Chapter 11
The jumper, which, as already said, was a marvel of stoutness and dimensions, was the work chiefly of Jack, but he had been assisted in the labor by Billy Coburg, his chosen friend and ally in all emergencies. Billy was as good as gold, a fat fellow with yellow hair and a red face, full of ingenious devices, stanch in his friendship, and as fond of fun as of eating, in which last field he was eminently great. In the possession of some one of the boys was a thick, old-fashioned novel of the yellow-covered type, entitled, "Rinard, the Red Revenger," and Billy had followed the record of the murderous pirate chieftain with the greatest gusto, and had insisted upon bestowing his title upon the jumper. So it came that the Red Revenger was the pride and comfort of the school, and Jack Burrows, as he looked up from his algebra and out the window at it in the frost-fringed morning hour, rather congratulated himself upon its general style. They'd had a lot of fun with it. His eyes wandered to the ice-covered flats and the narrow roadway stretching white across them. What a time they had yesterday keeping the jumper on the track, and what a shrewd device they had for steering! A hole had been bored down through the heel of each thick runner, and on each aft corner of the jumper had a boy been stationed armed with a sharpened hickory stick. To swerve the jumper to the left, the boy on the right but pressed his stick down through the hole beneath him, and the sharp point scraping along the ice-covered ground, must slow the jumper as desired. And so, on the other side, when the jumper threatened to go off the roadway to the left, the boy on that side acted. It was a great invention and a necessary one. What would happen if that jumper, loaded with boys and girls, should leave the track just now? Jack chuckled as he thought of it. With its broad, sustaining runners, and with impetus once gained by its sheer descent, for what a distance must it speed upon that India-rubber ice before it finally broke through! What a happening then! The moderately bad boy's countenance was radiant as the contemplation of this catastrophe came upon him with its rounded force. He turned his face, and his gaze fell upon the trim figure of Jennie Orton on the other side of the room. How things go. There was an instant association of ideas between girl and jumper. The young fellow's face became first bright, and then most shrewdly thoughtful. School was dismissed for the noon hour. And then, after the lunches had been eaten, Jack Burrows went outside with Billy Coburg.
"Hi-yah! Jack and Billy are just going to start down hill on the jumper! Look at 'em show off their steering!" yelled a small boy, and the pupils rushed to the windows and out at the door. The jumper had just started.
One at each rear corner of the big sled sat Jack and Billy, each with a sharpened stick in hand, and thrust down strongly through the bored hole in the runner. The jumper started slowly, then, gaining speed, rushed down the hill like a thunderbolt, the hardened snow screaming beneath in its grating passage. The road below was entered fairly, and deftly steered, the Red Revenger skimmed away and away into the far distance. It was an exhilarating sight. Then, a little later, pulling the jumper easily behind them and up the hill again, came Jack and Billy, and shouted out loudly and enthusiastically the proposition that everybody should come out and go down the hill with the biggest load the jumper had ever carried.
The pupils, big and little, swarmed out in a crowd, all inclined, if not to ride, at least to see the sweeping descent under circumstances so favorable. Some of the larger girls hesitated, but Billy especially was earnest in his pleading that the trip should be the big one of the winter, and that they must see how many the Red Revenger could carry at one swoop. And finally all consented. A look of relief and satisfaction flashed across the face of Jack as Jennie got on with the rest, though there was nothing strange in that, joining as she always did with the other pupils in their various sports. The laden jumper was a sight for a mountain packer or a steerage passenger agent or a street car magnate to see and enjoy most mightily. It was loaded and overloaded. The larger girls, as became their dignity, were seated in the middle, and close behind them were the smaller children. In front was a mass of boys of varying ages. "On account of there isn't much room," said Billy, "you'll have to cord up," and so three boys lay down on the huge sled crosswise, three lay in the other direction across them, and three again across these latter. It was a little hard on those underneath, but they didn't mind it. Behind were Jack and Billy as steerers, and three or four more stood up on the sides and hung on to the others. There were twenty-three in all, every pupil attending the school that day.
All was ready. "On account of the road's so smooth, she'll be a hummer," said Billy.
"Let her go," ordered Jack. A kick and the jumper was off.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, moved the big sled, borne hard to the ground by such a burden. No one was alarmed. But as it slid downward, the jumper gathered way, and faster and faster it went, and the sound from beneath changed from a shrill grating to a menacing roar, and the thing seemed like a big something launched downward from a huge catapult at the narrow strip of road across the ice. With set teeth sat Jack and Billy at their stakes, each steering carefully and well. There was no swerve. The road was entered upon deftly with a rush, and out upon it sped the monster. Then Jack said quietly, "Look out, Billy!" Billy looked across at him and grinned, but uttered never a word nor made a move as they tore along. But there was a sudden movement on Jack's part, and his stake bore down hardly through the hole in the runner. The flying jumper trembled and swayed, and then like a flash left the roadway and darted down upon and away across the ice.
There was one shriek from the girls, and then all was quiet. "Whish!" That was all as the jumper shot out over the glass-like surface. The ice bent into a valley, but the Red Revenger was away before the break came. It seemed as if the wild, fierce flight would never cease. But there is an end to all things, and at last came a diminution of the jumper's speed. Slower and slower moved the thing, then came a pause and sudden quivering, and then a crash beneath and all about, and the jumper, with its living load, dropped to the bottom! There was no tragedy complete. The water came up just to the side rails and no further.
For fifteen or twenty feet on every side the ice bobbed up and down in floating fragments, and beyond that, where it still remained intact, it would support no one stepping out upon it from the water. It was "India-rubber ice" no longer; it was cracked and brittle to the very shore. That the jumper had careered out so far into the flats was because of its velocity alone. There it stood, an island in a sea of ice water; not a desert island, exactly, either. It was populated--very densely populated. It was populated several deep, and now from its inhabitants went up a dreadful howl.
There was no visible means of escape from the surface of the Red Revenger. The boys who had been "corded" managed to change their positions somehow, and stood where they had got upon their feet, holding themselves together, and the girls and younger children sat stupefied in the positions they had held when coming down the hill, from the throats of the latter going up the lively wail referred to. Billy looked across at Jack and grinned again, this time with great solemnity, and Jack himself looked just a trifle grave.
"Bang! rat-tat-tat! whack!" sounded from the schoolhouse, and the faces of the younger children paled. The noon hour had reached its end, and the schoolmaster was sounding his usual call. No bells summoned the pupils at this rural place of learning, but instead, at recess and at noon time the pedagogue came to the door and hammered loudly with his ruler upon the clapboards there beside him. Very grim was this same schoolmaster, and unfortunate was the pupil who came into the room a laggard after that harsh summons had rung out across the fields and flats. There stood the schoolmaster--he could be seen from the Red Revenger--and it was not difficult even at that distance to imagine the ominous look upon his face. Again and again came forth the wooden call, and then the schoolmaster stepped out into the roadway. He looked about inquiringly. He came to the top of the hill, from whence, off in the flats, the jumper and its load were plainly seen, and then he paused. It was clear that he was puzzled and was meditating. He called out hoarsely:
"What do you mean? What are you doing? Come in, and come now!"
There was no mistaking the quality of that sharp summons. It meant business, and in all probability it meant trouble, too, for somebody; trouble of strictly personal, as well as of a physical character. There was no reply for a moment, and then Billy, the reprobate, grinning again at Jack, and giving to his voice a tone intended to be a compound of profound respect and something like unlimited despair, bawled out:
"We can't!"
The teacher descended the hill with all firmness and sedateness; he looked like a ramrod, or a poker, or anything stiff and straight, and suggestive of unpleasantness. He followed the roadway until just opposite the jumper, and then surveying the scene with an angry eye, commanded all to return to the schoolhouse on the moment. Here the situation became acute. It was Jack's turn now to make things clear. That villain rose to the occasion gallantly. He shouted out an explanation of how the jumper had happened, by the merest accident in the world, to leave the roadway, and had gone out so far upon the India-rubber ice; how the final catastrophe had taken place, and how helpless they all were in their present condition. The road could be reached only by a wade of a hundred yards through two feet deep of ice water--more in places--breaking the ice as an advance was made. It would be an awful undertaking, the death almost of the little children, and dangerous to all. What should they do? And the rascal's voice grew full of trouble and apprehension. Fortunately for him, the teacher was too far off to note the expression on his face.
The czar of winter did not wait long. He started off, and was over the hill again and out of sight within the next three minutes, and it was clear that he was going somewhere for assistance. Then some of the other boys wanted to know what was to be done, and Billy looked at Jack inquiringly.
"Well, on account of the fix we're in, what's going to happen next!"
Jack, somehow, did not seem undetermined. He answered promptly: "What is going to happen is this: The teacher has gone over to Mapleson's for help. He might as well have stayed in the schoolhouse. They can't drive a wagon in here, and the ice is so thin, and is cracked so, they can't even put planks out upon it. They can't help us in any way. What shall we do? Why, we can't stay here all night and freeze. Somebody's got to break a path to the shore, that's all, and then we've got to wade out, and the sooner we do it the better."
The smaller children began to cry; the older boys growled; the big girls shuddered; Billy grinned.
"There's no reason why everybody should get wet," broke out Jack, suddenly. "Here! I'll break a way to the road myself, and carry one of the youngsters. We'll see how it goes."
He caught up one of the little children and stepped off into the ice-packed water. Ugh! but it was cold, and he set his teeth hard. He floundered over to where the unbroken ice began, and then raising his feet alternately above its edge, he crushed it downward. It was not physically a great task for this strong fellow, but it was not a swift one, and the water was deadly cold. His blood was chilling, but the roadway was reached at last. He set the child down quickly, told it to run to the schoolhouse and stand beside the stove, and then himself began running up and down the road to get his blood in fuller circulation. Into the water he plunged again and reached the Red Revenger. "Here," he said, "each one of you big fellows carry some one ashore. Jump in, quick!"
The boys hesitated, and went into the water in a gingerly way, but did very well, the plunge once taken, and Jack apportioned to each of them his burden. The procession waded off boisterously but shudderingly. As for Jack himself, he got one youngster clinging about his neck and another perched upon each hip, and then waded off with the rest. There were left on the jumper but two more of the small children, and Jennie. That was Jack's shrewdness. He was well spent and shaky when he reached the shore this time.
He put the children down and turned to Billy. "B-b-illy," he chattered, "will you go back with me, and will you bring ashore those two kids?"
Billy looked a trifle dismal. He had just set down upon the roadway the girl he liked best, and he wanted to go to the schoolhouse with her. Added to this he was awfully cold. But he was faithful.
"On account of you've done more than your share I'll go you," he decided.
They went out again, out through that dreadful hundred yards of icy flood, and Billy marched off with the children, and then Jack reached out his hands, though hesitatingly. He was bashful still, despite the emergency his villainy had made. As for Jennie, she did not hesitate. She stepped up close to him, was taken in his arms like a baby, and the journey began. What a trip it was for Jack! There she was, clinging fast to him, and he with his arms close about her! Who said that the water was cold? It was just right--never was more delightful water! And she didn't seem to dislike the journey, either. She even seemed to cuddle a little. He wished it were a mile to land. Hooray!
And the road was reached at last, and the blushing and beaming young lady set down upon her feet. She didn't say anything but reached out her hand to Jack, and led him on a run to the schoolhouse. The fire had been kindled into roaring strength by those first to reach the place, and all the soaked ones gathered about the stove and steamed there into relative degrees of dryness. Jack steamed with the rest, but he was in a dream--one of the blissful type.
In time the teacher returned, and with him a farmer and his hired man, and a team and a wagon-load of plank, too late for aid, even had aid been practicable. There was no school that afternoon. The teacher could not accuse any one of fault, nor blame the pupils that they had hesitated when he called them; while, on the other hand, he was deterred from saying anything commendatory of the waders. He suspected something, he couldn't tell exactly what, and he didn't propose to commit himself. The most he could do was to recognize the fact that the big boys should get to their homes as soon as possible and dry their boots and stockings. He dismissed the pupils, and so that eventful day was ended. Jack's boots were full of dampness still, and his feet were chilly, but as he walked home he walked on air.
The succeeding night was one of bitter cold, and the morning saw the ice upon the flats no longer yielding, but so thick and solid that wagons might be driven upon it anywhere without a risk. Even the lately opened space about the partly submerged jumper was frozen over, and the top of the Red Revenger showed where that interesting but ill-fated craft was fixed for some time to come. "On account of she's frozen in so deep, we'd better let 'er stay there," commented Billy; and so coasting, save upon ordinary sleds, was discontinued for the season. It was pretty near spring, anyhow.
The frost-decorated windows of the schoolhouse blazed in the morning sun, and was a glory on the heads of the girls. But no head was so bright, in the opinion of Jack Burrows, as that of Jennie Orton. Her brown hair gleamed like gold, and as for the rest of her--well he thought as he looked across the room, there was nothing to improve. It seemed hardly possible that only the afternoon before he had held that creature in his arms and carried her so three hundred feet or more. It was all true, though, and Jennie had smiled across at him just now. He was more deeply in love than ever, but his timidity had somehow much abated. She was as beautiful as ever, but she seemed more human. He felt that he could speak to her, make love to her, as he might to another girl. Of course he couldn't do it very confidently, but he could venture, and he resolved to ask leave to bring her to the spelling school that very evening. He did so, pluckily, at recess, and she consented.
As they were walking home that night, they fell naturally to talking of the grewsome adventure of the day before; and Jennie asked Jack, innocently, to explain to her the method by which he and Billy were accustomed to steer the Red Revenger. He explained fluently and with some pride, and she listened with close attention. When he had done she remained silent for a few moments, and then said quietly:
"You did it on purpose."
The young man was dazed. He could say nothing at first, but managed finally to blunder out:
"How did you know that?"
"I saw you and Billy look at each other, and saw you push down hard on the stake. Why did you do it?"
Jack was truthful at least, and, furthermore, he had perception keen enough to see that in his present strait was afforded opportunity for speaking to the point on a subject he had feared to venture. He was reckless now.
"I wanted to carry you ashore in my arms," he said.
There was, as any thoughtful girl would admit, really nothing in all this for Jennie to get very angry over, and, to do her credit, it must be added that she showed no anger at all. Of the details of what more was said, information is unfortunately and absolutely lacking, but certain it is that before Jennie's home was reached Jack's arm had found a place not very far from that which it had occupied the afternoon before.
They marry young in the country, but seventeen and eighteen are ages, which, even on the farm, are not considered sufficiently advanced for such grave venture, and so, though Jack's wooing prospered famously, there was no wedding in the spring. There was the most trustful and delightful of understandings, though, and three years later Jennie came from the town to live permanently on the farm, and her name was changed to Burrows.
"On account of the Red Revenger was a pirate craft, and took to the water naturally, Jack got braced up to begin his courting, and so got married," said Billy, in explanation of the event.
A MURDERER'S ACCOMPLICE
It is part of my good fortune in life to know a beautiful and lovable woman. She is as sweet, it seems to me, as any woman can be who has come into this world. She is good. She is not very rich, but she helps the needy as far as she can from her moderate purse. I have known her to attend at the bedside of a poor dying person when the doctor had told her that the trouble might be smallpox. I should say, at a venture, that this woman will go to heaven when she dies. But she will not go to heaven unless ignorance is an excuse for wickedness. If she does go there, it must be as the savage goes who knows no better than to do things which thoughtful people, to whom what is good has been taught, count as cruel and merciless. As the savage is a murderer, so is she the accomplice of a murderer, although it is possible that by the Great Judge neither may be so classified at the end, because of their lack of knowing.
I met this lovable woman on the street the other day, and we walked and talked together. She had only good in her heart in all she was planning to do. She had taste for outlines and color, and she was very fair to look upon. Her dress--"tailor-made," I think the women call it--set off her perfect figure to advantage, and her hat was a symmetrical completion of the whole effect. It was a neat, well-proportioned whole, the woman and her toilet, which I, being a man, of course, cannot describe. One of her adornments was the head, breast, and wing of a Baltimore oriole, worn in her hat.
I met this same woman again a day or two ago in another garb not less charming and artistic. We ate luncheon together, and it made life worth living to be with a creature so fair and good. In her hat this time was a touch of the sky when it lies over a great lake. It was the wing of a bluebird.
I know--or knew--four birds, and to know a fair bird well is almost equal to knowing a fair woman well, though they have different ways. Two of these birds that I knew were orioles and two were bluebirds. The two orioles and the two bluebirds were husbands and wives. I stumbled upon them all last year. The bluebirds had a nest in a hole in a hard maple stump in a clearing in St. Clair County, Michigan. The orioles' nest was well woven in pear shape, dangling from close-swinging twigs at the end of an elm limb which hung over a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The male oriole attended faithfully to the wants of his soberer-hued wife sitting upon the four eggs in their nest. He was gorgeous all over, in his orange and black, and as faithfully and gallantly as the male bluebird did he regard his mate, and he was, if possible, even more jealous and watchful in his unwearied care of her.
They made two very happy and earnest families. Each male, in addition to caring for his mate, did good in the world for men and women. Each killed noxious worms and insects for food, and each, in the very exuberance of the flush year, and of living, gave forth at times such music that all men, women, and children who listened, though they might be dull and ignorant, somehow felt better, and were better as well as happier human beings. But there was death in the air. The male oriole and the male bluebird had each a brilliant coat!
Young were hatched in each of these two nests--vigorous, clamoring young, coming from the eggs of the beautiful bird couples. The father and mother oriole and the father and mother bluebird, each pair vain and prettily jubilant over what had happened, worked very hard to bring food to the open mouths of their offspring. The young ones were growing and flourishing, and they were all happy.
One day, in St. Clair County, Michigan, a man armed with a shotgun went out into a clearing. The shot in the gun was of the kind known as "mustard-seed." It is so fine that it will not mar the feathers of the bird it kills. On the same day, possibly, or at least very nearly at the same time, a man similarly armed strolled down beside a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The man in Michigan wanted to kill the beautiful male bluebird who was bringing food to his young ones. The man in Indiana wanted to kill the magnificent male oriole who was feeding his young birds in the nest. It was not difficult for either of these two brutes to kill the two happy bird fathers. They were business-like butchers, just of the type of man who make the dog-catchers in cities--and they had no nerves and shot well. One of them took home a beautiful dead oriole, and the other took not one but two beautiful bluebirds, for as the male bluebird came back to the nest with food for the younglings, it so chanced that the female came also, and the same charge of shot killed them both.
"She isn't quite as purty as the he-bird," said the man, as he picked up the two, "but maybe I can get a little something for her."
The man who shot the oriole would have gladly committed and profited by a similar double murder had the mother bird happened upon the scene when he shot her orange-and-black mate.