Chapter IV: Part 4

But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the falling wood attracted Miss Morgan's attention, it was diverted by a belligerent party at her front gate. This belligerent party was composed of two persons, to wit: one mother from the north end of Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy lagging as far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him to lag. The mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging her son to Miss Morgan's gate to offer him in evidence as "Exhibit A" in a possible cause of the State of Kansas vs. Henry Perkins. Exhibit A was black and blue as to the eyes, torn as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose, tumbled and dusty as to the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly and unquestionably sheep-faced. The mother opened the bombardment with: "Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy."

Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed: "Well, for mercy sakes! Where on earth's he been?"

And the leader of the war party returned: "Where's he been? Well, I'll tell you where he's been. And I just want you to know who done this." Here Exhibit A got behind a post. The recital of the details of his catastrophe was humiliating. But the mother continued: "Henry Perkins done this. I don't believe in stirring up neighborhood quarrels and all that, but I've just stood this long enough. My boy can't stick his nose out of the door without that Perkins boy jumpin' on him. If you can't do anything with that Perkins boy, I'll show him there's a law in this land."

Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded. She had voice only to say, "I'm sure there's some mistake;" and then remembering the crash of the wood on the kitchen floor, she called: "Henry, come here!"

As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the belligerents replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy is a good little boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in this town. And because I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins boy picks on him all the time. I've told him to keep out of his way and not to play with Henry Perkins, but he can't be runnin' all over this town to keep--"

And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and grimy features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State looked in dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and her temper rose--not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A sulkily turned his face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to be oblivious of the presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a scene too shameful for mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the heavy silence with: "Henry, where on earth have you been?"

"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.

"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his clothes that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits returned.

"Why--no'm--I didn't. But he was one of four fellers that picked on me comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick me."

"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you pick a fight with that Perkins boy?"

"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to add verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four other boys."

"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of Henry's Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer of them began to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this little boy telling the truth? Now, don't you story to me, Henry."

"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop dead this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and them North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and he tried to hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and Henry executed a polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms out to keep 'em all from hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I couldn't help it. And they was all a pickin' on me, and I told 'em all the time I didn't want to fight."

But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head in violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.

Miss Morgan asked: "Who scratched your face so, Henry?"

"Him; he's all the time fightin' me."

"No, ma, I didn't. You know I didn't."

Exhibit A and Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit B responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn me, and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come north of Sixth."

To which the leader of the raiders returned in great scorn: "The very idea! Just listen at that! Why, Miss Morgan, that Perkins boy is the bully of this town. Come on, Willie, your pa will see if there is no law to protect you from such boys as him." Whereupon the war party faced about, and walked down the sidewalk and away.

Miss Morgan and Bud watched the North End woman and her son depart. Miss Morgan turned to Bud, and spoke spiritedly: "Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again. Now, you won't forget, will you, Henry?"

Bud examined his toes carefully, and replied, "No 'm."

In the threshold she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, and continued: "Now, don't you mind about it, Henry. They sha'n't touch you. You come and wash, and we'll have supper."

When a boy has a woman for a champion, if he is wise, he trusts her to any length. So Bud went to the kitchen, picked up the water-bucket, and went to the well, partly to keep from displaying a gathering wave of affection for his foster-mother, and partly to let the magnificence of the wood-box burst upon her in his absence. When he returned, he found Miss Morgan pointing toward the wood-box and beaming upon him. Bud grinned, and fished in his pocket for the coin.

"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule," he faltered. "I thought it would be nice for the missionary society." That he might check any weak feminine emotions, he turned his attention to the supper-table, and blurted: "Gee, we're goin' to have pie, ain't we? I tell you, I'm mighty pie hungry."

The glow of Miss Morgan's melted heart shone upon her face. Through a seraphic smile she spoke: "It's apple pie, too, Henry--your kind." As she put the supper upon the table, she asked: "Did you have a good time at the circus, Henry?"

The boy nodded vehemently, and said: "You bet!" and then went on, after a pause, "I guess I tore my pants a little gettin' off of that mule; but I thought you'd like the dollar."

It was the finest speech he could make. "I guess I can mend them, Henry," she answered; and then she asked, with her face in the cupboard, "Sha'n't we try some of the new strawberry preserves, Henry?"

As she was opening the jar she concluded that Henry Perkins was an angel--a conclusion which, in view of the well-known facts, was manifestly absurd.

"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"

Did you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life and wears more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet.--_From the Observations of "Mr. Great Heart_."

It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek filled the air with their calls:

"Bushel of wheat, and a
Bushel of rye--
All t' ain't ready
Holler aye.
All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."

Or

"One--two--three for me."

Or

"All's out's in free."

Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed; over barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the sunflowers and the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the moon rose it merged into pull-away. That game flourished for a while and transformed itself by an almost imperceptible evolution into a series of races down the dusty road. But when the moon's silver had marked itself upon the grass, the boys were lying prone on a hay-cock behind the royal castle. They chattered idly, and the murmur of their talk rose on the just-felt breeze that greets the rising moon, like the ripple of waters. But the chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were absorbing the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their being were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their souls--fresher from God than are the souls of men--were a-quiver with joy, and their lips babbled to hide their ecstasies. In Boyville it is a shameful thing to flaunt the secrets of the heart. As the night deepened, and the shy stars peeped at the bold moon, the boys let their prattle ebb into silence. Long they lay looking upward--with the impulse in their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam left unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the wise men of the world have left locked in mystery--the question of the Whence, the Why, and the Whither.

As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the company upon the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary boy remained.

After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer madness set him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay. Life was full of gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a delicious longing for he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it were not something new and unimaginably good to eat. It was the nearest he could come to a defining of the longing. Of course no one can define it. It is that which quickens the blood of all young creatures--the rosebud, the meadow-lark, the dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding them glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness. The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted croakingly, lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped, and sitting on a fence looked at a great white cloud that was mounting the western sky. His soul was listening to the faraway music from the breakers of the restless rising sea of ambition, and the rush of life and action, that were flooding into the distant rim of his consciousness. The music charmed him. Tears came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom this mighty tide has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's feet strayed so happily--we know why the far-seeing angels gave him tears.

A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A whining screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear over the boy. For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the night sounds--the claque of the frogs, the burring of the crickets, the hum of the water on the mill-dam far down the valley, and the occasional call of some human voice, ringing like a golden bell in the hush of the night. It was after nine and the boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman called,--

"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."

The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he roused himself to reply,--

"Yessum. All right."

Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet, Winnie, and wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."

Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew, but his feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water by the pump, rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned moonward. The thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy stupor he sat on the kitchen step drying his feet. When he got up, Piggy Pennington gazed for a moment at a star--a pale star which hovered timidly over the chimney of the home which sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the lunacy upon him, he flung to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned foolishly and came to himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his room. He was ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.