Half a Dozen Girls Part 30

JOB GOES TO A FUNERAL.

"Do you know what a first-rate subst.i.tute for roast oysters these are?" asked Alan, twirling the great metal spider with purplish back and spiral wire legs that hung from the gas fixture.

"No, nor you either, Alan," said Jessie. "They do, now honestly.

If you heat them up real hot, they smell just like roast oysters.

I knew a family once, that always kept one on hand, and when provisions ran low, they'd set it to frying, and all sit round and smell of it. It was 'most as good as eating them," persisted the boy soberly.

"Alan Hapgood," said his sister, "if you tell any more such taradiddles, I'll send you home."

"But what if I don't choose to go?" returned Alan. "Mrs. Adams asked me here to spend the afternoon, and you wouldn't any of you have known what was going on, if it hadn't been for me."

"You shall stay and tell all the stories you like, Alan," said Polly, coming to his defence as usual. "And if Molly doesn't like it, she shall go home, her own self."

"Come, Alan," urged Florence; "tell us another story, a real long one, to help pa.s.s the time."

"Hm! Let's see," mused Alan. "I don't know as I know any. I'll tell you, I read one a while ago that I liked pretty well, and if I get hard up, I can put in some of that. How'll that do?"

"Beautifully," said Polly, with enthusiasm. "You do tell such splendid stories, Alan."

The group in Mrs. Adams's parlor had gathered there for a strange purpose, that day. An old negro, well-known throughout the town, had died, two days before, and Alan had discovered, only that noon, that the man was to be buried with military honors. The line of march to the cemetery lay past the Adams house, so Mrs. Adams had asked them all to come there, to watch the solemn pageant. It was a cold, gray April day, threatening rain at any moment. As the girls and Alan reached the gate, they had paused, for a minute, to watch the fast-gathering crowd as it hurried away up the street to the old brown house, just visible in the distance, whose end, jutting out on the street, was surrounded with the members of the company, who had a.s.sembled to pay the last honors to their sleeping comrade. Under the dull, leaden sky, and in the shade of the arching elms, the old house and the road and the gray-coated men looked to the children as if the heavy shadow which rested over the silent room within had extended over them all, and was enveloping them in its sombre gloom. Though only a moment before, they had been laughing and talking in mere curious interest, they grew suddenly quiet, as they realized that the swift, mysterious summons had come to old Pete, whom they had known so well.

"And they say," said Alan, as Polly joined them at the gate, and they lingered there, "that Pete's little dog won't leave the room one minute, but just lies there and watches him. They tried to get him away, for the funeral, but he snarled at them so they had to let him be."

Katharine's face softened.

"That's a friend worth having," said she thoughtfully. "Some people say 'only a dog,' but if he is faithful to his master, even after death has come, what more can he do?"

"Oh, dear me; there's Job!" exclaimed Polly suddenly, as the old creature stalked into sight. "How did he get out?"

"I wonder if we could get him in," said Alan.

"It's no use; he'd only kick you," returned Polly. "We may as well come into the house, and let him alone; then perhaps he'll go in.

He's awfully obstinate, you know."

"I think I've noticed something of the kind," said Jessie, as they ran up the steps, and left Job to the quiet workings of his conscience.

By the time they were gathered in the parlor windows, their momentary quiet was over, and they were talking as gaily as ever while they gazed up the street, watching for the first signs of the procession. But the funeral services were long, and the girls'

patience was rapidly becoming exhausted when Florence had suggested Alan's telling them a story, to while away the time of waiting. The girls arranged themselves before the two long front windows, to look and listen at the same time, Katharine, Florence, and Jean at one, Molly and Jessie at the other, with Alan and Polly on the floor at their feet, and the lad began his tale.

"Once upon a time, about sixty-seven years and nine months ago, there was a young man in England that was rich and handsome and brave and good, and his name was--Oh, give us a name for him, Poll."

"Mortimer Vincent Augustin Thome," responded Polly promptly. "I think that's a lovely name."

"Too long," objected Alan. "Something shorter, not but one."

"Malcolm, then; will that suit?" asked Florence, from the other side of the room.

"Yes, that's good. Well, his name was Malcolm, and he fell in love with a girl named--"

"Gertrude," suggested Jean, without waiting to be asked.

"No, Margaret," said Polly. "That's ever so much better."

"All right, call her Margaret," said Alan; "but if you girls don't keep still, I never can tell you any story. Malcolm loved Margaret and wanted her to be his bride, but she was kept a captive in a tower, by a wicked uncle who had gone on a crusade to the Holy Land."

"But they didn't go on crusades sixty-seven years ago," said Jean, whose strong point was history.

"Will you keep still, Jean?" said Polly. "This isn't a true story, and he has as good a right to poetical license as you had in the play."

"The Holy Land," resumed Alan, not noticing the interruption; "and he had taken the keys to the tower in his pocket, so Malcolm didn't really know just what to do. At last, after he had tried all sorts of things, he took his banjo and went under the tower window and sang a little song that Margaret had made up, when they were children together." Here Alan paused to smile meaningly at Polly, before he went on. "It was a very sweet song, and his voice was loud enough so Margaret heard him and opened a window to peek out. She knew him as soon as she saw him, and she wrote a letter and tied it to a string and let it down to him. He read it and wrote an answer, and was just getting ready to send it up, the same way, when a great, fierce ruffian with a bloodhound pounced on him, and threw him into the very darkest dungeon in the cellar of the tower. He was pretty much scared, for he was all in the dark, and he was without any food or anything to drink, and he only had his banjo to comfort him. But he was so glad it wasn't Margaret that was there, that he didn't much mind anything else.

But that wasn't the worst of it. His prison walls kept growing smaller and smaller, till by and by it began to get so tight that it hurt him. It didn't stop, even then, but it grew so small that his bones began to break, till finally he found that he only had one whole one left. That stirred him up, and he said to himself, 'If I don't find a way out, I shall be a dead man!' So he pounded on the walls, to see what they were made of, and found they were iron; but he knew the floor was earth, so he began to dig as fast as he could, and he used his banjo for a scoop, to carry off the earth in."

"Where'd he carry it to?" inquired Jessie. "I thought he didn't have any room to move round."

"He didn't, very much," said Alan; "but he made the most of every little corner, and before long he had dug down far enough to come to just the jolliest little secret pa.s.sage you ever saw. He slipped down into it, and followed it along and along ever so far, till at last he came up to the light again, outside the walls of the tower. He swung his hat in the air and shouted, 'Three cheers for Queen Victoria!' and then he ran round under Margaret's window and took his banjo and sang the song once more, to let her know he was alive. Then, without wasting any more time, he ran off through the forest. But when he came to the top of the very first hill, he looked back and saw Margaret leaning out of the window, waving a pale blue flag with the word courage on it, in gilt letters."

"Where did she get such a thing?" asked Jean.

"Oh, she'd been making it, while he was in the dungeon," answered Alan. "So he went away to the Holy Land, to look for the wicked uncle. He walked every step of the way, and swam rivers and climbed up mountains and slid down on avalanches on the other side, and at last he came to Jerusalem. He found the uncle just leading four regiments against the city gates, mounted on a splendid white horse. And he looked down and smiled scornfully and said, 'What ho, Malcolm! You here?' That made Malcolm very mad, so he pulled the uncle off his horse and hit him, thump! with his banjo, and killed him. Then he looked in his pockets and found ever so much money; but, hard up as he was, for he'd had his pockets picked on the way, he didn't take the money, for he wanted something else. It was found at last, a little gold key hung round his neck on a silver chain; so Malcolm took the key and went home, riding the uncle's horse, and let out Margaret, and they lived happy and died happy, and she was heir to all the tower and the servants. But the first thing she did was to block the walls of the dungeon, so they couldn't move any more."

"Oh, Alan, Alan! Where did you get such a story?" said Katharine, laughing until the tears came.

"Get it? Made it up, of course," returned the boy, with evident pride in his tale.

"It must be splendid to be able to make up such stories!" sighed Polly enviously. "I'd give almost anything if I could do it."

"I should hope if you tried, yours would hang together a little better," said Molly who, in virtue of her relations.h.i.+p, felt privileged to be as critical as she chose. "It's a mystery to me how he could move round to dig up the floor when all his bones were broken, and I never heard that you could use a banjo for a shovel and then play on it, or hit a man hard enough to kill him, and not break it.'

"I don't care for all that," said Polly enthusiastically. "Anybody could tell a story and get rid of those things. What I like is the things he did, he was so brave and so true, and then his not touching any of the uncle's money was the best part of it all, when he needed it so much."

"But he stole the uncle's horse," objected Jean.

"He didn't steal it, he only took it home. And speaking of horses, I wonder what's become of Job." And Polly leaned forward to peer out of the window.

"There he is, over in the next lot," said Jessie.

Dr. Adams's house stood far back from the street, and next to it was a deep, vacant lot at the very rear of which Job was aimlessly wandering about, pausing now and then to nip at the tender green blades that were pus.h.i.+ng their way up through the brown, dead turf.

"What ever sent him in there!" said Polly. "I don't see how we can get him home."

"Let him alone long enough, and he'll come," predicted Molly.

"It's no use to chase him round and round, and if you drive him out into the street, he'll run away."

"I wish he would," said Polly explosively, "and never come back again! He's more trouble than he's worth, and he knows more than all the rest of us put together."

"Give him to Aunt Jane for a wedding present," Alan proposed.