THE LAST SAD RITES
When Sube accompanied his family to church on the morrow he was
conspicuous by reason of his scentlessness. Nobody sniffed at him;
nobody moved away from him; his brothers walked uncomplainingly at his
side. Any one but Sube might have thought that the storm which descended
on him the previous night shortly after he had slipped into bed with his
clothes on, must have clarified the atmosphere completely. For Mr. Cane
had done very thoroughly that which is claimed to hurt the parent more
than the child.
But Sube was uneasy. And he had reason to be; for Miss Lester was his
Sunday School teacher.
A dark pall hung over him all through the church service; and when at
the conclusion he sought to bring up reinforcements before moving on
Sunday School, he learned to his dismay that Gizzard was confined to his
home with a slight attack of Sunday-sickness from which he was unlikely
to recover until nearly dinner time. So he faced the dragon alone.
But in common with other dragons Miss Lester's terrors waned on closer
acquaintance. As he shuffled guiltily into his seat she wished him a
pleasant good morning. But some little time elapsed before Sube could
bring himself to believe that his sense of hearing was not playing him
false. Then it occurred to him that she was going to arraign him before
the entire Sunday School. And he lived over this volcano until the
session was dismissed. The possibility that Miss Lester did not know the
identity of her "Two Friends" never entered his mind.
Once or twice during the afternoon he wondered vaguely why she had
refrained from "bawling him out," but by the next day he had forgotten
all about Miss Lester and her troubles. They were completely blotted out
of his mind by the relentless pressure of education; for school had
begun again.
One day dragged along after another. At last a week had gone. Then a
month. And spring was pretty well under way when Sube came home from
school one noon, to all appearances quite bowed down with grief. Mag
Macdougall, the family laundress, was dead.
The news was fittingly broken to those at the table, but seemed to
occasion no great concern. His father remarked in what Sube considered a
most unfeeling way that he hoped she hadn't taken with her the two
shirts that failed to come back with his linen that week; and his
mother's only comment was that she had decided to send the things to the
laundry anyway.
Sube was shocked; but he was not discouraged. He took the position that
the community's great loss was not fully appreciated, and at once
launched into a eulogy of Mag's imaginary virtues that gave to her a
character quite unlike that which she had borne in the flesh. And in
conclusion he announced that the funeral would take place that afternoon
at the Baptist Church, to which he felt he must go on account of poor
little Lizzie Macdougall's being in the same room with him at school.
And although Mr. Cane cultivated the attitude of always expecting the
unexpected to happen, this came as something of a surprise to him. For a
moment he was at a loss for words; then he had more than he knew what to
do with, out of which Sube managed to grasp the sentiment that any old
day when he was allowed to remain out of school to attend one of Mag
Macdougall's funerals would of necessity be a very cold one. And this
was a warm spring day.
Sube remonstrated. He whined. He argued until his father forbade
another word on the subject. Then in a highly rebellious and dangerous
state of mind he started for school, brooding anarchistically over the
element of paternalism that still survives in the American family. He
would have been an easy convert for any kind of soap-box heresy, but
fortunately no apostles of new thought chanced to cross his path.
However, when he had gone a short distance on his way he discovered that
he was being followed. A rather rangy dog with a white background
heavily sprinkled with black spots, and wearing a thick, stumpy tail
which a railroad train had thoughtlessly docked to half-length, was
sauntering along at a safe distance behind, apparently making no effort
to get any nearer.
Sube whirled angrily, and catching up an imaginary rock went through
most elaborate motions of hurling it at the dog, as he cried in a stern
voice:
"Go home, Sport! Go home!"
Sport halted and began to sniff calmly at a tuft of grass beside the
walk as if that had been his sole errand. He affected to be unaware of
his master's presence. After sniffing for a moment he deemed the place
worthy of excavation and began to scratch at it with his front paw.
Meanwhile Sube's orders had become more curt and angry. "Go home! I tell
you!--Go home, sir!" he bellowed as he pretended to run at the dog,
stamping his feet loudly on the walk.
But Sport calmly continued his investigations.
Then Sube caught sight of a real stone, and eagerly bent to pick it up;
but before he could steady himself so as to throw it with any kind of
aim, Sport beat a hasty retreat homeward, and the stone went clattering
down the walk wide of its mark.
Having thus disposed of the dog Sube proceeded on his way with the
thought that Sport must be losing his mind when he couldn't tell a
school day from any other day. But Sport was far from losing his mind. A
certain psychic agency called instinct by uncomprehending humans had
told him that for Sube this was not to be a school day; but Sport
realized that he could never hope to get this through the dull brain of
an ordinary boy, so he made no attempt.
At the first corner Sube fell in with a company of his fellows bound for
the cobble-stone church to pay their last sad respects to the mortal
remains of Mag Macdougall, deceased. He would have avoided them if he
could, but they were upon him before he was aware of their presence.
"Hey, Sube!" shouted Gizzard as he caught sight of his chum. "Goin'?"
This was somewhat awkward, but Sube managed to assume a look of bold
confidence as he replied, "What do you _s'pose_?"
"I s'pose you are," returned Gizzard. "Everybody is. _All_ the girls are
goin', and even Biscuit Westfall!"
Sube was lost. This was the limit of human endurance. He might have
stood it even if all the girls did go; but he had counted on Biscuit
Westfall as the one person absolutely certain to be in his seat at
school. And besides, the groundless suspicion was never wholly absent
from Sube's mind that as far as Nancy Guilford was concerned, Biscuit
needed watching. Then a voice came to him from the crowd almost as if
the speaker had read his mind. It was unnecessarily high and nasal in
quality.
"Nancy Guilford's goin'!"
Sube turned and glared into the grinning face of Dick Bissell, a
tattered youth of questionable pedigree, who stood head and shoulders
above the other boys, and who was no respecter of size so long as it was
smaller than his. But immediately upon identifying Dick Bissell as the
author of the gibe, Sube's glare melted into a sheepish grin, and he
himself melted into the crowd and became as inconspicuous as possible.
He was distinctly relieved when a moment later a concerted movement
towards the church began. At his side walked the faithful Gizzard, who,
after they had gone a short distance, asked:
"What you so mum about?"
"Who? Me?" grunted Sube. "How you want a feller to act when he's goin'
to a funeral?"
The truth was that in addition to the humiliation put upon him by Dick
Bissell, Sube was feeling a little lonely in his outlawry. The other
boys doing exactly what he was doing were guiltless. But he was a
criminal. He alone must be on the watch for tattle-tales, must run the
risk of punishment. On the whole he was in an excellent frame of mind to
get the most out of a funeral.
As the company reached the church it deployed and spread itself over the
spacious stone steps that reached across the front of the edifice. It
was still occupying this position when Biscuit Westfall, at the side of
his mother, approached and, raising his hat formally to the collective
company, passed inside.
After a little interval the girls arrived and with a shy giggle or two
hurried up the steps and disappeared through the massive doorway.
Whereupon Dick Bissell took occasion to stroll over to Sube and suggest
that if he was going to sit with the girls he'd better be going inside.
Sube indulged in another of his sickly smiles, which for a boy of his
spirit required no small amount of effort. But at that moment the
cortege arrived and dissipated any insane notions of self-destruction
that might have been forming in his outraged brain.
The boys followed the casket into the church in much the same manner as
they would have followed the band in a street parade, but instead of
going all the way to the altar they slipped into the rear seats, where
they stayed just long enough to find out that a funeral was not at all
unlike church. Then by twos and threes they began to desert.
When a sufficient number had assembled in front of the church a quiet
game of tag was proposed, to while away the time until they should be
permitted to view the remains. And they at once proceeded to the nearby
church-sheds as a place marvelously adapted to the sport.
The game was less quiet than had been anticipated, and after a little
actually threatened to put the funeral out of business. Whereupon ol'
Joe, the sexton, hastily forming an alliance with big Lew Wright,
rushed out to disperse the noise-makers. Big Lew was an elder or deacon
or something whenever anything of importance was taking place at the
Baptist Church, and at other times he ran a sawmill. He enjoyed the
reputation of handling logs and boys in much the same rough manner; and
he scattered the participants in the game as he would have brushed away
a handful of sawdust.
The gang was withdrawing silently, albeit sullenly, when without warning
there came flying over the sheds a large chunk of sod to which a
quantity of soil was clinging. This disrespectful offering struck big
Lew in the place where his ready made necktie connected with his rubber
collar, forcing from his mouth a noise that sounded very much like
profanity.
Sube did not throw the sod, but he saw it strike; and he knew instantly
that was no place for him. In a desperate attempt to make a quick
getaway he fell down. And when he regained his feet the angry elder or
deacon or something was upon him. But somehow he managed to wriggle
through a hole in the fence inches smaller than his body and started for
the lumber yard nearby with big Lew, who nimbly scaled the fence, close
behind.
Somewhere among the piles of lumber Sube shook off his pursuer. Then he
crossed the railroad tracks by crawling under a slowly moving freight
train and finally reached a place of safety in a clump of willows behind
the sauerkraut factory, but not until he had left a fair impression of
his body in a puddle of slippery brine that had been drawn from a vat of
ancient kraut.
As he entered the refugee camp a moment later he was hailed with
delight. But his popularity was short-lived. The boys were sorry about
his accident, but had a peculiar way of showing it. They stopped
bemoaning the fact that they had not been able to view the remains, and
began to comfort Sube with bits of pithy humor, meanwhile keeping him at
a distance. Sube took this in good part until Dick Bissell suggested
that it might be interesting if Sube should go to the church in his
present state and ask to see Nancy home.
Sube scowled; he blushed; he bit his lips, and clenched his fists; but
once more Dick Bissell's size and reputation won a psychological
victory, and Sube managed to produce the sheepish grin--and the crisis
was over.
Excited hoofbeats on the floor of the nearby livery barn now attracted
the boys' attention. These were followed by such sounds as men utter
when they wish to calm the ruffled spirits of a restive horse.
Dick leaped to his feet. "Hey!" he cried. "There's some'pm doin' in the
liv'ry barn! I'm goin' up and see the fun!"
He started forthwith, the others trailing after him. Far in the rear
came Sube, humiliated and indignant at what had happened, and
apprehensive about what would happen when he reached home. The liniment
episode was still strong in his memory; and to become involved in
another affair of bad odor so soon afterwards seemed to him like
trifling with Providence. Sube clambered slowly up the bank and walked
into the livery barn. It was as Dick Bissell had suspected. Something
was doing. An undersized bay mare was receiving her spring haircut.
Sube's brother Sim would have recognized at a glance that it was Fretful
Mollie; for he knew every horse in town by its first name, and most of
the horses knew Sim. But Sube was no horseman. He could tell the
difference between a horse and an automobile; he could probably have
picked a horse from a herd of cows ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
But he was no lover of horseflesh.
As he stood watching Mollie tremble and plunge whenever the clippers
touched a ticklish spot, he became conscious of a movement at the door
of the barn, and glancing around he beheld Sport. Sube was astonished,
for he had supposed that the dog was safe at home. But Sport had been
following him all the afternoon; never very far behind, and for obvious
reasons never very conspicuous.
When Sport perceived that his presence had been detected he tried to
make the best of a bad situation. He pretended that their meeting was
the merest sort of coincidence; that he had come there strictly on
business of his own, but was none the less glad to see his master.
However, human like, Sube misunderstood all this; and pointing an
automatic finger at the dog, muttered:
"Didn't I tell you to go _home_?"
Sport fled. And as he went scurrying down the alley he was kept busy
dodging several sticks, a tin can, and one or two old shoes.
[Illustration]