Mothering on Perilous Part 12

"You made liquor?" I exclaimed.

"Can't remember when I didn't," he replied; "I holp paw from the time I could walk. I would go with him up the hollow, and gather wood for the fire, and then set and watch the singlings whilst he kep' a lookout for officers. And sometimes he would let me mix the doublings, too. And when the liquor was made, and folks would come to buy it, I would circle round up in the field where it was hid, to show 'em the place, and they would come up with their jugs and leave the money under a stump. Gee, I knowed so much about the business I could run it myself!"

"I hope and pray you never will," I said, earnestly.

"What you got again' it,--you haint no officer," he said.

"No," I said, "but I think it is wrong." And I gave my reasons, which, however, failed to carry much conviction.

"The marshal that kilt your paw," inquired Nucky, at last, "how long you aim to let him live?"

"Till I'm good and ready for him," replied Killis; "I got a dead tree up the hollow I practice on all the time,--there's a band breast-high around it black with bullet-holes. Sometimes I shoot walking, and sometimes running, and sometimes I fetch a nag up and gallop around and shoot. When I get so I never miss, I'll ride over where he lives at and tell him 'I'm Steve Blair's boy,' and shoot him down like a dog, and revenge my paw, and do my duty."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I got a dead tree up the hollow I practice on all the time.'"]

A murmur of quiet approval began with Nucky and pa.s.sed around the circle.

After the other boys went to bed, I finally extracted from Killis a solemn promise not to perform this "duty" before he was eighteen. It was the utmost I could accomplish,--long years of training must do the rest.

_Monday._

The first real snow yesterday, and the boys wild in consequence. On our walk up Perilous, they found drifts in which they dived and wallowed.

Coming back I noticed that Jason was quite hoa.r.s.e; and in the middle of the night I was awakened by strange and painful sounds, as if someone were choking to death. The night was cold, the bed warm; I lay and listened a moment longer. Then flinging on wrapper and slippers, I ran across the sitting-room to the upper bedroom. Jason was sitting up in bed, gasping for breath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The first real snow yesterday, and the boys wild in consequence."]

"What is the matter with you?" I asked.

"Croup," he croaked, between gasps.

"Did you ever have it before?"

"I follow havin' it."

"Why didn't you tell me it was coming on?"

"Afeared you'd whup me."

I wrung my hands. "Cleo," I called back, "what in the world should be done for croup?"

But for once her resources failed. "Some ties grease around their necks," she said.

I have a maxim, "when in doubt try a hot-water-bag". Desperately stirring the fire in my grate, I put on water, and while it was heating spread vaseline on a handkerchief. Then flying back to Jason, I slapped first the handkerchief, then the hot bag, upon his chest. Apparently the child was choking to death,--I was terribly frightened,--the water may have been a little over-hot. At any rate, between chokes, my "little pet" raised the most roof-splitting yells. "Take it off! Take it off!

Paw he gits me pole-cat-grease!" All the boys jumped out of their beds and came running. Jason fought me like a little tiger; but grabbing him by the hair, I held the bag on with all my might. His yells increased.

"Oh, G.o.d, she's a-killing me! Oh, G.o.d, she's a-burning me up! Oh, G.o.d, gimme pole-cat-grease, pole-cat-grease, po--_ole_-cat-grease!" It was an awful moment; but I held my ground and the bag. In a few seconds, which seemed ages, the cries and chokes lessened, the breathing became quieter, the tense little frame relaxed, and danger was past.

Half an hour later, when, weak but safe, my angel child lay quiet on his pillow, Philip, standing over him, remarked philosophically,

"Son, you'd a-waited a right smart spell for pole-cat-grease,--better to lose a patch of your hide than die waiting for that!"

XVII

BLESSINGS AND HATINGS

_Thanksgiving Day, Bed-time._

All day my heart has been overflowing with thankfulness; and to-night when I accompanied my sons to the beautiful Thanksgiving party at the big house, where all the young folks from miles around were gathered, and observed their handsome appearance in their Sunday suits and gay new ties, and, still better, their ease of manner, and social graces, my heart swelled with pride almost to bursting. I own to a weakness for pretty looks and pretty ways; and with the exception of Philip, who scorned to play any of the games in which girls had a part, my boys quite satisfied me to-night.

Still later, when we came home and sat around our fire to talk it over, I in my pink party dress, Nucky and Keats leaning against my shoulders, Jason and Iry with their heads in my lap, the other eight gathered as closely as possible about me, it seemed to me I had reached the point where I could say "My cup runneth over". When was a lonely heart more truly comforted, a forlorn creature s.n.a.t.c.hed from greater desolation to brighter cheer? "Yea, the sparrow hath found her a nest", "Thou has set the desolate in families". Almost a miraculous thing it seems that I should actually have the desire of my heart,--a houseful of children; and, instead of the hideous loneliness I looked forward to a few months ago, the delightful task of bringing up these twelve sons to manhood and good citizenship. Indeed, I often ask myself, what other boys have such gifts to bring to their nation? Proud, self-reliant, the sons of heroes, bred in brave traditions, knowing nothing of the debasing greed for money, strengthened by a hand-to-hand struggle with nature from their very infancy (I have not one who did not begin at five or six to shoulder such family responsibilities as hoeing corn all summer, tending stock, clearing new ground, grubbing, hunting, gathering the crop), they should bring to the service of their country primal energy of body and spirit, unquenchable valor, and minds untainted by the l.u.s.t of wealth.

Yes, I know that I am greatly blessed. Children of my own could be no dearer to me, and certainly not half so interesting; and my heart is fed and satisfied. After all, is not motherhood less a thing of the flesh than of the spirit,--indeed, the richest, fairest blossoming known to the human spirit? I believe that if all the sad, lonely, self-centred women in the land could know what joy dwells in my heart to-night, within twenty-four hours orphan asylums would be depopulated, city streets waifless.

Nucky lingered after the others went off to bed, to cover the fire. Then he opened the front door, and stood looking out into the bright moonlight. "These is the nights Blant needs me at home," he said, sighing deeply; "seems like I can't get no peace or rest in my mind for troubling over him." I crossed the room and stood beside Nucky, also looking out. As I gazed, his fear was communicated to me, and the fair moonlight seemed suddenly cruel and chill.

_Sat.u.r.day._

A mail-carrier rides over from Powderhorn way twice a week. This morning, while cleaning was in progress, he stopped at the cottage gate.

"I allowed I'd stop and tell you the news from Trigger," he said.

"Another battle fit over the fence last night. I have been looking for it ever sence Todd and Dalt come back, knowing they wa'n't bad wounded in the election fight. Blant has been looking for it, too, and him and Rich has took turns keeping watch of a day, and of moonlight nights.

Last night was Blant's watch; but he was powerful tired from logging, and the babe was punier than common, and he had to set up with it longer, and before he knowed it he drapped off to sleep there a-holding it before the fire; and there he sot till he was woke by chilling about eleven. Then he walked out to see how the land lay at the fence; and there was the whole b'iling of Cheevers, with very near all the rails drug off the old boundary, and a-laying 'em on the new. All hands got to work with their guns, and anybody'd a-thought sure they'd finish him, so many ag'in' one; but by good luck all of 'em put together haint got his aim, and atter a few was wounded, they took to their heels and abandoned the field. That 'ere Blant is a pure wonder; but such good luck haint apt to hit twice, and they're bound to git him sooner or later. I hope I may die if he haint the worst handicapped for warfare ever I seed, with a family to feed, and a whole pa.s.sel of young uns to be paw and maw to, and the babe pindling all the time, and Rich on yan side the mountain, and his uncle Billy's boys a mile up the branch."

When I turned around to speak to Nucky, who had been just behind me, he was gone. Great as is my anxiety about him, I realize the uselessness of trying to send after him, or to hold him back.

_Thursday, first week December._

Nucky returned last night, after nearly a week of absence,--it seems that Blant was glad of his help this time. He says that on Monday they gathered together Rich and his uncle Billy's boys and one or two more, and in broad daylight laid the fence again on the old line, every man working armed, those who drove the mules that dragged the rails walking with guns in position, those who laid the rails doing so with guns tucked under their arms. "I carried my rifle Cap'n Enoch Marrs fit the British with," said Nucky. But though the Marrs side worked all day at the fence, and the Cheevers must have known what was going on, not one of them appeared. "They have had their fill of fighting Blant in the open," said Nucky; "what they will do now will be to kill him from cover. Todd he won't stop at nothing. And Blant he haint able to look out for hisself with so much to tend to, and needs me there to be eyes for him, especially now, with Christmas coming on, and all the drinking and devilment that is allus done then. But he won't listen to no reason, or let me stay."

"I am sure that Richard Tarrant will be with him day and night," I said, to comfort him.

"Yes; but tha'in't n.o.body got the eye for a Cheever I got, or can keep watch like me."

I share Nucky's feeling that he ought to be there to be eyes for Blant; at the same time I am inexpressibly thankful that Blant refuses to keep him, and that he is here with me in safety.

XVIII

CHRISTMAS ANTIc.i.p.aTIONS

_Monday._