ALMOST—ALMOST DARED HE TO SPEAKALMOST—ALMOST DARED HE TO SPEAK
"I'll make bullets the way they did in the Colonies!" she cried.
"Have you 'Old Times in the Colonies,' too?" asked Bobby eagerly.
They seated themselves and talked of their books. Celia was just beginning the Alcott series. Bobby had never heard of them, and so they had to be explained. The children had romped and played games together; but they had never exchanged such ideas as their years had developed. For once Bobby forgot the fact of his love, and its delicious pains, and its need for something which he could not place, in the unselfconscious joy of intimate communion. He drew close to Celia in spirit; and his whole being expanded to a glow that warmed him through and through. The westering sun surprised them with the lateness of the hour. At the hotel gate Celia left him.
"My, but we had a good time!" said she.
With much trepidation Bobby next day suggested in face of the whole group that he and Celia should climb the high hill from which Bobby fondly believed he could see "'most to Redding." To his surprise, and to the surprise of the others, Celia consented at once. They climbed the hill in short stages, resting formallyevery ten feet. Bobby they called the Guide; while Celia was assigned the duty of announcing the resting-places. There was a wood-road up the hill, but they preferred the steep side. Trees shaded it; and undergrowth veiled it. Little open spaces were guarded mysteriously and jealously by the thickets; little hot pockets held like cups the warmth of the sun. Birds flashed and disappeared; squirrels chattered indignantly; chipmunks scurried away. Occasionally they came to dense shade, and moss, and black shadow, and low sweet shrubs a few inches high, and the tinkle of a tiny streamlet. Once a tangle of raspberries in a little clearing fell across their way. Bobby had never happened on these. They had been well picked over by the squaws, who sold fruit in town by the pailful, but the children managed to find a few berries, and ate them, enjoying their warm, satiny feel.
Thus they climbed for a long time. The rests were frequent, the course not of the straightest. For many years their recollection of that hill was as of a mountain. Finally the top sprang at them abruptly, as though in joke.
"Come over this way, I'll show you," said Bobby.
He led the way to a point where the scant timber had in times past suffered a windfall. Through the opening thus made they looked abroad over the countryside. They could see the snake-fences about the farms, and the white dusty road like a ribbon and the stumps like black dots, and the waving green tops of the "wood lots" and far away the flash of the River.
Thus Bobby gained another of his great desires. Celia proved strangely acquiescent to suggestions for these excursions. Gerald's dreaded attractions relaxed their power over Bobby's spirit; and in corresponding degree Bobby regained the lost captaincy of his soul. The self-confidence which he lacked seeped gradually into him; and he began, though very tentatively, to recognize and respect his own value as an individual. These are big words to employ over the small problems of a child; yet in the child alone occur those silent developments, those noiseless changes which touch closest to true abstraction. Later in life our processes are stiffened by the material into forms of greater simplicity.
They explored the country about; and what the shortness of their legs denied them in the matter of actual distance, the largeness of their children's imaginations lavished bounteously.
Bobby had explored most of it all before—the stump pastures, the wood-lots, the hills, the beach, the piers, the upper shifting downs of sand—but now he saw them for the first time because he was showing them to Celia. One day they made their way under tall beech woods, through a scrub of cedars, and found themselves on the edge of low bluffs overlooking the yellow shore and the blue lake. Long years after he could remember it vividly, and all the little details that belonged to it—the flash of the waters, the dip of gulls, the gentle wash of the quiet wavelets against the shore, the thin strip of dark wet sand that marked the extent of their influences, and, in a long curve to the blue of distance, the uneven waste of the yellow dry sand on which lay and from which projected at all angles countless logs, slabs and timbers cast up derelict by the storms of years. But at the time he was not conscious of noticing these things. In the darkness of his room that night all he remembered was Celia standing bright and fair against the shadow of ancient twisted cedars.
Every Saturday evening the Hotel Ottawa gave a hop in its dining room. Mrs. Carleton suggested that the Ordes dine with her, and afterward take in this function. The hop proper began at nine o'clock; but the floor for an hour before was given over to the children. Mrs. Orde accepted.
Promptly at half-past six, then, they all entered the dining room. Bobby, living in the town, had never taken a meal there. He saw a high-ceilinged, large room, filled with small, square and round tables arranged between numerous, slender, white plaster pillars. At the base of each pillar were still smaller serving tables each supporting a metal ice-water pitcher. Two swinging doors at the far end led out. Tall windows looked into the grounds where the children had been in the habit of playing.
People were scattered here and there eating. Statuesque ladies dressed in black, with whiteaprons, stood about or sailed here and there, bearing aloft in marvellous equilibrium great flat trays piled high with steaming white dishes. They swung corners in grand free sweeps, the trays tilted far sideways to balance centrifugal force; they charged the swinging doors at full speed, and when Bobby held his breath in anticipation of the crash, something deft and mysterious happened at the hem of their black skirts and the doors flew open as though commanded by a magic shibboleth. They were tall and short, slender and stout, dark and light, but they had these things in common—they all dressed in black and white, their hair was lofty and of exaggerated waterfall, and their expressions never altered from one of lazy-eyed, lofty, scornful ennui. To Bobby they were easily the leading feature of the meal.
After dinner the party sat on the verandah a while, the elders conversing; the children feeling rather dressed up. By and by their other playmates joined them. The lights were lit, and shadows descended with evening coolness. From within came the sound of a violin tuning.
Immediately all ran to the dining room. The tables had been moved to one end wherethey were piled on top of one another; the chairs were arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin played by a large man represented the orchestra.
All the children shouted, and began to slide on the slippery floor. Bobby joined this game eagerly, and had great fun. But in a moment the music struck up, the guests of the hotel commenced to drift in and the romping had to cease.
Gerald offered his arm to Celia, and they swung away in the hopping waltz of the period. Other children paired off. Bobby was left alone.
He did not know what to do, so he sat down in one of the chairs ranged along the wall. After a minute or so Mrs. Carleton and the Ordes came in. Bobby went over to them.
"Don't you dance, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Carleton kindly.
"No, ma'am," replied Bobby in a very small voice.
When the music stopped, the children gathered in a group at the lower end of the hall. Bobbyjoined them; but somehow even then he felt out of it. Celia's cheeks were flushed bright with the exercise and pleasure. Her spirits were high. She laughed and chatted with Gerald vivaciously. Poor Bobby she included in the brightness of her mood, but evidently only because he happened to be in the circle of it. She was sorry he did not dance; but she loved it, and just now she could think of nothing else but the enjoyment of it. Bobby could not understand that there was nothing personal in this. He saw, with a pang, that Gerald danced supremely well; that Morris romped through the steps with a cheerful hearty abandon not without its attraction; that Tad Fuller, who had come in with his mother and his brother, and half a dozen others whom Bobby knew, all made creditable performers; that even Angus, red-faced, awkward, perspiring as he was, could yet command the hand, time and attention of any little girl he might choose to favour. He himself was useless; and therefore ignored.
At the end of the children's hour he said good night miserably, and trailed along home at his parents' heels. Ordinarily he liked to be out after dark. The stars and the velvetshadows and the magic transformations which the night wrought in the most ordinary and accustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too conscious of a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily about something. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and that seemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember very hard that he wasnota little girl in order to keep back the tears.
Finally the talk died.
"Mamma," blurted out Bobby.
"Yes?"
"Can't I learn how to dance?"
The pair wheeled arm in arm and surveyed him. In the starlight his round child face showed white and anxious.
"Why, of course you can, darling," replied Mrs. Orde, "Don't you remember mamma wanted you to go to dancing school last winter, and you wouldn't go?"
"How soon does dancing school open?" demanded Bobby.
"I don't know. Not much before Christmas, I suppose."
Having thus made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even thoughhe would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question at her.
"Celia," said he, "if I learn how to dance this winter will you dance with me when you come back next summer?"
"Why of course," said Celia.
"Will you dance with me a lot?"
"Yes."
"Will you dance with me more than you do with any one else?"
Celia pondered.
"I don't know," she said slowly. She paused, her eyes vague. "I guess so," she added at last.
"Then I'll learn," said Bobby.
"It's lots of fun," said she.
Bobby trod on air. Without his conscious intention their course took direction to the river front. They walked to the left along the wide, artificial bank of piling. Beneath them thewater swished among the timbers. On one side were the sand-hills, on the other the blue, preoccupied river. Across the stream was another facade of piles, unbroken save for the little boatslips where the Life Saving men had their station. A strong sweet breeze came from the Lake. Far down ahead they could just make out the twin piers that, jutting into the Lake, continued artificially the course of the river. The lighthouses on their ends were dwarfed by distance.
By and by Celia tired a little, so they sat and dangled their feet and watched the tiny scalloped blue wavelets dance in the current. A passer-by stopped a moment to warn them.
"Look out, youngsters, you don't fall in," said he.
Bobby still exalted with the favour he had been vouchsafed, looked up with dignity.
"Iam taking care of this little girl," he said deliberately, and turned his back.
The man chuckled and passed on.
For a long time they sat side by side looking straight out before them.
"Celia," said Bobby without turning his head, "I love you. Do you love me?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
Neither stirred by so much as a hair's breadth. After a little they arose and returned to the hotel. Neither spoke again.
Strangely enough the subject was not again referred to, although of course the children continued to play together and the excursions were not intermitted. There seemed to be nothing to say. They loved each other, and they were glad of each other's nearness. It sufficed.
Each morning Bobby awoke with a great uplift of the spirit, and a great longing, which was completely appeased when he had come into Celia's presence. Each evening he retired filled with an impatience for the coming day, and with divine rapture of little memories of what had that day passed. It seemed to him that hour by hour he and Celia drew closer in a sweet secret, intimacy that nevertheless demanded no outer symbol. When he spoke to her of the simplest things, or she to him, he experienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath the commonplace remark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the ear of the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme inner gentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, how brusquemight be the spoken word. And in correspondence all the beautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour and glory in which they walked, but whose source they did not understand.
This much for the essence of it. But of course, Bobby, being masculine must give presents after his own notion, and being a small boy must give them according to his age. The quarter he had earned from his father he invested in a pack of cards on the upper left-hand corner of which were embossed marvellous doves, wonderful flowers and miraculous tangles of scroll-work in colour. These he printed with Celia's name and address. Near the wharf and railroad station stood a small booth from which a discouraged-looking individual tried to sell curios. Bobby's eye fell on a cheap bracelet of silver wire from which dangled half a dozen moonstones. It caught his eye; day by day his desire for it grew; finally he asked advice on the subject.
"No, Bobby," replied his mother, "I don't think Celia would care for it. It is cheap-looking. She has several very pretty bangles already; and this is not a good one."
Nevertheless, Bobby, being as we have saidthoroughly masculine, deliberated some days further, and bought it. The price was two dollars—an almost fabulous sum. Most men give their wives or sweethearts what they think they would like themselves were they women, and were a man to offer a gift. That is one reason why in so many bureau drawers are tucked away unused presents. Young as she was, Celia had the taste not to care for the moonstone bangle, but, like all the rest, she accepted it with genuine delight because Bobby gave it. She even wore it. These were the principal transactions of the kind; but anything Bobby particularly fancied he brought her. Shortly she became possessed of a bewildering collection consisting variously of large glass marbles with a twist of coloured glass inside; two or three lichi nuts, then a curiosity; a dried gull's wing; several exploded shotgun shells; and a "real," though broken-pointed chisel. Celia gave Bobby her tiny narrow gold ring with two little turquoises. He could just get it on his little finger, and wore it proudly, in spite of jeers. Being teased about Celia was embarrassing to the point of pain; but in the last analysis it was not unpleasant.
So matters slipped by. Abruptly the endof August came. One day Bobby found Celia much perturbed.
"I can't go out long," she said, "I've got to help mamma."
"What doing?" asked Bobby.
But Celia shook her head dolefully.
"Come, let's go walk somewhere and I'll tell you," said she.
They crossed Main Street to the shaded street on which lived Georgie Cathcart.
"What is it?" demanded Bobby again.
"We are going home to-morrow," Celia announced mournfully. "Mamma has a letter."
Bobby stopped short.
"Going home!" he echoed.
"Yes," said Celia.
"Then we won't see each other till next summer!" he cried.
"No," said she.
"And we can't walk any more or—or——" Bobby felt the lump rising in his throat.
"No," said Celia.
Bobby swallowed hard.
"Are—are you sorry?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Celia quietly. "Are you?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do!" cried Bobby desperately.
After a little, the main fact of the catastrophe being accepted, they talked of the winter to come.
"You'll write me some letters, won't you?" pleaded Bobby.
"If you write to me."
"Of course I will write to you. And you'll send me your picture, won't you? You said you would."
"I don't believe I have any," demurred Celia; "and mamma has them all; and they're very comspensive."
"I'll give you one of mine," offered Bobby, "if I have to get it from the album. Please, Celia."
"I'll see," said she.
They were moving again slowly beneath the trees.
Bobby looked up the street; he looked back. He turned swiftly to her.
"Celia," he asked, "may I kiss you?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
She stopped short, looking straight ahead. Bobby leaned over and his lips just touched her cool smooth cheek. They walked on in silence. The next day Celia was gone.
There remained as consolation after this heartbreaking defection but two interesting things in life—the printing press and the Flobert Rifle. Somehow the week dragged through until Sunday, when Bobby duly scrubbed and dressed, had to go to church with his father and mother. Bobby, to tell the truth, did not care very much for church. Always his glance was straying to a single upper-section of one of the windows, which, being tipped inward at the bottom, permitted him a glimpse of green leaves flushed with sunlight. A very joyous bird emphasized the difference between the bright world and this dim, decorous interior with its faint church aroma compounded of morocco leather, flowers, and the odour of Sunday garments. Only when the four ushers tiptoed about with the collection boxes on the end of handles, like exaggerated corn-poppers, did the lethargy into which he had fallen breakfor a moment. The irregular passage of the receptacle from one to another was at least a motion not ordered in the deliberate rhythm of decorum; and the clink of the money was pleasantly removed from the soporific. Bobby gazed with awe at the coins as they passed beneath his little nose. He supposed there must be enough of them to buy the Flobert Rifle.
The thought gave him a pleasant little shock. It had never occurred to him that probably the Flobert Rifle had a price. It had seemed so passionately to be desired as to belong to the category of the inaccessible—like Mr. Orde's revolver on the top shelf of the closet, or unlimited ice cream, or the curios locked behind the glass in Auntie Kate's cabinet. Now the revelation almost stopped his heart.
"Perhaps it doesn't cost more'n a thousand dollars!" he said to himself. And he had already made up his mind to save a thousand dollars for the purpose of getting a boat. The boat idea lost attraction. His papa had agreed to give half. Bobby lost himself in an exciting daydream involving actual possession of the Flobert Rifle. He resolved that, on the way home, if the curtains were not down, he would take another look at the weapon.
The curtains were not down; but now, attached to the Flobert Rifle, was a stencilled card. Bobby set himself to reading it.
"First Prize," he deciphered, "An-nual Trap Shoot, Monrovia Sportsman's Club, Sep. 10, 1879."
For some moments the significance of this did not reach him. Then all at once a sob caught in his throat. It had never occurred to poor little Bobby that there might be other Flobert rifles in the world; and here this one was withdrawn from circulation, as it were, to be won as prize at the trap shooting.
Bobby did not recover from this shock until the following morning. Then a bright idea struck him, an idea filled with comfort. The Rifle was not necessarily lost, after all. He trudged down to the store, entered boldly, and asked to examine the weapon.
"My papa's going to win it and give it to me," he announced.
A very brown-faced man with twinkling gray eyes turned from buying black powder and felt wads to look at him amusedly.
"Hullo, Bobby," said he, "so your father's going to win the rifle and give it to you, is he? Are you sure?"
"Of course," replied Bobby simply; "my papa can do anything he wants to."
The man laughed.
"What do you know about rifles, and what would you do with one?" he asked.
"I know all about them," replied Bobby with great positiveness, "and I know where there's lots of squirrels."
The storekeeper had by now taken the Flobert from the show window. The other man reached out his hand for it.
"Well, tell me about this one," he challenged.
"It's a Flobert," said Bobby without hesitation, "and it weighs five and a half pounds; and its ri-fling has one turn in twenty-eight inches; and it has a knife-blade front sight, and a bar rear sight; and it shoots 22 longs, 22 shorts, C B caps, and B B caps. Only B B caps aren't very good for it," he added.
"Whew!" cried the man. "Here, take it!"
Bobby looked it over with delight and reverence. This was the first time he had enjoyed it at close hand. The blue of the octagon barrel was like satin; the polish of the stock like a mirror; the gold plating of the most fancy lock and guards like the sheen of silk. Bobby loved, too, the indescribablegunsmellof it—compounded probably of the odours of steel, wood and oil. With some difficulty he lifted it to his face and looked through the rather wobbly sights. Reluctantly he gave it back into the storekeeper's hands.
"Would you mind, please," he asked, a little awed, "would you mind letting me see a box of cartridges?"
Stafford smiled and reached to the shelf behind, from which he took a small, square, delightful, red box. It had reading on it, and a portrait of the little cartridges it contained. Bobby feasted his eyes in silence.
"I—I know it's a prize," said he at last. "But—how muchwasit?"
"Fifteen dollars," replied Mr. Bishop.
Bobby's eyes widened to their utmost capacity.
"Why—why—why!" he gasped; "I thought it must be a thousand."
Both men exploded in laughter, in the confusion of which, stunned, surprised, delighted and excited with the thought of eventual ownership, Bobby marched out the door, where he was joined gravely by Duke, his beautiful feather tail waving slowly to and fro as he walked.
Later in the day Kincaid, the spare, brown man with the twinkling gray eyes, met Mr. Orde on the street.
"Hullo, Orde!" he greeted. "Hear you have a sure win of the tournament."
"Sure win!" said Orde, puzzled, "What you talking about? You know I couldn't shoot against you fellows."
"Well, your small boy told me you were going to win that rifle down at Bishop's, and give it to him."
Orde's face clouded.
"He's been talking nothing but rifle for a month," said he. "I'm going West in September. Wouldn't have any show against you fellows, anyway."
When Bobby heard this paralyzing piece of news, his entire scheme of things seemed shattered. For a long time he sat staring with death in his heart. Then he arose silently and disappeared.
In the Proper Place, among Bobby's other possessions, was a small toy gun. Its stock was of pine, its lock of polished cast iron, and its barrel of tin. The pulling of the trigger released a spring in the barrel, which in turn projected a pebble or other missile a short andharmless distance. Then a ramrod re-set the spring. When, the previous Christmas, Bobby had acquired this weapon, he had been very proud of it. Latterly, however, it had fallen into disfavour as offering too painful a contrast to the real thing as exemplified by the Flobert Rifle.
Bobby rummaged the darkness of the Proper Place until he found this toy gun. From the sack in his father's closet—forbidden—he deliberately abstracted a handful of bird-shot. Retiring to the woodshed, he set the spring in the gun, poured in what he considered to be about the proper quantity of shot, and solemnly discharged it at the high fence. The leaden pellets sprayed out and spattered harmlessly against the boards. Thrice Bobby repeated this. Then, quite without heat or rancour, he threw the toy gun and what remained of the shot over the fence into the vacant lot behind it. His common sense had foretold just this result to his experiment, so he was not in the least disappointed; but he had considered it his duty to try the only expedient his ingenuity could invent. For if—by a miracle—the little gun had discharged the shot with force; Bobby might—by a miracle—be permitted to participate with it in the Shoot; and might—by a miracle—win the Flobert himself. Bobby was no fool. He marked the necessity of three miracles; and he did not in the least expect them. Merely he wished to fulfill his entire duty to the situation.
Saturday morning—the very day of the Shoot—Mr. Orde left for California.
After lunch Bobby trudged to Main Street, turned to the right, away from town, and set himself in patient motion toward the shooting grounds.
These were situated some two miles out along the county road. Bobby had driven to them many times, but had never attempted to cover the distance afoot. The sun was hot, and the way dusty. Many buggies and one large carry-all passed him, each full of the participants in the contest. No one thought of giving Bobby a lift, in fact no one noticed him at all. He could not help thinking how different it would be if only his father had not gone West.
"Hello!" called a hearty voice behind him.
He turned to see a yellow two-wheeled cart drawn by a gaunt white horse. On the seat close to the horse's tail sat Mr. Kincaid.
"Going to the Shoot?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Bobby.
"Well, jump in."
Mr. Kincaid moved one side, and lifted half the seat so Bobby could climb in from the rear. Then he let the seat down again and clucked to the horse.
Mr. Kincaid wore an ancient gray slouch hat pulled low over his eyes; and a very old suit of gray clothes, wrinkled and baggy. Somehow, in contrast, his skin showed browner than ever. He looked down at Bobby, the fine good-humour lines about his eyes deepening.
"Well youngster," said he, "where's your father?"
Bobby's eyes fell; he kicked his feet back and forth. Beneath them lay Mr. Kincaid's worn leather gun-case, and an oblong japanned box which Bobby knew contained shells. For an instant he struggled with himself.
"He—he had to go to California," he choked; and looked away quickly to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes.
Mr. Kincaid whistled and raised his hand so abruptly that the old white horse, mistaking the movement for a signal, stopped dead, and instantly went to sleep.
"Get ap, Bucephalus!" cried Mr. Kincaid indignantly.
Bucephalus deliberately awoke, and after a moment's pause moved on. To Bobby's relief Mr. Kincaid said nothing further, but humped over the reins, and looked ahead steadily across the horse's back. He stole a glance at the older man; and suddenly without reason a great wave of affection swept over him. He liked his companion's clear brown skin, and the close clipped gray of his hair, and his big gray moustache beneath which the corners of his mouth quirked faintly up, and the network of fine crow's feet at his temples, and the clear steady steel-colour of his eyes beneath the bushy brows. On the spot Bobby enshrined a hero.
But now they turned off the main road through a gap in the snake-fence, and followed many wheel tracks to the farther confines of the field where, under a huge tree they could see a group of men. These hailed Mr. Kincaid with joy.
"Hello, Kin, old man," they roared. "Got here, did you? What day did you start? The old thing must be about dead. Lean him up against a tree, and come tell us about the voyage."
"The cannon-ball express is strictly on schedule time, boys," replied Mr. Kincaid, looking solemnly at his watch.
He drove to the fence, where he tied Bucephalus. The other rigs were hitched here and there at distances that varied as the gun-shyness of the horses. Bobby proudly bore the gun-case. Mr. Kincaid lifted out the heavy box of shells.
Bobby took in the details of the scene with a delight that even his just cause for depression could not quench.
The men, some twenty in number, sprawled on the ground or sat on boxes. Before them stood a wooden rack with sockets, in which already were stacked a number of shotguns. Two pails of water flanked this rack, in each of which had been thrust a slotted hickory "wiper" threaded with a square of cloth. A fairly large empty wooden box, for the reception of exploded shells, marked the spot on which the shooters would stand. The rotary trap lay in plain sight eighteen yards away. That completed the list of arrangements, which were, in the light of modern methods, as every trap shooter of to-day will recognize, exceedingly crude.
The men, however, supplied the interestwhich the equipment might lack. At that time every trap-shot was also a field shot. The class which confines itself to targets had not even been thought of. And good picked-shots have in common everywhere certain qualities, probably developed by the life in the open, and the unique influences of woodland and upland hunting. They are generous, and large in spirit, and absolutely democratic—the millionaire and the mechanic meet on equal ground—and deliberate in humour, and dry of wit. The quiet chaffing, tolerant, good-humoured, genuine intercourse of hunters cannot be matched in any other class.
The components of this group had each served his apprenticeship in the blinds or the cover. They knew each other in the freemasonry of the Field; and when they met together, as now, they spoke from the gentle magic of the open heart.
One exception must be made to this statement, however. Joseph Newmark, in advance of his time, shot methodically and well at the trap, never went afield, and maintained toward his neighbours an habitual dry attitude of politeness.
Bobby seated himself on the ground and prepared to listen with the completest enjoyment.These men were to him great or little according as they shot well or ill. That was to him the sole criterion. It did not matter to him that Mr. Heinzman controlled the largest interests in the western part of the state—he "couldn't hit a balloon"; nor that young Wellman was looked upon as worthless and a loafer—he was well up among the first five.
Nearly everybody smoked something. The tobacco smelled good in the open air.
"Well," remarked Kincaid, "if that Stafford party doesn't show up before long, I'm going home. I can't stand you fellows without some excitement for a counter-irritant."
"That's right, Kin," called somebody, "Better start that old Buzzard toward town pretty soon, if you want to get in for breakfast—there's a good moon!"
But at this moment a delivery wagon turned into the field, and drove briskly to the spot. From it Mr. Stafford descended spryly.
"Sorry to be a little late, boys; just couldn't help it," he apologized.
His arrival galvanized the crowd into activity. From the delivery wagon they unloaded boxes of shells, two camp stools and a number of barrels. The driver then hitched his horsesto the fence, and returned to act as trap-puller.
One of the barrels was rolled out to the trap, opened, and its contents carefully spilled on the ground. It contained a quantity of sawdust and brown glass balls. These were about the size of a base-ball, had an opening at the top, and were filled with feathers. John, the driver of the delivery wagon, climbed down into a pit below the trap. He set the spring of the trap and placed a glass ball in its receptacle at the end of one of the two projecting arms. A long cord ran from the trap back to the shooting stand.
Mr. Stafford opened a camp stool, sat down, and produced a long blank book. In this he inscribed the men's names. Each gave him two dollars and a half as an entrance fee. A referee and scorer were appointed from among the half-dozen non-shooting spectators.
"Newmark to shoot; Heinzman on deck!" called the scorer in a business-like voice.
The trapper ducked into his hole. Mr. Newmark thrust five loaded shells into his side pocket, picked his gun from the rack and stepped forward to the mark. Then he loaded one barrel of the gun and stood at ready. Inthose days nobody thought of standing gun to shoulder, as is the present custom. The rule was, "stock below elbow."
"Ready," said he in his dry incisive voice.
"Ready," repeated the trap puller at his elbow.
"Pull!" commanded Mr. Newmark abruptly.
Immediately the trap began to revolve rapidly; after a moment or so it sprung, and the glass ball, projected violently upward, sailed away through the air. The mechanism of the trap was such that no one could tell precisely how long it would revolve before springing; nor in what direction it would throw the target. Nevertheless the mark offered would now, in comparison with our saucer-shaped target, be considered easy. Mr. Newmark brought his gun to his shoulder and discharged it apparently with one motion, before the ball had more than begun its flight. A roar of the noisy black powder shook the air. The glass sphere seemed actually to puff out in fine smoke. Only the feathers it had contained floated down wind.
"Dead!" announced the referee in a brisk business-like voice.
Mr. Newmark broke his gun and flipped the empty yellow shell into the box next him.A cloud of white powder smoke drifted down over the group. Bobby snuffed it eagerly. He thought it the most delicious smell in the world; and so continued to think it for many years until the nitros displaced the old-fashioned compounds. Four times Mr. Newmark repeated his initial performance; then stepped aside.
"Heinzman to shoot; Wellman on deck!" announced the scorer.
Mr. Heinzman was already at the mark; and young Wellman arose and began to break open a box of shells. Mr. Newmark thrust his gun barrels into one of the pails and with the hickory wiper pumped the water up and down.
"He's a good snap-shot," Bobby heard a man tell a stranger, in a half-voice.
"Has a brilliant style," commented the other.
They fell into a low-toned conversation on the partridge season, and the ducks, to which Bobby listened with all his ears, the while his eyes missed nothing of what took place before him. Nobody now spoke aloud. The chaffing had ceased. Shooter's etiquette prohibited anything that even by remote possibility might "rattle" the contestants. Only the voices of the men at mark and the referee were heard, and the heavybangof the black powder. Bobbyliked to listen to the referee. Reporting, as he did, hundreds of results in the course of the afternoon, his intonation became mechanical.
"Dead!" he snapped in the crispest, shortest syllable, when the glass ball was broken by the charge.
"Law-s-s-t!" he drawled when the little sphere sailed away unharmed.
Each shooter on finishing his first string of five, swabbed out his gun, leaned it against the rack, and went to squat in the group where he commented to his friends on his own or others' luck, but always quietly. An air of the strictest business held the entire assembly.
This broke slightly when Mr. Kincaid's name was called. A stir went through the crowd; and some one called out,
"Go it, Old Reliable. Have you had any hoops put around her lately?"
Mr. Kincaid grinned good-naturedly, but made no reply. He had discarded his coat; and now wore a brown cardigan jacket. He took his place with the greatest deliberation, consuming twice as much time as any one else.
"Ready," said he.
"Ready," replied the trapper mechanically.
"Pool!" cried Mr. Kincaid.
The discharge delayed so long that Bobby looked to see if a misfire had occurred; but when the ball reached the exact top of its swing, Mr. Kincaid broke it.
"One of the most reliable duck shots we have," said Bobby's neighbour to the stranger. "He shoots just like that, always. Never in a hurry; but he seems to get there. Kills a lot of game in the season."
The shoot progressed with almost the precision of a machine. Bobby amused himself by closing his eyes to hear the regularready, pull, bang!that marked the progress of the score. From his level with the tops of the brown grasses of late summer he enjoyed the wandering puffs of hot air, the drift of pungent aromatic powder smoke, the rapid successive bending of the stalks as though fairies were running over them when the breezelets passed. It was all very pleasant and, for the time being, he forgot his disappointment.
The match was to be at one-hundred balls—sixty singles, and twenty pairs of doubles. Early in the game the different shooters began roughly to group themselves on the score-cards according to their ability. One class, among whom were Newmark and Kincaid, continued tobreak their targets with unvarying accuracy. Young Wellman by rights belonged with these; but he had undershot a strong incomer; and the miss had cost him two others before he could recover his temper. The second class had missed from one to five each. The third class, typified by Mr. Heinzman, had a long string of "goose-eggs" to their discredit.
The fiftieth bird, however, Mr. Kincaid missed. It flipped sideways from the arm of the trap, and flew for twenty feet close to the ground. The referee had actually started to call "no bird"; but Mr. Kincaid elected to try for it; missed; and had to abide by his decision. At the close of the singles, Newmark had a score of sixty straight; Kincaid fifty-nine; and the others strung out variously in the rear.
At this point, a short recess was taken. The crowd of men lit fresh cigars; talked out loud; circulated about; and relaxed generally from the long strain. Some scattered out into the grass to help the trapper to look for unbroken balls. Ordinarily Bobby loved to do this; but to-day he sidled up to where his friend was stooping over the japanned box. Bobby watched him a moment in silence, methodically layingaway the used brass shells, one up and one down in regular succession.
"It's too bad you got beat," he ventured timidly at last.
Mr. Kincaid ceased his occupation, removed his pipe from his mouth, and looked up at Bobby searchingly.
"Youngster," he said kindly, "I'm not beat."
"You're behind," insisted Bobby, "and Newmark never misses."
Mr. Kincaid arose slowly, and without a word took Bobby by the arm and led him around the tree. He stopped and raised Bobby's chin in his gnarled brown hand until the little boy's eyes looked straight into his own. Bobby noticed that the twinkle had—not disappeared—but drawn far back into their gray depths, which had become unaccountably sober.
"Bobby," said Mr. Kincaid gravely, "always remember this, all your life, no matter what happens to you; a man is never defeated until the very last shot is fired."
He paused.
"And remember this, too: that even if he is defeated, he is not beaten, provided he has done the very best he could, and has never lost heart."
He looked a moment longer into Bobby's eyes; and the little boy saw the gray twinkle flickering back to the surface, and the crow's-feet deepening good-naturedly.
"That's all, sonny," he said, and withdrew his hand from Bobby's chin.
"So you want to see me win the rifle, do you?" asked Mr. Kincaid, as they turned away.
"Yes, sir," replied Bobby.
"Why?"
"Because you're a friend of mine," replied Bobby with simple dignity.
"And that's the very best reason in the world!" cried Mr. Kincaid heartily.
The shooting at the doubles began. Two balls were placed in the trap at once—it will be remembered that it was provided with double arms—and thrown in the air together. At this game many good scores fell into disintegration, for it required great quickness of manipulation to catch both before one should reach the ground. Mr. Newmark's snap method here stood him in good stead. When Mr. Kincaid stepped to the trap, the stranger turned to his friend.
"Here's where the old fellow falls down, I'm afraid," said he a trifle regretfully. "He'stoo deliberate for this business. I'm sorry. I'd like to see him give Newmark a race for it."
"Deliberate!" snorted the local man.
Mr. Kincaid's preparations were as careful and as wasteful of time as ever. But when he enunciated his famous "pool!" the stranger was treated to a surprise. The first ball was literally snuffed into nothingness before it had risen five feet above the trap! Then quite slowly Mr. Kincaid followed the second to the top of its flight and broke it as though it had been a single.
"Lord!" gasped the visitor. "He surely can't do that with any certainty!"
"Can't he!" said the other grimly, "Watch him."
Interest soon centred on Newmark and Kincaid, as those who had made straight scores on the singles now dropped one or more. Both the contestants named broke their nine pair straight. Bobby sent strong little waves of hope for a miss after each of Mr. Newmark's targets, but without avail. Only one pair apiece remained to be shot at; and in order that Mr. Kincaid should win the match, it would be necessary that Newmark should miss both. This was inconceivable. Bobby threw himselfface downward in the grass, sick at heart. He made up his mind he would not look. Nevertheless when Mr. Newmark's name was called, he sat up.
"Pull!" came Mr. Newmark's dry, incisive voice.
The balls sprang into the air. A sharpclickfollowed. Evidently a misfire. The referee, imperturbable, stepped forward to examine the shell. He found the primer well indented; so, in accordance with the rules, he announced:
"No bird!"
Mr. Newmark reloaded.
"Pull!" he called again.
On the first bird he scored his first miss of the day.
"Misfire threw him off," exclaimed the spectators afterward.
And then, curiously enough, a queer current of air, springing from nowhere, utterly abnormal, seized the dense powder smoke and whirled it backward, completely enveloping the shooter. The obscuration was momentary, but complete. By the time it had passed the second ball had fallen almost to the ground. Newmark snapped hastily at it.
"Lost! Lost!" announced the scorer.
A deep sigh of emotion swept over the crowd. Bobby gripped his hands so tightly that the knuckles turned white. He resented the intervention of a half-dozen other contestants before Mr. Kincaid should be called; and rolled about in an agony of impatience until his friend stepped to the mark.
The men unconsciously straightened and removed the cigars from their lips. Two hits would win; one miss would tie. Bobby stood up, his breath coming and going rapidly, his sight a little blurred. But Mr. Kincaid went through his motions of preparation, and broke the two balls, with no more haste or excitement than if they had been the first two of the match.
A cheer broke out. Others were still to shoot, but this decided the winner.
"Congratulations!" said Newmark dryly as his rival stepped from the mark.
"That's all right," replied Kincaid, "but it was sheer rank hard luck for you."
On the way home just about sunset many teams passed the old white horse with his old yellow cart, and his driver hunched comfortably over the reins. Everybody shouted final chaffing, kindly congratulations as they sped by.
Bobby, hunched alongside in loyal imitationof his companion's attitude, glowed through and through.
"My! I'm glad you won!" he repeated again and again.
Kincaid looked straight ahead of him, his gray eyes pensive, the short pipe shifted to the corner of his mouth. Finally he glanced down amusedly at his ecstatic companion.
"You see, Bobby?" he said, "—until the last shot is fired."
Thus Bobby had passed through the extremes of hope, of anticipation, of disappointment and of despair. The Flobert Rifle on which he had set his heart, which he had firmly made up his mind to buy as soon as he could save up enough on an allowance of one cent a day, had been withdrawn from sale and offered as prize for the fall trap shooting. This had been a severe blow, but from it Bobby had finally rallied. His father would participate in the shoot; his father was omnipotent and invincible. After winning the Flobert Rifle, he would undoubtedly give it to Bobby. Then, just before the shoot Mr. Orde had been called west on business. Bobby had been vouchsafed only the melancholy satisfaction of seeing Mr. Kincaid, whom he liked, win out over Mr. Newmark, whom he disliked. The rifle was in good hands; that was all any one could say about it.
But one afternoon, returning home about twoo'clock, he was surprised to find Bucephalus and the yellow cart hitched out in front, and Mr. Kincaid sitting on the porch steps.
"No one home but the girl; so I thought I'd wait," he explained, shaking hands with Bobby very gravely. "I brought around the new rifle," he added further. "What do you say to driving up over the hill somewhere and trying her?"
They drove slowly up the road of planks that gave footing over the sand-hills. The new shiny Flobert Rifle with its gold-plated locks and trigger guards rested between Mr. Kincaid's knees. He would not permit Bobby to touch it, however.
When the old white horse had struggled over the grade and into the stump-dotted country, Mr. Kincaid hitched him to the fence, and, followed closely by the excited Bobby, climbed into a field. From his pocket, quite deliberately, he produced a small paper target and a dozen tacks wrapped in a bit of paper.
"We'll just nail her up against this big stub," he said to Bobby, tacking away with the handle of his heavy pocket-knife; "and then you can get a rest over that little fellow there."
He stepped back.
"Now let's see you open her," he said, handing over the rifle.
Bobby had long since acquired a theoretical familiarity with the mechanism. He cocked the arm and pulled back the breech block, thus opening the breech with its broken effect due to the springing of the ejector.
"That's all right," approved Mr. Kincaid, pausing in the filling of his pipe, "but you have the muzzle pointing straight at Duke."
"It isn't loaded," objected Bobby.
"A man who knows how to handle a gun," said Mr. Kincaid emphasizing his words impressively with the stem of his pipe, "never in any circumstances lets the muzzle of his gun, loaded or unloaded, for even a single instant, point toward any living creature he does not wish to kill. Remember that, Bobby. When you've learned that, you've learned a good half of gun-handling."
"Yes, sir," said Bobby.
"Keep the muzzle up," finished Mr. Kincaid, "and then you're all right."
He led the way to the smaller stump; and nonchalantly, as though it were not one of the most wonderful affairs in the world to own such a thing, produced a little square red box containing the cartridges. This he opened. Bobby gazed with the keenest pleasure on the orderly rows of alternate copper and lead dots.
"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, "kneel down behind the stump." He rested the rifle across it. "You know how to sight, don't you? I thought likely. When you pull the trigger, try to pull it steadily, without jerking. Get in here, Duke!"
Bobby knelt, and assumed a position to shoot. To his surprise he found that his heart was beating very fast, and that his breath came and went as rapidly as though he had just climbed a hill. He tried desperately to hold the front sight in the notch of the hind sight, and both on the black bull's eye. It was surprisingly difficult, considering the simplicity of the theory. Finally he pulled the trigger for the first time in his life.
"Snap!" said the rifle.
"Now let's see where you hit!" suggested Mr. Kincaid.
Bobby started up eagerly; remembered; and with great care laid the Flobert, muzzle up, against the stump.
"That's right," approved Mr. Kincaid.
The bullet had penetrated the exact centre of the bull's eye!
"My!" cried Bobby delighted. "That was a pretty good shot, wasn't it, Mr. Kincaid? That was doing pretty well for the first time, wasn't it?"
But Mr. Kincaid was lighting his pipe, and seemed quite unimpressed.
"Bullet went straight (puff, puff)," said he. "That's all you can say (puff, puff). Nooneshot's a good shot (puff, puff). Take's two to prove it (puff, puff)."
He straightened his head and threw the match away.
"It's too good, Bobby, to be anything but an accident," said he kindly. "Now come and try again."
Bobby was permitted to fire nine more shots, of which three hit the paper, and none came near the bull's eye. He could not understand this; for with the dead rest across the stump, he thought he was holding the sights against the black. Mr. Kincaid watched him amusedly. The small figure crouched over the stump was so ridiculously in earnest. At the tenth shot he put the cover on the box of ammunition.
"Aren't we going to shoot any more?" cried Bobby, disappointed.
"Enough's enough," said Mr. Kincaid."Ten shots is practice. More's just fooling—at first, anyway. You can't expect to become a good shot in an afternoon. If you could, why, where's the glory of being a good shot?"
"I don't see what made me miss," speculated Bobby.
"I think I could tell you," replied Mr. Kincaid, "but I'm not going to. You think it over; and next time see if you can tell me. That's the way to learn."
"Next time!" cried Bobby, his interest reviving.
"You aren't tired of it, are you?" enquired Mr. Kincaid with mock anxiety. "Because I've got ninety cartridges left here that I wouldn't know what to do with."
"Oh!" cried Bobby.
"Well, then," proposed Mr. Kincaid, "I'll tell you what we'll do. You and I will organize the—well, the Maple County Sportsman's Association, say; and we'll hold weekly shoots. These will be the grounds. You and I will be the charter members; but we'll let in others, if we happen to want to."
"Papa," breathed Bobby.
"Moved and seconded that Mr. John Orde, alias Papa, be elected. Motion carried," saidMr. Kincaid. "I'll be President," he continued. "I've always wanted to be president of something; and you can be secretary. You must get a little blank book, and rule it off for the scores. Then maybe by and by we'll have a prize, or something. What do you think?"
Bobby said what he thought.
"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, opening the wooden box that ran along the floor of the two-wheeled cart where the dashboard, had there been one, would have been placed, "this is the next thing: when you're through shooting, clean the gun. If you leave it over night, the powder dirt will make a fine rust that you may never be able to get out; and rust will eat into the rifling and make the gun inaccurate. No matter how late it is, or how tired you are,always clean your gunbefore you go to bed. It's the second most important thing I can teach you. You'll see lots of men who can kill game, perhaps, but remember this; the fellow who lets his gun point toward no living thing but his game, and who keeps it bright and clean, is further along toward being a true sportsman—even if he is a very poor shot—than the careless man who can hit them."
He gave Bobby the steel wire cleaning-rod,the rags, and the oil can, and showed him how to get all the powder residue from the rifling grooves in the barrel.
"There," said Mr. Kincaid, folding back the half-seat, "climb in. That settles it for to-day."
Bucephalus came to with reluctance. Going down hill he settled into a slow steady jog, which soon covered the distance to the Orde house. Bobby climbed out and turned to utter thanks.
"That's all right," said Mr. Kincaid. "Next time I'm going to shoot, myself; and you'll have to rustle to beat me. Don't forget the score book."
"When will it be?" asked Bobby.
"Oh, Thursday again," replied Mr. Kincaid. He disengaged the Flobert from between his knees. "Here," said he; "you take this and put it away carefully. I'll keep the ammunition," he added with a grim smile. "Remember not to snap it. Snapping's bad for it when it is empty. Good-bye."
He drove off down the street beneath the over-arching maples, the old white horse jogging sleepily, the old yellow cart lurching. Over his shoulder floated puffs of smoke from his pipe.
Bobby carried the new rifle into the house,ascended to his own room, and sat down to enjoy it to its smallest detail. The heavy blued octagon barrel bore an inscription which he deciphered—the maker's name, and the patents under which the arm was manufactured. He examined the sights, and how they were fastened to the barrel; the fall of the hammer; the firing-pin; the mechanism of the ejector, the butt plate, the polished stock and the manner in which it was attached to the barrel. Over the fancy scroll of the gold-plated trigger-guard he passed his fingers lovingly. The trigger-guard extended back along the grip of the stock in a long thin metal strip—also gold-plated. It, too, bore an inscription. Bobby read it once without taking in its meaning; a second time with growing excitement. Then he rushed madly through the house shrieking for his mother.
"Mamma, Mamma!" he cried. "Where are you? Come here!"
Mrs. Orde came—on the run—likewise the cook, and the butcher. They found Bobby dancing wildly around and around, hugging close to his heart the Flobert rifle.
"Bobby, Bobby!" cried Mrs. Orde. "What is it? What's the matter? Are you hurt?"
She caught sight of the gun, leaped to theconclusion that Bobby had shot himself and sank limply into a chair.
"See! Look here!" cried Bobby. He thrust the rifle, bottom up into her lap. "Read it!"
On the plate behind the trigger-guard, carved in flowing script, were these words.
To Robert Orde from Arthur Kincaid. September 10, 1879.