DAVID’S CAP
Mrs. Pepper turned away for a moment, not trusting herself to speak.
“I don’t mind it--much,” Davie pulled at her shawl, and looked
anxiously at her face as she turned back.
“Well, now,” she said comfortingly, as she led him out of the crowd.
“Mother will see how she can fix it up for you, Davie boy.”
“The monkey’s spitting out the pieces of your cap,” cried some boys
after him, and they laughed and doubled up in glee.
“Shame on you for laughing,” cried the woman who wanted to tell the
boy’s father. But it was no use to stop the crowd--they cheered and
guffawed as they pressed up closer to the cage, where the monkey on his
high perch was biting out pieces of David’s little cap, and throwing
them off toward the bars, grinning dreadfully between each bite.
Joel rushed up to see the fun. He had stayed as long as he could at the
cage of big snakes, Ben finally hauling him away, and now, with Polly
and Jimmy, they hurried up to join Mrs. Pepper and Phronsie.
“What is it?” cried Joel, thrusting in his hot little face wherever he
saw a crack of space to get it in. “Oh, what is it he’s got?”
“A boy’s cap bein’ et up,” said a man, stopping his laugh long enough
to shoot this out.
“Oh, I want to see!” By a way Joel best knew would secure a good place,
he was pretty soon worked in, till there he was in the front row with
the other boys still screaming with the fun of the thing.
There the monkey sat on a high perch, biting very slowly now in
order to make the cap last as long as possible. His little eyes were
twinkling, and his paws were kept busy to hold the cap, and fight off
the other monkeys, who now swarmed and chattered around him, in order
to seize the beautiful thing that was making the people so noisy with
delight.
“What is it he’s got?” cried Joel, wrinkling up his face trying to see
the wad in the monkey’s paw.
“A boy’s cap--he twitched it off his head. Oh, Jiminy--see!”
The monkey, fearing that the other monkeys might be too many for him to
hold his prize, took a last big bite from it, spit out the pieces, and
threw them derisively right at the bars, and into Joel’s face pressed
against them. One piece fell out at his feet; it said “--vid Pepper”
just where Mamsie had marked it on the rim of the cap.
Joel’s brown hand closed convulsively over it, and he looked wildly
around. Then he put down his head, and bolted right through the middle
of the crowd.
“Mercy sakes!” the woman screamed,--the boys who had laughed skipped
nimbly out of the way,--and nobody thought the case quite so funny as
it had been.
“Mamsie, where are you?” screamed Joel. He almost threw Polly over,
for he was beyond seeing anything or anybody in his mad rush, and Ben
wasn’t quick enough to catch him. It was Jimmy who did it.
“Let me go,” cried Joel frantically, and he kicked Jimmy’s shins. But
Jimmy’s hand was just as tight for all that, on Joel’s arm.
“He’s chewed it all up,” cried Joel wildly, as Polly and Ben ran up.
“Let me _go_!”
“No, you don’t,” and Ben got hold of the other arm, “what’s that in
your hand, Joe?”
“Dave’s cap,” Joel flung open his hand. There it was, with “--vid
Pepper” on what remained of the rim.
“Oh, Mamsie!” and the horrified little group looked up into Mother
Pepper’s face. And there was Phronsie, who hadn’t understood anything
only that she must leave the dear sweet little monkeys--and Davie, his
light hair in soft waves over his forehead, crowded up to Mrs. Pepper’s
side. His hands were tightly clasped and he closed his eyes to squeeze
back the tears.
“No, no, Polly,” said Mrs. Pepper, for Polly was just beginning, “Why,
Mamsie, what--” “we won’t have the story now, and see--there is Simmons
coming for us. It’s time to go home.”
When they were once in Miss Parrott’s big coach, the story all
came out. Simmons on his coachman’s box, alternately drew himself
up straighter than ever, and then shrank down in a way he couldn’t
remember doing when on duty as befitted holding his aristocratic
position in the community.
“I won’t tell her--the Missus acts bad enough as ’tis over them poor
childern. What if he did lose his cap!” Away he drove in great form
down a hundred yards or so. Then he pricked up his ears.
“Oh, Davie,” Polly was saying mournfully within the coach, “it’s too
bad! Mamsie, what shall we do!”
Simmons didn’t hear Mrs. Pepper’s reply. Down his shoulders went and he
drooped, letting the reins slacken. And then he straightened up again,
quite determined to let matters alone. But as he drove up to the little
brown house, and watched them all get out, he couldn’t help but see
Davie’s face.
He looked back over his shoulder to watch them go up the path, not
taking his gaze off till they were all in, and the green door shut.
“I s’pose I’d felt pretty bad when I warn’t no bigger’n him, to lose my
cap, if I didn’t know where to get another. Thunder!”
And before he even put up his horses, Miss Parrott had the whole story.
“I presume they keep boys’ caps down at the store, Simmons?” said Miss
Parrott quickly.
“That they do, Ma’am,” said Simmons.
“And perhaps you could tell Mr. Atkins the right size?”
“There wouldn’t be no trouble about that, Ma’am.”
There was a little transaction with money that came out of Miss
Parrott’s black silk bag, and Simmons hurried out to take care of his
horses, before he attended to the matter that now began to appear quite
important to him.
Jimmy, his hand thrust into the pockets his mother hadn’t been able
to make quite whole, turned down to the little cabin on Fletcher Road
called “Mrs. Skinner’s house.” The loss of David’s cap bothered him
dreadfully on top of the other matter connected with the circus boy.
Jimmy wasn’t able to get him out of his mind. While the cake was
rapidly disappearing, he had heard the story of being “starved and
beaten,” the boy looking for more, in a way that struck Jimmy harder
than the loss of his own treasured part of the feast.
“I can’t help him none,” he declared, with a reckless twitch of his
shoulders, “no more’n I could get a new cap for Mis Pepper’s boy.”
He stopped suddenly, “Can’t I help get a cap for David Pepper?”
He took off his own cap and scratched his head. That did no good, and
he flung the cap back. He hadn’t a penny in his pocket. He knew that
without the trouble of turning the pocket inside out. But--couldn’t he
get some work? Where?
It was a pretty small prospect before him, as all Badgertown people had
a poor opinion of his desire or ability to work.
“What’s th’ use?” he said, kicking off some small stones in the rough
road. Then he picked up one and shied it at a bird. He was astonished
to find that he was relieved after all that he hadn’t hit it, and he
kicked and scuffed more stones. That gave him an idea.
Away back, almost a year before, a farmer in the north end of the
township had asked him to “pick rocks” in a barren field to be cleared
for cultivation. Jimmy had said “Not much!”--and turned off with a
laugh. Suppose the farmer wanted him now! It wasn’t a pretty job,
Jimmy knew, breaking one’s back, and hauling and piling the stones.
But--well, he could ask; it wouldn’t do any harm to do that.
Jimmy turned in at the door. Mrs. Skinner lifted a hot red face from
the steaming wash-tub. All hours of the day were her work-times.
“Well,” she beamed in great and unusual contentment, resting her hands
on the tub rim, “and was the circus fine?”
“Prime,” said Jimmy, “I’m coming back,” slamming the door.
“I want to hear--” began his mother in terrible disappointment. But he
was already half-way down Fletcher Road.
“No,” said the farmer, just getting up from his supper, “you’re too
late. Them rocks was all picked, an’ I’m plowin’ th’ field.”
“Tell him about Badger’s land,” said his wife, gathering up the remains
of the supper.
“Oh, yes, see here,” called the farmer, “Badger wants th’ rocks picked
from his land. I guess you can get a job there.”
When Jimmy dragged himself back from “Badger’s,” the lamps and candles
had been lighted for some time in the cottages along the road. He
looked for Mrs. Pepper’s as he passed the little brown house. There
she was over by the table sewing. Jimmy had a pang as he thought how
many stitches she would have to set before Davie’s loss could be made
good. He didn’t know that a brand-new cap had been handed in, and that
after the jollification over it had spent itself, Davie had taken it up
into the loft to hang by the side of the shake-down, the first thing
his eyes would rest upon the next morning.
That next morning, the old kitchen was just the jolliest place, full of
the circus and its delightful memories. Davie, with his new cap on his
head, was prancing around, the center of observation.
“It’s a perfectly beautiful cap!” declared Polly, for nobody knows how
many times, and stopping on her way for the broom to sweep up.
“I wish the monkey had eaten mine up,” said Joel discontentedly.
“You may wear mine.” David stopped prancing, and twitched off his cap.
“No, no, Davie,” said Polly, “Miss Parrott sent you that cap, and she
wouldn’t like you not to wear it.”
“And if a monkey should eat mine,” said Joel, just as well pleased, “I
guess Miss Parrott will give me one. I don’t want yours, Dave.” With
that David clapped on his cap again, and Joel seizing him about the
waist, they spun round and round the kitchen, getting in the way of
Polly’s broom, and hindering dreadfully. All of a sudden, down fell
David, and Joel on top of him.
“I didn’t make him,” cried Joel, in dismay and hopping up, as Polly
threw down the broom and ran over.
“He didn’t make me,” gasped Davie, getting up. The new cap had fallen
off long before, and Polly had picked it up to hang it carefully on a
nail. “It was my shoe.”
“Your shoe?” repeated Mrs. Pepper over by the window. “What is the
matter with your shoe? Come here, David.” She laid down the sewing in
her lap, as David scuffed across the floor.
“Well, that does need mending,” she said, as David put his small foot
in her lap.
“I’m so sorry,” he began.
“Well, now, Mother is so glad that you didn’t get hurt with your shoe
so bad as that,” she said cheerily. “Now you must get right down to
Mr. Beebe’s and ask him to sew it up.”
“And mine needs mending, too,” cried Joel, hopping over on one foot to
her chair. “I want to go to Mr. Beebe’s.”
“No, Joel,” said Mrs. Pepper, with a laugh, “your shoes are perfectly
sound. There now, Davie, go right down to the shoe-shop and ask Mr.
Beebe if he will please to sew it up now--because you haven’t any
other shoes--and walk carefully, child, else you’ll make it worse, and
besides, you might fall.”
“Now isn’t it nice that Davie has a new cap?” cried Polly, going to
the window, broom in hand, to watch him as he passed down the road.
Joel had run out to go as far as the gate with him, then he had turned
back to the woodshed, for Mrs. Pepper had said he must pick up some
kindlings.
“I do think folks are awfully good to us, Mamsie,” said Polly, turning
away from the window, to pause a minute before beginning to sweep
again. “Just supposing Miss Parrott hadn’t let us see that circus!” and
her cheeks paled at the very thought.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pepper, and her busy needle stopped. “Miss Parrott is
good, and God is good, to let her do it.”
“Isn’t He?” cried Polly, with shining eyes. “And now to think that
Davie has a new cap, too!” as the busy needle now went hurrying in and
out. “But I never shall get this floor swept up, if I stop all the
time.”
Davie hurried as fast as he could, because the shoe must be mended
as soon as possible. But he had to step carefully else a bad matter
would be made worse. At last he was over the cobble-stones of the
narrow street in front of the shoe-shop, and lifting the knocker on Mr.
Beebe’s door.
“Well, well,” cried the little shoemaker, turning away from a box of
bed-slippers he was sorting to rub his hands together delightedly, “if
here doesn’t come Davie Pepper!”
“Yes,” said David, “I’ve come.”
He took off his new cap--he didn’t want to, but Mamsie had said “Never
keep a cap on when you go to see people,” and to enter the little
shoe-shop was far more than to do business; it was to visit friends. So
he held the new cap in his hands.
“And now what can I do for you, Davie?” asked little Mr. Beebe, coming
forward. “What has your mother sent you for?”
“It’s to mend my shoe,” said Davie, holding up his foot to show where
the leather flapped.
“So?” cried the little shoemaker, setting his spectacles straight.
“Well, now, you come over an’ set on th’ bench, an’ we’ll see what we
shall see about that shoe.”
So Davie hobbled over and sat on the bench, and the little shoe was
drawn off and submitted to a close examination, Davie following every
movement with anxious eyes.
“The whole o’ th’ shoe is pretty bad,” said little Mr. Beebe slowly,
pinching the well-worn leather critically.
Davie drew a long breath. “And Mamsie said would you please sew it up
now, as I haven’t any more shoes.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the little shoemaker. Then he thought better of what
he was going to say. “Yes, I’ll get right to work on it,” and pretty
soon he was stitching away and cobbling at a great rate, Davie swinging
his stocking-foot, and the other one in its rusty shoe, while the work
went on.
“Where do you suppose I went yesterday, Mr. Beebe?” asked Davie in
the midst of it. For the little shoemaker always expected the Pepper
children to entertain him when they came to the shop. “It makes work go
easier,” he said.
“Now I never can guess,” said Mr. Beebe, waxing his long thread again.
“I went to the circus,” said Davie.
“You didn’t, though!” The little shoemaker was genuinely surprised now,
and he dropped his needle to peer over his spectacles at Davie.
“Yes, I did,” said Davie, with a jubilant little crow, “and every
single one of us did, Mr. Beebe,” and he clapped his hands in delight
at the remembrance.
“Now do tell!” The little shoemaker was so overwhelmed with the news
that he forgot to pick up his needle. “Well, how did you get there?”
“In the big coach,” said Davie, bobbing his head. He didn’t think it
was necessary to designate whose vehicle, as Badgertown boasted only
one.
[Illustration: PRETTY SOON HE WAS STITCHING AWAY AND COBBLING AT A
GREAT RATE, DAVIE SWINGING HIS STOCKING-FOOT.--_Page 433._]
“Not Miss Parrott’s!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe.
“Yes,” said Davie, bobbing his head again.
“Well, I never! She didn’t go, did she?” exclaimed the little shoemaker.
“No,” this time Davie shook his head.
“I thought not. I sh’d as soon ’xpect one of th’ tombstones in th’
buryin’-ground to get sociable as her. Well, well--” here Mr. Beebe
picked up his needle and began to pull it briskly in and out of the
leather. “Now you must tell me all about it. Begin at th’ beginnin’,
Davie, an’ reel off.”
So Davie began, and the little shop got very merry, Davie stopping
every now and then to laugh at the antics of the bears, and the little
ponies and the elephants and the funny men who wore white clothes with
red spots over them, and who had holes for eyes, and who kept walking
up and down saying things to make people laugh, or who were tumbling
off all the while from the donkeys’ backs. And the little shoemaker
wanted dreadfully to stop cobbling to hear the better, but he knew Mrs.
Pepper expected her boy home, so he kept on with his work, every now
and then grunting out, “Well I never!” and “Who ever did!” and the like.
So of course no one heard the door open, and the big woman who walked
in, exclaimed, “Goodness, Mr. Beebe, what’s th’ matter!”
“There ain’t nothin’, as I know of,” said the little shoemaker, looking
up composedly, “an’ please to shet th’ door, Mis Goodsell.”
Mrs. Goodsell pushed the door to with her foot. “I thought you was
havin’ a party by the noise,” she said, coming over to sit heavily down
on the bench by David’s side. Then she whipped the shawl-ends over
across her lap and stared first at the little shoemaker and then at
Davie.
“We was,” said Mr. Beebe, “us two: we made quite a nice party; just big
enough.”
“Who is the boy?” Mrs. Goodsell turned her heavy body as far as she
could and stared worse than ever at Davie.
“That is David Pepper sitting on the bench,” said Mr. Beebe. “Now what
kind o’ shoes do you want, Mis Goodsell? You can be tellin’ me, an’
then I’ll be ready to get ’em when I’m through with this piece o’
work.”
“I d’no’s I want any shoes,” said the big woman, “I thought I’d drop in
an’ see what you’d got.”
“Well,” said the little shoemaker, “my business is to show folks who
want shoes, not to show ’em shoes ef they don’t want any.”
“But I may want ’em ef you’ve got some I like,” said Mrs. Goodsell
tartly.
As Mr. Beebe said nothing to this, but kept on with his cobbling, Mrs.
Goodsell concentrated her attention on the small boy by her side.
“Who’s your folks?” she demanded. She had faded greenish eyes, and
Davie could think of nothing but gooseberries. He tried not to look
at them, and at last turned such a helpless glance on the little
shoemaker, that Mr. Beebe came to the rescue. He had opened his mouth
to ask, “And how is your folks, Mis Goodsell?” when an organ grinder
suddenly struck up a tune just outside the shop door.
Davie sprang from the bench and hopped close to the little old man
still cobbling away.
“Oh, I must go,” he cried. “Do give me my shoe, Mr. Beebe,” holding out
a frantic hand.
“There, there, Davie,” said the little shoemaker, “you wait a minute,
an’ I’ll have your shoe done.”
“Isn’t it done enough?” said Davie, all in a tremble, “please, dear Mr.
Beebe, let me go!”
“What’s th’ matter with th’ boy?” cried Mrs. Goodsell, “I never see
anybody act so.”
“Don’t you fret yourself, Mis Goodsell,” said Mr. Beebe, “I’ll take
care o’ Davie. You set an’ be comf’table.”
“Well, I can’t be comf’table--who could be, seein’ him carryin’ on so?”
said the big woman.
Mr. Beebe, not hearing her, for he was now divided over his attempts to
soothe Davie, and to see the little shoe repaired as it should be, bent
his gray head to hear Davie, who was by this time in a frenzy to get
home, and as he kept saying, “be with Phronsie.”
“So you shall, Davie, in a minute or two, an’ don’t you worry, th’
organ man can’t get by your house in a long while with that thing on
his back. And mebbe he ain’t goin’ that way at all.”
“Oh, he will--he will!” cried Davie, in his terror guilty of
contradicting, and he beat his hands together and hopped from one foot
to the other in his distress.
Suddenly the organ man stopped the tune, and twitched a chain that
rattled on the cobble-stones. Up ran a monkey, and as the man slung the
organ on his back, the monkey followed to perch himself there, pull off
his cap and bow to a baker’s boy and a small girl with a paper bag of
groceries, both hanging on his every movement with wide open mouth and
eyes.
Davie saw all this, as he plunged over to the small-paned window, when
the tune stopped, and peered out between the rows of shoes and slippers
that were strung across it.
“He’s going!” he gave a sharp little cry. Hearing this, and seeing his
face, little Mr. Beebe stopped his work nearly as suddenly as the tune.
“There now, I’ll put on your shoe. ’Tain’t done as good as I want to,
you tell your Ma, an’ ef you come over to-morrow, I’ll finish th’ job
up good an’ splendid.” He was saying all this as he tied the shoe on
Davie’s small foot. “An’ don’t you worry a mite.”
Davie, only waiting till the string was tied, shot out and over the big
flat door-stone to the cobble-stones of the narrow street.