Chapter III (4)

I had a feelin' all along that if they was cut asunder trouble of some kind would follow. But both Hetty and Netty was strong for it. They refused to see me or have anything to do with me, they sent me word, till I give up what they called the insultin' idea of marryin' both of 'em. They set and quarrelled with each other all the time, the Fat Lady told me, because they was jealous of each other. Bein' where they couldn't get away from each other even for a minute, that jealousy must have et into them something unusual. And finally, I knuckled under. I let myself be overrulled. I seen I would lose both of 'em unless I made a choice. So I sent 'em word by the Fat Lady that I would choose. But I knowed deep in my heart all the time that no good would come of it. You can't go against Scripter and prosper; and the Scripter says: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Well, we fixed it up this way: I was to pay for that there operation, having money saved up for to do it with, and then I was to make my choice by chance. The Fat Lady says to toss a penny or something.

But I always been a kind of a romantic feller, and I says to myself I will make that choice in some kind of a romantic way. So first I tried one of these ouija boards, but all I get is “Etty, Etty, Etty,” over and over again, and whether the ouija left off an H or an N there's no way of telling. The Fat Lady, she says: “Why don't you count 'em out, like kids do, to find out who is It?”

“How do you mean?” I asks her.

“Why,” says she, “by saying, 'Eeny meeny, miney, mo!' or else 'Monkey, monkey, bottle of beer, how many monkeys have we here?' or something like that.”

But that ain't romantic enough to suit me and I remember how you pluck a daisy and say: “She loves me! She loves me not!” And I think I will get an American beauty rose and do it that way. Well, they had the operation, and it was a success. And about a week later I'm to go to the hospital and tell 'em which one has been elected to the holy bonds of matrimony. I gets me a rose, one of the most expensive that money can buy in the town we was in, and when I arrive at the hospital I start up the front steps pluckin' the leaves off and sayin' to myself: “Hetty she is! Netty she is! Hetty she is!”--and so on. But I never got that rose all plucked.

I knowed all along that it was wrong to put asunder what God had joined together, and I orter stuck to the hunch I had. You can't do anything to a freak without changing his or her disposition some way. You take a freak that was born that way and go to operating on him, and if he is good-natured he'll turn out a grouch, or if he was a grouch he'll turn out good-natured. I knowed a dog-faced boy one time who was the sunniest critter you ever seen. But his folks got hold of a lot of money and took him out of the business and had his features all slicked up and made over, and what he gained in looks he lost in temper and disposition. Any tinkering you do around artists of that class will change their sentiments every time.

I never got that rose all plucked. At the top of the steps I was met by Hetty and Netty, just cornin' out of the hospital and not expectin' to see me. With one of them was a young doctor that worked in the hospital and with the other was a patient that had just got well. They explained to me that as soon as they had that operation their sentiments toward me changed. Before, they had both loved me. Afterwards, neither one of 'em did. They was right sorry about it, they said, but they had married these here fellows that morning in the hospital, with a double wedding, and was now starting off on their wedding trips, and their husbands would pay back the operation money as soon as they had earned it and saved it up.

Well, I was so flabbergasted that my skin stiffened up on me, and it stayed stiff for the rest of that day. I never said a word, but I turned away from there a sad man with a broken heart in my bosom. And I quit bein' an artist. I didn't have the sperrit to be in a show any more.

And through all the years since then I been a saddened man. But as time went by there come a kind of sweetness into that sadness, too. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, like the poet says. I was one of the saddest men in the world, but I sort o' enjoyed it, after a few years. And all them memories sort o' kept me a better man.

I orter stuck to that kind of sweet sadness. I orter knowed that if I went back on all them beautiful memories of them girls something bitter would come to me.

But I didn't, gentlemen. I went back on all that sentiment and that tenderness. I betrayed all them beautiful memories. Five days ago, I went and married. Yes, sir, I abandoned all that sweet recollection. And I been livin' in hell ever since. I been reproachin' myself day and night for not provin' true and trustworthy to all that romantic sadness I had all them years. It was a sweet sadness, and I wasn't faithful to it. And so long as I live now I will have this here bitter sadness.

The stranger got up and sighed and stretched himself. He took a fresh chew of tobacco, and began to crank his flivver.

“Well,” said Ben Grevis, “that is a sad story. But I don't know as you're sadder, at that, than the Widder Watson is.”

The stranger spat colourfully into the road, and again the faint semblance of a smile, a bitter smile, wreathed itself about his mouth.

“Yes, I be!” he said, “I be a sadder person than the Widder Watson. It was her I married!”

DOGS AND BOYS (As told by the dog)

If you are a dog of any sense, you will pick you out a pretty good sort of a boy and stick to him. These dogs that are always adopting one boy after another get a bad name among the humans in the end. And you'd better keep in with the humans, especially the grown-up ones. Getting your scraps off a plate at the back door two or three times a day beats hunting rabbits and ground-squirrels for a living.

What a dog wants is a boy anywhere from about nine to about sixteen years old. A boy under nine hasn't enough sense, as a rule, to be any company for an intelligent dog. And along about sixteen they begin to dress up and try to run with the girls, and carry on in a 'way to make a dog tired. There are exceptions of course--one of the worst mistakes some dogs make is to suppose that all boys are alike. That isn't true; you'll find just as much individuality among boys as there is among us dogs, if you're patient enough to look for it and have a knack for making friends with animals. But you must remember to be kind to a boy if you're going to teach him anything; and you must be careful not to frighten him.

At the same time, you must keep a boy in his place at once. My boy--Freckles Watson is his name--understands just how far he can go with me. But some dogs have to give their boys a lesson now and then. Jack Thompson, who is a fine, big, good-natured dog, has a boy like that. The boy's name is Squint--Squint Thompson, he is--and he gets a little overbearing at times. I remember one Saturday afternoon last summer in particular. There were a lot of us dogs and boys fooling around up at Clayton's swimming-hole, including some stray boys with no dogs to look after them, when Squint began to show off by throwing sticks into the water and making Jack swim in and get 'em. Jack didn't mind that, but after a while he got pretty tired and flopped down on the grass, and wouldn't budge.

“Grab him by the tail and the scruff of the neck, and pitch him in, Squint,” says my boy, Freckles. “It's a lot of fun to duck a dog.”

Squint went over to where Jack was lying and took hold of the scruff of Jack's neck. Jack winked at me in his good-natured way, and made a show of pulling back some, but finally let Squint pitch him into the deepest part of the swimming-hole. His head went clear under--which is a thing no dog likes, let alone being picked up that way and tossed about. Every boy there set up a shout, and when Jack scrambled up the bank, wagging his tail and shaking the water off himself, the humans all yelled, “Sling him in again, Squint!”

Jack trotted over to where he had a bone planted at the foot of a walnut tree, and began to dig for it. Squint followed, intending to sling him in again. I wondered if old Jack would stand for any more of it. Jack didn't; but before he got that fool boy to give up his idea he had to pretend like he was actually trying to bite him. He threw a good scare into the whole bunch of them, and then made out like he'd seen a rabbit off through the trees, and took after it. Mutt Mulligan and I went with him, and all the boys followed, naked, and whooping like Indians, except two that stayed behind to tie knots in shirts. When we three dogs had given the whole bunch of them the slip, we lay down in the grass and talked.

“Some day,” says Jack to me, “I'm afraid I'm really going to have to bite that Squint boy, Spot.”

“Don't do it,” says I, “he's just a fool boy, and he doesn't really mean anything by it.”

“The thing to do,” says Mutt Mulligan, “is to fire him--just turn him loose without a dog to his name, and pick up another boy somewhere.”

“But I don't like to give Squint up,” says Jack, very thoughtful. “I think it's my duty to stick to him, even if I have to bite him once or twice to keep him in his place.”

“You see,” Jack went on, “I'm really _fond_ of Squint. I've had him three years now, and I'm making a regular boy of him. He was a kind of a sissy when I took charge of him. His folks made him wear long yaller curls, and they kept him in shoes and stockings even in the summer-time, and they dressed him up in little blouses, and, say, fellows, you'd never guess what they called him!”

“What?” says I.

“Percival,” says Jack. “And they wouldn't let him fight. Well, I've seen him turn into a real boy, a bit it a time, and I think it's up to me to stick to the job and help with his education. He chews tobacco now,” says Jack very proudly, “and he can smoke a corncob pipe without getting sick; and I'll tell you what, Spot, he can lick that Freckles boy of yours to a frazzle.”

“Huh!” says I, “there's no boy of his age in town that dast to knock a chip off that Freckles boy's shoulder.”

“Yes, sir,” says Jack, ignoring my remark, “that Squint has turned into some kid, believe me! And the first time I saw him he was a sight. It was about dusk, one summer afternoon three years ago, and he was sitting down in the grass by the side of the road six or seven miles from town, crying and talking to himself. I sat down a little way off and listened. He had run away from home, and I didn't blame him any, either. Besides the curls and shoes and stockings I have mentioned, there were other persecutions. He never went fishing, for instance, unless his father took him. He didn't dast to play marbles for keeps. They wouldn't let him have a Flobert rifle, nor even a nigger shooter. There were certain kids he wasn't allowed to play with--they were too common and dirty for him, his folks said. So he had run off to go with a circus. He had hacked off his Fauntleroy curls before he started only he hadn't got 'em very even; but he had forgot to inquire which way to go to find a circus. He'd walked and walked, and the nearest thing to a circus he had found was a gipsy outfit, and he had got scared of an old man with brass rings in his ears, and run, and run, and run. He'd slung his shoes and stockings away when he started because he hated 'em so, and now he had a stone bruise, and he was lost besides. And it was getting dark.

“Well, I felt sorry for that boy. I sat there and watched him, and the idea came to me that it would be a Christian act to adopt him. He wasn't a sissy at heart--he had good stuff in him, or he wouldn't have run away. Besides, I wanted a change; I'd been working for a farmer, and I was pretty sick of that.”

“It's no life for a dog with any sporting instinct,” I said, “farm life isn't. I've tried it. They keep you so infernally busy with their cows and sheep and things; and I knew one farm dog that had to churn twice a week. They stuck him in a treadmill and made him.”

“A farm's no worse than living in a city,” said Mutt Mulligan. “A city dog ain't a real dog; he's either an outcast under suspicion of the police, or a mama's pet with ribbons tied around his neck.”

“You can't tell me,” says Jack. “I know. A country town with plenty of boys in it, and a creek or river near by, is the only place for a dog. Well, as I was saying, I felt sorry for Percival, and we made friends. Pretty soon a man that knew him came by in a buggy, going to town. He was a doctor, and he stopped and asked Percival if he wasn't pretty far from home. Percival told him he'd left home for good and for all; but he sniffled when he said it, and the doctor put him into his buggy and drove him to town. I drilled along behind. It had been dark quite a while when we got home, and Percival's folks were scared half to death. His mother had some extra hysterics when she saw his hair.

“'Where on earth did you get that ornery-looking yellow mongrel?' says Percival's father when he caught sight of me.

“'That's my dog,' says Percival. 'I'm going to keep him.'

“'I won't have him around,' says his mother.

“But Percival spunked up and said he'd keep me, and he'd get his hair shingled tight to his head, or else the next time he ran away he'd make a go of it. He got a licking for that remark, but they were so glad to get him back they let him keep me. And from that time on Percival began to get some independence about him. He ain't Percival now; he's Squint.”

It's true that a dog can help a lot in a boy's education. And I'm proud of what I've done for Freckles. I will always remember 'one awful time I had with him, though. I didn't think he'd ever pull through it. All of a sudden he got melancholy--out of sorts and dreamy. I couldn't figure out what was the matter with him at first. But I watched him close, and finally I found out he was in love. He was feeling the disgrace of being in love pretty hard, too; but he was trying not to show it. The worst part of it was, he was in love with his school-teacher. She was a Miss Jones, and an old woman--twenty-two or twenty-three years old, she was.

Squint and Freckles had a fight over it when Squint found out. Squint came over to our place one night after supper and whistled Freckles out. He? says:

“Say, Freckles, I seen you put an apple on Miss Jones's desk this morning.”

“You're a liar,” says Freckles, “and you dastn't back it.”

“I dast,” says Squint.

“Dastn't,” says Freckles.

“Dast,” says Squint.

“Back it then,” says Freckles.

“Well, then, you're another,” says Squint. Which backed it.

Then Freckles, he put a piece of wood on to his shoulder, and said:

“You don't dast to knock that chip off.”

“I dast,” says Squint.

“You dastn't,” says Freckles.

Squint made a little push at it. Freckles dodged, and it fell off. “There,” says Squint, “I knocked it off.”

“You didn't; it fell off.”

“Did.”

“Didn't neither.”

“Did teether. Just put it on again, and see if I don't dast to knock it off.”

“I don't have to put it on again, and you ain't big enough to make me do it,” says Freckles.

“I can too make you.”

“Can't.”

“Huh, you can't run any sandy over me!”

“I'll show you whether I can or not!”

“Come on, then, over back of the Baptist Church, and show me.”

“No, I won't fight in a graveyard.”

“Yah! Yah! Yah!--'fraid of a graveyard at night! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat!”

There isn't any kid will stand for that, so they went over to the graveyard back of the Baptist Church. It was getting pretty dark, too. I followed them, and sat down on a grave beside a tombstone to watch the fight. I guess they were pretty much scared of that graveyard, both of those boys; but us dogs had dug around there too much, making holes after gophers, and moles, and snakes for me to mind it any. They hadn't hit each other more than half a dozen times, those boys, when a flea got hold of me right in the middle of my back, up toward my neck--the place I never can reach, no matter how hard I dig and squirm. It wasn't one of my own fleas, by the way it bit; it must have been a tramp flea that had been starved for weeks. It had maybe come out there with a funeral a long time before and got lost off of someone, and gone without food ever since; and while I was rolling around and twisting, and trying to get at it, I bumped against that tombstone with my whole weight. It was an old slab, and loose, and it fell right over in the grass with a thud. The boys didn't know I was there, and when the tombstone fell and I jumped, they thought ghosts were after them, though I never heard of a ghost biting anybody yet. It was all I could do to keep up with those boys for the next five minutes, and I can run down a rabbit. When they stopped, they were half a mile away, on the schoolhouse steps, hanging on to each other for comfort. But, after a while they got over their scare, and Squint said:

“There ain't any use in you denying that apple, Freckles; two others, besides me, not counting a girl, saw you put it there.”

“Well,” said Freckles, “it's nobody's business.”

“But what I can't make out,” says Squint, “is what became of the red pepper. We knew you wasn't the kind of a softy that would bring apples to teacher unless they was loaded with cayenne pepper, or something like that. So we waited around after school to see what would happen when she bit into it. But she just set at her desk and eat it all up, and slung the core in the stove, and nothing happened.”

“That's funny,” says Freckles. And he didn't say anything more.

“Freckles,” says Squint, “I don't believe you put any red pepper into that apple.”

“I did,” says Freckles. “You're a liar!”

“Well,” says Squint, “what become of it, then?”

“That's none of your business, what become of it,” says Freckles. “What's it to you what become of it? How do I know what become of it?”

“Freckles,” says Squint, “I believe you're stuck on teacher.”

“You're a liar!” yells Freckles. And this time he was so mad he hit Squint without further words. They had a beauty of a fight, but finally Freckles got Squint down on the gravel path, and bumped his head up and down in the gravel.

“Now,” says he, “did you see any apple?”

“No,” says Squint, “I didn't see any apple.”

“If you had seen one, would there have been pepper in it?”

“There would have been--le'me up, Freckles.”

“Am I stuck on teacher?”

“You ain't stuck on anybody--ouch, Freckles, le'me up!”

Freckles let him up, and then started back toward home, walking on different sides of the street. About half-way home Freckles crossed the street, and said: “Squint, if I tell you something, you won't tell?”

“1 ain't any snitch, Freckles, and you know it.”

“You won't even tell the rest of the Dalton Gang?”

“Nope.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Sure.”

“Well, set down on the grass here, and I'll tell you.” They set down, and Freckles says:

“Honest, Squint, it's true--I did take her that apple this morning, and I'm stuck on her, and there wasn't any pepper in it.”

“Gee, Freckles!” says Squint.

Freckles only drew in a deep breath.

“I'm awful sorry for you, Freckles,” says Squint, “honest, I am.”

“You always been a good pal, Squint,” says Freckles. “Ain't there anything can be done about it?”

“Nope,” says Freckles.

“The Dalton Gang could make things so hot for her she'd have to give up school,” says Squint, very hopeful. “If you didn't see her any more, you'd maybe get over it, Freckles.”

“No, Squint, I don't want her run out.”

“Don't _want_ her run out! Say, Freckles, you don't mean to say you _like_ being in love with her?”

“Well,” says Freckles, “if I did like it, that would be a good deal of disgrace, wouldn't it?”

“Gosh darn her!” says Squint.

“Well, Squint,” says Freckles, “if you call me a softy, I'll lick you again; but honest, I do kind of like it.” And after that disgrace there wasn't anything more either of them could say. And that disgrace ate into him more and more; it changed him something awful. It took away all his spirit by degrees. He got to be a different boy--sort of mooned around and looked foolish. And he'd blush and giggle if any one said “Hello” to him. I noticed the first bad sign one Saturday when his father told him he couldn't go swimming until after he had gone over the whole patch and picked the bugs off of all the potatoes. He didn't kick nor play sick; he didn't run away; he stayed at home and bugged those potatoes; he bugged them very hard and savage; he didn't do two rows, as usual, and then sneak off through the orchard with me--_no, sir, he hugged 'em all!_ I lay down at the edge of the patch and watched him, and thought of old times, and the other dogs and boys down at the creek, or maybe drowning out gophers, or getting chased by Cy Smith's bull, or fighting out a bumblebee's nest and putting mud on the stung places, and it all made me fell mighty sad and downcast. Next day was Sunday, and they told him he'd get a licking if he chased off after Sunday-school and played baseball out to the fair-grounds--and he didn't; he came straight home, without even stopping back of the livery-stable to watch the men pitch horseshoes. And next day was Monday, and he washed his neck without being told, and he was on time at school, and he got his grammar lesson. And worse than that before the day was over, for at recess-time the members of the Dalton Gang smoked a Pittsburgh stogie, turn and turn about, out behind the coal-house. Freckles rightly owned a fifth interest in that stogie, but he gave his turns away without a single puff. Some of us dogs always hung around the school-yard at recess-times, and I saw that myself, and it made me feel right bad; it wasn't natural. And that night he went straight home from school, and he milked the cow and split the kindling wood without making a kick, and he washed his feet before he went to bed without being made to.

“No, sir, it wasn't natural. And he felt his disgrace worse and worse, and lost his interest in life more and more as the days went by. One afternoon when I couldn't get him interested in pretending I was going to chew up old Bill Patterson, I knew there wasn't anything would take him out of himself. Bill was the town drunkard, and all of us dogs used to run and bark at him when there were any humans looking on. I never knew how we got started at it, but it was the fashion. We didn't have anything against old Bill either, but we let on like we thought he was a tough character; that is, if any one was looking at us. If we ever met old Bill toward the edge of town, where no one could see us, we were always friendly enough with him, too. Bill liked dogs, and used to be always trying to pet us, and knew just the places where a dog liked to be scratched, but there wasn't a dog in town would be seen making up to him. We'd let him think maybe we were going to be friendly, and smell and sniff around him in an encouraging sort of a way, like we thought maybe he was an acquaintance of ours, and then old Bill would get real proud and try to pat our heads, and say: 'The _dogs_ all know old Bill, all right--yes, sir! _They_ know who's got a good heart and who ain't. May be an outcast, but the _dogs_ know--yes, sir!” And when he said that we'd growl and back off, and circle around him, and bristle our backs up, and act like we'd finally found the man that robbed our family's chicken-house last week, and run in and snap at Bill's legs. Then all the boys and other humans around would laugh. I reckon it was kind of mean and hypocritical in us dogs, too; but you've got to keep the humans jollied up, and the coarsest kind of jokes is the only kind they seem to appreciate. But even when I put old Bill through his paces, that Freckles boy didn't cheer up any.

The worst of it was that Miss Jones had made up her mind to marry the Baptist minister, and it was only a question of time before she'd get him. Every dog and human in our town knew that. Folks used to talk it over at every meal, or out on the front porches in the evenings, and wonder how much longer he would hold out. And Freckles used to listen to them talking, and then sneak off alone and sit down with his chin in his hands and study it all out. The Dalton Gang--Squint had told the rest of them, each promising not to tell--was right sympathetic at first. They offered to burn the preacher's house down if that would do any good. But Freckles said no, leave the preacher alone. It wasn't _his_ fault--everyone knew _he_ wouldn't marry Miss Jones if she let him alone. Then the Daltons said they'd kidnap the teacher if he said the word. But Freckles said no, that would cause a lot of talk; and, besides, a grown woman eats an awful lot; and what would they feed her on? Finally Tom Mulligan--he was Mutt Mulligan's boy--says:

“What you got to do, Freckles, is make some kind of a noble sacrifice. That's the way they always do in these here Lakeside Library books. Something that will touch her heart.”

And they all agree her heart has got to be touched. But how?

“Maybe,” says Squint, “it would touch her heart if the Dalton Gang was to march in in a body and offer to reform.”

But Tom Mulligan says he wouldn't go _that_ far for any one. And after about a week the Dalton Gang lost its sympathy and commenced to guy Freckles and poke fun at him. And then there were fights--two or three every day. But gradually it got so that Freckles didn't seem to take any comfort or joy in a fight, and he lost spirits more and more. And pretty soon he began to get easy to lick. He got so awful easy to lick the Daltons got tired of licking him, and quit fighting him entirely. And then the worst happened. One day they served him notice that until he got his nerve back and fell out of love with Miss Jones again, he would not be considered a member of the Dalton Gang. But even that didn't jar him any--Freckles was plumb ruined.

One day I heard the humans talking it over that the preacher had give in at last. Miss Jones's pa, and her uncle too, were both big church members, and he never really had a chance from the first. It was in the paper, the humans said, that they were engaged, and were to be married when school was out. Freckles, he poked away from the porch where the family was sitting when he heard that, and went to the barn and lay down on a pile of hay. I sat outside the barn, and I could hear him in there choking back what he was feeling. It made me feel right sore, too, and when the moon came up I couldn't keep from howling at it; for here was one of the finest kids you ever saw in there bellering like a girl, and all because of a no-account woman--a grown-up woman, mind you! I went in and lay down on the hay beside him, and licked his face, and nuzzled my head up under his armpit, to show him I'd stand by him anyhow. Pretty soon he went to sleep there, and after a long while his father came out and picked him up and carried him into the house to bed. He never waked up.

The next day I happened by the schoolhouse along about recess-time. The boys were playing prisoner's base, and I'm pretty good at that game myself, so I joined in. When the bell rang, I slipped into Freckles's room behind the scholars, thinking I'd like a look at that Miss Jones myself. Well, she wasn't anything Yd go crazy over. When she saw me, there was the deuce to pay.

“Whose dog is that?” she sings out.

“Please, ma'am,” squeals a little girl, “that is Harold Watson's dog, Spot.”

“Harold Watson,” says she to Freckles, “don't you know it's strictly against the rules to bring dogs to school?”

“Yes'm,” says Freckles, getting red in the face.

“Then why did you do it?”

“I didn't, ma'am,” says he. “He's just come visitin' like.”

“Harold,” says she, “don't be impudent. Step forward.”

He stepped toward her desk, and she put her hand on his shoulder. He jerked away from her, and she grabbed him by the collar. No dog likes to see a grown-up use his boy rough, so I moved a little nearer and growled at her.

“Answer me,” she says, “why did you allow this beast to come into the schoolroom?”

“Spot ain't a beast,” says Freckles. “He's my dog.” She stepped to the stove and picked up a poker, and come toward me. I dodged, and ran to the other side of her desk, and all the scholars laughed. That made her mad, and she made a swipe at me with that poker, and she was so sudden that she caught me right in the ribs, and I let out a yelp and ran over behind Freckles.

“You can't hit my dog like that!” yelled Freckles, mad as a hornet. “No teacher that ever lived could lick my dog!” And he burst out crying, and ran out of the room, with me after him.

“I'm done with you,” he sings out from the hall. “Marry your old preacher if you want to.”

And then we went out into the middle of the road, and he slung stones at the schoolhouse, and yelled names, till the principal came out and chased us away.

But I was glad, because I saw he was cured. A boy that is anything will stick up for his dog, and a dog will stick up for his boy. We went swimming, and then we went back as near the schoolhouse as we dast to. When school let out, Freckles licked the whole Dalton Gang, one at a time, and made each say, before he let him up: “Freckles Watson was never stuck on anybody; and if he was, he is cured.”

They all said it, and then held a meeting; and he was elected president.

And me!--I felt so good I went down-town and picked a fuss with a butcher's dog that wore a spiked collar. I had always felt a little scared of that dog before, but that night I just naturally chewed him to a frazzle.

BILL PATTERSON

This town,” says Squint, quiet, but determined, “has got to be made an example of. It has got to learn that it can't laugh at the Dalton Gang and go unscathed. Freckled Watson of Dead Man's Gulch,” says he to me, “speak up! What form shall the punishment take?”

“Blood,” says I.

“Two-Gun Tom of Texas,” says he to Tom Mulligan, “speak!”

“Death!” says Tom.

“Arizona Pete, speak!”

“Blood and Death,” says Pete Wilson, making his voice deep.

“Broncho Bob?”

“Blood, death, and fire!” says Bob Jones.

There was a solemn pause for a minute, and then I says, according to rule and regulation:

“And what says Dead-Shot Squint, the Terror of the Plains?”

He was very serious while one might have counted ten breaths, and then he pulled his jack-knife from his pocket and whet it on the palm of his hand, and tried its point on his thumb, and replied:

“He says death, and seals it with a vow!”

That vow was a mighty solemn thing, and we always felt it so. It wasn't the kind of a thing you would ever let small kids or girls know about. First you all sat down in a circle, with your feet together, and rolled up the sleeve of your left arm. Then the knife was passed around, and each drew blood out of his left arm. Then each one got as much blood out of the next fellow's arm as he could, in his mouth, and all swallowed simultaneous, to show you were going into the thing to the death and no turning back. Next we signed our names in a ring, using blood mixed with gunpowder. But not on paper, mind you. We signed 'em on parchment. First and last, that parchment was a good deal of trouble. If you think skinning a squirrel or a rat to get his hide for parchment is an easy trick, just try it. Let alone catching them being no snap. But Squint, he was Captain, and he was stern on parchment, for it makes an oath more legal, and all the old-time outlaws wouldn't look at anything else. But we got a pretty good supply ahead by saving all the dead cats and things like that we could find, and unless you know likely places to look it would surprise you how many dead cats there are in the world.

We were in the Horse Thieves' Cave, about a mile from town. It had really been used for that, way back before the war. There was a gang pretended to be honest settlers like everybody else. But they used to steal horses and hide them out in there. When they had a dozen or so of them they'd take 'em over to the Mississippi River, which was about thirty miles west, some night, and raft 'em down stream and sell 'em at Cairo or St. Louis. That went on for years, but along in the fifties, my grandfather said, when _he_ was a kid, a couple was hung, and the remainder got across the river and went west. The cave was up on the side of a hill in the woods, and forgotten about except by a few old-timers. The door-beams had rotted and fallen down, and the sand and dirt had slid down over the mouth of it, and vines and bushes grown up. No one would have guessed there was any cave there at all. But the dogs got to digging around there one afternoon when the Dalton Gang was meeting in the woods, and uncovered part of those door beams. We dug some more and opened her up. It took a lot of work to clean her out, but she was as good as new when we got done with her. We never told any one, and the vines and bushes were so thick you could hunt a year and never find the opening. It isn't every bunch of kids get a real Horse Thieves' Cave ready-made like that, right from the hands of Providence, as you might say. Pete Wilson used to brag and say his grand-dad was one of those horse-thieves. It made the rest of us feel kind of meek for a time, because none of us could claim any honour or grandeur like that in our families. But my grand-dad, who has a terrible long memory about the early days, said it wasn't so; so far as he could recollect Pete's grand-dad never had any ambition above shoats and chickens.

Well, I was telling you about that oath. We were taking it because Squint's father, who was mayor, had run on to one of those parchments (which Squint ought never to have taken away from the cave), and had asked a lot of fool questions about it. Then he threw back his head and laughed at the Dalton Gang. It made our blood boil. Hence, our plans for revenge.

“The time has come,” said Squint, “for a bold stroke. Yonder proud city laughs. But he laughs best who laughs last. And ere another sun has set----”

“The last time we took the blood oath,” interrupts Bob Jones, “we didn't do anything more important than steal the ice cream from the Methodist lawn sociable.”

“There must be no failure,” says Squint, not heeding him, and he jabbed the knife into the ground and gritted his teeth. You could see how the memory of being laughed at was rankling through his veins.

“But, Squint,” says Tom Mulligan, looking quite a bit worried, “you don't _really_ mean to kill any one, do you?”

Squint only says, very haughty: “The blood oath has been sworn. Is there a traitor here?” He was always a great one for holding us to it, Squint was, unless what he called an Honourable Compromise came into sight. And we all got mighty uncomfortable and gloomy trying to think of some Honourable Compromise. It was to me that the great idea came, all of a sudden.

“Squint,” I says, “the thing to do is to kidnap some prominent citizen and hold him for ransom.”

Squint brightened up and said to wring gold from the coffers of yonder proud city would be even more satisfaction than blood. The next question was: Who will we kidnap?

“I suggest the mayor of yonder town!” says Squint.

“Gee--your dad, Squint?” says Tom Mulligan.

“I offer him as a sacrifice,” says Squint, very majestically. No one could do any more, and we all felt Squint's dad had deserved it. But the idea was so big it kind of scared us, too. But while the rest of us were admiring Squint, Bob Jones got jealous and offered _his_ father. Then we all offered our fathers, except Tom Mulligan, who didn't have anything better to offer than a pair of spinster aunts. There was a general row over whose father was the most prominent citizen. But finally we decided to bar all relatives and kinsfolk, in order to prevent jealousy, even to the distant cousins. But it isn't a very big town, and it would surprise you how many people are related to each other there. Finally Bill Patterson was voted to be the Honourable Compromise, being known as the town drunkard, and not related to anybody who would own up to it.

It figured out easy enough. All we had to do was to wait until Sunday night, and take Bill out of the lockup. Every Saturday afternoon regular Si Emery, who was the city marshal, arrested Bill for being drunk on Main Street, and Bill was kept in jail until Monday morning. Si was getting pretty old and feeble and shaky, and of late years the town council never let him have the lock-up key until just an hour or so before it was time to arrest Bill on Saturdays. Because one time Si had forgot to feed and water a tramp in there for about a week, and the tramp took sick after a while, and he was dead when Si remembered about him, and had to be buried at the town's expense. And several times some tough customers had taken the keys away from Si and broken into the place and played cards and cut up in there scandalous for half the night. So it was thought best Si shouldn't carry the keys, nor the handcuffs which belonged to the town. After he had locked Bill up on Saturday evenings Si would take the keys to the mayor's house, and get them again on Monday morning to let Bill out.

So the next Sunday night when the hired girl wasn't looking, Squint sneaked the keys and the town handcuffs out of the drawer in the kitchen table where the knives and forks were kept. He slipped upstairs to bed, and no one noticed. About ten o'clock he dressed again, and got out the back window, and down the lightning rod; and at the same hour us other Daltons were doing much the same.

We met behind the lockup, and put on the masks we had made. They had hair on the bottoms of them to look like beards sticking out.

“Who's got the dark-lantern?” Squint asks, in a whisper.

“M-m-me,” answered Pete Wilson, stuttering. I was so excited myself I was biting my coat-sleeve so my teeth wouldn't chatter. And Bob Jones was clicking the trigger of the cavalry pistol his uncle carried in the war, and couldn't stop, like a girl can't stop laughing when she gets hysterics. The cylinder was gone and it couldn't be loaded or he would have killed himself, for he turned it up and looked right into the muzzle and kept clicking when Squint asked him what the matter was. Pete shook so he couldn't light the lantern; but Squint, he was that calm and cool he lit her with the third match. He unlocked the door and in we went.

Bill was snoring like all get out, and talking in his sleep. That made us feel braver again. Squint says to handcuff him easy and gentle before he wakes. Well, there wasn't any trouble in that; the trouble was to wake him up afterward. He was so interested in whatever he was dreaming about that the only way we could do it was to tickle his nose with a straw and wait until he sneezed himself awake. Squint clapped the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead, while I flashed the lantern in his eyes and the other three sat on his stomach and grabbed his legs. Squint says:

“William Patterson, one move and you are a dead man!”

But Bill didn't try to move any; he only said: “Can't an honest working-man take a little nap? You go 'way and leave me be!”

“William Patterson,” says Squint, “you are kidnapped!”

“Yer a liar,” says Bill. “I ain't. Ye can't prove it on to me. I'm just takin' a little nap.”

Then he rouses up a little more and looks at us puzzled, and begins to mumble and talk to himself:

“Here I be,” he says, “and here they be! I can see 'em, all right; but they can't fool me! They ain't really nothing here. I seen too many of them tremenses come and go to be fooled that easy.”

“Arise, William Patterson, and come with us,” says Squint.

“Now, you don't want to get too sassy,” says Bill, “or you'll turn into something else the first thing _you_ know. You tremenses always does turn into something else.” We had to kick him on the shins to make him get up. When we did that he says to himself: “Shucks, now! A body'd think he was bein' kicked if he didn't know different, wouldn't he?”

He came along peaceable enough, but muttering to himself all the way: “Monkeys and crocodiles and these here striped jackasses with wings on to 'em I've saw many a time, and argified with 'em, too; and talked with elephants no bigger'n a man's fist; and oncet I chased a freight train round and round that calaboose and had it give me sass; but this is the first time a passel o' little old men ever come and trotted me down the pike.”

And he kept talking like that all the way to the cave. It was midnight before we took off his handcuffs and shoved him in. When we gave him that shove, he did get sort of spiteful and he says:

“You tremenses think you're mighty smart, but if I was to come out of this sudden, where would _you_ be? Blowed up, that's where--like bubbles!”

We padlocked the door we had rigged up over the mouth of the cave, and by the time it was locked he was asleep; we could hear him snoring when we lit out for town again.

On the calaboose door, and in front of the post-office, and on the bank, we tacked big notices. They were printed rough on wrapping paper and spelled wrong so it would look like some tough customers had done it. They read as follows:

_Bill Patterson has Bin stole 5 hundred $$ ransum must be left on baptis Cherch steps by Monday mid-night or his life pays us forfut like a Theef in the nite he was took from jale who Will Be next!_

--_the kidNappers._

Next morning we were all up at the cave as early as we could make it. I had a loaf of bread and a pie and part of a boiled ham, and Pete had some canned sardines and bacon he got out of his dad's store, and the others were loaded up with eggs and canned fruit and what they could get hold of easy. You may believe it or not, but when we opened that cave door Bill was still asleep. Squint woke him up and told him:

“Prisoner, it is the intention of the Dalton Gang to treat you with all the honours of war until such time as you are ransomed, or, if not ransomed, executed. So long as you make no effort to escape you need have no fear.”

“I ain't afeared,” says Bill, looking at that grub like he could hardly believe his eyes. We built a fire and cooked breakfast. There was a hollow stump on the side of the hill, and we had dug into the bottom of it through the top of the cave. It made a regular chimney for our fireplace. If any one saw the stump smoking outside they would only think some farmer was burning out stumps.

Bill always wore a piece of rope around his waist in place of a belt or suspenders. When he had eaten so much he had to untie the rope he sat back and lighted his pipe, and said to me, right cunning:

“I'll bet you ain't got any idea what state this here is.”

“It's Illinois,” says I. He looked like he was pleased to hear it.

“So it is,” says he. “So it is!” After he had smoked awhile longer he said: “What county in Illinois would you say it was, for choice?”

“Bureau county,” I told him. I saw then he hadn't known where he was.

“It ain't possible, is it,” he says, “that I ever seen any of you boys on the streets of a little city by the name of Hazelton?”

I told him yes.

“I s'pose they got the same old city marshal there?” says he. I guess he thought maybe he'd been gone for years and years, like Rip Van Winkle. He was having a hard time to get things straightened out in his mind. He stared and stared into the bowl of his pipe, looking at me now and then out of the corners of his eyes as if he wondered whether he could trust me or not; finally he leaned over toward me and whispered into my ear, awfully anxious: “Who would you say I was, for choice, now?”

“Bill Patterson,” I told him, and he brightened up considerable and chuckled to himself; and then he said, feeling of himself all over and tying on his rope again:

“Bill Patterson is correct! Been wanderin' around through these here woods for weeks an' weeks, livin' on roots an' yarbs like a wild man of Borneo.” Then he asks me very confidential: “How long now, if you was to make a guess, would you judge Bill had been livin' in this here cave?”

But Squint cut in and told him point blank he was kidnapped. It took a long time to get that into Bill's head, but finally he asked: “What for?”

“For ransom,” says I.

“And revenge,” says Squint.

Bill looked dazed for a minute, and then said if it was all the same to us he'd like to have a talk with a lawyer. But Bob Jones broke in and told him “Unless five hundred dollars is paid over to the gang, you will never see Hazelton again.” He looked frightened at that and began to pick at his coat-sleeves, and said he guessed if we didn't mind he'd go and take a little nap now. You never saw such a captive for sleeping up his spare time; he was just naturally cut out to be a prisoner. But we felt kind of sorry and ashamed we had scared him; it was so easy to scare him, and we agreed we'd speak gentle and easy to him after that.

At dinner time we waked Bill up and gave him another meal. And he was ready for it; the sight of victuals seemed to take any fright he might have had out of his mind. You never saw such an appetite in all your born days; he ate like he had years of lost time to make up for; and maybe he had. He was having such a good time he began to have his doubts whether it would last, for he said, in a worried kind of way, after dinner: “This here thing of being kidnapped, now, ain't a thing you boys is going to try and charge for, is it? 'Cause if it is them there sharp tricks can't be worked on to me; and if you was to sue me for it you sue a pauper.”

After dinner Squint and I went to town on a scouting party. We hung around the streets and listened to the talk that was going on just like a couple of spies would that had entered the enemy's camp in war time. Everybody was wondering what had become of Bill, and gassing about the notices; and it made us feel mighty proud to think that fame had come to ones so young as us, even although it came in disguise so that no one but us knew it. But in the midst of that feeling we heard Hy Williams, the city drayman, saying to a crowd of fellows who were in front of the post office waiting for the mail to be distributed:

“The beatingest part of the whole thing is that any one would be fools enough to think that this town or any other town would pay ransom to get back a worthless cuss like Bill Patterson!”