Now that berry picking was at an end, John Jay slipped back into his old
lazy ways. Errands were run with lagging feet; work was done in the
easiest way possible, and everything was left undone that he could by
any means avoid. Mammy scolded when she came home at night and found
both water-pail and wood-box empty, but he went serenely on with his
supper. No matter what happened, nothing ever interfered with his
appetite.
"Those chillun are gettin' as bad as little young turkeys 'bout strayin'
away from home," mumbled Aunt Susan one morning, as she watched them
slip through the fence soon after Sheba had left the house. "An' they
ain't anything wussah than young turkeys for runnin' off. 'Peahs like
that kind of poultry is nevah satisfied with where they is, but always
want to be where they isn't. It's the same with those chillun."
Although Aunt Susan did not know it, there was one place where John Jay
and his flock of two were always content to stay; that was on the steps
at the side door of the church. Nearly every afternoon found them
sitting there in a solemn row, waiting for the shadows to grow long
across the grass, for it was then that George oftenest came to play on
the organ. He always smiled on the three grave little figures, waiting
so patiently for the music of his vesper hymns.
It touched the lonely man to have John Jay follow him about, with that
same wistful look in his eyes that a faithful dog has for its master.
Sometimes he sat down on the steps beside the children and talked to
them awhile, just to see the boy's face light up with pleasure.
It was a mystery to Sheba, how a dignified minister could care for the
companionship of such a harum-scarum little creature as her grandson.
She did know the tie that bound them, but their natures were as near
akin as the acorn and the oak. In John Jay the man saw his own childhood
with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambitions; while the
boy, looking up to his "Rev'und Gawge" as the highest standard of all
manliness, felt faint stirrings within, of the possibility of such
growth for himself.
Early one morning George sent a message to Sheba, asking that John Jay
might be allowed to spend the day with him and help watch the toll-gate,
while Mars' Nat was in town. That morning still stands out in the boy's
memory, as one of the happiest he ever spent.
Along in the middle of the afternoon, when travel on the turnpike had
almost ceased on account of the heat, George went into his room and lay
down. John Jay sat on the floor of the porch, holding the old hound's
head in his lap, and lazily smoothing its long soft ears. He felt very
important when a wagon rattled up and the toll was dropped into his
fingers. He wished that everybody he knew would ride by and find him
sitting there in charge; but no one else came for more than an hour. It
had seemed as long as ten hours, with nothing to do but slap at the
flies and talk to the sleepy hound. John Jay grinned when he saw the
arrival, for it was a man whom he knew.
"Good evenin', Mistah Boden," he called, eagerly. The man stopped his
horses.
"Hello!" he said. "You're in charge, are you? Where's the rest of the
folks?"
"Mars' Nat, he's gone to town to-day," answered John Jay, proudly. "I'm
keepin' toll-gate this evenin', Mistah Boden."
"So!" exclaimed the man, with a cunning gleam in his little eyes.
"That's the lay of the land, is it?"
Instead of taking out his pocket-book, he threw one foot over his knee,
and began to ask questions in a friendly manner that flattered John Jay.
"Let's see. Your name's Hickman, hain't it?"
"Yessa, John Jay Hickman," answered the boy.
"Yes," drawled the man, gnawing at a plug of tobacco which he took from
his pocket. "I know all about you. Your mammy used to cook for my wife,
and your gran'mammy washed at our house one summer. How is the old
woman, anyhow?"
"She's well, thank you, Mistah Boden," was the pleased answer.
"And then there's that brother of her's--Billy! old Uncle Billy! How's
he getting on?"
"Oh, he's mighty complainin', Mistah Boden; he's got such a misery in
his back all the time that he say he jus' aint got ambition 'nuff to get
out'n his own way."
"Is that so?" was the reply, in a tone of flattering interest. The man
beckoned him with his whip to step closer.
"Look here, boy," he said, in a confidential tone, "it's a mighty lucky
thing for me that Nat Chadwick left you here instead of a stranger.
Every penny of change I started with this morning dropped out through a
hole in my pocket somewhere. I didn't find it out until I got within
sight of the place; then, thinks I to myself, 'oh, it won't make any
difference. Nat and I are old friends; he'll pass me.' I guess you can
do the same, can't you, being as you're in his place, and I'm an old
friend of your family? You needn't say anything about it, and I'll do as
much for you some day."
John Jay looked puzzled. Before he could reply George walked out on the
porch and stood beside him. He bowed to the man politely. "I'll take the
toll, if you please, Mr. Boden. Put up the bar, John."
The man hesitated a moment, then tossed him the change, and gave the
horses a cut with his whip that sent them dashing down the road.
"If he wasn't jus' tryin' to sneak his way through 'thout payin'!"
exclaimed John Jay, indignantly. George made no comment, but John Jay
seemed unable to quit talking about the occurrence. Half an hour later
he broke out again: "He thought 'cause I was jus' a little boy he could
cheat me, an' nobody would evah know the difference. I nevah in all my
life befo' heard tell of anything so mean!"
"Haven't you?" asked George, with such peculiar emphasis and such a
queer little smile that John Jay felt guilty, although he could not have
told why.
"No, I nevah did," he insisted.
George leaned against the door-casing, and looked thoughtfully across
the fields. "There are more turnpikes in life than one, my boy," he said
kindly, "and every one has its toll-gate. There is the road to learning.
I gave up everything to get through that gate, even my health. One
cannot be anything or do anything worth while without paying some sort
of toll. It may be time or strength or hard work or patience, and
sometimes we have to give them all."
"'Peahs like I've nevah struck any such roads in my travellin',"
answered John Jay, carelessly, who often understood George's little
parables far better than he cared to acknowledge.
"But I know one road that you are on now, where you try to slip out of
paying what you owe every day."
John Jay hung his head, and rubbed his bare feet together in embarrassed
silence. If the Reverend George said it was so, it must be so, although
he did not know just what he was hinting at.
"Mr. Boden knows very well," continued George, "that the money that is
paid here goes to keep the road in good condition for him to travel
over. He is very glad to have such a good pike provided for him, but he
wants it for nothing. I know a poor old woman who keeps the road smooth
for somebody. She works early and late, in hot weather and cold, to earn
food and shelter and clothes for somebody; and that somebody eats her
bread, and wears out the clothes, and sleeps under her roof, and never
pays any toll. He owes her thanks and willing service,--all the help he
can give her poor, tired old body, but she never gets even the thanks.
He takes all her drudgery as a matter of course."
John Jay's head dropped lower and lower, as he screwed his toes around
in the dust of the path, mortified and embarrassed. All the whippings of
his life had never stung him so deeply as George's quiet words. He was
used to being scolded for his laziness. He never paid any attention to
that; but to have his "Rev'und Gawge" regard him as dishonest as Mr.
Boden hurt him more than words could express.
Another wagon came rattling up in a cloud of dust. Without waiting to
see the newcomer, he dodged around the corner of the house and ran down
to the barn. A pair of puppies came frisking out ready for a romp, and
an old Maltese cat, stretched out in the sun, stood up and arched its
back at his approach. He took no notice of them, but crawling up into
the hay, threw himself down in a dark corner with his face hidden in his
arms.
Mars' Nat came home after awhile. John Jay could hear Ned putting the
horse into the stall, and throwing the corn into the feed-box. Then
everything was still for a long time. The sun stole through the cracks
of the barn in wide shining streaks, with little motes of dust dancing
up and down in the golden light, but John Jay did not see them. A shadow
darkened the doorway. He did not see that, for his face was still
hidden. There was a step on the barn floor, and a rustling in the hay
beside him; then George's hand rested lightly on his head, and his voice
said, soothingly, "There, there! I wouldn't cry about it."
"Oh, I nevah thought about things that way befo'!" sobbed John Jay.
"I'll nevah sneak out of the work again. I'll tote the wood and watah
'thout waitin' to be asked, an' I'll nevah lick out my tongue at her
behine her back as long as I live!"
George bit his lips to keep from laughing, although he was touched by
the little penitent's distress.
"Do you know why I said such hard things to you?" he asked. "It was to
open your eyes. I want to make a man of you, John Jay. Let me tell you
some things about your grandmother that you have never heard. Her whole
life has been a struggle, and such a very sad one."
John Jay rubbed his shirt sleeve across his eyes and gave a final
snuffle. Some people never have the awakening that came to him that
afternoon. Some people go along all their days with no other thought in
life than to burrow through their own mole-hills. There in the hay, with
the shining dust of the sunbeams falling athwart the old barn floor, the
boy lay and listened. Thoughts that he had no words for, ambitions that
he could not express, yet that filled him with vague longing, seemed to
vibrate along the earnest voice, and tremble from the fulness of
George's heart into his. Even after George stopped talking and began to
whistle softly in the pause that followed, John Jay lay quite still with
his face hidden in his arms.
Ned came in presently, rustling around through the hay after eggs, and
singing at the top of his voice. The sound seemed to bring John Jay back
to his common every-day self. He sat up, grinning as if he had never
heard of such things as tears; but those he had shed must have made his
eyesight clearer. As he slid down from the hay and walked along beside
George, he noticed for the first time how slow and faltering the steps
beside his had grown. As they climbed up the hill to the church, it
seemed to him that the beloved face looked unusually thin and haggard in
the strong light of the sunset.
George did not play long this evening. He knew that the quiet little
listener on the steps bent as readily to the changing moods of his
melody as the clover does to the fitful breezes; so he changed abruptly
from the minor chords that his fingers instinctively reached for, to an
old hymn that smoothed away the pathetic pucker of the boy's forehead.
Then he pulled out the stops and began a loud burst of martial music, so
glad and triumphant, that, listening, one felt all great things possible
of achievement. John Jay stood up, swinging his cap on the end of a
stick which he carried, with all the curves and rythmic motions of a
drum major.
After George came out and locked the door, he stood for a moment looking
out fondly across the peaceful fields, still fair with the fading glow
of the summer sun. John Jay looked too, feeling at the same time the
touch of a caressing hand laid lightly on his bare head, but he could
not see the lips above him that moved in a silent benediction.
When Mammy came home that night, there was wood in the box and water in
the pail. The loose boards lying around the yard had been piled up
neatly, and the paths were freshly swept. All that evening John Jay's
eyes followed her with curious glances whichever way she turned, as if
he found her changed. The change was in John Jay.
Next day, when she came home, she found the same state of affairs. It
was early in the afternoon, and the children were out playing. She hung
up her sun-bonnet, and dropped wearily down into a chair. Then,
remembering a pile of clothes that must be mended before dark, she got
up and began to hunt for her thimble and thread.
"That tawmentin' boy must have lost 'em," she exclaimed, after a vain
search through her work-basket. The clothes were lying on the bed where
she had put them. As she gathered them in her arms the thimble rolled
out, and a spool of thread with a needle sticking in it fell to the
floor.
[Illustration: George came out and locked the door]
She shook out Ivy's little blue dress, and began turning it around to
find the seam that was ripped. It was drawn together with queer
straggling stitches that only the most awkward of fingers could have
made. The white buttons on Bud's shirt-waist had been sewed on with
black thread, and a spot of blood told where somebody's thumb had felt
the sharp thrust of a needle. John Jay's trousers lay at the bottom of
the pile, with a little round, puckered patch of calico on each knee.
The tears came into Mammy's eyes as she saw the boy's poor attempt to
help. "I'se afeerd he's goin' to die," she muttered in alarm. "I
sut'n'ly is. Poah little fellow: he's mighty tryin' to a body's patience
sometimes, an' he's made a mess of this mendin', for suah, but I reckon
he means all right. He's not so onthinkin' an' onthankful aftah all."
She laid the spool and thimble on the window-sill, and folded her hands
to rest awhile. There was a tremulous smile on her careworn old face.
For one day, at least, John Jay had paid his toll.