The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

by Ruel Perley Smith

  CHAPTER XI

  COL. WITHAM GETS THE MILL

  It was the evening before the glorious Fourth of July, and Tim Reardonwas dragging an iron cannon along the street, by a small rope. It was acurious, clumsy piece of iron-mongery, about a foot and a half long,with a heavily moulded barrel mounted on a block of wood that ran onfour wheels; a product of the local machine shop, designed for thepurpose of being indestructible rather than for show.

  Tim Reardon, smudgy-faced, but wearing an expression of deepsatisfaction, paused for a moment before a gate where stood a boysomewhat younger than himself, who eyed the cannon admiringly.

  "Hello, Willie," said Tim. "Comin' out, ain't yer?"

  The boy shook his head, disconsolately.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Can't," said the boy. "Father won't let me."

  Tim looked at him pityingly.

  "Won't let you come out the night before the Fourth!" he exclaimed."Gee! I'd like to see anybody stop me. What's he 'fraid of?"

  "He isn't afraid," replied the boy. "He's mad because they make so muchnoise he can't sleep. He says they haven't any right to fire off gunsand things on the Fourth."

  "Hm!" sniffed Tim. "Henry Burns says you have, and I guess he knows.He's read all about it. He says there was a man named Adams who was apresident once, and he said everybody ought to make all the noise theycould; get out and fire guns, and blow horns, and beat on pans and yelllike everything, and build bonfires and fire off firecrackers."

  "Did he?" said the boy. "And did he say anything about getting out thenight before?"

  "Well, I dunno about that," answered Tim Reardon; "but of course thepatrioticker you are, why, the sooner you begin. It's the Fourth of Julythe minute the clock strikes twelve--and, cracky, won't we make a racketthen? Henry Burns, he's got a cannon; and so's Jack Harvey and TomHarris and Bob White, and the Warren fellers they've got three, and alot of other fellers have got 'em. Just you wait till the clock strikes,and there'll be some fun."

  "I wish I could come out," said the boy, earnestly.

  "Too bad you can't. You miss all the fun," said Little Tim. "I'll betGeorge Washington was out the first of any of 'em on the Fourth of July,when he was a boy."

  Tim's knowledge of history was not quite so ample as his patrioticardour.

  "Why don't you come, anyway?" he ventured. "Just tie a string aroundyour big toe, and hang the string out the window, and I'll come aroundand wake you up. I'm going to wake George Baker that way. I don't go tobed at all the night before the Fourth."

  The boy shook his head.

  "No, I guess not," he replied. "But say," he added quickly, "come aroundin front of the house and make all the racket you can, will you? I'dlike to hear it, if I can't get out."

  "You bet we will," responded Tim, heartily. "Sammy Willis, his fatherwon't let him come out, and we're going 'round there; and Joe Turner,his father won't let him come out, and we're going there, too. There'swhere we go to, most."

  Tim did not explain whether this was from patriotic motives orotherwise. But the small boy looked pleased.

  "Be sure and come around," he said.

  "Oh, you'll hear from us, all right," replied Tim.

  It was quite evident that something would be heard when, some hourslater, about a quarter of an hour before midnight, a group of boys hadgathered in the square in front of Willie Perkins's house. There was anarray of small cannon ranged about that would have sent joy to the heartof a youthful Knox or Steuben. The boys were engaged in the act ofloading these with blasting powder, purchased at a reduced price fromthe rock blasters in the valley below.

  "Here you, don't put in so much powder, young fellow," cautioned Harveyto a smaller youth, who was about to pour a handful into a chunkyfirearm. "Don't you know that it's little powder and lots of waddingthat makes her speak? I'll show you."

  Harvey measured out a small handful of the coarse, black grains, pouredthem down the barrel, stuffed in some newspaper and rammed it home witha hickory stick. Then he stuffed in a handful of grass and some morenewspaper, hammering on the ram-rod with a brick, regardless of anydanger of premature explosion. The coarse powder was not "lively,"however, and had always stood such handling. The process was continueduntil the cannon was stuffed to the muzzle. Then a few grains weredropped over the touch-hole, a long strip of paper laid over this,weighted down with a small pebble, and was ready for lighting.

  "There," said Harvey, relinquishing the ram-rod to the youth, "that'llspeak. If you fill 'em full of powder they don't make half the noise."

  Simultaneously, Henry Burns, the Warren boys, Tom Harris, Bob White anda dozen other lads had been loading and priming their respective pieces;and presently they stood awaiting the striking of the town clocks.

  Willie Perkins's father, who had been hard at work all the evening witha congenial party in his office, at a game of euchre, was just gettinghis first nap, having congratulated himself on retiring, that, if theneighbourhood's rest was disturbed, his son at least would notcontribute toward it. Willie Perkins, having extended a cordialinvitation to the boys to come around and visit his esteemed parent,was himself fast asleep.

  Clang! The first town clock to take cognizance of the arrival of theglorious Fourth struck a lusty note, that rang out loudly on the clearnight air. But there was no response from the eager gunners. It was notyet Fourth of July. It would have gone hard with the boy that had fired.

  Clang and clang again. The twelfth call was still ringing in the ironthroat of the old bell, high in its steeple, when Harvey shouted, "Nowgive it to her!"

  There was a hasty scratching of matches. The strips of paper began toburn; slowly at first, while the boys scattered; then quickly,sputtering as the flame caught the first few grains of powder.

  A moment later, it seemed to Willie Perkins's father as though he hadbeen lifted completely out of his bed by some violent concussion, whilea roar like the blast of battle shook the house. The glorious Fourth hadbegun in Benton.

  Springing to his feet, Mr. Perkins uttered a denunciation of the daythat would have made the signers of the Declaration of Independence turnin their graves, while he rushed to the window. Throwing it open, hepeered out into the square. There was not a boy in sight. Retreat hadalready begun, ignominiously, from the field.

  "If they come around again--" muttered Mr. Perkins. He did not finishthe sentence, but went along a hallway and looked into his son's room."Are you there, William?" he inquired sternly.

  "Yes; can I get up now? Must be most morning."

  "Get up!" replied the elder Perkins. "Just let me catch you getting upbefore daylight! If I had my way, there wouldn't be any firing guns orfirecrackers on Fourth of July. It's barbarism--not patriotism.

  "Willie," he added, "do you know any of those boys out there to-night?"

  "How can I tell, if you won't let me go out?" whined Willie.

  "I'd like to know who put it into people's heads to fire off guns on theFourth," exclaimed Mr. Perkins. "He must have been a rowdy."

  Willie Perkins made a mental note that he would look up President Adamsnext morning, for his father's benefit.

  Mr. Perkins returned to his bed-room and closed his eyes once more. Hiswas not a sweet and peaceful sleep, however. Benton was awakening to theFourth in divers localities, and sounds from afar, of fish-horns andgiant crackers, of bells and barking dogs, came in, in tumultuousconfusion.

  "Confound the Fourth of July!" muttered Mr. Perkins. "I didn't disturbpeople this way when I was a boy."

  But perhaps Mr. Perkins forgot.

  There came by, shortly, a party of intensely patriotic youth from themill settlement under the hill. Their particular brand of patriotismmanifested itself in beating with small bars of iron on a largecircular saw, suspended on a stick thrust through the hole in its centreand borne triumphantly between two youths. The reverberation, thedeafening clangour of this, cannot possibly be described, or appreciatedby one that has never heard it. Suffice it to say, that the fish-horn
s,even the cannon, were insignificant by comparison.

  Mr. Perkins groaned and half arose. But the party went along past,without offering to stop--perhaps because they had received noinvitation from Willie. Moreover, it seemed as though half the town wasastir by this time and giving vent to its enthusiasm. Benton had aremarkable way of getting boyish on the morning of the Fourth, which theelder Perkins could not understand.

  When, however, an hour later, another shock of cannon shook his chamber,followed immediately by what sounded to him like a derisive blast offish-horns, there was no more irresolution left in him. Hastily arisingand throwing a coat over his shoulders, and dashing a hat over hiseyes--the first one that came to hand, and which happened to be a tallbeaver--Mr. Perkins, barefoot and in his night-clothes, a not imposingguardian of the peace, sped down the front stairs and out into thestreet.

  A cry of alarm, the rumble of cannon dragged by ropes over the shouldersof a squad of youths in full flight, and the exclamations of theindignant Mr. Perkins, marked the occasion.

  Fear lent its wings to the pursued; wrath served to lighten the bareheels of Mr. Perkins. He was gaining, when one of the youth, cumberedin flight by his artillery piece, let go the string. The cannonremaining in the path of Mr. Perkins, he stumbled over it, and it hurthis toe. He paused and picked up the cannon, but relinquished it tograsp his toe, which demanded all his attention. He decided, then andthere, that the pursuit, which had extended about three blocks, wasuseless, and abandoned it. Limping slightly, he started homeward.

  Somewhat like the British retreat from Concord and Lexington, was thereturn of Mr. Perkins to his home. A piece of burning punk lay in theroad, and presently he stepped on that. The fleeing forces had doubledon their tracks, also, and a fire-cracker exploded near him. Then atorpedo. And there was no enemy in sight to take revenge on. Mr. Perkinshastened his steps and was soon, himself, in full retreat.

  Then, when presently he was conscious of the raising of curtains innear-by windows, and felt the eyes of several of his neighbours directedtoward his weird costume, Mr. Perkins no longed walked. He ran. As heclosed the door behind him and tramped wearily up the stairs, the voiceof his son greeted him.

  "Say, pa, is it time to get up now?"

  Mr. Perkins's reply was most decidedly unpatriotic.

  The hours went by, and a rapid fire of small artillery ran throughoutBenton and along its whole frontier line. Even the bells in thesteeples, no longer solemn, clanged forth their defiance toauthority--which was the only thing that slumbered in the town on thisoccasion.

  But Benton had other observances for its boisterous display of spirits,the origin of which no one seemed to know, but which were participatedin each year by the new generation of youths, with careful observance oftradition.

  There were the "Horribles," for example, not to have ridden in which atsome time of one's life was to have left one page blank. The processionof "Horribles," otherwise known as "Ragamuffins," usually started atabout six in the morning, marching through the streets until nine;--bywhich time the endurance of a youth who had been out all night usuallycame to an end.

  Now, as the hour of three was passed, certain eager and impatientaspirants for first place in the line began to make their appearance onhorseback in the streets of Benton, clattering about on steeds that hadnever before known a saddle; weird figures, masked uncouthly inpasteboard representations of Indians, animals and what-not, and clad inevery sort of costume, from rags to ancient uniforms--a noisy,tatterdemalion band, blowing horns and discharging firearms.

  There was Tim Reardon, mounted on an aged truck horse, that drooped itshead and ambled with half-closed eyes, as though it might at any momentfall off to sleep again. Sticking like a monkey to its bare back wasTim, his face hidden behind a monstrous mask, his head surmounted by abattered silk hat, extracted from a convenient refuse heap; a fish-hornslung about his neck by a string.

  There was Henry Burns, with face blackened and a huge wooden tomahawk athis belt; he, likewise, astride, on one of Mr. Harris's work horses. Amore mettlesome steed upheld Jack Harvey, but not at all willingly,since it had an uncertain way of backing without warning into fences andtrees, to the detriment of its rider's shins. The firing of a hugehorse-pistol by Harvey seemed to aggravate rather than soothe theanimal's feelings.

  The Warren brothers had contrived a sort of float, consisting of anexpress wagon, gorgeously covered with coloured cloths, even interwovenin the spokes of the wheels, and wound around the body of the horse thatdrew it. A wash-boiler, its legitimate usefulness long over, set up inthe wagon, was beaten on by Arthur and Joe Warren, while their elderbrother drove.

  Tom Harris, Bob White and a scattering of other grotesque horsemen camealong presently.

  "Where'll we go?" queried Harvey, as the squadron paused to rest after apreliminary round of some of the streets.

  "Past Perkins's house again," suggested young Joe Warren.

  "No, we've been by there twice already," answered Henry Burns. "He won'tlike Fourth of July if we give him too much of it."

  Young Joe grinned behind his mask.

  "I'll tell you," he said, excitedly. "We've got time to do it, too,before the parade begins--Witham's! Bet he's sound asleep--what do yousay?"

  "Come on," cried Henry Burns. "Will you go, fellows?"

  A whoop of delight gave acquiescence. The procession clattered out ofBenton and started up the valley road by the stream.

  They went along noisily at first, beating their battered tinware,setting off giant firecrackers, blowing horns and whooping lustily.Farmers along the road opened a sleepy eye as they passed, remembered itwas the morning of the Fourth, and turned over for another nap. Pickerelin the stream dived their noses into the soft mud at the lowest depths.Night-hawks, high above, swooped after their prey and added their weirdnoise to the din. Yellow-hammers and thrushes, rudely roused, dartedfrom their nests and took flight silently into the thicker screen of thewoods.

  But, as the riders neared the Ellison dam, and heard the first sound ofthe falling water, they subsided, planning to take the neighbourhood,and particularly the occupants of the Half Way House, above, bysurprise. Thus silently going along, they were aware of a light wagon,drawn by a lively stepping horse, turning from the road that led up tothe Ellison farm and coming on toward them.

  "Hello!" exclaimed George Warren; "it's Doctor Wells. Something's up.Wonder what's the matter."

  Doctor Wells, coming up to the leaders, reined in his horse andregarded the procession with a mingled expression of good humour andanxiety.

  "Pretty early to start the Fourth, isn't it?" he asked. "What's that yousay? Going to wake up Colonel Witham--and Ellison?"

  His face assumed a serious expression.

  "Wake Jim Ellison," he repeated, as though he was speaking more tohimself than to them. "I wish you could. 'Twould stop lots of trouble,I'm thinking. No man can wake poor Jim Ellison. He's dead. Went offquick not a half hour ago. Got a shock, and that was the end of him.You'll have to turn back, boys."

  Quietly and soberly, the procession turned about and headed for Benton.The parade that morning was minus a good part of its expected members.

  One week later, Lawyer James Estes of Benton, carrying some transcriptsof legal papers under his arm, walked up the driveway to the Ellisonfarm and knocked at the front door. A woman, sad-eyed and anxious,opened to his knock and ushered him into the front parlour.

  "I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Mrs. Ellison," he said, inresponse to her look of inquiry. "I'm sorry to say it looks as thoughyour husband's affairs were much involved at the time of his death. Ifind those deeds were given to Colonel Witham. They're on record, and Isuppose Witham has the original papers, duly signed. We'll know allabout it as soon as he returns. He went out of town, you say, the dayMr. Ellison died?"

  "Yes," she replied; "never came near us, nor sent us word of sympathy.I'm afraid he didn't want to see us. I never wanted James to havebusiness dealings with him. Does the mill go, too?"


  "I'm afraid it does," answered Lawyer Estes. "Why, didn't you know aboutit? Your name is signed, too, you know, else the deeds are not good."

  "Oh, yes, I suppose I did sign them, if they're on record," said Mrs.Ellison. "I was always signing papers for James. He said everythingwould be all right. I didn't know anything about the business--dear,dear--I thought the boys would have the mill when James was too old towork it. It's good property, if it does look shabby."

  "Well, we'll make the best of it and do all we can," said Lawyer Estes."Perhaps Witham can straighten it out when he returns. If he can't,there seems to be no doubt that the mill and some of the farm belong tohim. We've hunted everywhere about your home and about the mill, andthere are no papers that save us. We must wait for Colonel Witham."

  It was a little more than two weeks before Colonel Witham did return tohis hotel. Had he gotten out of the way, thus hurriedly, to see whatturn James Ellison's affairs might take? Had he hopes that the deeds heknew of might by some chance not be found? Was his absence carefullytimed, to allow of whatever search was bound to be made to be done andgotten over with, ere he should presume to lay claim to the property?It would not do to declare himself owner, should the chance arise, andthen have the deeds that he had given back secretly to Ellison turn up.It were safer surely to remain away and see what would happen.

  At all events, when on a certain day the droning of the mill told thatits wheels had resumed their interrupted grinding, there might have beenseen, within, the burly form of Colonel Witham, moving about as one withauthority. Short, curt were his answers. There was little to be made outof him by Lawyer Estes or anyone else. What was his business washis--and nobody else's. There were the deeds, duly signed. If anyone hada better claim to the property, let him show it. As for the Ellisonboys--and all other boys--they could keep away, unless they had corn tobe ground. The mill was no place for them.

  And yet, as the days went by, one might have fancied, if he hadobserved, that all was not easy in the mind of the new owner of themill. They might have noted in his manner a continual restlessness; awandering about the mill from room to room; prying into odd corners hereand there; pounding upon the beams and partitions; poking understair-ways; rummaging into long unused chutes and bins; for everhunting, anxious-eyed; as though the mill had an evil and troublousinfluence over his spirits.

  And now and then, pausing in the midst of his searching, the new ownermight have been heard to exclaim, "Well, if I can't find them, nobodyelse can. That's sure."

  But Colonel Witham did not discontinue his searching. And the mill gaveup no secrets.