Frank of Freedom Hill Part 5

"Now," said Earle, "I'm going to give you time to think about it. Then I'm going to wear you out!"

"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" cried the boy, the blood rushing to his face.

His father turned and spoke to him confidentially, as man to man. They would have to cure Frank, right now, before killing chickens got to be a habit. They couldn't afford to have a chicken-killing dog on the place--it was too expensive.

And that was just the beginning of his troubles and complications. Every afternoon since he could remember, he and his father and Frank had gone to the pasture to see about the cattle. But now old Frank was chained up. And when his father asked _him_ to come along, he shook his head. He didn't want to be alone with his father. He had an idea that it would be terribly and silently embarra.s.sing down there with no one around but the two of them.

"I don't want to go," he declared.

"Very well," said Earle, and went off alone, through the lot and into the corn.

And he got no comfort whatever out of the talk he had with his mother a little later in the living room, though she smiled at him when he entered, and put her sewing aside.

Encouraged, he went to her and leaned against her knee; she brushed his hair back off his forehead, just as she always did.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

"Papa ain't goin' to whip F'ank, is he, Mama?"

"Why, yes--he has to."

"I tol' F'ank to kill him!"

"But Frank's a grown dog--he knew better."

He grew suddenly angry--angry at her very simplicity.

"F'ank won't kill any more chickens!"

"How do you know?"

"I know!" he cried, and stamped his foot. "I know!"

He came away from this futile interview in a suppressed rage. From the hall he saw old Aunt Cindy waddling about in the dining room. No use to appeal to her. She knew too much, anyhow, that old woman. There was in her nature none of the simple credulity that characterized his parents.

She was worldly wise, like himself.

He avoided her, therefore, his face turned over his shoulder, afraid she would see and call him. He went out on the front porch, down the steps, and, gun under his arm, sauntered round the house to the kennel. Old Frank came to meet him as far as the chain would allow. Frank thought he was going to be turned loose now--his eyes showed it. There was a log of wood beside the kennel, and the boy sat down on it. Frank nestled close to him, tail dragging across the ground.

Suddenly the boy was all attention, and Frank had p.r.i.c.ked his ears.

Steve Earle had come from the pasture, gone up the back steps, and into the room with the boy's mother. Through the open window just above the kennel he could hear them talking in a confidential sort of way, as grown folks talk when they think no one is listening.

"Where's the boy?" asked Earle.

"I don't know, Steve--he went out just now."

She was silent a while, then she spoke, with a little laugh that didn't sound like a laugh:

"Steve--it's pitiful, pitiful!"

"It's drastic, Mother--but it's the best way."

"But, Steve--suppose it doesn't work?"

It was his father who was silent now.

"Then that will be pretty tough, Mother," he said at last.

They talked some more--meaningless grown folks' talk that didn't get anywhere. It didn't seem to bear even remotely on the essential question in hand, which was whether or not Frank was to be whipped. They weren't even interested enough in the matter to speak of it. They just talked--that was all. They didn't care anything about him and Frank, or what became of them. They thought more of roosters than of anything else. They were all against him and Frank and the gun. All right--he and Frank and the gun would look out for themselves!

Once more his mind filled with visions of a wild life, in which escape and vengeance were mingled in proper and satisfying proportions. In the woods beyond the pasture was a cave, which he and Frank could reach before dark. Then they would ring the farm bell and raise a great hullabaloo, but he and Frank, safe within the dark cavern, would live their own lives.

The more he thought of it, the more enticing it became, and his eyes filled with a caveman's fire. The entrance to the cave was pretty dark and "snaky"; maybe he would compromise and not go in. But the woods round about were thick, and there were plenty of hiding places.

He left Frank, and, heart pounding, went round the side of the house, looking up at the familiar windows high overhead. There came over him a scorn of the civilized existence these people led, and he wondered that he had endured it so long. He went quietly up the back steps, peeped into the kitchen, then entered softly.

Old Aunt Cindy was in the dining room, which was separated from the kitchen by a pa.s.sageway. He could hear the rattle of dishes in there as she set the table for supper. Well, there would be one seat empty this night, and maybe through a good many nights to come. He got up on a chair in front of the cupboard and filled his pockets with biscuits.

All excited, he came out of the house, hurried to the kennel, and turned Frank loose. Frank had caught the contagion. Frank knew there was something _sub rosa_ about what was going on, and his eyes were glowing.

Likely they would shine like a cat's eyes in the dark cave at night--and maybe there would be other wild eyes shining in the recesses that led off here and there and dripped with water!

He hesitated a moment, trying to think of some other spot where they might run, some spot less suggestive of shining eyes. And while he hesitated there came steps on the front porch, and around the house, pipe in mouth, his father sauntered, as fathers have a way of sauntering, just at the wrong time.

"What're you doing there, Tommy?" he demanded.

The cave and the wild life vanished like a bubble that has burst.

"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" he cried.

For a moment his father hesitated, looking down into his eyes as if he were perplexed and worried and did not know what to do. Then once more he chained Frank up.

"You mustn't turn him loose again," he said sternly.

"I tol' him to kill Pete! I tol' him to!"

"And he did it?"

The eyes which the boy raised to the man's face were full of fight. He had said it, and he was going to stick to it. It was no longer only a matter of saving the gun; it was a question of principle now.

But his father did not press the question. With just a queer look into the boy's defiant eyes, he turned away and walked across the yard toward the garage, head bowed. Tommy watched him. No doubt his father thought he would follow. He had always liked to hang about the garage, he and Frank, and watch his father tinker with the car. It had been one of the high lights of their daily life. But now old Frank was chained up--and as for him, he didn't care anything about automobiles.

Frank had sat down on his haunches, in his fine old eyes, as he watched his master's retiring form, that disconsolate look of a dog whose feelings are deeply wounded. A moment Tommy regarded his offended friend. No use to think of turning him loose again with his father within hearing. Tommy hardened his heart. All right--so be it--he had done his part. Things would just have to take their course. Gun under arm, face set and grim, he walked round the house, and left old Frank to his fate.

There was a side porch around here, where his mother sometimes sat in the mornings, but which was deserted the rest of the day. On the step he took his seat, a solitary little figure, his gun between his knees. Here he would stay until the beating was over, here where he could not see it, and could not hear it--very plainly.

He was full to the brim of rebellious thoughts. He wished Pete were alive so he could shoot him again. He thought of boys he knew whose parents let them alone, and he envied them their lot in life. Maybe he would go and live with some of them, go where he would be appreciated.

He would take Frank with him, of course; that went without saying: life would be a void without Frank.

Yonder was the apple orchard, with the gold of the setting sun glancing through the tree trunks, and yonder in it was the brush pile where, on that memorable morning, he and Frank had "almost" caught a rabbit.

Beyond were the woods where another afternoon never to be forgotten Frank had jumped a red fox bent on mischief, who, his father said, would have got some chickens that very night if Frank hadn't chased him far into the distant hills.