The group below took no heed how the time passed. Thinking of it
afterward, they said it seemed only a few moments before they heard
amongst the fitful gusts of the wind, wearing away now, and the dull
stirring of the tree without, a hurried, irregular footstep suddenly
falling on the porch, a groping, nervous hand fumbling at the latch.
“Hev ye los’ yer manners ez ye can’t knock at the door,” said Peter
Sawyer sardonically, speaking through his teeth, for he still held his
pipe-stem in his mouth.
Ike had burst in without ceremony and stood upon the threshold, holding
the door in one hand and gazing about with wild eyes, half blinded by the
light, uncertain whether Skimpy was really absent or overlooked among the
rest.
“I—I—kem ter see Skimpy,” he faltered.
Mrs. Sawyer had set the baby on the floor beside Bose, and had folded her
arms stiffly. She looked at Ike with heightened color and a flashing eye.
“Waal, I ain’t keerin’ ef ye never see Skimpy ag’in,” she said
indignantly, “considerin’ the way ye treat him. That thar boy air tender
in his feelin’s, an’ he hev been settin’ hyar an’ cryin’ his eyes out
’count o’ you-uns. Ye want ter torment him some mo’, I s’pose.”
Ike stared bewildered. “I ain’t never tormented Skimp none ez I knows on.”
“Ye ain’t!” exclaimed Obadiah, scornfully. Then grotesquely
distorting his face he careened to one side and began to wheeze
distractingly—“Oh—aw—yi-i, Mister Ky-une, Oh—aw—ee-ee, Mister Ky-une.”
As Ike still stood holding the door open, the flames bowed fantastically
before the wind, sending puffs of smoke into the room and scurrying ashes
about the hearth.
“Kem in, ef ye air a-comin’, an’ go out ef ye air a-goin’,” said Mrs.
Sawyer tartly. “Ennyhow we-uns will feel obligated ef ye’ll shet that
door.”
The invitation was none too cordial, but Ike availed himself of the
opportunity to speak, since the matter was so important.
He closed the door and sat down on the end of the bench where Skimpy had
been sitting so short a time before.
“Skimp ’lows that’s the way ye mocked him,” said Obadiah. “An’ ye wants
ter see him ag’in, do ye? Ef I war Skimp I’d gin ye sech a dressin’ ez
ye wouldn’t want ter see _me_ ag’in soon.” He winked fiercely at Ike and
nodded his head. Then he stuck his violin under his chin and began to saw
away once more as if nothing had happened.
Ike gave a great gulp as if he literally swallowed a bitter dose in
taking Obadiah’s defiance; the strain on his temper was severe, but he
succeeded in controlling himself. It was in a calm and convincing voice
that he said:—
“Oby, ye an’ me, an’ Skimp, and the t’others”—pointing to the tangled-up
wrestlers—“hev been too good frien’s ter be parted by folks tattlin’
lies an’ tales from one ter ’nother. I never said sech. I never mocked
Skimpy’s singin’ sence I been born. I hev sot too much store by Skimp
fur that, an’ he oughter know it.”
Mrs. Sawyer’s expression softened. “Ye only would hev proved yerse’f a
idjit ef ye hed faulted Skimpy’s singin’,” she said. Then, still more
genially—“Set up closer ter the fire. It mus’ be airish out’n doors. Who
d’ye reckon tole Skimp sech a wicked, mean story on ye?”
Ike trembled in his eagerness to tell. “I dunno fur true, Mis’ Sawyer,
and mebbe I oughtn’t ter say, but I b’lieves it be Jerry Binwell, kase
Skimpy hev been goin’ a powerful deal with him lately, an’”—
Peter Sawyer turned suddenly upon the boy. “The truth ain’t in ye, Ike
Guyther. Ye knows ez yer dad an’ yer uncle, an’ yerse’f an’ yer folks
ginerally, air the only critters in the Cove ez would ’sociate with Jerry
Binwell, an’ live in fellowship with him under the same roof. I ’low they
air crazy—plumb bereft. It’s yer folks ez hev harbored him hyar, an’ ye
can’t tar Skimpy with sayin’ he consorts with sech. I forbid Skimp ever
ter go with you-uns enny mo’, so’s ter keep him out’n Binwell’s way.
Now, sir; ye can’t shoulder him off on Skimpy!”
Ike’s face turned scarlet. “I hev glimpsed Skimp with him ag’in an’
ag’in. An’ I b’lieves he be a-goin’ ter git Skimp inter mischief.”
Obadiah laid his fiddle down on his knee, pursed up his lips, and looked
aggravatingly cross-eyed at Ike, up from his toes to the crown of his
head.
“’Twouldn’t take much mo’, Ike, ter make _me_ settle you-uns,” he
observed.
“I ain’t keerin’ fur you-uns, Obadiah!” cried Ike. “I hev kem ter say
my say—an’ I’m a-goin’ ter do it. I b’lieve Jerry Binwell air arter old
Squair Torbett’s money what folks ’low he hid in a box in a hollow o’
Keedon Bluffs.”
Peter Sawyer’s pipe had fallen from his hand, and the fire and tobacco
and ashes rolled out upon the hearth. He gave it no heed. He sat
motionless, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his surprised,
intent eyes fixed upon the boy’s face.
“I never s’picioned at fust what he war arter, though I seen him foolin’
roun’ them Bluffs an’ a-climbin’ on the ledges. But I knowed ’twar
suthin’ cur’us. An’ whenst I seen Skimp along o’ him so much I kem hyar
this evenin’ an’ tried ter warn him. But ter-night I hearn Jerry Binwell
ax uncle Ab—him it war ez holped the Squair hide the box whilst Jerry
Binwell watched—what hollow he hid it in.”
“An’—an’—did Ab tell him?” demanded Peter Sawyer, leaning down,
his excited face close to Ike’s, his eyes full of curiosity and
more—intention, suspicion.
Once again Ike recognized the false position into which his uncle was
thrust. How could any man’s honest repute survive a misunderstanding like
this? He realized that in his eager desire to save his friend his tongue
had outstripped his prudence.
“I jes’ wanter tell Skimp what I hearn,” he said, declining to answer
categorically, “an’ then let him go on with Binwell ef he wants ter. I
war feared he’d purvail on Skimp, by foolin’ him somehows, ter snake
inter them hollows an’ git that box fur him. Whar be Skimp?”
“Asleep in bed, whar he oughter be, Ike,” said Skimpy’s mother
contentedly rocking by the fire.
Peter Sawyer hesitated for a moment. Then he slowly rose. “’Twon’t hurt
Skimp ter wake him up. He mought ez well hear this ez not.”
He winked at his wife. He thought that if Skimpy were present he himself
would hear more of the whereabouts of the box, which might prove of
service in the constable’s search for it, when the ladder could be found
or a substitute provided. He walked toward the primitive stairway,
feeling very clever and a trifle surprised at the promptitude and acumen
of his decision. He himself would wake Skimpy in order to give him a
quiet caution not to become involved in any quarrel that might restrain
or prevent Ike’s disclosure. He tramped slowly and heavily up the ladder
as if he were not used to it, and indeed he seldom ascended into the
roof-room, its chief use being that of a dormitory for the boys. As he
left the bright scene below, suffused with mellow light, the shadows
began to gloom about him as if they came down a rung or two to meet
him or to lend him a helping hand; he raised his eyebrows and peered
curiously about. His head was hardly above the level of the floor of the
loft before he became aware that the roof-room was full of motion. He
gave a sudden start, and stood still to stare, to collect his senses that
surely had played him false. No,—solemnly wavering to and fro, a pace
here, a measure there, was the gaunt company of old clothes, visible in
the glimmer through the crevices of the floor, and bearing the semblance
of life in the illusions of the faint light and the failing shadow, as
if they had outwitted fate somehow, despite their owners’ mounds in the
little mountain graveyard. Peter Sawyer gasped—then he shivered. And it
was, perhaps, this involuntary expression of physical discomfort which
led his mind to judge of cause and effect. “The winder mus’ be open,” he
said through his chattering teeth.
The next moment he saw it—he saw the purplish square amidst the darkness
of the walls; the naked boughs of the tree without; and high, high—for he
was looking upward—the massive looming mountain, and the moon, the yellow
waning moon, rising through the gap in the range.
“The wind’s laid,” he muttered, “or the flappin’ o’ that thar shutter
would hev woke the boy afore this time.”
He clumsily ascended the remaining rungs and strode across the floor to
Skimpy’s bed, looking now with curious half-averted eyes at the lifelike
figures of the old clothes, and then at the yellow moon shining through
the little window into the dusky place, and drawing the shadow of the
neighboring tree upon the floor.
Sawyer’s hand touched the pillow.
“Skimpy!” he said. And again, “Skimpy!”
It was a louder tone. A penetrating quality it had, charged as it was
with a sudden, keen fear.
“Fetch a light!” he cried, running to the top of the ladder, dashing away
the spectral garments. “Fetch the lantern, Oby, or a tallow dip.”
Below they heard his quick footsteps returning to the bed as they sprang
up, affrighted, yet hardly knowing what had happened.
“Skimpy!” his voice sounded strong again—reassured; he could not, would
not believe this thing. “Quit foolin’, sonny; whar hev ye hid?”
Skimpy’s mother had waited for neither the candle nor the lantern; she
mounted the ladder by the light of the fire, and she understood what had
happened almost as soon as Ike did, as pale and dismayed he looked over
her shoulder into the dusky garret. The golden moonlight fell through the
little window upon the slowly-pacing clothes, and drew the image of the
bare tree upon the floor, and slanted upon the empty bed by which Peter
Sawyer stood crying aloud—“He hev gone, wife; he hev gone!”