Part 3

The course of such lads is pretty regular. Mick was about a year from robbing hen-roosts. Next to hen-roosts comes holding up the lone farmer. Then the gang gets brash entirely, two or three are killed, and the rest land in the pen. You wouldn't believe hardly what kiddish minds these ignorant, hulking brutes have sometimes, nor how, sometimes, they come to the front, big, bigger than life-size. A painter wouldn't waste a minute putting down Mick Murphy as a thing of beauty. Little bits of eyes, near hid with whisky bloat; big puffy lips, stained with tobacco juice till they looked like the blood was coming through; dirty-handed, dirty-clothed, and dirty-mouthed--yah! And still--well, when I remember how that bulldozer went up a burning flight of stairs, tore a burning door off with them big dirty hands, and brought a little girl down through a wallow of flames, taking the coat off his back to wrap around her, and how the pride of the man come out when the mother stumbled toward him, calling on God to reward him, and he straightened under the pain and said, "Ah, that's all right, ledy! 'F your ol' man'll stand a drink an' a new shirt we'll call it square." The son-of-a-gun never left his bed for six weeks--why, he was broiled all down one side--why, when I remember that, I can't call up such a disgust for old Mick.

As I said, I see Mick Murphy leaning back in his chair at the tavern. Of course, he had a word to say about me and Miss Hitty. Now, the bare sight of Mick used to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck and growls boil inside of me. I just naturally disliked that man. So I sassed him plenty. He got mad and threatened to slap my face. I sassed him more, and he _did_ slap my face. In one twenty-fifth of a second I caught him on his rum-bouquet and sent him plumb off his feet--not bad for a sixteen-year-old, when you consider the other party was an accomplished rough-houser. Yes, sir, he went right down, clean, more from the quickness than the stuff behind the blow, as I hadn't anywheres near grew into my strength yet. The tavern crowd set up a roar, and then jumped to interfere, for Mick he roared, too, and made to pull me apart. The onlookers wouldn't stand for it. They weren't such high-toned gents, but a contest between a leggy kid and a powerful man looked too far off the level.

"You run," says one fellow to me. "We'll hold him." But hanged if I was going to run. My thoughts was a mix, as usual in such cases--most of it hardly thinking at all, and the rest a kind of white-hot wish to damage something, and a desire to hustle away from there before I got hurt. Then, too, it had reached the limit about Miss Hitty--I sure wasn't going to stand hearing her name mishandled by tavern loafers. Yet the principal cause for my staying was my anxiety to leave. That big, bellowing Irishman, dragging a half-dozen men to get at me, blood streaming down his face, and his expression far from agreeable, put a crimp in my soul, and don't you forget it. But I understood that this was my first man's-size proposition, and if I didn't take my licking like a man I never could properly respect myself afterward. So whilst my legs were pleading, "Come, Willie, let's trot and see mother--it will be pleasanter," I raked my system for sand and stood pat.

I knew a trick or two about assaulting your fellow-man as well as Mick, when you come to that. Fighting is really as good an education for fighting as sparring is, and perhaps a little better. It ain't so much a question of how you make your props and parries, as how much damage you inflict upon the party of the second part.

"Let him come!" I says. "What you holding him for, 's if he was a ragin' lion or something? Let go of him!"

"You skip, you darn fool," says my first friend. "He'll eat you raw."

"Well, it will be my funeral," I says. "If you will see he don't put me down and gouge my eye out, I'll take him as he comes."

Gouging was a great trick with that gang,--I feared it more than death itself.

Just at that minute old Eli drove up. "What in tarnation's this?" says he. When he found out, he tried to make me go home, but all this advice I didn't want had made me more determined. I got crying mad. "Gol-ding it all to thunder!" says I, hopping up and down. "You see me fair play and turn him loose, Eli. I want one more swat at him,--just let me hit him once more, and I'll go home."

Eli was a tall, round-shouldered man, who looked like a cross between a prosperous minister and a busted lawyer. He had a consumptive cough, and an easy, smoothing way with his hands, always sort of apologizing. Several men had been led astray by these appearances, and picked a quarrel with Eli. Two weeks in bed was the average for making that mistake.

He looked at me with his head sideways, pulling his chin whisker. "Billy," says he, "I hev experienced them sentiments myself. It shell be as you say." He went to his wagon, and drew out a muzzle-loading pistol from under the seat. The pistol was loaded with buckshot, and four fingers of powder to push it, as every one around knew. He walked up to Mick and put the touch of a cold, gray, Yankee eye on him. "Young man," he says, "I ain't for your clawin', chawin', kickin' style of conductin' a row, so I tell you this: you fight that boy fair, or I'll mix buckshot with your whisky.--Turn your bullock loose!"

The men let go of him, and he come.

Fortunately, I remember every detail of that scrap, clear as crystal. I led with my left, and Mick countered with his chin. A thunderstorm hit me in the left ear. Kerbang, kerswot. Scurry-scurry, biff-biff-biff. Somebody hit somewhere. Somebody with a pain in the neck. No time to find out who it is. Zip, smash, rip; more pains; streaks of fire on the horizon; must have run aground. Roar-roar-bump,--ah, bully for you, Billy! Slam him, Mick! Hit him again, sonny! You got him! Now you got him! Aaaay-hooray!

Here we go, bumping over the ties. Right over the edge of the trestle,--bing! C'm' off'n him, you big black whelp, aggh! le' go! Twist his thumb! Kick the brute! Get up, boy! Roooor swishz.--Where in thunder did the big black thing come from? Never mind. No time to stop. Lovely Peter! How she rolls! Who's sick?--Mick, probably. Lightning struck, that time.... Again ... Mmmmmmearrrrr ... dark ... dark. Raining ice-water! He's all right! Give him a little air! Somebody crying, "I did the best I could by him, Eli; g-gu-gug-gol-darn him!" More light. Daybreak, and here I am again, on the ground, wet to the hide, the bucket they emptied on me alongside, and Eli holding my head up. And what's the thing opposite, with one eye swelled shut, and a mouth the size of a breakfast-roll?--Why, it's Mick!

"Did he lick me, Eli?" says I.

Eli laughed kind of nervous. "Neither you, nor him, nor me, will ever know," says he. "He's willing to call it a draw."

I staggered to my feet and wabbled to my partner in the dance, holding out my hand. "Much obliged to you, Mick," says I.

He leaned back and laughed, till I joined, as well as I could, for crying. He grabbed my hand and shook it. "Yer all right," says he. "Sorry I am I said a word to ye. An' yer th' h--- of a red-headed bye to fight. I've enough."

Whilst I was a simple lad, I wasn't a fool. For me to hold that two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound rough-and-tumble fighter even, was impossible. He was ashamed of the whole thing. As soon as his ugly temper had the edge knocked off it, he took that way of closing the deal. No bad man at all, old Mick.

"You say that to save my feelings," I said.

"What's that?" says he, rough and hard. "Off with ye!" He wouldn't admit being decent for a farm. He swung away. Then I got another jar. A voice called me and I swung around.

V

"ON MY BUREAU WAS A KNIFE--"

My father stood behind me, such a picture it chills me to think of him. All of his face was chalk-white; his hands shook like palsy. I reckon I can slide over the next little while. You guess what a crazy-mad man, who's fed his mind on darkness for years, would be likely to do. I never raised a hand in defense--took it. At the same time I made my mind up to end this business, quick and strong. I had enough.

Of course, from father's point of view, something could be said. Had I been drunk and fighting at the tavern, as my nice, gentlemanly little friend, Algy Anker, ran and told him, nobody'd blamed him for getting orry-eyed. But he might have asked me what I had to say--a woman-killer gets that show. He used me bad enough, so Eli interfered. "I don't care if I never sell another thing to you," says he; "but, neighbor, you sha'n't hit thet boy ag'in--no, now! There's no use to squirm--you sha'n't do it, and that's all. You run along, Bill."

When mother saw me, she cried out. I was a sight, for sure. Ought to have washed up a bit, and not give her such a shock, but my head was sizzing like a pin-wheel. Only one idea stuck.

"I'm not hurt much, mother," I says. "I want to speak to you."

Mother was quick-witted and hardy-witted, too. She knew there was no boy foolishness in this, so she choked down her feelings, got a basin, clean water, and a towel, and said, "Tell me while I bathe your face."

I told her. It was queer how quiet I felt. I don't know but what it's always that way, though, when a man has made his mind up tight. We seemed almost of an age, mother and me, that little while.

She pleaded with me. "Don't leave your home, Will. I have been wrong; I should have done more; I didn't, thinking things would right themselves; but now I'll promise to stand between."

"And what will your life be like?" I asked her. I grew old pretty fast, under pressure.

"Never mind that!" she cried. "My boy, to have you with me--"

"Sh!" I says. "How could I help minding it?"

She was still.

"And worse might come," I went on. "I don't like to say it, yet every time I couldn't promise to be.... There'd come a day too often ... I'm strong, and if I should--" She put her hand on my lips.

"Go to your room, Will; and let me think alone for a while," she said. She caught me and held me close, with never a tear, but a look worse than an ocean of tears. I couldn't have stood it, if I hadn't known I was doing the right thing. To a dead certainty, there would be no peace with me in the house. Any doubts anybody might have had was removed when father come in. He went straight to mother's room. I heard him shouting; talking so fast his words were broken; stamping around; quoting Scripture one minute, crying threats and slaughter the next. It was pitiful. I hustled, getting things ready; I knew, a little more of listening, and I'd have nothing but contempt for my father. Then mother's voice rung out, telling him to leave until he could talk like a man. Usually, she could force him, when she wished, hers being so much bigger a mind, but this time the littler soul was beyond itself with fury. "Don't take that tone with me!" he roared. "I won't stand it! And as for the lies that boy told you, I'll have them out of his back!" Their door slammed open, and he fairly ran toward mine. I jumped and locked it. Mother was close after him. "You shall _not_!" she said. "Listen to reason! You've done enough harm--Oh!" she cried, in pain. I thought he hit her.

What I feared boiled up in me. On my bureau was a knife; a big, heavy knife, that got into my hand somehow. It was me and the devil for that round. How long I stood with the knife raised, I don't know. Then mother spoke calmly. "You hurt my arm, holding it so tight," she said. "That certainly isn't necessary." He had grace enough to beg her pardon. Finally, she got him to leave. A good job. That day had been a trifle too much for me, already. I can't see a bare knife since, without a shudder. Don't like the glint of steel at all. Years after, a flash of sun on water would bring things back, and I'd have a sickness in the stomach.

An hour after, mother came in. "Well, my boy, you are right," she says, as if the very life were out of her.

"Yes," I says, thinking of the knife; "and I'll just slide out quiet, and no trouble to anybody."

She roused herself. "You will leave in daylight, my son," she says, "with your mother to say good-by. You have done nothing wrong, and you sha'n't leave ashamed."

"But, mother, that will make it bad for you," I says.

"I married your father; I brought you into the world," she says. "I know my duty, and I shall do it, if it costs all our lives, let alone a little trouble. And, besides," she says, getting up, excited, "no matter what any one can say, you've been a good--" She broke down, all at once. The rest of it she cried into my shoulder, whilst I told her about how I'd be rich and great in no time, and father'd come around all right after a while, and we'd all be happy, till she felt better. And I believed it myself so strong, and put it out so clear, that I think I convinced her. Anyway, they got along all right after I left. That's a comfort.

So it was arranged. I shouldn't say anything, but keep out of father's way until she made him yield the point. She laid it out to the old gentleman clear and straight, Mattie tells me--(Mattie's mother was my mother's half-sister)--telling him I wasn't drunk, as he could readily prove, and as for the fighting, if he intended to beat me every time I defended a woman, why, she'd leave, too. That part of it stuck in mother's mind; she would not listen when I told her it was only one of the reasons for the row. And she summed the thing up by saying I was determined to leave; that it was best all around; and that he must act like a human being and a father for once. By this time, I reckon he didn't feel so terrible proud of himself. At least, it was pulled off easy. I left home, with some small money in my pocket, a trunk of clothes in Eli's care, and mother and father both waving me good-by in the road, for the Great World, per Boston, and a schooner trading South, that belonged to Eli's cousin.

And here's a queer thing. The day I left, Mick went into the tavern and called for a glass of whisky. He poured out a snorter and balanced it on the flat of his thumb. "Ladies and gintlemen," says he, "ye here behold th' koind friend that led Mick Murphy--that's licked the country--to bang a bit of a bye, after misnamin' a dacent woman." Smash! goes the glass on the floor. "Tra-la-loo to you!" says Mick, flinging the barkeep' a half-dollar. "Keep the change," he says. "It's the last cent I have, and the last you'll get from me."

And that's just what happened, too. He's located about twenty mile over yonder, with a good factory and somewheres between ninety and nine thousand Murphys claiming him as their start. And my best friend is old Mick. He cried when I first went to see him. I reformed him, but it cost me my home. I never knew, either, till he told me himself, a year ago.

VI

"I'M MARY SMITH"

Plunk, plunk, plunketty-plunk, down the pike, me and Eli, and Dandy Jim, Eli's black horse.

I'll never tell you how I felt. It was the first I'd ever been away from home. All the regrets I had was eased by knowing it wouldn't be more than six months before I'd come back with a gunny-sack full of hundred-dollar bills, buy Mr. Jasper's place with the pillars in front, and a railroad, and pervade things in general with a tone of pink and birds singing.

One thing about being a boy is that you're sure of to-morrow, anyhow.

Well, we slid along behind a free-gaited horse, in an easy wagon, over good roads, in early New England summer, when every breath of air had a pretty story to tell. If it hadn't been for the tight vest I had on, I reckon my heart would have bust my ribs for joyfulness.

Boston scart the life out of me. I had no notion there was that many folks and horses and buildings in the world. We pulled for the schooner right away, but none too quick for me. I never liked a crowd. A man understands he don't amount to much, yet don't like to have the fact rubbed in.

Cap'n Jesse Conklin owned the boat. He had a mild blue eye, a splendid line of cuss words, a body as big as mine, and a pair of legs that just saved him from running aground. When I first saw him I thought he was standing in a hole. Howsomever, he got around mighty lively on his little stumps, and he could light his pipe when the _Matilda_, of Boston, was throwing handsprings. He always opened his eyes wide and said, "Ha!" like he was perfectly astonished when you spoke to him. Then, to square things, you was really perfectly astonished when he spoke to you.

Eli introduced me. "Ha!" says the captain. "So this is one of them ripperty-splintered and bejiggered young thingermergummeries that runs away from hum, heh?" I don't wish to be understood as giving the captain's exact words, although I ain't one of your durn prudes, neither.

Eli explained.

"Ha!" says the captain. "Is that so? Howjer come by them legs, young feller? You'll be riggin' a set of stays fur them when we hit the stream. I've seen shorter and thicker things than them growin' on trellises."

"Never you mind about his legs, you old bladder-head," says Eli, cousinly. "You're to take the boy as passenger."

"_I_ am!" says Captain Jesse, jumping back, mad as a bumblebee. "_I_ am; that's _me_! I don't own this boat nor nothin'! I've got to be told what I'm to do, I have!"

"Sure!" says Eli, undisturbed.

"Well, all right," says the captain, calm as anything. "What makes you so hasty, Eli? Does he pay his passage, or work it?"

"He gives you five dollars in hand, and works the rest of it," says Eli.

The cap'n gave a horrible grin, showing a set of teeth like a small horse.

"And won't he work it!" says he, rubbing his hands together. "Dry land'll do for him, two weeks out."

"Yaaas," says Eli. "You're a turble person, you are--you'd ought to been a pirate, Jess."

Cap'n Jesse got mad again--he was more like a little boy than anybody of his weight I ever see. He come up to Eli and shook his finger under that hawk-bill of a nose.

"I don't want none of your slack, Eli!" he says. "You've tried me often"--here he got impressive, talking very slow--"don't you try me once too much!"

Eli grabbed the hand, stuck the finger in his mouth, and bit it.

"Aaoow!" yells the captain, grabbing his finger. "You quit your foolin'!"

By this time I was lost entirely. What to make of the proceedings was beyond guessing. Boylike, I thought men always acted with some big idea in view, but the next minute Eli and Cap'n Jesse had grabbed holt of one another and was scuffling and giggling around the deck like a pair of kids. Captain Jess was stout about the shoulders; he had Eli waving in the breeze once, but at last Eli gave him a back trip and down they come. Then up they got; each cut off a hunk of chewing and began to talk as if they'd acted perfectly reasonable. Seems that's the way they always come together.

The three of us took a look about the boat. She was an able, fine three-master, the pride of Jesse's soul; 'most as big as a ship.

Them were the days when most folk built deep and narrer, but Jesse had ideas of his own when he laid down the lines of the _Matilda_, of Boston. She looked bluff and heavy in the bows and her bilges turned hard, but she walked over the water, and don't you forget it. Moreover, she was the kindest boat in a seaway I ever boarded. Old _Matilda_ girl would heel just so far; after that the worst draft that ever whistled wouldn't put her under an inch; she'd part with her sticks first. Handy boat, a schooner, too; sensible and Yankeefied. Lord! what a claw-and-messing on board a square-rigger, compared to it! And taking two men to the schooner's one at that.

The _Matilda_ was fitted for passengers. She had eight nice clean cabins, and fine quarters for the crew. In most such boats you can't more 'n stand up, if you stretch between hair and shoe-leather the way I do, but here there was head-room a-plenty. And Uncle Jesse ate the boys well, too. Good old craft and good old boy running her. Soon's you realized that all his spitting and swearing and roaring didn't amount to no more than a hearty sneeze, you got along with Jesse great, if you was fit to get along with anybody.

We took aboard four passengers that night, one of 'em being a lady. The next morning at four we pulled out with the ebb-tide.

Before we got into the open water, I felt such a joy boiling inside me I had to sing, no matter what the feelings of the rest were. Oh! Oh! The blue, bright sky; and the blue, crinkly, good-smelling water; the quantities of fresh air around, and _Matilda_ picking up her white skirts and skipping for Panama! Neither man nor money will ever give me a feeling like that again. But then,--ah, then! And there's 'most always a then,--when the _Matilda_ tried to spear a gull with her bowsprit, and, shamefaced at the failure above, tried to harpoon some little fishy with the same weapon,--why, I hope I'll never have a feeling like that again, neither.

I hung over a bunk like a snarl of rope. Jesse come down and grinned at me. I couldn't even get mad. "Tell mother I died thinking of her," was all I could say.

Now that was noble of me. Many a man has cashed his checks not feeling half so bad; but if any poor soul ever regretted a good deed, I did that one. That last message to my mother seemed to remain in the memory of our ship's company, long after I was willing to forget it.

For two solid days I didn't live inside of myself,--mind floated around in space. After that, I got up, ready for anything in the line of eating they had on board. Jesse brought me a smoked herring and a cup of coffee,--the first coffee I ever tasted, mother thinking it wasn't good for boys. Within ten minutes after my meal, William De La Tour Saunders belonged to himself once more. Never had a squirm of seasickness since. For the first week I wasn't quite up to the mark, but Jesse told me to take a cup of sea-water every morning before breakfast, which tuned me up in jig-time.

I saw our lady passenger when she come up for air. A girl of about twenty, supple and balanced as a tight-rope walker; you thought she was slim when you first looked at her, yet when you looked the second time you couldn't prove it. What a beautiful thing is a set of muscles that know their business! Muscles that meet every roll of a boat, or whatever it is they should meet, without haste and without loss of time,--just there, when they should be there! Why, to see that girl walk twenty feet on the schooner's deck was a picture to remember for the rest of your days. Kid that I was, I noticed there wasn't a line in her makeup that said, "Look at me." Afterward I learned to shake my head at graceful ladies, but I feel kindly toward them still, out of memory of that first girl. My mother moved beautifully, likewise Mattie. They were quiet, though; restful women; this one was all spring and ginger,--for Heaven's sake, don't think I mean prancy! Nor that I haven't met a prancy girl or two who was all right, when I say that,--fat and jolly, yellow-haired girls, to go with good meals and a romp,--but this My Lady was made of the stuff Uncle Shakspere wrote. She was clean and sweet as pine-woods after rain, but full of fire, sense, and foolishness.

I remember thinking, "When this girl turns round she ain't going to be handsome in the face. With that head of hair, that back, and that walk, Providence will feel square on the deal." And when she did turn round I simply spread my hands, mouth, and eyes, and looked at her. I forgot being aboard ship, I forgot where I was going and why, I forgot who I was and everything else; all I knew was that a kind of human I never believed lived was walking toward me.