"Naw, I won't," said a voice. I turned and saw, by a barrel, a youth in knee-breeches glowering down the street at his routed enemies. He was possibly eight, and one hand was bound in a grimy rag. This was Chicken-legs.
"Did they harm you, Josey?" asked the giant.
"Naw, they didn't."
"Not troubled your hand any?"
"Naw, they didn't."
"Well, don't you let them touch you. We'll see you through." And as we followed him in towards our drink through his folding slat-doors he continued discoursing to me, the newcomer. "I am against interfering with kids. I like to leave 'em fight and fool just as much as they see fit.
Now them boys ain't malicious, but they're young, you see, they're young, and misfortune don't appeal to them. Josey lost his father last spring, and his mother died last month. Last week he played with a freight car and left two of his fingers with it. Now you might think that was enough hardship.""Indeed yes," I answered.
"But the little stake he inherited was gambled away by his stinking old aunt.""Well!" I cried.
"So we're seeing him through."
"You bet," said a citizen in boots and pistol, who was playing billiards.
"This town is not going to permit any man to fool with Josey," stated his opponent in the game.
"Or women either," added a lounger by the bar, shaggy-bearded and also with a pistol.
"Mr. Abe Hanson," said the barkeeper, presenting me to him. "Josey's father's partner. He's took the boy from the aunt and is going to see him through.""How 'r' ye?" said Mr. Hanson, hoarsely, and without enthusiasm.
"A member of the prize - awarding committee," explained Stuart, and waved a hand at me.
They all brightened up and came round me.
"Heard my boy speak?" inquired one. "Reub Gadsden's his name."I told him I had heard no speaker thus far; and I mentioned Leola and Guy.
"Hope the boy'll give us 'The Jumping Frog' again," said one. "I near bust.""What's the heifer speakin' this trip?" another inquired.
"Huh! Her!" said a third.
"You'll talk different, maybe, this time," retorted the other.
"Not agin 'The Jumping Frog,' he won't," the first insisted. "I near bust," he repeated.
"I'd like for you to know my boy Reub," said Mr. Gadsden to me, insinuatingly.
"Quit fixing' the judge, Al," said Leola's backer. "Reub forgets his words, an' says 'em over, an' balks, an' mires down, an' backs out, an starts fresh, en' it's confusin' to foller him.""I'm glad to see you take so much interest, gentlemen," said I.
"Yes, we're apt to see it through," said the barkeeper. And Stuart and Ibade them a good-morning.
As we neared the school-master's house, where Stuart was next taking me, we came again upon the boys with Josey, and no barkeeper at hand to "see him through." But Josey made it needless. At the word "Chicken-legs" he flew in a limber manner upon the nearest, and knocking him immediately flat, turned with spirit upon a second and kicked him. At this they set up a screeching and fell all together, and the school-master came out of his door.
"Boys, boys!" said he. "And the Sabbath too!"As this did not immediately affect them, Mr. Eastman made a charge, and they fled from him then. A long stocking of Josey's was torn, and hung in two streamers round his ankles; and his dangling shoe-laces were trodden to fringe.
"If you want your hand to get well for strawberry night--" began Mr.
Eastman.
"Ah, bother strawberry night!" said Josey, and hopped at one of his playmates. But Mr. Eastman caught him skilfully by the collar.
"I am glad his misfortunes have not crushed him altogether," said I.
"Josey Yeatts is an anxious case, sir," returned the teacher. "Several influences threaten his welfare. Yesterday I found tobacco on him.
Chewing, sir."
"Just you hurt me," said Josey, "and I'll tell Abe.""Abe!" exclaimed Mr. Eastman, lifting his brow. "He means a man old enough to be his father, sir. I endeavor to instill him with some few notions of respect, but the town spoils him. Indulges him completely, Imay say. And when Sharon's sympathies are stirred sir, it will espouse a cause very warmly--Give me that!" broke off the schoolmaster, and there followed a brief wrestle. "Chewing again to-day, sir," he added to me.
"Abe lemme have it," shrieked Josey. "Lemme go, or he'll come over and fix you."But the calm, chilly Eastman had ground the tobacco under his heel. "You can understand how my hands are tied," he said to me.
"Readily," I answered.
"The men give Josey his way in everything. He has a--I may say an unworthy aunt.""Yes," said I. "So I have gathered."
At this point Josey ducked and slid free, and the united flock vanished with jeers at us. Josey forgot they had insulted him, they forgot he had beaten them; against a common enemy was their friendship cemented.
"You spoke of Sharon's warm way of espousing causes," said I to Eastman.
"I did, sir. No one could live here long without noticing it.""Sharon is a quiet town, but sudden," remarked Stuart. "Apt to be sudden.
They're beginning about strawberry night," he said to Eastman. "Wanted to know about things down in the saloon.""How does their taste in elocution chiefly lie?" I inquired.
Eastman smiled. He was young, totally bald, the moral dome of his skull rising white above visionary eyes and a serious auburn beard. He was clothed in a bleak, smooth slate-gray suit, and at any climax of emphasis he lifted slightly upon his toes and relaxed again, shutting his lips tight on the finished sentence. "Your question," said he, "has often perplexed me. Sometimes they seem to prefer verse; sometimes prose stirs them greatly. We shall have a liberal crop of both this year. I am proud to tell you I have augmented our number of strawberry speakers by nearly fifty per cent.""How many will there be?" said I.
"Eleven. You might wish some could be excused. But I let them speak to stimulate their interest in culture. Will you not take dinner with me, gentlemen? I was just sitting down when little Josey Yeatts brought me out."We were glad to do this, and he opened another can of corned beef for us.
