John Jay stood on one foot. He was afraid of the headless ganders, but he did want those berries. He walked out through the door, hesitated, and stood on one foot again. Then he went slowly down the hill. Mammy, standing in the door with her ap.r.o.n flung over her head, watched him climb up on the fence and sit there to consider. Finally, he dropped down to the other side, and started in the direction of the gander thicket.
It was a place that the negroes had been afraid of since her earliest recollection. It was only a little stretch of woodland, where the neglected underbrush had grown into a tangled thicket. No one remembered now what had given rise to the name, and no one living had ever seen the ghostly white ganders that were said to haunt the place at night. Still, the story was handed down from one to another, and the place was shunned as much as possible.
Brier Crook church stood at one end, with its desolate little graveyard, where the colored people buried their dead under its weeping willows and gloomy cedars.
John Jay avoided the lonely road that led in that direction, and took the one that wound around the other end of the thicket, past a deserted mill. Yet, when he reached the ruined old building, with its staring windows and sunken roof, he was half sorry that he had not gone the other way.
The berries were on the far side of the thicket, and he was obliged to pa.s.s either the graveyard or the old mill to reach them. The possibility of plunging boldly into the thicket and pushing his way through to the other side had never occurred to him, although it is doubtful if he would have dared to do so even had he thought of it. He ran down the dry bed of the stream, and past the silent moss-grown wheel, breathing a sigh of relief when he came out into an open field beyond.
Balancing himself on the top rail of the fence, he looked cautiously along the edge of the thicket. It did not look so dismal in there, after all. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r"s cheerful tapping sounded somewhere within.
b.u.t.terflies flitted fearlessly down into its shady ravines. A squirrel ran out on a limb, and sat chattering at him saucily. Then a big gray rabbit rustled through the leaves, and went loping away into the depths of the thicket.
"I don"t believe there"s anything skeery in there at all!" exclaimed John Jay aloud. After starting several times, and stopping to look all around and listen, he followed the rabbit into the bushes. Plunging down a narrow cow-path which wound in and out, he came to an open s.p.a.ce where a few trees had fallen. Here, with an exclamation of delight, he pounced upon the finest, largest berries he had ever seen. They dropped into the tin pail with a noisy thud at first, and then with scarcely a sound, as they rapidly piled higher and higher.
Both pails were filled in a much shorter time than usual, and then he sat down on a wide log to enjoy the lunch he had brought with him. There were two big slices of bread and jam in one pocket, and a big apple in the other. As he sat there, slowly munching, he began to feel drowsy. He had awakened early that morning, and had worked hard in the hot sun. He stretched himself out full length on the log, to rest his back while he finished eating his apple.
The branches overhead swayed gently back and forth. His eyes followed them as they kept up that slow, monotonous motion against the bright sky. He had no intention of closing them; in fact, he did not know they were closed, for in that same moment he was sound asleep.
The woodp.e.c.k.e.r went on tapping; the squirrel whisked back and forth along the limb; the same gray rabbit came out and hopped along beside the log where he lay. Suddenly, it raised itself up to look at the strange sight, and then bounded away again. The sun dropped lower and lower. In the open fields there was still light, but the thicket was gray with the subdued shadows of the gloaming.
John Jay might have slept on all night had not a leaf fluttered slowly down from the tree above, and brushed across his face. He opened his eyes, looking all around him in a bewildered way. Then he sat up, and peered through the bushes. A cold perspiration covered him when he realized that it was dusk and that he was in the middle of the gander thicket. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the blackberries, a pail in each hand, and stood looking helplessly around him, for he could not decide which way to go.
In front of him stretched half a mile of the haunted thicket. It was either to push his way through that as quickly as possible, or to go back by the long, lonesome road over which he had come.
Just then a harmless flock of geese belonging to an old market-gardener who lived near came waddling up from the creek, on the way home to their barn-yard. They moved along in a silent procession, pushing their long, thin necks through the underbrush. John Jay was too terrified to see that their heads were properly in place, and that they were as harmless as the flock that fed in Aunt Susan"s dooryard.
"They"ll get me! They"ll get me!" he whimpered, as they came nearer and nearer, for his feet seemed so heavy that he could not lift them when he tried to run. Made desperate by his fear, he raised first one pail of berries and then the other, hurling them at the startled geese with all the force his wiry little arms could muster.
Instantly their long white wings shot up through the bushes. There was an angry fluttering and hissing, as half running, half flying, they waddled faster towards home. John Jay did not look to see what direction they were taking. He was sure they were after him. He could hear their long wings flapping just behind him; at least, he thought he could, but the noise he heard was the snapping of the twigs he trampled in his headlong flight. No greyhound ever bounded through a wood with lighter feet than those which carried him. His eyes were wide with fright. His heart beat so hard in his throat he thought he would surely die before he could reach the cabin. At every step the light seemed to be growing dimmer and the thicket denser, although he thought he certainly must have been running long enough to have reached the clearing. Still he ran on, and on, and on. The recollection of one of Mammy"s stories flashed across his mind.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The ganders had chased him around]
Once a man had lost his way in this wood, and the ganders had chased him around and around until daylight. The thought made him so weak in the knees that he was ready to drop from fright and exhaustion. Then he recalled a superst.i.tion that he had often heard, that anyone who has lost his way may find it again by turning his pocket wrong side out. He was twitching at his with trembling hands, looking with eyes too frightened to see, and fumbling with fingers too stiff with fear to feel, but the pocket seemed to have disappeared. "It"s conju"ed too," he wailed, as he ran heedlessly on.
Something long and white slapped across his face. An unearthly, wavering voice sounded a hoa.r.s.e, long-drawn "Moo-oo-oo!" just in front of him. He sank down in a helpless little heap, blubbering and groaning aloud, with his teeth chattering, and the tears running down his clammy face. There was a louder crackling, and out of the bushes walked an old spotted cow, calmly switching her white tail and looking at John Jay in gentle-eyed wonder.
Strength came back to the boy with that familiar sight, but not being sure that the cow was not as ghostly as the ganders, he scrambled to his feet and started to run again. To avoid pa.s.sing the cow, he turned in another direction. This time, it happened to be the right one, and in a few moments more he had dashed into the open. Then he saw that it was not yet dark in the fields.
Mammy heard the sound of rapid running up the path, and came to the door. John Jay dropped at her feet, trembling and cold, and so frightened that he could only cling to her skirts, sobbing piteously.
When, at last, he found his breath, all he could gasp was, "Oh, Mammy!
the gandahs are aftah me! the gandahs are aftah me!"
Big boy as he was, Mammy stooped and lifted him in her arms, and holding him close, with his head on her shoulder, rocked back and forth in the big wooden chair until he grew calmer. Not until he had sobbed out the whole story, and wiped his eyes several times on her ap.r.o.n, did he see that there was company in the room.
George Chadwick was sitting by the door. It was the first time he had been in the cabin since his return from college. He had ridden up from the toll-gate on a pa.s.sing wagon to see his old friend, Sheba, and had been there the greater part of the afternoon, listening to her tales of his mother in the old slavery days. He had not intended to accept her urgent invitation to stay to supper, but when he saw that she shared John Jay"s fright, he decided to remain. Had it not been for his protecting presence in the house, Mammy was so affected by the boy"s story that she would have barred every opening. Then, cowering around one little flickering candle, they would have fed each other"s superst.i.tious fears until bedtime. George knew this, and so he stayed to rea.s.sure them by his matter-of-fact explanations, and his cheerful common sense. While he could not convince them that they had been needlessly alarmed, he drew their attention to other things, by stories of college life and experiences at the North, while Sheba bustled about, bringing out the best of her meagre store to do him honor.
Ivy, scrubbed until she shone, and in a stiffly starched ap.r.o.n, sat on his knee and sucked her thumb. Bud squatted at his feet in silence, sticking his little red tongue in and out of the hole where the lost tooth had been. As for John Jay, his hero-worship pa.s.sed that night into warmest love. From that time on, he would have gone through fire and water to serve his "Rev"und Gawge,"--anywhere in fact, save one place.
Never any more was there motive deep enough or power strong enough to drag him within calling distance of the gander thicket.
CHAPTER VII.
Now that berry picking was at an end, John Jay slipped back into his old lazy ways. Errands were run with lagging feet; work was done in the easiest way possible, and everything was left undone that he could by any means avoid. Mammy scolded when she came home at night and found both water-pail and wood-box empty, but he went serenely on with his supper. No matter what happened, nothing ever interfered with his appet.i.te.
"Those chillun are gettin" as bad as little young turkeys "bout strayin"
away from home," mumbled Aunt Susan one morning, as she watched them slip through the fence soon after Sheba had left the house. "An" they ain"t anything wussah than young turkeys for runnin" off. "Peahs like that kind of poultry is nevah satisfied with where they is, but always want to be where they isn"t. It"s the same with those chillun."
Although Aunt Susan did not know it, there was one place where John Jay and his flock of two were always content to stay; that was on the steps at the side door of the church. Nearly every afternoon found them sitting there in a solemn row, waiting for the shadows to grow long across the gra.s.s, for it was then that George oftenest came to play on the organ. He always smiled on the three grave little figures, waiting so patiently for the music of his vesper hymns.
It touched the lonely man to have John Jay follow him about, with that same wistful look in his eyes that a faithful dog has for its master.
Sometimes he sat down on the steps beside the children and talked to them awhile, just to see the boy"s face light up with pleasure.
It was a mystery to Sheba, how a dignified minister could care for the companionship of such a harum-scarum little creature as her grandson.
She did know the tie that bound them, but their natures were as near akin as the acorn and the oak. In John Jay the man saw his own childhood with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambitions; while the boy, looking up to his "Rev"und Gawge" as the highest standard of all manliness, felt faint stirrings within, of the possibility of such growth for himself.
Early one morning George sent a message to Sheba, asking that John Jay might be allowed to spend the day with him and help watch the toll-gate, while Mars" Nat was in town. That morning still stands out in the boy"s memory, as one of the happiest he ever spent.
Along in the middle of the afternoon, when travel on the turnpike had almost ceased on account of the heat, George went into his room and lay down. John Jay sat on the floor of the porch, holding the old hound"s head in his lap, and lazily smoothing its long soft ears. He felt very important when a wagon rattled up and the toll was dropped into his fingers. He wished that everybody he knew would ride by and find him sitting there in charge; but no one else came for more than an hour. It had seemed as long as ten hours, with nothing to do but slap at the flies and talk to the sleepy hound. John Jay grinned when he saw the arrival, for it was a man whom he knew.
"Good evenin", Mistah Boden," he called, eagerly. The man stopped his horses.
"h.e.l.lo!" he said. "You"re in charge, are you? Where"s the rest of the folks?"
"Mars" Nat, he"s gone to town to-day," answered John Jay, proudly. "I"m keepin" toll-gate this evenin", Mistah Boden."
"So!" exclaimed the man, with a cunning gleam in his little eyes.
"That"s the lay of the land, is it?"
Instead of taking out his pocket-book, he threw one foot over his knee, and began to ask questions in a friendly manner that flattered John Jay.
"Let"s see. Your name"s Hickman, hain"t it?"
"Yessa, John Jay Hickman," answered the boy.
"Yes," drawled the man, gnawing at a plug of tobacco which he took from his pocket. "I know all about you. Your mammy used to cook for my wife, and your gran"mammy washed at our house one summer. How is the old woman, anyhow?"
"She"s well, thank you, Mistah Boden," was the pleased answer.
"And then there"s that brother of her"s--Billy! old Uncle Billy! How"s he getting on?"
"Oh, he"s mighty complainin", Mistah Boden; he"s got such a misery in his back all the time that he say he jus" aint got ambition "nuff to get out"n his own way."
"Is that so?" was the reply, in a tone of flattering interest. The man beckoned him with his whip to step closer.
"Look here, boy," he said, in a confidential tone, "it"s a mighty lucky thing for me that Nat Chadwick left you here instead of a stranger.
Every penny of change I started with this morning dropped out through a hole in my pocket somewhere. I didn"t find it out until I got within sight of the place; then, thinks I to myself, "oh, it won"t make any difference. Nat and I are old friends; he"ll pa.s.s me." I guess you can do the same, can"t you, being as you"re in his place, and I"m an old friend of your family? You needn"t say anything about it, and I"ll do as much for you some day."