CHAPTER XXI

Widow Ross Backslides

Just at that particular moment the widow was frying the potatoes for supper. She was singing, and snapped the words out as though determined to do what was right under any circumstances. The mangy cat crouched beneath the stove, its lanky body sunk between its shoulder blades, its big yellow inquiring eyes staring out at Tommy, who was molding bullets over in a corner of the room. He looked back at the cat and shook his head.

_“Cross the river of Jordan,_ _Happy, happy, happy, happy,_ _Oh, we’ll cross the river of Jordan,_ _Happy in the Lord.”_

Widow Ross persisted in the task and the cat crept across and talked close range to Tommy.

“I tell you I don’t know,” whispered the youngster shrilly, making a kick at the cat. “Get out, you moon-eyed old beggar—you want to know all about everythin’.”

The woman gave the browning potatoes a stir with the knife and glared over her shoulder. She had just finished the verse for the fiftieth time, and she had sufficient breath left to say:

“You’ll get licked yet before you get into bed. What’s the matter with you now? Who are you talkin’ to, Tom Ross?”

“Cat,” answered Tom shortly.

“What are you sayin’ to her?”

“She wants to know what’s the matter with you, ma.”

“What’s the matter with me? Why, there’s nothin’ the matter with me. Can’t one be a Christian woman and sing hymns without you and Mary Ann and the cat even taking objections? Where is that cat?”

Mrs. Ross left the potatoes and seized hold of the broom. The cat sprang on Tommy’s neck, and, assisted by the claw-hold it found there, bounded to the rafters of the ceiling. Widow Ross made a sweep at it, but failed to reach it. Tommy grinned.

“Here you, climb up there and throw her down,” commanded the woman. “I’ll show her.”

That was just what Tommy wanted to see.

“I’ll get the old beggar down in a jiffy, ma,” he chuckled.

He pulled forth a chest and with much grunting turned it on end. Then he climbed up on it and reached for pussy. “Nice kitty,” he said, trying to get hold of the elusive feline. Kitty’s tail swelled and she reached down and left three little pink scratches on Tommy’s wrist.

“Gol darn,” whispered Tommy.

“Come down here to once,” ordered his mother.

Tom climbed down and stood sheepishly sucking his wrist.

“You said ‘gol darn,’—I heard you,” cried the widow.

“She scratched,” whimpered Tommy.

Mrs. Boss lifted the frying-pan from the fire and laid hold of a long stick of white hickory.

“Since Mr. Smythe’s been here and talked so nice to me about Christianity, I’ve been mendin’ my ways a lot,” she sighed, “but with a trial of a boy like you it’s most useless to try and keep good for long. You’ve broke up my hymn-singin’ and now you’ve gone and swore. Think what that God-fearin’ man, Mr. Smythe, would think of me if he knowed I let you go on in your wicked ways. I must lick you, and I’m goin’ to do it.”

She made a slash at the lad and he ducked. Out of four sweeps Tommy received one, and it was not a very hard one. He cried with his dirty face and laughed in his young heart. He wondered if ever a boy had an easier ma than he had. The cat in the meantime had taken advantage of the “whipping” to make herself scarce. Widow Boss went on with her singing as she set the supper table. Occasionally a smile would cross her face and she would sigh. Tommy wondered if Christianity made all people act funny. When Mary Ann came in with a big basket of hickory-nuts gathered from the ridges, her mother glanced at her and frowned. She watched the girl swing the heavy basket to a shelf on the wall, and a gleam of motherly pride lit up her face. Tommy, the fire-poker concealed beneath his homespun jacket, edged toward the door.

“See the cat as you was comin’ in, Mary Ann?” he asked carelessly.

His sister laughed and grabbed him.

“No, you don’t, sonny,” she said. “I know what you want to do with Sarah. My, but you’re a wicked imp, Tommy.”

“Imp is a swear-word,” charged the widow. “I’m surprised at you usin’ it, Mary Ann.”

“Why, ma,” exclaimed the girl, “you’re gettin’ awful pious, ain’t you?”

“Mr. Smythe would say that ‘imp’ is a swear-word,” said Mrs. Ross, “and Mr. Smythe is the best Christian in Bridgetown.”

“Did he tell you he was?” asked the girl.

“He did. Says he, ‘Mrs. Ross, I’m a godly man. I try to do right, and I love my neighbor.’”

“Maybe you’d like to move to Bridgetown, ma,” laughed Mary Ann.

“I know what you mean,” returned Mrs. Ross, “but I ain’t hankerin’ for Mr. Smythe’s love exactly. You believe he is a good man, don’t you?” she asked, fastening her black eyes on her daughter’s face.

“It don’t matter what I believe,” said Mary Ann.

“Well, Mr. Smythe has been a Christian for a long time. He ought to know swear-words from ordinary ones. He says, ‘Mrs. Ross, I would like to see the hypocrites in this world taken out of it. It would be a fine world then,’ says he.”

“He wouldn’t be here to see how fine, though,” smiled the girl.

“Then you don’t believe what he says?”

“I don’t believe what he says, and I don’t believe what that Watson man, who comes here with him, says. They’re both liars, and Mr. Simpson is as bad as they are.”

Widow Boss dropped a dish on the floor.

“Why, what are you talkin’ about?” she cried. “You must be crazy, Mary Ann. What if the teacher should hear you?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to hear it again. I’ve told it to him once already.”

Widow Boss stood speechless.

“Well, I never!” she said with amazement, when she could find words.

Mary Ann drew her tall figure up and her big eyes flashed.

“The other day when Mr. Simpson and Mr. Watson came home here half killed from what they said was a fallin’ tree you believed them, and I didn’t open my mouth,” said the girl.

“And why shouldn’t I believe them?” snorted the widow. “Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t poor Mr. Watson have an arm in a sling and wasn’t he that bruised he couldn’t move without groanin’? And Mr. Simpson, poor man, didn’t he have the awfulest pair of eyes you ever did see in a head? Didn’t that godly man, Mr. Smythe, who was here with me all afternoon, believe ’em?”

“Fallin’ trees don’t use people up just that way,” said Mary Ann slowly. “No, ma, I’ll tell you just what kind of a tree fell on them fellers. It was Bill Paisley. They thought they would try some sharp wort on the Bushwhackers, and Bill——” The girl’s face flushed and her bosom heaved. “—Bill was there and, of course, could whip a dozen excuses like those two. And he did do it, too.”

The widow sat down on a stool, her swarthy face a picture.

“And do you mean to say that them two men went over there to make trouble?” she asked blankly.

Mary Ann nodded.

“What for?”

“I don’t know—yet.”

“Do you mean you’re goin’ to know?”

“Yes, and for that reason Mr. Simpson mus’n’t know that we’ve learned anythin’.”

Mrs. Ross went outside to call Tommy to supper. When she returned she shook her head once or twice and muttered to herself. “The teacher’s gone to Bridgetown to-night,” she said after a time.

Mary Ann sat down to the table.

“Mary Ann,” asked the woman gently, “ain’t you carin’ for him none?”

“No, ma.”

“And if he’d ask you, you’d say——?”

“No, ma.”

The widow poured out the tea and dished up the potatoes. She slopped the tea and spilled the potatoes and then she sat down and, stretching over her arm, patted her daughter’s brown hand.

“You’re the right kind of girl for a widder to own,” she said, her eyes humid with feeling; “just the right sort.” She sat erect and slapped the table so hard that the dishes clattered. “But that Bill Paisley is a ruffin—a no-count ruffin, Mary Ann.”

The daughter did not reply. She began her supper with a zest born of open air and sunshine. Tommy was stowing away ham and hashed potatoes, and spoke with his mouth full.

“Mill ain’t goin’ to run to-morrow,” he said. “I was over to Hallibut’s shanty just after quittin’ time and Jim Dox says there’s somethin’ wrong with the boiler.”

“I wish the old b’iler would bust,” exclaimed widow Boss. “Course I’d want all the men to be in the shanty at the time. But I’m tired of that noise. I hate that saw and I hate that whistle. This place ain’t seemed the same nohow since the Colonel built that mill.”

“I think the whistle is just bully,” grinned Tommy. “Wish I could blow it all day, I’d do it.”

“A whistle is all you need to make you perfect,” said Mary Ann. “What’s the matter with the boiler, Tommy?”

“Why, there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with it,” laughed the boy. “Fact is, the mill-boys want to go out on a hunt. Seems that Boy McTavish, Jim Peeler, and Ander Declute are goin’ over to the Point to hunt a big silver-gray fox. They say he’s as big as a cow, but I ain’t believin’ that. Anyhow, Peeler is goin’ and take his hound Brindle. He’s as good as any of Colonel Hallibut’s hounds,” Jim says, “and he’s a tartar after fox.”

“And them men is lettin’ on that the machinery is broke!” gasped the widow. “What would Mr. Smythe think of such deceit as that now, I wonder?”

Here Tommy took a convulsion and it was some time before he got his breath back. His mother gazed at him sternly until the paroxysm had passed.

“Now, maybe you’ll explain this un-Christian conduct, sir,” she said.

“I suppose even Christians laugh sometimes,” gurgled Tommy, as he wiped his eyes. “I was just thinkin’ of the last time Mr. Smythe was here, ma. You remember Daft Davie came over that same afternoon, and how he scared Mr. Smythe by lookin’ at him. Well, I’ll tell you somethin’ you don’t know.

“Davie had a pair of little green grass-snakes in his pocket that he’d found in the lowlands and was takin’ home to his collection. When you and Mr. Smythe was talkin’ religion me and Davie went outside for him to show me his new tumble he’d learned. You know, Mary Ann,” turning to the girl, “how Davie can turn handsprings? Well, Davie wanted me to hold the snakes, and I said I would, only I don’t like snakes like he does, so I put ’em in Mr. Smythe’s overcoat pocket. His coat was hangin’ up outside the door. We both forgot all about ’em then, and when Mr. Smythe come out to get his old gray mare he put his hand in his pocket after his mits, and——”

Tommy laid back and roared again, and Mary Ann joined him. The widow sat stern and accusing. “Go on,” she commanded.

“Smythe was tryin’ to convert me, I guess,” said Tommy. “‘Young man,’ says he, ‘beware of sin. It’s a bad habit. It lies in wait in quiet places. It’s a snake in the grass,’ says he; and just then he pulled out one of the green snakes and howled. Oh, how he did howl and prance about! ‘Take him off, take him off,’ he hollered. He dropped the snake and Davie picked it up and put it in his blouse. Mr. Smythe he stood there shiverin’, and by and by put his hand creepy like into his pocket again. The other snake twisted around his wrist and he fell down and rolled over and over. Davie got the snake and I helped the storekeeper up.”

“‘Did you see ’em?’ he yells; ‘did you see them snakes?’

“‘Why, no, sir,’ I says, ‘what snakes?’

“‘Great big snakes,’ he hollers. And then he swore; cross my heart, ma, that good Christian man swore somethin’ awful.”

“My gracious,” sighed the good woman, surprise wiping maternal sternness from her face. “Are you _sure_ he _swore_, Tommy?”

“No one of the Broadcrook boys could swear worse or longer,” asserted Tommy.

“And what did he do then?” laughed Mary Ann, tears running down her cheek.

“Why, then Mr. Smythe turned to Davie and asked him if he’d seen any snakes, and you know what Davie’d do. He just looked at the storekeeper out o’ them big eyes o’ his and didn’t say a word. I was dyin’ to laugh, but dasn’t. Just then along comes Jim Dox from Hallibut’s shanty.

“Mr. Smythe was settin’ down on a stump lookin’ mighty used up.

“‘Sick?’ asked Jim. ‘Come over to the shanty and I’ll give you some whiskey.’

“At the word ‘whiskey’ Mr. Smythe jumped up and pranced about like a wild man.

“‘I’ve drunk too much whiskey,’ he yells, ‘I’ve drunk too much of the stuff that stingeth like an adder.’

“‘You act as though you had ’em,’ said Jim.

“‘I have got ’em,’ yelled the storekeeper. ‘I’ve seen snakes, all kinds, breeds, and colors of snakes. I’m a sick man. I want to get home where I can pray and pour all my whiskey through a knot-hole in the wall. I’ll never drink it again, so help me, I won’t.’

“Dox he looked at me and winked and I didn’t say nothin’. After the storekeeper left I told Jim all about the little grass-snakes, and I ast him what Mr. Smythe meant when he said he had ’em, and then Jim tried to get a joke on me about men who drink whiskey seein’ things as are not pleasant to look at. He didn’t do it, though.”

“I’m mighty surprised, surprised and disturbed,” said the widow. “I thought Mr. Smythe was everythin’ a man should be. Ain’t it funny how one can be fooled by a man?”

Mary Ann looked up.

“Somehow Mr. Smythe didn’t fool me,” she said. “I knew he drank whiskey, because he smelled of it. I knew he swore by the way his tongue and eyes fought with each other. I knew he lied because he said he loved all men. There’s nobody alive and natural built that way.”

The girl sat looking steadily across at her mother. Finally she leaned forward and asked:

“What did Smythe ask you to do, ma?”

“Did I say he asked me to do anythin’?” flared the widow with a start.

“No, but I know he did. What was it?”

The mother’s eyes blazed indignantly.

“I wasn’t goin’ to speak about it,” she said, “’cause Mr. Smythe said it was the duty of a Christian not to let his right hand know what anyone else’s was doin’, or somethin’ like that, meanin’ that whatever I did in the cause of Christianity should be kept to myself. He preached me a sermon here and he said that the Bushwhackers was a poor lot of misguided men who needed enlightenment. He said they was in danger of havin’ their property-deeds took from them by force, and they was in need of the help of a good Christian man. He said my duty was to go over there and reason with ’em and, suggest to ’em that they give over their deeds to him for safe-keepin’. I said I would, and was goin’ over to McTavish’s to-morrow to try and get ’em to let Mr. Smythe take care of their deeds for ’em. I’m not goin’ now,” finished the woman; “no, not a step.”

Mary Ann made as if to speak, then looked at her mother.

“I see the cat out on the shed, Tommy,” she said.

The boy jumped, and when he had vanished, with the poker, through the doorway, Mary Ann said hesitatingly:

“If Bill Paisley ever asks you if I’m engaged to the—teacher, you know what to tell him, ma.”

The widow nodded. There was a yearning in her heart to take the wild wood-girl to her bosom and confess that she had already told Bill Paisley too much. But mothers are peculiar creatures. She stifled the impulse and simply said:

“I know what to tell that no-count Bushwhacker, Mary Ann.”

Mary Ann arose and, taking the milk-pails from the shelf, went out to the cow-stable to milk the three spotted cows. Widow Ross got up from the table and looked through the little window across toward Bushwhackers’ Place.

“I don’t blame ’em,” she whispered. “I don’t blame Boy nor Mac nor Paisley nor Declute. I don’t blame any of ’em for not trustin’ them men.”

She turned and went over to the fireplace. On the shelf above it lay her long clay pipe. She picked it up as tenderly as she would a pet.

“He said it was wicked in a woman and mother to smoke. Smythe said that, and I believed him. I’ve been a fool and a ninny—not only for believin’ him, but for denyin’ myself tobaccer all these long days an’ nights. I’ll light up and smoke a while.”

Half an hour later Tommy and Mary Ann came into the house with two pails of foaming milk. Their mother was seated before the blazing log puffing clouds of blue smoke ceilingward. There was an atmosphere of homely tranquillity about the place. Tommy sniffed the air. He had missed the scent of tobacco. Through the open door came draggling a lazy day-breeze from off the Eau. It was sweet and soft with the smell of ripened water-plants.

“Can I go to the Point with ’em to-morrow, ma?” asked the boy.

He had divined that the proper moment for making an exceptional request was now.

“You kin,” answered the mother.

The lean, yellow-eyed cat looked in at the door, and Tommy patted his patched trouser leg. She came over to him trustingly, and the boy lifted her up and stroked her scanty fur.

Outside, the whip-poor-will was alive, for the song of the mill was dead.