KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS
April 8, 19—.
Dearest Winnies:
Daggers and dirks! Did I say it was dull out here? Deluded mortal! For the past week it’s been so strenuous that I have seriously considered moving to Bedlam for a rest. If I’m not gray by the time I’m thirty it’ll be because I’m bald.
As Mistress of Ceremonies your humble servant is a rather watery success. You know from sad experience my fatal fondness for trying new and startling experiments and also my genius for leaving the most important things undone. Remember the time I was Lemonade Committee when we climbed Windy Hill and I carefully provided water and sugar and spoons and glasses, and no lemons? And the time I hid the unwashed dishes in the oven at Aunt Anna’s and then went home with Gladys and forgot all about them, and Aunt Anna nearly had spasms because she thought her silverware had been stolen? And the time we went to Ellen’s Isle and I mislaid the vital portion of my traveling suit half an hour before the train started and had to go in a borrowed suit that didn’t fit? Every time little Katherine was given something to do she either forgot to do it altogether, or else did it in such a way as to make herself ridiculous.
The memory of all those things rose up and oppressed me after I had undertaken to stage a Patriotic Pageant for the township of Spencer. I was so afraid I would do something that would turn it into a farce that I began to have nightmares the minute I sank to weary slumber. It was a daring idea, this patriotic pageant. Since history began there had never been a pageant, patriotic or otherwise, in this section. Most of the folks had never seen a circus, or a show, or a parade; so there was nobody to give me any help except Justice. I myself would never have thought of tackling it, but no sooner had my Camp Fire Girls gotten absorbed in Red Cross work, and been thrilled by reading accounts of what Camp Fire Girls were doing in other sections, than they begged me to get up a pageant. I had my misgivings, but, being a Winnebago, I couldn’t back out. A pageant it should be, if it cost my head. (It pretty nearly did, but not in the way I had feared.)
Justice Sherman hailed the plan with delight.
“Go to it,” he encouraged. “I’m with you to the bitter end. I’ve never done it before but I’ll never begin any younger.
“‘There is a tide in the affairs of schoolma’ams,
That, taken at the flood, leads on to Pageants.’
“Lead on MacDuff! Trot out the order of events.”
At Justice’s suggestion I summed up all the possibilities.
“There isn’t much to work with,” I said thoughtfully, having counted up all my assets on the fingers of one hand. “Just ten Camp Fire Girls, about as many boys, one trick mule, and—you.”
“So glad I know, right at the outset, just where I come in,” said Justice politely, “after the mule.”
“Sandhelo’s got his red, white and blue pompom that the girls sent him for Christmas,” I went on, ignoring Justice’s gibe. “We could make red, white and blue harness for him, too.”
“If only he doesn’t get temperamental!” said Justice fervently.
“The girls could wear their Red Cross caps and aprons in one part of it,” I continued, “and flags draped on them when they act out ‘The Spirit of Columbia.’ One of the girls can wear her Ceremonial gown and be the Spirit of Nature that comes to tell the others the secret of the soil that will help them win the war. Oh, ideas are coming to me faster than flies to molasses.”
“Would you advise me to wear my Ceremonial gown or my Red Cross apron and cap?” asked Justice soberly. “I could braid my hair in two pig-tails—”
“Oh, Justice!” I interrupted, “if you only had a soldier’s uniform!” Then, as I saw Justice wince and the laughter die out of his eyes, I stopped abruptly and changed the subject. It was an awfully sore point with him that he had been rejected for the army.
“We’ll have a flag raising, of course, and tableaux,” I rushed on. “Would you put the flag on the schoolhouse, or set up a pole in the ground?”
“I think on the schoolhouse,” said Justice, with a return of interest. “That’s where it belongs.”
Justice and I held more conferences in the next day or so than the King and his Prime Minister. Lessons in the little schoolhouse were abandoned while we drilled and rehearsed for the pageant. Justice and I put together and bought the flag.
“Who’s going to raise it?” asked Justice, shaking the beautiful bright starry folds out of the package.
I considered.
“I think the pupil that has the best record in school should raise it,” suggested Justice.
“I think,” I said slowly, “I’ll let Absalom Butts raise it.”
“Absalom Butts!” exclaimed Justice incredulously. “The laziest, meanest, most mischievous boy in school! I wouldn’t let him be in the pageant, if I had my way, let alone raise the flag.”
“Exactly,” I said calmly. “You’re just like the rest of them. That’s the whole trouble with Absalom Butts. He’s been used to harsh measures all his life. His father has cuffed him about ever since he can remember. Everybody considers him a bad boy and a terror to snakes and all that and now he acts the part thoroughly. He’s so homely that nobody will ever be attracted to him by his looks, and such a poor scholar that he will never make a name for himself at his lessons, and the only way he can make himself prominent is through his pranks. He’s too old to be in school with the rest of the children; he should be with boys of his own age. His father makes him stay there because he is too obstinate to admit that he will never get out by the graduation route, and Absalom takes out his spite on the teacher. I can read him like a book. I’ve tried fighting him to a finish on every point and it hasn’t worked. He’s still ready to break out at a moment’s notice. Now I’m going to change my tactics. I’m going to appoint him, as the oldest pupil, to be my special aid in the pageant, and help work out the details. I’m going to honor him by letting him raise the flag. We’ll see how that will change his mind about playing pranks to spoil the pageant.”
“It won’t work,” said Justice gloomily. “Absalom Butts is Absalom Butts, the son of Elijah Butts; and a chip off the old block. The old man has a mean, crafty disposition, and he probably was just like Absalom when he was young. Absalom is going to do something to spoil that pageant, I see it in his eye. You watch.”
“It’s worth trying, anyhow,” I said determinedly.
“It won’t work,” reiterated Justice. “You can’t change human nature.”
“It worked once,” I said, and I told him about the Dalrymple twins, Antha and Anthony, last summer on Ellen’s Isle.
“So you turned little Cry-baby into a lion of bravery and Sir Boastful into a modest violet!” said Justice, in a tone of incredulity.
“Yes, and if you’d ever seen them at the beginning of the summer you wouldn’t have held any high hopes of changing human nature, either,” I remarked, a little nettled at Justice’s tone.
Justice started to reply, but was seized with a violent fit of coughing that left him leaning weakly against the door. I looked at him in some alarm. I knew it was throat trouble that had kept him out of the army, but it hadn’t seemed to be anything to worry about—just a dry, hacking cough from time to time. Now, standing out there in the brilliant sunshine, he looked very white and haggard.
“You’re all tired out, you’ve been working too hard,” I said, remembering how he had been putting in time after school hours working in Elijah Butts’ cotton storehouse, because it was impossible to get enough men to handle the cotton. Then, by drilling my boys and girls by the hour in military marching and running countless errands for me—poor Justice was in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of my ambition.
“I’m a selfish thing!” I said vehemently.
“Nonsense!” said Justice, holding up his head and beginning to fold up the flag. “I got choked with dust, that’s all.” Manlike, he hated to display any sign of physical weakness before a girl. I decided to say no more about it, but I knew he needed rest.
“Sit down a minute,” I said artfully, sinking down on the doorsill, “and keep me ’mused. I’m tired to death. Tell me all the news in the Metropolis of Spencer.”
Justice fell into the trap. He sat down beside me and launched into a lively imitation of Elijah Butts convincing the school board that the old school books were better than the new ones some venturous soul had suggested.
“If he only knew how you took him off behind his back, he wouldn’t confide in you so trustingly,” said I.
“That’s what comes of being a bargain,” replied Justice loftily. “Great ones linger in my presence, anxious to breathe the same air. The Board coddles me like a rare bit of old china and proudly exhibits me to visitors.
“Oh, by the way,” he added, “I hear there’s a stranger in town.”
I looked up with interest. “Fine or superfine?” I asked.
“Superfine,” replied Justice.
“Where from?” I inquired.
“Like Shelley’s immortal soul,” replied Justice solemnly, “she cometh from afar. She cometh to study Rural School Conditions—sent out by some Commission or other. She’s likely to visit your school. Thought I’d tell you ahead of time so you’d manage to be on the premises when the delegation arrived. She might object to hunting through the woods for you.” Here we were both overcome with laughter at the remembrance of the last “visitation” of the school board.
“I can’t figure out yet why I wasn’t fired,” said I, flicking a sociable spider off my lap with the stem of a leaf. “I would have been willing to bet my eyebrows on it that night. What made them change their minds, I wonder?”
“Maybe it was because they hated to lose the bargain,” answered Justice, half to himself.
“Hated to lose what bargain?” I asked innocently. Then suddenly I understood.
“Justice Sherman!” I exclaimed, starting up. “Did you threaten to leave if they discharged me?”
Justice turned crimson and became reticent. “Well, I don’t know as I threatened them exactly,” he replied in a soothing drawl. “I don’t look very threatening, now, do I?”
“Oh, Justice,” was all I could say, for at the thought of what he had done for me I was stricken dumb.
Verily the power of the Bargain was great in the land!
The pageant grew under our hands until it assumed really respectable proportions. The girls and boys were wild about it and drilled tirelessly by the hour.
“I wish we had a better parade ground,” sighed Justice regretfully, squinting at the small level plot of ground in front of the schoolhouse that was worn bare of grass. “We haven’t room to make a really effective showing with our drill. If only the old schoolhouse wasn’t in the way we could use the space that’s behind it and on both sides of it.”
It was then that I had one of my old-time, wild inspirations. “Move the schoolhouse back,” I said calmly.
Justice shouted. “Why not roll up the road and set it down on the other side of field?” he suggested.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t move the schoolhouse back,” I repeated. “Why not, if it’s in the way? It’s no ornament, anyway.”
Half-amused, half-serious, Justice looked first at me and then at the little one-story shack that went by the name of schoolhouse.
“By Jove! we can do it!” he exclaimed suddenly. “It’ll be no trick at all. Just get her up on rollers and hitch Sandhelo to the pulley rope and let him wind her up. Just like that. An’ zay say ze French have no sense of ze delicasse!”
“What will the Board say?” I inquired, half fearfully.
“We won’t ask the Board,” replied Justice calmly. “Move first, ask for orders afterwards, that’s the way the great generals win battles. Remember how General Sherman cut the wires between him and Washington when he started out on his famous march to the sea, so that no short-sighted one could wire him to change his plans? Well, we’re out to make this pageant a success, and we aren’t going to risk it by stopping to ask too much permission. We’ll move the schoolhouse first and ask permission afterward. By that time it’ll be too late; the pageant is to-morrow.”
And we did move it. If you had ever seen us! It wasn’t such a job as you might think. I suppose the word “schoolhouse” conjures up in your mind the brick and granite pile that is Washington High—imagine moving that out of the way to make room for a military drill! ’Vantage number one for our school. We also have our points of superiority, it seems.
The old shack looked vastly better where we finally let it rest. There was a clump of bushes alongside that hid some of its battered boards beautifully. The parade ground seemed about three times as big as it had been before.
“That’s more like it,” said Justice approvingly. “Now we can turn around without stubbing our toes against the schoolhouse.”
“What will Mr. Butts say?” I asked, beginning to have cold chills.
“Just wait until that gets between the wind and his nobility!” chuckled Justice. “Never mind, I’ll take all the blame.”
Nevertheless, when the crisis came, and Elijah Butts came driving up on the afternoon of the great occasion, I was there to face the music alone, Justice being nowhere in sight.
Mr. and Mrs. Butts arrived in state, bringing with them a strange lady, who I figured out must be the one Justice had told me about, the one who, like Shelley’s immortal soul, had come from afar and was sent by a Commission to study rural school conditions.
I glanced wildly about to see if Justice were not hovering protectingly near, but there was no sign of him. However, I knew my duties as hostess. Nonchalantly I strolled over to the road to welcome the newcomers. Elijah Butts had just finished tying his horse and, bristling with importance, had turned to help the Commission Lady out of the rig.
“Ah-h, Miss Fairlee,” he said in smooth tones, “this is—ah—Miss Adams, our teacher at the Corners school.”
Then he suddenly jumped half out of his boots and stared over my shoulder as if he had seen a ghost. “Where’s that schoolhouse?” he demanded, in a voice which seemed to indicate he thought I had it in my pocket.
“It’s right over there,” I said calmly, pointing toward the bushes.
Elijah Butts’ eyes followed my fingers in a fascinated way; he could hardly believe his senses. “How did it get there?” he demanded.
“We moved it back,” I replied casually. “It was in the way of the maneuvers.”
Elijah Butts sputtered, choked, and was speechless.
But Miss Fairlee, the Commission lady, laughed until she had to grip the side of the buggy for support. “It’s the funniest thing I ever heard,” she gasped. “I’ve heard of the Mountain coming to Mahomet, but I never heard of the Mountain getting out of the road for Mahomet. Oh, Mr. Butts, I think the West is delightful. You people are so original and forceful!”
That took the wind out of Mr. Butts’ sails. What could he do after that neat little speech but take the compliment to himself and pass the matter off lightly?
The pageant was a wonderful success in spite of my misgivings. I didn’t forget to hand the torch to Columbia at the right moment and I didn’t forget to bring the brown stockings for little Lizzie Cooper, who was the Spirit of Nature, and I made fire with the bow and drill without any mishap. But one thing was a dreadful disappointment to me. Absalom Butts was not there, and I had no chance to work out my experiment on him. Where he was I couldn’t imagine. I had taken Clarissa home with me the night before to help me finish some things and she hadn’t seen him since he went home from school; Mr. Butts also said he didn’t know. He added, in a voice loud enough for Miss Fairlee to hear, that he would lick the tar out of him for not being in the patriotic pageant.
No one knew that I had picked Absalom in my mind to raise the flag. There had been much speculation about who was to have this honor and in order to keep everybody happy I said I would not announce this until the moment came. Then I planned to make a speech and award the honor to Absalom, thus singling him out for something besides punishment for once in his life. I had had him helping me for several days, and given him certain definite things to do on the great occasion and was much disappointed that he didn’t come to do them. Justice’s warning came back and I had an uneasy feeling that he was in hiding somewhere, plotting mischief.
I had a real inspiration, though, in regard to the flag raising. In a flowery speech I called upon Mr. Elijah Butts, the “President of the School Board and the most influential man in Spencer Township,” to perform that rite. He swelled up until he almost burst, like the frog in the fable, as he stood there, conscious of Miss Fairlee’s eye on him, with his great hairy hand on the pulley rope. Round the corner of the schoolhouse and hidden from view by the bush, I caught Justice Sherman’s eye and he applauded silently with his two forefingers, meaning to say that it was a master stroke on my part. Then he dropped his eye decorously and started the singing of the National Anthem.
The pageant ended up in a picnic supper eaten on the erstwhile parade ground, and then the people began to go home through the softly falling dusk. Miss Fairlee came to me and complimented me on the success of the pageant and asked to take some notes for future use; and Elijah Butts was quite cordial as he departed. I’ve discovered something to-day; if you want to win a person’s undying affection, single him out as the most important member of the bunch. He’ll fall for it every time. You note that I am talking about male persons, now.
“Well, the show’s over,” said Justice, when the last of the audience had departed. “Now the actors can take it easy. Come on, let’s get Sandhelo and go for a ride.”
We climbed into the little cart, still covered with its pageant finery, and drove slowly down the dusty road, discussing the events of the day.
“O Justice,” said I, “did you ever see anything so touching as the pride some of those poor women took in their boys and girls? They fairly glowed, some of them. And did you see that one poor woman who tried to fix herself up for the occasion? She had nothing to wear but her faded old blue calico dress, but she had pinned a bunch of roses on the front of it to make herself look festive.”
“We’ve started something, I think,” said Justice thoughtfully. “We’ve taught the people how to get together and have a good time, and they like it. They’ll be doing it again.”
“I hope so,” I replied. Then I added, “I wonder where Absalom was?”
“You see, your scheme didn’t work after all,” said Justice, in an I-told-you-so tone of voice. “Absalom wasn’t impressed with the honor of being your right-hand man. He took the occasion to play hookey. It’s a wonder he didn’t try to play some trick on the rest of us; but I suppose he didn’t dare, with his father there. He’s afraid to draw a crooked breath when the old man’s around.”
“I’m disappointed,” I said pensively, leaning my head back and letting the cool wind blow the hair away from my face. It had been a strenuous day and I was tired out. The strain of being afraid every minute that I would do something ridiculous or had left something undone that was of vital importance had nearly turned my hair grey. Now that it was all over without mishap, the people had enjoyed it and my Camp Fire girls had covered themselves with glory, I relaxed into a delicious tranquillity and gave myself over to enjoyment of the quiet drive in the sweet evening air.
“Why so deucedly pensive?” inquired Justice, after we had jogged along for some minutes in silence.
“Just thanking whatever gods there be that I didn’t make a holy show of myself somehow,” I replied lazily. “Isn’t this evening peaceful, though? Who would ever think that down around the other side of this sweet smelling earth men are killing each other like flies, and the night is hideous with the din of warfare?”
Above us the big white stars twinkled serenely, approvingly; all nature seemed in tune with my placid mood. Justice fell under the spell of it, too, and leaned back in silent enjoyment.
What was that sudden glare that shone out against the sky, over to the south? That red, lurid glare that dimmed the glory of the stars and threw buildings and barns into black relief?
“The cotton storehouse!” exclaimed Justice in a horrified voice. “Hurry!”
For once Sandhelo responded to my urging without argument, and we soon arrived on the scene of the blaze. Elijah Butts’ plantation is about three miles from Spencer, and no water but the well and the cistern. “This is going to be a nice mess,” said Justice, jumping out of the car and charging into the throng of gaping negroes who stood around watching the spectacle. The family of Butts had not returned from the pageant yet, having taken Miss Fairlee for a drive in the opposite direction. A few neighbors had gathered, but they stood there, gaping like the negroes and not lifting a hand to save the cotton.
“Here you, get busy!” shouted Justice, taking command like a general. Under his direction a bucket brigade was formed to check the flames as much as possible and keep the surrounding sheds from taking fire. “Go through the barn and bring out the horses and cows, if there are any there,” he called to me.
I obeyed, and brought out one poor trembling bossy, the only livestock I found. Then Justice turned the command of the bucket brigade over to me and started in with one or two helpers to remove the cotton from the end of the storehouse that was not yet ablaze. He worked like a Trojan, his face blackened with smoke until it was hard to tell him from the negroes, the remains of his pageant costume hanging about him in tatters.
“Somebody started this fire on purpose,” he panted as he paused beside me a moment to clear his lungs of smoke. “There’s been oil poured on the cotton!”
Just at that moment the Butts family returned, driving into the yard at a gallop. Mr. Butts’ wrath and excitement knew no bounds and he was hardly able to help effectively; he ran around for all the world like a chicken with its head off. Assistance came swiftly as people began to arrive from far and near, attracted by the blaze, but if it hadn’t been for Justice’s timely taking hold of the situation not a bit of the cotton would have been saved, and the house, barn and sheds would have gone up, too.
Conjectures began to fly thick and fast on all sides as to how the fire had started, and a whisper began going the rounds that soon became an open accusation. One of the negroes that works for Mr. Butts swore he saw Absalom going into the storehouse that afternoon. My heart skipped a beat. He had not been at the celebration. Was this where he had been and what he had done the while? Elijah Butts was stamping up and down in such a fury as I had never seen.
“He couldn’t get out!” he shouted hoarsely to the group that stood around him. “He’s locked in the woodshed, I locked him in there myself, and there isn’t even a window he could get out of!”
I started at his words. So that was where Absalom had been that afternoon. He hadn’t deliberately disappointed me, then. But—Elijah Butts hadn’t said that afternoon that he had locked Absalom up at home. He had pretended to be much mystified over the non-appearance of his son. Why had he done so? The answer came in a flash of intuition. Elijah Butts had probably had a set-to with Absalom over some private affair and had locked him up as punishment, but he didn’t want Miss Fairlee to know that he had kept him out of the patriotic pageant and so he had denied any knowledge of Absalom’s whereabouts. “The old hypocrite!” I said to myself scornfully.
“Your woodshed’s wide open,” said someone from the crowd. “We were in there looking for a bucket. The door was open and there wasn’t nobody in it.”
“He got out!” shouted Elijah Butts in still greater fury. “He got out and set fire to the cotton to spite me! Wait until I catch him! Wait till I get my hands on him!” He stamped up and down, shouting threats against his son, awful to listen to.
“I thought he’d drive that boy to turn against him yet,” said Justice, drawing me away to a quiet spot, and mopping his black forehead with a damp handkerchief. “I can’t say but that it served him right. After all, Absalom is a chip off the old block. That’s his idea of getting even. He didn’t stop to think that it was the government’s loss as well as his father’s. Well, it’s all over but the shouting; we might as well go home.”
We drove home in silence. Justice was tuckered out, I could see that, and I began to worry for fear his strenuous efforts would lay him up. I was still too much excited to feel tired. That would come later. All my energy was concentrated into disappointment over Absalom Butts. I couldn’t believe that he was really as bad as this. I didn’t want to believe he had done it, and yet it seemed all too true. Why had he run away if he hadn’t? I shook my head. It was beyond me.
Silently we drove into the yard and unhitched Sandhelo.
“Good night,” said Justice, starting off in the direction of his cabin.
“Good night,” I replied absently. I did not go right into the house. I was wide awake and knew I could not go to sleep for some time. Instead I sat in the doorway and blinked at the moon, like a touseled-haired owl. It was after midnight and everything was still, even the wind. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Justice wearily plodding along to his sleeping quarters, saw him open the screen door and vanish from sight within. Then, borne clearly on the night air, I heard an exclamation come from his lips, then a frightened cry. I sped down the path like the wind to the little cabin. A lamp flared out in the darkness just as I reached it and by its light I saw Justice bending over something in a corner.
“What’s the matter?” I called through the screen door.
Justice turned around with a start. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Come in here.”
I went in. There, crouched in a corner on the floor, was Absalom Butts, his eyes blinking in the sudden light, his face like a scared rabbit’s. It was he who had cried out, not Justice.
“What’s the trouble, Absalom,” said I, trying to speak in a natural tone of voice, “can’t you find your way home?”
“Dassent go home,” replied Absalom.
“Why not?”
“Pa’ll kill me.”
“What for?”
“Because I ran away.”
“So you’ve run away, have you?” said I. “Why?”
“Because pa licked me and locked me in the woodshed and wouldn’t let me come to the doin’s this afternoon, and I just wouldn’t stand it, so I got out and cut.”
“When did you get out?” I asked, leaning forward a trifle.
“This afternoon,” replied Absalom. “I thought first I’d come to the doin’s anyhow and help you with those things I’d promised, but I was scared to come with pa there, so I went the other way. I walked and walked and walked, till I was tired out and most starved, because I hadn’t brought anything along to eat, and I didn’t know where I was headed for, anyway, and then I came along here and saw this shack and came in and sat down to rest. I must a fell asleep.”
“You didn’t do it, then?” said I, eagerly.
“Do what?” Absalom’s tone was plainly bewildered.
“Set fire to your father’s cotton storehouse.”
“Whee-e-e-e-e!” Absalom’s whistle of astonishment was clearly genuine. “I should say not!”
“Do you know who did?” asked Justice, watching him keenly.
“Did somebody?” asked Absalom innocently.
“I should say they did,” said Justice, puzzled in his turn. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about it?”
Absalom shook his head vigorously. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said straightforwardly.
“I was sure you didn’t do it,” I said triumphantly. “I had a feeling in my bones.”
“How does it happen that you weren’t at the fire?” asked Justice wonderingly. “You must have seen the glare in the sky. People came for miles around. Didn’t you see it?”
Absalom shook his head. “I must a slept through it,” he said simply, and followed it with such a large sigh of regret for what he had missed that Justice and I both had to smile.
“Well, there’s one thing about it,” said Justice, “and that is, if you didn’t set fire to it, you’d better streak it for home about as fast as you can and clear yourself up. Everybody thinks you did it and your running away made it look suspicious. Besides, one of your father’s men says he saw you coming out of the storehouse this afternoon. By the way, what were you doing in there?”
Absalom met his gaze unwaveringly. “Me? Why, I went in there to get my knife, that I’d left in there yesterday. I couldn’t go away without my knife, could I?” He pulled it from his pocket and gazed on it fondly,—an ugly old “toad stabber.”
“See here, you weren’t smoking any cigarettes in there, and dropped a lighted stub, perhaps?” asked Justice.
“No,” replied Absalom, “I wasn’t smokin’ to-day. I do sometimes, though,” he admitted.
“Well, you don’t seem to be the villain, after all,” said Justice, “and I’m mighty glad to hear it. So will a lot of people be. Things looked pretty bad for you this afternoon, Absalom.”
“Honest?” asked Absalom. “Do folks really think I set fire to it? What did pa say?”
Justice laughed. “What he isn’t going to do to you when he catches you won’t be worth doing,” he said.
Absalom began to look apprehensive. “I’m afraid to go back,” he said.
“What are you afraid of, if you didn’t do it?” asked Justice.
“Pa wouldn’t believe me,” said Absalom nervously.
“Oh, I guess he’ll believe you all right,” I said soothingly.
“You go with me,” begged Absalom, eyeing us both beseechingly. “He’ll believe you. He never believes me.”
“Maybe we had better,” said I. “He can stay here with you the rest of the night and we’ll drive over the first thing in the morning.”
The next morning bright and early found us again on the scene of the fire. Early as we were, we found Elijah Butts poking in the ashes of his cotton crop with a wrathful countenance. When he saw us coming he strode to meet us and without a word laid hold of Absalom’s collar. His expression was like that of a fox who has caught his goose after many hours of waiting.
“I’ve got you, you rascal,” he sputtered, shaking Absalom until his teeth chattered. “Where did you find him?” he demanded of Justice.
“In my bunk,” replied Justice, laying a hand on Mr. Butts’ arm and trying to separate him from his son. “He had been there all evening, and knew nothing about the fire. He didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do it!” shouted Mr. Butts. “Don’t tell me he didn’t do it. Of course he did it! Who else did?”
We weren’t prepared to answer.
“I’m sure Absalom didn’t do it, Mr. Butts,” said Justice earnestly. “I’d stake a whole lot on it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t, you can better believe!” answered Mr. Butts. “He did it, and I’m going to take it out of him.” He began to march Absalom off toward the house, urging him along with a box on the ear that nearly felled him to the ground.
Justice did it so quickly that I never will be able to tell just what it was, but in a minute there stood Elijah Butts rubbing his wrist and wearing the most surprised look I ever saw on the face of a man, and there sat Absalom on the ground half a dozen yards away.
“Beat it back to our shack, Absalom,” called Justice. “I guess the climate’s a little too hot around here for you just yet.”
Absalom needed no second bidding. He sped down the road away from his paternal mansion as if the whole German army was after him.
“When you can treat your son like a human being he’ll come back,” said Justice to Mr. Butts.
“He don’t need to come back,” said Mr. Butts sourly, but with fury carefully toned down. Justice’s use of an uncanny Japanese wrestling trick to wrench Absalom out of his vise-like grasp had created a vast respect in him. He wasn’t quite sure what Justice was going to do next, and eyed him warily for a possible attack in the rear. “He don’t need to come back,” he mumbled stubbornly, “until he either says he did it and takes what’s coming to him, or finds out who did do it.” Growling to himself he went toward the house and we drove off to overtake Absalom.
“Daggers and dirks!” exclaimed Justice. “Old Butts sure is some knotty piece of timber to drive screws into!”
It was a rather dejected trio that Sandhelo, frisking in the morning air, carried back to the house. Justice, I could see, was trying to figure out by calculus the probable result of having jiu-jitsu-ed the president of the school board; I was sorry for Absalom and Absalom was sorry for himself. Once I caught him looking at me pleadingly.
“You don’t think I done it?” he asked anxiously.
“Not for a minute!” I answered heartily, smiling into his eyes.
He looked down, in a shame-faced way, and then he suddenly put his arm around my neck. “I’m sorry I treated you so horrid,” he murmured. Think of it! Absalom, the bully, the one-time bane of my existence, the fly in the ointment, riding down the road with his arm around my neck, and me standing up for him against the world! Don’t things turn out queerly, though? Who would ever have thought it possible, six months ago?
Absalom and I had quite a few long talks in the days that followed. He confided to me his hatred of lessons and his ambition to raise horses. Father let him help him as much as he liked, and promised him a job on the place any time he wanted it. Absalom seemed utterly transformed. He fooled around the horses day and night and showed a knack of handling them that proved beyond a doubt that he had chosen his profession wisely. I did not insist upon his going to school and was glad I hadn’t; for in a day or two came the “visitation” of the Board, bringing Miss Fairlee to see my school.
She was absolutely enchanted with the way we conducted things; gasped with astonishment at the graphophone and the lantern slides; exclaimed in wonder at the library; listened approvingly to the reading lesson, which was from one of the current magazines; partook generously of our dinner, cooked and served in the most approved style, and laughed heartily at the stunts we did afterward by way of entertainment. I took a naughty satisfaction in showing off my changed curriculum for her approval and watching the effect it had on the august Board members. None of them knew exactly what I had been doing all this time, and their amazement was immense. Mr. Butts did not come with the board this time, so I was spared the embarrassment of meeting him. Without him the rest of the Board were like sheep that had gotten separated from the bell-wether; they didn’t know which direction to head into until Miss Fairlee expressed her unqualified approval of my methods; then they all endorsed it emphatically.
“I wish I were a pupil again, so I could have you for a teacher!” said Miss Fairlee when school was out, and I considered that the highest compliment I had ever received. I immediately invited her to attend our Ceremonial Meeting that night and she accepted the invitation eagerly. We held it on the old parade ground in front of the school. In honor of our guest we acted out the pretty Indian legend of Kir-a-wa and the Blackbirds and when we came to the place where we rush out looking for the two crows we found two real ones sitting on the fence, only, instead of attacking us as the ones did in the legend, these two applauded vigorously. They were Justice and Absalom, come with Sandhelo and the cart to take me home, or rather what was left of me after the blackbirds had picked me to pieces.
“Another day gone without mishap!” I said, as Justice slid back the stable door and I walked in with my arm around Sandhelo’s neck. “Sandhelo will have to have a lump of sugar and an extra soft bed to celebrate. Come on, Sandy, let me tuck you in.”
But Sandhelo would not enter his stall. He stuck his head in, sniffed the air, and then, with a squeal that always heralds an outbreak of temperament, he rose on his hind legs and began to dance.
“Whatever has gotten into him?” I began, tugging at his tail, which was the nearest thing I could get my hand onto, when suddenly a wild shriek rose up from under our very feet and in the dimness of the stall we saw something roll over and crouch in a corner.
“Quick, the lantern!” said Justice.
But we couldn’t find it.
Then from the depths of the stall there came a voice, crying in terrified tones, “Don’ take me, mister Debble; don’ take me, mister Debble, I done it, I done it; I set fiah to ’at ole cotton to get even with old Mister Butts fer settin’ de dawgs on me; I done it, I done it; go ’way, Mister Debble, don’ take me, I’ll tell dem; only don’ take me, Mister Debble!”
Justice and Absalom and I stood frozen to the spot, listening to this remarkable outcry. Then Justice raised the lantern, which he just spied on the floor, and lighting it held it in the stall. By its flickering rays we saw a negro crouching in the corner, whose rolling eyes and trembling limbs showed him to be beside himself with fright.
“Glory!” exclaimed Justice. “It’s the same old bird we saw in the road that day, the one I said looked like mischief!”
Here Sandhelo, nosing me aside, looked inquisitively over my shoulder and the darky immediately went into another spasm of fright, covering his face with his hands and imploring “Mister Debble” not to take him this time.
“Whee-e-e-e-!” said Justice, whistling in his astonishment. “He’s the one that fired the cotton and now he thinks Sandhelo is the devil coming after him!”
“Mercy, what an awful creature!” said I, shuddering and looking the other way. “If Sandhelo gets a good look at him I’m afraid he’ll return the compliment about taking him for His Satanic Nibs.”
“There’s only one way you can keep him from getting you,” said Justice to the darky gravely. “That’s by going to Mr. Butts and telling him yourself that you did it. Otherwise, it’s good-bye, Solomon.”
Here Sandhelo, as if he understood what was going on, suddenly snapped at the black legs stretched out across his stall.
“I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him!” shuddered Solomon, and with a prolonged howl of terror he fled from the stable and down the road in the direction of the Butts plantation.
“He’ll tell him all right,” chuckled Justice. “He’ll face a dozen Elijah Buttses, before he lets the devil get him. Poor Sandhelo! Rather rough on him, though, to have his name used as a terror to evil doers!”
Talk about nothing ever happening around here! O you darling Winnebagos, with your ladylike advantages, and your mildly eventful lives, you don’t know what real excitement is!
Worn out, but happily yours,
Katherine.