COL. WITHAM GETS THE MILL
It was the evening before the glorious Fourth of July, and Tim Reardon
was dragging an iron cannon along the street, by a small rope. It was a
curious, clumsy piece of iron-mongery, about a foot and a half long,
with a heavily moulded barrel mounted on a block of wood that ran on
four wheels; a product of the local machine shop, designed for the
purpose of being indestructible rather than for show.
Tim Reardon, smudgy-faced, but wearing an expression of deep
satisfaction, paused for a moment before a gate where stood a boy
somewhat younger than himself, who eyed the cannon admiringly.
"Hello, Willie," said Tim. "Comin' out, ain't yer?"
The boy shook his head, disconsolately.
"What's the matter?"
"Can't," said the boy. "Father won't let me."
Tim looked at him pityingly.
"Won't let you come out the night before the Fourth!" he exclaimed.
"Gee! I'd like to see anybody stop me. What's he 'fraid of?"
"He isn't afraid," replied the boy. "He's mad because they make so much
noise he can't sleep. He says they haven't any right to fire off guns
and things on the Fourth."
"Hm!" sniffed Tim. "Henry Burns says you have, and I guess he knows.
He's read all about it. He says there was a man named Adams who was a
president once, and he said everybody ought to make all the noise they
could; get out and fire guns, and blow horns, and beat on pans and yell
like everything, and build bonfires and fire off firecrackers."
"Did he?" said the boy. "And did he say anything about getting out the
night before?"
"Well, I dunno about that," answered Tim Reardon; "but of course the
patrioticker you are, why, the sooner you begin. It's the Fourth of July
the minute the clock strikes twelve--and, cracky, won't we make a racket
then? Henry Burns, he's got a cannon; and so's Jack Harvey and Tom
Harris and Bob White, and the Warren fellers they've got three, and a
lot of other fellers have got 'em. Just you wait till the clock strikes,
and there'll be some fun."
"I wish I could come out," said the boy, earnestly.
"Too bad you can't. You miss all the fun," said Little Tim. "I'll bet
George Washington was out the first of any of 'em on the Fourth of July,
when he was a boy."
Tim's knowledge of history was not quite so ample as his patriotic
ardour.
"Why don't you come, anyway?" he ventured. "Just tie a string around
your big toe, and hang the string out the window, and I'll come around
and wake you up. I'm going to wake George Baker that way. I don't go to
bed at all the night before the Fourth."
The boy shook his head.
"No, I guess not," he replied. "But say," he added quickly, "come around
in front of the house and make all the racket you can, will you? I'd
like to hear it, if I can't get out."
"You bet we will," responded Tim, heartily. "Sammy Willis, his father
won't let him come out, and we're going 'round there; and Joe Turner,
his father won't let him come out, and we're going there, too. There's
where we go to, most."
Tim did not explain whether this was from patriotic motives or
otherwise. But the small boy looked pleased.
"Be sure and come around," he said.
"Oh, you'll hear from us, all right," replied Tim.
It was quite evident that something would be heard when, some hours
later, about a quarter of an hour before midnight, a group of boys had
gathered in the square in front of Willie Perkins's house. There was an
array of small cannon ranged about that would have sent joy to the heart
of a youthful Knox or Steuben. The boys were engaged in the act of
loading these with blasting powder, purchased at a reduced price from
the rock blasters in the valley below.
"Here you, don't put in so much powder, young fellow," cautioned Harvey
to a smaller youth, who was about to pour a handful into a chunky
firearm. "Don't you know that it's little powder and lots of wadding
that makes her speak? I'll show you."
Harvey measured out a small handful of the coarse, black grains, poured
them down the barrel, stuffed in some newspaper and rammed it home with
a hickory stick. Then he stuffed in a handful of grass and some more
newspaper, hammering on the ram-rod with a brick, regardless of any
danger of premature explosion. The coarse powder was not "lively,"
however, and had always stood such handling. The process was continued
until the cannon was stuffed to the muzzle. Then a few grains were
dropped over the touch-hole, a long strip of paper laid over this,
weighted down with a small pebble, and was ready for lighting.
"There," said Harvey, relinquishing the ram-rod to the youth, "that'll
speak. If you fill 'em full of powder they don't make half the noise."
Simultaneously, Henry Burns, the Warren boys, Tom Harris, Bob White and
a dozen other lads had been loading and priming their respective pieces;
and presently they stood awaiting the striking of the town clocks.
Willie Perkins's father, who had been hard at work all the evening with
a congenial party in his office, at a game of euchre, was just getting
his first nap, having congratulated himself on retiring, that, if the
neighbourhood's rest was disturbed, his son at least would not
contribute toward it. Willie Perkins, having extended a cordial
invitation to the boys to come around and visit his esteemed parent,
was himself fast asleep.
Clang! The first town clock to take cognizance of the arrival of the
glorious Fourth struck a lusty note, that rang out loudly on the clear
night air. But there was no response from the eager gunners. It was not
yet Fourth of July. It would have gone hard with the boy that had fired.
Clang and clang again. The twelfth call was still ringing in the iron
throat of the old bell, high in its steeple, when Harvey shouted, "Now
give it to her!"
There was a hasty scratching of matches. The strips of paper began to
burn; slowly at first, while the boys scattered; then quickly,
sputtering as the flame caught the first few grains of powder.
A moment later, it seemed to Willie Perkins's father as though he had
been lifted completely out of his bed by some violent concussion, while
a roar like the blast of battle shook the house. The glorious Fourth had
begun in Benton.
Springing to his feet, Mr. Perkins uttered a denunciation of the day
that would have made the signers of the Declaration of Independence turn
in their graves, while he rushed to the window. Throwing it open, he
peered out into the square. There was not a boy in sight. Retreat had
already begun, ignominiously, from the field.
"If they come around again--" muttered Mr. Perkins. He did not finish
the sentence, but went along a hallway and looked into his son's room.
"Are you there, William?" he inquired sternly.
"Yes; can I get up now? Must be most morning."
"Get up!" replied the elder Perkins. "Just let me catch you getting up
before daylight! If I had my way, there wouldn't be any firing guns or
firecrackers on Fourth of July. It's barbarism--not patriotism.
"Willie," he added, "do you know any of those boys out there to-night?"
"How can I tell, if you won't let me go out?" whined Willie.
"I'd like to know who put it into people's heads to fire off guns on the
Fourth," exclaimed Mr. Perkins. "He must have been a rowdy."
Willie Perkins made a mental note that he would look up President Adams
next morning, for his father's benefit.
Mr. Perkins returned to his bed-room and closed his eyes once more. His
was not a sweet and peaceful sleep, however. Benton was awakening to the
Fourth in divers localities, and sounds from afar, of fish-horns and
giant crackers, of bells and barking dogs, came in, in tumultuous
confusion.
"Confound the Fourth of July!" muttered Mr. Perkins. "I didn't disturb
people this way when I was a boy."
But perhaps Mr. Perkins forgot.
There came by, shortly, a party of intensely patriotic youth from the
mill settlement under the hill. Their particular brand of patriotism
manifested itself in beating with small bars of iron on a large
circular saw, suspended on a stick thrust through the hole in its centre
and borne triumphantly between two youths. The reverberation, the
deafening clangour of this, cannot possibly be described, or appreciated
by one that has never heard it. Suffice it to say, that the fish-horns,
even the cannon, were insignificant by comparison.
Mr. Perkins groaned and half arose. But the party went along past,
without offering to stop--perhaps because they had received no
invitation from Willie. Moreover, it seemed as though half the town was
astir by this time and giving vent to its enthusiasm. Benton had a
remarkable way of getting boyish on the morning of the Fourth, which the
elder Perkins could not understand.
When, however, an hour later, another shock of cannon shook his chamber,
followed immediately by what sounded to him like a derisive blast of
fish-horns, there was no more irresolution left in him. Hastily arising
and throwing a coat over his shoulders, and dashing a hat over his
eyes--the first one that came to hand, and which happened to be a tall
beaver--Mr. Perkins, barefoot and in his night-clothes, a not imposing
guardian of the peace, sped down the front stairs and out into the
street.
A cry of alarm, the rumble of cannon dragged by ropes over the shoulders
of a squad of youths in full flight, and the exclamations of the
indignant Mr. Perkins, marked the occasion.
Fear lent its wings to the pursued; wrath served to lighten the bare
heels of Mr. Perkins. He was gaining, when one of the youth, cumbered
in flight by his artillery piece, let go the string. The cannon
remaining in the path of Mr. Perkins, he stumbled over it, and it hurt
his toe. He paused and picked up the cannon, but relinquished it to
grasp his toe, which demanded all his attention. He decided, then and
there, that the pursuit, which had extended about three blocks, was
useless, and abandoned it. Limping slightly, he started homeward.
Somewhat like the British retreat from Concord and Lexington, was the
return of Mr. Perkins to his home. A piece of burning punk lay in the
road, and presently he stepped on that. The fleeing forces had doubled
on their tracks, also, and a fire-cracker exploded near him. Then a
torpedo. And there was no enemy in sight to take revenge on. Mr. Perkins
hastened his steps and was soon, himself, in full retreat.
Then, when presently he was conscious of the raising of curtains in
near-by windows, and felt the eyes of several of his neighbours directed
toward his weird costume, Mr. Perkins no longed walked. He ran. As he
closed the door behind him and tramped wearily up the stairs, the voice
of his son greeted him.
"Say, pa, is it time to get up now?"
Mr. Perkins's reply was most decidedly unpatriotic.
The hours went by, and a rapid fire of small artillery ran throughout
Benton and along its whole frontier line. Even the bells in the
steeples, no longer solemn, clanged forth their defiance to
authority--which was the only thing that slumbered in the town on this
occasion.
But Benton had other observances for its boisterous display of spirits,
the origin of which no one seemed to know, but which were participated
in each year by the new generation of youths, with careful observance of
tradition.
There were the "Horribles," for example, not to have ridden in which at
some time of one's life was to have left one page blank. The procession
of "Horribles," otherwise known as "Ragamuffins," usually started at
about six in the morning, marching through the streets until nine;--by
which time the endurance of a youth who had been out all night usually
came to an end.
Now, as the hour of three was passed, certain eager and impatient
aspirants for first place in the line began to make their appearance on
horseback in the streets of Benton, clattering about on steeds that had
never before known a saddle; weird figures, masked uncouthly in
pasteboard representations of Indians, animals and what-not, and clad in
every sort of costume, from rags to ancient uniforms--a noisy,
tatterdemalion band, blowing horns and discharging firearms.
There was Tim Reardon, mounted on an aged truck horse, that drooped its
head and ambled with half-closed eyes, as though it might at any moment
fall off to sleep again. Sticking like a monkey to its bare back was
Tim, his face hidden behind a monstrous mask, his head surmounted by a
battered silk hat, extracted from a convenient refuse heap; a fish-horn
slung about his neck by a string.
There was Henry Burns, with face blackened and a huge wooden tomahawk at
his belt; he, likewise, astride, on one of Mr. Harris's work horses. A
more mettlesome steed upheld Jack Harvey, but not at all willingly,
since it had an uncertain way of backing without warning into fences and
trees, to the detriment of its rider's shins. The firing of a huge
horse-pistol by Harvey seemed to aggravate rather than soothe the
animal's feelings.
The Warren brothers had contrived a sort of float, consisting of an
express wagon, gorgeously covered with coloured cloths, even interwoven
in the spokes of the wheels, and wound around the body of the horse that
drew it. A wash-boiler, its legitimate usefulness long over, set up in
the wagon, was beaten on by Arthur and Joe Warren, while their elder
brother drove.
Tom Harris, Bob White and a scattering of other grotesque horsemen came
along presently.
"Where'll we go?" queried Harvey, as the squadron paused to rest after a
preliminary round of some of the streets.
"Past Perkins's house again," suggested young Joe Warren.
"No, we've been by there twice already," answered Henry Burns. "He won't
like Fourth of July if we give him too much of it."
Young Joe grinned behind his mask.
"I'll tell you," he said, excitedly. "We've got time to do it, too,
before the parade begins--Witham's! Bet he's sound asleep--what do you
say?"
"Come on," cried Henry Burns. "Will you go, fellows?"
A whoop of delight gave acquiescence. The procession clattered out of
Benton and started up the valley road by the stream.
They went along noisily at first, beating their battered tinware,
setting off giant firecrackers, blowing horns and whooping lustily.
Farmers along the road opened a sleepy eye as they passed, remembered it
was the morning of the Fourth, and turned over for another nap. Pickerel
in the stream dived their noses into the soft mud at the lowest depths.
Night-hawks, high above, swooped after their prey and added their weird
noise to the din. Yellow-hammers and thrushes, rudely roused, darted
from their nests and took flight silently into the thicker screen of the
woods.
But, as the riders neared the Ellison dam, and heard the first sound of
the falling water, they subsided, planning to take the neighbourhood,
and particularly the occupants of the Half Way House, above, by
surprise. Thus silently going along, they were aware of a light wagon,
drawn by a lively stepping horse, turning from the road that led up to
the Ellison farm and coming on toward them.
"Hello!" exclaimed George Warren; "it's Doctor Wells. Something's up.
Wonder what's the matter."
Doctor Wells, coming up to the leaders, reined in his horse and
regarded the procession with a mingled expression of good humour and
anxiety.
"Pretty early to start the Fourth, isn't it?" he asked. "What's that you
say? Going to wake up Colonel Witham--and Ellison?"
His face assumed a serious expression.
"Wake Jim Ellison," he repeated, as though he was speaking more to
himself than to them. "I wish you could. 'Twould stop lots of trouble,
I'm thinking. No man can wake poor Jim Ellison. He's dead. Went off
quick not a half hour ago. Got a shock, and that was the end of him.
You'll have to turn back, boys."
Quietly and soberly, the procession turned about and headed for Benton.
The parade that morning was minus a good part of its expected members.
One week later, Lawyer James Estes of Benton, carrying some transcripts
of legal papers under his arm, walked up the driveway to the Ellison
farm and knocked at the front door. A woman, sad-eyed and anxious,
opened to his knock and ushered him into the front parlour.
"I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Mrs. Ellison," he said, in
response to her look of inquiry. "I'm sorry to say it looks as though
your husband's affairs were much involved at the time of his death. I
find those deeds were given to Colonel Witham. They're on record, and I
suppose Witham has the original papers, duly signed. We'll know all
about it as soon as he returns. He went out of town, you say, the day
Mr. Ellison died?"
"Yes," she replied; "never came near us, nor sent us word of sympathy.
I'm afraid he didn't want to see us. I never wanted James to have
business dealings with him. Does the mill go, too?"
"I'm afraid it does," answered Lawyer Estes. "Why, didn't you know about
it? Your name is signed, too, you know, else the deeds are not good."
"Oh, yes, I suppose I did sign them, if they're on record," said Mrs.
Ellison. "I was always signing papers for James. He said everything
would be all right. I didn't know anything about the business--dear,
dear--I thought the boys would have the mill when James was too old to
work it. It's good property, if it does look shabby."
"Well, we'll make the best of it and do all we can," said Lawyer Estes.
"Perhaps Witham can straighten it out when he returns. If he can't,
there seems to be no doubt that the mill and some of the farm belong to
him. We've hunted everywhere about your home and about the mill, and
there are no papers that save us. We must wait for Colonel Witham."
It was a little more than two weeks before Colonel Witham did return to
his hotel. Had he gotten out of the way, thus hurriedly, to see what
turn James Ellison's affairs might take? Had he hopes that the deeds he
knew of might by some chance not be found? Was his absence carefully
timed, to allow of whatever search was bound to be made to be done and
gotten over with, ere he should presume to lay claim to the property?
It would not do to declare himself owner, should the chance arise, and
then have the deeds that he had given back secretly to Ellison turn up.
It were safer surely to remain away and see what would happen.
At all events, when on a certain day the droning of the mill told that
its wheels had resumed their interrupted grinding, there might have been
seen, within, the burly form of Colonel Witham, moving about as one with
authority. Short, curt were his answers. There was little to be made out
of him by Lawyer Estes or anyone else. What was his business was
his--and nobody else's. There were the deeds, duly signed. If anyone had
a better claim to the property, let him show it. As for the Ellison
boys--and all other boys--they could keep away, unless they had corn to
be ground. The mill was no place for them.
And yet, as the days went by, one might have fancied, if he had
observed, that all was not easy in the mind of the new owner of the
mill. They might have noted in his manner a continual restlessness; a
wandering about the mill from room to room; prying into odd corners here
and there; pounding upon the beams and partitions; poking under
stair-ways; rummaging into long unused chutes and bins; for ever
hunting, anxious-eyed; as though the mill had an evil and troublous
influence over his spirits.
And now and then, pausing in the midst of his searching, the new owner
might have been heard to exclaim, "Well, if I can't find them, nobody
else can. That's sure."
But Colonel Witham did not discontinue his searching. And the mill gave
up no secrets.