THE CHICKEN THAT INTRUDED
They had made the mistake of pitching the tent where the morning sun
had full play, and long before either Pud or Tim wanted to get up, the
canvas walls were aglow, and it was only by hiding their faces under
the blankets that they could keep the disturbing light from their eyes.
Shortly before seven they capitulated. Harmon was already up and about.
They could hear him cracking branches and crooning a song behind the
tent. Outside, the grass was dew-spangled, and, in spite of the ardent
sun, the air held a shivery quality that caused Tim to hesitate before
accepting Pud’s challenge to go for a swim. But he did accept, and they
found the river far warmer than the air. By the time they were dried
and dressed, Harmon was calling them to breakfast. For some moments a
particularly delectable aroma had been pervading the tent, an aroma
that suggested neither coffee nor bacon, and when they reached the fire
the mystery was explained. In the fry-pan lay, crisply browned, what
their astounded eyes could not mistake.
‘Chicken!’ they exclaimed in delighted chorus.
Harmon showed his teeth in the broadest of grins.
‘But,’ faltered Pud, after a moment of delicious contemplation,
‘where――where’d it come from?’
Harmon chuckled. ‘Who? This here chick’n? Ain’ no tellin’ where he come
from, Mister Pud. He done walk right up and wink his eye at me, an’
then he lay hisself right down in this here pan an’ fol’ his wings!’
‘Yes, he did!’ jeered Tim. ‘I suppose he plucked his own feathers off,
too!’
‘Harmon,’ said Pud sternly, ‘you stole it!’
‘No, sir, I never,’ denied Harmon solemnly. ‘I jus’ pirated him!’
‘Pirated him? Gee, that’s a new name for it! Where’d you――where’d you
“pirate” him?’
‘Up yonder, beside the road. He certainly was the runnin’est li’l
rooster I ever seed! Yes, sir, I reckon his mother must ’a’ been a
ostridge! I chase ’at li’l rascal――’
‘You had no business to do it,’ charged Pud severely. ‘Want to get us
all arrested? My goodness, that’s no way to do, Harmon!’
‘How-come? Ain’ we pirates, Mister Pud? Didn’ you say we-all was goin’
sack towns? Didn’t you? How-come it’s all right to sack a town an’
ain’ all right to sack a li’l’ skinny rooster?’
Pud looked to Tim for assistance, but Tim was trying to keep his face
straight, and he avoided Pud’s eyes carefully. Harmon stared in solemn
perplexity from one to the other.
Pud cleared his throat. ‘Well, now, it’s like this, Harmon,’ he
explained. ‘I’m leader of this――this crew, and you ain’t supposed
to steal――sack anything, not even a chicken, until I tell you to.
Understand?’
Harmon’s face cleared and he nodded vigorously.
‘All right. Now――’ Pud looked longingly at the contents of the
fry-pan――‘Now,’ he went on in a failing voice, ‘you’d better fry some
bacon. It――it wouldn’t be honest to eat that chicken, would it, Tim?’
Tim shook his head. It wasn’t a decided shake, but it was the best he
could do. Harmon voiced incredulity.
‘You mean you-all don’ want no chicken?’ he ejaculated. ‘My golly!
How-come you ain’ wantin’ none?’
‘Because we――because you stole it, Harmon,’ answered Pud sadly. ‘It
wouldn’t be right to――’
‘Why you keep on sayin’ I stole it? Ain’ I done tell you I “pirate”
it? Lawsey, how-come you talk so silly?’
‘Of course,’ observed Tim, his gaze set fixedly on the charred tip of
a chicken leg, ‘you and I didn’t steal it, Pud. And it’s dead now, and
it seems sort of wasteful to throw it away. Father says it’s sinful to
waste things, Pud.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ assented Pud. ‘Well, maybe it wouldn’t be very wrong if
we ate it, just so’s not to let it go to waste. I guess――I guess our
consciences oughtn’t to trouble us if we did. Of course, it’s different
with Harmon. He oughtn’t to have any because he came by it dishonestly.’
‘No,’ agreed Tim. ‘Still, if there was some left for him, it wouldn’t
be any affair of ours if he ate it. It would be between him and his
conscience, I guess.’
‘Yes, that’s so.’
It was a wonderful chicken. Naturally, having been such a remarkable
runner, it was inclined to be stringy and even a bit tough as to its
legs, but they had good appetites and they were not restrained by
ordinary table etiquette; and the toughest chicken leg that ever ran
must yield its meat when you take it in both hands! They gave Harmon a
share, although, of course, not the choice parts, and the darky seemed
to have settled affairs with his conscience very satisfactorily. At
least, he gave every indication of enjoyment, and he did not, as he
perhaps deserved to, choke to death on a bone!
By nine o’clock they were afloat again, and at half-past had left
Bentonburg behind. The river was not so hot as it had been yesterday
and voyaging was very pleasant. They chugged between wide fields that
swept upward and away to tree-dotted horizons or to comfortable farm
buildings, white against the blue sky. Harmon took his first lesson in
steering and was visibly thrilled as the boat responded to his pressure
on the little brass-bound wheel. In the first enthusiasm he almost ran
them aground, and only Pud’s quick action saved the day.
Pud rummaged around until he had found a pad of paper and five stamped
and addressed envelopes held together by an elastic band. These had
been supplied by his mother, with the injunction to send a letter every
day. Pud had meant to send one yesterday, but he had forgotten. Now he
placed a sheet of the paper on the lid of a box and, bidding Tim keep
an eye on the helmsman, wrote as follows:
DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER:
We camped last night about two miles this side of Farquhar’s
Landing. Harmon is a fine cook. The launch is doing finely. I
guess we will make Livermore to-day and camp near the bridge.
The cake was fine. We are all well and enjoying ourselfs. Tim
sends his respects.
Your loving son,
PUD
P.S. If we have time we might call on Aunt Sabrina like you
said, but maybe we had ought to push on.
At noon they tied up alongside a tumble-down pier and ate a cold lunch.
Breakfast had been hearty and sustaining, and it was decided that what
cooking they did had best be done at the end of each day’s voyage. As
only some three miles lay between them and Livermore, there seemed no
good reason to hurry, and so they lolled in the partial shade of the
landing-pier for an hour and then went into the water. The glimpse of a
fish sent Tim scurrying back to the launch for his tackle. The can of
worms had, unfortunately, been overturned in such a way as to release
most of the contents, but enough remained to bait three lines and for
nearly two hours they all sat on the edge of the pier and sought to
provide for the evening meal. But the fish wouldn’t bite, and about
four o’clock they cast off and went on again.
Livermore began a mile farther along with an outlying sprinkle of
small farms on the left of the river. These gave place to little
houses set in tiny gardens and then to more ambitious residences.
They caught the yellow gleam of a hurrying trolley car and heard its
strident hum as it charged at a grade and went lurching out of sight
behind the maples that lined the street. Harmon watched with intense
interest, trolley cars being a novelty to him. A quarter of a mile
of brick mill buildings marched beside them and the big steel bridge
suddenly swept into sight around a bend of the stream. The river
widened appreciably hereabouts and a long, pebbly island, decked with
a few forlorn trees, divided the current. Pud, at the wheel now, chose
the right-hand channel, slowing down the engine to a point where it
coughed incessantly, but survived the secret malady. There was so much
to see now――for Livermore boasted of a population of seventeen thousand
and was a manufacturing town of some importance――that the three boys
almost stared the eyes out of their heads. Harmon ejaculated ‘Lawsey!’
and ‘My golly’ at quite regular intervals. One thing that became plain
long before the bridge was reached was that Pud’s suggestion of camping
thereabouts was not at all practical. The only place they could have
pitched the tent would have been on some wharf!
‘Guess we’ll have to go on by the town,’ said Pud. ‘I didn’t know it
was all built-up like this!’
‘Thought you said you’d been here,’ said Tim.
‘So I did and so I have.’
‘Gosh, then I should think――’
‘Well, it was quite a long time ago,’ explained Pud; ‘when I was about
eight or nine. You see, Great-Aunt Sabrina lives over on the other side
of town, and we don’t usually get around here. I guess it’s grown up a
lot since I was here!’
‘Your aunt at home now?’ asked Tim, after a moment.
‘Yes, I suppose so. She don’t go about much. She’s sort of old.’ He
turned hard aport to keep out of the way of a snorting tugboat that
backed suddenly out from behind a pier.
‘Well,’ began Tim, after another brief silence.
But Pud interrupted, pointing to a conspicuous sign that adorned the
end of a brick-red shed just ahead.
‘Say, I guess we’d ought to have some more gasoline, eh?’ he asked. ‘We
didn’t have but thirty gallons when we started.’
‘Well, gosh, I guess we ain’t used any thirty gallons,’ demurred Tim.
But Pud was already negotiating the landing.
‘You, Harmon, you get up here and fend off,’ he ordered. ‘Keep her like
that, Tim.’ He went to the engine, anxiously watching the pier bear
down upon them, and finally pushed the clutch forward. There was a fine
churning under the stern, and Harmon’s bare feet set themselves against
the stringpiece and the _Jolly Rodger_, formerly the _Kismet_, sidled
up to her berth. If the gasoline station had been on the other side of
the river, the launch’s name would have been the _Vengance_, of course.
Investigation with a stick showed the gasoline tank to be still rather
more than three quarters full, but since, by this time, the proprietor
of the station was peering inquiringly down at them, Pud decided to
purchase just the same.
‘_Jolly Rodger_, eh?’ said the man as he handed the nozzle of the hose
down to them. ‘What are you, pirates?’
Pud laughed evasively, but Harmon assented proudly. ‘Yes, sir, we sure
is! We’s bloody pirates, Mister!’
‘You look it!’ laughed the man. ‘Well, better not let the police see
you, that’s all I’ve got to say! How much do you want?’
Pud was very glad that he had yielded to Tim that morning and
consented to the removal of the skull-and-cross-bones at the stern!
Suppose the police did see them and begin to ask questions! Suppose the
man who had owned that chicken had sent word about its disappearance!
He was mightily relieved when the gasoline was in and paid for, the cap
screwed back on the tank, and the launch was again shoving her nose
toward the bridge. His desire now was to leave Livermore behind and
once more reach the open spaces. The others seemed not to share his
uneasiness. They were craning their heads to see the bridge. Pud, back
at the wheel, didn’t have much time for sight-seeing, for the river
held much traffic and he was kept busy. When they were directly under
the bridge, which seemed an immeasurable height above them, but was
probably no more than thirty feet, a trolley car rumbled across and
Harmon’s upturned face went two shades lighter. And when, at the same
moment, from close by a mill whistle proclaimed five o’clock with a
sudden and deafening shriek, poor Harmon nearly turned white!
‘_My golly!_’ he yelled. ‘_What’s ’at?_’
Beyond the bridge and the press of river traffic, Tim returned to a
former subject of conversation. ‘Say, Pud, why don’t you go and see
your aunt? I should think you’d want to.’
‘Huh? Oh, gee, she――she’s awful sort of stern, Tim. I would go and see
her only she lives quite a ways back.’
‘I guess she’d be pretty hurt if she found out you’d been here and
didn’t call on her,’ said Tim.
‘Well――’
‘And I guess she’d be likely to ask you to supper, wouldn’t she? I and
Harmon wouldn’t mind if you went, Pud.’
‘Yes, she’d ask me to supper, of course, but――’
‘I guess you’d have a better supper than you would if you had what we
have, eh? Preserves, probably, and cake.’
‘Yes, she feeds a fellow great,’ acknowledged Pud, a trifle wistfully.
‘But I wouldn’t go and have supper with her and leave you and
Harmon――Say!’ Pud was struck by a thought that had occurred to his chum
long since. ‘Say, why don’t we all go?’
‘Oh, well, maybe she wouldn’t like it if I and Harmon were to butt in,’
replied Tim doubtfully. ‘She doesn’t know us.’
‘Well, gee, you’re my friends, ain’t you? Sure she’ll like it. And――and
I’d like it a sight better than going alone,’ added Pud. ‘I wouldn’t
wonder if she gave us cocoanut cake, Tim. She makes corking cocoanut
cake! Gee, you just ought to taste it!’
‘We-ell, if you think it’ll be all right――’
‘Of course it will! Gee, Aunt Sabrina’s a――a little stern, and she sort
of scares you if you don’t know her, but she don’t believe in turning
folks away hungry; especially if they’re relatives――or relatives’
friends. We’ll find a good place to leave the launch and get a street
car that’ll take us out Moorehouse Avenue. It’s only four or five
blocks from the car line. Say, how about shoving in over there?’
Pud indicated an unoccupied berth between two short piers across the
river. A warehouse loomed beyond it, its windows shuttered. Tim looked
and approved and Pud turned the launch’s nose across the stream. When
they reached the place, it didn’t look so inviting, for it was half
out of water, exposing an evil-smelling slope of black mud. But it
seemed a safe spot in which to leave the launch and their belongings,
since, as Tim pointed out, the only way to reach it was to climb over
a fence that gave onto a narrow alley. So they made the boat fast,
stowed everything into the lockers that would go there, covered the
engine with a piece of tarpaulin, and shinned up a spile to the rickety
wharf above. After that they climbed the fence, followed the alley to
its junction with a cobbled street, and set forth in search of Aunt
Sabrina.