CHAPTER VII
THE RECKONING
Sam awoke to find the sunshine pouring through the window of his room. Overnight there had been a change for the better in the weather, and Sunday had dawned clear and bright.
The boy yawned, stretched himself luxuriously, rubbed the lingering sleepiness out of his eyes. There was a blissful moment, in which he felt himself in harmony with the unclouded morning, refreshed, untroubled. Then, of a sudden, came recollection of the events of the day before, and understanding that there was still a reckoning to be paid. He might have nothing to fear from courts and officers of the law; Major Bates, ordinarily warlike, had been brought to prefer peace to hostilities; but he had yet to reach complete understanding with his father.
Mr. Parker and Sam had exchanged hardly a word while they walked home from the Major’s house; but at their own door the father had paused briefly.
“You’d better turn in, Sam,” he had said. “We’ll have to go over this matter pretty carefully, but I’m not prepared to do so to-night. And I fancy your own ideas will be none the worse for a little revision, and a clearer head in the morning.”
But Sam, going to his room, had found himself very wakeful. Half an hour later his mother had looked in, and discovered him, fully dressed and huddled in a big chair; and glad, indeed, to see her, as it proved. She had had no reproaches to shower upon him—Sam had wondered if his father’s explanation of his misdeeds had not been extremely merciful; and she had slipped an arm about him, and “mothered” him most comfortingly. And, presently, had appeared her handmaiden and his own loyal ally, Maggie, bearing a tray on which were a bowl of milk and a plate of crackers. Sam, who might have vowed that he wasn’t hungry, in a second had become acutely aware of a lack of something under his belt, and had fallen to with a right good will, his mother watching him approvingly and Maggie voicing her satisfaction in her own fashion.
“Well, say, ma’am, will you look at that, now? It’s not a morsel of supper the poor boy’ll have been puttin’ tooth to! And him sayin’ nothing about it—no; nor his father, either! They’re like as two peas in some ways, ma’am. Oh, them men, them men!”
These were the brighter spots in Sam’s memories. They were pleasant to dwell upon; but they could not relieve the general gravity of the case. A very sober youth it was who dressed mechanically and in due course appeared at breakfast. A deal to his surprise his father and mother greeted him quite as usual. There was nothing to suggest that they regarded him either as a repentant offender or as a hero. At Sunday-school he had another experience of the same sort; for his friends hailed him with matter-of-fact heartiness. Both Step and Poke appeared to have lived down their domestic unpopularity, resulting from the incident of the hungry hound, and to be disposed to regard the world cheerfully, with no suspicion that he was not entirely of their way of thinking.
There was interest displayed in the news that Peter Groche, after a night in the lock-up, had been released from custody; but it occurred to none of Sam’s chums to connect the circumstance with his adventures as a deer hunter. Groche, presented with his freedom, had walked off, mumbling and grumbling. The popular theory was that, sooner or later, he would try to “get even” with the Major, his old grudge being heightened by the recent episode.