III
SANDY GRAY
The saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,"oughtn't to be taken too literal. For instance, if Foster was sick abed,nothing could please him more than reading about how Professor So-and-sohad mixed a little of this acid and a squirt of that other truck, andfound out what his highly esteemed friend Herr Doctor ProfessorSchmittygeshucks said about the results wasn't true at all. And suchthrilling stories. Week on end you could feed Fos that and keep himhappy. Now, when Fos boiled this stuff down to my understanding, I wasinterested, too; but, right off the bat, I shouldn't care for it if Iwas sick. I'd rather hear something about the beauteous maid and herfeller. Or a tune on the guitar. Or a little chin concerning the wayBaldy Smith tried to play six cards in a jack-pot, and what happened toBaldy almost instantly afterward. No, sir, you can't stick too close todoing what you'd like to have done to you, because tastes differ.
The foundation on which I put my plan for increasing human happiness wasthe queerest little cuss you ever did see. A kid about twelve years old,who looked to be a hundred and ten even before Sammy Perkins shot hiseye out and shrunk him up on one side. It was an accident, of course.Sammy'd saved nigh a year, till he had three dollars and seventy-fivecents gathered in a heap to buy a bored-out army musket. Then he invitedSandy Gray to go with him; they started to rid the country of wildcritters. They walked and they walked, but Heaven mercifully preservedthe rabbits. So it become time for lunch, and also Sandy was now anInjun, whilst Sammy was Iron-jawed Pete, the Nightmare of the Red Man.Iron-jawed Pete says to Chief Sandy Eagle-bird, "Pick up chips! Make afire!" But the haughty soul of the noble savage riz at the notion. Bedarned if he'd pick up chips. "All right," says Iron-jawed Pete, "thenI'll shoot you." And, the gun not being loaded, he promptly blew Sandyfull of bird-shot. I've heard about these wonderful destroyers--cannon aquarter of a mile long, that shoot bullets the size of hogsheads withforce enough to knock a grasshopper off a spear of wheat at twenty-threeand one third miles; and while I'm somewhat impressed, I can't but feelthere's nothing like the old-fashioned, reliable, unloaded gun. Who everheard of man, woman, or child missing with a gun that wasn't loaded? IfI was a leader of a forlorn hope in particularly sad conditions, I'd sayto my trusty men, "Boys, them guns ain't loaded," and instantly close acontract at so much a ton for removing the remnants of the enemy.
It cost Sammy's father many a dollar to square it with Gray's folks.They were a hard outfit, anyhow--what is called white trash down South.The father used to get drunk, come home, break the furniture, and throwthe old woman out of the house; that is, if she didn't happen to bedrunk at the time. In the last case, he come home, got the furniturebroke on him, and was thrown out of the house.
It wasn't an ideal home, like Miss Doolittle is always talking about.The kids gave Sandy a wide berth after the shooting, but my sympathieswent out to him. He was a good opening, you see. I want to state righthere, though, it wasn't all getting my name up. All my life I've had awomanish horror of men or animals with their gear out of order. I'd walkten mile to dodge a cripple. And this here Sandy, with his queer littlehop, and his little claw hands, and his twist to one side, and his longnose, and his little black eyes, and his black hair hanging in streaksdown on his yaller and dirt-colored face, looked like nothing else onearth so much as a boiled pet crow.
When I jumped over the Grays' back fence, I see my friend Sandy playingbehind the ruin they called a barn. Execution was the game he played. Hehad a gallows fixed up real natural. Just as I come up he was hanging acat.
"The Lord have mercy on your soul!" squeaks Sandy, pulling the drop.Down goes the cat, wriggling so natural she near lost a half a dozen ofher lives before I recovered enough to interfere. I resisted a cravingto kick Mr. Sandy over the barn, and struck in to amuse him at somethingelse. First off, he hung back, but by and by I had him tearing aroundlively, because we were aboard ship with a storm coming up to port, apirate to sta'bbud, breakers forrud, and a rocky coast aft. Anybodywould step quick under them conditions. So Sandy he moseyed aloft andhollered down the pirates was gaining on us, the storm approaching fast,the breakers breaking worse than ever, and the rock-bound coast holdingits own. I hastily mounted three cord wood cannon, reefed the barn door,and battened down the hatches in the chicken-coop, without a hen beingthe wiser.
We were in the most interesting part when an unexpected enemy arrived onthe scene, in the person of Sandy's mother, and did us in a single pass.She saw him up in the tree; she give me one glare and begun to talk.
I climbed the fence and went home. All the way back I felt this was awicked and ungrateful world. The more I thought about it, the worse Ifelt. I wanted to get to my own room without mother's seeing me, but shecame to the head of the stair when I was half up. "Well, son," she says,smiling so it didn't seem quite such a desert, "how did you make outwith the little Gray boy?"
"Oh, not anything special," says I, airily, hoping to pass by.
"Come in and tell me," she says. So I went in, hedging at first, butlimbering up when she stroked my hair. Finally my wrongs come out hotand fast. I told about his hanging the cat, and made it as bad as Icould. I enlarged upon the care and pains I spent in leading him intobetter ways.
"And, then," says I, "just as we were having a good time, that mother ofhis comes out. And what do you suppose she says?"
Mother rubbed her hand over her mouth, swallowed once or twice, andmanaged to look as serious as anything. "I can't imagine," she answers;"you tell me."
I shook my finger. "Can I say exactly what that woman said?"
"Yes."
"Well," says I, imitating Mrs. Gray, voice and all--voice like ahorse-fiddle, head stuck front, and elbows wide apart--"well," I says,"she looked up the tree and saw Sandy. 'Sandy Gra-a-y!' she hollers;'Sandy Gray! You one-eyed, warp-sided, nateral-born fool! What you mean,playing with that Bill Saunders? You come in this house quick, afore yougit you' other gol-damn eye knocked out!'"
Mother dropped her sewing and had a fit on the spot. That made me madfor a minute. Then I laughed, too.
"Don't give up, Will," says mother. "It takes time to learn to do theright thing. You kiss your mother and forget all about it--you didn'twant Mrs. Gray to pay you for amusing Sandy, anyway, did you?"
"Of course not," I replies. "But she needn't of.... Darn him, he washanging a cat!"
Mother went off the handle again.
"Perhaps you _like_ people who hang cats?" I says, very scornful, thesore spot hurting again.
"Now, Will, don't be silly!" says mother. "Try again; think how funny itwould have seemed to you, if it had happened to any one else."
"That's so," I admits, my red hair smoothing down. "Well, I'll tryagain; but no more Sandy Grays."
Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders Page 3