THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
_AND OTHER TALES OF CHILDHOOD_
_BY_
JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by F. Y. Cory_
❦
MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
NEW YORK
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
1901, by Harper & Bros.
1900, 1901 and 1902, by S. S. McClure Co.
❦
_Published, March, 1902_
SECOND IMPRESSION
_To my Father
kindest of many kind critics
these stories are
dedicated_
❦
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
❦
PAGE
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP 1
A STUDY IN PIRACY 31
BOBBERT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS 69
THE HEART OF A CHILD 95
ARDELIA IN ARCADY 119
EDGAR, THE CHOIR BOY UNCELESTIAL 153
THE LITTLE GOD AND DICKY 191
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
[Illustration: “_Checking her vivid denunciations by a judicious
application of the pillow._”]
His mother, being a woman of perception, realized early that something
was wrong. Even before breakfast she found Philip trying to put his
sister into the bolster case, checking her vivid denunciations by a
judicious application of the pillow. After breakfast it was impossible
to get him ready in time, as his rubbers had been hidden by a revengeful
sister, and the bus was kept waiting fully five minutes, to the
irritation of the driver, who made up the lost interval by a rapid pace.
This jolted the children about, and frightened the youngest ones, so
that they arrived at the kindergarten bumped and breathless, and only
too disposed to take offense at the first opportunity. This opportunity
Philip supplied. As they swarmed out of the bus he irritated Joseph
Zukoffsky by a flat contradiction of his pleased statement that he was
to lead the line into the house.
“Oh, no, you ain’t!” said Philip.
Joseph stared and reiterated his assertion Philip again denied it. He
did nothing to prevent Joseph from assuming the head of the line, but
his tone was most exasperating, and Joseph sat down on the lowest step
of the bus and burst into angry tears—he was not a person of strong
character.
Some of the more sympathetic children joined their tears to his, and the
others disputed violently if vaguely; they lacked a clear idea of the
difficulty, but that fact did not prevent eager partisanship. Two
perplexed teachers quieted the outbreak and marshaled a wavering line,
one innocently upholding Philip to the disgusted group, “because he
walks along so quietly,” the other supporting Joseph, whose shoulders
heaved convulsively as he burst out into irregular and startling sobs.
It was felt that the day had begun inauspiciously.
They sat down on the hall floor and began to pull off their rubbers and
mufflers. As Philip’s eye fell to the level of his feet a disagreeable
association stirred his thoughts, and in a moment it had taken definite
form: his rubbers had been stolen and hidden! His under lip crept slowly
out; a distinctly dangerous expression grew in his eyes; he looked
balefully about him. Marantha Judd pirouetted across his field of
vision, vainglorious in a new plaid apron with impracticable pockets.
Her pigtails bobbed behind her. She had just placed her diminutive
rubbers neatly parallel, and was attaching the one to the other with a
tight little clothes-pin provided for the purpose.
[Illustration: “_Tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk._”]
Casually, and as if unconscious that Marantha was curiosity incarnate,
Philip took his own clothes-pin and adjusted it to his nose. It gave him
an odd and, to Marantha, a distinguished appearance, and she inquired of
him if the sensations he experienced were pleasurable. His answer
expressed unconditional affirmation, and unclasping her clothes-pin
Marantha snapped it vigorously over her own tip-tilted little feature. A
sharp and uncompromising tweak was the result, and Marantha, shrieking,
tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk that sent little Richard Willetts
reeling against his neighbor. Out of the confusion—Richard was a
timorous creature, and fully convinced that the entire kindergarten
meditated continual assault upon his small person—rose the chiding voice
of Marantha:
“You are a bad, _bad_ boy, Philup, you are!”
To her tangled accusations the bewildered teacher paid scant heed.
“I can’t see why all you little children find so much fault with
Philip,” she said reprovingly. “What if he did put his clothes-pin on
his nose? It was a foolish thing to do, but why need you do it? _You_
have made more trouble than he, Marantha, for you frightened little
Richard!”
Marantha’s desperation was dreadful to witness. She realized that her
vocabulary was hopelessly inadequate to her situation: she knew herself
unable to present her case effectively, but she felt that she was the
victim of a glaring injustice. Her chin quivered, she sank upon the
stairs, and her tears were even as the tears of Joseph Zukoffsky.
The youngest assistant now appeared on the scene.
“Miss Hunt wants to know why you’re so late with them,” she inquired.
“She hopes nothing’s the matter. Mrs. R. B. M. Smith is here to-day to
visit the primary schools and kindergartens, and——”
“Oh, goodness!” the attempted consolation of Marantha ceased abruptly.
“I can’t _bear_ that woman! She’s always read Stanley Hall’s _last_
article that proves that what he said before was wrong! Come along,
Marantha, and don’t be a foolish little girl any longer. We shall be
late for the morning exercise.”
Upstairs a large circle was forming under the critical scrutiny of a
short, stout woman with crinkly, gray hair. They took their places,
Marantha pink-nosed and mutinous, Joseph not yet recovered from a
distressing tendency to burst out into gulping sobs—he was naturally
pessimistic and treasured his grievances indefinitely. Philip’s eyes
were fixed upon the floor.
“Now what shall we sing?” inquired the principal briskly. “I think we
will let Joseph choose, because he doesn’t look very happy this bright
morning. Perhaps we can cheer him up.”
[Illustration: “_Marantha ... upheld Joseph with all her powers of heart
and voice._”]
In a husky voice Joseph suggested “My heart is God’s little garden.” In
reply to Miss Hunt’s opening question Eddy Brown had proposed “Happy
greeting to the rain,” a sufficiently maudlin request, as there was
absolutely no indication of that climatic condition, past, present, or
future. Eddy possessed the not unusual combination of a weak mind and a
strong voice, and though the piano prelude was that of Joseph’s choice,
the effect of a voice near him starting the well-known air of his own
suggestion was overwhelming, and Eddy began shouting it lustily.
Marantha, whose susceptibilities were, like those of others of her sex,
distinctly sharpened by suffering, knew well enough who was responsible
for the rival chorus, and upheld Joseph with all her powers of heart and
voice. The tunes in question were, like many of the kindergarten
repertoire, somewhat similar, and a few seconds of chaotic discords
amazed Mrs. R. B. M. Smith and vexed the teachers.
Now see on what slight thread events are strung! What she innocently
supposed to be a misunderstanding of the song selected, influenced one
of the teachers to announce the subsequent songs herself. This led Mrs.
R. B. M. Smith to suppose that the teacher was selecting all the songs,
thus depriving the children of the divine, not to say formative,
privilege of individual choice. This opinion, in turn, led her to beckon
one of the assistants to her and describe her own system of awakening
and continuing, by a ceaseless series of questions, the interested
coöperation of the child’s intelligence. In order to do this, she added,
the subjects of song and story must be more simple than was possible if
complex historical incidents were used. She indicated her willingness to
relate to the children a model story of this order, calling the
teachers’ attention in advance to the almost incredible certainty that
would characterize the children’s anticipation of the events thus
judiciously and psychologically selected.
The arm-chairs shortly to contain so much accurate anticipation were
ranged neatly on both sides of the long room. Some malefic influence
caused the officiating teacher to appoint Philip to lead one-half of the
circle to the chairs and Marantha the other. More than one visitor had
been wont to remark the unanimity with which this exercise was
performed. Each child grasped his little chair by the arms, and holding
it before him, carried it to its appointed place in the circle. So well
had they learned this manœuver that the piano chords were sufficient
monitors, and the three teachers, having seen the line safely started,
gathered around their visitor to hear more of the theory.
[Illustration: “_The effect was inexpressibly indiscreet._”]
Under what obsession Philip labored, with what malignant power he had
made pact, is unknown. He had no appearance of planning darkly: his
actions seemed the result of instantaneous inspiration. Standing before
his chair as if about to take his seat, he subsided partially; then,
grasping the arms, half bent over, he waddled toward the circle. This
natural method of transportation commended itself in a twinkling to his
line, and without the slightest disturbance or hesitation, they imitated
him exactly. Experience should have taught Marantha the futility of
following his example, but she was of an age when experience appeals but
slightly; and determined to excel him, at the risk of falling at every
step on her already injured nose, she bent over so far that the legs of
her chair pointed almost directly upward. Her line followed her, and
waddling, shuffling, gnome-like, they made for the circle. It had all
the effect of a carefully inculcated drill, and to Mrs. R. B. M. Smith
the effect was inexpressibly indiscreet.
“Is it possible that you—” she inquired, pointing to the advancing
children, many of whom promptly fell over backward under the sudden
onslaught of the horrified teachers.
Miss Hunt colored angrily.
“Something is the matter with the school to-day,” she said sharply. “I
never knew them to behave so in my life! I can’t see what’s come over
them! They _always_ carry their chairs in front of them.”
“I should hope so,” responded the visitor placidly, “nothing could be
worse for them than that angle.”
“At least they’re safe now,” the youngest assistant whispered to her
fellow-teacher, as the children sat decorously attentive in their
chairs, their faces turned curiously toward the strange lady with the
fascinating plumes in her bonnet.
“——Nothing like animals to bring out the protective instinct—feebler
dependent on the stronger,” she concluded rapidly, and then addressed
the objects of these theories.
[Illustration: “_Sneezed loudly and unexpectedly._”]
“Now, children, I’m going to tell you a nice story—you all like stories,
I’m sure.”
At just that moment little Richard Willetts sneezed loudly and
unexpectedly to all, himself included, with the result that his
ever-ready suspicion fixed upon his neighbor, Andrew Halloran, as the
direct cause of the convulsion. Andrew’s well-meant efforts to detach
from Richard’s vest the pocket-handkerchief securely fastened thereto by
a large, black safety-pin strengthened the latter’s conviction of
intended assault and battery, and he squirmed out of the circle and made
a dash for the hall—the first stage in an evident homeward expedition.
This broke in upon the story, and even when it got under way again there
was an atmosphere of excitement quite unexplained by the tale itself.
[Illustration: “’_Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do
you think I saw?_’”]
“Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, _what_ do you think I
saw?” The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that
Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested:
“An el’phunt!”
“Why, no! Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It wasn’t _nearly_ so
big as that—it was a _little_ thing!”
“A fish!” ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the
corner. The _raconteuse_ smiled patiently.
“Why, no! How could a fish, a live fish, get in my front yard?”
“A dead fish?” persisted Eddy, who was never known to relinquish
voluntarily an idea.
“It was a little kitten,” said the story-teller, decidedly. “A little
white kitten. She was standing right near a great big puddle of water.
And what else do you think I saw?”
“Another kitten?” suggested Marantha conservatively.
“No, a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water.
Now cats don’t like the water, do they? They don’t like a wet place.
What do they like?”
“Mice!” said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly.
“Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I’m sure you
know what I mean. If they don’t like _water_, what do they like?”
“Milk!” cried Sarah Fuller confidently.
“They like a dry place,” said Mrs. R. B. M. Smith.
“Now what do you suppose the dog did?” It may be that successive
failures had disheartened the listeners; it may be that the very range
presented alike to the dog and them for choice dazzled their
imaginations. At any rate they made no answer.
“Nobody knows what the dog did?” repeated the story-teller
encouragingly. “What would you do if you saw a little white kitten like
that?”
Again a silence. Then Philip remarked gloomily:
“I’d pull its tail.”
Even this might have been passed over had not the youngest assistant,
who had not yet lost her sense of humor, giggled convulsively. This,
though unnoticed by the visitor, was plainly observed by fully half the
children, with the result that when Mrs. R. B. M. Smith inquired
pathetically,
“And what do the rest of you think? I hope _you_ are not so cruel as
that little boy!” a jealous desire to share Philip’s success prompted
the quick response:
“_I’d_ pull it, too!”
Miss Hunt was oblivious to the story, which finished somehow, the dog
having done little, and the kitten, if anything, less. She was lost in a
miserable wonder what was the matter with them? Alas! she could not know
that the root of all the evil was planted in the breast of Philip, the
demon-ridden. His slightest effort was blessed with a success beyond his
hopes. He had but to raise his finger, and his mates rallied all
unconsciously to his support. Nor did he require thought; on the instant
diabolical inspiration seized him, and his conception materialized
almost before he had grasped it himself. The very children of light were
made to minister unto him, as in the case of his next achievement.
With a feeling of absolute safety the teacher called upon Eddy Brown to
lead the waiting circle in a game. Eddy was one of the stand-bys of the
kindergarten. He was a little old for it, but being incapable of
promotion owing to his inability to grasp the rudiments of primary work,
he continued to adorn his present sphere. It would almost seem that
Fröbel had Eddy Brown in mind in elaborating his educational schemes,
for his development, according to kindergarten standards, was so
absolutely normal as to verge on the extraordinary. He was never
_ennuyé_, never cross, never disobedient. He never anticipated; he never
saw what you meant before you said it; he never upset the system by
inventing anything whatsoever—the vice of the too active-minded. He was
perennially surprised at the climaxes of the stories, passionately
interested in the games; and clay balls and braided straw represented
his wildest dissipations. He sat in his chair till he was told to rise,
and remained standing till he was urged to take his seat. His voice, if
somewhat off the key, was always prominent in song; his feet, if not
always in time, were always in evidence when it was a question of
marching.
To-day he took the middle of the ring and beamed cheerfully on them all
as they swayed back and forth and sang to him:
_Now_ Eddie _if you’ll_ teach _us_
_A_ new _game to_ play,
_We’ll_ watch _you and_ try _to_
_Do_ just _as you_ say!
There was a slight poetic exaggeration in the idea of Eddy Brown’s being
able to teach anybody anything new, but this was felt by no one but the
youngest assistant, who, recalling his regular programme upon such
occasions, smiled somewhat sardonically.
[Illustration: “’_Tripping lightly as we go._’”]
As she had expected, Eddy inclined to play “Tripping lightly as we go.”
His conception of the process implied in the song was a laborious
jumping up on one toe and down on the other. This exercise he would keep
up till the crack of doom if undiverted from it. When induced to stop,
he signalled to Joseph Zukoffsky to take his place. Joseph, on being
tunefully implored to produce something new in the way of a game,
declared for “Did you ever see a laddie?” and the ring started in
blithely:
_Did you_ ever _see a_ laddie, _a_ laddie, _a_ laddie;
_Did you_ ever _see a_ laddie, _do_ this _way or_ that?
After some seconds of consideration Joseph solemnly lifted his left heel
from the floor and replaced it. This enthralling diversion occupied the
ring for a moment, and then Marantha was summoned. Though plump as a
partridge, Marantha was born for the ballet.
“Did you _ever_ see a _lassie_, a _lassie_, a _lassie_,” sang the
children as Marantha, arching her little instep and pointing her toe
deliciously, kicked out to one side, almost as high as her waist, with a
rhythmical precision good to see.
[Illustration: “_Marantha was born for the ballet_.”]
Her eyes sought Philip’s, and with a coy little smile, she took his hand
to lead him to the centre. Too many poets and novelists have analyzed
the inevitable longing of woman to allure him who scorns her charms, the
pathetic passion to attract where she has been brutally repulsed, to
make it necessary for me to discuss her attempted endearments as Philip
sulkily flung away her hand.
Just then somebody wanted a drink; and as one teacher led the thirsty
child away, and the other turned her head to attract the pianist’s
attention and propose a new tune, Philip, who had not begun to set his
model till the last moment, suddenly lifted his thumb to his nose,
contracting and expanding his fingers in strict time.
Her rapid glance had shown the teacher a ring of children apparently
tapping their noses, and only a horrified snort from Mrs. R. B. M. Smith
and a murmured “_Heavens!_” from the returning assistant called her
attention to the circle of children gravely assuming an attitude
prescribed nowhere in Fröbel, nor, indeed, in any system, social or
Delsartean.
Philip, now utterly abandoned to the spirit of successful deviltry that
intoxicated him beyond control, danced up and down, inviting one, two,
and three out of the demoralized ring to share his orgy. They pranced
about wildly, shouting snatches of song, pushing each other, deaf to the
shocked remonstrance of the teachers, while in their midst, flushed and
screaming, Philip and Marantha, satyr and bacchante, leaped high in the
air.
[Illustration: “_Leaped high in the air._”]
In the door there suddenly appeared a woman in a checked apron with a
shawl over her head. As the teachers pulled the ring-leaders apart, and
the pianist, to a shocked murmur of remonstrance, played Träumerei with
the soft pedal down, while a circle of flushed and palpitating “little
birds” rocked themselves to sleep with occasional reminiscent giggles
and twitters, the woman in the door advanced to a little bird whose
chief interest, as he ruffled his gingham plumage, seemed to be to evade
an obviously maternal call.
“Philup, ye bad boy, where’s the carvin’ knife?” she said angrily. This
was too much for the youngest assistant, who went off into something
very like hysteria, while the principal tried to explain the inevitable
bad effect of shocks and slaps upon the delicate organization of the
child.
“An’ it’s beggin’ y’r pardon, Miss, but it’s a rale imp o’ Satan he’ll
be some days, like, an’ I see it in his eye this marnin’! An imp o’
Satan!”
The principal smiled deprecatingly. “We don’t like to hear a child
called that,” she said, gently. “Philip has not been so good as usual
this morning——”
[Illustration: “_Philup, ye bad boy, where’s the carvin’ knife?_”]
“Ye may say so!” interrupted Philip’s parent. “An’ whin it’s that way he
is, it’s little good soft words’ll do, Miss. He gets it from his father.
An’ me not able to cut the mate fer his father’s dinner! He’s a sly
young one! It’s a good spankin’ he needs, Miss—an’ he’ll get it, too!”
“Take her into the hall with him. Tell her not to spank him. Tell her
we’ll punish him. We understand how to make him sorry,” murmured the
principal to the youngest assistant, as she turned to quiet the circle.
The youngest assistant conducted Philip’s mother, and dragged Philip to
the hall.
“Now, Philip, tell your mother where you hid the carving knife,” she
said invitingly. Philip made a break for the outer door. He was caught
and reasoned with. Incidentally his naughtiness in leading the game was
mentioned. His mother set her jaw and loosened her shawl.
“An’ that’s what ye did, ye bad boy? What did I say the last time I see
ye at it? Dirty thrick! You come here to me, sir!”
Philip kicked violently and pinched the youngest assistant. Her lips
assumed the set expression of the other woman’s. The light of
generations of Philistine mothers kindled in her eye. As Philip
struggled silently but wildly, the voice of Mrs. R. B. M. Smith, high
and resonant, floated through the transom.
“And so we never strike a little child, Joseph, and you must never talk
about it. His mother and Miss Ethel are going to _talk_ with little
Philip, and try to make him see——”
Philip ducked under his mother’s arm and almost gained the door. The
youngest assistant caught him by his apron-string and towed him back.
His mother looked around hastily, noticed a small door half open, and
caught the youngest assistant’s eye.
“Cellar?” she inquired.
The youngest assistant nodded, and as his mother lifted Philip bodily
and made for the little door, it was opened for her and closed after her
by the only other person in the hall.
His mother carried Philip to the coal-heap, and upon it she sat and
spanked her son—spanked him systematically, and after an ancient method
upon which civilization has been able to make few if any improvements.
She had never read that excellent work, “Child Culture, or
[Illustration: “_It was opened for her and closed after her._”]
How shall we Train our Mothers?” (R. B. M. Smith).
Soon she led him in, subdued and remorseful, the demon expelled, to the
principal.
[Illustration: “_Spanked him systematically._”]
“He’ll throuble ye no more, Miss, an’ the carvin’ knife is underneath
th’ bolster av his bed—the bad ’un that he is!”
“Now that Philip is good again—and you see how quiet he was out in the
hall; I told you he was thinking very hard—we’ll all sing a song to show
how glad we are, and he shall choose it. What would Philip like to
sing?”
Philip murmured huskily that his heart was God’s little garden, and
there was more joy over him than over the two dozen that needed no
repentance.
But the youngest assistant avoided Mrs. R. B. M. Smith’s eye, for _she_
had opened the cellar door!
[Illustration: “_Murmured huskily that his heart was God’s little
garden._”]
A STUDY IN PIRACY
It might not have occurred to you to find the Head Captain terrible to
look upon, had you seen him first without his uniform. There seems to be
something essentially pacific in the effect of a broad turn-over gingham
collar, a blue neck-ribbon, and a wide straw hat; and you might be
pardoned for thinking him a rather mild person. But could you have
encountered him in a black cambric mask with pinked edges, a broad sash
of Turkey red wound tightly about his waist, and that wide collar
_turned up_ above his ears—the tie conspicuous for its absence—you might
have sung another tune. His appearance was at such a time nothing short
of menacing.
The Lieutenant was distinctly less impressive. His sash, though not so
long as the Head Captain’s, was forever coming untied and trailing
behind him, and as he often retreated rapidly, he stumbled and fell over
it twice out of three times. This gave it a draggled and spiritless
look. Moreover, he was not allowed to turn his collar up except on
Saturdays, and the one his sister had made him from wrapping paper had
an exotic, not to say amateur theatrical, effect that was far from
convincing. The eye-holes in his mask, too, were much too large—showing,
indeed, the greater part of both cheeks, each of which was provided with
a deep dimple. Seen in the daytime, he was not—to speak
confidentially—very awesome.
As for the Vicar—well, there were obstacles in the way of her presenting
such an appearance as she would have liked. In the first place, there
was not enough Turkey red to go evenly round, and to her disgust she had
been obliged to put up with a scant three-quarters of a yard—not a wide
strip at that. What was by courtesy called the Vicar’s waist was not far
from three-quarters of a yard in circumference, which fact compelled her
to strain her sash tightly in order to be able to make even a small hard
knot, to say nothing of bows and ends. She had no collar of any kind—her
frocks were gathered into bands at the neck—and she was not allowed to
imitate the Lieutenant’s; who, though generally speaking a mush of
concession, held out very strongly for this outward and visible sign of
a presumable inward and spiritual superiority. So the Vicar, in a wild
attempt at masculinity, had privately borrowed a high linen collar of
her uncle. The shirts in her uncle’s drawer had printed inside them,
“_wear a seventeen-and-a-half collar with this shirt_,” so you will not
be surprised to learn that the Vicar occasionally fell into the collar,
so to speak, and found herself most effectually muzzled.
[Illustration: _The Vicar._]
But the worst was her mask. Her hair came down in a heavy bang almost to
her straight brown eyebrows; her round, brown eyes were somewhat
shortsighted; her eye-holes were too small. In consequence of these
facts, whenever it was desirable or necessary to see an inch before her
nose she was obliged to push the mask up over her bang, when it waved
straight out and up, and looked like some high priest’s mitre.
Her title was due to her uncle, who, to do him justice, was as innocent
of his influence in the matter as of the loss of his collar.
“When a person isn’t the head of the Pirates, but is an officer just the
same, and has some say about things, what do you call that?” she asked
him abruptly one day. He was reading at the time, and not unnaturally
understood her to say “the head of the parish.”
“Why, that’s called a vicar, I suppose you mean,” he answered.
“A vicker! Does he have some say?”
“Some _say_?”
“Yes”—impatiently—“some say. He hasn’t got to do the way the others tell
him _all_ the time, has he?”
“Oh, dear, no. Don’t you know Mr. Wright, down at the chapel? He’s
called the vicar. He really manages it, I think. Of course it’s not like
being the rector——”
“Chapel? Is that the only kind of vicker, like Mr. Wright?”
“Why, of course not, silly! There are lots of different kinds.”
“Oh!” and she retired, practising the word. The others were much
impressed by her cleverness in discovering such a fascinating title. It
savored of _wicked_ and _villain_, to begin with; and pursuing the
advantage of their previous ignorance of it, she invented several
privileges and perquisites of the office, which to deny would argue
their lack of information on the subject, a thing she knew they would
never own.
One of these was the right to summon the band, when the Head Captain had
decided on an expedition, to any meeting-place she saw fit; and though
in a great many ways her superiors found her a nuisance, the Lieutenant
in particular objecting in a nagging, useless sort of way to most of her
suggestions, they could not but admit that her selection of mysterious,
unsuspected _rendezvous_ was often brilliantly original.
[Illustration: “_Crouching along beneath the perches._”]
On one especial occasion, a warm afternoon late in June, when the houses
and yards were all quiet, and the very dogs lay still in the shade, the
Vicar led them softly to the chicken yard, mystified them by crawling
through a broken glass frame into the covered roost, crouching along
beneath the perches, and going out again by the legitimate door without
stopping to speak. This effectually silenced the Lieutenant—the chicken
house seemed an old ruse to him, and he was sniffing in preparation for
the expression of his opinion. Out across the yard and twice around an
enormous hogshead they walked solemnly. Such a prelude must mean a great
_finale_, and the Head Captain felt decidedly curious. The Vicar paused,
made a short detour for the purpose of getting two empty boxes, piled
them one on the other, and lightly swung herself into the cask. A loud
thud announced her safe arrival at the bottom, and flushed with delight
at the incomparable secrecy of the thing, the Head Captain followed her.
The Lieutenant, grumbling as usual, and very nearly hanging himself in
his sash, which caught on the edge, tumbled after, and standing close
together in the great barrel they grinned consciously at each other.
The Head Captain broke the silence.
“Are we all here?” he demanded, his voice waking strange and hollow
echoes.
“Yes!” replied the Vicar delightedly, bursting with pride.
“Aye, aye!” said the Lieutenant with careful formality.
“Then listen here!” the Head Captain spoke in a hoarse whisper. “This’ll
be a diff’rent way. This is going to be the real thing. To-day _we’re
going to steal_!”
The Vicar gasped. “Really steal?” she whispered.
“Steal what?” said the Lieutenant with a non-committal gruffness.
“I don’t know till I get there,” replied the Head Captain grandly.
“Gold, I suppose, or treasures or something like that. Of course, if
we’re caught——”
The Lieutenant sucked in his breath with a peculiar whistling noise—one
of his most envied accomplishments—and ran his finger-nail with a
grating sound around his side of the barrel.
“Jim Elder stole some apples from my father’s barn, and my father licked
him good,” he suggested.
“Apples! Apples!” The Head Captain frowned terribly, adding with biting
irony: “I s’pose Jim Elder’s a Pirate! I s’pose he wears a uniform! I
s’pose he knows the ways this gang knows! I s’pose he meets in a barrel
like this! Huh?”
There was no answer, and the Head Captain settled his mask more firmly.
“Come on!” he said.
They looked at the sharp edge of the hogshead; it was far away. They
looked inquiringly at the Vicar; she dropped her eyes. Oh, Woman, in
your hours of ease you can devise fine secret places, you can lead us to
them, but can you bring us back to the outer world and the reality you
seduced us from? There was an embarrassing pause. The seconds seemed
hours. Would they die in this old, smelly barrel?
The Head Captain smiled to himself.
“I guess you kids never’d git out o’ here unless I showed you how!” he
remarked cheerfully.
“Forward! March!” He took the one step possible, and scowled because
they did not follow him.
“Don’t you see?” he said irritably. “When I say ‘three,’ fall over. Now,
one—two—_three_!”
He pushed the Lieutenant and the Vicar against the side of the barrel,
and precipitated himself against them. The barrel wavered, tottered, and
fell with a bang on its side, the subordinate officers jouncing and
gasping, unhappy cushions for their Head Captain, who crawled out over
them, adjusted his collar, and strode off across the chicken yard. At
the gate they caught up with him.
[Illustration: “’_Now, one—two—three!_’”]
“Lieutenant!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Go straight ahead and watch out for us. Whistle three times if the
coast is clear. Beware of—of anything you see!”
[Illustration: “_A peculiar caution in the slope of his shoulders._”]
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The Lieutenant slunk off, a peculiar caution in the slope of his
shoulders and his long, noiseless stride. He rounded the barn and
disappeared from sight. There was a moment of suspense. Suddenly he
appeared again, his hand raised warningly.
“_Sst, sst!_” he hissed.
Promptly they skipped behind the woodhouse door. In a moment a man’s
footsteps were audible; somebody was swinging by the barn, whistling as
he went. He called out to the cook as he went by: “Pretty hot, ain’t it?
Hey! I say it’s pretty hot!”
He was gone. He had absolutely no idea of their presence. The first of
the delicious thrills had begun. The Lieutenant, from his post behind
the barn door, could have leaned out and touched him, but he had no
idea. From that moment the scenery changed. The yard was enchanted
ground, the buildings strange and doubtful, the stretches between haven
and haven full of dangers.
Presently three soft whistles broke the silence. They glided out around
the barn, and scaled the first fence. The Head Captain stopped to
caution, the Lieutenant became hopelessly complicated in his sash, so
the Vicar got over first. Though plump, she was light on her feet, and
had been known to push the others over in her nervous haste; she threw
herself upon a solid board fence in an utterly reckless way, striking
the top flat on her stomach, and sliding, slipping down the other side.
Her method, thoroughly ridiculous and unscientific as it was, invariably
succeeded, and she usually waited a few seconds for them after picking
herself up. When one climbs after the most approved fashion, employing
as few separate motions as possible, making every one tell, the result
of such slippery, panting scrambles as the Vicar’s is particularly
irritating. The success of the amateur is never pardonable.
[Illustration: “_She threw herself over a solid board fence in an
utterly reckless way._”]
“Which way, Head Captain?”
A dusty forefinger indicated the neighboring barn.
“Secret way or door?”
“Secret way.”
They cast hurried glances about them: nobody was in sight. At the corner
of the barn the Lieutenant again performed scout duty, and his three
whistles brought them to a back entrance hardly noticeable to the chance
explorer of stable yards—a low door into a disused cow-house.
Softly they stole in, softly peeped into the barn. It lay placid and
empty, smelling of leather and hay and horses, with barrels of grain all
about, odd bits of harness, and tins of wagon grease, wisps of straw,
and broken tools scattered over the floor. Broad bands of sunlight
streaked everything. They crept through a lane of barrels, and mounted a
rickety stair, heart in mouth. Who might be at the top?
A moment’s pause, and then the Head Captain nodded.
“All right, men,” he breathed.
They went carefully through the thick hay that strewed the upper floor,
avoiding the cracks and pits that loosened boards and decayed planking
offered the unwary foot. With unconscious directness the Lieutenant
turned to the great pile of hay that usually marked the end of this
expedition, but the Head Captain frowned and passed by the short ladder
that led to the summit. He pushed through an avenue of old machinery,
crawled over two old sleighs and under a grindstone frame, and emerged
into a dim, almost empty corner.
The heat of the hay was intense. The stuffy, dry smell of it filled
their nostrils. Where the bright, wide ray of sunlight fell from the
little window in the apex, the air was seen to be dancing and
palpitating with millions of tiny particles that kept up a continuous
churning motion. The perspiration dripped from the Vicar’s round cheeks;
she panted with the heat.
Walking on his tiptoes, the Head Captain sought the darkest depths of
the corner, stumbling over an old covered chest. He stopped, he put his
hand on the lid. The two attendant officers gasped. The Head Captain,
with infinite caution, lifted that lid.
Suddenly a dull, echoing crash shook the floor. The Vicar squeaked in
nervous terror. I say squeaked, because with grand presence of mind the
Lieutenant smothered her certain scream in the folds of his ever-ready
sash, and only a faint chirp disturbed the deathly silence that followed
the crash. The Head Captain’s hand trembled, but he held the cover of
the chest and waited. Again that hollow boom, followed by a rustling, as
of hay being dragged down, and a champing, swallowing, gurgling sound.
[Illustration: “_Smothered her certain scream in the folds of his
ever-ready sash._”]
“Nothin’ but the horses,” whispered the Lieutenant, removing his sash.
“Shut up, now!”
The Vicar breathed again. The Head Captain bent over the chest.
“Oh! Oh! Oh, fellows! Look a-here!” His voice shook. His eyes stared
wide. They crept nearer and caught big breaths.
There in the old chest, carelessly thrown together, uncovered,
unprotected, lay a glittering wealth of strange gold and silver
treasures. Knobs, cups, odd pierced, shallow saucers, countless rings as
big as small cookies, plain bars of metal, heavy rods.
The Head Captain’s eyes shone feverishly, he breathed quick.
“Here, here, here!” he whispered, and thrust his hands into the box. He
ladled out a handful to the Vicar. For a moment she shrank away; and
then, as a shallow, carved gold-colored thing touched her hand, her
cheeks heated red, she seized it and hid it in her pocket.
“Gimme another,” she begged softly, “gimme that shiny, little cup!”
If there had been any doubt as to the heavenly reality of the thing, it
was all over now. No more need the Head Captain’s swelling words fill
out the bare gaps of the actual state of the case. Here were the
things—this was no pretend-game. Here was danger, here was crime, here
was glittering wealth all unguarded, and no one knew but them!
They gloated over the chest; their hot fingers handled eagerly every
ring and big chain. Only the Lieutenant, sucking in his breath,
excitedly broke the ecstatic silence.
The Head Captain first mastered himself.
“Hm, that’s enough—_from here_!” he commanded with dreadful implication.
“Come on. They’ll kill us if they catch us! Soft, now. Don’t breathe so
loud, Vicar!”
Off in a different direction he led them, having closed the box softly,
and instead of making for the stairs, stopped before three square
openings in the floor. He lay flat on his stomach and peered down one.
It opened directly above the manger, and when he had cast down two
armfuls of hay and measured the distance with his eye, they saw that he
meant to drop through, and realized that his blood was up, and heaven
knew where he would stop that day.
The Vicar caught the idea before the Lieutenant, and with characteristic
impatience, was through the second hole before the third member of the
band had thrown down his first armful. Light as a cat she dropped,
scrambled out of the manger, and as a step sounded in the outer barn,
dragged the Lieutenant through in an agony of apprehension, stumbled
across the great heap of stable refuse, and crouched, palpitating,
behind the cow-house door.
The Head Captain, whom crises calmed and immediate danger heartened,
himself crept back into the stable to gather from the sound of the steps
the direction taken by the intruder.
He was talking to the horse.
“Want some dinner? I’ll bet you do. Stealing hay, was you? That’ll never
do.”
It was enough. Soon he would go upstairs to count over the treasures—who
would ever have supposed that this simple-looking stableman had known
for years of such a trove?—and then woe to the Pirates!
“Come on, you! Run for your life!” he shot at them, and they tore across
the yard, over a back fence, and across a vacant lot, panting,
stumbling, muttering to each other, the Vicar crying with excitement.
The Lieutenant caught his foot in his sash and fell miserably, mistaking
them for arms of the law, as they loyally turned back to pick him up,
and fighting them with feeble punches. They dragged him through a hedge
and took refuge in an old tool-house.
Slowly they got back breath. The delicious horror of pursuit was lifted
from them. It appeared that they were safe.
“You goin’ home, now?” said the Lieutenant huskily.
Home? Home? Was the fellow mad? The Head Captain vouchsafed no answer.
“Forward! March!”
He strode out of the tool-house and made for the barn. A large dog
barked, and a voice called:
“Down, Danny, down!”
They returned hastily, and climbed laboriously out of a little window on
the other side of the tool-house, striking a bee-line for the adjoining
property. The treasure jingled in their pockets as they ran stealthily
into this barn. The last restraint was cast away, they were on new
territory. A succession of back-yard cuts had resulted in their turning
a corner, and had they gone openly and in the light of day out into the
street, they would have found themselves in another part of the town.
The Head Captain crept in through a low window. He was entirely wrapped
up in his dreadful character. Blind to consequences, hardly looking to
see if the others followed him, he worked his way over the sill and
stared about him. Imagination was no longer necessary. No fine-spun
trickery was needed to turn the too-familiar places into weird dens, the
well-known barns into menacing danger-traps. Here all was new, untried,
of endless possibilities.
It was a clean, spacious spot. Great shadowy, white-draped carriages
stood along the sides; a smell of varnish and new leather prevailed. On
the walls hung fascinating garden tools: quaint-nosed watering-pots,
coils of hose, a lawn fountain. All was still. The Head Captain strode
across the floor, extending his hand with a majestic sweep.
[Illustration: “’_Anything we want we can take!_’”]
“All these things—all of ’em—anything we want, we can take!” he
muttered, but not to them. They could plainly see he was talking to
himself. Rapt in wild dreams of unchecked depredation he stamped about,
fingering the garden hose, prying behind the carriages, tossing his head
and breathing hard.
Suddenly came a step as of a man walking on gravel. It drew nearer,
nearer. For one awful moment the Lieutenant seemed in danger of thinking
himself a frightened little boy in a strange barn; he plucked at his
sash nervously. The next instant two hands fell from opposite directions
on his shoulders.
“Get into a carriage—quick, quick, quick!” hissed the Head Captain, and
he heard the Vicar panting as she shoved him under the flap of the sheet
that draped a high-swung victoria. She was with him, huddled close
beside him on the floor of the carriage, and it seemed hardly credible
that the clatter of the Head Captain’s hasty dive into the neighboring
surrey could have failed to catch the ear of the man who entered the
barn. But he heard nothing. He walked by them lazily, he paused and
struck a match on the wheel of the victoria, and the smell of tobacco
crept in under the sheet. It seemed to the Vicar that the thumping of
her heart must shake the carriage. She dared not gasp for breath, but
she knew she should burst if that man stood there much longer. It could
not be possible that he wouldn’t find them. Ah, how little he knew!
Right under his very pipe lay those who could take away everything in
his old barn if they chose. Perhaps the very surrey that now held that
terrible Head Captain might be gone ere morning, he had such ambitions,
such vaulting dreams.
Thump! thump! thump! went her heart, and the Lieutenant’s breath
whistled through his teeth. Never in their lives had such straining
excitement possessed their every nerve. Oh, go on, go on, or we shall
scream!
He sauntered by, he opened some door at the rear. The latch all but
clicked, when a hollow but unmistakable sneeze burst from the Head
Captain’s surrey. Immediately the door opened again. The man took a step
back. All was deathly still, the echoes of their leader’s fateful sneeze
alone thrilled the hearts of his anguished followers.
[Illustration: “_She knew she should burst if that man stood there much
longer.”_]
“Humph!” muttered a deep voice, “that’s queer. Anybody out there?”
Silence. Silence that buzzed and hummed and roared in the Vicar’s ears.
“Queer—I thought I heard.... Damn queer!” muttered the man. The
Lieutenant shuddered. That was a word whose possibilities he hesitated
to consider. Piracy is bad enough, heaven knows, but profanity is surely
worse.
Again the latch clicked. After an artful pause the nose of the Head
Captain appeared, inserted at an inquiring angle between the two sheets
that draped the surrey. Cautiously he swung himself down, cautiously he
tiptoed toward the others.
“_Sst! Sst!_ All safe!” he whispered. They scrambled out, and a glance
at his reserved frown taught them that the recent sneeze must not be
mentioned.
Like cats they crept up the stairs, and only the Head Captain’s great
presence of mind prevented their falling backward down the flight, for
there on the hay before them lay a man stretched at full length,
breathing heavily. His face was a deep red in color, and a strong,
sweetish odor filled the loft. They turned about at the Head Captain’s
warning gesture, and waited while he stole fearfully up and examined the
man. When he rejoined them there was a new triumph in his eyes, a
greater exaltation in his hurried speech.
“Come here, Lieutenant!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“This is a dead pirate. He died defending—defending his life. He will be
discovered if we leave him here.”
This seemed eminently probable. The Lieutenant looked alarmed. He took a
step or two on the loft floor and returned, relieved.
“No, he ain’t dead, either,” he announced, “he’s only as——”
“He is dead,” repeated the Head Captain firmly. “Dead, I say. You shut
up, will you? And we must bury him.”
The Lieutenant looked sulky and chewed the end of his sash. To be so put
down before the Vicar! It was hardly decent. And she, in her usual and
irritating way, grasped the situation immediately.
“We must bury him right off,” she whispered excitedly, “before that man
gets up here.”
“That man,” added the Head Captain, “is a dreadful bad fellow, I tell
you. If he was to catch us up here, I don’t know—I don’t know but
he’d—here, come back, Lieutenant! Come back, I say!”
They stole up to the dead pirate, who had not the appearance attributed
by popular imagination to those who have died nobly. The Lieutenant was
frankly in the dark as to his superior officer’s intentions.
“If you take him off to bury him he’ll wake——”
“Hush your noise!” interrupted the Head Captain angrily.
The Vicar could not wait for any one else’s initiative, but began
feverishly pulling up handfuls of hay and piling them lightly over the
dead pirate’s boots. The Head Captain covered the man’s body with two
hastily snatched armfuls, and as the Vicar’s courage gave out at this
point, coolly laid a thin wisp directly over the red face. The pirate
was buried. It gave one a thrill to see hardly a dim outline of his
figure.
“Hats off, my men,” whispered the Head Captain, hoarse with emotion,
“and we will say a prayer. Lieutenant,” with a noble renunciation in his
expression, “_you_ may say the prayer!”
The Lieutenant was touched, and melted from his sulky scorn.
“What’ll I say? What’ll I say?” he muttered excitedly. “Not ‘Hollow be
thy Name’? That’s a long one.”
“Now I lay——” suggested the Vicar tremulously.
“Pshaw, no!” interrupted the Head Captain.
“Not a baby thing like that! If you don’t know one, Lieutenant, I’ll
make one up.”
“No, I’ll say one,” urged the Lieutenant hastily. “I’ll say one,
Captain. I’ll say my colick that I had yesterday. Wait up a second, till
I remember it.”
The heavy, regular breathing continued to come out from under the hay,
where lay the martyred pirate. The hens in a near-by henyard cackled
shrilly, the trilling of an indefatigable canary in the coachman’s rooms
rose and fell through the hot June air. Red and dripping with the heat,
dusty and sprinkled with the hay, the outlaws stood, solemn and tense,
starting at the least fancied sound from below.
The Lieutenant cleared his throat, shut his eyes tight to assist his
memory, and began his burial service:
“_Almighty ’n’ everlastin’ God, who’s given unto us, Thy servants, grace
by the c’nfession of a true faith t’ acknowledge th’ glory of th’
Eternal Trinity, and—and——_”
“_And in the power of the Divine Majesty——_” prompted the Vicar
ostentatiously.
“_Will_ you keep still, Miss? _Majesty to worship the Unity, we beseech
Thee that Thou wouldst keep ’s—keep ’s steadfast, er, wouldst keep ’s
steadfast——_”