JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES
No one would ever have supposed that the big blacksmith at the
village was Jack Bracken. All the week he worked at his trade--so
full of his new life that it shone continually in his face--his face
strong and stern, but kindly. With his leathern apron on, his sleeves
rolled up, his hairy breast bare and shining in the open collar,
physically he looked more like an ancient Roman than a man of to-day.
His greatest pleasure was to entice little children to his shop,
talking to them as he worked. To get them to come, he began by
keeping a sack of ginger snaps in his pockets. And the villagers used
to smile at the sight of the little ones around him, especially after
sunset when his work was finished. Often a half dozen children would
be in his lap or on his knees at once, and the picture was so
beautiful that people would stop and look, and wonder what the big
strong man saw in all those noisy children to love.
They did not know that this man had spent his life a hunted thing;
that the strong instinct of home and children had been smothered in
him, that his own little boy had been taken, and that to him every
child was a saint.
But they soon learned that the great kind-hearted, simple man was a
tiger when aroused. A small child from the mill, sickly and timid,
was among those who stopped one morning to get one of his cakes.
Not knowing it was a mill child on its way to work, Jack detained it
in all the kindness of his heart, and the little thing was not in a
hurry to go. Indeed, it forgot all about the mill until its father
happened along an hour after it should have been at work. His name
was Joe Hopper, a ne'er-do-well whose children, by working at the
mill, supported him in idleness.
Catching the child, he berated it and boxed its ears soundly. Jack
was at work, but turning, and seeing the child chastised, he came at
the man with quiet fury. With one huge hand in Joe Hopper's collar,
he boxed his ears until he begged for mercy. "Now go," said Jack, as
he released him, "an' know hereafter how it feels for the strong to
beat the weak."
Of all things, Jack wanted to talk with Margaret Adams; but he could
never make up his mind to seek her out, though his love for this
woman was the love of his life. Often at night he would slip away
from the old preacher's cabin and his cot by Captain Tom's bed, to go
out and walk around her little cottage and see that all was safe.
James, her boy, peculiarly interested Jack, but it was some time
before he came to know him. He knew the boy was Richard Travis's son,
and that he alone had stood between him and his happiness. That but
for him--the son of his mother--he would never have been the outlaw
that he was, and even now but for this son he would marry her. But
outlaw that he was, Jack Bracken had no free-booting ideas of love.
Never did man revere purity in woman more than he--that one thing
barred Margaret Adams forever from his life, though not from his
heart.
He felt that he would hate James Adams; but instead he took to the
lad at once--his fine strange ways, his dignity, courage, his very
aloofness and the sorrow he saw there, drew him to the strange,
silent lad.
One day while at work in his shop he looked up and saw the boy
standing in the door watching him closely and with evident
admiration.
"Come in, my lad," said Jack, laying down his big hammer. "What is
yo' name?"
"Well, I don't know that that makes any difference," he replied
smiling, "I might ask you what is yours."
Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad.
He smiled: "I guess you an' I could easily understan' each other,
lad--what can I do for you?"
"I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir--and--and I haven't
anything to pay you."
Jack looked it over--the old duelling pistol. He knew at once it was
Colonel Jeremiah Travis's. The boy had gotten it somehow. The
hair-spring trigger was out of fix. Jack soon repaired it and said:
"Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge you."
"I didn't mean that," said the boy, flushing. "I have no money, but I
want to pay you, for I need this pistol--need it very badly."
"To shoot rabbits?" smiled Jack.
The boy did not smile. He ran his hand in his pocket and handed Jack
a thin gold ring, worn almost to a wire; but Jack paled, and his hand
shook when he took it, for he recognized the little ring he himself
had given Margaret Adams years ago.
"It's my mother's," said the boy, "and some man gave it to her
once--long ago--for she is foolish about it. Now, of late, I think I
have found out who that man was, and I hate him as I do hell itself.
I am determined she shall never see it again. So take it, or I'll
give it to somebody else."
"If you feel that way about it, little 'un," said Jack kindly, "I'll
keep it for you," and he put the precious relic in his pocket.
"Now, look here, lad," he said, changing the subject, "but do you
know you've got an' oncommon ac'rate gun in this old weepon?"
The boy smiled--interested.
"It's the salt of the earth," said Jack, "an' I'll bet it's stood
'twixt many a gentleman and death. Can you shoot true, little 'un?"
"Only fairly--can you?"
"Some has been kind enough to give me that character"--he said
promptly. "Want me to give you a few lessons?"
The boy warmed to him at once. Jack took him behind the shop, tied a
twine string between two trees and having loaded the old pistol with
cap and powder and ball, he stepped off thirty paces and shot the
string in twain.
"Good," said the boy smiling, and Jack handed him the pistol with a
boyish flush of pride in his own face.
"Now, little 'un, it's this away in shootin' a weepon like this--it's
the aim that counts most. But with my Colts now--the self-actin'
ones--you've got to cal'c'late chiefly on another thing--a kinder
thing that ain't in the books--the instinct that makes the han' an'
the eye act together an' 'lowin', at the same time, for the leverage
on the trigger." The lad's face glowed with excitement. Jack saw it
and said: "Now I'll give you a lesson to-day. Would you like to shoot
at that tree?" he asked kindly.
"Do you suppose I could hit the string?" asked the boy innocently.
Jack had to smile. "In time--little 'un--in time you might. You're a
queer lad," he said again laughing. "You aim pretty high."
"Oh, then I'll never hit below my mark. Let me try the string,
please."
To humor him, Jack tied the string again, and the boy stepped up to
the mark and without taking aim, but with that instinct which Jack
had just mentioned, that bringing of the hand and eye together
unconsciously, he fired and the string flew apart.
"You damned little cuss," shouted Jack enthusiastically, as he
grabbed the boy and hugged him--"to make a sucker of me that way! To
take me in like that!"
"Oh," said the boy, "I do nothing but shoot this thing from morning
till night. It was my great grandfather's."
And from that time the two were one.
But another thing happened which cemented the tie more strongly. One
Saturday afternoon Jack took a crowd of his boy friends down to the
river for a plunge. The afternoon was bright and warm; the frost of
the morning making the water delightful for a short plunge. It was
great sport. They all obeyed him and swam in certain places he marked
off--all except James Adams. He boldly swam out into the deep current
of the river and came near losing his life. Jack plunged in in time
to reach him, but had to dive to get him, he having sunk the third
time. It required hard work to revive him on the bank, but the man
was strong and swung the lad about by the heels till he got the water
out of his lungs, and his circulation started again. James opened his
eyes at last, and Jack said, smiling: "That's all right, little 'un,
but I feared onct, you was gone."
He took the boy home, and then it was that for the first time for
fifteen years he saw and talked to the woman he loved.
"Mother," said the boy, "this is the new blacksmith that I've been
telling you about, and he is great guns--just pulled me out of the
bottom of the Tennessee river."
Jack laughed and said: "The little 'un ca'n't swim as well as he can
shoot, ma'am."
There was no sign of recognition between them, nothing to show they
had ever seen each other before, but Jack saw her eyes grow tender at
the first word he uttered, and he knew that Margaret Adams loved him
then, even as she had loved him years ago.
He stayed but a short while, and James Adams never saw the silent
battle that was waged in the eyes of each. How Jack Bracken devoured
her with his eyes,--the comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness
of the little cottage--his painful hungry look for this kind of peace
and contentment--the contentment of love.
And James noticed that his mother was greatly embarrassed, even to
agitation, but he supposed it was because of his narrow escape from
drowning, and it touched him even to caressing her, a thing he had
never done before.
It hurt Jack--that caress. Richard Travis's boy--she would have been
his but for him. He felt a terrible bitterness arising. He turned
abruptly to go.
Margaret had not spoken. Then she thanked him and bade James change
his clothes. As the boy went in the next room to do this, she
followed Jack to the little gate and stood pale and suffering, but
not able to speak.
"Good-bye," he said, giving her his hand--"you know, Margaret, my
life--why I am here, to be near you,--how I love you, have loved
you."
"And how I love you, Jack," she said simply.
The words went through him with a fierce sweetness that shook him.
"My God--don't say that--it hurts me so, after--what you've done."
"Jack," she whispered sadly--"some day you'll know--some day you'll
understand that there are things in life greater even than the
selfishness of your own heart's happiness."
"They can't be," said Jack bitterly--"that's what all life's
for--heart happiness--love. Why, hunger and love, them's the fust
things; them's the man an' the woman; them's the law unto theyselves,
the animal, the instinct, the beast that's in us; the things that
makes God excuse all else we do to get them--we have to have 'em. He
made us so; we have to have 'em--it's His own doin'."
"But," she said sweetly--"suppose it meant another to be despised,
reviled, made infamous."
"They'd have to be," he said sternly, for he was thinking of Richard
Travis--"they'd have to be, for he made his own life."
"Oh, you do not understand," she cried. "And you cannot now--but
wait--wait, and it will be plain. Then you'll know all and--that I
love you, Jack."
He turned bitterly and walked away.