“Quite a time,” continued my grandfather. “Some boys broke into Ezra
Wingate's barn and carried off the old stagecoach. The young rascals! I
do believe they'd burn up the whole town if they had their way.”
With this he resumed the paper. After a long silence he exclaimed,
“Hullo!” upon which I nearly fell off the chair.
“'Miscreants unknown,'” read my grandfather, following the paragraph
with his forefinger; “'escaped from the bridewell, leaving no clew to
their identity, except the letter H, cut on one of the benches.' 'Five
dollars reward offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators.' Sho! I
hope Wingate will catch them.”
I don't see how I continued to live, for on hearing this the breath went
entirely out of my body. I beat a retreat from the room as soon as I
could, and flew to the stable with a misty intention of mounting Gypsy
and escaping from the place. I was pondering what steps to take, when
Jack Harris and Charley Marden entered the yard.
“I say,” said Harris, as blithe as a lark, “has old Wingate been here?”
“Been here?” I cried, “I should hope not!”
“The whole thing's out, you know,” said Harris, pulling Gypsy's forelock
over her eyes and blowing playfully into her nostrils.
“You don't mean it!” I gasped.
“Yes, I do, and we are to pay Wingate three dollars apiece. He'll make
rather a good spec out of it.”
“But how did he discover that we were the--the miscreants?” I asked,
quoting mechanically from the Rivermouth Barnacle.
“Why, he saw us take the old ark, confound him! He's been trying to sell
it any time these ten years. Now he has sold it to us. When he found
that we had slipped out of the Meat Market, he went right off and wrote
the advertisement offering five dollars reward; though he knew well
enough who had taken the coach, for he came round to my father's
house before the paper was printed to talk the matter over. Wasn't the
governor mad, though! But it's all settled, I tell you. We're to pay
Wingate fifteen dollars for the old go-cart, which he wanted to sell
the other day for seventy-five cents, and couldn't. It's a downright
swindle. But the funny part of it is to come.”
“O, there's a funny part to it, is there?” I remarked bitterly.
“Yes. The moment Bill Conway saw the advertisement, he knew it was
Harry Blake who cut that letter H on the bench; so off he rushes up to
Wingate--kind of him, wasn't it?--and claims the reward. 'Too late, young
man,' says old Wingate, 'the culprits has been discovered.' You see
Sly-boots hadn't any intention of paying that five dollars.”
Jack Harris's statement lifted a weight from my bosom. The article in
the Rivermouth Barnacle had placed the affair before me in a new light.
I had thoughtlessly committed a grave offence. Though the property in
question was valueless, we were clearly wrong in destroying it. At the
same time Mr. Wingate had tacitly sanctioned the act by not preventing
it when he might easily have done so. He had allowed his property to be
destroyed in order that he might realize a large profit.
Without waiting to hear more, I went straight to Captain Nutter, and,
laying my remaining three dollars on his knee, confessed my share in the
previous night's transaction.
The Captain heard me through in profound silence, pocketed the
bank-notes, and walked off without speaking a word. He had punished me
in his own whimsical fashion at the breakfast table, for, at the very
moment he was harrowing up my soul by reading the extracts from the
Rivermouth Barnacle, he not only knew all about the bonfire, but had
paid Ezra Wingate his three dollars. Such was the duplicity of that aged
impostor.
I think Captain Nutter was justified in retaining my pocketmoney, as
additional punishment, though the possession of it later in the day
would have got me out of a difficult position, as the reader will see
further on. I returned with a light heart and a large piece of punk to
my friends in the stable-yard, where we celebrated the termination
of our trouble by setting off two packs of fire-crackers in an empty
wine-cask. They made a prodigious racket, but failed somehow to fully
express my feelings. The little brass pistol in my bedroom suddenly
occurred to me. It had been loaded I don't know how many months, long
before I left New Orleans, and now was the time, if ever, to fire it
off. Muskets, blunderbusses, and pistols were banging away lively all
over town, and the smell of gunpowder, floating on the air, set me wild
to add something respectable to the universal din.
When the pistol was produced, Jack Harris examined the rusty cap and
prophesied that it would not explode.
“Never mind,” said I, “let's try it.”
I had fired the pistol once, secretly, in New Orleans, and, remembering
the noise it gave birth to on that occasion, I shut both eyes tight as
I pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on the cap with a dull, dead
sound. Then Harris tried it; then Charley Marden; then I took it again,
and after three or four trials was on the point of giving it up as a
bad job, when the obstinate thing went off with a tremendous explosion,
nearly jerking my arm from the socket. The smoke cleared away, and
there I stood with the stock of the pistol clutched convulsively in my
hand--the barrel, lock, trigger, and ramrod having vanished into thin
air.
“Are you hurt?” cried the boys, in one breath.
“N--no,” I replied, dubiously, for the concussion had bewildered me a
little.
When I realized the nature of the calamity, my grief was excessive. I
can't imagine what led me to do so ridiculous a thing, but I gravely
buried the remains of my beloved pistol in our back garden, and erected
over the mound a slate tablet to the effect that “Mr. Barker formerly of
new Orleans, was killed accidentally on the Fourth of July, 18-- in the
2nd year of his Age.” Binny Wallace, arriving on the spot just after
the disaster, and Charley Marden (who enjoyed the obsequies immensely),
acted with me as chief mourners. I, for my part, was a very sincere one.
As I turned away in a disconsolate mood from the garden, Charley Marden
remarked that he shouldn't be surprised if the pistol-butt took root and
grew into a mahogany-tree or something. He said he once planted an old
musket-stock, and shortly afterwards a lot of shoots sprung up! Jack
Harris laughed; but neither I nor Binny Wallace saw Charley's wicked
joke.
We were now joined by Pepper Whitcomb, Fred Langdon, and several other
desperate characters, on their way to the Square, which was always a
busy place when public festivities were going on. Feeling that I was
still in disgrace with the Captain, I thought it politic to ask his
consent before accompanying the boys.
He gave it with some hesitation, advising me to be careful not to get
in front of the firearms. Once he put his fingers mechanically into his
vest-pocket and half drew forth some dollar bills, then slowly thrust
them back again as his sense of justice overcame his genial disposition.
I guess it cut the old gentleman to the heart to be obliged to keep
me out of my pocket-money. I know it did me. However, as I was passing
through the hall, Miss Abigail, with a very severe cast of countenance,
slipped a brand-new quarter into my hand. We had silver currency in
those days, thank Heaven!
Great were the bustle and confusion on the Square. By the way, I don't
know why they called this large open space a square, unless because it
was an oval--an oval formed by the confluence of half a dozen streets,
now thronged by crowds of smartly dressed towns-people and country
folks; for Rivermouth on the Fourth was the centre of attraction to the
inhabitants of the neighboring villages.
On one side of the Square were twenty or thirty booths arranged in
a semi-circle, gay with little flags and seductive with lemonade,
ginger-beer, and seedcakes. Here and there were tables at which could be
purchased the smaller sort of fireworks, such as pin-wheels, serpents,
double-headers, and punk warranted not to go out. Many of the adjacent
houses made a pretty display of bunting, and across each of the streets
opening on the Square was an arch of spruce and evergreen, blossoming
all over with patriotic mottoes and paper roses.
It was a noisy, merry, bewildering scene as we came upon the ground. The
incessant rattle of small arms, the booming of the twelve-pounder firing
on the Mill Dam, and the silvery clangor of the church-bells ringing
simultaneously--not to mention an ambitious brass-band that was blowing
itself to pieces on a balcony--were enough to drive one distracted. We
amused ourselves for an hour or two, darting in and out among the crowd
and setting off our crackers. At one o'clock the Hon. Hezekiah Elkins
mounted a platform in the middle of the Square and delivered an oration,
to which his “feller-citizens” didn't pay much attention, having all
they could do to dodge the squibs that were set loose upon them by
mischievous boys stationed on the surrounding housetops.
Our little party which had picked up recruits here and there, not being
swayed by eloquence, withdrew to a booth on the outskirts of the crowd,
where we regaled ourselves with root beer at two cents a glass. I
recollect being much struck by the placard surmounting this tent: