THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT
As Jud went out of the dilapidated gate at Millwood, he chuckled to himself. He had, indeed, accomplished something. He had gained a decided advance in the labor circles of the mill. He had broken into the heretofore overpowering prejudice the better class had against the mill, for he held in his possession the paper wherein an aristocrat had signed his two daughters into it. Wouldn't Richard Travis chuckle with him?
In the South social standing is everything.
To have the mill represented by a first family—even if brought to poverty through drunkenness—was an entering wedge.
His next job was easier. A mile farther on, the poor lands of the mountain side began. Up on the slope was a cabin, in the poorest and rockiest portion of it, around the door of which half a dozen cracker children stared at Jud with unfeigned interest as he rode up.
“Light an' look at yer saddle”—came from a typical Hillite within, as Jud stopped.
Jud promptly complied—alighted and looked at his saddle.
A cur—which, despite his breeding, is always a keen detective of character—followed him, barking at his heels.
This one knew Jud as instinctively and as accurately as he knew a fresh bone from a rank one—by smell. He was also a judge of other dogs and, catching sight of Bonaparte, his anger suddenly fled and he with it.
“Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?” came invitingly from the doorway.
Jud sat down and rested his hat.
A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had grown black with age and Samsonian in strength, came from the next room. She merely ducked her long, sharp nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged around the room, listened closely to all that was said.
Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and made many familiar comments as he talked. Then he began to draw out the man and woman. They were poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually, carefully, he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew glorious pictures of the house he would take them to, its conveniences—the opportunities of the town for them all. He took up the case of each of the six children, running from the tot of six to the girl of twenty, and showed what they could earn.
In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.
“You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars ev'y week,” said the woman, taking the cob pipe out for the first time, long enough to spit and wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, “an' all in silver an' all our'n?” she asked. “Why that thar is mo' money'n we've seed this year. What do you say to tryin' it, Josiah?”
Josiah was willing. “You see,” he added, “we needn't stay thar longer'n a year or so. We'll git the money an' then come back an' buy a good piece of land.”
Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at Jud: “But see heah, Mister-man, is thar any niggers thar? Do we hafter wuck with niggers?”
Jud looked indignant. It was enough.
At the end of an hour the family head had signed for a five years' contract. They would move the next week.
“Cash—think of it—cash ever' week. An' in silver, too,” said the woman. “Why, I dunno hardly how it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin me the eetch.”
Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell five children into slavery for five years.
It meant for life.
And both parents declared when he left that never before had they “seed sech a nice man.”
Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed, high up on the level plateau by which the mountain road now ran, the comfortable home of Elder Butts. Peach and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives sat in a corner under the shade of them behind the cottage. The tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby. A neatly painted new wagon stood under the shed by the house, and all around was an air of thrift and work.
“Now if I cu'd git that Butts family,” he mused, “I'd have something to crow about when I got back to Kingsley to-night. He's got a little farm an' is well to do an' is thrifty, an' if I cu'd only git that class started in the mill an' contented to wuck there, it 'ud open up a new class of people. There's that Archie B.—confound him, he cu'd run ten machines at onct and never know it. I'd like to sweat that bottled mischief out of him a year or two.
“Hello!”
Jud drew his horse up with a jerk. Above him, with legs locked, high up around the body of a dead willow, his seat the stump of a broken bough and fully twenty feet above the employment agent's head, sat Archie B., a freckled-faced lad, with fiery red hair and a world of fun in his blue eyes. He was one of the Butts twins and the very object of the Whipper-in's thoughts. From his head to his feet he had on but three garments—a small, battered, all-wool hat, a coarse cotton shirt, wide open at the neck, and a pair of jeans pants which came to his knees. But in the pockets of his pants were small samples of everything of wood and field, from shells of rare bird eggs to a small supply of Gypsy Juice.
His pockets were miniature museums of nature.
No one but a small boy, bent on fun, knows what Gypsy Juice is. No adult has ever been able to procure its formula and no small boy in the South cares, so long as he can get it.
“The thing that hit does,” Archie B. explained to his timid and pious twin brother, Ozzie B., “is ter make anything it touches that wears hair git up and git.”
Coons, possums, dogs, cats—with now and then a country horse or mule, hitched to the town rack—with these, and a small vial of Gypsy Juice, Archie B., as he expressed it, “had mo' fun to the square inch than ole Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents.”
Jud stood a moment watching the boy. It was easy to see what Archie B. was after. In the body of the dead tree a wood-pecker had chiseled out a round hole.
“Hello, yo'se'f”—finally drawled Jud—“whatcher doin' up thar?”
“Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's nes' or a fly-ketcher's.”
Bonaparte caught his cue at once and ran to the foot of the tree barking viciously, daring the tree-climber to come down. His vicious eyes danced gleefully. He looked at his master between his snarls as much as to say: “Well, this is great, to tree the real live son of the all-conquering man!”
It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference with which the all-conqueror's son treated his presence.
Jud grunted. He prided himself on his bird-lore. Finally he said: “Wal, any fool could tell you—it's a wood-pecker's nest.”
“Yes, that's so and jus' exacly what a fool 'ud say,” came back from the tree. “But it 'ud be because he is a fool, tho', an' don't see things as they be. It's a fly-ketcher's nest, for all that—” he added.
“Teach yo' gran'-mammy how to milk the house cat,” sneered Jud, while Bonaparte grew furious again with this added insult. “Don't you know a wood-pecker's nest when you see it?”
“Yes,” said Archie B., “an' I also know a fly-ketcher will whip a wood-pecker and take his nes' from him, an' I've come up here to see if it's so with this one.”
“Oh,” said Jud, surprised, “an' what is it?”
“Jus' as I said—he's whipped the wood-pecker an' tuck his nes'.”
“What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?” said Jud. Then he grinned derisively.
Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree again and squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise.
“A fly-ketcher,” said Archie B. calmly, “is a sneaking sort of a bird, that ketches flies an' little helpless insects for a—mill, maybe. Do you know any two-legged fly-ketchers a-doin' that?”
Jud glared at him, and Bonaparte grew so angry that he snapped viciously at the bark of the tree as if he would tear it down.
“What do you mean, you little imp?—what mill?”
“Why his stomach,” drawled Archie B., “it's a little differunt from a cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death all the same.”
Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B.
“How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and not a wood-pecker's, then?” he asked, to change the subject.
“That's what I'd like to know, too,” said Bonaparte as plainly as his growls and two mean eyes could say it.
“If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a snake's-skin,” said Archie B. “That's nachrul, ain't it,” he added—“the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins.”
Bonaparte, one of whose chief amusements in life was killing snakes, seemed to think this a personal thrust at himself, for he flew around the tree with renewed rage while Archie B., safe on his high perch, made faces at him and laughed.
“I'll bet it ain't that way,” said Jud, rattled and discomfited and shifting his long squirrel gun across his saddle. Archie B. replied by carefully thrusting a brown sunburnt arm into the hole and bringing out a nest. “Now, a wood-pecker's egg,” he said, carefully lifting an egg out and then replacing it, “'ud be pearly white.”
“How did you learn all that?” sneered Jud.
“Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my eye,” said Archie B., winking at Bonaparte.
Bonaparte glared back.
“I'd like to git you into the mill,” said Jud. “I'd put you to wuck doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth while.”
“Oh, yes, you would for a few years,” sneered back Archie B. “Then you'd put me under the groun', where I'd have plenty o' time to res'.”
“I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I can't git you into the mill.”
“Oh, you are?—Well, don't be in sech a hurry an' look heah at yo' snake-skin fust—didn't I tell you it 'ud be lined with a snake-skin?” And he threw down a last year's snake-skin which Bonaparte proceeded to rend with great fury.
“Now, come under here,” went on Archie B. persuasively, “and I'll sho' you they're not pearly white, like a wood-pecker's, but cream-colored with little purple splotches scratched over 'em—like a fly-ketcher's.”
Jud rode under and looked up. As he did so Archie B. suddenly turned the nest upside down, that Jud might see the eggs, and as he looked up four eggs shot out before he could duck his head, and caught him squarely between his shaggy eyes. Blinded, smeared with yelk and smarting with his eyes full of fine broken shell, he scrambled from his horse, with many oaths, and began feeling for the little branch of water which ran nearby.
“I'll cut that tree down, but I'll git you and wring yo' neck,” he shouted, while Bonaparte endeavored to tear it down with his teeth.
But Archie B. did not wait. Slowly he slid down the tree, while Bonaparte, thunder-struck with joy, waited at the foot, his eyes glaring, his mouth wide open, anticipating the feast on fresh boy meat. Can he be—dare he be—coming down? Right into my jaws, too? The very thought of it stopped his snarls.
Jud's curses filled the air.
Down—down, slid Archie B., both legs locked around the tree, until some ten feet above the dog, and, then tantalizingly, just out of reach, he suddenly tightened his brown brakes of legs, and thrusting his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small rubber ball. Reaching over, he squirted half of its contents over the dog, which still sat snarling, half in fury and half in wonder.
Then something happened. Jud could not see, being down on his knees in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts, howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a fast vanishing wail toward home.
Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see a cloud of sand and dust rolling down the road, from the rear of which only the stub of a tail could be seen, curled spasmodically downward toward the earth.
Jud could scarcely believe his eyes—Bonaparte—the champion dog—running—running like that?
“Whut—whut—whut,”—he stammered, “Whut did he do to Bonaparte?”
Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, rolling in the sand with shouts of laughter.
“If I git my hands on you,” yelled Jud, shaking his fist at the boy, “I'll swaller you alive.”
“That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly,” shouted back Archie B.
It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell out of his eyes. After that he decided to let the Butts family alone for the present. But as he rode away he was heard to say again:
“Whut—whut—whut did he do to Bonaparte?”
Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling now and then in fits of laughter, when a determined, motherly looking, fat girl appeared at the doorway of the family cottage. It was his sister, Patsy Butts:
“Maw,” she exclaimed, “I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done sump'in.”
There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life, evidently, was to watch Archie B.
“You Archie B.,” yelled his mother, a sallow little woman of quick nervous movements, “air you havin' a revulsion down there? What air you been doin' anyway? Now, you git up from there and go see why Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home.”
Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.
A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie B. turned the rocks about until he found the nest, which he examined critically and with care. He fingered it carefully and patted it back into shape. “Nice little nes',” he said—“that settles it—I thought they lined it with fur.” Then he replaced the rocks and arose to go.
A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened.
He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.
Ozzie B. was his twin brother—his “after clap”—as Archie B. called him. He was timid, uncertain, pious and given to tears—“bo'hn on a wet Friday”—as Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect of Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the solution of his problem of mischief, the penalty of his misdemeanors.
Presently Ozzie B. came in sight, hatless and driving his cows along, but sobbing in that hiccoughy way which is the final stage of an acute thrashing.
No one saw more quickly than Archie B., and he knew instantly that his brother had met Jud Carpenter, on his way back to the mill.
“He's caught my lickin' ag'in,” said Archie B., indignantly—“it's a pity he looks so much like me.”
It was true, and Ozzie B. stood and dug one toe into the ground, and sobbed and wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve, and told how, in spite of his explanations and beseechings, the Whipper-in had met him down the road and thrashed him unmercifully.
“Ozzie B.,” said his brother, “you make me tired all over and in spots. I hate for as big a fool as you to look like me. Whyncher run—whyncher dodge him?”
“I—I—wanted ter do my duty,” sobbed Ozzie B. “Maw tole me ter drive—drive the cows right up the road—”
Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn:
“When the Devil's got the road,” said Archie B., “decent fo'ks had better take to the wood. I'd fixed him an' his ole dorg, an' now you come along an' spile it all.”
He made a cross mark in the road and spat on it. Then he turned with his back to the cross, threw his hat over his head and said slowly: “Venture pee wee under the bridge! bam—bam—bam!”
“What's that fur?” asked Ozzie B., as he ceased sobbing. His brother always had something new, and it was always absorbingly interesting to Ozzie B.
“That,” said Archie B., solemnly, “I allers say after meetin' a Jonah in the road. The spell is now broke. Jus' watch me fix Jud Carpenter agin. Wanter see me git even with him? Well, come along.”
“What'll you do?” asked Ozzie B.
“I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way he treated you, or my name ain't Archie B. Butts—that's all. Venture pee wee under the bridge, bam—bam—bam!”
“No—oo—no,” began Ozzie B., beginning to cry again—“Don't kill 'im—it'll be cruel.”
“Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man that's jus' licked you for nuthin'?”
“No—oo—no—” sobbed Ozzie B. “Paw says—leave—leave—that for—the Lord.”
“Tarnashun!”—said Archie B., spitting on the ground, disgustedly—, “too much relig'un is a dang'us thing. You've got all of paw's relig'un an' maw's brains, an' that's 'nuff said.”
With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him, still sobbing, up the road.
Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter, who he knew had to go around a bend in the road.
There was no bird that Archie B. could not mimic. He knew every creature of the wood. Every wild thing of the field and forest was his friend. Slipping into the underbrush, a hundred yards from the road down which he knew Jud Carpenter had to ride, he prepared himself for action.
Drawing a turkey-call from his pocket, he gave the call of the wild turkey going to roost, as softly as a violinist tries his instrument to see if it is in tune.
Prut—prut—prut—it rang out clear and distinctly.
“All right,”—he said—“she'll do.”
He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw the Whipper-in, riding leisurely along.
Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the complacent and satisfactory way he rode along. He even thought he saw a smile—a kind of even-up smile—light his face.
When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his call to his mouth: Prut—Prut—P-R-U-T—it rang out. Then Prut—prut!
Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly.
“Turkeys goin' to roost.”—he muttered. He listened for the direction.
Prut—Prut—it came out of the bushes on the right—a hundred yards away under a beech tree.
Jud listened: “Eatin' beech-mast,”—he said, and he slipped off his pony, tied him quietly to the limb of a sweet-gum tree, and cocking his long gun, slipped into the wood.
Five minutes later he heard the sound still farther off. “They're walkin',” muttered Jud—“I mus' head 'em off.” Then he pushed on rapidly into the forest.
Archie B. let him go—then, making a short circuit, slipped like an Indian through the wood, and came up to the pony hitched on the road side.
Quietly removing the saddle and blanket, he took two tough prickly burrs of the sweet-gum and placed one on each side of the pony's spine, where the saddle would rest. Then he put the blanket and saddle back, taking care to place them on very gently and tighten the girth but lightly.
He shook all over with suppressed mirth as he went farther into the wood, and lay down on the mossy bank behind a clay-root to watch the performance.
It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly tired and disgusted, gave up the useless search and came back.
Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over its head and vaulted lightly into the saddle.
Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool hat into his mouth just in time.
“It was worth a dollar,” he told Ozzie B. that night, after they had retired to their trundle bed. “The pony squatted fust mighty nigh to the groun'—then he riz a-buckin'. I seed Jud's coat-tail a-turnin' summersets through the air, the saddle and blanket a-followin'. I heard him when he hit the swamp hole on the side of the road kersplash!—an' the pony skeered speechless went off tearin' to-ards home. Then I hollered out: 'Go it ole, fly-ketcher—you're as good for tad-poles as you is for bird-eggs'—an' I lit out through the wood.”
Ozzie B. burst out crying: “Oh, Archie B., do you reckin the po' man got hurt?”
Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he ceased crying.
“Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick you m'se'f, but I'll lick anybody else that does it.”
As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard:
“Venture pee-wee under the bridge—bam—bam—bam. Oh, Lord, you who made the tar'nal fools of this world, have mussy on 'em!”