I staggered to my feet and wabbled to my partner in the dance, holding out my hand. "Much obliged to you, Mick," says I.

He leaned back and laughed, till I joined, as well as I could, for crying. He grabbed my hand and shook it. "Yer all right," says he.

"Sorry I am I said a word to ye. An' yer th' h--- of a red-headed bye to fight. I've enough."

Whilst I was a simple lad, I wasn't a fool. For me to hold that two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound rough-and-tumble fighter even, was impossible. He was ashamed of the whole thing. As soon as his ugly temper had the edge knocked off it, he took that way of closing the deal. No bad man at all, old Mick.

"You say that to save my feelings," I said.

"What's that?" says he, rough and hard. "Off with ye!" He wouldn't admit being decent for a farm. He swung away. Then I got another jar. A voice called me and I swung around.

V

"ON MY BUREAU WAS A KNIFE--"

My father stood behind me, such a picture it chills me to think of him.

All of his face was chalk-white; his hands shook like palsy. I reckon I can slide over the next little while. You guess what a crazy-mad man, who's fed his mind on darkness for years, would be likely to do. I never raised a hand in defense--took it. At the same time I made my mind up to end this business, quick and strong. I had enough.

Of course, from father's point of view, something could be said. Had I been drunk and fighting at the tavern, as my nice, gentlemanly little friend, Algy Anker, ran and told him, n.o.body'd blamed him for getting orry-eyed. But he might have asked me what I had to say--a woman-killer gets that show. He used me bad enough, so Eli interfered. "I don't care if I never sell another thing to you," says he; "but, neighbor, you sha'n't hit thet boy ag'in--no, now! There's no use to squirm--you sha'n't do it, and that's all. You run along, Bill."

When mother saw me, she cried out. I was a sight, for sure. Ought to have washed up a bit, and not give her such a shock, but my head was sizzing like a pin-wheel. Only one idea stuck.

"I'm not hurt much, mother," I says. "I want to speak to you."

Mother was quick-witted and hardy-witted, too. She knew there was no boy foolishness in this, so she choked down her feelings, got a basin, clean water, and a towel, and said, "Tell me while I bathe your face."

I told her. It was queer how quiet I felt. I don't know but what it's always that way, though, when a man has made his mind up tight. We seemed almost of an age, mother and me, that little while.

She pleaded with me. "Don't leave your home, Will. I have been wrong; I should have done more; I didn't, thinking things would right themselves; but now I'll promise to stand between."

"And what will your life be like?" I asked her. I grew old pretty fast, under pressure.

"Never mind that!" she cried. "My boy, to have you with me--"

"Sh!" I says. "How could I help minding it?"

She was still.

"And worse might come," I went on. "I don't like to say it, yet every time I couldn't promise to be.... There'd come a day too often ... I'm strong, and if I should--" She put her hand on my lips.

"Go to your room, Will; and let me think alone for a while," she said.

She caught me and held me close, with never a tear, but a look worse than an ocean of tears. I couldn't have stood it, if I hadn't known I was doing the right thing. To a dead certainty, there would be no peace with me in the house. Any doubts anybody might have had was removed when father come in. He went straight to mother's room. I heard him shouting; talking so fast his words were broken; stamping around; quoting Scripture one minute, crying threats and slaughter the next. It was pitiful. I hustled, getting things ready; I knew, a little more of listening, and I'd have nothing but contempt for my father. Then mother's voice rung out, telling him to leave until he could talk like a man. Usually, she could force him, when she wished, hers being so much bigger a mind, but this time the littler soul was beyond itself with fury. "Don't take that tone with me!" he roared. "I won't stand it! And as for the lies that boy told you, I'll have them out of his back!"

Their door slammed open, and he fairly ran toward mine. I jumped and locked it. Mother was close after him. "You shall _not_!" she said.

"Listen to reason! You've done enough harm--Oh!" she cried, in pain. I thought he hit her.

What I feared boiled up in me. On my bureau was a knife; a big, heavy knife, that got into my hand somehow. It was me and the devil for that round. How long I stood with the knife raised, I don't know. Then mother spoke calmly. "You hurt my arm, holding it so tight," she said. "That certainly isn't necessary." He had grace enough to beg her pardon.

Finally, she got him to leave. A good job. That day had been a trifle too much for me, already. I can't see a bare knife since, without a shudder. Don't like the glint of steel at all. Years after, a flash of sun on water would bring things back, and I'd have a sickness in the stomach.

An hour after, mother came in. "Well, my boy, you are right," she says, as if the very life were out of her.

"Yes," I says, thinking of the knife; "and I'll just slide out quiet, and no trouble to anybody."

She roused herself. "You will leave in daylight, my son," she says, "with your mother to say good-by. You have done nothing wrong, and you sha'n't leave ashamed."

"But, mother, that will make it bad for you," I says.

"I married your father; I brought you into the world," she says. "I know my duty, and I shall do it, if it costs all our lives, let alone a little trouble. And, besides," she says, getting up, excited, "no matter what any one can say, you've been a good--" She broke down, all at once.

The rest of it she cried into my shoulder, whilst I told her about how I'd be rich and great in no time, and father'd come around all right after a while, and we'd all be happy, till she felt better. And I believed it myself so strong, and put it out so clear, that I think I convinced her. Anyway, they got along all right after I left. That's a comfort.

So it was arranged. I shouldn't say anything, but keep out of father's way until she made him yield the point. She laid it out to the old gentleman clear and straight, Mattie tells me--(Mattie's mother was my mother's half-sister)--telling him I wasn't drunk, as he could readily prove, and as for the fighting, if he intended to beat me every time I defended a woman, why, she'd leave, too. That part of it stuck in mother's mind; she would not listen when I told her it was only one of the reasons for the row. And she summed the thing up by saying I was determined to leave; that it was best all around; and that he must act like a human being and a father for once. By this time, I reckon he didn't feel so terrible proud of himself. At least, it was pulled off easy. I left home, with some small money in my pocket, a trunk of clothes in Eli's care, and mother and father both waving me good-by in the road, for the Great World, per Boston, and a schooner trading South, that belonged to Eli's cousin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I left home ... mother and father both waving me good-by in the road"]

And here's a queer thing. The day I left, Mick went into the tavern and called for a gla.s.s of whisky. He poured out a snorter and balanced it on the flat of his thumb. "Ladies and gintlemen," says he, "ye here behold th' koind friend that led Mick Murphy--that's licked the country--to bang a bit of a bye, after misnamin' a dacent woman." Smash! goes the gla.s.s on the floor. "Tra-la-loo to you!" says Mick, flinging the barkeep' a half-dollar. "Keep the change," he says. "It's the last cent I have, and the last you'll get from me."

And that's just what happened, too. He's located about twenty mile over yonder, with a good factory and somewheres between ninety and nine thousand Murphys claiming him as their start. And my best friend is old Mick. He cried when I first went to see him. I reformed him, but it cost me my home. I never knew, either, till he told me himself, a year ago.

VI

"I'M MARY SMITH"

Plunk, plunk, plunketty-plunk, down the pike, me and Eli, and Dandy Jim, Eli's black horse.

I'll never tell you how I felt. It was the first I'd ever been away from home. All the regrets I had was eased by knowing it wouldn't be more than six months before I'd come back with a gunny-sack full of hundred-dollar bills, buy Mr. Jasper's place with the pillars in front, and a railroad, and pervade things in general with a tone of pink and birds singing.

One thing about being a boy is that you're sure of to-morrow, anyhow.

Well, we slid along behind a free-gaited horse, in an easy wagon, over good roads, in early New England summer, when every breath of air had a pretty story to tell. If it hadn't been for the tight vest I had on, I reckon my heart would have bust my ribs for joyfulness.

Boston scart the life out of me. I had no notion there was that many folks and horses and buildings in the world. We pulled for the schooner right away, but none too quick for me. I never liked a crowd. A man understands he don't amount to much, yet don't like to have the fact rubbed in.

Cap'n Jesse Conklin owned the boat. He had a mild blue eye, a splendid line of cuss words, a body as big as mine, and a pair of legs that just saved him from running aground. When I first saw him I thought he was standing in a hole. Howsomever, he got around mighty lively on his little stumps, and he could light his pipe when the _Matilda_, of Boston, was throwing handsprings. He always opened his eyes wide and said, "Ha!" like he was perfectly astonished when you spoke to him.

Then, to square things, you was really perfectly astonished when he spoke to you.

Eli introduced me. "Ha!" says the captain. "So this is one of them ripperty-splintered and bejiggered young thingermergummeries that runs away from hum, heh?" I don't wish to be understood as giving the captain's exact words, although I ain't one of your durn prudes, neither.

Eli explained.

"Ha!" says the captain. "Is that so? Howjer come by them legs, young feller? You'll be riggin' a set of stays fur them when we hit the stream. I've seen shorter and thicker things than them growin' on trellises."

"Never you mind about his legs, you old bladder-head," says Eli, cousinly. "You're to take the boy as pa.s.senger."