Back Aa

Jack-Knife Man

Close

<h2> XIV. A RAY OF HOPE </h2> THE Marcy's Run Road, on which Peter's sister lived, led into Riverbank past the cemetery, and near the cemetery stood a group of small stores. One of these, half grocery and half saloon, was even more unkempt than the others, but before its window Peter stopped. A few small coins—the residue after his purchasing trip of the day before—remained in his pocket, and in the window was a square of cardboard announcing “Hot Beef Soup To-day.” Hot beef soup, when a man has tramped many miles carrying a heavy child, is a temptation. Buddy himself would be glad of a bowl of hot soup, and Peter opened the door and entered. The store was narrow and dark. A few feet, just inside the door, were occupied by the scanty stock of groceries, tobacco and cheap candy, and back of this was the bar, with two small tables in the space before it. The whole place was miserably dirty. It was no gilded liquor palace, with mirrors and glittering cash-registers. The bar was of plain pine, painted “barn-red,” and the whole arrangement was primitive and cheap. Beyond the bar room a partition cut off the living room, and this completed “Mrs. Crink's Place.” Mrs. Crink had a bad reputation. During the stringent prohibition days she had run a “speak-easy” without paying the town the usual monthly disorderly house fine, and had served her term in jail. After that she was strongly suspected of boot-legging whisky, and she had purchased this new place but a few days since. She was a thin, sour-faced, angular woman, ugly alike in face and temper. When Peter opened the door a bell sounded sharply, but the high voice of Mrs. Crink in the living room drowned the bell. She was scolding and reviling at the top of her voice—swearing like a man—and a child was sobbing and pleading. Peter heard the sharp slap of a hand against a face, and a cry from the child, and Mrs. Crink came into the bar room, her eyes glaring and her face dark with anger. “Well, what do you want?” she snarled. “I'd like to get two bowls of soup for me and the boy, if it ain't too much trouble,” said Peter. “Everything's trouble,” whined Mrs. Crink. “I don't expect nothing else. A woman can't make a living without these cranks tellin' her what she shall and what she shan't. Shut up that howlin', you little devil, or I'll come in there and bat your head off.” She went into the living room and brought out the two bowls of soup, placing them on one of the small tables. Peter lifted Buddy into a chair. Mrs. Crink began wiping off the beer-wet bar. “I wonder if you could let me have about a dime's worth of crackers and cheese?” he asked, and Mrs. Crink dropped the dirty rag with which she was wiping the bar. “Come out here, and shut up your bawlin', and swab off this bar,” she yelled, and the door of the back room opened and a girl came out. She was the merest child. She came hesitatingly, holding her arm before her face, and the old hag of a woman jerked up the filthy, wet rag and slapped her across the face. It was none of Peter's business, but he half arose from his chair and then dropped back again. It made his blood boil, but he had not associated with shanty-boat men and women without learning that in the coarser strata of humanity slaps and blows and ugly words are often the common portion of children. He would have liked to interfere, but he knew the inefficiency of any effort he might make, and like a shock it came to him that it was for things like this that Briggles rescued,—or pretended to rescue—little children. It was not so bad then, after all. If he must give up Buddy there would be some compensation in telling Briggles of this poor child, who deserved far more the attention of his Society. All this passed through his mind in an instant, but before he could turn back to his bowl of soup Buddy uttered a cry of joy and, scrambling from his chair, ran across the floor toward the weeping girl. “Oh! Susie! Susie! My Susie!” he shouted and threw himself upon her. The impetus of his coming almost threw the child off her feet, and she staggered back, but the next instant she had clasped her arms around the boy, and was hugging him in a close, youthful embrace of joy. “My Buddy! My Buddy!” she kept repeating over and over, as if all other words failed her, as they will in an excess of sudden surprise. “My Buddy! My Buddy!” The woman stared for an instant in open-mouthed astonishment, and then her eyes flashed with anger. She reached out her hand to grasp the girl, but Peter Lane thrust it aside. His own eyes could flash, and the woman drew back. “Now, don't you do that!” he said hotly. “You git out of my store, then!” shouted Mrs. Crink. “You take your brat and git out!” “I'll get out,” said Peter slowly, “as soon as I am quite entirely ready to do so. I hope you will understand that. And I'll be ready when I have ate my soup.” The woman glared at him. She let her hand drop behind the bar, where she had a piece of lead pipe, and then, suddenly, she laughed a high, cackling laugh to cover her defeat, and let her eyes fall. She slouched to the front of the shop for the crackers and cheese and Peter seated himself again at the small table, and looked at the children. “Where's Mama?” he heard the girl ask, and Buddy's reply: “Mama went away,” and he saw the look of wonder on the girl's face. “Come here,” Peter said, and the girl came to the table. “I guess you 're Buddy's sister he's been tellin' me about, ain't you?” said Peter kindly, “and I'm his Uncle Peter He's been staying with on a shanty-boat. Your ma”—he hesitated and looked at the girl's sweet, clear eyes—“your ma went away, like Buddy said, Susie, but you don't want to think she run away and left him, for that wouldn't be so, not at all! She had to go, or she wouldn't 've gone. I guess—I guess she'd 've come and got you. Yes, I guess that's what she had on her mind. She spoke of you quite a little before she went on her trip.” “I want you should take me away from here,” said the girl suddenly. “Well, now, I wish I could, Susie,” said Peter, “but I don't see how I can. Maybe I can arrange it—” He poised his soup spoon in the air. “Did Reverend Mr. Briggles bring you here?” “Not here,” said Susie. “Mrs. Crink didn't live here, then.” “Well, that's all the same,” said Peter. “I just wanted to enquire about it. You'd better eat your soup, Buddy-boy. Well, now, let me see!” Peter stared into the soup, as if it might hold, hidden in its muggy depths, the answer to his riddle. “Just at present I'm sort of unable to do what I'd like to do myself,” he said. “I'd like to take you right with me, but I've got a certain friend that was quite put out because I didn't bring your ma to—to see her when your ma stopped in at my boat, and I guess maybe”—Mrs. Crink was returning with the crackers and cheese, and Peter ended hurriedly—“I guess maybe you better stay here until I make arrangements.” It was a strange picture, the boy eating his soup gluttonously, Peter Lane in his comedy tramp garb of blanket and blanket-strips, and the little girl staring at him with big, trustful eyes. Mrs. Crink put the crackers and cheese on the table. “If you've got through takin' up time that don't belong to you, maybe I can git some work out of this brat,” she snapped. “Why, yes, ma'am,” said Peter politely. “It only so happened that this boy was her brother. We didn't want to discommode you at all.” Susie turned away to her work of swabbing the bar, and Peter divided the crackers and cheese equally between himself and Buddy. “I don't care much to have tramps come in here anyway,” said Mrs. Crink. “I never knew one yit that wouldn't pick up anything loose,” but Peter made no reply. He had a matter of tremendous import on his mind. He felt that he had taken the weight of Susie's troubles on his shoulders in addition to those of Buddy, and he had resolved to ask Widow Potter to take the two children! The parting of the two children had for them none of the pathos it had for Peter. When Buddy had eaten the last scrap of cracker he got down from his chair. “Good-by, Susie,” he said. “Good-by, Buddy,” she answered, and that was all, and Peter led the boy out of the place. There are, in Riverbank, alleys between each two of the streets parallel with the river, and Peter, now that he had once more resolved not to allow Briggles to have Buddy, took to the alleys as he passed through the town. The outlandishness of his garb made him the more noticeable, he knew, and he wished to avoid being seen. He traversed the entire town thus, even where a creek made it necessary for him to scramble down one bank and up another, until the alleys ended at the far side of the town. There he crossed the vacant lot where a lumber mill had once stood, and struck into the river road. The boy seemed to take it all as a matter of course, but Peter kept a wary eye on the road, ready to seek a hiding-place at the approach of any rig that looked as if it might contain the Reverend Briggles, but none appeared. A farmer, returning from town with a wagon, stopped at a word from Peter, and allowed him to put Buddy in the wagon and clamber in with him. They got out again at Mrs. Potter's gate. The house was closed, and the doors locked. Peter tried them all before he was convinced he had had the long tramp for nothing, and then he led Buddy toward the barn. As he neared the barn the barn door opened and a man came out, carrying a water bucket. He stared at Peter. “Mrs. Potter is not at home, I guess?” said Peter. “Nope,” said the man. “Anything I can do for you?” “It's business on which I'll have to see her personally,” said Peter. “She wasn't expecting I'd come. Is she going to be back soon?” “Well, I guess she won't be back to-day,” said the man. “She only hired me about a week ago, so she ain't got to telling me all her plans yet, but she told me it was as like as not she'd go up to Derlingport to-day, and maybe she might come home to-morrow, and maybe not till next day. Want to leave any word for her?” “No,” said Peter slowly, “I guess there's no word I could leave. I guess not. I'm much obliged to you, but I won't leave no word. Come on, Buddy-boy, we got to go back to town now, before night sets in.” “Where are we going now, Uncle Peter?” asked the boy. “Now? Well, now we 're going to see a friend I've got. You never slept in a great, big stable, where there are a lot of horses, did you? You never went to sleep on a great big pile of hay, did you? That'll be fun, won't it, Buddy-boy?” “Yes, Uncle Peter,” said the child cheerfully, and they began the long, cold walk to town. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2