“Yes, the whole camp!” responded Cy Doubleday, who, next to Billy Tanker, was the highest in command.
“Well, come on out this way a minute, will ye? I’ve got suthin’ important ter say.” And without further explanation he led the wondering Kinkipaws to a spot some forty rods up the beach, where, mounting an old mackerel-tub that lay half buried in the sand, he proceeded to address them.
He was picturesque! His head was encircled by a stack of henhawk’s feathers, and a yellow-flannel token, like the disc of a Jack-o’-lantern, was sewed on the front of his shirt. At his back were his bow and quiver; on his arm, a shield of leather; his scalping-knife stuck in his belt, and his ears were painted red.
“Fellers!” he began grimly — and it was plain to be seen that something was about to happen—” who is the meanest, stingiest, mis’ablest old skinflint in this whole town?”
The Kinkipaws, standing in a semicircle in front of their chief and the mackerel-tub, for an instant looked unsettled.
“Jed Hoose!” suddenly cried Teddy Fayles, with a burst of inspiration.
“Thet’s so!” said Tim Landers.
Immediately this opinion — the object of which was a well-to-do but exceedingly close-handed farmer residing about a mile from Hingford village — was vigorously re-echoed; Teddy ending up with, “Yes, sir; he ain’t no kind of a man!”
“Now you’ve hit it!” exclaimed the chief, his fists crammed into his trowsers pockets, his feet spread as far apart as the the circumference of the mackerel-tub would permit; “an’ I tell ye, ef we don’t p vent him, he’s go’n ter do suthin’ ter-morrer so righ’-down mean thet scalpin”ud be too good fer him!”
“Wot’s he go’n ter do?” inquired Cy.
“Why, he’s got a mortgage er suthin’ on uncle Pete Hillis’ cow; an’ ef it ain’t paid up ‘fore sundown ter-morrer, he’s go’n ter take his cow!”
Uncle Pete, and his wife aunt Deborah, were an aged colored couple, who for many years had occupied a rude but neatly kept cottage on the outskirts of the village. And here, chiefly by means of such odd jobs as the former was enabled to pick up in the course of the week about town, they maintained a precarious living.
“Uncle Pete could ‘a’ paid for her easy ‘nough,” continued Billy, “ef he hedn’t hed sech a ter’ble time ‘ith the rheumatiz ‘long back. An’ fellers! I tell ye he’s gettin’ ter be a putty ole man! An’ fer ole Hooseter come an’ take his ole white-face’ cow — thet him an’ aunt Deb’rah loves jest ez ef it was somebody — et’s a contemp’ble piece o’ business!”
“Thet’s so!” assented the crowd; while Teddy was for tomahawking old Hoose “fust thing in the mornin’.”
“Thet’s what it is!” the chief went on. “An’ ef we’re the sort o’ chaps I think we be, the Kinks ain’t go’n ter let him do it!”
“How we go’n ter help it?” asked Tim Landers. “Pay thet mortgage oursel’s!”
There was a short but impressive silence. It was a solution the Kinkipaws had scarcely foreseen, and one which they did not yet entirely comprehend. A suspicion, though, was fast getting in among them.
“How much money is the’ in this crowd?” Billy again broke forth.
“Seventeen dollars,” said Teddy.
“Well, thet’s enough ter pay the mortgage, an’ two dollars besides. Shell we do it?”
“An’ not go t’ the picnic?” cried Billy Huff in amazement.
“Well, I don’t see’s we c’n go fer nuthin’,” said Billy Tanker, coolly. “It’s picnic er cow!”
The Kinkipaws exchanged inquiring glances.
“Then jes’ lemme tell ye thet I don’t perpose no cow!” retorted Billy Huff. And it was evident that, figuratively speaking, he expressed the views of at least a dozen disaffected warriors. “We ain’t ‘spons’ble fer the cow! Ain’t we all had ter work ter git the money to go ‘ith?”
“Yes, we hev!” the chief assented, stoutly; “an’ I s’pose we cud hev a first-class time ‘f we was ter go over ter Old Orchard Beach ‘long ‘ith the others. But I think o’ ter-morrer, when we see Jed Hoose drivin’ off uncle Pete’s ole Phroney!” and Billy gazed calmly at the group of frescoed faces with the consciousness of having scored a point. “‘Taint ez ef him an’ aunt Deb’rah hedn’t never done nothin’ fer us,” he argued. “Who scraped our bows an’ arrers? — seventeen bows, an’strung ‘em! an’more’n a hundred arrers! — thet’s wot I wanter know. Kin ye pick out another man in this whole town would ‘a’ done it?”
Some one ventured the opinion that the “scraping” alluded to (an operation, by way of finish, performed with pieces of broken glass) had not been so very much of a job after all.
“It wa’nt, hey? Well, it tuk the bes’ part o’ sev’al wet days, I notice.”
“Thet’s what it did!” said Tim.
“An’ I’m tellin’ ye the’ ain’t another man in this whole town would ‘a’ done it! P’r’aps ye think it wa’n’t nothin’ fer aunt Deb’rah ter git up thet candy-pull for us nuther! Who gev us the tar? Who gev us the root beer? Fellers, the’ ain’t nobody ‘xibited so much int’est in the Kinks ez them two ole black folks hez, an’ now’s our chance.”
“Don’t ye s’pose,” queried Cy, who was endeavor ing to find a less disastrous way out of the difficulty, “don’t ye s’pose ef some ‘f us was ter go over ter Hoose’s ter-morrer mornin’ an’ tell him thet ef he’d wait a couple o’ weeks longer fer the money thet we fellers ‘ud pay it — don’t ye s’pose he’d wait?”
“That’s wot I was so long a-gettin’ here for!” cried Billy. “I on’y heared of it ‘bout an hour ago, an’ I see Jed Hoose in Hicks’ store shed, an’ I told him thet ef he’d wait till the fust o’ next month we’d pay him. For I knowed well ‘nough ‘thout askin’, ye’d all be willin’.”
“An’ wouldn’t he?” cried three or four.
“Nah!” exclaimed the chieftain with supreme disgust; “he thinks jes”cause we’re boys thet our word ain’t good fer nothin’!”
“He does, does he?” quoth Cy. “Well, thet settles me!” And deliberately striding up the beach a little, he drew a twenty-foot line with his boot-heel in the sand. “Ev’ry chap thet’s fer showin’ ole Hoose that the Kinks hez got more honor in one minute than he c’n get up in a hundred years, come over this side o’ the line — picnic er no picnic!’
Tim Landers, without a word, marched over.
“Come on!” urged Cy to several who seemed to be wavering.
Billy Tanker dismounted and stalked across, and five other Kinkipaws followed; among them, Teddy Fayles.
“Augh! hold up, fellers!” groaned Billy Huff, still at the head of an indisposed majority. “What’s the use! You’re jes’ go’n ter lose the best time you ever had in yer life ‘f ye stay ter home!”
“Look here, Huffy!” exclaimed Cy, with commendable zeal; “wot kind of a time d’ye s’pose uncle Pete an’ aunt Deb’rah’d hev ter-morrer night, with their ole cow gone? an’ the next night! an’ the next! an’ the next! Hez ary feller here got an appetite ter go over ter Ole Orchard Beach an’ stuff hisself under them circumstences?”
“Oh, you c’n talk!” growled “Huffy;”
“talk is easy! But mebbe I ain’t quite so mean now ez you think I be!”
“Come on over this side o’ the line, then!” persisted Cy.
“Wal, ef you’re go’n ter make sech a ter’ble fuss I will come over!” and suiting the action to the word, the disconcerted Billy went scuffing through the sand, and sullenly took his stand with the mortgage-lifters — the sourest-faced philanthropist the moon ever looked down upon.
The backbone of the opposition was now effectually broken. To win over the remaining warriors was comparatively an easy task, since no one seemed very anxious to accompany the excurtionists as a full-pledged Kinkipaw, in the absence of the chief and other leading spirits of the tribe. But the grown-up people on the Hingford pier, and aboard the steamer, little guessed that the vocife
rous whooping sent up from the vicinity of the mackerel-tub a little later, was to clinch an enterprise which, in point of real merit, would so far outshine the projected fusillade at Old Orchard Beach as to make it exceedingly dim.
And then the whistle blew.
“Come on down an’ see ’em start!” cried Billy Tanker, brandishing his tomahawk about his ears and scurrying toward the landing. The others came galloping after.
The deck-hands hauled in the gang-plank, the pilot jingled the little bell in the engine-room, and the Monie Musk, with its hilarious cargo, and the fond, relinquished hopes of the blighted Kinkipaws, went sailing out to sea.
Half an hour later a noiseless band of plumed and painted warriors crept into the whitewashed enclosure that surrounded uncle Pete’s dwelling, and peeped into the kitchen windows. The aged colored couple were at prayers. By the dim and flickering light of a tallow candle, aunt Deborah, with the old leather-bound Bible spread open on her lap, was slowly reading aloud from the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. Uncle Pete — his elbows on his knees, his face between his hands, and his eyes fixed mournfully on the floor — sat silently, thoughtfully listening.
It was a lowly room: a few chairs, a stove, a table, some tinware on the dresser, a few cheap, bright-hued pictures on the walls, a mantel clock. In one corner a ladder led up through a hole between the rough joists overhead to the garret. And this hole, which was perhaps a yard square, and into which after a careful and respectful survey of what was going on below, and at which Billy Tanker began steadily gazing, must finally have become a thing of some consequence. For Billy called Cy Doubleday’s attention to it, and the two withdrew a short distance from the house and held a low-voiced but vigorous consultation. Then the rest of the tribe were summoned. Briefly and hurriedly the matter was explained. Unique and strong, though noiseless, were the marks of approbation. And immediately afterwards Teddy Fayles, with fifteen silver dollars in his hat, was “boosted” to the roof of uncle Pete’s woodshed, up which he crawled in his stocking-feet, stealthily raised the little attic-window at the top of it, and climbed into the chamber. The Kinkipaws with bumping hearts resumed their former places.
Verse after verse the good old woman devoutly struggled through, till finally she came to the nineteenth. The chuckling younkers heard her then repeating:
“Ag’in I say unto you, dat ef two ob you shall agree on yearf ez touchin’ any’ting dat dey shall ask, it shall be done for dem ob my Fadder which is in Hebben,”
“Wha-what dat?” interrupted uncle Pete, slowly straightening up; “wha-what dat? Jist read dat ar las’ verse ober ‘g’in, mudder. Jist dat las’ verse.” Aunt Deborah complied.
“Wha’-wha’ — does Mahsr say dem dar words his own se’f?”
“Dem berry words!”
Uncle Pete sat blinking and staring at aunt Deborah across one corner of the table, until she too, in wonder at his singular behavior, began blinking and staring in return.
“Mudder!” he finally exclaimed, “ain’t deh jist two ob us yere dish yer berry minute?”
“Why, deh is!” said aunt Deborah, faintly.
“An’ isn’t we boaf ‘greed ez touchin’ de p’opriety ob askin”bout de mor’gige?”
“We is dat.”
“Whut’s de nex’ verse?”
Aunt Deborah turned to the page: “For whar two or free are gaddered togedder in my name, dere am I in de midst ob dem.”
“Stop right dar!” cried uncle Pete, clutching the arms of his big easy-chair and working himself out to the edge of it. “I’se gwine ter supplecate fer de mor’gige. Ef Mahsr say dat his own se’f, he keep de promise, shore! Chee’ up, mudder! Dis yere’s ottr time ob trubble, mudder — dis yere is,” and tears began to trickle down the poor old cheeks. “We’se be’n in de midst ob’Gyptian darkness ‘bout de mor’gige, shore ‘nuff, but I’se gwine ter look up! An’ I’m gwine ter look up till I done gits ‘nuff ter pay up dat ar mor’gige to de berry las’ cent! Dat’s whut I is, mudder!”
And uncle Pete — followed by aunt Deborah, who was by this time convulsively sobbing — slid down upon his knees and closed his eyes.
“Our Farder in Hebben,” began uncle Pete, grasping the arms of his chair again, his voice subdued and broken; and outside there in the darkness, still huddling about the uncurtained kitchen windows, their hearts now pounding away like a chorus of clocks, the Kinkipaws drew back — they liked not either to look or to listen further.
“Now then, Teddy!” whispered the excited chieftain from below. And Teddy, with clamorous effect, let fall the fifteen, dollars! On to the table, on to the stove, against the row of tin things on the dresser, the dollars of the Kinkipaws chinked, and clinked, and jingled, clattered and banged.
“Wha — what dat?” exclaimed uncle Pete with a start, opening his eyes to their widest capacity and staring around.
Aunt Deborah, who had been surprised into a scream by the clangor, was now in mute amazement following the dizzy motions of the silver as it went rolling and spinning about the floor in all directions. Slowly, cautiously, she now reached out her hand and picked up a piece of it that had settled near her chair.
“Why, farder!” she faintly cried, as if scarce daring to trust to her shattered senses, “it’s money, shore’s dis worl’! It’s money come straight down to us!”
Speechless, bewildered, uncle Pete scrambled to his feet. “What?” he gasped; “what! Maws’r ain’t done gone answered de pra’r soon’s dis? What! what!”
“Lebben dollars, farder!” aunt Deborah presently announced, counting them out on the table.
“Lebben!” exclaimed uncle. Pete, “lebben! whar’s de rest ob it? Rest ob it round yere some-whar’s, shore’s ye bawn! Maws’r nebber do nuffin’ ob dis sort by halbs!”
“Oh, yere’s anudder!” she cried, “an’ yere’s anudder!” raking them out from beneath the stove with the poker.
“Bress us! on’y two lef’! on’y jist two! Dey’s yere! dey’s yere! ‘pend ‘pon it, dey’s jist done got misplaced ‘bout yere somewhar’s! Keep a-huntin’, yo’ll fin’ dem boaf ‘fore shortly!” and uncle Pete stood peering here and there, with outstretched neck, in a tremor of expectation. “See ‘f dey ain’t in ‘mongst dem ar cookin”tensils, mudder.’Pears like dey mout some ob ’em landed ober dar, by de soun’ dat ‘curred when dey done drap froo de roof.”
“’Tis, yere dey is, fer’ true!” aunt Deborah shouted as she thrust her hand into a two-quart dish on the dresser.
“Bress de Maws’r! bress de Lawd!” fervently responded uncle Pete. “Fufteen dollahs, mudder!” bringing his hand down on the table with a force which made the silver jingle; “dat mortgage ain’t good for shucks! Deh ain’t nobody ner nuffin’ kin tech ole Phroney an’ remoob her off’n dese yer premises!”
And into that little lowly room, with its flickering light, where two old darkeys in the midst of their simple-mindedness had tried to pray according to the Word, great joy had come.
“Fellers!” exclaimed Billy Tanker in an impressive undertone, when the Kinkipaws had rounded the corner of uncle Pete’s brush-pile and were safely out of hearing, “I calkerlate we’ve hed our picnic!”
Indeed! indeed! their hearts had fed on honey! Language is weak; but perhaps the sentiment of the whole tribe was befittingly expressed by Billy Huff’s emphatic “Blest ef we hain’t!”
A CASE OF COINCIDENCE.
SHE was a queer old lady, was Grandmother Grant; she was not a bit like other grandmothers; she was short and fat and rosy as a winter apple, with a great deal of snow-white hair set up in a big puff on top of her head, and eyes as black as huckle berries, always puckered up with smiles or laugh-
She never would wear a cap.
“I can’t be bothered with ‘em!” she said: and when Amelia Rutledge, who was determined her grandma should, as she said, “look half-way decent,” made her two beautiful little mob caps, soft and fluffy, and each with a big satin bow, one lavender and one white, put on to show wh
ere the front was, Grandma never put them on right; the bow was over one ear or behind, or the cap itself was awry, and in the end she pulled them off and stuck them on a china jar in the parlor, or a tin canister on the kitchen shelf, and left them there till flies and dust ruined them.
“Amelia’s as obstinate as a pig!” said the old lady: “she would have me wear ‘em, and I wouldn’t!”
That was all, but it was enough; not a grandchild ever made her another cap. Moreover Grandmother Grant always dressed in one fashion; she had a calico dress for morning and a black silk for the afternoon, made with an old-fashioned surplice waist, with a thick plaited ruff about her throat; she sometimes tied a large white apron on, but only when she kept her keys, her smelling-bottle, her pocket-book, her handkerchief and her spectacles, a bit of flag-root and some liquorice stick. I mean when I say went into the kitchen; and she wore a pocket as big as three of yours, Matilda, tied on underneath and reached through a slit in her gown. Therein she this, that all these things belonged in her pocket, and she meant to keep them there; but it was one peculiarity of the dear old lady, that she always lost her necessary conveniences, and lost them every day.
“Maria!” she would call out to her daughter in the next room, “have you seen my spectacles?”
“No, mother; when did you have them?”
“Five minutes ago, darning Harry’s stockings; but never mind, thfere’s another pair in the basket.”
In half an hour when Gerty came into her room for something she needed, Grandmother would say:
“Gerty, do look on the floor and see if my specs lie anywhere around.”
Gerty couldn’t find them, and then Grandma would say:
“Probably they dropped out on the grass under the window, you can see when you go down; but give me my gold pair out of my upper drawer.”
And when Mrs. Maria went to call her mother down to dinner she would find her hunting all about the room, turning her cushiont over, peering into the wood-basket, shaking out the silk quilt, and say “What is it you want, mother?”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 590
