“For some time I didn’t hear anything,� Eph went on. “Then I heard something coming along slow and still on the old turnpike. It didn’t seem like a wagon at first, nothing about it rattled and squeaked natural-like for a wagon. There must have been lots of axle grease onto them wheels and that harness was oiled up and strapped up, I tell you, and if them horses had a had smart-weed drafts onto their hoofs they couldn’t have set ’em down more soft and quiet-like. When I saw that it was a wagon and that there wa’n’t no signs of a driver to it—for whatever was driving of it was flat on the bottom—then it came over me that they was a-bringing home somebody dead in that wagon——�
“And the Remains was driving itself home, quiet and respectable-like, and conducting its own funeral—that’s accommodating now—I like that, go on,� interrupted Martin.
“Of course,� Eph admitted, looking a little “sheepish.� “Of course there wa’n’t no sense in that—not by daylight. But that’s what I thought of then, and I was hot and cold all to onct, I tell you, and I streaked after that wagon, for I meant to get home to mother ahead of it. I got up to the court house and lay down flat in that clump of pines by the horse block, ’cause all the roads branch off from there and I could see which way it went next. There wa’n’t no moon last night, and precious few stars.
“On come the wagon, slow and steady—just as if a chunk of the dark had got loose from the rest of the dark and was moving on by itself. It come close to the horse block and I could see it wa’n’t going down any of the roads. Then I heard a clattering sound, and I knew they were going over the round stones of the gutter, and the off horse struck out a spark with his hoof. When I saw ’em a-following me up so close I thought certain it was me they was after. But I had a good place for dodging—out by the meeting-house sheds, or down the court-house steps into the cellar, or round the wood pile—good places all of them, and I thought I would chance it. But there wa’n’t no call for dodging. The wagon just rolled quietly on a few steps and then stood stockstill and six black shadows rose up one by one and got out on to the ground, and when I saw that, why I could have squealed right out a-laughing.
“I meant to see what they were after, so I dragged myself along like a worm in the shadow of that bad-smelling green stuff that edges the driveway, and I found out they were boys from over the line and they had come for our gun. Phil Basset was bossing around—same as he tried to when he came to the academy before Ethan settled him. He was wheezing away like the croup, talking in big whispers full of wind, telling everybody else to keep still, and where to put the crowbars and how to lift all together when he give the word, one, two, three! But just as he got to ‘three,’ there was a pin pointing toward the calf of his leg, and I braced myself against that pin and it naturally sent me off down the knoll, quiet-like and out of the way, and it left him hollering and kicking. Then everybody dropped flat till they see whether any one in the village heard the noise. When they went to work again Phil said he’d been taken with cramp and couldn’t lift. But they got the gun onto the wagon and started for home. Phil drove ’cause his leg was lame and they was his father’s horses. The other five boys had gone on ahead.
“Well, when I saw that gun moving off, and I thought how that was ours for sure, and we’d got it from the English and how we’d got ourselves from the English—Fourth of July and all, so that they couldn’t ever boss us again, and so that everybody was his own boss in this country—why something rose up in my throat and choked me. Then I thought about Eth, ’cause he’d had charge of the gun, and he’d been awful good and let me help clean her up, and how we’d dug the rust out of her and greased her and polished her, and he’d showed me the powder and things for to-morrow and said I might touch her off the first bang—then I nearly busted, only I saw that it wasn’t any time for busting. I just got myself together pretty quick and jumped for the tailboard of that wagon. I hung on—I thought I’d stick to that gun, and if I died a sticking there, well then I’d die.
“The boys had told Phil to take the new road to Tadman’s Ferry, ’cause the hills were so steep on the old one, and the fellows were to go cross-lots and meet him on the other side, and then they were going to set the gun up as high as they could get it on Horncliffe. But Phil said he reckoned he knew what the horses could haul, and as soon as he was left to himself he struck off onto the old road. He was up high on the seat and I’d crawled in and was laying on the bottom, flatter than flat—froze on to the gun. We buzzed along lively at first. The down-hills were rather shaky work you guess, but the up-hills were worse, and they kept getting more so till we got to that awful steep pitch near the top of Smith’s hill. You know where that is?�
“Oh, yes,� said Martin. “There is where you have to lean backward to keep from bumping your forehead when you go up. I suppose you rose to the occasion, Eph—it must have stood you and the gun right up on end.�
“I got out,� Eph went on, “for the horses stood stockstill and couldn’t go an inch farther and then the wagon began to slip back, and Phil put stones back of the wheels. Then he went at his horses again, whipping and coaxing them. But it was no use. The road is slaty along there and the horses had no grip for their feet. He had to give it up at last and he left everything standing and went for the boys to get them to boost. As soon as I knew I was alone I hid the crowbars in a hollow tree, and I cut the traces and let the horses loose, and I took the linchpin out of one of the wheels—it wasn’t in very tight, and I took the ramrod of the gun, and I wrapped them traces around it and I dropped ’em into the brook at the foot of the hill. Then I put for home, and I waked up Ethan Allen and went to bed myself.�
“I reckon you were in bed all the time, and saw all this with your eyes shut in the dark,� said a derisive voice.