It was the fault of a small nickel-plated revolver, a most incompetent
weapon, which, wherever one aimed, would fling the bullet as the devil
willed, and no man, when about to use it, could tell exactly what was
in store for the surrounding country. This treasure had been acquired
by Jimmie Trescott after arduous bargaining with another small boy.
Jimmie wended homeward, patting his hip pocket at every three paces.
Peter Washington, working in the carriage-house, looked out upon him
with a shrewd eye. "Oh, Jim," he called, "wut you got in yer hind
pocket?"
"Nothin'," said Jimmie, feeling carefully under his jacket to make
sure that the revolver wouldn't fall out.
Peter chuckled. "S'more foolishness, I raikon. You gwine be hung one
day, Jim, you keep up all dish yer nonsense."
Jimmie made no reply, but went into the back garden, where he hid the
revolver in a box under a lilac-bush. Then he returned to the vicinity
of Peter, and began to cruise to and fro in the offing, showing all
the signals of one wishing to open treaty. "Pete," he said, "how much
does a box of cartridges cost?"
Peter raised himself violently, holding in one hand a piece of
harness, and in the other an old rag. "Ca'tridgers! _Ca'tridgers!_
Lan'sake! wut the kid want with ca'tridgers? Knew it! Knew it! Come
home er-holdin' on to his hind pocket like he got money in it. An' now
he want ca'tridgers."
Jimmie, after viewing with dismay the excitement caused by his
question, began to move warily out of the reach of a possible hostile
movement.
"Ca'tridgers!" continued Peter, in scorn and horror. "Kid like you! No
bigger'n er minute! Look yah, Jim, you done been swappin' round, an'
you done got hol' of er pistol!" The charge was dramatic.
The wind was almost knocked out of Jimmie by this display of Peter's
terrible miraculous power, and as he backed away his feeble denials
were more convincing than a confession.
"I'll tell yer pop!" cried Peter, in virtuous grandeur. "I'll tell yer
pop!"
In the distance Jimmie stood appalled. He knew not what to do. The
dread adult wisdom of Peter Washington had laid bare the sin, and
disgrace stared at Jimmie.
There was a whirl of wheels, and a high, lean trotting-mare spun
Doctor Trescott's buggy towards Peter, who ran forward busily. As the
doctor climbed out, Peter, holding the mare's head, began his
denunciation:
"Docteh, I gwine tell on Jim. He come home er-holdin' on to his hind
pocket, an' proud like he won a tuhkey-raffle, an' I sure know what he
been up to, an' I done challenge him, an' he nev' say he didn't."
"Why, what do you mean?" said the doctor. "What's this, Jimmie?"
The boy came forward, glaring wrathfully at Peter. In fact, he
suddenly was so filled with rage at Peter that he forgot all
precautions. "It's about a pistol," he said, bluntly. "I've got a
pistol. I swapped for it."
"I done tol' 'im his pop wouldn' stand no fiah-awms, an' him a kid
like he is. I done tol' 'im. Lan' sake! he strut like he was a
soldier! Come in yere proud, an' er-holdin' on to his hind pocket. He
think he was Jesse James, I raikon. But I done tol' 'im his pop stan'
no sech foolishness. First thing--_blam_--he shoot his haid off. No,
seh, he too tinety t' come in yere er-struttin' like he jest bought
Main Street. I tol' 'im. I done tol' 'im--shawp. I don' wanter be
loafin' round dis yer stable if Jim he gwine go shootin' round an'
shootin' round--_blim--blam--blim--blam_! No, seh. I retiahs. I
retiahs. It's all right if er grown man got er gun, but ain't no kids
come foolishin' round _me_ with fiah-awms. No, seh. I retiahs."
"Oh, be quiet, Peter!" said the doctor. "Where is this thing, Jimmie?"
The boy went sulkily to the box under the lilac-bush and returned with
the revolver. "Here 'tis," he said, with a glare over his shoulder at
Peter. The doctor looked at the silly weapon in critical contempt.
"It's not much of a thing, Jimmie, but I don't think you are quite old
enough for it yet. I'll keep it for you in one of the drawers of my
desk."
Peter Washington burst out proudly: "I done tol' 'im th' docteh
wouldn' stan' no traffickin' round yere with fiah-awms. I done tol'
'im."
Jimmie and his father went together into the house, and as Peter
unharnessed the mare he continued his comments on the boy and the
revolver. He was not cast down by the absence of hearers. In fact, he
usually talked better when there was no one to listen save the horses.
But now his observations bore small resemblance to his earlier and
public statements. Admiration and the keen family pride of a Southern
negro who has been long in one place were now in his tone.
"That boy! He's er devil! When he get to be er man--wow! He'll jes
take an' make things whirl round yere. Raikon we'll all take er back
seat when he come erlong er-raisin' Cain."
He had unharnessed the mare, and with his back bent was pushing the
buggy into the carriage-house.
"Er pistol! An' him no bigger than er minute!"
A small stone whizzed past Peter's head and clattered on the stable.
He hastily dropped all occupation and struck a curious attitude. His
right knee was almost up to his chin, and his arms were wreathed
protectingly about his head. He had not looked in the direction from
which the stone had come, but he had begun immediately to yell:
[Illustration: "'YOU JIM! QUIT! QUIT, I TELL YER!'"]
"You Jim! Quit! Quit, I tell yer, Jim! Watch out! You gwine break
somethin', Jim!"
"Yah!" taunted the boy, as with the speed and ease of a
light-cavalryman he manoeuvred in the distance. "Yah! Told on me,
did you! Told on me, hey! There! How do you like that?" The missiles
resounded against the stable.
"Watch out, Jim! You gwine break something, Jim, I tell yer! Quit yer
foolishness, Jim! Ow! Watch out, boy! I--"
There was a crash. With diabolic ingenuity, one of Jimmie's pebbles
had entered the carriage-house and had landed among a row of
carriage-lamps on a shelf, creating havoc which was apparently beyond
all reason of physical law. It seemed to Jimmie that the racket of
falling glass could have been heard in an adjacent county.
Peter was a prophet who after persecution was suffered to recall
everything to the mind of the persecutor. "_There!_ Knew it! Knew it!
_Now_ I raikon you'll quit. Hi! jes look ut dese yer lamps! Fer lan'
sake! Oh, now yer pop jes break ev'ry bone in yer body!"
In the doorway of the kitchen the cook appeared with a startled face.
Jimmie's father and mother came suddenly out on the front veranda.
"What was that noise?" called the the doctor.
Peter went forward to explain. "Jim he was er-heavin' rocks at me,
docteh, an' erlong come one rock an' go _blam_ inter all th' lamps an'
jes skitter 'em t' bits. I declayah--"
Jimmie, half blinded with emotion, was nevertheless aware of a
lightning glance from his father, a glance which cowed and frightened
him to the ends of his toes. He heard the steady but deadly tones of
his father in a fury: "Go into the house and wait until I come."
Bowed in anguish, the boy moved across the lawn and up the steps. His
mother was standing on the veranda still gazing towards the stable. He
loitered in the faint hope that she might take some small pity on his
state. But she could have heeded him no less if he had been invisible.
He entered the house.
When the doctor returned from his investigation of the harm done by
Jimmie's hand, Mrs. Trescott looked at him anxiously, for she knew
that he was concealing some volcanic impulses. "Well?" she asked.
"It isn't the lamps," he said at first. He seated himself on the rail.
"I don't know what we are going to do with that boy. It isn't so much
the lamps as it is the other thing. He was throwing stones at Peter
because Peter told me about the revolver. What are we going to do with
him?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied the mother. "We've tried almost
everything. Of course much of it is pure animal spirits. Jimmie is not
naturally vicious--"
"Oh, I know," interrupted the doctor, impatiently. "Do you suppose,
when the stones were singing about Peter's ears, he cared whether they
were flung by a boy who was naturally vicious or a boy who was not?
The question might interest him afterward, but at the time he was
mainly occupied in dodging these effects of pure animal spirits."
"Don't be too hard on the boy, Ned. There's lots of time yet. He's so
young yet, and--I believe he gets most of his naughtiness from that
wretched Dalzel boy. That Dalzel boy--well, he's simply awful!" Then,
with true motherly instinct to shift blame from her own boy's
shoulders, she proceeded to sketch the character of the Dalzel boy in
lines that would have made that talented young vagabond stare. It was
not admittedly her feeling that the doctor's attention should be
diverted from the main issue and his indignation divided among the
camps, but presently the doctor felt himself burn with wrath for the
Dalzel boy.
"Why don't you keep Jimmie away from him?" he demanded. "Jimmie has no
business consorting with abandoned little predestined jail-birds like
him. If I catch him on the place I'll box his ears."
"It is simply impossible, unless we kept Jimmie shut up all the time,"
said Mrs. Trescott. "I can't watch him every minute of the day, and
the moment my back is turned, he's off."
"I should think those Dalzel people would hire somebody to bring up
their child for them," said the doctor. "They don't seem to know how
to do it themselves."
Presently you would have thought from the talk that one Willie Dalzel
had been throwing stones at Peter Washington because Peter Washington
had told Doctor Trescott that Willie Dalzel had come into possession
of a revolver.
In the mean time Jimmie had gone into the house to await the coming of
his father. He was in a rebellious mood. He had not intended to
destroy the carriage-lamps. He had been merely hurling stones at a
creature whose perfidy deserved such action, and the hitting of the
lamps had been merely another move of the great conspirator Fate to
force one Jimmie Trescott into dark and troublous ways. The boy was
beginning to find the world a bitter place. He couldn't win
appreciation for a single virtue; he could only achieve quick,
rigorous punishment for his misdemeanors. Everything was an enemy. Now
there were those silly old lamps--what were they doing up on that
shelf, anyhow? It would have been just as easy for them at the time to
have been in some other place. But no; there they had been, like the
crowd that is passing under the wall when the mason for the first time
in twenty years lets fall a brick. Furthermore, the flight of that
stone had been perfectly unreasonable. It had been a sort of freak in
physical law. Jimmie understood that he might have thrown stones from
the same fatal spot for an hour without hurting a single lamp. He was
a victim--that was it. Fate had conspired with the detail of his
environment to simply hound him into a grave or into a cell.
But who would understand? Who would understand? And here the boy
turned his mental glance in every direction, and found nothing but
what was to him the black of cruel ignorance. Very well; some day they
would--
From somewhere out in the street he heard a peculiar whistle of two
notes. It was the common signal of the boys in the neighborhood, and
judging from the direction of the sound, it was apparently intended to
summon him. He moved immediately to one of the windows of the
sitting-room. It opened upon a part of the grounds remote from the
stables and cut off from the veranda by a wing. He perceived Willie
Dalzel loitering in the street. Jimmie whistled the signal after
having pushed up the window-sash some inches. He saw the Dalzel boy
turn and regard him, and then call several other boys. They stood in a
group and gestured. These gestures plainly said: "Come out. We've got
something on hand." Jimmie sadly shook his head.
But they did not go away. They held a long consultation. Presently
Jimmie saw the intrepid Dalzel boy climb the fence and begin to creep
among the shrubbery, in elaborate imitation of an Indian scout. In
time he arrived under Jimmie's window, and raised his face to whisper:
"Come on out! We're going on a bear-hunt."
A bear-hunt! Of course Jimmie knew that it would not be a real
bear-hunt, but would be a sort of carouse of pretension and big
talking and preposterous lying and valor, wherein each boy would
strive to have himself called Kit Carson by the others. He was
profoundly affected. However, the parental word was upon him, and he
could not move. "No," he answered, "I can't. I've got to stay in."
"Are you a prisoner?" demanded the Dalzel boy, eagerly.
"No-o--yes--I s'pose I am."
The other lad became much excited, but he did not lose his wariness.
"Don't you want to be rescued?"
"Why--no--I dun'no'," replied Jimmie, dubiously.
Willie Dalzel was indignant. "Why, of course you want to be rescued!
We'll rescue you. I'll go and get my men." And thinking this a good
sentence, he repeated, pompously, "I'll go and get my men." He began
to crawl away, but when he was distant some ten paces he turned to
say: "Keep up a stout heart. Remember that you have friends who will
be faithful unto death. The time is not now far off when you will
again view the blessed sunlight."
The poetry of these remarks filled Jimmie with ecstasy, and he watched
eagerly for the coming of the friends who would be faithful unto
death. They delayed some time, for the reason that Willie Dalzel was
making a speech.
"Now, men," he said, "our comrade is a prisoner in yon--in yond--in
that there fortress. We must to the rescue. Who volunteers to go with
me?" He fixed them with a stern eye.
There was a silence, and then one of the smaller boys remarked,
"If Doc Trescott ketches us trackin' over his lawn--"
Willie Dalzel pounced upon the speaker and took him by the throat. The
two presented a sort of a burlesque of the wood-cut on the cover of a
dime novel which Willie had just been reading--_The Red Captain: A
Tale of the Pirates of the Spanish Main_.
"You are a coward!" said Willie, through his clinched teeth.
"No, I ain't, Willie," piped the other, as best he could.
"I say you are," cried the great chieftain, indignantly. "Don't tell
_me_ I'm a liar." He relinquished his hold upon the coward and resumed
his speech. "You know me, men. Many of you have been my followers for
long years. You saw me slay Six-handed Dick with my own hand. You know
I never falter. Our comrade is a prisoner in the cruel hands of our
enemies. Aw, Pete Washington? He dassent. My pa says if Pete ever
troubles me he'll brain 'im. Come on! To the rescue! Who will go with
me to the rescue? Aw, come on! What are you afraid of?"
[Illustration: "HE TURNED TO SAY: 'KEEP UP A STOUT HEART'"]
It was another instance of the power of eloquence upon the human mind.
There was only one boy who was not thrilled by this oration, and he
was a boy whose favorite reading had been of the road-agents and
gun-fighters of the great West, and he thought the whole thing should
be conducted in the Deadwood Dick manner. This talk of a "comrade"
was silly; "pard" was the proper word. He resolved that he would make
a show of being a pirate, and keep secret the fact that he really was
Hold-up Harry, the Terror of the Sierras.
But the others were knit close in piratical bonds. One by one they
climbed the fence at a point hidden from the house by tall shrubs.
With many a low-breathed caution they went upon their perilous
adventure.
Jimmie was grown tired of waiting for his friends who would be
faithful unto death. Finally he decided that he would rescue himself.
It would be a gross breach of rule, but he couldn't sit there all the
rest of the day waiting for his faithful-unto-death friends. The
window was only five feet from the ground. He softly raised the sash
and threw one leg over the sill. But at the same time he perceived his
friends snaking among the bushes. He withdrew his leg and waited,
seeing that he was now to be rescued in an orthodox way. The brave
pirates came nearer and nearer.
Jimmie heard a noise of a closing door, and turning, he saw his father
in the room looking at him and the open window in angry surprise. Boys
never faint, but Jimmie probably came as near to it as may the average
boy.
"What's all this?" asked the doctor, staring. Involuntarily Jimmie
glanced over his shoulder through the window. His father saw the
creeping figures. "What are those boys doing?" he said, sharply, and
he knit his brows.
"Nothin'."
"Nothing! Don't tell me that. Are they coming here to the window?"
"Y-e-s, sir."
"What for?"
"To--to see me."
"What about?"
"About--about nothin'."
"What about?"
Jimmie knew that he could conceal nothing.
[Illustration: "THE BOY TURNED AGAIN TO HIS FRIEND"]
He said, "They're comin' to--to--to rescue me." He began to whimper.
The doctor sat down heavily.
"What? To rescue you?" he gasped.
"Y-yes, sir."
The doctor's eyes began to twinkle. "Very well," he said presently. "I
will sit here and observe this rescue. And on no account do you warn
them that I am here. Understand?"
Of course Jimmie understood. He had been mad to warn his friends, but
his father's mere presence had frightened him from doing it. He stood
trembling at the window, while the doctor stretched in an easy-chair
near at hand. They waited. The doctor could tell by his son's
increasing agitation that the great moment was near. Suddenly he heard
Willie Dalzel's voice hiss out a word: "S-s-silence!" Then the same
voice addressed Jimmie at the window: "Good cheer, my comrade. The
time is now at hand. I have come. Never did the Red Captain turn his
back on a friend. One minute more and you will be free. Once aboard my
gallant craft and you can bid defiance to your haughty enemies. Why
don't you hurry up? What are you standin' there lookin' like a cow
for?"
"I--er--now--you--" stammered Jimmie.
Here Hold-up Harry, the Terror of the Sierras, evidently concluded
that Willie Dalzel had had enough of the premier part, so he said:
"Brace up, pard. Don't ye turn white-livered now, fer ye know that
Hold-up Harry, the Terrar of the Sarahs, ain't the man ter--"
"Oh, stop it!" said Willie Dalzel. "He won't understand that, you
know. He's a pirate. Now, Jimmie, come on. Be of light heart, my
comrade. Soon you--"
"I 'low arter all this here long time in jail ye thought ye had no
friends mebbe, but I tell ye Hold-up Harry, the Terrar of the
Sarahs--"
"A boat is waitin'--"
"I have ready a trusty horse--"
Willie Dalzel could endure his rival no longer.
"Look here, Henry, you're spoilin' the whole thing. We're all pirates,
don't you see, and you're a pirate too."
"I ain't a pirate. I'm Hold-up Harry, the Terrar of the Sarahs."
"You ain't, I say," said Willie, in despair. "You're spoilin'
everything, you are. All right, now. You wait. I'll fix you for this,
see if I don't! Oh, come on, Jimmie. A boat awaits us at the foot of
the rocks. In one short hour you'll be free forever from your
ex--exewable enemies, and their vile plots. Hasten, for the dawn
approaches."
[Illustration: "THEY WHIRLED AND SCAMPERED AWAY LIKE DEER"]
The suffering Jimmie looked at his father, and was surprised at what
he saw. The doctor was doubled up like a man with the colic. He was
breathing heavily. The boy turned again to his friends. "I--now--look
here," he began, stumbling among the words. "You--I--I don't think
I'll be rescued to-day."
The pirates were scandalized. "What?" they whispered, angrily. "Ain't
you goin' to be rescued? Well, all right for you, Jimmie Trescott.
That's a nice way to act, that is!" Their upturned eyes glowered at
Jimmie.
Suddenly Doctor Trescott appeared at the window with Jimmie. "Oh, go
home, boys!" he gasped, but they did not hear him. Upon the instant
they had whirled and scampered away like deer. The first lad to reach
the fence was the Red Captain, but Hold-up Harry, the Terror of the
Sierras, was so close that there was little to choose between them.
Doctor Trescott lowered the window, and then spoke to his son in his
usual quiet way. "Jimmie, I wish you would go and tell Peter to have
the buggy ready at seven o'clock."
"Yes, sir," said Jimmie, and he swaggered out to the stables. "Pete,
father wants the buggy ready at seven o'clock."
Peter paid no heed to this order, but with the tender sympathy of a
true friend he inquired, "Hu't?"
"Hurt? Did what hurt?"
"Yer trouncin'."
"Trouncin'!" said Jimmie, contemptuously. "I didn't get any
trouncin'."
"No?" said Peter. He gave Jimmie a quick shrewd glance, and saw that
he was telling the truth. He began to mutter and mumble over his work.
"Ump! Ump! Dese yer white folks act like they think er boy's made er
glass. No trouncin'! Ump!" He was consumed with curiosity to learn why
Jimmie had not felt a heavy parental hand, but he did not care to
lower his dignity by asking questions about it. At last, however, he
reached the limits of his endurance, and in a voice pretentiously
careless he asked, "Didn' yer pop take on like mad er-bout dese yer
cay'ge-lamps?"
"Carriage-lamps?" inquired Jimmie.
"Ump."
"No, he didn't say anything about carriage-lamps--not that I remember.
Maybe he did, though. Lemme see.... No, he never mentioned 'em."