The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Calico CatThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Calico CatAuthor: Charles Miner ThompsonIllustrator: Frederic Rodrigo GrugerRelease date: December 3, 2006 [eBook #20010]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, David Edwards and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisbook was produced from scanned images of public domainmaterial from the Google Print project.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALICO CAT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Calico CatAuthor: Charles Miner ThompsonIllustrator: Frederic Rodrigo GrugerRelease date: December 3, 2006 [eBook #20010]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, David Edwards and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisbook was produced from scanned images of public domainmaterial from the Google Print project.)
Title: The Calico Cat
Author: Charles Miner ThompsonIllustrator: Frederic Rodrigo Gruger
Author: Charles Miner Thompson
Illustrator: Frederic Rodrigo Gruger
Release date: December 3, 2006 [eBook #20010]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, David Edwards and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisbook was produced from scanned images of public domainmaterial from the Google Print project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALICO CAT ***
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NOTEI have to make these acknowledgments: to Mr. Ira Rich Kent for many a helpful suggestion in the framing of the story; to the publishers of "The Youth's Companion," in which the tale first appeared, for permitting the use of Mr. Gruger's admirable illustrations, and to Mr. Francis W. Hight for the very pleasant cat which he has drawn for the cover.The Author
I have to make these acknowledgments: to Mr. Ira Rich Kent for many a helpful suggestion in the framing of the story; to the publishers of "The Youth's Companion," in which the tale first appeared, for permitting the use of Mr. Gruger's admirable illustrations, and to Mr. Francis W. Hight for the very pleasant cat which he has drawn for the cover.
The Author
Cat dozing upon the top of the fence.
Mr. peasleelooked more complacent than ever. It was Saturday noon, and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn "up-street." He had taken off his coat, and waswashing his face at the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk—"picked up," as the phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie. Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did believe in saving every possible cent.
"Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess I've got news for ye."
His wife gazed at him with interest.
"Are ye drawed?" she asked.
"Got the notice from Whitcombright in my pocket. Grand juror. September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off."
Thestaccatoutterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new dignity.
"What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept no office which did not bring profit.
"Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis of one who knows he will make a sensation.
"Mileage? What's that?"
"Travelin' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight cents for goin' to the courthouse."
"Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping. She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea.
"Likely now, ain't it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn. "State don't waste money that way!Mileage's to get ye there an' take ye home again when term's over. You're s'posed to stay round 'tween whiles."
"Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a day"—she hazarded the shot—"just for settin' round and talkin', don't they? Walkin's considerable more of an effort for most folks."
"'Settin' round an' talkin'!'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic, shrewish little wife. "'Settin' round and talkin'!'It's mighty important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn't be much law and order if it wa'n't for the grand jury. They don't take none but men o' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to get that kind."
"Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an unimportant point, "anyhow, it's good pay for a man whose time ain't worth anythin'."
"Ain't worth anythin'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now, Sarepty, ye know better'n that. I don't know how they'll get along without me up to the bank.They've got a pretty good idee o' my jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pass any without my say so."
Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin' round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin' the paper—that's allIever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye."
"Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em thinkin', I guess. They're mighty shreüd up to the bank, mighty shreüd."
They had finished their codfish and potato, and Mrs. Peaslee, without giving much attention to her husband's testimony to the business acumen of his banking friends and incidentally of himself, pulled the pale, thin pie toward her and cut it.
"Pass up your plate," said she.
When his plate was again in place before him, Mr. Peaslee inserted the edge of his knife under the upper crust and raised it so that he could get a better view of its contents; he had his suspicions of that pie. What he saw confirmed them; between the crusts was a thin, soft layer of some brown stuff, interspersed with spots of red.
"Them's the currants we had forsupper the night before last, and that's the dried-apple sauce we had for supper last night," he announced accurately. "An' ye know how I like a proper pie."
"I ain't goin' to waste good victuals," said his wife, with decision.
There was silence for a moment; Solomon did not dare make any further protest.
"I suppose," his wife said, picking up again the thread of her thoughts, "ye'll have to wear your go-to-meetin' suit all the time to the grand jury. I expect they'll be all wore out at the end. That'll take off something. You be careful, now.Settin' round's awful wearin' on pants. You get a chair with a cushion. And don't ye go treatin' cigars. And don't ye go to the hotel for your victuals. I ain't goin' to have ye spendin' your money when ye can just as well come home. Where ye goin' now?"
Mr. Peaslee was putting on his coat. "Well," he said, "I kind o' thought I'd step over to Ed'ards's. I thought mebbe he'd be interested."
"Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as he looks, if all stories are true."
But Mr. Peaslee was already outside the door. She raised her voice shrilly. "You be back, now; them chickens has got to be fed!"
Mr. Peaslee sought a more sympathetic audience. Being drawn for the grand jury had greatly flattered his vanity, for it encouraged a secret ambition which he had long held to get into public life. Service on the grand jury might lead to his becoming selectman, perhaps justice of the peace, perhaps town representative from Ellmington—who knew what else? He looked down a pleasant vista of increasing office, at the end of which stood the state capitol. Hecould be senator, perhaps! And he began planning his behavior as juror, the dignified bearing, the well-matured utterances, the shrewd cross-questioning. At the end of his service his neighbors would know him for a man of solid judgment, a "safe" man to be intrusted with weighty affairs.
Mr. Peaslee was fifty-three years old. He had a comfortable figure, a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These, with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for humorous neighbors. They said that they guessed he thought himself "some punkins."
"Some punkins" most people admitted him to be, although how much of his money and how much of his shrewdness was really his wife's was matter of debate among those who knew him best. At any rate, the Peaslees had made money.A few years before, they had sold their fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not; they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and through Mr. Peaslee was an unsuspected director in the bank, and a shrewd user of the chances for profitable investment which her husband's association with the "bank crowd" opened to her.
As for Mr. Peaslee, he did not know that he himself was not the business head of the house; and his garden, his chickens, and his pleasant loafing in the bank window kept him contentedly occupied. For, in spite of her shrewish tongue, Mrs. Peaslee had tact enough to let her husband have the credit for her business acumen. "I ain't goin' to let on," she said to herself, "that he ain't just as good as the rest of 'em." She had her pride.
As Mr. Peaslee stepped along the straight walk which divided his neat lawn, and opened the neat gate inhis neat white fence, he met Sam Barton, the broad-shouldered, good-humored giant who was constable of Ellmington. Sam gave him a smiling "How are ye, squire?" as he passed.
"Guess he's heard," said Mr. Peaslee to himself, much pleased. Yet, as a matter of fact, the greeting was not different from that which Sam had given him daily for the past three years.
Once on the sidewalk, Mr. Peaslee turned to the right toward the house of his neighbor, Mr. Edwards. Edwards was a younger man than Peaslee, perhaps forty-seven. Hisbusiness was speculating in lumber and cattle, and in the interest of this he was constantly passing and re passing the Canadian border, which was not far from Ellmington. In the intervals between his trips he was much at home. He was a stern, silent, secretive man, and simply because he was so close-mouthed there was much guessing and gossip, not wholly kind, about his affairs.
Mr. Peaslee found the front door of the Edwards house standing open in the trustful village fashion, and, with neighborly freedom, walked in without ringing. He turned first into the sitting-room, where he found noone, and then into a rear room opening from it. This obviously was a boy's "den." On the table in the centre were a checkerboard, some loose string, a handful of spruce gum, some scattered marbles, a broken jack-knife, a cap, a shot-pouch, an old bird's nest, a powder-flask, a dog-eared copy of "Cæsar's Commentaries," open, and a Latin dictionary, also open. In a corner stood a fishing-rod in its cotton case; along the wall were ranged bait-boxes, a fishing-basket, a pair of rubber boots, and a huge wasp's nest. Leaning against the sill of the open window was a double-barreled shotgun, and on the sill itself were some black, greasy rags and a small bottle of oil.
Various truths might be inferred from the disarray. One was that Mr. Edwards was generous to his son Jim, and another was that there was no Mrs. Edwards. Further, it might be easily enough guessed that Jim had been lured from the study of Latin, in which pretty Miss Ware, who was his teacher at the "Union" school, was trying to interest him, by the attractive idea of oiling his gun-barrels, and that something still more attractive—perhaps a boy with crossed fingers, for it was nottoo late for swimming—had lured him from that. At any rate, Jim was not there.
Mr. Peaslee, still bent on finding Mr. Edwards, moved toward the open window. But he could see no signs of life anywhere. None of the household was, however, far away. Jim was in the loft of the barn, where he was carefully examining a barrel of early apples with a view to filling his pockets with the best; the housekeeper had merely stepped across the street to borrow some yeast, and Mr. Edwards, who had a headache, was lying down in the chamber immediately above Jim's den.
Mr. Peaslee stood and gazed. He eyed in turn the kitchen ell, the shed, and the barn, and then gazed out over the "posy" garden, where still bloomed a few late flowers, of which he recognized only the "chiny" asters. He looked toward what he himself would have called the "sarce" garden, with its cabbages, turnips, rustling corn-stalks, and drying tomato-vines. Seeing no one there, he sent his gaze to the distant rows of apple trees, bright with ripening fruit. Disappointed, he was about to turn away, but he could not resist taking a complacent, sweeping view of his own adjoining possessions.
There, on the right, ran the long line of his own dwelling, continued by the five-foot board fence separating his garden from Mr. Edwards's. This stood up gauntly white until near the orchard, where it was completely hidden by the high, feathery stalks of the asparagus-bed, by a row of great sunflowers, now heavy and bent with their disk-like seed-pods, and by a clump of lilac bushes. As his eye traveled along the white expanse, he gave a quick start, and his face clouded with vexation.
There in the sun, prone upon the top of the fence, dozed the bane of his life—the Calico Cat.
Her coat was made up of patches of yellow and white, varied with a black stocking on her right hind leg, and a large, round, black spot about her right eye, which gave her a peculiarly predatory and disreputable appearance. Solomon had disliked her at sight. Ever since he had bought the house in Ellmington he had been trying to drive her from the premises, but stay away she would not. Not all the missiles in existence could convince her that his house was not a desirable place of abode. And she was a constant vexation and annoyance.
She jumped from the fence plumpinto the middle of newly planted flower-beds; she filled the haymow with kittens; she asked all her friends to the barn, where she gave elaborate musical parties at hours more fashionably late than were tolerated in Ellmington. Whenever she had indigestion she ate off the tops of the choicest green things that grew in the garden; but when her appetite was good she caught and devoured his young chickens.
Moreover, when at bay she frightened him. Once he had cornered the spitting creature in a stall. Claws out, tail big, fur all on end, she had leaped straight at his head, whichhe ducked, and, landing squarely upon it, had steadied herself there for a moment with sharp, protruding claws; thence she had jumped to a feed-box, thence to a beam, thence to the mow, from the dusky recesses of which she had glared at him with big, green, menacing eyes. Not since that experience, which, in spite of his soft hat, had left certain marks upon his scalp, had he ever attempted to catch her. Instead, he had borrowed a gun, and a dozen times had fired at her; but although he counted himself a fair shot, he had never made even a scant bit of fur fly from her disreputable back.
And now he knew she laughed at him. Yes, laughed at him, for she had more than human intelligence. There was something demoniac in her cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she would bring him bad luck. How he hated her!
There she lay, with eyes shut, unsuspecting, comfortable, and basked in the warm September sunshine. Here at his hand was a double-barreled shotgun. The chance wastoo good. This vagrant, this outlaw, this trespasser, this thief—he catalogued her misdeeds in his mind as he clanged the ramrod down the barrels to see if the piece was loaded.
It was not. But ammunition was at hand. He put in a generous charge from Jim's powder-flask and rammed it home with a paper wad. He grabbed up the shot-pouch and released the proper charge into his hand. He was disappointed; it was bird shot. Scattering as it would scatter, it could dothatcat no harm. Nevertheless, he poured the pellets into the barrel. As he rammedhome the paper wad on top of these, his eye caught the marbles lying on the table. He took one that fitted, and rammed that home also—for luck. He placed a cap, lifted the gun to his shoulder, and fired.
With a leap which sent her six feet into the air the Calico Cat landed four-square in Mr. Peaslee's chicken-yard, almost on the back of the dignified rooster, which fled with a startled squawk. She dodged like lightning across the chicken-yard, between cackling and clattering hens, went up the wire-netting walls, leaped to the roof, paused, considered, began to reflect that she hadbeen shot at before and to wonder at her own fright, stopped, and, sitting down on the ridgepole, looked inquiringly in Mr. Peaslee's direction. She was, of course, entirely unharmed.
But other matters were claiming Mr. Peaslee's attention. Out from behind the screen formed by the asparagus plumes, the currant-bushes, the sunflowers, and the lilacs, all of which grew not so far from the spot on the fence where the Calico Cat had been sitting, fell a man!
Solomon had a mere glimpse. Standing behind taller bushes, thestranger had fallen behind lower ones, and only while his falling figure was describing the narrow segment of a circle had he been visible.
But the glimpse was enough. Mr. Peaslee's jaw dropped, his face turned white. But the next moment he gave a great sigh of relief. He saw the man rise and slip into cover of the bushes, and so disappear through the orchard. He had not, then, killed the fellow!
Relieved of that fear, he thought of himself. What would people say were he charged with firing at a man—he, a respectable citizen, adirector in the bank, a grand juror? They must not know!
He silently laid the gun back against the window-sill, turned with infinite care, and tiptoed quickly back into the sitting-room, into the hall, into the street.
Not a soul was visible. Nevertheless, such was Mr. Peaslee's agitation, so strongly did he feel the need of silence, that, placing a shaking hand upon the fence to steady himself, he tiptoed along the sidewalk all the way to his own house. There the fear of his wife struck him. He was in no condition to meet that sharp-eyed, quick-tongued lady!
He softly entered the front door and penetrated to the dark parlor, where, as no one would ever enter it except for a funeral or a wedding, he felt safe from intrusion. There he sank down upon the slippery horsehair lounge, and, staring helplessly at the severe portrait of Mrs. Peaslee, done by a lugubrious artist in crayon, wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to collect his scattered faculties.
"Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!"
Cat licking paw.
Meanwhile, at the Edwards house, life had grown suddenly interesting.
When the report of the gun reached Jim, he had stopped pawing over the apple barrel, and was sitting on the upper step of the staircase at the extreme end of theloft, slowly munching an apple and thinking.
Jim was a healthy, active boy, with no more sense than naturally belongs to a boy of fifteen, and with a lively imagination, which had been most unfortunately overstimulated. Without a mother, and with a father who paid him scant attention, he read whatever he liked, and as a result, his head was full of romantic road-agents delightfully kind to little crippled daughters at home, fierce pirates who supported aged and respectable mothers, and considerate bandits who restored valuable watches when told that they wereprized on account of tender associations.
His imagination had been still further fed by certain local legends and happenings, highly colored enough to excite the keenest interest. Ellmington is, as has been said, near the Canadian border. The place abounds in tales of smuggling, and the popular gossip, as gossip everywhere has a pleasing way of doing, associates the names of the most respectable and unlikely people with the disreputable ventures of the smugglers.
Of course a story of contraband trade is the more striking if the narrator can hint that the judge of probate or the most stern of village deacons might tell a good deal if he were disposed, and there are always persons ready to give this sort of interest to their "yarns."
In Ellmington lived Jake Farnum, an ex-deputy marshal and an incorrigible liar, about whom gathered the boys, Jim among them, to hear exciting stories of chase and detection, exactly as boys in a seaport town gather about an old sailor to hear tales of pirates and buccaneers. And Jake loved to hint darkly that the best people shared in the illicit traffic.
With it all, Jim's sense of right and wrong was in a fair way to become hopelessly "mixed." Exactly as boys at the seashore are prone to believe that a pirate is, on the whole, an admirable character, so these border boys, and especially Jim, had come to feel—only with more excuse, because of the generally indulgent view of the community—that smuggling is an occupation in which any one may engage with credit, and which is much more interesting than most.
Now it is not likely that Jim's father, a stern, secretive, obviously prosperous man, with an intermittent business which took him back and forth across the border, could in all this gossip escape a touch of suspicion. No one, of course, denied that he really did deal in lumber and cattle; the fact was obvious. But there were hints and whispers, shrewd shakings of the head, and more than one "guessed" that all Edwards's profits "didn't come from cattle, no, nor lumber, neither."
Latterly these whispers had become more definite. Pete Lamoury, a French-Canadian, whom Mr. Edwards had hired as a drover, and abruptly discharged, was spreading stories about his former employerwhich made Blackbeard, the pirate, seem like a babe by comparison. Pete was not a very credible witness; but still, building upon a suspicion that already existed, he succeeded in adding something to its substantiality.
These stories had come to Jim's ears, and Jim was delighted. The consideration that, were the stories true, his father was a criminal did not occur to him at all. Like the foolish, romantic boy he was, he was simply pleased to think of his father as a man of iron determination, cool wit, unshakable courage, whom no deputy sheriff could over-match, and who was leading a life full of excitement and danger—the smuggler king! The only thing that Jim regretted was that his father did not let him share in these exploits. He knew he could be useful! But his father's manner was habitually so forbidding that Jim did not dare hint a knowledge of these probable undertakings, much less any desire to share them.
Poor Mr. Edwards! He loved his boy, but did not in the least know how to show it. Silent, with a sternness of demeanor which he was unable wholly to lay aside even in his friendliest moments, much awayfrom home, and unable to meet the boy on his own level when he was there, deprived of the wife who might have been his interpreter, he had no way of becoming acquainted with his son. Anxious in some way to share in Jim's life, he took the clumsy and mistaken method of letting him have too much pocket-money.
Yet if Jim, thus unguided and overindulged, had gone astray in his conduct, Mr. Edwards was not the man to know his mistake and take the blame. He had in him a rigidity of moral judgment, a dryness of mind which made it certain that ifJim did do what he disapproved, he would visit upon him a punishment at once severe and unsympathetic. The man's air of cold strength excited in the son fear as well as admiration; his reserve kept his naturally affectionate boy at more than arm's length. Poor Mr. Edwards! Poor Jim! Misunderstanding between them was as sure to occur as the rise of to-morrow's sun.
Pat on Jim's speculations about his father's stirring deeds, the gunshot came echoing through the silent barn. Jim ran to the loft door and looked out. He saw smoke curling up from the window of his"den," and knew that it was his own gun that had been fired. Back in the room, a vague masculine figure moved hastily out of the door. Jim looked toward the orchard, and caught sight of another man disappearing in the trees. He was wild with excitement. As he knew that his father was the only person in the house, he was sure that his father had fired the shot.
The tales that he had heard, his belief in his father's life of adventure, made him conclude that here was some smuggler's quarrel. So vividly did the notion take possession of his inflamed imagination that nothinghenceforth could shake it. He simplyknewwhat had happened.
And his father had fled, leaving all the evidences of his shot behind him! Jim's loyal heart bounded; here he could help. He turned, raced across the loft, clattered down the steep, cobwebby stairs, slipped through the shed passage, through the kitchen, and on into his own room.
He knew what to do. Nothing must show that the gun had ever been used! He set feverishly to work. He swabbed out the weapon, and hung it on its rack over the mantel. He tossed the rags into thefireplace and covered them with ashes. He put the shot-pouch and the powder-flask into their proper drawer. Then he pulled a chair to the table and set himself to a pretended study of Cæsar. If any one should come, it would look as if he had been quietly studying all the morning.
All this had cost considerable self-denial; for of course he boiled with curiosity about the man in the orchard. He did not dare to go out there, but now, stealthily glancing out of the window, he saw his father returning from the garden with long strides. Jim understood. Hisfather, going out at the front door, had slipped round to the side of the house, so that it would look as if he had come from the street.
He was not surprised that his father looked stern and angry. That fellow must have done something mighty mean, he thought, to make his father shoot; and he admired at once the magnanimity and the skill which had merely winged the man, as he supposed, by way, presumably, of teaching him a lesson. Then, struck by the boldness and openness of his father's return to the house, Jim suddenly felt that he had been foolish; that the cleaningof the gun had not been needed. What man would dare, after such a lesson, to complain against his father!
Mr. Edwards walked straight into Jim's room. Aroused from his nap by the shot, he had leaped to the window and seen the man fall. He had then turned and run downstairs so quickly that he had not seen the fellow half-rise and crawl into the bushes; and, having reached the spot, he was much relieved, if somewhat staggered, to find no body. He did find tracks, for this was plowed ground; but they told him nothing of the wounded manexcept that he had left in a hurry on a pair of rather large feet.
He looked about for a while, and then started toward the house, determined to have an explanation with Jim. He knew Jim's gun by the sound of its report, and felt no doubt that the boy had fired the shot. What sort of culpable accident had happened?
Suffering still with the splitting headache which he had been trying to sleep off, angry with Jim for his carelessness, concerned lest the man were really injured, Mr. Edwards was in his least compromising mood.
"How did it happen?" he asked,without preface. His tones were harsh, and he fixed Jim with stern eyes.
"How did it happen!" repeated Jim, in pure surprise. Certainly his father knew much better than he how it had happened.
"Speak out!" said Mr. Edwards, impatiently. "How did you come to shoot that man? I want to know about it."
"Me!" cried Jim, in complete bewilderment. "I—I haven't shot any man, father! You know I haven't."
Mr. Edwards, never a man of nice observation, and now bewildered with anger and headache, took his son's genuine astonishment for mere pretense and subterfuge. Were not the facts plain?
"I don't want any nonsense about this," he said incisively. "I heard your gun. I saw the man fall. No one else but you could possibly have fired it. It's useless to lie, and I won't stand it. Tell me at once what happened."
"I didn't shoot him, father. YouknowI didn't!" reiterated Jim, more and more dumfounded. "I don't know how it happened, honest Injun—I don't, father!"
Mr. Edwards's mouth shut tight.He swept the room with his eyes until they rested upon the gun in the rack over the mantelpiece.
He stepped forward, took it down, and examined it. Holding it in his hands, he gazed about the floor. A rag which the ashes in the fireplace had not wholly covered caught his attention.
"You cleaned the gun and put it away," he said grimly. "Then you tried to hide the rag with which you cleaned it," and he touched the bit of cloth sticking from the ashes contemptuously with his foot. "What do you expect me to think from that?"
Jim was silent. The boy was unlike his father in many ways, but they were alike in this: they both were proud. Each would meet an unjust accusation in silence. And Jim was beginning to show another of his father's characteristics. A still anger was beginning to burn in him against this man who accused him of a deed which he himself had done, and he felt rising within him a stubborn will to endure, not to surrender. If his father was going to act like that, why, let him—
"Where is your shot-pouch?" asked Mr. Edwards.
Jim motioned toward the drawer.
"Is your powder-flask there, too?"
"Yes."
Mr. Edwards was silent After all, he was a just man. He was trying, as well as his headache would let him, to see things straight.
"It's plain what happened," he said at last. "You had an accident and got frightened. You cleaned your gun, you hid the rags, you put away your ammunition, you got your books and pretended to study. You're afraid to tell the truth now."
Jim's face flushed hotly, but he kept silent. Such assurance, such cruelty, he had never imagined. Ifthis was what smugglers were like—if this was a sample of their tricks—
"I'll give you one more chance to tell the truth," said Mr. Edwards. "Did you do it?"
"No, I didn't!" said Jim, and his jaw snapped close like his father's.
"Very well," said Mr. Edwards. "I'll leave you until you change your mind. You will stay here. Sarah will bring you bread and milk at supper-time. If you're willing to talk to me then, you may tell her that you'd like to see me."
He turned to go, then paused.
"It's a serious matter; and allthe facts are against you. It would go hard with you in court. It will go harder if you stick to your stubborn and foolish lie. One thing more: if you don't choose to tell the truth, you will have to reckon with the law as well as with me."
Mr. Edwards, upon this, shut the door and departed. His was a stern figure, but the hurt within was very sore. This, then, he reflected bitterly, was the kind of boy he had. He suffered deeply at the discovery, which for him was unquestionable.
Jim felt outraged. He had done his loyal best to save his father from the consequences of his rashact, and now, with incredible ingenuity and cool injustice, his father was using his son's acts of helpfulness to make it appear that he had done the deed. Without a scruple, his father had made him a scapegoat.
Jim told himself that he would gladly have taken the blame had his father, as chief of the band, demanded the sacrifice of this, his devoted follower. Nay, more, he would have endured the ordeal without a murmur had his father, deeming it unsafe to enter into formal explanations, only hinted to him that this was a farce whichthey two must play together. If his father had only winked at him! Surely he might have done that with safety! But not to be admitted to the secret,—not to be allowed to play the heroic part,—to be used as an ignoble tool by a father who neither loved him nor knew his courage,—that was too much! He would not betray his father—no, a thousand times, no! But the day would come—
The afternoon dragged on. Jim sat there in his room, looking out into the pleasant sunshine, conscious that the boys were playing "three old cat" in the field not faraway—as rebellious and magnanimous, as hot and angry, as heroic and morally muddled a boy as one could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you walk the plank?
It is amusing to think of Mr. Peaslee and Jim each shut up in his respective room; but if Mr. Peaslee in his gloomy parlor—faced by the crayon portrait of his masterful wife, a vase of wax flowers under a glass dome, the family Bible on a marble-topped table, and three stiff horsehair-covered chairs—had the advantage of being able to leave at any moment, he was even more perturbed in mind.
"Terrible awk'ard mess," he kept repeating to himself, as he mopped his damp forehead with his handkerchief, "terrible awk'ard." And indeed it would be awkward for a respectable citizen with political aspirations to be accused before a grand jury of which he is a member of assault with a dangerous weapon upon an inoffensive man.
Mr. Peaslee's reflections rose in a strophe of hope and fell in an antistrophe of despair.
"'T ain't likely it hurt him any—just bird shot," said Hope.
"Bird shot's mighty irritatin'—specially to a wrathy fellow," said Despair.
And alternating thus, his thoughts ran on: "Bird shot'll show I didn't have any seriousintent; but mebbe a piece of the marble struck him. He went off mighty lively; don't seem as if he'd been hurtmuch; more scared hurt, likely. But he might have been hurt bad, arm or suthin', mebbe. Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked clay; split all to pieces prob'ly—but ye can't tell. I've heard ye can shoot a tallercandle through an inch plank—and that's consid'able softer than a marble. And that pesky cat's jest as frisky as ever!"
Had any one seen him? There certainly had not been any one in the street, but where had been Mr. Edwards, Jim, the housekeeper? Where had his own wife been? There were windows from which she might have seen him returning, some from which she might even have seen him fire the fatal shot. But pshaw, there now! Probably no one had seen him at all, not even his wife, not even his victim! Probably no one would ever find out.
"Must have been some worthless feller, stealin' apples, mebbe, who won't dare make a fuss. 'T ain't likely I'll ever hear anythin' of it. 'T ain't no use sayin' anythin' till suthin' happens. What folks don't know don't hurt 'em none."
The structure of comfort which he thus built himself was shaky indeed, but it had to serve. He nerved himself to meet his wife. He must not excite her suspicion by too long an absence. She was doubtless full of curiosity, for of course she had heard the shot, and would expect him to know what it meant.
It would not do to seem to enter the house by the front door, sacred to formal occasions, so, sneaking outdoors again, he slipped round to the side of the house, and with much trepidation went into the kitchen.
His wife began the moment she saw him. "Well, of all the crazy carryings on!" she cried. "What's the Ed'ards boy firin' off guns for, right under peaceable folks' windows? I'm goin' to speak to Mr. Ed'ards right off."
"Now don't ye, Sarepty, now don't ye!" said Mr. Peaslee, in alarm.
Relieved as he was to find himself unsuspected, he did not like the idea of having his wife pick a quarrel with Mr. Edwards for what he himself had done! The less said about that shot the better he would be pleased.
"For the land's sake, why not, I should like to know?"
"Well, now, Sarepty, I wouldn't. That Ed'ards boy ain't more of a boy than most boys, I guess. Always seemed a real peaceable little feller. And Ed'ards is kinder touchy, I guess. It might make hard feelin'. 'T wouldn't look well for us to speak, bein' newcomersso. I wouldn't, Sarepty, I wouldn't. Mebbe some time I'll slide in a word, just slide it in kinder easy, if he does it again."
And Mr. Peaslee looked appealingly at his wife through his big spectacles, his eyes looking very large and pathetic through the strong lenses.
"Humph!" said his wife, unmoved. "I ain't afraid of Ed'ards, if you be."
Nor could she be moved from her determination. Mr. Peaslee was vastly disturbed.
But presently he forgot this small annoyance in greater ones. Thatevening after tea, when he went up to the post-office, he heard that Pete Lamoury had been shot by Jim Edwards, and was now in bed with his wounds. Jim's arrest was predicted. Young Farnsworth, who kept the crockery store, told him the news. And presently Jake Hibbard, the worst "shyster" in the village, shuffled in—noticeable anywhere for his suit of rusty black, his empty sleeve pinned to his coat, the green patch over his eye, and his tobacco-stained lips. He confirmed the report.
"Pete's hurt bad," he said, shaking his head, "hurt bad. I've takenhis case. Young Edwards is going to see trouble."
The speech frightened poor Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew them both.
But Mr. Peaslee returned home with dragging feet. Silent and preoccupied all the evening, he went to bed early—but not to sleep. Long he lay awake and tossed, while the Calico Cat wailed on the rear fence—exultant, triumphant, insulting.
And when he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed that he was being prosecuted in court by—was it Jake Hibbard, with the green patch over his eye, or the Calico Cat, with the black patch over hers? He could not tell, study the fantastic, ominous figure of his prosecutor as he would!