WHEN Peter crawled out of his haystack the next morning the weather was
intensely cold and the wind was gone. Every twig and weed sparkled with
the ice frozen upon it. He had needed no alarm-clock to awaken him, for
an uneasy sense of discomfort gradually opened his eyes, and he found
his knees aching and his whole body chilled and stiff. He climbed the
fence into the farm-house yard. He had no doubt now that he was hungry,
and he was well aware that his head was cold where the hair was thin.
Indeed, his hands and feet were cold too. But he tightened his belt
another hole and made for Mrs. Potter's woodshed. Among the chips and
sawdust he found a piece of white cloth which, had he known it was the
remains of one of Mrs. Potter's petticoats, he would have left where
it lay, but not knowing this he made a makeshift turban by knotting the
corners, and drew it well down over his ears, like a nightcap. It was
more comfortable than the raw morning air, and Peter had no more pride
than a tramp.
He found the wood saw hanging in the shed, a piece of bacon-rind on the
windowsill, and the ice-covered sawbuck in the yard, and he set to work
on the pile of pin-oak as if he meant to earn his clock, his breakfast
and a full day's wages before Mrs. Potter got out of bed. The exercise
warmed him, but he kept one eye on the top of Mrs. Potter's kitchen
chimney, looking for the thin smoke signal telling that breakfast was
under way. The pile of stove-wood grew and grew under his saw but still
the house gave no sign of life. The sun climbed, making the icy coating
of trees and fences glow with color, and still Mrs. Potter's kitchen
chimney remained hopelessly smokeless.
“That woman must have a good, clear conscience or she couldn't sleep
like that,” said the hungry Peter, “but I've got folks on my hands, and
I've got to see to them. If this ain't enough wood to satisfy her I'll
saw some more when I come back.”
He was worried, for no smoke was coming from the stovepipe that
protruded from the roof of his shanty-boat. When he reached the boat he
knocked three times without answer before he opened the door cautiously
and peered in, ready to retreat should his entrance be inopportune. The
woman was lying where he had left her, still in her wet clothes, and the
cabin was icy cold. The boy, when Peter opened the door, was standing on
the table trying to lift the shot-gun from its pegs. His face showed
he had made a trip to the bread and jam. He looked down at Peter as the
door opened.
“Mama's funny,” he said, and reached for the gun again.
The woman was indeed “funny.” She was in the grip of a raging fever. Her
cheeks were violently red and against them the green dye from her hat
made hideous streaks. Her hair had fallen and lay in a tangle over the
pillow, with the rain-soaked hat still clinging to a strand. As she
moved her head the hat moved with it, giving her a drunken, disreputable
appearance. She talked rapidly and angrily, repeating the names of men,
of “Susie” and “Buddy,” stopping to sing a verse of a popular song,
breaking into profanity and laughing loudly. All human emotions except
tears flowed from her, and Peter stood with his back against the door,
uncertain what to do. The table, tipping suddenly and throwing the boy
to the floor, decided him.
“There, now, you little rascal!” he said, gathering the weeping boy in
his arms.
“You might have broke your arm, or your leg. You oughtn't to stand on a
table you ain't acquainted with, that way.”
“I wanted to fall down,” said the boy, ceasing his tears at once. “I
like to fall off tables I ain't 'quainted with.”
“Well, I just bet you do!” said Peter. “You look like that sort of a
boy to me. Does your ma act funny like this often? You poor young 'un, I
hope not!”
“No,” said Buddy.
Peter looked at the woman, studying her. It might have been possible
that she was insane, but the vivid red of her cheeks convinced him she
was delirious with fever. Her hat, askew over one ear, gave Peter a
feeling of shame for her, and he put Buddy down and walked to the bunk.
He saw that the hat pin had made a cruel scratch along her cheek.
“Now, ma'am,” he said, “I'm just going to help you off with this hat,
because it's getting all mashed up, and it ain't needed in the house.”
He put out his hand to take the hat, but the woman raised herself on one
arm, and with the other fist struck Peter full in the face, so that he
staggered back against the table, while she swore at him viciously.
“You hadn't ought to do that,” he said reprovingly; “I wasn't going to
hurt you.”
“I know you!” shouted the woman in a rage. “I know you! You can't come
any of that over me! You took Susie, you beast, but you don't get Buddy.
Let me get at you!”
She tried to clamber from the bunk, but fell back coughing.
“Now, you are absolutely wrong, ma'am,” said Peter earnestly. “You've
got me placed entirely wrong. I ain't the man you think I am at all. I'm
the man that got something for Buddy to eat last night. You recall that,
don't you?”
The woman looked at him craftily.
“Where's Buddy?” she asked.
“I'm--I'm cooking eggs, Mama,” said Buddy promptly, and Peter turned.
“Well, you little rascal!” cried Peter. “You must be hungry.”
The boy had put the frying-pan on the floor while Peter's back was
turned, and had broken the remaining eggs in it. Much of the omelet
had missed the pan, decorating Buddy's clothes and the floor. The woman
seemed satisfied when she heard the boy's voice, and closed her
eyes, and Peter took the opportunity to kindle the fire and start the
breakfast. He cooked the omelet, the condition of the eggs suggesting
that as the only method of preparing them. The woman opened her eyes as
the pleasant odor filled the cabin, and followed every movement Peter
made.
“I know you! You'll run me out of town, will you?” she cried suddenly.
“All right, I'll go! I'll go! That's what I get for being decent. You
know I 've been decent since you took Susie away from me, and that's
what I get. Run me out--what do I care! I'll go.”
She put her feet to the floor, but another coughing fit threw her back
against the pillow, and when she recovered she burst into tears.
“Don't take her!” she pleaded. “I'll be decent--don't! I tell you I'll
be decent. Don't I feed her plenty? Don't I dress her warm? Ain't she
going to school like the other kids? Don't take her. Before God, I'll be
decent. Come here, Susie!”
“Now, that's all right, ma'am,” said Peter, as she began coughing again.
“Nobody's going to take nobody whilst I'm in this boat, and you can make
your mind up to that right off. Here's Buddy right here, eating like a
little man, ain't you, Buddy?”
“Poor baby!” said the woman. “Come and let Ma try to carry you again.
Your poor little leg's all tired out, ain't it?”
“It's rested,” said Buddy, “it ain't tired.”
“Tired, oh, God, I'm tired!” she wept. “You'll have to get down, Buddy.
Ma can't carry you another step. God knows when I get to Riverbank I'll
be straight. I've got enough of this. Where's Susie?”
“Now, I wisht, if you can, you'd try to lie quiet, ma'am,” said Peter,
“for you ain't well. Try lying still, and I'll go right to town and get
a doctor to come out and see you. I didn't mean you no harm at all.”
“I know you, you snake!” she cried. “You 're from the Society. You took
my Susie, and you want Buddy. I'll kill you first. Come here, Buddy!”
The boy went to her obediently, and she drew him on to the bunk and ran
her hand through his white kinks of hair. It seemed to quiet her to feel
him in her arm.
“Now, ma'am,” said Peter, “you see nobody's going to take Buddy at all,
and you can take my word I won't let anybody take him whilst I'm around.
You can depend on that, I'm going to town, now, and I guess I'd better
leave Buddy right here, for you'll be more comfortable knowing where he
is. Don't you worry about nothing at all until I get back, and if you
find the door locked it's just so nobody can't get in and bother you.”
He looked about the cabin. It was comfortably warm, and he poured water
on the fire. He wished to take no chances with the woman in her present
state. He even took his shot-gun and the heavy poker as he went out.
Buddy watched him with interest.
“Are you stealing that gun?” he asked.
“No, son,” said Peter gravely. “Nobody's stealing anything. You want to
get that idea out of your head. Nobody in this cabin--you, nor me, nor
your ma, would steal anything. Your ma's sick and don't know what she's
doing, but she don't mean no real harm. I guess she ain't been treated
right, and she feels upset about it, but a boy don't want, ever, to say
anything bad about his ma.”
He went out and closed and locked the door. Involuntarily he glanced at
Widow Potter's chimneys. No smoke came from any of them.
“Now, I just bet that woman has gone and got sick, just when I've got
my hands plumb full!” he said disgustedly. “I've got to go up and see
what's the matter with her, or she might lie there and die and nobody
know a thing about it.”
The cold had frozen the slush into hardness, and Peter cut across
the corn-field. He tried Mrs. Potter's doors and found them all
locked--which was a bad sign, unless she had gone to town while he was
in the shanty-boat--but he knocked on the kitchen door noisily, and was
rewarded after a reasonable wait, by hearing the widow dragging her feet
across the kitchen.
“Is that you, Peter Lane?” she asked.
“Yes'm,” Peter answered.
“Well, it's time you come, I must say,” said the widow, between groans.
“You the only man anywheres near, and you'd leave me die here as soon as
not. You got to feed the cows and the horse and give the chickens some
grain and then hitch up and fetch a doctor as fast as he can be fetched.
I might have laid here for weeks, you 're that unreliable. I'll put the
barn key on the kitchen table, and when the doctor comes I'll be in my
bed, if the Lord lets me live that long. I'll be in it anyway, I dare
say, dead or alive, if I can manage to get to it. And don't you come
in until I get out of the way, for I ain't got a stitch on but my
night-gown.”
“I won't,” said Peter, and he didn't. He gave Mrs. Potter time to
get into twenty beds, if she had been so minded, before he opened the
kitchen door a crack and peeped in. He hurried through the chores as
rapidly as he could, feeding the stock and the chickens and milking
the cows. He had eaten part of the omelet Buddy had commenced, but he
thought it only right he should have a satisfying drink of the warm
milk, and he took it. He made a fire in the kitchen stove and saw that
the iron tea-kettle was full of water, and then he harnessed the horse
and drove briskly to town and sought a doctor.
It was the hour when physicians were making their calls and the first
two Peter sought were out, but Dr. Roth, the new doctor who had come
from Willets to build a practice in the larger town, happened to be in
his office over Moore's Drug Store, and he drew on his coat and gloves
while Peter explained the object of his visit.
“I ain't running Mrs. Potter's affairs,” said Peter, “for there ain't no
call for her to have nobody to run them, but, if I was, I'd get a sort
of nurse-woman to go up and take care of her. She's all alone, and I
don't know how sick she is.”
“Then you are not Mr. Potter?” asked the doctor.
“I ain't nothing at all like that,” said Peter. “I'm a shanty-boatman
and my boat is right near the widow's place, and I do odd chores for
her. Old Potter died and went where he belongs quite some time ago.”
The doctor agreed to pick up Mrs. Skinner on his way, Mrs. Skinner being
one of those plump, useful creatures that are willing to do nursing,
washing, or general housework by the day.
“And another thing, doctor,” said Peter, as the doctor closed his office
door, “whilst you are out there I want you to drop down to the cove
below the widow's house, to a shanty-boat you'll see there, and take
a look at the woman I've got in it. So far as I can make out she's a
mighty sick woman. I'll try to get back before you get through with the
widow, but you'd better take my key, if I shouldn't. I'll pay whatever
it costs to treat her. I'm quite ready to do that.”
“Why not drive out with me?”
“I got some business to transact,” said Peter. “But mebby it might be
just as well to wait till I do get there. She's sort of out of her mind,
and she might think you had come to do her some harm if I wasn't there.”
The business Peter had to transact took him to George Rapp's Livery,
Sale and Feed Stable, and by good luck he found George in his stuffy,
over-heated office, redolent of tobacco smoke, harness soap and general
stable odors. Like all men who brave cold weather at all hours George
liked to be well baked when in-doors.
“Well, George,” said Peter, “since I seen you yesterday circumstances
has occurred to change my mind about making any trips this year in my
boat. For a man of my constitution I've made up my mind it would be just
the worst thing to go south at all. It ain't the right air for my lungs,
and when you got to talking about chinchillas going out of fashion, I
seen it wasn't worth the risk. What I need is cold climate, George, and
it's an unfortunate thing this here Mississippi River don't run any
way but south, because there's one fur never does go out of style, and
that's arctic fox--.”
“All right, I'll give you forty dollars for the boat,” laughed Rapp,
putting his hand in his pocket.
“Now, wait!” said Peter. “I don't want you to think I'm doing this just
because I want to sell the boat, George. That ain't so. I guess maybe I
could raise what money I need to outfit, one way or another, but I can't
afford to pay a caretaker to take care of that boat whilst I'm away
up in Labrador, or Alaska, or wherever I'm going, and it ain't safe to
leave a shanty-boat vacant. Tramps would run away with her.”
“When do you aim to start north?” asked Rapp, grinning.
“My mind ain't quite made up to that,” said Peter. “I want to look over
a map and see where Labrador is before I start out. I thought maybe
you'd let me remain in the shanty-boat awhile, George.”
“Stay on her as long as you like,” said Rapp. “You can live right in her
all winter. All I want is to get her down to my place right away before
the river closes, so she'll be there when the ducks fly next spring.”
“Now, that's another thing,” said Peter uneasily. “With all the
preparations I have to make for my trip I'll have to be round town
more or less this winter, and as your place is a long way down river,
I thought maybe you might let the boat stay where she is this winter,
George?”
“You can sleep in my barn any time you want to, Peter,” said Rapp. “I
might as well let that boat lie where she is forever as leave her there
all winter. I want her down there when the ducks fly north. I'll give
you five dollars extra for floating her down, and a dollar or so a week
for taking care of her, but if she can't go down she ain't any use to
me.”
“The way the ice is beginning to run I'd have to start her down to-day
or to-morrow,” said Peter regretfully. “It upsets my plans, but I got
to have some ready cash. If the wind shifts your slough will be
ice-blocked, and there ain't no other safe place to winter a boat down
there.”
“You don't have to sell her if you don't want to,” said Rapp. “You can
put off your trip. Seems like I've heard you put off trips before now,
Peter.”
“Well, I guess I'll sell, George,” said Peter. “Maybe I can trap
muskrats or something down there, I'll make out some how.”
He took the money Rapp handed him and once more Peter was homeless.
He was no better than a tramp now. His plans were vague as to the sick
woman, but forty-five dollars seemed a great deal of money to Peter. He
might hire a room from Mrs. Potter, if that lady would permit, and have
the sick woman cared for there, or he might, have her brought to
town and lodged somewhere, if any one would take her in. There was no
hospital in Riverbank. But he was happy. Somehow, he did not doubt he
could care for the woman, for he had money in his pocket. To turn her
over to the county poor-farm did not enter his mind. He would not have
given a dog that fate.
He drove to Main Street first and tied his horse before the grocery that
received his infrequent patronage. Here he bought a bag of flour and
six packages of roasted coffee, some bacon and beans, condensed milk and
canned goods, sugar and other necessities, and then let his eyes wander
over the grocer's shelves. He had about decided to buy a can of green
gage plums, as a dainty he loved and never indulged in, and therefore
suitable to buy for the sick woman, when he saw the small white jars of
beef extract, and he bought one for the sick woman.
While his parcels were being wrapped he picked up the copy of the
_Riverbank News_ that lay on the counter and glanced over it, for a
newspaper was a rare treat for Peter. On the first page his eye caught
the headline “Pass Her Along.” It was at the head of an article in
the _News_ reporter's best humorous style, and told how Lize Merdin, a
notorious character, had been run out of Derlingport, the next town up
the river, and ordered never to return under pain of tar and feathers.
“The gay girl hit the ties in the direction of Riverbank at a Maud S.
pace, yanking her young male offspring after her by the arm,” wrote the
reporter, “and when last seen seemed intending to favor River-bank with
her society, but up to last reports nothing has been seen of her there.
It is a two days' jaunt for a gentle creature like Lize, but when
she hits the River Street depot she will find Riverbank a regular
springboard, and the bounce she will get here will impress on her
receptive mind the fact that Riverbank is not hankering for her company.
Pass her along!”
Peter folded the paper and laid it on the counter. So that was who
his visitor was, and how she came to be tramping the railway track! He
walked to where great golden oranges glowed in a box, near the door, and
chose half a dozen and laid them beside his other purchases. These too
were for the sick woman. Then he selected a dozen big, red apples and
laid them beside the oranges. They were for Buddy. It was Peter's method
of showing his disapproval of the bad taste of the _News'_ article.
When Peter reached the widow's farmhouse the doctor's horse still stood
in the bam-yard, and Peter put up his own horse, while waiting for the
doctor to come out.
“How is the widow? Is she bad off?” he asked when the doctor appeared.
“Mrs. Potter thinks she is a very sick woman, and she isn't a well one,”
said the doctor. “She'll stay in bed a week, anyway. That's some woman.
She has Mrs. Skinner hopping around like a toad in a skillet already,
and she sent orders by me that you are to come and sleep in the kitchen,
to be handy if she has a relapse in the night. You are to take care of
her stock, and saw the rest of her cord wood, and do the odd chores, and
if the pump freezes thaw it out, before it gets frozen any worse.”
“Now, ain't that too bad!” said Peter. “Just when I've got to get
started down river this afternoon. Things always happen like that, don't
they?”
He led the way across the frozen corn-field to his shanty-boat, and
opened the door. Buddy had managed to turn the table upside down and was
“riding a boat” in it. The doctor gave the boy and the cabin one glance
and had Peter classed as one of the shiftless shanty-boatmen before
he had pulled off his fur gloves. Then he turned to the woman. She
was lying with her face toward the wall. He bent over her, and when he
straightened his back and turned to Peter his face was very serious.
“Your wife is dead,” he said.
Peter's pale blue eyes stared at the doctor vacantly.
“Dead?” he stammered. “My wife? Why, doctor, she ain't--”
“Yes,” said the doctor, not waiting to hear the conclusion of Peter's
sentence. “She has been dead an hour, at least. A weak heart, overtaxed,
I should say. What do you mean by leaving her in these damp clothes? I
should have been called long ago.”
“Now, ain't that too bad! Ain't that too bad!” said Peter regretfully.
“It ain't nobody's fault but mine. I ought to have gone for you last
night, and there I was, a-sleepin' away as comfortable as could be!”
“She should have been under treatment for some time,” said the doctor
severely. He was a young doctor, and important, and not inclined to
spare the feelings of a mere shanty-boatman. Here he could be severe,
who had to be suave and politic with better people. He told Peter
brutally that the woman had not been properly cared for; that with her
constitution, she should have had delicacies and comforts and kindness.
“If you want my candid opinion, you as much as killed her,” said Dr.
Roth.
He was nettled by Peter's apparent heartlessness, for while Peter showed
that the death had shocked him, he gave way to no outburst of sorrow
such as might be expected from a bereaved husband. But now deep regret
in Peter's eyes touched him.
“I shouldn't have said that,” he said more kindly. “I might not have
been able to do anything. Probably not much after all. But if you don't
want the boy to go the same way, treat him better. You have him left.”
Peter turned and looked at Buddy who, all unconscious, was rowing his
table boat with a piece of driftwood for oar.
“That's so, aint it?” said Peter. “She's left the boy on my hands, ain't
she? I guess I got to take care of him. Yep, I guess I have!”
When the doctor left the boat, half an hour later, he shook his head as
he closed the door.
“Shiftless and unfeeling!” he muttered to himself. “'Left the boy on my
hands!' Poor boy, I'm sorry for you, with a father like that.”
For he did not see Peter drop on his knees beside the curly headed child
as soon as the door was closed, and he did not see how Peter took the
boy in his arms. He could not hear what Peter said.
“Buddy boy,” said Peter, “how'd it be if you and Uncle Peter just sort
of snuggled up close and--and et a big, red apple?”