Mothering on Perilous Part 5

"Now, boys," I said, "how about soldiers,--do you call them men?"

"By grab, them's the only men _is_ men,--I'd ruther be dead as not to be one," said Nucky.

"Gee, fighting's the best job there is," agreed Killis.

"Well, soldiers make their beds every single day," I said; "I have a cousin right now at West Point, learning to be a soldier, and when he gets out he will command a whole company, and he makes his bed every morning, and couldn't be a soldier if he didn't."

The two stood, dazed and pondering, for some minutes; then Nucky quietly flung an end of the sheet across to Killis, with the words, "There, son, take-a-holt of that kiver, and le's lay it straight!"

To my great relief, I heard Keats singing a more cheerful song at his work to-day:

Wisht I was a little turkle-dove, Setting on a limb so high.

I'd take my darling on my knee And bid this world goodbye!

and at dinner, by actual count, he ate nine corn-dodgers, three helpings of string-beans, four sweet-potatoes and I know not how much sorghum.

He still sits with me in the evenings, and I feel now that I have always known Nervesty and the four small children at home, especially Sammy the baby, not to mention Charlie, the "flea-bit" nag, Ole Suke, the "pied"

cow, with her twin sons the steers Buck and Brandy, and her daughter Reddy the heifer (now the proud possessor of a little "pied" calf and a "blind" teat), also the big black sow, Julia, who, true to mountain traditions, never has less than nine in her family, and above all the wonderful dog, Ponto, who appears to be all that a dog can, and more.

And not infrequently during these talks Keats is called out to help fight some antagonist of Hen's (though there is often civil war between the brothers, they always combine against outside aggression); and at other times Hen will pause breathless on his swift way through house or yard to corroborate some statement of Keats's with, "Gee, woman, that 'ere's a dandy of a dog! He can do anything but climb a tree, and he gits half-way up them. He rounds up the shoats and drives up Ole Suke and the steers gooder than I can; and possums! groundhogs! polecats! dad burn my looks if he haint the beatenest ever you seed!"

_Friday._

I have tried all along to respect Jason's feelings, and give him jobs which would injure neither his pride nor his person. But yesterday while we were spading up a patch for turnip-and-mustard-greens, I forgot and sent him off to the school-yard to pick up trash. An hour later, I heard from a pa.s.ser-by that he had been seen a mile up Perilous. "Don't you recollect him a-saying he would leave if you give him little-boy jobs?"

Geordie reminded me.

"Saddle the nag and hurry after him," I implored Taulbee. Sometime later, he overtook the proud child on his way to Spraddle Creek, and brought him back under protest.

The boys say they see no good reason why they should say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am." When I told them it was for the sake of politeness, Philip replied, "Polite's a lick-spittle,--I don't aim to be polite,--I don't _have_ to,--I'm able to get what I want without it!"

This last is only too true. "For they shall take who have the power, and they shall keep who can," is the creed of all, but more especially of Philip. This noon, when Iry's father had sent him from Rakeshin a fine, yellow, mellow apple, and the "pure scholar" was eating it as frugally and lingeringly as possible, Philip, came along, s.n.a.t.c.hed it, bit off three-fourths, and coolly handed back the fragment to Iry, who, howling dismally, still had no redress.

"To think you could do such a base thing!" I exclaimed,--"Rob a little boy who cannot defend himself. You ought to be everlastingly ashamed!"

"I was behind the door when shame pa.s.sed by," replied the robber, flippantly.

"You were indeed," I agreed; "I would not believe that a boy named Philip Sidney could be guilty of such a thing." Then I told him the story of the great Sir Philip, mortally wounded, fevered and athirst, handing the cup of water to the dying soldier beside him, with the words, "Your need is greater than mine."

He pondered a moment, then remarked, "No man'd be such a fool,--I bet it's just a slander they made up on him!"

I told him he should lose three days' playtime for his rapacity.

_Sunday Night._

Last night the Trojan War reached a climax in the death of Horse-Taming Hector, amid shouts of joy from Killis, and howls of fury from Nucky. I have seen for two weeks that considerable feeling has developed between the two on the subject, intensifying the natural jealousy each has of the prowess and reputation of the other.

This morning I had left the boys at the big house to help with the breakfast dishes--the regular Sunday proceeding--and was standing in the back cottage door drinking in the beauty of the morning and the Sabbath peace of the hills, when savage yells smote my ears. Following the sound, I ran to the school-yard. When I arrived, Nucky had just buried his teeth in Killis's arm, from which the blood was spurting, while Killis was striking out fiercely with his knife. Around the combatants the other boys formed a delighted, cheering circle, within which Philip danced madly about, shouting,

Fight, dogs, you haint no kin, 'F you kill one another, taint no sin!

In another second, Nucky had abandoned the hold with his teeth, and was flashing his own knife around Killis's throat. With a shinny-stick, I knocked up one knife after the other, and kept death at bay until four of the grown-up boys arrived and with difficulty separated the heroes and escorted them to the hospital to have their wounds staunched and dressed. Later, I heard that Nucky had begun it by leaping upon Killis with the words, "I'll show you Hector haint dead yet!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Fight, dogs, you haint no kin, 'F you kill one another, taint no sin!'"]

To-night when I had the two in durance vile, and talked to them more severely than I had yet done on the evils of fighting, Nucky, the aggressor, gave as his excuse that his great-great-great-grandpaw had fit the British, his great-great-grandpaw the Indians, his great-grandpaw the Mexicans, his grandpaw the Rebels, and his paw and Blant the Cheevers ever since he could recollect, and that he himself was just bound to fight.

This was sound reasoning; and it brought before me with hitherto unrealized force the fact that these boys are in very truth the sons of heroes,--of forefathers who fought gloriously for freedom in the Revolution, afterward subdued the wilderness and the savages, and have since poured forth as one man from their fastnesses to safeguard the Union in every emergency; and that here, forgotten and neglected by an ungrateful state and nation, is the precious stuff of which great patriots and heroes are made.

Therefore I did not upbraid Nucky and Killis further; I merely explained to them the difference between fighting just to be fighting, and fighting to save one's country, and, since they had no idea who the "British," the "Mexicans" and the "Rebels" were, told them something of the history and causes of those wars, and how I hoped that they, too, when necessary, would fight for their nation. And though to them at first their country meant their mountains only, and they were surprised to hear that the great "level land" beyond was also theirs to love and fight for, their affections were hospitable, and with one voice they demanded that an enemy of the nation be produced at once.

Here endeth the Trojan War,--I see that it has fanned a flame already too intense. Even little Jason slipped out under the benches at church this morning, while I played the organ, and was found an hour later out in the road in front of the court-house, covered with mud, but glowing with the white-hot joy of having "whupped-out four-at-a-time" of the little village boys. Hereafter I shall tell and read stories of heroes who won glory by fighting, not one another, but dragons, giants, gorgons, and like destroyers of their countries.

Nucky inquired of me at supper to-night when he might make a visit home to Trigger; whereupon there was an instant and unanimous offer on the part of the boys to accompany him, when he goes, and see the hero Blant.

He shook his head. "I haint aiming to take none of you," he said, "not if she'll go 'long with me," looking at me.

"I?" I said, much complimented. "Why, surely I will if I can. But it is three weeks yet before your time comes:"--the children are permitted to go home over week-ends every seven or eight weeks, in rotation. I am glad he wants me, and feel a considerable desire to visit Trigger.

IX

MORE TRADING, AND SOME FAMILY HISTORY

_First Monday in September._

Four weeks to-day since I acquired my family of sons, and now it seems as if I had had them always. So far from being ready to leave now my month is out, wild horses could not drag me away. The hours, once so leaden, pa.s.s with lightning swiftness; there is never any time for depression, or for looking into a desolate and dreaded future; my days are crammed with human interest, exciting as a dime novel. Besides, although I see no evidence that the boys care much for me, I care a great deal for them, and would not willingly leave them.

Geordie brought back with him from our walk yesterday a large bundle of elder-poles. This morning, mumble-peg went out, and pop-guns came in, like a clap of thunder, and I heard that Geordie was selling lengths of elder to the boys for two cents, or a satisfactory equivalent. It was impossible this afternoon to get manure hauled to the new flower-borders,--every time a barrow would get out of sight, the wheeler would sit down on it and go to whittling a pop-gun. After being scolded a third time, Philip complained bitterly to me,

"If you never wanted us to have pop-guns, whyn't you take them poles away from Geordie yesterday? Dad burn my looks, we git all the blame, and he gits all the gain,--he's a making it hand over fist."

"He was the only one who thought of putting the elder to use," I said.

"I suppose he has a right to his gains."

Philip sadly admitted the justice of this view. "Dag gone _me_," he sighed, "I wisht I was a born trader and forelooker like him! Good thing I haint aiming to be no preacher, I'd starve to death the first week. But Geordie he's cut out for it."

"I'm afraid I don't see the connection between trading and preaching," I said.

"Well, preachers can't take no money for preaching--it would be a sin--and they haint got much time for tending c.r.a.ps and such, and less'n they good traders they mighty apt to starve. Geordie he haint never going to run out of wheat-flour, let alone corn meal. Gee! if you could see the things he's got in that locked box of his!"

"What has he?" I asked.

"Oh, _I_ haint never seed 'em,--n.o.body haint; but any minute in the day he can run his hand in and pull out something a boy'll think he's pine-blank bound to have or die!"

When I heard to-night that Keats's tooth-brush, Jason's blue necktie I gave him, Hen's fine-comb and pencil, Iry's "gallusses," and Nucky's only handkerchief, were among the articles traded for pop-gun material, I was moved to wrath with Geordie; but when he displayed to me the small and apparently worthless things he had accepted from other boys,--a torn woolen comforter from Taulbee, Killis's holey mittens, Joab's worn-out yarn socks, and a handful of rusty horse-shoe nails from Hosea, it seemed to me that, on the whole, there had not been such exorbitant exchanges for the joy of a pop-gun, and I softened my reprimand.