Justice laughed. "What he isn"t going to do to you when he catches you won"t be worth doing," he said.
Absalom began to look apprehensive. "I"m afraid to go back," he said.
"What are you afraid of, if you didn"t do it?" asked Justice.
"Pa wouldn"t believe me," said Absalom nervously.
"Oh, I guess he"ll believe you all right," I said soothingly.
"You go with me," begged Absalom, eyeing us both beseechingly. "He"ll believe you. He never believes me."
"Maybe we had better," said I. "He can stay here with you the rest of the night and we"ll drive over the first thing in the morning."
The next morning bright and early found us again on the scene of the fire. Early as we were, we found Elijah b.u.t.ts poking in the ashes of his cotton crop with a wrathful countenance. When he saw us coming he strode to meet us and without a word laid hold of Absalom"s collar. His expression was like that of a fox who has caught his goose after many hours of waiting.
"I"ve got you, you rascal," he sputtered, shaking Absalom until his teeth chattered. "Where did you find him?" he demanded of Justice.
"In my bunk," replied Justice, laying a hand on Mr. b.u.t.ts" arm and trying to separate him from his son. "He had been there all evening, and knew nothing about the fire. He didn"t do it."
"Didn"t do it!" shouted Mr. b.u.t.ts. "Don"t tell me he didn"t do it. Of course he did it! Who else did?"
We weren"t prepared to answer.
"I"m sure Absalom didn"t do it, Mr. b.u.t.ts," said Justice earnestly. "I"d stake a whole lot on it."
"Well, I wouldn"t, you can better believe!" answered Mr. b.u.t.ts. "He did it, and I"m going to take it out of him." He began to march Absalom off toward the house, urging him along with a box on the ear that nearly felled him to the ground.
Justice did it so quickly that I never will be able to tell just what it was, but in a minute there stood Elijah b.u.t.ts rubbing his wrist and wearing the most surprised look I ever saw on the face of a man, and there sat Absalom on the ground half a dozen yards away.
"Beat it back to our shack, Absalom," called Justice. "I guess the climate"s a little too hot around here for you just yet."
Absalom needed no second bidding. He sped down the road away from his paternal mansion as if the whole German army was after him.
"When you can treat your son like a human being he"ll come back," said Justice to Mr. b.u.t.ts.
"He don"t need to come back," said Mr. b.u.t.ts sourly, but with fury carefully toned down. Justice"s use of an uncanny j.a.panese wrestling trick to wrench Absalom out of his vise-like grasp had created a vast respect in him. He wasn"t quite sure what Justice was going to do next, and eyed him warily for a possible attack in the rear. "He don"t need to come back," he mumbled stubbornly, "until he either says he did it and takes what"s coming to him, or finds out who did do it." Growling to himself he went toward the house and we drove off to overtake Absalom.
"Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed Justice. "Old b.u.t.ts sure is some knotty piece of timber to drive screws into!"
It was a rather dejected trio that Sandhelo, frisking in the morning air, carried back to the house. Justice, I could see, was trying to figure out by calculus the probable result of having jiu-jitsu-ed the president of the school board; I was sorry for Absalom and Absalom was sorry for himself. Once I caught him looking at me pleadingly.
"_You_ don"t think I done it?" he asked anxiously.
"Not for a minute!" I answered heartily, smiling into his eyes.
He looked down, in a shame-faced way, and then he suddenly put his arm around my neck. "I"m sorry I treated you so horrid," he murmured. Think of it! Absalom, the bully, the one-time bane of my existence, the fly in the ointment, riding down the road with his arm around my neck, and me standing up for him against the world! Don"t things turn out queerly, though? Who would ever have thought it possible, six months ago?
Absalom and I had quite a few long talks in the days that followed. He confided to me his hatred of lessons and his ambition to raise horses.
Father let him help him as much as he liked, and promised him a job on the place any time he wanted it. Absalom seemed utterly transformed. He fooled around the horses day and night and showed a knack of handling them that proved beyond a doubt that he had chosen his profession wisely.
I did not insist upon his going to school and was glad I hadn"t; for in a day or two came the "visitation" of the Board, bringing Miss Fairlee to see my school.
She was absolutely enchanted with the way we conducted things; gasped with astonishment at the graphophone and the lantern slides; exclaimed in wonder at the library; listened approvingly to the reading lesson, which was from one of the current magazines; partook generously of our dinner, cooked and served in the most approved style, and laughed heartily at the stunts we did afterward by way of entertainment. I took a naughty satisfaction in showing off my changed curriculum for her approval and watching the effect it had on the august Board members. None of them knew exactly what I had been doing all this time, and their amazement was immense. Mr. b.u.t.ts did not come with the board this time, so I was spared the embarra.s.sment of meeting him. Without him the rest of the Board were like sheep that had gotten separated from the bell-wether; they didn"t know which direction to head into until Miss Fairlee expressed her unqualified approval of my methods; then they all endorsed it emphatically.
"I wish I were a pupil again, so I could have you for a teacher!" said Miss Fairlee when school was out, and I considered that the highest compliment I had ever received. I immediately invited her to attend our Ceremonial Meeting that night and she accepted the invitation eagerly. We held it on the old parade ground in front of the school. In honor of our guest we acted out the pretty Indian legend of Kir-a-wa and the Blackbirds and when we came to the place where we rush out looking for the two crows we found two real ones sitting on the fence, only, instead of attacking us as the ones did in the legend, these two applauded vigorously. They were Justice and Absalom, come with Sandhelo and the cart to take me home, or rather what was left of me after the blackbirds had picked me to pieces.
"Another day gone without mishap!" I said, as Justice slid back the stable door and I walked in with my arm around Sandhelo"s neck. "Sandhelo will have to have a lump of sugar and an extra soft bed to celebrate.
Come on, Sandy, let me tuck you in."
But Sandhelo would not enter his stall. He stuck his head in, sniffed the air, and then, with a squeal that always heralds an outbreak of temperament, he rose on his hind legs and began to dance.
"Whatever has gotten into him?" I began, tugging at his tail, which was the nearest thing I could get my hand onto, when suddenly a wild shriek rose up from under our very feet and in the dimness of the stall we saw something roll over and crouch in a corner.
"Quick, the lantern!" said Justice.
But we couldn"t find it.
Then from the depths of the stall there came a voice, crying in terrified tones, "Don" take me, mister Debble; don" take me, mister Debble, I done it, I done it; I set fiah to "at ole cotton to get even with old Mister b.u.t.ts fer settin" de dawgs on me; I done it, I done it; go "way, Mister Debble, don" take me, I"ll tell dem; only don" take me, Mister Debble!"
Justice and Absalom and I stood frozen to the spot, listening to this remarkable outcry. Then Justice raised the lantern, which he just spied on the floor, and lighting it held it in the stall. By its flickering rays we saw a negro crouching in the corner, whose rolling eyes and trembling limbs showed him to be beside himself with fright.
"Glory!" exclaimed Justice. "It"s the same old bird we saw in the road that day, the one I said looked like mischief!"
Here Sandhelo, nosing me aside, looked inquisitively over my shoulder and the darky immediately went into another spasm of fright, covering his face with his hands and imploring "Mister Debble" not to take him this time.
"Whee-e-e-e-!" said Justice, whistling in his astonishment. "He"s the one that fired the cotton and now he thinks Sandhelo is the devil coming after him!"
"Mercy, what an awful creature!" said I, shuddering and looking the other way. "If Sandhelo gets a good look at him I"m afraid he"ll return the compliment about taking him for His Satanic Nibs."
"There"s only one way you can keep him from getting you," said Justice to the darky gravely. "That"s by going to Mr. b.u.t.ts and telling him yourself that you did it. Otherwise, it"s good-bye, Solomon."
Here Sandhelo, as if he understood what was going on, suddenly snapped at the black legs stretched out across his stall.
"I"ll tell him, I"ll tell him!" shuddered Solomon, and with a prolonged howl of terror he fled from the stable and down the road in the direction of the b.u.t.ts plantation.
"He"ll tell him all right," chuckled Justice. "He"ll face a dozen Elijah b.u.t.tses, before he lets the devil get him. Poor Sandhelo! Rather rough on him, though, to have his name used as a terror to evil doers!"
Talk about nothing ever happening around here! O you darling Winnebagos, with your ladylike advantages, and your mildly eventful lives, you don"t know what real excitement is!
Worn out, but happily yours, Katherine.
GLADYS TO KATHERINE
April 10, 19--.
Dearest old K: