II
One of the raiding soldiers, espying Horace, called out in pa.s.sing, "A-fray-ed of his mit-tens!" Horace flinched at this renewal, and the other lad paused to taunt him again. Horace scooped some snow, moulded it into a ball, and flung it at the other. "Ho!" cried the boy, "you"re an Indian, are you? Hey, fellers, here"s an Indian that ain"t been killed yet." He and Horace engaged in a duel in which both were in such haste to mould s...o...b..a.l.l.s that they had little time for aiming.
Horace once struck his opponent squarely in the chest. "Hey," he shouted, "you"re dead. You can"t fight any more, Pete. I killed you.
You"re dead."
The other boy flushed red, but he continued frantically to make ammunition. "You never touched me!" he retorted, glowering. "You never touched me! Where, now?" he added, defiantly. "Where did you hit me?"
"On the coat! Right on your breast! You can"t fight any more! You"re dead!"
"You never!"
"I did, too! Hey, fellers, ain"t he dead? I hit "im square!"
"He never!"
n.o.body had seen the affair, but some of the boys took sides in absolute accordance with their friendship for one of the concerned parties. Horace"s opponent went about contending, "He never touched me! He never came near me! He never came near me!"
The formidable leader now came forward and accosted Horace. "What was you? An Indian? Well, then, you"re dead--that"s all. He hit you. I saw him."
"Me?" shrieked Horace. "He never came within a mile of me----"
At that moment he heard his name called in a certain familiar tune of two notes, with the last note shrill and prolonged. He looked towards the sidewalk, and saw his mother standing there in her widow"s weeds, with two brown paper parcels under her arm. A silence had fallen upon all the boys. Horace moved slowly towards his mother. She did not seem to note his approach; she was gazing austerely off through the naked branches of the maples where two crimson sunset bars lay on the deep blue sky.
At a distance of ten paces Horace made a desperate venture. "Oh, ma,"
he whined, "can"t I stay out for a while?"
"No," she answered solemnly, "you come with me." Horace knew that profile; it was the inexorable profile. But he continued to plead, because it was not beyond his mind that a great show of suffering now might diminish his suffering later.
He did not dare to look back at his playmates. It was already a public scandal that he could not stay out as late as other boys, and he could imagine his standing now that he had been again dragged off by his mother in sight of the whole world. He was a profoundly miserable human being.
Aunt Martha opened the door for them. Light streamed about her straight skirt. "Oh," she said, "so you found him on the road, eh?
Well, I declare! It was about time!"
Horace slunk into the kitchen. The stove, straddling out on its four iron legs, was gently humming. Aunt Martha had evidently just lighted the lamp, for she went to it and began to twist the wick experimentally.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Let"s See Them Mittens."]
"Now," said the mother, "let"s see them mittens."
Horace"s chin sank. The aspiration of the criminal, the pa.s.sionate desire for an asylum from retribution, from justice, was aflame in his heart. "I--I--don"t--don"t know where they are." he gasped finally, as he pa.s.sed his hand over his pockets.
"Horace," intoned his mother, "you are tellin" me a story!"
""Tain"t a story," he answered, just above his breath. He looked like a sheep-stealer.
His mother held him by the arm, and began to search his pockets.
Almost at once she was able to bring forth a pair of very wet mittens.
"Well, I declare!" cried Aunt Martha. The two women went close to the lamp, and minutely examined the mittens, turning them over and over.
Afterwards, when Horace looked up, his mother"s sad-lined, homely face was turned towards him. He burst into tears.
His mother drew a chair near the stove. "Just you sit there now, until I tell you to git off." He sidled meekly into the chair. His mother and his aunt went briskly about the business of preparing supper. They did not display a knowledge of his existence; they carried an effect of oblivion so far that they even did not speak to each other.
Presently they went into the dining and living room; Horace could hear the dishes rattling. His Aunt Martha brought a plate of food, placed it on a chair near him, and went away without a word.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Brought a Plate of Food"]
Horace instantly decided that he would not touch a morsel of the food.
He had often used this ruse in dealing with his mother. He did not know why it brought her to terms, but certainly it sometimes did.
The mother looked up when the aunt returned to the other room. "Is he eatin" his supper?" she asked.
The maiden aunt, fortified in ignorance, gazed with pity and contempt upon this interest. "Well, now, Emily, how do I know?" she queried.
"Was I goin" to stand over "im? Of all the worryin" you do about that child! It"s a shame the way you"re bringin" up that child."
"Well, he ought to eat somethin". It won"t do fer him to go without eatin"," the mother retorted, weakly.
Aunt Martha, profoundly scorning the policy of concession which these words meant, uttered a long, contemptuous sigh.
III
Alone in the kitchen, Horace stared with sombre eyes at the plate of food. For a long time he betrayed no sign of yielding. His mood was adamantine. He was resolved not to sell his vengeance for bread, cold ham, and a pickle, and yet it must be known that the sight of them affected him powerfully. The pickle in particular was notable for its seductive charm. He surveyed it darkly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Horace Stared with Sombre Eyes at the Plate of Food"]
But at last, unable to longer endure his state, his att.i.tude in the presence of the pickle, he put out an inquisitive finger and touched it, and it was cool and green and plump. Then a full conception of the cruel woe of his situation swept upon him suddenly, and his eyes filled with tears, which began to move down his cheeks. He sniffled.
His heart was black with hatred. He painted in his mind scenes of deadly retribution. His mother would be taught that he was not one to endure persecution meekly, without raising an arm in his defence. And so his dreams were of a slaughter of feelings, and near the end of them his mother was pictured as coming, bowed with pain, to his feet.
Weeping, she implored his charity. Would he forgive her? No; his once tender heart had been turned to stone by her injustice. He could not forgive her. She must pay the inexorable penalty.
The first item in this horrible plan was the refusal of the food. This he knew by experience would work havoc in his mother"s heart. And so he grimly waited.
But suddenly it occurred to him that the first part of his revenge was in danger of failing. The thought struck him that his mother might not capitulate in the usual way. According to his recollection, the time was more than due when she should come in, worried, sadly affectionate, and ask him if he was ill. It had then been his custom to hint in a resigned voice that he was the victim of secret disease, but that he preferred to suffer in silence and alone. If she was obdurate in her anxiety, he always asked her in a gloomy, low voice to go away and leave him to suffer in silence and alone in the darkness without food. He had known this maneuvering to result even in pie.
But what was the meaning of the long pause and the stillness? Had his old and valued ruse betrayed him? As the truth sank into his mind, he supremely loathed life, the world, his mother. Her heart was beating back the besiegers; he was a defeated child.
He wept for a time before deciding upon the final stroke. He would run away. In a remote corner of the world he would become some sort of b.l.o.o.d.y-handed person driven to a life of crime by the barbarity of his mother. She should never know his fate. He would torture her for years with doubts and doubts, and drive her implacably to a repentant grave.
Nor would Aunt Martha escape. Some day, a century hence, when his mother was dead, he would write to his Aunt Martha, and point out her part in the blighting of his life. For one blow against him now he would, in time, deal back a thousand--aye, ten thousand.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Some Sort of b.l.o.o.d.y-Handed Person"]
He arose and took his coat and cap. As he moved stealthily towards the door he cast a glance backward at the pickle. He was tempted to take it, but he knew that if he left the plate inviolate his mother would feel even worse.
A blue snow was falling. People, bowed forward, were moving briskly along the walks. The electric lamps hummed amid showers of flakes. As Horace emerged from the kitchen, a shrill squall drove the flakes around the corner of the house. He cowered away from it, and its violence illumined his mind vaguely in new directions. He deliberated upon a choice of remote corners of the globe. He found that he had no plans which were definite enough in a geographical way, but without much loss of time he decided upon California. He moved briskly as far as his mother"s front gate on the road to California. He was off at last. His success was a trifle dreadful; his throat choked.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "People, Bowed Forward"]
But at the gate he paused. He did not know if his journey to California would be shorter if he went down Niagara Avenue or off through Hogan Street. As the storm was very cold and the point was very important, he decided to withdraw for reflection to the wood-shed. He entered the dark shanty, and took seat upon the old chopping-block upon which he was supposed to perform for a few minutes every afternoon when he returned from school. The wind screamed and shouted at the loose boards, and there was a rift of snow on the floor to leeward of a crack.