Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders

  II

  "THE VILLAGE PRIDE"

  Well, mother gave me a long talking to, after that. Not scolding, butconversation, just as if I was a human being. Somehow it's easier to getalong with me that way.

  I reckon I averaged three sessions a week in the woodshed, but fathermight as well have walloped a lime-kiln, for all the tears he drew outof me.

  Yet let mother talk to me in her quiet way--easy and gentle, the wordssoaking in, and the first thing you knew, I had a lump in my throat, andsome blamed thing got in my eyes.

  I wanted to do what was right by all of them, I certainly did. It was amisfit all round, there's where the trouble come. Father couldn'tpossibly enter into my feelings. Sixteen I was, staggering withstrength, red-headed, and aching to be at something all the time. Itain't in reason I could remember to put one foot before theother--right-left, right-left, day in and day out.

  Then, as soon as I'd cleaned up all the boys in our place, every youngman for miles around who made pretensions to being double-handed came tofind what I was made of.

  It's all right to say don't fight, but when this young man slouchedalong and cast disparagin' eyes in my direction, it was plain somebodyhad to be hurt, and it might as well not be me.

  Honest, I'd rather have been in the woods, fishing, or just laying on myback, watching the pines swinging over me, so slow, so regular, tastingthe smell of 'em, and fancying I was an Injun or Mr. Ivanhoe, orwhatever idee was uppermost at the time, than out in the dusty road,smiting my fellow-man. But if you should be mean enough to ask me if Itook no pleasure in the art of assault and battery, I'd have to admit aslight inclination.

  Not that I wanted to hurt anybody, either--small malice there was inthose mix-ups! I reckon, with the other lad, as with me, it was more acase of doing your little darnedest--of letting out all you held, oncein so often--that made the interest.

  But father was powerful opposed to scrapping, and, of course, motherdidn't like it, neither. The only place a woman likes a row is in abook.

  Women is fond of bargains. They like a fine fight with no bills to pay.

  It was a little that way with mother. This time she was talking to me,she brought up for my instruction Great-grandfather Saunders, who foughtin the Revolution. He was one of 'em that clubbed their muskets atBunker Hill. When they asked the old man about it afterward he said heacted that way because he was too darned scart to run. Howsomever, hewas a fair-to-medium quarrelsome old gentleman when his blood was up.Mother carefully explained to me that was different--_he_ was fightingfor his country. Yet, at the same time, I recollect seeing a letter theold man wrote, calling his neighbors a lot of rum-swilling,psalm-singing hypocrites. Now a man's neighbors are his country. I thinkGrandpa Saunders liked a row, myself.

  Next, mother told me about my French forebears, and a nice peaceful lotthey were, for sure. The head of the outfit--the Sieur De LaTour--sassed the king himself to his teeth--he didn't care no more abouta king than I do--unless it happened to match on a two-card draw. Therewas some racket about a friend of Many-times-great-grandfather De LaTour's offending the king. He took refuge with the old man, whilethe king sent the sheriff after him. "You must yield him to theking!" says the sheriff. "Not to any king under God!" saysMany-times-great-grandfather De La Tour. Hence, trouble. My! Howmother's eyes shone when she repeated that proud answer. Yet suppose Isassed father like that? There's something about distance lendingenchantment to the view. Well, they downed the old man, although hestacked the posse around him in great shape. Meantime his friend wasusing both feet to acquire some of that distance to lend enchantment tothe view, I just spoke of.

  One thing stuck out in these old-timers. Whatever their faults might be,meanness wasn't one of 'em. Therefore I indorsed the lot. I left herthat day determined to be such a son as anybody would be proud of. Why,in half an hour's time I was wondering how I could make the virtuousjobs last. Already my chest swelled, as I see myself pointed to on thestreet as a model boy.

  My first stagger at being the Village Pride come off next day--Sunday.It would take a poet to describe how much I didn't like Sunday, and alarge, black-whiskered poet, at that. Man! Sitting in that little oldchurch of a warm day, with the bees bumbling outside, and all kinds ofsmells coaxing, coaxing me to the woods, and a kind of uneasy, dryfeeling of the skin, that only the water-hole by the cider-mill couldcure. Then to know, too, that the godless offspring of the unregeneratewere at that minute diving from the dam--chow!--into the slippery coolwater--and me the best diver in the crowd....

  I wriggled, squirmed my fingers into knots, and let my fancy roam.Roaming fancy was my one amusement in church.

  We had the kind of minister who roars one minute and whispers the next.I always imagined he shouted as loud as he dared, short of waking thebaby. I never was done being surprised, after he'd hissed the conclusionthrough his teeth in a way that should have sent chills down yourbackbone, to hear him rattle off a bunch of notices as fast as he couldtalk.

  I couldn't get interested in the sermon, so my mind wandered. At timesan elephant sneaked through the back door and blew a barrel of waterdown the preacher's back. Then there was the monkey. He skipped gailyfrom pew to pew, yanking the women's bonnets off, pulling the men'shair, hanging from the roof-beams by his tail, and applying adisrespectful thumb to his nose. That elephant and monkey got to be asreal as anything. Sometimes they'd jump into life when I wasn't thinkingof 'em at all.

  This Sunday, however, I made a manful stand against temptation. As soonas the elephant peeked through the door, I took a long breath and forcedhim out. I didn't let the monkey much more 'n bob his head over DeaconAnker's pew, although one of my pet delights was when he grabbed thedeacon's top-knot and twisted it into a rope.

  And my reward for an honest try was to listen to as lovely a tale oftreachery and unladylike behavior as I can remember. The sermon wasabout a Mrs. Jael. She took in one of the enemy, fed him fine, and whilehe was asleep, grabbed a hammer and a railroad spike and nailed him tothe floor by his head. Whilst I was revolving in my mind how, and onwhat person, I could best apply these teachings, another thoughtoccurred to me.

  "Mother!" I whispers, pulling her sleeve.

  "Sssh!" says she; "what is it, Will?"

  "You never could have done that," I says.

  She squeezed my hand and whispered back, "You're right, Will," with anapproving smile.

  "No," says I, still full of my discovery, "you'd have pounded yourthumb."

  Her face went ten different ways and then she snorted right out. It wasa scandal. It took her so by surprise she couldn't get the best of it,so we two had to leave the church. When we got outside she sat down andlaughed for five minutes.

  "Whatever does possess you to say such things?" she says. "It wasdreadful!"

  Next day father patted me on the back with a nice limber sapling, formisbehavior in church. This caused the first show of rebellion I eversaw in mother.

  She came out to the woodshed when court was in session.

  "I'd like to speak to you a minute," she says to father.

  "I have no time now," he answers short.

  "I'd like to speak to you a minute," repeats mother: there was a hint ofMany-times-great-grandfather De La Tour in her tones. Father consideredfor a minute; then laid down the club and went out. First they talkedquietly. Next, I heard mother--not because she spoke loud, but becausethere was such a push behind the words:

  "I am as much a culprit as he is," she says; "why not use the whip onme?"

  Father talked strong about being master in his own house, and like that.It was bluff--boy that I was, I caught the hollow ring of it. Yet motherchanged her tone instantly. She turned gently to argument. "You _are_the master," she says; "but would you make your own son a slave? Why doyou treat mistakes as crimes? Why do you expect a man's control in asixteen-year-old boy? I have never asked for much, but now I ask--"

  They walked so far away I couldn't hear what she asked. I didn't care.She was on my side; I'll
swear I didn't feel the ridges on my back.

  When father returned and said, "Well, you can go now," I left thatwoodshed a happy boy.

  I made up my mind even stronger to be a monument of behavior. Whether itwas mother's talk, or that I did really keep out of scrapes, at least Igot through the week without a thrashing.

  Then come Sunday again. My Sunday-school teacher was a maiden lady bythe name of Mehitabel Demilt--aunt to Thomas F., my present partner.Miss Hitty wasn't much to look at. Growing her nose had absorbed most ofher vitality, and her years was such she could have looked on a goodpart of mankind right motherly, if she'd been inclined that way.Howsomever, she wore the styles of sweet sixteen, and whenever a mancome around she frisked like a clothes-horse.

  But a kinder woman never lived. When with the boys she dropped hertomfoolery, too. Trouble was, them young clothes stood for all shedreamt of--give them dreams the go-by, and the race was lost for poorMiss Hitty. Feathers flyin' and ribbons streaming, she made herselfbelieve she was still in the running; without 'em, she knew only toowell what it was to be a lonely, long-nosed, forsaken, homely old maid.I don't blame her a particle. Her finery stood to her like whisky to abusted man. Take a little wine for your stomachache, and a few clothesfor your heartache.

  A trifle gay for father's crowd was Miss Hitty, but they didn't dast tosay a word. She belonged to one of our best families, and herbrother-in-law, who could be as ungodly a man under provocation as youever see, held a mortgage on the church. He'd 'a' dumped the outfit intothe snows of winter, and never a second thought, if they didn't treatMiss Hitty right. So they overlooked things and gave her the Bible classto run. Mighty nice to us boys she was; she certainly was. Curious mixof part child and part horse-sense woman. The woman savvied her placeall right, but the child part couldn't stand for the pain of it.

  If there was anything that made Miss Hitty warlike it was cruelty. Seemsthe Mrs. Jael sermon riled her plumb through. I suppose, perhaps, shedidn't understand how any woman could be so recklessly extravagant as todrive a nail through a sound man's head, and spoil him. Miss Hitty mighthave spiked his coat-tails to the floor, but his head? Never. Joshingaside, she beat the tom-tom over that sermon, giving us boys a medicinetalk that sticks still: how we were all fools not to make the earth aspleasant as we could, so long 's we got to live here. It seemedreasonable. I thought about it all that night, trying to find a subjectto make better and happier, as Miss Hitty said.

  Before I went to sleep I'd located my victim. First thing in the morningI went and told mother all about it. You know I'm medium enthusiasticover what I'm going to do, so I was laying it off to her in great shape,when I brought up short, seeing her eyes full of tears. I plumped downand hugged her.

  "What's the matter? I didn't mean to make you cry," I says, feeling itwas my luck to do the wrong thing, and not half try.

  "I'm not crying, little boy," she says; "I'm only one of those ladies inthe books who don't want their true-loves to go to war." She kissed me.We often used to play parts of those books, so I took it just as shesaid, thinking it astonishing how well she acted the part; not muchrealizing what it meant to a mother who loved her boy, and knew he meantno harm, to have him clubbed all the time. But she shook off the tearsright away.

  "Arise!" says she, laughing, and putting a flower in my coat. "Arise,Sir William of the Hot Heart! Go thy way and conquer."

  So I giggled and looked simple, give her one of them boys' kisses thatwould come under the head of painful operations to anybody but a mother,and skipped, as graceful as legs four foot long would permit, to my newjob.