ATTACKED IN THE REAR
Early the next morning the three Badgers held a council of war.
It was unanimously decided that something must be done, but what that
something should be it was not easy to determine.
Mr. Badger suggested that the town constable should be summoned.
“The boy has committed assault and battery upon our persons, Mrs.
Badger,” he said, “and it is proper that he should be arrested.”
“Shall I go for the constable?” asked Andrew Jackson. “I should like to
have him put in jail. Then we should be safe.”
“The constable would not be up so early, Andrew.”
“Besides,” said Mrs. Badger, “we shall be laughed at for not being able
to take care of a single small-sized boy.”
“You know what he is capable of, Mrs. Badger. At least you did when you
came flyin’ down the attic stairs into my arms!”
“Shut up, Mr. Badger,” said his wife, who was ashamed when she
remembered her panic. “You’d better not say anything. He got you on the
floor and pounded you--you a full-grown man!”
“I’d like to pound him!” said Badger, setting his teeth hard.
“It’s a pity if three of us can’t manage him without calling in a
constable,” continued Mrs. Badger, who, on the whole, had more courage
than her husband.
“What do you propose, wife?” asked Nathan.
“I propose that we all go up and seize him. He is probably asleep and
can’t give any trouble. We can tie him hand and foot before he wakes
up.”
“Capital!” said Mr. Badger, who was wonderfully assured by the thought
that his young enemy might be asleep. “We’ll go right up.”
“He may be awake!” suggested Andrew Jackson.
“True. We must go well armed. I’ll carry the gun. It will do to knock
the pistol out of his hand before he gets a chance to use it.”
“Perhaps so,” assented Mrs. Badger.
“And you, Andrew Jackson, what can you take?”
“I’ll take the poker,” said the heroic Andrew.
“Very good! We had better arm ourselves as soon as possible or he may
wake up. By the way, Mr. Badger, where is the ball of twine? It will be
useful to tie the boy’s hands.”
“If his hands are tied he can’t work.”
“No, but I will only keep them tied while I give him a thrashing. You
can take possession of his pistol and hide it. When he is thoroughly
subdued we will untie him and send him to work.”
“Without his breakfast?” suggested Andrew.
“No, he has already fasted since yesterday morning, and it may make him
desperate. He shall have some breakfast, and that will give him strength
to work.”
Andrew Jackson was rather disappointed at the decision that Bill was to
have breakfast, but on this point he did not venture to oppose his
father.
The plan of campaign having been decided upon, it only remained to carry
it out.
Mr. Badger took the old musket and headed the procession. His wife
slipped downstairs and returned with the kitchen broom and a poker. The
last she put in the hands of her son.
“Use it, Andrew Jackson, if occasion requires. You may be called upon to
defend your father and mother. Should such be the case, do not flinch,
but behave like a hero.”
“I will, ma!” exclaimed Andrew, fired perhaps by the example of the
great general after whom he was named. “But you and pa must tackle him
first.”
“We will!” exclaimed the intrepid matron. “The disgraceful scenes of
last evening must not again be enacted. This time we march to certain
victory. Mr. Badger, go on, and I will follow.”
The three, in the order arranged, advanced to the foot of the stairs,
and Mr. Badger slowly and cautiously mounted them, pausing before the
door of the room that contained, as he supposed, the desperate boy.
“Shall I speak to him before entering?” he asked in a tone of
indecision, turning back to his wife.
“Certainly not; it will put him on his guard. Keep as still as you can.
We want to surprise him.”
To account for what followed it must be stated that Dick Schmidt
awakened his visitor early and the two went down to breakfast. Mr.
Schmidt was going to the market town and found it necessary to breakfast
at five o’clock. This happened fortunately for Bill, as he was able to
obtain a much better breakfast there than at home.
When breakfast was over he said soberly:
“Dick, I must go back.”
“Why do you go back at all?” said Dick impulsively.
“I must. It is the only home I have.”
“I wish you could stay with me.”
“So do I, but Mr. Badger would come after me.”
“I suppose he would. Do you think he will flog you?”
“I am sure he will.”
“I’d like to flog him--the brute! Don’t take it too hard, Bill. You’ll
be a man some time, and then no one can punish you.”
Poor Bill! As he took his lonely way back to the house of his tyrannical
employer in the early morning he could not help wishing that he was
already a man and his days of thraldom were over. He was barely sixteen.
Five long, weary years lay before him.
“I’ll try to stand it, though it’s hard,” murmured Bill. “I suppose he’s
very mad because I wasn’t home last night. But I’m glad I went. I had
two good meals and a quiet night’s sleep.”
It was not long before he came in sight of home.
Probably no one was up in the Badger household. Usually Bill was the
first to get up and Mrs. Badger next, for Andrew Jackson and his father
were neither of them fond of early rising.
The front and back doors were no doubt locked, but Bill knew how to get
in.
He went to the shed, raised a window and clambered in.
“Perhaps I can get up to my room without anybody hearing me,” he
reflected.
He passed softly through the front room into the entry and up the front
stairs. All was quiet. Bill concluded that no one was up. He came to the
foot of the attic stairs, and his astonished gaze rested on the three
Badgers, armed respectively with a gun, a broom and a poker, all on
their way to his room.
“Were they going to murder me?” he thought.
Just then Andrew Jackson, who led the rear, and was therefore nearest to
Bill, looked back and saw the terrible foe within three feet of him.
He uttered a loud yell, and, scarcely knowing what he was about, brought
down the poker with force on his mother’s back, at the same time
crying:
“There he is, ma!”
Mrs. Badger, in her flurry, struck her husband with the broom, while her
husband, equally panic-stricken, fired the musket. It was overloaded,
and, as a natural result, “kicked,” overthrowing Mr. Badger, who in his
downward progress carried with him his wife and son.
Astonished and terrified, Bill turned and fled, leaving the house in the
same way he entered it. He struck across the fields and in that moment
decided that he would never return to Mr. Badger unless he was dragged
there. He felt sure that if he did he would be murdered.
He had no plans except to get away. He saw Dick Schmidt, bade him a
hurried good-by and took the road toward the next town.
For three days he traveled, indebted to compassionate farmers for food.
But excitement and fatigue finally overcame him, and he sank by the
roadside, about fifty miles from the town of Dexter, whence he had
started on his pilgrimage.