Part 9

“Yes, sir,” says Jack, ignoring my remark, “that Squint has turned into some kid, believe me! And the first time I saw him he was a sight. It was about dusk, one summer afternoon three years ago, and he was sitting down in the grass by the side of the road six or seven miles from town, crying and talking to himself. I sat down a little way off and listened. He had run away from home, and I didn't blame him any, either. Besides the curls and shoes and stockings I have mentioned, there were other persecutions. He never went fishing, for instance, unless his father took him. He didn't dast to play marbles for keeps. They wouldn't let him have a Flobert rifle, nor even a nigger shooter. There were certain kids he wasn't allowed to play with--they were too common and dirty for him, his folks said. So he had run off to go with a circus. He had hacked off his Fauntleroy curls before he started only he hadn't got 'em very even; but he had forgot to inquire which way to go to find a circus. He'd walked and walked, and the nearest thing to a circus he had found was a gipsy outfit, and he had got scared of an old man with brass rings in his ears, and run, and run, and run. He'd slung his shoes and stockings away when he started because he hated 'em so, and now he had a stone bruise, and he was lost besides. And it was getting dark.

“Well, I felt sorry for that boy. I sat there and watched him, and the idea came to me that it would be a Christian act to adopt him. He wasn't a sissy at heart--he had good stuff in him, or he wouldn't have run away. Besides, I wanted a change; I'd been working for a farmer, and I was pretty sick of that.”

“It's no life for a dog with any sporting instinct,” I said, “farm life isn't. I've tried it. They keep you so infernally busy with their cows and sheep and things; and I knew one farm dog that had to churn twice a week. They stuck him in a treadmill and made him.”

“A farm's no worse than living in a city,” said Mutt Mulligan. “A city dog ain't a real dog; he's either an outcast under suspicion of the police, or a mama's pet with ribbons tied around his neck.”

“You can't tell me,” says Jack. “I know. A country town with plenty of boys in it, and a creek or river near by, is the only place for a dog. Well, as I was saying, I felt sorry for Percival, and we made friends. Pretty soon a man that knew him came by in a buggy, going to town. He was a doctor, and he stopped and asked Percival if he wasn't pretty far from home. Percival told him he'd left home for good and for all; but he sniffled when he said it, and the doctor put him into his buggy and drove him to town. I drilled along behind. It had been dark quite a while when we got home, and Percival's folks were scared half to death. His mother had some extra hysterics when she saw his hair.

“'Where on earth did you get that ornery-looking yellow mongrel?' says Percival's father when he caught sight of me.

“'That's my dog,' says Percival. 'I'm going to keep him.'

“'I won't have him around,' says his mother.

“But Percival spunked up and said he'd keep me, and he'd get his hair shingled tight to his head, or else the next time he ran away he'd make a go of it. He got a licking for that remark, but they were so glad to get him back they let him keep me. And from that time on Percival began to get some independence about him. He ain't Percival now; he's Squint.”

It's true that a dog can help a lot in a boy's education. And I'm proud of what I've done for Freckles. I will always remember 'one awful time I had with him, though. I didn't think he'd ever pull through it. All of a sudden he got melancholy--out of sorts and dreamy. I couldn't figure out what was the matter with him at first. But I watched him close, and finally I found out he was in love. He was feeling the disgrace of being in love pretty hard, too; but he was trying not to show it. The worst part of it was, he was in love with his school-teacher. She was a Miss Jones, and an old woman--twenty-two or twenty-three years old, she was.

Squint and Freckles had a fight over it when Squint found out. Squint came over to our place one night after supper and whistled Freckles out. He? says:

“Say, Freckles, I seen you put an apple on Miss Jones's desk this morning.”

“You're a liar,” says Freckles, “and you dastn't back it.”

“I dast,” says Squint.

“Dastn't,” says Freckles.

“Dast,” says Squint.

“Back it then,” says Freckles.

“Well, then, you're another,” says Squint. Which backed it.

Then Freckles, he put a piece of wood on to his shoulder, and said:

“You don't dast to knock that chip off.”

“I dast,” says Squint.

“You dastn't,” says Freckles.

Squint made a little push at it. Freckles dodged, and it fell off. “There,” says Squint, “I knocked it off.”

“You didn't; it fell off.”

“Did.”

“Didn't neither.”

“Did teether. Just put it on again, and see if I don't dast to knock it off.”

“I don't have to put it on again, and you ain't big enough to make me do it,” says Freckles.

“I can too make you.”

“Can't.”

“Huh, you can't run any sandy over me!”

“I'll show you whether I can or not!”

“Come on, then, over back of the Baptist Church, and show me.”

“No, I won't fight in a graveyard.”

“Yah! Yah! Yah!--'fraid of a graveyard at night! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat!”

There isn't any kid will stand for that, so they went over to the graveyard back of the Baptist Church. It was getting pretty dark, too. I followed them, and sat down on a grave beside a tombstone to watch the fight. I guess they were pretty much scared of that graveyard, both of those boys; but us dogs had dug around there too much, making holes after gophers, and moles, and snakes for me to mind it any. They hadn't hit each other more than half a dozen times, those boys, when a flea got hold of me right in the middle of my back, up toward my neck--the place I never can reach, no matter how hard I dig and squirm. It wasn't one of my own fleas, by the way it bit; it must have been a tramp flea that had been starved for weeks. It had maybe come out there with a funeral a long time before and got lost off of someone, and gone without food ever since; and while I was rolling around and twisting, and trying to get at it, I bumped against that tombstone with my whole weight. It was an old slab, and loose, and it fell right over in the grass with a thud. The boys didn't know I was there, and when the tombstone fell and I jumped, they thought ghosts were after them, though I never heard of a ghost biting anybody yet. It was all I could do to keep up with those boys for the next five minutes, and I can run down a rabbit. When they stopped, they were half a mile away, on the schoolhouse steps, hanging on to each other for comfort. But, after a while they got over their scare, and Squint said:

“There ain't any use in you denying that apple, Freckles; two others, besides me, not counting a girl, saw you put it there.”

“Well,” said Freckles, “it's nobody's business.”

“But what I can't make out,” says Squint, “is what became of the red pepper. We knew you wasn't the kind of a softy that would bring apples to teacher unless they was loaded with cayenne pepper, or something like that. So we waited around after school to see what would happen when she bit into it. But she just set at her desk and eat it all up, and slung the core in the stove, and nothing happened.”

“That's funny,” says Freckles. And he didn't say anything more.

“Freckles,” says Squint, “I don't believe you put any red pepper into that apple.”

“I did,” says Freckles. “You're a liar!”

“Well,” says Squint, “what become of it, then?”

“That's none of your business, what become of it,” says Freckles. “What's it to you what become of it? How do I know what become of it?”

“Freckles,” says Squint, “I believe you're stuck on teacher.”

“You're a liar!” yells Freckles. And this time he was so mad he hit Squint without further words. They had a beauty of a fight, but finally Freckles got Squint down on the gravel path, and bumped his head up and down in the gravel.

“Now,” says he, “did you see any apple?”

“No,” says Squint, “I didn't see any apple.”

“If you had seen one, would there have been pepper in it?”

“There would have been--le'me up, Freckles.”

“Am I stuck on teacher?”

“You ain't stuck on anybody--ouch, Freckles, le'me up!”

Freckles let him up, and then started back toward home, walking on different sides of the street. About half-way home Freckles crossed the street, and said: “Squint, if I tell you something, you won't tell?”

“1 ain't any snitch, Freckles, and you know it.”

“You won't even tell the rest of the Dalton Gang?”

“Nope.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Sure.”

“Well, set down on the grass here, and I'll tell you.” They set down, and Freckles says:

“Honest, Squint, it's true--I did take her that apple this morning, and I'm stuck on her, and there wasn't any pepper in it.”

“Gee, Freckles!” says Squint.

Freckles only drew in a deep breath.

“I'm awful sorry for you, Freckles,” says Squint, “honest, I am.”

“You always been a good pal, Squint,” says Freckles. “Ain't there anything can be done about it?”

“Nope,” says Freckles.

“The Dalton Gang could make things so hot for her she'd have to give up school,” says Squint, very hopeful. “If you didn't see her any more, you'd maybe get over it, Freckles.”

“No, Squint, I don't want her run out.”

“Don't _want_ her run out! Say, Freckles, you don't mean to say you _like_ being in love with her?”

“Well,” says Freckles, “if I did like it, that would be a good deal of disgrace, wouldn't it?”

“Gosh darn her!” says Squint.

“Well, Squint,” says Freckles, “if you call me a softy, I'll lick you again; but honest, I do kind of like it.” And after that disgrace there wasn't anything more either of them could say. And that disgrace ate into him more and more; it changed him something awful. It took away all his spirit by degrees. He got to be a different boy--sort of mooned around and looked foolish. And he'd blush and giggle if any one said “Hello” to him. I noticed the first bad sign one Saturday when his father told him he couldn't go swimming until after he had gone over the whole patch and picked the bugs off of all the potatoes. He didn't kick nor play sick; he didn't run away; he stayed at home and bugged those potatoes; he bugged them very hard and savage; he didn't do two rows, as usual, and then sneak off through the orchard with me--_no, sir, he hugged 'em all!_ I lay down at the edge of the patch and watched him, and thought of old times, and the other dogs and boys down at the creek, or maybe drowning out gophers, or getting chased by Cy Smith's bull, or fighting out a bumblebee's nest and putting mud on the stung places, and it all made me fell mighty sad and downcast. Next day was Sunday, and they told him he'd get a licking if he chased off after Sunday-school and played baseball out to the fair-grounds--and he didn't; he came straight home, without even stopping back of the livery-stable to watch the men pitch horseshoes. And next day was Monday, and he washed his neck without being told, and he was on time at school, and he got his grammar lesson. And worse than that before the day was over, for at recess-time the members of the Dalton Gang smoked a Pittsburgh stogie, turn and turn about, out behind the coal-house. Freckles rightly owned a fifth interest in that stogie, but he gave his turns away without a single puff. Some of us dogs always hung around the school-yard at recess-times, and I saw that myself, and it made me feel right bad; it wasn't natural. And that night he went straight home from school, and he milked the cow and split the kindling wood without making a kick, and he washed his feet before he went to bed without being made to.

“No, sir, it wasn't natural. And he felt his disgrace worse and worse, and lost his interest in life more and more as the days went by. One afternoon when I couldn't get him interested in pretending I was going to chew up old Bill Patterson, I knew there wasn't anything would take him out of himself. Bill was the town drunkard, and all of us dogs used to run and bark at him when there were any humans looking on. I never knew how we got started at it, but it was the fashion. We didn't have anything against old Bill either, but we let on like we thought he was a tough character; that is, if any one was looking at us. If we ever met old Bill toward the edge of town, where no one could see us, we were always friendly enough with him, too. Bill liked dogs, and used to be always trying to pet us, and knew just the places where a dog liked to be scratched, but there wasn't a dog in town would be seen making up to him. We'd let him think maybe we were going to be friendly, and smell and sniff around him in an encouraging sort of a way, like we thought maybe he was an acquaintance of ours, and then old Bill would get real proud and try to pat our heads, and say: 'The _dogs_ all know old Bill, all right--yes, sir! _They_ know who's got a good heart and who ain't. May be an outcast, but the _dogs_ know--yes, sir!” And when he said that we'd growl and back off, and circle around him, and bristle our backs up, and act like we'd finally found the man that robbed our family's chicken-house last week, and run in and snap at Bill's legs. Then all the boys and other humans around would laugh. I reckon it was kind of mean and hypocritical in us dogs, too; but you've got to keep the humans jollied up, and the coarsest kind of jokes is the only kind they seem to appreciate. But even when I put old Bill through his paces, that Freckles boy didn't cheer up any.

The worst of it was that Miss Jones had made up her mind to marry the Baptist minister, and it was only a question of time before she'd get him. Every dog and human in our town knew that. Folks used to talk it over at every meal, or out on the front porches in the evenings, and wonder how much longer he would hold out. And Freckles used to listen to them talking, and then sneak off alone and sit down with his chin in his hands and study it all out. The Dalton Gang--Squint had told the rest of them, each promising not to tell--was right sympathetic at first. They offered to burn the preacher's house down if that would do any good. But Freckles said no, leave the preacher alone. It wasn't _his_ fault--everyone knew _he_ wouldn't marry Miss Jones if she let him alone. Then the Daltons said they'd kidnap the teacher if he said the word. But Freckles said no, that would cause a lot of talk; and, besides, a grown woman eats an awful lot; and what would they feed her on? Finally Tom Mulligan--he was Mutt Mulligan's boy--says:

“What you got to do, Freckles, is make some kind of a noble sacrifice. That's the way they always do in these here Lakeside Library books. Something that will touch her heart.”

And they all agree her heart has got to be touched. But how?

“Maybe,” says Squint, “it would touch her heart if the Dalton Gang was to march in in a body and offer to reform.”

But Tom Mulligan says he wouldn't go _that_ far for any one. And after about a week the Dalton Gang lost its sympathy and commenced to guy Freckles and poke fun at him. And then there were fights--two or three every day. But gradually it got so that Freckles didn't seem to take any comfort or joy in a fight, and he lost spirits more and more. And pretty soon he began to get easy to lick. He got so awful easy to lick the Daltons got tired of licking him, and quit fighting him entirely. And then the worst happened. One day they served him notice that until he got his nerve back and fell out of love with Miss Jones again, he would not be considered a member of the Dalton Gang. But even that didn't jar him any--Freckles was plumb ruined.

One day I heard the humans talking it over that the preacher had give in at last. Miss Jones's pa, and her uncle too, were both big church members, and he never really had a chance from the first. It was in the paper, the humans said, that they were engaged, and were to be married when school was out. Freckles, he poked away from the porch where the family was sitting when he heard that, and went to the barn and lay down on a pile of hay. I sat outside the barn, and I could hear him in there choking back what he was feeling. It made me feel right sore, too, and when the moon came up I couldn't keep from howling at it; for here was one of the finest kids you ever saw in there bellering like a girl, and all because of a no-account woman--a grown-up woman, mind you! I went in and lay down on the hay beside him, and licked his face, and nuzzled my head up under his armpit, to show him I'd stand by him anyhow. Pretty soon he went to sleep there, and after a long while his father came out and picked him up and carried him into the house to bed. He never waked up.

The next day I happened by the schoolhouse along about recess-time. The boys were playing prisoner's base, and I'm pretty good at that game myself, so I joined in. When the bell rang, I slipped into Freckles's room behind the scholars, thinking I'd like a look at that Miss Jones myself. Well, she wasn't anything Yd go crazy over. When she saw me, there was the deuce to pay.

“Whose dog is that?” she sings out.

“Please, ma'am,” squeals a little girl, “that is Harold Watson's dog, Spot.”

“Harold Watson,” says she to Freckles, “don't you know it's strictly against the rules to bring dogs to school?”

“Yes'm,” says Freckles, getting red in the face.

“Then why did you do it?”

“I didn't, ma'am,” says he. “He's just come visitin' like.”

“Harold,” says she, “don't be impudent. Step forward.”

He stepped toward her desk, and she put her hand on his shoulder. He jerked away from her, and she grabbed him by the collar. No dog likes to see a grown-up use his boy rough, so I moved a little nearer and growled at her.

“Answer me,” she says, “why did you allow this beast to come into the schoolroom?”

“Spot ain't a beast,” says Freckles. “He's my dog.” She stepped to the stove and picked up a poker, and come toward me. I dodged, and ran to the other side of her desk, and all the scholars laughed. That made her mad, and she made a swipe at me with that poker, and she was so sudden that she caught me right in the ribs, and I let out a yelp and ran over behind Freckles.

“You can't hit my dog like that!” yelled Freckles, mad as a hornet. “No teacher that ever lived could lick my dog!” And he burst out crying, and ran out of the room, with me after him.

“I'm done with you,” he sings out from the hall. “Marry your old preacher if you want to.”

And then we went out into the middle of the road, and he slung stones at the schoolhouse, and yelled names, till the principal came out and chased us away.

But I was glad, because I saw he was cured. A boy that is anything will stick up for his dog, and a dog will stick up for his boy. We went swimming, and then we went back as near the schoolhouse as we dast to. When school let out, Freckles licked the whole Dalton Gang, one at a time, and made each say, before he let him up: “Freckles Watson was never stuck on anybody; and if he was, he is cured.”

They all said it, and then held a meeting; and he was elected president.

And me!--I felt so good I went down-town and picked a fuss with a butcher's dog that wore a spiked collar. I had always felt a little scared of that dog before, but that night I just naturally chewed him to a frazzle.

BILL PATTERSON

This town,” says Squint, quiet, but determined, “has got to be made an example of. It has got to learn that it can't laugh at the Dalton Gang and go unscathed. Freckled Watson of Dead Man's Gulch,” says he to me, “speak up! What form shall the punishment take?”

“Blood,” says I.

“Two-Gun Tom of Texas,” says he to Tom Mulligan, “speak!”

“Death!” says Tom.

“Arizona Pete, speak!”

“Blood and Death,” says Pete Wilson, making his voice deep.

“Broncho Bob?”

“Blood, death, and fire!” says Bob Jones.

There was a solemn pause for a minute, and then I says, according to rule and regulation:

“And what says Dead-Shot Squint, the Terror of the Plains?”

He was very serious while one might have counted ten breaths, and then he pulled his jack-knife from his pocket and whet it on the palm of his hand, and tried its point on his thumb, and replied:

“He says death, and seals it with a vow!”

That vow was a mighty solemn thing, and we always felt it so. It wasn't the kind of a thing you would ever let small kids or girls know about. First you all sat down in a circle, with your feet together, and rolled up the sleeve of your left arm. Then the knife was passed around, and each drew blood out of his left arm. Then each one got as much blood out of the next fellow's arm as he could, in his mouth, and all swallowed simultaneous, to show you were going into the thing to the death and no turning back. Next we signed our names in a ring, using blood mixed with gunpowder. But not on paper, mind you. We signed 'em on parchment. First and last, that parchment was a good deal of trouble. If you think skinning a squirrel or a rat to get his hide for parchment is an easy trick, just try it. Let alone catching them being no snap. But Squint, he was Captain, and he was stern on parchment, for it makes an oath more legal, and all the old-time outlaws wouldn't look at anything else. But we got a pretty good supply ahead by saving all the dead cats and things like that we could find, and unless you know likely places to look it would surprise you how many dead cats there are in the world.

We were in the Horse Thieves' Cave, about a mile from town. It had really been used for that, way back before the war. There was a gang pretended to be honest settlers like everybody else. But they used to steal horses and hide them out in there. When they had a dozen or so of them they'd take 'em over to the Mississippi River, which was about thirty miles west, some night, and raft 'em down stream and sell 'em at Cairo or St. Louis. That went on for years, but along in the fifties, my grandfather said, when _he_ was a kid, a couple was hung, and the remainder got across the river and went west. The cave was up on the side of a hill in the woods, and forgotten about except by a few old-timers. The door-beams had rotted and fallen down, and the sand and dirt had slid down over the mouth of it, and vines and bushes grown up. No one would have guessed there was any cave there at all. But the dogs got to digging around there one afternoon when the Dalton Gang was meeting in the woods, and uncovered part of those door beams. We dug some more and opened her up. It took a lot of work to clean her out, but she was as good as new when we got done with her. We never told any one, and the vines and bushes were so thick you could hunt a year and never find the opening. It isn't every bunch of kids get a real Horse Thieves' Cave ready-made like that, right from the hands of Providence, as you might say. Pete Wilson used to brag and say his grand-dad was one of those horse-thieves. It made the rest of us feel kind of meek for a time, because none of us could claim any honour or grandeur like that in our families. But my grand-dad, who has a terrible long memory about the early days, said it wasn't so; so far as he could recollect Pete's grand-dad never had any ambition above shoats and chickens.

Well, I was telling you about that oath. We were taking it because Squint's father, who was mayor, had run on to one of those parchments (which Squint ought never to have taken away from the cave), and had asked a lot of fool questions about it. Then he threw back his head and laughed at the Dalton Gang. It made our blood boil. Hence, our plans for revenge.

“The time has come,” said Squint, “for a bold stroke. Yonder proud city laughs. But he laughs best who laughs last. And ere another sun has set----”