Ben Stone at Oakdale

by Morgan Scott

  CHAPTER X.

  STONE’S STORY.

  “That’s right,” cried Roger, with satisfaction, resuming his seat.“Tell me the whole business. Fire away, old man.”

  As Ben seemed hesitating over the beginning of the story, Rogerobserved that, with an apparently unconscious movement, he once morelifted his hand to his mutilated ear. At that moment Eliot was struckwith the conviction that the story he was about to hear was concernedwith the injury to that ear.

  “At the very start,” said Ben, an uncomfortable look on his plain face,“I have to confess that my father was always what is called a shiftlessman. He was more of a dreamer than a doer, and, instead of trying toaccomplish things, he spent far too much time in meditating on what hemight accomplish. He dreamed a great deal of inventing something thatwould make his fortune, and this led him to declare frequently thatsome day he would make a lot of money. He was not a bad man, but he wascareless and neglectful, a poor planner and a poor provider. Theneighbors called him lazy and held him in considerable contempt.

  “Although we were very poor, my father was determined that I shouldhave an education, and I attended the public school in Hilton, where welived. I know I’m not handsome, Eliot, and could never be much of afavorite; but the fact that we lived in such humble circumstances andthat my father seemed so worthless caused the boys who dared do so totreat me with disdain. Naturally I have a violent temper, and when itgets the best of me I am always half crazy with rage. I always waspretty strong, and I made it hot for most of the boys who dared tauntme about my father or call me names. It seems to me now that I wasalmost always fighting in those times. I hated the other boys anddespised them in a way as much as they despised me.

  “My only boy friend and confidant was my little blind brother, Jerry,whose sight was almost totally destroyed by falling from a window whenhe was only four years old. Although I always wished for a boy chumnear my own age, I never had one; and I think perhaps this made me allthe more devoted to Jerry, who, I am sure, loved me as much as I didhim.

  “Jerry’s one great pleasure was in fiddling. Father had a violin, andwithout any instructions at all Jerry learned to play on it. It waswonderful how quickly he could pick up a tune. I used to tell him hewould surely become a great violinist some day.

  “Of course my temper and frequent resentment over the behavior of otherboys toward me got me into lots of trouble at school. Once I wassuspended, and a dozen times I was threatened with expulsion. But Ikept right on, and after a while it got so that even the older andbigger boys didn’t care much about stirring me up. If they didn’trespect me, some of them were afraid of me.

  “There was a certain old woman in the village who disliked me, and shewas always saying I would kill somebody some day and be hanged for it.Don’t think I’m boasting of this, Eliot, for I’m not; I am heartilyashamed of it. I tell it so you may understand what led me into theaffair with Bernard Hayden and made him and his father my bitterenemies.

  “I suppose it was because I was strong and such a fighter that the boysgave me a chance on the school football team. Hayden opposed it, but Igot on just the same. He always was a proud fellow, and I think heconsidered it a disgrace to play on the team with me. But I wasdetermined to show the boys I could play, and I succeeded fairly well.This changed the bearing of some of them toward me, and I was beginningto get along pretty well at school when something happened that droveme, through no fault of my own, in shame and disgrace from the schooland cast a terrible shadow on my life.”

  Here Stone paused, shading his eyes with his square, strong hand, andseemed to shrink from the task of continuing. Roger opened his lips tospeak a word of encouragement, but suddenly decided that silence wasbest and waited for the other lad to resume.

  “For some time,” Ben finally went on, “my father had been working muchin secret in a garret room of our house. Whenever anything was said tohim about this he always declared he was working out an invention thatwould enable him to make lots of money. I remember that, for all of ourgreat poverty, he was in the best of spirits those days and oftendeclared we’d soon be rich.

  “There was in the village one man, Nathan Driggs, with whom father hadalways been on intimate terms. Driggs kept a little shop where he didwatch and clock repairing, and he was noted for his skill as anengraver. Driggs was also rather poor, and it was often remarked that aman of his ability should be better situated and more successful.

  “One dark night, near one o’clock in the morning, I was aroused byhearing someone knocking at our door. My father went to the door, and,with my wonder and curiosity aroused, I listened at an upper windowthat was open. The man at the door talked with my father in low tones,and I fancied he was both excited and alarmed.

  “I could not hear much that passed between them, but I believed Irecognized the voice of Driggs, and I was sure I heard him saysomething about ‘friendship’ and ’hiding it somewhere.’ When the manhad gone I heard father climb the stairs to the attic. I wondered overit a long time before I fell asleep again.

  “The following day my father was arrested and the house was searched.Concealed in the attic they discovered a bundle, or package, and thiscontained dies for the making of counterfeit money. In vain fatherprotested his innocence. Appearances were against him, and every oneseemed to believe him guilty. On learning what the bundle contained, heimmediately told how it came into his possession, stating it had beenbrought to him in the night by Nathan Driggs.

  “Driggs was likewise arrested, but he contradicted my father’sstatement and positively denied all knowledge of the bundle or itscontents. Several members of an organized body of counterfeiters hadbeen captured, but these men did not manufacture their dies, and theSecret Service agents had traced the latter to Fairfield.

  “Both father and Driggs were held for trial in heavy bonds. Neither ofthem was able to find bondsmen, and so they went to jail. There werethose in Hilton who fancied Driggs might be innocent, but everybodyseemed to believe my father guilty. It was the talk of the town how hehad shut himself in his garret day after day in a most suspiciousmanner and had often boasted that some day he would ’make a lot ofmoney.’

  “At the regular trial I was a witness. I told how Driggs had come toour house in the night, and I repeated the few words I had heard himsay. The prosecutor did his best to confuse me, and when he failed hesarcastically complimented me on having learned my lesson well. Youcan’t understand how I felt when I saw no one believed me.

  “Again Driggs denied everything, and he had covered his tracks so wellthat it was impossible to find him guilty; but my father was convictedand sentenced to a long term in prison. It was a heavy blow to my poormother, and she never recovered from it.

  “I now found myself an outcast in every sense of the word, despised andshunned by all the boys who knew me. Under such conditions I could notattend school, and I tried to do what I could to help my mother supportthe family; but no one seemed willing to give me work, and we had apretty hard time of it.

  “The worst was to come. Two months after being sent to prison my fatherattempted to escape and was shot and killed. Mother was prostrated, andI thought she would surely die then; but she finally rallied, althoughshe carried a constant pain in her heart, as if the bullet that slew myfather had lodged in her breast.”

  Once more the narrator paused, swallowing down a lump that had riseninto his throat. He was a strong lad and one not given to betrayingemotion, but the remembrance of what his unfortunate mother hadsuffered choked him temporarily. When he again took up his story hespoke more hurriedly, as if anxious to finish and have it over.

  “It isn’t necessary to tell all the unpleasant things that happenedafter that, but we had a hard time of it, Eliot, and you can understandwhy it was that I just almost hated nearly everybody. But most I cameto hate Bern Hayden, who was a leader among the village boys, and whonever lost a chance to taunt and deride me and call me the son of ajail-
bird. I don’t know how I kept my hands off him as long as I did. Ioften thought I could kill him with a will.

  “My little brother could get around amazingly well, even though he wasblind, and he had a way of carrying father’s old fiddle with him into agrove not far from our house. One day I came home and found him cryinghimself sick over the fiddle, which had been smashed and ruined. Hetold me Bern Hayden had smashed the instrument.

  “That night Hayden visited another boy, with whom he was very chummy.This other boy lived some distance outside the village, and I lay inwait for Hayden and stopped him as he was crossing lots on his wayhome. It was just getting dark, and the spot was lonely. It was lightenough, just the same, for him to see my face, and I knew from hisactions that he was frightened. I told him I was going to give him sucha thumping that he’d remember it as long as he lived. He threatened me,but that didn’t stop me a bit, and I went for him.

  “Hayden wasn’t such a slouch of a fighter, but he couldn’t hold his ownwith me, for I was bursting with rage. I got him down and was punishinghim pretty bad when somehow he managed to get out his pocket knife andopen it. He struck at me with the knife, and this is the result.”

  Roger gave a cry as Ben again lifted a hand to his mutilated ear.

  “He cut part of your ear off?” gasped Eliot.

  Ben nodded. “Then I seemed to lose my reason entirely. I choked himuntil he was pretty nearly finished. As he lay limp and half dead onthe ground, I stripped off his coat and vest and literally tore hisshirt from his body. I placed him in a sitting posture on the ground,with his arms locked about the butt of a small tree, and tied hiswrists together. With his own knife with which he had marked me forlife, I cut a tough switch from a bush, and with that I gave it to himon his bare back until his screams brought two men, who seized andstopped me. I was so furious that I had not heard their approach. I wasall covered with blood from my ear, and I sort of gave out all at oncewhen the men grabbed me.

  “I tell you, that affair kicked up some excitement in Hilton. My earwas cared for, but even while he dressed the wound the doctor told methat Lemuel Hayden would surely send me to the reform school. My motherfainted when she heard what had happened.

  “I believe they would have sent me to the reform school right away hadI not been taken violently ill the following day. Jerry told me thatBern Hayden was also in bed. I was just getting up when mother fell illherself, and in three days she died. I think she died of a brokenheart. Poor mother! Her whole life was one of hardships anddisappointments.

  “Uncle Asher, mother’s brother, arrived the day after mother died. Hetook charge of the funeral, but almost as soon as he stepped off thetrain in Hilton he heard what a bad boy I was, and he looked on me withdisfavor.

  “After the funeral Jerry came to me in the greatest excitement and toldme he had heard Lemuel Hayden and Uncle Asher talking, and uncle hadagreed that I should be sent to the Reformatory, as Mr. Hayden wished.Uncle said he would look out for Jerry, but I was to be carried off thenext morning.

  “That night I ran away. I whispered good-by to Jerry and stole out ofthe house, with only a little bundle of clothing and less than a dollarin money. I managed to get away all right, for I don’t believe any onetried very hard to catch me. I fancy the people of Hilton thought it agood riddance.

  “For a long time I was afraid of being taken. I found work in severalplaces, but kept changing and moving until Jacob Baldwin took me towork for him. Both Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin have been awfully good to me,and sometime, if I ever can, I’m going to pay them back for it. Theyencouraged me to save money to come here to school. I came and foundthe Haydens here, and now that’s all over.

  “I’ve told you the whole yarn, Eliot; I haven’t tried to hide anythingor excuse myself. I know I was to blame, but you might have donesomething yourself if you had been goaded and tormented and derided asI was. Then to have Hayden do such a mean thing as to smash mybrother’s fiddle!

  “You’re the first person I’ve ever told the whole story to, and Isuppose, now that you know just the sort of fellow I am, you’ll agreewith Hayden that I’m no fit associate for other boys at the academy.”

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------