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 toward
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:
"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
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 toward 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 a 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 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 of 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 amongst 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 had become
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?"
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. 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."
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 no 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
erbout 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."