THE AVENGING ANGEL.
"Josh," said Lewis to the mountain boy, whose blue eyes had an extra
twinkle in them that morning as he hitched his mule to a nearby pine
tree, waiting for orders, "are you afraid of hornets?"
"Not if we uns kin git some kerosene smeared on in time."
"Well, you smear on some kerosene in time and go get that hornet's nest
out of Susan's room."
"Well, bless Bob! How did you uns know we uns put it thar under her
bed?"
"Never mind how I knew it. You just go and get it and take it far from
the camp and then come back here and report for work."
Josh winked at Josephus and went to do Mr. Somerville's bidding.
"He don't look mad," thought Josh. "I hope he ain't mad with we uns."
Josh had met his idol in Lewis Somerville. Boylike he admired strength
more than anything in the world, and could not this young giant lift a
log and place it on his shoulders and carry it to the desired spot as
easily as he himself could carry a twig? There was a poetical streak in
this mountain boy, too, that saw in Lewis the young knight. "'Tain't
nothin' to fool a nigger," he comforted himself by saying.
"Well, sir," he said cheerfully to Lewis, "the hornets is all good as
dead. What must we uns do now?"
"Now you are going to take your punishment for being no gentleman."
"Gentleman! Huh! We uns ain't never set up to be no gentleman."
"Oh, I didn't know that. When I hired you to come work for my cousins, I
understood, of course, that you were a gentleman. Otherwise I would not
have considered you for a moment. Do you suppose I would have any one
come around these ladies who are everything in the world to me if he
were not a gentleman?"
"There's that nigger, Oscar! We uns is as good as he is. He ain't no
gentleman."
"He is as good a gentleman as there is in the land. He came up here with
these young ladies whom he has known ever since they were babies rather
than desert them when he thought he might be needed. I have never known
Oscar to say a coarse word or do an ungentle act. I, too, have known him
all my life. He is a good, clean man, inside and out, and would cut off
his hand before he would scare a helpless woman."
"'Twan't nothin' but a nigger 'ooman!"
"You say nothing but a negro as though that were the lowest thing in the
world, and still just now you spoke with a certain pride of being as
good as one. Now I tell you, you are not as good as one unless you act
better. You have a long line of free English ancestors behind you and
these poor things are but recently out of slavery. Now you come with me
and take your punishment if you want to stay and work for this camp."
Josh looked rather startled. Did this young gentleman mean to beat him,
and all because he had put a hornet's nest under a silly colored girl's
bed? Josh had received many a licking from his raw-boned mother, and
when Aunt Mandy whipped, she whipped. He was not afraid of the physical
hurt of a beating, but that line of English ancestors of which Lewis had
spoken all rebelled in this, their little descendant, against being
beaten by any one who was no blood kin.
"March!" said Lewis.
Well, if he were to go to execution like a soldier, he could stand it
better. With flashing eyes and head well up, Josh walked on by Lewis's
side.
The camp builders had fashioned, with great ingenuity, a shower bath to
one side of the kitchen and store-room under the pavilion. The mountain
spring was dug out into a very respectable reservoir, and this was piped
down to furnish running water in the kitchen and a strong shower in this
rough lean-to of a bath-room. The water was cold and clear and the fall
was so great that the spray felt like needles. The young men reveled in
this vigorous bathing and the Carter girls had taken a go at it and one
and all pronounced it grand.
Josh looked upon this enthusiasm on the subject of mere bathing as
affectation. Miss Somerville might have had the same attitude of mind
towards persons who liked Limberger cheese or read Sanskrit for
pleasure.
Lewis directed his prisoner to this bath-house.
"Anyhow, we uns ain't gonter git licked befo' the niggers," thought Josh
with some satisfaction.
"Now take off your clothes," said Lewis sternly.
So he was more thorough than his mother. She contented herself with
tickling him on his bare legs, and if the black snake whip could cut
through the thin rags he called clothes, all well and good. Josh never
remembered her having tackled him in a state of nature. He made no
demur, however. If this, his idol, chose to beat him naked, he could do
it. He hoped he would draw the blood just so he, Josh, could show these
people from the valley how a mountain boy could take what was coming to
him without a whimper.
He dropped the ragged shirt and trousers that constituted his entire
clothing and stood before the avenging hero, a thin, wiry little figure
about the color of a new potato that has but recently left its bed.
"Now, sir!" he flung out defiantly.
"Stand in the middle of the room," and Lewis began to roll up his shirt
sleeves. Josh closed his eyes for a moment. Where was the stick or whip?
Did the young gentleman mean to spank him like a baby? That would be too
much. Even Aunt Mandy had given up spanking years and years ago.
"Ugh!"
Josh jumped as something struck him suddenly and remembered, as a
drowning man might, an incident in his childhood when Aunt Mandy was
still in the spanking era. She had gone for him with a hair brush and
had inadvertently turned the brush up-side-down and he had got the full
benefit of the bristles on his bare hide.
Lewis had turned on the shower full force and the little new potato was
emerging from its coating of Mother Earth. Gasping and spluttering, Josh
stood his ground. He wanted to run into a far corner to escape this
terrible fusillade, but an inward grit that was greater than the outward
show made him stay in the spot where his commander had first placed him.
Lewis gradually lessened the force of the shower and once more the
culprit could breathe. He gave a long, gasping sigh and then grinned
into the face of his monitor.
"Gee, that was the wust beatin' we uns ever got! Somehow all the
nigger-hate ain't washed out'n we unses' hide yit. Mebbe you uns had
best turn it on agin."
"All right, but take this soap first and lather yourself all over."
That was more than Josh had bargained for, but the soap was nice and
fresh smelling and the lather came without labor. This form of ablution
was very different from what Josh had been accustomed to. His idea of a
bath had always been first the toting of much water from the spring, a
truly difficult task, for, with the short sightedness of country people,
of course their cabin was built far above the spring instead of below
it. This letting gravity help do the work is a comparatively new thing
and one that country people have not generally adopted. Then, to Josh,
the bath meant chopping of more wood to make the fire to heat the water.
Then a steaming wash tub and the doughty Aunt Mandy equipped with a can
of foul-smelling, home-made soft soap and a scrubbing brush.
This delightful tingling of his unaccustomed skin with the nice white
soap was a sensation that seemed to Josh the most wonderful he had
ever experienced. All of these delights with no labor attached to the
enjoyment of them! Just turn a handle and there you are, clean and cool,
laundried while you wait.
"Kin we uns do this every week?"
"Every day, if you've a mind to. It certainly improves your appearance.
Don't you feel good?"
"Yessirree! Jes' like a mockin' bird sounds on a mornin' in May when his
wife wants him to come on and help her build the nes' aginst the time
when she has got to lay the eggs, and he wants to sing all day and jes'
use las' year's nes'. Don't know as we uns ever did feel quite so like
a--a--gentleman."
"Good for you, Josh! Now put on your clothes. Here's a towel. We've got
a lot of work to do to-day, and you and Josephus must help."
"All right, sir! Wish Josephus could a had the beatin' we uns done got.
'Twould sho have made him feel like he had a extra feedin' er oats. We
uns is 'bliged to you uns, sir. You uns done made a gentleman out'n we
uns an' mebbe a few more showers will turn we uns into a nigger lover,"
and Josh's blue eyes twinkled merrily from the setting of a clean, pink
face.
Bobby was the only person not pleased by the improvement in Josh.
"Grown-ups is all time wantin' to clean up folks. Josh was a million
times prettier dirty, an' now he can't make choclid milk no mo'. I think
Cousin Lewis is done ruint him."
After that morning, whenever Josh was wanted and not to be found he
could usually be discovered taking a shower bath. He evidently felt he
must make up for lost time, all those years when he had gone crusty, as
he expressed it.