Aunt 'Liza's Hero and Other Stories Part 6

The little room, standing by itself in the front yard, did double duty as office and drug-store. Jimmy sat down on the bench beside the door, and studied the odd a.s.sortment of bottles on the opposite shelves. He counted them and read all the labels. Then he saw a case of dentist's instruments lying on the table. He examined these curiously, fitting the forceps on each of his teeth, and then looked around for other sources of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Several books with leather bindings lay on the desk, and he sat down to look at them. Books were few in the Perkins household, and the first one he opened proved very entertaining. It was an ill.u.s.trated work on anatomy, and he was soon completely absorbed in the interesting pictures of bones and muscles.

The afternoon was sultry and still. A few flies buzzed on the window-pane. Just outside the door an old hen clucked and scratched for her downy yellow brood. Jimmy could look out and see some one ploughing in a distant field, and hear a l.u.s.ty voice at intervals, calling, "Gee!

Haw! W'-o-a!" to the yoke of oxen.

After a long while, when sitting so still had made him drowsy, he went to the door and looked up and down the road. No one was in sight. Even the sun had gone behind a cloud. He began to grow uneasy, as he thought of his mother waiting impatiently for the soda to begin her baking.

"If the doctor isn't here by the time I finish looking at the books," he said to himself, "I'll go anyway, without waiting for Maria's medicine."

He went back to his chair and turned to the pictures again. Presently he began to yawn. Then his eyelids drooped, and his head nodded so low that it rested on the open book upon the table. He knew nothing more until he felt Mrs. Spinner shaking him by the shoulder. He started up to find the little office nearly dark.

"I plumb forgot all about you," Mrs. Spinner said, "until the doctor sent word he couldn't come home to-night. Old Mr. Wakeley's a-dying.

You'd better hurry away, for there's a heavy thunder-storm coming up."

She weighed out the soda and spices, wrapping each package separately, and then tied them together in one bundle. It was about the middle of the afternoon when Jimmy had gone to sleep. Now the sun had set. The sky was black with clouds, and as he hurriedly mounted his horse and tied the bundle to the horn of the saddle he heard a distant rumble of thunder. Old Blaze was as anxious to get home as her rider, and needed little urging to make her travel her fastest.

They were going directly toward the storm. By the time they had travelled a mile and a half its full force was upon them. The wind blew furiously and whirled the dust along the road in blinding columns. It twisted and tossed the tall trees as easily as if they had been bushes.

Great limbs swayed wildly, and now and then one crashed to the ground.

Once, when she was a colt, old Blaze had been hit by a falling branch in a thunder-storm, and had never forgotten the terror of it. Now, as a vivid glare of lightning blinded her, she reared, plunged forward, and then stood trembling, with dilated eyes and quivering nostrils.

They were in the midst of a thick wood. No amount of urging would induce the mare to go on, and Jimmy got down to lead her. Something of the horse's fear seemed to be communicated to the boy. He was naturally brave, but the ferocious power of the storm awed him into utter fear.

The rain poured harder and harder. Jimmy was wet to the skin, and the water ran down in streams from his hat brim. He pushed ahead for a long time, wondering why he did not come to the creek. Instead of reaching open country, he seemed to be getting deeper into the woods. Then he remembered that two bridle-paths led into the main road--one directly into it, the other around the base of the hill. He had taken the wrong path and was travelling in a circle.

By the time he reached his starting-point again the storm had abated.

The wind did not blow so hard, and the thunder had gone growling away toward the eastern hills. He led the horse up to a stump, climbed into the saddle, and this time started on the right path homeward.

As he rode down the lane a lantern glimmered in the dooryard and moved toward the barn. "Well, you _air_ a purty fellow!" called Abe's voice.

"Mother's mighty nigh wild about you. She jest now sent me down to git a horse to go out and hunt you."

Jimmy slid from the saddle without saying anything. When Abe saw how pale and wet he was, he added, in a kinder tone, "I'll put the horse up.

You take your things and strike for the house."

He lifted the lantern in order to see to untie the package, and then gave an exclamation of astonishment.

"Well, I wisht you'd look! The rain has melted every bit of that soda.

There's nothin' left but the bag. And the spice is all sp'iled, too. My gracious!" he added, after another look, "it's run down all over the saddle, and taken the colour out. My! Won't Maria be mad? It's eternally ruined! Well, I must say I like your way of doin' errands!"

It was a very penitent, humble boy who crept into the kitchen and gave a shamefaced account of the day's doings. Maria, who had sat with her face hidden in her ap.r.o.n during the storm, shuddering at the thought that he might be out in it alone, ran to get him some dry clothes, without a word of reproach about the saddle.

"I'll save enough out of the garden truck to get it re-cus.h.i.+oned," he promised. "Sure I will, Maria."

But Maria gave him a little squeeze. "Don't you worry about that, Jimmy," she said, "so long as you got home safe. It don't make so much difference about the soda, either, for we got word this afternoon that the donation-party has been put off."

His self-respect was restored by such a warm reception, and his spirits rose until he began to think he was something of a hero, after all. As he ate the supper his mother had been keeping hot for him, she and Maria listened sympathetically to his account of the storm.

Abe, who had come in from the barn and was drying his boots by the fire, said nothing, but his quizzical smile was more provoking than words. It reminded Jimmy of the boastful speech he had made that morning.

He grew red in the face, stopped talking, and soon made an excuse to slip away to bed. As he lay listening to the rain on the roof, he said to himself, "I wisht I hadn't bragged so about doin' errands better than Abe! He'll never be done a-hinting to me about soda and side-saddles!"

WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S BIRTHDAY AT HARDYVILLE

"BLAME that pig-headed Schmidt!"

Squire Hardy was in the sitting-room talking to his wife. "To think of his kickin' just because the little schoolma'am is bound to celebrate the day! Her askin' for nothing except leave to use the schoolhouse!

Confound him! The rest of the Germans'd be patriotic enough--they are all 'round these parts--if Schmidt wa'n't so everlastingly down on us, and used his influence with the rest!"

"He's a well-meaning, peaceable neighbour, Hiram," said the squire's wife, placidly.

"So's horses and cows. Gimme folks that's got some public spirit in 'em.

Think of the men that took up the land all round these parts when we come in--all full of Fourth of July. I wisht they hadn't been so keen to sell out at a profit--that's the worst of us Americans. When they sold out, of course the Germans come in,--couldn't blame 'em a mite,--an'

Schmidt he come fust, an' he bejuggled all the rest. An' he's pretty nigh bejuggled the Gateses and two or three other American families like 'em, that's gettin' more like Schmidt year by year. Why, there ain't been a mite of public improvement done this ten year back."

"Oh, now, Hiram, we've got the post-office."

"Yes--much thanks to the rest of 'em! It was me worked and kicked and badgered till I got them a tri-weekly mail, and much use they make of it!"

The squire gazed at the post-office as he spoke. It consisted of an ash "seketary" in one corner of the sitting-room, and was much more than commodious enough for the few letters and newspapers that came to Hardyville three times a week, brought from the county town, eight miles away, by a carrier with a gig. The squire was delivering his opinions as usual while waiting for the carrier to appear.

"I don't rec'lect much public improvements ever bein' in Hardyville,"

said Mrs. Hardy, drily.

"There would 'a' been," said her husband, testily. "There would 'a' been if the Americans had kept on. To think of them beginning to sell out and move furder west--just as they were gettin' their land into shape for havin' some time to themselves to improve things! Thank goodness, they _did_ put up the church and schoolhouse--I guess we'd never have had neither if it wasn't for the American spirit here when this settlement begun."

"Sho, Hiram? You can't say but what the German folks keeps the church and schoolhouse going."

"Going--yes, going to rack and ruin all the same! Schoolhouse leakin'

like sixty--and catch 'em taxin' themselves for a new roof! I wonder Miss Atworth can stay in the place--her and the children mirin'

shoe-mouth deep in mud to get to school in the winter! Nary a rod of corduroy will they lay to give their own young ones a decent walk. But they keep their cattle comfortable enough--that means money in their pockets. All they care about is having their corn and stock turn out well. They don't care if the hull towns.h.i.+p, and the hull Union, too, for that matter, was to go to the dogs. h.e.l.lo! here comes Jack with the mail-bag!"

A little while later Squire Hardy was in the act of distributing the bag's small contents, when two farmers walked in without even stopping to stamp the mud off their cowhide boots. Mrs. Hardy kept on placidly knitting beyond the fireplace; she was used to such invasions of the sitting-room, from which she had removed the carpet soon after the post-office was granted to the sleepy settlement.

"Draw up to the fire, Mr. Gates," she said, hospitably. "Take that rocker, Mr. Schmidt."

Mr. Gates kicked his feet against the andirons to rid them of clay and snow.

"Cold day," he remarked, settling his c.o.o.n-skin cap more firmly on his head. "What's this I hear about the new teacher?"

"Well, what?" snapped the squire, looking around.

"Some say she's dead sot on gettin' up them doin's on Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MR. GATES KICKED HIS FEET AGAINST THE ANDIRONS"]