_Initiations in an Ancient and Honourable Brotherhood_
"Now father, you said if I'd help till after harvest, I could go to
Multiopolis and hunt a job," Junior reminded Peter. "When may I?"
"I remember," said Peter. "You may start Monday morning if you want to.
Ma and I have talked it over, and if you're bound to leave us, I guess
there'd never be a better time. I can get Jud Jason to drive the cream
wagon for me, and I'll do the best I can at the barn. I had hoped that
we'd be partners and work together all our days; but if you have
decided upon leaving us, of course you won't be satisfied till you've
done it."
"Well I can try," said Junior, "and if I don't like it I can come back."
"I don't know about that," objected Peter. "Of course I'd have other
help hired; your room would be occupied and your work contracted
for----"
"Well I hadn't figured on that," he said. "I supposed I could go and
try it, and if I didn't like it I could come home. Couldn't I come home
Ma?"
Nancy slowly became a greenish white colour; but the situation had been
discussed so often, it worried her dreadfully; now that it had to be
met, evasion would do no good. Peter grimly watched her. He knew she
was struggling with a woman's inborn impulse to be the haven of her
children, her son, her first-born, especially. He was surprised to hear
her saying: "Why I hardly think so Junior, it wouldn't be a right start
in life. You must figure that whatever kind of work you find, or
whoever you work for, there will be things you won't like or think
fair, but if you are going to be your own man, you must begin like a
man; and of course a man doesn't go into business with his mind made up
to run for his mother's petticoats, the first thing that displeases
him. No, I guess if you go, you must start with your mind made up to
stay till the October term of school opens, anyway."
"Then we'll call that settled," said Peter. "You may go with Mickey on
the Monday morning car and we probably won't see you again till you are
one of the leading business men of Multiopolis, and drive out in your
automobile. Have you decided which make you'll get?"
"Well from what I've learned driving yours, if I were buying one
myself, I'd get a Glide-by," said Junior. "They strike me as the best
car on the market."
Peter glanced sharply at his son. When he saw that the answer was
perfectly sincere, his heart almost played him the trick he had
expected from his wife.
"All right Ma, gather up his clothes and get them washed, and have him
ready," said Peter.
"I thought maybe you'd take me in the car and sort of look around with
me," said Junior.
"I don't see how I am going to do it, with both our work piled on me,"
said Peter. "And besides, I'm a farmer born and bred; I wouldn't have
the first idea about how to get a boy a job in the city or what he
ought to do or have. Mickey is on to all that; he'll go with you, won't
you Mickey?"
"Sure!" said Mickey. "And you can save a lot by using my room. It is
high, but it's clean"--Junior scowled but Mickey proceeded calmly--"and
while it gets hot in the daytime, if you open the door at night, and
push the bed before the window, it soon cools off, while very hottest
times I always take to the fire-escape. It's nice and cool there."
"Of course! That will be the ticket," said Peter heartily. "A boy
starting with everything to learn couldn't expect to earn much, and
when you haven't Ma and me to depend on for your board you'll be glad
to have the bed free. Thank you Mickey, that's fine!"
Junior did not look as if he thought it were. Presently he asked: "How
much money ought I to take to start on, Mickey?"
"Hully gee!" said Mickey. "Why your fare in! You're going to make
money, kid, not to spend it. If I was turned loose there with just one
cent I'd be flying by night, and if I hadn't the cent, I'd soon earn
it."
"How could you Mickey?" asked Junior eagerly.
"With or without?" queried Mickey.
"Both!" exclaimed Junior.
"Well, 'without,'" said Mickey, "I'd keep my lamps trimmed and burning,
and I'd catch a lady falling off a car, or pick up a purse, or a kid,
or run an errand. 'With,' there'd be only one thing I'd think of,
because papers are my game. I'd buy one for a penny and sell it for
two; buy two, sell for four; you know the multiplication table, don't
you? But of course you don't want a street job, you want in a factory
or a store. If you could do what you like best, what would it be
Junior?"
Junior opened his mouth several times and at last admitted he hadn't
thought that far: "Why I don't know."
"Well," said Mickey calmly, "there's making things, that's factories.
There's selling them, that's stores. There's doctors, and lawyers,
that's professional, like my boss. And there's office-holders, like the
men he is after, but of course you'd have to be old enough to vote and
educated enough to do business, and have enough money earned at
something else to buy your office; that's too far away. Now if you
don't like the street, there's the other three. The quickest money
would be in the first two. If you were making things, what would you
make?"
"Automobiles!" said Junior.
"All right!" said Mickey, "we can try them first. If we can't find a
factory that you'd like, what would you rather sell?"
"Automobiles," said Junior promptly.
"Gee!" said Mickey. "I see where we hit that business at both ends. If
we miss, what next?"
"I don't know," said Junior. "I'll make up my mind when I have looked
around some."
"You can come closer deciding out here, than you can in the rush of the
streets," said Mickey. "There, you'll be rustling for your supper, and
you'll find boys hunting jobs thick as men at a ball game, and lots of
them with dads to furnish their room and board."
Junior hesitated, but Mickey excused himself and without having been
told what to do, he accomplished half a day's work for Mrs. Harding,
then began some of Peter's jobs and afterward turned his attention to
hearing Peaches' lesson and setting her new copy. When Junior paid his
fare Monday morning, Mickey, judging by the change he exhibited,
realized that both his mother and father had given him, to start on, a
dollar to spend. Mickey would have preferred that he be penniless. He
decided as they ran cityward that the first thing was to part Junior
from his money, so he told him he would be compelled to work in the
forenoon, and for a while in the afternoon, and left him to his own
devices on the street, with a meeting-place agreed on at noon.
When Mickey reached the spot he found Junior with a pocket full of
candy, eating early peaches, and instead of hunting work, he had
attended three picture shows. Mickey could have figured to within ten
cents of what was left of one of Junior's dollars; but as the cure did
not really begin until the money disappeared, the quicker it went the
better. As he ate his sandwich and drank his milk, he watched Junior
making a dinner of meat, potatoes, pie and ice-cream, and made a mental
estimate of the remains of the other dollar. As a basis for a later "I
told you so," he remonstrated, and pointed out the fact that there were
hundreds of unemployed men of strength, skilled artisans with families
to support, looking for work that minute.
"I know your dad signed up that contract with Jud Jason," he said,
"'cause I saw him, and that means that he's got no use for you for
three months; so you must take care of yourself for that long at least,
if you got any ginger in you. Of course," explained Mickey, "I know
that most city men think country boys won't stick, and are big cowards,
but I'm expecting you to show them just where they are mistaken. I know
you're not lazy, and I know you got as much sand and grit as any city
boy, but you must _prove it_ to the rest of them. You must show up!"
"Sure!" said Junior. "I'll convince them!"
By night the last penny of the second dollar was gone, so Junior
borrowed his fare to his room from Mickey, who was to remain with him
to show him the way back and forth, and to spend an early hour in
search of employment. It was Mickey's first night away from Peaches,
and while he knew she was safe, he felt that when night came she would
miss him. The thought that she might cry for him tormented him to
speech. He pointed out to Junior very clearly that he would have to
mark corners and keep his eyes open because he need not expect that he
could leave her longer than that. Junior agreed with him, for he had
promised Peaches in saying good-bye to keep Mickey only one night.
He had treated himself to candy and unusual fruits until his money was
gone, while by night these and a walk of miles on hot pavement had bred
such an appetite that he felt he had not eaten a full meal in years, so
when Mickey brought out the remains of the food Mrs. Harding had given
him, her son felt insulted. But Mickey figured a day on the basis of
what he had earned, what he had expended, what he must save to be ready
when the great surgeon came, and prepared exactly as he would have done
for himself and Peaches. On reaching the tenement and climbing until
his legs ached, Junior faced stifling heat, but Mickey opened the
window and started a draft by setting the door wide. While they ate
supper, Mickey talked unceasingly, but Junior was sulkily silent. He
tried the fire-escape, but one glance from the rickety affair, hung a
mile above the ground it seemed to him, was enough, so he climbed back
in the window and tossed on the bed.
Junior did his first real thinking that night. He was ravenous before
morning and aghast at what he was offered for breakfast. He was eager
to find work and he knew for what his first day's wage would go. In
justice to his own sense of honour and in justice to Junior, mere
common fairness, such as he would have wanted in like case, for the
first few days Mickey honestly and unceasingly hunted employment. With
Junior at his elbow he suffered one rebuff after another, until it was
clear to him that it was impossible for a country boy unused to the
ways of the city to find or to hold a job at which he could survive,
even with his room provided, while the city swarmed with unemployed
men. Everywhere they found the work they would have liked done by an
Italian, Greek, Swede, German, or Polander who seemed strong as oxen,
oblivious, as no doubt they were, to treatment Junior never had seen
accorded a balky mule, and able to live on a chunk of black bread, a
bit of cheese, and a few cents' worth of stale beer. When Mickey had
truly convinced himself of what he had believed, with a free conscience
he then began allowing Junior to find out for himself exactly what he
was facing. By that time Junior had lost himself on the way to Mickey's
rooms, spent a night wandering the streets, and breakfastless was
waiting before the Iriquois.
Mickey listened sympathetically, supplied a dime, which seemed to be
all he had, for breakfast, and said as he entered the building: "Well
kid, 'til we can find a job you'll just have to go up against the
street. If I can live and save money at it, you ought to be smart
enough to _live_. Go to it 'til I get my day's work done. You just
can't go home, because they'll think you don't amount to anything; the
fellows will make game of you, and besides Jud is doing wonderfully
well, your father said so. He seemed so tickled over him, I guess the
fact is he is getting more help from him that he ever did from Junior
boy, so your job there isn't open. Go at whatever you can see that
needs to be done, 'til I get my work over and we'll try again. I'll be
out about three, and you can meet me here."
Empty and disheartened Junior squeezed the dime and hurried toward the
nearest restaurant. But the transaction had been witnessed by a boy as
hungry as he, and hardened to the street. How Junior came to be
sprawling on the sidewalk he never knew; only that his hand
involuntarily opened in falling and he threw it out to catch himself,
so he couldn't find the dime. Before noon he was sick and reeling with
sleeplessness and hunger. He was waiting when it was Mickey's time to
lunch, but he did not come, and in desperation Junior really tried the
street. At last he achieved a nickel by snatching a dropped bundle from
under a car. He sat a long time in a stairway looking at it, and then
having reached a stage where he was more sick, and less hungry, he
hunted a telephone booth and tried to get his home, only to learn that
the family was away. Gladdened by the thought that they might be in the
city, he walked miles, watching the curb before stores where they
shopped, searching for their car, and he told himself that if he found
it, nothing could separate him from the steering gear until he sped
past all regulation straight to his mother's cupboard.
He had wanted ham and chicken in the beginning; later helping himself
to cold food in the cellar seemed a luxury; then crackers and cookies
in the dining-room cupboard would have satisfied his wildest desire;
and before three o'clock, Junior, in mad rebellion, remembered his
mother's slop bucket. How did she dare put big pieces of bread and
things good enough for any one to eat in feed for pigs and poultry! If
he ever reached home he resolved he would put a stop to that.
At three to Mickey's cheerful, "Now we'll find a job or make it," he
answered: "No we will find a square meal or steal it," and then he
told. Mickey watched him reflectively, but as he figured the case, it
was not for him to suggest retreat. He condoled, paid for the meal, and
started hunting work again, with Junior silent and dogged beside him.
To the surprise of both, almost at once they found a place for a week
with a florist.
Junior went to work. After a few tasks bunglingly performed, he was
tried on messenger service and started with his carfare to deliver a
box containing a funeral piece. He had no idea where he was to go, or
what car line to take. In his extremity a bootblack came to his aid. He
safely delivered the box at a residence where the owner was leaving his
door for his car. He gave Junior half a dollar. Junior met the first
friendly greeting he had encountered in Multiopolis, as he reached the
street.
Two boys larger than he walked beside him and talked so frankly, that
before he reached his car line, he felt he had made friends. They
offered to show him a shorter cut to the car line just by going up an
alley and out on a side street. At the proper place for seclusion, the
one behind knocked him senseless, and the one before wheeled and
relieved him of money, and both fled. Junior lay for a time, then
slowly came back, but he was weak and ill. He knew without
investigating what had happened, and preferring the mercy that might be
inside to that of the alley, he crawled into a back door. It proved to
be a morgue. A workman came to his assistance, felt the lump on his
head, noticed the sickness on his face, and gave him a place to rest.
Junior was dubious from the start about feeling better, as he watched
the surroundings. The proprietor came past and inquired who he was and
why he was there. Junior told him, and showed the lumps behind his ear
and on his forehead, to prove his words.
The man was human. He gave Junior another nickel and told him which car
to take from his front door. He had to stand aside and see five pieces
of charred humanity from a cleaning-establishment explosion, carried
through the door before he had a chance to leave it. He reached the
florist's two hours late and in spite of his story and his perfectly
discernible bumps to prove it, he was discharged as a fool for
following strangers into an alley.
On the streets once more and penniless, he started to walk the miles to
his room. When he found the building he thought it would be cooler to
climb the fire-escape and sit on it until he decided what to do, then
he could open the door from the inside. At the top he thrust a foot,
head, and shoulders into the room and realized he had selected the
wrong escape. He tried to draw back, but two men leaped for him, and as
he was doubled in the window he could not make a swift movement.
He was landed in the middle of the room, cursed for a prowling thief,
his protestations silenced, his pockets searched, and when they yielded
nothing, his body stripped of its clean, wholesome clothing and he was
pitched down the stairs. He appealed to several people, and found that
the less he said the safer he was. He snatched a towel from a basket of
clothes before a door, twisted it around him, and ran down the street
to Mickey's front entrance. With all his remaining breath he sped up
flight after flight of stairs and at last reached the locked door, only
to find that the key was in the pocket of his stolen trousers, and he
could not force his way with his bare hands. He could only get to his
clothing by trying the fire-escapes again. He was almost too sick to
see or cling to the narrow iron steps, but that time he counted
carefully, and looked until he was sure before he entered. He found his
clothes, and in the intense heat dressed himself, but he could not open
the door. He sat on the fire-escape to think.
Presently he espied one of the men who had robbed him watching him from
another escape, and being afraid and beaten sore, he crept into the
heat, and lay on the bed beside the window. After a while a breath of
air came in, and Junior slept the sleep of exhaustion. When he awoke it
was morning, his head aching, his mouth dry, and the room cooler.
Glancing toward the door he saw it standing open and then noticed the
disorder of the room, and of himself, and sat up to find he was on the
floor, once more disrobed, and the place stripped of every portable
thing in it, even the bed, little stove, and the trunk filled with
clothes and a few personal possessions sacred to Mickey because they
had been his mother's. The men had used the key in Junior's pocket to
enter while he slept, drugged him, and carried away everything. He
crept to the door and closed it, then sank on the floor and cried until
he again became unconscious. It was four o'clock that afternoon when
Mickey looked in and understood the situation. He bent over Junior's
bruised and battered body, stared at his swollen, tear-stained face,
and darting from the room, brought water, and then food and clothing.
Redressed and fed, Junior lay on the floor and said to Mickey: "Go to
the nearest 'phone and call father. Tell him I'm sick, to come in a
hurry with the car."
"Sure!" said Mickey. "But hadn't we better wait 'til morning now, and
get you rested and fed up a little?"
"No," said Junior. "The sooner he sees the fix I'm in the better he
will realize that I'm not a quitter; but that this ain't just the place
for me. Mickey, did you ever go through this? Why do I get it so awful
hard?"
"It's because the regulars can tell a mile off you are country,
Junior," said Mickey. "All my life I've been on the streets so they
knew me for city born, and supposed I'd friends to trace them and back
me if they abused me; and then, I always look ahead sharp, and don't
trust a living soul about alleys. You say the next escape but one? I've
got to find them, and get back my things. I want mother's, and Lily and
I can't live this winter with no bed, and no stove, and nothing at all."
"I'm sorry about your mother's things Mickey, but don't worry over the
rest," said Junior. "Pa and Ma won't ever be willing to give up Peaches
again, I can see that right now, and if they keep her, they will have
to take you too, because of course you can't be separated from her;
your goods, I'll pay back. I owe you a lot as it is, but I got some
money in the bank, and I'll have to sell my sheep."
Junior laid his head on his arm and sobbed weakly.
"Don't Junior," said Mickey. "I feel just awful about this. I thought
you had a place that would earn your supper, and you had the room, and
would be all right."
"Why of course!" said Junior.
Mickey looked intently at him. "Now look here Junior," he said, "I got
to square myself on this. I didn't think all the time you'd like
Multiopolis, when you saw it with the bark off. Course viewing it on a
full stomach, from an automobile, with spending money in your pocket,
and a smooth run to a good home before you, is one thing; facing up to
it, and asking it to hand out those things to you in return for work
you can do here, without knowing the ropes, is another. You've stuck it
out longer than I would, honest you have, but it isn't your game, and
you don't know how, and you'd be a fool to learn. I thought you'd get
enough to satisfy you when you came, but seeing for yourself seemed to
be the only way to cure you."
"Oh don't start the 'I told you so,'" said Junior. "Father and mother
will hand it out for the rest of my life. I'd as lief die as go back,
but I'm going; not because I can't get in the game, and make a living
if you can, even if I have to go out and start as you did, with a
penny. I'm going back, but not for the reason you think. It's because
seen at close range, Multiopolis ain't what it looks like from an
automobile. I know something that I really know, and that comes natural
to me, that beats it a mile; and now I've had my chance, and made my
choice. I'm so sore I can't walk, but if you'll just call father and
tell him to come in on high, I'll settle with you later."
"Course if that's the way you feel, I'll call him," said Mickey, "but
Junior, let me finish this much I was trying to say. I knew Multiopolis
would do to you all it had done to me, and I knew you wouldn't like it;
but I _didn't_ figure on your big frame and fresh face spelling country
'til it would show a mile down the street. I _didn't_ figure on you
getting the show I would, and I _didn't_ intend anything worse should
happen to you than has to me. Honest I didn't! I'm just about sick over
this Junior. Don't you want to go to Mr. Bruce's office--I got a key
and he won't care--don't you want to go there and rest a little, and
feed up better, before I call your father?"
"No I don't! I got enough and I know it! They must know it some time;
it might as well come at once."
"Then let's go out on the car," said Mickey.
"I guess you don't realize just how bad this is," said Junior. "You
call father, and call him quick and emphatic enough to bring him."
"All right then," said Mickey. "Here goes!"
"And put the call in nearest place you can find and hustle back," said
Junior. "I'm done with alleys, and sluggers, and robbers. Goliath
couldn't have held his own against two big men, when he was fifteen,
and I guess father won't think I'm a coward because they got away with
me. But you hurry!"
"Sure! I'll fly, and I'll get him if I can."
"There's no doubt about getting him. This is baked potato, bacon,
blackberry roll, honey and bread time at our house. They wouldn't be
away just now, and it's strange they have been so much this week."
Mickey gave Junior a swift glance; then raced to the nearest telephone.
"You Mickey?" queried Peter.
"Yes. It's you for S.O.S., and I'm to tell you to come on high, and
lose no time in starting."
"Am I to come Mickey, or am I too busy?"
"You are to come, Peter, to my room, and in a hurry. Things didn't work
according to program."
"Why what's the matter, Mickey?"
"Just what I told you would be when it came to getting a job here; but
I didn't figure on street sharks picking on Junior and robbing him, and
following him to my room, and slugging him 'til he can't walk. You come
Peter, and come in a hurry, and Peter----"
"You better let me start----" said Peter.
"Yes, but Peter, one minute," insisted Mickey. "I got something to say
to you. This didn't work out as I planned, and I'm awful sorry, and
you'll be too. But Junior is cured done enough to suit you; he won't
ever want to leave you again, you can bank on that--and he ain't hurt
permanent; but if you have got anything in your system that sounds even
a little bit like 'I told you so,' forget it on the way in, and leave
instructions with the family to do the same. See? Junior is awful sore!
He don't need anything rubbed in in the way of reminiscences. He's
ready to do the talking. See?"
"Yes. You're sure he ain't really hurt?"
"Sure!" said Mickey. "Three days will fix him, but Peter, it's been
mighty rough! Go easy, will you?"
"Mickey have you got money----"
"All we need, just you get here with the car, and put in a comfort and
pillow. All my stuff is gone!"
Peter Senior arrived in a surprisingly short time, knelt on the floor
and looked closely at his sleeping boy.
"Naked and beaten to insensibility, you say?"
Mickey nodded.
"Nothing to eat for nearly two days?"
Another affirmation. Peter arose, pushed back his hat and wiped the
sweat from his brow.
"I haven't been thinking about anything but him ever since he left," he
said, "and what makes me the sorest is that the longer I think of it,
the surer I get that this is my fault. I didn't raise him right!"
"Aw-w-ah Peter!" protested Mickey.
"I've got it all studied out," said Peter, "and I didn't! There have
been two mistakes, Junior's and mine, and of the two, mine is twice as
big as the boy's."
Peter stooped and picked up his son, who stirred and awakened. When he
found himself in his father's arms Junior clung to him and whispered
over and over: "Father, dear father!" Peter gripped him with all his
might and whispered back: "Forgive me son! Forgive me!"
"Well I don't know what for?" sobbed Junior.
"You will before long," said Peter. He drove to a cool place, and let
the car stand while he called his wife, and explained all of the
situation he saw fit. She was waiting at the gate when they came. She
never said a word except to urge Junior to eat his supper. But Junior
had no appetite.
"I want to run things here for a few minutes," he said. "When the
children finish, put them to bed, and then let me tell you, and you can
decide what you'll do to me."
"Well, don't you worry about that," said Peter.
"No I won't," said Junior, "because there's nothing you can do that
will be half I deserve."
When the little folks were asleep, and Mickey had helped Mrs. Harding
finish the work, and Jud Jason had been paid five dollars for his
contract and had gone home, Junior lay in the hammock on the front
porch, while his father, mother and Mickey sat close. When he started
to speak Peter said: "Now Junior, wait a minute! You've been gone a
week, and during that time I've used my brains more than I ever did in
a like period, even when I was courting your Ma, and the subject I
laboured on was what took you away from us. I've found out why you were
not satisfied, and who made you dissatisfied. The guilty party is Peter
Harding, aided and abetted by one Nancy Harding, otherwise known as
Ma----"
"Why father!" interrupted Junior.
"Silence!" said Peter. "I've just found out that it's a man's job to be
the _head of his family_, and I'm going to be the head of mine after
this, and like Mickey here, 'I'm going to keep it.' Let me finish. I've
spent this week thinking, and all the things I have thought would make
a bigger book than the dictionary if they were set down. Why should you
ask to be forgiven for a desire to go to Multiopolis when I carried you
there as a baby, led you as a toddler, and went with you every chance I
could trump up as a man? Who bought and fed you painted, adulterated
candy as a child, when your Ma should have made you pure clean taffy at
home from our maple syrup or as good sugar as we could buy? Often I've
spent money that now should be on interest, for fruit that looked fine
to you there, and proved to be grainy, too mellow, sour or not half so
good as what you had at home.
"I never took you hunting, or fishing, or camping, or swimming, in your
life; but I haven't had a mite of trouble to find time and money to
take you to circuses, which I don't regret, I'll do again; and picture
shows, which I'll do also; and other shows. I'm not condemning any form
of amusement we ever patronized so much, we'll probably do all of it
again; but what gets me now, is how I ever came to think that the only
_interesting things_ and those worth taking time and spending money on,
were running to Multiopolis, to eat, to laugh, to look, and getting
little to show for it but disappointment and suffering for all of us.
You haven't had the only punishment that's struck the Harding family
this week, Junior. Your Ma and I have had our share, and I haven't
asked her if she has got enough, but speaking strictly for myself, I
have."
"I wouldn't live through it again for the farm," sobbed Mrs. Harding.
"I see what you are getting at Pa, and it's we who are the guilty
parties, just as you say."
Junior sat up and stared at them.
"I don't so much regret the things I did," said Peter, "as I condemn
myself for the things I haven't done. I haven't taught you to ride so
you don't look a spectacle on a horse, and yet horses should come as
natural as breathing to you. You should be a skilled marksman; you
couldn't hit a wash-tub at ten paces. You should swim like a fish, with
a hundred lakes in your country; you'd drown if you were thrown in the
middle of one and left to yourself. You ought to be able to row a boat
as well as it can be done, and cast a line with all the skill any lad
of your age possesses. That you can't make even a fair showing at any
sport, results from the fact that every time your father had a minute
to spare he took you and headed straight for Multiopolis. Here's the
golf links at our door, and if ever any game was a farmer's game, and
if any man has a right to hold up his head, and tramp his own hills,
and swing a strong arm and a free one, and make a masterly stroke, it's
a _land owner_. There's no reason why plowing and tilling should dull
the brains, bend the back, or make a pack-horse of a man. Modern
methods show you how to do the same thing a better way, how to work one
machine instead of ten men, how to have time for a vacation, just as
city men do, and how to have money for books, and music, and school,
instead of loading with so much land it's a burden to pay the taxes. I
have quite a bunch of land for sale, and I see a way open to make three
times the money I ever did, with half the hard work. We've turned over
a new leaf at this place from start to finish, including the house,
barn, land, and family. A year from now you won't know any of us; but
that later. Just now, it's this: I'm pointing out to you Junior,
exactly how you came to have your hankering for Multiopolis. I can see
you followed the way we set you thinking, that all the amusing things
were there, the smart people, the fine clothes, the wealth, and the
freedom----"
"Yes you ought to see the 'amusing things' and the 'happy people' when
your stomach's cramping and your head splitting!" cried Junior. "I tell
you down among them it looks different from riding past in an
automobile."
"Exactly!" conceded Peter. "Exactly what I'm coming at. All your life
I've given you the wrong viewpoint. Now you can busy yourselves
planning how to make our share of the world over, so it will bring all
the joy of life right to the front door. I guess the first big thing is
to currycomb the whole place, and fix it as it should be to be most
convenient for us. Then we better take a course of training in making
up our minds to be _satisfied_ with what we can afford. Junior, does
home look better to you than it did this time last week?"
"Father," began Junior, and sobbed aloud.
"The answer is sufficient," said Peter dryly. "Never mind son! When,
with our heads put together, we get our buildings and land fixed right,
I suggest that we also fix our clothes and our belongings right. I
can't see any reason why a woman as lovely as Ma, should be told from
any other pretty woman, by her walk or dress. I don't know why a man as
well set up as I am, shouldn't wear his clothes as easy as the men at
the club house. I can't see why we shouldn't be at that same club house
for a meal once in a while, just to keep us satisfied with home
cooking, and that game looks interesting. Next trip to Multiopolis I
make, I'm going to get saddles for Junior and Mickey and teach them
what I know about how to sit and handle a horse properly; and it
needn't be a plow horse either. Next day off I have, I'm going to spend
hauling lumber to one of these lakes we decide on, to build a house for
a launch and fishing-boat for us. Then when we have a vacation, we'll
drive there, shelter our car, and enjoy ourselves like the city folks
by the thousand, since we think what they do so right and fine. They've
showed us what they like, flocking five thousand at a clip, to Red Wing
Lake a few miles from us. Since we live among what they are spending
their thousands every summer to enjoy, let's help ourselves to a little
pleasure. I am going to buy each of us a fishing rod, and get a box of
tackle, soon as I reach it, and I'm going fast. I've wasted sixteen
years, now I'm on the homestretch, and it's going to be a stretch of
all there is in me to make our home the sweetest, grandest place on
earth to us. Will you help me, Nancy?"
"I think maybe I'll be saved nervous prostration if I can help just a
few of these things to take place."
"Yes, I've sensed that," said Peter. "Mickey pointed that out to me the
morning you jumped your job and headed for sunup. For years, just _half
your time and strength has been thrown away using old methods and
implements in your work, and having the kitchen unhandy and
inconvenient; and I'm the man who should have seen it, and got you
right tools for your job at the same time I bought a houseful for
myself and my work_. We must stir up this whole neighbourhood, and
build a big entertainment house, where we can have a library suitable
for country folks, and satisfying to their ways of life. It's got to
have music boxes in it, and a floor fit for dancing and skating, and a
stage for our own entertainments, and the folks we decide to bring here
to amuse us. We can put in a picture machine and a screen, that we can
pay for by charging a few cents admission the nights we run it, and
rent films once or twice a week from a good city show. We could fix up
a place like that, and get no end of fun and education out of it,
without going thirty miles and spending enough money in one night to
get better entertainment for a month at home, and in a cool,
comfortable hall, and where we can go from it to bed in a few minutes.
Once I am started, with Mickey and Junior to help me, I'm going to call
a meeting and talk these things over with my neighbours, and get them
to join in if I can. If I can't, I'll go on and put up the building and
start things as I think they should be, and charge enough admittance to
get back what I invest; and after that, just enough to pay running
expenses and for the talent we use. I'm so sure it can be done, I'm
going to do it. Will you help me, son?"
"Yes father, I'd think it was fine to help do that," said Junior.
"_Now_ may I say what I want to?"
"Why yes, you might son," said Peter, "but to tell the truth I can't
see that you have anything to say. If you have got the idea, Junior,
that you have wronged us any, and that it's your job to ask us to
forgive you for wanting to try the things we started and kept you
hankering after all your life so far, why you're mistaken. If I'd
trained you from your cradle to love your home, as I've trained you to
love Multiopolis, you never would have left us. So if there is
forgiving in the air, you please forgive me. And this includes your Ma
as well. I should ask her forgiveness too, for a whole lot of things
that I bungled about, when I thought I was loving her all I possibly
could. I've got a new idea of love so big and all-encompassing it
includes a fireless cooker and a dish-washing machine. I'm going to put
it in practice for a year; then if my family wants to change back,
we'll talk about it."
"But father----" began Junior.
"Go to bed son," said Peter. "You can tell us what happened when you
ain't as sleepy as you are right now."
Junior arose and followed his mother to the kitchen.
"Ain't he going to let me tell what a fool I've been at all?" he
demanded.
"I guess your Pa felt that when he got through telling what fools we've
been, there wasn't anything left for you to say. I know I feel that
way. This neighbourhood does all in its power, from the day their
children are born, to teach them that _home_ is only a
_stopping-place,_ to eat, and sleep, and work, and be sick in; and that
every desirable thing in life is to be found _somewhere else_, the else
being, in most cases, Multiopolis. Just look at it year after year
gobbling up our boys and girls, and think over the ones you know who
have gone, and see what they've come to. Among the men as far as I
remember, Joel Harris went into a law office and made a rich,
respectable man; and two girls married and have good homes; the others,
many of them, I couldn't name to you the places they are in. This
neighbourhood needs reforming, and if Pa has set out to attempt it,
I'll lend a hand, and I guess from what you got this week, you'll be in
a position to help better than you could have helped before."
"Yes I guess so too," said Junior emphatically.
He gladly went back to the cream wagon. Peter didn't want him to, but
there was a change in Junior. He was no longer a wilful discontented
boy. He was a partner, who was greatly interested in a business and
felt dissatisfied if he were not working at furthering it. He had
little to say, but his eyes were looking far ahead in deep thought. The
first morning he started out, while Junior unhitched his horse, Peter
filled the wagon and went back to the barn where Mickey was helping him.
Junior, passing, remembered he had promised Jud Jason to bring a bundle
he had left there, and stopped for it. He stepped into the small front
door and bent for the package lying in sight, when clearly and
distinctly arose Mickey's voice lifted to reach Peter, at another task.
"Course I meant him to get enough to make him good and sick of it, like
we agreed on; but I never intended him to get any such a dose as he
had."
Junior straightened swiftly, and his lower jaw dropped. His father's
reply was equally audible.
"Of course I understand _that_, Mickey."
"Surest thing you know!" said Mickey. "I like Junior. I like him better
than any other boy I ever knew, and I've known hundreds. I tell you
Peter, he was gamer than you'll ever believe to hang on as long as he
did."
"Yes I think that too," said Peter.
"You know he didn't come because he was all in," explained Mickey. "You
can take a lot of pride in that. He'd about been the limit when he
quit. And he quit, not because he was robbed and knocked out, but
because what he had seen showed him that Multiopolis wasn't the job he
wanted for a life sentence. See?"
"I hope you are right about that," said Peter. "I'm glad to my soul to
get him home, cured in any way; but it sort of gags me to think of him
as having been scared out. It salves my vanity considerable to feel, as
you say, that he had the brains to sense the situation, and quit
because he felt it wasn't the work for which he was born."
Then Mickey's voice came eagerly, earnestly, warming the cockles of
Junior's heart.
"Now lemme tell you Peter; I was there, and I _know_. It _was_ that
way. _It was just that way exact!_ He wasn't scared out, he'd have gone
at it again, all right, if he'd seen anything in it he _wanted_. It was
just as his mother felt when she first talked it over with me, and the
same with you later: that if he got to the city, and got right up
against earning a living there, he would find it wasn't what he wanted;
and he did, like all of us thought. Course I meant to put it to him
stiff; I meant to 'niciate him in the ancient and honourable third
degree of Multiopolis all right, so he'd have enough to last a
lifetime; but I only meant to put him up against what I'd. had myself
on the streets; I was just going to test his ginger; I wasn't counting
on the robbing, and the alleys, and the knockout, and the morgue. Gee,
Peter!"
Then they laughed. A dull red surged up Junior's neck, and flooded his
face. He picked up the bundle, went silently from the barn, and climbed
on the wagon. The jerk of the horse stopping at its accustomed place
told him when to load the first can. He had been thinking so deeply he
was utterly oblivious to everything save the thought that it had been
prearranged among them to "cure" him; even his mother knew about, if he
heard aright, had been the instigator of the scheme to let him go, to
be what Mickey called "initiated in the ancient and honourable third
degree of Multiopolis."
Once he felt so outraged he thought of starting the horse home, taking
the trolley, going back to Multiopolis and fighting his way to what his
father would be compelled to acknowledge success. He knew that he could
do it; he was on the point of vowing that he _would_ do it; but in his
heart he knew better than any one else how repulsed he was, how he
hated it, and against a vision of weary years of fighting, came that
other vision of himself planning and working beside his father to
change and improve their home life.
"Say Junior are you asleep?" called Jud Jason. "You sit there like you
couldn't move. D'ye bring my bundle?"
"Yes, it's back there," answered Junior. "Get it!"
"How'd you like Multiopolis?" asked Jud.
Junior knew he had that to face.
"It's a cold-blooded sell, Jud," he said promptly. "I'm glad I went
when I did, and found out for myself. You see it's like this, Jud: I
_could_ have stayed and made my way; but I found out in a few days that
I wouldn't give a snap for the way when it was made. We fellows are
better off right where we are, and a lot of us are ready to _throw
away_ exactly what _many of the men in Multiopolis are wild to get_.
Now let me tell you----"
Junior told him, and through putting his experience into words, he
eased his heart and cleared his brain. He came to hints of great and
wonder-working things that were going to happen soon. There was just a
possibility that Jud gleaned an idea that the experience in Multiopolis
had brought his friend home to astound and benefit the neighbourhood.
At any rate Junior picked up the lines with all the sourness gone from
his temperament, which was usually sweet, except that one phrase of
Mickey's, and the laughter. Suddenly he leaned forward.
"Jud, come here," he said. Junior began to speak, and Jud began to
understand and sympathize with the boy he had known from childhood.
"Could we?" asked Junior.
"'Could we?' Well, I just guess we _could!_"
"When?" queried Junior.
"This afternoon, if he's going to be off," said Jud.
"Well I don't know what his plans are, but I could telephone from here
and by rustling I could get back by two. I've done it on a bet. Where
will we go, and what for?"
"To Atwater. Fishing is good enough excuse."
"All right! Father will let me take the car."
"Hayseed! Isn't walking good enough to suit you? What's the matter with
the Elkhart swale, Atwater marsh, and the woods around the head of the
lake----"
"Hold the horse till I run in and 'phone him."
When he came down the walk he reported: "He wants to go fishing awful
bad, and he'll be ready by two. That's all settled then. We'll have a
fine time."
"Bully!" said Jud laconically, and started to the house of another
friend, where a few words secured a boy of his age a holiday. Junior
drove fast as he dared and hurried with his work; so he reached home a
little before two, where he found Mickey with poles and a big can of
worms ready. Despite the pressing offer of the car, they walked, in
order to show Mickey the country which he was eager to explore on foot.
Junior said the sunfish were big as lunch plates at Atwater, the perch
fine, and often if you caught a grasshopper or a cricket for bait, you
got a big bass around the shore, and if they had the luck to reach the
lake, when there was no one ahead of them, and secured a boat they were
sure of taking some.
"Wouldn't I like to see Lily eating a fish I caught," said Mickey,
searching the grass and kicking rotting wood as he saw Junior doing to
find bass bait.
"Minnies are the real thing," explained Junior. "When we get the scheme
father laid out going, before we start fishing, you and I will take a
net and come to this creek and catch a bucketful of right bait, and
then we'll have man's sport, for sure. Won't it be great?"
"Exactly what the plutes are doing," said Mickey. "Gee, Junior, if your
Pa does all the things he said he was going to, you'll be a plute
yourself!"
"Never heard him say anything in my life he didn't do," said Junior,
"and didn't you notice that he put _you_ in too? You'll be just as much
of a plute as I will."
"Not on your bromide," said Mickey. "He is _your_ father, and you'll be
in business with him; I'll just be along sometimes, as a friend, maybe."
"I usually take father at just what he says. I guess he means you to
stay in our family, if you like."
"I wonder now!" said Mickey.
"Looks like it to me. Father and mother both like you, and they're
daffy about Peaches."
"It's because she's so little, and so white, and so helpless," Mickey
hastened to explain, "and so awful sweet!"
"Well for what ever it is, it _is_," said Junior, "and I'm just as
crazy about her as the rest. Look out kid! That fellow's coming right
at us!"
Junior dashed for the fence, while Mickey lost time in turning to see
what "that fellow" might be; so he faced the ram that had practised on
Malcolm Minturn. With lowered head, the ram sprang at Mickey. He flew
in air, and it butted space and whirled again, so that before the boy's
breath was fully recovered he lifted once more, with all the agility
learned on the streets of Multiopolis; but that time the broad straw
hat he wore to protect his eyes on the water, sailed from his head; he
dropped the poles, and as the ram came back at him he hit it squarely
in the face with the bait can, which angered rather than daunted it.
Then for a few minutes Mickey was too busy to know exactly what
happened, and movements were too quick for Junior. When he saw that
Mickey was tiring, and the ram was not, he caught a rail from the fence
and helped subdue the ram. Panting they climbed the fence and sat
resting.
"Why I didn't know Higgins had that ram," said Junior. "We fellows
always crossed that field before. Say, there ain't much in that
'_Gentle sheep pray tell me why,
In the pleasant fields you lie?_'
business, is there?"
"Not much but the lie," said Mickey earnestly.
Junior dropped from the fence and led the way toward a wood thick with
underbrush, laughing until his heart pained. As they proceeded they
heard voices.
"Why that sounds like my bunch," said Junior.
He whistled shrilly, which brought an immediate response, and soon two
boys appeared.
"Hello!" said Junior.
"Hello!" answered they.
"Where're you going?" asked Junior.
"To Atwater Lake, fishing. Where you?"
"There too!" said Junior. "Why great! We'll go together! Sam, this is
Mickey."
Mickey offered his hand and formalities were over.
"But I threw our worms at the ram," said Mickey.
"Well that was a smart trick!" cried Junior.
"Wasn't it?" agreed Mickey. "But you see the ram was coming and I had
the worms in my strong right, so I didn't stop to think I'd spent an
hour digging them; I just whaled away--"
"Never mind worms," said Jud. "I guess we got enough to divide; if you
fellows want to furnish something for your share, you can find some
grubs in these woods, and we'll get more chance at the bass."
"Sure!" said Mickey. "What are grubs and where do you look for them?"
"Oh anywhere under rotting wood and round old logs," said Jud. "B'lieve
it's a good place right here, Mickey; dig in till I cut a stick to help
with."
Mickey pushed aside the bushes, dropped on his knees and "dug in." A
second later, with a wild shriek, he rolled over and over striking and
screaming.
"Yellow jackets!" shouted Jud. "Quick fellers, help Mickey! He's got
too close to a nest!"
Armed with branches they came beating the air and him; until Mickey had
a fleeting thought that if the red-hot needles piercing him did not
kill, the boys would. Presently he found himself beside a mudhole and
as the others "ouched" and "o-ohed" and bewailed their fate, and
grabbed mud and plastered it on, he did the same. Jud generously
offered, as he had not so many stings, to help Mickey. Soon even the
adoring eyes of Peaches could not have told her idol from the mudhole.
He twisted away from an approaching handful crying: "Gee Jud! Leave a
feller room to breathe! If you are going to smother me, I might as well
die from bites!"
"Bites!" cried the boys while all of them laughed wildly, so wildly
that Mickey flushed with shame to think he had so little appreciation
of the fun calling a sting a bite, when it was explained to him.
"Well they sure do get down to business," he chattered, chilling from
the exquisite pain of a dozen yellow-jacket stings, one of which on his
left eyelid was rapidly closing that important organ. He bowed a
willing head for Jud's application of cold mud.
Finally they gathered up their poles and bait and again started toward
the lake. The day was warm, and there was little air in the marsh, and
on the swampy shore they followed. Suddenly Jud cried: "I tell you
fellows, what's the use of walking all the way round the lake? Bet the
boats will be taken when we get there! Let's cut fishing and go
swimming right here where there's a cool, shady place. It will be good
for you Mickey, it will cool off your stings a lot."
Mickey promptly began to unbutton, and the others did the same. Then
they made their way through the swamp tangle lining the shore at the
head of the lake, and tried to reach the water beside the tamaracks.
Sam and Junior found solid footing, and waded toward deep water. Jud
piloted Mickey to a spot he thought sufficiently treacherous, and said:
"Looks good here; you go ahead Mickey, and I'll come after you."
Mickey was unaccustomed to the water. He waded in with the assurance he
had seen the others use, but suddenly he cried: "Gee boys, I'm sucking
right down!"
Then on his ears fell a deafening clamour. "Help! Help! Quicksands!
Mickey's sinking! Help him!"
Mickey threw out his arms. He grabbed wildly; while a force, seemingly
gentle but irresistible, sucked him lower and lower, and with each inch
it bore him down, gripped tighter, and pulled faster. When he glanced
at the boys he saw panic in their faces, and he realized that he was
probably lost, and they were terror stricken. The first gulp of tepid
shore water that strangled him in running across his gasping lips made
him think of Peaches. Struggling he threw back his head and so saw a
widespreading branch of a big maple not far above him. All that was
left of Mickey went into the cry: "Junior! Bend me that branch!" Junior
swiftly climbed the tree, crept on the limb, and swayed it till it
swept the water, then Mickey laid hold; just a few twigs, and then as
Junior backed, and the branch lifted higher and higher, Mickey worked,
hand over hand, and finally grasped twigs that promised to stand a
gentle pull.
Then Jud began to shout instructions: "Little lower, Junior! Get a
better grip before you pull hard, Mickey! Maple is brittle! Easy! It
will snap with you! Kind of roll yourself and turn to let the water in
and loosen the sand. Now roll again! Now pull a little! You're making
it! You are out to your shoulders! Back farther, Junior! Don't you fall
in, or you'll both go down!"
Mickey was very quiet now. His small face was pallid with the terror of
leaving Peaches forever with no provision for her safety. The grip of
the sucking sand was yet pulling at his legs and body; while if the
branch broke he knew what it meant; that sucking, insistent pulling,
and caving away beneath his feet told him. Suddenly Mickey gave up
struggling, set his teeth, and began fighting by instinct. He moved his
shoulders gently, until he let the water flow in, then instead of
trying to work his feet he held them rigid and flattened as he could,
and with the upper part of his body still rolling, he reached higher,
and kept inching up the branch as Junior backed away, until with
sickening slowness he at last reached wood thick as his wrist. Then he
dragged his helpless body after him to safety, where he sank in a heap
to rest.
"Jud, it's a good thing I went in there first," he said. "Heavy as you
are, you'd a-been at the bottom by now, if there _is_ any bottom."
Mickey's gaze travelled slowly over his lumpy, purple frame, and then
he looked closely at the others. "Why them stingers must a-give about
all of it to me," he commented. "I don't see any lumps on the rest of
you."
"Oh we are used to it," scoffed Jud. "They don't show on you after you
get used to them. 'Sides most all mine are on my head, I kept 'em off
with the bushes."
"So did I," chimed in Sam and Junior with one voice.
"I guess I did get a lot the worst of it," conceded Mickey. "But if
they only stung your heads, it's funny you didn't know where to put
your mud!"
"Well I'll tell you," said Jud earnestly. "On your head they hurt worst
of all. They hurt so blame bad, you get so wild like you don't know
where you _are_ stung, and you think till you cool off a little, you
got them all over."
"Yes I guess you do," agreed Mickey.
The boys were slowly putting on their clothing and Junior was scowling
darkly. Jud edged close.
"Gosh!" he whispered. "I thought it was only a little spring! I didn't
think it was a quicksand!"
"You cut out anything more!" said Junior tersely.
Jud nodded. After a while they started home, walking slowly and each
one being particularly careful of and good to Mickey. When he had
rested, he could see that it was only an accident; such an astounding
one he forgot his bites and could talk of little else.
They made another long pause under a big tree, and Mickey felt so much
better as they again started home, that Junior lagged behind, and Jud
seeing, joined him. Junior asked softly: "Have any more?"
Jud nodded.
"What?" whispered Junior.
Jud told him.
"Oh that! Nothing in that! Go on!"
So they struck into the path they had followed from the swamp to the
woods, when suddenly a warm, yielding, coiling thing slipped under
Mickey's feet. With a wild cry he leaped across the body of a big
rattlesnake that had been coiled in the path. As he arose, clear cut
against the light launched the ugly head and wide jaws of the rattler,
then came the sickening buzz of its rattles in mad recoil for a second
stroke.
"Run Mickey! Jump!" screamed Junior.
"What is it?" asked Mickey bewildered.
"Rattlesnakes! Sure death!" yelled Jud. "Run fool!"
But Mickey stood perfectly still, and looked, not where the increasing
buzz came from, but at them. They had no choice. Jud carried a heavy
club; he threw himself in front of Mickey and as the second stroke
came, he swung at the snake's head. The other boys collected their
senses and beat it to pulp, then the dead mate it watched beside.
Junior glared at Jud, but when he saw how frightened he was, he knew
what had happened.
Mickey gazed at the snakes in horror.
"Ain't that a pretty small parcel to deal out sudden death in?" he
asked. "And if they're laying round like that, ain't we taking an awful
risk to be wading through here, this way? Gee, they're the worst sight
I ever saw!"
Mickey became violently ill. He lay down for a time, while the boys
waited on him, and at last when he could slowly walk toward home, they
went on. Jud and Sam left them at the creek, and Junior and Mickey
started up the Harding lane. Suddenly Mickey sat down in a fence
corner, leaned against the rails, and closed his eyes.
"Gee!" he said. "Never felt so rotten in all my life."
"Maybe that snake grazed you."
"If it did, would it kill me?" asked Mickey dully.
"Well after the yellow-jacket poison in your blood, and being so tired
and hot, you wouldn't stand the chance you'd had when we first
started," said Junior. "Do you know where it came closest to you?"
"Back of my legs, I s'pose," said Mickey.
"If it had hit you, it would leave two places like needles stuck in,
just the width of its head apart. I can't find any-thing that looks
like it, thank the Lord!"
"Here too!" said Mickey. "You see if it or the quicksands had finished
me, I haven't things fixed for Lily. They might '_get'_ her yet. If
anything should happen to me, she would be left with no one to take
care of her."
"Father would," offered Junior. "Mother never would let anybody take
her. I know she wouldn't."
"Well I don't," said Mickey, "and here is where guessing doesn't cut
any ice. I must be _sure_. To-night I'll ask him. I'd like to know how
it happens that sudden death has just been rampaging after me all this
trip, anyway. I seemed to get it coming or going."
Junior did not hide his grin quickly enough.
"Aw-w-w-ah!" grated Mickey, suddenly tense and alert.
He sprang to his feet. So did Junior.
"Say, look here----" cried Mickey.
"All right, 'look here,'" retorted Junior. His face flamed Ted, then
paled, and his hands gripped, while his jaw protruded in an ugly scowl.
Then slowly and distinctly he quoted: "Course I meant to put it to you
stiff; I meant to 'niciate you in the ancient and honourable third
degree of the Country all right, so's you'd have enough to last a
lifetime; but I only meant to put you up against what I'd had myself in
the fields and woods; I was just going to test your ginger; I wasn't
counting on the _quicksand_, and the _live_ snake, finding its dead
mate Jud fixed for you."
"So you were sneaking in the barn this morning, when we thought you
were gone?" demanded Mickey.
"Easy you!" cautioned Junior. "Going after the bundle I promised Jud
was _not_ sneaking----"
"So 'twasn't," conceded Mickey, instantly. "So 'twasn't!"
He looked at Junior a second.
"You heard us, then?" he demanded. "All of it?"
"I don't know," answered Junior. "I heard what I just repeated, and
what you said about my being game, and exactly why I came back; thank
you for _that_, even if I lick you half to death in a minute--and I
heard that my own mother first fixed it up with you, and then father
agreed. Oh I heard enough----!"
"And so you got a grouch?" commented Mickey.
"Yes I did," admitted Junior. "But I got over all of it, after I'd had
time to think, but that third degree business; that made me so sore I
told Jud about it, and he said he'd help me pay you up; but we struck
the same rock you did, in giving you a bigger dose than we meant to.
Honest Mickey, Jud didn't know there was a _real_ quicksand there, and
of course we didn't dream a live snake would follow and find the one
the boys hunted, killed, and set for you this morning----"
"Awful innocent!" scoffed Mickey. "'Member you didn't know about the
ram either?"
"Honest I _didn't_, Mickey," persisted Junior. "I thought steering you
into the yellow jackets was to be the first degree! Cross my heart, I
did."
Suddenly Mickey whooped. He tumbled on the grass in the fence corner
and twisted in wild laughter until he was worn out. Then he struggled
up, and held out his hand to Junior.
"If you're willing," he said, "I'll give you the grip, and the password
will be, 'Brothers!'"