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Tale of the Tow-Path

<h1>A Tale of the Tow-Path</h1> By Homer Greene <h2>CHAPTER I. THE RESULT OF A WHIPPING.</h2> Hoeing corn is not very hard work for one who is accustomed to it, but the circumstances of the hoeing may make the task an exceedingly laborious one. They did so in Joe Gaston’s case. Joe Gaston thought he had never in his life before been put to such hard and disagreeable work. In the first place, the ground had been broken up only that spring, and it was very rough and stony. Next, the field was on a western slope, and the rays of the afternoon sun shone squarely on it. It was an unusually oppressive day, too, for the last of June. Finally, and chiefly: Joe was a fourteen-year-old boy, fond of sport and of[2] companionship, and he was working there alone. Leaning heavily on the handle of his hoe, Joe gazed pensively away to the west. At the foot of the slope lay a small lake, its unruffled surface reflecting with startling distinctness the foliage that lined its shores, and the two white clouds that hung above in the blue sky. Through a rift in the hills could be seen, far away, the line of purple mountains that lay beyond the west shore of the Hudson River. “It aint fair!” said Joe, talking aloud to himself, as he sometimes did. “I don’t have time to do anything but just work, work, work. Right in the middle of summer, too, when you can have the most fun of any time in the year, if you only had a chance to get it! There’s berrying and bee-hunting and swimming and fishing and—and lots of things.” The look of pensiveness on Joe’s face changed into one of longing. “Fishing’s awful good now,” he continued; “but I don’t get a chance to go,[3] unless I go without asking, and even then I dassent carry home the fish.” After another minute of reflection he turned his face toward the upland, where, in the distance, the white porch and gables of a farmhouse were visible through an opening between two rows of orchard trees. “I guess I’ll just run down to the pond a few minutes, and see if there’s any fish there. It aint more’n three o’clock; Father’s gone up to Morgan’s with that load of hay, and he won’t be home before five o’clock. I can get back and hoe a lot of corn by that time.” He cast his eyes critically toward the sun, hesitated for another minute, and then, shouldering his hoe, started down the hill toward the lake; but before he had gone half-way to the water’s edge he stopped and stood still, nervously chewing a spear of June-grass, and glancing alternately back at the cornfield and forward to the tempting waters of the lake. “I don’t care!” he said at last. “I can’t help it if it aint right. If Father’d[4] only let me go a-fishing once in a while, I wouldn’t want to sneak off. It’s his fault; ’cause I’ve got to fish, and that’s all there is about it.” In a swampy place near by he dug some angle-worms for bait. Then, taking a pole and line from the long grass behind a log, he skirted the shore for a short distance, climbed out on the body of a fallen tree that lay partly in the water, and flung off his line. Joe had not long to wait. The lazy motion of the brightly painted float on the smooth surface of the lake gave place to a sudden swinging movement. Then the small end dipped till only the round red top was visible. In the next instant that too disappeared, and the pole curved till the tip of it almost touched the water. For a second only Joe played with his victim. Then, with a quick, steady pull, he drew the darting, curving, shining fish from its home, and landed it among the weeds on the shore. Flushed with delight, he hastened to cast his line again into the pool. Scarcely[5] a minute later he pulled out another fish. It seemed to be an excellent day for the sport. Indeed, he had never before known the fish to bite so well. They kept him busy baiting his hook and drawing them in. He was in the high tide of enjoyment. The cornfield was forgotten. Suddenly he became aware that some one was standing behind him among the low bushes on the shore. He turned to see who it was. There, confronting him, a frown on his face, stood Joe’s father. The pole in the boy’s hands dropped till the tip of it splashed into the water; his face turned red and then pale, and there was a strange weakness in his knees. He drew his line in slowly, wound it about the pole, and stepped from the log to the shore. As yet no word had been said by either father or son, but Joe had a vague sense that it was for him to speak first. “I thought,” he stammered, “that I’d come down and see—and see if—if the fish was biting to-day—” [6] “Well,” said his father, grimly, “are they biting?” “They’ve bit first-rate,” responded the boy, quickly. “I’ve got fourteen in this little puddle here.” “Throw them back into the pond,” commanded Mr. Gaston. Joe bent over, and taking the fish one by one from the little pool of water where he had placed them, he tossed them lightly into the lake. He came to one that, badly wounded, was floating on its side. “’Taint any use throwing that one back,” he said. “It’s—” “Throw it back!” was the stern command. Joe threw it back. When this task was completed, Mr. Gaston said,— “Have you got your knife in your pocket, Joseph?” “Yes, sir.” “Cut me a whip, then,—a beech one; you’ll find a good one on that sapling.” Joe took his knife and cut from the sapling indicated a long, slender branch.[7] He trimmed it and gave it to his father. He well knew the use to which it was to be put; and although his spirit rebelled, though he felt that he did not really deserve the punishment, he obeyed without a word. “Joseph,” said his father, “do you remember my warning you last week not to go fishing again without my permission, and my telling you that if you did, I should whip you?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, I suppose you expect me to keep my word?” Joe said nothing. Mr. Gaston stood for another moment in anxious thought. He did not wish to whip the boy, surely. Though he was outwardly a cold man, he had all a father’s affection for Joe; but would he not fail of his duty if he did not punish him for his disobedience? “Joseph,” he said, “can you think of any better remedy than whipping?” “Yes, sir.” “What is it?” [8] “Well, if you’d just let me go fishing once in a while,—say Saturday afternoons,—I’d never think of running away to go,—never.” “That is, if I allow you to do what you choose, you won’t be disobeying me when you do it? Is that the idea?” “Yes, sir, something like that.” Joe felt that there was a difference, however, but he could not at that moment explain it. Besides, he wished to take the opportunity to air other grievances, of which heretofore he had never ventured to speak. “I don’t have privileges like other boys, anyway,” he continued. “Tom Brown don’t have to work every day in the week, and he can go to town every Saturday if he wants to, and go to fairs, and have pocket-money to spend; and I don’t have anything, not even when I earn it. And Mr. Dolliver lets his Jim take his horse and go riding whenever he feels like it; but I aint allowed to go anywhere, nor do anything that other boys do!” Joe paused, breathless and in much excitement. [9] Mr. Gaston said, “It’s your duty to obey your parents, no matter if they can’t give you all the pleasures that some other boys have. You are not yet old enough to set up your judgment against ours. We must govern you as we think best.” Again there was a minute’s silence. Then the father said, “Joseph, I had intended to whip you; but it’s a hard and unpleasant duty, and I’m inclined to try you once more without it, if you’ll apologize and make a new promise not to go fishing again without my permission.” “I’ll apologize,” replied Joe, “but I won’t promise.” “Why not?” “’Cause you wouldn’t give me your permission, and then I’d break the promise. That’s the way it always goes.” “Very well; you may take your choice,—either the promise or the whipping. I can’t argue with you about it.” Joe was excited and angry. He did not take time to think, but answered hotly that his father could whip him if he wished. Mr. Gaston tested the whip,[10] cutting the air with it once or twice. It made a cruel sound. “I want you to remember, after it is over,” he said slowly, “that it was your choice, and not my pleasure. Stand out here, and turn your back to me.” Joe’s chastisement followed. It was a severe one. The pain was greater than Joe had expected. The shock of the first blow was still fresh when the second one came, and this was followed up by half-a-dozen more in rapid succession. “Now,” said the father, when it was over, throwing the whip aside, “you may go back to the cornfield and go to work.” Without a word, and indeed with mind and heart too full for utterance, the boy shouldered his hoe and started back up the hill. Mr. Gaston, taking a path which skirted the field, walked slowly toward home. His mind too was filled with conflicting emotions. He felt that he was striving to do his duty by the boy, to bring him up to honest, sober manhood. Yet for the first time he began to wonder whether the[11] course he was pursuing with him was just the right one to lead to that end. He paused, and looked across the field to where Joe, who had reached his old place, was bending over a long row of corn; and his heart filled with fatherly sympathy for the lad in spite of his waywardness and obstinacy. The father felt that he would like to reason with Joe again more gently, and started to cross the field for that purpose. But fearing that Joe might think that he had repented of his severity, he turned back and made his way, with a heavy heart, toward home. As for Joe, his anger settled before an hour had passed into a feeling of strong and stubborn resentment. That his punishment had been too severe and humiliating he had no doubt. That he had long been treated unfairly by his father and had been governed with undue strictness he fully believed. Slowly, as he pondered over it, there came into his mind a plan to put an end to it all,—a plan which, without further consideration, he resolved to adopt.[12] This, he was determined, should be the last whipping he would receive at his father’s hands. He was interrupted in his brooding and his plans by a young girl, who came down toward him between the rows of springing corn. It was his sister Jennie, who was two years younger than he. She looked up at him, as she advanced, with mingled curiosity and sympathy in her expressive eyes and face. “Joe,” she said, in an awe-stricken voice, “did Father whip you?” “What makes you think he whipped me?” asked Joe. “Because, I—I heard him tell Mother so.” “What did Mother say?” “Oh, she cried, and she said she was sorry it had to be done. Did he whip you hard, Joe?” “Pretty hard, but it’s the last time. He’ll never whip me again, Jennie.” “Are you going to be a better boy?” “No, a worse one.” Jennie stood for a moment silent and[13] wondering at this paradoxical statement. Then an idea flashed into her mind. “Joe!” she cried, “you—you’re not going to run away?” “That’s just what I am going to do. I’ve stood it here as long as I can.” “O Joe! what’ll Father say?” “It don’t make much difference what he says. I’m goin’ to—say, Jennie! don’t you go and tell now, ’fore I get started. You wouldn’t do as mean a thing as that, would you, Jen? Promise now!” “I—I—maybe if Father knew you’d made up your mind to go, he’d treat you better.” “No, he wouldn’t. Look here, Jen! if you say anything about it I’ll—say now, you won’t, will you?” “N—no, not if you don’t want me to, but I’m awful scared about it. What’ll Mother say?” asked the girl, wiping from her eyes the fast-falling tears. “That’s where the trouble is, Jen,” replied the boy, leaning on the handle of his hoe, and gazing reflectively off to the[14] hills. “I hate to leave Mother, she’s good to me; but Father and I can’t get along together after what’s happened to-day, that’s plain.” “And won’t you ever come back again?” asked Jennie, plaintively. “Not for seven years,” answered Joe; “then I’ll be twenty-one, an’ my own boss, and I can go fishing whenever I feel like it.” “O Joe!” Jennie’s tears fell still faster. “Joe! I’m afraid—what—made you—tell me?” “You asked me!” “But I didn’t—didn’t want you to tell me anything—anything so dreadful!” From the direction of the house came the sound of the supper-bell. Joe shouldered his hoe again; Jennie rose from her seat on a rock, and together they walked slowly home. On the way Joe exacted from Jennie a faithful promise that she would tell nothing about his plan. At the supper-table Joe was silent and moody, and ate little. After doing the portion of the chores that fell to his lot,[15] he went at once to his room. His back still smarted and ached from the whipping; his mind was still troubled, and indignation and rebellion still ruled in his breast. Before he slept, his mother came to see that he was safely in bed, and to tuck him in for the night. She knew that this had been a very bitter day for him, and although she feared he had deserved his punishment, she grieved for him, and suffered with him from the bottom of her heart. It was with more than the customary tenderness that she tucked the bed-clothing around him, and kissed him good-night. “Good-night, Mother!” he said, looking up through the dim light of the room into her face; “good-night!” He did not let go of her hand; and when he tried to say something more, he broke down and burst into tears. So she knelt down by the side of the bed, and smoothing his hair back from his forehead, talked gently to him for a long[16] time. After more good-night kisses she left him, and went back to her never-ending work. This, for Joe, was the hardest part of leaving home; for he was very fond of his mother, and knew that his going would almost break her heart. Still, now that he had resolved to go, he would not change his mind, even for his mother’s sake. It was long before Joe fell asleep, and even then he was beset by unpleasant dreams, so that his rest availed him but little. Before daybreak he arose, dressed himself, gathered into a bundle a few articles of clothing, a few of his choicest treasures, and a little money that he had earned and saved, and then on tiptoe left his room. At the end of the hall a door was opened, and a little white-robed figure glided out and into his arms. It was Jennie. “O Joe!” she whispered, “are you really going?” “’Sh! Jen, don’t make any noise. Yes, I’m going. There, don’t cry—good-by!” [17] He bent down and kissed her, but she could not speak for the sobs that choked her. After holding her arms around his neck for a moment, she vanished into her room. Joe went softly down the stairs, and out at the kitchen door. It was cool and refreshing in the open air. In the east the sky was beginning to put on the gray of morning. Jennie, looking down through the dusk from the window of her room, saw Joe walk down the path to the road gate, then turn, as if some new thought had struck him, and cross the yard to the barn, entering it by the stable door. “Oh!” exclaimed the child to herself, in a frightened whisper, “oh! he’s going to take the horse; he’s going to take Charlie!” She sank down on the floor, and covered her face with her hands. She did not want to see so dreadful a thing happen. But curiosity finally got the better of her fear, and she looked out again just in time to see some one lead[18] the gray horse from the stable, mount him, and ride away into the dusk. “O Joe!” she murmured. “O Charlie! Oh, what will Father say now! Isn’t it dreadful, dreadful!” But though she did not know it, the person whom Jennie saw riding away into the dusk on old Charlie’s back was not Joe. <hr class="chap" /> [19] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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