HELP THE CAUSE
In certain ways the whole community can be helped by concerted action. The interest of the whole is the interest of all. Anything that tends to help others will help you. Just now a question of importance is the further development of Cape Cod by the establishment of terminal facilities on the Cape Cod canal. This will cost money, but it will be money well expended. If we wait for someone to do the developing for us we will have to wait a long time. The state is ready to do its share, but it wants the locality itself to do a part. A canal terminal is the one thing needful to make the canal of local advantage. We have the opportunity and we should grasp it. It is a case where local conservatism should be forgotten and every community should help bear the burden of an expense that will assist in the development of Cape Cod as a whole.
E.M. Chase
"Willie."
"What."
"Is that the way to answer your mother?"
"Yesum, I mean nomum."
"I want you to stay out in the front yard where you can watch my flower garden this afternoon. I have planted some flower seeds out there and I want you to keep the neighbors' hens way. Your father is going to eput a wire netting around the garden as soon as he can get a chance."
"Why not ask the neighbors to keep their hens at home?" mildly inquired Mr. Brown.
"I have told them time and time again, hut the Bakers say it must be the Jones' hens and the Joneses say it is the Bakers' hens. As a matter of fact all their hens come over, but I don't want to make a fuss, I can't afford to lose the only two neighbors I have."
"But ma, I promised Ned I'd go fishing with him."
"You had no business to promise anything of the kind, now go out there and say no more about it."
It was a warm spring day, just the right kind of weather to go fishing or rambling through the woods or playing marbles with the other boys or to do almost anything except stay in the front yard and watch neighbors' hens. Willie thought himself much abused and cast about for a means of escape. He dared not run away; he had tried that before and the memory of the results was rather painful. A shrill whistle interrupted his bitter thought and a moment later Ned came in view carrying a fishing rod, basket, and can of bait.
"Hello, Bill, ain't yer ready yet?"
"Can't go."
"Tough luck, what's the trouble?"
"I gotta stay here and keep the hens out of ma's garden."
"Why don't yer cut it, you can stay away from home until late then your ma will get worried and be so glad when you show up she won't whip yer."
"Not on your life, I did once. I never got home 'til long after dark. Mother licked me good for running away then pa whoppoped me for scaring ma, nope, I've learned my lesson."
"Gee, Bill, it's dirt mean, but I'll tell you what I will do, I'll come back and play marbles with yer if the fish don't bite good."
"I wish the old hens was in Tophet. Say, Ned, ain't got a book yer could let a feller have, have yer?"
"Sure, one of the latest. I just finished it and it's a corker. I promised Joe Hykes he could take it next but you will have time to read it this afternoon and Joe is off playin' ball."
Willie grabbed the book eagerly. It had an alluring cover, the design was worked out in bright red, brilliant yellow and poisonous green and it represented a man in the act of killing a young and presumably beautiful woman. It was of the dime novel variety entitled "Conclusive Evidence," just the thing to appeal to the imaginative Willie. Soon all thought of hens slipped from Willie's mind, his heart beat rapidly, he breathlessly followed the hero's thrilling adventures, he almost shed tears when the girl who had helped the hero outwit the villain was found mysteriously murdered. With keen interest he watched the authorities carry the hero to jail. He was first in the audience at the trial, he drew a long breath when only circumstantial evidence could be brought out, his heart sank when the villain rushed into the court room and cried out that he had conclusive evidence, his hopes went down, a sharp pain assailed him in the shoulder, he thought the villain had grabbed him, he jumped up and—in place of the court room, prisoner, judge, jury, witnesses, interested onlookers, etc., he saw his mother standing beside him and—horrors—a dozen or more hens blissfully digging in the loosened earth of the garden.
"Where did you get that book, Willie?"
"It was lent to me, ma, don't tear it ma, don't tear it, it ain't mine, ma—"
"That will do, Willie, it is not fit for you or any other boy to read, now you come in the house and go to bed."
"But ma, it is only four o'clock and I'm hungry and I won't let 'em in the garden again, ma, please can't I stay out here, ma?"
"You do as I told you without further delay."
All alone in his room, confined to his bed by the stern mandates of his mother, with everything out of doors calling him, Willie could not sleep and then when darkness fell hunger gnawed at his vitals and sleep refused to put an end to his misery. He counted to a thousand then half drifted into the land of dreams. A wicked little green imp whispered in his ear. "Conclusive Evidence," whispered it so loudly Willie awoke, then he thought, or tried to think of some plan of revenge on his heartless mother. He could think of none that would not return to himself fourfold, then he reasoned that after all it was not so much his mother's fault as the neighbors for keeping hens that would not stay at home. Perhaps the little green imp came and whispered into his ear again, I don't know, but how else account for Willie's queer actions?
He slipped quietly out of bed, paused to listen at the door of his mother's room but heard no sound. Reassured, he crept noiselessly down the back stairs into the kitchen, out through the rough room into the shed where the corn was kept. He filled the pockets with hen corn, the bright moonlight shining in through the window gave him all the light he needed, until his pajamas looked as though they had the bubonic plague. Still moving with extreme caution, he went into the kitchen again, secured a pan into which he put his corn; he then proceeded to fill the pan nearly full of water. He listened but all was quiet, so he ventured even into the pantry where his mother kept the cookie crock. He again filled his pockets, this time with cookies. His night work over he carried the pan containing the corn and water to his room, put the pan as far under the bed as possible to avoid discovery, then seated himself by the open window to enjoy his lunch. His father, who never seemed to get around to things, had not mended the screen that belonged in Willie's window so Willie sat with his head as far out of doors as the size of his body would permit and ate his cookies. He was wise enough not to leave tell-tale crumbs.
Willie slept well and soundly after his midnight adventures and in the morning appeared at the breakfast table promptly. He ate enough to make up for what he had missed the night before, then enough to last until noon time. When he finished his mother said:
"Now Willie, go out and watch the garden again, your father did not get around to putting up the netting yesterday, and mind, if I catch you reading another book you will not get off as easily as you did yesterday."
"Yesum."
Willie first made a trip to his room, then to the sewing room.
"What are you doing, Willie?" came the maternal voice.
"Nuthin', just lookin' for my cap, I'm going out now."
Once more out where he could watch the hens, Willie proceeded to unload his pockets. He brought to light some sheets of paper, a pencil, a large needle, a spool of black linen thread and all of the soaked corn he had been able to put in his pockets.
He tore the paper in strips about an inch wide and three inches long. On each slip he wrote, "Please keep us home." On the other side, "Conclusive Evidence."
He cut pieces of string, linen thread, about six inches long, some longer. With the aid of the needle he threaded a piece of corn on one end of each string, on the other end he tied one of the slips of paper. When all were finished he scattered them broadcast over and about the garden.
"Willie, come to dinner."
No Willie appeared on the scene.
"Willie, dinner is ready."
Still no sign of the lad and his mother started after him with a queer look in her eye.
Strange was the sight her eyes beheld as she came around the corner into the front yard. Hens fled before her approach but such funny looking hens; they all had more or less tags flying from their bills. They had swallowed the corn but the strings and tags were beyond their ability to masticate and they blew out defiantly in the breeze. One tag had become loosened and Mrs. Brown picked it up and read the scribbled words. While she was thinking just what she ought to do to Willie, Mrs. Baker came across the yard, bristling like a frightened porcupine.
"What have you been doing to my hens?" she demanded.
Mrs. Brown, like the efficient woman she was, saw her opportunity and rose to the occasion.
"Your hens, Mrs. Baker, why nothing. I have been in the kitchen all the morning until I just came out to call Willie to dinner. Willie has been keeping the hens out of my garden, not your hens, you know you have assured me your hens never come over here."
Thinking discretion the better part of valor Mrs. Baker suddenly remembered something that needed immediate attention and she hastened to attend to it.
Mrs. Brown watched her out of sight, smiling in appreciation of the genius she had raised, then she turned and confronted Mrs. Jones, coldly angry.
"What do you mean, Mrs. Brown, by tagging my hens until they look like a mark down sale?"
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Jones? Your hens couldn't have been over here could they? I am sure neither Willie nor I have been out of the yard."
"I smell something burning."
In spite of the fact that the Jones homestead was quite a distance and the wind in the direction to blow all odors in the opposite direction Mrs. Brown did not try to detain her. Neither did she punish Willie, in fact she gave him an extra piece of pie for dinner.
The Browns, Joneses and Bakers are still on the best of terms, but Mr. Brown never put the wire netting up and yet Mrs. Brown plants her garden with never a thought of neighbors' hens.
Incidentally Willie and Ned have developed into first class fishermen.
