All at once a bundle of red flannel, lying in the drift close to the water"s edge, caught his attention, and suddenly there issued forth a l.u.s.ty bawl. The horseman would have turned pale but for the whisky which had permanently incarnadined the bend of his nose. As it was, however, he looked far more dismayed than the facts might seem to warrant.
"It"s the booze-I got "em again fur sartain!" he quavered in plaintive helplessness, his terrified eyes fixed on the squirming bundle.
Then, drunk as he was, he perceived the rift in his logic. "Gol-darn ye!" he exclaimed, violently kicking the horse, "you-uns ain"t got no call ter view visions an" see sights-ye old water-bibber!"
As the horse continued to snort and back away from the object Tank Dysart became convinced of its reality. Still mounted, he pa.s.sed close enough alongside for a grasp at it. The old red-flannel cape and hood disclosed a plump infant about ten months of age, whimpering and cruelly rubbing his eyes with his fists, and now bawling outright with rage; as he chanced to meet the gaze of his rescuer he paused to laugh in a one-sided way, displaying two pearly teeth and a very beguiling red tongue, but again stiffening himself he yelled as behooves a self-respecting baby so obviously misplaced.
Tank Dysart held him out at arm"s length in his strong grasp, surveying him in mingled astonishment and delight. "Why, bless my soul, Christmas gift!" he addressed him. "I"m powerful obligated fur yer company!"
For the genial infant giggled and sputtered and gurgled inconsistently in the midst of his bawling, and banteringly kicked out one soft foot in a snug, red sock, taking Tank full in the chest; then he stiffened, swayed backward and screamed again as if in agonies of grief.
"Sufferin" Moses!" grinned the drunkard. "I wouldn"t take nuthin" fur ye! Ye air a find, an" no mistake!" The word suggested illusion. "Ye ain"t no snake, now-nary toad-nary green rabbit-no sort"n jim-jam?" he stipulated apprehensively.
The baby babbled gleefully, and, as if attesting its reality, delivered half a dozen strong kicks with those active plump feet, encased in the smart red socks.
It suddenly occurred to the drunkard that here was a duty owing-to seek out the child"s parents. Even to his befuddled brain that fact was plain enough. The little creature had been lost evidently from some family of travelers who would presently retrace their way seeking him.
When Bruce Gilhooley had sprung from the tailboard of the wagon in that moment of tumultuous panic he had not noticed the bundle of straw dislodged. Falling with it softly into the deep snowdrift the child had continued to slumber quietly till awakened by the cold to silence and loneliness, and then this strange rencontre.
With a half-discriminated idea of overtaking the supposed travelers, Tank Dysart briskly forded the river, and, pressing his horse to a canter, made off in the opposite direction.
Gayly they fared along for a time, Tank frequently refreshing himself from a "tickler," facetiously so-called, which he carried in his pocket. Occasionally he generously offered the baby the stopper to suck, and as the child smacked his lips with evident relish Tank roared out again in his fine and flexible tenor:
"For my bigges" bottle war my bes" friend, An" my week"s work war all at an end!"
The horse, by far the n.o.bler animal of the two, stood still ever and anon when the drunken creature swayed back and forth in his saddle, imperiling his equilibrium. Even to his besotted mind, as he grew more intoxicated, the danger to the child in his erratic grasp became apparent.
"I got ter put him in a safe place-a Christmas gift," he now and then stuttered.
When he came at last within reach of a human habitation he had been for some time consciously on the point of falling from the saddle with the infant, who was now quietly asleep. He noted, as in a dream, the Crossroads" store, which was also the post-office; standing in front of the log cabin was a horse already saddled hanging down a dull, dispirited head as he awaited the mail-rider through a long, cold interval, and bearing a United States mail-pouch, mouldy, flabby, nearly empty. The door of the store was closed against the cold; the blacksmith"s shop was far down the road; the two or three scattered dwellings showed no sign of life but the wreaths of blue smoke curling up from the clay-and-stick chimneys.
Perhaps it was the impunity of the moment that suggested the idea to Dysart"s whimsical drunken fancy. He never knew. He suddenly tried the mouth of the pouch. It was locked. Nothing daunted, a stroke of a keen knife slit the upper part of the side seam, the sleeping baby was slipped into the aperture, and Tank Dysart rode off chuckling with glee to think of the dismay of the mail-rider when the mail-pouch should break forth with squeals and quiver with kicks, which embarra.s.sment would probably not befall him until far away in the wilderness with his perplexity, for there had been something stronger on that stopper than milk or cambric tea.
As Tank went he muttered something about the security of the United States mail, wherein he had had the forethought to deposit his Christmas gift, and forthwith he flung himself into the shuck-pen, where he fell asleep, and was not found till half-frozen, his whereabouts being at last disclosed to the storekeeper by the persistent presence of his faithful steed standing hard by. Tank was humanely cared for by this functionary, but several days elapsed before he altogether recovered consciousness; it was naturally a confused, disconnected train of impressions which his mind retained. At first, in a maudlin state, he demanded of the storekeeper, in his capacity as postmaster also, a package, a Christmas gift, which he averred he should receive by mail. Albeit this was esteemed merely an inebriated fancy, such is the sensitiveness of the United States postal service on the subject of missing mail matter that the postmaster, half-irritated, half-nervous, detailed it to the mail-rider. "Tank "lows ez he put it into the mail hyar himself!"
Peter Petrie, a lowering-eyed, severe-visaged, square-jawed man, gave Tank Dysart only a glance of ire from under his hat-brim, as if the matter were not worth the waste of a word.
Dysart, wreck though he was, had not yet lost all conscience. He was in an agony of remorse and doubt. It kept him sober longer than he had been for five years, for he was a professed drunkard and idler, scarcely considered responsible. He could not be sure that he had experienced aught which he seemed to remember-he hoped it was all only his drunken fancy, for what could have been the fate of the child subject to the freaks of his imbecile folly? He was rea.s.sured to hear no rumors of a lost child, and yet so definite were the images of his recollection that they must needs constrain his credulity.
He felt it in the nature of a rescue one day when, as he chanced to join a group of gossips loitering around the fire of the forge, he heard the smith ask casually: "Who is that thar baby visitin" at Peter Petrie"s over yander acrost Storm Mounting?"
"Gran"child, I reckon," suggested his big-boned, bare-armed, soot-grimed striker.
"Peter Petrie hain"t got nare gran"-child," said one of the loungers.
Tank, sober for once, held his breath to listen.
"Behaves powerful like a gran"dad," observed the smith, holding a horseshoe with the tongs in the fire while the striker laid hold on the bellows and the sighing sound surged to and fro and the white blaze flared forth, showing the interested faces of the group in the dusky smithy, and among them the horse whose shoe was making, while another stood at the open door defined against the snow. "Behaves like he ain"t got a mite o" sense. I war goin" by thar one day las" week an" I stepped up on the porch ter pa.s.s the time o" day with Pete an" his wife, an" the door war open. An" what d"ye s"pose I seen? Old Peter Petrie a-goin" round the floor on all fours, an" a-settin" on his back war a baby-powerful peart youngster-jes" a-grinnin" an" a-whoopin" an" a-poundin" old Peter with a whip! An" Pete galloped, he did! Didn"t seem beset with them rheumatics he used ter talk about-peartest leetle "possum of a baby!"
Tank Dysart lost no time in his investigations and he had the courage of his convictions. He did not scruple to call Peter Petrie to his face a mail-robber.
"Ye tuk a package deposited in the United States" mail and converted it to your own use," he vociferated.
""Twar neither stamped nor addressed," old Petrie gruffly contended, albeit obviously disconcerted.
Dysart even sought to induce the postmaster to send a complaint of the rider to the postal authorities.
"I got too much respec" fur my job," replied that worthy, jocosely eying Tank across the counter of the store. "I ain"t goin" ter let on ter the folks in Washington that we send babies about in the mail-bags hyar in the mountings."
The social acquaintance of the little man had necessarily been rather limited, but one day a neighbor, attracted to the Petrie cabin by idle curiosity concerning the waif robbed from the mails, gazed upon him for one astonished instant and then proclaimed his ident.i.ty.
"Nare Gilhooley should ever cross Storm Mounting, "cordin" ter yer sayin", Petey, an" hyar ye hev been totin" Ross Gilhooley"s gran"son back an" forth across Old Stormy, an" all yer spare time ye spend on yer hands an" knees barkin" like a dog jes" ter pleasure him."
Peter Petrie changed countenance suddenly. His square, bristly, grim jaw hardened and stiffened, so dear to him were all his stubborn convictions and grizzly, ancient feuds. But he bestirred himself to cause information to be conveyed to Bruce Gilhooley of his son"s whereabouts for he readily suspected that the family had fled to Minervy Sue"s in Georgia. Peter Petrie sustained in this act of conscience a grievous wrench, for it foreshadowed parting with the choice missive filched from the mail-bag, but he was not unmindful of the anguish and bereavement of the mother, and somehow the thought was peculiarly coercive at this season.
"I don"t want ter even up with King Herod, now, sure!" he averred to himself one night as he sat late over the embers, reviewing his plans all made. He thought much in these lone hours as he heard the wind speed past, the trees crack under their weight of snow, and noted through the tiny window the glister of a great star of a supernal l.u.s.tre, high above the pines, what a freight of joy the tidings of this child would bear to the bleeding hearts of his kindred. Albeit so humble, the parallel must needs arise suggesting the everlasting joy the existence of another Child had brought to the souls of all kindreds, all peoples. "Peace, peace," he reiterated, as the red coals crumbled and the gray ash spread; "Peace an" good-will!"
The words seemed to epitomize all religion, all value, all hope, and somehow they so dwelt in his mind that the next day he was moved to add a personal message to old Ross Gilhooley in sending the more important information to Bruce.
"Let on ter Ross," he charged the envoy, "ez-ez-that thar jedgmint an" execution issued war jes" formal-ye mought say-jes" ter hev all the papers reg"lar."
By virtue of more attrition with the world the mail-rider was more sophisticated than his enemy, and sooth to say, more sophistical.
"Ross is writ-proof, the old fool, though he war minded ter cut me out"n my levy if he could! But waal, jes" tell him from me ez we-uns hev hed a heap o" pleasure in the baby"s company in the Chris"mus, an" we-uns expec" ter borry him some whenst they all gits home!"
To the child"s kindred the news was as if he had risen from the dead, and the grat.i.tude of the Gilhooleys to Petrie knew no bounds. They had accounted the baby drowned when, missing him, they had retraced their way, finding naught but a bit of old blanket on which he had lain, close to the verge of the cruel river. Ross Gilhooley, softened and rendered tractable by exile and sorrow, upon his return lent himself to an affected warmth toward Peter Petrie which gradually a.s.sumed all the fervors of sincerity. The neighbors indeed were moved to say that the two friends and ancient enemies, when both on all fours and barking for the delight of the baby, were never so little like dogs in all their lives.
Thus a child shall lead them.
THE CRUCIAL MOMENT
A mere moment seems an inconsiderable factor in life-only its multiplication attaining importance and signifying time. It could never have occurred to Walter Hoxer that all his years of labor, the aggregation of the material values of industry, experience, skill, integrity, could be nullified by this minimum unit of s.p.a.ce-as sudden, as potent, as destructive, as a stroke of lightning. But after the fact it did not remind him of any agency of the angry skies; to him it was like one of the obstructions of the river engineers to divert the course of the great Mississippi, a mattress-spur, a thing insignificant in itself, a mere trifle of woven willow wands, set up at a crafty angle, against the tumultuous current. Yet he had seen the swirling waves, in their oncoming like innumerable herds of wild horses, hesitate at the impact, turn aside, and go racing by, scouring out a new channel, leaving the old bank bereft, thrown inland, no longer the margin of the stream.
The river was much in his mind that afternoon as he trudged along the county road at the base of the levee, on his way, all unprescient, to meet this signal, potential moment. Outside, he knew that the water was standing higher than his head, rippling against the thick turf of Bermuda gra.s.s with which the great earthwork was covered. For the river was bank-full and still rising-indeed, it was feared that an overflow impended. However, there was as yet no break; advices from up the river and down the river told only of extra precautions and constant work to keep the barriers intact against the increasing volume of the stream. The favorable chances were reinforced by the fact of a singularly dry winter, that had so far eliminated the danger from back-water, which, if aggregated from rain-fall in low-lying swamps, would move up slowly to inundate the arable lands. These were already ploughed to bed up for cotton, and an overflow now would mean the loss of many thousands of dollars to the submerged communities. The February rains had begun in the upper country, with a persistency and volume that bade fair to compensate for the long-continued drought, and thus the river was already booming; the bayous that drew off a vast surplusage of its waters were over-charged, and gradually would spread out in murky shallows, heavily laden with river detritus, over the low grounds bordering their course.
"This Jeffrey levee will hold," Hoxer said to himself, as once he paused, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his red head, his freckled, commonplace, square face lifted into a sort of dignity by the light of expert capacity and intelligence in his bluff blue eyes. He had been muttering to himself the details of its construction: so many feet across the base in proportion to its height, the width of the summit, the angle of the incline of its interior slope-the exterior being invisible, having the Mississippi River standing against it. "A fairly good levee, though an old one," he muttered. "I"ll bet, though, Major Jeffrey feels mightily like Noah when he looks at all that water out there tearing through the country."
His face clouded at the mention of the name, and as he took the short pipe from his mouth and stuck it into the pocket of his loose sack-coat his tread lost a certain free elasticity that had characterized it hitherto, and he trudged on doggedly. He had pa.s.sed many acres of ploughed lands, the road running between the fields and the levee. The scene was all solitary; the sun had set, and night would presently be coming on. As he turned in at the big white gate that opened on a long avenue of oaks leading to the mansion house, he began to fear that his visit might be ill-timed, and that a man of his station could not hope for an audience so near the major"s dinner-hour.
It was with definite relief that he heard the gentle impact of ivory b.a.l.l.s in the absolute quiet, and he remembered that a certain little octagonal structure with a conical red roof, in the grounds, was a billiard-room, for the sound betokened that he might find the owner of the place here.
He expected to see a group of the Major"s "quality friends" in the building but as he ascended the steps leading directly to the door, he perceived that the man he sought was alone. Major Jeffrey was engaged in idly knocking the b.a.l.l.s about in some skilful fancy shots, his cigar in his mouth, and a black velvet smoking-jacket setting off to special advantage his dense, snowy hair, prematurely white, his long mustache, and his pointed imperial. His heavy white eyebrows drew frowningly together over arrogant dark eyes as he noted the man at the entrance.
Despite Hoxer"s oft-reiterated sentiment that he was "as good as anybody and would take nothing off n.o.body, and cared for no old duck just because he was rich," he could not speak for a moment as he felt Major Jeffrey"s inimical eyes upon him. He lost the advantage in losing the salutation.
"Did you get my check?" Major Jeffrey asked curtly.
"Yes," Hoxer admitted; "but--"
"The amount was according to contract."