"Don't you give me none of yer saace," said Old Crab, seizing the boy by one ear, to which he gave a vicious wrench.
"Let me alone," said the boy, flushing up with the sudden irriation of pain and the bitter sense of injustice.
"Let you alone? I guess I won't; talking saace to me that 'ere way. Guess I 'll show you who 's master. It 's time you was walked off down to the barn, sir, and find out who 's your master," he said, as he seized the boy by the collar and drew him off.
"O Lord!" said the woman, running out and stretching her hands instinctively after them. "Father, do let the boy alone."
She could not help this cry any more than a bird can help a shriek when she sees the hawk pouncing down on her nest, though she knew perfectly well that she might as well have shouted a petition in the angry face of the northeast wind.
"Take off your jacket," said Old Crab, as soon as he had helped himself to a long cart-whip which stood there.
The boy belonged to that class of amiable, good-natured children who are not easily irritated or often provoked, but who, when moved by a great injustice or cruelty, are thrown into convulsions of passion. The smallest and most insignificant animal, in moments of utter despair, when every fibre of its being is made vital with the energy of desperate resistance, often has a force which will make the strongest and boldest stand at bay. The boy retreated a pace or two, braced his back against the manger, while his whole form trembled and appeared to dilate, and it seemed as if blue streams of light glared from his eyes like sparks struck from burning steel.
"Strike me if you dare, you wicked, dreadful man," he shouted. "Don't you know that God sees you? God is my Father, and my mother is gone to God; and if you hurt me He 'll punish you. You know I have n't done anything wrong, and God knows it. Now strike me if you dare."
The sight of any human being in a singular and abnormal state has something appalling about it; and at this moment the child really appeared to Old Crab like something supernatural. He stood a moment looking at him, and then his eyes suddenly seemed fixed on something above and beyond him, for he gazed with a strange, frightened expression; and at last, pushing with his hands, called out, "Go along; get away, get away! I hain't touched him," and, turning, fled out of the barn.
He did not go to the house again, but to the village tavern, and, entering the bar-room with a sort of distraught air, called for a dram, and passed the evening in a cowering state of quiet in the corner, which was remarked on by many as singular.
The boy came back into the house.
"Massy to us, child," said the old woman, "I thought he 'd half killed ye."
"No, he has n't touched me. God would n't let him," said the boy.
"Well, I declare for 't; he must have sent the angels that shut the lion's mouth when Daniel was in the den," said the woman. "I would n't 'a' had him struck ye, not for ten dollars."
The moon was now rising, large, white, and silvery, yet with a sort of tremulous, rosy flush, as it came up in the girdle of a burning autumn horizon. The boy stood a moment looking at it. His eyes were still dilated with that unnatural light, and his little breast heaving with waves of passion not yet tranquillized.
"Which way did he go?" said the woman.
"Up the road," said the boy.
"To the tavern," said the woman. "He 's been there before this afternoon. At any rate, then, he 'll let us alone awhile. There comes the men home to supper. Come in; I 've got a turnover I made a purpose for ye."
"No, I must bid you good by, now," said the boy. "I can't stay here any longer."
"Why, where be ye going?"
"Going to look for a better place, where I can take care of Tina," said the boy.
"Ye ain't a going to leave me?" said the old woman. "Yet I can't want ye to stay. I can't have nothin' nor nobody."
"I 'll come back one of these days," said the boy cheerfully, - "come and see you."
"Stay and get your supper, anyhow," pleaded the old woman. "I hate ter have ye go, drefful bad."
"I don't want any supper," said the child; "but if you 'll give me a little basket of things, - I want 'em for Tina."
The old soul ran to her buttery, and crammed a small splint basket with turnovers, doughnuts, and ample slices of rye bread and butter, and the boy took it and trudged off, just as the hired men were coming home.
"Hulloah, bub!" shouted they, "where ye goin'?"
"Going to seek my fortune," said the boy cheerfully.
"Jest the way they all go," said the old woman.
"Where do you suppose the young un 'll fetch up?" said one of the men to the other.
"No business of mine, - can't fetch up wus than he has ben a doin'."
"Old Crab a cuttin' up one of his shines, I s'pose?" said the other, interrogatively.
"Should n't wonder; 'bout time, - ben to the tavern this afternoon, I reckon."
The boy walked along the rough stony road towards Miss Asphyxia's farm. It was a warm, mellow evening in October. The air had only a pleasant coolness. Everything was tender and bright. A clump of hickory-trees on a rocky eminence before him stood like pillars of glowing gold in the twilight; one by one little stars looked out, winking and twinkling at the lonely child, as it seemed to him, with a friendly, encouraging ray, like his mother's eyes.
That afternoon he had spent trying to comfort his little sister, and put into her soul some of the childlike yet sedate patience with which he embraced his own lot, and the good hopes which he felt of being able some time to provide for her when he grew bigger. But he found nothing but feverish impatience, which all his eloquence could scarcely keep within bounds. He had, however, arranged with her that he should come evenings after she had gone to bed, and talk to her at the window of her bedroom, that she should not be so lonesome nights. The perfectly demoniac violence which Old Crab had shown this night had determined him not to stay with him any longer. He would take his sister, and they would wander off, a long, long way, till they came to better people, and then he would try again to get work, and ask some good woman to be kind to Tina. Such, in substance, was the plan that occurred to the child; and accordingly that night, after little Tina had laid her head on her lonely pillow, she heard a whispered call at her window. The large, bright eyes opened very wide as she sat up in bed and looked towards the window, where Harry's face appeared.
"It 's me Tina, - I 've come back, - be very still. I 'm going to stay in the barn till everybody 's asleep, and then I 'll come and wake you, and you get out of the window and come with me."
"To be sure I will, Harry. Let me come now, and sleep with you in the barn."
"No, Tina, that would n't do; lie still. They 'd see us. Wait till everybody 's asleep. You just lie down and go to sleep. I 'll get in at your window and waken you when it 's time."
At this moment the door of the child's room was opened; the boy's face was gone in an instant from the window. The child's heart was beating like a trip-hammer; there was a tingling in her ears; but she kept her little eyes tightly shut.
"O, here 's that brown towel I gin her to hem,' said Miss Asphyxia peacefully. "She 's done her stent this arternoon. That 'ere whipping did some good."
"You 'll never whip me again," thought the defiant little heart under the bedclothes.
* * * * *
Old Crab came home that night thoroughly drunk, - a thing that did not very often occur in his experience. He commonly took only just enough to keep himself in a hyena's state of temper, but not enough to dull the edge of his cautious, grasping, money-saving faculties. But to-night he had had a experience that had frightened him, and driven him to deeper excess as a refuge from thought.
When the boy, upon whom he was meaning to wreak his diabolic passions, so suddenly turned upon him in the electric fury of enkindled passion, there was a sort of jar or vibration of the nervous element in the man's nature, that brought about a result not uncommon to men of his habits. As he was looking in a sort of stunned,
stupid wonder at the boy, where he stood braced against the manger, he afterwards declared that he saw suddenly in the dark space above it, hovering in the air, the exact figure and form of the dead woman whom they had buried in the graveyard only a few weeks before. "Her eyes was looking right at me, like live coals," he said; "and she had up her hand as if she 'd 'a' struck me; and I grew all over cold as a stone."
"What do you suppose 't was?" said his auditor.
"How should I know," said Old Crab. "But there I was; and that very night the young 'un ran off. I would n't have tried to get him back, not for my right hand, I tell you. Tell you what," he added, rolling a quid of tobacco reflectively in his mouth, "I don't like dead folks. Ef dead folks 'll let me alone I 'll let them alone. That 'ere fair, ain't it?"
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EMPTY BIRD'S NEST.
THE next morning showed as brilliant a getting up of gold and purple as ever belonged to the toilet of a morning. There was to be seen from Miss Asphyxia's bedroom window a brave sight, if there had been any eyes to enjoy it, - a range of rocky cliffs with little pin-feathers of black pine upon them, and behind them the sky all aflame with bars of massy light, - orange and crimson and burning gold, - and long, bright rays, darting hither and thither, touched now the window of a farm-house, which seemed to kindle and flash back a morning salutation; now they hit a tall scarlet maple, and now they pierced between clumps of pine, making their black edges flame with gold; and over all, in the brightening sky, stood the morning star, like a great, tremulous tear of light, just ready to fall on a darkened world.
Not a bit of all this saw Miss Asphyxia, though she had looked straight out at it. Her eyes and the eyes of the cow, who, with her horned front, was serenely gazing out of the barn window on the same prospect, were equally unreceptive.
She looked at all this solemn pomp of gold and purple, and the mysterious star, and only said: "Good day for killin' the hog, and I must be up gettin' on the brass kettle. I should like to know why Sol ain't been a stirrin' an hour ago. I 'd really like to know how long folks would sleep ef I 'd let 'em."
Here an indistinct vision came into Miss Asphyxia's mind of what the world would be without her to keep it in order. She called aloud to her prime minster, who slept in the loft above, "Sol! Sol! You awake?"
"Guess I be," said Sol; and a thundering sound of cowhide boots on the stairs announced that Sol's matutinal toilet was complete.
"We 're late this morning," said Miss Asphyxia, in a tone of virtuous indignation.
"Never knowed the time when we wa' n't late," said Sol, composedly.
"You thump on that 'ere child's door, and tell her to be lively," said Miss Asphyxia.
"Yaas 'm I will," said Sol, while secretly he was indulging in a long and low chuckle, for Sol had been party to the fact that the nest of that young bird had been for many hours forsaken. He had instructed the boy what road to take, and bade him "walk spry and he would be out of the parish of Needmore afore daybreak. Walk on, then, and follow the road along the river," said Sol, "and it 'll bring you to Oldtown, where our folks be. You can't miss your victuals and drink any day in Oldtown, call at what house you may; and ef you 's to get into Deacon Badger's, why, your fortin 's made. The Deacon he 's a soft-spoken man to everybody, - white folks, niggers, and Indians, - and Ma'am Badger keeps regular poor-man's tavern, and won't turn even a dog away that behaves himself. Ye could n't light on wus than ye have lit on, - for Old Crab's possessed of a devil, everybody knows; and as for Miss Asphyxia, she 's one of the kind of sperits that goes walkin' through dry places seekin' rest and findin' none. Lordy massy, an old gal like her ain't nobody to bring up a child. It takes a woman that 's got juice in her to do that. Why, that 'ere crittur 's drier 'n a two-year-old mullen-stalk. There ain't no sap ris in her these 'ere thirty years. She means well; but, lordy, you might jest as well give young turkey chicks to the old gobbler, and let hem stram off in the mowin' grass with 'em, as give a delicate little gal like your sister to her to raise; so you jest go long and keep up your courage, like a brave boy as ye be, and you 'll come to somethin' by daylight"; - and Sol added to these remarks a minced pie, with a rye crust of a peculiarly solid texture, adapted to resist any of the incidents of time and travel, which pie had been set out as part of his own last night's supper.
When, therefore, he was exhorted to rap on the little girl's door, he gave sundry noisy, gleeful thumps, - pounding with both fists, and alternating with a rhythmical kick of the cowhide boots, calling out in stentorian tones: "Come, little un, - time you 's up. Miss Sphyxy's comin' down on ye. Better be lively! Bless me, how the gal sleeps!"
"Don't take the door off the hinges," said Miss Asphyxia, sweeping down stairs. "Let me come; I 'll wake her, I guess!" and with a dipper of cold water in her hand, Miss Asphyxia burst into the little room. "What! - what! - where!" she said, looking under the bed, and over and around with a dazed expression. "What 's this mean? Do tell if the child 's really for once got up of herself afore I called her. Sol, see if she 's out pickin' up chips!"
Sol opened the door and gazed out with well-affected stolidity at the wood-pile, which, garnished with a goodly show of large chips, was now being touched up and brightened by the first rays of the morning sun.
"Ain't here," he said.
"Ain't here? Why, where can she be then? There ain't nobody swallowed her, I s'pose; and if anybody 's run off with her in the night, I guess they 'd bring her back by daylight."
"She must 'a' run off," said Sol.
"Run! Where could she 'a' run to?"
"Mebbe she 's gone to her brother 's."
"I bet you," said Miss Asphyxia, "it 's that 'ere boy that 's the bottom of it all. You may always know that there 's a boy at the bottom, when there 's any deviltry up. He was here yesterday, - now wa' n't he?"
"Wal, I reckon he was," said Sol. "But, massy, Miss Sphyxy, ef the pigs is to be killed to-day, we can't stan' a talkin' about what you nor me can't help. Ef the child 's gone, why she 's somewhere in the Lord's world, and it 's likely she 'll keep, - she won't melt away like the manna in the wilderness; and when the pigs is killed, and the pork salted down and got out o' the way, it 'll be time enough to think o' lookin' on her up. She wa' n't no gret actual use, - and with kettles o' hot water round, it 's jest as well not to have a child under yer feet. Ef she got scalded, why, there 's your time a taking care on her, and mebbe a doctor to pay; so it 's jest as well that things be as they be. I call it kind o' providential," said Sol, giving a hoist to his breeches by means of a tug at his suspenders, which gesture was his usual indication that he was girding up the loins of his mind for an immediate piece of work; and, turning forthwith, he brought in a mighty armful of wood, with massive back-log and fore-stick, well grizzled and bearded with the moss that showed that they were but yesterday living children of the forest.
The fire soon leaped and crackled and roared, being well fed with choice split hickory sticks of last year, of which Sol kept ample store; and very soon the big brass kettle was swung over, upon the old iron crane, and the sacrificial water was beginning to simmer briskly, while Miss Asphyxia prepared breakfast, not only for herself and Sol, but for Primus King, a vigorous old negro, famed as a sort of high-priest in all manner of butchering operations for miles around. Primus lived in the debatable land between Oldtown and Needmore, and so was at the call of all who needed an extra hand in both parishes.
The appearance of Primus at the gate in his butcher's frock, knife in hand, in fact put an end, in Miss Asphyxia's mind, to all thoughts apart from the present eventful crisis; and she hastened to place upon the table the steaming sausages which, with her usual despatch, had been put down for their morning meal. A mighty pitcher of cider flanked this savory dish, to which Primus rolled delighted eyes at the moment of sitting down. The time had not yet dawned, in those simple, old New England days, when the black skin of the African was held to disqualify him from a seat at the social board with the men w
hom he joined in daily labor. The strength of the arm, and the skill of the hand, and the willingness of the mind of the workman, in those days, were his passport to equal social rights; and old Primus took rank, in the butchering season, as in fact a sort of leader and commander. His word was law upon all steps and stages of those operations which should transform the plethoric, obese inhabitants of the sty into barrels of pink-hued salt-pork or savory hams and tenderloins and spareribs, or immense messes of sausage-meat.
Concerning all these matters, Primus was an oracle. His fervid Ethiopian nature glowed with a broad and visible delight, his black face waxed luminous with the oil of gladness, while he dwelt on the savory subject, whereon, sitting at breakfast, he dilated with an unctuous satisfaction that soothed the raven down of darkness in Miss Asphyxia's perturbed mind, till something bearing a distant analogy to a smile played over her rugged features.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND.
OUR little travellers, meanwhile, had had a prosperous journey along the rocky road between Needmore and Oldtown, in which Sol had planted their feet. There was a great, round-orbed, sober-eyed October moon in the sky, that made everything as light as day; and the children were alive in every nerve with the keen interest of their escape.
"We are going just as Hensel and Grettel did," said the little girl. "You are Hensel, and I am Grettel, and Miss Asphyxia is the old witch. I wish only we could have burnt her up in her old oven before we came away!"
"Now Tina, you must n't wish such things really," said the boy, somewhat shocked at such very extreme measures. "You see, what happens in stories would n't do really to happen."
"O, but Harry, you don't know how I hate - how I h-ate - Miss Sphyxy! I hate her - most as much as I love you!"
"But Tina, mother always told us it was wicked to hate anybody. We must love our enemies."
"You don't love Old Crab Smith, do you?"
"No, I don't; but I try not to hate him," said the boy. "I won't think anything about him."
"I can't help thinking," said Tina; "and when I think, I am so angry! I feel such a burning in here!" she said, striking her little breast; "it 's just like fire!"
"Then don't think about her at all," said the boy; "it is n't pleasant to feel that way. Think about the whippoorwills singing in the woods over there, - how plain they say it, don't they? - and the frogs, all singing, with their little, round, yellow eyes looking up out of the water; and the moon looking down on us so pleasantly! she seems just like mother!"