THE NAILED DOOR AND WINDOW.
Charlie made a discovery in the barn. In that side toward the river there
was a door on the first floor, and there was also a window in the chamber
above. Not only was the door closed, and closed also was the wooden
shutter of the window, but over each iron hook dropped in its staple and
securing the door and window were two nails stoutly driven. All this
Charlie had noticed before. He now traced these half-obliterated words in
chalk on the door: "This is not to be opened." He was standing before this
prohibition, wondering who put it there, and for what purpose, thinking
how nice it would be to have the door open that the club might have a
chance to get down that way into the dock. Then he thought how pleasant it
would be, also, to have the window open that the club might have a lookout
upon the river and off toward the sea, on whose blue rim, a mile away,
could be seen the white tower of the light-house, where Simes Badger and
his assistant served their country alternate days. Suddenly, Charlie heard
a thick, hoarse voice behind him: "Your Aunt Stanshy in, sonny?"
Charlie turned, somewhat startled, and there was Simes Badger himself.
"She has gone out, I guess, sir."
"What are you looking at that door for? I don't believe your Aunt Stanshy
wants you to open it."
"O, I was not going to open it."
If, after the half-effaced chalk-marks, Charlie had seen a written threat,
"On pain of death," he could not have been more determined to let that
window alone.
"Do you know, Mr. Badger, who shut and nailed that window?"
"Aunt Stanshy herself. I saw her with my own eyes."
"You did?"
"Yes. You see--there, I don't know but I'm telling a secret--but then you
won't say any thing."
Having made this prudent remark, and not waiting for any promise from
Charlie, Simes, who dearly loved to tell a thing, and especially any thing
that might astonish a hearer, began his story.
"You see, Tim Tyler is your Aunt Stanshy's second cousin."
"Tim's father?" said Charlie, in astonishment.
"You mean young Tim Tyler's father? Ginerally old Tim is young Tim's
father, sartin as the sea is father of our river. But this old Tim is
young Tim's uncle. Then you didn't know it? Well, you are young, and I
spose nobody told you. Well, Stanshy and old Tim were brought up side by
side in this neighborhood and were good as chickens to one another. Some
folks say they'd been better friends still, if their parents hadn't set
their faces agin it, and so they were never married to one another. They
were never married at all. Did you ever see old Tim?"
"I don't know as ever I saw old Tim, but then I've seen _that_ boy, and he
is rough," said Charlie, recalling the afternoon of the Fourth.
"Tim Tyler don't live in this part of the town, and it's no wonder you
never saw him. He hardly ever comes down this way now, though he often did
once. Well, the wust lookin' old drunkard you ever see about town, spot
him for Tim."
"Then I guess I have seen him," remarked Charlie, recalling the drunkard
he had watched the afternoon of his severe sickness, and remembering, too,
Aunt Stanshy's singular conduct.
"Tim looks poorly enough now, but it wasn't so once. Straight and smart,
and bright as the blades of a new jack-knife, was Tim. His face was
blushin' like a posy, and his beard was long and handsome, like Moses the
prophet's. He was nice as a pictur till rum got the better of him, and
then he changed, I tell ye. For many years he had the privilege of fishin'
from this barn. From the stairs on the 'tother side of that door, he would
get down into his fishin' boat in the dock. He would bring his fish in
here, split 'em and prepare 'em for market. Sometimes Stanshy kept a horse
and cow below, and then Tim would hist his fare into the upper window and
clean his fish there. But one day Aunt Stanshy cleaned him out, and when
Stanshy starts on a cleanin' tour, she makes thorough work of it, and puts
things through promptly. And she did clean out old Tim! But I must go back
and hitch the horse into the cart, and say what you know as well as I,
that your Aunt Stanshy is a great teetotaler, a leetle too much I think."
[Simes liked his nip.] "But seein' how her minister's in favor of it, she
is wuss than ever. Now to go on. Your father, boy, let me say, had a hand
in this trouble, though not meaningly, and it was this way. Tour father
came to live with your Aunt Stanshy, and one day Tim took him out
a-fishin', and not only tipped a jug to his own lips, but sot it to your
father's also. When they came back home, it was plain they had been up to
suthin' besides fishin'. Well, Tim might as well have touched a lion's
whip--what do you call it?"
"Whelp. I was reading about lions to-day."
"Yes, touched a lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt
Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin'
fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see
an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor,
motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go,
tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan
out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim had been on
good terms with one another and understood one another so well, I think
for that reason she was all the hotter. You know when brothers do quarrel,
they go it wuss than other folks. Well, Tim at fust would say nothing but
he was orful mad. He was that kind of mad that you see in the sky when a
thunder-storm is brewin', and yet no rain has fallen; only the flash is
there, and the thunder is there a-rumblin', and the lightnin' is there a
sawin' up and down, but nary a drop of rain! At last Tim spoke, and he
declared it was the last he'd ever have to do with her, and afore he'd ask
a favor of her, he took a horrid oath, he'd see hisself a-drownin' in that
dock fust. I hated to hear him swear that way, for, sez I, 'Young man, you
may get there yet, and you may be glad to have Stanshy's help.' Then he
took a barrel of fish he was fillin', and he was so mad he rolled the
whole mess into the water, sayin' he would have nothin' to do with any
thing that had touched Aunt Stanshy's barn. I asked him why he didn't then
throw himself over! That touched him up, and he grabbed his knives and
pitched them into the dock. It was a queer sight to see them fish in that
barrel floatin' away. But then the rum was in him and maddened him. When
he had left, it was Aunt Stanshy's turn to do suthin'. I heard it all, for
I was in the yard doin' a few chores for Stanshy. Fust, there was a slam
in the barn chamber. I jest slipped up them stairs and peeked over the
edge of the floor. Stanshy had pulled the shutter in with a vengeance.
Then she hooked it and drove the nails over the hook as tight as bricks. O
she is a woman of 'mazin' vigor, Stanshy is, when she gets agoin'. She
came down stairs and she fastened up this door, and then I seed her
fumblin' in her pocket, and, pullin' out a piece of chalk, she began to
write. When Stanshy had finished, of course, I was at my chores agin very
busily engaged. Well, since that day, there has been silence between
Stanshy and Tim like that round the old tombstones in the church-yard. I
hope some day it will be different."
With this benevolent wish, Simes closed.
"A bad scrape," remarked Charlie.
"Yes, people ought not to drink so much," said the abstemious and ascetic
Simes. "They ought to stop this side of a drop too much."
"They ought to stop this side of any drop at all," stoutly affirmed the
young member of Mr. Walton's temperance society.
"Pre--pre--haps so," replied Simes.