CHAPTER XXX

JACK BREAKFASTS AND RECEIVES A VISITOR.

SOON Jack heard the gun in another part of the field; then a quarter of a mile off; then faintly in the far distance. Then the blackbirds came back again.

“Now,” said Jack, “I’ll see what I can do for breakfast.”

He put on his coat, filled his pockets with roasting ears, and returned towards the stump-lot where he had seen the smoking log-heaps. He had not gone far when he saw something black hop along the ground before him. It was a wounded blackbird. He gave chase, picked up a dead bird by the way, caught and killed the first, and dressed both with his jack-knife. They were plump and fat.

“Some folks think blackbirds ain’t good to eat,” said he, “but I am going to try ’em.”

Cautiously emerging from the cornfield, he crossed the road, and got over into the clearing. There he found the spring at which he had drank before, and, having drank again, he washed his hands and face and prepared his birds for roasting. He now sought out one of the half-burnt log-heaps, and, crouching beside it, opened a bed of glowing coals with a green branch which he used as a poker. A part of the branch he whittled into a spit for his birds, and then proceeded to cook his breakfast.

He burnt the corn, and likewise his fingers a little, and more than once a bird dropped from the spit into the fire; but he didn’t mind these slight mishaps. His appetite was good, and, everything being ready at last, he made a delicious meal without salt. How sweet the roasted corn was! And he laughed at the foolish prejudice of some ignorant people against the flesh of blackbirds, as he sucked the tender bones and tossed them into the fire.

All this time he kept a wary watch for intruders; and now he was not pleased to see over his shoulder a man crossing the stump-lot. He moved at a sauntering pace, and stooped now and then to examine objects on the ground; and Jack noticed that once or twice he appeared to put something into a little bag he carried in his hand.

“Maybe he won’t see me,” thought Jack. “Yes, he will, though! He’s coming straight towards me!”

He thought it best, however, to keep quiet and go on with his breakfast. He had already thrown the well-gnawed corn-cobs into the fire, and was picking the last ribs of his second blackbird, when the stranger drew near.

“You seem to be having a jolly time here, all by yourself.”

Jack looked up, and saw beside him a rather short, square-built young man, with a face strongly marked by the small-pox,—a face which, however, in spite of its blemishes, was rendered interesting and attractive by a certain lively and good-humored expression. The little bag in his hand turned out to be a handkerchief tied up by the corners, from between which peeped the green tufts and delicate plumes of some fresh mosses and ferns.

“Not so very jolly,” replied Jack, perceiving at once that he had nothing to fear from a person who looked down upon him out of such pleasant and kindly eyes.

“You’d better stir your fire and burn up those cobs before old Mr. Canning comes this way,” said the stranger. “He’s a man who would have prosecuted the Master and his disciples for plucking corn in his field on the Sabbath day.”

“He can prosecute me, if he likes,” replied Jack, with a reckless laugh. “I’ve one crabbed old man after me already.”

“I thought so. Your clothes haven’t got quite dry yet, I see. Do you know, I have you to thank for a fine bath this morning?”

Jack stared. “How so?”

“I went into the pond after you.” And Percy Lanman—for it was he—proceeded to relate what had occurred at the culvert after Jack’s escape.

Jack was greatly entertained, especially by the story of Sellick and his companions carried up to the Basin by his old friend Pete, on the wheat-boat. Percy’s good-humor and sympathy had by this time quite won his confidence, and the fugitive told him in return the whole story of his misfortunes.

“I think you have been treated outrageously!” said the young man. “But yours is not so extraordinary a case of injustice as you suppose. I advise you to read history a little: you will find it for the most part only a record of wrong and oppression. Human nature is about the same to-day it always has been. Most people—I am sorry to say it—are capable of seeing only their own selfish interest in anything that concerns them. As you go through life you must expect to see friends and neighbors start out into enemies and oppressors, when their personal interest is touched. The worst of it will be, that people of whom you expect better things—who are supposed to know something of the Golden Rule, and to be actuated by feelings of justice and benevolence—will for the sake of a few dollars grasp and scramble, and show no more regard for reason and right than so many hungry wolves.”

This picture of the worst side of human society was well calculated to show Jack that his was not the only or the worst case of wrong in the world. “But what is a fellow to do?” he asked.

Percy sat down on the ground, and, opening his handkerchief, talked on, while he assorted his mosses and ferns.

“You must make up your mind, in the first place, that you have got to bear a good deal of this sort of thing in going through life. Beware of briers and thistles, but remember that they exist, and be patient when you get pricked. In reading stories of persecution and martyrdom, I always feel that I had rather be the just man who suffered for the right, than the tyrants and bigots who tried to destroy him. Be true to yourself, and nobody can do you any real, permanent harm. Let ’em rage! what do you and I care? There is something in our minds superior to all their spites. You have done what almost any boy would do, that was smart enough; and I can’t help laughing to think how you locked up the court, and afterwards went through the culvert whilst we were trying to fish you out of the pond.”

Jack laughed too, as he mechanically looked over Percy’s plants.

“But you might have done better,—you might do better now,” said the young man. And his scarred and pitted features looked somehow radiant and beautiful to Jack.

“What could I do?”

“Why, let ’em take you to jail, if they want to. What hurt will it do you? Stand up and say, ‘I thought I was right; I meant to do right; and now if you want to send me to jail, go ahead! I can stand it! I’m willing!’ Throw yourself boldly on your honesty, rest on that rock, and let ’em do their worst!”

Jack, feeling how little honesty there had been in his heart a little while before, hung his head over a sprig of fern he was twirling between thumb and finger.

“Mind, I don’t advise you to do just that, for I’m not sure you’re up to it. But if you could do it, ’t would be grand in you! People talk of good and bad fortunes; but fortunes are good or bad according to the use we make of ’em. This disgrace you are suffering now you may turn into one of the blessings of your life; or it may make a thief or a vagabond of you. Understand?”

Percy’s eyes twinkled like a clear, running brook, as they looked into Jack’s, which fell before them,—the lad remembering how really he had been a thief and vagabond in his heart, an hour ago. Yes, he understood.

“Think it over,” said Percy. “Meanwhile you will want a little money.”

“No, I sha’n’t!” cried Jack.

“But you will, though. Here’s a trifle, which you can repay when it is perfectly convenient,” added Percy, seeing that the proud boy would not accept a gift.

“Well, if you _lend_ it to me,” said Jack, receiving the jingling coin in his palm. “I’ll pay you some time. If I can only get that money of Hank Huswick! I’ll go for it this very afternoon!”

“Well, good by,” said Percy, tying up his plants. “Keep your head and heart right, and you’ll do well, whatever happens. Come to me if you want help. You know where I live.”

And he sauntered off across the field, looking curiously at every bird and plant and stone.

“How happy he is!” thought Jack, following him with yearning eyes. “And I was just so happy once! Shall I ever, shall I ever be again?”

He revisited the spring, and afterwards made a dessert of berries in a wild field hedged by raspberry and blackberry bushes; then set out to find the Huswick boys.