back, for the benefit, and to the huge delight, of his
companions. He was greatly pleased at the result of his tale-bearing;
for it was he who, overhearing Arthur tell Cynthia that he had been
well-shooting with Brace Barlow, had hurried to the house, and repeated
the information, with some picturesque additions of his own devising, to
his mother.
Once, during the silent meal, little Cynthia tried to create a diversion
in her cousin’s favor by remarking timidly to nobody in particular, but
to the company in general, “Arthur says Brace Barlow says he saved his
life.”
“Who says what?” inquired Mrs. Dustin, turning quickly and fixing her
sharp eyes on the little girl’s face.
“Brace Barlow says—I mean Arthur says Brace Barlow says—he saved his——”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” interrupted her mother; “you don’t know what you’re
talking about. It isn’t at all likely that either of them did anything
of the kind. The sort of danger Brace Barlow goes into is quick and
sure. When it once gets started there isn’t any chance for life-saving,
or for telling of it afterwards. Arthur ought to know better than to go
round boasting in that way to a little girl like you, and I should think
he’d be ashamed of himself for doing it.”
Arthur listened to this unjust speech with a flushed face and a feeling
of choking indignation; but he did not say a word. Young as he was, he
had already learned that in a contest with an unreasonable person
silence is the weapon of wisdom.
After finishing his supper the forlorn little fellow, accepting his
punishment without a murmur, though he could not imagine what wrong he
had done, retired to his cot in the woodshed, where he was quickly
blessed by the presence of sleep the comforter.
The next day was the bright one in September with which this story
opens, and Arthur is introduced as he sits on the top rail of a zig-zag
fence watching the other children at play.
Fired by the accounts of his adventure of the day before as narrated to
them, at second-hand by Cynthia, for Arthur could not be induced to say
another word concerning it, his cousins had determined to have a
miniature well-shooting of their own. They spent the entire morning in
the construction of a very shaky little derrick, about six feet high,
and now they were busy drilling a well, which they hoped to put down to
a depth of at least two feet. When it was finished they proposed to
shoot it by means of a cannon-cracker, that they had saved over from the
Fourth of July for use on some such special occasion.
The scheme was well planned, and seemed likely to be carried out; for
the children were enthusiastic over it, and, under Dick’s direction,
worked most diligently. Arthur would gladly have joined in this
fascinating occupation; but the others would not have him. As Dick
scornfully remarked: “What can a city chap like you know about building
derricks and drilling wells? You wasn’t raised in the oil region.”
So Arthur was forced to content himself with sitting on the fence and
watching them. Occasionally he turned for a chat with Uncle Phin, who
was cutting brush in the field behind him, and who took a long rest
whenever he reached the end of a row that brought him anywhere near his
“lil marse.” Finally, after one of these rests, during which Arthur had
paid no attention to the operations at the miniature derrick, he left
his perch and followed Uncle Phin for a short distance into the thick
brush.