his displeasure. There was mutiny in the Sears household. When the
baby came, the four elder of the seven Sears children joined Jimmy
in informal, silent sedition. They looked upon the newcomer as
an intruder. For all who extended sympathy to the pretender, the
insurgents developed a wholesome scorn. This scorn fell most heavily
upon kind Mrs. Jones. The Sears children regarded her familiar
jocularity with undisguised repugnance; and when Jimmy heard Mrs.
Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer
the baby, Jimmy's rage at what he considered a fiendish thrust at the
innocent and forsaken child passed the bounds of endurance. He hurled
a bit of that anger in the clod that hit Mealy Jones, then Jimmy
walked doggedly back to the house. He coaxed the little sister from
the kitchen, took the child's chubby hand and led her to the barn.
There Jimmy nursed his sorrow. He assured the younker as they sat
on the hay that he for one would not desert her, "even if mamma had
forgotten her." He hugged the wondering tot until her ribs hurt, and
in his lamentations referred to the new baby as "that old thing."
The evening before, when Mrs. Jones had marshalled the other Sears
children and had taken them into the bedroom to see their new sister,
Jimmy was not to be found. None of the older children had looked at
the baby. They had turned their heads away deliberately, and had
responded in gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not
a pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since then
he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's bed-side. He
sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he had heard while
Annie was in his mother's room early that morning.
[Illustration: _Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
that morning that she was no longer the baby_.]
"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by the
child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones continued,--
"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What little
bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."
Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene came to him
after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was to dupe the child
into an affection for her inevitable enemy.
"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love nice,
pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere! Zhat's right;
love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of hay, Jimmy Sears's
blood froze in his veins at the recollection that his own mother had
lent her countenance to this baseness. He knew, and he knew that his
mother knew, that the baby would take all the care due to his toddling
sister. He saw, from the elevation of the hay-cock on which he and
the little one sat, that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner
while she smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his mother
for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the contempt he
felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew that Henry Sears
was actually proud of the family's ignominy. Jimmy blushed at the
picture in his mind of his father strutting around town, with his vest
pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs in the armpits, bragging of the
occurrence that filled the boy with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly
his mother did not consider the baby's arrival an occasion for
vainglory. He felt that his mother was merely putting a good face upon
the misfortune. These reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.
[Illustration: _His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
occurrence that filled the boy with shame_.]
At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him its toy.
Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things. So Jimmy Sears
could not know that an evil destiny had come to guide his steps when
he started townward, for it came so gently. To meet Piggy Pennington
and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming out of the Pennington yard
was not such a dreadful thing. Jimmy had met them a score of times
before at that particular gate, with no serious consequences. It was
not in the least ominous that the four boys started for the Creek of
the Willows, for Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in
that very company. It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot
fell to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast
of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom Jimmy
was known as the "Bald Eagle." Perhaps there were signs and warnings
in all these things; and then, on the other hand, perhaps Jimmy Sears
was so intent upon escaping from the shadow that lowered over his
family that he did not read the signs, and so rushed into his
misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle speculations; they are
the materials from which sages spin their dry and ethereal webs. But
this narrative is concerned only with the facts in the case. Therefore
it is necessary to know only that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up
his nail-pointed arrow, lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the
sharp nasal "sping" of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow
and arrow in hand, he began to run, not looking back.
"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy knew
the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person. So Jimmy
quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of pursuing feet.
It was two hundred yards to the end of the cob-strewn cow lot. The boy
fixed his course toward the lowest length of fence. Then he kept his
eyes upon the ground. He clenched his teeth and skimmed over the
earth. The feathers in his hat--stuck there to satisfy the verities of
his assumed Indian character--caught the breeze; so, rather than lose
his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He cleared
the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his shoulder, he
saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud of boots on the sod
and the crash of branches behind him sent terror through the boy's
frame, and he turned towards the creek that flowed sluggishly near by.
He took great bounding strides, throwing his head from side to side
as he ran. The boy knew the path. It led to a rickety fence--a cattle
guard--across the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees
danced by him on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen
fence-walker of Willow Creek," late of "Pennington & Carpenter's
Circus & Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud
place by prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew
that he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times.
He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even
if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank
before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so
lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the
"champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace
to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears--an
exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by
heart--look exultingly at his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity.
Lentulus returning to Capua with victorious legions was not so
proud. But there the evil spirit swooped low upon him--the spirit
of destruction that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged
forward; the chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy
all parted company. Then Jimmy felt a pain--a sharp pain that he
recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his
injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe. This
knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's pleasure
was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along, the last brave
in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to throb as he gathered
up his weapons. He walked for a few moments without looking at the
wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he bent his body and went along,
grunting at every step. Finally coming into a flood of sunlight on the
path, he sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face
into an agonized knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then
little by little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly
at the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by
the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage
to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time the
chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its senses,
squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When Jimmy's mind
turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been in the depths as
he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet brought with it a still
further depression, and Jimmy forgot all about his impersonation of
the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit in the red ochre stripes on his
face, and the iridescent feathers in his hat, and the blue-black mud
on his nimble feet. For a few moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who
saw the hand of the whole world raised against him. The cry of the new
baby rang in his ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about
the number of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of
wrongs grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all
the world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
saying, before he came down with his index finger,--
[Illustration: _He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
and his heart was glad_.]
[Illustration: _He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,
twisting his face into an agonized knot_.]
"Spit, spit, spy,
Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye."
[Illustration: "_Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
hit ye in the eye_."]
He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have taken, but
he knew that luck--like all the world--was against him, and he had no
heart in the rites that on another day might have brought fortune to
him. His stubbed toe was hurting him, and the murmur of a ripple in
the stream a few rods below the cattle guard called to him enticingly.
As soon as the boy deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he
hobbled down to the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the
shade, with the cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that
the other boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying
the gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction
of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept
over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle. For
another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him
to strangle his scruples; he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in
his cast-iron bank at home--the result of a year's careful saving. He
crossed the creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was
walking in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go
straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to
offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had
done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he
progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the corner
and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to make, Jimmy
had recited to himself over and over. He intended to walk up to the
counter and say,--
"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."
To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not seem
completely abject. He fancied the grocer would reply,--
"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."
To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong voice,--
"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have that,
and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are ripe."
With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of the
store. He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the poor,
lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps give him
a stick of licorice. Jimmy knew his part by heart. He was sure there
would be no halt nor break in this dialogue. But the demon that was
torturing his destiny that day probably chuckled as Jimmy crossed the
threshold of the grocery store.
The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle barrel
certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought the boy had
bold, mean eyes. The youthful jaw set firmly, and the pain in his foot
engraved ugly lines in his face. The button was off one wristband. A
long tear down the lower part of his trousers' leg revealed a glimpse
of brown, tanned skin. He was not a boy that looked like a creature of
dreams and of high resolve. No boy that amounts to much ever does
look the part, as the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears--ragged and
brazen--stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded the man's
bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at the boy. The
instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out of Jimmy's head.
He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the grocer grab a butter
paddle,--
"Dern you, don't you touch me; I'll pay for your old chicken. Watch
out now!"
Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy's hands, and he
backed from the counter to the sidewalk. His hands were uplifted as
if to throw the weights. The grocer had not come up to the boy who
shouted in a burst of fear and anger,--
"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me!"
[Illustration: "_I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away
from me_."]
The grocer hesitated, dismayed for a second by the threatening weights
in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped up quickly,
and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was well for the grocer
that he ducked his head; for when the paddle struck, the boy did not
flinch, but let drive one weight after another, and cried before each
crash of glass that the flying irons made inside the store, "Yes, you
will!" and again, "Yes, you will!"
He forgot the ache in his cramped heel and the burning in his bruised
toe as he ran to the middle of the street.
"You old coward, why don't you pick on some one your size?"
The tears were rising to his eyes; he had to run to escape from the
tide. Just as he turned, he caught a glimpse of his father joining the
gathering crowd. After that his feet grew wings.
A freight train stood on the track in front of the boy, a quarter of a
mile away. A mad impulse came to him as he ran, and he yielded to it.
A boy with a grievance, or a boy with a sore toe, or a boy with fear
at his back, cannot fashion his conduct after the beautiful principles
laid down in Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics." So when Jimmy
Sears came to the freight train that blocked his flight, he darted
down the track until he was out of sight of any possible pursuers in
the street. He clambered breathlessly into a coal car, and snuggled
down into a corner inside a little strip of shade, and panted like a
hunted rabbit. A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train
moved slowly at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the
train men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud
Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch engine was
pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had a vague idea
that midway of the train, between two box cars, would be a safe place.
When the train began to increase its speed, Jimmy climbed up the side
of a cattle car and ran along the roof. He had gone three car-lengths
and was about to make his third jump, when he saw the angry face of
his father, who appeared on the depot platform. Instinctively the boy
darted to the other side of the car-roof. His jump fell short. The
father saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none. Then
slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A paralysis of
horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At last the yellow
caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest second Henry Sears ever
knew passed before he dared turn his eyes toward the place on the
track where his son went down. Then he looked, and saw only the cinder
track and the shining rails. But an instant later he heard a familiar
whoop, and, staring around, saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that
was standing between the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen
after his sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When
Henry Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and half
by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The boy's face
was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears were striping his
features grotesquely. The palsy of terror loosened its steel bands
from the father's limbs, and he ran to the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears,
for all he or his father know, may have floated to the ground from the
wagon bed. But a moment later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished
only a sub-conscious motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding
valves of his blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old
son across his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked
him merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled, and
the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled his big,
bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous occasion, the
father found his voice,--
"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't I?
Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"
And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to earth
by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try that again,
sir?" and continued,--
"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just you let
me catch you down here again!"
Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along as fast as his bleeding foot
would take him. He saw the advantage of a motion to adjourn without
further debate, and the motion prevailed.
An hour later, Jimmy Sears had washed the dirt from the interior of
an irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
hair. Until the twilight fell he stayed in the conning-tower in the
Penningtons' barn, and watched his home through a crack between two
boards. When he saw his father leave the house for town after supper,
Jimmy hurried down a lane in sight of his father, yet out of his
father's reach. At the close of twilight, Jimmy Sears came up the
hard-beaten path that led to his home, through burdock weeds and
sunflowers. There was a light in the kitchen, and through the window
he could see Mrs. Jones moving about. He observed that the supper
dishes were being put away. He saw his eldest sister, with the tea
towel in her hands, chatting happily with Mrs. Jones. The spectacle
filled him with rage. He felt that the other children had deserted
him, and that, in the war against the new baby, they had left him to
fight unaided. He met a little brother, who greeted him with,--
[Illustration: _An irregular circumference that touched his ears and
his chin and his hair_.]
"Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!"
A prolonged and scornful "Aw!" was Jimmy's reply to this welcome. On
the step of the back porch, his favorite little sister sat playing
with the house-cat. She toddled to Jimmy; he let her take his finger,
and they went into the kitchen.
"Oh, Jimmy!--where--you--been?" demanded the eldest sister. "Mamma's
been asking for you all day. I'd be ashamed if I was you."
The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his back to her
when he could. He did not answer his sister's question.
"Got anything here fit to eat?" he asked, as he threw open the
cupboard doors. The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental. Jimmy
supposed that she had cooked the supper. He put two or three plates of
food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering bumptiously, "What's
this?" as he dived into each dish.
[Illustration: "_Got anything here fit to eat_?"]
His sister's "Why, Jimmy!" and her warning frowns did not change his
course. Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house, diplomatically
leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs. Sears might hear her
son's voice. In a moment the boy caught the faint sound of his mother
calling from the distant bedroom, "Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want
you."
The boy pretended not to hear. She called his name again. "Yes 'm," he
answered. When she repeated her request, he filled his mouth with pie,
and replied, "I'm a-eatin' now." He slipped a piece of ice down the
back of his adoring little sister's dress, who sat near him. When she
wept noisily, he laughed under his breath, and spoke aloud to his
sister at the dish-pan,--
"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for? Give it back,
why don't you?"
[Illustration: "_What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her
for_?"]
"Why--Jimmy--Sears!" retorted the girl. Then lifting her voice,
"Mamma, Jimmy's put ice down--" But the lad pressed the ice against
the child's back, pretending to be removing the source of the trouble,
and the child's lusty howls drowned the girl's protest. When he heard
the bedroom door close to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy
knew that he had outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance
he had caused. When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was
sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her about
"raw head and bloody bones," greatly to the child's horror and
delight.
Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, "Did Mamma eat her supper?" He
heard Mrs. Jones respond, "Not very much of it; but she will after a
while, I guess. She said to leave it in there."
"Couldn't she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington sent?"
"No, nor Mrs. Carpenter's lemon jelly."
"Poor mamma!" sighed the girl.
But Jimmy had other reflections. Two minutes later he walked past his
mother's open door, and fumbled around in the sitting-room.
"Is that you, Jimmy?" asked his mother.
"Yes 'm," rejoined the boy.
"What are you doing?"
"Lookin' for my other coat."
"Won't you come in and see me, Jimmy? I haven't seen you for two whole
days."
"In a minute," returned Jimmy.
Standing awkwardly in the doorway, he asked, "What 'd you want?"
"Come over here, Jimmy," returned the mother. "My poor, neglected
boy!" He would not let his eyes find the new baby. He stood stiffly on
one foot, and gave his mother his hand. She drew him down and kissed
his cheek, while he pecked at her lips. As Jimmy rose, his mother
smiled.
[Illustration: _She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked
at her lips_.]
"Are you hungry, Jimmy?"
The boy nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of the
lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions, Jimmy could
not know that his mother understood the rankle in her son's heart. Nor
could he divine that she kept the supper dainties as peace offerings.
"Won't you have some of my supper?"
"Don't you want it?" returned the boy, to justify his greed.
"No, Jimmy; I'm not hungry. I kept it all for you."
While her son was sitting on the floor, eating off the tray on the
chair by the bed, his mother's hand was in his hair, stroking it
lovingly. His sister and the other children looked in and saw him.
Jimmy knew they were whispering "Hoggy!" but he did not heed them. His
mother avoided mentioning the new baby to him; she made him tell her
about his sore toe, and in return she told him how lonely she had been
without him.
As his stomach filled, his heart overflowed,--a common coincidence
even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the tears came to his
eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he rose, and went to the
place where the new-comer lay. He bent over the little puff in the
bedclothes, and grinned sheepishly as he lifted the cover from
the sleeping baby's face. He looked at the red features a moment
curiously, and said in his loud, husky, boyish voice,--