_Parole_
During the next week or two after Christmas the boys made notable
progress with their chopping, for even the Doctor had by this time
become as expert as any of them in wielding an axe, while the other
boys, who could scarcely be more expert with that implement than they
were at the beginning, acquired a good deal of extra skill in the
particular work they were now doing. They more readily recognized the
use to which each piece of timber could be put; they acquired new
deftness in shaping railroad ties to their destined use, so that the
work was done more quickly and with a smaller expenditure of time and
force; especially they learned and invented many devices to facilitate
their handling of the great bridge timbers, of which they were now
sending many down the chute.
All of them except Ed chopped all day. Ed volunteered to take the duty
of camp guard upon himself all day every day, so long as his wound
should incapacitate him for the hard work of chopping. There was double
guard duty to do now of course, for in addition to the guarding of the
camp there was the prisoner to watch. But now that the barricade with
its platform was built in front of the hut, Ed was confident of his
ability to watch both inside and outside, particularly as the wounded
man was pretty nearly helpless still, and the boys took all the guns
with them when they went chopping, except the one that Ed was using as
sentinel. There was still another advantage in the fact that there was
now nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and it would have been easy to
see a man toiling over its white surface at a great distance.
So Ed played cook and camp guard all through the days and was excused
from all night duty.
In the meantime there was no more trouble from the mountaineers, except
that the wounded one in camp continually bewailed his fate and indulged
in dismal forebodings of the long term he must serve in prison. Finally
one Sunday, when his wounds were nearly well again, he said:
"It ain't so much for myself I care. I kin stand purty nigh anything.
What I'm thinkin' about, boys, is my wife an' my little gal. You see my
wife she's consumptive like an' not much fit fer work, an' my little
gal, she's only six year old. So I don't know what's to become of 'em
when I'm sent up, an' that'll be mighty soon now, as I'm gettin' well
enough to walk."
"Now listen to me a minute," said Tom in a voice as stern as he could
make it with the tears that were in it--for the picture presented to his
mind of that poor invalid wife and still more of that little six year
old girl left to struggle with that mountain poverty and starvation
which he knew something about, had touched all that was tender in his
nature.
"Now listen to me! I'm going to have a plain talk with you. The only
reason you are to go to prison is that you tried your best to kill Ed.
Why didn't you think of your wife and little girl before you committed
that crime? Answer me honestly now!"
"Well, I will, Tom. You see I ain't much account. I ain't enough account
to own a little share in one o' the stills that does a purty poor
business up here in the mountings. So I has to live on odd jobs like,
an' at best I barely manage to keep a little bread and meat in the
mouths of my wife an' little gal an' a calico dress on their backs. No,
that ain't edzacly the truth nother, an' as you an' me is talkin' fair
an' square now, I don't want to misrepresent nothin'. I'll own up that
oncet--just oncet I bought the little gal a doll down there in town,
jest becase she seemed so lonely an' longin' like as she looked at it.
It cost me five cents."
By this time all the boys had business with their handkerchiefs, which
they felt it necessary to go out of doors to attend to.
After awhile Tom mastered himself sufficiently to say:
"Go on! Tell us why you shot Ed?"
"Well, as I wuz a tellin' you," resumed the mountaineer, "I ain't no
account an' so I has to live by odd jobs. Well, when you fellers come up
here, the other fellers made up their minds that you must go back, an'
so they decided like to have you persecuted till you did go. So, as they
didn't want to take the risk of the job theirselves, they come to me an'
another feller--that feller what got his arm broke in your camp--"
"Yes, I remember him," said Tom; "go on and tell us all about it."
"Well, they come to us two no 'count fellers, him an' me, an' says, says
they, 'ef you two fellers'll do the job we'll see as how you an' your
families will have enough, meal an' meat, to last till blackberry time.'
You see, we no 'count fellers always looked forrard to blackberry time.
Ef we kin pull through till the blackberries is ripe, we're all right
for a spell. Well, nuther on us liked the job, but we didn't see no way
out'n it. So he come fust an' twicet. The second time he got too bad
hurt like to go on with the job, an' so then I took it up. My pard he
had reasoned and argified with you an' you wouldn't listen. So the
fellers what was hirin' of me says, says they, 'Bill, you've got to
shoot. If you kin drap one o' them fellers without gittin' caught
they'll quick enough git out'n the mountings.' That's why I shot Ed. You
see yourselves as how I couldn't help it."
All that Tom had tried to tell his comrades about the squalid poverty of
the poorer class of mountaineers had made no such impression upon their
minds as the prisoner's simple narrative. They were horrified at the
destitution which he pictured and shocked at the dullness and perversion
of his moral sense, manifested by his confident assumption that they
would see that in trying to kill Ed he had done nothing wrong or
unusual. Here was that degradation of mind and soul which frankly
regards crime--even including the murder of innocent persons--as a
legitimate means of livelihood--like the picking of blackberries--a
degradation which nevertheless leaves the soul capable of emotions of
affection and tender pity such as this man so manifestly felt for his
invalid wife and his "little gal."
Unhappily this degradation, this perversion of the moral sense, is not
confined to mountain moonshiners. There is very much of it in our great
cities and it is the thing that gives the police force their hardest
work. It is also the source of the most serious danger that threatens
all of us.
The man had evidently finished with what he had to say, and as for the
boys, they had from the first left this man's case in Little Tom's
hands. Their throats ached too badly now with a pained pity, for them to
make even a suggestion. So Tom took up the conversation.
"Now I want to say something to you," he said, "and I want you to try to
understand me. You and I are talking, fair and square, as you said a
little while ago, aren't we?"
"That's what we is, Tom," answered the man; "an' whatever you say'll be
right, I don't doubt; but you see may be I won't quite understand it,
like. I'll do my best. But I ain't got no eddication like. All I know is
how to write my name, and may be print a few words on paper. The
sergeant major taught me that when I was in the army."
"Then you served in the army?" asked Tom, somewhat eagerly.
"Yes, I was conscripted, but after I was conscripted I thought I mout as
well be a good soldier as a bad one an' so I fought all I could. I
never did make it out quite clear in my head what they was a fightin'
about, but I says to myself, says I, 'Bill,' says I, 'you're in for this
thing an' they's only one thing to do, an' that is fight as hard as you
kin on the side yer on.'"
"Well if you were in the army," interposed Tom, "you know what a parole
is?"
"Oh, yes, I know that. I had one o' them things oncet. That's how I got
out'n the army. I was tooken pris'ner along with a lot of other fellers,
an' after talkin' to us a lot, the officers what had us pris'ners sort
o' explained the parole business to us, an' after we signed papers
promisin' not to fight no more, they let us go home, tellin' us that ef
we was caught fightin' agin they'd hang us. Fur a long time I was afraid
the conscript officers would ketch me, an' make me fight again, but when
one on 'em did ketch me at last he tole me he couldn't make me fight
agin, 'cause I was a prisoner on parole. So I know mighty well what a
parole means, though at first we all thought it meant a pay-roll an'
that we was to be paid for not fightin'."
"Well you understand it better now," said Tom. "You understand that when
a man is paroled, he promises not to fight again, and if he does, and is
caught at it, he gets shot?"
"Oh, yes, I understand all that now. I was only tellin' you how as I
didn't know fust off."
"Well, now that we're 'talking fair and square,' as you say, I want to
say that I think you ought to go to state prison for a long term for
shooting Ed, and I intended at first to send you there. Perhaps I may do
so yet. But now, if Ed will forgive you for shooting him--I'll ask him
presently--I'm going to put you on parole, just because of your sick
wife and your little girl. You have been in our camp for several weeks
now. You know what we are here for. You know that we are not here to
bother your friends or to interfere with them in any way."
"Oh, any fool could see that!" exclaimed the man.
"Very well, then. I am going to make you sign a parole and then send you
home, but mind, if you violate your parole I'll go down the mountain and
bring enough soldiers up here to capture the last one of your gang and
send all of you to prison. I know where some of your stills are, and I
can find all the others. So you had better keep your parole, and your
friends had better let us alone. Are you ready to sign the parole?"
The man rose from the chair on which he was sitting and threw his arms
about Tom.
His expressions of gratitude were rude in the extreme, but at least
they were genuine, and he finished in tears as he exclaimed:
"Oh, thank goodness I can go back now an' look after the wife an' little
one, an' you kin bet your bottom dollar ef the other fellers makes any
trouble fer you fellers, Bill Jones'll be here to help you agin 'em. I'm
a goin' to explain things to 'em. I'm agoin' to give it to 'em straight,
an' then ef they make trouble fer you, I'll be with you."
Tom drew up the parole and Jones signed it with extraordinary pride in
his ability to write his own name in clumsy printing letters, with the
"J" turned backwards. But strong man as he was, the tears kept coming
into his eyes as he said over and over again:
"You're mighty good to me, Tom! All you fellers is mighty good to me.
An' I'm agoin' to teach that little gal o' mine when she says her 'now I
lay me' to wind it up with 'God bless Tom an' the other fellers.'"
With that he wiped away his tears with the back of his hand for lack of
a handkerchief.
The next morning the mountaineer insisted upon departing in spite of the
Doctor's assurance that he was not yet well enough to make the journey.
"I must, Doctor," he said. "You see, I don't know what's happened to my
wife an' my little gal while I've been gone."
"Very well," answered the Doctor, "only I want to add a promise to your
parole. I want you to promise me that if your wounds give you trouble
you'll either come here yourself, or if you can't do that, you'll send
for me to go to you and dress them." Then seeing that the man was about
saying something emotional the Doctor quickly added:
"You see, I'm a Doctor, and it hurts my pride to have a case that I
attend go bad. So if you have any trouble with your hurts you are to
come to me or send for me at once."
Then after such rude adieus as the mountaineer could make, he started
off up the mountain, the Doctor accompanying him a part of the way, upon
pretense of wanting to see whether or not he was really fit to walk and
carry his gun, which had of course been restored to him. But the Doctor
had another purpose in view. Just before parting with the mountaineer he
took a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and pressed it into the man's
hand.
"There!" he said. "Perhaps that will keep meat and bread in your cabin
till the blackberries get ripe," and with that he suddenly turned on his
heel and rapidly strode back toward the camp, giving the man no chance
to refuse the gift or to thank him for it.
But while the Doctor had taken every possible precaution to prevent any
of his comrades from seeing what he did, the sentry on the platform saw
and reported the facts. So when the Doctor returned to camp and set to
work with his axe, the boys were quietly discussing a little plan of
their own, talking in low tones, as they worked.
That night at supper Jack opened the subject, saying:
"Doctor, we shall be very sorry to part with you, but you have forfeited
your right to remain in our camp. You have violated your parole."
"Why, how? What can you mean?" asked the Doctor in bewilderment.
"Why, you agreed to be one of us boys, and to 'share and share alike'
with us in work and in everything else. Now, this morning you gave that
mountaineer some money out of your own pocket, basely trying to conceal
the fact from us. Even yet we don't know the amount of your gift. Now,
we have unanimously decided not to submit to any such proceeding."
"But my dear Jack," interrupted the Doctor--
"But my dear Doctor," broke in Jack, "hear me out. What we have decided
is to require you to tell us the amount of your benefaction to that
man, so that we may owe you our share of it until we go down the
mountain in the spring and collect our money. We are sharing and sharing
alike in every thing or nothing, so out with it! How much money did you
give the man?"
"But Jack, permit me to explain," said the Doctor. "You see, if I gave
that fellow any money, it was of my own impulse and without any
consultation with you. It was a bit of personal almsgiving in which I
have no right to let you share. I did it solely to relieve my own mind,
not yours. It wasn't a company transaction at all, and besides I could
well afford it inasmuch as by coming up here with you boys and sharing
your camp life this winter I have cut off nearly the whole of my
personal expenses and am actually saving money."
"Now listen!" said Jack. "We all wanted to give that poor fellow some
money with which to feed his wife and little girl 'till blackberries get
ripe' next summer, and we should have done so if any of us had had any
money. So in relieving your own mind you have relieved ours just as
much. We all shared alike in the cost of fitting out this expedition. We
have all shared alike in the building of our house and in all the other
camp work. We have all shared alike in guard duty, in danger and in
everything else, and we're going to do so to the end of the chapter. So
we're going to share alike in this gratuity of yours, our shares to be
paid to you as soon as we collect our money down below. So you must tell
us how much you gave the man, or else our whole partnership and
comradeship will be at an end. Come, Doctor, tell us all about it!"
"Well," said the Doctor, "I don't think it fair to let you boys share in
what was a purely personal bit of almsgiving, done without any sort of
consultation with any of you, but as you insist I will say that I gave
the man a twenty dollar bill."
"All right," said Tom. "That gives us a chance to impose upon you. It is
three dollars and thirty-three and a third cents apiece for us. We'll
never pay that third of a cent, doctor, and so you'll be out a cent and
two-thirds besides your own share in the gift. That will help to buy
another doll for 'the little gal,' and I suppose you won't mind the
expense."
"No," said the Doctor, "but what can be done to relieve these people's
wretchedness and lift them up?"
Not one of the boys could answer the question. Perhaps there was no
answer. There often is none to questions of that kind.