Silas Strong 3

Silas Strong 3

All at once the thought of his little bank came to him. It was nearly

full of pennies. He rose in bed and listened. The room was dark, but he

could hear Aunt Marie at work in the kitchen. That gave him courage, and

he crept stealthily out of bed and went to his trunk and felt for the

little square house of painted tin with a slot in the chimney. It lay

beneath his Sunday clothes, and he raised and gently shook it. He could

hear that familiar and pleasant sound of the coin.

 

Meanwhile his father had been sitting alone. For weeks he had been

rapidly going downhill. His friends had all turned against him. He had

been fairly stoned with reproaches. He could see only trouble behind,

disgrace before, and despair on either side. He held a revolver in his

hand. A child's voice rang out in the silence, calling "father."

 

Gordon leaned forward upon the table. He began to be conscious of things

beyond himself. He heard the great mill-saw roaring in the still night;

he heard the tick of the clock near him. Suddenly his little son peered

through the halfopen door.

 

"Father," Socky whispered.

 

Gordon started from his chair, and, seeing the boy, sat down again.

 

Socky was near crying but restrained himself. Without a word he

deposited his bank on the table. It was a moment of solemn renunciation.

He was like one before the altar giving up the vanities of the world.

He looked soberly at his father and said, "I'm going to give you all my

money."

 

Gordon said not a word and there was a moment of silence.

 

"More than a dollar in it," the boy suggested, proudly.

 

Still his father sat resting his head upon his hand in silence while he

seemed to be trying the point of a pen.

 

"You may give me five cents if you've a mind to when you open it," Socky

added.

 

Gordon turned slowly and kissed the forehead of his little son. The boy

put his arms around the neck of his father and begged him to come and

lie upon the bed and tell a story.

 

So it happened the current of ruin was turned aside--the heat-oppressed

brain diverted from its purpose. For as the man lay beside his children

he began to think of them and less of himself. "I cannot leave them," he

concluded. "When I go I shall take them with me."

 

In the long, still hours he lay thinking.

 

The south wind began to stir the pines, and cool air from out of the

wild country came through an open window. Fathoms of dusty, dead air

which had hung for weeks over the valley, growing hotter and more

oppressive in the burning sunlight, moved away. A cloud passing

northward flung a sprinkle of rain upon the broad, smoky flats and was

drained before it reached the great river. All who were sick and weary

felt the ineffable healing of the woodland breeze. It soothed the aching

brain of the mill-owner and slackened the ruinous toil of his thoughts.

 

Gordon slept soundly for the first time in almost a month.

 

 

 

 

II

 

NEXT morning Gordon felt better. He began even to consider what he

could do to mend his life. The children got ready for Sunday-school and

were on their way to church an hour ahead of time. Sue, in her white

dress and pretty bonnet, walked with a self-conscious, don't-touch-me

air. Socky, in his little sailor suit, had the downward eye of

meditation. Each carried a Testament and looked neither to right nor

left. They hurried as if eager for spiritual refreshment. They were,

however, like the veriest barbarians setting out with spears and arrows

in quest of revenge. They were thinking of Lizzie Cornell and that boy

of the red head and the doomed uncle. Socky's lips moved silently as he

hurried. One might have inferred that he was repeating his golden text.

Such an inference would have been far from the truth. He was, in fact,

tightening the grasp of memory on those inspiring words: "an' Uncle Sile

fetched him a cuff with his fist an' broke the bear's neck, an' then he

brought him home on his back an' et him for dinner." They joined a group

of children who were sitting on the steps of the old church. Their

hearts beat fast when they saw Lizzie coming with her cousin, the

red-headed boy.

 

A number went forth to meet the two.

 

"Tell us the badger story," said they to the red-headed boy.

 

"Pooh! that ain't much," he answered, modestly.

 

"Please tell us," they insisted.

 

"Wal, one day my Uncle Mose see a side-hill badger--"

 

"What's a side-hill badger?" a voice interrupted.

 

"An animal what lives on a hill, an' has legs longer on one side than

on t 'other, so 't he can run round the side of it," said he, glibly, and

with a look of pity for such ignorance.

 

"Go on with the story," said another voice.

 

"My Uncle Mose sat an' watched one day up in the limb of a tree above

the hole of a badger. By-an'-by an ol' he badger come out, an' my uncle

dropped onto his back, an' rode him round an' round the hill 'til he was

jes' tuckered out.

 

Then Uncle Mose put a rope on his neck an' tied him to a tree, an' the

ol' badger dug an' dug until they was a hole in the ground so big you

could put a house in it. An' my uncle he got an idee, an' so one day

he fetched him out to South Colton an' learnt him how to dig wells an'

cellars, an' bym-by the ol' badger could earn more money than a hired

man."

 

"Shucks!" said Socky, turning upon his adversary with sneering, studied

scorn. "That's nothing!"

 

Then proudly stepping forward, he flung the latest exploit of his Uncle

Silas into the freckled face of the red-headed boy. It stunned the able

advocate of old Moses Leonard--a mighty hunter in his time--and there

fell a moment of silence followed by murmurs of applause.

 

The little barbarian--Lizzie Cornell--had begun to scent the battle and

stood sharpening an arrow.

 

"It's a lie," said the red-headed boy, recovering the power of speech.

 

"His father's a thief an' a drunkard, anyway." That was the arrow of

Lizzie Cornell.

 

Socky had raised his fists to vindicate his honor, when, hearing the

remark about his father, he turned quickly upon the girl who made it.

 

What manner of rebuke he would have administered, history is unable to

record. The minister had come. The children began to scatter. Lizzie and

her red-headed cousin ran around the church. Socky and Sue stood with

angry faces.

 

Suddenly Socky leaned upon the church door and burst into tears. He

dimly comprehended the disgrace which Lizzie had sought to put upon him.

The minister could not persuade him to enter the church or to explain

the nature of his trouble.

 

When all had gone into Sunday-school, the boy turned, wiping his eyes.

Sue stood beside him, a portrait of despair.

 

"Le's go home an' tell our father," said she.

 

They started slowly, but as their indignation grew their feet hurried.

Neither spoke in the long journey to their door. They ran through the

hall and rushed in upon their father who sat reading.

 

"Oh, father!" said the girl, in excited tones; "Lizzie Cornell says

you're a thief an' a drunkard."

 

Gordon rose and turned pale.

 

The hands and voices of the children were ever raised against him.

 

"It's a lie!" said he, turning away.

 

He stood a moment looking out of the window. He must take them to some

lonely part of the wilderness and there make an end of his trouble and

of theirs. He turned to the children, saying, "Right after dinner we'll

start for the woods."

 

So it befell that in the afternoon of a Sunday late in June, Socky and

Sue, with all their effects in a pack-basket, and their father beside

them, started in a spring-wagon over the broad, stony terraces that lift

southward into thickening woods, on their way to great peril.

 

And so, too, it befell that in leaving home and the tearful face of dear

Aunt Marie, they were sustained by a thought of that good and mighty man

whom they hoped soon to see--their Uncle Silas.

 

 

 

 

III.

 

THE day was hot and still. Slowly they mounted the foot-hills between

meadows aglow with color. The country seemed to flow ever downward past

their sleepy eyes on its way to the great valley. The daisies were like

white foam on the slow cascade of Bowman's Hill, and there were masses

of red and yellow which appeared to be drifting on the flats. A driver

sat on the front seat, and Gordon behind with Socky and Sue. The little

folk chattered together and wearied their father with queries about

birds and beasts. By-and-by the girl grew silent, her chin sank upon her

breast, and her head began to shake and sway as their wagon clattered

over the rough road. In a moment Socky's head was nodding also, and the

feet of both swung limp below the wagon-seat.

 

They had seemed to sink and rise and struggle and cry out in the

silence, and were now as those drowned beneath it. Gordon drew them

towards him and lifted their legs upon the cushioned wagon-seat. He sat

thinking as they rode. They had been hard on him--those creditors. He

had not meant to steal, but only to borrow that small sum which he had

taken out of the business in order to feed and clothe the children who

lay beside him. True, some dollars of it had gone to buy oblivion--a few

hours of unearned, of unholy relief. How else, thought he, could he have stood the reproaches of brutal men?