CHAPTER IV.
SHARP AXES AND SHARPER WITS.
During the week preceding the great contest with axes there was very little truancy, fighting or bad hours to be complained of by the parents of the boys of Doveton. The excitement natural to an approaching struggle was sufficient even for the nerves of the most irrepressible juvenile natures in town. Most of the boys went into training at their respective family wood-piles, and those who had no uncut wood on hand resorted to the unprecedented operation of requesting permission to work at that of somebody else. The story of the bet became noised abroad, beyond the limits of the town, and several sturdy country boys having signified their desire to earn fifty cents by a half day's work, the crowd allowed them to enter for the contest, for anything was more endurable than Jack Wittingham's conceit; Jack himself welcomed them, of course, in the most hearty manner in the world. Toward the last of the week the sound of the grindstone was heard in the land, and as several boys had asked and received permission to use saws instead of axes, the melodious voice of the hand saw file arose to stimulate in nervous persons of religious tendencies an increased appreciation of the promised peace of Heaven. Then every carpenter who owned a boy of wood-chopping age suddenly missed his best oil stone, and sundry axes had their edges dressed so keenly that no one denied their owner's assertions that a man might shave himself with those axes and not know but they were rabbit paws or puff balls. The juvenile rowdies, who treasured old copies of sporting papers, read up on the training of prize-fighters, with the result that they indulged in ablutions with unhabitual frequency, and took an amount and variety of exercise which threatened to exorcise the demon which inhabits the juvenile loafer.
The morn of the eventful day dawned at last, and, early as it was when Doctor Wittingham had to start for the railway station, there was already approaching his wood-pile fat Billy Barker, who was so treacherous a sleeper that he had remained awake all night so as to be on hand in time in the morning. Then one of the loafers, whose family owned no timepiece, lounged up, and made Billy very uncomfortable with prophecies that a certain boy would hardly escape melting on such a warm day as that particular Saturday promised to be, and that only a pair of leg boots could be trusted to save enough of the remains to justify a full sized funeral. Then one of the country boys appeared, riding bareback upon an ancient mare, and his extreme taciturnity became as annoying to Billy as the chaffing of the loafer had been, while the loafer himself visibly abated his arrogance by a degree or two. Then the Pinkshaw twins approached, each with an axe in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other. Matt Bolton came next, quite out of breath, for though he had half an hour to spare, a sense of his official responsibility had somehow impelled him to run every step of the way from his own home. Lame Joey Wilson staggered in soon after, with his heavy "saw horse" and saw, and close behind him came a country boy whose family had brought him as far as the main street in the farm wagon. Then two loafers, successful catchers of occasional saw logs and drift wood, lounged up from the river. Several boys from the neighborhood known as the other side of town, approached in a body, led by big Frank Parker, who was the largest boy in school and who it was always considered a privilege to follow. Then as the hour for business came nearer, boys approached from all directions so rapidly that they could scarcely be catalogued, and when Matt drew his sister's watch from his pocket for the twentieth time and announced that it was ten minutes of eight, there were present forty-three boys, five horses (belonging to the delegation from the country), besides three unemployed men who had come to look on. The stalwart appearance of some of the larger contestants terrified certain small, weak and lazy boys into determining to throw up the sponge in advance, but when the challenger, the boastful Jack himself, sauntered out from the house with an axe on his shoulder, a toothpick in his mouth and an intolerable air of self-sufficiency in his face, the nerves of the most timid boy grew suddenly as fine as steel, and he determined to drop dead on his axe rather than let that bragging Jack crow over him any longer.
Suddenly Matt mounted the wood-pile, consulted his sister's watch, and exclaimed—
"Only five minutes more. Now, fellows, this is to be a fair fight, you know. Every man picks his own place, carries wood to it from the pile, cuts each stick into three equal lengths, and throws in front of him whatever he chops. If at twelve o'clock there's any doubt who has done most, the biggest piles are to be laid up straight against a stake, and carefully measured. Nobody need split his wood. When it's time to begin, I'll holloa 'One, two, three—go!' and when twelve o'clock comes I'll say 'One, two, three—stop!' I'll have a pail of water and a cup here by the fence, for anyone who wants a drink."
The boys were already carrying the four foot sticks of wood to their chosen locations, and between the confusion of selecting desirable places and that occasioned by snatching from a wood-pile which did not afford elbow-room for forty-three boys at a time, there was considerable bad feeling engendered, and sundry punishments with impolite names were promised for the indefinite future. The country boys had judiciously hugged the ends of the wood-pile from the moment of their arrival, which prospective advantage certain other boys attempted to nullify by taking wood from the ends, and there might have ensued a serious collision had not Matt, who had moved the judge's stand from the wood-pile to the fence, shouted,
"Eight o'clock. One, two, three—go!"
Thirty-nine axes came down nearly as one, and four saws began a not discordant quartette across the bark of sundry sticks, while the three unemployed men thrust their hands deep into their pockets and adjured the boys, collectively, to "go in." A chip from fat Billy Barker's axe started to avenge Billy upon his tormentor of an hour before, and it struck the loafer in the back of the neck with such force that the bad boy howled with anguish, and volubly condemned his soul to all sorts of uncomfortable places and conditions. The axes soon broke the uniformity of their stroke; some flew at the rate of nearly a blow a second, others, particularly those of the country boys, were slow, but oh, so regular! Still others, confined almost exclusively to the loafers, struck the wood rapidly and with a particularly vicious hardness which was not without its influence upon boys of small spirit. The peculiar ringing of an occasional "glance" was heard, and soon a yell from Scoopy Brown, who was a very awkward boy, called general attention to that youth, who was sitting upon the ground holding one of his feet and weeping bitterly. A careful examination determined that his axe had not gone deeper than the stocking, so Scoopy dried his tears and began work again, his spirits sharpened by many uncomplimentary remarks by the loafers and others who had lost time by stopping work to look at him.
Within a quarter of an hour fat Billy Barker had visited the water-pail three times; a quarter of an hour later he was curled up with agony beside the fence, his only consolation consisting in making dreadful faces at the big loafer who had proved a tolerable prophet. At the same time two other boys, one of whom had broken an arm within three months, and the other being so small that he realized the folly of contending against many large boys, retired from the contest, and took place among the spectators, who already consisted of seven men, one woman (with baby) and two dogs. Then one of the loafers declared that although he could beat as easily as falling off a log, fifty cents wouldn't pay for half a day of work under such a sun. Of the spare forty who remained, nearly half were of apoplectic hue, so that Matt the umpire, consulting his sister's watch, felt in duty bound to inform them that barely half an hour had elapsed, and that they would never get through the morning unless they took things easier.
As for Jack, he did splendidly. With great sagacity he had selected the largest sticks, these requiring less handling, and fewer delays between an old stick and a new one, besides making a heap look more bulky. His axe was in capital condition, as his physique always was, his nerve was equally good, and he had the additional incentive of wanting to keep up the general interest, which would be sure to flag if he were discovered to be falling behind. The country boys led him a close race, and compelled him to do his best, as did also two of the loafers. At the end of the first hour, Matt the umpire, who had attended closely to his sister's watch for the ten minutes preceding, shouted "Nine o'clock," and most of the country boys stopped for a brief rest. Jack was glad to follow their example, and at the same time one of the loafers took a flask bottle from his pocket and swallowed considerable whiskey. A request, proffered by another loafer, that the bottle be passed was met by a reply similar in tenor to that given by the five wise virgins to their foolish companions, and the apparent meanness of this proceeding made even the weariest boy determine to at least beat that particular loafer.