THE boys stayed at Rock Creek ten days. At last they were completely out of bait; the little marsh had been scoured clean of frogs, and even the snakes had deserted it; every stone and log had been overturned, for crawfish; they had been driven to bacon-rind, which was too hard, and to dogfish flesh, pressed beef, and bits of bread tied in mosquito netting, all of which were too soft. Their provisions were reduced to a few beans and a can of peaches, and the fish in the fish-box. Their clothing was much the worse for hard service; so were their faces and hands.
They decided, suddenly, to go home.
Thereupon, one morning they ran their faithful trot-lines for the last time; took them up, not without regrets; ate an early dinner, principally of beans and canned peaches; and by noon had their camp broken, which was an easy matter, considering that their blankets and their cooking utensils were about all the outfit that had survived. They cleaned for market the forty fish, mostly cats, imprisoned in their fish-box, and packed them in an old cask, with a chunk of ice, donated by Sam and Joe, on the top under a piece of canvas. At half-past six they were sculling to the government light on the peninsula, with Sam and Joe waving farewell from in front of the shanty, and with Bob, in the stern of the boat, defiantly barking back across the water at the brindled dog, and telling him what he (Bob) would have done had he (Bob) remained only a day longer.
Soon the Harriett hove in sight around the bend below, and swinging in at their bandanna handkerchief signal, stopped for them to hustle aboard.
By eight o’clock they were at Beaufort, and had astonished Commodore Jones by lugging their cask of fish upon his quarter-deck—that is, his fish-market platform—and demanding payment.
As a result of the bargain, they came out gainers fifty cents each, over and above their passage money both ways on the Harriett!
The first half of the long vacation was now gone, and what with swimming and baseball and short jaunts after sunfish and croppies, and other amusements furnished by field and river, the last half also quickly passed.
As a glorious wind-up to the Beaufort youths’ summer of fun, with the closing week of vacation came the county fair. This was an annual event, and was held on grounds maintained for the purpose upon the outskirts of the town; and year to year Beaufort people, old as well as young, looked forward to it with much interest.
Ned went, of course. And this year Bob went, too. It was his burning ambition to go everywhere that Ned did; and in the case of school and church, this created some embarrassment.
Considering that probably it was his first fair, and that there were numerous temptations in the shape of fat pigs with ears delicious to bite, and cows and sheep just prime to be chased, and countless farmers’ dogs ripe to be taught town manners, he behaved very well indeed.
He and Ned covered the entire exhibition. They did not miss a single item, although there were a number of things for which they did not care a bit. They inspected the live-stock pens (where the pigs and cattle nearly drove Bob to distraction); they traversed machinery hall, and poultry hall, and all the other halls; and in particular they explored the hall of arts. Here, worming their way through the crowd they gazed with watering mouth—at least, Ned’s mouth watered, and Bob’s still dripped in memory of the porkine ears elsewhere—upon strained honey, and rich cheeses, and jellies and preserves and cakes and doughnuts and cookies and other marvels into which ambitious good-wives had put their whole hearts. Ned sought this building several times; he had vague hopes that in some way he might encounter the judging committee, and be invited to help “taste.”
A close second in interest to this display was that of floral hall, where the flowers themselves were rivaled in hues by apples and peaches and plums and cherries and pears and grapes, in luscious pyramids.
These two halls were extraordinary places for getting up an appetite!
However, one did not need to depend upon the stock pens and the various “halls” for one’s entertainment. Outside there was endless variety, and the air was constantly athrill with excitement. All day a throng of shows in tents did a loud and urgent business, inviting the people far and near by banjo and gong and word of mouth to come in and see snakes and wild men and bearded women and giants and dwarfs, and the like, whose wondrous figures were outlined in gay colors upon the canvas without. These shows formed a long street, lined with the pictured marvels, and alive with shouts of:
“Hi yi yi yi! Walk in, walk in! Great free show, only ten cents, half a dime!”
“Right this way! Everybody! Come everybody! Biggest show for the money in the world!”
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Don’t miss it! We are the people! A whole circus for only ten cents!”
Every morning there was a parade around the race track of prize-winning animals, where horses pranced, bulls roared defiantly, and donkeys brayed and kicked.
Every afternoon at one o’clock there was a balloon ascension; and at two o’clock began trotting and running races.
Not to miss anything on the fair grounds kept a boy and dog hustling, although they went every day—which they didn’t. Still, by virtue of the addition to his funds of that fifty cents fish money, Ned managed to go oftener than in any previous year.
Most fascinating was the balloon ascension. All through the morning the balloon lay, a mass of inert, dirty, rubbery cloth, on the ground at the spot whence the ascent was to be made. It always was surrounded by curious people, who looked upon it with awe, but who were kept from fingering it by a rope staked about it.
A little after twelve the program of filling it with gas began. Slowly the dull heap inflated, until no longer was it inert; it swayed and struggled, instinct with life.
The aeronaut, arrayed in tights of pink, with a spangled sash about his waist, came out from a little tent, and while all eyes scanned him admiringly, inspected the progress of the work. He was a slender, alert man, with a tawny moustache, and keen glance. Finally the balloon towered like a gigantic pear over the heads of the throng, and strained to be free. It was held by a single rope, passing over the top, one end tied to a stout stick and the other held by sturdy assistants. The rope made a crease in the bulging, puffy dome.
Suddenly the aeronaut, having tested certain fastenings and knots, commanded sharply:
“Let go!”
The persons holding the rope released it. It slipped over the top. Amid shrill cheers and the hum of voices the balloon darted upward, dragging after it a trapeze, and there, below the trapeze, was the aeronaut, hanging by a slender cord. Up the cord he nimbly climbed, like a monkey, and sitting upon the bar of the trapeze, while the balloon continued its dizzy flight, kissed his hand to the gazing multitude beneath. Then he performed a number of acrobatic feats, and later lit somewhere, balloon and all, to appear and repeat the program the next day.
Ned wondered how it felt. He was soon to find out.
From the first he had simply burned to catch hold of the rope, and help keep the balloon down. But other boys who had volunteered had been roughly rejected by the aeronaut, so Ned could only push as near as possible, and be all ready.
It was the closing day of the fair, and the last of the ascensions was about to occur. The balloon was filled and buoyant, and a fresh breeze was causing it to tug unusually at the one rope. The men holding the rope down were almost lifted, at times, off their feet. It was a tug of war between the balloon and them, and the balloon seemed likely to have the best of it.
“Here, you people; some of you give us a hand on that rope, will you?” appealed the aeronaut.
At least half a score—many more than were needed—sprang over into the enclosure; among them were Ned and Bob. Only three or four could find room on the rope—and among these was Ned. Thus, at length, he was where he had wanted to be.
The aeronaut was too busy to pay any attention.
“Now—let go!” he ordered, suddenly.
As the words were leaving his mouth, this is what happened: Wrenched by a sudden fierce gust of wind the stake to which the balloon was anchored was torn from the earth; the people who had been braced at the other end of the rope sat down hard. The balloon jumped, and the heavy stake, swinging inward, caught in the netting; the rope, quickly kinking, knotted under Ned’s shoulders as he sprawled, for a moment, on the ground; and like lightning he was jerked into space.
The accident took only a second. Now Ned was valiantly set, prepared to hold the balloon all by himself, if necessary; next, he was lifted irresistibly, helplessly, into the air, and out of a great uproar of voices he was conscious only of Bob’s despairing, high-pitched yelps, quickly fading away, beneath; and above, the aeronaut’s imperative, tense voice:
“Hang tight! Grab the rope!”
With both hands Ned had at once gripped the rope as high as he could reach. It was wound about his chest, and the free end dangled below. He raised his eyes, and there, over head on the trapeze, was the aeronaut.
“Get that end between your legs—that’s right,” bade the aeronaut. “Can you hold on?”
“Y-y-yes,” quavered Ned, for he was badly frightened, and between the queer sensation of the bottom dropping out of everything, and the pressure of the rope about him, he was nearly breathless.
“You’re all hunky, then,” said the aeronaut, cheerily. “In a jiffy we’ll be back. You can’t fall; just hang on and wait.”
“Y-y-yes,” quavered Ned, feeling like a spider on a thread.
It was very still where they were. He heard a faint hissing, and he wondered what it was. The aeronaut had opened the escape valve in the balloon. Ned did not know it, but they were descending.
“How do you like your free ride?” queried the aeronaut, noting Ned’s drawn face, and trying to divert him from thinking on the peril of the situation.
“P-pretty w-well,” replied Ned.
“Don’t look down! Look at me!” commanded the aeronaut, sternly. “Look at me or I’ll drop on top of you,” he repeated.
Ned, alarmed, kept his eyes glued on those pink-clad legs twenty feet above him.
Yet he could no more help glancing hurriedly beneath him, than after a tooth has come out can you help putting your tongue into the hole.
He looked down for just a fraction of a second—and it was enough. He had seen the world, laid flat; a patch of green, and a patch of yellow, and a thread-like streak of silver; and the gulf that yawned under him made his flesh creep.
Supposing the aeronaut should drop on him! Wouldn’t that be awful! The rope might break, and together they would whirl like stones down through space. He watched the aeronaut anxiously.
“That’s right—watch me,” said the aeronaut. “If you don’t——” And he shook his head meaningly.
All this had required but a few moments, yet to Ned they had seemed hours.
“Where would you like to land?” asked the aeronaut, in a chatty voice. “Back at the fair grounds, or in a corn-field?”
“I don’t care,” faltered Ned. He was getting tired of his strained position.
“Well, I guess we’ll choose the corn-field this trip,” decided the aeronaut—speaking as if they were used to taking such hazardous rides together. “Now, listen here,” he continued, sharply. “We’re getting close to the ground. Hear the leaves rustling? Look down if you want to, and see. Didn’t I tell you? Pretty soon you’ll be touching the top of the corn. Then I’m going to cut your rope with my knife. It won’t hurt you to drop—you’ve often jumped out of trees and things higher than we’ll be—of course you have.”
How near the ground was! Ned could scarcely believe his eyes. It seemed to be rushing up at them. Below was a large corn-field, the stiff stalks bending in the breeze.
“When I say ‘three,’ I’ll cut,” warned the aeronaut.
“All right,” responded Ned.
The corn stalks just scraped his toes. The aeronaut put his knife against the rope.
“One—two—three!” he cried.
Ned dropped. Crash, crash, thump! He ploughed through the corn, and brought up with his hands buried to the wrists in dirt. But he was safe on earth! Rather, he was safe in earth! It didn’t matter; he was thankful.
Without delaying to unwind the rope, he started to stand up to look for the balloon and the aeronaut. He caught just a glimpse of them, already careening onward, far adown the field, where they had darted when relieved of his weight—and then he sank back with an “Ouch!”
He had sprained his ankle.
He unwrapped the rope, and carrying it in his hand hobbled toward the road. The aeronaut, who had made a better landing a quarter of a mile away, came rattling up, balloon and all, in a farmer’s wagon, to meet him.
Then they made triumphal entry into town, and Mrs. Miller, astonished at seeing the turn-out stop before her door, learned what a thrilling ride aloft Ned had just made.
First she hugged him, and then she bound his ankle, and then she hugged him again, and then she went off to cry. But she couldn’t stay, and came back with tears still in her eyes.
Next Mr. Miller arrived in haste, and after patting Ned softly on the head, and saying: “Why, Neddie!” coughed violently, and had to turn his back and blow his nose.
Last came Bob, trotting home in great chagrin over having lost track of his master. He stood on his hind legs, and licked Ned all over the face.
Ned was considered very lucky—by older folks because he had escaped with his life; by the boys because he had been up in a balloon; and by himself because the sprain had come at the end of vacation, instead of at the beginning or middle.
NED’S ankle healed all too rapidly, for him; he was out of school only three days. However, it remained weak for a much longer time, affording him the fun of limping about with a cane. The boys quite envied him, and the girls gazed on him with mingled symptoms of awe and pity.
Little Zu-zu Pearce, who, since his rescue of Tom, had adopted him as her own especial hero, came up to him, as he was standing by the schoolhouse steps, and looking at him gravely, said:
“Does it hurt you awful, Ned?”
“Naw,” scoffed Ned. “It’s nothing but just a common sprain, and it’s about well, now.”
“I don’t believe you’d say, even if it was killing you,” asserted Zu-zu, admiringly. “And you were awful brave not to let go of that rope and be killed!”
“Aw, I couldn’t have let go if I’d tried,” asserted Ned, wriggling uneasily. “I was tied on.”
“Well, I don’t care—you didn’t let go, anyway,” returned Zu-zu; and she skipped back to the other girls, leaving Ned red and embarrassed, but nevertheless gazing after her with a pleased expression in his eyes and a kindly warmth in his heart.
But, as in the case of many a badge of honor, the cane presently became irksome. Ned wanted a gun, and he knew that it was no use to aspire to be a hunter if he couldn’t walk and run. So he dropped the cane, now unnecessary, and fell to teasing his father for a shotgun.
Living as they did beside the Mississippi, which is a great thoroughfare for wild fowl in their flights from north to south, and from south to north, each fall and spring the Beauforters were given splendid duck-shooting.
All the men who liked hunting, and nearly all the older boys, and some of the younger whose folks did not care, had guns. Hunting played as important a part in a Beaufort boy’s program as did swimming and rowing.
Although Ned had mastered the two sports last mentioned, it did not seem to his mother that she ever could consent to his taking up the first—hunting with a gun.
Time had proved to her that there were plenty of dangers to which Ned was exposed, without adding to the list powder and lead.
Ned argued for; his mother pleaded against; Mr. Miller listened and smiled, and was strictly non-committal. Down deep in his mind he knew that in the end Ned would win the day.
“Well, Helen, I don’t see but what we’ll have to give the boy the gun,” he remarked to his wife, when they were alone, one evening.
“Oh, Will!” groaned Mrs. Miller, in piteous tones.
“But you see, my dear, it will be very hard to keep him from being with other boys who have guns,” explained her husband, “and it would be better to let him have a gun of his own, and understand how to use it, than to leave him to pick up what he can, and maybe get injured through his ignorance.”
“Oh, Will!” again appealed Mrs. Miller. “It doesn’t seem as though I could agree to it.”
Then mother-like, that her boy might live his strong, sturdy life, she consented.
“Ned,” spoke Mr. Miller, the next noon, “supposing we let you have a gun, will you promise to do exactly as we say?”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Ned, promptly.
“And you’ll be careful?” implored his mother, anxiously gazing at him.
“Of course,” assured Ned.
He half-way expected that his father would take him straight down town and buy a gun; but he was disappointed. There were farther preliminaries.
“All right,” said his father. “But before you get the gun, I want to be sure that you know how to handle it. I don’t want you shooting yourself, or shooting anybody else, which would be about as bad. So I’ve arranged with Mr. Russell to take you out and show you a few things.”
Mr. Russell lived across the street. He was a great hunter, and had all manner of shooting stuff. He was known as a very steady, prudent man, and Mr. and Mrs. Miller felt that they could safely trust Ned to him.
As for Ned, his disappointment was not keen, after all. Going out with Mr. Russell, whom he regarded as the finest hunter in town, was next best thing to having a gun, oneself.
“Say——” he began, his face aglow.
“Ned!” rebuked his mother.
“I mean—when are we going?” resumed Ned, too excited to offer other apology. “And will he help me train Bob to be a hunting dog?”
“He’ll let you know when he’s ready,” stated Mr. Miller. “And until then you must wait, and not bother either him or us, about gun or dog.”
Ned strove to walk his paths with patience, and soon was rewarded. The twentieth of September, and the first frost had just passed, and hazelnuts and hickory-nuts were ripe for gathering, when Mr. Russell sent over word for Ned to be ready that night after school, and they would go out for a little while.
“Hurrah!” shouted Ned, capering through the sitting-room. “Did he say to take a lunch, father? Will you put it up, mother? How long are we to stay? Where are we going? Can I stay as long as he does?”
“Oh, Neddie!” protested his mother, placing her hands over her ears.
“Ned, be still!” ordered his father. “I don’t think you’ll need a lunch—although, judging from your appetite, you ought to carry one with you all the time. No, Mr. Russell said that he was merely going out on the flats for an hour, to shoot off some old shells, and that you could help him, if you liked.”
“Oh!” responded Ned, a bit crestfallen. “Shall I take Bob?”
“If neither Mr. Russell nor Bob objects, I’m sure I don’t,” laughed Mr. Miller.
As soon as school was out Ned scurried to Mr. Russell’s, and found him sorting over shells, and stuffing some into his coat pockets. Ned was a little surprised to note that he was dressed just as usual, and evidently did not intend to wear his business-like hunting coat, with its stains from game and weather, and its pockets with here and there a mysterious feather; or his boots; or even his brown cap with slanting visor.
“Hello, young man,” greeted Mr. Russell.
“Hello,” replied Ned. “Are we going to kill anything?”
“Nothing except some cans and chunks of wood, I guess,” responded Mr. Russell.
“Do you want Bob?” queried Ned, hopefully.
“Why, yes; take him along, if you wish to,” answered Mr. Russell, surveying Bob, who was wagging his tail near by. “He’s pretty old to train, now, but we can see if there’s any good in him, maybe.”
Bob, who, at the stroke of the bell for the close of school always hied out upon the front walk to wait for his master, and thus, this afternoon, had caught him ere he entered the Russell gate, had been uneasily sniffing at the gun case, and eyeing Mr. Russell’s preparations. He whined, vaguely and uncertainly. There was something that he didn’t like.
In spite of Mr. Russell’s ordinary garb Ned was as proud as a peacock when they started up the street together, while Bob, with worried air, trotted behind.
The flats for which they were bound lay just west of the town; they were a wide stretch of low, level land, pasture and shallow marsh, given over to cows and frogs.
Ned and Mr. Russell scrambled over a fence, and stopped in a field where there were no cattle or persons within range.
Mr. Russell took the gun from its case, and snapped it together.
“Say—is that your gun?” demanded Ned, surprised. “I thought you had a double-barrel!”
“This is a new one,” replied Mr. Russell. “See, how it comes apart?” and he unsnapped the fore-end, and took off the barrel. “Now you try,” he bade, passing the parts to Ned.
Without hesitation Ned fitted them together. Then he handled the piece fondly.
It was a compact little single-barrel, twelve-bore, with low, rebounding hammer, pistol grip, barrel of bronzed twist, stock of polished walnut, and all the metal trimmings blued, to prevent rust, and avoid alarming game by flashes of sun; in fact, from the sight bead to the rubber butt plate it seemed a perfect little gun.
“My!” sighed Ned, boldly putting it to his shoulder, and aiming into space. “It is choke-bore, Mr. Russell?”
“Yes, siree,” assured Mr. Russell, who had been watching him with a twinkle in his eyes. “Shall I show you?” and he extended his hand.
With a final loving pat of the breech Ned regretfully turned the gun over to him, and awaited the next number on the program.
Mr. Russell inserted a shell, and said:
“Now go off from me about thirty yards, and throw up this tin can, and let’s see what I can do to it.”
Ned obeyed. He ran out, close followed by Bob, until Mr. Russell told him to stop.
“Throw it high, and away from you,” called Mr. Russell.
Up sailed the can. “Bang!” went the gun. “Clink!” sounded the shot cutting the tin. The can jumped in its arc, and striking the ground rolled over and over as though it had been mortally wounded.
Ned raced to pick it up. It was now a sorry looking can; and he brought it to Mr. Russell, counting the shot holes as he did so.
“Sixteen!” he announced, triumphantly, giving it over for inspection.
“That’s very fair,” commented Mr. Russell, carelessly glancing at it. “There goes your dog,” he added, pointing across the field.
Sure enough; there was Bob, two hundred yards away, and making a bee-line for home. He never looked back. His tail was between his legs and his back was humped, and even at that distance his whole mien told of outraged feelings.
“Here, Bob! Here, Bob!” called Ned; but he called and whistled in vain.
“No use, Ned,” remarked Mr. Russell, laughing. “He’s gun-shy. Somebody must have shot at him, once; or fired off a gun close to his ears; and now, you see, he’s afraid when he hears a report.”
“Won’t he get over it?” asked Ned, astonished and puzzled.
“No, I don’t think he will,” answered Mr. Russell. “He’s spoiled for hunting.”
“Well,” said Ned, gazing after poor Bob, now a speck townward. “It isn’t his fault, anyway. He can’t help it.”
“Supposing you try a shot,” proposed Mr. Russell, handing the gun and a shell to him.
Bob’s failure to toe the scratch, in this, the only particular, vanished from Ned’s mind. He gladly seized gun and shell.
“No, that’s not the right way to put in a cartridge,” corrected Mr. Russell, kindly. “You have the muzzle pointed exactly at my stomach! And when you close the breech, that will bring the muzzle about at my mouth! Let me show you a better way.”
“There!” he continued, returning the weapon to Ned. “When you load, always be sure that nobody is in line with the piece. The chances are that the shell won’t explode, but if it should, even once in a thousand times, or in ten thousand, and there be an accident, you’d never forgive yourself. It’s impossible to be too cautious, and it’s very easy not to be cautious enough, Ned.”
Ned, somewhat abashed, but impressed by the earnestness of Mr. Russell’s voice, this time loaded more carefully, and Mr. Russell had him repeat the operation to make certain that the lesson was learned.
“One small mistake might ruin your whole life, Ned,” warned Mr. Russell. “So start right. And now for a mark,” he proceeded. “I’ll set a can on that fence post, yonder, and I’ll wager that you can’t put as many shot in it as I did in that other can on the fly. Did you ever shoot a gun?”
“Once,” confessed Ned, reluctantly. “A long time ago. And it kicked me over, and made my lip bleed, and when I came home, and father found out he said it served me right. It was Chuck Donahue’s; his big muzzle loader.”
“Did you hit anything?” queried Mr. Russell, smiling as he walked away.
“N-n-no,” admitted Ned. “At least, there was only one shot-hole, and Chuck said he made it. But I’ve aimed lots of times,” he added, to prove that he was not lacking in experience.
“Here!” called Mr. Russell, looking back. “Keep that gun pointed toward the ground until you’re taking aim! I don’t want to be speckled all over with lead.”
“It isn’t cocked,” explained Ned.
“That makes no difference,” retorted Mr. Russell. “Always handle a gun, empty or loaded, cocked or not, as though you expected that it would go off at any moment. That should become a fixed habit. Will you remember—or shall we stop?”
“Oh, I’ll remember,” pledged Ned.
And, barring a few slight lapses, he did.
Mr. Russell balanced the smooth round can on the fence post, and walked to one side.
“All ready,” he announced.
Ned leveled the piece, and pulled on the trigger. He couldn’t budge it.
“Why not cock your gun?” inquired Mr. Russell, quizzically.
Ned blushed. What a number of blunders he had made! Mr. Russell would think him very stupid.
He aimed again.
“Bang!”
The stock of the gun flew up and jarred his head, but he didn’t mind. He peered through the thin smoke. The can had disappeared.
“I hit it! I hit it! I know I hit it!” he cried, setting out on the dead run.
“I should say you did!” assured Mr. Russell, delighted, picking up the can and examining it. “Bravo! Fifteen—sixteen, seventeen! You beat me by one!”
Ned clutched the can, and delivered the gun into cooler keeping. He scanned his trophy inch by inch, and gloated over the many holes. Mr. Russell noted his puffed lip, and smiled.
“If you hadn’t taken in me, too, when you swung your gun, to aim,” he commented, “you might not have been punished by that lip.”
“Oh!” uttered Ned, a little taken aback, and becoming conscious of his bump.
“Next time you’ll hold the gun tighter against your shoulder—and be more careful in that other respect, too,” said Mr. Russell, simply.
They stayed on the flats for an hour and a half, and used up all of Mr. Russell’s cartridges; and when Ned went home he fairly was bursting with information. He carried with him that riddled tin can, and with no small degree of pride showed it to the family and to the boys of the neighborhood. He had hit other cans, during the lesson, but this was the result of his first shot!
Bob was waiting for him, at the front gate. He greeted his master with a sheepish, apologetic manner, as though to say:
“I didn’t mean to act so silly; but you know, I can’t help it.”
“That’s all right, Bob,” comforted Ned. “I understand. You shan’t go again.”
Whereupon Bob whined wistfully, as much as to say:
“Well, I don’t think you ought to go, then, either.”
Bob, you see, was just a mite selfish in regard to Ned.
During the next week Ned went out several times with Mr. Russell, and began to feel like quite a veteran. He not only could hit stationary cans, but he learned to hit things tossed into the air. To tell the truth, he was a fine pupil.
“Ned, Mr. Russell thinks that the public won’t suffer if we go ahead now and trust you alone with a gun,” observed Mr. Miller, one evening, at the supper table. “He says you’re learning well, and that all you need do is remember.”
“I can hit a little piece of bark thrown up forty yards away,” asserted Ned, confidently.
“Very good,” responded his father, pushing back from the table. “But I didn’t get Mr. Russell to teach you that, so much as to teach you not to hit some objects more important!”
He went into the bedroom, and came back, bearing a gun case.
“How do you like it?” he said, giving it to Ned.
With feverish fingers Ned unbuckled the straps. The case had looked familiar; the gun was still more familiar.
“Say——” he burst out. “Is it mine? Did Mr. Russell give it to me? Did you buy it of him? It’s the very same gun!”
“So it is,” replied his father, pleased to see him so pleased. “I had Mr. Russell pick it out for me the day after you and your mother and I talked together; so you’ve been using it all this time, and now you’re acquainted with it. It’s yours.”
“Not yet,” interrupted Mrs. Miller. “Wait a moment. Give the gun to me, Ned.”
Ned wonderingly surrendered the treasure.
“Neddie,” she declared, holding it behind her back, and trying not to laugh, “you can’t have it unless you promise not to use that dreadful ‘say’ any more!”
“I won’t, I won’t!” vowed Ned, in alarm.
“Won’t what?” insisted his mother.
“Won’t say ‘say’ any more,” cried Ned.
“Or as much,” restricted his mother, firmly.
“I won’t say it at all,” promised Ned.
With a kiss his mother restored the gun to his eager grasp.
The only personage within Ned’s circle of relatives and friends who did not rejoice with him in his new gun was Bob. Poor Bob! The weapon was an eye-sore to him. When his master brought it out Bob gazed at him reproachfully, and slunk off, dejected, woebegone. No coaxing could lift his spirits, or induce him to come outside the yard, when the gun was in sight.
The gun was the only break that ever occurred in the relationship between Ned and his dog.
Ned speedily waxed to be a crack shot among his fellows. He practiced incessantly, to the death of countless tin cans, and the disappearance of his savings.
Mr. Miller did not object, but he outlined his views in a little lecture on shooting in general.
“Destroy all the cans you want to, Ned,” he laughed. “They’re fair game.” Then he grew graver: “That’s right. I want you to learn to shoot straight, so as to kill when you intend to. But don’t shoot for practice at innocent birds. They love to live, as well as you. Don’t risk shots at game when the chances are that you can merely wound. Shoot straight, and kill outright. Better let a duck go, than maim it, so that it is liable to linger and suffer for hours or days. That is why I gave you a single-barrel, and had it heavily choked. You will be more careful than if you had a second barrel to fall back upon, and when the load hits a bird, it will hit to kill.”
“Oh, Neddie! I do wish that you would be content to shoot at cans and such things, like you are doing now,” pleaded his mother.
“Why, mother!” exclaimed Ned, horrified. “We can’t eat cans!”
“So far as eating is concerned, Ned,” spoke his father, drily, “we shan’t go back on our butcher just yet, even though you have got a gun! We might need him.”
Of all the boys who accompanied Ned, to throw cans and blocks about at his bidding, Tom Pearce was the most faithful, although Hal likewise went quite often, and was trying to have his father get him a gun, also.
The frosty nights and the soft, delicious days of Indian summer arrived; with them arrived the ducks, who well knew that winter was near at hand, in ambush on the borders of autumn.
Ned’s neck was stiff from perpetually searching the heavens to discover scurrying flocks. He talked ducks from morn to eve, and dreamed ducks from eve to morn, and the family assured him that he certainly would turn into one, if he didn’t let up.
And so far, despite his hunting excursions, and his tales of “big mallards” that he “almost” got, the family table was still innocent of game.
The tenth of November, and behold Ned, and Tom, his squire, across the river, trudging among the winding sloughs that formed a popular Beaufort hunting-ground. They had started from home at four in the morning—as was their custom; and had been tramping ever since—as, again, was their custom; and had not shot a single duck—which, alas, also was their custom. Ducks were much more crafty than tin cans.
Yet the boys thought that tramping all a long day, laden with gun and shells and boots, through swamp and over fields; with a few mouthfuls of cold breakfast, and a cold lunch hastily gobbled; and at the
last not a feather to reward them, was much less work than piling wood, for instance, or going down town for a yeast-cake!
Perseverance has its reward. On this tenth of November Ned and Tom had stopped in a fence corner to eat their lunch, which consisted mainly of bread and butter and sugar, hard boiled eggs, and cookies. They had stiffly arisen, and had walked forward not twenty paces, when up from under the high bank of a narrow inlet just in front of them, jumped straight into the air, with a quack and a sputter, a panic-stricken something, and was off like a bullet.
“Ned!” blurted Tom.
“Bang!” spoke the gun.
Down to turf upon the other side of the inlet plumped the something, magically stopped in mid-flight.
“You got him! You got him! Hurrah!” howled Tom, dashing through the water, up over his knees—and boots.
“Hurrah!” cheered Ned, in his wake.
It had happened so quickly that he was quite beside himself. He had no recollection of taking aim. He had no recollection of anything save a feathered blurr in the air, his gun banging—and the feathered blurr had disappeared.
Through the shallow inlet they plashed, reckless of consequences. On the way Ned ejected the empty shell and inserted, with trembling fingers, a new one, to be ready in case the victim should suddenly make off!
The precaution was unnecessary. The victim was past all “making off.” Tom reached it first, where it lay, a shapeless, pathetic little lump of down and quill, twenty yards from the water’s edge, and grabbed it with the zeal of a retriever.
“It’s a wood-duck!” he cried, joyfully.
Ned panted up, and with scant courtesy snatched it from him.
“’Tain’t, either,” he said, scornfully. “It’s a green-wing teal. See there.”
Tom meekly granted the correction as coming from one who owned a new gun and must know.
The boys turned the limp bunch—no larger than a pigeon, but, nevertheless, their first prize—over and over in their hands, marking its every feature.
Unlucky duckling; its life, begun only that summer, had quickly ended.
At last Ned tucked it in the pocket of his hunting-coat, and on they strode, feeling now on the highway to slaughter.
Every few minutes Ned caressingly fingered the warm, soft ball hanging against his left hip. He hoped that it would make a bloody spot on the canvas of the pocket. Although he had done his best, the coat was still altogether too fresh.
No more game fell to his gun that day; but neither he nor Tom cared. They were not to go home empty-handed.
All the way through the streets Ned wondered if people suspected what he was carrying concealed in that pocket; and he bore, without caring, the gibes of sundry hateful urchins:
“Aw, didn’t get nothin’! Didn’t get nothin’! Ain’t he a big hunter, though!”
Tom stayed and helped him clean the teal. They sat in the barn door, and scattered the feathers into the alley, while Bob sniffed and sniffed at their operations. The smell of the duck seemed to revive in his blood old instincts, inherited from his parents, and he was unhappy and puzzled.
“You didn’t kill that all at once, did you?” laughed a man, driving past.
Well, it had not been very big, with the feathers on, and it was very much smaller, with the feathers off. But it was a duck!
The boys counted the shot-holes, and traced where each pellet had gone in and come out. They agreed that Ned’s aim had been exactly right and that the gun was a wonder.
Into the midst of their pleasure crept an undercurrent of pity which stopped just short of regret.
“Seems kind of too bad, to kill it, doesn’t it,” commented Tom, weighing the wee, cold, bare morsel in his palm.
“Y-y-yes,” admitted Ned. “But I guess he never knew what struck him.”
The wings, with their band of shiny emerald, had been put aside, to keep.
“Here,” said Ned, holding them out to Tom, as that stanch follower was on the point of going home. “Take ’em.”
“No, you keep ’em,” insisted Tom.
“Give ’em to Zu-zu, then,” blushed Ned, as if that was a second thought. “She can wear ’em in a hat.”
Ned was duly congratulated on his success by the family. The duck went to the ice-box, and was roasted and served to him for dinner the next day.
“Oh, Neddie!” exclaimed his mother, as the teal, now, after cooking, was smaller than ever. “Do you mean to say that it took two boys and a gun and nearly a whole day to kill a poor little bird like that?”
“It’s good, anyway,” excused Ned, his mouth full.
BUT this fall, gun and duck did not stand as the only excitement for Ned and the other Beaufort youth. Politics were red hot. A president and vice-president of the United States were to be elected, and the town was in a perfect ferment day and night.
There were caucuses and parades and “rallies” and sidewalk discussions and even fights, in all of which the boys, and the girls, too, took lively interest.
At school the recesses were given over, for the most part, to debate. Ned’s father was a Republican, Ned was what his father was, and Bob was what Ned was; Mr. Lucas was a Democrat, therefore Hal was a Democrat; Tom had no father living, and so he sided with neither cause, but said that he “didn’t care.”
“Democrats
Eat old dead rats!”
sang Ned and his crowd.
“Republicans
Lick old tin pans!”
retorted Hal and his fellow partisans.
Whereupon the Republicans claimed the best of the argument.
Nobody in Beaufort was more faithful in attending the various political meetings than was Ned. With eyes and ears alert he sedately accompanied his father; or else, doing as he pleased, tagged the band about through the streets until it brought up at hall or opera house. He sat or stood, squeezed in, the whole evening through, listening to orators declare what great and wise things their party had done, and what mean and foolish things the other parties had done. In case it was a Republican meeting he cheered in triumph; in case it was the opposition (for he did not limit himself to the one) he cheered “just for fun.” Thus he was able to do lots of shouting, and went home hot, hoarse, and full of enthusiasm.
Of all the meetings in the town during the campaign, the crowning one occurred as follows:
“Hello!” exclaimed Mr. Miller, glancing over The Evening Clarion.
“What is it?” inquired his wife, while Ned, hovering near, was at once all ears.
“Why, I see by The Clarion that Senator Lipp is to be here on the twenty-ninth, and we’re going to have the biggest Republican rally ever held in the county,” explained her husband.
“Say——” cried Ned, agog, and forgetful of his recent promise.
“Gun!” said his mother.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to. It slipped out before I thought,” excused Ned.
“Well, don’t let it slip in again,” laughed his mother.
“There’ll be a big parade around the town, winding up at the opera house,” continued Mr. Miller, skimming through the article. “All the outside places are to be invited to send marching clubs. It’s the last rally before election, and it will be a whooper.”
“Oh, father! I want to march! Can I?” begged Ned.
“Certainly,” replied his father, unexpectedly. “Go ahead.”
“But I mean march in the parade,” persisted Ned.
“We’ll see,” responded his father.
“But I’m sure they don’t want boys fussing round them,” objected Mrs. Miller.
“Yes, they do, mother,” quickly corrected Ned. “Lots of boys march.”
“I’m afraid that they’ll gladly take anybody large enough to carry a torch,” confessed Mr. Miller.
“The idea!” exclaimed his wife, shocked by this give-away of political methods.
As time wore on, the approaching rally grew to mammoth proportions, and kept Ned busy talking about its numerous phases.
The Clarion devoted columns of space to it, and the town was well plastered with posters bristling with exclamation points and heavy type.
As to his marching, Ned now had not the slightest doubt. His father said nothing more upon the subject, and silence gave consent.
“My father says we’re going to have a monster rally, too; the night before election,” at last Hal declared, in retort to Ned’s vauntings.
“’Twon’t be as big as ours,” asserted Ned.
“’Twill, I bet,” stoutly returned Hal, sticking up for the honor of the Democratic party. “And I’m going to march!”
“Are you?” queried Ned, feeling as though some of the polish had been taken off his own future.
Of course, there was the remote chance that rain would interfere with the Republicans, or that in some other way the Democrats would be led to outdo them.
“Say—no, I didn’t mean that; but I tell you what,” he proposed, suddenly: “you march with me in our parade, and I’ll march with you in yours!”
“All right,” agreed Hal. “You don’t suppose they’ll care, do you?”
By “they” he referred to Republicans and Democrats in general, who might be disposed to resent such an exchange.
“I guess not,” hazarded Ned. “It evens up, you know. And then, we’re only kids.”
The day of the parade came, and dawned upon a town already gay with bunting and banners. As the sun rose higher, and peeped into the streets, seemingly at the touch of his rays other bunting and banners unfolded. By noon Republican Beaufort was in gala attire. Democratic Beaufort stolidly gazed, and resolved:
“Just wait until our turn, next week.”
Lithographs of the Republican candidates were displayed on all sides, in windows and attached to flags drooping from upper stories; cheese-cloth, bearing mottoes and portraits, spanned the downtown streets and stretched across corners; through the ordinary channels of business and private affairs ran a current of excitement.
“So you’re going to march, are you, Ned?” remarked his father, that noon, at dinner.
“Don’t, Neddie,” begged his mother. “You’ll get all covered with dirt and grease; and I’m sure the sight of you in the ranks won’t influence many voters.”
“But I’ve promised Hal to march in his parade if he’ll march in mine,” explained Ned. “And he’ll be mad if I back out. I’ll wear my old clothes.”
Mrs. Miller sighed and looked, for support, at her husband. However, not having Ned’s garments to clean, he was filled only with amusement.
As the afternoon wore on, the delegations from outside points began to arrive. In the shape of marching clubs, with wild cheers they tumbled off from incoming trains, and forming at the depot paraded up town, bands playing and people shouting. Or as farmers’ families they rattled in by wagon-loads, and tying the horses around the court-house square wandered through the streets.
In the schoolroom Ned and his fellow prisoners could hear the cries and music and sound of heavy wheels, and chafed to be free. With the welcome four o’clock bell they poured abroad, quite certain that there were a thousand new things to see.
This afternoon Bob sat at the front gate and waited in vain. He was cut out by politics.
His master, who had found much to do in watching the depots, and not missing what the streets also had to offer, did not appear until nearly supper time.
“Here you are, Ned,” called Mr. Miller, Clarion in hand. “This means you: ‘Marchers not attached to any organization may obtain their uniforms at Room 6, Shinn Block. It is requested that the uniforms be returned here, either immediately after the meeting, or to-morrow.’”
“Good!” cried Ned. “What kind of uniform?”
“Oh, nothing very extra, you’ll find,” replied his father, destroying Ned’s visions of epaulets and a cocked hat.
“But it will serve to keep your clothes from the oil and soot, I hope,” voiced the thrifty mother.
Ned galloped through his chores, and bolted a hasty supper. Hal whistled for him, and ruthlessly shutting in the barn the luckless Bob—who would have been unhappy, anyway, with so many bands playing in his ears, and so many feet to dodge—he scooted off.
“We’ll watch for you, when the parade comes past the corner,” cried his mother, after him; for the line of march led within a block of the house.
Already streams of people, mostly men and boys, some even now in uniform, were flowing toward the business centre of town; and that business centre itself was a fascinating scene of bustle, as the marchers, in a variety of costumes, strode the walks, or loitered at their points of assembly.
For Ned and Hal, the first thing to do was to get uniforms. Until they had some trappings they could not feel as though they amounted to much.
Room 6, Shinn Block, fairly was swarming with persons after uniforms. In one corner was a pile of capes, near by was a stack of caps, and in another corner were sheaves of torches. Evidently all that was necessary to do was to walk up, pick out an outfit, and leave.
The two boys sidled in, and had just seized upon a cape apiece when they were interrupted by a man who from beside the door was overseeing things.
“Hey, you kids! What are you doing with those capes?” he demanded, gruffly.
Ned and Hal, startled and abashed, dropped their spoils.
“We’re going to march,” stammered Ned.
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s Will Miller’s boy,” explained somebody in the room, coming to the rescue. “Let him march.”
“And isn’t that young Lucas?” queried somebody else. “Is your father going to march with us to-night, too, sonny?”
“No, he isn’t!” retorted Hal, hotly. “He’s going to be in a lots bigger parade than this, next week!”
Amid the teasing laughter which greeted this sally the boys snatched cape and cap and torch, and fled lest yet they might be stopped.
The capes were of blue oilcloth, and buckled at the throat. The caps also were of oilcloth, but red, and were round, with a flat top and heavy visor. The torches consisted of a long staff, at the end of which swung a can containing kerosene and a wick.
As soon as they were clear of the room the boys donned their rigs. The capes came down to their knees; and since in their haste they had not taken account of size, their caps were far too large, and spun about on their crowns. Paper, a tremendous quantity, having been stuffed under the bands inside, then, with their caps still wobbly, but with their capes rustling and their torches proudly held aloft, the two brave marchers descended to the street.
Even during their brief stay while getting their outfit, a change had taken place in the aspect of the world without. Darkness had fallen, and torches were being called into life, right and left.
“Let’s light up!” proposed Hal.
“Let’s,” seconded Ned.
This was as easily done as said; they simply applied their wicks to the lighted wick of the next good-natured man whom they met—and good nature was everywhere to-night—and now, with torches blazing, they were fully in trim for the parade.
The procession was forming. On horseback marshals, distinguished by a sash passing from one shoulder diagonally across the chest and under the opposite arm, dashed up, and wheeled and dashed down again. Horns gave preliminary, erratic toots, and drums broke in with sudden rolls. Flambeaux flamed forth, and died out. Transparencies bobbed hither and thither, upon invisible legs. Marching clubs stood at ease, while their members jested and waited. The air was filled with kerosene smoke and echoing voices.
Ned and Hal, holding their heads stiffly lest their caps should tumble off, and wrapped in their blue capes like a cattle-man in his poncho, sped to the corner mentioned by The Clarion as the meeting place of the “unattached.” Here had gathered about fifty other blue capes and red caps, and the number was slowly being swelled.
“Hi there!” hailed a marshal, spurring to them. “You men close in, in column of fours, on the rear of the procession, as it passes by.”
Off he tore again, while Ned and Hal felt not a little elated at having been classed among the “men.”
The parade started. Drums commenced to beat time, bands commenced to play, and forth into the surrounding darkness flowed a little stream of lights as if the sea of torches had sprung a-leak, and was trickling down the street.
Hal and Ned had a good view of the make-up of the procession; but they were impatient to become, themselves, a part of it, and fretted at the delay.
“There comes the last!” exclaimed a self-appointed leader. “Get ready, four abreast!”
In the confusion caused by forming some semblance of ranks, the two boys found themselves elbowed aside by tall men who didn’t want to be made to look ridiculous, and by short men who didn’t wish to be classed with “kids,” and by medium sized men who evidently never had been boys—and finally, when the whole had been divided by four, Ned and Hal found themselves sifted back to the rear, as remainders!
Nobody seemed to notice them or their plight. For a moment they were dismayed.
“Aw, don’t let’s care,” said Ned, bluffly. “We can march, just the same.”
“Of course,” responded Hal. “And it’s more fun to be two,” he added, defiantly.
The column moved jerkily past, “hitching” along, after the manner of all processions in starting, as though it was learning to walk. When the tail came opposite, the blue capes joined themselves to it, and now the parade moved off, complete—a whip lash of bobbing lights, with the blue capes forming the snapper, and Ned and Hal being the frayed tip.
Bands played conflicting tunes; flambeaux flared and red fire glared; transparencies curtsied and turned themselves about for approval; the people lined up along the curb upon either side of the route hooted and cheered.
Away at the end Ned and Hal proudly held their torches as high as they could, and tried to keep step with the men in front of them. Theirs was the most uncomfortable station in the line. All the dust, and the soot and reek from the kerosene drifted back to enfold them; the red fire was burned out before they arrived, and likewise the spectators had done their cheering and were taking short cuts to other points. Worse than all this, as the rear of the procession filed by the onlookers crowded in behind it, and fairly stepped on the heels of the two boys.
The parade was now about to traverse a section of South Beaufort—and Ned and Hal, realizing that they were nearing the enemy’s country, grew a little nervous. It was at no little risk that a boy from Beaufort proper crossed the dead-line into South Beaufort—the lurking place of the Conners, and “Slim” and “Fat” Sullivan, and Luke McCoy, and “Big” Mike Farr and “Loppy” Lynch, and the rest of the “gang”!
However, it was too late to back out. The rear guard must hold its post.
Hardly had the tail of the procession passed over the South Beaufort threshold, when rose the jeering cry:
“The kids! Say, catch on to the kids hangin’ on behind!”
A lump of dirt slapped against Ned’s oilcloth cape. Another knocked Hal’s cap askew. Small lads and girls pressed close upon them and threatened and mocked, while big brothers and sisters in the background encouraged.
The two boys pretended not to notice, but looked straight ahead while earnestly wishing that they were again in their own district.
But the worst was coming.
The nagging urchins, urged on from all sides, waxed bolder, and began to jerk at the boys’ capes, so that both were being compelled to struggle along like engines towing a line of cars.
This was getting to be too much.
“Oh, let go, will you!” growled Ned, crossly, turning and giving his foremost tormentor a sharp push.
“Hi, Mike, he hit your brother!” delightedly rose a chorus of voices.
“Sock it to him, Patsy! Don’t you stand it!” advised others.
“Aw, Patsy! To let a feller like him hit yer!” jeered still others.
Thus egged on, Patsy, who was not even up to Ned’s shoulders, doubled his scrawny, dirty fists, and scowled fiercely.
“What did you hit me fer? I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” he demanded.
“I didn’t hit you. You were too!” replied Ned, seeking to go on. But too late. He was hemmed about, as through magic, by a circle which cut him off from Hal and from the procession.
The parade with the blue cape snapper went its way, unaware that it had lost its frayed tip, for Hal, too, was having his troubles.
“G’wan!” sneered Ned’s mite of a foe, hunching himself forward, brave in his knowledge that the majority was with him.
“Soak it to him, Patsy,” howled the ring of spectators.
They took up the playful practice of shoving one another against Ned, who, like a baited bear, was assailed from all sides.
“G’wan!” piped Patsy, again, trampling on Ned’s toes.
Somebody smartly knocked Ned’s cap off. Somebody reached over and wrenched at his torch, and while he was striving to keep it his cape was neatly turned over his head just as Patsy struck him a stinging blow on the mouth.
Blinded in his cape, poor Ned floundered here and there, jostled, kicked, and beaten, until he thought that his last hour had come. He lost his cap, and he lost his torch, and finally the fastenings of his cape gave way and he lost it, too. This proved lucky, for with a plunge he broke the ring hemming him in, and in the mix-up escaped.
He was discovered.
“Here he is!”
“Stop him!”
“Head him off!”
“Kill him!”
Ned, never doubting that they would “kill him” if they caught him, darted down the street, and into an alley, his laughing, whooping pursuers full tilt after him. Over fences, through yards, breathless, desperate, hunted, dodged Ned, and the hue and cry died in the distance. He ventured out upon a street, and slackened to a walk.
Bareheaded, bruised and aching, his trappings in the hands of the enemy, he cared no more for the parade. He went straight home.
As he neared the gate, he saw a figure sitting on the horse-block before it.
“Is that you, Hal?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Hal. “Did they hurt you?”
“No—not much,” asserted Ned, going to the horse-block. “Did they jump on you, too?”
“Yes,” said Hal, with a little sob in his voice. “They grabbed me from behind, and held me, and then somebody hit me, and then they all piled on me—the dirty cowards.”
“So they did on me,” announced Ned, knowing that misery loves company.
“They don’t fight fair!” sobbed Hal. “And they took my cap and cape and torch.”
“Mine, too,” said Ned. “But I’ll get my father to explain so the men won’t think we stole them. And we’ll get even with that South Beaufort gang, some day.”
“You bet we will,” vowed Hal, pulling himself together. “They didn’t hurt me much, only they didn’t give me any chance.”
The boys compared notes, and found that neither was damaged beyond a few bruises, and their wounded spirits. They spent an hour going over plans to get even; the best seemed to be to enlist all their friends for the Democratic parade, and march through South Beaufort, and when the moment came, to turn on the “gang” and simply annihilate it.
However, this plan did not ripen, mainly because the Democratic parade was prevented by rain.
NED—oh, Ned! It’s snowing!” called Mr. Miller, up the stairs.
“Bully!” called back Ned, bouncing out of that bed which only a moment before he had been loth to leave.
He jumped to the window, and gazed out. The big flakes swirled against the pane at the end of his nose. Air and earth were white.
“Bully!” again exclaimed Ned, hustling on his clothes.
The affair of the campaign parade was now only an irritating memory; a president and vice-president had been elected; processions were a thing of the past, with the Republican county central committee short two torches, two caps, and two capes; winter had arrived with a swoop, sending the wild fowl scurrying for the gulf; Thanksgiving—a snapping cold Thanksgiving of skating and appetites—was over; and still upon the frozen ground no snow had fallen.
But here it was, at last, with a vengeance.
“Walks to clean, Neddie,” teased his mother.
“I don’t care,” retorted Ned, from his room.
“There! Don’t forget that you’ve said it,” laughed his mother.
Now at the beginning of the winter it seemed to Ned that he would as soon as not shovel walks. Anything that had to do with snow was fun.
All day the snow fell. At first it was in the shape of big, feathery flakes which clung to everything that they touched. Then, when a good thick coating had been given the world, down came the gritty, small flakes, sifting upon their larger predecessors, and piling up for two feet.
Thus, at the bottom was the layer of damp “packing” snow, and at the top was the colder, freezing layer. Conditions for coasting could not have been better had the Beaufort young people planned and carried out to suit themselves.
Moreover, to-day was Thursday. By Saturday Breede’s Hill would be in prime condition.
With the approach of night the downfall slackened. Through all the town sounded the scrape, scrape of the snow-shovel. Ned added his note to the harmony, for he had a front walk, and a walk around the house, and a path to the barn, and one to the wood-shed to clean, besides a few trimmings such as the horse-block, and the steps and porches.
Bob welcomed the snow with great zest. He frolicked and barked, and scooped up mouthfuls in defiance of the theory that eating snow gives one the sore throat. No doubt he barked so much that his throat did not have time to get sore.
Dogs have their own rules of hygiene, anyway.
Ned’s sled had been brought out from summer quarters in the attic, and had been waiting on the back porch for quite a month. Although, on account of his extra chores, he could not use it at once, during his labors between school and supper he could not resist giving it a moment of exercise—just to limber it up. It left a red trail of rust; but he knew that the rust would soon wear off.
This sled of Ned’s was a novelty, and the joy of his heart. It was of clipper pattern, but very low—not more than four inches from the ground. It had sharp points, longer than its body; when Ned flopped upon it the points stuck far out before, and his legs stuck far out behind. The runners were round steel, and well sprung. How that sled did go! It was no good for ruts, or for deep snow, but given a smooth track it could beat any sled in Beaufort. No matter how icy the hill, when other sleds had a tendency to veer and drift sideways this little sled darted straight as an arrow beyond the mark of all.
Sighing because now was night instead of morning Ned restored the sled, with a fond pat of promise, to its corner, and went in to supper, whither he had been drawn for some time by the delicious sizzling of fried mush.
Friday broke bright as a new dollar, with sunshine that proved just warm enough to soften the snow and settle it. Around school passed the word among Ned and Hal and Tom and kindred spirits to “come to Breede’s Hill and help break it.”
Breede’s Hill—ah, but that was a hill for you! Two blocks of slope and two blocks more of slide, and all, in the height of the season, as smooth as oil! Here were four blocks of street practically given over to the coasters. For a driver to try the slippery incline, either on wheels or on runners, was foolhardy; while to cross at the base was to invite a sudden attack from catapult bob or sled.
A bob had been known to scoot right between the wheels of a wagon, and not hurt a thing, so swift was it going; and Ned himself, horrified, unable to stop, had taken the legs from under a stupid cow; but when she had reached the snow with a thump he had been far away.
Breede’s Hill had been so dubbed by some history enthusiast; on the next street south was Bunker Hill, in like manner named. It was not a proper hill for coasting, being rocky, and having a sharp curve.
On this Friday afternoon after school Ned, accompanied by Bob, gaily dragged his snake-like sled to Breede’s Hill. Here he and a dozen others toiled lustily for an hour and a half, breaking a track. One or two sleighs had been along the road, but the snow lay deep and white, with its possibilities still undeveloped.
It was necessary to tramp the snow down, and drag sleds through it, sideways, and even to roll in it, in order to clear a path which, under the friction of the runners, should become hard and “slick.”
To the tramping and scraping, and frolicsome rolling Bob lent nothing but his noisy good-will and applause. One would have thought, noting his hilarity, that the snow and the boys had come together simply for his entertainment!
Finally a track deemed worthy of being tested had been leveled, and the first coast of the season was made, with a whoop of joy, by the other bob in the party—the bob-sled.
Farther and farther, each time, went the bob, with the single sleds—all but that of Ned—in the party, bringing up behind. Ned rode on the bob, until the moment when the track should be hard and fit for his low clipper.
This was the only drawback to that pride of his heart: it was useless in loose snow, or in ruts.
At dark, by dint of much play which seemed like work, Breede’s Hill was fit for the final polishing, by a hundred and more runners, on the morrow. Ned went home, and Bob went home, and the other boys went home, hungry and well satisfied; and none was more hungry or more satisfied than Bob, who had done the least and fussed the most.
“Say—but the hill is getting dandy!” exclaimed Ned, at dinner, Saturday, to which he had come panting and damp and perfectly empty.
“So you’re tired of that gun, already, are you, Neddie?” remarked his mother, quietly.
“My, no!” denied Ned, in alarm. “But the hill’s splendid, anyway. It’s almost slick as glass.”
“The whole town will be there, this afternoon,” he added, poising a generous mouthful of apple pie.
“I won’t be there,” said his mother.
“Nor I,” said his father.
“Well, all the kids and girls will,” explained Ned; and the chunk of pie disappeared, to fill some mysterious crevice inside. “Shoveling in fuel,” his father termed Ned’s eating during the cold weather; but whether the statement was true or a joke, the reader must judge according to his own experience.
That afternoon it really did seem that Ned had not exaggerated. Breede’s Hill was in its glory, and “the whole town” was on hand, with sleds of all descriptions.
The track had been packed solid, and glistened in the glancing rays of the sun. Downward sped, with shrill shrieks from the girls and wild halloos of warning from the boys, a torrent of figures showing black against the white background; and upward toiled, along either side of the torrent, a swarm of other black figures, to halt, and gather, and turn at the crest.
Bob was there, a privileged character. Not a dog in Beaufort was so widely or favorably known. What fun he found here at a place where he was almost the only one whose legs had to take him down hill as well as up, is a problem. Like a flash Ned on his clipper shot from top to bottom—and skirting the track, with tongue out and with excited yelps, falling farther and farther behind, after him raced Bob, not to catch him until the sled had stopped. Up trudged Ned, hauling his sled, with Bob at last by his heels; and the performance was repeated.
At the hill all now was gaiety and glee. The only thing to mar, ever so slightly, the sport, was the presence of a party from South Beaufort. Eight strong they had arrived, with their bob; and discoloring the snow with tobacco, and swearing freely, they had proceeded to impress the others with their importance.
However, beyond elbowing their way about freely, and profaning snow and air, and acting just as they pleased, they had made no especial trouble, and Ned and the other boys tried to pay no attention to them.
By this time two grooves had been worn in the track, and along them rushed, with no steering needed, the sleds great and small. The street crossings were hair-raising bumps, which caused each sled to leap like a frightened colt. Highest of all bounced Ned on his light clipper, and farthest of all he went, setting a mark which none could touch. Still firm in his faith that some time he would catch him was Bob, racing madly down, and panting sedately up.
At last merely sliding down hill ceased to prove of much interest to the South Beauforters. Trouble was what they wanted; trouble they would have; and the meaner the brand the better it would suit them.
They began to bully the smaller boys, and to blockade, as though by accident, but really with sly malice, the steps of the larger. They sent girls’ sleds careening down the slope, and in a hundred ways made themselves a dread and an annoyance.
“Come on, Ned, let’s go home,” pleaded little Tennie Loders, who lived near Ned, plucking him by the sleeve. “I’m cold.”
“He’s afraid,” scoffed Sam Higgs. “That’s what’s the matter with him.”
“You run along, Tennie,” said Ned. “But I’m not going to leave till I get good and ready. Nobody’s going to drive me off, you bet.”
“Who’s tryin’ to drive you off? Say, kid, who’s tryin’ to drive you off?” sneered Big Mike Farr, who overheard.
“I didn’t say anybody was, did I?” returned Ned, stoutly.
“Well, don’t go shootin’ off your lip ’round here, then,” grumbled Big Mike, in an ugly tone. He waited to see if Ned wouldn’t answer back and give him a better chance to force a fight; but Ned never spoke a word, and the South Beauforter slouched back among his fellows, while they laughed loudly.
For a brief space the coasting continued without especial incident. However, this was only a lull, during which the South Beauforters were but biding their chance. Presently it came.
As they artfully lingered around their bob-sled, at the end of the track, they saw Ned, head on, sweeping toward them upon his clipper. Just as he reached them they neatly jerked their heavy bob square across his path. There was no time for him to swerve. With a thud he struck broadside the rearmost of the two sleds. The clipper stopped short, as though killed; but Ned himself went plunging on, clear over the bob, to plough the snow and slush with face and hands and stomach.
He scrambled up wet, furious, yet willing, if allowed, to accept the mishap as a bit of rude joking. He felt that discretion was here the better part of valor.
However, he was not given any choice in the matter.
“Say,” accosted Big Mike, again, as Ned walked forward, while brushing himself off, to get his sled, “what do you mean by runnin’ into us? Ain’t you got eyes?”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Ned. “I didn’t have time to turn out.”
“You did, too,” snarled a Conner, giving Ned’s innocent clipper a vicious kick into the ditch.
“I didn’t. You pulled your bob across the track on purpose—you know you did,” accused Ned, goaded beyond bearing.
The words were attracting a little knot of spectators and listeners, and as Ned started to rescue his beloved sled from the ditch Bob nosed into the circle, seeking him. Whereupon a South Beauforter planted his toe in Bob’s astonished ribs.
“Ki yi! yi, yi, yi!” yelped Bob, and the sound was to Ned a bugle call to action.
“Here—you’d better not do that again!” he warned, returning with a spring.
“Do what again?” demanded Big Mike, threateningly.
“Hurt that dog. He’s never done anything to you,” asserted Ned, his blood up in defense of his faithful partner.
“Aw, who’s hurtin’ yer dog?” scoffed Big Mike—at the same instant aiming another blow at Bob, shivering close against his master’s legs.
Ned responded with a violent shove that nearly took the South Beauforter off his feet.
“Hit him, Mike!”
“Smash him one in the jaw!”
“Aw, I wouldn’t stan’ that from nobody!”
“Paste it to him!”
“He’s the cully what struck Patsy!”
Amid this clamor from his backers Big Mike doubled his fists and stuck his face close up to Ned’s.
“Who you shovin’, anyway?” he snarled, treading on Ned’s toes, at the same time shouldering him violently backward.
“You!” answered Ned, boldly, recovering his balance.
“Don’t take any of his lip!”
“Punch him in the nose!”
“Aw, Mike! ’Feared of a kid like that!”
Thus urged, and with his gang pressing closer and closer about them, Big Mike swung his clenched hands back and forth, menacingly, and growled:
“Tryin’ to pick a fight, ain’t ye? I’ve a notion to lam the tar out o’ you!”
“You can’t do it, alone,” challenged Ned. “You know your gang will pitch in and help, if you’re getting licked.”
“Naw, we won’t. Of course we won’t,” cried the South Beauforters, in a chorus. “It’ll be fair play; sure it will!”
Ned knew that this was a lie. The South Beauforters never fought fair. They were wolves, attacking from both front and rear, and five to one. Besides, they bit and kicked and gouged, and had no mercy. Fair? Not much!
Ned gazed hastily around the circle, seeking some one who might second him, and protect his back. But of Hal or Tom or others of his chums he saw not a sign. They must be at the top of the hill, or climbing, and ignorant of his fix.
His heart sank a little.
However, he was not afraid of Big Mike, in a fair fight. “Big Mike” had been thus nicknamed because he had been overgrown; but now, stunted as he was by tobacco and by evil habits, flat-footed and with hulking shoulders, no longer was he large for his age. Ned, on his own part, had been leaping ahead by inches, until now he equaled Mike in height, although considerably outweighed. But whatever advantage came to the one from weight was more than balanced by the other’s wiriness and strength of limb gained on river and in wood and field.
Ned was not given much time in which to look about or debate over his situation. Shoved by a member of the gang, after the fashion of the kind, Big Mike came jamming into him, and swinging at the same time cuffed him a blow on the ear. At this Ned poked stiffly upward with his right fist, and his knuckles met Big Mike’s teeth.
Big Mike backed away a step, and dabbled at his mouth with his fingers.
“Say—did you go to do that?” he roared.
“You hit me first,” replied Ned, angrily.
With a volley of oaths, and a kick and a blow delivered together, Big Mike charged at him—a regular wildcat.
A little murmur of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” went up from Ned’s sympathizers.
“Give it to him, Mike! Give it to him!” cheered the South Beauforters, crazy with delight.
The blow took Ned on the top of the head; but the kick fell short. Ned grabbed the leg and heaved up on it, until Big Mike tottered and took a heavy fall.
He was on his feet in an instant, and with head down butted for Ned’s stomach. Hindered by the crafty gang Ned could do nothing but accept the attack, and bump his opponent’s nose with his lifted knee; and now Big Mike, head into his stomach, had him tightly about the waist and was striving to bend him backward. Ned doubled forward and while trying to keep his balance reached under and punched Big Mike’s face.
It was a deadlock, Big Mike straining, and Ned poking, and neither much the worse off.
But the South Beauforters could not hold back any longer. Weaving in and out so as always to be back of Ned as the fighters shifted and struggled in a circle, they aimed treacherous blows at him; and at this crisis little Patsy, keen to aid his brother, darting in seized Ned by the ankles and enabled Big Mike to bring him to the ground.
“Shame! No fair!” cried indignant boys and girls.
Even at this juncture Ned was by no means defeated. His blood was roused, and he felt that he was battling for his life. Big Mike tried to sit astride of him, but he might as well have tried to sit on an eel. Ned wriggled and twisted, and out of the rough-and-tumble behold the picture of Ned on the top; with Big Mike’s hands clenched in his hair, it is true; but nevertheless, Ned on top!
To off-set the hair-grip, his thumb was against the side of Big Mike’s nose, pressing that individual’s head sidewise until his cheek was in the slush.
It was not a picture of beauty. Big Mike’s lips were bleeding, and Ned’s left eye was inflamed where Big Mike had brutally stuck a thumb, to gouge. The faces of both were red, and Ned’s necktie was streaming over his shoulder.
Nor was the picture pleasing to Big Mike’s cronies. Their champion was in the worse position of the two. So the Conners, with a curt command: “Aw, get off of him, will you!” jumped in and obligingly turned the pair over.
This was the South Beaufort way of winning fights.
In the meantime little Zu-zu Pearce, leaving the other girls, who, with awe-stricken faces and throbbing hearts, unable to tear themselves away, lingered on the outskirts, ran with all her might for the hill. Up the slope she labored, slipping and puffing, until near the top she overtook her brother, and Hal and a half dozen others, trudging with their bob for the crest and a coast.
“Tom!” screamed Zu-zu, frantically. “Oh, Tom—the South Beaufort fellows have got Ned Miller at the bottom of the hill, and are beating him awful! They won’t let him fight Big Mike fair.”
“Gee! Come on, fellows!” exclaimed Tom; and in a jiffy the bob was jerked about, and with the boys recklessly piling on was speeding down the track, for the fight.
Close in their wake sped also a following of single sleds—for the news had spread like lightning.
“Goody! Here they come!” cried the anxious girls, dancing in joy. “Oh, hurry, hurry!”
Slim Conner heard, and glimpsed the reinforcements dashing down the slope for the scene. He heard the shouts, and his mind acted quickly:
“Cheese it, lads! Here’s the hull crowd!” he warned, hoarsely.
“Come away, Mike!” warned Patsy, tugging at his brother.
Mike wrenched himself loose from the grip of the prostrate Ned, and with a final kick at his victim’s head ducked through the circle; and off, up the road, ran the South Beauforters, dragging their bob.
Hal and Tom and the rest of the rescuers arrived too late, although they had ditched their bob, without waiting for it to stop, and had rolled into the midst of the ring.
A few of the boys chased the South Beauforters a block or two, just as a threat; but Hal and Tom stayed to attend to Ned.
“Shucks, he didn’t hurt me a bit,” vowed Ned, scorning assistance as he scrambled to his feet.
“You’re going to have a black eye, all right enough, though,” assured Tom.
“Am I?” asked Ned, cautiously feeling of his injured face.
“Well, just the same he was licking Big Mike, if they hadn’t all pitched on to him!” declared Tennie Loders, stanchly.
“Look at my knuckles, where I hit him in the mouth, will you!” said Ned, proudly.
“Here’s your necktie, Ned,” proffered Harriett Taylor, holding it out to the hero of the hour.
Ned tied it on in a crooked knot, while the crowd watched him admiringly.
“Where were you fellows? Who told you about it?” he queried.
“Why, we were going ahead coasting,” explained Hal. “Zu-zu was the one who told us, and then we came lickity-split.”
“Bully for Zu-zu!” exclaimed Ned. “She’s a dandy!”
“I had to run all the way up hill,” said Zu-zu, modestly, just arriving.
“Well, I’ll remember you, all right, for it,” promised Ned. “I’ll give you ducks’ wings till you can’t rest.”
“Oh, I didn’t do it for that!” cried Zu-zu, skipping off.
“Do you want to go home, Ned?” inquired Hal, tenderly.
“No, of course not,” declared Ned. “I’m going to slide some more. It’ll take more than a black eye to get me off this hill!”
And during this recent fracas, what of Bob—Bob, who brought on the fray? The rule of romance demands that he should have launched himself to Ned’s aid, and put the enemy to flight with his teeth. But no; this history must take a different course. Twice kicked by heavy boots, to which he had done no wrong; trampled upon by many feet, and thrust aside by many legs, quite regardless of the plight into which he had forced his master, he had turned tail and had trotted for home.
In his own mind, he had been sorely abused; and with the spirits taken out of him by the ill-treatment, he made straight for shelter.
When his master appeared, with eye now surrounded by a blue-black mat, Bob, never considering it, seemed to think that himself, and not Ned, had been the sufferer.
ALTHOUGH Bob was, as it seemed, so callous to Ned’s black eye, not so with the other members of the household.
Filled with recipes from his friends, for changing a black eye to normal white, Ned returned home, and unseen save by Bob, gained his room. He put in an anxious half hour experimenting; but at the end his eye seemed blacker than ever—a dense, deep, wicked black. It seemed to Ned that there was nothing to his face but that black eye; and assuming a manner of unconcern he descended the stairs and went about his chores.
“N-Ned!” gasped his mother, meeting him in the kitchen. Maggie, the girl, giggled. Ned dropped his armful of wood into the wood-box with the usual crash, and answered, mildly, keeping his head down while he pretended to arrange some of the sticks.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Look up here.”
Ned obeyed, trying to present only his white side.
“Why, what in the world have you been doing? Is that a bruise around your eye, or is it dirt?”
“Bruise, I guess,” responded Ned, shuffling his feet uneasily.
“Where did you get it?”
“Fight. Fellow stuck his thumb in it.”
Ned wished that his mother would let him alone; but she would not.
“The very idea! Whom did you have a fight with?”
“Big Mike Farr—and I’d have licked him only they all jumped onto me.”
“Come here and let me look at it,” bade his mother, aghast.
Ned approached, sheepish in mien, yet determined to stick up for himself in case she took him to task.
But she did not. She stood him by the sink, and while she treated his wound with homely remedies, applied by soft touch, she let him tell his battle-story. And when his story and his treatment had been finished together, and he had emerged with a huge bandage encircling his crown like a turban, she only sighed:
“Oh, Neddie! Why will boys fight!”
“Indeed, ma’am, an’ I for one am mighty glad that he wor havin’ the best of that Mike Farr,” blurted Maggie, who had been listening with approval. “Sure, Mike Farr is nothin’ but a coward an’ a blow. I know him; I know him well, bad cess to him.”
“He’s mean, isn’t he, Maggie?” appealed Ned.
“That he is. He’ll come to the gallows; he will. An’ all that South Beaufort gang, too. Yes, I know ’em,” declared Maggie, wagging her head. “They’re regular little divils.”
“Maggie!” exclaimed Mrs. Miller, somewhat shocked.
“Well, they’d better not tackle us fellows again,” asserted Ned, swaggering out for another armful of wood.
Maggie gazed after him admiringly.
“Sure, an’ I bet he’s a fighter when he gets started,” she mused. “Look at them legs an’ arms! An’ Big Mike twice his size, too.”
“Maggie,” reproved Mrs. Miller, “I don’t want you to encourage Ned in fighting. I don’t like it.”
And she withdrew in dignity to the sitting-room, where, safe in privacy, she did not know whether to laugh or be provoked. At any rate, she did not relish the idea of her Neddie going about with a chip on his shoulder, challenging boys “twice his size,” according to Maggie.
Mr. Miller, coming home, from afar descried Ned’s turban as it bobbed around in the back yard.
“Hello,” he hailed. “That’s a new kind of cap, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” smiled Ned. “And I’ve got a new eye, too. Want to see it?” and advancing toward the front to meet his father he obligingly lifted the bandage.
“Phew!” said Mr. Miller, gravely. “I think I prefer the old eye. Was this a present?”
“I traded for it,” laughed Ned.
His father put a hand on his shoulder, and together they entered the house. Here Ned, helped out by his mother, again made his explanations. At the close his father simply said:
“Well, Ned, I don’t see how you could have acted any differently—but I don’t approve of fighting, any more than does your mother. Fighting is not always a fair test of your side of a question, you know. It is better to avoid a fight by every honorable means in your power. Sometimes it is more cowardly to fight than to keep from fighting. But if you can’t avoid it,” he added, quizzically; “if there’s nothing left to do, to save honor, but fight, then fight for all there is in you!”
“Will!” protested Mrs. Miller, horrified.
“But if I had to fight—just had to fight—you’d want me to lick, wouldn’t you, mother?” appealed Ned.
“I can’t bear to think of your fighting at all, Neddie,” declared his mother, firmly.
Ned’s black eye went away rapidly—although not so rapidly as it had come—and he was made to wear the bandage only a short time. For this he was thankful, since warm weather arrived, and with it “good packing”—and what boy can throw straight with but one eye.
At first the thaw improved the coasting, but in the end it spoiled it. So long as the coasting lasted the South Beaufort gang continued to use the hill, but no more fights occurred.
The two crowds let each other alone, carefully ignoring each other’s presence, the only exception being when Bob dropped his tail between his legs, reminded of past insults, and raised the bristles on his back, and when Ned and Big Mike exchanged scowls of mutual defiance. In this by-play of looks Ned came off rather the worse, his eye still showing up, while Big Mike was apparently as good—or as bad—as ever.
The careful truce, however, was merely the calm before the storm. Big Mike and his companions were biding their time.
Much to Ned’s disappointment, the thaw merged into a Saturday of foggy drizzle, under which the snow silently ran away in water, instead of as silently, but more slowly, vanishing as vapor into the air.
Bound to have what few coasts might yet be found on the hill, Ned and Bob hastened there the moment that they had finished their early morning chores—“their” chores, for Bob, although of no real help in a manual way, always faithfully “stood by.”
At the same time with Ned and Bob, arrived on the hill Hal and Tom. Les’ Porter, Orrie Lukes, and three or four other boys already were there, and several more came within a few moments.
The coasting was miserable. The track was slush down to bare road, and from top to bottom the sled-runners tore through with a “squshy” sound. Ned’s clipper loyally set out to carry him as far and as swiftly as ever, but after a few trials he was obliged to retire it to one side, and take a seat on Hal’s bob.
So poor was the going, that when a party of South Beauforters appeared at the crest, they looked on for a minute, sneeringly, and then slouched away, bobs, and all, in the direction whence they had come.
“Good riddance!” scoffed Ned.
“Good riddance!” congratulated the crowd generally, following his example.
Bob flaunted his tail at the retreating backs.
Half an hour passed. The coasters, now about twenty—including girls and small boys—were, as it happened, for the most part at the top, preparing to plough down again along the soft course, when “thud!” “slap!” “biff!” into their midst tore a hail of snowballs, smashing on face and body and sled.
“Ki!” yapped Bob, startled by a stinging missile.
“Ouch!” exclaimed Jeff Patting, clapping his hand to his cheek.
Before the astounded coasters could look around, hurtled upon them another volley, escorted by a slogan of shrill, triumphant, vengeful yells.
South Beauforters!
That riddance had not been so “good,” after all. Reinforced, the party was returning, and pouring from the mouth of a convenient alley, down swept the enemy, to profit by his sudden approach.
Big Mike was there, and the Conners were there, and Patsy, as fierce as any of them, was there. South Beaufort had been wily enough to use the hill while the hill was usable; but at last, in this day of slush, it was free to throw off its mask and declare war.
The coasters scattered. The small boys, some of them frightened or hurt into crying, ran for home; the girls, with scornful looks, disdaining to hurry, withdrew in fair order to a safe distance; and the larger boys, diverging to different points of the compass as they essayed to reply yet bring off their sleds safely, sought here and there for refuge.
With taunting cries the South Beauforters attacked them viciously, worrying their every step.
“Watch out! They’re throwing ‘soakers’!” warned Ned, as, keeping together, he and Hal and Tom, dragging their bob, answering snowball with snowball and taunt with taunt, stubbornly gave ground up the opposite alley.
“Oh, Ned! You left your sled!” suddenly exclaimed Hal, stopping short.
“Say——!” uttered Ned, taking a hasty step toward the crest again.
But too late. The crest was in possession of the South Beauforters, and at the moment they had discovered the clipper, deserted and lying in the ditch! Big Mike it was who hauled it forth, Big Mike it was who gleefully waggled its rope, Big Mike it was who whooped the loudest and the most maddening.
“Hey! You leave that sled alone!” yelled Ned, shaking his fist.
“You come and get it!” retorted Big Mike.
“I would if you were alone,” asserted Ned.
“Aw, I’ll give you another black eye,” gibed Mike, while Ned dodged one well-aimed shot, and caught a second on the leg.
“Just you wait till we put up this bob,” threatened Hal.
“Yes, ‘just wait,’” mocked Big Mike and his gang.
The bob was put up in short order by chucking it over the alley fence of Hal’s home; then back rushed the boys, to re-engage the foe.
They resolved that Ned must have his sled, at all hazard. It was awful, to think of it in the hands of that Mike. True little sled, the best sled in town.
As for Bob the dog, for all the aid he was to them, they might as well have chucked him, too, over the fence and left him. He was no good when it came to this fighting at long range, and with his tail tightly reefed, and his ears down, and an expression of intense discomfort, he clung close to Ned’s calves.
Bob was no coward, but what dog likes to have things thrown at him; and Bob was under the delusion that every ball was aimed at him alone. He couldn’t understand.
So for the rest of this fight he must be content not to understand, and to play but a minor part.
The South Beauforters, now having in mind no more worlds to conquer, decided to return to their haunts. Laughing and swearing, they started to tramp up the road; and freest of all in mouth and actions was Big Mike, twitching behind him the unwilling clipper sled.
From the alley the three boys delivered a round of snowballs as a token that the combat was on once more.
“Head ’em off! Cut through the yards!” cried Ned; over fences and through the yards scurried the boys, and came out at the front of the retreating foe.
“Give ’em ‘soakers’!” urged Hal, squeezing a snowball between his knees.
“Soakers,” as the name shows, are snowballs which have been soaked and wrung out, so to speak. They are heavy, and hard, and when they hit, hurt.
They are not lawful snowballs, but in a warfare of this kind they prove very useful.
By this time other boys had put away their bobs and sleds, also, and had hastened to wage battle. By this time, moreover, comrades far and wide were getting the news, and dropping chore and game were rallying to the scene.
Through yards, around corners, they sped; in ambush behind tree-box and fence they waited; into the ranks of the South Beauforters rained the missiles.
“Soakers” was the watchword—and with the slush so handy there was no danger of ammunition running out.
On a small scale it was like that memorable retreat of the British from Concord to Lexington. The South Beauforters were the British, and the others were the minutemen.
Big Mike and his gang tried to reply to the constant fire; one of their balls, thrown by Slim Conner, took Tom square on the nose as he incautiously poked his head above the fence. A yell of triumph arose from Slim and Co.
“Great Scott!” appealed Tom, ducking hastily, and touching his finger-tips gingerly to the wound.
“Let’s see, Tom,” said Hal.
Tom uncovered his nose. The left side of it was skinned!
“They’re putting rocks in their snowballs!” declared Ned. “Isn’t that just dirty mean, though!”
Tom, while somewhat disfigured, was by no means disabled, and now and then feeling of his nose, continued the pursuit.
Peppered from every quarter, the South Beauforters began to waver, and showed a tendency to hop, skip and jump along, and to turn corners on the double quick. Presently, as by common consent, all broke into a run, and the retreat became a flight.
The “soakers” were waxing altogether too deadly.
Up the middle of the street, elbows raised to protect heads, bolted the South Beaufort gang, and after them, into the open, scuttled their attackers, whooping like Indians. Even Bob mustered courage to wave his tail, and bark.
From the outset the three boys, and Ned in particular, had selected Big Mike as their especial target. Had “soakers” been bullets they would have landed him long before; but the most they had done was to make him curse them heartily when some telling ball reached the mark. And still he had the clipper in tow.
“drop that sled, you thief!” Ned kept calling, fiercely.
“Thief! Robber!” chimed in Ned’s companions.
Closer the attackers drew their lines. Matters looked promising for a general fight. The boys’ blood was up, and Ned was bound to get that sled. “Soakers” seemed not to do it, and there was nothing left but fists.
At this crisis, just as the pursuers were closing in on the pursued, and “soakers” at short range were on the point of giving way, unless something unexpected occurred, to fisticuffs—then the unexpected did occur!
Out of a cross-street whirled an empty lumber wagon, mounted on runners and whisked behind two horses, from the South Beaufort mills. The South Beauforters hailed it as sent by a special providence.
At any rate, the rescue was planned exactly right, and in nick of time.
Just as the bob turned into their path, they met it. Without causing it to slacken its speed, and without themselves slackening, into the high box they tumbled, Patsy, and the Conners, and Red Sullivan, and all—all except Big Mike!
Gleefully looking behind, to place thumb on nose and wiggle his fingers at Ned and crowd, he proved his own undoing. He slipped, and sprawled—and away without him was borne his gang, with the driver, a South Beauforter, laying lash on steeds.
But Big Mike did not sprawl long. Like a cat he sprang to his feet, and dropping the clipper now sought only to save himself from his deserts.
Ned, who was fleeter than the others, was the nearest to him. On clumped Big Mike, spurred by fear, in the trail of the faithless bob. After him struggled Ned, spurred by wrath and only a few yards from his heels. Behind them strung out the other pursuers.
Of the two, hare and hound, the latter, Ned, because he had been scaling so many fences and making so many circuits, was the more exhausted. However, he grimly hung on, and at the last Fortune rewarded him.
The first limits of South Beaufort had been reached; Big Mike was on familiar ground. The hare had been run to its hole. With a sudden movement Big Mike changed his course at right angles, and darted for a friendly alley.
Ned dug his heel into the slush, and drew back his arm, at the same time. Awaiting opportunity, during all the chase he had been carrying a pet “soaker.” It had grown harder and harder, and now opportunity bade “Ready!” Just as Big Mike, presenting the broadside of his face, entered the alley, Ned, without halting, sped his snowball. The “soaker,” whizzing like a grape-shot, burst with an icy “smack” on Big Mike’s ear!
“Ow-w-w-w!” screeched Big Mike, the last bit of spunk taken out of him by that sudden blow.
Ned, puffing, turned and rejoined his comrades, to receive congratulations—and his clipper.
The next Monday it was rumored at school, on good authority, that Big Mike had an ear on him looking like an over-ripe pear. Ned, hearing, was pleased. He felt that his black eye had been avenged.
LIKE the ill wind that nevertheless blows some good, the thaw, although spoiling the coasting, opened the way for two weeks of the finest skating that Beaufort had ever known. The snow had become water, but the water now became ice.
For in the north Winter heard how his sovereignty was thus being intruded upon by an o’er-anxious Spring, and in haste dispatched to the scene General Bitter-Cold. With his force General Bitter-Cold arrived, amid a flourish of trumpets, late one night. So well did he work that by morning Beaufort and the country round-about was Winter’s again.
He sealed each pond and stream with the seal of empire, and then proceeded to fetter anew the mighty river.
Beaufort had a system of weather flags; and when, for some hours preceding General Bitter-Cold’s arrival, the cold-wave signal was flown from the staff upon the town hall cupola, it was received by Ned and his cronies, save Bob, with much delight. Bob, being rather thin-skinned, much preferred spring, no matter how early it might come.
But with no snow left, and with the streets mud and water, Ned decided that almost anything would be welcome.
“The paper says that the temperature will fall forty degrees by morning,” announced Mr. Miller, at supper.
“Won’t that be fine, though!” asserted Ned.
“It won’t be very fine for the poor people, however,” suggested Mrs. Miller.
Ned tried to look solemn, but the picture of the skating quite blotted out that of the poor.
That night, as he sunk his cheek into his pillow, about to go to sleep, he heard old Boreas sound a fanfare down the flue; and he chuckled and blissfully cuddled into a ball.
In the barn loft Bob, at the end of his burrow amid the hay, raised his head for a moment, inquiringly; then, with a shiver instead of a chuckle, he, also, cuddled closer.
The next morning Ned was detailed to sprinkle ashes and sawdust upon the various walks and paths belonging to the premises, so that the other members of the household might venture out with safety. For himself he left a narrow strip, leading from back stoop to barn, unsprinkled; it was his private slide, and was a constant peril to other back-yard visitors, notably Maggie and Bob.
There was now excellent skating on the flats, where several large ponds had been formed and had readily frozen over. But the river yielded more slowly. However, the zero weather was genuine, and had come to stay a while. Grimly General Bitter-Cold did his work, day by day and night by night building from either bank out toward midstream, until finally a juncture had been made and over the channel itself had been spread a crust of crystal.
So quickly this crust deepened and toughened, that soon an ice bridge had been staked out, and teams were crossing from shore to shore.
The work of freezing had been done very quietly. On this account the Mississippi was now like glass. All Beaufort went skating. The field was unlimited, save as in the swiftest parts of the current the water continued to show, sullen and black.
“We’re going to skate down to Newton next Saturday,” declared Ned, confidently.
“It’s good of you to tell us,” remarked his father, mildly.
Ned was puzzled. He was not exactly sure what the tone of voice meant.
“Well, can’t I?” he inquired.
“That is a problem,” replied his father, bent upon teasing. “But I should think that a boy who not an hour ago declared himself unequal to the task of filling up two coal stoves might find considerable difficulty.”
“Oh, pshaw!” pouted Ned, the hit telling. “I mean, may I?”
“Just as your mother says,” answered his father. “We’ll leave it to her.”
Ned’s face did not express any great joy over this condition upon his going. He knew so well what an amount of convincing his mother, always timid, winter or summer, about the river, would take. Nevertheless, he went boldly at his task.
“May I, mother?” he appealed to Mrs. Miller, who had been listening with a smile on her face.
“Oh, Neddie! I don’t believe the ice is safe!” she said.
“Pooh!” scoffed Ned. “It’s more than two feet thick, right in the channel. You just ought to see the big chunks they’re cutting out for next summer.”
“But Newton’s so far,” objected his mother. “You wouldn’t get back until long after dark.”
“Why, mother!” exclaimed Ned, quite out of patience. “It’s only fourteen miles and we can skate that in an hour and a half easy.”
“I’m so afraid you’ll run into an air-hole, or something, Neddie,” pleaded his mother, unwilling to pull down her flag.
“There isn’t a bit of danger,” assured Ned, eagerly. “Lots of the fellows have been down and back, and there’s a regular path.”
“Who, for instance?” suddenly chipped in his father. “‘Lots of fellows,’ I find, is sometimes rather indefinite.”
“Lou Ravens and ‘Duke’ Burke did it just the other afternoon,” promptly responded Ned.
“Still, since they are not centipedes it takes more than two boys to make a path, you know, Ned,” said his father, drily.
“But we could follow their skate marks—really we could, father,” cried Ned. “May I go, mother?”
“What do you say, Will?” asked Mrs. Miller, seeking refuge in her husband.
“Now that isn’t fair,” cried Ned. “Father said he’d leave it to you. May I? It’s just as safe as our back yard.”
“You’ll be very, very careful, and watch out for air-holes?” asked his mother.
“Yes, I will,” promised Ned.
“And be home before dark?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And not take any risks?”
“No, ma’am.”