"He was hung," said Nannie, and she almost smacked her lips with savage relish.
"Oh!" said Jim, and he condescended to enter the parlor and plant himself in front of Nannie. "Then what else was done with him?"
reiterated this young avenging fury.
"I don"t like this story," said Mamie.
"I do!" said Jim. "It"s most bester than Indians."
Nannie was going to say that was all, but just then she caught sight of those mocking eyes again, and in a sudden fury she added:
"He was drawn and quartered."
"Oh!" gasped Jim, while Mamie began to weep.
Just then a roar of laughter ensued from behind the newspaper, and Nannie, whose every nerve was taut, leaped from her chair.
The newspaper fell, and the two chief actors in this drama confronted one another, one of them convulsed with laughter and the other with flashing, defiant eyes and tightly pursed mouth.
"And after that--" urged Jim. "Go on, Miss Nannie. Oh, this is a bully story! It"s bestest than Indians!"
"After that," said Nannie, turning squarely on Mr. Earnest, "after that he was sent to the penitentiary for life, and everybody said "Good enough!" "Served him right, nasty, mean, horrid old thing!"" and away she went, slamming the front door behind her.
The bang of the door, and still more the unusual sound of Mr.
Earnest"s laughter, brought the little wife to the spot.
"We had a bully story!" Master Jim explained. "There wasn"t any fighting in it, but a big old cat got caught in a trap, and he was hung and quartered up."
"Jim!" said his mother. "Do stop! I don"t like such stories. What could Nannie have been thinking of?"
If she had dared she would have added: "I don"t see how anybody could have laughed over that."
But perhaps she was checked by a look on Mr. Earnest"s face. He was not laughing now; neither was he scowling; he looked very grave.
"Jennie," he said, "come here, dear," and with a quick, unaccustomed flutter of her heart she went to him. "I"ve been a brute--a cowardly brute, but I"m sorry, and I want to do better. Will you forgive me?
And if I behave like a man in future do you think you can go back to the old love, dear?"
The children had run out to see if Nannie had left them, and the room was very still; no sound but the ticking of the clock, and once in awhile a deep sob that would not be crushed back.
Great events turn on small pivots ofttimes, and so it happened that there were some changes in that little house after this.
Curiously enough, not long after Nannie"s story a great tortoise-sh.e.l.l tomcat appeared in the Earnest home. No one thought of asking Mrs.
Earnest if she had brought him there, and the others knew nothing about him. More curiously still, when Mr. Earnest began to grow sulky or ugly, Sir Tortoise Sh.e.l.l would often walk into the room and glare at him with his big, ugly eyes.
"Jennie, I believe I"ll shoot that cat!" he exclaimed one day. "I can"t bear him!"
"Oh, no, I couldn"t let you hurt him, Gerald," said Mrs. Earnest, who had become quite a spirited little woman in the new and happy atmosphere she breathed now. "I"m so fond of him."
She looked demure enough as she stooped to pet the cat, but really her eyes were sparkling with mischief, for truth to tell, she had heard Nannie"s story and was ready to adopt a big yellow cat as her coat of arms.
Mr. Earnest strolled out on to the gallery. He too was thinking of that story.
"I could have stood the trouncing," he said to himself, "and the hanging, and even the drawing and quartering; but when it came to sending all four quarters to the penitentiary for life, what could a poor devil do but cave in?"
XIII
A week had pa.s.sed since Steve refused to burden himself longer with Sarah Maria"s care and education. As a matter of course he saw that the irascible lady was still retained about the place, but he felt that to be no concern of his so long as their orbits did not cross, and so far Sarah Maria seemed to appreciate his indifference and to thrive upon it.
A change of base was effected, however, on the morning of the eighth day, and it came about in this wise. On going down to his little corn-field one morning to see how matters were progressing, Steve found--but perhaps we should first tell how he had, with melancholy eyes, seen most of the results of his summer"s hard work come to naught; one vegetable after another had gone the way of the flesh--not a legitimate way, as it should have gone, on the family table, but by the path of some violence that had cut off its usefulness and ended its life prematurely.
The corn was about the only article that had escaped such wreckage; it really had flourished and now bade fair to grace the table before long. Once in a while, when his spirits needed propping, Steve allowed himself the comfort of gazing upon the vigorous cornstalks, with their budding ta.s.sels, and this was his intent upon this particular day.
Alas! the sight he beheld was hardly calculated to raise the spiritual thermometer, so to speak, for Sarah Maria was contentedly munching what corn she had not already trampled under foot. Now, this was more than even Steve could endure, and for once his gentleness and quiet gave way to something resembling a wild storm.
Breaking a stout switch from a tree, he proceeded to use it with such energy that Sarah started for the barn at a sprinting gait. She did not mind being sent home--that she expected as a matter of course; but she hotly resented the manner in which it was done. Reaching the barn and finding the door closed, she suddenly turned and charged Steve with such malice and vigor that she was upon him before he had time to think of escaping or of defending himself. With one blow she knocked him down, but happily, instead of demolishing him at once, she stood over him glaring and otherwise torturing him mentally before she could decide upon the best method by which to blot him out of existence.
While Steve was thus being rolled as a sweet morsel of revenge under the tongue of the vicious Sarah, Brownie came running from the house.
Possibly he beheld his master"s predicament and wished to succor him; possibly he was animated by the spirit of mischief which seemed to possess him most of the time. However that may be, he collided with a hive of bees as he ran and upset it. Then swift as a flash he fled to a large tree growing nearby and stood upon his little hind feet close to its trunk, in such a manner that he was completely hidden from view.
The bees, raging out of their house and looking about them for the enemy who had knocked so rudely at their back door as to overturn the entire building, beheld Sarah Maria standing rampant over the prostrate Steve. The latter looked meek enough, but the former was evidently equal to anything vicious. Accepting this circ.u.mstantial evidence without investigation, the bees sallied forth in a body and proceeded to punish the wicked cow, and in about one minute Mrs. Maria was dancing a fisher"s hornpipe of the most extravagant character.
With tail tilted at a disrespectful angle, she careened in such fashion as to bring her flying heels close to Steve"s terrified nose.
Meanwhile he lay still, watching proceedings with gentle amazement.
"Most extraordinary conduct," he said.
By-and-by, thinking the time ripe for escape, he attempted to rise and slip away, but the eagle eye of the festive bovine caught his first movement, and she pounced upon him so viciously that nothing but his feigning to be dead saved his life. Just at this junction the kitchen door opened, and Bridget, who had observed these high proceedings from the window, put out her head and screamed "Murther!" on hearing which Sarah dashed toward the house, but was back again upon Steve before he had a chance to rise.
"Upset another hive, me dear!" screamed Bridget. "Sure a big dose of bees will be good fer her."
Sarah Maria again galloped toward the kitchen, and Bridget hastily withdrew her counsel.
"Shure it"s the divil himsilf broke loose!" shouted Bridget again, opening the door a crack. "I"d know his horns an" tail anywheres, bad cess to him! Howly Mither! how shall I get yez into the house? It"s a state of siege I"m in here, or I"d be out a-dhraggin" yez inside.
Don"t raise yer hid, Mr. Loveland--don"t now, me dear, as ye love yer life, or fust ye know she"ll go a-bowlin" of it "roun" that yard as if it was a billiard bawl. She"s got no more heart in her brist than that. Och! bad luck ter her! Shure----"
But again Sarah Maria started to interview the cook, and again Bridget had a pressing engagement indoors.
"Och! what shall we do now? Shure it"s quakin" I am fer fear ivery minute. I"ll see your gory head bouncin" "roun" the potaty patch an"
her afther it. May the saints defind yez from sich a horrible fate.
Och! look at that, now!" she shrieked as Sarah made another lurch in Steve"s direction. "Perlice! perlice!" she screamed, so loud that she might have been heard in the city. "Shure I hope I may live ter see that ould divil hangin" ter the apple tree an" the crows fasteing off her wicked ould body. There, now, come, Mr. Loveland--she"s off! Och!
good luck ter thim bees! Git up now, me darlint! There, rin! rin fer yer life! Och! she"s comin" agin!"
But Steve reached the kitchen door first, and Bridget reached forth a welcoming hand and s.n.a.t.c.hed him inside, his coat being rent in twain by the violence of his salvation.
"Shure, now, that"s a cow fer a respictable middle-aged woman twilve years over from Oireland ter sit down an" milk when she"s not yit ready ter die--is it, now? An" a respictable family ter drink the milk of an" not expect ter be cuttin" up shines an" capers an" all sorts of wicked things in consequence--is it, I say? Luck at that, now! Haven"t I told yez that cow hasn"t the manners ov a leddy, at all, at all!"
Mrs. Maria was at that moment clearing the fence and dancing down the road, pursued by a hive of bees.