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IV – THE FIGHT
Ed CHURCH left Lide talking with the girls in the schoolhouse while he went back to the waggon shed to get Grey Eagle and bring him and the cutter to the door. As Ed was in the entry of the schoolhouse he was stopped by little Joe Barnes.
“Say! Fan Brown’s out there waitin’ for you.”
“What about Fan Brown?” asked Ed Church.
Fan Brown was the bully of Hinckley. He boasted that he could thrash any man between Bath Lakes and the Hinckley Ridge.
“He says he’s goin’ to wallop you for shootin’ his dawg last summer,” said little Joe Barnes.
“Joe, will you do something for me?” asked Ed.
“Yep!”
“You go and tell Lide Lee in there that I’m goin’ over to Square Chanler’s to get a neck-yoke he borrowed and I’ll be right back. Tell her to wait in the school-house till I come.”
“He’s afraid of Fan Brown and is runnin’ over to Square Chanler’s to get the constable,” said little Joe Barnes to himself. For this he despised Ed Church very much, but went in and delivered the message.
“All right!” said Lide, and then went on gossiping with the girls.
Ed Church stepped out of the schoolhouse and started for the horse-sheds.
He noticed a knot of men standing at the rear corner of the building; among them he discerned the stocky, bull-necked bully of Hinckley, Fan Brown.
“Here he comes now!” said one, as Ed approached.
“Let him come!” gritted the bully; “I’ll fix him! I’ll show him whose dog he’s been shootin! As fine a coon dog, boys, as ever went into a corn field. He shot him, and I ain’t goin’ back to Hinckley till I mash his face.”
“What’s the row here?” said Ed Church, walking straight to the little huddle about Fan Brown. His tones were brittle and bold; a note of ready war ran through them. Not at all the voice in which he talked to Lide. “I understand somebody’s lookin’ for me. Who is it?”
“It’s me, by G – d! You killed my dog last summer, and I’m goin’ – ”
“No, you ain’t,” said Ed, interrupting; “you ain’t goin’ to do a thing. You may be the bully of Hinckley, Fan Brown, but you can’t scare me. Your dog was killin’ sheep; he was a good deal like you; but bein’ a dog I could shoot him.”
“Yes, and I ain’t goin’ back to Hinckley until I maul you so you won’t shoot another dog as long as you live.”
“Enough said!” replied Ed, “come right down in the hollow back of the horse sheds, where the folks won’t see, and do it.”
Just then a small, meagre man approached. He walked with a lounging gait, and when he spoke he had a thin, mealy voice.
“What’s the matter here?” piped the meagre little man.
His name was Dick Bond. He was renowned widely as a wrestler. Gladiators had come from far and near, and at town meetings and barn raisings, wrestled with little Dick Bond. Where a hundred tried not one succeeded.
He had not lost a “fall” for four years. His skill had given birth to a half proverb, and when somebody said he would do something, and somebody else doubted it, the latter would observe with laughing scorn: “Yes; you’ll do it when somebody throws Dick Bond.”
Such was the fell repute of this invincible little man that when his shrill, light voice made the inquiry chronicled, a silence fell on the crowd and no one answered.
“Who’s goin’ to fight?” asked Dick Bond more pointedly.
“I’m goin’ to fight Fan Brown,” said Ed.
There was a load of ferocity in the way he said it, which showed that Ed, himself, had a latent hunger for battle.
“I guess I’ll go ‘long and see it,” said Dick Bond pipingly.
“How do you want to fight?” asked Ed of Fan Brown when each had buttoned up his coat tight to the chin. “Stand up, or rough and tumble?”
“Rough and tumble,” said Fan Brown savagely.
“All right!”
“Now, boys,” said Dick Bond when all was ready, “I’ll give the word and then you’re goin’ to fight until one of you says ‘enough.’ And remember! there’s no bitin’ no gougin’, no scratchin’.”
“Bitin’ goes?” declared Fan Brown, in a fashion of savage interrogatory.
“Bitin’ don’t go!” replied the lean little referee, “and if you offer to bite or gouge, Fan Brown, I’ll break your neck. You’ll never go back to Hinckley short of being carried in a blanket.”
The battle was brief and bloody. It didn’t last ten minutes. When it was over, Ed Church, bleeding, but victorious, walked back to the sheds to get Grey Eagle. Fan Brown was unable to rise from the snow without help. His face was beaten badly, and he was a thoroughly whipped person. Dick Bond expressed great satisfaction, and in his high voice said it was a splendid fight.
“But, Brown,” said Dick Bond to the beaten one, “I can’t see how you got it into your head you could lick Ed Church. Why, man! he was all over you like a panther.”
The news of the fight ran like wildfire. Everybody knew of it before an hour passed. It was a source of general satisfaction that Ed Church had whipped Fan Brown, the Hinckley bully, yet no one failed to stamp the whole proceeding as disgraceful; that is, among the older men at least.
Lide, however, when she heard of the valour of her lover felt a great tenderness for him, and was never kinder than when they drove Grey Eagle back from the Block schoolhouse spelling-bee that crisp winter night.
V – JIM LEE INTERFERES
MOTHER,” sobbed Lide, as she threw herself down on the chintz lounge without pausing to take off her hat or cape, “father has just told Ed never to come to the house nor speak to me again.”
Jim Lee and Aunt Ann got home before the lovers. The news of the broil overtook them, however. Jim Lee declared it a scandal and a scorn.
“Now you see,” he said to Aunt Ann, “what sort of ruffian the Church boy is!”
“Well, I’m glad he whipped that miserable Fan Brown,” said Aunt Ann. “He’s done nothin’ for ten years but come over here to Stowe Township and raise a fuss. I’m glad somebody’s at last spunked up and thrashed him. I’d done it years ago if I had been a man.”
“Aunt Ann Lee!” said Jim Lee, hitting the Morgan colt a blow with the whip which set that sprightly animal almost astride the thills – “Aunt Ann, do you tell me you approve of Ed Church lickin’ Fan Brown?”
“Yes, I do,” retorted Aunt Ann, stoutly, “and so will Lide. If you imagine, father, a woman finds fault with a man because he’ll fight other men you don’t know the sex.”
Jim Lee moaned. Absolutely! for the first time in his life Aunt Ann had shocked him. Not another word was spoken by Jim Lee all the way home.
Aunt Ann went into the house when they arrived, while Jim Lee remained to put up the Morgan colt. He was busy in the barn when Ed and Lide drove into the yard.
“Father came up to Ed,” sobbed Lide, as she lay on the lounge, “and called him a brawler and a drunkard, and said he’d got to keep away from me.”
“What did Ed say?” asked Aunt Ann, as she sat down by her daughter and began, with kind hands, to take off her hat and cape. Every touch was full of motherly love and tenderness.
“Oh! Ed didn’t say much,” said Lide, giving way to long-drawn sighs; a fashion of dead swell following the storm of sobs. “He said he’d marry me whether father was willing or not. Then he drove away.”
Aunt Ann smiled.
“I guess Ed Church is pretty high strung,” said Aunt Ann, “but that won’t hurt him any.”
Jim Lee came in at that moment, looking a bit sheepish and guilty; but over it all an atmosphere of victory.
“That Church boy will stay away now, I guess!” said Jim Lee, as he got the bootjack and began pulling off his boots.
“Jim Lee, you’re an awful fool!” observed Aunt Ann with the air of a sibyl settling all things. “You’re the biggest numbskull in Stowe Township!”
“Why?” asked Jim Lee.
He was disturbed because Aunt Ann addressed him by his full name. Experience had taught him that defeat ever followed hard on the heels of his full name, when Aunt Ann made use of it.
“Never mind why!” said Aunt Ann.
And not another word could Jim Lee get from her.
VI – THEY DECORATE
It was a month after the spelling-school. Stowe Township was decorating the Church for Christmas. For time out of mind Stowe Township had had a Christmas tree at the Church, and everybody, rich or poor, high or low, young or old, great or small, got a present if it were nothing but a gauze stocking full of painted popcorn.
Aunt Ann, as usual, was at the head of the decorating committee. The Church was full of long strings of evergreen, which Aunt Ann’s satellites were festooning about the walls, and to that end there was much climbing of step-ladders, much standing on tip-toe, much pounding of thumbs with caitiff tack-hammers, vilely wielded by girlish hands. Occasionally some fair step-ladder maid gave the public a glimpse of a well-filled woollen stocking as she went up and down, or stood on her toes on the top step. At this, the young men present always blushed, while the maidens tittered. Most people don’t know it, but the male of our species is more modest, more easily embarrassed, than the female.
The Christmas tree had just arrived. It had been contributed by “Square” Chanler. The tree was a noble hemlock; thick and feathery of bough, perfect of general outline. Old Curl, the Rip Van Winkle of Stowe, had cut it down and hauled it to the church on “Square” Chanler’s bob-sleds. All the smallfry of the Corners had gone with Old Curl after the Christmas tree, and were faithful to him to the last. Every one of them was clamorously forward in unloading the tree and getting it into the Church.
Then it was taken charge of by Aunt Ann, who put the smallfry to flight. They were to be beneficiaries of the tree, and it was held that their joy would be enhanced if they were not allowed to remain while the tree was decorated, and were debarred all sight thereof until Christmas Eve, when the presents would be cut from the boughs and bestowed upon their owners.
One little boy had a cold, and Aunt Ann let him remain in the Church. This little boy perched himself in a window where his fellows outside might see and envy him. There was a three-cornered hole in the window pane near him, and the little boy was wont every few moments to place his mouth to this crevice and say to the boys outside:
“My! but you ought to see what Aunt Ann’s tyin’ on the tree now!”
“What is it?” would chorus the outside boys.
“Can’t tell you!”
The boy with the cold became the most unpopular child in Stowe Township, and several of his fellows outside in their agony threatened him with personal violence.
“I’ll lick you when I ketch you!” shouted children in the rabble rout to the lucky child with the cold.
“I don’t care!” said the child inside, “you just ought to see the tree now!”
Lide Lee was aiding the others to festoon the church. Under the maternal direction she was fitting tawdry little wax candles among the branches of the Christmas tree, and tying on Barlow knives for all the little boys, and “Housewives” for all the little girls.
Lide had not seen Ed save once since the spelling-school, and then she met him in the village drug-store by chance. But they wrote to each other, and some progress in this way had been made toward an elopement which was scheduled for the coming Spring. Aunt Ann in the depths of her sagacity, suspected the arrangement, but it gave her no alarm. As for Jim Lee, so fatuous was he that he believed he had ended all ties between his daughter and Ed Church.
While decorations were in progress in the church, Jim Lee suddenly drove up.
“Aunt Ann,” said Jim Lee, after pausing to admire the garish display, “Aunt Ann, I’ve just got a line from Ludlow, and there’s goin’ to be a special meetin’ of the board of directors of our Ice Company, and I’ve got to mosey into the city.”
Jim Lee had an air of importance. He liked to appear before Aunt Ann in the attitude of a much-sought-for man of business.
“Pshaw! father, that’s too bad!” said Aunt Ann. “Can’t you be back by Christmas Eve?”
“No; Christmas Eve is only day after to-morrow, and the Ice Company business ought to last a week, so Ludlow says.”
“Well!” said Aunt Ann, “if you must go, you must. Ezra can do most of the chores while you’re away, and I’ll have Old Curl come and do the heaviest of ‘em.”
So Jim Lee kissed Aunt Ann, and then kissed Lide. This latter caress was a trifle strained, for Jim Lee felt guilty when he looked at his daughter; and Lide hadn’t half forgiven him his actions toward her idolised Ed. Since Ed had been forbidden her society, Lide loved him much better than before.
Thus started Jim Lee for the city on Ice Company matters, Tuesday afternoon. Christmas Eve was the following Thursday. Jim Lee would return on the Monday or Tuesday after. He was fated to find some startling changes on his coming back.
VII – AUNT ANN PLOTS
AUNT Ann found much to occupy her during the hours before Christmas Eve. There were forty-eight of these hours. Aunt Ann needed them all.
For one matter she made Ezra drive her over to the County Seat. She wanted to see her brother, Will Pickering, who was Probate Judge of the County. Aunt Ann also dispatched a letter by trusty messenger to her sister, Mary Newton, who lived at Eastern Crossroads, some seven miles from Stowe. As a last assignment, Aunt Ann told Ezra to go over and ask Ed to come up to the house.
“You’ll be at the Christmas tree at the church tonight, won’t you, Ed?” asked Aunt Ann, after making some excuse for sending for him. She put the question quite casually.
“Well! be sure and come, Ed,” said Aunt Ann. “And more’n that, be sure and dress yourself up. I think I’ll need you to help me get things off the high limbs.”
Aunt Ann, as she led Lide to his side. “Now, Brother Crandall, if you will perform the ceremony – the short form, please, and leave out the word ‘obey’ – the distribution will be complete.”
“But the licence!” gasped the Rev. Crandall.
“There it is,” said Aunt Ann, “with my brother Will’s seal and signature as Probate Judge on it. You don’t s’pose I had Ezra drive me clear to the County Seat in the dead of winter for nothing?”
The ceremony was over. Ed and Lide were “Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Church;” and the entire population of Stowe, some in tears, all in earnest, were kissing the bride and shaking hearty hands with the groom. That latter young gentleman was dazed and happy, and looked both.
“Now, Ed,” said Aunt Ann, after kissing him and then kissing Lide, “I’m your mother; and I’ll begin to tell you what to do. You put Lide in your cutter and head Grey Eagle for Eastern Cross-roads. I sent Mary word you were coming, and there’s a trunk full of Lide’s things gone over. Stay a week. If you need collars, or shirts or anything, Mary will give you some of John’s. Stay a week and then come home. Father will be back from the Ice Company Tuesday, and by Thursday of next week, when you return, I’ll have him fully convinced that all is ordered for the best, and whatever is, is right. So kiss your mother again, children, and start. I hear Grey Eagle’s bells a-jingling, where Dick Bond’s brought him to the door.”