“Wal, I done it all right,” said Franklin Pierce. “I can reckon up a heap harder figures than them, an’ I haint been to school much, nuther.”
When the hay had been pitched off upon the scaffold, the farmer and his boys started toward the house, and, as Tom entered the door, he discovered something that filled him with astonishment and vexation. When he took off his jacket before going into the field, he had, contrary to his usual custom, hung it on a nail in the kitchen; but what was his surprise to find it in the possession of Thomas Jefferson, who, having succeeded in putting it on, was running about the house in high glee, with his fat, greasy arms buried to the elbows in the pockets. His valise, which he had placed upon a table beside the door, had been pulled off on the floor, and one of the young generals was engaged in overhauling its contents, while the other was endeavoring to pull on one of Tom’s boots. The mother evidently did not regard this as a violation of “good manners,” for she was at work in the kitchen, where she could see all that was going on, but she made no attempt to put a stop to it. She was even laughing at the comical figure Thomas Jefferson presented in Tom’s coat, the skirts of which swept the floor as he ran about. The village boy, however, did not regard it in the light of a good joke; for he walked up to the youngster, and endeavored to take the jacket from him, a proceeding which Thomas Jefferson resisted with furious yells.
“Now, dad,” shouted Franklin Pierce, who seemed ready to take his brother’s part; “just look at that ar’ Tommy.”
The farmer, however, took no notice of what was going on. He seemed determined to carry out his part of the contract which, as he had informed Tom, existed between himself and wife, and leave all difficulties that arose in the house to be settled by the “boss of the kitchen.” But the mother, as usual, heard the appeal, and shouted:
“Now, Tommy, let him have it, that’s a good little feller; he won’t hurt it.”
Thomas Jefferson, finding that his mother espoused his cause, and probably knowing, by experience, that no one would dare oppose her authority, again began marching about the house. But Tom, never having been accustomed to such treatment at home, was not satisfied.
“Now, I want that coat, and I’m going to have it,” said he, savagely.
“Tommy,” said the woman, suddenly appearing at the kitchen door—a movement which made Tom retreat a step or two, as if he expected to find the wagon whip brandished over his head. “Now, Tommy, my boys is all honest; they won’t steal your things, nor hurt ’em nuther. If I take ’em away from ’em, there’ll be a yellin’ an’ hollerin’ here that I can’t stand, when my head aches as it does to-day. They’ll soon get tired of your things, an’ then you can take care on ’em.”
Tom, although he was highly enraged, was obliged to submit to this arrangement; and, the other boys, finding that their mother was not inclined to oppose them, joined their brothers in an examination of the contents of Tom’s valise. The articles, one after the other, were taken out and thrown upon the floor, and when every thing had been closely examined and criticised, they were tumbled back again in quite as good order as Tom had packed them in the first place. This was certainly an unlooked-for incident in the life of a farmer, and it served to confirm Tom in the opinion he had long entertained, that he was the “most unlucky boy in the whole world,” and that “something was always happening to bother him.”
The shower continued with unabated fury all the remainder of the afternoon, putting a stop to work in the hay-field, and compelling the farmer and his boys to remain within doors. Mr. Hayes passed the time in nodding in his chair, unmindful of the almost deafening noise occasioned by the boisterous games that were carried on in the house. Occasionally the sports would be interrupted with quarrels; and once, a rough-and-tumble fight took place between Franklin Pierce and John Warren, which was abruptly terminated by the appearance of the farmer’s wife, when the contestants were obliged to take to their heels to escape punishment from the wagon whip. This wagon whip appeared to be the symbol of the mother’s authority. She kept it hung up behind the kitchen door, where it could be readily seized at a moment’s warning; and, from what had just transpired, Tom regarded this precaution as absolutely necessary to the peace of the family.