swimming and pike hole, perch run and spawning shallow, along its
ten-mile course from Northboro down to the Mill Farm at Milltown, and
the windings of every trout brook that fed it, but he understood all
that went on in the half dozen mills or shops along the route. He could
explain exactly how the water was turned on and off and the gearing
adjusted in the gristmill, the stamping and perforating done at the
button factory, or the sand moulds prepared at the forge where scrap
iron was turned into cheap ploughshares and other cast implements.
One very hot day the last part of July when Lammy, together with
'Ram Slocum and Bob Jedd, was going to the pet swimming-hole of the
Laurelville boys, a clear pebble-lined pool with a shelving rock on
one side that approached the water by easy steps, they heard voices
in the woods and came suddenly upon a party of young fellows from the
Engineers' Summer School, which had its camp farther down the ridge of
hills.
"Hullo!" shouted the foremost, addressing Lammy, who also chanced to
be in the lead; "can you tell us if there is any decent place to swim
hereabouts? The pond at the Mill Farm is posted 'No Trespassing,' most
of the river bed is either too rocky or too shallow, and the only good
place we've struck below here has a mud bottom, and looked too much like
an eel hole to suit me."
"Yes, 'tis an eel hole, this side of the course," Lammy answered
readily, "and t'other side there's pickerel could bite yer toes if they
was minded to. I'll show yer a bully place. We're going there now, and
it isn't much further up."
"Charge him a quarter for the steer," said 'Ram Slocum, in a loud
whisper, kicking Lammy's bare shins to stop him, for he had stepped
forward eagerly to lead the way.
"Shan't either," Lammy replied spicily, to 'Ram's astonishment; "water's
free up here, even if your pop won't let us swim in the mill-pond, and
does charge folks three cents a barrel for taking water when their wells
are dry."
'Ram, a strong boy of sixteen, with bright red hair, who usually
domineered over all the boys of his age and under,--particularly
under,--had never before been so answered by any of his companions, much
less Lammy, to whom he often referred as "softy," and his temper rose
accordingly. His nickname "'Ram," short for Abiram, referred to his
fighting proclivities and the way in which he frequently used his bullet
head to knock out an antagonist instead of his fists; and though he did
not see fit to follow the matter then and there, in his mind he put down
Lammy for punishment when he should next catch him alone.
Meanwhile Lammy, silently threading through the dense underbrush,
followed by Bob Jedd, reached the swimming-hole, while 'Ram slowly
brought up the rear, crashing along sullenly, kicking the dead branches
right and left so that the little ground beasts fled before him, now and
then pausing either to pound a luckless land turtle with a stone, or
shake from its perch some bird who, silent and dejected, had sought deep
cover for its moulting time.
When he reached the others, he found not only that Lammy had made
friends with the students, who, by the way, were a new lot who had
recently come to camp, but that they were asking him all sorts of
questions to draw out his knowledge of the neighbourhood, and were
actually making Lammy a good offer if he would come to the camp daily
during their stay, be "chainboy" on their surveying expeditions, and
show them many things about the country that it would be a waste of time
for them to search out for themselves.
Now Mr. and Mrs. Slocum had been very much stirred up by these same
surveyors, and being suspicious, as shifty people usually are, wondered
very much if the men were only practising as they claimed, or if they
were in the pay of some land company, and prospecting, that they might
see where land could be bought in large blocks. They had tried all
summer to have 'Ram employed about the camp, that he might keep his eyes
and ears open, but so far to no avail. Consequently, when the boy heard
the coveted position offered to Lammy, his rage and disappointment got
the better of his usually shrewd discretion, and pushing into the group,
he almost shouted, his voice pitched high with eagerness:--
"Lammy ain't the one you want; he ain't strong, and he's got no go. I'm
two years older and worth twice as much, but I'll take the job at the
same price and get pop to let you swim in the mill-pond if you'll hire
me."
"I rather think not," said the spokesman, a bronzed, broad-shouldered
young fellow of about nineteen. "I'm afraid you might charge us for the
air we breathed while we were in swimming; besides, I never employ a
sneak if I know it."
Then 'Ram knew that he had been overheard, and he slunk away toward
home, owing Lammy a double grudge, and the sounds of shouts of merriment
and the splashing of water did not tend to cool his wrath.
As for Lammy, he sat on the edge of the rock, trailing his brown toes
in the water in the seventh heaven of content; for he was to help carry
those mysterious instruments about for a whole month, and go in and out
of the Summer School camp, knowing what was said and done there, instead
of gazing at it across the fields. Then, too, perhaps he might some day
meet Mr. Clarke, and possibly, though it was a daring thought, get leave
to go into the mysterious building in his locomotive works at Northboro
that bore the sign "Strictly Private--No Admittance."
Bird and he had often talked of such a possibility. How glad she would
be to know! He would write to her all about it.
He did, but had no reply; for the letter reached Bird at one of the
times when her uncle was away. Billy had been suffering more than usual,
and his mother was consequently very cross and difficult to bear with.
Bird put the letter by to answer "to-morrow"; but every day bore its own
burden, and the days piled up into weeks.
* * * * *
Joshua worked steadily on the fruit farm all the season, preparing for
future crops as conscientiously as if he himself was to be the owner.
Of this, however, he had no hope; it was impossible for him to bid on
the place, as he had little or no ready money, and the only way to raise
this would be to mortgage his own little farm.
This several of his neighbours had suggested, offering to loan him the
money; but Joshua had struggled along some fifteen years under the
weight of a mortgage, and now that he was freed he did not wish to
pick up the burden again. Then, too, his farm with its old ramshackle
outbuildings was not worth more than three thousand dollars, while the
fruit farm with its rich land, good barn, poultry house, and newly
shingled dwelling was valued by good judges at any figure from five to
six thousand dollars. For though Aunt Jimmy had scrimped herself in many
ways, she was too good a business woman to let her property get out of
repair.
Neither of the Lane brothers were as well off as Joshua, so by the last
of October the community had decided that the fruit farm must go out of
the family, and attention was divided between who would buy it and what
Joshua would do with his third of the proceeds,--better his house, or
buy more land.
The Slocums were considered to be the most likely purchasers; for Abiram
Slocum was known to have much money stored away in various paying farms
as well as in the Northboro bank, though the way in which he came by
it was not approved, even by the most close-fisted of his neighbours,
for 'Biram was what was called a "land shark." He sold worthless
parcels of land that would grow nothing but docks and mullein to the
hard-working Poles and Hungarians who were fast colonizing the outskirts
of Northboro, taking part cash payment, the rest on mortgage, and
encouraging them to build. Then when the interest became overdue, owing
to inevitable poor crops, he foreclosed, put out the family, and sold
the place anew.
So sure did Mrs. Slocum appear to be that she would own the fruit
farm, that she took it upon herself to watch the place to see, as she
explained when caught by Joshua Lane peeking in at the kitchen window,
"that nothing properly belonging to it was took off." He told her in
very plain language that whoever bought the farm would buy what there
was on it at the time, and no more, as his aunt had trusted him with the
management until the final settlement, and that what he did was no man's
business save that of the heirs.
In the interval, before it was time to tie up vines and bed the various
berries with their winter covering of manure, he turned his attention to
Aunt Jimmy's flower garden, a strip of ground enclosed by a neat picket
fence, where a box-edged path starting under a rose trellis ran down
the middle and disappeared in a grape arbour at the farther end, and
everything that was fragrant and hardy and worth growing flanked the
walk, while behind, the sweet peas and nasturtiums climbed up to the
very fence top in their effort to see and be seen.
This garden had been the apple of Aunt Jimmy's eye, and in spite of all
"spells" and oddities, she had tended it wholly herself, her one gentle
feminine impulse, as far as the outside world knew, having been giving
nosegays to the children that passed the house on their way home from
school. If they handled the flowers carelessly, they never received a
second bunch, but if they cherished them, slips, seeds, and bulbs were
sure to follow, so that Aunt Jimmy's flowers lived long after her in
childish garden plots.
Prompted by Lauretta Ann,--for Joshua was too hard-headed and practical
to have learned anything about flowers, except that they must be fed and
watered like other stock, whether animal or vegetable,--he regulated the
various borders, dividing and resetting the roots of hardy plants under
his wife's direction, as Aunt Jimmy had done each autumn, while Lammy
stood by, eagerly waiting for the "weedings," which he carried home with
great care and set out in a corner south of the barn, "to make," as he
said, "a little garden for Bird, in case we don't get the fruit farm."
His mother encouraged him in this and praised his efforts, giving him
some strips of chicken wire to make a trellis, so that his vines might
in time cover the end of the old, gray-shingled barn. Even she, however,
did not know of another little garden strip on a far-away hillside that
he had tended all summer for the sake of his little friend.
* * * * *
In spite of Joshua Lane's rebuke to Mrs. Slocum, she continued spying
and insinuating, and not many days later, chancing to drive by the fruit
farm half an hour after school was out, and seeing Lammy going up the
road, carrying a basket, spade, and water can, followed by faithful
Twinkle, she hurried home and bade 'Ram "step lively and follow that
Lane boy up, an' see where he's goin', and what he's got, and what he's
agoin' to do with it."
Mrs. Slocum was more than usually determined upon annoying the Lanes,
since Joshua, as administrator for Terence O'More, had refused payment
of the rent owed for the little cottage, until the insurance company
had satisfied themselves as to the cause of the fire and paid Abiram's
claim. The furniture destroyed, at the lowest estimate, would have been
more than enough to cancel the debt.
'Ram, only too glad to do his mother's errand, after the manner of all
bullies, waited until Lammy was out of reach of protection and well
up on the sheltered "hill road" before he overtook him, asking in a
"you've-got-to-tell" tone what he had in the basket and where he was
going. Upon Lammy's declining to tell, he announced his intention of
following until he found out for himself.
Now it must be remembered that Lammy had the name of being girlish, if
not exactly cowardly, that he was only fourteen, and though tall, was of
a slender build; while 'Ram was not only broad-shouldered and sixteen,
but the village braggart to boot, so that it really took some pluck for
Lammy to continue up that houseless road with 'Ram muttering threats
and marching close behind. Still Lammy walked straight on past all the
farms, to where the runaway Christmas trees stood sentinels around
the hillside graveyard. There is no denying that his hand shook as he
unlatched the gate, but he did not falter or look back, but went to the
corner where were the mounds that marked the graves of Bird O'More's
father and mother.
Why the turf was so much greener and smoother than anywhere else in the
enclosure no one but Lammy knew, and for a moment 'Ram paused outside
the fence in sheer surprise; but as Lammy, kneeling down, took a couple
of roots of the red peony from his basket, and prepared to plant one at
the top of each flowery mound, his surprise vanished in derision.
"Ain't you a fool for sure!" he shouted, not coming in the enclosure,
for, stupid and superstitious like all real cowards, he thought it
bad luck to cross a graveyard,--"a fool for sure, planting posies yer
stole; top of paupers, too, when even that stuck-up girl that was yer
sweetheart's gone off to live with rich folks and has clean forgotten
them and you!"
Lammy's trembling fingers fumbled with the earth and his head swam. The
first part of 'Ram's jeer made his blood boil, but after all it was a
lie, and lies do not sting for long; for poor though O'More was, his
debts would be paid to a penny, and Lammy had _bought_ the peony roots
from his father as executor by doing extra weeding on the fruit farm.
The last sentence, however, hurt cruelly; for though Lammy did not
believe it, he had no way of disproving it even to himself, and so could
not say a word to 'Ram in reply; for during the five months since Bird
went away only two brief notes had come from her, and these told about
city streets and sights, and little or nothing of herself. While, to
make it the more strange, when, in the hot August weather, Mrs. Lane had
sent her an invitation to come up for the promised visit, enclosing the
tickets, which represented some weeks of egg money, and offered herself
to go down to New Haven to meet the child, a stiff little note returning
the tickets had come by way of reply, and though it was grateful in
wording and said something vague about going with Billy for sea air,
etc., he could not guess the disappointment that it covered, and that
the sea air was merely a chance ferry ride, or the breeze that blew over
Battery Park, where they herded daily with hundreds of other children
of poorer New York. Lammy had been cut to the heart, and 'Ram's taunt
rankled indeed.
Mrs. Lane, however, had read between the lines, her keen insight,
confidence in Bird, and motherly love serving as spectacles. She still
felt, as she always had done, that Bird was unhappy, and yet too proud
to confess it, and that she did not dare write often or come among them,
for fear that they should discover what they could not as yet better.
For Mrs. Lane remembered O'More's conditional promise only too well,
and the possibility of fulfilling her part of adopting the little girl
within the year seemed to grow more and more remote.
Silently Lammy finished his work, picking up every dead leaf that lay on
the mounds, and then taking his spade and basket, turned to go home, but
there stood his tormentor by the gate.
If anything angers a bully, it is silence. If Lammy had engaged in a war
of words, the chances are that 'Ram would have gone away, having had,
as he considered it, his fun out. As it was, he really felt that he had
been neglected and affronted, so, making believe open the gate as Lammy
closed it, he said, "I can dig up them posies twict as quick as you
planted 'em."
"Maybe you can, but you won't," cried Lammy, suddenly growing pale and
rigid, while he stood outside the gate, but square in front of it.
"Oh, ho, and who 'll stop me?" sneered 'Ram, in amused surprise,
standing with his arms akimbo.
Without saying another word, Lammy, the meek, the boy-girl in name, flew
at 'Ram with such suddenness, beating and buffetting him, that the big
boy was knocked down before he knew it. Recovering his feet quickly, he
tried to grapple with the lanky little lad, but Lammy twisted and turned
with the litheness of a cat, landing rapid if rather wild blows at each
plunge, while Twinkle nipped at 'Ram's heels, until finally 'Ram, seeing
that he was outmatched in agility, and determined to conquer without
more ado, lowered his head for the celebrated "butt" that generally
winded his antagonist.
Lammy's fighting Yankee ancestors must have left the lower end of the
graveyard and marched up to encourage him on this occasion; for he was
nearly spent and was pausing to get breath when the lunge came, so that
his final effort was to give a side twist, and the blow of the red
bullet head was received square and full by the locust gate post instead
of by Lammy's stomach.
'Ram dropped to the ground, where he lay for several minutes seeing
stars, planets, and comets, while a bump as big as an apple appeared in
the middle of his forehead and the cords of his neck ached like teeth.
Meanwhile Lammy, his nervous strength gone, ran all the way home, and
throwing himself on his bed, whither he was followed by his mother,
who saw his livid face as he dashed through the kitchen, sobbed as if
his heart would break, not from fear, but because in the reaction he
remembered what Bird had said of people who fought either with their
tongues or fists.
It was not until long afterward that he thought it strange, and wondered
why his mother had not scolded him, only hugged him to her comfortable,
pillowy breast, when he told his story, and put nearly all of her
precious bottle of Northboro cologne on his head to soothe it, and gave
him buttered toast, when, after having his cry out, he came down to
supper, which dainty was generally regarded as only for the minister
or else a "sick-a-bed" luxury. His father meanwhile actually broke
into a laugh and said, "Hear yer've been doin' a leetle Declaration o'
Independencing on yer own account. Wal, it's sometimes a necessary act
fer folks same as countries; Lauretta Ann, I reckon Lammy and me could
relish a pot of coffee to-night"--coffee being a Sunday-morning treat.
When it came to the part of his story concerning 'Ram's taunt and his
fear that Bird had forgotten them, his mother reassured him for the
hundredth time with her own ample faith, but he quite startled her by
saying emphatically:--
"That is all right, mother, as far as it goes, but we've just _got_ to
buy that fruit farm somehow." And he fell asleep that night, happy in
making impossible plans for the purchase.
It was perhaps as well for Lammy's self-conceit that he did not hear
his mother talk with Mrs. Slocum, who came in about nine o'clock,
tearful, yet at the same time in a threatening rage, demanding that
he be "whipped thoro' for half murdering her harmless boy when he was
taking an innercent walk, and that if he didn't get the whippin', she'd
get a warrant immedjet."
Mrs. Lane waited until she had finished her tirade, and then calling
Joshua, who had retreated to the wood-shed, said: "Mis' Slocum here
needs a warrant writ hasty; jest you escort her down to the Squire's,
as her husband don't seem intrested to go with her. I hate to see a
neighbour obleeged to play the man and risk goin' out in the dark
alone."
Then as her adversary, seeing herself outflanked, rose to go, she added
with apparent sympathy: "Of course I know it's hard for you to feel
'Ram's beat by one half his size, even if the gate post did help Lammy,
and folks 'll be surprised to hear it, but you mustn't blame him too
much; it was maybe me, his mother, in him worked Lammy's fists so good."
And Lauretta Ann looked her visitor straight in the eyes. Some weeks
later Mrs. Slocum had reason to remember that look.
X
LAMMY CONSULTS OLD LUCKY
When November came, Joshua Lane had completed his work of preparing
the fruit farm for the auction, according to Aunt Jimmy's wish that it
should be in full running order when sold.
The old fowls were mostly sold off, and the henhouse was full of the
vigorous laying pullets that mean so much in early winter. The fall cow
had calved, and the two or three yearlings were as sleek as does.
When the time came for the division of the furniture between the wives
of the three Lane brothers by drawing lots, public interest again
awakened, and Mrs. Slocum expressed great anxiety lest it should not be
done fairly, saying to her husband: "It's a fussy, mixed-up business
anyway. Why didn't they auction off the stuff and let folks in to see
it done fair? They do say, for all Miss Jemima lived so plain, she had
stores of good stuff shut up in those top rooms that even Dinah Lucky
never's had a peek at when she went to houseclean. Those old mahogany
pieces are worth money at Northboro, and Lauretta Ann's cute enough to
know it, but I don't believe those other slab-sided Lane women do; so do
you watch your chance and make them an offer so soon as it's divided.
There's a wardrobe there, solid mahogany, twice as big as one they ask
fifty dollars for in the 'curious' shop. Most likely they'd value cheap,
new stuff better."
If it had not been rather pathetic to Mrs. Lane, this breaking up of a
house where she had been so much at home, the day of the division would
have been one of unalloyed merriment.
In the first place, owing to the way in which Aunt Jimmy had directed
the drawing should be managed, the articles were not valued in the
usual way and divided so that each of the three women shared alike, but
merely numbered, the duplicate slips being shaken up in a basket and
drawn by Probate Judge Ricker for Lauretta Ann, the others drawing for
themselves, as Joshua preferred that there should be no possible chance
of his wife being criticised. While she, cheerful and thoughtful as
ever of the comfort of others, prepared a nice lunch on the afternoon
appointed, which she and Lammy carried to the fruit farm, and had a
cheerful fire in the kitchen stove, with a big pot of fragrant coffee
purring away on top of it, when Jason and Henry Lane, the younger
brothers, following each other closely, drove into the yard with their
wives.
Mrs. Henry Lane was a delicate, sad-looking little woman, quite above
the average. She had been one of the teachers in the Milltown public
school at the time of her marriage, but the struggle to wrest a living
from a small hillside farm, coupled with ill health, had broken her
spirit, and she sank into a rocking-chair and began to jiggle the baby
that she carried to and fro.
Mrs. Jason, on the contrary, was tall and gaunt, with high cheek-bones.
Life had not been very kind to her either, but still she looked as if
she could hold her own; and her husband, who only reached her shoulder,
fairly quaked and fell away before her like ill-made jelly.
"Do draw up to the table, sisters-in-law both," cried Lauretta Ann,
after greeting each heartily. "You must have hurried dinner to get down
here by now, and I always do feel hungrier the first cool days than when
winter has set square in."
"I _should_ feel better for a cup of coffee," said Mrs. Henry, in a
plaintive voice; "we haven't had any for more than two weeks. Henry
forgot it when he went to the store, and he doesn't get there as often
as he used, now that the mail is delivered around the country by wagon.
I've been using tea right along, and I think it's made me nervous;
besides, the last I bought from the travelling spice-and-sugar man
tasted more like buckwheat shucks and musty hay than anything else."
At this Henry Lane's head sank still farther into the collar of his
coat, which was three sizes too big anyway, and he began whittling
recklessly at a hard-wood clothespin with a broken knife, which quickly
caused a deeply cut finger and much consternation, as the sight of
blood always made his wife faint away, and the present occasion was no
exception to the rule.
After Lauretta Ann had bathed and bound up the finger, and sent Lammy
home for a little of the cherry cordial for which she was famous,
she made another effort to serve the lunch, and finally succeeded in
cheering the mournful company by sheer force of good temper.
"I do hope you'll draw Grandma Lane's canopy-top cradle and the big
rocker that matches, they'd be such comforts to you as you are fixed,"
Mrs. Joshua said to Mrs. Henry, as putting a friendly arm about her,
they went into the sitting room, where Judge Ricker was busy kneading
up the numbered papers in the basket as carefully as if he was working
lard into flour for tea biscuits, and seated themselves in a semicircle.