The Court of Boyville

by William Allen White

"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy knew the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person. So Jimmy quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of pursuing feet. It was two hundred yards to the end of the cob-strewn cow lot. The boy fixed his course toward the lowest length of fence. Then he kept his eyes upon the ground. He clenched his teeth and skimmed over the earth. The feathers in his hat—stuck there to satisfy the verities of his assumed Indian character—caught the breeze; so, rather than lose his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He cleared the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud of boots on the sod and the crash of branches behind him sent terror through the boy's frame, and he turned towards the creek that flowed sluggishly near by. He took great bounding strides, throwing his head from side to side as he ran. The boy knew the path. It led to a rickety fence—a cattle guard—across the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees danced by him on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen fence-walker of Willow Creek," late of "Pennington & Carpenter's Circus & Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud place by prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew that he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times. He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the "champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears—an exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by heart—look exultingly at his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity. Lentulus returning to Capua with victorious legions was not so proud. But there the evil spirit swooped low upon him—the spirit of destruction that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged forward; the chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy all parted company. Then Jimmy felt a pain—a sharp pain that he recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe. This knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's pleasure was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along, the last brave in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to throb as he gathered up his weapons. He walked for a few moments without looking at the wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he bent his body and went along, grunting at every step. Finally coming into a flood of sunlight on the path, he sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then little by little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly at the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time the chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its senses, squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When Jimmy's mind turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been in the depths as he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet brought with it a still further depression, and Jimmy forgot all about his impersonation of the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit in the red ochre stripes on his face, and the iridescent feathers in his hat, and the blue-black mud on his nimble feet. For a few moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who saw the hand of the whole world raised against him. The cry of the new baby rang in his ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about the number of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of wrongs grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all the world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand, saying, before he came down with his index finger,—

"Spit, spit, spy,

Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye."

He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have taken, but he knew that luck—like all the world—was against him, and he had no heart in the rites that on another day might have brought fortune to him. His stubbed toe was hurting him, and the murmur of a ripple in the stream a few rods below the cattle guard called to him enticingly. As soon as the boy deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he hobbled down to the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the shade, with the cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that the other boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying the gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle. For another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him to strangle his scruples; he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in his cast-iron bank at home—the result of a year's careful saving. He crossed the creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was walking in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the corner and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to make, Jimmy had recited to himself over and over. He intended to walk up to the counter and say,—

"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."

To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not seem completely abject. He fancied the grocer would reply,—

"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."

To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong voice,—

"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have that, and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are ripe."