Ma Pettengill Part 30

He asked his mother when she was going to take Keats to a barber, and his mother burst into tears in the old familiar way, so he said no more to her. But that afternoon he took little Keats out for a stroll and closely watched his manner toward some boys they pa.s.sed. They went on downtown and Sh.e.l.ley stepped into the Owl cigar store to get a Lord Byron. When he come out little Keats was just finis.h.i.+ng up a remark to another boy. It had the familiar ring to Sh.e.l.ley and was piquant and engaging even after three years in the trenches, where talk is some free. Keats still had the angel face, but had learned surprisingly of old English words.

Then Sh.e.l.ley says to him: "Say, kid, do you like your curls?" And little Keats says very warmly and almost shedding tears: "They're simply h.e.l.l!"

"I knew it," says Sh.e.l.ley. "Have many fights?"

"Not so many as I used to," says Keats.

"I knew that, too," says Sh.e.l.ley. "Now, then, you come right along with me."

So he marches Keats and curls down to Henry Lehman's and says: "Give this poor kid a close haircut."

And Henry Lehman won't do it. He says that Mrs. Plunkett, the time of the scandal about Sh.e.l.ley, had warned every barber in town that she would have the law on 'em if they ever harmed a hair on the head of a child of hers; and he was a law-abiding citizen. He didn't deny that the boy needed a haircut the worst way in the world, but at his time of life he wasn't going to become an outlaw.

Keats had nearly broke down at this. But Sh.e.l.ley says: "All right; come on over to the other place."

So they go over to Katterson Lee, the coloured barber, and Katterson tells 'em the same story. He admits the boy needs a haircut till it amounts to an outrage, but he's had his plain warning from Sh.e.l.ley's ma, and he ain't going to get mixed up with no lawsuit in a town where he's known to one and all as being respectable.

Sh.e.l.ley then threatened him with bodily harm if he didn't cut that hair off quick, and Katterson was right afraid of the returned soldier, that had fixed so many Germans right, but he was more afraid of the law, so he got down on his knees to Sh.e.l.ley and begged for his life.

Little Keats was now blubbering, thinking he wasn't going to be shut of his disgrace after all, but Sh.e.l.ley says: "All right, kid; I'll stand by you. I'll do it myself. Get into that chair!"

Of course Katterson couldn't prevent that, so Keats got sunny again and climbed into the chair, and Sh.e.l.ley grabbed a pair of shears and made a sure-nuff boy of him. He got the curls off all right, but when it come to tr.i.m.m.i.n.g up he found he couldn't do a smooth job, and Katterson wasn't there to give him any hints, having run from his shop at the beginning of the crime so he would have a good alibi when hauled into court. So Sh.e.l.ley finally took up a pair of clippers, and having learned to clip mules he soon had little Keats' whole scalp laid bare. It must of been a glorious sight. They both gloated over it a long time.

Then Keats says: "Now you come with me and we'll show it to mamma!" But Sh.e.l.ley says: "Not me! I have to draw the line somewhere. I shall be far away from here to-night. I am not afraid of enemy soldiers, for I've been up against them too often. But there are worse things than death, so you'll have to face mamma alone. You can tell her I did it, but I will not be there to hear you. So good-bye and G.o.d help you!" And Sh.e.l.ley retired to a position less exposed.

That was an awful day for the Plunkett home, because little Keats, being left to his own resources, tried to use his brain. First he gathered up the long s.h.i.+ning curls and wrapped 'em in a newspaper. Then he went out and found Artie Bartell, who is a kind of a harmless halfwit that just walks the streets and will do anything whatever if told, being anxious to please. Keats gives Artie a dime to take the curls up to his dear mother and tell her that her little boy has been run over by a freight engine down to the station and these here curls was all that could be saved of him.

Then he hurries home the back way and watches, and pretty soon he sees some neighbours come rus.h.i.+ng to the house when they hear his mother scream, so then he knows everything is all right. He waits a minute or two, then marches in with his hat off. His mother actually don't know him at first, on account of his naked skull, but she soon sees it must be he, little Keats, and then has hysterics because she thinks the freight engine has clipped him this way. And of course there was more hysterics when she learned the terrible truth of his brother's infamy. I guess Sh.e.l.ley had been wise all right to keep off the place at that time, soldier or no soldier. But that's neither here nor there.

The point is that little Keats may now be saved to a life of usefulness and not be hanged for murder, thanks to his brother's brave action. Of course Bugs himself is set in his ways, and will adorn only positions of a certain kind. He's fine here, for instance, just at this time when I got to hire all kinds that need a firm hand--and Bugs has two.

Sure, it was him took the job of foreman here yesterday. We had quite a little talk about things when he come. He told me how he released his little brother from shame. He said he wouldn't of done such a radical thing except that peace is now coming on and the world will no longer need such fighting devils as curls will make of a boy if let to stay long enough.

"Keats might have turned out even worse than I did," he says, "but if there wasn't going to be any way where he could do it legally, what was the use? He'd probably sometime have killed a boy that called him Goldilocks, and then the law might have made it unpleasant for him. I thought it was only fair to give him a chance to live peaceful. Of course in my own case mamma acted for the best without knowing it. We needed fighters, and I wouldn't have been anything at all like a fighter if she hadn't made me wear those curls till my whiskers began to show above the surface. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was a born coward, but those golden strands took all that out of me. I had to fight.

"And see what it did for me in the Army. I don't want to talk about myself, but I made a good average fighter and I would have been there to the last if I'd had my rights. And I simply owe it all to my dear mother. You might say she made me the man I am. I wouldn't ever have been tough if she'd cut my hair humanely from six years on. I certainly hope Keats hasn't gone too long. One of us in a family is enough."

That's the way Bugs talks, and it sounds right sensible. What I say now is, the idee had ought to be took up by the War Department at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. Let 'em pa.s.s a law that one boy out of, say, twenty-five has got to wear curls till his voice changes. By that time, going round in this here scenic invest.i.ture, as you might say, he will be a demon. In peace times it may add to our crimes of violence, but look what it will be when another war comes. We'll have the finest line of shock troops the world has ever produced, fit and anxious to fight, having led an embittered existence long enough to make it permanent. No line would ever stand against a charge of them devils. They would be a great national a.s.set and might save the country while we was getting ready to begin to prepare a couple months after war was declared on us.

Still I don't suppose it will be took up, and I ain't got time to go down and preach it to Congress personally.

And now let me tell you one thing: I'm going to sleep to-night without a care on my mind for the first time in a year. This here Bugs unites to the distinction of his name a quick and handy nature, and my busiest troubles are over.