IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY
But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs.
Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and
laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a
greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."
Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust
of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains,
and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the
cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too
new as yet to be anything but spotless, which in places had drifted
across the rows of rails. Along the street, each smoke-tinged roof and
window ledge had a share of the rapidly deepening coverlet which sped
from the leaden clouds to mask the gray, unlovely earth.
John drew on his knickerbockers hurriedly. No time for a peep at one of
his new books now. Not only was the snow a thing of beauty, but it
offered certain revenue if he and Bill appeared with their shovels
before competition became too keen. So he appeared in the dining-room
with surprising promptness.
"Sick, John?" asked his mother with gentle sarcasm, as he sat down to
breakfast.
He shook his head as he gulped down spoonful after spoonful of the
steaming oatmeal. Now and then he glanced out of the window at the walks
and porches of the street. They were still untouched, but there was need
of haste.
"Never mind the potatoes, Mother," he said, as he hurried to the coat
closet for his wraps. "I'm going shovelling."
He ran down into the basement and was out and down the street with the
wooden shovel over his shoulder before Mrs. Fletcher realized that he
had escaped. She hailed him back.
"How about our walk, son?" she asked, as she stood in the doorway.
He shook his head in protest. "I don't get paid for that. Bill and I'll
do it when we get through."
"Not much!" There was decision in his mother's tones. "That means it
won't be cleaned before noon."
"Aw-w-w, Mother!"
The door closed and put a stop to further parleying. He stood by the
lamppost, undecided as to which course to pursue. Should he walk boldly
off and take the consequences, or was discretion the better part of
valor after all? Still, when a fellow's mother wanted something done, it
was useless to try to evade the task, and he was just beginning to
realize it.
He set to work. Before long the cheerful scraping of the wooden shovel
against the pavement restored his good humor. His face became flushed,
and he stopped a moment to pull his stocking cap back from his hot
forehead, for the exercise was making his blood circulate rapidly. The
long walk which led to the back door could be skipped, and the porch
railings left snow-capped as they were, for his aim was to fulfill the
barest letter of his orders before Mrs. Fletcher looked out of the
window.
Five minutes later, he knocked the snow from his shovel, and sneaked up
the street, slipping now and then as his feet struck concealed ice on
the walk, and once he fell sideways into a soft drift. As he walked up
the Silvey steps, a snowball hit him on the leg, and another sped past
his nose. He turned to find Bill on the lawn with a snowball in one
hand.
"Surrender," came the call.
John dropped his shovel to the floor and seized a handful of snow.
"Going to fight or get snow jobs with me?" he asked, as he pounded the
mass into an uneven sphere.
For an answer, his chum dropped his missile and ran around to the back
yard, to reappear with his own shovel. He pointed down the street. Two
members of the unemployed were making the snow fly at the DuPree's with
an earnestness which boded ill for their youthful competitors.
"Let's try Southern Avenue," said John. "Perhaps there won't be anyone
there."
No sooner said than done. But as they rounded the corner, they found
that three of the "Jeffersons" had organized an expedition of their own
and were cleaning the walk and porch of the house nearest the corner.
Their leader motioned to Bill.
"Go on back home, or we'll smash your faces in."
John promptly stuck out his tongue. "They can't fight," he said
scornfully, "and two of 'em are 'fraid cats. Let's try the big yellow
house, Bill."
With a glance back at the foe, they ran up the steps and rang the bell
persistently until a becapped, flustered servant opened the door.
"Ask the missis if she wants the walk cleaned?" said Silvey, who usually
handled the negotiations for work.
Scraps of conversation floated down to the boys from the upper regions
whence the girl had disappeared with the message. Presently she came to
the head of the stairs and called down to them, "How much you want?"
Bill made a mental inventory of the appearance of the grounds as the
boys had approached the house. "Quarter," he said promptly.
"Missis, she say 'all right,'" said the maid.
The boys stamped out of the hallway and set to work with a will. Silvey
began at one end of the broad veranda floor, while John made the snow
fly from the railings and porch posts. Next came the steps, and the walk
leading down the lawn.
"This won't take long," said John optimistically.
He stooped to fix a shoelace which had become untied. Silvey yielded to
temptation and gave him a shove into the heaped snow, to have him rise
angrily and dig the half-thawed slush from between his neck and collar.
Then he sprang at his partner and they went sprawling again, but this
time, Bill was the underdog. The two boys struggled for a while until
John sat heavily on his foe's stomach, and pinioned the resistant arms
with his knees. Then the fun began. "Going to be good?"
Silvey looked desperately up at the handful of snow held high above his
head.
[Illustration: _"Going to be good?"_]
"Look, here, Fletch--don't you wash my face, don't you--"
"Going to be good?" asked John again.
His answer was a wrench for freedom. Thud, came a soft mass down on
Bill's nose and open mouth. He spluttered and rolled over desperately,
trying to throw John from his vantage point. The front door creaked, and
an alien voice called,
"What's the matter, you boys? Ain't you ever going to get finished?"
They rose sheepishly to find the servant smiling down at them from the
doorway.
"Missis says, 'hurry up,'" she cautioned them.
Silvey picked up his shovel and began to make the snow fly
industriously. Presently the fit of ardor wore off, and he stared
thoughtfully at the long stretch of walk which still remained between
the front porch and the back yard.
"How much did I say we'd do this for?" he asked.
"Quarter," said John, as he leaned on his shovel handle.
"Wished I'd made it thirty-five cents!"
Foot by foot, they cleared a path well around by the side of the house.
The milkman, the butcher, and the gas inspector had each left heavy
footmarks which were difficult to remove and made progress slow. At the
rear steps, a huge drift met their gaze, and Silvey stretched his aching
arms.
"What'd we say we'd do this for?" he asked again.
"Quarter."
"Wished I'd said _half a dollar_. There's a walk on the other side,
too."
No skylarking now. Their muscles ached too much from the exercise to
waste their energy in other channels. When the cut through the drift had
been made, and the back porch and basement walk freed of the covering,
Bill leaned his shovel against a clothes-line post, and surveyed the
result of their labors malevolently.
"Next time we do this, John," he snapped emphatically, "we'll charge a
whole dollar!"
But the mischief had been done. By the time they had been paid the
well-earned quarter, not a house near them offered prospect of
employment. And at the far end of the street, the "Jeffersons" were
making a last reconnoissance before deserting the neighborhood for more
fruitful fields of labor.
"Now see what you did when you shoved me into the snow," said John
ruefully.
"Well, you didn't have to wash my face," retorted Bill. Secretly he was
not sorry that the work was at an end. "Get your new sled and we'll go
hitching. Beat you over to our street."
They dashed up the nearest private walk into a residential back yard,
and dropped their shovels over the back fence. John wedged one foot
between a telegraph pole and a picket, and drew himself up.
"Come on, Sil."
Silvey braced himself for the spring. A rear window in the house creaked
open and a woman's head appeared.
"What are you boys doing?" called the shrill voice. They dropped over
into the other yard, and John started to run.
"She's in curl papers," said Bill. "She won't chase us. Let's fix her."
"I'll call the police if you go through again," she persisted as the
boys filled their hands with snow. John gave a few finishing pats to his
missile.
"How'd you like to have her for a mother?" he asked his chum, as he drew
his arm back for the assault.
A projectile broke against the window sash and showered snow fragments
upon the untidy hair. A second went a serene way through the opening and
dissolved in a blot of hissing water on the kitchen stove. The frame
slammed to with a violence which threatened destruction to the window
glass, and John grabbed his shovel with an exultant yell.
"Now run like the dickens!"
They parted at the Silveys'. John continued on a dogtrot towards home,
and a moment later was pestering Mrs. Fletcher at her work in the
kitchen.
"Where's some rope, Mother?"
She looked from the pile of napkins on the ironing board. "What do you
want it for, son?"
"My sled."
She walked over to a box behind the kitchen gas range and drew out a
three-foot length. "Will this do?"
"No. Got to be lots longer than that."
"You're not going hitching, are you?"
He shook his head dubiously.
"Now, John! There have been little boys killed because wagons ran over
them when their ropes broke and they couldn't get out of the way!"
He evaded his mother's eye and sneaked from the house. Silvey was
waiting for him impatiently on the front walk.
"Where's the line?" he asked.
"Can't go," complained John. "She won't let me."
"Aw, come on. We'll go over to Southern Avenue and she won't know a
thing about it. I'll get you a rope from our house."
His feeble scruples vanished. A five-minute stop at the Silveys sufficed
to make the necessary alterations in John's equipment. Bill brought out
his own sled, and they started for the corner. In front of the grocery
store, they found Pete, the wagon boy, placing the last of the noon
orders in his cart.
"Give us a hitch," they begged.
He nodded a cheery consent. "But hurry. These have got to be delivered
in time for dinner."
The boys ran the ropes rapidly around the rear axle and jumped on the
sleds. A shout, a sudden jerk, and they were off, swinging around the
corner on Southern Avenue with a momentum which shot them far to one
side. John drew a breath of relief, for it was his first experience at
the sport. Bill looked up from between the sled runners and grinned.
Along they sped. The smooth steel slid easily now over the closely
packed snow in the wagon ruts, now over bumps which forced involuntary
grunts from between their lips. As the horse increased his pace they
tightened their grasp on the sled hand-holes.
"Whoa," shouted Pete. The wagon stopped abruptly as he reached back into
the body for a package, and the sleds shot under the wagon almost up to
the horse's hoofs, before the boys could find a holding place in the
hard snow for their toes.
John dragged his sled out, and lay back on it while he waited for Pete
to reappear. The sun had pierced the heavy clouds, and dazzled the eyes
of the neighborhood with glistening reflections on the white, unsullied
lawns and doorsteps. On the more exposed portions of the closely packed
house roofs, the melting snow formed long, dagger-like icicles which
hung from the eaves, or clustered thickly around drain pipes and
gutters. The heel-packed lumps which had defied the efforts of the
wooden shovels to remove them from the cement walks showed dark,
water-marked edges under the influence of the warming rays. Near him in
the street, a flock of hungry sparrows fought boldly over a bit of
vegetable which had fallen from a passing fruit vender's cart, and in
the clear, dancing air was a touch of elixir which set his pulses to
throbbing.
"Yes," he said, although Silvey had asked no question, "it's just
peachy."
"Isn't it?" acquiesced Bill. "And your mother's afraid you'll get hurt,
doing it."
The smile vanished. What if Mrs. Fletcher should find out! The joys of
the sport, sweeter through their illegality, were not sufficient to
prevent a sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of such a
catastrophe.
There came a scurry of footsteps on the walk close by him, another
caution from Pete and his sled rope tightened again. They drove from one
street to another, working ever westward until the gray-stone,
red-roofed buildings of the university were behind them. When but a
package of steak, bread, or a similar trifle was to be delivered, John
or Bill dashed around to the back porch or through a basement flat
areaway, while the driver sat and smoked in state on his seat. Thus the
arrangement was of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.
At last they halted before a dingy, eight-flat apartment building. Pete
carried the last, and heaviest, consignment of edibles in to its owner
and returned, a moment later, to stand on the curbing with a kindly
smile on his heavy-featured face.
"Now, boys," he said, as he drew his cap down over his ears and forehead
until the peak nearly met his black, bushy brows, "hang on tight, and
I'll give you a real ride back."
A flick at the ribs of the fat, easy-going horse, and the two sleds were
flying homeward. The depressions and hoof marks in the snow flew between
the runners at a speed which dizzied their owners. Bits of ice,
dislodged by the horse's hoofs, flew up and struck the boys' faces
stinging blows. Past the university buildings, past the school which now
stood empty and deserted because of the Christmas holidays, past
impatient pedestrians on the street corners, and over to Southern Avenue
where Pete turned in abruptly to the alley entrance of the grocery
store. Silvey screamed a warning as his sled, running straight ahead,
felt the tug of the tow rope, and skidded in a wide circle over the
rough, uneven snow. John tried to save himself from a similar fate, but
he had delayed too long. Straight for a huge snow bank, the two sleds
headed, struck the curbing, and capsized with their owners underneath.
John rose shakily with an uncertain smile on his lips. His chum dug some
snow from his ears and ran forward to unhitch the sleds. The grocer's
clock showed a quarter after twelve, so they started for the home
street. As they parted, John held up a detaining hand.
"That quarter," he explained. "Come on back to the drug store and get it
changed. I want to put my share in the pig bank."
Silvey drew off one moist mitten, and fumbled in his trouser's pockets
with a perplexed frown. Neither was it in his coat, nor in his blouse.
Where had it been left?
"S'pose we lost it when we took that spill?"
There was another fruitless search before the boys went back to the
grocery corner. There, they raked the snow bank over and over, levelled
and reheaped it, and levelled it again before their ardor cooled. At
last they were convinced that the coin was hopelessly lost. John turned
away moodily.
"Come on," he said. "I'll be getting scolded if I don't get home for
dinner." It was hard to lose the proceeds of a morning's work in such a
manner.
Mrs. Fletcher was waiting for him when he came into the hallway,
stamping his feet lustily to free them from the last lingering traces of
snow.
"Where's the brush, Mother?" he asked, as he shook his coat. She brought
him the implement and watched him keenly.
"Didn't I forbid you to go hitching, this morning?"
"Who told you?" he asked naïvely, taken aback at the sudden accusation.
Mothers had the most mysterious ways of discovering things.
She smiled in spite of herself. "I asked the little Mosher boy where you
were and he said he'd seen you riding off behind Anderson's grocery
wagon. What do you think I ought to do to such a disobedient little
boy?"
He didn't know. But he wished that he might lay hands on that kid
brother of Skinny's. He'd teach him a thing or two about holding his
tongue.
"You're getting too big to spank," she commented as he stood silently
before her. He nodded a cheerful assent to this.
"So I think you'd better stay in the house this afternoon."
"A-w-w-w, Mother!"
She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the
noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy,
while he stood looking miserably out of the window.
The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a
dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a
black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and
snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements.
To be gated on such an afternoon!
"Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip,
and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it,
isn't she?"
He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner
with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly
up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while
away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him.
Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were
forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed
the exploits of the hero against his Danish enemies with breathless
interest. Again and again did the young earldorman's well-drilled band
sally forth from its stronghold to attack larger bodies of the foe, and
again and again did the boy on the bed wish that he was living in those
soul-stirring times. Then came the building of the _Dragon_, for war
must be waged on the sea as well as by land, and a call of, "Oh,
John-e-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e-e!"
He stood up regretfully. One of his legs was cramped from lying
motionless so long, and he limped into the front room. Silvey was below
on the water-streaked walk.
"Come on out!"
"Can't. She found out about my hitching this morning."
"Aw-w-w, come on. The fellows are building a snow fort in the big lot,
and pretty soon, we're going to have a big fight." He reached down,
scooped up a handful of the moist snow, and patted it easily into a
small, hard ball. "Look, packing's fine. Go down and tease her!"
John shook his head. Mother was inexorable on such occasions, and never
had there been a time on record, no matter what the weeping or wailing,
when a gating had been lifted. So he would meet his punishment without
further ado.
Silvey went disconsolately back towards home, and the prisoner returned
to his room and stared from the window which overlooked the railroad
tracks. Presently he turned away and rummaged in the bureau in the big
south room until he found his mother's opera glasses. A moment or so of
adjustment, and he smiled contentedly. If he could not be a participant,
he would at least witness the battle.
The construction of the fort was well under way. Long, erratic paths in
the snow showed where the three big balls had been rolled which formed
the most exposed wall. They were almost as tall as the boys, themselves,
and even now Sid and Red Brown and Perry Alford were digging their heels
into the slippery footing as they moved a fourth to its proper place.
Mosher, bent almost double, was rolling a new and rapidly increasing
sphere over the soft snow. The walls completed, the gang devoted
themselves to filling in the crevices, smoothing the surface, and to
testing the weak places in the fortress. A few busy minutes were spent
in making ammunition, then Sid, his longing for leadership gratified at
last, led his army behind the "U" shaped protection. Bill beckoned his
followers out of range, and missiles began to fly. John laid the glasses
down wistfully.
Shucks! watching only made him want to join worse than ever. The book
was better than that!
Dusk came at last, and liberation. As he was returning from the
newspaper route, the sight of a familiar figure, in the lighted circle
of a street lamp, made him cross over. It was Louise.
"'Lo."
"'Lo."
John paused. It was a difficult thing to lead up to her faithlessness
tactfully. She broke the silence.
"Those dishes were dear. But, oh, John, I liked the powder puff jar the
best of all!" Which was the truth, for the fact that he thought her old
enough for such feminine weapons was a soul-satisfying compliment.
He murmured a perfunctory acknowledgment. "Louise, what's this I've been
hearing about you and Sid drinking sodas together at the drug store?"
She stood speechless, thinking of a defense.
"It's got to quit. Do you hear?"
"Why shouldn't I have sodas with him?" his lady broke out vindictively.
"You never take me anywhere."
Didn't she understand that all of his playtime was taken up with earning
money for her? "But we can go skating tonight," he concluded
pacifically.
"That isn't spending money on me. And Sid does, lots and lots of times."
The words hurt. He'd show her that two could play at that game, even if
the funds were to be drawn from the pig bank.
"I'll tell you," he shot back recklessly. "We'll go to the theater a
week from Saturday. Isn't that better than sodas?" He watched her
anxiously for she was most dear to his suddenly constant heart.
She assented eagerly. Nevertheless, it was plain that she still thirsted
after the drug store flesh pots. He must interview Sid in the morning,
for that catch in her voice was far from reassuring.