Caught in the Act

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  "I understand the first part of that," Mike said. "Did your friend Shakespeare write it?"

  "William Wordsworth did," Reuben told him. "He was also a poet of great renown."

  "That's fine," Mike said. *They should have got along well, with both of them unable to put down words the way they come straight from the mouth."

  "William Shakespeare lived many, many years ago, but William Wordsworth died just about the time that you were bom."

  "It's sorry I am, but I had nothing to do with it," Mike said. He grinned with mischief, and Reuben chuckled. "I like the poetry. I surely do," Mike said. "And someday maybe Fll understand it all. Tell again the part about the wings. I want to think about it."

  The work went fast, and later that evening, after the cows had been put back into their stalls and the first stars were winking in the black sky, Reuben said, "We're through early tonight. You can take your time washing up for dinner."

  Mike ran ahead, bouncing into the warm kitchen and smiling at Marta. "If you had wings," he asked, "would you fly to see the oceans and mountains?"

  Marta's expression grew somber, and she sighed. "If I had wings," she said, "I think I would fly to see what Corey Blair was up to."

  "Has he come back from the Kansas border?"

  "I have no way of knowing." Marta shot an angry look in the direction of the parlor. "Mr. Friedrich ordered Corey not to set foot on this place."

  Mike sidled toward the door as she spoke. Much as he liked Marta, he didn't want to hear any more about Corey.

  He walked down the hallway, heading for the stairs, and had his foot on the bottom stair when he saw light flicker in his own room. As Mike drew back into the shadows the light went out, and someone hurried from Mike's room, quietly shutting the door. Mike hid under the staircase, peering out to see Gunter scrambling as fast as he could down the stairs.

  The moment Gimter had disappeared in the direction of the parlor, Mike raced up the stairs and into his room. He picked up his lamp. Sure enough, the glass was warm to his touch. With fumbling fingers he lit the wick, then put the lamp down and studied his room.

  Nothing seemed out of place. He had so few things, it was easy to keep track of them. He took off his coat, laid it across the chair, and stood by the bed, steeling himself for whatever dead animal Gunter nught have hidden under the quilt.

  Quickly Mike threw back the quilt and was surprised to discover that nothing horrible had been put in his bed. He decided that something must be under the bed. He tossed the quilt back into place, smoothed it out, and bent to peer under the bed. Nothing.

  Mike straightened and tried to sort out the puzzle. Gunter had been in his room for a reason. He couldn't have taken anything, because Mike had nothing to take.

  Carefully, he examined the chest, but could find nothing out of place. Whatever mean surprise Gunter had left behind, he'd hidden it well. But Mike would find it. He'd take the room apart, if need be. He had to discover what Gunter had been up to.

  Mike gripped the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress to lift it ft^om the rope slings on which it lay. As he did, his fingertips touched something cold and hard. Startled, he jumped back, then carefully eased up the mattress to see what was there.

  Wedged between the rope and the wooden fi*ame of the bed lay Mr. Friedrich's gold pocket watch!

  As Mike stared at the watch, wondering what he was going to do, he heard heav>^ footsteps on the stairs and Gunter's raised voice. "I saw him take it, Papa! I saw Michael steal your watch!"

  If the watch were found here in his room, Mike knew he'd be labeled a thief. Mr. Friedrich would send him back to New York where he'd surely go to prison! What could he do? His legs wobbling so they could barely hold him up, he squeezed his eyes shut, desperately searching for the answer. When he opened them again, he knew what he had to do.

  Mike grabbed the watch, dropped the mattress down on the bed, smoothed the quilt into place, and threw open the door. He rushed out of the room and onto the stairs with such force that he crashed into Gunter. Gun-ter grabbed for the handrail to steady himself, and Mike stumbled, sitting down hard on the stairs.

  Mr. Friedrich's large hand gripped the neck of Mike's shirt and roughly jerked him to his feet. "Get up!" he thundered.

  "I didn't mean to be late to supper," Mike said.

  "It's not suppertime we are concerned with." His

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  fingers dug into Mike's shoulder so hard that Mike cried out in pain.

  Mrs. Friedrich appeared at the foot of the stairs. "What is it? What has happened?" she called and began to puff her way up the stairs.

  "Michael tried to steal Papa's gold watch," Gunter announced.

  "No! I didn't!" Mike cried.

  "Yes, you did! I saw you!" Gunter turned so only Mike could see his face and smirked.

  Marta ran up the stairs, squeezing to see around Mrs. Friedrich's shoulder. Reuben was right behind her.

  Mike tried to squirm from Mr. Friedrich's grasp. *Tou're hurting my shoulder!" he cried.

  "You will feel more pain than that before I am through with you!" Mr. Friedrich grunted.

  "But I told you—I didn't steal your watch!"

  *Tell me where you hid it," Mr. Friedrich demanded.

  "I didn't!"

  Gunter stepped forward. "I'll tell you. Papa I saw him hide it under the mattress in his bed."

  "Oh, my!" Mrs. Friedrich cls^jped her hands to her cheeks, her face pale with shock.

  Marta gasped, her eyes wide with horror, but the expression on Reuben's face didn't change.

  ^That's not true!" Mike shouted.

  "Isn't it? I'll show you," Gunter said. He led the way into Mike's room and lifted the edge of the mattress.

  For a moment everyone just stared, until Gunter turned to Mike and furiously screeched, "Where is it? What did you do with it?"

  "I told you!" Mike said. "I didn't take it!"

  "It's got to be here!" Gunter tore the covers from the bed, then rununaged through the chest, but he came up empty-handed.

  Mrs. Friedrich let out a long sigh of relief and said,

  'The watxrh must be where it always is when Hans isn't wearing it—on the dresser in our room. Each night he careftiUy winds it and— "

  "Be quiet, Irma!" Mr. Friedrich continued to scowl.

  "I'll look!" Marta said and slipped from the room before anyone else could speak. In just a moment she returned, her right hand pressed to her chest as she tried to catch her breath, her words tumbling out in a rush. 'The watch isn't where it should be!"

  *Then where—"

  Mr. Friedrich hadn't finished his question before Reuben stepped forward. "What is that bulge in your shirt pocket, Gunter?"

  Surprised, Gunter clapped a hand over his pocket. Then he flushed a dark, mottled red. With all eyes on him he reached into the pocket and pulled out his father's watch.

  "I didn't put it there!" he exploded. "Michael did! He must have found it and—" Gunter quickly started over. "He found it in Papa's room and put it in my pocket!"

  "How could he do that?" Reuben asked. "Had you taken off your shirt and left it where Mike could get to it?"

  "No," Gunter whined.

  "I don't understand this at all," Mrs. Friedrich complained. She leaned back and fanned herself with her right hand.

  Mike held his breath, hoping that none of them would understand how he'd made the switch.

  "What were you doing with your papa's watch, Gunter?" his mother continued.

  "Papa!" Gunter wailed. "Who are you going to believe—^me, or Michael, who's a New York guttersnipe and a pickpocket?"

  "I—I would believe my son," Mr. Friedrich grumbled,

  but he let go of Mike's shoulder. Gratefully, Mike rubbed the sore spot.

  "But Mike didn't have the watch. Gunter did," Marta said.

  *This does not concern you. You will speak no more about it." Mr. Friedrich glared at Marta.

  Reuben stepped forward. "I think it was just a boyish prank," he
said.

  "A boyish prank?" Mr. Friedrich began to bristle even more. *There is danger in allowing evil behavior to persist"

  *Wo aber Gefahr ist, wdchst Das Retten da auch,'' Reuben said.

  Mrs. Friedrich gasped, and for just an instant Mike saw terror in Mr. Friedrich's eyes. "What did you just say?" Mike whispered to Reuben.

  Reuben must have seen the Friedrichs' fear, too. "It was just a line from a poem," he replied aloud. "It's translated as, *But where danger is, grows also that which saves.' Mr. Friedrich is a churchgoing man. He'd understand that."

  "I think I do understand," Mr. Friedrich said, so slowly and quietly that Mike's skin crawled. "You've never mentioned you speak German." Mike didn't understand what either of the two men were talking about.

  Reuben quickly put an arm around Mike's shoulders and another around Gunter's and herded them toward the top of the stairs. "I know poetry. Now end this squabble," he said. "No one wants supper to get cold."

  **0h!" Marta cried. *The cream sauce will have scorched!" She squeezed past Reuben and raced down the stairs.

  At the table Mike was on his best behavior and tried not to notice the sharp, angry looks both Mr. Friedrich and Gunter were giving him. But he had enough good, common sense—as Ma used to say—to know that Mr. Friedrich hadn't been satisfied with Reuben's answer. It

  was obvious that his suspicion of Reuben had grown even stronger. Mike also knew that Mr. Friedrich would hold this day against Mike, no matter that Mike had not been to blame. And Gunter would plot until he had planned something else to get Mike into such trouble that he*d be sent back to Tombs Prison.

  For the first time since he'd arrived at the Friedrichs' farm, Mike had no ^^petite.

  The next morning, as the last cow entered the pasture, Reuben called as usual, "Make sure the gate is securely fastened."

  "I will," Mike answered. He dropped the bar, testing it to make sure that it was fitted tightly into place. He turned and saw Gunter standing near the bam, watching him. Gunter*s lips twitched as though he were thinking of a secret joke before he turned and ran toward the road, swinging his covered lunch pail in one hand, his strapped books and slate in the other.

  Mike hurried down to the bam to join Reuben, who had begun to clean the stalls. Mike quickly picked up the broom and got busy.

  Reuben was silent while he worked. Occasionally Mike glanced at him ft"om the comer of his eye, but he couldn't read the man's face. Was he angry at Mike, too? Surely he wouldn't believe that Mike had tried to steal Mr. Friedrich's watch! Reuben was his friend.

  By the time they had finished the work in the bam, Mike was miserable with worry. Bluntly he faced Reuben and said, "I didn't take that watch. Don't you believe me?"

  "Of course I believe you," Reuben said. "It wasn't hard to figure out what had h^^pened. Gunter hid the watch in your room, you discovered the fact, and you slipped it into Gunter's pocket because there was nothing else you could do with it."

  'That's right," Mike said. 'That's exactly what happened." He sat on an overturned bucket and rested his chin in his hands. "Mr. Friedrich will probably figure out the last part. He won't believe that Gunter put the watch in my room. He'll just think I heard him coming and got rid of it the way any pickpocket would once his back was to the wall."

  Reuben put a hand on Mike's shoulder. "As 1 told you before, Mike, you must be careful with Gunter. Be friendly toward the boy. I've seen you bristle around him like an angry rooster."

  "He does his best to make me angry," Mike mumbled.

  "That's no excuse," Reuben said. "Whether or not you give in to anger is your own choice."

  "That's very like what Ma would be telling me." Mike stood and tried to smile, but the picture that came into his mind of Ma, with her arms wide, ready to enfold him, was so vivid that tears blurred his sight. "I miss Ma," he whispered. "I miss my family."

  "Write to them," Reuben said. "That will make you feel better in itself, and when you get the answers to your letters, your world will brighten considerably."

  "I've wanted to," Mike said, "but I have nothing to write with."

  "Just ask Mr. Friedrich for some paper and the use of a quill pen and ink," Reuben said. "It would cost too little for him to begrudge you. He'll give them to you."

  "Fine! I'll ask him tonight." Mike pulled back his shoulders. "What's the next job?"

  "If you've got enough muscle for it, you can help me carry the buckets of feed to the hogs."

  Mike didn't relish the job. Each time he'd done it, his arms had ached from the strain, but he said, "Sure. I'm ready. Those hogs will have their bellies—"

  He was interrupted by Mrs. Friedrich calling, "Michael! Michael, where are.you?"

  Mike ran from the bam and toward the back porch stoop, where Mrs. Friedrich was standing, her shawl wrapped tightly around her.

  "Ah," she said with satisfaction. "I knew you wouldn't be far from the house as yet. I need you to do something for me."

  "Whatever you want, Mrs. Friedrich," Mike said.

  She handed him a tightly woven reed basket. "Michael," she said, "will you please fill this with cockle-burs? You'll find many in the wild grasses along the road."

  Mike thought about the prickly burs that occasionally clung to the cuffs of his pants. "What would anyone want with cockleburs?" he blurted out.

  "I am going to boil them with some alum," she said.

  "Well, then, I suppose I'll be eating cockleburs and eiyoying them," Mike said, "since anything you cook is the best eating there is in the whole state of Missouri."

  Mrs. Friedrich laughed heartily. "Oh, Michael, you are so funny! I'm not going to cook them for us to eat. I'm going to make a green-yellow dye from them to dye the cloth for a new dress I'll make."

  She went back into the house, still laughing, and Mike ran down the driveway to the road. He plucked at the prickly burs that hid among the grasses, now and then getting an extra harvest from the burs that clung to the legs of his trousers and the fingers of his gloves. The basket was large, and Mike found himself far down the road before it was even half-filled. As he stopped to stretch his arms and arch his tired back, he realized that he had traveled quite a distance. The Friedrich farm buildings were no longer in sight. Far down the hill, in the opposite direction, he could see anotlier white house with smoke rising from its chimney. He wondered who lived there.

  Mike bent once more to his task, eager to finish, but

  straightened when he heard the dull pounding of a horse's hooves on the road. He watched a rider from down the hill come closer and saw that it was Corey Blair.

  Corey reined his speckled gray horse near where Mike was standing and said, "You're the new boy at the Friedrich place."

  Mike nodded. "I'm Mike Kelly."

  "And I'm Corey Blair. We heard some tales about you, Mike."

  Mike's backbone stiffened, and he pulled back his shoulders, but Corey chuckled and said, "I'd a' liked to seen you tangle with that outlaw on the train."

  Corey swung from his horse, holding the reins loosely, and said, "I don't hold a man's past agin' him, Mike. In fact, I figger you and me could become friends."

  "Thanks," Mike said. "I'd like that. The more friends I have, the better."

  "You was there when Mr. Friedrich throwed me out of his house," Corey said. "He hadn't no right to do that."

  "He gets angry a lot," Mike said. "I think he was angry that you were going to fight on the side of slavery."

  "A man's got a right to his own opinions," Corey said.

  Mike was puzzled. Corey seemed open and friendly. How could somebody like that believe in slavery? "Do you really think that people should have slaves?" Mike asked him.

  In turn, Corey looked as though he couldn't understand Mike. "There's nothin' to think about," he said. "Facts are that Missouri is a slave state and nobody's got a right to change that, 'ceptin' our own lawmakers. Most of all, we don't need some Yankees comin' in to tell us what to do." He shoved his hat back over his r
oughly cut, sun-bleached hair and proudly added, "My grandpap helped settle Missouri, and Missouri people decide for theirselves what they want."

  *Then shouldn't the Kansas people decide what they want?" Mike asked.

  "You know any of them Kansas people?" Corey asked. When Mike shook his head, Corey said, "I didn't think so. A bunch of them are every bit as crazy as that old John Brown who got hisself hung last year. You know about John Brown?"

  "No."

  "Well, Brown—along with his sons and some other folks—in the middle of the night come and drug some good old Missouri farm folk out of their beds and murdered them and stole their belongings and said they was doin' it to stop slavery. This feller Brown went on causin' a he2^ of trouble, all in the name of freein' some slaves, who—if they knew what was best for them—^probably didn't even want to be freed. Well, anyhow, after Brown's raiders caused a lot more trouble, even takin' over a U.S. Government arsenal, a lot more folks got killed. Old Brown was tried and hung. And everybody would'a been better off if he'd never started nothin' in the first place."

  *Then why did you go to the border to fight?" Mike asked.

  "Because I got to," Corey said. "Weren't you payin' attention?"

  This discussion was getting nowhere, Mike thought, so he deliberately changed the subject. "Marta's been in a bad mood ever since Mr. Friedrich told you to leave the house."

  Corey looked pleased. "She missed me?"

  "I guess."

  Corey took a step closer to Mike and bent forward, lowering his voice. "You and me could help each other out, Mike."

  "How?" Mike was wary.

  "Well, for one thing, since I can't go near the Friedrich

  place with Old Man FYiedrich there, I can't tell Marta that Vm back home again."

  "Oh," Mike said. "Is that what you want? Sure, FU be glad to tell her. Yesterday she was wondering where you were."

  Corey, a broad smile on his face, stuck a hand into his coat pocket and took out a folded square of paper. "I want a little more than that. I want you to take her this note from me."