EDUCATING THE NEW BOY
As Billy rounded a curve in the road he met the cattle. Anson was
driving them. "You needn't mind turnin' back, Bill," he said. "I
don't mind waterin' 'em fer you."
Billy whistled. "Gosh! you're gettin' kind all at once, Anse," he
exclaimed.
"I don't mind doin' it," Anse repeated. He kept his face averted.
Billy, scenting mystery, walked over to him and swung him about.
Anson's lip was swollen and one eye was partly closed and his
freckled face bore the marks of recent conflict.
"Gee whitticker!" gasped Billy, "you must been havin' an argument
with a mule. Who give you that black eye an' split lip, Anse?"
His brother hung his head. "You needn't go to rubbin' it in," he
whined; "I didn't have no chance with him. He piled on me from
behind, when I wasn't lookin'."
"Who piled on you from behind?"
"That new boy; his name's Jim Scroggie. His dad's rented the Stanley
house on the hill."
"Likely story that about his pilin' on you from behind," scoffed
Billy. "You met him on the path an' tried to get gay with him, more
like, an' he pasted you a few. You shouldn't hunt trouble, Anse; you
can't fight, an' you know it. What's this new boy like?" he asked
curiously.
"Oh, you'll find that out soon enough," promised Anson. "He told me
to tell you that he would do the same thing to you first chance he
got."
"Oh, no, he didn't neither," laughed Billy. "He can't be that
foolish."
"You wait till you size him up," said Anson. "He's taller'n you are
an' heavier, too. Oh, you'll have your hands full when he tackles
you, Mister Scrapper-Bill."
Billy pinched off a fox-tail stock and chewed it thoughtfully.
"Maybe," he said, cheerfully. "He certainly tapped you some, but
then you're always huntin' trouble, an' it serves you right."
"Listen to me!" Anson cried. "He made all the trouble, I tell you.
All I did was tell him not to throw clubs at Ringdo--"
"What! Was he throwin' clubs at my coon?" Billy shouted.
"You bet he was. Had Ringdo up a tree an' was doin' his best to
knock him out."
Billy spit out the fox-tail. "Where's this feller Scroggie now?" he
asked, in a business-like tone.
"I dunno. I s'pose he's prowlin' 'round the beech grove, up there.
He said he intended lickin' every boy in this settlement on sight.
You best not go lookin' fer him, Bill. I don't want'a see you get
beat up on my account."
"Well you needn't worry; if I get beat up it won't be on your
account, I kin tell you that. I don't aim to let anybody throw clubs
at my pets, though. You drive the cattle on down; I'm goin' up to
the grove."
A gleam of satisfaction lit Anson's shifty eyes. "All right," he
said shortly, and went off after the herd.
Billy climbed the rail fence and crossed the basswood swale to the
highland. He approached the beech grove cautiously and peered about
him. Seated on a log at the lower end of a grassy glade was a boy
about his own age, a boy with round, bullet head poised on a thick
neck set between square shoulders.
Billy, taking his measure with one fleeting glance, stepped out from
the trees. Simultaneously the strange boy rose slowly, head lowered,
fists clenched. There was nothing antagonistic in Billy's attitude
as he surveyed the new boy with serious grey eyes. That expression
had fooled more than one competitor in fistic combat, and it fooled
Jim Scroggie now. "He's scared stiff," was the new boy's thought, as
he swaggered forward to where Billy stood.
"I've been waitin' for you and now I'm goin' to lick you," he said.
Billy eyed him appraisingly. He did look like a tough proposition,
no doubt about that. His face was round, flat, small-featured.
"That face'll stand a lot of pummelin'," Billy told himself, and as
he noted the heavy chin, thrust antagonistically forward, "no use
bruisin' my knuckles on that," he decided.
"You heard what I said, didn't you?" growled the challenger. "I'm
goin' to lick you."
Billy grinned. He had caught the gasp at the end of the speaker's
words; _now_ he knew where lay the stranger's weak spot--_his wind_!
"But I ain't wantin' to fight," Billy returned gently.
"Why? scared?"
"Nice boys don't fight." Billy shifted his feet uneasily, the
movement bringing him a step or two closer to the other.
"Bah! mommie's baby boy won't fight?" taunted the eager one. "But by
gollies! I'm goin' to make you," he added, scowling fiercely.
Billy wanted to laugh, but he was too good a ring-general to give way
to his feelings. Instead, he shifted his feet again, thereby getting
within reaching distance of the one so anxious for battle.
"Now, then," declared Scroggie, tossing his hat on the sward and
drying his moist palms on his trouser-legs, "I'm goin' to black your
eyes and pummel the nose off your face."
The last word was drowned in a resounding "smack." Billy had
delivered one of his lightning, straight-arm punches fair on the
sneering lips of the new boy. Scroggie staggered back, recovered his
balance, and threw himself on the defensive in time to block Billy's
well-aimed right to the neck.
"So that's your game, is it?" he grunted. "Here's a new one for you
then." That "new one" was a veritable "hay-maker." Had it landed
where it was intended to land the fight must have ended then and
there. But it didn't. Billy saw it coming and ducked.
Scroggie rushed, managing to get in a stiff jab to Billy's body and
receiving in return one which promptly closed one of his small
optics. He struck out wildly, but Billy was prancing six feet away.
Scroggie's swollen and bleeding mouth twisted in a grin. "Oh, I'll
get you," he promised. "Stall if you want'a, it's all one to me.
You won't find me sleepin' again, I promise you."
Billy advanced in a crouching attitude. His eyes were on Scroggie's
uninjured eye and Scroggie, now grown wary, read that look as Billy
intended he should. Older fighters have made the same mistake that
Scroggie made. As Billy leaped in Scroggie raised his guard to his
face and Billy's right and left thudded home to the flabby stomach of
his adversary.
With a gasp Scroggie went to earth, where he lay writhing. After a
time he struggled to a sitting posture.
"Got enough?" asked Billy pleasantly.
The vanquished one nodded. He had not as yet recovered his breath
sufficiently to speak. When at last he was able to draw a full
breath, he said: "Say, you trimmed me all right, all right."
Billy grinned.
"Who are you, anyway?" asked Scroggie as he got groggily to his feet.
"I'm the feller that owns the coon you tried to club to death," Billy
answered.
Scroggie's mouth fell open in surprise. "I didn't try to kill any
coon," he denied. "I saw one but it wasn't me that clubbed it; it
was a tall, sandy-haired feller with a squint eye. I asked him what
he was tryin' to do and he told me to dry up and mind my own
business. I had to give him a lickin'. He went off blubberin'; said
if I wasn't too scared to stick around he'd send a feller over who
would fix me. So I stayed."
"I wish you had licked him harder 'n you did," frowned Billy.
"Know him?"
"Well, I do--an' I don't. He's my half-brother an' a sneak if ever
there was one. He lied about you to me--so's I'd fight you."
"And what's your name?"
"Billy Wilson."
Scroggie stared. "I've heard of you," he said, "an' the feller who
told me you could lick your weight in wildcats wasn't far wrong. You
had me fooled, though," he laughed. "I swallowed what you said about
nice boys not fightin', swallowed it whole. Oh, Moses!"
Billy sat down on a stump. "I don't bear no grudge, do you?" he
asked.
"No, I'm willin' to shake." Scroggie extended his hand.
"Your name's Scroggie, ain't it?" Billy asked.
"Yep, Jim Scroggie."
"Your Dad's goin' to cut down the Scroggie woods, I hear?"
"Yep, if he can get his price for the timber."
Billy sat looking away. His grey eyes had grown somber. "See here,"
he said suddenly, "do you know that old man Scroggie left a will?"
"Dad says not," the other boy replied.
"Well, then, he did; an' in that will he left his woods an' money to
Mr. Stanhope, my teacher."
"If that's so, Dad has no right to that woods," said Jim.
"But supposin' the will can't be found?" Billy looked the other boy
in the face and waited for the answer.
"Why, I can't see that that ought'a make any difference," Scroggie
replied. "If you folks down here know that Uncle left his money and
place to your teacher, that ought'a be enough for Dad."
"Of course the timber's worth a lot," sparred Billy.
"But Dad don't need it," Jim declared. "He's rich now."
"He is?" Billy respected the new boy for the nonchalance of his
tones. Riches hadn't made him stuck up, at any rate.
"Yep," went on Scroggie, "Dad owns some big oil wells in the States.
He ain't got any business down here anyways, but he's so pig-headed
you can't tell him anythin'; I'll say that much, even if he is my
father. It's bad enough for him to lug me away from town, but he
made Lou come along, too."
"Lou?"
"She's my sister," Jim explained proudly. "She's a year younger'n
me. Dad says she looks just like Mother looked. I guess that's the
reason she kin do most anythin' she likes with him. But she couldn't
get him to let her stay in Cleveland. He brought her along and Aunt
too. Aunt keeps house for us."
"I guess your Dad don't think much of us folks down here, does he?"
Billy asked.
Scroggie chuckled. "Dad ain't got any use for anybody, much," he
answered. "I never heard him say anythin' about any of the people of
the Settlement but once, and that was just t'other night. He come
home lookin' as if somebody had pushed his head into a crate of eggs.
I was too scared to ask him how it happened and Lou wouldn't. Dad
said the people 'round here are a bad lot and it wouldn't surprise
him if they tried to kill him."
Billy threw back his head and laughed, the first hearty laugh he had
known for days. Scroggie, in spite of the pain his swollen lips
caused him, laughed too.
"Say," he remarked, hesitatingly, "you got a great laugh, Billy."
"Oh I don't know," Billy replied. "What makes you think so, Jim?"
Scroggie sat down beside him on the log. "I had a chum in the city
who laughed just like you do. Gosh, nobody'll know how much I miss
him."
"Dead?"
Scroggie nodded. "Drowned through an air-hole in the lake. Say,
Billy, do you skate?"
"Some."
"Swim?"
"A little."
"Shoot?"
Billy scratched his head reflectively. "Not much, any more," he
said. "Course I like duck-shootin', an' do quite a lot of it in the
fall."
"How 'bout quail?"
"I don't shoot quail any more," Billy answered. "I've got to know
'em too well, I guess. You see," in answer to the other boy's look
of surprise, "when a feller gets to know what chummy, friendly little
beggars they are, he don't feel like shootin' 'em."
"But they're wild, ain't they and they're game birds?"
"They're wild if you make 'em wild, but if they get to know that you
like 'em an' won't hurt 'em, they get real tame. I've got one flock
I call my own. I fed 'em last winter when the snow was so deep they
couldn't pick up a livin'. They used to come right into our
barn-yard for the tailin's I throwed out to 'em."
"What's tailin's?"
"It's the chaff and small wheat the fannin' mill blows out from the
good grain. Pa lets me have it fer my wild birds. I've got some
partridge up on the hickory knoll, too. They're shyer than the
quail, but I've got 'em so tame I kin call 'em and make 'em come to
me."
"You kin?" Jim exclaimed. "Well, I'll be razzle-dazzled!"
"So, I don't shoot partridge neither," said Billy. "I don't blame
anybody else fer shootin' 'em, remember, but somehow, I'd rather
leave 'em alive."
"I see," said Scroggie. Of course he didn't, but he wanted to make
Billy feel that he did.
"Well you do more than most people, then," said Billy. "The folks
'round here think I'm crazy, I guess, an' Joe Scraff--he's got an
English setter dog an' shoots a lot; he told me that if he happened
onto my quail an' partridge he'd bag as many of 'em as he could. I
told him that if he shot my birds, he'd better watch out fer his
white Leghorn chickens but he laughed at me."
"And did he shoot your quail?" asked Scroggie.
Billy nodded. "Once. Flushed 'em at the top of the knoll and winged
one bird. The rest of the covey flew into our barn-yard an' 'course
he couldn't foller 'em in there."
"Gillies! Did you see him?"
"No, me an' Pa an' Anse was down at the back end of the place. Ma
saw him, though, an' she told me all about it. Say, maybe I wasn't
mad, but I got even, all right."
"Did you? How?"
Billy looked searchingly at his new friend. "I never told a soul how
I did it, 'cept my chum, Maurice Keeler," he said. "But I'll tell
you. That same evenin' I was prowlin' through the slashin' lookin'
fer white grubs fer bass-bait. I found a big rotten stump, so I
pushed it over, an' right down under the roots I found an old weasel
an' six half-grown kittens. Afore she could get over her surprise, I
had her an' her family in the tin pail I had with me, an' the cover
on. By rights I should'a killed the whole caboodle of 'em, I s'pose,
'cause they're mighty hard on the birds; but I had work fer 'em to do.
"That night I took them weasels over to Scraff's an' turned 'em loose
under his barn. I knowed mighty well ma weasel would stay where it
was dark an' safe and the chicken smell was so strong. Couple of
days after that Scraff come over to our place to borrow some rat
traps. His face was so long he was fair steppin' on his lower lip.
He said weasels had been slaughterin' his Leghorns, right an' left;
six first night an' nine the next.
"'I hope they won't get among my quail,' I says, an' Scraff he turned
round an' looked at me mighty hard, but he didn't say nuthin'. He
went away, grumblin', an' carryin' six of Dad's traps. Course I
knowed he couldn't catch a weasel in a trap in twenty years an' he
didn't catch any either. Ma weasel killed some more of his Leghorns,
an' then Scraff he comes to me. 'Billy,' he says, 'is there any way
to get rid of weasels?' 'Sure there's a way,' I says, 'but not
everybody knows it.'
"'I'll give you five dollars if you'll catch them weasels that are
killin' my chickens,' he says.
"'If you'll promise me you'll stay away from my quail an' partridge
I'll catch 'em fer nuthin,' I told him. 'Only,' I says, 'remember, I
do what I please with 'em, after I get 'em.' He looked at me as
though he'd like to choke me, but he said all right, he'd leave my
birds alone.
"That night Maurice Keeler an' me went over to Gamble's an' borrowed
his old ferret. He's a big ferret an' he'll tackle anythin', even a
skunk. With some keg-hoops an' a canvas sack we had made what we
needed to catch the weasels in. Then we put a muzzle on the ferret,
so he couldn't fang-cut the weasels, an' we went over to Scraff's.
As soon as Joe Scraff saw the ferret he began to see light an' turned
into the house to get his shotgun. I told him to remember his
promise to let me get the weasels alive, so he set on the fence an'
watched while we got busy.
"First off we plugged every hole under that barn but two, an' at each
of these two we set a hoop-net. Then we turned ol' Lucifer, the
ferret, loose under the barn. Holy Smoke! afore we knowed it there
was high jinks goin' on tinder there. Maurice had hold of one hoop
an' me the other. It took ma weasel an' her boys an' girls 'bout
half a minute to make up their minds that ol' Lucifer wasn't payin'
'em a friendly visit. When the big scramble was over, I had a bagful
of weasels an' so did Maurice. We let Lucifer prowl round a little
longer to make sure we had all of 'em, then I called him out. I made
Scraff give us one of his hens to feed the ferret on. Then Maurice
an' me started off.
"'You think you got all of 'em, Bill?" Scraff called.
"'All this time,' I says, an' to save my life I couldn't help
laughin' at the look on his face. He knowed right then that I had
put up a job on him but he couldn't figure out how."
"Oh Hully Gee!" yelled Jim Scroggie, "Wasn't that corkin'--Oh Mommer!
An' what did you an' Maurice do with the weasels?"
Billy grinned sheepishly. "We should'a killed 'em, I s'pose," he
said, "but we took 'em down to the marsh an' turned 'em loose there.
Maurice said that anythin' that had done the good work them weasels
had, deserved life, an' I thought so too."
The twilight shadows were beginning to steal across the glade; the
golden-rod of the uplands massed into indistinguishable clumps. The
silence of eventide fell soft and sweet and songless--that breathless
space between the forest day and darkness.
Billy stood up. "You'll like it here," he said to the other boy who
was watching him, a strange wonder in his eyes. "After you know it
better," he added.
"I'm afraid I don't fit very well yet," Scroggie answered. "Maybe
you'll let me trail along with you sometimes, Bill, and learn things?"
"We'll see," said Billy and without another word turned to the dim
pathway among the trees.