Part III.
One day it happened that the tailor had not been home for twenty-four
hours. Billy's coming into his family had made Peter very negligent.
When he failed to bring food for the old woman and child, he assured
himself that most likely Billy would get some. Peter was sure he ought
to do that much for the shelter of a comfortable home. So every week the
tailor drank more and staid away from that home longer; but Billy,
wholly absorbed in his own plans, hardly noticed the fact, and Ben never
complained of anything that could be endured. As long as the cow had
fresh grass, they had milk and did not suffer. If it happened that Billy
heard granny ask for meat, he got it for her; if not, she went without
and forgot it from one meal-time to another. Indeed, she forgot
everything but her Bible.
Well, as I have just said, Peter had not been home for twenty-four
hours. Sunset came, and Billy did not return. The minstrel troupe were
getting ready to leave town, and he was probably with them. The cow did
not come home as she had often been accustomed to do of her own accord.
All these non-appearances made Ben very uneasy. He laid the table with
empty dishes, and then watched on the door-steps. The stars came out and
winked at him; the crickets made lonesome music. Presently granny
tottered across the room, took up an empty cup, and shook her head
musingly.
"Was the tea strong to-night, dearie?" she asked. "It seems as if it
must have been poor stuff, I feel so weak."
"You have not had any, granny, but I guess we will s-soo-" began Ben,
and then stopped. It did not seem worth while to stutter long over a
thing so doubtful. But when the old Clock struck eight, Billy took his
torn hat from the peg behind the door and said, "I am going after
Brownie; she must have got into Mr. Ellery's pasture."
"Yes, child. The green pastures and still waters," answered the old
woman. "And there is the Shepherd, you know. I shall not want."
"There isn't any shepherd there, and we must go after our own cow when
she strays away, granny."
Ben shut the door gently then, and went down under the sunflowers along
the road and over a narrow bridge, stopping to look into the rapid
stream where the cattle came to drink at noon-time. Yes, sly Brownie was
in the neighbor's pasture; but she took little Ben's grave rebuke very
meekly, as became a good cow, and started away home. She reached the
bridge and clattered over it, her hoofs shaking the unsteady planks.
As soon as he saw her headed in the right direction, Ben lingered to
look longingly up the main road, for it was not so dark that he could
not see if any one should happen to be coming down that road. He was
just turning to go on, when he discovered a man in the distance. As Ben
saw him walking first in the dusty road, then in the dewy may-weed of
the border, now here, now there, he sped briskly toward him to act as a
walking-stick. How often he had performed this sad duty before! Yet
there was no hesitation or delay in the way he sprang forward to help
the unhappy father who had done so little for his child.
"Humph! I should think you had better be on hand, leaving poor fellow to
find his way home all 'lone this time night."
Ben did not answer. He had all he could do to keep his small feet out
from under Peter's great boots, and to keep both himself and his unhappy
parent from falling to the ground. At the bridge they made more noise
than even the cow had made in crossing. The old planks creaked and
rattled, while Peter lurched from one side to another.
"Take care, father! See, oh, s-s-see!" stuttered Ben. "You go too near
the edge!"
The shrill warning came too late. Peter staggered, pitched, and reeled
over into the brown water. One hand vainly snatching at Ben only tore
the shabby straw hat off his head. The poor child gave a long, loud
shriek for help. Fear loosened his stammering tongue, and the cry,
"Father will drown! Come, oh, come!" rang out wildly over the fields.
Meanwhile, by kneeling, he had seized the drunkard's coat, and was able
to hold him at least a moment.
It seemed an hour to Ben. Peter struggled madly, and flung both arms
around the frail boy to draw him recklessly down with him to death. Over
he went, without resistance, and the leaping, sparkling stream that was
so beautiful by day swept over them both. The stars twinkled overhead
and the crickets chirruped in the crisp grass, and at that very moment
Brownie was softly lowing at the little red cottage door. Granny waked
up and called out in the silence and shadow, "Bring the good Book,
Bennie, then we will go to rest."
Two hours later Billy came gayly whistling home and found the cottage
dark, the fire out, and the poor old woman shivering, troubled to
understand the strange stillness around her and her own discomfort. He
lit a candle and looked on the lounge, expecting to find little Ben
curled up there asleep, but the kitten, mewing pitifully when he
disturbed her, was there all alone.
"Where can he be, gran--" The words were arrested on Billy's lips.
Farmer Ellery entered the room and motioned to him to keep still. A
woman who followed him led granny tenderly into the next room, while
outside the door Billy heard muffled voices and many footsteps.
A moment later how his blood seemed to freeze with horror! The door
opened, and sad-faced men brought in, on a plank torn from the old
bridge, Peter, the tailor, dead. His pallid face gleamed through the
matted hair, the water dripped from his clothing, and clutched tightly
to his breast was poor little Ben. The child's soft locks streaming back
showed the sweet face that looked to Billy like an angel's, so pure was
it now. The patient little helper! Billy burst into tears. He forgot the
stuttering, the baby pinafore, the copper-toed shoes that used to make
Ben so funny. He all at once remembered how he gave himself so lovingly
to everybody's service--to his, to granny's, to the miserable father's,
even unto death. It seemed as if Billy must get him back, if only to
tell him how much he loved him. But that could not be ever again.
Farmer Ellery and the other kind neighbors made every effort to restore
the two to consciousness, but all was of no avail. They could only keep
the sad condition of things from the poor old woman until morning, and
then vie with one another in bringing her comforts.
The next few days were very strange ones to Billy. He never forgot an
hour of that morning when he sat on the door-step in the warm sunshine,
and peeped every now and then into the cottage, where, on the old
lounge, made white with snowy linen, was a child, strewn from head to
foot with apple-blossoms.
"He was not great, or handsome, or very smart," thought Billy, "but he
will be missed, for he was good, and he loved everybody. He was always
ready and willing to help, or to do, or to suffer. He was worth twice as
much as I am. Nothing is left for me but granny. I'll have to make up to
her the loss of both of them."
Suddenly there came into Billy's mind the thought of his chosen
occupation. Was he not to start out as a minstrel that very week?
I doubt if Billy had ever thought so much in all his life before as he
did in the days that lay between the time when little Ben was brought
home so cold and white, and the funeral, when the kind neighbors buried
him away out of sight under the green sod. He seemed to be taking a new
view of life altogether. He could not have told the reason why, but the
idea of starting off with the minstrel troup seemed to lose its
fascination. He would have to leave that little green mound behind him,
and he did not want to do it.
It was two days after the funeral when, as Farmer Ellery was at work in
his field, there appeared quite unexpectedly a red head over the fence
near him, and then a boy with a very earnest face.
"Good-day, Billy. Going to leave us, I hear."
"No, sir. I have come to say I want to make a man of myself by being
just a hard-working boy, if you will show me how. And could I work for
enough to keep an old lady, do you think? I am going to keep her,
anyhow. The town shan't have granny. I am sorry I refused your offer.
That minstrel nonsense is no go for me."
Billy's face grew as red as his hair, but he went on in a minute:
"Her Book tells what a fellow ought to be, you know, and I think I had
better get into being something worth while. If I turn short around,
maybe I can--"
"Make the most of yourself, with the help of God."
"That is it exactly."
"Come over the fence. Take a hoe and begin," said Farmer Ellery.
* * * * *
William Knox attended the last fair in Langham. He did not go up in a
balloon, but his cattle and his farm produce took first prizes. If it
had been becoming for a committee to decide what farmer was universally
beloved and respected, in whose honor the community fully believed,
perhaps there would have been another prize offered to William. If so,
his face would again have been redder than his hair, for the best men
are always modest.