NEXT morning Gordon felt better. He began even to consider what he
could do to mend his life. The children got ready for Sunday-school and
were on their way to church an hour ahead of time. Sue, in her white
dress and pretty bonnet, walked with a self-conscious, don't-touch-me
air. Socky, in his little sailor suit, had the downward eye of
meditation. Each carried a Testament and looked neither to right nor
left. They hurried as if eager for spiritual refreshment. They were,
however, like the veriest barbarians setting out with spears and arrows
in quest of revenge. They were thinking of Lizzie Cornell and that boy
of the red head and the doomed uncle. Socky's lips moved silently as he
hurried. One might have inferred that he was repeating his golden text.
Such an inference would have been far from the truth. He was, in fact,
tightening the grasp of memory on those inspiring words: "an' Uncle Sile
fetched him a cuff with his fist an' broke the bear's neck, an' then he
brought him home on his back an' et him for dinner." They joined a group
of children who were sitting on the steps of the old church. Their
hearts beat fast when they saw Lizzie coming with her cousin, the
red-headed boy.
A number went forth to meet the two.
"Tell us the badger story," said they to the red-headed boy.
"Pooh! that ain't much," he answered, modestly.
"Please tell us," they insisted.
"Wal, one day my Uncle Mose see a side-hill badger--"
"What's a side-hill badger?" a voice interrupted.
"An animal what lives on a hill, an' has legs longer on one side than
on t 'other, so 't he can run round the side of it," said he, glibly, and
with a look of pity for such ignorance.
"Go on with the story," said another voice.
"My Uncle Mose sat an' watched one day up in the limb of a tree above
the hole of a badger. By-an'-by an ol' he badger come out, an' my uncle
dropped onto his back, an' rode him round an' round the hill 'til he was
jes' tuckered out.
Then Uncle Mose put a rope on his neck an' tied him to a tree, an' the
ol' badger dug an' dug until they was a hole in the ground so big you
could put a house in it. An' my uncle he got an idee, an' so one day
he fetched him out to South Colton an' learnt him how to dig wells an'
cellars, an' bym-by the ol' badger could earn more money than a hired
man."
"Shucks!" said Socky, turning upon his adversary with sneering, studied
scorn. "That's nothing!"
Then proudly stepping forward, he flung the latest exploit of his Uncle
Silas into the freckled face of the red-headed boy. It stunned the able
advocate of old Moses Leonard--a mighty hunter in his time--and there
fell a moment of silence followed by murmurs of applause.
The little barbarian--Lizzie Cornell--had begun to scent the battle and
stood sharpening an arrow.
"It's a lie," said the red-headed boy, recovering the power of speech.
"His father's a thief an' a drunkard, anyway." That was the arrow of
Lizzie Cornell.
Socky had raised his fists to vindicate his honor, when, hearing the
remark about his father, he turned quickly upon the girl who made it.
What manner of rebuke he would have administered, history is unable to
record. The minister had come. The children began to scatter. Lizzie and
her red-headed cousin ran around the church. Socky and Sue stood with
angry faces.
Suddenly Socky leaned upon the church door and burst into tears. He
dimly comprehended the disgrace which Lizzie had sought to put upon him.
The minister could not persuade him to enter the church or to explain
the nature of his trouble.
When all had gone into Sunday-school, the boy turned, wiping his eyes.
Sue stood beside him, a portrait of despair.
"Le's go home an' tell our father," said she.
They started slowly, but as their indignation grew their feet hurried.
Neither spoke in the long journey to their door. They ran through the
hall and rushed in upon their father who sat reading.
"Oh, father!" said the girl, in excited tones; "Lizzie Cornell says
you're a thief an' a drunkard."
Gordon rose and turned pale.
The hands and voices of the children were ever raised against him.
"It's a lie!" said he, turning away.
He stood a moment looking out of the window. He must take them to some
lonely part of the wilderness and there make an end of his trouble and
of theirs. He turned to the children, saying, "Right after dinner we'll
start for the woods."
So it befell that in the afternoon of a Sunday late in June, Socky and
Sue, with all their effects in a pack-basket, and their father beside
them, started in a spring-wagon over the broad, stony terraces that lift
southward into thickening woods, on their way to great peril.
And so, too, it befell that in leaving home and the tearful face of dear
Aunt Marie, they were sustained by a thought of that good and mighty man
whom they hoped soon to see--their Uncle Silas.