Chapter 2

Pat on Jim's speculations about his father's stirring deeds, the gunshot came echoing through the silent barn. Jim ran to the loft door and looked out. He saw smoke curling up from the window of his "den," and knew that it was his own gun that had been fired. Back in the room, a vague masculine figure moved hastily out of the door. Jim looked toward the orchard, and caught sight of another man disappearing in the trees. He was wild with excitement. As he knew that his father was the only person in the house, he was sure that his father had fired the shot.

The tales that he had heard, his belief in his father's life of adventure, made him conclude that here was some smuggler's quarrel. So vividly did the notion take possession of his inflamed imagination that nothing henceforth could shake it. He simply _knew_ what had happened.

And his father had fled, leaving all the evidences of his shot behind him! Jim's loyal heart bounded; here he could help. He turned, raced across the loft, clattered down the steep, cobwebby stairs, slipped through the shed passage, through the kitchen, and on into his own room.

He knew what to do. Nothing must show that the gun had ever been used! He set feverishly to work. He swabbed out the weapon, and hung it on its rack over the mantel. He tossed the rags into the fireplace and covered them with ashes. He put the shot-pouch and the powder-flask into their proper drawer. Then he pulled a chair to the table and set himself to a pretended study of Cæsar. If any one should come, it would look as if he had been quietly studying all the morning.

All this had cost considerable self-denial; for of course he boiled with curiosity about the man in the orchard. He did not dare to go out there, but now, stealthily glancing out of the window, he saw his father returning from the garden with long strides. Jim understood. His father, going out at the front door, had slipped round to the side of the house, so that it would look as if he had come from the street.

He was not surprised that his father looked stern and angry. That fellow must have done something mighty mean, he thought, to make his father shoot; and he admired at once the magnanimity and the skill which had merely winged the man, as he supposed, by way, presumably, of teaching him a lesson. Then, struck by the boldness and openness of his father's return to the house, Jim suddenly felt that he had been foolish; that the cleaning of the gun had not been needed. What man would dare, after such a lesson, to complain against his father!

Mr. Edwards walked straight into Jim's room. Aroused from his nap by the shot, he had leaped to the window and seen the man fall. He had then turned and run downstairs so quickly that he had not seen the fellow half-rise and crawl into the bushes; and, having reached the spot, he was much relieved, if somewhat staggered, to find no body. He did find tracks, for this was plowed ground; but they told him nothing of the wounded man except that he had left in a hurry on a pair of rather large feet.

He looked about for a while, and then started toward the house, determined to have an explanation with Jim. He knew Jim's gun by the sound of its report, and felt no doubt that the boy had fired the shot. What sort of culpable accident had happened?

Suffering still with the splitting headache which he had been trying to sleep off, angry with Jim for his carelessness, concerned lest the man were really injured, Mr. Edwards was in his least compromising mood.

"How did it happen?" he asked, without preface. His tones were harsh, and he fixed Jim with stern eyes.

"How did it happen!" repeated Jim, in pure surprise. Certainly his father knew much better than he how it had happened.

"Speak out!" said Mr. Edwards, impatiently. "How did you come to shoot that man? I want to know about it."

"Me!" cried Jim, in complete bewilderment. "I--I haven't shot any man, father! You know I haven't."

Mr. Edwards, never a man of nice observation, and now bewildered with anger and headache, took his son's genuine astonishment for mere pretense and subterfuge. Were not the facts plain?

"I don't want any nonsense about this," he said incisively. "I heard your gun. I saw the man fall. No one else but you could possibly have fired it. It's useless to lie, and I won't stand it. Tell me at once what happened."

"I didn't shoot him, father. You _know_ I didn't!" reiterated Jim, more and more dumfounded. "I don't know how it happened, honest Injun--I don't, father!"

Mr. Edwards's mouth shut tight. He swept the room with his eyes until they rested upon the gun in the rack over the mantelpiece.

He stepped forward, took it down, and examined it. Holding it in his hands, he gazed about the floor. A rag which the ashes in the fireplace had not wholly covered caught his attention.

"You cleaned the gun and put it away," he said grimly. "Then you tried to hide the rag with which you cleaned it," and he touched the bit of cloth sticking from the ashes contemptuously with his foot. "What do you expect me to think from that?"

Jim was silent. The boy was unlike his father in many ways, but they were alike in this: they both were proud. Each would meet an unjust accusation in silence. And Jim was beginning to show another of his father's characteristics. A still anger was beginning to burn in him against this man who accused him of a deed which he himself had done, and he felt rising within him a stubborn will to endure, not to surrender. If his father was going to act like that, why, let him--

"Where is your shot-pouch?" asked Mr. Edwards.

Jim motioned toward the drawer.

"Is your powder-flask there, too?"

"Yes."

Mr. Edwards was silent After all, he was a just man. He was trying, as well as his headache would let him, to see things straight.

"It's plain what happened," he said at last. "You had an accident and got frightened. You cleaned your gun, you hid the rags, you put away your ammunition, you got your books and pretended to study. You're afraid to tell the truth now."

Jim's face flushed hotly, but he kept silent. Such assurance, such cruelty, he had never imagined. If this was what smugglers were like--if this was a sample of their tricks--

"I'll give you one more chance to tell the truth," said Mr. Edwards. "Did you do it?"

"No, I didn't!" said Jim, and his jaw snapped close like his father's.

"Very well," said Mr. Edwards. "I'll leave you until you change your mind. You will stay here. Sarah will bring you bread and milk at supper-time. If you're willing to talk to me then, you may tell her that you'd like to see me."

He turned to go, then paused.

"It's a serious matter; and all the facts are against you. It would go hard with you in court. It will go harder if you stick to your stubborn and foolish lie. One thing more: if you don't choose to tell the truth, you will have to reckon with the law as well as with me."

Mr. Edwards, upon this, shut the door and departed. His was a stern figure, but the hurt within was very sore. This, then, he reflected bitterly, was the kind of boy he had. He suffered deeply at the discovery, which for him was unquestionable.

Jim felt outraged. He had done his loyal best to save his father from the consequences of his rash act, and now, with incredible ingenuity and cool injustice, his father was using his son's acts of helpfulness to make it appear that he had done the deed. Without a scruple, his father had made him a scapegoat.

Jim told himself that he would gladly have taken the blame had his father, as chief of the band, demanded the sacrifice of this, his devoted follower. Nay, more, he would have endured the ordeal without a murmur had his father, deeming it unsafe to enter into formal explanations, only hinted to him that this was a farce which they two must play together. If his father had only winked at him! Surely he might have done that with safety! But not to be admitted to the secret,--not to be allowed to play the heroic part,--to be used as an ignoble tool by a father who neither loved him nor knew his courage,--that was too much! He would not betray his father--no, a thousand times, no! But the day would come--

The afternoon dragged on. Jim sat there in his room, looking out into the pleasant sunshine, conscious that the boys were playing "three old cat" in the field not faraway--as rebellious and magnanimous, as hot and angry, as heroic and morally muddled a boy as one could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you walk the plank?

It is amusing to think of Mr. Peaslee and Jim each shut up in his respective room; but if Mr. Peaslee in his gloomy parlor--faced by the crayon portrait of his masterful wife, a vase of wax flowers under a glass dome, the family Bible on a marble-topped table, and three stiff horsehair-covered chairs--had the advantage of being able to leave at any moment, he was even more perturbed in mind.

"Terrible awk'ard mess," he kept repeating to himself, as he mopped his damp forehead with his handkerchief, "terrible awk'ard." And indeed it would be awkward for a respectable citizen with political aspirations to be accused before a grand jury of which he is a member of assault with a dangerous weapon upon an inoffensive man.

Mr. Peaslee's reflections rose in a strophe of hope and fell in an antistrophe of despair.

"'T ain't likely it hurt him any--just bird shot," said Hope.

"Bird shot's mighty irritatin'--specially to a wrathy fellow," said Despair.

And alternating thus, his thoughts ran on: "Bird shot'll show I didn't have any serious _in_tent; but mebbe a piece of the marble struck him. He went off mighty lively; don't seem as if he'd been hurt _much_; more scared hurt, likely. But he might have been hurt bad, arm or suthin', mebbe. Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked clay; split all to pieces prob'ly--but ye can't tell. I've heard ye can shoot a taller candle through an inch plank--and that's consid'able softer than a marble. And that pesky cat's jest as frisky as ever!"

Had any one seen him? There certainly had not been any one in the street, but where had been Mr. Edwards, Jim, the housekeeper? Where had his own wife been? There were windows from which she might have seen him returning, some from which she might even have seen him fire the fatal shot. But pshaw, there now! Probably no one had seen him at all, not even his wife, not even his victim! Probably no one would ever find out.

"Must have been some worthless feller, stealin' apples, mebbe, who won't dare make a fuss. 'T ain't likely I'll ever hear anythin' of it. 'T ain't no use sayin' anythin' till suthin' happens. What folks don't know don't hurt 'em none."

The structure of comfort which he thus built himself was shaky indeed, but it had to serve. He nerved himself to meet his wife. He must not excite her suspicion by too long an absence. She was doubtless full of curiosity, for of course she had heard the shot, and would expect him to know what it meant.

It would not do to seem to enter the house by the front door, sacred to formal occasions, so, sneaking outdoors again, he slipped round to the side of the house, and with much trepidation went into the kitchen.

His wife began the moment she saw him. "Well, of all the crazy carryings on!" she cried. "What's the Ed'ards boy firin' off guns for, right under peaceable folks' windows? I'm goin' to speak to Mr. Ed'ards right off."

"Now don't ye, Sarepty, now don't ye!" said Mr. Peaslee, in alarm.

Relieved as he was to find himself unsuspected, he did not like the idea of having his wife pick a quarrel with Mr. Edwards for what he himself had done! The less said about that shot the better he would be pleased.

"For the land's sake, why not, I should like to know?"

"Well, now, Sarepty, I wouldn't. That Ed'ards boy ain't more of a boy than most boys, I guess. Always seemed a real peaceable little feller. And Ed'ards is kinder touchy, I guess. It might make hard feelin'. 'T wouldn't look well for us to speak, bein' newcomers so. I wouldn't, Sarepty, I wouldn't. Mebbe some time I'll slide in a word, just slide it in kinder easy, if he does it again."

And Mr. Peaslee looked appealingly at his wife through his big spectacles, his eyes looking very large and pathetic through the strong lenses.

"Humph!" said his wife, unmoved. "I ain't afraid of Ed'ards, if you be."

Nor could she be moved from her determination. Mr. Peaslee was vastly disturbed.

But presently he forgot this small annoyance in greater ones. That evening after tea, when he went up to the post-office, he heard that Pete Lamoury had been shot by Jim Edwards, and was now in bed with his wounds. Jim's arrest was predicted. Young Farnsworth, who kept the crockery store, told him the news. And presently Jake Hibbard, the worst "shyster" in the village, shuffled in--noticeable anywhere for his suit of rusty black, his empty sleeve pinned to his coat, the green patch over his eye, and his tobacco-stained lips. He confirmed the report.

"Pete's hurt bad," he said, shaking his head, "hurt bad. I've taken his case. Young Edwards is going to see trouble."

The speech frightened poor Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew them both.

But Mr. Peaslee returned home with dragging feet. Silent and preoccupied all the evening, he went to bed early--but not to sleep. Long he lay awake and tossed, while the Calico Cat wailed on the rear fence--exultant, triumphant, insulting.

And when he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed that he was being prosecuted in court by--was it Jake Hibbard, with the green patch over his eye, or the Calico Cat, with the black patch over hers? He could not tell, study the fantastic, ominous figure of his prosecutor as he would!

III

Immediately after breakfast on Monday morning Mr. Peaslee, in a mood of desperate self-sacrifice, started up-town to buy a knife--for Jim!

All day long on Sunday, when he had nothing to do but think, he had struggled between his fear of exposure and his sorrow for the boy. The upshot was a determination to "make it up to him" by giving him a knife. He had in his mind's eye a marvel--stag-horn handle, four blades, saw, awl, file, hoof-hook, corkscrew! Such a knife as that, he felt, would console any boy for being arrested. "Most likely 't will end right there," he said to himself.

"I guess I'd better go to Farley's," he thought, as he walked along. "Farley owes money to the bank. He won't dare to stick it on like the rest."

But when he entered the store and looked about, his face fell. Mr. Farley was not there! Willie Potter, Farley's clerk, a young man peculiarly distasteful to Solomon, lounged forward with a toothpick in his mouth. Mr. Peaslee had half a mind to go, but the thought of poor Jim held him back.

"What will you have to-day, Mr. Peaslee?" inquired Willie, affably. He winked at young Dannie Snow, who sat grinning on a keg of nails, as much as to say, "Watch me have some fun with the old man."

"I thought mebbe I'd look at some jack-knives," said Solomon, eyeing Willie distrustfully.

"Yes, sir, I guess you want the best, regardless of expense," said Willie, impudently. He well understood his customer's dislike for spending a penny. Stepping behind the counter, he drew from the show-case and held up admiringly the most costly knife in the store.

"Here, now, what do you say to this? Very superior article. Best horn, ten blades, best razor steel. Three-fifty, and cheap at the price. Can't be beat this side of Boston. Just the article for you, sir."

And he winked again at Dannie Snow, who was pink with suppressed merriment.

"Well, now, well, now," said Solomon, taking the knife in his hand and pretending to examine it closely. "That's a pretty knife, to be sure,--to--be--sure. Real showy, ain't it? Looks as if 't was made to sell--all outside and no money in the bank, like some young fellers ye see."

Dannie Snow giggling outright, Mr. Peaslee turned and gazed at him in mild inquiry. Young Potter turned a dull red. He was addicted to radiant cravats and gauzy silk handkerchiefs, and from his "salary" of eight dollars a week he did not save much.

But just the same, Mr. Peaslee had been staggered at the price. Pretending still to examine the knife which Willie had given him, he squinted past it at the contents of the glass show-case on which his elbows rested. There all sorts of knives confronted him, each in its little box, in which was stuck a card stating the price,--$1.50, $1.25, 90c, 45c. The cheapest one would eat up the proceeds of three dozen eggs at fifteen cents a dozen--a good price for eggs! He had forgotten that knives cost so much.

"A good knife ain't any use to a boy," he reflected. "Break it in a day, lose it in a week. 'T wouldn't be any real kindness to him. Just wastin' money."

He pointed finally to a stubby, wooden-handled knife with one big blade, marked 25c.

"There, now," said he, "that's what I call a knife. Good and strong, and no folderol. Guarantee the steel, don't ye?"

He opened the blade and drew it speculatively across his calloused old thumb, while with his mild blue eyes, which his spectacles enormously exaggerated, he fixed the humbled Willie.

"That's a good knife for the money," said that young man. "Hand-forged."

"Sho now, ye don't say so," said Mr. Peaslee. "I guess ye give a discount, don't ye? Farley always allows me a little suthin'."

"You can have it for twenty-one cents," said Willie, much irritated. "Charge it?"

"Guess I better pay cash," Mr. Peaslee answered hastily. If it were charged, his wife would question the item.

Producing an enormous wallet--very worn and very flat--from his cavernous pocket, he deliberately searched until he found a Canadian ten-cent piece, and adding to it enough to make up the price, handed it to Potter, and left the store.

Mr. Peaslee, who remembered no gift from his father other than a very occasional big copper cent, thought himself pretty generous. Had he not spent pretty nearly the price of two dozen eggs?

But now a question occurred to him which he had not thought of before. How was he to get the knife to Jim? A gift from him would excite surprise, perhaps suspicion. It must not be known who had sent it. Ah, there was the post office! Going in, he pushed the little box through the barred window.

"Say, Cyrus," he said to the postmaster, "kinder weigh up this consignment for me, will ye?"

The postmaster weighed the box.

"That will cost you six cents," he said.

"Thank ye," returned Mr. Peaslee, and dropping the box into his deep pocket, departed. Half a dozen eggs more to get it to his next-door neighbor!

"'T ain't right," he muttered, "'t ain't right."

Uncertain what to do with his gift, but feeling, on the whole, pretty virtuous, Mr. Peaslee now started home. He thought that Jim would not be going to school, but would wait at home for the threatened coming of the constable; but still he was not sure, and he wanted to keep the boy under his eye.

Suddenly he straightened. There was Judge Ames walking up the street, valise in hand, just from the early morning train. He had come a few days before the opening of court. Mr. Peaslee knew him slightly, and stood much in awe of him. He was greatly pleased when the judge stopped and shook hands with him.

"I am glad to hear, Mr. Peaslee," said the judge, in his precise, lawyer-like utterance, "that you are to be on the grand jury. We need men like you there."

"Thank ye, judge, thank ye," said Mr. Peaslee, overcome. And he walked on home, quite convinced that a person of his importance in the community should not be sacrificed to the comfort of any small boy.

"And I've done right by the little feller, I've done right," he assured himself, feeling the knife.

As he turned into his own yard, he cast an anxious eye over to the Edwards house. There sat Jim, elbows on knees, chin on hands, staring into space. Jim was thinking that his father, had he been a pirate chief, would not have wiped a filial tear from his eye whenever he thought of his mother; and the boy's face showed it. The spectacle greatly depressed Mr. Peaslee. The smallest, faintest question entered his mind whether a twenty-five-cent knife would console such melancholy.

To give himself a countenance while he watched events, Solomon got a rake and began gathering together the few autumn leaves which had fluttered down in his front yard. It was not useless labor, for they would "come in handy" later in "banking up" the house.

And so, presently, he saw Sam Barton, the constable, his big shoulders rolling as he walked, advancing down the street. Mr. Peaslee expected him; nevertheless his appearance gave him a disagreeable shock. Suppose the constable had been coming for him!

"Ain't arrestin' anybody down this way, be ye?" he called, with a feeble attempt at jocularity. Perhaps, after all--

"Looks like it," said Barton, succinctly.

Mr. Peaslee stepped to the fence. "'T aint likely they'll do much to a leetle feller like that, I guess," he said, searching the constable's face.

"Dunno," said Barton, passing on.

Solomon, much concerned, leaned on his rake and watched him enter the Edwards house. Jim had disappeared; there was some delay.

Mrs. Peaslee came to the door.

"Arrestin' that Ed'ards boy, be they, Solomon?" she said. "Well, serve him right, _I_ say, shootin' guns off so. Like father, like son. _I_ dunno as _'t was_ the son. I'd as soon believe it of the father. Everybody knows Lamoury and he's been mixed up together. Some of his smugglin' tricks, prob'ly."

Mrs. Peaslee had taken a violent dislike to her taciturn neighbor, and she did not care who knew it. Her shrill voice seemed to her husband painfully loud, and, indeed, it was beginning to attract the attention of the group of children who had gathered about the Edwards gate.

"Sh!" hissed Solomon. "Ed'ards might hear ye. 'T would hurt us if he should take his account out of the bank."

"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Peaslee. "Well," she added, "you go to the hearin'. Justice is suthin', I guess."

But she said no more, and with her husband and the children awaited events--a silent group in the silent street before the silent house. The children's eyes grew bigger and bigger with excitement. Was not Jimmy Edwards going to be arrested for mur-r-rder? the horrid whisper ran. One small boy, beginning to whimper, asked if Jimmy was "going to be hung."

The occasion was solemn even to the older eyes of Mr. Peaslee. "S'posin' it was me," he said to himself.

Presently Mr. Edwards, Jim, and the constable emerged from the house. Jim looked white and frightened, but was bravely trying to bear himself like a man. Mr. Edwards, his long, shaven upper lip stiff as a board, looked stern and uncompromising. Barton was as big and good-humored as ever.

He turned upon the little boys and girls, and, waving his arm, cried, "Scat!" They fell back--about ten feet. Thus the procession formed: Barton and Jim, then Mr. Edwards, and--at a barely respectful distance--the crowd of youngsters.

Mr. Peaslee, much moved, but trying hard not to show it, thrust his rake under the veranda with a great show of care, and joined Mr. Edwards--much to that gentleman's surprise. Solomon's heart was throbbing with a great resolution.

"I always aim to be neighborly," said he, nervously lowering his voice, for he was conscious of his wife, still standing on the veranda. "Thought I'd just step along, too. I cal'late mebbe you'd like comp'ny on his bail bond," and he jerked his thumb toward Jim.