"Well, then, you had better get some for me, somehow," said Foxy. "You might 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 a while. It would just be borrowing."
"It wouldn't," said Hughie, firmly. "It's taking out of his drawer. It's stealing, 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 is your father's. It's all the same, except that you're afraid to take your father's."
"I'm not afraid. At least it isn't that. But it's different to take money 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 mother and me. You would pay the whole thing right off."
Once more Hughie argued with himself. To be free from Foxy's hateful tyranny, and to be clear again with his mother—for that he would be willing to suffer almost anything. But to take money out of that drawer was awfully like stealing. Of course he would pay it back, and after all it would only be borrowing. Besides, it would enable him to repay what he owed to his mother and to Foxy. Through all the mazes of specious argument Hughie worked his way, arriving at no conclusion, except that he carried with him a feeling that if he could by some means get that money out of the drawer in a way that would not be stealing, it would be a vast relief, greater than words could tell.
That night brought him the opportunity. His father and mother were away at the prayer meeting. There was only Jessie left in the house, and she was busy with the younger children. With the firm resolve that he would not take a single half-dime from his father's drawer, he went into the study. 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 and half-dimes. What a lot of half-dimes it took! But when he used the quarters and dimes, how much smaller the piles were. Only two quarters and five dimes made up the dollar, and the pile in the drawer looked pretty much the same as before. Another quarter-dollar withdrawn from the drawer made little difference. He looked at the little heaps on the 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 the table. It was an insignificant little heap. That would certainly clear off his whole indebtedness and make him a free man.
He slipped the little heaps of money from the table into his pocket, and then suddenly he realized that he had never decided to take the money. The last resolve he could remember making was simply to see how the dollar and a half looked. Without noticing, he had passed the point of final decision. Alas! like many another, Hughie found the going easy and the slipping smooth upon the down incline. Unconsciously he had slipped into being a thief.
Now he could not go back. His absorbing purpose was concealment. Quietly shutting the drawer, he was slipping hurriedly up to his own room, when on 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 the matter with you?"
"What's the matter?" echoed Hughie, smitten with horrible fear that perhaps she knew. "I just wanted to know," he said, weakly.
He slipped past her, holding his pocket tight lest the coins should rattle. When he reached his room he stood listening in the dark to Jessie going down the stairs. He was sure she suspected something. He would go back and put the money in the drawer again, whenever she reached the kitchen. He stood there with his heart-beats filling his ears, waiting for the kitchen door to slam.
Then he resolved he would wrap the money up in paper and put it safely away, and go down and see if Jessie knew. He found one of his old copybooks, and began tearing out a leaf. What a noise it made! Robbie would surely wake up, and then Jessie would come back with the light. He put the copy-book under the quilt, and holding it down firmly with one hand, removed the leaf with the other. With great care he wrapped up the dimes and half-dimes by themselves. They fitted better together. Then he took up the quarters, and was proceeding to fold them in a similar parcel, 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 floor and rolled under the bed. It seemed to Hughie as if it would never stop rolling, and as if Jessie must hear it. Wildly he scrambled on the floor in the dark, seeking for the quarter, while Jessie came nearer and nearer.
"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 awfully sleepy. Give me the candle, Jessie," he said, snatching it from her hand. "I want to go downstairs."
"Hughie, you are very rude. What would your mother say? Let me have the candle 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 a minute."
"Leave that candle with me," insisted Jessie. "There's another on the dining-room table you can get."
"I'll not be a minute," said Hughie, hurrying downstairs. "You come down, Jessie, I want to ask you something. I'll throw you Robbie's stockings."
"Come back here, the rude boy that you are," said Jessie, crossly, "and bring me that candle."
There was no reply. Hughie was standing, pale and shaking, in the dining-room, listening intently for Jessie's step. Would she go into his room, or would she come down? Every moment increased the agony of his fear.
At length, with a happy inspiration, he went to the cupboard, opened the door noisily, and began rattling the dishes.
"Mercy me!" he heard Jessie exclaim at the top of the stair. "That boy will be my death. Hughie," she called, "just shut that cupboard! You know your mother doesn't like you to go in there."
"I only want a little," called out Hughie, still moving the dishes, and hearing, to his great relief, Jessie's descending step. In desperation he seized a dish of black currant preserves which he found on the cupboard shelf, and spilled it over the dishes and upon the floor just as Jessie entered the room.
"Land sakes alive, boy! Will you never be done your mischief?" she cried, 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 upstairs again with his candle.
To his great relief he saw that Jessie's attention was so entirely taken up with removing the stains of the preserves from the cupboard shelves and dishes, that she for the moment forgot everything else, Robbie's stockings included.
Hurrying to his room, and shading the candle with his hand lest the light should waken his little brother, he hastily seized the money upon the bed quilt, and after a few moments' searching under the bed, found the strayed quarter.
With these in his hand he passed into his mother's room. Leaving the candle there, he came back to the head of the stairs and listened for a moment, with great satisfaction, to Jessie muttering to herself while she cleaned up the mess he had made. Then he turned, and with trembling fingers he swiftly made up the quarter-dollars into another parcel. With a great sigh of relief he put the two parcels in his pocket, and seizing his candle turned to leave the room. As he did so, he caught sight of himself in the glass. With a great shock of surprise he stood gazing at the terrified, white face, with the staring eyes.
"What a fool I am!" he said, looking at himself in the glass.
"Nobody will know, and I'll pay this back soon."
His eyes wandered to a picture which stood on a little shelf beside the glass. It was a picture of his mother, the one he loved best of all he had ever seen of her.
There was a sudden stab of pain at his heart, his breath came in a great sob. For a moment he looked into the eyes that looked back at him so full of love and reproach.
"I won't do it," he said, grinding his teeth hard, and forthwith turned to 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, I doubt."
With a sudden, inexplicable rage, Hughie turned toward her.
"It's none of your business! You mind your own business, will you, and leave me alone." The terrible emotions of the last few minutes were at the back of his rage.
"Just wait, you," said Jessie, "till your mother comes. Then you'll hear it."
"You shut your mouth!" cried Hughie, his passion sweeping his whole being like a tempest. "You shut your mouth, you old cat, or I'll throw this 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 he should make good his threat.
"Stop, now, Hughie," she entreated. "You will be setting the house on fire."
Hughie hesitated a moment, and then turned from her, and going into his room, banged the door in her face, and Jessie, not knowing what to make of it all, went slowly downstairs again, forgetting once more Robbie's stockings.
"The old cat!" said Hughie to himself. "She just stopped me. I was going to put it back."
The memory that he had resolved to undo his wrong brought him a curious sense 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 his fault that that money was not now in the drawer.
"I'll put it back in the morning, anyhow," he said, firmly. But even as he spoke he was conscious of an infinality in his determination, while he refused to acknowledge to himself a secret purpose to leave the question open till the morning. But this determination, inconclusive though it was, brought him a certain calm of mind, so that when his mother came into his room she found him sound asleep.
She stood beside his bed looking down upon him for a few moments, with face full of anxious sadness.
"There's something wrong with the boy," she said to herself, stooping to kiss him. "There's something wrong with him," she repeated, as she left the room. "He's not the same."
During these weeks she had been conscious that Hughie had changed in some way to her. The old, full, frank confidence was gone. There was a constraint in his manner she could not explain. "He is no longer a child," she would say to herself, seeking to allay the pain in her heart. "A boy must have his secrets. It is foolish in me to think anything else. Besides, he is not well. He is growing too fast." And indeed, Hughie's pale, miserable face gave ground enough for this opinion.
"That boy is not well," she said to her husband.
"Which boy?"
"Hughie," she replied. "He is looking miserable, and somehow he is different."
"Oh, nonsense! He eats well enough, and sleeps well enough," said her husband, 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 see how 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 have lost all the old spirit. I must see to it that the policy of those close-fisted trustees is changed. I am not going to put up with those chits of girls teaching any longer."
"There may be something in what you say," said his wife, sadly, "but certainly Hughie is always begging to stay at home from school."
"And indeed, he might as well stay home," answered her husband, "for all the good he gets."
"I do wish we had a good man in charge," replied his wife, with a great sigh. "It is very important that these boys should have a good, strong man over them. How much it means to a boy at Hughie's time of life! But so few are willing to come away into the backwoods here for so small a salary."
Suddenly her husband laid down his pipe.
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing! Wouldn't this be the very thing for young Craven. You remember, the young man that Professor MacLauchlan was writing about."
His wife shook her head very decidedly.
"Not at all," she said. "Didn't Professor MacLauchlan say he was dissipated?"
"O, just a little wild. Got going with some loose companions. Out here there would be no temptation."
"I am not at all sure of that," said his wife, "and I would not like Hughie to be under his influence."
"MacLauchlan says he is a young man of fine disposition and of fine parts," argued her husband, "and if temptation were removed from him he believes he would turn out a good man."
Mrs. Murray shook her head doubtfully. "He is not the man to put Hughie under just now."
"What are we to do with Hughie?" replied her husband. "He is getting no good 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 might perhaps live with us. I know you have more than enough to do now," he added, answering her look of dismay, "but he would be a great help to Hughie 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 he could leave school for a while."
"O, the boy is all right," said her husband, impatiently. "Only a little less 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's age. He may need a change, but that is all."
With this the mother tried to quiet the tumult of anxious fear and pain she found rising in her heart, but long after the house was still, and while both her boy and his father lay asleep, she kept pouring forth that ancient sacrifice of self-effacing love before the feet of God.
CHAPTER IX
HUGHIE'S EMANCIPATION
Hughie rose late next morning, and the hurry and rush of getting off to school in time left him no opportunity to get rid of the little packages in his pocket, that seemed to burn and sting him through his clothes. He determined to keep them safe in his pocket all day and put them back in the drawer at night. His mother's face, white with her long watching, and sad and anxious in spite of its brave smile, filled him with such an agony of remorse that, hurrying through his breakfast, he snatched a farewell kiss, and then tore away down the lane lest he should be forced to confess all his terrible secret.
The first person who met him in the school-yard was Foxy.
"Have you got that?" was his salutation.
A sudden fury possessed Hughie.
"Yes, you red-headed, sneaking fox," he answered, "and I hope it will bring you the curse of luck, anyway."
Foxy hurried him cautiously behind the school, with difficulty concealing his delight while Hughie unrolled his little bundles and counted out the quarters and dimes and half dimes into his hand.
"There's a dollar, and there's a quarter, and—and—there's another," he added, desperately, "and God may kill me on the spot if I give you any more!"
"All right, Hughie," said Foxy, soothingly, putting the money into his pocket. "You needn't be so mad about it. You bought the pistol and the rest right enough, didn't you?"
"I know I did, but—but you made me, you big, sneaking thief—and then you—" Hughie's voice broke in his rage.
His face was pale, and his black eyes were glittering with fierce fury, and in his heart he was conscious of a wild longing to fall upon Foxy and tear him to pieces. And Foxy, big and tall as he was, glanced at Hughie's face, and saying not a word, turned and fled to the front of the school where the other boys were.
Hughie followed slowly, his heart still swelling with furious rage, and full of an eager desire to be at Foxy's smiling, fat face.
At the school door stood Miss Morrison, the teacher, smiling down upon Foxy, who was looking up at her with an expression of such sweet innocence that Hughie groaned out between his clenched teeth, "Oh, you red-headed devil, you! Some day I'll make you smile out of the other side of your big, fat mouth."
"Who are you swearing at?" It was Fusie.
"Oh, Fusie," cried Hughie, "let's get Davie and get into the woods. I'm not going in to-day. I hate the beastly place, and the whole gang of them."
Fusie, the little, harum-scarum French waif was ready for anything in the way of adventure. To him anything was better than the even monotony of the school routine. True, it might mean a whipping both from the teacher and from Mrs. McLeod; but as to the teacher's whipping, Fusie was prepared to stand that for a free day in the woods, and as to the other, Fusie declared that Mrs. McLeod's whipping "wouldn't hurt a skeeter."
To Davie Scotch, however, playing truant was a serious matter. He had been reared in an atmosphere of reverence for established law and order, but when Hughie gave command, to Davie there seemed nothing for it but to obey.
The three boys watched till the school was called, and then crawling along on their stomachs behind the heavy cedar-log fence, they slipped into the balsam thicket at the edge of the woods and were safe. Here they flung down their schoolbags, and lying prone upon the fragrant bed of pine-needles strewn thickly upon the moss, they peered out through the balsam boughs at the house of their bondage with an exultant sense of freedom and a feeling of pity, if not of contempt, for the unhappy and spiritless creatures who were content to be penned inside any house on such a day as this, and with such a world outside.
Glengarry School Days-a story of early days in Glengarry Page 10