Harper's Round Table, July 9, 1895 Part 3

When he first caught sight of the soldiers Brinton was sure that there was at least a regiment of them, but when they were opposite the front gate all that he could see were a corporal and three privates. Instead of keeping on their way, however, they turned up the path toward the house, and then it seemed to Brinton that they were the most gigantic human beings that he had ever seen.

His mother was away for the day, and had taken Towser with her. This, together with the fact that the enemy were now between him and his fort, entirely spoiled Brinton's plan of campaign, and he decided to seek at once some more secluded spot, and there to devise something to meet the changed conditions. But when he started to run out of the room, he found that in his hurry he had left the front door open, so that any one in the hall would be in plain sight of the soldiers, who were now very near.

Unfortunately there was no other door by which Brinton could leave the room. What was worse, there was no closet in which he could hide. The soldiers were now so close at hand that he could hear their voices, and a glance through the window showed him that two of them were going around to the back of the house, as if to cut off any possible escape in that direction.

And his mother would not be back until six o'clock. Instinctively his eyes sought the face of the tall time-piece in the corner. It was just three; and he could hear the soldiers' steps on the front porch!

The clock!

Surely there was room within its generous case for a very small boy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MINUTE-MAN TAKES HIS POSITION.]

In less time than it takes to write it Brinton was inside, and had turned the b.u.t.ton with which the door was fastened. As he pressed himself close against the door, so that there should be room for the pendulum to swing behind him, he heard the corporal enter the room. He knew it must be the corporal, because he ordered the other man to go up stairs and look around there, while he searched the room on the other side of the hall.

Brinton could hear the footsteps of the men as they walked about the house, and their voices as they talked to each other. Then all was quiet for a long while. He was just on the point of peeping out, when all four men entered the room.

"Well," said a voice that he recognized as the corporal's, "it is plain there is no one at 'ome. Me own himpression is that the bird's flown.

'E's probably started back for camp, and the wife and the kid with 'im.

I don't believe in payink no hattention to w'at them Tories says, nohow, goink back on their own neighbors--and kin, too, like as not. It's just to curry favor with the hofficers, it's me own hopinion. 'Ow did 'e know the Major was comink 'ome to-day, anyhow?"

n.o.body answered him. Perhaps he didn't expect any one to.

The Major! Brinton's own father! He was coming home! This, then, was the surprise that his mother had said she would bring him when she went off with Towser in the morning to go to Colonel Shepard's. And now those redcoats were going to sit there and wait until he came, and then-- Brinton did not know what would happen, whether he would be shot on the spot, or merely put in prison for the rest of his life.

Oh, if he could only get out and run to meet his father and warn him!

But the men seemed to give no signs of leaving the room.

"Perhaps he haven't come at all yet," suggested one of the privates.

"Perhaps 'e hasn't," answered the voice of the corporal; "but w'y, then, wouldn't his folks be 'ere a-waitink for 'im? 'Owever, I'll give 'im hevery chance. It's now five-and-twenty minutes after three. I'll give 'im huntil six, but if 'e doesn't turn hup by then, we'll start away for the sh.o.r.e without 'im."

"Six o'clock!" thought the boy in the clock. The very time his mother had told him she was going to be home again "with something very nice for him." And now she and his brave papa would walk right into the arms of these dreadful English soldiers, and he could not stop them!

_Whang!_

What a noise! It startled Brinton so much that he nearly knocked the clock over; and then he realized that it was only the clock striking half past three.

Half past three! He had been in there only half an hour, and already he was so tired he could hardly stand up. How could he ever endure it until four, until half past four, five, six?

"If only something, some accident even, will happen to detain papa and mamma!" he thought. But how much more likely, it occurred to him, that his father, having but a short leave of absence, would hasten, and arrive before six.

"Tick-tock," went the clock.

"How slow, how very slow!" thought Brinton, and he wished there were only some way of hurrying up the time, so that the soldiers would go away.

Still the soldiers staid in the room, all but one, who had gone into the kitchen to watch from there.

"Tick-tock," went the clock, and "whang-whang-whang-whang!" Only four o'clock. Brinton began to fear that he could not hold out much longer.

"Tick-tock," went the clock. Each swing of the pendulum marked one second, Brinton's mother had told him. If he could only make it swing quicker, so that the seconds would fly a little faster!

"Why not try to?" Brinton was on the point of breaking down. He was desperate. He felt that he must do something. He took hold of the pendulum and gave it a little push. It yielded readily to his pressure.

None of the soldiers seemed to notice it. He gave it another push. The result was the same. Brinton began to pick up courage, and he pushed the pendulum to and fro, to and fro, to and fro.

He tried to keep it swinging at a perfectly even rate, and apparently he succeeded. At any rate, the soldiers appeared to notice nothing different. Yet Brinton was sure that he was causing the old clock to tick off its seconds at a considerably livelier gait than usual. Half past four came almost before he knew it, but by five o'clock Brinton began to realize that he was very, very tired. He had already stood absolutely still in that cramped, dark, close case, and he had pushed the pendulum first with one hand and then with the other in that narrow s.p.a.ce until both felt sore and lame. Yet now that he had once begun, he did not dare leave off, and still it did not seem possible that he could keep it up.

The soldiers had kept very quiet for a long time. Brinton thought that two of them must be napping.

At five o'clock the soldier who was awake aroused the corporal and the other private, whom the corporal sent to relieve the man on guard in the kitchen.

"I must 'ave slept mighty sound," remarked the corporal. "I'd never believe I'd been asleep an hour, if I didn't see it hon the clock."

"No soigns av any wan yit," reported the man who had been in the kitchen, whom Brinton judged to be an Irishman. "Be's ye going to wait till six?"

"Yes," answered the corporal. "But no longer."

Then they began talking about the British fleet that was cruising in Long Island Sound, and about the s.h.i.+p on which they were temporarily quartered until they could join the main body of the army, and how a neighbor of Brinton's father's and mother's had been down at the store when a s.h.i.+p's boat had put in for water, and how he had told the officer in charge that Major Hall, Brinton's father, was expected home for a few hours that day, and what a fine opportunity it would be to make an important capture.

The clock struck half past five.

"H'm!" grunted the corporal. "It doesn't seem that late; but, you know, you can't tell anythink about anythink in this blaisted country."

Brinton now began to be very much afraid that his father would come before the soldiers left. He wanted to move the pendulum faster and faster, but after what the corporal had said he did not dare to. Then, when the men lapsed into silence, it suddenly came over Brinton how dreadfully weary he was, how all his bones ached, and how much, how very much, he wanted to cry. But he felt that his father's only chance of safety lay in his keeping the pendulum swinging to and fro, to and fro.

At last, however, came the welcome sound of the corporal's voice bidding the men get ready to start.

Whang-whang-whang-whang-whang-whang!

"Fall in!" ordered the corporal. "Forward, march!"

As the sound of their footsteps died away, Brinton, all of a tremble, opened the door of the clock and stumbled out. He knelt at the window and watched the retreating forms of the redcoats. As they disappeared down the road he heard a noise behind him, and jumped up with a start.

There stood his father!

The next instant Brinton was sobbing in his arms.

Brinton's mother came into the room. "Dear me!" she said; "what ever can be the matter with the clock? It's half an hour fast."

SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.[1]

BY KIRK MUNROE.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.