by Homer Greene
CHAPTER VI.
QUARTERED ON A HAYMOW.
The race was an exciting one. The people who crowded the platform ofthe station looked on with interest, supposing that both boys wererunning to catch the train.
At the edge of the platform Brede tripped and fell, with Brightlyso close behind that he stumbled involuntarily over the captain'sprostrate body. In an instant both boys were up and facing each other,Brightly's face pale with excitement and determination, and Brede'sdistorted with fear and anger.
"You coward!" exclaimed Brightly, his breast heaving with exhaustionand indignation. "You coward, give back that money!"
For an instant Brede glared defiantly at his captor; then, as theconductor shouted "All aboard!" and the engine gave its first longpuff at starting, he plunged his hand into his pocket, held out ahandful of small coin and paper currency, and turned again toward thecars.
"Stop!" said Brightly, looking the money over rapidly. "Wait! Thisisn't all of it; I want the rest."
"I'll keep my part," replied Brede, darting suddenly in among thepeople. Before he could escape, Brightly's hand was on his shoulder,and the demand was repeated. The fugitive turned, almost crying in hisrage, and flung a few pieces of paper money into his captor's face.Then, grasping the rail of the last car as it passed rapidly by him,he swung himself to the step. Some one helped him up to the platform,and he looked back with a curse on his white lips as the train bore himswiftly out of sight. By this time the entire party had disembarked,and were hurrying toward the station. Brightly, after a few words ofexplanation to the men who gathered about him on the platform, turnedback to meet his companions. They had all witnessed Brede's treachery,and were all excited and indignant to the last degree. They crowdedaround Brightly, asking all sorts of questions: "Why didn't you knock'im down, Bright?" "Why didn't you kick 'im?" "Why didn't you hold 'imso't he couldn't go?"
Brightly turned on the last questioner.
"We're lucky to get rid of him," he replied. "We don't want him withus."
"That's so!" came the response from a dozen voices at once, and theparty went down again to the dock.
"Did you ketch 'im?" asked the ferryman.
"We did," was the reply.
"Git the money?"
"Yes; you shall have your pay as soon as you land us on the other side."
Once more the company embarked. The sky was heavily overcast, and thesouth wind that had sprung up during the afternoon had increased almostto a gale. The tide was setting strongly northward; the white caps wereriding the crests of the waves; and when they were fairly out into thestream, the boats rocked and plunged violently. The timid ones clung tothe sides and the benches in fear, and the rowers labored strenuouslyto push the heavily laden vessels through the beating waves. Once therear boat, by some mischance, shipped a heavy sea, and the drenchedlads cried out in terror.
The river is narrow at this point, and the time occupied in crossingwould not have been very great if the water had been smooth. As it was,darkness was settling down when both boats reached the western shore;and besides being hungry and excessively fatigued, many of the ladswere weak from fright after the terrors of the rough passage.
Brightly paid the boatman the fee agreed upon, and, with Glueck leading,the party turned again to the south, and soon began to wind up the hillto the tableland back from the river.
It was nearly two miles to Glueck's uncle's farm, and long before theyreached the place thick darkness had fallen on them from a starlesssky. They said little as they toiled up the long stretches of hillyroad; the time for song and jest and play was long past; the only wordsthat escaped their lips now were words of suffering.
To all of them the physical discomforts resulting from hunger andfatigue were extreme; and for many of them, especially the smallerboys, the strangeness of the situation and the darkness of the nightadded a touch of terror. Patchy was crying softly as he stumbled on,holding fast to Brightly's hand, and it would have taken but slightprovocation to bring tears to the eyes of many others.
Finally lights were seen gleaming through the trees a little distanceaway, and Glueck declared that they were approaching the house. He hadspent a month there during the preceding summer vacation, and knew theplace well. The party waited outside by the gate while Glueck went in toacquaint his uncle with the situation, and to bespeak his kind offices.It seemed to the weary lads, who had only to stand in the darknessand listen to the barking and the growling of the dogs, that theirspokesman was a long time gone.
Glueck told them afterward that he had great difficulty in making thehonest German farmer believe that his tale was true. But the door wasopened at last, the light shone out cheerily from it, and Glueck's voicewas heard saying, "It's all right boys! You're to come in."
They entered the house, and were greeted good-naturedly by theastonished farmer and his still more astonished wife. Places to sitwere found for the exhausted lads in the sitting-room and kitchen, andthe German host moved around among them smoking a drooping pipe, andexclaiming,--
"Vell! vell! Uf I don't see it myself, I don't haf pelieved it!Heinrich," turning to his nephew, "was ist los' mit der schule, ha?Vell! vell!"
In the mean time the good wife, with the help of a rosy-cheeked girl,was stirring up flour and grinding coffee in the pantry; and almostbefore they could realize it, the boys in the kitchen saw the biscuitsbrowning in the sloping pan of the Dutch oven, and caught the fragrantfumes of the boiling beverage.
As soon as each boy had finished washing his face and hands in thebasin at the sink, a thick slice of bread and a piece of cold sausagewere given to him, and later on, when appetites were well sharpened,hot biscuits and coffee were added to the repast. Every one wassatisfied at last; every one declared it the best meal he had evereaten, and every one blessed Glueck and praised Glueck's uncle and auntwithout stint.
But no sooner had the food been disposed of and the plates and crumbscleared away, than many of the boys, especially the younger ones, beganto grow sleepy, and wide yawns were visible in almost every direction.
The good farmer and his wife had been consulting together on thepractical question of what was to be done with the party for the night.There were but five beds in the house. Quarters on the floor wereproposed, but young Glueck interposed with another suggestion.
"There's the barn, Uncle Carl. We could all sleep there on the haymow."
"Yes," replied Brightly, "that would do very nicely. We should be gladto sleep there, shouldn't we, boys?"
"Yes! yes!" was the hearty response. "Indeed we should!" added Drake.
In spite of their weariness, there was something in the thought ofsleeping on a haymow in a country barn that appealed to the love of theromantic in these boys, and they caught at the suggestion with greateagerness. Glueck's uncle left the room with a puzzled expression onhis face; but returning in a few moments with a lighted lantern, hebeckoned to the boys to follow him out into the yard.
Glueck arose to go with the rest; but his aunt went up to him, put herhand on his arm, and asked him if he would not sleep in the house.
"No, auntie," he replied, "I will go with the boys. We must all farealike to-night."
"So?"
"Yes. Good-night, auntie."
"_Gute nacht!_"
The other boys said good-night to their hostess as they passed out ofthe door, and then, in single file, they followed the farmer across thewide barn-yard. They entered the building by a low door at one corner,went along a narrow aisle between two high board partitions, and camein finally on the wide threshing-floor between the bays. This floorextended the entire length of the barn, and on each side of it, aboutmidway, a narrow vertical ladder ran up between fixed posts, by whichone could reach the top of the mow at whatever height it might be.
At this season of the year the hay was greatly reduced in quantity. Thebay on one side of the threshing-floor, was quite empty; on the otherside the mow reached to a height of only eight or ten feet from thefloor. The farmer p
ointed to the ladder on this side, and said smiling,"You must dees latter goen oop, und you vill de bett finden."
Drake was the first to mount.
"It's splendid up here!" he cried. "Oceans an' oceans o' room!"
So, one by one, the boys climbed to their strange quarters on thehaymow. The last one to go up was Plumpy the Freak. Glueck's unclelooked in amused astonishment at the ponderous, awkward figure, withits masses of moving flesh, as the fat boy slowly worked his way upward.
"Vell! vell!" he exclaimed, holding his lantern high, in order to seethe more clearly, "uf I don't see it myself, I don't haf pelieved it."
Hanging the lantern on a wooden pin in the framework, and cautioningthe boys not to disturb it, and not to strike a match nor make afire of any kind in the barn, the farmer responded to the chorus ofgood-nights from the mow, and made his way through the darkness, backacross the barnyard to his house. On almost any other occasion therewould have been an unlimited amount of horse-play, before these boyscould have settled themselves for the night and gone to sleep. Butnow all the boys were too weary to be gay, and in less than twentyminutes from the time of the mounting of the ladder the whole companywas asleep.
Yet not the whole company. Brightly closed his eyes, but sleep wouldnot come to him. In this strange place, in this hour of quiet, withonly the heavy breathing around him to break the stillness; with onlythe dim light of the lantern to make partly visible and wholly weirdthe huge timbers and vast spaces of the great barn's interior,--thoughttook possession of his mind and drove slumber from his eyelids. Regretassailed him; conscience awakened, and began again her vigorousreproach.
He lay staring into the deep shadows among the tie-beams and raftersuntil it became impossible for him longer to remain quiet. Gentlydisengaging himself from Patchy's arm, which the child had thrownacross his protector's breast at the very moment when sleep conqueredhim, Brightly arose from his bed of hay, slid softly to the ladder, andcrept down it to the floor of the barn.
HE LAY STARING INTO THE DEEP SHADOWS, UNTIL IT BECAMEIMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM LONGER TO REMAIN QUIET.]
The carpet of straw that covered the floor-planks deadened the soundof his footsteps, and he was able to walk up and down the entire lengthof the building without in any way disturbing the sleepers on themow. Thus walking, he gave himself up to thought,--bitter, laborious,regretful thought.
He went back over the entire history of his troubles at Riverpark,beginning with the appointments six months before, and culminating inthis night of adventure and suffering.
With that brief review he recognized his error,--an error foundedon jealousy, nurtured in selfish pride, and fed and fostered with alie. Colonel Silsbee had sought to make it plain to him, but withoutsuccess; Harple, with all the earnestness of friendship, had brought itup in vain before his mind and conscience.
But now, this night, in this strange place, his eyes were opened, andhe saw. One sweep of his own hand at last had brushed away the clingingcobwebs, and the full extent of his folly and guilt lay bare beforehim.
But it was of no use now to think of what might have been. The pastwas beyond recall. It would lie forever behind him, a great shadow ofdisgrace and humiliation, which only the long years could lessen.
It was the future of which he must now think. What should that be? Whatshould he do to-morrow, next day, next week? Could he ever retrieve thedisasters he had brought upon himself? Was it possible for him to beginagain at the lowest round of the ladder and toil back up into manhood?
Back and forth the young penitent walked, up and down, dashing a tearfrom his face now and then, never halting in his march. The minutesgrew into hours; but the sleepers on the mow slept on, unconscious ofthe agony below them, knowing nothing of the storm that raged in theircompanion's heart. But when the storm passed, the atmosphere it leftwas clean and pure; and when, in the small hours of the morning, thelad climbed up again to his bed of hay, his mind was fixed, and hisheart was set. After that, no power could be strong enough to move himfrom the path that he had marked out for his feet to follow.
It was late on the following morning before the guests at the farmer'sbarn descended the vertical ladder to the floor. They brushed thehay-seed from their clothing and the hay-dust from their eyes, and wentover, in little groups, to the farm-house. Glueck's aunt had preparedfor them a breakfast similar to the supper of the night before, only alittle better and in greater variety, and they partook of it heartilyand thankfully.
The strong south wind had brought up, during the night, a storm ofrain, and as soon as the lads had done eating, they retired again tothe shelter of the barn.
Brightly was the last to return from breakfast, and when he entered thebarn he found that the boys were all waiting for him.
"We've agreed to leave it to you, Bright," said one, "what we shalldo. We've got to do something, that's certain. To my mind we're in apretty bad fix."
Brightly stood with his back to the doorpost, facing the assembly.
"I've been thinking the matter over a little, boys," he replied, "andtalking with Glueck's uncle about it. We've got to get back to Riverparkto-day some way; that's plain, isn't it?"
They all assented.
"Well, we couldn't find wagons enough here to carry us back if we hadthe money to hire them; we couldn't pay our way on the cars if we wereto cross the river; so I don't know of any better plan than to go aswe came,--on foot. We have enough money to pay our passage across theriver, and once on the other side we can get up to Riverpark easilyenough. It will be a long march and a tiresome one, and will take thebetter part of the day; but it's the best plan I can think of. Ifanybody has a better one, let's have it."
No one could suggest anything better; and, after a minute's awkwardpause, Brightly continued, somewhat hesitatingly at first, but withincreasing firmness and earnestness,--
"Now that I'm talking, I may as well tell you what I think of thiswhole business. I think not only that we've made fools of ourselves,but that it's a good deal worse than that; and I believe we've got somepretty serious matters to face when we get back. I don't know what thecolonel will do. I shouldn't be surprised at anything in the way ofpunishment; I'm sure we deserve all that we shall get. But if he letsus stay at Riverpark, I think we ought to be very thankful, and veryhumble, too, and take whatever comes to us, and bear it like men. We'vetreated the colonel very shabbily; now let's try and make it up to himas fast and as far as we can."
Everybody looked a little ashamed when the speaker stopped, but no onesaid a word.
"And before we go," continued Brightly, "I think it's due to these kindpeople who have fed and sheltered us, that we should express our thanksto them in some formal way. They've certainly treated us very kindlyindeed."
"That's so," said Drake, earnestly; "and I move that Bright and Glueckgo over to the house an' tell 'em so, as the opinion of the crowd."
The motion was unanimously carried.
"You can't make it any too strong, fellows," said one of the party;"tell 'em we'll never forget it of 'em, never."
When the two boys came back there were traces of tears in their eyes.Something that the good people had said or done had made them cry.
After a little Glueck's uncle came out with the basket of sandwichesthat they were to carry with them for their lunch. The rain had ceasedfalling for a time, and they thought it best to start.
Brightly formed them in ranks, assigning to places of command suchofficers as were in the party.
"We can do better in marching order, boys," he said; "we can makebetter time, and keep together better. Now, then, are you all ready?Forward, march!"
They moved out into the road in good form and with soldierly precision;but when they came in front of the large white farm-house, the commandwas given to them to halt.
"Right face!"
They turned as one man.
"Three cheers for Glueck's uncle and aunt!"
"_Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!_"
They were given with a will, an
d a rousing tiger added.
"Left face! Forward, march!"
The farmer gazed after the retreating column in open-mouthed wonder andadmiration.
"Vell! vell!" he exclaimed to his wife, as the company vanished fromhis sight around a curve in the road, "ven somepody told me dees Idon't haf pelieved it."
But it was a sorry band of soldiers. The first mile of muddy roadwearied them, the second was discouraging, the third brought suffering.They stopped by the roadside many times to rest. Once they tookrefuge in an open barn from the pelting rain. They were drenched,ragged, splashed with mud, footsore, weak from hunger and fatigue. Ittook all of Brightly's powers of command, of logic, of entreaty, ofencouragement, to hold them to their places and keep them moving.
But he did it. The hours passed, the wind grew chill, the wearinessincreased; but every step brought them nearer and yet nearer to thelonged for destination,--the home they had so lightly and recklesslyleft in the sunshine of the day before.