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THE CALICO CAT
BY
CHARLES MINER THOMPSON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
F. R. GRUGER
[Illustration: Logo]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES MINER THOMPSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October, 1908_
SECOND IMPRESSION
TO MY WIFE
NOTE
I have to make these acknowledgments: to Mr. Ira Rich Kent for many
a helpful suggestion in the framing of the story; to the publishers
of "The Youth's Companion," in which the tale first appeared, for
permitting the use of Mr. Gruger's admirable illustrations, and to
Mr. Francis W. Hight for the very pleasant cat which he has drawn
for the cover.
THE AUTHOR
[Illustration: Cat dozing upon the top of the fence.]
THE CALICO CAT
I
Mr. Peaslee looked more complacent than ever. It was Saturday noon,
and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn
"up-street." He had taken off his coat, and was washing his face at
the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was
salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk--"picked up," as the
phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie.
Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did
believe in saving every possible cent.
"Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess
I've got news for ye."
His wife gazed at him with interest.
"Are ye drawed?" she asked.
"Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror.
September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off."
The _staccato_ utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish
and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his
mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new
dignity.
"What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept
no office which did not bring profit.
"Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis
of one who knows he will make a sensation.
"Mileage? What's that?"
"Travelin' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight
cents for goin' to the courthouse."
"Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping.
She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to
earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of
walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for
doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea.
"Likely now, ain't it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn.
"State don't waste money that way! Mileage's to get ye there an'
take ye home again when term's over. You're s'posed to stay round
'tween whiles."
"Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a
day"--she hazarded the shot--"just for settin' round and talkin',
don't they? Walkin's considerable more of an effort for most folks."
"'Settin' round an' talkin'!'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly
that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his
rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic,
shrewish little wife. "'Settin' round and talkin'!' It's mighty
important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn't be much law
and order if it wa'n't for the grand jury. They don't take none but
men o' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to
get that kind."
"Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an
unimportant point, "anyhow, it's good pay for a man whose time ain't
worth anythin'."
"Ain't worth anythin'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now,
Sarepty, ye know better'n that. I don't know how they'll get along
without me up to the bank. They've got a pretty good idee o' my
jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pass any without my say so."
Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin'
round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin'
the paper--that's all _I_ ever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye."
"Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em
thinkin', I guess. They're mighty shreüd up to the bank, mighty
shreüd."
They had finished their codfish and potato, and Mrs. Peaslee,
without giving much attention to her husband's testimony to the
business acumen of his banking friends and incidentally of himself,
pulled the pale, thin pie toward her and cut it.
"Pass up your plate," said she.
When his plate was again in place before him, Mr. Peaslee inserted
the edge of his knife under the upper crust and raised it so that he
could get a better view of its contents; he had his suspicions of
that pie. What he saw confirmed them; between the crusts was a thin,
soft layer of some brown stuff, interspersed with spots of red.
"Them's the currants we had for supper the night before last, and
that's the dried-apple sauce we had for supper last night," he
announced accurately. "An' ye know how I like a proper pie."
"I ain't goin' to waste good victuals," said his wife, with
decision.
There was silence for a moment; Solomon did not dare make any
further protest.
"I suppose," his wife said, picking up again the thread of her
thoughts, "ye'll have to wear your go-to-meetin' suit all the time
to the grand jury. I expect they'll be all wore out at the end.
That'll take off something. You be careful, now. Settin' round's
awful wearin' on pants. You get a chair with a cushion. And don't ye
go treatin' cigars. And don't ye go to the hotel for your victuals.
I ain't goin' to have ye spendin' your money when ye can just as
well come home. Where ye goin' now?"
Mr. Peaslee was putting on his coat. "Well," he said, "I kind o'
thought I'd step over to Ed'ards's. I thought mebbe he'd be
interested."
"Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much
good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as
he looks, if all stories are true."
But Mr. Peaslee was already outside the door. She raised her voice
shrilly. "You be back, now; them chickens has got to be fed!"
Mr. Peaslee sought a more sympathetic audience. Being drawn for the
grand jury had greatly flattered his vanity, for it encouraged a
secret ambition which he had long held to get into public life.
Service on the grand jury might lead to his becoming selectman,
perhaps justice of the peace, perhaps town representative from
Ellmington--who knew what else? He looked down a pleasant vista of
increasing office, at the end of which stood the state capitol. He
could be senator, perhaps! And he began planning his behavior as
juror, the dignified bearing, the well-matured utterances, the
shrewd cross-questioning. At the end of his service his neighbors
would know him for a man of solid judgment, a "safe" man to be
intrusted with weighty affairs.
Mr. Peaslee was fifty-three years old. He had a comfortable figure,
a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the
spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These,
with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat
misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and
not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was
only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself
with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for humorous
neighbors. They said that they guessed he thought himself "some
punkins."
"Some punkins" most people admitted him to be, although how much of
his money and how much of his shrewdness was really his wife's was
matter of debate among those who knew him best. At any rate, the
Peaslees had made money. A few years before, they had sold their
fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified
white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a
dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not;
they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested
in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and
through Mr. Peaslee was an unsuspected director in the bank, and a
shrewd user of the chances for profitable investment which her
husband's association with the "bank crowd" opened to her.
As for Mr. Peaslee, he did not know that he himself was not the
business head of the house; and his garden, his chickens, and his
pleasant loafing in the bank window kept him contentedly occupied.
For, in spite of her shrewish tongue, Mrs. Peaslee had tact enough
to let her husband have the credit for her business acumen. "I ain't
goin' to let on," she said to herself, "that he ain't just as good
as the rest of 'em." She had her pride.
As Mr. Peaslee stepped along the straight walk which divided his
neat lawn, and opened the neat gate in his neat white fence, he met
Sam Barton, the broad-shouldered, good-humored giant who was
constable of Ellmington. Sam gave him a smiling "How are ye,
squire?" as he passed.
"Guess he's heard," said Mr. Peaslee to himself, much pleased. Yet,
as a matter of fact, the greeting was not different from that which
Sam had given him daily for the past three years.
Once on the sidewalk, Mr. Peaslee turned to the right toward the
house of his neighbor, Mr. Edwards. Edwards was a younger man than
Peaslee, perhaps forty-seven. His business was speculating in
lumber and cattle, and in the interest of this he was constantly
passing and re passing the Canadian border, which was not far from
Ellmington. In the intervals between his trips he was much at home.
He was a stern, silent, secretive man, and simply because he was so
close-mouthed there was much guessing and gossip, not wholly kind,
about his affairs.
Mr. Peaslee found the front door of the Edwards house standing open
in the trustful village fashion, and, with neighborly freedom,
walked in without ringing. He turned first into the sitting-room,
where he found no one, and then into a rear room opening from it.
This obviously was a boy's "den." On the table in the centre were a
checkerboard, some loose string, a handful of spruce gum, some
scattered marbles, a broken jack-knife, a cap, a shot-pouch, an old
bird's nest, a powder-flask, a dog-eared copy of "Cæsar's
Commentaries," open, and a Latin dictionary, also open. In a corner
stood a fishing-rod in its cotton case; along the wall were ranged
bait-boxes, a fishing-basket, a pair of rubber boots, and a huge
wasp's nest. Leaning against the sill of the open window was a
double-barreled shotgun, and on the sill itself were some black,
greasy rags and a small bottle of oil.
Various truths might be inferred from the disarray. One was that Mr.
Edwards was generous to his son Jim, and another was that there was
no Mrs. Edwards. Further, it might be easily enough guessed that Jim
had been lured from the study of Latin, in which pretty Miss Ware,
who was his teacher at the "Union" school, was trying to interest
him, by the attractive idea of oiling his gun-barrels, and that
something still more attractive--perhaps a boy with crossed fingers,
for it was not too late for swimming--had lured him from that. At
any rate, Jim was not there.
Mr. Peaslee, still bent on finding Mr. Edwards, moved toward the
open window. But he could see no signs of life anywhere. None of the
household was, however, far away. Jim was in the loft of the barn,
where he was carefully examining a barrel of early apples with a
view to filling his pockets with the best; the housekeeper had
merely stepped across the street to borrow some yeast, and Mr.
Edwards, who had a headache, was lying down in the chamber
immediately above Jim's den.
Mr. Peaslee stood and gazed. He eyed in turn the kitchen ell, the
shed, and the barn, and then gazed out over the "posy" garden, where
still bloomed a few late flowers, of which he recognized only the
"chiny" asters. He looked toward what he himself would have called
the "sarce" garden, with its cabbages, turnips, rustling
corn-stalks, and drying tomato-vines. Seeing no one there, he sent
his gaze to the distant rows of apple trees, bright with ripening
fruit. Disappointed, he was about to turn away, but he could not
resist taking a complacent, sweeping view of his own adjoining
possessions.
There, on the right, ran the long line of his own dwelling,
continued by the five-foot board fence separating his garden from
Mr. Edwards's. This stood up gauntly white until near the orchard,
where it was completely hidden by the high, feathery stalks of the
asparagus-bed, by a row of great sunflowers, now heavy and bent with
their disk-like seed-pods, and by a clump of lilac bushes. As his
eye traveled along the white expanse, he gave a quick start, and his
face clouded with vexation.
There in the sun, prone upon the top of the fence, dozed the bane of
his life--_the Calico Cat_.
Her coat was made up of patches of yellow and white, varied with
a black stocking on her right hind leg, and a large, round, black
spot about her right eye, which gave her a peculiarly predatory and
disreputable appearance. Solomon had disliked her at sight. Ever
since he had bought the house in Ellmington he had been trying to
drive her from the premises, but stay away she would not. Not all
the missiles in existence could convince her that his house was not
a desirable place of abode. And she was a constant vexation and
annoyance.
She jumped from the fence plump into the middle of newly planted
flower-beds; she filled the haymow with kittens; she asked all her
friends to the barn, where she gave elaborate musical parties at
hours more fashionably late than were tolerated in Ellmington.
Whenever she had indigestion she ate off the tops of the choicest
green things that grew in the garden; but when her appetite was good
she caught and devoured his young chickens.
Moreover, when at bay she frightened him. Once he had cornered the
spitting creature in a stall. Claws out, tail big, fur all on end,
she had leaped straight at his head, which he ducked, and, landing
squarely upon it, had steadied herself there for a moment with
sharp, protruding claws; thence she had jumped to a feed-box, thence
to a beam, thence to the mow, from the dusky recesses of which she
had glared at him with big, green, menacing eyes. Not since that
experience, which, in spite of his soft hat, had left certain marks
upon his scalp, had he ever attempted to catch her. Instead, he had
borrowed a gun, and a dozen times had fired at her; but although he
counted himself a fair shot, he had never made even a scant bit of
fur fly from her disreputable back.
And now he knew she laughed at him. Yes, laughed at him, for she had
more than human intelligence. There was something demoniac in her
cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her
malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid
about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she
would bring him bad luck. How he hated her!
There she lay, with eyes shut, unsuspecting, comfortable, and
basked in the warm September sunshine. Here at his hand was a
double-barreled shotgun. The chance was too good. This vagrant,
this outlaw, this trespasser, this thief--he catalogued her
misdeeds in his mind as he clanged the ramrod down the barrels
to see if the piece was loaded.
It was not. But ammunition was at hand. He put in a generous charge
from Jim's powder-flask and rammed it home with a paper wad. He
grabbed up the shot-pouch and released the proper charge into his
hand. He was disappointed; it was bird shot. Scattering as it would
scatter, it could do _that_ cat no harm. Nevertheless, he poured the
pellets into the barrel. As he rammed home the paper wad on top of
these, his eye caught the marbles lying on the table. He took one
that fitted, and rammed that home also--for luck. He placed a cap,
lifted the gun to his shoulder, and fired.
With a leap which sent her six feet into the air the Calico Cat
landed four-square in Mr. Peaslee's chicken-yard, almost on the back
of the dignified rooster, which fled with a startled squawk. She
dodged like lightning across the chicken-yard, between cackling and
clattering hens, went up the wire-netting walls, leaped to the roof,
paused, considered, began to reflect that she had been shot at
before and to wonder at her own fright, stopped, and, sitting down
on the ridgepole, looked inquiringly in Mr. Peaslee's direction. She
was, of course, entirely unharmed.
But other matters were claiming Mr. Peaslee's attention. Out
from behind the screen formed by the asparagus plumes, the
currant-bushes, the sunflowers, and the lilacs, all of which
grew not so far from the spot on the fence where the Calico
Cat had been sitting, fell a man!
Solomon had a mere glimpse. Standing behind taller bushes, the
stranger had fallen behind lower ones, and only while his falling
figure was describing the narrow segment of a circle had he been
visible.
But the glimpse was enough. Mr. Peaslee's jaw dropped, his face
turned white. But the next moment he gave a great sigh of relief. He
saw the man rise and slip into cover of the bushes, and so disappear
through the orchard. He had not, then, killed the fellow!
Relieved of that fear, he thought of himself. What would people say
were he charged with firing at a man--he, a respectable citizen, a
director in the bank, a grand juror? They must not know!
He silently laid the gun back against the window-sill, turned with
infinite care, and tiptoed quickly back into the sitting-room, into
the hall, into the street.
Not a soul was visible. Nevertheless, such was Mr. Peaslee's
agitation, so strongly did he feel the need of silence, that,
placing a shaking hand upon the fence to steady himself, he tiptoed
along the sidewalk all the way to his own house. There the fear of
his wife struck him. He was in no condition to meet that sharp-eyed,
quick-tongued lady!
He softly entered the front door and penetrated to the dark parlor,
where, as no one would ever enter it except for a funeral or a
wedding, he felt safe from intrusion. There he sank down upon the
slippery horsehair lounge, and, staring helplessly at the severe
portrait of Mrs. Peaslee, done by a lugubrious artist in crayon,
wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to collect his scattered
faculties.
"Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!"
[Illustration: Cat licking paw.]
II
Meanwhile, at the Edwards house, life had grown suddenly
interesting.
When the report of the gun reached Jim, he had stopped pawing over
the apple barrel, and was sitting on the upper step of the staircase
at the extreme end of the loft, slowly munching an apple and
thinking.
Jim was a healthy, active boy, with no more sense than naturally
belongs to a boy of fifteen, and with a lively imagination, which
had been most unfortunately overstimulated. Without a mother, and
with a father who paid him scant attention, he read whatever he
liked, and as a result, his head was full of romantic road-agents
delightfully kind to little crippled daughters at home, fierce
pirates who supported aged and respectable mothers, and considerate
bandits who restored valuable watches when told that they were
prized on account of tender associations.
His imagination had been still further fed by certain local legends
and happenings, highly colored enough to excite the keenest
interest. Ellmington is, as has been said, near the Canadian border.
The place abounds in tales of smuggling, and the popular gossip, as
gossip everywhere has a pleasing way of doing, associates the names
of the most respectable and unlikely people with the disreputable
ventures of the smugglers.
Of course a story of contraband trade is the more striking if the
narrator can hint that the judge of probate or the most stern of
village deacons might tell a good deal if he were disposed, and
there are always persons ready to give this sort of interest to
their "yarns."
In Ellmington lived Jake Farnum, an ex-deputy marshal and an
incorrigible liar, about whom gathered the boys, Jim among them, to
hear exciting stories of chase and detection, exactly as boys in a
seaport town gather about an old sailor to hear tales of pirates and
buccaneers. And Jake loved to hint darkly that the best people
shared in the illicit traffic.
With it all, Jim's sense of right and wrong was in a fair way to
become hopelessly "mixed." Exactly as boys at the seashore are prone
to believe that a pirate is, on the whole, an admirable character,
so these border boys, and especially Jim, had come to feel--only
with more excuse, because of the generally indulgent view of the
community--that smuggling is an occupation in which any one may
engage with credit, and which is much more interesting than most.
Now it is not likely that Jim's father, a stern, secretive,
obviously prosperous man, with an intermittent business which
took him back and forth across the border, could in all this
gossip escape a touch of suspicion. No one, of course, denied
that he really did deal in lumber and cattle; the fact was
obvious. But there were hints and whispers, shrewd shakings
of the head, and more than one "guessed" that all Edwards's
profits "didn't come from cattle, no, nor lumber, neither."
Latterly these whispers had become more definite. Pete Lamoury,
a French-Canadian, whom Mr. Edwards had hired as a drover, and
abruptly discharged, was spreading stories about his former
employer which made Blackbeard, the pirate, seem like a babe by
comparison. Pete was not a very credible witness; but still,
building upon a suspicion that already existed, he succeeded in
adding something to its substantiality.
These stories had come to Jim's ears, and Jim was delighted. The
consideration that, were the stories true, his father was a criminal
did not occur to him at all. Like the foolish, romantic boy he was,
he was simply pleased to think of his father as a man of iron
determination, cool wit, unshakable courage, whom no deputy sheriff
could over-match, and who was leading a life full of excitement and
danger--the smuggler king! The only thing that Jim regretted was
that his father did not let him share in these exploits. He knew he
could be useful! But his father's manner was habitually so
forbidding that Jim did not dare hint a knowledge of these probable
undertakings, much less any desire to share them.
Poor Mr. Edwards! He loved his boy, but did not in the least know
how to show it. Silent, with a sternness of demeanor which he was
unable wholly to lay aside even in his friendliest moments, much
away from home, and unable to meet the boy on his own level when he
was there, deprived of the wife who might have been his interpreter,
he had no way of becoming acquainted with his son. Anxious in some
way to share in Jim's life, he took the clumsy and mistaken method
of letting him have too much pocket-money.
Yet if Jim, thus unguided and overindulged, had gone astray in his
conduct, Mr. Edwards was not the man to know his mistake and take
the blame. He had in him a rigidity of moral judgment, a dryness of
mind which made it certain that if Jim did do what he disapproved,
he would visit upon him a punishment at once severe and
unsympathetic. The man's air of cold strength excited in the son
fear as well as admiration; his reserve kept his naturally
affectionate boy at more than arm's length. Poor Mr. Edwards! Poor
Jim! Misunderstanding between them was as sure to occur as the rise
of to-morrow's sun.
Pat on Jim's speculations about his father's stirring deeds, the
gunshot came echoing through the silent barn. Jim ran to the loft
door and looked out. He saw smoke curling up from the window of his
"den," and knew that it was his own gun that had been fired. Back in
the room, a vague masculine figure moved hastily out of the door.
Jim looked toward the orchard, and caught sight of another man
disappearing in the trees. He was wild with excitement. As he knew
that his father was the only person in the house, he was sure that
his father had fired the shot.
The tales that he had heard, his belief in his father's life of
adventure, made him conclude that here was some smuggler's quarrel.
So vividly did the notion take possession of his inflamed
imagination that nothing henceforth could shake it. He simply
_knew_ what had happened.
And his father had fled, leaving all the evidences of his shot
behind him! Jim's loyal heart bounded; here he could help. He
turned, raced across the loft, clattered down the steep, cobwebby
stairs, slipped through the shed passage, through the kitchen, and
on into his own room.
He knew what to do. Nothing must show that the gun had ever been
used! He set feverishly to work. He swabbed out the weapon, and hung
it on its rack over the mantel. He tossed the rags into the
fireplace and covered them with ashes. He put the shot-pouch and the
powder-flask into their proper drawer. Then he pulled a chair to the
table and set himself to a pretended study of Cæsar. If any one
should come, it would look as if he had been quietly studying all
the morning.
All this had cost considerable self-denial; for of course he boiled
with curiosity about the man in the orchard. He did not dare to go
out there, but now, stealthily glancing out of the window, he saw
his father returning from the garden with long strides. Jim
understood. His father, going out at the front door, had slipped
round to the side of the house, so that it would look as if he had
come from the street.
He was not surprised that his father looked stern and angry. That
fellow must have done something mighty mean, he thought, to make his
father shoot; and he admired at once the magnanimity and the skill
which had merely winged the man, as he supposed, by way, presumably,
of teaching him a lesson. Then, struck by the boldness and openness
of his father's return to the house, Jim suddenly felt that he had
been foolish; that the cleaning of the gun had not been needed.
What man would dare, after such a lesson, to complain against his
father!
Mr. Edwards walked straight into Jim's room. Aroused from his nap by
the shot, he had leaped to the window and seen the man fall. He had
then turned and run downstairs so quickly that he had not seen the
fellow half-rise and crawl into the bushes; and, having reached the
spot, he was much relieved, if somewhat staggered, to find no body.
He did find tracks, for this was plowed ground; but they told him
nothing of the wounded man except that he had left in a hurry on a
pair of rather large feet.
He looked about for a while, and then started toward the house,
determined to have an explanation with Jim. He knew Jim's gun by the
sound of its report, and felt no doubt that the boy had fired the
shot. What sort of culpable accident had happened?
Suffering still with the splitting headache which he had been trying
to sleep off, angry with Jim for his carelessness, concerned lest
the man were really injured, Mr. Edwards was in his least
compromising mood.
"How did it happen?" he asked, without preface. His tones were
harsh, and he fixed Jim with stern eyes.
"How did it happen!" repeated Jim, in pure surprise. Certainly his
father knew much better than he how it had happened.
"Speak out!" said Mr. Edwards, impatiently. "How did you come to
shoot that man? I want to know about it."
"Me!" cried Jim, in complete bewilderment. "I--I haven't shot any
man, father! You know I haven't."
Mr. Edwards, never a man of nice observation, and now bewildered
with anger and headache, took his son's genuine astonishment for
mere pretense and subterfuge. Were not the facts plain?
"I don't want any nonsense about this," he said incisively. "I
heard your gun. I saw the man fall. No one else but you could
possibly have fired it. It's useless to lie, and I won't stand
it. Tell me at once what happened."
"I didn't shoot him, father. You _know_ I didn't!" reiterated Jim,
more and more dumfounded. "I don't know how it happened, honest
Injun--I don't, father!"
Mr. Edwards's mouth shut tight. He swept the room with his eyes
until they rested upon the gun in the rack over the mantelpiece.
He stepped forward, took it down, and examined it. Holding it in his
hands, he gazed about the floor. A rag which the ashes in the
fireplace had not wholly covered caught his attention.
"You cleaned the gun and put it away," he said grimly. "Then you
tried to hide the rag with which you cleaned it," and he touched the
bit of cloth sticking from the ashes contemptuously with his foot.
"What do you expect me to think from that?"
Jim was silent. The boy was unlike his father in many ways, but they
were alike in this: they both were proud. Each would meet an unjust
accusation in silence. And Jim was beginning to show another of his
father's characteristics. A still anger was beginning to burn in him
against this man who accused him of a deed which he himself had
done, and he felt rising within him a stubborn will to endure, not
to surrender. If his father was going to act like that, why, let
him--
"Where is your shot-pouch?" asked Mr. Edwards.
Jim motioned toward the drawer.
"Is your powder-flask there, too?"
"Yes."
Mr. Edwards was silent After all, he was a just man. He was trying,
as well as his headache would let him, to see things straight.
"It's plain what happened," he said at last. "You had an accident
and got frightened. You cleaned your gun, you hid the rags, you put
away your ammunition, you got your books and pretended to study.
You're afraid to tell the truth now."
Jim's face flushed hotly, but he kept silent. Such assurance, such
cruelty, he had never imagined. If this was what smugglers were
like--if this was a sample of their tricks--
"I'll give you one more chance to tell the truth," said Mr. Edwards.
"Did you do it?"
"No, I didn't!" said Jim, and his jaw snapped close like his
father's.
"Very well," said Mr. Edwards. "I'll leave you until you change
your mind. You will stay here. Sarah will bring you bread and milk
at supper-time. If you're willing to talk to me then, you may tell
her that you'd like to see me."
He turned to go, then paused.
"It's a serious matter; and all the facts are against you. It would
go hard with you in court. It will go harder if you stick to your
stubborn and foolish lie. One thing more: if you don't choose to
tell the truth, you will have to reckon with the law as well as
with me."
Mr. Edwards, upon this, shut the door and departed. His was a stern
figure, but the hurt within was very sore. This, then, he reflected
bitterly, was the kind of boy he had. He suffered deeply at the
discovery, which for him was unquestionable.
Jim felt outraged. He had done his loyal best to save his father
from the consequences of his rash act, and now, with incredible
ingenuity and cool injustice, his father was using his son's acts of
helpfulness to make it appear that he had done the deed. Without a
scruple, his father had made him a scapegoat.
Jim told himself that he would gladly have taken the blame had his
father, as chief of the band, demanded the sacrifice of this, his
devoted follower. Nay, more, he would have endured the ordeal
without a murmur had his father, deeming it unsafe to enter into
formal explanations, only hinted to him that this was a farce which
they two must play together. If his father had only winked at him!
Surely he might have done that with safety! But not to be admitted
to the secret,--not to be allowed to play the heroic part,--to be
used as an ignoble tool by a father who neither loved him nor knew
his courage,--that was too much! He would not betray his father--no,
a thousand times, no! But the day would come--
The afternoon dragged on. Jim sat there in his room, looking out
into the pleasant sunshine, conscious that the boys were playing
"three old cat" in the field not faraway--as rebellious and
magnanimous, as hot and angry, as heroic and morally muddled a boy
as one could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point
of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of
course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you
walk the plank?
It is amusing to think of Mr. Peaslee and Jim each shut up in his
respective room; but if Mr. Peaslee in his gloomy parlor--faced by
the crayon portrait of his masterful wife, a vase of wax flowers
under a glass dome, the family Bible on a marble-topped table, and
three stiff horsehair-covered chairs--had the advantage of being
able to leave at any moment, he was even more perturbed in mind.
"Terrible awk'ard mess," he kept repeating to himself, as he mopped
his damp forehead with his handkerchief, "terrible awk'ard." And
indeed it would be awkward for a respectable citizen with political
aspirations to be accused before a grand jury of which he is a
member of assault with a dangerous weapon upon an inoffensive man.
Mr. Peaslee's reflections rose in a strophe of hope and fell in an
antistrophe of despair.
"'T ain't likely it hurt him any--just bird shot," said Hope.
"Bird shot's mighty irritatin'--specially to a wrathy fellow," said
Despair.
And alternating thus, his thoughts ran on: "Bird shot'll show I
didn't have any serious _in_tent; but mebbe a piece of the marble
struck him. He went off mighty lively; don't seem as if he'd been
hurt _much_; more scared hurt, likely. But he might have been hurt
bad, arm or suthin', mebbe. Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked
clay; split all to pieces prob'ly--but ye can't tell. I've heard ye
can shoot a taller candle through an inch plank--and that's
consid'able softer than a marble. And that pesky cat's jest as
frisky as ever!"
Had any one seen him? There certainly had not been any one in the
street, but where had been Mr. Edwards, Jim, the housekeeper? Where
had his own wife been? There were windows from which she might have
seen him returning, some from which she might even have seen him
fire the fatal shot. But pshaw, there now! Probably no one had seen
him at all, not even his wife, not even his victim! Probably no one
would ever find out.
"Must have been some worthless feller, stealin' apples, mebbe, who
won't dare make a fuss. 'T ain't likely I'll ever hear anythin' of
it. 'T ain't no use sayin' anythin' till suthin' happens. What folks
don't know don't hurt 'em none."
The structure of comfort which he thus built himself was shaky
indeed, but it had to serve. He nerved himself to meet his wife. He
must not excite her suspicion by too long an absence. She was
doubtless full of curiosity, for of course she had heard the shot,
and would expect him to know what it meant.
It would not do to seem to enter the house by the front door, sacred
to formal occasions, so, sneaking outdoors again, he slipped round
to the side of the house, and with much trepidation went into the
kitchen.
His wife began the moment she saw him. "Well, of all the crazy
carryings on!" she cried. "What's the Ed'ards boy firin' off guns
for, right under peaceable folks' windows? I'm goin' to speak to Mr.
Ed'ards right off."
"Now don't ye, Sarepty, now don't ye!" said Mr. Peaslee, in alarm.
Relieved as he was to find himself unsuspected, he did not like the
idea of having his wife pick a quarrel with Mr. Edwards for what he
himself had done! The less said about that shot the better he would
be pleased.
"For the land's sake, why not, I should like to know?"
"Well, now, Sarepty, I wouldn't. That Ed'ards boy ain't more of a
boy than most boys, I guess. Always seemed a real peaceable little
feller. And Ed'ards is kinder touchy, I guess. It might make hard
feelin'. 'T wouldn't look well for us to speak, bein' newcomers so.
I wouldn't, Sarepty, I wouldn't. Mebbe some time I'll slide in a
word, just slide it in kinder easy, if he does it again."
And Mr. Peaslee looked appealingly at his wife through his big
spectacles, his eyes looking very large and pathetic through the
strong lenses.
"Humph!" said his wife, unmoved. "I ain't afraid of Ed'ards, if you
be."
Nor could she be moved from her determination. Mr. Peaslee was
vastly disturbed.
But presently he forgot this small annoyance in greater ones. That
evening after tea, when he went up to the post-office, he heard that
Pete Lamoury had been shot by Jim Edwards, and was now in bed with
his wounds. Jim's arrest was predicted. Young Farnsworth, who kept
the crockery store, told him the news. And presently Jake Hibbard,
the worst "shyster" in the village, shuffled in--noticeable anywhere
for his suit of rusty black, his empty sleeve pinned to his coat,
the green patch over his eye, and his tobacco-stained lips. He
confirmed the report.
"Pete's hurt bad," he said, shaking his head, "hurt bad. I've taken
his case. Young Edwards is going to see trouble."
The speech frightened poor Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured
by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he
would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had
small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew them both.
But Mr. Peaslee returned home with dragging feet. Silent and
preoccupied all the evening, he went to bed early--but not to sleep.
Long he lay awake and tossed, while the Calico Cat wailed on the
rear fence--exultant, triumphant, insulting.
And when he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed that he was being
prosecuted in court by--was it Jake Hibbard, with the green patch
over his eye, or the Calico Cat, with the black patch over hers? He
could not tell, study the fantastic, ominous figure of his
prosecutor as he would!
[Illustration: Cat sitting on post looking forward.]
III
Immediately after breakfast on Monday morning Mr. Peaslee, in a mood
of desperate self-sacrifice, started up-town to buy a knife--for
Jim!
All day long on Sunday, when he had nothing to do but think, he had
struggled between his fear of exposure and his sorrow for the boy.
The upshot was a determination to "make it up to him" by giving him
a knife. He had in his mind's eye a marvel--stag-horn handle, four
blades, saw, awl, file, hoof-hook, corkscrew! Such a knife as that,
he felt, would console any boy for being arrested. "Most likely 't
will end right there," he said to himself.
"I guess I'd better go to Farley's," he thought, as he walked along.
"Farley owes money to the bank. He won't dare to stick it on like
the rest."
But when he entered the store and looked about, his face fell. Mr.
Farley was not there! Willie Potter, Farley's clerk, a young man
peculiarly distasteful to Solomon, lounged forward with a toothpick
in his mouth. Mr. Peaslee had half a mind to go, but the thought of
poor Jim held him back.
"What will you have to-day, Mr. Peaslee?" inquired Willie, affably.
He winked at young Dannie Snow, who sat grinning on a keg of nails,
as much as to say, "Watch me have some fun with the old man."
"I thought mebbe I'd look at some jack-knives," said Solomon, eyeing
Willie distrustfully.
"Yes, sir, I guess you want the best, regardless of expense," said
Willie, impudently. He well understood his customer's dislike for
spending a penny. Stepping behind the counter, he drew from the
show-case and held up admiringly the most costly knife in the store.
"Here, now, what do you say to this? Very superior article. Best
horn, ten blades, best razor steel. Three-fifty, and cheap at the
price. Can't be beat this side of Boston. Just the article for you,
sir."
And he winked again at Dannie Snow, who was pink with suppressed
merriment.
"Well, now, well, now," said Solomon, taking the knife in his hand
and pretending to examine it closely. "That's a pretty knife, to be
sure,--to--be--sure. Real showy, ain't it? Looks as if 't was made
to sell--all outside and no money in the bank, like some young
fellers ye see."
Dannie Snow giggling outright, Mr. Peaslee turned and gazed at him
in mild inquiry. Young Potter turned a dull red. He was addicted to
radiant cravats and gauzy silk handkerchiefs, and from his "salary"
of eight dollars a week he did not save much.
But just the same, Mr. Peaslee had been staggered at the price.
Pretending still to examine the knife which Willie had given him, he
squinted past it at the contents of the glass show-case on which his
elbows rested. There all sorts of knives confronted him, each in its
little box, in which was stuck a card stating the price,--$1.50,
$1.25, 90c, 45c. The cheapest one would eat up the proceeds of three
dozen eggs at fifteen cents a dozen--a good price for eggs! He had
forgotten that knives cost so much.
"A good knife ain't any use to a boy," he reflected. "Break it in a
day, lose it in a week. 'T wouldn't be any real kindness to him.
Just wastin' money."
He pointed finally to a stubby, wooden-handled knife with one big
blade, marked 25c.
"There, now," said he, "that's what I call a knife. Good and strong,
and no folderol. Guarantee the steel, don't ye?"
He opened the blade and drew it speculatively across his calloused
old thumb, while with his mild blue eyes, which his spectacles
enormously exaggerated, he fixed the humbled Willie.
"That's a good knife for the money," said that young man.
"Hand-forged."
"Sho now, ye don't say so," said Mr. Peaslee. "I guess ye give a
discount, don't ye? Farley always allows me a little suthin'."
"You can have it for twenty-one cents," said Willie, much irritated.
"Charge it?"
"Guess I better pay cash," Mr. Peaslee answered hastily. If it were
charged, his wife would question the item.
Producing an enormous wallet--very worn and very flat--from his
cavernous pocket, he deliberately searched until he found a
Canadian ten-cent piece, and adding to it enough to make up the
price, handed it to Potter, and left the store.
Mr. Peaslee, who remembered no gift from his father other than a
very occasional big copper cent, thought himself pretty generous.
Had he not spent pretty nearly the price of two dozen eggs?
But now a question occurred to him which he had not thought of
before. How was he to get the knife to Jim? A gift from him would
excite surprise, perhaps suspicion. It must not be known who had
sent it. Ah, there was the post office! Going in, he pushed the
little box through the barred window.
"Say, Cyrus," he said to the postmaster, "kinder weigh up this
consignment for me, will ye?"
The postmaster weighed the box.
"That will cost you six cents," he said.
"Thank ye," returned Mr. Peaslee, and dropping the box into his deep
pocket, departed. Half a dozen eggs more to get it to his next-door
neighbor!
"'T ain't right," he muttered, "'t ain't right."
Uncertain what to do with his gift, but feeling, on the whole,
pretty virtuous, Mr. Peaslee now started home. He thought that
Jim would not be going to school, but would wait at home for the
threatened coming of the constable; but still he was not sure,
and he wanted to keep the boy under his eye.
Suddenly he straightened. There was Judge Ames walking up the
street, valise in hand, just from the early morning train. He had
come a few days before the opening of court. Mr. Peaslee knew him
slightly, and stood much in awe of him. He was greatly pleased when
the judge stopped and shook hands with him.
"I am glad to hear, Mr. Peaslee," said the judge, in his precise,
lawyer-like utterance, "that you are to be on the grand jury. We
need men like you there."
"Thank ye, judge, thank ye," said Mr. Peaslee, overcome. And he
walked on home, quite convinced that a person of his importance in
the community should not be sacrificed to the comfort of any small
boy.
"And I've done right by the little feller, I've done right," he
assured himself, feeling the knife.
As he turned into his own yard, he cast an anxious eye over to
the Edwards house. There sat Jim, elbows on knees, chin on hands,
staring into space. Jim was thinking that his father, had he been
a pirate chief, would not have wiped a filial tear from his eye
whenever he thought of his mother; and the boy's face showed it.
The spectacle greatly depressed Mr. Peaslee. The smallest, faintest
question entered his mind whether a twenty-five-cent knife would
console such melancholy.
To give himself a countenance while he watched events, Solomon got a
rake and began gathering together the few autumn leaves which had
fluttered down in his front yard. It was not useless labor, for
they would "come in handy" later in "banking up" the house.
And so, presently, he saw Sam Barton, the constable, his big
shoulders rolling as he walked, advancing down the street. Mr.
Peaslee expected him; nevertheless his appearance gave him a
disagreeable shock. Suppose the constable had been coming for him!
"Ain't arrestin' anybody down this way, be ye?" he called, with a
feeble attempt at jocularity. Perhaps, after all--
"Looks like it," said Barton, succinctly.
Mr. Peaslee stepped to the fence. "'T aint likely they'll do much
to a leetle feller like that, I guess," he said, searching the
constable's face.
"Dunno," said Barton, passing on.
Solomon, much concerned, leaned on his rake and watched him enter
the Edwards house. Jim had disappeared; there was some delay.
Mrs. Peaslee came to the door.
"Arrestin' that Ed'ards boy, be they, Solomon?" she said. "Well,
serve him right, _I_ say, shootin' guns off so. Like father, like
son. _I_ dunno as _'t was_ the son. I'd as soon believe it of the
father. Everybody knows Lamoury and he's been mixed up together.
Some of his smugglin' tricks, prob'ly."
Mrs. Peaslee had taken a violent dislike to her taciturn neighbor,
and she did not care who knew it. Her shrill voice seemed to her
husband painfully loud, and, indeed, it was beginning to attract the
attention of the group of children who had gathered about the
Edwards gate.
"Sh!" hissed Solomon. "Ed'ards might hear ye. 'T would hurt us if he
should take his account out of the bank."
"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Peaslee. "Well," she added, "you go to the
hearin'. Justice is suthin', I guess."
But she said no more, and with her husband and the children awaited
events--a silent group in the silent street before the silent house.
The children's eyes grew bigger and bigger with excitement. Was not
Jimmy Edwards going to be arrested for mur-r-rder? the horrid
whisper ran. One small boy, beginning to whimper, asked if Jimmy was
"going to be hung."
The occasion was solemn even to the older eyes of Mr. Peaslee.
"S'posin' it was me," he said to himself.
Presently Mr. Edwards, Jim, and the constable emerged from the
house. Jim looked white and frightened, but was bravely trying to
bear himself like a man. Mr. Edwards, his long, shaven upper lip
stiff as a board, looked stern and uncompromising. Barton was as big
and good-humored as ever.
He turned upon the little boys and girls, and, waving his arm,
cried, "Scat!" They fell back--about ten feet. Thus the procession
formed: Barton and Jim, then Mr. Edwards, and--at a barely
respectful distance--the crowd of youngsters.
Mr. Peaslee, much moved, but trying hard not to show it, thrust his
rake under the veranda with a great show of care, and joined Mr.
Edwards--much to that gentleman's surprise. Solomon's heart was
throbbing with a great resolution.
"I always aim to be neighborly," said he, nervously lowering his
voice, for he was conscious of his wife, still standing on the
veranda. "Thought I'd just step along, too. I cal'late mebbe you'd
like comp'ny on his bail bond," and he jerked his thumb toward Jim.
It was out; he was committed, and Solomon heaved a great sigh, he
knew not whether of relief or dismay. There was not indeed any risk
in signing with Edwards, who was "good" for any bail that the
justice was likely to require; but what would Mrs. Peaslee say if
she knew! He glanced apprehensively toward the house.
His wife had gone in; but, evil omen! there, sitting on a
fence-post, was the Calico Cat. She was placidly washing her face;
and as her paw twinkled past the big black spot round her right eye,
she appeared, at that distance, to be greeting him with a derisive
wink.
Mr. Edwards, although his mouth shut tighter than ever at the
mention of bail, was surprised and touched. "Thank you," he said.
"It's kind of you to think of it."
In the village, Sam ushered them into the musty law office of Squire
Tucker, justice of the peace. The squire was a large, fat man,
clothed in rusty black, with a carelessly knotted string tie pendent
beneath a rumpled turn-down collar. He had a smooth-shaven, fat
face, lighted by shrewd and kindly eyes, which gleamed at you now
through, now over, his glasses. When the party entered he was
writing, and merely looked up under his big eyebrows long enough to
wave them all to chairs.