"Don 'Lonzo, how can you behave so?" she asked. "This is the third
time Deacon Bassett has been here to see you, and he's coming again;
and what be I to say to him next time he comes? You can't go through
life without seeing folks, you know."
Don Alonzo shook his shoulders, and pretended to look for dust on
his coat. He would have been deeply mortified to find any, for he
took care of his own room, and prided himself, with reason, on its
neatness. Also, the space beneath his bedstead was cupboard as well
as hiding-place.
"He troubles me," he said, meekly. "Deacon Bassett troubles me more
than any of 'em. Did he ask if I'd grown any?"
"Well, he did," Mira admitted. "But I expect he didn't mean anything
by it."
"He's asked that ever since I can remember," said Don Alonzo;
"and I'm weary of it. There! And then he says that if I would only
take his Green Elixir three times a day for three months, I'd grow
like a sapling willow. He hopes to make his living out of me, yet!"
Mrs. Pitkin laughed, comfortably, and smoothed the lad's hair back
with a motherly touch. "All the same," she said, "you must quit
hiding under the bed when folks come to call, Don 'Lonzo. You don't
want 'em to think I treat you bad, and keep you out o' sight, so's
they'll not find it out." Then, seeing the boy's face flush with
distress, she added, hastily, "Besides, you're getting to be 'most a
man now; I want strangers should know there's men-folks about the
place, now Joe's away. There's burglars in town, Don 'Lonzo, and we
must look out and keep things shut up close, nights."
"Burglars!" repeated the youth.
"Yes; Deacon Bassett was telling me about 'em just now. I guess
likely half what he came for was to give me a good scare, knowing
Joe was away. Now, ain't I uncharitable! 'Twas just as likely to be
a friendly warning. Anyway, he was telling me they came through from
Tupham Corner day before yesterday, and they've been lurking and
spying round."
"Some boys saw them, coming through Green Gully, and were scared to
death at their looks; they said they were big, black-looking men,
strangers to these parts; and they swore at the boys and ordered 'em
off real ugly. Nobody else has seen them in honest daylight, but
they broke into Dan'l Brown's house last night. He's deaf, you know,
and didn't hear a sound. They came right into the room where he
slept,--Deacon Bassett was there the next day, and saw their tracks all
over the floor,--and took ten dollars out of his pants pocket. The
pants was hanging right beside the bed, and they turned them clean
inside out, and Dan'l never stirred."
"My, oh!" exclaimed Don Alonzo.
"Why, it's terrible!" Mira went on. "Then, last night, they got into
Mis' Pegrum's house, too. She's a lone woman, you know, same as
Dan'l is a man. Seems as if they had took note of every house where
there wasn't plenty of folks to be stirring and taking notice. They
got into the pantry window, and took every living thing she had to
eat. They might do that, and still go hungry, Deacon Bassett says;
you know there's always been a little feeling between him and Mis'
Pegrum; her cat and his hens--it's an old story. Well, and she did
hear a noise, and came out into the kitchen, and there sat two great,
black men, eating her best peach preserves, and the cake she'd made
for the Ladies' Aid, to-day. She was so scare't, she couldn't speak
a word; and they just laughed and told her to go back to bed, and
she went. Poor-spirited, it seems, but I don't know as I should have
done a bit better in her place. There! I wish Joe'd come back! I
feel real nervous, hearing about it all. Oh, and her gold watch, too,
they got, and three solid silver teaspoons that belonged to her
mother. She's sick abed, Deacon Bassett says, and I don't wonder. I
don't feel as if I should sleep a wink to-night!"
The color came into Don Alonzo's thin cheeks. "There sha'n't no one
do you any hurt while I'm round, Mira!" he said; and for a moment he
forgot his deformity, and straightened his poor shoulders, and held
up his head like a man.
There was no shade of amusement in Mira Pitkin's honest smile.
"I expect you'd be as brave as a lion, Don 'Lonzo," she said.
"I expect you'd shoo 'em right out of the yard, same as you did the
turkey gobbler when he run at my red shawl; don't you remember? But
all the same, I hope they will not come; and I shall be glad to see
Joe back again."
At that moment the lad caught sight of himself in the little
looking-glass that hung over his chest of drawers. Mira, watching him,
saw the sparkle go out of his eyes, saw his shoulders droop, and his
head sink forward; and she said, quickly:
"But there! we've said enough about the burglars, I should think!
How's the experiments, Don 'Lonzo? I heard an awful fizzing going on,
just before Deacon Bassett came in. I expect you've got great things
hidden under that bed; I expect there's other perils round besides
burglars! Joe may come back and find us both blown into kindlin'-wood,
after all!"
This was a favorite joke of theirs; she had the pleasure of seeing a
smile come into the boy's sad eyes; then, with another of those
motherly touches on his hair, she went away, singing, to her work.
Don Alonzo looked after her. From the way his eyes followed her, she
might have been a glorified saint in robe and crown, instead of a
rosy-cheeked young woman in a calico gown. "There sha'n't nothing
hurt her while I'm round!" he muttered again.
The night fell, dark and cloudy. Mrs. Pitkin went to bed early,
after shaking every door and trying every window to make sure that
all was safe. Don Alonzo went through the same process twice after
she was gone, but he did not feel like sleeping, himself. He lay
down on his bed, but his thoughts seemed dancing from one thing to
another,--to Brother Joe, travelling homeward now, he hoped, after a
week's absence; to Mira's goodness, her patience with his wayward
self, her kindness in letting him mess with chemicals, and turn the
shed into a laboratory, and frighten her with explosions; to Dan'l
Brown and Mis' Pegrum and the burglars.
Ah, the burglars! What could he do, if they should really come to
the house? They were two men, probably well-grown; he--he knew what
he was! How could he carry out his promise to Mira, if she should be
in actual danger? Not by strength, clearly; but there must be some
way; bodily strength was not the only thing in the world. He looked
about him, seeking for inspiration; his eyes, wandering here and
there, lighted upon something, then remained fixed. The room was
dimly lighted by a small lamp, but the corners were dark, and in one
of these dark corners something was shining with a faint, uncertain
light. The phosphorescent match-box! He had made it himself, and had
ornamented it with a grotesque face in luminous paint. This face now
glimmered and glowered at him from the darkness; and Don Alonzo lay
still and looked back at it. Lying so and looking, there crept into
his mind an old story that he had once read; and he laughed to
himself, and then nodded at the glimmering face. "Thank you, old
fellow!" said Don Alonzo.
Was there a noise? Was it his imagination, or did a branch snap, a
twig rustle down the road? The hunchback had ears like a fox, and in
an instant he was at the window, peering out into the darkness. At
first he could see nothing; but gradually the lilac bushes at the
gate came into sight, and the clumps of flowers in the little garden
plot. Not a breath was stirring, yet--hark! Again a twig snapped, a
branch crackled; and now again! and nearer each time. Don Alonzo
strained his eyes to pierce the darkness. Were those bushes, those
two shapes by the gate? They were not there a moment ago. Ha! they
moved; they were coming nearer. Their feet made no sound on the
soft earth, but his sharp ears caught a new sound,--a whisper, faint,
yet harsh, like a hiss. Don Alonzo had seen and heard enough. He
left the window, and the next moment was diving under the bed.
* * * * *
Mira Pitkin usually slept like a child, from the moment her head
touched the pillow till the precise second when something woke in
her brain and said "Five o'clock!" But to-night her sleep was broken.
She tossed and muttered in her dreams; and suddenly she sat up in bed
with eyes wide open and a distinct sense of something wrong. Her
first thought was of fire; she sniffed; the air was pure and clear.
Then, like a cry in her ears, came--"The burglars!" She held her
breath and listened; was the night as still as it was dark? No! a
faint, steady sound came to her ears. A mouse, was it, or--the sound
of a tool?
And then, almost noiselessly, a window was opened, the window of the
upper entry, next her room. Mira was at her own window in an instant,
raising it; that, too, opened silently, for Joe was a carpenter and
detested noisy windows. She peered out into the thick darkness. Black,
black! Was the blackness deeper there, just at the front door?
Surely it was! Surely something, somebody, was busy with the lock of
the door; and then she heard, as Don Alonzo had heard, a low sound
like a hiss, beside the soft scraping of the tool. What should she do?
The windows were fast, there was a bar and chain inside the door,
but what of that? Two desperate men could force an entrance anywhere
in a moment. What could she do, a woman, with only a sickly boy to
help her? And--who had opened that upper window? Was there a third
accomplice--for she thought she could see two spots of deeper
blackness by the door--hidden in the house? Oh, if only Joe had
borrowed his father's old pistol for her, as she had begged him to do!
Mira opened her lips to shout, in the hope of rousing the nearest
neighbors, though they were not very near. Opened her lips--but no
sound came from them. For at that instant something appeared at the
window next her own; something stepped from it, out on to the little
porch over the front door. Mira Pitkin gasped, and felt her heart
fail within her. A skeleton! Every limb outlined in pale fire, the
bony fingers points of wavering flame. What awful portent was this?
The Thing paused and turned, a frightful face gazed at her for an
instant, a hand waved, then the Thing dropped, silent as a shadow, on
that spot of deeper blackness that was stooping at the front door.
Then rose an outcry wild and hideous. The burglar shouted hoarsely,
and tried to shake off the Thing that sat on his shoulders, gripping
his neck with hands of iron, digging his sides with bony knees and
feet; but the second thief, who saw by what his comrade was ridden,
shrieked in pure animal terror, uttering unearthly sounds that cut
the air like a knife. For a moment he could only stand and shriek;
then he turned and fled through the yard, and the other fled after
him, the glimmering phantom clutching him tight. Down the road they
fled. Mira could now see nothing save the riding Thing, apparently
horsed on empty air; but now she saw it, still clutching close with
its left hand, raise the right, holding what looked like a shining
snake, and bring it down hissing and curling. Again, and again! and
with every blow the shrieks grew more and more hideous, till now
they had reached the cluster of houses at the head of the street,
and every window was flung open, and lights appeared, and voices
clamored in terror and amaze. The village was roused; and now--now,
the glimmering skeleton was seen to loose its hold. It dropped from
its perch, and turning that awful face toward her once more, came
loping back, silent as a shadow. But when she saw that, Mira Pitkin,
for the first and last time in her sensible life, fainted away.
When she came to herself, the skeleton was bending over her anxiously,
but its face was no longer frightful; it was white and anxious, and
the eyes that met hers were piteous with distress.
"My, oh!" cried Don Alonzo. "I vowed no one should do her any hurt,
and now I've done it myself."
There was little sleep in the Pitkin house that night. The neighbors
came flocking in with cries and questions; and when all was explained,
Don Alonzo found himself the hero of the hour. For once he did not
hide under the bed, but received everybody--from Deacon Bassett down
to the smallest boy who came running in shirt and trousers,
half-awake, and athirst for marvels--with modest pride, and told
over and over again how it all happened.
'Twas no great thing, he maintained. He had fooled considerable with
phosphorus, and had some of the luminous paint that he had mixed
some time before. Thinking about these fellows, he remembered a
story he read once, where they painted up a dead body to scare away
some murdering robbers. He thought a living person was as good as a
dead one, any day; so he tried it on, and it appeared to succeed. He
didn't think likely those men would stop short of the next township,
from the way they were running when he got down. Oh, the snake? That
was Joe's whip. He presumed likely it hurt some, from the way they
yelled.
But the best of all was when Joe came home, the very next day, and
when, the three of them sitting about the supper-table, Mira herself
told the great story, from the first moment of Deacon Bassett's
visit down to the triumphant close--"And I see him coming back,
shining like a corpse-candle, and I fell like dead on the floor!"
"There!" she continued, beaming across the table at Joe, as she
handed him his fourth cup of coffee, "you may go away again whenever
you're a mind to; I sha'n't be afraid. You ain't half the man Don
'Lonzo is!"
"I don't expect I be!" said big Joe, beaming back again.
It seemed to Don Alonzo that their smiles made the kitchen warm as
June, though October was falling cold that year.
_THE SHED CHAMBER_
"Well, I once answered an advertisement in the _Farmer's Friend_,
girls, and I have always been glad I did. It was that summer when
father broke his arm and the potato crop failed, and everything
seemed to be going wrong on the farm. There were plenty of girls to
do the work at home, and I thought I ought to get something outside
to do if I could. I tried here and there, but without success; at
last my eye caught a notice in the _Farmer's Friend_, just the same
kind of notice as that you are speaking of, Lottie: 'Wanted, a
capable, steady girl to assist in housework and take care of children.
Address, with reference, A. B. C., Dashville.' I talked it over with
mother, and she agreed with me; father didn't take so kindly to the
idea, naturally; he likes to have us all at home, especially in
summer. However, he said I might do as I pleased; so I answered the
notice and sent a letter from our pastor, saying what he thought of
me. I was almost ashamed to send it, too; he has always been more
than kind to me, you know; if I'd been his own daughter he couldn't
have said more. Well, they wrote for me to come, and I went.
"Girls, it was pretty hard when it came to that part, leaving the
house, and mother standing in the doorway trying not to look anxious,
and father fretting and saying it was all nonsense, and he shouldn't
have hands enough to pick the apples. Of course he knew I knew better,
but I was glad he didn't want me to go, after all. Sister Nell and
Sister Margie had packed my trunk, and they were as excited as I was,
and almost wished they were going instead, but not quite, I think;
and so Joe whistled to old Senator, and I waved my handkerchief, and
mother and the two girls waved their aprons, and off I went.
"I didn't really feel alone till I was in the train and had lost
sight of Joe standing and smoothing Senator's mane and nodding at me;
then the world seemed very big and Tupham Corner a very small corner
in it. I will not say anything more about this part; you'll find it
out soon enough yourselves, when you go away from home the first time.
"It was a long journey, or it seemed so then; but everything comes
to an end some time, and there was plenty of daylight left for me to
see my new home when I arrived. It was a pleasant-looking house,
long and rambling, painted yellow, too, which made me more homesick
than ever. There were two children standing in the doorway, and
presently Mr. Bowles came out and shook hands with me and helped me
down with my things. He was a kind, sensible-looking man, and he
made the children come and speak to me and shake hands. They were
shy then and hung back, and put their fingers in their mouths; I
knew just how they felt. I wanted to hang back, too, when he took me
into the house to see Mrs. Bowles. She was an invalid, he told me,
and could not leave her room.
"Girls, the minute I saw that sweet, pale face, with the look of
pain and patience in it, I knew what I had come for. I do think we
understood each other from the first minute, Mrs. Bowles and I; for
she held my hand a good while, looking into my face and I into hers,
and she must have seen how sorry I was for her, and how I hoped I
could help her; for when I went into the kitchen I heard her say,
with a little sigh, as she lay back again, 'O John, I do believe
this is the right one at last!' You may believe I made up my mind
that I would be the right one, Lottie!
"That kitchen was in a scandalous condition. It was well I had seen
Mrs. Bowles first or I should have wanted to run away that very
minute. The eldest little girl--it seems strange to think that there
ever was a time when I didn't know Barbara's name!--followed me out,--I
think her father told her to,--and rubbed along against the wall,
just exactly as I used to when I felt shy. When I asked her a little
about where things were, and so on--they were everywhere and nowhere;
you never saw such a looking place in your life!--she took her
finger out of her mouth, and pretty soon I told her about our yellow
coon kittens, and after that we got on very well. She said they had
had one girl after another, each worse than the last. The shoe
factory had taken off all the good help and left only the incapable
ones. The last one, Barbara said, had almost starved them, and been
saucy to Mrs. Bowles, and dirty--well, there was no need to tell me
that. It was a shame to see good things so destroyed; for the things
were good, only all dirty and broken, and--oh, well! there's no use
in telling about that part.
"I asked when her mother had had anything to eat, and she said not
since noon; I knew that was no way for an invalid to be taken care of,
so I put the kettle on and hunted about till I found a cup and saucer
I liked, and then I found the bread-box--oh, dear! that bread-box,
girls! But the mold scraped right off, and the bread wasn't really
bad; I made some toast and cut the crust off, and put just a thin
scrape of butter on it; then I sent Barbara in with a little tray
and told her to see that her mother took it all. I thought she'd
feel more like taking it from the child than from a stranger, if she
hadn't much appetite. My dears, the child came out again in a few
minutes, her face all alight.
"'She drank it all, every drop!' she cried. 'And now she's eating
the toast. She said how did you know, and she cried, but now she's
all right. Father 'most cried, too, I think. Say!'
"'Yes, dear.'
"'Father says the Lord sent you. Did he?'"
[Illustration: "'FATHER SAYS THE LORD SENT YOU. DID HE?'"]
"I nodded, for I couldn't say anything that minute. I kissed the
little girl and went on with my cleaning. Girls, don't ever grudge
the time you spend in learning to cook nicely. Food is what keeps the
breath of life in us, and it all depends upon us girls now, and later,
when we are older women, whether it is good or bad. No, Sue, I'm not
going to preach, but I shall never forget how that tired man and
those hungry children enjoyed their supper. 'Twas mother's supper,
every bit of it, from the light biscuit down to the ham omelette; I
found the ham bone in a dark cupboard, all covered with mold, like
the bread, but 'twas good and sweet underneath. I only wish mother
had been there to see them eat. After supper Mr. Bowles came and
shook hands with me. I didn't know then that he never used any more
words than he had to; but I was pleased, if I did think it funny.
"I was tired enough by the time bedtime came, and after I had put
the children to bed and seen that Mrs. Bowles was comfortable, and
had water and crackers and a candle beside her--she was a very poor
sleeper--I was glad enough to go to bed myself. Barbara showed me my
room, a pretty little room with sloping gables and windows down by
the floor. There were two doors, and I asked her where the other led
to. She opened it and said, 'The shed chamber.' I looked over her
shoulder, holding up the candle, and saw a great bare room, with
some large trunks in it, but no other furniture except a high
wardrobe. I liked the look of the place, for it was a little like
our play room in the attic at home; but I was too tired to explore,
and I was asleep in ten minutes from the time I had tucked up
Barbara in her bed, and Rob and Billy in their double crib.
"I should take a week if I tried to tell you all about those first
days; and, after all, it is one particular thing that I started to
tell, only there is so much that comes back to me. In a few days I
felt that I belonged there, almost as much as at home; they were
that kind of people, and made me feel that they cared about me, and
not only about what I did. Mrs. Bowles has always been the best
friend I have in the world after my own folks; it didn't take us a
day to see into each other, and by and by it got to be so that I
knew what she wanted almost before she knew, herself.
"At the end of the week Mr. Bowles said he ought to go away on
business for a few days, and asked her if she would feel safe to
stay with me and the children, or if he should ask his brother to
come and sleep in the house.
"'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Bowles. 'I shall feel as safe with Nora as
if I had a regiment in the house; a good deal safer!' she added, and
laughed.
"So it was settled, and the next day Mr. Bowles went away and I was
left in full charge. I suppose I rather liked the responsibility. I
asked Mrs. Bowles if I might go all over the house to see how
everything fastened, and she said, 'Of course.' The front windows
were just common windows, quite high up from the floor; but in the
shed chamber, as in my room, they opened near the floor, and there
was no very secure way of fastening them, it seemed to me. However, I
wasn't going to say anything to make her nervous, and that was the
way they had always had them. If I had only known!
"After the children went to bed that evening I read to Mrs. Bowles
for an hour, and then I went to warm up a little cocoa for her; she
slept better if she took a drop of something hot the last thing. It
was about nine o'clock. I had just got into the kitchen, and was
going to light the lamp, when I heard the door open softly.
"'Who's there?' I asked.
"'Only me,' said a girl's voice.
"I lighted my lamp, and saw a girl about my own age, pretty, and
showily dressed. She said she was the girl who had left the house a
few days ago; she had forgotten something, and might she go up into
the shed chamber and get it? I told her to wait a minute, and went
and asked Mrs. Bowles. She said yes, Annie might go up. 'Annie was
careless and saucy,' she said, 'but I think she meant no harm. She
can go and get her things.'
"I came back and told the girl, and she smiled and nodded. I did not
like her smile, I could not tell why. I started to go with her, but
she turned on me pretty sharply, and said she had been in the house
three months and didn't need to be shown the way by a stranger. I
didn't want to put myself forward, but no sooner had she run
up-stairs, and I heard her steps in the chamber above me, than
something seemed to be pushing, pushing me toward those stairs,
whether I would or no. I tried to hold back, and tell myself it was
nonsense, and that I was nervous and foolish; it made no difference,
I had to go up-stairs.
"I went softly, my shoes making no noise. My own little room was dark,
for I had closed the blinds when the afternoon sun was pouring in
hot and bright; but a slender line of light lay across the blackness
like a long finger, and I knew the moon was shining in at the
windows of the shed chamber. I did a thing I had never done before
in my life; that silver finger came through the keyhole, and it drew
me to it. I knelt down and looked through.