Glengarry School Days: A Story of Early Days in Glengarry

by Ralph Connor

  CHAPTER VIII

  FOXY'S PARTNER

  It was an evil day for Hughie when he made friends with Foxy and becamehis partner in the store business, for Hughie's hoardings were neverlarge, and after buying a Christmas present for his mother, accordingto his unfailing custom, they were reduced to a very few pennies indeed.The opportunities for investment in his new position were many andalluring. But all Hughie's soul went out in longing for a pistol whichFoxy had among his goods, and which would fire not only caps, but powderand ball, and his longing was sensibly increased by Foxy generouslyallowing him to try the pistol, first at a mark, which Hughie hit, andthen at a red squirrel, which he missed. By day Hughie yearned for thispistol, by night he dreamed of it, but how he might secure it for hisown he did not know.

  Upon this point he felt he could not consult his mother, his usualcounselor, for he had an instinctive feeling that she would not approveof his having a pistol in his possession; and as for his father, Hughieknew he would soon make "short work of any such folly." What would achild like Hughie do with a pistol? He had never had a pistol in all hislife. It was difficult for the minister to realize that young Canada wasa new type, and he would have been more than surprised had any one toldhim that already Hughie, although only twelve, was an expert with a gun,having for many a Saturday during the long, sunny fall roamed the woods,at first in company with Don, and afterwards with Don's gun alone, orfollowed by Fusie or Davie Scotch. There was thus no help for Hughie athome. The price of the pistol reduced to the lowest possible sum, wastwo dollars and a half, which Foxy declared was only half what he wouldcharge any one else but his partner.

  "How much have you got altogether?" he asked Hughie one day, when Hughiewas groaning over his poverty.

  "Six pennies and two dimes," was Hughie's disconsolate reply. He hadoften counted them over. "Of course," he went on, "there's my XL knife.That's worth a lot, only the point of the big blade's broken."

  "Huh!" grunted Foxy, "there's jist the stub left."

  "It's not!" said Hughie, indignantly. "It's more than half, then. Andit's bully good stuff, too. It'll nick any knife in the school"; andHughie dived into his pocket and pulled out his knife with a handful ofboy's treasures.

  "Hullo!" said Foxy, snatching a half-dollar from Hughie's hand, "whoseis that?"

  "Here, you, give me that! That's not mine," cried Hughie.

  "Whose is it, then?"

  "I don't know. I guess it's mother's. I found it on the kitchen floor,and I know it's mother's."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know well enough. She often puts money on the window, and it felldown. Give me that, I tell you!" Hughie's eyes were blazing dangerously,and Foxy handed back the half-dollar.

  "O, all right. You're a pretty big fool," he said, indifferently."'Losers seekers, finders keepers.' That's my rule."

  Hughie was silent, holding his precious half-dollar in his hand, deep inhis pocket.

  "Say," said Foxy, changing the subject, "I guess you had better pay upfor your powder and caps you've been firing."

  "I haven't been firing much," said Hughie, confidently.

  "Well, you've been firing pretty steady for three weeks."

  "Three weeks! It isn't three weeks."

  "It is. There's this week, and last week when the ink-bottle bust toosoon and burnt Fusie's eyebrows, and the week before when you shot AleckDan, and it was the week before that you began, and that'll make itfour."

  "How much?" asked Hughie, desperately, resolved to know the worst.

  Foxy had been preparing for this. He took down a slate-pencil box with asliding lid, and drew out a bundle of crumbled slips which Hughie, withsinking heart, recognized as his own vouchers.

  "Sixteen pennies." Foxy had taken care of this part of the business.

  "Sixteen!" exclaimed Hughie, snatching up the bunch.

  "Count them yourself," said Foxy, calmly, knowing well he could count onHughie's honesty.

  "Seventeen," said Hughie, hopelessly.

  "But one of those I didn't count," said Foxy, generously. "That's theone I gave you to try at the first. Now, I tell you," went on Foxy,insinuatingly, "you have got how much at home?" he inquired.

  "Six pennies and two dimes." Hughie's tone indicated despair.

  "You've got six pennies and two dimes. Six pennies and two dimes. That'stwenty--that's thirty-two cents. Now if you paid me that thirty-twocents, and if you could get a half-dollar anywhere, that would beeighty-two. I tell you what I would do. I would let you have that pistolfor only one dollar more. That ain't much," he said.

  "Only a dollar more," said Hughie, calculating rapidly. "But where wouldI get the fifty cents?" The dollar seemed at that moment to Hughie quitea possible thing, if only the fifty cents could be got. The dollar wasmore remote, and therefore less pressing.

  Foxy had an inspiration.

  "I tell you what. You borrow that fifty cents you found, and then youcan pay me eighty-two cents, and--and--" he hesitated--"perhaps you willfind some more, or something."

  Hughie's eyes were blazing with great fierceness.

  Foxy hastened to add, "And I'll let you have the pistol right off, andyou'll pay me again some time when you can, the other dollar."

  Hughie checked the indignant answer that was at his lips. To have thepistol as his own, to take home with him at night, and to keep allSaturday--the temptation was great, and coming suddenly upon Hughie,was too much for him. He would surely, somehow, soon pay back the fiftycents, he argued, and Foxy would wait for the dollar. And yet thathalf-dollar was not his, but his mother's, and more than that, if heasked her for it, he was pretty sure she would refuse. But then, hedoubted his mother's judgment as to his ability to use firearms, andbesides, this pistol at that price was a great bargain, and any of theboys might pick it up. Poor Hughie! He did not know how ancient was thatargument, nor how frequently it had done duty in smoothing the descentto the lower regions. The pistol was good to look at, the opportunityof securing it was such as might not occur again, and as for thehalf-dollar, there could be no harm in borrowing that for a littlewhile.

  That was Foxy's day of triumph, but to Hughie it was the beginning ofmany woeful days and nights. And his misery came upon him swift andsure, in the very moment that he turned in from the road at the mansegate, for he knew that at the end of the lane would be his mother, andhis winged feet, upon which he usually flew from the gate home, draggedheavily.

  He found his mother, not at the door, but in the large, pleasantliving-room, which did for all kinds of rooms in the manse. It wasdining-room and sewing-room, nursery and playroom, but it was alwaysa good room to enter, and in spite of playthings strewn about, orsnippings of cloth, or other stour, it was always a place of brightnessand of peace, for it was there the mother was most frequently to befound. This evening she was at the sewing-machine busy with Hughie'sSunday clothes, with the baby asleep in the cradle beside her in spiteof the din of the flying wheels, and little Robbie helping to pullthrough the long seam. Hughie shrank from the warm, bright, lovingatmosphere that seemed to fill the room, hating to go in, but in amoment he realized that he must "make believe" with his mother, and thepain of it and the shame of it startled and amazed him. He was glad thathis mother did not notice him enter, and by the time he had put awayhis books he had braced himself to meet her bright smile and her welcomekiss.

  The mother did not apparently notice his hesitation.

  "Well, my boy, home again?" she cried, holding out her hand to him withthe air of good comradeship she always wore with him. "Are you veryhungry?"

  "You bet!" said Hughie, kissing her, and glad of the chance to get away.

  "Well, you will find something pretty nice in the pantry we saved foryou. Guess what."

  "Don't know."

  "I know," shouted Robbie. "Pie! It's muzzie's pie. Muzzie tept it for'oo."

  "Now, Robbie, you were not to tell," said his mother, shaking her fingerat him.

  "O-o-o, I fordot," said Robbie, horrifi
ed at his failure to keep hispromise.

  "Never mind. That's a lesson you will have to learn many times, how tokeep those little lips shut. And the pie will be just as good."

  "Thank you, mother," said Hughie. "But I don't want your pie."

  "My pie!" said the mother. "Pie isn't good for old women."

  "Old women!" said Hughie, indignantly. "You're the youngest andprettiest woman in the congregation," he cried, and forgetting for themoment his sense of meanness, he threw his arms round his mother.

  "Oh, Hughie, shame on you! What a dreadful flatterer you are!" said hismother. "Now, run away to your pie, and then to your evening work, myboy, and we will have a good lesson together after supper."

  Hughie ran away, glad to get out of her presence, and seizing the pie,carried it out to the barn and hurled it far into the snow. He felt surethat a single bite of it would choke him.

  If he could only have seen Foxy any time for the next hour, how gladlywould he have given him back his pistol, but by the time he had fedhis cow and the horses, split the wood and carried it in, and preparedkindling for the morning's fires, he had become accustomed to his newself, and had learned his first lesson in keeping his emotions out ofhis face. But from that night, and through all the long weeks of thebreaking winter, when games in the woods were impossible by reasonof the snow and water, and when the roads were deep with mud, Hughiecarried his burden with him, till life was one long weariness and dread.

  And through these days he was Foxy's slave. A pistol without ammunitionwas quite useless. Foxy's stock was near at hand. It was easy to write avoucher for a penny's worth of powder or caps, and consequently the pilein Foxy's pencil-box steadily mounted till Hughie was afraid to look atit. His chance of being free from his own conscience was still remoteenough.

  During these days, too, Foxy reveled in his power over his rival, andground his slave in bitter bondage, subjecting him to such humiliationas made the school wonder and Hughie writhe; and if ever Hughie showedany sign of resentment or rebellion, Foxy could tame him to grovelingsubmission by a single word. "Well, I guess I'll go down to-night to seeyour mother," was all he needed to say to make Hughie grovel again.For with Hughie it was not the fear of his father's wrath and heavypunishment, though that was terrible enough, but the dread that hismother should know, that made him grovel before his tyrant, and wake atnight in a cold sweat. His mother's tender anxiety for his pale face andgloomy looks only added to the misery of his heart.

  He had no one in whom he could confide. He could not tell any of theboys, for he was unwilling to lose their esteem, besides, it was noneof their business; he was terrified of his father's wrath, and from hismother, his usual and unfailing resort in every trouble of his wholelife, he was now separated by his terrible secret.

  Then Foxy began to insist upon payment of his debts. Spring was at hand,the store would soon be closed up, for business was slack in the summer,and besides, Foxy had other use for his money.

  "Haven't you got any money at all in your house?" Foxy sneered one day,when Hughie was declaring his inability to meet his debts.

  "Of course we have," cried Hughie, indignantly.

  "Don't believe it," said Foxy, contemptuously.

  "Father's drawer is sometimes full of dimes and half-dimes. At least,there's an awful lot on Mondays, from the collections, you know," saidHughie.

  "Well, then, you had better get some for me, somehow," said Foxy. "Youmight borrow some from the drawer for a little while."

  "That would be stealing," said Hughie.

  "You wouldn't mean to keep it," said Foxy. "You would only take it for awhile. It would just be borrowing."

  "It wouldn't," said Hughie, firmly. "It's taking out of his drawer. It'sstealing, and I won't steal."

  "Huh! you're mighty good all at once. What about that half-dollar?"

  "You said yourself that wasn't stealing," said Hughie, passionately.

  "Well, what's the difference? You said it was your mother's, and this isyour father's. It's all the same, except that you're afraid to take yourfather's."

  "I'm not afraid. At least it isn't that. But it's different to takemoney out of a drawer, that isn't your own."

  "Huh! Mighty lot of difference! Money's money, wherever it is. Besides,if you borrowed this from your father, you could pay back your motherand me. You would pay the whole thing right off."

  Once more Hughie argued with himself. To be free from Foxy's hatefultyranny, and to be clear again with his mother--for that he would bewilling to suffer almost anything. But to take money out of that drawerwas awfully like stealing. Of course he would pay it back, and after allit would only be borrowing. Besides, it would enable him to repay whathe owed to his mother and to Foxy. Through all the mazes of speciousargument Hughie worked his way, arriving at no conclusion, except thathe carried with him a feeling that if he could by some means get thatmoney out of the drawer in a way that would not be stealing, it would bea vast relief, greater than words could tell.

  That night brought him the opportunity. His father and mother were awayat the prayer meeting. There was only Jessie left in the house, and shewas busy with the younger children. With the firm resolve that he wouldnot take a single half-dime from his father's drawer, he went into thestudy. He would like to see if the drawer were open. Yes, it was open,and the Sabbath's collection lay there with all its shining invitation.He tried making up the dollar and a half out of the dimes andhalf-dimes. What a lot of half-dimes it took! But when he used thequarters and dimes, how much smaller the piles were. Only two quartersand five dimes made up the dollar, and the pile in the drawer lookedpretty much the same as before. Another quarter-dollar withdrawn fromthe drawer made little difference. He looked at the little heaps onthe table. He believed he could make Foxy take that for his whole debt,though he was sure he owed him more. Perhaps he had better make certain.He transferred two more dimes and a half-dime from the drawer to thetable. It was an insignificant little heap. That would certainly clearoff his whole indebtedness and make him a free man.

  He slipped the little heaps of money from the table into his pocket, andthen suddenly he realized that he had never decided to take the money.The last resolve he could remember making was simply to see how thedollar and a half looked. Without noticing, he had passed the point offinal decision. Alas! like many another, Hughie found the going easy andthe slipping smooth upon the down incline. Unconsciously he had slippedinto being a thief.

  Now he could not go back. His absorbing purpose was concealment. Quietlyshutting the drawer, he was slipping hurriedly up to his own room, whenon the stairway he met Jessie.

  "What are you doing here, Jessie?" he asked, sharply.

  "Putting Robbie off to bed," said Jessie, in surprise. "What's thematter with you?"

  "What's the matter?" echoed Hughie, smitten with horrible fear thatperhaps she knew. "I just wanted to know," he said, weakly.

  He slipped past her, holding his pocket tight lest the coins shouldrattle. When he reached his room he stood listening in the dark toJessie going down the stairs. He was sure she suspected something.He would go back and put the money in the drawer again, whenever shereached the kitchen. He stood there with his heart-beats filling hisears, waiting for the kitchen door to slam.

  Then he resolved he would wrap the money up in paper and put it safelyaway, and go down and see if Jessie knew. He found one of his oldcopybooks, and began tearing out a leaf. What a noise it made! Robbiewould surely wake up, and then Jessie would come back with the light. Heput the copy-book under the quilt, and holding it down firmly with onehand, removed the leaf with the other. With great care he wrapped up thedimes and half-dimes by themselves. They fitted better together. Thenhe took up the quarters, and was proceeding to fold them in a similarparcel, when he heard Jessie's voice from below.

  "Hughie, what are you doing?" She was coming up the stair.

  He jumped from the bed to go to meet her. A quarter fell on the floorand rolled under the bed. It seemed to Hughie
as if it would never stoprolling, and as if Jessie must hear it. Wildly he scrambled on thefloor in the dark, seeking for the quarter, while Jessie came nearer andnearer.

  "Are you going to bed already, Hughie?" she asked.

  Quickly Hughie went out to the hall to meet her.

  "Yes," he yawned, gratefully seizing upon her suggestion. "I'm awfullysleepy. Give me the candle, Jessie," he said, snatching it from herhand. "I want to go downstairs."

  "Hughie, you are very rude. What would your mother say? Let me have thecandle immediately, I want to get Robbie's stockings."

  Hughie's heart stood still.

  "I'll throw them down, Jessie. I want the candle downstairs just aminute."

  "Leave that candle with me," insisted Jessie. "There's another on thedining-room table you can get."

  "I'll not be a minute," said Hughie, hurrying downstairs. "You comedown, Jessie, I want to ask you something. I'll throw you Robbie'sstockings."

  "Come back here, the rude boy that you are," said Jessie, crossly, "andbring me that candle."

  There was no reply. Hughie was standing, pale and shaking, in thedining-room, listening intently for Jessie's step. Would she go into hisroom, or would she come down? Every moment increased the agony of hisfear.

  At length, with a happy inspiration, he went to the cupboard, opened thedoor noisily, and began rattling the dishes.

  "Mercy me!" he heard Jessie exclaim at the top of the stair. "That boywill be my death. Hughie," she called, "just shut that cupboard! Youknow your mother doesn't like you to go in there."

  "I only want a little," called out Hughie, still moving the dishes, andhearing, to his great relief, Jessie's descending step. In desperationhe seized a dish of black currant preserves which he found on thecupboard shelf, and spilled it over the dishes and upon the floor justas Jessie entered the room.

  "Land sakes alive, boy! Will you never be done your mischief?" shecried, rushing toward him.

  "Oh!" he said, "I spilt it."

  "Spilt it!" echoed Jessie, indignantly, "you needn't be telling me that.Bring me a cloth from the kitchen."

  "I don't know where it is, Jessie," cried Hughie, slipping upstairsagain with his candle.

  To his great relief he saw that Jessie's attention was so entirely takenup with removing the stains of the preserves from the cupboard shelvesand dishes, that she for the moment forgot everything else, Robbie'sstockings included.

  Hurrying to his room, and shading the candle with his hand lest thelight should waken his little brother, he hastily seized the money uponthe bed quilt, and after a few moments' searching under the bed, foundthe strayed quarter.

  With these in his hand he passed into his mother's room. Leaving thecandle there, he came back to the head of the stairs and listened fora moment, with great satisfaction, to Jessie muttering to herself whileshe cleaned up the mess he had made. Then he turned, and with tremblingfingers he swiftly made up the quarter-dollars into another parcel. Witha great sigh of relief he put the two parcels in his pocket, and seizinghis candle turned to leave the room. As he did so, he caught sight ofhimself in the glass. With a great shock of surprise he stood gazing atthe terrified, white face, with the staring eyes.

  "What a fool I am!" he said, looking at himself in the glass. "Nobodywill know, and I'll pay this back soon."

  His eyes wandered to a picture which stood on a little shelf beside theglass. It was a picture of his mother, the one he loved best of all hehad ever seen of her.

  There was a sudden stab of pain at his heart, his breath came in a greatsob. For a moment he looked into the eyes that looked back at him sofull of love and reproach.

  "I won't do it," he said, grinding his teeth hard, and forthwith turnedto go to his father's study.

  But as he left the room he saw Jessie half-way up the stairs.

  "What are you doing now?" she cried, wrathfully. "Up to some mischief, Idoubt."

  With a sudden, inexplicable rage, Hughie turned toward her.

  "It's none of your business! You mind your own business, will you, andleave me alone." The terrible emotions of the last few minutes were atthe back of his rage.

  "Just wait, you," said Jessie, "till your mother comes. Then you'll hearit."

  "You shut your mouth!" cried Hughie, his passion sweeping his wholebeing like a tempest. "You shut your mouth, you old cat, or I'll throwthis candle at you." He raised the candle high in his hand as he spoke,and altogether looked so desperate that Jessie stood in terror lest heshould make good his threat.

  "Stop, now, Hughie," she entreated. "You will be setting the house onfire."

  Hughie hesitated a moment, and then turned from her, and going into hisroom, banged the door in her face, and Jessie, not knowing what to makeof it all, went slowly downstairs again, forgetting once more Robbie'sstockings.

  "The old cat!" said Hughie to himself. "She just stopped me. I was goingto put it back."

  The memory that he had resolved to undo his wrong brought him a curioussense of relief.

  "I was just going to put it back," he said, "when she had to interfere."

  He was conscious of a sense of injury against Jessie. It was not hisfault that that money was not now in the drawer.

  "I'll put it back in the morning, anyhow," he said, firmly. But even ashe spoke he was conscious of an infinality in his determination, whilehe refused to acknowledge to himself a secret purpose to leave thequestion open till the morning. But this determination, inconclusivethough it was, brought him a certain calm of mind, so that when hismother came into his room she found him sound asleep.

  She stood beside his bed looking down upon him for a few moments, withface full of anxious sadness.

  "There's something wrong with the boy," she said to herself, stooping tokiss him. "There's something wrong with him," she repeated, as she leftthe room. "He's not the same."

  During these weeks she had been conscious that Hughie had changed insome way to her. The old, full, frank confidence was gone. There wasa constraint in his manner she could not explain. "He is no longera child," she would say to herself, seeking to allay the pain in herheart. "A boy must have his secrets. It is foolish in me to thinkanything else. Besides, he is not well. He is growing too fast." Andindeed, Hughie's pale, miserable face gave ground enough for thisopinion.

  "That boy is not well," she said to her husband.

  "Which boy?"

  "Hughie," she replied. "He is looking miserable, and somehow he isdifferent."

  "Oh, nonsense! He eats well enough, and sleeps well enough," said herhusband, making light of her fears.

  "There's something wrong," repeated his wife. "And he hates his school."

  "Well, I don't wonder at that," said her husband, sharply. "I don't seehow any boy of spirit could take much pleasure in that kind of a school.The boys are just wasting their time, and worse than that, they havelost all the old spirit. I must see to it that the policy of thoseclose-fisted trustees is changed. I am not going to put up with thosechits of girls teaching any longer."

  "There may be something in what you say," said his wife, sadly, "butcertainly Hughie is always begging to stay at home from school."

  "And indeed, he might as well stay home," answered her husband, "for allthe good he gets."

  "I do wish we had a good man in charge," replied his wife, with a greatsigh. "It is very important that these boys should have a good, strongman over them. How much it means to a boy at Hughie's time of life! Butso few are willing to come away into the backwoods here for so small asalary."

  Suddenly her husband laid down his pipe.

  "I have it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing! Wouldn't this be the verything for young Craven. You remember, the young man that ProfessorMacLauchlan was writing about."

  His wife shook her head very decidedly.

  "Not at all," she said. "Didn't Professor MacLauchlan say he wasdissipated?"

  "O, just a little wild. Got going with some loose companions. Out herethere would be no temptation."
r />   "I am not at all sure of that," said his wife, "and I would not likeHughie to be under his influence."

  "MacLauchlan says he is a young man of fine disposition and of fineparts," argued her husband, "and if temptation were removed from him hebelieves he would turn out a good man."

  Mrs. Murray shook her head doubtfully. "He is not the man to put Hughieunder just now."

  "What are we to do with Hughie?" replied her husband. "He is getting nogood in the school as it is, and we cannot send him away yet."

  "Send him away!" exclaimed his wife. "No, no, not a child like that."

  "Craven might be a very good man," continued her husband. "He mightperhaps live with us. I know you have more than enough to do now," headded, answering her look of dismay, "but he would be a great help toHughie with his lessons, and might start him in his classics. And then,who knows what you might make of the young man."

  Mrs. Murray did not respond to her husband's smile, but only replied,"I am sure I wish I knew what is the matter with the boy, and I wish hecould leave school for a while."

  "O, the boy is all right," said her husband, impatiently. "Only a littleless noisy, as far as I can see."

  "No, he is not the same," replied his wife. "He is different to me."There was almost a cry of pain in her voice.

  "Now, now, don't imagine things. Boys are full of notions at Hughie'sage. He may need a change, but that is all."

  With this the mother tried to quiet the tumult of anxious fear and painshe found rising in her heart, but long after the house was still, andwhile both her boy and his father lay asleep, she kept pouring forththat ancient sacrifice of self-effacing love before the feet of God.