_Sunday._
Sure enough, the eight new boys were gone before sun-up yesterday, only
Philip and Geordie remain, and gardening is at a standstill. All day
yesterday and to-day I have thought of the runaways, and wondered if
there is any way of making them stay and take advantage of their
opportunities. Our young manual-training teacher, and only man, lives at
the cottage with the dozen small boys; but, being a man, probably he
cannot give them a home feeling, and get them rooted. Only a woman could
do that. If I had the courage and cheerfulness, I would go over there
and live with those little boys and try to make them feel at home. But
it is useless to think of such a thing,--my sadness would repel
them,--they would run away faster than ever.
_Monday Night._
The heads said to me this morning, "We shall give up trying to keep
little boys in the school,--it is useless, though we need them almost as
much as they need us. If there were just some one who loves children to
stay there and take a real interest in them, they might be satisfied to
remain."
"I love children," I said, "but I would not think of inflicting myself
upon them,--I am not cheerful enough."
"Cheerful!" they exclaimed, "why, everybody is cheerful here,--no time
for anything else! Suppose you try it!"
"I really couldn't think of it," I replied; but, fifteen minutes later,
under the spell of their optimism, I was moving over from the big house
to the small boys' cottage, from which the manual-training teacher was
departing to join the big boys over the workshop.
This small cottage is the building in which the work began here five
years ago. It is separated from the rest of the school-grounds by a
small branch; in its back yard is the wash-house, and beyond this the
stable lot slopes down to Perilous Creek. There are four comfortable
rooms, neatly papered with magazine pages,--a sitting-room, two bedrooms
for the boys, and one for me. The woodwork in mine being battered, I
sent Philip down to the nearby village for paint. He returned with a
rich, rosy red, and began laying it on my mantelpiece with gusto, while
Geordie Yonts put shelves in a goods-box for my bureau. Never have I
seen a small chunk of a boy with such a large, ingratiating smile as
Geordie's.
[Illustration: "'Here is Keats back again,--he has got to stay with you
women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!'"]
In the midst I heard a call from the road, and saw at the gate a nag
bearing a woman and two small boys. "Here is Keats back again,--he has
got to stay with you women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!"
declared his Spartan mother; "and I brung Hen this time, to keep him
company,--he haint so tender-hearted." She sternly pushed the weeping
Keats off the nag, and he flung himself down in the doorway, howling
dismally. But little Hen, who cannot be more than nine, walked
composedly into the house, looking about him with interest. He stopped
before the almost-completed mantelpiece. "Gee, woman," he said, "that
'ere's the dad-burn prettiest fireboard ever I seed!" "If you like it,
you shall have the same in your room, and all the rooms," I said.
"Suppose you and Keats go down right now and buy me a gallon more of
this paint. And I think we need some candy, too,--say a quarter's worth
of peppermint sticks."
The tears miraculously left Keats's face, they hurried off, and later we
had a feast of candy flavored with paint.
_Tuesday._
A terrible night with fleas, and up at five (awful hour!) to teach the
boys to make their beds and clean their rooms. Hen's first question was,
"Woman, what's your name?" "Loring," I replied. "Haint you got nary
nother?" "Yes, Cecilia." "Gee-oh, that's some shakes of a name. How old
air you, Cecilia?" "I am old enough to have a Miss before my name
always," I said, severely; "you must call me Miss Loring, just as people
call your mother Mrs. Salyer."
"They don't," he replied, "they call her Nervesty."
"All these-here fotch-on women gits called Miss, son," admonished
Geordie; "you haint used to their quare ways yet."
Later, there was another halloo from the road, and as Joab Atkins slid
off the end of a mule, his father remarked to me, with extreme
gentleness, that he allowed Joab would be willing to pick a chicken
now. Mr. Atkins is a handsome man, with perfect manners. When he said he
had a younger son over on Rakeshin he would like to bring us, little
Iry, ten years old, a "pure scholar, that knows the speller from kiver
to kiver," I told him to bring Iry at once.
Just before supper I was pleased to see another runaway returned,--Nucky
Marrs, of Trigger Branch. But before his father was out of sight up the
road, he calmly announced to me that he didn't aim to stay, and that
neither his paw nor anybody else was able to make him. I believed
him,--one glance at his vivid face and combative eyes convinced me.
"Very well," I said, "if you cannot be happy, of course you must go. But
it will hurt my feelings a good deal,--however, don't think of them."
"What difference is it to you?" he demanded.
"Only this,--I have lost everybody I love in the world, and have come
to the cottage to live with you boys because I am so terribly lonely. If
you can't like me well enough to stay, life will seem a failure."
He pondered a long while, frowning a little, with large gray eyes fixed
on my face. Then he said at last, "I don't know as I'll go right off."
"Oh, thank you," I replied, gratefully.
From seven to eight we have study-hour at the cottage. To-night Geordie
watched the clock-hands for twenty minutes before they reached eight,
then slammed his geography shut, and commanded,
"Tell about the Marrs-Cheever war!"
All the boys woke up at once, and Nucky began, slowly: "The Marrses has
lived on Trigger ever sence allus-ago. My great-great-great-grandpaw fit
under Washington and got a big land-grant out here and come out from Old
Virginny. And the Cheevers they has allus lived down the branch from us.
More'n thirty year' gone, Israel Cheever he had a new survey made, and
laid claim to a piece of our bottom where the lands jines; and him and
his brothers tore down the dividing fence and sot it back up on our
land; and the next week, my grandpaw and his boys sot it down where it
belonged, and while they was at it, the Cheevers come up and they all
fit a big battle. And ever sence, first one side and then t'other has
been setting back the fence, and gen'ally a few gets kilt and a lot
wounded. Six year gone, paw got his three brothers kilt and a leg shot
off and a couple of bullets in his lung, in a battle, and haint been
able to do a lick of work sence. Blant, my big brother, wa'n't but
fifteen then, and he's had to make the living ever sence, with me to
help him. And for five year' before he got good-grown, the Cheevers they
helt our land, and Blant he laid low and put in all his spare time at
gun practice. Then last fall, on the day Blant was twenty, he rounded up
Rich Tarrant and some more of his friends, and Uncle Billy's boys and
me, and we tore up the fence, and sot it down on the old line where it
ought to be; and the Cheevers, Israel and his ten boys, got wind of it,
and come up, and there was the terriblest battle you ever seed."
"I heared about it," interrupted Geordie, "I heared Blant was the
quickest on the trigger of any boy ever lived, and laid out the Cheevers
scandlous."
"He kilt two of 'em dead that day, and wounded five or six more pretty
bad," resumed Nucky, "and the fighting it went on, off and on, all
winter. Every now and then, of a moonlight night, the Cheever boys would
start to tear down the fence and set it back up; but we kep' a constant
lookout, and was allus ready for 'em. Finally they got discouraged
trying to fight Blant in the open, and tuck to ambushing. Three of 'em
laywayed Blant under a cliff one day in April, and Elhannon got kilt,
and Todd and Dalt so bad wounded they left the country and went West.
They are the youngest and feistiest of the lot,--t'other boys is mostly
married and settled, and not anxious to risk their lives again' Blant's
gun no more--and sence they went off, we have had a spell of peace."
"What do you do in the war?"
"Oh, I keep a lookout, and spy around, and stand guard over the fence
with my gun."
"Gee, I wisht I had a war in my family!" sighed Philip, fervently.
_Thursday._
Two more nights of suffering,--Philip said to me this morning, "I heared
you up a-fleaing four or five times in the night." When I found that
several panels of the back fence had been washed away by the "tide" of
week-before-last, and that neighborhood hogs were coming in and out at
will, and making their beds under my very room, I did not wonder.
This morning at the breakfast table, Philip's face was so dingy that I
inquired, "Have you washed your face?"
"Yes," was his reply.