THE RUNAWAY
Deacon Blackford did not answer at once. He remained in his seat at his
desk, looking first at one man and then at the other. Often his fingers
would beat a drumming tattoo on the top of the desk, as though he were
too nervous to keep still.
“Well!” said Harrison, sharply, “what’s it to be? We can’t wait all
night!”
“Oh, we might give him a little more time,” suggested Denton. “I know
what it is——”
“You keep still!” fiercely interrupted Harrison. “I know what I’m
talking about! We’ve given him too much time as it is. We need the
papers or the money, and we’re going to get what we want!”
“Well, I s’pose it’ll have to be as you say,” weakly agreed the other.
“That’s what it will!” was the prompt comment. “Come now, Blackford,
settle up with us about this investment business. What’s it to be—the
papers or the money?”
“Neither one!” said the deacon sharply. “I won’t give you any more
money. And if you think I’m going to give up the valuable papers, which
represent the only claim I have on you, you’re very much mistaken.
You’ll get neither, and that’s my last word!”
This time he banged his fist down on the desk with a sudden energy that
seemed to surprise even Harrison. An ugly look came over the face of the
hardened man. He half closed his bold eyes and leaned forward toward the
deacon, craning his neck forward like some big snake about to strike its
victim.
“So that’s your answer, is it?” he asked.
“That’s what it is!” declared Joe’s foster-father. “You’ll get neither
the money nor the papers!”
“Oh, come now,” began Denton, in rather pleading tones. “You’d better
think again, Deacon. Take a little more time, and——”
“I’ve had all the time I want,” said Mr. Blackford. “That’s my last
answer—neither the money nor the papers!”
“Well now, if I were you——” began Denton, when Harrison stopped him with
a fierce gesture.
“That’s enough,” he cried. “If that’s his last word, it’s ours, too.
Come on, Denton.”
He arose as if to leave.
“But I thought we were going to get——”
“Oh, we’ll get what we want, all right!” broke in Harrison.
“Not from me, you won’t!” declared the deacon.
“We’re not through with you yet, and don’t you forget it, Amos
Blackford,” retorted Harrison, and his voice was cool and cutting now.
“You’ll hear from us again, and in a way you least expect. Come on,
Denton,” and, turning, the bold-faced rascal started from the office of
the feed and grain dealer.
Denton hesitated as though he wanted to stay and argue the matter
further, but Harrison caught him fiercely by the arm and fairly pulled
him outside.
When the two men were gone, Deacon Blackford sat in the now dim office,
for dusk was falling. The grain dealer sat still for about a minute.
Then he said, aloud:
“Well, I’m well rid of those rascals. I’m glad I stood out firm against
them, or they’d have made me lose more money. No, indeed, I’ll not give
up those papers, and I won’t sink any more of my hard-earned cash in
their investment schemes. I’m glad I’m through with them, even if I do
lose what I put into their business. Yes, indeed! And I’m glad this talk
is over.”
The deacon locked his desk, and prepared to leave. He had come down to
his place of business at this unusual hour, when all his employees were
gone, on purpose to be alone with the two men to whom he had granted an
interview.
“Yes, I’m glad it’s over,” he said again. “Now I can give my mind over
to dealing with Joe. That boy is certainly a trial to me! It’s the bad
blood of his foolish parents cropping out, I suppose. I almost wish I
had not adopted him, but I thought he would outgrow the circus and
magician instincts. But they are coming out, in spite of all we have
done. And to think of burning his suit just to rescue one of those
good-for-nothing sleight-of-hand performers!”
The deacon shook his head, walked slowly from his office, and, after
locking the door, started down the street in the direction of his home.
“Yes, I really must punish Joe,” he murmured. “He needs a severe
lesson.”
“You’re late, Amos,” said Mrs. Blackford, as her husband came in to
supper. “You’re very late. The victuals are all spoiled, but it’s a pity
to cook anything else.”
“Oh, yes, don’t throw ’em away,” said the old man quickly. “We can’t
afford to waste anything. I don’t mind if the potatoes are dried up. I
can eat ’em. I haven’t much appetite, anyhow.”
The interview with the two rascals had upset the deacon more than he
thought. He sat heavily down in his place at the table, while his wife
began to serve the meal.
“What made you so late?” she asked. “And why did you have to go back to
the store? You never did that before.”
“Oh, I had some business to look after,” Mr. Blackford answered. “It was
important, but it’s all settled now. I won’t have to do it again.”
He began to eat his supper, and then he happened to think of Joe.
Perhaps the sight of the vacant chair on the opposite side of the table
brought the boy to his mind.
“Did you take him up anything?” he asked his wife, nodding his head
toward Joe’s upper room.
“I gave him some bread, just as you told me to.”
“Anything else?” asked the old man sharply.
“Well—er—I had plenty of milk so I thought he might as well have a glass
of that instead of water.”
“Um!” grunted the deacon, but that was all he said just then. Mrs.
Blackford did not add that she had buttered the bread, and that the
slices were unusually thick, and that she had put one extra on the plate
she handed into Joe’s room. Mrs. Blackford was a little afraid of the
deacon, but Joe had, on this occasion, profited by her slight kindness
to him.
She had taken Joe’s simple meal up to him at the usual supper time, and
he had unlocked his door while taking in the plate of bread and butter
and the glass of milk. He did not speak, nor did Mrs. Blackford. It was
the regular form of procedure on such unpleasant occasions as this.
Joe was glad when he saw the milk and the extra slice of bread.
“If I’m going to run away,” he thought, “I’ll need all the food they
give me. I won’t be able to get anything at midnight, which is about the
time I leave. I suppose I might raid the pantry,” he added to himself
after a moment’s thought, “but then they might hear me and stop me. No,
I’ll just have to make this do.”
He ate the bread and drank the milk, thinking the while of his future.
It was a bold step he was taking, and yet Joe did not regret having
decided on it. He had reached the limit of patience as far as his
foster-parents were concerned. True, he owed something to them, but he
felt he had more than paid the debt.
For when Joe’s real parents died there was a little sum of money
realized from the sale of Professor Morretti’s effects, and this the
deacon had taken charge of. He used it to clothe and educate Joe, taking
out a certain sum each year for “board and lodging.”
In consequence the money was all used up, the last of it about two years
prior to the opening of this story, so that Joe’s little inheritance had
paid his way for some years.
Then, when the lad was old enough, the deacon, before and after school
hours, had called on Joe’s strength in the feed and grain business, Joe
being an efficient helper.
The deacon was honest in his way, and he allowed Joe money for this
help. But he did not overpay the lad and part of what he gave, the
deacon took back for board and lodging, though allowing Joe a certain
sum each week. Joe had saved most of this, and it was from this horde
that the deacon proposed deducting the money to pay for the burned suit.
“But he shan’t do it!” said Joe fiercely, as he felt of the money he had
put in the pocket of his best suit. He was going to wear that when he
left, carrying Tom’s suit, which he intended leaving on the door-step of
the Simpson home, with a note explaining the circumstances.
After his supper, if one could call it that, Joe undressed, and lay down
on the bed. He was tired from the day’s excitement, and he realized that
he had a hard night before him. His plans, as yet, were rather hazy. All
he was sure of was that he was going to run away.
Deacon Blackford did not eat much supper. His wife was rather nervously
anticipating another scene between him and Joe, but the deacon did not
mention the lad’s name. Mr. Blackford sat in glum silence after the
meal. Finally Mrs. Blackford could stand it no longer. She wanted to
know the worst.
“What are you going to do to—him?” she finally asked.
“Who? Joe?”
“Yes. Are you going to—to whip him?”
“I think likely I shall,” answered the old man. “He’s got to be taught a
lesson. But I’ll wait until morning to do it. I want to do it without
getting angry at him.”
Mrs. Blackford breathed a silent sigh of relief. She felt that if the
deacon put off the whipping until the next day he might not do it at
all. And she dreaded to have it happen. She realized, if her husband did
not, that Joe was too big now to be whipped.
The evening began to lengthen into night, and the deacon prepared for
bed. Joe was listening in his room for a cessation of sounds that would
indicate it would be safe for him to attempt to leave. Finally all was
still.
Joe cautiously arose and dressed in the dark. There was a half-moon, and
it gave him illumination enough to see without making a light in his
room. Putting on his best suit, Joe made a bundle of Tom’s clothing. The
lad had already packed a valise with his few belongings.
With a length of strong fish-line he lowered his valise from the window
to the ground below. He was glad the deacon’s bedroom was on the other
side of the house. Next Joe lowered the bundle, and then he prepared to
make his way down to the ground.
To do this he was going to lower himself, hand over hand, on the
lightning rod. The deacon was old-fashioned enough to have one of these
contrivances on his house, and the twisted, galvanized rod, in its glass
insulating supports, was close to Joe’s window.
To a youth of Joe’s muscle and ability in gymnastics it was no feat at
all to climb down the lightning rod. On the contrary, Joe thought it
fun—or he would have under pleasanter circumstances.
“I’ll just give this a pull or two, to make sure it will hold me,” Joe
mused. “I don’t want to come a cropper.”
Leaning out of his window, he exerted his strength against the lightning
rod. To his dismay it was loose, and a little stronger pull would have
torn it away from the side of the house.
“Whew!” whistled Joe, softly. “That’s bad. I’ll never dare trust my
weight to that. I’d come down all at once. I wouldn’t mind the fall so
very much, but I’d make a racket, and he’d sure wake up. Now what can I
do? I ought to have tested that rod this afternoon, and then I could
have begun tearing up the sheets into a rope. Maybe I can do that now.”
Joe was about to do this, then decided on a more straightforward plan.
“They’re both sound asleep,” he reflected. “I can easily slip down the
stairs and go out the front door. I won’t make any noise, and it will be
safer even than going down by a bed-sheet rope. That might break or slip
off what I tied it to, and I’d fall anyhow. Yes, I’ll go out the front
way, but I’ll have to be very quiet.”
Joe took off his shoes, unlocked his door with great caution, and went
softly down the stairs. To his delight they did not creak much, and he
soon found himself in the lower hall.
As he was at the front door turning the key, he heard a sudden noise
behind him in the darkness.
“Jinks! He’s heard me!” reflected Joe quickly. “I’ve got to run for it!”
He opened the door and fairly leaped off the steps in his stocking-feet.
It was the work of but an instant to run around the side path, pick up
the bundle of Tom’s clothes and the valise, and then leap over the fence
to the sidewalk. Then, still carrying his shoes and other things, Joe
sped on, running away, fearful lest the awakened deacon should run after
him.