_In which Clarence gets some further knowledge of a shrine,
which has much to do with the most important events of this
veracious narrative, and pays back the gypsy, Pete with compound
interest._
It was the third day of Clarence’s experiences as a gypsy. He and Ben
and Dorcas had become great friends. Often the young gypsy couple chose
to walk with Dora and the boy, and, in their talks, the subject was not
infrequently religion. Clarence was quick to grasp the truths of faith,
and, indeed, became a sort of assistant professor, supplementing the
explanations of Dora with knowledge gained from his own wide range of
reading.
Pete and his wife were at no pains to conceal their fury at the turn of
events brought about by the arrival of Clarence. There was poison in
their looks and venom in their tongues. Ezra made himself a sharer of
this unlovely couple’s feelings. He hated Clarence intensely; it was
hatred born of envy. The memory of his defeat still rankled. One or the
other of these three was always watching the boy, night and day.
On this particular morning, Clarence had, after breakfast, wandered into
the forest to gather some flowers for Dora’s altar. The little girl had
the day previous brought him into her tent and shown him a little shrine
of Our Lady Immaculate.
“I pray before it,” she said, “and I have promised our Blessed Mother
that if she have me restored to my home, I will join some Order in her
honor where I can give most of my time to prayer and meditation.”
“So you intend to become a contemplative?” asked Clarence, looking at
the child with renewed interest.
“If God allows me, Clarence, I’d like to sit at the feet of Our Lord
forever.”
“Not for me,” said Clarence, “I’d like to _do_ things. The active life
suits me. But really that is one of the great things about your Church.”
“_Our_ Church,” corrected Dora with a smile.
“I can’t say that yet,” said Clarence. “Anyhow, as I was saying, one of
the great things about your Church is that it has something to suit the
taste of everyone. There’s no end of variety in it. And say, Dora, where
do you get all these flowers for your shrine?”
“Ben gets most of them. His wife helps, too. They began doing this long
before they thought of becoming Catholics. Ben got me that pretty statue
somewhere or other three months ago; and he began bringing flowers
almost at once. He built the shrine, too. Whenever he came in up to a
few days ago, he always lifted his hat. One day I found him kneeling
before it. Since we began instructions, he kneels and makes the sign of
the cross.”
“Why don’t you try to get Pete and his wife interested?”
“They never come to my tent; they don’t even know about the shrine. Ben
has arranged all that. I believe, if they knew about it, that they would
smash the statue in pieces—and as for me, I don’t know what they would
do.”
“By George, if I ever can do a good turn for Ben,” exclaimed the boy
enthusiastically, “I’ll do it with all my heart. He is so kind and good
and gentle. In fact, he seems to be deeply religious.”
“That’s just what I think. His wife is just as good. She has given up
fortune-telling, she told me, for good. She says she’d rather starve
than do it again. And Ben is figuring now every day how much he has
taken dishonestly. He says before he gets baptized he’s going to restore
everything that isn’t honestly his.”
“Dora, you’ve done all this.”
“Oh, no, Clarence; I think it must be our Blessed Lady. She hasn’t
forgotten a single flower that Ben has brought to her shrine. She’s
going to pay him back with interest.”
“You wouldn’t mind, Dora, if I helped gather some flowers, too?”
“Indeed, no; but I want you to do it in honor of the Blessed Virgin.”
“Of course. I’ll get some tomorrow.”
It was in consequence of this conversation, then, that Clarence was
wandering in the woods. His quest was disappointing. No flowers greeted
his searching eyes. Further and further he wandered. Suddenly, he was
roughly seized by the collar from behind, and turning he saw that Pete
had him in his vigorous grip, Pete with a branch of willow in his free
hand.
“I told you not to try to get away,” snarled the gypsy bringing the
branch smartly upon Clarence’s legs.
“Stop that! I wasn’t trying to get away at all.”
For answer, Pete laid the lash unmercifully upon the powerless boy,
beating him with all his strength. The pain became so great that
Clarence at length unable to restrain himself further burst into a loud
cry for mercy.
Pete paused, looking around apprehensively. His keen ear detected the
sound of far-off footsteps. Throwing the willow aside, he released his
hold on the boy (who sank to the ground writhing in pain) and
disappeared in his usually stealthy manner, into the bushes.
It was Ben who had heard the boy’s cry of pain.
“What has happened?” he cried looking with concern upon the writhing
lad.
“Pete has given me an awful beating,” answered Clarence, mastering his
voice, though the tears were still rolling down his cheeks.
“Why? What did you do?”
“He said I was trying to get away, and I wasn’t. I just came along here
looking for flowers for Dora’s shrine. And the worst of it is,”
continued the boy with a rueful smile contending with his falling tears,
“I didn’t get a single flower.”
“Perhaps that holy woman who is the mother of God will pay you back for
every lick you receive. Dora said she is good pay.”
Clarence arose, felt himself gingerly, and breaking into a smile
remarked, “If it’s all the same to the Blessed Virgin, I’d prefer to do
my trading with her in flowers instead of lashes. Never mind, Mr. Pete,
the first chance I get, I’ll fix you all right.”
The chance, it so came to pass, presented itself that very afternoon.
They were now some six miles north of the Wisconsin, which they had
crossed the preceding day, and had reached a spot on the Mississippi
about three miles beyond Prairie du Chien, which is just across the
river from McGregor. Clarence, of course, had no idea he was so near the
place where his adventures had begun. The boy, still very sore and
bruised, again started off along the river’s bank in quest of flowers.
Mindful of the beating, he made his way cautiously, warily, determined
not to be taken unawares again. Suddenly his alert and attentive ear
caught a slight sound. Someone in a grove of trees a few yards above the
bank was whittling. Screening himself behind the willows about him,
Clarence drew closer, and after a few paces thus taken, discovered Pete,
a pipe in his mouth, seated on a log beneath a hollow tree. Pete, as he
smoked vigorously, was whittling with a certain air of enjoyment a
rather stout branch.
“By Jove,” cried Clarence to himself, “if he’s not getting a rod in
pickle for me!” And Clarence felt his legs once more with a tender hand.
“He has no right to whack me the way he did. I’m not his son; I’m not in
his charge. And I don’t like the look of that rod at all. I wish I could
stop him.”
Clarence, securely screened by the bushes, continued to stare and
meditate. A bee buzzed by his ear, and then another. Following their
flight, he noticed that they disappeared in a hollow of the tree under
which the industrious Pete was seated.
Five minutes passed. Pete still smoked and whittled. Then the old leader
arose, and with a smile on his countenance, which would in all
likelihood throw any child who saw it into convulsions, proceeded to
lash the air, holding in his free hand an imaginary victim.
“I guess he thinks it’s myself he’s holding,” murmured the astonished
witness of these strange proceedings. “Also, I think I’ll try to find
out if there isn’t a bee-hive in that tree.”
As he thus communed with himself, Clarence bent and quickly picked up
five stones; then rising, he sent one after the other driving at the
hollow spot in the tree. The first stone went wild, the second struck
the tree, the third nearly entered the hole, the fourth flew wild, and
the fifth——!
So intent was the gypsy upon the imaginary castigation he was inflicting
that he was still swishing the air violently when out of the hole flew
an army of angry bees. They were not inclined to be dispassionate.
Somebody had done them a wrong, and somebody had to suffer for it. The
bees were upon the gypsy when he was just putting all his strength into
a most vicious swing. He swung that stick no more. With a roar that set
the echoes ringing, Pete dropped the stick, and clapping his hands to
his head set out at a rate, which, if properly timed, would, no doubt,
have created a new record in the way of a fifty-yard dash for the river,
into which he plunged with an agility worthy of youth and professional
diving.
To the gypsies who, attracted by his yells (for he had yelled all the
way to the river’s edge), had gathered on the bank, it appeared that
Pete was going in for a long distance swim. In fact, he had almost
crossed the river, before he ventured to turn back. Clarence, who had
thoughtfully possessed himself of the switch and broken it into minute
pieces, was the last to join the eager and mystified watchers.
“What’s the matter?”—“What’s happened?”—These and a dozen similar
questions in English and in gypsy patter greeted his arrival.
“I rather think,” said Clarence in his most serious manner, “that Pete
must have run up against a swarm of bees, and they weren’t glad to see
him. I noticed him a minute ago running for the river with the speed of
a deer. It was fine to see him go. It seemed to me that there was a
bunch of bees around his head—a sort of a crown of glory—acting as his
escort. It’s a pleasure to see a man like Pete run. I’d walk twenty
miles to get a treat like that.”
Before Pete had quite achieved his return, Ben called Clarence aside.
“Clarence, you got those bees after Pete.”
“Who told you?”
“Pete’s oldest son; he was watching you. _There’s always someone
watching you._”
“Great Caesar!” cried Clarence losing all his blitheness, and turning
pale as a sheet. “I’m in for it now. He’ll _kill_ me?”
“Why did you do it?”
“I could hardly help it. I saw the old sinner sitting right under a
bee’s nest fixing up a switch; and I guessed he was fixing it for me.
Then he stood up, and began switching somebody with an unholy joy on his
measly old face, and I _knew_ he was switching me. I couldn’t stand for
that, and I began letting fly stones at the hole in the tree, and that
old pirate was so enjoying the imaginary whipping he was giving me that
he didn’t notice a thing till the bees came out in a body and took a
hand. It wasn’t so very bad, was it, Ben?”
Ben grinned.
“It was good for him,” he made answer.
“But what am I to do? I don’t want any more whippings like I got this
morning.”
“It’s all right for a while, anyhow,” returned Ben. “I’ve told Pete’s
son that if he says a word about it to anyone I’ll give him what you
would get. I’ve scared him, and he’s promised to keep quiet.”
“Oh, thank you, Ben,” cried Clarence, who had been thoroughly
frightened. “You’re splendid; and if ever I can do anything for you and
yours, I’ll do it, no matter what. Say, look at the old fox. Isn’t he a
sight?”
Pete had just reached dry land. His appearance justified Master
Clarence’s remark. Looking at his neck, one might surmise that Pete was
suffering from goiter aggravated by an extreme case of mumps. As for his
face, it gave one the impression that Pete had engaged in a prize fight,
and remained in the ring for several rounds after he had been defeated.
Pete, punctuating his steps with a fine flow of profanity, made for the
larger tent. He was seen no more that day.
Clarence having made a most unsuccessful attempt to look sympathetic,
went to the river and took a swim. Clarence knew the river now; it had
no terrors for him. Whenever he went swimming (and he had been doing
this several times each day) one or another of the gypsy men followed
him into the water.
That evening, having finished, amid great enthusiasm on the part of his
auditors, Treasure Island, Clarence contrived to have a few words in
private with Dora.
“Dora,” he said, “I’ve been thinking and thinking how you and I can get
away together; but I can’t see any way.”
“It’s no use to try,” said Dora.
“But I can get away by myself, I think. I’ve got it figured out.”
“You can!”
“Yes, I think so. Of course, there’s danger in it. But I’d rather die
than get another such a whipping as that old buccaneer gave me today.
All the same, I hate to leave you here.”
“Don’t take any big risks, Clarence.”
“But if I go, I’ll never forget you; and, if I can, I’ll see that you
are freed.”
“You won’t be able to do it. If you were to get free, Pete would use
some means or other to spirit me away.”
“We’ll see,” said Clarence. “Will you pray that I may succeed?”
“Indeed, I will. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t want to say anything yet. It may be a week before things come
right. Good night, Dora; and don’t forget me.”