CHAPTER VI.

A MENTAL STRUGGLE.

When Aunt Nancy returned from the attic, she had a miscellaneous collection of cast-off garments sufficient to have clothed a dozen boys like Jack, providing they had been willing to wear female apparel.

"I thought there might be some of father's things upstairs," she said, examining once more each piece; "but I've given them away. You won't care if you have to put on a dress for a little while, will you? Here are some old ones of mine, and it will be a great deal better to use them than to stand around in wet clothes."

Jack was not at all anxious to masquerade as a girl, and would have preferred to "dry off," as he expressed it, in the barn; but, fearing lest he should offend the old lady at a time when he was about to ask a very great favor, he made no protest.

Aunt Nancy selected from the assortment two skirts, a pair of well-worn cloth shoes, and a shawl, saying as she handed them to the boy,--

"Now you can go out in the barn and put these on. Then we'll hang your clothes on the line, where they'll dry in a little while. In the mean time I'll find some sticking plaster for your face, and a piece of brown paper to put over your eye to prevent it from growing black."

Jack walked away as if he were about to perform a very disagreeable task, and by the time Aunt Nancy had carried the superfluous wardrobe upstairs and procured such things as she thought would be necessary in the treatment of the boy's wounds, he emerged from the barn looking decidedly shamefaced.

He knew he presented a most comical appearance, and expected to be greeted with an outburst of laughter; but Aunt Nancy saw nothing to provoke mirth in what had been done to prevent a cold, and, in the most matter-of-fact manner, began to treat the bruises on his face.

A piece of court plaster fully half as large as Jack's hand was placed over the scratch on his right cheek, another upon a small cut just in front of his left ear, while a quantity of brown paper thoroughly saturated with vinegar covered his eye and a goodly portion of his forehead.

This last was tied on with a handkerchief knotted in such a manner as to allow the two ends to stick straight up like the ears of a deformed rabbit.

During this operation Louis laughed in glee. It was to him the jolliest kind of sport to see his guardian thus transformed into a girl, and even Aunt Nancy herself could not repress a smile when she gazed at the woe-begone looking boy who appeared to have just come from some desperate conflict.

"I s'pose I look pretty rough, don't I?" Jack asked with a faint attempt at a smile. "I feel like as if I'd been broke all to pieces an' then patched up ag'in."

"It isn't as bad as it might be," Aunt Nancy replied guardedly; "but out here where we don't see any one it doesn't make much difference, and to run around this way a few hours is better than being sick for a week."

"I reckon I can stand it if you can," Jack said grimly, "but I don't think I want to fix fences in this rig. Them fellers would think I'd put on these things so they wouldn't know me."

"No indeed, you mustn't leave the house even when your clothes are dry, until I have seen that Dean boy's father."

"You ain't goin' to tell him about their poundin' me, are you?" Jack asked quickly.

"Of course I am. You don't suppose for a single moment that I intend to run the chances of your being beaten to death by them! If Mr. Dean can't keep his boy at home I'll--I'll--I don't know what I will do."

"Seems to me it would be better not to say anything about it," Jack replied hesitatingly. "If we go to tellin' tales, them fellers will think I'm afraid, an' be sure to lay for me whenever I go out."

"I'm not going to tell any tales; but I intend to see if it isn't possible for me to have a decent, well-behaved boy around this place without his being obliged to fight a lot of disreputable characters such as some we've got in the neighborhood."

This is not the time for Jack to make any vehement protests, lest Aunt Nancy should be provoked because of his persistency, and he changed the subject of conversation by broaching the matter which occupied all his thoughts.

"That Mr. Pratt what tried to send Louis an' me to the poor farm drove past here with Tom jest before them fellers tackled me, an' I heard him say he was lookin' for us."

"Mercy on me!" Aunt Nancy exclaimed as she pushed the spectacles back from her nose to her forehead and peered down the lane much as if expecting to see the farmer and his son in the immediate vicinity. "Why _is_ he so possessed to send you to the poorhouse?"

"That's what I don't know," Jack replied with a sigh; "but he's after us, an' if he once gets his eye on me, the thing is settled."

"He has no more right to bother you than I have, and not half as much. According to your story, he didn't even take the trouble to give you a decent meal, and I'll soon let him know he can't carry you away from here."

"But how'll you prevent it if he starts right in an' begins to lug us off? He's stronger'n you an' me put together, an' if he's come all this distance there won't be much stoppin' for anything you'll say to him, I'm afraid. Now don't you think it would be better to tell him I wasn't here?"

"Mercy on us, Jack! How could I do that when you _are_ here?"

"Well, you wouldn't like to have him lug us off if you knew we'd got to go to the poorhouse, would you? 'Cause neither Louis nor me ever did anything to you, or to him either."

"But you sha'n't go there, my dear child. So long as I am willing to keep you here, I don't see what business it is of his, or anybody else's."

"It seems as though he was makin' it his business," Jack replied disconsolately; for he was now beginning to despair of persuading Aunt Nancy to tell a lie. "If you'd say we wasn't here, that would settle it, and he wouldn't stay."

"But I can't, Jack; I can't tell an absolute falsehood."

Jack gave vent to a long-drawn sigh as he looked toward the baby for a moment, and then said,--

"Well, I didn't s'pose you would do it anyhow, so Louis an' me'll have to start off, 'cause I won't go to that poor farm if I have to walk every step of the way to New York an' carry the baby besides."

"I don't see why you should talk like that, my child. In the first place, there is no reason for believing that hard-hearted man will come here, and--"

"Oh, yes, there is!" and Jack repeated the conversation he had overheard while hiding in the alder-bushes. "When he finds out we haven't been to Biddeford, he'll ask at every house on the way back."

"Do you really think he would try to take you if I said to him in a very severe tone that I would have him prosecuted for attempting anything of the kind?"

"I don't believe you could scare him a bit, an' there isn't much chance you'd be able to stop him after he's come so far to find us."

"But I can't have you leave me, Jack," the little woman said in a quavering voice. "You have no idea how much I've been countin' on your company."

"You won't feel half so bad as I shall to go," Jack replied mournfully.

"But it is out of the question to even think of walking all that distance."

"It's got to be done jest the same, an' as soon as my clothes are dried we'll start. Things will come mighty tough; but they can't be helped."

Aunt Nancy looked thoroughly distressed, and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes as she asked,--

"How would it do to lock the doors, and refuse to come down when he knocked?"

Jack shook his head.

"I don't believe it would work."

"No, it mustn't be thought of, for then we should be acting a lie, which is almost, if not quite, as bad as telling one."

"How do you make that out?" Jack asked in surprise.

"We shouldn't lock the doors unless it was to give him the impression that there was no one at home, which would be a falsehood."

The expression on Jack's face told that he failed to understand either the argument or the spirit which prompted it, and for several moments no word was spoken.

Then, as a happy thought occurred to him, the boy said eagerly,--

"I'll tell you how it could be done without any lie at all, an' everything would go along as slick as grease."

"How?" Aunt Nancy asked quickly, as a look of relief passed over her face.

"I'll watch up the road a piece till I see the team comin'. Then I'll run back here, get Louis, an' carry him off somewhere."

"Well?" the little woman asked as he paused.

"Why, can't you see how easy it'll be then? You'll only have to tell him you don't know where we are, an' he'll be bound to leave."

"But, Jack dear, I should know where you were."

"How do you make that out?"

"You wouldn't leave the farm, an' while I--"

"That's jest what you don't know. I didn't tell you where we'd go. It would be the same thing if we left for New York this minute; you might think we was on the road somewhere; but that wouldn't make it so."

Aunt Nancy remained silent, and although he did not believe she was convinced, Jack fancied there was a look of hesitation on her face as if she might be persuaded into complying with his request, therefore he added eagerly,--

"You want us to stay here, an'--"

"Indeed I do!" the little woman replied fervently. "I never knew a boy who seemed so much like our own folks as you do, and since last night it has been a great relief to think I should have you with me this summer."

"And if Mr. Pratt knows we're anywhere around, he'll snake us away for certain."

"I don't understand how that can be done, Jack."

"Neither do I; but he has come to do it, an' you can't stop him. Now I'll promise to go where you'd never guess of our bein', an' then there wouldn't be the least little bit of a lie in sayin' you didn't know."

"I would do almost anything for the sake of keeping you here, Jack, except to commit a sin."

"This way you won't be doin' anything of the kind. I reckon my clothes are dry now, an' I'd better put 'em on so's to be ready to watch for Mr. Pratt."

Then Jack hurried off as if the matter had been positively settled.

Aunt Nancy gazed after him with an expression of mingled pain and perplexity on her wrinkled face, and just then Louis crept to her knee, begging in his odd language to be taken on her lap.

"You dear little creature!" she cried, pressing him to her bosom while he chattered and laughed. "It would be cruel to send you among the paupers, when a lonely old woman like me loves you so much!"

Jack looked back just in time to see this picture, and there was no longer any doubt in his mind but that Aunt Nancy would accede to his request.

Five minutes later he returned clad in his own garments, which looked considerably the worse for the hasty drying, and said as he ran swiftly past the little woman,--

"Don't let Louis go into the house, for I'll want to get hold of him in a hurry!"

Aunt Nancy began to make some remark; but he was moving so swiftly that the words were unheard, and the old lady said to herself with a long-drawn sigh as she pressed the baby yet more closely,--

"I'm afraid it is wrong to do as he wishes; but how can I allow cruel men to take this dear child from me, when I know he will not be cared for properly?"

Then she began to think the matter over more calmly, and each moment it became clearer to her mind that by acceding to Jack's request she would be evading the truth, if not absolutely telling a lie.

"I can't do it," she said, kissing the baby affectionately. "Much as I shall grieve over them, it is better they should go than for me to do what I know to be wrong."

Having thus decided, she hurried up the lane to warn Jack; but before reaching the road the boy was met coming at full speed.

"Mr. Pratt has just shown up at the top of the hill; he's stoppin' at the house over there! I'll get Louis and hide."

"But, Jack dear, I have been thinking this matter over, and I can't even act a lie."

"Why didn't you say so before, when I had a chance to get away?" he cried reproachfully. "By lettin' me think you'd do it, you've got us into a reg'lar trap!"

The boy did not wait to hear her reply, but ran to where Louis was seated contentedly on the grass, raised him in his arms and disappeared behind the barn, leaving the little woman feeling very much like a culprit.