I AM ONLY A GIRL.
Jack was dry enough, but anybody could see that he had had a ducking,
when he marched down the main street. He was carrying his prizes in
two strings, one in each hand, and he was looking and feeling taller
than he ever felt before. It was just the right hour to meet people,
and he had to answer curious questions from some women, and from twice
as many men, and from three times as many boys, all the way from above
the green, where he came out into the street, down to the front of the
Washington Hotel.
"Yes; I caught 'em all in the Cocahutchie."
He had had to say that any number of times, and he had also explained,
apparently without trying to conceal anything:
"I had to swim for 'em. Caught 'em all under water. Those big
speckled fellows are trout. They pulled me clean under. All that kind
of fish live under water." And he told half a dozen inquiring boys:
"I've found the best fish-hole you ever saw. Deep water all 'round it.
I'm going there again." And then every one asked: "Take me with you,
Jack?"
He had to come to a halt at the tavern, for every man in the arm-chairs
on the piazza brought his feet down from the railing.
"Hold on! I want to look at those fish!" shouted old Livermore, the
landlord. "Where'd you catch 'em?"
"Down the Cocahutchie," said Jack once more. "I caught 'em under
water."
"Those are just what I'm looking for," replied Livermore, rubbing his
sides, while nearly a dozen men crowded around to admire, and to guess
at the weights.
"Traout's a-sellin' at a dollar a paound, over to Mertonville,"
squealed old Deacon Hawkins; "and traout o' that size is wuth more'n
small traout. Don't ye let old Livermore cheat ye, Jack."
"I won't cheat him, Deacon," said the big landlord. "I don't want any
thing but the trout. There's a Sunday crowd coming over from
Mertonville, to-morrer, to hear Elder Holloway. I'll give ye two
dollars, Jack."
"That's enough for one fish," said Jack. "Don't you want the big one?
I had to dive for him. He'll weigh more'n three pounds."
"No, he won't!" said the landlord, becoming more and more eager. "Say
three dollars for the lot."
"I daon't know but what I want some o' them traout myself," began
Deacon Hawkins, peering more closely at the largest prize. "It's hard
times,--and a dollar a paound. I've got some folks comin' and Elder
Holloway's to be at my haouse. I don't know but I oughter--"
"I'll take 'em, Jack," interrupted the landlord, testily. "I spoke
first. Three pounds, and two is five pounds, and--"
"I'll give another dollar for the small traout," exclaimed Deacon
Hawkins. "He can't have 'em all."
The landlord might have hesitated even then, but the excitement was
catching, and Squire Jones was actually, but slowly, taking out his
pocket-book.
"Five! There's your five, Jack. The big fish are mine. Take your
money. Fetch 'em in," broke out old Livermore.
"There's my dollar,--and there's my traout,--" squealed the deacon.
"I was just a-goin' to saay--" at that moment growled the deep, heavy
bass voice of Squire Jones.
"Too late," said the landlord. "He's taken my money. Come in, Jack.
Come in and get yours, Deacon," and Jack walked on into the Washington
House with six dollars in his hand, just as a boy he knew stuck his
head under Squire Jones's arm and shouted:
"Jack!--Jack! Why didn't yer put 'em up at auction?"
It took but a minute to get rid of the very fine fish he had sold, and
then the uncommonly successful angler made his way out of the
Washington Hotel through the side door.
"I don't intend to answer any more questions," he said to himself; "and
all that crowd is out there yet."
There was another reason that he did not give, for his perch, good as
they were, and the wide-mouthed sucker, and the great, clumsy
bullheads, looked mean and common, now that their elegant companions
were gone. He felt almost ashamed of them until just as he reached the
back yard of his own home.
A tall, grimy man, with his head under the pump, was vigorously
scrubbing charcoal and iron dust from his face and hands and hair.
"Jack," he shouted, "where'd you get that string o' fish? Best I've
seen round here for ever so long."
Another voice came from the kitchen door, and in half a second it
seemed to belong to a chorus of voices.
"Why, Jack Ogden! What a string of fish!"
"I caught 'em 'way down the Cocahutchie, Mother," said Jack. "I caught
'em all under water. Had to go right in after some of 'em."
"I should say you did," growled his father, almost jocosely, and then
he and Mrs. Ogden and Aunt Melinda and the children crowded around to
examine the fish, on the pump platform.
"Jack must do something better'n that," said his father, rubbing his
face hard with the kitchen towel; "but he's had the best kind o' luck
this time."
"He caught a team of runaway horses this morning, too," said Mary,
looking proudly at the fish. "I wish I could do something worth
talking about, but I'm only a girl."
Jack's clothes had not suffered much from their ducking, mainly because
the checked shirt and linen trousers, of which his suit consisted, had
been frequently soaked before. His straw hat was dry, for it had been
lying on the grass when he went into the water, and so were his shoes
and stockings, which had been under the bed in his bedroom, waiting for
Sunday.
It was not until the family was gathered at the table that Jack came
out with the whole tremendous story of his afternoon's sport, and of
its cash results.
"Now I've learned all about fly-fishing," he said, with confidence, "I
can catch fish anywhere. I sha'n't have to go to fish out of that old
mill-pond again."
"Six dollars!" exclaimed his mother, from behind the tea-pot. "What
awful extravagance there is in this wicked world! But what'll you do
with six dollars?"
"It's high time he began to earn something," said the tall blacksmith,
gloomily. "It's hard times in Crofield. There's almost nothing for
him to do here."
"That's why I'm going somewhere else," said Jack, with a sudden burst
of energy, and showing a very red face. "Now I've got some money to
pay my way, I'm going to New York."
"No, you're not," said his father, and then there was a silence for a
moment.
"What on earth could you do in New York?" said his mother, staring at
him as if he had said something dreadful. She was not a small woman,
but she had an air of trying to be larger, and her face quickly began
to recover its ordinary smile of self-confident hope, so much like that
of Jack. She added, before anybody else could speak: "There are
thousands and thousands of folks there already. Well--I suppose you
could get along there, if they can."
"It's too full," said her husband. "It's fuller'n Crofield. He
couldn't do anything in a city. Besides, it isn't any use; he couldn't
get there, or anywhere near there, on six dollars."
"If he only could go somewhere, and do something, and be somebody,"
said Mary, staring hard at her plate.
She had echoed Jack's thought, perfectly. "That's you, Molly," he
said, "and I'm going to do it, too."
"You're going to work a-haying, all next week, I guess," said his
father, "if there's anybody wants ye. All the money you earn you can
give to your mother. You ain't going a-fishing again, right away.
Nobody ever caught the same fish twice."
Slowly, glumly, but promptly, Jack handed over his two greenbacks to
his mother, but he only remarked:
"If I work for anybody 'round here, they'll want me to take my pay in
hay. They won't pay cash."
"Hay's just as good," said his father; and then he changed the subject
and told his wife how the miller had again urged him to trade for the
strip of land along the creek, above and below the bridge. "It comes
right up to the line of my lot," he said, "and to Hawkins's fence. The
whole of it isn't worth as much as mine is, but I don't see what he
wants to trade for."
She agreed with him, and so did Aunt Melinda; but Jack and Mary
finished their suppers and went out to the front door. She stood still
for a moment, with her hands clasped behind her, looking across the
street, as if she were reading the sign on the shop. The discontented,
despondent expression on her face made her more and more like a very
young and pretty copy of her father.
"I don't care, Molly," said Jack. "If they take away every cent I get,
I'm going to the city, some time."
"I'd go, too, if I were a boy," she said. "I've got to stay at home
and wash dishes and sweep. You can go right out and make your fortune.
I've read of lots of boys that went away from home and worked their way
up. Some of 'em got to be Presidents."
"Some girls amount to something, too," said Jack. "You've been through
the Academy. I had to stop, when I was twelve, and go to work in a
store. Been in every store in Crofield. They didn't pay me a cent in
cash, but I learned the grocery business, and the dry-goods business,
and all about crockery. That was something. I could keep a store.
Some of the stores in New York 'd hold all the stores in Crofield."
"Some of 'em are owned and run by women, too," said Mary; "but there's
no use of my thinking of any such thing."
Before he could tell her what he thought about it, her mother called
her in, and then he, too, stood still and seemed to study the sign over
the door of the blacksmith-shop.
"I'll do it!" he exclaimed at last, shaking his fist at the sign. "It
isn't the end of July yet, and I'm going to get to the city before
Christmas; you see 'f I don't."
After Mary Ogden left him and went in, Jack walked down to the bridge.
It seemed as if the Cocahutchie had a special attraction for him, now
that he knew what might be in it.
There were three boys leaning over the rail on the lower side of the
bridge, and four on the upper side, and all were fishing. Jack did not
know, and they did not tell him, that all their hooks were baited with
"flies" of one kind or another instead of worms. Two had grasshoppers,
and one had a big bumblebee, and they were after such trout as Jack
Ogden had caught and been paid so much money for. One told another
that Jack had five dollars apiece for those fish, and that even the
bullheads were so heavy it tired him to carry them home.
Jack did not go upon the bridge. He strolled down along the water's
edge.
[Illustration: _Along the Water's Edge_.]
"It's all sand and gravel," he said; "but I'd hate to leave it."
It was curious, but not until that very moment had he been at all aware
of any real affection for Crofield. He was only dimly aware of it
then, and he forgot it all to answer a hail from two men under the
clump of giant trees which had so nearly wrecked the miller's wagon.
The men had been looking up at the trees, and Jack heard part of what
they said about them, as he came near. They had called him to talk
about his trout-fishing, but they had aroused his curiosity upon
another subject.
"Mr. Bannerman," he said, as soon as he had an opportunity between
"fish" questions, "did you say you'd give a hundred dollars for those
trees, just as they stand? What are they good for?"
"Jack," exclaimed the sharp-looking man he spoke to, "don't you tell
anybody I said that. You won't, will you? Come, now, didn't I treat
you well while you were in my shop?"
"Yes, you did," said Jack, "but you kept me there only four months.
What are those trees good for? You don't use anything but pine."
"Why, Jack," said Bannerman, "it isn't for carpenter work. Three of
'em are curly maples, and that one there's the straightest-grained,
biggest, cleanest old cherry! They're for j'iner-work, Jack. But you
said you wouldn't tell?"
"I won't tell," said Jack. "Old Hammond owns 'em. I stayed in your
shop just long enough to learn the carpenter's trade. I didn't learn
j'iner-work. Don't you want me again?"
"Not just now, Jack; but Sam and I've got a bargain coming with
Hammond, and he owes us some, now, and you mustn't put in and spile the
trade for us. I'll do ye a good turn, some day. Don't you tell."
Jack promised again and the carpenters walked away, leaving him looking
up at the trees and thinking how it would seem to see them topple over
and come crashing down into the Cocahutchie, to be made up into chairs
and tables. Just as long as he could remember anything he had seen the
old trees standing guard there, summer and winter, leafy or bare, and
they were like old friends to him.
"I'll go home," he said, at last. "There hasn't been a house built in
Crofield for years and years. It isn't any kind of place for
carpentering, or for anything else that I know how to do."
Then he took a long, silent, thoughtful look up stream, and another
down stream, and instead of the gravel and bushes and grass, in one
direction, and the rickety bridge and the slippery dam and the dingy
old red mill, in the other direction, he seemed to see a vision of
great buildings and streets and crowds of busy men, while the swishing
ripple of the Cocahutchie changed into the rush and roar of the great
city he was setting his heart upon. He gave it up for that evening,
and went home and went to bed, but even then it seemed to him as if he
were about to let go of something and take hold of something else.
"I've done that often enough," he said to himself. "I'll have to leave
the blacksmith's trade now, but I'm kind o' glad I learned it. I'm
glad I didn't have my shoes on when I went into the water, though.
Soaking isn't good for that kind of shoes. Don't I know? I've worked
in every shoe-shop in Crofield, some. Didn't get any pay, except in
shoes; but then I learned the trade, and that's something. I never had
an opportunity to stay long in any one place, but I could stay in the
city."
Then another kind of dreaming set in, and the next thing he knew it was
Sunday morning, with a promise of a sunny, sultry, sleepy kind of day.
It was not easy for the Ogden family to shut out all talk about
fishing, while they were eating Jack's fish for breakfast, but they
avoided the subject until Jack went to dress. Jack was quite another
boy by the time he was ready for church. He was skillful with the
shoe-brush, and from his shoes upward he was a surprise.
"You do look well," said Mary, as he and she were on their way to
church. "But how you did look when you came home last night!"
There was little opportunity for conversation, for the walk before the
Ogden family from their gate to the church-door was not long.
The little processions toward the village green did not divide fairly
after reaching there that morning. The larger part of each aimed
itself at the middle of the green, although the building there was no
larger than either of the two that stood at its right and left.
"Everybody's coming to hear Elder Holloway," said Jack. "They say it
takes a fellow a good while to learn how to preach."
Mrs. Ogden and Aunt Melinda led their part of the procession, and Jack
and his father followed them in. There were ten Ogdens, and the family
pew held six. Just as they were going in, some one asked Mary to go
into the choir. Little Sally nestled in her mother's lap; Bob and Jim
were small and thin and only counted for one; Bessie and Sue went in,
and so did their father, and then Jack remarked:
"I'm crowded out, father. I'll find a place, somewhere."
"There isn't any," said the blacksmith. "Every place is full."
He shook his head until the points of his Sunday collar scratched him,
but off went Jack, and that was the last that was seen of him until
they were all at home again.
Mary Ogden had her reasons for not expecting to sing in the choir that
day, but she went when sent for. The gallery was what Jack called a
"coop," and would hold just eighteen persons, squeezed in. Usually it
was only half full, but on a great day, what was called the "old choir"
was sure to turn out. There were no girls nor boys in the "old choir."
There had been three seats yet to fill when Mary was sent for, but Miss
Glidden and Miss Roberts and her elder sister from Mertonville came in
just then. So, when Mary reached the gallery, Miss Glidden leaned
over, smiled, and said very benevolently:
"You will not be needed to-day, Mary Ogden. The choir is filled."
The organ began to play at that moment, somewhat as if it had lost its
temper. Mr. Simmons, the choir-leader (whenever he could get there),
flushed and seemed about to say something. He was the one who had sent
for Mary, and it was said that he had been heard to say that it would
be good to have "some music, outside of the organ." Before he could
speak, however, Mary was downstairs again. Seats were offered her in
several of the back pews, and she took one under the gallery. She
might as well have had a sounding-board behind her, arranged so as to
send her voice right at the pulpit. Perhaps her temper was a little
aroused, and she did not know how very full her voice was when she
began the first hymn. All were singing, and they could hear the organ
and the choir, but through, over, and above them all sounded the clear,
ringing notes of Mary Ogden's soprano. Elder Holloway, sitting in the
pulpit, put up a hand to one ear, as half-deaf men do, and sat up
straight, looking as if he was hearing some good news. He said
afterward that it helped him preach; but then Mary did not know it.
When all the services were over, she slipped out into the vestibule to
wait for the rest. She stood there when Miss Glidden came downstairs.
The portly lady was trying her best to smile and look sweet.
"Splendid sermon, Mary Ogden," said she. "I hope you'll profit by it.
I sha'n't ask you to take my class this afternoon. Elder Holloway's
going to inspect the school. I'll be glad to have you present, though,
as one of my best scholars."
Mary went home as quickly as she could, and the first remark she made
was to Aunt Melinda.
"_Her_ class!" she said. "Why she hasn't been there in six weeks. She
had only four in it when she left, and there's a dozen now."
The Ogden procession homeward had been longer than when it went to
church. Jack understood the matter the moment he came into the
dining-room, for both extra leaves had been put into the
extension-table.
"There's company," he said aloud. "You couldn't stretch that table any
farther, unless you stretched the room."
"Jack," said his mother, "you must come afterward. You can help Mary
wait on the table."
Jack was as hungry as a young pickerel, but there was no help for it,
and he tried to reply cheerfully:
"I'm getting used to being crowded out. I can stand it."
"Where'd you sit in church?" asked his mother.
"Out on the stoop," said Jack, "but I didn't go till after I'd sat in
five pews inside."
"Sorry you missed the sermon," said his mother. "It was about
Jerusalem."
"I heard him," said Jack; "you could hear him halfway across the green.
It kept me thinking about the city, all the while. I'm going, somehow."
Just then the talk was interrupted by the others, who came in from the
parlor.
"I declare, Ogden," said the editor, "we shall quite fill your table.
I'm glad I came, though. I'll print a full report of it all in the
Mertonville _Eagle_."
"That's Murdoch, the editor," said Jack to himself. "That's his paper.
Ours was a _Standard_,--but it's bu'sted."
"There's no room for a newspaper in Crofield," said the blacksmith.
"They tried one, and it lasted six months, and my son worked on it all
the time it ran."
Mr. Murdoch turned and looked inquisitively at Jack through a huge pair
of tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses.
"That's so," said Jack; "I learned to set type and helped edit the
paper. Molly and I did all the clipping and most of the writing, one
week."
"Did you?" said the editor emphatically. "Then you did well. I
remember there was one strong number."
"Molly," said Jack, as soon as they were out in the kitchen, "there's
five besides our family. They won't leave a thing for us."
"There's hardly enough for them, even," said Mary. "What'll we do?"
"We can cook!" said Jack, with energy. "We'll cook while they're
eating. You know how, and so do I."
"You can wait on table as well as I can," said Mary.
There was something cronyish and also self-helpful, in the way Jack and
Molly boiled eggs and toasted bread and fried bacon and made coffee,
and took swift turns at eating and at waiting on the table.
The editor of the _Eagle_ heard the whole of the trout item, and about
the runaway, and told Jack to send him the next big trout he caught.
There was another item of news that was soon to be ready for Mr.
Murdoch. Jack was conscious of a restless, excited state of mind, and
Mary said things that made him worse.
"You want to get somewhere else as badly as I do," he remarked, just as
they came back from taking in the pies to the dinner-table.
"I feel, sometimes, as if I could fly!" exclaimed Mary. Jack walked
out through the hall to the front door, and stood there thinking, with
a hard-boiled egg in one hand and a piece of toast in the other.
The street he looked into was silent and deserted, from the bridge to
the hotel corner. He looked down to the creek, for a moment, and then
he looked the other way.
"I believe Molly could do 'most anything I could do," he said to
himself; "unless it was catching a runaway team. She couldn't ha'
caught that wagon. Hullo, what's that? Jingo! The hotel cook must
have made a regular bonfire to fry my trout!"
He wheeled as he spoke, and dashed back through the house, shouting:
"Father, the Washington Hotel's on fire!--over the kitchen!"
"Ladder, Jack. Rope. Bucket," cried the tall blacksmith, coolly
rising from the table, and following. As for the rest, beginning with
the editor of the _Eagle_, it was almost as if they had been told that
they were themselves on fire. Even Aunt Melinda exclaimed: "He ought
to have told us more about it! Where is it? How'd it ever catch? Oh,
dear me! It's the oldest part of the hotel. It's as dry as a bone,
and it'll burn like tinder!"
Everybody else was saying something as all jumped and ran, but Jack and
his father were silent. Ladder, rope, water-pails, were caught up, as
if they were going to work in the shop, but the moment they were in the
street again it seemed as if John Ogden's lungs must be as deep as the
bellows of his forge.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" His full, resonant voice sent out the sudden
warning.
[Illustration: _Fighting the Fire_.]
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" shouted Jack, and every child of the Ogden
family, except Mary, echoed with such voice as belonged to each.
Through the wide gate of the hotel barn-yard dashed the blacksmith and
his son, with their ladder, at the moment when Mrs. Livermore came out
at the kitchen door, wiping a plate. All the other inmates of the
hotel were gathered around the long table in the dining-hall, and they
were too busy with pie and different kinds of pudding, to notice
anything outdoors.
"Where is the fire, Mr. Ogden?" she said, in a fatigued tone.
"The fire's on your roof, close to the chimney," said the blacksmith.
"May be we can put it out, if we're quick about it. Call everybody to
hand up water."
Up went a pair of hands, and out came a great scream. Another shrill
scream and another, followed in quick succession, and the plate she had
held, fell and was shivered into fragments on the stone door-step.
"Foi-re! Foi-re! Foi-re-re-re!" yelled the hotel cook. "The house is
a-bur-rnin'! Wa-ter! Waw-aw-ter!"
The doors to passage-ways of the hotel were open, and in a second more
her cry was taken up by voices that sent the substance of it ringing
through the dining-hall.
Plates fell from the hands of waiters, coffee-cups were upset, chairs
were overturned, all manner of voices caught up the alarm.
It would have been a very serious matter but for the promptness of Jack
Ogden and his very cool father. The ladder was planted and climbed,
there was a quick dash along the low but high-ridged roof of the
kitchen addition of the hotel,--the rope was put around Jack's waist,
and then he was able safely to use both hands in pouring water from the
pails around the foot of the chimney. Other feet came fast to the foot
of the ladder. More went tramping into the rooms under the roof. The
pumps in the kitchen and in the barn-yard were worked with frantic
energy; pail after pail was carried upstairs and up the ladder; water
was thrown in all directions; nothing was left undone that could be
done, and a great many things were done that seemed hardly possible.
"Hot work, Jack," said his father. "It's a-gaining on us. Glad they'd
all about got through dinner,--though Livermore tells me he's insured."
"I can stand it," said Jack. "They have steam fire-engines in the
city, though. Oh, but wouldn't I like to see one at work, once. I'd
like to be a fireman!"
"That's about what you are, just now," said his father, and then he
turned toward the ladder and shouted:
"Hurry up that water! Quick, now! Bring an axe! I want to smash the
roof in. Bear it, Jack. We've got to beat this fire."
The main building of the Washington Hotel was long, rather than high,
with an open veranda along Main Street. The third story was mainly
steep roof and dormer-windows, and the kitchen addition had only a
story and a half. It was an easy building to get into or out of. Very
quickly, after the cry of "Fire!" was heard, the only people in it,
upstairs, were such of the guests as had the pluck to go and pack their
trunks. The lower floor was very well crowded, and it was almost a
relief to the men actually at work as firemen that so many other men
kept well back because they were in their "Sunday-go-to-meeting"
clothes.
Everybody was inclined to praise Jack Ogden and his father, who were
making so brave a fight on the roof within only a few feet of the smoke
and blaze. It was heroic to look a burning house straight in the face
and conquer it. During fully half an hour there seemed to be doubt
about the victory, but the pails of water came up rapidly, a line of
men and boys along the roof conveyed them to the hands of Jack, and the
fire had a damp time of it, with no wind to help. The blacksmith had
chopped a hole in the roof, and Tom and Sam Bannerman, the carpenters,
were already calculating what they would charge old Livermore to put
the addition in order again.
"There, Jack," said his father, at last, "we can quit, now. The fire's
under. Somebody else can take a turn. It's the hottest kind of work.
Come along. We've done our share, and a little more, too."
Jack had just swallowed a puff of smoke, but as soon as he could stop
coughing, he said:
"I've had enough. I'm coming."
Other people seemed to agree with them; but there would have been less
said about it if little Joe Hawkins had not called out:
"Three cheers for the Ogdens!"
The cheers were given as the two volunteer firemen came down the
ladder, but there were no speeches made in reply. Jack hurried back
home at once, but his father had to stop and talk with the Bannermans
and old Hammond, the miller.
"Jack," said his mother, looking at him, proudly, from head to foot,
"you're always doing something or other. We were looking at you, all
the while."
"He hasn't hurt his Sunday clothes a bit," said Aunt Melinda, but there
was quite a crowd around the gate, and she did not hug him.
He was a little damp, his face was smoky, his shirt-collar was wilted,
and his shoes would require a little work, but otherwise he was none
the worse.
Jack went into the house, saying that he must brush his clothes; but,
really it was because he wished to get away. He did not care to talk
to anybody.
"I never felt so, in all my life, as I did when sitting on that roof,
fighting that fire," he said aloud, as he went upstairs; and he did not
know, even then, how excited he had been, silent and cool as he had
seemed. In that short time, he had dreamed of more cities than he was
ever likely to see, and of doing more great things than he could ever
possibly do, and when he came down the ladder he felt older than when
he went up. He had no idea that much the same thoughts had come to
Mary, nor did he know how fully she believed that he could do anything,
and that she was as capable as he.
"Father's splendid, too," she said, "but then he never had any chance,
here, and Mother didn't either. Jack ought to have a chance."