Ellen and I were very firm to have nothing to do with the boot in the
oak tree; and we had two picnics in the hollow and played for hours in
the adjoining woods without once looking up. Mary had become very strict
with us about scattering papers and eggshells at our out-of-door
spreads; and whatever fragments of food were left over she would make
into a neat package and hide away under a stone; but in other matters
she became less and less precise: as, for instance, she left Ellen's
best doll somewhere in the neighborhood of the hollow oak, and had to go
all the way back for it in the dusk; and another time (we had also been
to the store at Bartow for yeast) she left her purse that had two
months' wages in it and more, but wasn't lucky enough to find that.
It was considered remarkable on all hands that Braddish had not yet been
caught. Hagan's heelers, who swung many votes, had grown very sharp with
the authorities, and no efforts were spared to locate the criminal (he
was usually referred to as the "murderer") and round him up. Almost
daily, for a time, we were constantly meeting parties of strange men,
strolling innocently about the country at large or private estates as if
they were looking things over with a view to purchase. And now and then
we met pairs of huntsmen, though there was no game in season, very
citified, with brand-new shotguns, and knickerbockers, and English
deer-stalker caps. And these were accompanied by dogs, neither well
suited nor broken to the business of finding birds and holding them.
There was one pair of sportsmen whose makeshift was a dropsical coach
dog, very much spotted. And, I must be forgiven for telling the truth,
one was followed, _ventre a terre_, by a dachshund. My father, a very
grave man with his jest, said that these were famous detectives, so
accoutred as not to excite comment. And their mere presence in it was
enough to assure the least rational that Braddish must by now have fled
the country. "Their business," he said, "is to close the stable door,
if they can find it, and meanwhile to spend the money of the many in the
roadhouses of the few."
But I have sometimes thought that the pseudo-sportsmen were used to give
Braddish a foolhardy sense of security, so that other secret-service
men, less open in method and less comic in aspect, might work
unobserved. Indeed, it turned out that an under-gardener employed by
Mrs. Kirkbride, our neighbor, about this time, a shambling, peaceful,
half-witted goat of a man, was one such; and a perfect red-Indian upon a
trail. It was Mary who spotted him. He hung about our kitchen door a
good deal; and tried to make friends with her and sympathize with her.
But he showed himself a jot too eager, and then a jot too peppery when
she did not fall into his nets. Mary told my father, and my father told
Mrs. Kirkbride. Mrs. Kirkbride had had a very satisfactory job at
painting done for her by Braddish; and although a law-abiding woman, she
did not propose personally to assist the law--even by holding her
tongue. So she approached the under-gardener, at a time when the
head-gardener and the coachman were in hearing, and she said, plenty
loud enough to be heard: "Well, officer, have you found a clew yet? Have
you pumped my coachman? He was friends with Braddish," and so on, so
that she destroyed that man's utility for that place and time. But
others were more fortunate. And all of a sudden the country was
convulsed with excitement at hearing that Braddish had been seen on the
Bartow Road at night, and had been fired at, but had made good his
escape into the Boole Dogge Farm.
Bloodhounds were at once sent for. I remember that my father stayed up
from town that thrilling morning, and walked up and down in front of the
house looking up at the sky. I now know that he was conjuring it to rain
with all his power of pity--prayer maybe--though I think, like most
commuters, he was weak on prayer. Anyhow, rain it did. The sky had been
overcast for two days, drawing slowly at the great beds of moisture in
the northeast, and that morning, accompanied by high winds, the first
drops fell and became presently a deluging northeaster, very cold for
midsummer.
As chance would have it, there had been a false scent down on Throgg's
Neck, upon which the nearest accessible bloodhounds had been employed.
So that there was a delay in locating them, and fetching them to the
Boole Dogge Farm. We went over to the Boulevard--my father, Ellen, and
I--all under umbrellas, to see them go by. They were a sorry pair of
animals, and very weary with having been out all night, in all sorts of
country, upon feet more accustomed to the smooth asphalt of a kennel.
But there was a crowd of men with them, some in uniform, one I remember
in a great coat, who rode upon one of the old-fashioned, high bicycles,
and there was a show of clubs and bludgeons, and one man wore openly
upon his hip a rusty, blued revolver, and on the whole the little
procession had a look of determination and of power to injure that was
rather terrible. I have sometimes thought that if I had been my father I
would not have taken Ellen and me to see them go by. But why not? I
would not have missed it for kingdoms.
By the time the pursuit had reached the Boole Dogge Farm so much rain
had fallen as to render the bloodhounds' noses of no account. Still the
police were not deterred from beating that neck of land with great
thoroughness and energy. But it proved to be the old story of the needle
in the haystack. Either they could not find the needle or there was no
needle to be found. Of course, they discovered the spring with the
broken cup, and the hollow oak, and made sure that it was here that
Braddish slept at night, and they found other traces of his recent
habitation--an ingenious snare with a catbird in it, still warm; the
deep, inadvertent track of a foot in a spot of bog; but of the man
himself neither sight nor sound.
In the afternoon, the rain having held up for a while, nay father walked
over to the farm to see how the hunt was progressing. This, I think,
was for Mary's sake, who had been all the morning in so terrible a state
of agitation that it seemed as if she must have news for better or
worse, or die of suspense. My father was not away longer than necessary.
He returned as he had gone, wearing a cheerful, incisive look very
characteristic of him, and whistling short snatches of tunes.
He said that the beaters were still at work; but that they were wet to
the skin and the heart was out of them. Yes. They would keep an eye on
the place, but they were pretty well convinced that the bird had flown.
If, however, the bird had not flown, said my father, he should be quick
about it. We were on the front porch to meet my father, and I remember
he paused and looked out over the bay for some time. It was roughish
with occasional white caps, and had a dreary, stormy look. Our rowboat,
moored to a landing stage or float, just off our place, was straining
and tugging at her rope.
"That boat will blow loose," said my father, "if she isn't pulled up.
But I'm not going to do it. I'm wet enough as it is.
"Would you like me to try, sir?" Mary called.
"What's the use?" said my father. "You'll only spoil your clothes. And,
besides, the boat's old and rotten. She's not worth two dollars for
kindling wood. I rather hope she does blow away, so as to provide me
with a much-needed excuse to buy a better one. The oars, I see, are in
her. Never mind, they're too heavy. I never liked them."
Then he put his arm around Ellen.
"By the way, Teenchy," said he, "your old boot is still sticking out of
the oak tree."
"Oh, papa," cried Ellen, "you said we mustn't talk about it--or it would
be full of spiders."
"I said _you_ mustn't talk about it," said he. "So don't. Anyhow"--and
he included Mary in his playful smile--"it's still there--so make the
most of _that_."
He turned to go into the house, and then:
"Oh, by the way, Mary," said he, "you have not asked for your wages
recently, and I think you are owed for three months. If you will come to
the study in a little while I will give them to you." He was always
somewhat quizzical. "Would you rather have cash or a check?"
Personally I didn't know the difference, and, at the time, I admired
Mary exceedingly for being able to make a choice. She chose cash.
But till some years later I thought she must have repented this
decision, for not long after she went into a kind of mild hysterics, and
cried a good deal, and said something about "such kindness--this--side
Heaven." And was heard to make certain comparisons between the
thoughtfulness and pitifulness of a certain commuter and the Christ.
But these recollections are a little vague in my head as to actual
number of tears shed, cries uttered and words spoken. But I do know for
an incontestable fact that during the night, just as my father had
prophesied, our rowboat was blown loose by the northeast gale, and has
not been seen from that day to this. And I know that when I woke up in
the morning and called to Mary she was not in her bed, and I found in
mine, under the pillow, a ridiculous old-fashioned brooch, that I had
ever loved to play with, and that had been Mary's mother's.
My father was very angry about Mary's going.
"Good Lord!" he said; "we can't pretend to conceal it!" But then he
looked out over Pelham Bay, and it had swollen and waxed wrathful during
the night, and was as a small ocean--with great waves and billows that
came roaring over docks and sea-walls. And then his temper abated and he
said: "Of course she would--any woman would--sense or no sense."
And, indeed, the more I know of women, which is to say, and I thank God
for it, the less I know of them, the convinceder am I that my father
was right.
In other words, if a woman's man has nine chances in ten of drowning by
himself she will go with him so as to make it ten chances, and a
certainty of her being there whatever happens. And so, naturally, man
cannot tolerate the thought of woman getting the right, based on
intelligence, to vote.