“Have you hatched a scheme?” I asked Mark, after we’d scoured off
the dishes and cleaned up in front of the cave.
“I got a scheme, but I don’t like it much.”
“Won’t it work?”
“I guess it’ll work.”
“What’s wrong with it, then? You want one that’ll work, don’t you?”
“I ain’t sure,” says he, with a grin. “Sometimes it ain’t desirable
to c-catch what you’re after. I dunno just what I’d do with a wild
man if I was to get him.”
“You might sell him to a circus,” says Binney, who always took
things serious, and couldn’t see a joke if the point was printed out
for him.
“What’s the scheme?” I was getting pretty impatient to know.
“Make believe we’ve gone away,” says Mark. “Then he’ll come prowlin’
around. Three of us go over to the island and holler and raise a
r-racket. One will stay in the cave. He’ll think we’re all gone.”
“It’s a good scheme,” I says, “for the feller that stays in the
cave.”
“That’s the trouble,” Mark grins.
“Who d’you think’ll be fool enough to stay in the cave to catch
Mister Wild Man?”
“Me,” says Mark.
“You dassen’t.”
“That’s what I’m wonderin’,” he owns up.
We sat a while without saying a word, then Mark clicks his teeth and
says, “I’m goin’ to try it.”
“You ain’t,” I says. “He’ll bust you in two.”
“I don’t b’lieve so. At any rate, I don’t in daylight.”
“You ain’t foolin’?”
“N-no.”
“And you want us to go over to the island and kick up a row like
there was four of us, so’s he’ll think nobody’s here?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, fellers,” I says. “If Mark’s gump enough to play he’s bait
in a bear-trap I guess we can kick up his racket for him.” We got up
and started down hill, leaving Mark in front of the cave looking
after us sort of regretful. We weren’t more than half-way down
before I began to feel on bad terms with myself. Somehow it didn’t
look just right to go off deserting Mark, especially after binding
ourselves to stick together in whatever peril come when we made up
the Ku Klux Klan.
“Wait a minute,” I told Binney and Plunk. “This ain’t no way to do.
You fellers got to yell loud enough for four; can you do it?”
“I guess so,” says Plunk. “Why?”
“’Cause I’m goin’ back to stick with Mark,” I grunted, kind of
sharp. “There ain’t nobody in Wicksville goin’ to say I ain’t got as
much sand as Mark Tidd.”
“I sha’n’t go back,” Binney says. “I didn’t ask him to stay.”
“Me too,” agreed Plunk.
“Nobody asked you to go back. Somebody’s got to do the hollerin’ on
the island, ain’t they? Well, all you got to do is sound like a
whole picnic. Now git.”
I went back up the hill cautious and sneaking and sat down just back
of Mark. He didn’t hear me till I slipped, and then the way he
jumped reminded me of a big rubber ball bounding.
“Whillisker!” he panted, “but you scairt me!”
“Too bad. If I scairt you what’ll the wild man do?”
He grinned kind of sickly. “What you doin’ here?”
“I come to stay,” I says. “Plunk and Binney can make enough row.”
He looked pretty thankful, but tried not to show it. “There ain’t no
need,” he says.
“If you don’t want me I’ll git out,” I told him.
He grinned again. “I dunno’s I’d go as far’s kickin’ you out. If
you’re g-goin’ to stay let’s git inside the cave.”
We went inside and fixed ourselves as comfortable as we could at the
far end, in a sort of recess we’d dug out to put things in, with a
piece of canvas hanging down over it, and all the talking we did was
in whispers. Somehow we didn’t either of us think of many things to
say. I remember after about half an hour of it that I wished if any
wild man was coming he’d hurry and have it over with, because my
legs were getting cramped. But he didn’t come.
Through the mouth of the cave we could hear Plunk and Binney raising
a racket that sounded as if all the kids in Wicksville were mixed up
in one big fight.
“They’re doin’ fine,” whispers Mark.
“Yes,” I says, “and I bet they’re enjoyin’ it more’n I am this.”
It began to look as if Mark’s scheme wasn’t any good, for we sat
there more than two hours, and I was sure my legs would snap off if
I moved, they were so stiff.
“Come on,” I whispered, “let’s get out of this. Nobody’s comin’.”
“_Hus-ss-ssh!_”
I listened. Sure enough, there was something moving around outside,
slow and cautious. We could hear twigs crackling, and once in a
while a sort of scuffling like feet moving through dried grass.
Mark’s eyes were fastened on the opening through a slit in the
canvas, and they were pretty nearly as big as saucers. When you
think how small his eyes usually were you can guess how excited he
was now. Probably I looked about the same; I know my heart hammered,
and I got that empty feeling like I had in the night, and I wished I
was seven miles away with a company of soldiers. But I wasn’t any
place but right there, and I had to make the best of it.
The sounds came nearer and nearer and nearer until whoever made them
was right outside. Then the opening was darkened, and we could see a
big head and shoulders that were as broad as the hole. The head
stopped and peered around to make sure nobody was there. We were way
in the corner; it was pretty dark, and the canvas was in front of
us. So there wasn’t much chance of his seeing us or finding us. He
mumbled something to himself and crept way in. I almost hollered
right out. He was the biggest man I ever saw, and wild-looking. We
couldn’t see his face very well, but he was ragged, and his hair was
long and frowsy—and we were alone with him in a little cave, and
nobody to help within a couple of miles.
He crawled in on all fours and began fumbling around on the other
side of the cave where we had kept the bread. I felt Mark heave
himself up, and then saw him creep out of the blankets and across
the floor until he was between the door and the wild man. It took
more nerve than I had, but, though he was as pale as a sheet, he
kept right ahead. He stood still, kind of doubtful, getting up his
courage to do something and figuring out just what he was going to
do. I felt around for something heavy I could use if worse came to
worst.
Mark opened his mouth once, but not a sound came. He shut it again
and felt of his throat; then he made his voice sound as deep and
heavy as he could and sort of barked: “Hey! W-what you do-doin’
here?”
The wild man jumped so he cracked his head against the roof and
turned around rubbing it. For the first time we got a good look at
his face when the light from outside struck it fair. I expected he
was going to leap right at Mark till I saw his face; and then,
somehow, I felt sorry for him and not afraid a bit, for it was the
most scared face I ever saw—yes, sir, scared! He fairly cowered
against the wall.
“Don’t hurt Sammy. Poor Sammy. Sammy’s hungry,” he whimpered.
Mark and I both giggled, we were so relieved. Mark spoke to him
again like he was stern and displeased.
“What you stealin’ our stuff for? Hey?”
“Sammy’s hungry,” said the wild man again. “Don’t hurt Sammy.”
He turned his great, round, simple face to Mark, his big eyes, blue
as a baby’s, full of trouble. He smiled like a child will that has
been bad and thinks it can get out of it by being specially
friendly.
“Come outside,” orders Mark, “where there’s more room.”
We went out on the sand, Mark first, the wild man second, and me
last. Out there he could stand up straight, and I tell you when he
did I was glad he was so simple and good-natured, and not wild and
savage like the pictures in front of the side-show. I’m pretty well
grown for my age, but I couldn’t have reached to the top of his head
even standing tiptoe. My father is six foot one, so I’m used to
seeing a big man, but our wild man must have been a head taller than
dad. Afterward we got him to let us measure him, and he turned out
to be six foot six and a half—almost tall enough to be a giant in a
museum. And he was broad, too. When he turned his back it looked as
wide as a dining-room table.
His face was round and innocent, like I said before, and
good-natured. His hair was black as Mr. Whittaker’s stallion and as
coarse as the horse’s tail—coarse and straight. Take it and his
smooth, coppery skin, and we made sure he was an Indian. He was,
almost.
He was all ragged, with great holes torn in his clothes. I looked at
his feet. One of them had a shoe on, and the other was bare. The
bare one was the foot that had scared us so when we saw its print in
the sand by the cave with the toes pointing sideways. Now we
understood, for that foot was twisted and sort of crumpled up like
it had been hurt a long time ago and healed wrong. But with all that
he hardly limped a bit, and how he could run!
“Don’t send Sammy back,” he begged. “Sammy wants to stay here. Don’t
tell on Sammy.”
“Back where?” asks Mark.
“Back to the big farm. Sammy ran away.... They make Sammy sleep in
the house, and they make him dig and work, and they won’t ever let
him go fishing. Don’t send Sammy back.”
“He means the poor-farm, I guess,” I said to Mark; and he nodded.
“How did you get sent to the poor-farm?”
Sammy always spoke about himself as if he were somebody else. I
never heard him say “I” as long as I have known him. It made him
seem very simple and childish and feeble-minded, but Sammy knew and
thought a whole lot more than folks gave him credit for. He knew how
many apples it took to make six, all right, and lots of things
besides. But, after all, he was just like a little boy, a little
frightened boy with a great big body.
He told us all about himself, and it was so interesting to listen to
that we clean forgot all about Plunk and Binney and dinner until he
was through. He said he was born in a lumber camp that used to be in
the neighborhood a good many years ago, before the pine was cut off.
His father was half French and half Indian, and his mother was
mostly Indian. He couldn’t remember much about being little, because
he wasn’t very old when he got hurt some way with a falling tree or
a log on a rollway or something, and it almost killed him. That’s
how he got his twisted foot, and probably he got a knock on the head
that spoiled his brains.
For a long time he lived with his father in a little shack over
beyond Loon Lake, which was about seven miles away, and nobody had
bothered him. He and his father had fished and hunted and one thing
and another so as to get enough to eat. Then his father died and
left Sammy all alone. He got along pretty good until winter, and it
was a hard winter, so that there wasn’t much hunting, and he almost
starved. When he came into town to get something to eat, begging,
they clapped him into jail and then sent him off to the poor-farm.
It took him a long time to tell all of this, because every little
while he’d stop and look at us pitiful and beg us not to tell on him
or send him back, and then he’d go on again, but all the time he
kept his eyes on us and started nervous-like whenever a twig snapped
or a bird peeped back in the woods.
“Well,” says Mark, “I s’pose you’re a sort of wild man; but I’m glad
you ain’t the kind we thought you were.”
“Sammy’s nice. Everybody like Sammy, sure.”
“About sendin’ him back,” I says to Mark, “it ain’t goin’ to be
done. He’s Injun, and the woods and things is for Injuns, not
poorfarms. He hadn’t ought to be shut up no more than a robin or a
chipmunk, and he ain’t goin’ to be if I can help it.”
Sammy looked at me out of his big eyes so grateful I had to blink,
and then he reached out with his great paw and patted the back of my
hand.
“Boy good to Sammy,” he said. “Kind in his heart to poor Sammy.”
“Sure,” I told him; and there was a kind of a chunk in my throat.
“No,” says Mark, “he ain’t goin’ back. We’ll hide him and
p-p-purtect him and shield him from his enemies.”
“Enemies?” I says. “He ain’t got no enemies that I know of. The
folks at the poor-farm ain’t his enemies; they’re tryin’ to be kind
to him.”
“Rats!” he snaps, disgusted as could be. “Maybe they ain’t enemies
one way of lookin’ at it, but we kin play they are.”
“I s’pose so.”
“Anyhow, we won’t tell, and we’ll help him all we can.”
Sammy smiled so he showed all his white, even teeth, and bobbed his
head at Mark.
“Fat boy good. Sammy like fat boy—sure.”
“I s’pose they’ll be lookin’ for him,” I guessed.
“’Tain’t likely they’ll strain theirselves,” Mark says. “All Sammy’s
got to do is lay l-low.”
“He can live in our cave.”
“Sammy live in cave—sure. Roll in blanket and sleep. Catch fish in
river, shoot, hunt.”
“You haven’t any gun.”
He looked real crafty and half closed his eyes while he bobbed his
head back and forth. “Sammy got gun—sure. Good gun.”
All of a sudden we remembered Plunk and Binney, and I jumped up and
put my hands to my mouth to holler at them, but I happened to glance
at Sammy, who looked like he was ready to jump and run, so I stopped
and explained to him. He quieted down, and then I hollered. I had to
holler two or three times before I got an answer, but after a while
I could hear them hooting back at me. I told them to come on, and in
about five minutes they came tearing up the hill. I guess they never
expected to see us again, the way they looked. And surprised!—you
never saw anything like it. They were a little sorry, too, that they
hadn’t stayed. You see, nobody’d got hurt, and they might as well
have had the credit for being brave. That’s the way with lots of
folks. They can figure out after the time is passed what they ought
to have done the week before.
Well, we held a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan right there, and voted
Sammy our ward. Mark found out he was that. Indians, he said, were
the wards of the nation, and ward meant somebody that was looked
after and taken care of, so he guessed that’s what Sammy was to us.
Sammy was agreeable, and grinned and grinned and bobbed his head and
said “Sure, sure, sure” every little while.
It was getting about time for us to go home, so we left Sammy all
the things to eat and as many dishes as we dared, and told him we’d
be back to see him in a day or two and bring more grub. Then we
shook hands all round, and off we went with the first real big
secret we’d ever had, and I tell you we felt pretty important over
it.