DAN’S STRATEGY.
“It happened one day while we were at dinner,” replied his mother.
“The Union soldiers had been at work on the levee for two or three
days, and we were expecting the boats through every hour. Godfrey
kept his saddle on his horse night and day, and his weapons close at
hand, so that he could catch them up at any moment. While we were
eating dinner on this particular day, your father, who sat opposite
the window, looked up all of a sudden, and before I could ask him the
reason for his pale face, he was on his feet and out at the door. I
looked through the window, and right here in our lake, and not fifty
yards from the door, was the first gunboat I had ever seen. The
Federals had got through the levee at last, and one of their boats,
being of that sort which don’t make any noise when they run, was right
upon us before we knew it. I don’t know her name to this day, but
she had the figure 9 painted on her pilot house, and I could see the
cannons sticking out of the port-holes. On her upper deck were a lot
of cotton bales placed like breastworks, and behind these cotton bales
were fifty or sixty men, all with muskets in their hands, and watching
and waiting for a chance to shoot at somebody. Well, they found that
chance as soon as your father was fairly out at the door. Two jumps
brought him to his horse which was hitched in the yard, another put him
in the saddle, and in a minute more he was running the gauntlet.”
“Wasn’t it strange that he escaped being hit?”
“It was providential,” replied Mrs. Evans. “I have heard Godfrey
himself say that he could have shot a squirrel’s eye out at the
distance he was from the gunboat. They began to shoot at him as soon
as he left the house, and I sat there and looked through the window
and saw them do it. They fired as fast as they could get a sight at
him, and the guns popped so rapidly that they reminded me of a burning
cane-brake. When they stopped, I managed to get up and go to the door.
There was a big cotton field where this brier patch is now, and it
was half a mile wide. On the other side of it was a rail fence that
ran between the field and the woods, and there I saw Godfrey’s white
horse. I thought at first that Godfrey wasn’t with him, but he was.
He was leaning over and throwing the top rails off the fence. When he
had done that, he straightened up, and seeing me standing in the door,
he waived his hat to let me know that he was safe. Then he jumped his
horse over the fence into the woods, and rode away out of sight.
“At that minute you and Daniel began to cry, and when I turned about
to see what the matter was, I found the road blue with Federals. The
boat had landed in front of the house, and a party was coming off with
an officer. They entered without ceremony, and asked me who it was
that rode off on that white horse, and if I knew where there were any
weapons. I told them that he was my husband and your father, and that
he had taken all the weapons with him. They evidently did not believe
the last statement, for they searched every room in the house, and
tumbled things about at a great rate; but they didn’t break anything,
and all I missed after they were gone was your father’s picture which
he had just had taken for me in Rochdale.
“Having satisfied themselves that there were no weapons in the house,
the sailors went back to the boat, which moved off into the lake, and
went down the Pass toward Coldwater. I was glad when they were gone,
and glad too to be let off so easily, for I had been told that these
gunboat men were awful fellows; but they never troubled us, although we
saw hundreds of them afterward. It was the soldiers that did the damage
and our experience with them began the very next day. A transport
loaded with them came into the lake, and the soldiers camped on our
plantation. When they first came, we had cows, pigs, chickens and milk
and butter; but in less than an hour we had none of these things left,
and but little furniture. They took the rocking-chairs out to sit in
beside their camp-fires, and broke the tables, washstands and bureaus
up into firewood, when there were plenty of fence-rails to be had for
the taking. Then one of them said there wasn’t light enough for them to
eat by, but he’d soon have more, and he did; for he pulled a straw bed
into the middle of one of the rooms and touched a match to it.
“How I lived through that night I don’t know. When morning came the
house was gone and so were the soldiers; and I was turned out of doors
with two little children to take care of. Your father came back as
soon as the soldiers were all out of sight, and threw up a little
brush shantee, that we lived in, until some of the neighbors could get
together and build us some better shelter. They put up this cabin for
us, and after we had time to collect the clothing and furniture the
soldiers had left us, we found that we were not so badly off after all.
But the war was hardly more than half through then, and we had a good
deal to stand before peace was declared. The guerillas came next, and
you see just what they left us. I thought things would go better with
us when your father came home, but somehow they didn’t. Times have been
growing harder instead of better. We’re getting poorer and poorer every
year, and mercy knows what’s going to become of us!”
“Well, it’s one comfort to know that we can’t be much worse off than
we are now,” said David. “It isn’t possible. But keep up a good heart,
mother. I’ve got some news for you, and it’s better than that barrel
business too, for it’s honest. I have a chance to make a hundred and
fifty dollars.”
Mrs. Evans opened her eyes and looked at David without speaking.
“It’s a fact,” said the boy, “and Don Gordon is the one who put me in
the way to do it. You know his father takes lots of papers, and among
them is the _Rod and Gun_, which tells all about fishing and hunting.
Well, Don was reading this paper the other day, and he found in it an
advertisement asking for live quail--fifty dozen of them. He showed it
to me last night, and asked me why couldn’t I catch them and send them
to the man.”
“Who wants them, and what is he going to do with them after he gets
them?” asked Mrs. Evans.
“O, somebody up North wants ’em. Don says they had a hard time up there
last winter. The weather was awful cold, the snow was so deep that
the birds couldn’t get anything to eat, and the quail all died. This
man belongs to some kind of a club--a ‘sportsman’s club,’ I think Don
called it--and he wants these quail to stock the country again. When
he gets them, he’s going to turn them loose and let them go. He offers
three dollars and a half a dozen. Don says it will cost something to
send them there, but that I can make three dollars on every dozen just
as easy as falling off a log. Say, mother, don’t say anything to father
or Dan about it, will you?”
Mrs. Evans promised that she would not.
“You see,” added David, by way of explanation, “they always want me to
divide when I’ve got any money, but they never say a word about sharing
with me when they have any. Besides, what they get never does anybody
any good, not even themselves; and, mother, if I get this hundred and
fifty, I want it to do you some good. You need stockings, and shoes,
and a new dress.”
Mrs. Evans placed her hand tenderly on the boy’s head, and told herself
that if all her family cared as much for her comfort as he did, she
would fare better.
“Do you think you can catch so many?” she asked. “Fifty dozen is a
large number.”
“I know it, but just see what I’ve done already. Last winter, when we
were so poor that nobody would trust us for anything to eat, and we
couldn’t raise money to buy powder and shot to shoot game with, I kept
the family in food, didn’t I?”
Mrs. Evans remembered it perfectly, and knew that providing the family
with something to eat was not all this fifteen year old boy had done
during that hard winter. By the aid of his traps he had kept his mother
comfortably clothed, and it was seldom indeed that he could not produce
a dollar for the purchase of such luxuries as tea and coffee.
“Well,” continued David, “one trap did it all. It caught just as many
quail as we could eat and sell. One day I took twenty-seven out of it.
This winter I shall set a dozen traps, and suppose I catch five a day
in each one of them! If I do, it will take me just ten days to fill the
order.”
“But wouldn’t it first be a good plan to write to this man and make a
bargain with him? Suppose somebody traps and sends him the fifty dozen
before you do?”
“O, that’s all provided for. Don said he would write to the man last
night, and I shall not begin until I hear from him. One hundred and
fifty dollars for the quail, and ten dollars for breaking the pointer.
One hundred and sixty dollars in all. That will help us through the
winter, and if father and Dan would only do something to bring in as
much more, we’d get along well enough. But I must be off to the fields
now, mother. I’ll have a quail for your supper, sure.”
As David said this he took a rusty, single barrel shot gun down from
some hooks over the door, threw a miserable apology for a game bag
over his shoulder, kissed his mother and went out of the cabin. He
unfastened the pointer, and with the animal trotting contentedly at his
heels, made his way through the brier-patch toward the nearest open
field.
“There’s one thing I didn’t tell mother,” thought David, “and that
is, I can get ten dollars just as soon as I have a mind to ask for it.
It will take perhaps two months to break this dog so that he will work
even passably well in the field; but I needn’t wait that long for the
money, because Don told me I could have it whenever I wanted it. You
see he isn’t afraid to trust me. If it wasn’t for the looks of the
thing I’d ask him for it this very afternoon. But I’ll wait a day or
two, and then won’t I astonish mother with the bundle of things I’ll
bring her from the store? Dan and father shan’t see a cent of it, and
neither will I spend any of it on myself. Mother needs it more than
anybody else, and she shall have it all. Hallo!” exclaimed David,
as the little piping note of warning the quail utters when suddenly
disturbed, fell on his ear. “Come here, pup--I declare, I forgot to ask
your master what your name is--come here, and let’s see how much or how
little you know!”
David was standing close beside a fence which ran between the
brier-patch and a stubble-field. He looked over into the field when he
heard the notes of warning, and saw a flock of quails running through
the stubble, and directing their course toward a little thicket of
bushes that grew on the banks of a bayou near by. Had Dan Evans been
there with that shot gun in his hands, he would have blazed away at
once, and could hardly have failed to kill or wound three or four of
the flock, so closely were they huddled together. That was the kind
of a hunter Dan was; but David, having learned what he knew of bird
shooting from Don Gordon, who was a thoroughbred young sportsman, would
have allowed the game to go off scot free before he would have made a
“pot shot” at them. Shooting on the wing requires skill on the part of
the hunter, and gives the game the best chance for its life; and this
was the method David always adopted. He lifted the pup over the fence,
got over himself, and with a waive of his hand and a “Hie on, old boy!”
walked toward the spot where the flock had last been seen.
The dog seemed to understand him perfectly, and was off like a shot. Of
course he would not quarter the ground in obedience to a motion of the
boy’s hand--he had not learned that yet--but he searched the stubble
thoroughly, and when he struck the trail of the running flock, he began
to follow it up like an old dog. Suddenly he stopped and stood as
motionless as if he had been turned into stone. He was pointing a quail
hidden in the stubble almost under his nose. David walked up, flushed
the bird, and when it was in the air stopped it as neatly with his old
rusty gun as any champion shot could have done it. Then the training
of the dog began. He did not drop to shot nor did he come to heel when
ordered to do so; and these things, together with many others, must be
taught him before he could be called an educated bird dog. With perfect
confidence in David’s ability to break him to his owner’s entire
satisfaction, we will leave him to the enjoyment of his afternoon’s
sport, and go back to Godfrey and Dan, whom we left walking down the
road toward the steamboat landing.
“I say, Dan,” exclaimed Godfrey, as soon as they were out of hearing
of David and his mother, “ye wouldn’t mind goin’ over to the gen’ral’s
an’ axin’ some of his niggers fur the loan of a shovel fur a few days,
would ye? We hain’t got nothin’ to dig up that thar bar’l with. Ye
needn’t mind tellin’ what we want it fur, ye know. If anybody axes ye,
ye might say yer mother’s poorly from the fever’n ager, an’ ye want to
dig up some yarbs to make her some tea.”
“All right,” said Dan. “I’ll go.”
“I wish I had a dollar,” continued his father. “Thar’s goin’ to be a
shootin’ match fur beef down to the landin’ this arternoon, an’ if I
could go in, I’d be a’most sartin to win one of the hind-quarters. Thar
hain’t many can beat me shootin’, thar hain’t.”
“I reckon mebbe I mought find a dollar fur ye, if ye’ll promise honor
bright to pay it back to me,” said Dan.
“Ye’ll find a dollar fur me?” exclaimed his father, opening his eyes in
amazement. “Whar?”
“Wal, now, it don’t make no odds to ye whar I git it, so long as I git
it, does it?” asked Dan.
“Nary time,” replied his father, suddenly stopping in the road and
extending his hand to his son. “Ye allers was a good boy, Dannie,
an’ fur downright ’cuteness an’ smartness I’ll match ye agin them
book-larnt fellers up to the gen’ral’s any time. In course it don’t
make no sort of odds to me whar ye git the dollar, nor how ye git it
nuther, so long as ye do git it. Ye ain’t a foolin’ me now?” added
Godfrey, looking suspiciously at his son. It was not often that Dan had
any money of his own, and his offer to lend so large an amount as a
dollar, astonished and perplexed his father, who found it hard work to
persuade himself that his ears had not deceived him.
“No, I hain’t a foolin’ ye,” returned Dan. “Ye go on down to the
landin’ now, an’ when I come thar I’ll have the dollar in my pocket,
an’ the shovel hid away somewhar so’t I can easy find it again.”
“Yer a good boy, Dannie, an’ I’m monstrous proud of yer,” said Godfrey,
once more giving his son’s hand a hearty gripe and shake. “An’, Dannie,
if the time ever comes when----”
Godfrey suddenly paused, while an expression of great astonishment and
even of pain settled on his face.
“Dannie,” said he, in a tone of voice very unlike that he had just used
in addressing his son, “ye hain’t been an’ found that bar’l with the
eighty thousand in it, has yer?”
“No, I hain’t,” replied Dan.
“Kase if ye have, and ye don’t go havers with yer poor ole pop, what’s
fit the Yanks an’ worked so hard to support ye like a gentleman’s
son had oughter be supported, ye’ll be the meanest boy that ever was
wrapped up in ragged clothes, an’ I’ll take the cowhide to ye, big as
ye be!”
“Wal, ye needn’t go to ravin’ that thar way, kase I hain’t found the
bar’l,” said Dan; “if I had, I should have brung it to ye the fust
thing. I didn’t know it was thar till ye told me.”
“I am powerful glad to hear it, Dannie,” said Godfrey, greatly
relieved; “ye’d oughter brung it to me if ye’d found it, kase I’m yer
pop. I’m the oldest an’ know what’s best fur us all, an’ it’s the
properest thing that I should have the dealin’ out of the money when
we gets it. But ye’ll find I won’t be no ways stingy. I’ll dress ye up
like a gentleman, an’ ye shall have a circus hoss too, if ye want one.”
“Now, pop, don’t forget that, will yer?” said Dan, a broad grin
overspreading his face, when he thought how delighted he should feel
if he could only ride about the country as neatly dressed and as well
mounted as Don and Bert Gordon, whom he greatly envied. “An’ I wants
one of them guns what breaks in two in the middle, an’ you shove the
powder an’ shot in behind, ’stead of drivin’ them down with a ramrod.
An’ I want one of them fishpoles that a feller can take all to pieces
an’ carry under his arm, an’ sum of them shiny boots that ye can allers
see yer face in no matter whether ye black ’em or not--sich as Don
wears on Sundays.”
“Ye shall have ’em all, my son,” said Godfrey, encouragingly, “an’
as many more things us ye want. Now here we are at the gen’ral’s
lane. I’ll go on, an’ when I see ye agin I shall look fur that dollar
sartin. I’ll be an awful tuk back, deceived an’ upsot man if I don’t
have a hand in that shootin’ match,” added Godfrey, hoping by the use
of adjectives to convey to Dan’s mind some idea of the intense and
bitter disappointment he should feel if the expected dollar was not
forthcoming.
Dan repeated the promise which he had made so often that he was
tired of it, and the two separated, Godfrey keeping on towards the
landing, while Dan turned up the lane that led toward General Gordon’s
house. The boy made his way at once to the barn, and there found a
negro hostler, who, after listening to his request, brought out a
shovel, which he handed to Dan with many injunctions to be careful
of it, and to return it the minute he was done using it. Dan readily
promised, and, wondering what the hostler would think if he knew that
the implement was to be used to unearth some of the general’s buried
wealth, leaned the shovel up in one corner where he could find it again
when he wanted it. Then placing his rifle beside it, he bent his steps
toward the house, and passing around one of the wings, in which he
knew the boys’ room was located, discovered Bert Gordon sitting by an
open window reading a book.
“Hello, Dan,” said the latter, “are you looking for any one?”
“I come over to see Mr. Don,” said Dan, touching his hat respectfully
and being very careful to put in the mister. Dan was always very polite
when he had an object in view.
“He’s gone off somewhere--down to the landing, I think,” said Bert;
“can I do anything for you?”
“I reckon,” replied Dan, “Mr. Bert, if ye please, sar, Dave axed me
would I come up here an’ ax Mr. Don would he give him five of the ten
dollars he promised him fur breakin’ that pinter pup, now.”
“Um!” said Bert, somewhat surprised at the request. “Why didn’t David
come himself?”
“Wal, ye see, he hated fur to pester ye. Kase you’ns has allers been so
good to us, an’ we’re so dog-gone poor that we hain’t got no money to
buy a new dress fur mother.”
“Oh!” said Bert, throwing down his book and jumping to his feet. “I
haven’t so much money of my own, but perhaps I can borrow it of mother.”
He disappeared as he ceased speaking, while Dan stood chuckling over
his good fortune, and hardly able to restrain himself, so delighted was
he at the success of his stratagem.
“In course he’ll get it of his mother,” said Dan, “he’d get her head
if he axed fur it. Didn’t I tell the ole man that I’d give him that
dollar? I reckon we can both go to that shootin’ match now. Sarvent,
Mr. Bert; much obliged to ye, sar,” he added aloud, as the boy came
down the steps at that moment and handed him a crisp, new five-dollar
bill; “if we an’ Dave can ever do ye a good turn, I hope ye’ll call on
us.”
Bert said he would, and went back to his chair and his book, while Dan
retraced his steps to the stable, picked up the shovel and his rifle,
and went out into the lane. The shovel he hid in a fence corner, taking
care to mark the spot so that he could find it again in the dark, if
necessity should require it, and then shouldered his rifle and turned
toward the landing. The money he carried in his hand, and feasted his
eyes on it as he walked along. He could not admire it enough. He had
owned but few bills so large as this in his lifetime, and he thought
them the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
“I must make it go as fur as I can,” said he, to himself, “an’ I must
have the other one, too. How am I goin’ to get it, I wonder? Mother
can’t want another new dress right away, in course not; but she can be
tuk awful sick with the ager, an’ want some money to buy some store
tea, an’ we hain’t got none to give her. Won’t Dave jaw though when he
finds it out? Who keers! He spends every cent he gits fur mother, an’
I reckon me an’ pop has a right to some of it. Pop’ll be awful oneasy
to find out whar I got it, but if I tell him he’ll go back an’ get the
other hisself; so I won’t tell him. I must get it broke too at the
store afore I see him; kase if he knows I’ve got so much, mebbe he’ll
want it all. ’Tain’t best to trust pop too fur.”
Perhaps the reader will now see why Dan was so anxious that his
father should not prevent David from promising to break Don Gordon’s
pointer. He wanted those ten dollars very badly, had made up his mind
to have them; and now that he had half the amount in his pocket, he
was supremely happy. He had robbed his brother, and abused Bert’s
confidence, but those were matters that did not trouble him in the
least. He had the money, and that was all he cared for.