Chapter 4

Now the boat had stopped in front of the high pair of gates. The Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe shouted to the boy who drove the mules, without taking the pipe out of his mouth. The great towrope was untied and the mules rested while the man who tended the Lock swung the high gates open with some machinery that creaked in a funny way, and the "Mary Ellen" glided in the harbour of the Lock.

Then the man who tended the Lock went to the gates at the lower end. There were more shouts and those gates opened too. The water rushed out of the Lock into the lower part of the Canal, and down, down, went the boat. And down, down, went the deck and the little house on it, and down, down, went the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman With the Great Arms, and all the children. Marmaduke started to count them. He couldn't have done that before, they ran around too fast. But now they stood still, watching the water fall and their boat as it sank. Yes, there were thirteen--he counted twice to make sure.

Now the boat had sunk so low that Marmaduke was afraid it would disappear forever, with all the children on it. But there was no danger, for when the water in the Lock was even with the water on the lower side of the Canal it stopped falling, and the "Mary Ellen" stopped, too. At least, there was no danger for the children, but there was for Master Marmaduke, he had leaned over so far, watching that boat go down, down, down.

All-of-a-sudden there was a splash. It was certainly to be expected that one of the thirteen children had fallen in, but no!-- It--was--Marmaduke!

Down, down, down, he sank in the gurgly brown water. Then he came up, spluttering and choking.

"Help, help!" he cried.

Then under he went again.

But the Round Fat Rosy Woman had seen him.

"Quick, Hiram!" she shouted to her husband in a voice that sounded like a man's, "there's a boy fallen overboard!"

"Where?" asked the man at the tiller, still keeping the pipe in his mouth.

She pointed into the brown water.

"Right there--there's where he went down."

Perhaps the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe was so used to having his children fall into the coal, or the Canal, or something, that he didn't think it was a serious matter, for he came to the side of the "Mary Ellen" very slowly, just as Marmaduke was coming up for the third time.

And that is a very important time, for, they say, if you go down after that you won't come up 'til you're dead. Whether it was true or not, Marmaduke didn't know, for he had never been drowned before, and no one who had, had ever come back to tell him about it. Anyway, he wasn't thinking much, only throwing his arms around in the water, trying vainly to keep afloat.

The Round Fat Rosy Woman grew quite excited, as well she might, and she shouted again to the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe:

"Don't stand there like a wooden Injun in front of a cigar-store. Hustle or the boy'll drown!"

Then he seemed to wake up, for he ran to the gunwale of the boat, and he jumped over with his shoes and all his clothes on. And, strange to say, he still kept that pipe in his mouth. However, that didn't matter so very much, for he grabbed Marmaduke by the collar with one hand and swam towards the "Mary Ellen" with the other. The woman threw a rope over the side; he grasped it with his free hand, and the woman drew them up--she certainly was strong--and in the shake of a little jiffy they were standing on board, safe but dripping a thousand little rivers from their clothes on the deck. The man didn't seem to mind that a bit, but was quite disturbed to find that his pipe had gone out.

"Come, Mother," said he to the Round Fat Rosy Woman, "get us some dry duds and a match."

And quick as a wink she hustled them into the little house which they called a cabin, and gave Marmaduke a pair of blue overalls and a little blue jumper which belonged to one of the thirteen children. Of course, she found the right size, with so many to choose from. His own clothes, she hung on the line, with all the little pairs of pants and the skirts, to dry in the breeze.

Then she put the kettle on the cook stove and in another jiffy she was pouring out the tea.

"M--m--m--m," said Marmaduke. He meant to say,--"Make mine 'cambric,' please," for he knew his mother wouldn't have wanted him to take _regular_ tea, but his Forty White Horses galloped so he couldn't make himself heard.

"There, little boy," said the Round Fat Rosy Woman, "don't talk. Just wrap yourself in this blanket and drink this down, and you'll feel better."

It did taste good even if it was strong, and it warmed him all the way down under the blue jumper, and the Forty White Horses stopped their galloping, and while the men were hitching the mules up again, and the "Mary Ellen" was drifting through the lower pair of gates out of the Lock, he fell fast asleep.

He must have slept for a whole lot of jiffies. When he woke up at last, he looked around, wondering where he could be, the place looked so strange and so different from his room at home. Then he remembered,--he was far from home, in the little cabin of the "Mary Ellen." It was a cosy place, with all the little beds for the children around the cabin. And these beds were not like the ones he usually slept in. They were little shelves on the wall, two rows of them, one row above the other. It was funny, he thought, to sleep on a shelf, but that was what the thirteen children had to do. He was lying on a shelf himself just then, wrapped in a blanket.

The Round Fat Rosy Woman was bending over the stove. It was a jolly little stove, round and fat and rosy like herself, and it poked its pipe through the house just above his head. In the pot upon it, the potatoes were boiling, boiling away, and the little chips of bacon were curling up in the pan.

Outside, he could see all the little skirts and the little pairs of pants, dancing gaily in the wind. He could hear the children who owned those skirts and pairs of pants running all over the boat. The patter of their feet sounded like raindrops on the deck above him.

They seemed to be forever getting into trouble, those thirteen children, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman was forever running to the door of the little house and shouting to one or the other.

"Take care, Maintop!" she would call to one boy as she pulled him back from falling into the Canal.

"Ho there, Bowsprit!" she would yell to another, as she fished him out of the coal.

They were certainly a great care, those children, and all at once Marmaduke decided he knew who their mother must be. The boat was shaped just like a huge shoe and she surely had so many children she didn't know what to do. Yes, she must be the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, only the shoe must have grown into a canalboat.

He wondered about the funny names she called them.

"Are those their real names?" he asked, as he lay on his little shelf.

"Yes," she said, "my husband out there with the pipe was a sailor once, on the deep blue sea. But he had to give it up after he was married, 'cause he couldn't take his family on a ship. We had a lot of trouble finding names for the children started to call 'em Mary and Daniel and such, but the names ran out. So, seeing my husband was so fond of the sea, we decided to call 'em after the parts of a ship, not a canalboat, but the sailing ships that go out to sea--that is, all but Squall.

"Now that's Jib there, driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit--the one all black from the coal. Cutwater's the girl leaning over the stern; Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead playing with your dog."

"And what are the names of the rest?" Marmaduke asked, thinking all this very interesting.

"Oh!" she replied. "I'll have to stop and think, there's so many of them. Now there's Bul'ark and Gunnel--they're pretty stout; the twins, Anchor and Chain; Squall, the crybaby; Block, the fattest of all; Topmast, the tallest and thinnest; and Stern, the littlest. He came last, so we named him that, seeing it's the last part of a ship.

"Now, let me think--have I got 'em all?" and she counted on her fingers,--"Jib, Bowsprit, Cutwater, Maintop, Mizzen, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern. Yes, that surely makes thirteen, doesn't it? I'm always proud when I can remember 'em."

By this time the potatoes and the bacon and coffee seemed about ready, so she went out on deck, and Marmaduke slid off his little shelf bed and followed her to see where she was going. On deck was a great bar of iron with another beside it. She took up one bar of iron and with it struck the other--twelve times. The blows sounded way out over the Canal and over the fields and far away, like a mighty fire-alarm, and all the children, that is all but Jib, who was driving the mules and would get his dinner later, came running into the cabin.

A great clatter of tin plates and knives and forks there was, and very nice did those potatoes and that bacon taste.

And it didn't take long for them to finish that meal, either. Then they went out on deck.

The mules were pulling and pulling, and the boat was sailing on and on towards the Sea. They passed by so many places--lots of houses and lots of farms, the Red Schoolhouse and Reddy Toms' house, and Sammy Soapstone's, and the funny place where Fatty lived, and the pigs, fat like himself, ran all over the yard.

Fatty and Sammy were playing on the shore at that very moment. He waved to them and they waved back, but they didn't know they were waving to their old playmate Marmaduke, he was so mixed up with all the children of the woman who lived on the canalboat that looked just like a shoe. How Sammy and Sophy and Fatty would have envied him if they had only known it was he sailing away to the Sea!

But he never arrived there, after all--at least he didn't on that voyage. For, you see, after he had had a wonderful time, running all over the deck with the thirteen children, and looking down into the big hole where they kept the shiny coal, and exploring the little house on the deck, the Round Fat Rosy Woman and her Husband With the Red Shirt and the Pipe had a talk together.

"We must send him back home," said she, "or his folks'll be scared out of their wits."

The man took a few puffs on his pipe, which always seemed to help him in thinking, then replied,

"We might let him off at the Landing it's up the towpath a piece. We kin find someone to give him a lift."

"That's the best plan," she agreed, "there's the Ruralfree'livery now."

And she pointed to the shore where the horse and wagon of the postman were coming up the road.

"What ho, Hi! Heave to!" she called, raising her hands to her mouth and shouting through them just like a man, "here's a passenger for you, first class."

"Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry" shook his whip at them, then hollered "Whoa!" and stopped the old horse; and Jib hollered "Whoa!" and stopped his mules, right at the Landing.

Then Marmaduke said "Goodbye." It took him some time, for there was the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe; and the Round Fat Rosy Woman; and Jib, Bowsprit, Cutwater, Mizzen, Maintop, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern; the "Mary Ellen"; and the mules, to say "Goodbye" to. Just before he went ashore the Round Fat Rosy Woman gave him his clothes back, for they were all dry by that time, and she stuffed something in his pocket besides. And what do you think it was? A toy anchor and chain that would just fit the "White Swan," the ship the Toyman had made him.

So he rode home with Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry and all his sacks of mail. But he kept turning his head for a long while to watch the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman, and the Thirteen Children, and all the little pairs of pants that seemed to be waving farewell to him. But soon the "Mary Ellen" drifted out of sight. She was a good boat, the "Mary Ellen."

He almost felt like crying, for he would have liked to have gone on that voyage to see the rest of the world. But, after all, he had seen a great deal of it, and he had that anchor and chain.

VI

TWO O' CAT

It was hard to be called a "kid"--harder still to be left out of the game. And, besides, it wasn't fair. Marmaduke knew he could catch that ball as well, and hit it as often as any of them.

This is the way it began:--

That morning Jehosophat had gone with the Toyman to Sawyer's Mill over on Wally's Creek. Marmaduke felt lonely, for there was nobody but Hepzebiah to play with, and she wouldn't leave her dolls, and he had long ago gotten past playing with _them_. As he was wandering forlornly around the barnyard, wondering what he could do, he heard a shout over by the Miller farm.

"You're out!"

It was a very fascinating cry, an inviting one as well. Looking over the field he saw boys--at least six of them--playing baseball. So he hurried over to get in the game, too.

But his old enemy "Fatty" told him that they didn't "want any _kids_ hangin' around."

And Dicky Means agreed with that.

"Naw, we don't want any _kids_!"

"I can catch an' I can pitch--curves, too," Marmaduke protested, but they wouldn't believe him.

"You can't, either," Fatty yelled back, "you'd muff it every time. Wouldn't he, Means?"

He was talking to _Dicky_ Means, but he called him by his last name just because he had heard grown-up men do that sometimes and he thought it was very smart.

Again Dicky Means agreed with Fatty.

"_Sure_ he'd muff it every time."

Reddy Toms and Harold Skinner didn't take Marmaduke's part, nor did Sammy Soapstone, though he had borrowed Marmaduke's mouth-organ and lost it, and had Marmaduke's appendix all pickled in alcohol in a big bottle and wouldn't give it back, either. But they were all bigger than Marmaduke, so what could he do but sit on the fence and watch them, while his fingers fairly itched to catch one of those "flies." And the crack of the bat against the ball did sound so fine across the field.

At last he couldn't stand it, so he got down from the fence, and shouted at them,

"I wouldn't play in your ole game--not for a _million dollars_!"

And off he walked towards his own barn, swinging his arms all the way, as if he were holding a bat and showing them just how well he could play. My! what long "flies" he would knock, if he only had the chance--over the dead chestnut tree, over the Gold Rooster on the top of the barn, and even above the Long White Finger of the Church Pointing at the Sky. Maybe, sometime, if he hit it hard enough and just right, the ball would sail on and on, and up and up, to the Moon: and the Ole Man there would catch it and throw it down to him again.

But he would have to practice a lot first, so, when he reached the house, he went in and found a ball of his own. He turned it over and over in his fingers, admiring it. It was a fine one, with leather as white as buckskin but very hard, and thick seams sewed in the cover with heavy thread, winding in and out in horseshoe curves.

It had a dandy name, too,--"Rocket," that was it. And he threw it up high up, up, up, until it reached the eaves of the barn and startled the swallows, who flew out and swept the sky with their pretty wings, chattering angrily at him.

He watched to see where the ball would fall, and ran under it, holding his hands like a little cup. It fell into them, but it fell _out_ even quicker than it had fallen in. Jiminy! but that ball was hard! Marmaduke thought the man who made it should have left the "et" from its name and called it plain "Rock" instead. It was just like a rock covered with hard leather.

He tried it again, but he didn't throw it up quite so high.

"Crack!" it went against the side of the barn, and little clouds of hay-dust from the loft danced in the air, and the swallows chattered still more angrily:

"He persists--sists--sists--sists--sists," they called to one another.

This time the ball fell on his cheekbone and raised a lump as round and as hard as a marble.

He didn't cry. Oh, no! for he was trying hard these days to be a regular boy and never to cry even one little whimper. So he just went in the house and Mother put a kiss and some arnica on it--it is always more effective if mixed that way--and out he came and tried it all over again. For regular boys never give up. Of course, at first he threw the ball a little lower than before, but that was only wise. And this time it did fall into his hands and he held it tight. Over and over he practised until his hands were pretty red from catching the hard "Rocket" ball, but he felt very happy inside--which is what counts, for one doesn't mind being sore _outside_ if one is all right _within_.

However, all the time he could hear the sound of that bat over on the Miller lot. Then--all of a sudden--he heard an altogether different sort of noise--more like a crash and a smash than a crack.

"Glass!" that was it!

"Hooray!" he shouted in delight, "_now_ that Fatty's going to get it."

But he was wrong. Fatty was too plump to hit a ball so hard. It was Dicky Means that had done it. And, like Fatty, he was always up to tricks, only usually Fatty _planned_ them and Dicky _did_ them.

Yes, it was Dicky Means who had hit that ball right through Mis' Miller's window, the big parlor window, too, and she expected the Methodist ladies of the Laborforlovesociety that very afternoon. There was Mis' Miller now, running out of the house and shrieking,--

"You younglimbosatan, you'll pay for that!"

"Pleeze, Mis' Miller, I haven't any money," Dicky was saying, very politely, with his eye on the broom she held in her hand, "I'll pay you tomorrow."

"No, you'll settle it _now_," she told him--very cross she was, too, "or I'll tell your mother, and your father'll paddle you in the woodshed." Then she added,--"an' you won't get your ball."

Dicky seemed to be more worried about the ball than about the woodshed, for he whined.

"Aw, pleeze, Mis' Miller, have a heart!"

You see, "Have a heart!" was an expression he had heard down in the city, and for the last week the boys had been using it every chance they got.

Still it didn't work on Mis' Miller, for she only shook her head angrily and took her broom and shouted,--

"Scat, get out!"--just as if they were so many cats--"an' don't come back for the ball till you come with the money in your hand."

And as everybody in the neighborhood used to say, "Gracious, but Mis' Miller has a turrible temper!" or "Whew, but can't she get mad?" and because she was flourishing that broom right in their faces, why, they did scat like so many cats, just as she had told them.

Across the field they all came running, straight towards Marmaduke, who pretended not to see them at all, but just kept passing his Rocket ball from one hand to the other, trying to juggle it like the trick men in the circus.

When they saw that ball, all the boys suddenly grew very polite to Marmaduke.

"Lend us your ball, Marmy!" they said.

"Wouldn't you like to have it!" he replied, still juggling the ball, but he watched them out of the corner of his eye. They had been pretty mean to him, but he supposed he ought to be decent even if they weren't, and besides it would be fine to play a real game with "sides" instead of one just by himself.

"All right," he said, after making them wait long enough to want that ball very much, "if you'll play 'sides' 'stead of' two o' cat,' and let me be captain."

"Aw!" said Dicky, "you're not big enough."

"All right," replied Marmaduke, still juggling that fine Rocket ball, "you'll have to play with some ole rock then."

"Aw, come 'n, have a heart!"

Marmaduke thought it over for a little while. To "have a heart" was like "heaping coals of fire" on people's heads, in minister's language, he supposed. And he wasn't so fond of that. But anyway he gave in.

"All right," he agreed, "come 'n, where'll we play?"

"Here," said Fatty, "this big rock'll be home-plate, and that one over there by the chestnut tree 'first.' An' we'll choose up sides--first choosin'!"

Then Dicky, who insisted on being the other captain, picked up the bat and threw it with the handle uppermost to Fatty, who caught it around the middle. Then Dicky clasped his fingers around the bat just above Fatty's hand; then Fatty put his left hand above Dicky's right; and Dicky his left hand next; and so on until their fingers almost reached the handle of the bat. There was just a little space left. If Fatty could squeeze his plump fingers in between Dicky's and the top he would win, and he could have first choice of the best players for his side. But his fingers were much too fat.

"Your pinky's over," said Dicky, and Reddy Toms picked up a flat stone and scraped it over the top of the bat, and Fatty howled and let go.

So it was Dicky's turn to choose, and Marmaduke waited breathlessly. He hoped that he would be chosen first, second anyway. He ought to be, for wasn't it his ball they were going to play with!

But--

"I'll take Reddy," said Dicky;

"Sammy," said Fatty;

"Skinny," chose Dicky next;

"Froggy Waters," chose Fatty--and poor little Marmaduke was left to the last, as if he were the worst player in the whole world.

"Well," said Dicky, "I spouse I've _got_ to take him. But he'll lose the game for us."

He turned to Marmaduke.

"I'll tell you what, Marmy," he said, "you can be the spectators--a whole pile of them--in the grand stand. Wouldn't you like to be a grand stand? That's great. Isn't it, fellows?"

"Sure," they all said, grinning, but Marmaduke didn't want to be any spectator, not even a grand stand. He wanted to be doing things, not watching. Lose that game, would he? No, he'd show them, he'd win it instead. He'd hit that ball clean over the fence--so far they'd never find it. But whew! That wouldn't do. He'd better not hit it quite so far or he'd lose his dandy Rocket ball.

But they had to give in and let him play before he would give them that ball. Then the two captains told their men to take their positions.

"I'll pitch," declared Dicky, "'n Reddy'll catch. Skinny you play 'first,' and Marmaduke out in the field. You kin go to sleep, too, for all I care--for you can't catch anything even if you had a peach basket to hold it in."

"Play ball!" shouted Fatty, and they all took their places, Dicky's team in the field, and Fatty's at the bat.

Marmaduke had to stand way out, and he didn't have much to do for a while, for the other team either struck out, or hit the ball towards Dicky, the pitcher, or Skinny at 'first.' Once a ball did come his way "Hold it!" shouted Dicky, but Marmaduke was so excited that he threw himself right at it, and the ball rolled between his legs.

"Aw! didn't I tell you?" said Dicky in disgust, and all on the other team shouted:

"Butterfingers!"

And, as every boy in the world knows, it is a great disgrace to be called "Butterfingers."

When the first inning was over the score stood six to five, and Fatty's team was ahead.

In the next inning the ball never once came towards Marmaduke, way out there in the field. All he could do was to watch the other boys catch the "pop-flies," stop the grounders, or run back and forth between first base and home. It was hard, too, when Marmaduke wanted so much to be in the thick of it.

Before long the score stood seventeen to fifteen, still in favor of Fatty's team. At last they were put out, and it was Marmaduke's turn to bat. If he could only knock a home run it would bring Skinny in and tie the score.

"Strike one!" called Sammy, who was catching.

Marmaduke swung at the next one too wildly.

"Strike two!"

And then, sad to tell,--

"Strike three!"

He was out--no doubt about it!

"Aw!" exclaimed Dicky, "what'd I tell you--you ought to be fired."