W. A. G.'s Tale Part 2

"Well, I was right glad to see him, and get news of all the old neighbors, and Jim and me gits very chummy; and when there's a piece of business needing the attention of one of us, it usually gits the attention of both. Me and him hunting in couples as it were.

"That's how it come about that one time, there being a bit of spying to be done, me and Jim finds ourselves in rebel uniforms, waiting and listening beside a camp-fire outside the rebel Gineral's tent, using our ears and our eyes too. When up rides Gineral Stuart, who used to be my commanding officer in the old days before he turnt reb, when he was in the regular army.

"My! but I was in a terrible taking, for Stuart had a gredge agin me for somepin I'd done. I'll tell ye about that another day. 'T warn't me was to blame. But if he onct caught sight of me, it would be short shrift at the end of the rope.

"So Jim and me begins edging away, until we could get a gait on without being noticed; and get away we did, and into the woods where our own clothes were hid; made the change and was getting back to our own quarters, happy as larks to be on the home road; laughing to think how near we'd been to Gineral Stuart, without his knowing it; and patting ourselves on the back at how neatly we'd done the trick, when Jim looks up and says, 'Hey, Tom, look at them persimmons,' Sure enough, there was a tree full of the nicest ripe persimmons you ever see, right in our way.

"Now our rations hadn't been any too full lately and we were pretty nigh hungry all the time.

"'Tom,' he says, 'I uster be the best tree-climber in the county. I gotter get me some of those,'

"'Aw, Jim,' I says, 'don't be a fool. The woods may be full of rebels.

I'm full as hungry as you are, but I ain't going to stop for any persimmons.'

"'Just a handful,' he says, 'and it won't take a minute. Will you wait?'

"'No, I won't,' I says, being so doggoned tired that I knew if I sat down I'd fall asleep. 'I'm for pushing back to camp, and if you ain't all kinds of a foolish boy, you'll do the same.'

"So I went on, and Jim, he gives me one look, and then he gives the tree a squint, and sho! he was off and up it before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' Climb! well, rather. He was up it in no time, and eating and slinging the persimmons into his hat. It made me so mad that I just naturally turned my back and went right on.

"Suddenly I hears a kind of whistle that was our signal--Jim's and mine--to look out for trouble. So I drops right down and rolls over into the bushes, and draws them over me, so I can't be seen. Then I lays quiet and listens.

"I hears voices, and turning my head so softly that the bushes don't move, I peeps out and sees a party of rebs a-coming down the path.

They'd seen Jim, just after he'd give me his warning, and they lays for him under the tree, and one of them rebs, who was just as handy at the climbing as Jim, goes up and brings him down, persimmons and all. The rebs laugh, and eat his persimmons and take him prisoner and march off; Jim allowing that he was so hungry that he'd stolen off by his lonesome to get something to eat. One of the men had heard the whistle Jim gave, but Jim explaining that he whistled in surprise at seeing them, they only beats up the bush a little, not coming near me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Brings him down, persimmons and all"]

"They go off, with Jim never so much as looking my way, though they pa.s.sed so clost to me that the lieutenant's heel scrunched my little finger. I had to take it without hollering or moving, for if I had they'd taken me along with Jim. And that's what tree climbing brings a man to."

"What became of Jim?" I asked.

"Oh, Jim, he was kept a prisoner all through the war, so he never got no enjoyment out of his life, never seeing a bit of real fighting--just marching and drilling and prison. So that, as he said, he might just as well never 'a' run away,--seeing he had to bide a non-combatant, which is the same as Quaker, after all."

"Then he didn't like it, did he?" I asked.

"No," Mr. Taylor said, laughing, "he didn't. And let this be a warning to you, young man. Don't you go up a tree for persimmons or cherries or other fruits whatsomever, agin the advice of your elders and betters."

"No, sir, Mr. Taylor," I said, "I never will."

CHAPTER IV

ON THE TOWPATH

Our house is so nearly on the towpath, that the mules eat the honeysuckle from the fence, and as there is only a tiny flower-bed between the house and the fence, you can hear the voices, and the tramping of the mules, as plainly indoors as out.

At night, when you wake up in the dark, you think they are coming in.

That's at first. By and by you get so used to them that you don't think about it.

One reason why we came down so early in the spring is that I'm not to be sent to school until the fall, because I'm not to use my eyes too much, until they get stronger. Measles made them a little weak. So I have one hour with Aunty May for reading and sums, and half an hour with Aunty Edith for French; and then I don't have to do anything else for the rest of the day, until nearly dark, when I water the flower-beds for both the aunties.

But from eleven until four, except at lunch-time, I must not bust into the house and holler at Aunty May--for she is writing; and I must not run after and plague Aunty Edith, when she goes up the towpath--for she's painting.

Mr. Taylor, being seventy-three, can be spoken to at any time, except when he's doing his baking. Then he doesn't want anything or anybody round his feet, he says. Just as if I was cats!

This morning I'm writing about. I was out on the towpath, fishing for eels, so I could put one in the tub which stands by the pump to catch the overflow; because Aunty May is very much afraid of snakes and eels, and she squeals so funny when she sees them that it is what Mr. Taylor calls "a fair treat" to hear her.

I thought if I got her good and scared with seeing one in the tub, she might be so mad that she'd not be able to write, and would chase me round the garden.

It's too bad Aunty May's grown up. She likes to play as well as any boy I know, and she's good at it, too, if it wasn't for her writing. Uncle Burt used to complain of that writing, too, when he was home. He said it interfered a lot--when he wanted her to play with him.

Anyway the eels didn't bite, but I thought maybe I'd get a sunfish, and that's nearly as good a scream-starter, if Aunty May doesn't expect it to be there.

All at once, I felt my cap pushed right off, and I looked up and there was a boy, riding on the top of an old gray mule, that was one of two tired-looking mules, dragging a ca.n.a.l boat.

There was n.o.body on the boat that I could see, 'cept one man asleep on the top.

"Gimme my cap, boy," I said.

"Aw, you and your fishin'," he says. "Git off the towpath."

And I said: "You can't say that to me. We've got the right of way here, because I live in that house with the green door."

"Oh, you do," says he. "Well, baby dear, go in and tell yer wimmin folks ye've lost your cap"; and he chucked my cap right into the ca.n.a.l!

Well, I couldn't get it, without falling in, and there was the ca.n.a.l-boat coming along ready to run over it. So I took my fishing-rod and flicked it at him, and there--I had caught the eel after all! It struck him, all cold and slippery, and he yelled, and it hit the mule, and the mule ran away, dragging the other mule with it, right up the slope to Rabbit Run Bridge!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "So I took my fishing-rod and flicked it at him"]

The boy had grabbed the fishing-rod, so that my rod and my eel went with them.

My! but I was mad, but kind of excited, too, for a man came up from the inside of the ca.n.a.l boat and yelled, and the man on the deck woke up and yelled, and the boy was yelling!

There was a farmer driving along the road and across the bridge and when he saw mules coming, lickity-split, where mules never come,--right up to the bridge,--he yelled too, and licked his horse to get out of the way.

The boy, he licked the mules with my rod. He'd thrown my eel back into the water.

He was as cool as could be, and by and by he got the mules calmed down, and one of the men from the boat jumped off and helped him and they got the ropes all straight again and started off. The boy never said a word, except when the man asked him what did it. Then he told him, "The mule didn't like the looks of that baby boy there on the ca.n.a.l bank." The man shook his fist at me, and I called, "Gimme my cap." And the boy said, "Wait till we come back"; and he made an awful face as they went away, turning round and riding backwards to do it.

I knew then that he was the same boy that made a face at me when I was in the train.

Well, I had to tell Aunty Edith, and she looked very severe, and gave me my second-best cap and said, "William, do be careful, this time." But I only told her that the boy threw my cap into the water. I didn't tell that he said he was coming back.

But I talked to Mr. Taylor about it, and he agreed that when I saw the boy again, I'd have to have it out with him, and he'd stand referee to see that there was no unfair advantage took of me or him.

"For," says he, "you can't be called baby darling free and often by them boat boys, and neither can you eel them boat boys and scare their mules.

All things being equal, you ask him his intentions next time and come to some mew-tual feeling on the matter, which won't reach the ears of your Aunty Edith. The ears of your Aunty May," say she, "could be reached and enjyed by them fine, if took alone, and without t'other Aunty present."