COLUMBUS AND HIS FRIENDS
When he waked up in the morning, Jack remembered that he had not seen
Columbus Risdale go past the door after his cow the evening before, and
he was afraid that he might be ill. Why had he not thought to go down
and drive up the cow himself? It was yet early, and he arose and went
down to the little rusty, brown, unpainted house in which the Risdales,
who were poor people, had their home. Just as he pushed open the gate,
Bob Holliday came out of the door, looking tired and sleepy.
"Hello, Bob!" said Jack. "How's Columbus? Is he sick?"
"Awful sick," said Bob. "Clean out of his head all night."
"Have you been here all night?"
"Yes, I heerd he was sick last night, and I come over and sot up with
him."
"You good, big-hearted Bob!" said Jack. "You're the best fellow in the
world, I believe."
"What a quare feller you air to talk, Jack," said Bob, choking up. "Air
you goin' to school to-day?"
"No. Mother'd rather have me not go any more."
"I'm not going any more. I hate old Ball. Neither's Susan Lanham going.
She's in there," and Bob made a motion toward the house with his thumb,
and passed out of the gate, while Jack knocked at the door. He was
admitted by Susan.
"Oh, Jack! I'm so glad to see you," she whispered. "Columbus has asked
for you a good many times during the night. You've stood by him
splendidly."
Jack blushed, but asked how Lummy was now.
"Out of his head most of the time. Bob Holliday stayed with him all
night. What a good fellow Bob Holliday is!"
"I almost hugged him, just now," said Jack, and Susan couldn't help
smiling at this frank confession.
Jack passed into the next room as stealthily as possible, that he might
not disturb his friend, and paused by the door. Mrs. Risdale sat by the
bedside of Columbus, who was sleeping uneasily, his curious big head and
long, thin hair making a strange picture against the pillow. His face
looked more meagre and his eyes more sunken than ever before, but there
was a feverish flush on his wan cheeks, and the slender hands moved
uneasily on the outside of the blue coverlet, the puny arms were bare to
the elbows.
Mrs. Risdale beckoned Jack to come forward, and he came and stood at the
bed-foot. Then Columbus opened his large eyes and fixed them on Jack for
a few seconds.
"Come, Jack, dear old fellow," he whispered.
Jack came and bent over him with tearful eyes, and the poor little
reed-like arms were twined about his neck.
"Jack," he sobbed, "the master's right over there in the corner all the
time, straightening out his long switches. He says he's going to whip me
again. But you won't let him, will you, Jack, you good old fellow?"
"No, he shan't touch you."
"Let's run away, Jack," he said, presently. And so the poor little
fellow went on, his great, disordered brain producing feverish images of
terror from which he continually besought "dear good old Jack" to
deliver him.
When at last he dropped again into a troubled sleep, Jack slipped away
and drove up the Risdale cow, and then went back to his breakfast. He
was a boy whose anger kindled slowly; but the more he thought about it,
the more angry he became at the master who had given Columbus such a
fright as to throw him into a brain fever, and at the "mean, sneaking
contemptible villains," as he hotly called them, who wouldn't come
forward and confess their trick, rather than to have the poor little lad
punished.
"I suppose we ought to make some allowances," his mother said, quietly.
"That's what you always say, mother. You're always making allowances."
After breakfast and chores, Jack thought to go again to see his little
friend. On issuing from the gate, he saw Will Riley and Ben Berry
waiting for him at the corner. Whether they meant to attack him or not
he could not tell, but he felt too angry to care.
"I say, Jack," said Riley, "how did you know who put the powder in the
stove? Did Columbus tell you?"
"Mind your own business," said Jack, in a tone not so polite as it might
be. "The less you say about gunpowder, hereafter, the better for you
both. Why didn't you walk up and tell, and save that little fellow a
beating?"
"Look here, Jack," said Berry, "don't you tell what you know about it.
There's going to be a row. They say that Doctor Lanham's taken Susan,
and all the other children, out of school, because the master thrashed
Lummy, and they say Bob Holliday's quit, and that you're going to quit,
and Doctor Lanham's gone to work this morning to get the master put out
at the end of the term. Mr. Ball didn't know that Columbus was kin to
the Lanhams, or he'd have let him alone, like he does the Lanhams and
the Weathervanes. There is going to be a big row, and everybody'll want
to know who put the powder in the stove. We want you to be quiet about
it."
"You _do_?" said Jack, with a sneer. "_You_ do?"
"Yes, we do," said Riley, coaxingly.
"You do? _You_ come to _me_ and ask me to keep it secret, after letting
me and that poor little baby take your whipping! You want me to hide
what you did, when that poor little Columbus lies over there sick abed
and like to die, all because you sneaking scoundrels let him be whipped
for what you did!"
"Is he sick?" said Riley, in terror.
"Going to die, I expect," said Jack, bitterly.
"Well," said Ben Berry, "you be careful what you say about us, or we'll
get Pewee to get even with you."
"Oh, that's your game! You think you can scare me, do you?"
Jack grew more and more angry. Seeing a group of school-boys on the
other side of the street, he called them over.
"Look here, boys," said Jack, "I took a whipping yesterday to keep from
telling on these fellows, and now they have the face to ask me not to
tell that they put the powder in the stove, and they promise me a
beating from Pewee if I do. These are the two boys that let a poor
sickly baby take the whipping they ought to have had. They have just as
good as killed him, I suppose, and now they come sneaking around here
and trying to scare me in keeping still about it. I didn't back down
from the master, and I won't from Pewee. Oh, no! I won't tell anybody.
But if any of you boys should happen to guess that Will Riley and Ben
Berry were the cowards who did that mean trick, I am not going to say
they weren't. It wouldn't be of any use to deny it. There are only two
boys in school mean enough to play such a contemptible trick as that."
Riley and Berry stood sheepishly silent, but just here Pewee came in
sight, and seeing the squad of boys gathered around Jack, strode over
quickly and pushed his sturdy form into the midst.
"Pewee," said Riley, "I think you ought to pound Jack. He says you can't
back him down."
"I didn't," said Jack. "I said _you_ couldn't scare me out of telling
who tried to blow up the school-house stove, and let other boys take
the whipping, by promising me a drubbing from Pewee Rose. If Pewee wants
to put himself in as mean a crowd as yours, and be your puppy-dog to
fight for you, let him come on. He's a fool if he does, that's all I
have to say. The whole town will want to ship you two fellows off before
night, and Pewee isn't going to fight your battles. What do you think,
Pewee, of fellows that put powder in a stove where they might blow up a
lot of little children? What do you think of two fellows that want me to
keep quiet after they let little Lum Risdale take a whipping for them,
and that talk about setting you on to me if I tell?"
Thus brought face to face with both parties, King Pewee only looked
foolish and said nothing.
Jack had worked himself into such a passion that he could not go to
Risdale's, but returned to his own home, declaring that he was going to
tell everybody in town. But when he entered the house and looked into
the quiet, self-controlled face of his mother, he began to feel cooler.
"Let us remember that some allowances are to be made for such boys," was
all that she said.
"That's what you always say, Mother," said Jack, impatiently. "I believe
you'd make allowances for the Old Boy himself."
"That would depend on his bringing up," smiled Mrs. Dudley. "Some people
have bad streaks naturally, and some have been cowed and brutalized by
ill-treatment, and some have been spoiled by indulgence."
Jack felt more calm after a while. He went back to the bedside of
Columbus, but he couldn't bring himself to make allowances.