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Title: Sparrows
Author: Marie Coolidge-Rask
Contributor: Winifred Dunn
Release date: June 14, 2025 [eBook #76294]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1926
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPARROWS ***
[Frontispiece: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"JEST FER THAT NONE OF YOU KIDS GET ANY SUPPER!"]
SPARROWS
NOVELIZED BY
MARIE COOLIDGE-RASK
ORIGINAL STORY BY
WINIFRED DUNN
ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES
FROM THE PHOTOPLAY
STARRING
MARY PICKFORD
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Made in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A Cry for Help
II In the Home of the Monster
III Maria Finds a Companion
IV An Unequal Struggle
V Banishment
VI New Victims
VII Where Is Buddy?
VIII Mollie Makes a Discovery
IX A Reign of Terror
X Subjugation
XI Plotters
XII The Monster Comes
XIII What Happened to Splutters
XIV The Kidnapping
XV In The Watches of the Night
XVI The Awakening
XVII On The Trail
XVIII Stephen Gives a Clue
XIX Mollie at Bay
XX The Plight of the Sparrows
XXI Crossing the Bog
XXII Ransom Money
XXIII Pursued and Pursuers
XXIV New Terrors
XXV At the Cross-roads
XXVI The Pit of Death
XXVII Mollie in Command
XXVIII A Woman's Confession
XXIX Reunion
XXX In Perpetuity
SPARROWS
CHAPTER I
A CRY FOR HELP
"Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many
sparrows."--Matt. x, 31
"On, lookit--lookit!"
"'Sh! Not so loud. Fat'll hear yo'."
"Lor' a mercy! Ain't hit slick."
"Take keer, Mollie. Hit's goin' ter ketch in thet thar tree."
"How y' s'pose God's goin' ter git holt of hit?"
"I, golly, He kin read thet printin' a mile away."
"Huh! He won't hev to. Hit's a goin' all the way. Mollie said so.
Hit's more'n two thousand miles from hyer to thar."
"To whar?"
"G'wan, Mollie, let 'er loose. Doan yo' callate hit's riz enough
now?"
Mollie's face, upturned to the blue sky, was pale and tense. From
wide, anxious eyes she watched the kite mount higher and higher over
the heads of the excited children. Head and shoulders above the
tallest she stood, arms outstretched, small, capable hands extended,
palms touching, after the manner of suppliants of all ages, and
slowly released from between work-worn fingers yard after yard of the
long, knotted string which, for the moment, anchored the heaven-bound
messenger to its petitioners on earth.
"'Sh!" she warned again, without changing her position nor shifting
her gaze from the fluttering kite soaring upward on the wings of the
soft breeze that was stirring. "Be quiet, now, all of yo'. I'm
goin' ter let go. I reckon hit's high enough. Yo' all mind the
pra'rs I learnt yo'. This kite's jest nachully flyin' straight up
ter God. When He gits hit, He'll shore do somethin'. Yo' all jest
hol' your mouths now an' watch hit go."
Away from the restraining hold of the small hands fluttered the
slender cord. With a swiftness and directness that made the watchers
gasp, the air-borne message sped on its way. Ten little faces peered
expectantly heavenward. Ten childish mouths stood agape as hungrily
as those of young birds. Ten pairs of eager, luminous eyes stared
after the kite as it receded into the great, unknown spaces of the
air. With bated breath Mollie herself watched until the kite became
a tiny speck in the distance and finally disappeared from even her
keen range of vision.
"Kneel down," she commanded, softly, kneeling herself as she spoke.
With one accord the children knelt.
Somewhere the sun was shining. Its rays did not penetrate the gloom
which surrounded that pitiful band of innocents with age-old faces
and tattered clothes. Behind them spread a miserable little
vegetable patch. Beyond, to the right, were the outlines of a
ramshackle barn, decrepit out-buildings and a wretched apology for a
house. Above loomed tall, gnarled trees, moody and sullen in
appearance, their lowering branches frowning down upon the tousled
heads now reverently bowed. Directly in front of the little group
yawned a morass as sinister and menacing as hell itself, its quaking
mud ready to suck into bottomless depths any dead or living creature
within reach of its loathsome touch.
The children clustered on its bank knew only too well the awful
secrets consigned to those quaking depths. Even little Tommy, the
youngest except Baby Amy asleep under a tree, clutched the hand of
the child beside him and shivered as he stared, fascinated, upon the
ugly black bog while Mollie voiced their prayer:
"Oh, dear God, our first kite was lost. We've sent yo' another. I
printed the words on hit big. Yo'll see hit a-comin'. We want help.
We want to git away from hyar before Old Grimes puts any more of us
in the bog. Oh, God, we're awful hungry. We're hungrier than the
sparrows yo' dote on. But they'll git along fer a spell, God. Hit's
our turn now. Let us be sparrows. These hyar children need help.
That's why we're sendin' yo' the kite. Yo'll find us in the barn or
in the veg'table patch. Ef yo' doan find us yo'll know we're daid.
We caint git away. So please help us quick. Amen."
A low, plaintive wail sounded as Mollie ceased speaking. She sprang
to her feet and ran to the tree under which she had placed the least
one of her brood. Little Amy was awake and moaning as only a very
sick child can moan. Mollie gathered the tiny sufferer in her arms
and did what she could to ease the little one's misery. She realized
the uselessness of her efforts. For weeks she had watched Amy slowly
wasting away for lack of nourishment. She had listened night and day
to her piteous moans. Sometimes it seemed that her own heart would
break under the strain of witnessing the grim tragedy about her.
Amy was a year old. She had been a plump, rosy infant when Peter
Grimes brought her to the farm. She had two or three pretty frocks
and a rattle with an ivory ring. Now her little body was puny and
wasted. Her mother would not have recognized the emaciated frame and
drawn, pinched features as that of her own offspring. An unnatural
intelligence gleamed from the baby's large, pathetic eyes, so mutely
eloquent of the tortured, imprisoned soul.
All Mollie's maternal instincts were roused by the suffering of this
helpless child. She would not trust the little creature out of her
sight.
"There's no telling what Old Grimes mought do," she confided to one
of the older children. "He's gone ter town to-day fer ter git the
mail. Ef any money comes from Amy's Maw, mebbe he'll let Amy live.
Ef he doan git none he'll say she's a-goin' ter die anyhow an' the
sooner she's outten the way the more work he'll git outten me. So
I'm goin' ter keep her by me. When God starts cycoring I want Amy
cycored 'fore any of the rest of us, 'cause she's the miserablest."
So little Amy was carried tenderly to and from the vegetable patch
where the children worked daily while she alternately slept and
moaned in her grassy bed under the lowering trees. Now, however,
there was little time for Mollie's tender ministrations. The
vegetable patch demanded her supervision. If Peter Grimes found any
fault with the work done by the children they would all be made to
suffer.
It had been a terrible task to get the kite made and released without
discovery by either Grimes, his shiftless wife or their cruel,
sneaking, pig-faced son. Of the three merciless monsters Mollie
dreaded the latter the most. One never knew at what moment Ambrose,
otherwise "Fat", might come sneaking upon them or what form of
cruelty his abnormal mind might devise for their further torment.
Maria Grimes possessed neither the energy nor the intelligence for
independent action. She never took the initiative. She merely
carried out the commands of her husband and the demands of her ugly,
over-grown son. Of those two she stood in as great awe and fear as
did the children. Left undisturbed in her slatternly kitchen with
her snuff dip and a bottle of corn liquor she became a negligible
figure, slow to think and loath to act.
Peter Grimes, himself, sole owner and proprietor as well as
instigator of the shameless institution known as Grimes' Hog Farm but
which really trafficked in human flesh, was as twisted physically as
he was mentally into a repellant, reptilian monster, totally devoid
of all human qualities of decency and compassion.
He walked with a sidewise, writhing motion suggestive of the
malevolent approach of a giant cobra. This was not due to partial
paralysis resultant from an accident as many persons believed, but
from a congenital deformity extending to the brain structure and
transforming that which might have been human into a diabolical
monstrosity. In a more populous section of the country Peter Grimes
would have been removed in his youth from contact with normal persons
and cared for in an institution. But in the isolated hill country of
the south he grew to maturity unsuspected of being a menace to
society, though shunned and feared for his cruel acts and taciturn
disposition.
His hog farm was not inaugurated until after his common law marriage
with Maria Honeycut, whose father owned the land and for years
operated a still in the fastnesses of its quagmire protected borders.
Old Honeycut had been shot by a revenue officer that he tried to
throw into the bog, and the illicit distillery had been destroyed.
Maria, the daughter, remained on the premises, working spasmodically
in the truck patch and sometimes trudging to town to dispose of
vegetables in exchange for sugar, corn-meal and other commodities.
Peter Grimes, with the craft of a serpent saw his opportunity. He
visited Maria in her lonely abode and told her she needed a man.
Maria, dull-witted and fearful, accepted the statement without
question and Peter remained. A son was born and they named him
Ambrose, the name of the old moonshiner who had sought to throw the
revenue officer into the bog.
From the time he could toddle young Ambrose had amused himself by
throwing everything he disliked into the bog, as his grandfather had
done before him. The child laughed and clapped his hands to see the
frantic struggles of bird and animal to escape the suction of that
black mire which slowly, steadily pulled them down, down, down into
its foul depths until nothing remained on the surface but sluggish
ripples of mud, lapping over the spot where the hapless victim passed
from sight. It was hellish but young Ambrose laughed. It was
hellish but his strange father approved. It was hellish but his
mother accepted it as a matter of course. She had seen such things
all her life. She supposed it was what bogs were for.
With the advent of young Ambrose the forlorn truck patch became more
and more neglected. Peter Grimes was not given to manual labor.
Maria was naturally shiftless. They had to live, so Peter sold a
hog. The sale gave him an idea. When an expected litter arrived he
did not dispose immediately of the young pigs but fed them until they
were of a size to bring a better price. Then he affixed a sign to
the high gate which effectually shut off all view of the farm from
the one precarious roadway leading to its portals. The sign was a
piece of shingle with crude lettering in black paint:
"Hogs for Sale."
"Thet law agin lettin' hawgs run loose in the woods was plumb hard on
some folks," Peter remarked to Maria when the sign was finally in
place, "but I reckon hit'll do us some good."
"Peaches are powerful good for hawgs," Maria replied with unexpected
brilliancy. "Pappy uster tote in great loads of 'em an' our hawgs
got plumb fat 'fore killin' time."
"I ain't goin' ter tote no peaches," returned Peter.
"Ef Ambrose was bigger," Maria commenced, then paused at seeing a new
expression come over Peter's grim face. It was the dawning of his
great idea.
"I'll git yo' a bigger young-un," he exclaimed with more vigor than
was his wont. "Hit won't cost nothing ter keep, fer I'll git board
money fer keepin' hit an' hit'll work ter pay fer hit's keep."
"Whar'll yo' git hit?"
"Never yo' mind whar. Jes' hol' yore tongue an' do what I tells yo'."
Very soon after that conversation Peter Grimes took his writhing,
ominous way to a near-by city. When he returned, two children
accompanied him, one a boy of nine years, the other a tiny girl.
That was the beginning of the industry which for years permitted the
Grimes household to flourish amid the luxury of idleness and to lay
by a snug sum of money for some undefined purpose which even Peter
could not explain.
CHAPTER II
IN THE HOME OF THE MONSTER
"For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all
thy ways."--Ps. xci, 11
But the little girl was neither so young nor so untutored as her
diminutive size indicated.
"My name is Mollie and I'm six years old, going on seven," she told
Maria in clear, precise English. "My Mama went to sleep and did not
wake up and a big man came and said he was my Papa. He looked at my
Mama and cried. Then lots of folks came and everybody went riding in
car'ges. But only my Papa came back. And after while a lady came
and my Papa told me to go with her and be a good girl.
"And that lady took me away, way off in a real train. And after we
came to a big, big place with lots of seats in it she told me to sit
still while she talked to a cross man with a funny mustache. And
that man said she was a fool and to give the money to him. And the
lady said, 'her Papa will come back.' But the man said, 'Papas who
go 'sploring don't come back.'
"Then they talked some more and the lady kept saying, 'but the bank
will send it--they'll send it every year as long as she's alive.'
And the man said, 'She'll be alive all right.' Then the lady gave
him some papers and told me to come along. And we went to a funny
house where there was a yellow kitten with white and black spots on
it. I liked that kitty. I wanted to stay there. But the lady told
me to go with the cross man. And he took me in a car'age for a long
ride. And when we got out of the car'age there was another man.
This little boy was with him and the little boy was afraid, but I
wasn't afraid. The man made me take hold of his other hand and we
walked and walked and walked until we came here. Does that man live
here? I don't like this place. I want to go home."
Maria stood aghast. Never in her life had she listened to so much
conversation at one time. Not half of it percolated her dull wits.
Luckily Peter had gone direct to the hog pen, for as yet he was
without an assistant in the discharge of his farm duties.
The small boy destined to fill that position stood mutely by the side
of his chattering companion while she unfolded the most recent events
of her short life. He was a mild-faced, dreamy-eyed lad with a mass
of fair hair. How he had fallen into the clutches of Peter Grimes
was to him a mystery beyond solution. Though his lips quivered he
set his teeth and bravely forced back the tears that welled to his
eyes at sight of the bleak, shadow-filled kitchen into which Maria
now led them.
With a howl of rage a fat child, twice the size of little Mollie,
rose from the floor and struck wildly at the newcomers with his pudgy
fists.
"Hyar, yo' Ambrose, quit that," drawled Maria, stretching forth an
arm meant to be restraining but which proved no more effectual than a
shadow. "This hyar boy an' girl has come ter play with yo'." The
howl of rage suddenly changed to a bawl of anguish. Maria gathered
her son to her flat bosom. "What is ut, honey," she asked. "Did a
bee sting yo'?"
The fat child blubbered something which the mother interpreted as,
yes. She sought vainly for the bee.
"Ambrose es only four years old," she explained to the other
children. "He's powerful peart fer his age. Yo' young uns better be
keerful how yo' all treat him or his paw'll skin yo' alive. G'long
now. Set up ter th' table an' eat yore cawn pone. Then yo' better
git ter bed es fast es yo' kin."
The blue-eyed boy's name was Stephen.
Mollie tried to repeat it after him and failed. Her little tongue,
otherwise fluent, found the strange name so difficult to pronounce
that she gave it up.
"I talk just as you do--I splutter," she cried, laughing at her
efforts.
"But--but----" commenced the lad.
"There you go, again," Mollie exclaimed, triumphantly pointing her
diminutive finger at him. "Can't you say anything without
spluttering?"
"Y-y-yes," replied Stephen, hesitatingly, "I-I-I can if folks give me
time to think first. But--but when they make me hurry I can't
s-s-seem to think quick."
"And I always want people to answer me quick," the little girl
declared, adding with uncanny perception of what would be required on
the Grimes farm, "and I reckon you'll have to answer quick here when
he and she ask you something so you'll always splutter, won't you?"
"I-I-I reckon so," answered the boy.
"Well, then, it's all right," she returned in a judicial manner.
"I'll just call you 'Splutters' and I won't have to try to say
Ste-Ste-Stephen at all."
From that day little Mollie never addressed Stephen by any other name
than "Splutters." Grimes and Maria frequently called him 'Steve' but
during the ensuing years every child that came to the farm learned to
know the wistful, thoughtful boy by the purely descriptive
appellation of "Splutters."
Now, at Maria's bidding, he took Mollie's hand and led her to the
untidy table. As they sat there, weary and homesick, eating the corn
pone placed before them, Maria left the house to carry a bucket of
food to the hogs. Ambrose followed at her heels. In silence Mollie
watched them depart. Then she leaned forward and peered into
Stephen's face.
"I'll tell you what made him holler so," she whispered, raising her
wee forefinger knowingly. "But you mustn't tell."
"I won't," promised the boy, his eyes opening wide with expectancy.
Mollie's own eyes snapped and twinkled. "I pinched him," she
whispered triumphantly. "He didn't know it was me. Neither did she.
If he hits me again, I'll pinch him again. I don't like him. I
don't like anything here. Let's run away and go home."
The newly christened Splutters shook his head.
"I-I-I haven't any home," he said. "A nice lady I lived with said I
was going to be her little boy--but she got hurt and had to go away.
She said I was going to a school where there were lots of little
boys--and I could read books--all I pleased. I don't guess--she
knows--I've come here. That's why I didn't want to come with the
man. I wasn't afraid. I just knew--it was some kind--of a mistake."
The boy was speaking slowly and thoughtfully, weighing every word.
It was his natural reserve and cautiousness, not an impediment of
speech which caused him to stammer when pressed to speak without
previous reflection.
But Stephen as well as Mollie was precocious. His thoughtful eyes
and full brow denoted unusual reasoning faculties. Habitually he
spoke little, yet nothing seemed to escape his observation. He would
absorb a sentence, an act or a scene and mentally puzzle upon it for
hours, even days, until he arrived at what seemed to him a
satisfactory solution or explanation.
At his mention of books little Mollie beamed. "Can you read?" she
asked eagerly. "I can say my letters and spell lots of words. My
Mama taught me."
"Huh! Of course I can read," answered the boy. "I've got picture
books in my bag the man took. There it is by the door. I'll show
them to you."
He ran to where Grimes had deposited the bag containing his small
personal belongings and, finding it unlocked, quickly had it open.
Within were garments neatly folded and a letter to be delivered to
the master of the school to which, it stated, one Mr. David Connors
had volunteered to conduct him.
Stephen took up the envelope in which the letter was enclosed and
fingered it thoughtfully. Grimes had not yet opened the bag so he
did not know about the letter nor the books. The boy recalled that
his benefactress had entrusted the letter to him for delivery.
Perhaps Mr. Grimes would destroy it. The thought stimulated him to
prompt decision.
There was a ripped place in the lining of his jacket. He had
discovered it when he lost two pennies inside the lining and had a
hard time getting them out. By stretching the opening in the lining
he managed to insert the letter. He paused for a moment and knit his
brows after the manner of a mature person in deep reflection. Then
he reached again into the traveling bag and drew forth a small
photograph in a wrapper of tissue paper. This also he quickly thrust
into the lining of his coat. The several picture books he secreted
in his cap.
"I don't guess he'll find them," he whispered to Mollie. "I'll show
them to you some other time. I reckon we'd better keep quiet now.
They're coming."
The Grimes trio were indeed coming. Ambrose, the fat, over-grown
four-year-old, stubbed his bare foot on a stone and bawled anew. His
father struck him over the head with the back of one of his huge
hands. The child yelled louder. His mother picked him up and,
bending under the heavy burden, struggled with him, heedless of his
kicks and blows, until she reached the house. In silence Mollie and
Stephen stood hand in hand and watched the entrance of the family
into the kitchen.
That kitchen was also the living room. The house, however, was a
trifle more pretentious than the average domicile found in such
remote parts. It boasted a narrow, steep, inside stairway leading to
two sleeping rooms above. They were small, low rooms with sloping,
unplastered ceilings but there was a window. In this respect, also,
the house was superior to the average dwelling. Most of them had
only a heavy, wooden-shuttered opening in the living room.
The larger of the two upper rooms provided sleeping accommodations
for the Grimes family. Into the smaller room Maria conducted the
little "furriners", as she termed the two unfortunate children
consigned by fate to her ignorant care. Both were too overcome with
fatigue to take much interest in preliminaries. Maria had never
heard of night garments. She never mentioned undressing or bathing.
"Take off yer shoes and lay down thar," she drawled, throwing some
ragged bedding on the floor, "an' doan yo' make no noise or Pete'll
be up hyar and whoop yo' both."
"Who's going to hear me say my prayers!" asked Mollie, her large eyes
wide with astonishment.
Maria paused and turned as she was about to depart.
"Who larned yo' any pra'rs!" she asked, curious to know what
"furriners" in the cities taught their children.
"My Mama," replied Mollie, her lips quivering at the mention of the
loved name. "She taught me lots of things. She told me about God
and the little sparrows that he takes care of. She said God always
looks after little children, but I reckon He lost sight of me
somewhere to-day. I don't like this place. I want to go home."
The voice of Maria's master sounded from below stairs.
"Maria!" Peter shouted. "Leave them brats alone. Go fetch Ambrose.
He's headin' fer the bog."
Maria shuffled away.
For a moment Mollie was inclined to weep. Stephen comforted her.
"I know some prayers, too," he whispered. "If they are the same as
yours we'll say them together."
It was a sociable idea and appealed to Mollie at once. With
attention wholly diverted from their forlorn surroundings the two
motherless children seated themselves on the floor, removed their
shoes and stockings, lay down on the ragged bedding and sleepily
"matched prayers."
"I can say 'Our Father'," whispered Mollie.
"So can I," whispered Stephen in reply.
Together they murmured the prayer.
"I did know 'Mother dear, Oh, pray for me, and never cease thy care,'
but the lady I lived with didn't know it, so I forgot it," said
Stephen regretfully.
"I don't know that one, but I know a song about an angel. It goes
like this: 'Dear angel, ever at my side, how loving thou must be, to
leave thy home in heaven to guard, a little child like me.'"
Stephen's sub-conscious mind stirred a faint recollection of the
past. "I've heard that before, but I can't remember where," he
whispered cautiously, as voices sounded from the kitchen. "I reckon
we'd better go to sleep before they find us awake. With that angel
here we don't need to be afraid."
"No," returned Mollie, "but my Mama said I must always ask God for
anything I wanted, so I am going to ask Him to send somebody to take
me home."
She folded her tiny hands, closed her tired eyes and, while her soft
lips murmured their pathetic appeal, drifted off into the land of
dreams.
Stephen, comforted by the thought of a guardian angel, was already
asleep.
CHAPTER III
MARIA FINDS A COMPANION
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord."--Ps. cxxvii, 3
Peter Grimes was exceedingly pleased with the success which had
attended his quest for farm labor. His meeting with the young man
from whom he had received little Mollie was wholly accidental but it
insured a steady income for the future. For the time being, the
ugly-dispositioned farmer was inclined to permit the little girl
house privileges such as he deemed worthy of a well-paying guest. He
had not planned to bring a girl into the establishment. Girls were
useless and troublesome and no good at hog-raising. But the regular
income offered by the young man he had encountered driving along the
old, little-used road leading to the farm was too tempting to be
refused. Upon acceptance of the child, Peter gave a post-office
address to which remittances might be sent and the two men exchanged
promises of secrecy.
"I doan want no one knowin' I got young-uns on the place," explained
Peter. "Them big-heads thet passed thet law agin lettin' hawgs run
in th' woods ain't past interferin' with what a man does on his own
lan'. I doan want no agents a-comin' up hyar a-rootin' 'round."
The mustached individual in the buggy, who gave his name as Bailey,
expressed much pleasure at hearing such sentiments. He agreed with
Peter heartily. A man's house was his castle, he declared, and no
one had a right to interfere with what he did there. He had a
perfect right to house a dozen children if he so desired.
All the way home Peter pondered that statement. He had started out
with the intention of securing a charity child to help with chores
about the place. He had made inquiry and been directed to a hotel
where a wealthy woman guest was about to be removed to a hospital.
She had been too ill to see him but a maid had assumed that he was a
Mr. Connors whom they were expecting and who was going to conduct a
small boy to a distant school. Peter, groping for words to explain
matters, was incoherent. The maid was called away and Peter found
himself alone with the boy, and a small hand bag beside him.
The child looked sturdy and the maid had handed to Peter a roll of
bills which she said were for traveling expenses. It seemed useless
to prolong his stay in the city, so the hog farmer lost no time in
starting homeward. The boy instinctively shrank from accompanying
him but was too well trained to make open remonstrance.
"I'm afraid there's some mistake," was all the little fellow said as
he trudged off beside the cruel-visaged man at whom, from time to
time, he stole cautious, thoughtful glances.
It was while pausing to rest at a crossroads they were accosted by
the man in the buggy. The latter's light remark about housing a
dozen children gave Peter food for reflection. He fumbled the money
in his pocket and gloated over its easy acquisition. If two children
represented that much money, how much more might a dozen be reckoned
to bring in? Deep in this fascinating problem he paid little heed to
Mollie and Stephen for the first few hours.
For Maria, they provided diversion and entertainment. Without
knowing it she had suffered all her life for lack of human
companionship. Her father, the old moonshiner, and Peter her brutal
consort, were both hard men, of few words. Young Ambrose, as yet,
did little more than howl.
The advent of a talkative little girl and a kindly-spoken,
gentle-mannered boy left the gaunt, stupid woman somewhat dazed. She
studied the two attentively and listened, only half-comprehending, to
their conversation. The morning following their arrival, little
Mollie cried. She was tired and aching from her sleep on the floor
and very, very hungry.
Maria, not intentionally cruel, and anxious to quell the outbreak of
tears before Peter came within hearing, strove to learn what the
child was crying about and made haste to supply something substantial
in the way of food. She could not conceive of such a thing as
homesickness. Her naïve questions finally resulted in staying
Mollie's sobs and launching the little chatter-box upon a sea of
vivid description of that world in which she had spent her short life.
"I know how to wipe dishes," she announced. "And once, Lucy let me
make the coffee. Lucy's our cook. She showed me how to do lots of
things. I can sew, too. My Mama taught me." There was a suspicion
of tears again.
Stephen, until now very still, suddenly looked up from his huge cup
of unappetizing coffee.
"Did you ever make a kite?"
"What's a kite?"
Maria got her snuff dip and sat down to listen.
"It's a big piece of paper like this," Stephen explained, indicating
with his arms and hands the dimensions of the kite he had in mind.
"You can put pictures on it if you want to, or you can write
something on it. And you make a long tail for it out of most
anything and then you take a string and run with it. Only it has to
be a long string for the kite goes higher and higher, and then goes
away off, nobody knows where. If you don't let go of the string you
can pull it back again. But if you let go it just sails away to New
York or China or some place a long way off. You never see it again."
"I reckon I'd see it again if it went straight up to heaven,"
exclaimed Mollie, ready to argue the matter.
"How?"
"Because God's up in heaven. He wouldn't take anything away from
little children and not give it back some day." Then, suddenly, "Oh,
of course, if it got all torn and rained on I reckon He'd feel sorry
and--maybe give back something lots nicer. Did you ever try sending
Him one, Splutters?"
Splutters had not. He did not think he could make a kite that would
go high enough, he said.
Ambrose, waddling into the kitchen at that moment, paused by the
stove to investigate the contents of a pan just within his reach.
The pan overturned. There was a splash, a clatter and a shriek.
Maria lurched to her feet.
"Hain't I tol' yo' to keep clar of thet thar stove?" she cried,
distractedly, as she hurried to examine the child's injuries. "Now
yo' got burned. Hit'll larn yo' somethin'. Lemme see yo' han'.
Now, whut'll yore Paw say?"
But the thought of his "Paw" brought no comfort to Ambrose.
Fortunately there had been little water in the pan. Most of it had
poured over the hearth. Some had splashed over the youngster's
clothes, and his hand was a trifle burned. From the degree of
distress manifested he might have been undergoing torture. Mollie
sprang from the table and ran to Maria's side.
"I know what to do," she cried. "Get some soda right away. That's
what Lucy did when I spilled coffee on my fingers."
"Fetch hit. Hit's thar on th' shelf." Maria nodded toward the
cupboard. Stephen, realizing that Mollie could not reach the shelf,
climbed on a chair and secured the package of soda. Maria was having
her hands full trying to manage the unruly Ambrose. She was glad to
receive assistance. She had never had any before in her life. She
had heard orders given and had always obeyed. Now she could give
orders herself.
"Fetch that cloth, thar," she commanded. "Be still, honey, Mammy's
goin' ter fix hit," she assured Ambrose, as she took the fat, pink
fist in her hardened palm. "Hyar, yo' Steve, we doan' need yo'. Yo'
git busy and tote thet bucket uf swill down ter th' hawgs. Pete's
thar. He'll tell yo' whut ter do."
Stephen hesitated, looking down at his clothes. He had been dressed
to travel to a school. They were not his oldest clothes. They were
not even his every day clothes. Everything about the premises looked
unclean. He wondered if he ought to carry such a big, unsavory
bucket in such close proximity to his new suit. Then he remembered
that the trunk which had been packed for him had not arrived. There
was only the bag, and it contained no other suit; only toilet
articles and night clothing. Some inner sense told him that the
trunk would never come. There had certainly been some awful mistake.
Again his lips quivered but the courageous spirit that had endeared
him to everyone he had ever known enabled him to suppress the tears,
as he had done the night previous, and to nerve his slight frame for
what was before him.
"G'wan. Do as I to' yer. Doan stan' there a-gawpin'," exclaimed
Maria. "Pete'll make yo' move quicker'n that, afore yo' hev ben hyar
long."
Stephen stooped, carefully clutched the loathsome pail and staggered
with it out of the door and along the path to the hog pen.
Mollie, whose natural instinct was to care for and mother something
and who could not withstand a cry of distress from anyone or
anything, was wholly engrossed in helping Maria bandage the blistered
hand and quiet the cries of the luckless Ambrose. The little girl
ran willingly here and there, doing whatever she was told, making
suggestions as they came to her mind and trying in one way and
another, after the manner of children, to divert the attention of the
crying child from his injury and to make him laugh. In this she
eventually succeeded. She danced for him.
Ambrose, more frightened than hurt by the accident and having created
as much excitement as possible, permitted his mother to deposit him
on the floor that he, too, might dance. The effort was not
satisfactory. He had been dragging a stick with him when he entered
the house. It now lay on the floor under his feet. He kicked it,
then picked it up and, brandishing it in his uninjured hand, lunged
wildly at Mollie. Some children talk volubly at three years of age.
Ambrose, overgrown and lumbering, and nearing five years, possessed
but a very limited vocabulary.
"Git," he cried excitedly. "Git--Git!"
Maria looked around. "Yo' better do whut he tells yo'," she warned
Mollie. "Ef yo' doan, he'll hit yo'. He wants yo' to run so he kin
play drivin' Walter."
Mollie evaded the stick by dodging. "Who's Walter?" she asked.
"Our horse," returned Maria, shortly.
The little girl's eyes sparkled. "Oh, I love horses," she exclaimed.
"Can I see yours?"
"Not now yo' cain't. Yo' said yo' could do dishes. I'm goin' ter
let yo' do 'em."
The woman's tone implied a command. Child though she was, Mollie
sensed it. The momentary pleasure that had brightened her piquant
little face at the mention of the horse now gave place to something
akin to fear. This was not the kindly, humorous old cook, Lucy, who,
by dint of much coaxing, had permitted her to wipe a few pieces of
silver and her own cup and saucer occasionally. This was a gaunt,
untidy, unkempt woman who had a wild look in her eyes and who seemed
to be always afraid of something. Now she turned to her own
offspring and pushed him forcibly out the door.
"Yo' git, yo'self, Sonny," she ordered. "Yo' kin make Mollie git,
arter th' dishes is done. See what yo' Pappy's a-doin' down thar."
Ambrose lifted up his voice to protest but glimpsed his father going
toward the bog with something over his shoulder, Stephen trudging
behind, also encumbered. Instantly he changed his mind and hurried
as fast as his fat legs would carry him in their direction.
Maria, turning again toward the heaped-up dishes on the table, looked
down upon Mollie in surprise. The tot was standing rigidly in the
center of the room, her eyes flashing, her tiny hands clinched.
"I don't want to wipe dishes," she exclaimed. "I don't like it here.
I want to go home."
"This is yore home now," ejaculated Maria slowly, after she had
comprehended the mutinous speech.
"It is not."
"Shuah hit es. Yo' an' me's goin' ter cook an' wash dishes an' arter
while yo' kin go with me ter pull weeds an' pick 'tater-bugs."
The evident friendliness of this announcement disarmed Mollie. She
had once looked at the colored pictures in a book of natural history
and been much interested in the attractive jacket worn by the queer
little bug "that just loved potatoes". Perhaps, she reflected, if
she were good, as her Papa had told her to be, everything would yet
turn out all right. If they had potato bugs and a horse at this
queer place, they must also have sparrows. And if they had sparrows,
God must be around somewhere. Perhaps He was looking for her at that
very moment. With a winning smile she peered up into Maria's
weather-beaten countenance.
"I'd like that," she said. "And then can I see Walter?"
"Shuah. Yo' kin tote his feed."
Mollie skipped about ecstatically. "Let's hurry," she said. "I like
to do things quick. How do you wash dishes? That isn't the way Lucy
does. If I was bigger I'd show you."
"I'll git me a box down ter th' barn fer yo' ter stan' on, an'
termorrer yo' kin do 'em by yo'self while I set," said Maria.
Mollie's tongue, once loosened, found much to say. She enjoyed
talking and Maria was a wonderful listener. Just as the dishes were
finished and they were about to start for the truck patch a scream
sounded. Another and another followed. They were screams of terror.
Maria stood, as if rooted to the spot. Mollie raised her little
hands in an involuntary gesture of alarm. Her heart seemed to
flutter into her throat.
"Splutters!" she gasped, and darted like a bird in the direction
whence the cries came.
CHAPTER IV
AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE
"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me,
it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck
and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea."--Matt. xviii, 6
Terror lent wings to Mollie's feet. Instinct guided her over the
unknown terrain of the wretched farm-yard. The overwhelming desire
to aid Stephen in whatever peril threatened him restrained any
thought of self. No sound escaped her lips. Unconsciously she
conserved all her energy for the crucial moment that was to come.
Around the corner of the dilapidated barn with no thought of the
horse, Walter, placidly munching his feed; past the miserable pig-sty
with its great, fierce-looking inmates peering at her through the
interstices of its frame work; along the worn path toward the
vegetable garden she sped with the fleetness of a tiny, avenging
spirit, ready to combat any ogre who might bar her way.
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"GIMME THAT BRAT!"]
Mollie knew what an ogre looked like. She had seen the colored
likeness of one in a book of fairy-tales. An ogre lived, so the
story said, on human beings. She had been told that fairytales were
not true. The scene which confronted her as she came abreast of the
vegetable patch convinced her that statement was a mistake. The
tales were true. Peter Grimes was an ogre. He lived on little
children!
The awful realization made the poor child's blood run cold. Her
heart seemed to stop beating. With dilated, terror-filled eyes she
gazed, transfixed, upon the hideous spectacle that was never to be
obliterated from her mind.
Before a black, loathsome sea of mud stood Peter Grimes. His tall,
spare figure appeared to Mollie colossal. His face, what she could
see of it, was twisted by a one-sided smile of inexpressible cruelty
and satisfaction. Beside him his son, Ambrose, jumped up and down in
sheer ecstasy of joy, his attention riveted upon the piteous cries
and struggles of an animal that the mud was slowly sucking down to
death in its sinister depths.
Suspended above the bog, head downward, was the form of Stephen, his
slender, knickerbockered legs held in the vise-like grip of the human
monster while the latter's powerful arms swung him like a pendulum to
and fro, heedless of the shrieks, now subsiding as the terrified boy
lapsed into unconsciousness.
Two birds, chirping furiously, flew up from the garden and across the
bog. A sudden shaft of sunlight sent a golden gleam along their
course. Subconsciously Mollie watched their flight. They
disappeared into the safety of the thicket beyond.
God's sparrows! They were flying away from the hateful place. The
ray of light pointed the way. Then God must be near!
The wonderful thought flashed over the little girl and gave her
courage. So tense was the moment she was incapable of conscious
mental effort. It was as if her body were completely detached and
she, herself, a separate entity. But the tension was broken. Her
sentient little frame quivered, then sprang with the agility of a
young wildcat straight at the ogre's legs.
She kicked, she beat with her tiny fists, she pinched. It was the
pinching that brought results.
"You bad man--you wicked--bad--man!" she screamed, emphasizing each
word with a blow. "You put Splutters down--Put him down, I say.
Don't you dare to hurt Splutters."
The leg of the ogre stamped and kicked but Mollie hung on. The great
arms of the ogre ceased their pendulous motion, but Mollie's attack
did not cease. The arms tossed their limp, senseless burden upon a
mound of dank grass. Mollie relaxed her efforts. The tall, crooked
figure of the ogre bent toward her. He seemed to be licking his
chops in anticipation. His talon-like fingers made convulsive,
clutching motions as if to encircle her throat. His evil, twisted
face with its narrow eyes leered down into her face with savage
intensity. She met the look fearlessly.
"You'd ought to be ashamed of yourself," she stormed, in a frenzy of
indignation. "And there was somebody looking at you all the time.
What do you suppose He thought?"
"What's that? Who saw anything?" exclaimed Grimes quickly. He
raised his head and looked suspiciously about.
"Never you mind. He's gone now. He'll fix you some day."
Mollie could be a little spitfire when she chose. Her large eyes,
blazing now from out her pale, oval face gave her a weird, elfin
expression that had its effect upon the uncouth and less intelligent
creature she dared to arraign. She was only repeating words she had
heard many times in the kitchen of old Lucy, her mother's cook, but
for Grimes they now had but one significance. Someone, Bailey,
probably, had been spying upon him from the other side of the gate
shutting off the farm from the narrow road leading to the main
highway. He muttered an oath.
"Aw, I was only a-jokin'," he exclaimed in a loud tone. "I'll larn
yo' young-uns that when I say a thing I mean hit an' I doan want none
o' yer back clack. Ef I feel fer ter drown a sick shote I'm a-goin'
ter do hit an' ther hain't a-goin' ter be no argymint. Anybody thet
tries hit'll git a taste o' th' same med'cine."
With a sweeping blow of his huge hand he hurled Mollie to one side
and in his habitual writhing, dragging manner, moved ominously off
toward the house.
Mollie, too dazed by the suddenness of the blow to cry out, watched
him go. The stimulus of excitement was still upon her. On the heap
of decaying vegetation near by Stephen stirred slightly. A sound
that was half sob, half moan, escaped him. Instantly Mollie was at
his side, pulling at his arms, trying with all her puny strength to
lift him to a sitting posture, beseeching him to open his eyes.
"Splutters--Splutters, wake up," she implored, an hysterical note
beginning to tincture the clear, childish treble of her voice. "It's
all right, Stevie. The ogre's gone. He won't hurt you. God got
around just in time. He scared him away. Stevie--Stevie, don't you
hear me?"
Stephen heard, but the comforting little voice seemed faint and far
away. It was musical, though, and pleasant to listen to. Somebody
did care for him, after all. He wasn't alone and forgotten, and
going to be killed--like a pig. That had all been a terrible dream.
The realization brought a sense of comfort. With a long, tremulous
sigh the lad opened his eyes, blue as violets, and looked about him.
His range of vision was obscured by Mollie's little face. She was
bending solicitously over him. He tried to smile but there was that
in Mollie's appearance which stayed him in the effort. She was pale
as death. There was a wild, startled look in her eyes. Her lips
were quivering.
"Oh, Splutters!" she gasped, and began to sob.
Stephen struggled to regain his senses. He pulled himself up on one
elbow and inspected the place where he was lying. Instantly he
sprang up in disgust. The action made him acutely conscious of his
ankles. They felt stiff, as if tight bands were about them. He
looked down. His clean stockings bore traces of muck. Could it be
that his dream was true, after all! He turned swiftly.
"Ah-a!"
The ejaculation was involuntary. Stephen almost swooned again as his
breath gave out the sound. His whole frame began to tremble as with
the palsy. A panic seized him. He would have run but that his legs
refused to move. His feet seemed rooted to the ground. In that
moment he felt old--ages old, as if he had lived a long time ago and
had just returned to the scene where he had suffered torture and
death.
Mollie's sobs brought him back to a sense of reality. The nervous
reaction after her heroism in confronting the monster whom she still
firmly believed subsisted upon little children, and whom she would
never cease to designate as "the ogre", was producing a speedy rise
in the child's temperature. Her face, pale a moment ago, was now
flushed and swollen with tears. She flung her arms about Stephen and
implored him to take her home before the ogre killed them. He, no
less miserable than herself, strove to quiet her.
"He won't eat you, Mollie," the boy whispered through lips that felt
stiff and parched, so difficult was it for him to make an articulate
sound. "He's not an ogre. He's just a bad man. Perhaps he's crazy.
I felt sorry for the pig. I didn't want him to drown it alive. I
made him mad when I teased him to give it to me and let me cure it.
I reckon he was just trying to scare me so I would not tease him
again."
Nervously the little fellow detached Mollie's clinging hands from his
arm and led her, timidly and with the utmost caution, to a pile of
thin, narrow oak boards about three feet long, such as are
substituted very commonly in the south for shingles. They had been
accumulated by Peter with a view to some day improving the roof of
the old barn. Behind them the children were not in view of anyone at
the house. There they sat down and Stephen wiped away the little
girl's tears.
"Can't we go home, Splutters--Can't we go home?" she kept repeating
with such heartbreaking monotony that his natural good judgment and
sound, though youthful reasoning almost yielded to her entreaties
that they run away at once, before any more terrible things befell
them.
"He's too big and too strong," said the boy protector, sorrowfully.
"That's why I came along with him in the first place. I almost knew
it was a mistake, but there wasn't anything I could do. I think,
when they find out about the mistake, the lady I lived with will send
someone to find me. I hadn't lived with her very long but she liked
me and I was going to be her real little boy, if she hadn't been
hurt. But she said I could go on to school and the papers could be
signed any time. I reckon if they had been signed this mistake
wouldn't have happened." He sighed wistfully.
"But if we ran away, and there was anybody coming to fetch you, maybe
we'd meet them on the way," argued Mollie, reluctant to abandon the
thought of escape.
Stephen's blue eyes thoughtfully contemplated the forbidding
landscape about them. He was considering, as well as he could, every
detail and every possibility. A sudden twinge in one of his ankles
decided him. With it came surging over him a mental repetition of
the agony through which he had passed such a short time before.
Anything--anything but that, he thought. Aloud he said to Mollie
that if they did try to escape and lost their way and walked into
such mud as seemed all about the farm they would die just as the
little pig died.
Mollie stared at him, aghast. She had not thought of that. She was
thinking only of the ogre. She wanted to get away from him.
"I don't guess he'll hurt us," Stephen remarked, after more
reflection, "so long as we keep quiet and do what he and she tell us.
We'll have to get dirty and spoil our clothes and I don't guess we'll
get anything good to eat, but after while somebody is sure to come
and take us away. I heard that man in the buggy with you tell him
that he was to keep you well, and not let you get sick, because if
you died the money would stop coming."
But of himself little Stephen was not so sure.
"I reckon I'll have to work awful hard to please him," he continued,
after a moment. "There can't any money come to him for me, because
nobody knows I'm here."
It was then Mollie had her inspiration.
"I know what," she exclaimed, with a lightning-like change of mood.
"If he's going to get money for me and mustn't hurt me, then he won't
dare hurt you very much because he'll be afraid of me, for I'd tell,
the first chance I got. And I wouldn't stay here alone without you,
and if I went off to find my way home he'd be afraid I'd drown in the
mud, and so he'll not kill you because he'll want me to live."
She paused for breath. No lawyer could have reasoned the matter out
any better or more accurately. So quickly do common danger and
necessity sharpen the wits of children whose intelligence has not
already been dulled by brutal treatment. In her enthusiasm Mollie
almost forgot her woes. Not so, Stephen.
"We'll have to be careful," he warned. "We mustn't make them mad. I
reckon we'd better go into the house. They'll be looking for us."
The dispirited tone of suppressed yearning, and abject resignation to
the miserable existence which he sensed was before them, gave to the
orphan boy's words a quality and volume of meaning far beyond their
linguistic significance.
CHAPTER V
BANISHMENT
"As a sparrow alone upon the housetop--"--Ps. cii, 7
"Hey, Maria!"
"I'm a-comin'."
The woman rose from the door-step where she had been sitting,
adjusted her snuff dip firmly in her mouth and slouched across the
muddy door-yard to meet Peter. From his manner and expression of
countenance it was evident he was laboring under the burden of a new
idea.
"Who was a-wantin' me?" he asked gruffly as Maria approached.
"Thar hain't nobody ben hyar."
He studied her for a moment.
"Thar war somebody a-sneakin' 'roun'."
"Nobody I seen."
"She seed 'em."
With his thumb he gestured over his shoulder. Maria understood that
he referred to Mollie.
"She mought ha' saw somebody a-lookin' in th' gate."
A wry smile twisted the man's face in a grimace a little worse than
usual.
"Thar hain't a-goin' ter be no more lookin'," he declared. "I be
gwine ter fix hit right now. Fotch me them tools frum th' barn an'
th' can o' nails thets a-settin' on the beam over th' door."
Maria obeyed, without a word, as was her wont, slouching along,
barefooted, in the direction of the barn. She did not wonder or
speculate as to where the children might be. To do so would require
mental effort. Any mental effort demanded a degree of energy which
Maria did not possess.
As for Peter, he had solved his problem in mathematics. With all the
cunning of the abnormal criminal, he was planning for the future in a
manner entirely beyond her dull-witted conception, even had he been
disposed to explain.
The house stood some little distance from an old highway. The
section roundabout was a wilderness of tortuous passes, skirting
perilously near the series of formidable bogs. For years these bogs
had proved as much of a barrier between denizens of isolated
districts as any mediæval moat. Peter Grimes knew nothing of castles
nor moats. But the chance remark of the man who had placed little
Mollie in his care had resulted in his grasping the basic principle
upon which the theory that a man's house is his castle had been
founded. He proposed now to convert the old moonshiner's covert
retreat into an impenetrable castle.
From a heap of old boards back of the house he selected those best
needed for his purpose, cut himself a large chew of tobacco, then sat
down to await the return of the woman whose ancestral estate he had
so calmly appropriated.
Maria reappeared in due season, laden with saw, hammer and the can of
nails.
"Now lend me a hand with these hyar planks," ordered Peter.
Maria took hold and together they carried, one by one, some half
dozen of the long pieces of timber down to the fence.
There was no need of a fence on the side of the house where the bog
lay. No one but a plumb fool would ever attempt to get away by that
hazardous route, Peter reasoned. Not by chance had he demonstrated
the bog's resistless suction to the children that morning. He now
made a noise that might have been meant for a chuckle but which
sounded more like the grunt of an animal at the recollection of his
cleverness.
"I 'low they'll remember thet a spell," he muttered aloud, "an'
they'll tell t'others."
"Hey?" said Maria, thinking he was addressing her.
The interruption passed unheeded. Peter placed one of the boards
across a chunk of wood and bent himself to the task of sawing it the
desired length. Maria was already sitting listlessly upon the other
boards, gazing vacantly into space, her hands resting limply on her
knees. Peter raised his head as the severed end of the plank fell to
the ground.
"Git up thar," he commanded, "an' do es I tell yo'. H'ist up thet
end whilst I nail this-un in place."
Maria pulled her lean frame upright, took hold of the board and,
stretching her arms as high above her head as she was able, held it
against an upright already in place, while Peter nailed it in
position. She asked no questions. He vouchsafed no remarks. Thus
occupied, the long absence of the children was unheeded. Ambrose
ultimately joined his parents, sitting down in the dirt and amusing
himself digging a hole with a stick.
It was evident that the fence repair and extension work would not be
completed at one time. The farther the work progressed the more
grimly eager Peter became to behold the finished structure. After a
time he told Maria to go to the house and get something ready to eat.
There she came upon Mollie and Stephen, seated forlornly upon the
step. They were snuggled close together, like two motherless
kittens, as if to strengthen and encourage one another. They rose at
Maria's approach and stood aside, expectant. Mollie's little face
was strained out of its natural shape in her desperate effort to keep
back the tears which welled into her eyes as the harsh, forbidding
country woman bore down upon them. Stephen tucked the child's tiny
hand within his own, scarcely larger, and nerved himself for whatever
fate held in store for the immediate future.
To their surprise, Maria passed them without a word and entered the
house, the door of which stood open. Two chickens scurried out and
ran, cheeping and squawking, across the yard.
The next moment Maria reappeared at the door. Her initial
preoccupation had been due to her desire to replenish her snuff dip.
She was now thinking of less important things.
"Yo' Mollie," she called, "come in hyar an' lay th' table. Steve,
yo' g'wan down ter th' 'tater patch an' fetch a mess o' 'taters."
Mollie hesitated, loath to leave Stephen's protection.
"Do as she says," the boy whispered as Maria turned back toward the
cook stove. "We'll have to. They won't hurt us if we keep quiet and
mind them quick."
It was wise counsel. Mollie released her hold upon his hand and went
into the house with a step so unlike her accustomed bird-like
lightness that it was apparent the pall of the bog-lands was already
beginning its blight. Stephen started off in the direction of the
garden. He had never seen potatoes except in a store or when they
were served at a meal. He had only a vague idea as to how they grew
but he feared to ask a question. Over by the fence he could see
Peter at work. Ambrose had ceased digging a hole and was now engaged
in chasing a white butterfly. The butterfly was darting from bush to
bush, ever coming nearer to Stephen. Finally it passed him, the fat
child still in pursuit.
Stephen watched the chase until Ambrose stumbled and fell. Before
Stephen could decide as to the wisdom of his extending a helping
hand, the youngster scrambled to his feet and rushed forward straight
into the garden patch. The butterfly eluded him and disappeared amid
some high shrubbery.
Enraged, Ambrose commenced pulling up stalks of what seemed to
Stephen to be small bushes. He noticed there were bright colored
little bugs, somewhat larger than the bright-coated lady-bug,
clustered on the leaves of the strange plant. With a howl of
disappointment at having lost his winged prey, the hog-farmer's child
hurled one of the uprooted plants at Stephen. It fell at the boy's
feet. From its roots small tubers depended, some of which became
detached and rolled to one side. He stooped and examined one. A
potato! For the moment the dejected lad was honestly grateful to
Ambrose. Without his fortunate, and for Ambrose unfortunate, chase
of the butterfly Stephen realized he might have again been plunged
into difficulty.
Patiently he collected the potatoes Ambrose uprooted until he
concluded he had enough for a meal. Ambrose, sensing that his
actions were conferring a kindness, immediately desisted and entered
upon a new diversion. He ran with all his might and precipitated
himself like a battering ram against the boy who was carefully trying
to balance a goodly supply of potatoes mounted in a very shallow
receptacle that he had picked up from a refuse heap to transport them
to the house. The result was disastrous. The potatoes rolled in
divers directions, Stephen fell and Ambrose rolled over on top of him.
During the whole performance the strange child had uttered no sound.
He now bellowed lustily. No one responded. He yelled louder. Still
no response.
In the distance Peter's voice sounded.
"Maria!"
From the house the woman answered.
"I'm a-comin'."
"Go see what Ambrose es a-bellerin' about."
Both Stephen and Ambrose heard the dialogue. The former made haste
to collect the scattered potatoes. Ambrose started, still bawling,
to meet his mother.
Maria met them midway between the house and the barn. She made no
comment but, stooping, brushed enough dirt off her son to assure
herself that he was uninjured, then took him by the hand and dragged
him, protesting at every step, into the house. Stephen followed.
Maria dropped into a chair and took the crying, striking youngster up
into her lap. Little Mollie, standing on a chair, was taking cups
and spoons down from the cupboard. Stephen placed the potatoes upon
the table. Under Maria's direction he prepared them for boiling and
got them on the stove. Then, also under her orders, he made coffee.
There was no conversation, other than that required to prepare the
meal. Maria rose and fried the thick slices of salt pork herself.
Once she sent Stephen to fetch a bucket of water.
Returning with the water the little boy encountered Peter. The
latter made no reference to the episode of the morning. He paused
for a moment, looked at Stephen reflectively and delivered himself of
that upon which he had been cogitating ever since he commenced work
on the fence.
"Kin yo' climb?"
"Yes sir."
"Well, arter dinner me an' yo' es a-goin' ter finish this hyar fence,
an' I wants yo' ter holp me string bob wire on top o' hit."
"Yes sir."
"An' beginnin' ter-night yo' air a-goin' ter sleep outten th' loft in
th' barn."
"Yes sir."
"An' I'm a-goin' ter fix me a big bell on top o' this hyar gate. An'
when thet thar bell rings I wants thet yo' and thet gal Mollie, an'
ary others I fetch hyar, should git up the ladder into thet loft
lickety-split. D'y understan'?"
"Yes sir."
Peter turned again to his labor. "G'wan. Git along ter the house
with thet water," he said, shortly.
Stephen proceeded on his way.
As he neared the kitchen door Mollie came flying forth, screaming.
Behind her came Ambrose. He was chuckling with glee at seeing her
terror.
"Don't let him!--Don't let him put it on me," she cried, piteously,
dodging behind Stephen that the lumbering Ambrose might not come near
her. Stephen barred the path of the infant terror.
"Here, what are you trying to do?" he asked. There was no reply but
Stephen, looking down, saw that the loathsome object the child held
by one leg in his hand, was a huge toad. Without a thought of
consequences he struck the grewsome creature from the fat fingers
which held it and, taking Mollie's hand led her, weeping, into the
kitchen.
Ambrose's howl of rage echoed in their wake. He did not attempt to
follow them but carried his grievance to his father. Peter paid
scant attention to the incoherent utterances of his son, but after a
moment put down his tools and started for the house, the youngster,
still bawling, lumbering at his heels.
As the afternoon waned and the hens about the door-yard commenced
flapping to roost in the limbs of convenient trees, Mollie and
Stephen were conducted by Maria to the roost prepared for them in the
loft under the barn eaves.
Below them Walter, the horse, whinnied softly as he sensed their
nearness. Birds twittered in their nests about them. One or two
late comers flitted swiftly past their heads to join their feathered
families.
"I like it better than being in the house," exclaimed Mollie, much
less dismayed by the prospect of living in the barn than Stephen had
expected. "I'd rather be in a barn with God's sparrows and a horse
than with an ogre in the most beau-ti-ful castle in the world."
"So would I," said Stephen, after a moment's reflection.
The ogre who had banished the children rubbed the palms of his horny
hands together and smiled greedily as he counted his ill-gotten
money. The high, newly constructed portal to his terrible castle was
locked and barred; the warning bell was silent. The surrounding moat
gave forth a heavy, fetid odor that poisoned the breath of summer
blossoms borne on the still night air. But up in the barn loft the
two little prisoners knelt by the open window, above all sordid
things, and watched the moon rise over the tree tops while they
inhaled the pure air of heaven.
CHAPTER VI
NEW VICTIMS
"His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate,
neither is there any to deliver them."--Job v, 4
Momentous events followed the children's transfer to the barn loft.
In many respects they found themselves better off than in the small,
windowless alcove into which they had been thrust so summarily on the
night of their arrival at the farm-house.
In the barn there was more freedom. They were not subjected to
annoyance from the insufferable Ambrose nor to the brutality of
Peter. They could talk without fear of restraint and, when there was
no likelihood of interruption, could pore over the picture books
which Stephen had so thoughtfully secreted.
"Don't ever let Pete get hold of those books," Stephen warned Mollie.
"He'd only tear them up and throw them in the bog."
"Or give them to that fat cry-baby," supplemented Mollie, whose dread
of the Grimes child increased daily.
So the gaudy little booklets of animal and Biblical stories which had
been given to the orphan lad on the previous Christmas were treasured
with the utmost care. To the isolated children they represented
their only connection with a happy past, the link that united them
with the world from which they would otherwise have been completely
severed.
There were long hours in the early evening before darkness descended
during which the books could be studied with impunity. As long as
the children were quiet and out of sight and hearing of their
persecutors they were unmolested. For this they were mutely grateful.
During these same evening hours the Grimes family was sufficient unto
itself. In silence its members sat about, each absorbed according to
individual bent or preference.
Peter chewed tobacco and schemed how to increase his little hoard of
money with the least amount of labor. Maria alternately dipped
snuff, quaffed corn liquor and attended her well-nigh ungovernable
child.
Ambrose, however, was quiet at intervals, until roused to a fit of
temper by some unexpected result of his own folly. His favorite
pastime was that of torturing insects and other small, living
creatures. His parents' only fear for him was that some day he
might, inadvertently, pick up a poisonous reptile instead of the
lizards and grass snakes which he had been repeatedly told were
harmless. These possessed for him a fascination bordering upon
mania. In anticipation of such an untoward event Maria not
infrequently dosed the child with corn liquor, that he might be the
better able to imbibe it in quantity when the emergency arose.
The barn was polluted by none of these features. To Mollie and
Stephen it was a home, a place of retreat, a haven of rest, a city of
refuge, a school and a recreation hall all in one. To them the
"play-house" of the past had, in the loft, become a reality. Chairs,
tables and beds were improvised with the facility which childhood
alone possesses.
Mollie's persistency, and Maria's susceptibility to the little girl's
magnetic personality, resulted in their retaining possession of the
few personal belongings with which each child had been provided upon
arrival.
Had either Maria or Peter realized the value of such a concession to
children reared as Mollie and Stephen had been, the request would
undoubtedly have been denied. But a casual inventory of the contents
of Stephen's traveling bag, and of the small box of wearing apparel
for Mollie which later arrived at the farm, revealed nothing that
appealed to Maria or which Peter considered of use. So for the time
being, at least, the children's creature comforts were not lacking.
With remarkable sagacity for their years the two little ones
husbanded their meagre resources and endeavored as far as possible to
regulate their daily life after the manner of the routine to which
they had been accustomed. They had no idea what was before them in
the way of hardship and privation nor how long would be the time of
their exile. Stephen buoyed Mollie's hope as well as his own by the
oft-repeated assertion that the mistake which had consigned him into
the hands of Peter Grimes was bound to be discovered and rectified.
Secure in this hope they patiently resigned themselves to an
existence in the barn loft and at times were even able to forget
their unhappiness and home-sickness in the enjoyment of its novelties.
Light and ventilation came into the loft principally by means of the
great window opening through which hay would ordinarily be tossed for
storage purposes. In times of storm this opening would, of course,
have to be closed. For this purpose there was a great door, made of
uneven boards, roughly nailed together and which must be held in
position by a stout stick braced against a plank in the floor. But
even with this shutter in place light and air, and also rain, had
ample circulation through chinks and crevices on every side.
To this aerie retreat the children had already been forced to flee in
haste several times at the ringing of the jangling bell which Peter
Grimes had suspended above the newly constructed gateway. It had
been difficult at first for little Mollie to mount the perpendicular
ladder, with its widely placed rungs, which was the only means of
access to the loft and which came up through a hole in the floor.
Stimulated to frantic effort by the shouts of Peter in the yard
without, the clamorous bell down at the gate and demoniac chuckles
from Ambrose as he rounded the barn door with a wriggling green
creature in his hand, the spritelike little girl performed a series
of acrobatic feats without knowing it and arrived at the top of the
ladder almost as quickly as Stephen. On the occasion of her first
ascension Stephen had carried her on his back. Each successive
mounting of the ladder only served to increase their agility. They
soon went through the exercise as automatically as if it had been a
fire drill at school.
Few persons, however, came to the remote hog-farm. Peter Grimes was
both feared and distrusted by the majority of those who knew him.
Only when good and sufficient reasons prevailed to warrant their
turning off the highway and traversing the precarious way to Peter's
farm could they be induced to stop and dicker with him. During the
several days following the installation of the children in the
barn-loft it chanced that one man came, bringing a box. It was the
box that held Mollie's clothes. From their place of observation in
the loft Mollie and Stephen both recognized him as the "buggy man
with the funny mustache" who had consigned Mollie to Peter. Another
visitor to the Grimes estate was a farmer who argued at considerable
length with Peter and, after inspecting his hogs, refused to pay the
price demanded. He departed with some show of temper. The third
person to ring the bell at the gate was a pedestrian who had lost his
way and wanted directions.
During the interim between each of these legitimate bell-ringings
there were half a dozen others, purely rehearsal affairs, staged by
Peter for the purpose of training the children to effect their
disappearance in an ever lessening period of time.
Thus it happened they were in the loft on the day Peter drove out the
gate behind old Walter after having mentioned to Maria that their
family would be increased before nightfall. From their perch in the
loft Stephen and Mollie watched him depart. They saw Maria come
forth from the kitchen, seat herself on the door-step, place her
unkempt head against the post supporting the lean-to roof that
covered the entrance to the house and compose herself for a nap. The
child, Ambrose, was already asleep under a tree, lying on his back
with his mouth open, while flies swarmed over his one scanty and much
begrimed garment.
"Don't let's go down, Splutters," said Mollie to Stephen. "I'm tired
of picking potato bugs. Let's stay here awhile and look at the
pictures."
Stephen willing agreed. His back ached from pulling weeds and
carrying heavy pails of water and feed for the farm animals.
"Then I'll hear you read and spell and we'll make believe we're in
school," he said, as he procured the treasured books from their
hiding place.
To this naturally studious child the disappointment of not arriving
at the school he had so joyfully looked forward to was a deeper wound
than any purely physical burden his captor could lay upon him.
Whatever his occupation Stephen was always thinking of that school.
Again and again the vision of its tall buildings and broad campus
appeared before him like a mirage. The more he thought about it the
more difficult it became to take any degree of interest in his
immediate surroundings.
For Mollie's sake he tried to be cheerful and to make conversation
but in his heart was an ache too deep for words and a sense of
calamity it was impossible to shake off. He had not Mollie's
effervescent nature nor her impulsiveness. With him every word,
every act, every decision must be carefully thought out in advance.
In this way he very seldom made mistakes but Mollie's alertness and
keen imagination were often able to bring results of one kind or
another while he was yet deliberating.
Now, Mollie designated the book she preferred for the moment and the
two children flung themselves down before the great, open window from
which they might quickly detect any sign of an impending
interruption, and were soon absorbed in the story of Moses in the
bulrushes. It greatly appealed to Mollie. Many of the words were
too large even for Stephen to pronounce. Others were meaningless.
But Stephen's sedate reasoning and Mollie's intuition bridged
whatever difficulties there were and they contrived to read into the
narrative much more than the printed page contained.
"I don't guess they had a bog like this one anywhere around," Mollie
remarked at the conclusion of the reading. "Something awful might
have happened to that poor little baby."
Mollie's sympathies were easily roused, and she loved babies. Had
Ambrose been a normal child she would have devoted herself to him
without hesitation.
The story of Moses was followed by other child stories from the
scriptures, each seemingly of greater interest than the one
preceding. Time passed unnoticed. Just at the beginning of what
promised to be a beautiful story of a kindly shepherd, sitting with
many little children grouped about him, the soft, summer stillness
was shattered by cries from Ambrose.
Stephen and Mollie sprang up in dismay and hastily restored the
picture books to their hiding place. A glance from the window
revealed Ambrose tugging at his mother's limp, calico dress,
imploring her to get him some bread and molasses. Maria, coming
slowly back from dreamland, was preparing to arise.
"Perhaps we stayed here too long," said Stephen, anxiously. "If she
finds out we're not down in the garden she'll tell him."
Neither of the children referred to Maria and Peter as Mr. and Mrs.
Grimes. They were merely "he" and "she." Mollie frequently
designated Peter as "that ogre", and Stephen in moments of great
bitterness took satisfaction in letting the name of "Pete" pass
between his teeth with a viciousness indicative of his inward desire
to bite the despicable appellation in fragments.
They cautiously descended the ladder into the stable below and peeked
through the doorway until they saw Maria and Ambrose safely within
the house. Then, darting from cover to cover like little rabbits,
they fled to the garden patch and resumed their labors. A loud
halloo that was almost a yodel halted the work almost before it was
commenced. Maria, thinking they had been steadily engaged upon it
ever since Peter's departure, was summoning them to partake of the
bread she was dispensing to Ambrose.
Had they but known it, this supposed generosity was not so much due
to Maria's thoughtfulness of them, as to her own laziness. She
wanted Stephen to fetch a bucket of water and Mollie to "red up" the
house.
It was while engaged upon these tasks they witnessed Peter's return.
Not wishing to descend from the ramshackle conveyance in which he was
seated, he shouted loudly from without the gate for Maria to come and
open it that he might drive in. Stephen was amazed to see with what
alacrity Maria could move when she so desired. Mollie, dish-towel in
hand, watched proceedings from the doorway. Maria swung open the
gate. Peter raised the whip in his hand. Walter the horse, eager
for oats and, like all other living creatures on the place, not
willing to incur his master's displeasure, gave a sudden start
forward. Maria sprang to one side. One wheel of the vehicle
careened against the side of the gate. The buggy tilted. Something
bounced out and fell to the ground. With a piercing scream a
barefoot girl in rough attire leaped from the moving buggy, fell,
rose and dashed madly back toward the gate.
It had already been closed by Maria, but close beside it lay a small,
motionless heap. The woman stooped, curiously, to investigate what
seemed to be a bundle of clothes. Before she could touch it the girl
who had leaped from the buggy bore down upon her like a small cyclone.
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"HE WAS BORN IN A BARN JEST LIKE THIS ONE."]
Without a word she brushed Maria aside and examined the little heap
tenderly. Then Maria observed that it was a child about a year old.
It was not dead at all events, for as the girl raised it in her arms,
crooning softly the name of "Buddy", the child raised its voice in
piteous, heart-rending wails.
Its tiny arm was broken!
CHAPTER VII
WHERE IS BUDDY?
"He that stoppeth his ear to the cry of the poor, shall also cry
himself and shall not be heard."--Prov. xxi, 13
It took the combined efforts and intelligence of all to alleviate the
suffering of the child injured at the very moment of its arrival at
the farm, through Peter's wanton carelessness. Yet no blame could
attach to himself, he declared, for at the time of the accident the
little fellow was sitting on his sister's lap.
"Whut war yo' a-doin'," Peter asked of the distressed little girl.
(Cynthy was her name.) "Must hev ben jest a-settin' thar a-sleepin'
er a-gawpin' et sumpin'."
"Thar hain't nawthin' much ter gawp at aroun' hyar," retorted the
girl, angered at the injustice of the accusation. "'Tain't likely
I'd go an' drep my little brother thet-a-way jest a-purpose. Whyn't
yo'-all tell me yo' war a-gwine ter raise hell a-jumpin' hurdles?"
For Cynthy and little Buddie came from some point in Kentucky. There
could be no question as to their station in life. They were clad in
coarse garments and had sharp, pinched faces. Cynthy was bare-foot
but she carried a pair of new, very stout shoes tied together by
their strings, and a small bundle of clothes. These were now
deposited upon the floor in a corner of the room.
Just how these two poor waifs came into Peter Grimes' clutches he
alone knew. What he expected to gain by housing them was another
mystery. When Maria, disturbed out of her usual lethargy by the
unexpected advent of the baby, ventured a question, Peter gruffly
told her to "shet up."
But clothes and conditions mattered not to Mollie. The cries of a
baby in excruciating pain pierced her tender little heart like a
knife. As Maria and Cynthy worked over the tortured little one
Mollie watched helplessly, her pitying spirit shining in her starry
eyes. When Peter came in from the barn and took hold of the broken
arm to set it, the baby screamed once and mercifully lost
consciousness.
Without uttering a sound Mollie dropped to the floor in a dead faint.
The others paying no attention, Stephen ran to her and half-carried,
half-dragged her out the door. He had a vague idea that he must get
her up the ladder and into the barn loft. But the fresh air revived
her. As soon as she opened her eyes she sat up and demanded to know
what was being done to the baby. Stephen did not know, but he told
her they were probably mending its broken arm and it would be all
right in a little while.
"Oh, I do hope they'll let him stay up in the loft with us," Mollie
exclaimed. "I like that little girl. She is so good to the baby.
She and I could take turns looking after him. I'd call him Moses."
"He didn't come in the bull rushes."
"No, but there were the cowberry bushes growing right by the gate.
He almost fell into them. And his sister was right there beside him."
Stephen could not see the connection but agreed to think it over and
tell Mollie later whether or not Moses would be a suitable name for
the newcomer.
"I reckon he has a name already," he observed, after a moment of
serious thought. "I don't guess we ought to choose a new one until
we know for sure."
"Well, anyway, I'm going to ask his sister if I may call him Moses,"
declared Mollie with her characteristic persistency in clinging to an
idea. "If I can call you Splutters I can call him Moses."
Before the argument could be continued both children were summoned to
the house. Peter wanted his supper; Maria wanted help. Cynthy,
seated in a low chair, crooned over the moaning baby in an attempt to
lull him to sleep. Mollie placed dishes upon the table according to
Maria's direction. Stephen ground coffee in a mill which he held
between his knees while he turned the crank that sent the crushed
kernels down into a small receptacle in the bottom of the square box
to which the grinding apparatus was affixed.
The usual menu of fat salt pork, boiled potatoes, corn bread,
molasses and coffee was prepared. There was not enough table ware to
go around, so the children did not eat until after Peter and Maria
had finished. The portion of food remaining for the little ones was
too meagre to endanger their digestions. After the meal Mollie
helped Maria with the dishwashing while Stephen performed his usual
chores about the barn. The baby was asleep now, so Cynthy was sent
to carry feed to the chickens.
Peter went over and inspected the sleeping infant. The sleep had
been induced by Maria, through the medium of her stock remedy for all
bodily ills, corn liquor. After the second spoonful had been
administered it became evident that the child would rest quietly for
some time.
Peter glowered down upon the maimed little creature. Had it been a
bird with a broken wing he would have kicked it out of his way with
one sweep of his huge booted foot. Because it was a child he had
been forced to repair its injury to the best of his crude ability.
He had no confidence in his surgery. If those splints got awry the
bone would come out of the socket again and he would have the whole
thing to do over.
"Drat th' brat!" he exclaimed aloud, mentally cursing himself for
having accepted the baby. "I mought ha' knowed how 'twould be, him
not payin' more'n 'nough fer one. 'Tain't likely him an' her'll ever
git back in these hyar parts, nuther." He crossed to the door and
spat viciously at a tree in the yard.
Mollie, polishing away upon a heavy plate with a towel that resembled
a scrub cloth, watched both Peter and the baby from out the corners
of her eyes. Not a word of the man's soliloquy was lost to her keen
ears. Later she would repeat them to Splutters and he would think
out their probable meaning. Meanwhile she continued to listen.
"Them's Dave Green's young-uns," Peter suddenly announced to Maria,
who had not ventured to make another inquiry after her first rebuff.
"Dave an' Layunie's aimin' ter go ter Indyanner."
Maria dropped her jaw and stared, open-mouthed, awaiting further
enlightenment. None coming she replenished her snuff dip and slumped
into a chair, leaving the final touches of the cleaning-up process to
Mollie.
Peter had enjoyed his salt pork and potatoes and felt more loquacious
than usual. He cut a fresh mouthful of tobacco and settled himself
in a chair by the door.
"Them's th' travellinest folks I ever seed," he went on in a low
grumbling tone as if personally aggrieved by the peregrinations of
the persons he had just mentioned. "They hain't got no home an' they
hain't got no money, nor they won't hev es long es they're traipsen'
frum hell ter Jerusalem a-lookin' fer work whilst other folks takes
keer o' the'r young-uns. Ef they think they're a-goin' ter git me
ter do hit fer nawthin' they're a-goin' ter git mighty fooled, thet's
all."
He turned his head slightly and cast another scowling glance in the
direction of the sleeping baby.
"Didn't Dave pay yo' no money?" queried Maria, meekly. She seemed a
little uncertain as to whether he expected her to say something or
not.
Apparently he did, for he replied to her question with some degree of
civility.
"Yes, fer th' gal, but ef I'd ha' knowed he war a-goin' ter work off
a leetle set-along child on me I'd never hev driv inter town ter
fotch 'em."
"An' our cow-brute's jest a-goin' dry," drawled Maria reflectively.
The thought suggested by the words did not soothe Peter's ill-humor.
"Wisht I'd left him set p'int-blank whar I seed him fust, thar et th'
railroad station," he said. "I come nigh a-doin' hit. But thar war
folks a-comin' an' th' gal would hev set up a hullabaloo so I jes'
brung him along."
"Wa'n't Dave thar!"
"Him an' Layunie'd went. I didn't git thar afore th' train fer th'
no'th pulled out. Th' gal said her Pappy 'lowed hit would be all
right fer ter leave th' least one, bein' es she war a-comin' ter keer
fer him."
"Shucks!" ejaculated Maria. "Hit'll take more'n her ter keer fer him
like he is now. Ef he gits a fever ter-night----"
A commotion out in the yard interrupted the speaker. Ambrose was
yelling as if he were being killed. Vigorous slaps sounded between
the yells. Interpreted with the yells came Cynthy's shrill tones.
"I'll larn yo' ter fling rocks et me, yo' mis'ble pole-cat. Co'se I
killed th' ole snake. Think I want yo' racin' atter me that-a-way?
Ef yo'r Mammy doan larn yo' nawthin' I'll show yo' whut happens ter
shirt-tail young-uns in Kaintucky."
They reached the house together, the fat, overgrown Ambrose
incoherent; the mountain girl volubly expressing her resentment of
the treatment she had received at the hands of the youngster.
"He hit me with a rock----" she commenced, shrilly, as she reached
the door.
"Mammy, Mammy," bawled Ambrose.
But as Maria, without rising from her chair, reached forth her arms
to draw her son toward her, Peter raised his hand and slapped Cynthy
in the face with such force that the little girl reeled backward down
the step and into the yard.
"Mebbe thet'll larn yo' sumpin," he remarked fiercely. Then, as
Cynthy staggered to her feet, "None o' yer sass, now. Git out ter
th' shed whar yo' belong. G'wan. Yo' too," he added, catching sight
of Mollie, standing trembling just within the door. She had been
keeping as still as possible fearing to attract his attention by
passing him after she had finished with the dishes.
Now, at his words, she darted by like a flash and grasped Cynthy by
the hand. "Shall we take the baby!" she asked, bravely, feeling that
a safe distance separated her from the ogre.
"Do we-all hev ter sleep in th' barn?" gasped Cynthy, dully
comprehending what it all meant. "I cain't take keer o' Buddy lessen
I'm in th' house."
Peter rose to his feet. He took one writhing step in their
direction. The look in his face was murderous.
"Yo' heerd whut I said. Air yo' goin' ter move er hev I got ter giv
yo' sumpin' ter make yo'?" he thundered.
"But Buddy--my little brother----" protested Cynthy, anger mingling
with her sobs.
Mollie, remembering the terrible punishment that had been meted out
to Splutters the morning after his arrival, tugged frantically at
Cynthy's dress. Not wanting to desert the barefoot little stranger
she made every effort to drag her to safety. "Come, come," she
whispered. "He'll kill you. He will. He'll kill you."
The ogre was advancing. His great arm was raised. Another instant
and he would be upon them. Mollie was desperate. She gave another
tug at Cynthy's dress, then turned and ran with all her might in the
direction of the barn, Cynthy following.
For hours the two little girls lay with their heads close together by
the loft window, peering toward the house, listening for any sound
that would let Cynthy know her baby brother was awake and being
properly cared for. But no sound came. For a time Stephen shared
their vigil but the poor boy was too wearied by the heavy work
imposed upon him during the day to keep awake long. He finally
crawled off to his corner and fell asleep almost at once.
As darkness finally settled down upon the lonely farm the two little
watchers in the loft window succumbed to tired bodies and overwrought
nerves, and also fell asleep. It was a troubled sleep, broken by low
sobs from Cynthy; now and then a moan from Mollie, nervous starts and
subdued cries. For each was haunted in dreams by the terrifying
experiences through which they had passed and by forebodings of what
was to come.
Once in the night Mollie thought she awakened. But after a moment of
lying with her eyes wide open she decided that she was still asleep
and dreaming. She knew she was very tired and miserable and did not
want to wake up, so she just lay very still and watched the dream
events unfold before her eyes. Whatever it was, it was vague and did
not seem to greatly concern her.
She saw a house with a light within. The light was that of a pine
torch. It moved from room to room. She heard low voices. She saw a
tall, shadowy figure come out from the house and walk off into the
night. She heard a faint, sharp cry and dreamed that one of the baby
pigs had fallen and broken its leg. Then the dream passed on to
other vague and fragmentary illusions and at last, when an old
rooster crowed under the barn window she knew it was morning and that
she had slept all night.
Then came the morning chores and finally the children's entrance to
the house for something to eat. They looked anxiously about for the
baby. Buddy was nowhere in sight!
"Where is he? Where's th' baby!" asked Cynthy of Maria.
"Hain't yo-uns got hit?" the woman replied, somewhat nervously. "I
hain't seed hit sence I got up. Yo' better look out in th' barn."
They looked, wildly, frantically. But Buddy was not in the barn nor
could they find a trace of the baby anywhere.
CHAPTER VIII
MOLLIE MAKES A DISCOVERY
"For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that
shall not be made known."--Matt. x, 26
Mollie strove to comfort Cynthy. She told her the story of Moses in
the bulrushes and of the wonderful care taken of the sparrows.
"Every single sparrow is God's," she explained as they worked
together in the vegetable patch. "And if He looks after them when
they break their wings or their legs, He'll look after a poor baby
with a broken arm. Most likely He reckoned this place was going to
be too hard for Buddy, and because He thought so much of him He
wanted to put him in some other place. He came in the night, so as
not to wake that old ogre, and just took Buddy away quietly; and by
now he's prob'ly all well again."
Cynthy paused in her work of pulling weeds to consider the subject.
"He'd otter let me know," she declared, aggrievedly. "He might take
keer o' me, too. Do He think I ain't got no feelin'? Ef my Pappy
knowed how old Grimes 'bused me he'd shoot him plumb full o' holes.
An' my Pappy paid him money so's I'd git 'nough ter eat 'thout
workin' this-a-way."
"When's your Pappy coming back?" asked Stephen, pouring kerosene into
the can in which he had assembled hundreds of potato bugs, plucked
from the vines that day and which were now about to be incinerated.
It was a task and an execution thoroughly repugnant to him and which
always made him feel ill.
"He ain't never comin' back hyer no mo'," replied Cynthy. "We-all
couldn't git along hyer nohow. Ther wa'n't no work nor nawthin' ter
eat. When he gits a good payin' job up no'th he 'lows ter sen' money
ter Pete fer me an' Buddy ter j'ine him an' Mammy. An' now Buddy's
gone, an' even ef God did take him I reckon I'll ketch th' devil fer
leavin' him outer my sight."
Mollie had recalled repeatedly the conversation which she had heard
between Peter and Maria regarding the unpaid for baby but her natural
kindness of heart kept her from telling Cynthy of the harsh words.
Both she and Stephen were too young to connect them in any way with
the mysterious disappearance of the baby.
The unaccustomed hardships which she and Stephen were daily compelled
to undergo had already worked great changes in their appearance,
their habits and conversation. Stephen, undoubtedly suffered most
because he was just old enough and large enough to be made a farm
drudge, carrying loads that were too heavy for his shoulders;
performing duties that should have been performed by a man; repairing
fences, digging in the garden, working steadily for long hours at a
stretch; and all without proper nourishment or even enough food to
stay the perpetual hunger which was rapidly stunting him physically
and breaking down his constitution and resistance to disease.
Mollie fared a little better. She was about the house more and,
because of her conversational powers, was favored by Maria. Her
quick wit and lightning-like movements also aided her not only in
defending herself against Ambrose without antagonizing his parents,
but in securing many morsels of food and stolen moments of leisure
without discovery. Everything about her personal appearance
evidenced neglect but nothing so far had dulled the bright,
mischievous sparkle in her eyes nor quelled the brave, daring spirit
which dwelt within her small though sturdy frame.
Until her sudden transition into the rough surroundings of this farm
her earlier years had been passed almost entirely within doors.
Naturally robust she was being rapidly weakened by over-much care and
lack of proper exercise. She was always being told that she must be
a "little lady" and not a "tom-boy." And she yearned to be a
"tom-boy."
From her father she had inherited a fondness for the forest, the
flowers and all living creatures, as well as an intuitive sense of
direction and constant urge to explore. That which was unknown and
mysterious attracted her like a magnet. In a surprisingly short time
after her arrival at the farm she had inspected every nook and corner
of its supposed fastnesses. She knew where a small creek passed
between over-hanging trees, forming an attractive pool in which the
cow loved to stand occasionally and from which Walter, the horse,
frequently enjoyed a cool drink. The depth of the pool varied. The
water from the creek apparently emptied into or filtered through the
bog, or swamp-like area which extended along one side of the isolated
farm, effectually severing it from the world which lay beyond.
Cynthy said that all creeks ran into rivers. Mollie knew that large
boats passed on the river near her home. Her father had a boat. She
could not recollect ever having seen him on it, for she had been such
a baby when he went away. And when he returned there had been all
the crying and excitement following her dear mother's strange sleep.
(Mollie had never been told that her mother was dead.)
So she had never gone riding on the water, though she had often
wished to. But she had spent many happy hours playing about her
father's boat--a launch, her mother had called it--down in the boat
house where it was laid up pending its owner's return. Mollie knew,
or thought she knew, exactly what made it go. It was a wheel, up in
front. You just kept on turning that wheel and the boat sailed
through the water like a bird. She had often played that she was
sailing to her father, away on the other side of the world, wherever
that was.
She entertained Cynthy with some of these reminiscences, always
ending with the avowal that some day, if Stephen's friends did not
find out about the mistake which had brought him to the farm and
nobody came for her, she was going to find some way of getting away
from the place.
"I'm too little, now," she would say. "But you just wait till I'm
big enough. You'll see what I'll do."
And she was growing faster even than the weeds she was kept
perpetually pulling. The air and sunshine had been just what she
needed to send the red blood coursing through her veins and bring the
little hot-house plant to a fuller and more vigorous stage of
development. It was her enjoyment of the out-door life and freedom
from conventional restraints of dress and conduct that enabled the
little girl to endure that which would otherwise have broken her
physically and mentally.
Since the strange disappearance of Buddy, other children had arrived
at the farm. Among them were two little boys, Bobby and Willie.
Bobby brought with him a little, red wagon and some building blocks.
Willie knew how to climb trees and do lots of interesting acrobatic
feats. But Ambrose broke the little red wagon and threw the building
blocks into the bog. When their little owner protested, he was
beaten with the handle of a hoe the ogre chanced to be carrying at
the moment.
The effect of that awful beating left the child's body covered with
welts and great, purple bruises. Cynthy knew what to do for bruises.
You took common, brown paper and soaked it in vinegar and placed the
moist, pungent-smelling mass upon the wound. Mollie procured the
necessary vinegar and paper from the house and, with Stephen to play
doctor, that evening after their chores were done the children
managed to make the little sufferer comfortable for the night.
But the next day Bobby had to go to the vegetable patch with the
other children and the hot sun made him ill. Mollie promptly
abandoned her task for the time being and started forth in search of
a shady retreat where Peter or Ambrose would not be likely to disturb
the sick child.
An attractive spot was not so easily found. Everything about the
farm was untidy, unkempt and unsavory. There were beautiful nooks
but they were marred by filth and debris. Mollie finally found a
spot she thought might answer but even it needed attention.
Patiently she gathered up the sticks, stones and battered tin cans
that had accumulated and carried them, a few at a time, to the edge
of the bog, into which she flung them, shutting her eyes tight as the
black, viscid mass licked them hungrily like a gloating monster,
before swallowing them in its depths.
One of the cans fell short. It landed almost at her feet. Like the
other children she was now barefoot. She did not enjoy it. Her feet
had not yet hardened. They were covered with scratches, bruises and
insect stings. Night after night she had cried--and so had
Stephen--over the smarting, aching discomfort resultant from going
without shoes and stockings. But there was no alternative. Those
they had worn when they came had been taken from them. They were
told they might need them, some day, if they ever went anywhere, but
they were unnecessary on the farm.
The can, in falling, dislodged a narrow strip of thin board that
seemed to have lodged in the earth just at the edge of the bog. A
splinter from the board entered Mollie's toe. She stooped to remove
the splinter and paused, wide-eyed and frozen with horror at what she
beheld.
For dangling from the board and still partially wound about it, were
the strips of bandage she had last seen wrapped about Buddy's broken
arm. Now, they were stained with blood.
What did it mean? What had happened? Something terrible must have
hurt Buddy or even eaten the baby alive!
Again Mollie's thoughts flew to the ogre. Her first theory had been
right, after all. Splutters must be wrong. Ogres were not
make-believe. They were real and Peter Grimes was real. Nothing
else could account for his bringing so many little children to the
farm. If he didn't actually eat little children, he liked to hurt
them and that was just as bad. He had hurt Buddy and then he had
thrown him into the bog. And he had managed to do it at night just
when God was busy looking after His sparrows. And here she had been
telling Cynthy that maybe God had taken the baby away to save him!
The frightened, perplexed little girl stood there in the gloom of
those tall trees and held her breath while she gazed, awe-stricken,
at the tell-tale, crimson stains at her feet. Something must be
done. Something must be done quick, she realized, or more of the
children would disappear the same way. Oh, if she were only bigger
and older!
Hark! What was that? It sounded like something moving in the bushes
just beyond. And she was alone there. The other children were in
the garden. She realized now that she no longer heard their voices.
She had come to fix a resting place for the little sick boy. Perhaps
something had happened. It seemed a long time since she had started
off by herself. If the ogre or Maria had come and not found her with
the others----
Thoughts tumbled through her brain so fast that the seconds seemed
hours. The awful sensation that someone--or something--threatening
and ominous was near, unseen, watching her, waiting, waiting to seize
her, and crush her as little Buddy had been crushed, became so
overwhelming that a very convulsion of terror caused Mollie to
tremble and her teeth to chatter. She wanted to turn and run, but
found herself powerless. She wanted to scream but could not make a
sound.
And then, surmounting all other sensations, came the vision of her
father, the strong, dark-faced, almost unknown young man standing,
with some kind of a spear in his hand, facing a lion. She had heard
him tell someone the story. Had seen him illustrate just how steady
he stood. And now, as clear as when she stood by his side, she
seemed to hear him say:
"It doesn't do to be afraid. The man who gets nervous and frightened
is sure to be killed. The only thing to do is keep steady and watch
your chance."
Mollie set her teeth and clinched her little hands till the nails cut
into the flesh. As she did so she took a slow, steady look up at the
sky and all about her. It was to make anyone who might be observing
her think that she was not afraid and did not suspect the presence of
anyone. Then she stooped, picked up the refractory tin can she had
previously tried to cast into the bog and made another attempt. This
time the can went far enough and, without waiting to see it
disappear, she turned about and retraced her steps, back to the truck
patch.
The children were still there. They were quiet because they were
tired and, so Cynthy told Mollie in a whisper, because "old Pete" was
around somewhere.
Mollie knew then that her consciousness of somebody watching her was
not just imagination. The ogre had actually been peering at her from
between the bushes!
She had just resumed her work when Peter Grimes entered the truck
patch. He walked to where she was at work and leered down upon her.
"This all yo' got done?" he asked.
Mollie stood erect and faced him. "No, sir."
"What else yo' ben a-doin'?"
"Reddin' up." Mollie was unconsciously adapting herself to the
language she heard about her.
"Reddin' up what? Whyn't yo' do es yer told?"
"Them cans we burned bugs in were all gaumed up. I got clean ones
and threw 'em in the bog."
"I seed yo'. Thought yo' war a-loafin'. Doan let me ketch ary one
o' yo' a-tryin' hit," he continued, glaring about at the frightened
little toilers. "An' hyar's sumpin' more yo' mought es well git
inter yer haids, ef I ketch ary one o' yo' a-lyin' ter me when I ax
yo' sumpin' I'll skin yo' alive an' fling yo' ter th' hawgs."
His small eyes focused like gimlets upon Mollie.
The little girl met the piercing look as frankly, fearlessly as
before. Splutters, walking wearily past them, displayed a remarkably
clean tin can.
(After hearing Mollie's first statement he had quickly and
unobtrusively cleaned the receptacle with grass, sand and a fragment
of cloth torn from his now tattered shirt.)
Grimes eyed the can, the boy and the girl.
The can looked about as clean as anything on the premises. The boy,
moving steadily and silently along the potato vines, appeared wholly
intent upon his occupation. The girl was looking up into Peter's
face out of her large, clear eyes that seemed to the twisted,
abnormal man almost to smile upon him.
He turned and, without another word, dragged his unwilling, halting
leg down the length of the potato hills and away towards the house.
From that day Mollie's intellectual supremacy became an accepted
though unacknowledged fact. The children yielded to her leadership
and learned to depend upon her. Grimes, without knowing it, actually
feared her.
CHAPTER IX
A REIGN OF TERROR
"And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage ... and in all
manner of service in the field."--Ex. i, 14
Days and weeks rolled into months, and the months into years. Mollie
and Stephen gradually gave up hoping that those responsible for their
imprisonment at the Grimes farm would ever come to release them.
Children came and children were taken away, and others, like Buddy,
just disappeared. For these Mollie grieved night and day.
She never told anyone but Stephen of her grisly discovery that day at
the bog. It would make the little ones too afraid, the boy said.
And some of them might say something that would let Peter know, then
he would slay them all.
Cynthy's father sent small sums of money from time to time but of
this she was unaware. The ogre, as all the children now termed
Peter, never told her of the remittances, nor of the messages
entrusted to him for delivery. She believed her parents had both
been killed on their journey north. Once she tried to run away.
Peter beat and kicked her till she fell unconscious. Mollie was
terrified lest he destroy Cynthy as he had her little brother.
Neither child nor parents dreamed that a few hard-earned dollars
alone stood between the little girl and a horrible death.
All the children were herded like sheep in the barn loft. Their
accommodations there were only such as they contrived themselves.
Each child, upon arrival, was permitted to retain what personal
effects its parent or guardian had sent with it. These ultimately
wore out and were never replenished. If any person ever sent money
for their replenishment it was appropriated by Peter. As a result
the children were a motley assortment of little human scare-crows
whose preternatural common sense and judgment seemed to increase in
proportion to the physical restraints and burdens placed upon them.
For this Mollie and Stephen were largely responsible. Mollie had a
vivid imagination. She could weave wonderful stories. From her
sprite-like, adored mother she had inherited her great capacity to
love, soothe and entertain children. They were never too dirty for
her to kiss, never too naughty for her to quiet. It was a gift, an
instinct, and the circumstances under which she was now forced to
live developed it to an amazing extent.
Stephen's little store of knowledge and his fondness for books proved
of incalculable benefit to all. But not one of the little band of
waifs realized that the tired, broken-down boy who, in the security
of the barn loft, taught them their letters, was eating his heart out
in sombre brooding over his own bitter disappointment. The story
books he had secreted were still cherished jealously. No one but
Mollie was ever permitted to touch them. She could read every story
they contained. At least she thought she could. In truth, she
recited them glibly, not always in strict accord with the printed
text and usually with many interpolations and quaint interpretations
of her own.
Each child that arrived had a little something to add to the general
fund of worldly wisdom, book lore and personal accomplishments.
Mollie felt a great sympathy for the newcomers. She dried their
tearful eyes, heard them say their prayers and tried to tuck them
into bed as she herself had been tucked to rest in that dim, far-off
life which was now beginning to seem almost like a dream.
Mollie measured herself every day. There was an upright beam in the
loft against which she stood and had one of the children mark the
exact spot to which the crown of her head came. Some of the
children, when they arrived at the farm, were taller than she. Day
by day she was creeping up, taller and taller. She had never wanted
to be tall like her father. Her mother was a dear, little,
fairy-like creature and Mollie had always declared that she, when she
grew up, was going to look like her mother.
Since the day of her terrible discovery and subsequent fright under
the shadows of the great trees by the bog she had changed her mind.
She now wanted to be tall. Tall and strong enough to get away from
the farm and to get the children away.
Something was certainly wrong. Probably the farm was bewitched.
Everything good was frightened away from it. Occasionally there were
sparrows about, but they always seemed to be just going somewhere
else. Even those that used to be about the barn had disappeared.
"There must be a way out, Splutters," Mollie would tell Stephen, when
the two chanced to have a moment or two for a little talk alone. "Ef
I could only git near 'nough to hear what some of the men say thet
come in to talk ter Pete, I mought larn sumpin', but I'm allus too
busy gittin' th' young-uns inter th' loft."
It had not been difficult for Mollie to revert to the hill dialect.
She had heard it all her life. Only her mother's careful training
and guardianship had kept her diction pure. Lacking that mother's
perpetual cautions and personal example the vivacious, fly-a-way
little creature had quickly absorbed whatever spoken words came to
her ears. In her eager haste to express thoughts and emotions she
poured them glibly forth with such blissful disregard for the English
language that anyone might easily have mistaken her for the offspring
of the most illiterate mountaineer.
Stephen, more chary of words, slower and more orderly in his habits
of thought and action, had not so completely abandoned his early
training. The fact that he was several years Mollie's senior also
had weight in preserving to him the correct speech to which he was
accustomed before coming to the farm. There were times, however,
when it was the part of wisdom to speak as did those about him. Not
to do so would aggravate Peter.
That repellant individual was daily becoming more brutal--more
obnoxious. The realization of his supreme power over his small
domain stimulated Peter to demonstrate that power ever more
crushingly. He gloated over the little band of captives like a
fiend. It gave him indescribable pleasure to see their fear of him
demonstrated. He would punish a child for no cause whatever, merely
to cow the others and make them tremble or flee at his approach.
Stephen, by the passive, submissive manner in which he always labored
in the accomplishment of almost Herculean tasks had managed fairly
well to escape much physical violence. He had quickly grasped the
routine of farm life and Peter knew that he could be depended upon to
look after the stock as well as he, himself.
It had been Peter's original intention to fetch to the farm a more
stalwart youth or girl for this heavy labor. Fate having willed
otherwise, he was now content with the present arrangement. An older
child would menace the secrecy and security of the infant slave
industry which had now developed to such proportions that farm and
stock interests became secondary in consideration.
But Stephen was finding the work more and more difficult. If the
other children had not surreptitiously come to his assistance he
would not have been able to keep up the appearance of its
accomplishment. The boy worried deeply over the matter. He did not
feel ill. Merely tired. His thin arms would not permit him to carry
a bucket of water unaided. He knew there was no money coming
regularly to Peter for him as there was for Mollie. When he became
unable to work--if he fell ill--he could see nothing ahead but the
bog! Brooding so much made his head ache. His violet blue eyes were
sunken and feverishly bright. He found himself more and more nervous
and fearful, less agile in mounting the ladder, less adept in eluding
the ever-tormenting Ambrose.
Mollie was now some inches taller than Stephen, quick, capable,
resourceful; one moment soothing and encouraging the children like a
little mother, the next helping him about the barn, then running
toward house or garden to meet and distract the attention of Peter or
Ambrose; into the kitchen to filch some portion of food, then back to
the children again, all in less time than it took Stephen to measure
out some feed for the horse.
For the children no longer ate in the kitchen with the family. They
subsisted as best they could upon the scraps and leavings which were
vouchsafed them after the Grimes trio had eaten. Mollie usually went
to the kitchen for these rations and carried them to the barn in a
large tin pan or pail. Maria treated her no worse than she would
have treated her had Mollie been her daughter. She wanted her to
perform those tasks which she was too lazy to perform herself and, if
Mollie failed in their performance, Maria's own dread of her lord and
master compelled her to scold and punish the child or be knocked down
herself for her laxity.
After a few experiences Mollie never failed.
She was worried, however, about Stephen. From the day of their
arrival at the terrible farm he had taken the place of both her
father and mother. He was her confidant and advisor. He was always
ready to comfort and encourage her, and he thought out all her
perplexing problems. If anything happened to Splutters it would
seem, Mollie thought, like the end of the world. Yet she knew, and
Stephen knew, that any day, any moment his life might be in jeopardy.
He still carried with him the letter addressed to the master of the
school which his benefactress had entrusted to him for delivery and
the small photograph, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, which he had
secreted the night his arrival at the farm. These treasures he now
wore about his waist under his tattered shirt. They were carefully
wrapped in a piece of old oilcloth and the packet slipped into a
pocket, torn from an old coat.
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
THE ESCAPE THROUGH THE SWAMP.]
Among the children's prized possessions was a sewing-kit. It had
been found in Stephen's traveling bag. Mollie and Cynthy both knew
how to sew doll clothes. Using this knowledge they sewed Stephen's
precious documents securely in the folded cloth and fastened strings
to it so he could tie them about his waist. Thus they escaped
discovery.
"Ef I ever git away from here," the boy sagely remarked, "they'll
help folks to find out about the mistake."
But the chance of escape grew more and more remote. Mollie, standing
ever between the children and the ogre, was desperate. Something,
she declared, must be done before any harm came to Splutters. It was
Stephen, himself, who suggested the kite. But so far as the children
could judge that first kite never reached its destination.
At the very moment of its ascension Stephen, who was holding the
cord, heard Peter shout for him.
"Steve--hey, yo' Steve, whyn't yo' answer when I call! Come hyar an'
'tend ter this shoat."
In nervous haste the boy released the cord. But he was not quick
enough. The ogre, coming into view at the moment, had a glimpse of
the kite disappearing just beyond the tree tops. Never in their
recollection had the children seen him display such rage.
"Loafin', war yo'," he roared, making a lunge after Stephen to clutch
him by the neck. "I'll l'arn yo'," and he struck out wildly, right
and left, the children dodging from under the flail-like arms and
scurrying like rabbits to places of momentary safety. That night
Stephen received the worst beating of his life.
CHAPTER X
SUBJUGATION
"Take heed, that ye despise not one of these little ones."--Matt.
xviii, 10
For days after that terrifying experience the little flock of
suffering children went about with white, shocked facets, almost
afraid to speak to one another lest they incur another outbreak of
rage.
Returning, tired and tearful to their loft each night after their
pitiful exertions in the field, there was no one to comfort them,
none to ease their misery but Mollie.
And how Mollie loved them! There was Johnnie, whose right foot was
mis-shapen and who always used a little, home-made crutch. And
Willie, the tree-climbing wonder! When the ogre was not at home he
thrilled them all by his exploits. Little Leathie, just as big as
Mollie was when she first came to the farm, and Leon, her twin
brother, though he was half a head taller; tongue-tied Bobbie, still
grieving over the loss of his red wagon and building blocks; Jimmie,
who came to the farm priding himself upon the "fine wallop" he could
give with his sturdy fist and who always "made snoots" at the ogre
behind the latter's back.
All were as dear to Mollie as if they were her own brothers and
sisters. They were her babies--her dolls. Cynthy and Stephen were
her comrades, near her own age. On them she depended for help and
encouragement in whatever she undertook to carry out for the comfort
and benefit of all.
Five years had passed since she and Stephen had been so treacherously
dealt with by those in whom they had placed trust and confidence.
Five years during which neither had any idea what had transpired in
the world beyond the awful moat which barred their escape from the
human fiend to whom they had been consigned.
They did not know it was five years. They had no way of computing
time. They were too young and untutored when they entered upon their
exile to think of checking off days and weeks in any manner that
might enable them to know one day of the week from another. Now they
could not even tell how old they were.
Stephen, after his beating had lapsed into a state of melancholy that
was pitiful. In appearance he was little larger than when he came to
the farm. But with the failing of his strength physically his
tendency to mental concentration had increased. He was thinking,
thinking, thinking every minute of the day and even in his disturbed
dreams at night. The terrific tension was fast reaching a breaking
point. Strange visions came frequently before his eyes. There were
moments when he felt dazed and did not quite know where he was. Once
he did not know Mollie when she spoke to him.
"I reckon I'm goin' ter die," he said, wearily, as she placed cool
wet cloths on his head after they had all mounted to the loft in the
evening.
And Mollie, fighting back her tears, assembled the children about her
and told them for the hundredth time the story of the sparrows.
"God never does nothin' wrong," she assured her rapt little auditors.
"I know, because my Mammy told me afore she went to sleep, that time
I tol' yo' about. An' she said thet when folks thinks He's done whut
ain't right, or ain't a-goin' ter give 'em whut they want, ef yo'
jes' wait an' keep on thinkin' 'bout how He loves His sparrows, some
day yo'll see a mighty lot o' good come out o' whut yo' war thinkin'
war all wrong'.
"Now we've ben a-sayin' our pra'rs ever sense we ben here--me an'
Splutters an' yo'all,--an' God hain't done nothin' yit, ter help us."
Tears were rolling down Mollie's cheeks. She paused to wipe them
away.
"I ain't a-faultin' Him," she continued, softly, "for my Mammy knowed
Him an' she never tol' lies. But Stevie's gettin' most wore out, an'
yo'-all es hungry an' sumpin's got ter be did. Now me an' you-uns is
a-goin' ter ast God ter please git a soon start an' send thet mighty
lot o' good out o' what shorely es all wrong now. We'll say all th'
pra'rs we know, an' atterward we'll git ter work an' make us another
kite--a bigger one with a longer tail. An' we'll send hit up the
fust day old Pete's away. Thet other kite mos' likely got ketched in
a tree."
It was a pitiful little group, for then, as ever, there was a baby, a
"least one", for Mollie to hold in her arms. Little Amy, so near the
age of the unfortunate Buddy that Mollie would not trust the infant
out of her sight a moment, lay across her knee, sleeping fitfully.
Mollie arose and placed the sleeping baby upon a pile of bedding,
then knelt, with the children about her, near the pallet of straw on
which poor Stephen lay, too ill and weary to comprehend what was
going on about him.
Down below, Walter, the horse, whinnied softly in his sleep.
Outside, the watch-dog Peter had procured after Cynthy's attempt to
run away bayed dismally. He was as lonely and homesick as the
children. He would have liked to be with them.
Mollie, who had been surreptitiously feeding the forlorn animal,
remembered him in the fervent appeal which she poured forth for their
deliverance from the hands of their captor and tormentors.
"An' please, God," she begged in conclusion, "when yo' hev looked
atter us children, don't fergit Tige, fer he wants ter be a good dawg
an' Pete won't giv' him a chanst."
Then, scanning the pathetic little faces before her, she called upon
the children singly, according to the amount of religious instruction
each had received, and listened lovingly to their petitions. Jimmie
recited what he said was a "Cath'lic pra'r--three or four on 'em."
Johnnie knew "a 'Piscopal one." Willie's "Baptis' pra'r" came next.
Leathie, Leon and Bobbie lisped "Now I lay me down to sleep," and
each received a kiss from Mollie when the prayer was finished. Then
came the "Our Father" prayer, which they said in unison, Mollie
leading and even poor Splutters trying to join.
"'Tain't every night we kin pray so much," said Mollie as she
dispersed the children to bed, "but this was special. All God's
sparrows make a lot o' fuss an' mebbe thet's why they git all th'
'tention. But I reckon we beat 'em ter-night."
Work on the "bigger and better kite" progressed under difficulties
but they finished it at last. It was sent up, as the reader already
knows, with a success that argued well for the future. Mollie was
sure that at last they had, by the very persistency of their efforts,
brought their deplorable situation to the attention of One able to
combat even the terrible Peter Grimes.
"Yo' jes' wait an' see," she would reiterate as they bent their
youthful backs over their imposed tasks in the garden. "Sumpin's
a'goin' ter happen right soon. I feel hit a-comin'."
Then Peter strode in among them and turned his terrible eyes upon
Cynthy.
"Yo' come with me," he muttered, grasping her roughly by the arm.
With a scream the child tried to wrench herself loose. She thought
he meant to kill her.
"Shet up," he commanded, increasing the pressure on her arm and
dragging her, regardless of her struggles, back toward the barn.
There he released her, with a final warning to keep quiet.
"G'wan an' wash yer face an' git yer shoes," he told her. She fled
to do his bidding. But the shoes she had brought with her were far
too small. She had to carry them, as before, over her arm. Where he
purposed taking her, Cynthy did not know; she dared not ask. Meekly
she followed Peter through the gate and, at his command, climbed into
the ramshackle buggy. He writhed down into the seat beside her.
"I laid off ter fling yo' ter th' hawgs," he grumbled, as he picked
up the lines that hung loosely on old Walter's back, "but yer paw's
a-waitin fer yo' in Chicawgy. Thar you'll be so plumb fur away
'twon't hurt nawthin'. Yo' kin tell yer Paw th' leetle feller died."
Cynthy heard the words but they fell unheeded after the first
sentence which told her that her father was still alive. He was
waiting for her! She was going to him! He had sent for her!
"Oh, glory!" she gasped, as the tears trickled slowly over her pale
cheeks. "An' I was th' only one who didn't feel ter b'lieve Mollie
when she tol' us sumpin' jes' nachully was gwine fer ter happen, once
God tuk a soon start."
"What's thet?" roared Peter, bringing the horse to a halt and glaring
around at the little girl.
"Nawthin'," she whimpered. "I was jes' thinkin' 'bout my Pappy."
"Well, shet up," ordered Peter. "Giddep!"
The horse moved on.
CHAPTER XI
PLOTTERS
"The wicked plotteth against the just."--Ps. xxxvii, 12
It was just before noon when Peter Grimes placed Cynthy aboard the
train which was to carry her north to her parents and safety. Peter
performed the duty because there was no way of avoiding it without
danger to himself. The letter which had come to him from Cynthy's
father had contained not only her railroad fare but an extra amount
to pay for the care of the baby, for whom no arrangements had been
made at the time the parents, in dire poverty and uncertain as to the
outcome of their venture into an unknown locality, had decided to
leave with his sister.
Now, the father had written, most laboriously, to thank Peter for his
kindness and to repay him for the extra expense incurred. Both
children, the letter stated, were to be sent in the care of the
conductor of the train designated. The conductor had even been
notified when to expect them.
The length of time Peter had been accepting the remittances sent with
such regularity by Cynthy's father made it necessary for him to
surrender the little girl when requested. As for the baby, nobody
knew when it died; never would know. The parents were too far away
to ask questions. They couldn't do anything, anyway.
Peter's conscience did not trouble him as he pocketed the money they
had sent. He had no conscience.
A dumb animal, when it hears a cry of distress from another of its
kind will manifest alarm, anxiety and a desire to help the afflicted
one. Peter Grimes was lower than the animals. Totally devoid of
moral sense, his callousness to suffering had developed within him
all the characteristics of a fiend. The first money ever handed him
in an envelope without any effort on his part to earn it had been the
final undoing of an already unbalanced and distorted mind.
The thought of procuring more and more money in the same manner
became an obsession. It was the object of his life. His pastime and
recreation was the infliction of pain. It thrilled him to witness
suffering in any form. The more he witnessed the more insatiable he
grew. He found satisfaction in seeing anything helpless succumb to
his mighty power. It gratified his pride.
Covertly he shook his fist after the receding train. He would have
enjoyed seeing it blown to bits or flung over an embankment. That
train was bearing from him the human equivalent of money. Peter
would miss those regular remittances.
Climbing once more into his old buggy, he turned the horse's head in
the direction of the post office. He had placed an advertisement in
three newspapers published in three different towns. Someone may
have written regarding the placement of a child on his farm. That
would fill the vacancy just caused by the withdrawal of Cynthy. The
thought afforded Peter pleasurable anticipation. It was followed by
another that caused a horrid, sinister smile to twist his crooked
face in a grimace so malignant that anyone observing it would have
fled from his presence.
"Thet thar least un's Maw--ef ther hain't no money cum from her
ter-day, I know whut I'm a-goin' ter do. I cain't afford ter keep
hit a-squallin' aroun' an' Mollie a-spendin' all her time a-keerin'
fur hit. Ther hain't nawthin' ter be made harborin' them kind o'
young-uns. A woman 'thout a man allus gits tared payin' money fer
her young-un an' clars out. I reckon thet's whut she's done. Ef she
thinks I'm a-goin' ter keep th' brat she's p'int-blank wrong."
But the baby's mother was not so unnatural as Peter supposed. There
was a letter from her among the mail awaiting Peter at the post
office. The letter was a mere scrawl, on very soiled paper, and with
it were several one dollar bills, also much soiled and crumpled.
Peter recognized the handwriting before he opened the envelope. The
same handwriting appeared on a small package that was also handed to
Peter. It was marked:
"Fragile--Handle with Care."
He thrust the package into his pocket. "Another fool toy!" he
muttered under his breath. "Thet woman's a plumb idjit."
Before he had time to read the letter or to continue examining his
mail he heard himself addressed. Thrusting the envelope with the
soiled dollar bills into his pocket with the package and other
letters, Peter turned to face the speaker.
The latter was a man of about thirty-five years. He was somewhat
stocky in build, well dressed, and had sharp, restless eyes that
seemed to be ever on the alert as if he were expecting someone,
watching for someone or was apprehensive of surveillance. At first
glance he might have been described as rather prepossessing, but when
he smiled, the manner in which his upper lip curled back from his
teeth and drew up under his short, dark mustache made one feel that
it boded ill for the person who thwarted his will or incurred his
enmity.
Peter stared for a moment before he recognized the man. The
stranger's lip curled in a smile. Peter knew him then. But no
answering smile twisted his face. Plainly he was not pleased by the
encounter.
"Howdy!" he ejaculated in a tone that would have discouraged anyone
not having a special object in accosting him.
Again the stranger smiled. He seemed to enjoy Peter's discomfiture.
"Don't get alarmed," he remarked cheerfully. "I didn't come to take
the girl away. You received that last money I sent, didn't you?"
Peter became more cheerful. Instantly his face darkened.
"I got hit," he replied, "but hit'll hafter be more nex' time. Yo'
must ha' ben mighty unthoughted not ter conceit a big gal like she is
now costs more ter feed an' clothe than a leetle, mosquito-like thing
she war when yo' brung her ter me five year back."
"Oh, come now," returned the other, speaking in a low voice and
drawing Peter to one side. "I'm paying you plenty and you know it.
I gave you too much in the first place, that's all. But a bargain's
a bargain and I'll stand by it. And I'm going to see that you do,
too. Get me?"
Evidently Peter did, for he made no reply. He merely stood with his
head slightly drooped, like a dog that has received a lash, waiting
for what was to follow. He had not long to wait.
"I just got into town this morning," the man continued. "I was
planning to take a run out to your place. Luckily, I saw you drive
by the hotel. I thought you'd probably stop here at the post office,
so I hurried right down."
He paused. Peter waited, then edged toward the door. "Waal, I
reckon I'd better be gittin' on," he drawled.
The other stayed his departure. "Wait a minute," he said. "I want
to talk with you. I've got a proposition I think you'll be
interested in. You'd better put your horse up somewhere and come
over to the hotel--say in about half an hour. I've got a man out now
getting some information. He'll be back by that time and I'll be
ready to discuss the matter."
Peter twisted and writhed as he peered furtively at the speaker
before replying.
"Ther hain't no call fer me ter go ter no hotel es fur es I kin see,"
he remarked. "Jes' whut mought yo' be aimin' ter talk ter me erbout?"
Again the man's lip curled back, his mustache drooped down and he
spoke through his white teeth much as a dog would emit a low,
threatening snarl.
"I thought you might like to make a little easy money. Of course if
you don't, I can take the girl--Mollie--off your hands as well now as
any time."
The threat was not lost on Peter. He did not want to surrender
Mollie. She was his main source of income. It had been bad enough
to lose Cynthy. But the amount he received for Mollie was far beyond
the small sum Cynthy's father had been wont to remit. And this man
now talking to him about a proposition to make easy money was Bailey,
the stranger he had met at the crossroads five years previous and
with whom he had made a contract that had brought him more easy money
than he had ever dreamed of.
Peter thrust his tongue in his cheek and revolved the tobacco in his
mouth while his slow-moving wits considered the ultimatum that had
just been issued.
"All right," he said, at length. "I got a little business ter look
arter et Smith's Golden Rule an' then I'll come right over. Whar'll
I find yo'?"
Bailey told him the location of his room. "You needn't say anything
to anyone at the hotel," he remarked in a casual manner. "Just come
right up to the room."
Peter grunted scornfully. "Huh! Yo' don't need ter be afeared o' my
sayin' nawthin' ter nobody."
"I believe you," returned Bailey as they separated.
Half an hour later, in a room of the Mansion House, Grimes, Bailey
and a third man, that Bailey introduced at Mr. Swazey, sat down
together to discuss the proposition dealing with easy money.
Mr. Swazey was not one who, from his appearance, would ever be judged
to have had much money, easy or otherwise. He had a belligerent
face, red hair, freckles, and pale blue eyes that were as hard and
cold as steel. He wore a cheap suit of plaid material, a dazzling
stick pin and a pair of sneakers.
"It's like this, Mr. Grimes," said Bailey, after making sure there
was no possibility of their conversation being overheard. "Mr.
Swazey, here, is going to assist me in a little undertaking of a
purely business nature. We need a man of your judgement,--one who
knows how to keep his mouth shut--to go in with us on the deal. If
it goes through successfully, as it ought to if you do your part,
there's a thousand dollars in it for you, cold cash."
He paused to let the statement sink in. There was no doubt, however,
of Peter's comprehension. His jaw fell, his mouth opened and his
small, venomous eyes gleamed with avarice.
A thousand dollars! He had never seen so much money. His hands
closed and unclosed convulsively as if he already felt it in his
grasp. Keep his mouth shut? Go in on the deal? Ha! There was
nothing he would not do to possess a thousand dollars. If they
thought he was liable to refuse they were crazy. He closed his mouth
and licked his lips in a fever of expectation. So deeply was he
revolving the matter in his mind that he forgot to speak. Bailey
roused him.
"Well, what do you say?"
"Shore."
"You'll do it?"
"Shore."
"All right, it's a bargain. Mr. Swazey, here, is a witness. And if
there's any backing out or double-crossing or any leak--"
Bailey paused and displayed his teeth while his lip curled back and
his mustache drooped down and the impression was given that in any of
the eventualities mentioned, serious and probably fatal results would
be experienced by Mr. Peter Grimes.
"Thar won't be none," that gentleman declared, greedily. "Whut I
wanter know is, when do I git the thousand dollars!"
"When we get the pile we're after," Bailey replied, "and here's cash
money in advance for the care of the child." He counted out some
bills which Grimes accepted eagerly. "As I said, it's an
undertaking," Bailey went on. "We hope it will be successful. We
expect it to be successful. If it fails we all stand to lose. If it
goes through, we all win. Do you know what a ransom is, Mr. Grimes?"
Peter thought he did, but Bailey enlightened him further.
"Now, the whole thing hinges on whether or not our man will come
across with the money after he finds his child has disappeared,"
Bailey said when he had finished. "If he refuses--if he sets the
police after us--all we have to do is put the kid where it will never
be found, dead or alive. That'll be up to you, Grimes. What we want
you to do is hold the youngster until the father agrees to pay; then
we'll come and fetch her and give her to him in exchange for the
ransom money. We'll take you with us, so you can see the deal
finished and you'll get your thousand dollars then and there."
Grimes had been following every word with the utmost attention. He
now looked apprehensively over his shoulder as if he thought someone
might be standing behind him, then leaned forward and said:
"An' ef he doesn't pay--" He paused questioningly.
Again Bailey's lip curled back from his teeth and his mustache
drooped as he looked straight into the gleaming eyes of the supposed
hog-farmer.
"I think you'll know what to do--won't you?"
Grimes' face twisted to one side and his fingers moved as if
clutching something by the throat. "Shore," he replied. "An' I'll
do hit. Arything 'at stands atween me an' one thousand dollars
hain't a-goin' ter stand thar long."
"I guess we understand each other," said Bailey. "Now we'll get down
to business. When do you think we can do the job, Swazey?"
CHAPTER XII
THE MONSTER COMES
"A wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame."--Prov. xiii, 5
The ogre was approaching his castle.
In other words Peter Grimes, after his conference with Messrs Bailey
and Swazey, was on his way to his bog-infested farm. He was
supremely happy and self-satisfied. Riches unlimited gleamed in
perspective before his eyes as did a bag of oats before the eyes of
his horse. His former exploits counted as nothing beside the
undertaking upon which he had now embarked under the leadership of
the brilliant Bailey. Peter twisted and writhed in very enjoyment of
the prospect. And because he was happy he felt cruel--murderously
cruel. He wanted to celebrate.
Had it not been for the swamps he might have reached home by a short
cut. That being impossible he drove direct from the court house
square down to the river road, followed it to the point where it
crossed the old turnpike, thence along the pike until he came to the
narrow, tortuous road, traversed only by those who went to and from
the Grimes farm. It was while covering this last stage of his
journey that Peter remembered his mail.
He felt of his pockets to assure himself that it was all safe. It
was. A corner of the cumbersome parcel came in contact with his
horny hand.
"What'n hell--" he muttered, then paused in the very act of
withdrawing the parcel to give his attention to the horse.
Old Walter had halted. He had arrived at the castle gate. There was
a bog to the right of him, a bog to the left of him, a monster behind
him and an impassable barrier almost at the end of his nose. Being
an intelligent animal despite his environment, he halted.
Peter did not shout for Maria. His thoughts were far away from home
and family. Slowly he writhed and twisted down over the wheel of the
buggy until he stood erect upon the ground. Then, taking hold of the
horse's bridle, Grimes told him to back. Walter backed sufficiently
to permit Grimes to pass between him and the high gate. Feeling in
his pocket for the key Peter's hand again came against the parcel.
This time he drew it forth.
It was a light pasteboard box, not very securely wrapped and tied
with ordinary cord. With one jerk of his huge thumb he broke the
cord, then tore away the paper and opened the box. In it, lying
among wrappings of tissue, was a doll. A baby doll with cherubic
face, winning smile and arms and hands reaching upward as if pleading
for some little mother to lift it up and snuggle it in her arms.
But the sound that rumbled from the throat of Peter Grimes at sight
of the dainty toy was not one of joyous appreciation. As a
combination of snort and grunt any one of his ugly, forbidding
looking hogs might have been proud of it. Taking the doll from its
wrappings he held it in his hand and examined the card pinned to its
white dress.
"to my darling Amy, with love from her Mammy."
The words were written by the same hand that had penned the letter
containing the dollar bills. It reminded Peter that he had been
interrupted before he had finished reading that letter. Crushing the
doll under his arm, he pulled the missive from the pocket where he
had stowed it, smoothed out the crumpled paper and read the few
sentences scrawled across its surface.
"Deer Mister Grimes, i send you this money. it is all i hev .. i hev
been awful sick so i cudent pay like i giv you my word, when i git
better i will send more. I know little Amy has growd. i wud like
for to see her. i am glad she is at your farm whar things is good
fer her. i pray God to take keer of her till i kin hev her agin,
yours truly Ruthena Potts."
Peter snorted again as he finished reading. This time the snort
sounded more like a growl. He gnashed his teeth, crumpled the
pathetic message in his fist and dropped it to the ground. Turning,
his heel trod it into the earth. Then he took the doll from under
his arm and surveyed it again. The smile on its face maddened him.
The appealing little hands seemed to strike at his heart. Damn it!
He wasn't going to have that thing on the premises. The living
children were enough to have to face, without being haunted by
something that looked like a dead one. He wanted to see a child run
and scream, like a tortured mouse. This doll was passive, peaceful,
trusting--bah! He hated it.
With the thought he flung it, as if it had stung him, out into the
bog. For a moment it lay there, floating on the surface of the black
ooze, sustained by the filmy lightness of its frock. Then the grim
mass reached upward, little by little, over the small body, sucking
it ever downward until finally, only the sweet, smiling face and one
tiny, outstretched arm remained visible.
From where he stood, the monster leered and gloated. Still the sweet
face smiled its tranquil smile, the little arm waved and beckoned.
The black mud lapped on. Now, the little face was blotted out. Only
the arm remained. Would it never disappear? It was going--slowly.
Nothing was left now but the pink, fairy-like hand. It moved with
the fluctuations of the engulfing mud. Was it waving in farewell?
Was it mocking him? Well, let it. It wouldn't wave long. There!
With a gentle, tragic flutter the pathetic little fingers sank from
view. The mud closed over the spot where they went down. It was
gone! The doll that a fond mother had thought would be pressed by
her baby's lips had disappeared forever.
For a moment the monster remained staring at the spot as if some
unseen influence emanating from the doll were tugging at him,
striving to drag him down with it into the depths.
"Bah!" he ejaculated, ridding himself of the quid of tobacco in his
mouth. "Ter hell with hit!"
Then he took the soiled and crumpled dollar bills that the poor
mother had sent him, counted them, smoothed them carefully and placed
them safely within the breast pocket of his coat.
When he entered the castle gate the bigger and better kite that
carried upon its face a message to God from His little ones had been
safely flung to the breeze.
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT HAPPENED TO SPLUTTERS
"Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird without cause."--Lam. iii,
52
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The jangling sound resounded to every part of the Grimes farm.
Someone sought entrance at the castle gate. Maria heard the bell but
she paid no heed. No one ever opened the gate any more but the ogre,
himself. Ambrose heard the clamor, but the only interest it had for
him was that of seeing all the children scurry for the barn loft. He
liked to impede them in their progress and laugh at their tears when
his father beat them for their delay.
They were coming now, running along like frightened sheep, with
Mollie as shepherdess. Peter was watching them. He was waiting to
open the gate and admit the pilgrim.
"Hurry, chil'un, hurry," gasped Mollie, breathless from her
exertions, with the baby on her arm, Leathie by one hand and another
of the younger children stumbling along just ahead.
The bell rang again. The ogre was waving his long arms in silent
command for them to make haste. They would hear from him later.
Up the perpendicular ladder they clambered, each foot barely missing
little fingers trying from below to clutch the ladder's rungs.
Mollie had one child on her back now and was hoisting chubby Leon
upward and onward by boosting him with her head. It was hard work,
especially for the younger children and for Johnnie with his crutch,
yet three and four times every day the feat was accomplished. No one
who had visited the farm in all those five years had ever seen a
child, other than Ambrose, on the premises.
Reaching the loft the children rushed, with one accord, to drag into
position the great, wooden shutter that closed the window space. Not
until then did Mollie discover that Stephen was missing. Alarmed,
she ran to the opening in the floor and peered down into the stable
below. Perhaps he had stopped there with old Nell. The stable was
dark. Mollie, herself, had closed the barn door behind them. But
there was light enough from the chinks and cracks for her to see that
Stephen was not there. The girl's heart seemed to leap into her
throat. She turned to the children.
"Splutters hain't hyar!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "Whar is he? Did
he fall? Hain't none o' yo' seed him?"
The children shook their heads.
"He war with us back a piece," said one.
They ran to where the wooden shutter obscured them from the view of
any person who might have entered the gate, and peered from every
knot hole and crack for a glimpse of Stevie. He was not in sight.
The reason he was not in sight became apparent a few seconds later.
For the moment, he was directly under the window with his back
against the barn and facing Ambrose. He was warding off the latter's
blows, trying to dodge the fat, over-grown lummox, now twice as large
as himself, although much younger, and escape to some shelter before
the evil eyes of Peter should discern him, or he be forced by Ambrose
into view of the stranger.
The latter was plainly a native of that section and evidently a
farmer. Seated in a rickety light-wagon he drove in at the open
gate, which Peter promptly closed and locked behind him. The horse
attached to the wagon had an aged, dejected appearance, somewhat in
harmony with that of his master. The latter brought his equipage to
a halt close by the hog-pen and descended to inspect its occupants.
Never having visited the farm before, he was evidently unaware how
closely the swamps hedged it about, for the rear wheels of his wagon
came perilously near the edge of the horrible pit over which Grimes
had held Stephen more than five years before.
Lying on their sides, across the end of the wagon-box, were a couple
of barrels. The farmer, having selected a shoat, paid for it, then
let down the tail-board of the wagon, preparatory to loading the
animal into the vehicle. As he stepped back to the pen to secure his
purchase one of the barrels, jarred by the dropping of the
tail-board, rolled unnoticed out of the wagon and bounced in the mire.
At the sound of the splash Peter and his customer both turned around.
The latter, evidently under the impression that the bog was merely a
hog wallow, strode towards it to drag his property out and replace it
in the wagon.
"Dawg-gone hit," he exclaimed, turning to Peter, "Lookut thet, now.
I reckon we'll hev ter git a plank--"
He paused to stare at the hog vendor. Peter seemed to be grimacing
at him. In a moment it became apparent that he was laughing. He
gestured toward the bog.
"Ef yo' air goin' ter git hit," he chuckled, "yo'll hev ter git hit
in a swivvet an' not wait fer no plank."
The farmer's gaze turned from Peter to the barrel. His eyes dilated.
The barrel was almost submerged. It was slowly but surely sinking.
He took several hasty steps with some thought of wading into the mud
and retrieving the barrel unaided. Peter's strange mirth and
possibly, as Stevie would have said, his guardian angel stayed him at
the brink. He paused again to look, and in that instant the barrel
disappeared. Thick layers of mud closed over the spot where it went
down.
"Tarnation!" the man gasped. "Whar--whar'd hit go?"
"Whyn't yo' g'wan in an' find out," returned Peter, making no effort
to conceal his disappointment at being deprived of so pleasing a
spectacle as the death of a human being. "I hain't a-stoppin' yo'."
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"IS GRIMES COMIN'?"]
Again the farmer stared. Was this Peter Grimes crazy, he wondered.
He had heard for years that he was "queer," but he had never had
dealings with him before. The whole place seemed queer. He wished
he had gone elsewhere to purchase his hog. Now he had lost the
barrel of molasses he had just been to town to buy! And this man,
Grimes, seemed pleased over his loss and displeased because he,
himself, had not been swallowed up with his barrel. If he had--
Enlightenment came suddenly upon him. If he had, Peter Grimes would
have the hog as well as the money that had just been paid for it--and
also the horse, wagon and supplies! No one knew he had driven up
there; no one would search for him there. It would have been assumed
that he had driven off the road at some point and got lost in the
swamps. Why, the man was crazy. He was capable of murder. Perhaps
he would yet kill him before he got away.
The farmer, whose name was Craddock, stepped hastily back from the
edge of the bog and around to his horse's head, keeping his eyes
focused upon Peter, meanwhile, suspicious of the latter's intentions.
"I didn't know you-all had one of them sinkholes up so clost ter yer
house," he remarked, taking hold of the horse's bridle and pulling
him about until the wagon stood in a safer position. "Why didn't you
tell me?"
"'Sposed yo' hed eyes," replied Peter, belligerently, stooping,
nevertheless and helping his customer pick up the shoat he had
purchased and toss it into the wagon.
Then, just as the tail-board was again fastened, an astonishing thing
happened.
A child--a boy, evidently, for it was practically obscured by a man's
coat and a hat several sizes too large,--dropped suddenly, apparently
from heaven, and landed on the ground directly between Peter and
farmer Craddock. From their faces it would have been difficult to
judge which was the more amazed. The child stood, silent and
trembling, before them.
Then the children, from their hiding place in the barn loft, all saw
him. It was Splutters! Mollie involuntarily shut her eyes. She
expected to see Grimes strike him dead or pick him up bodily and hurl
him into the bog. She knew, now, what had happened. It had happened
before--but the limb of the tree had never broken before. Ambrose
had tripped Stevie. He had held him back from entering the barn
door. She, in her haste to close it, had not noticed that he was
still outside. Then, in a desperate attempt to elude Ambrose,
Stevie, weak and sick as he was, had struggled and fought his way up
the outside of the building until he could swing into the limbs of a
large tree where, among the foliage, he might screen himself from
observation.
Stephen alone knew how difficult the feat had been, for in his
weakened physical condition he was totally unequal to any exertion.
So loud was the roaring in his ears and the pressure on his head
that, when the limb broke and he was dropped like plumpet right at
the feet of the two men, the boy was incapable of sensing anything
accurately.
But he was vaguely conscious that the stranger's voice was kindly and
that when he looked upon him his keen, trustworthy eyes seemed to see
and understand his misery.
He was also vaguely conscious that in response to the stranger's
inquiry, Peter Grimes, with a murderous look, had said:
"Oh, he's a leetle feller I'm a lookin' arter fer a spell, but I doan
aim ter keep him long," at which Stephen had almost imperceptibly
drawn nearer the stranger.
And at the moment the latter placed his hand not un-gently upon the
boy's shoulder.
"I could use a leetle feller like him on my place. Them bugs--the
little old hatefuls--is jist eatin' the life out o' my potatoes," he
said. "Spose I gin ye a dollar more an' tote him along with me."
If he had not exhibited the dollar bill as he spoke it is likely
Peter Grimes would have deliberated long enough to become suspicious
of the offer and decline it. Now, acting solely upon impulse
resultant from his desire to lay violent hands upon Stephen at the
earliest possible moment, he signified his acceptance by action
rather than word. Extending one hand for the money, with the other
he reached out and clutched Stephen by the coat collar, lifted him up
like a sack of oats and, instead of tossing him into the bog, sat him
down with vicious force on the remaining barrel in the wagon.
Farmer Craddock mounted quickly to the seat, picked up the reins and
turned his horse's head towards the gate which Peter went to
unfasten. As the wagon turned about Stephen, from his seat in the
rear, faced the shuttered window of the loft. He knew he was going
away--leaving Mollie and the others, perhaps never to see them again!
But he was too ill, too dazed, too troubled by the roaring and
surging, and pressure of his head to think about it. He just sat
still and watched the farm panorama pass slowly by him as the wheels
of the wagon revolved.
On the left, the bog. To the right, the house, with Maria sitting,
listless, on the doorstep, Ambrose near by, tormenting the dog. In
the distance, the hated truck-patch and hog-pen. And straight before
him, as he rode backwards from the place was that shuttered window
behind which Mollie and the other children were watching, and before
which he and Mollie had knelt so many nights, mingling their childish
tears and praying for someone to come and take them away.
Now he was going and Mollie was still there--in that prison, behind
those rough boards, looking out at him and wondering, perhaps, why he
did not take her with him. He wanted to send her some word, to call
to her, to wave his hand but he felt powerless, inert, unable to move
hand or foot. His head ached. Poor little Splutters could not think.
But what was that his eyes beheld--there, at that shuttered window?
Oh, yes, he knew, now. It was a hand--Mollie's hand! She saw him,
then. She understood. She was waving to him.
Another hand! Still another. Lots of hands. Why, all the children
were there! Mollie had called them. She was telling them all to
wave--to him--to Splutters,--to tell him good-by!
How they fluttered--those hands. Like birds--little, white birds!
They were growing smaller now--farther away. But he could still see
them. The wagon was passing through the gate. He strained his eyes
for a farewell look. Yes, they were still there--waving--the little
birds--waving--waving--
Something--something was shutting them from him. He could no longer
see them. They were gone. Everything was black before him--
The ogre closed the gate!
Splutters lay unconscious beside the shoat, in the bottom of the
wagon.
CHAPTER XIV
THE KIDNAPPING
"If the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would
come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his home to
be broken up."--Matt. xxiv, 43
Bill Swazey, the gentleman who wore a plaid suit, brilliant stick pin
and sneakers was not a detective. Had anyone mistaken him for one he
would have considered himself insulted. In fact, he loathed the
word, detective. Yet the report which Mr. Swazey submitted to his
superior, registered at the Mansion House as "W. J. Bailey, Phila.,"
might easily have been mistaken for the report of an operative to his
chief. It read:
"Re: Wayne. (Harris A.)--BZ. reports:
"House about four miles out. Large. White. Pillared entrance.
Yard. Trees. Shrubbery. French Windows. Good get-a-way. Nursery,
second floor, over library, east side. Fruit tree near with
convenient ladder. Classy servants. Child three years old. Name,
Doris. Mother dead. Nurse in charge.
"Housemaid recently married chauffeur. Received check from Wayne for
wedding present. Servants plan private blow-out to-night to
celebrate the affair. Wayne will address War Veterans at regimental
rally in town. After child's abed nurse will go down stairs to
attend wedding banquet. Zero hour, 9 P.M. Little Billie on the job.
Park car, engine running, cedar clump, east side. Don't fail. If it
rains, all the better."
Bailey found the "memo" waiting for him when he asked for his mail at
the hotel. It was in a sealed envelope. The clerk said a small
colored boy had brought it. Bailey thanked the clerk and withdrew to
the privacy of his room to read the missive. After doing so he
leaned back in his chair and puffed vigorously at his cigar.
At last, he was about to even up his score with Harris Wayne. The
thought pleased him. It made his lip draw back from his teeth, and
brought his mustache down over it with an expression so sinister and
revengeful that if Harris Wayne, formerly of the United States Marine
Corps, had seen it, he would have been tempted to kick Mr. Bailey a
good deal harder than he had kicked him the day he found him
appropriating another marine's wallet in a Y.M.C.A. hut in France.
"I told Wayne then I'd make him pay for it, and now he's going to do
it," exclaimed Bailey aloud, bringing the legs of his chair down to
the floor with an emphatic thud. "He made me lose money that day,
damn him! That leatherneck was bumped off two hours afterward and
somebody else got the dough. I've waited years for this chance.
Wayne didn't hesitate to turn me over to the M.P.'s. Now it's my
turn."
He paced the floor a few times then put on his hat and went out to a
public telephone booth. The number he called was located in a city
some little distance away. When given the connection he spoke
briefly.
"Hello, Louis. This is Jim. Is the car ready?--All right, send her
down right away. Don't bring her into town. Hold her at the edge of
the woods just beyond the tobacco patch north of the Help-U Gas
Station. I'll meet you there around seven o'clock. Watch out, now.
If anything goes blooey you'll be out of luck."
The day that little Stephen made his forlorn exit from Peter Grimes'
farm was also the day of the regimental reunion of war veterans at
the county seat.
Harris Wayne was not a member of that regiment but he had a brilliant
over seas' record and, moreover, was the wealthiest and most
influential land owner in that section of the country. As a matter
of courtesy and also because of his personal popularity he had been
invited to address the assembly after their banquet that evening.
The veterans who extended the invitation were unaware that for Wayne
the day was fraught with sad and bitter memories that made his
participation in any gala occasion painful and his interest forced.
On that day, only two short years before, his wife, the beautiful
young mother of his little Doris, had sacrificed her life to save
another's child from drowning. She had loved little children. It
had been her dream to rear a large family. She had proved how great
was her love but she had left behind her only one child--a little
girl, less than a year old.
The bereft father idolized the child but his heart ached with grief
and loneliness. The loss of his bride and the shattering of all
their bright dreams of the future was to the young veteran a more
terrible wound than any he had endured in France. Except for little
Doris he would have given way to complete despair. She, too, mourned
for the lovely lady whose caresses were so tender and who murmured
such loving words.
But little Doris' mother would never come to her again. She would
have to be happy now in the nurse's arms. Choking back his own sobs
Harris Wayne told this to the child again and again. Doris could not
understand. She did not want the nurse. She wanted her mother.
No one but Wayne, himself, could comfort her. He was compelled,
therefore, to devote himself to her childish moods. As a result
there had grown up between the two such a bond of sympathy and
affection that now, when Doris was nearly three years old, he lived
solely for her and was uneasy every minute she was out of his sight.
"She is all alone there in that great house," he would say when
chided about his nervousness. "It is not as if she had brothers and
sisters to play with and grow up among. It is unnatural for a child
to thrive in solitude, cared for only by servants. She must have the
companionship of someone not a hireling; one who is actuated by love,
not gold."
But the thought of marrying again and supplying his darling with a
step-mother was repugnant. The memory of his shattered romance and
lost bride was too keen and poignant, for one thing, and for another
he was afraid, for Doris' sake. The woman he chose might not possess
those deep maternal instincts that would make Doris happy and
transform the solitude of that great mansion into a children's
paradise. So Harris Wayne did not re-marry, and the nurse said
little Doris was spoiled.
"Oh, the child is safe enough," the nurse remarked in reply to the
butler's question when she appeared in the servant's dining room that
evening to partake of the wedding feast. "She was just falling
asleep. She thinks I've gone to fetch her a glass of milk."
"There's a storm coming," announced the chauffeur-bridegroom. "I
hope that banquet keeps up so late Mr. Wayne will 'phone me not to
come for him. I don't like driving in a thunder storm."
But Harris Wayne also disliked motoring during a thunder storm. When
he mentioned to the chairman of the program that he would like to get
home, if possible, before the storm broke, a change in the order of
speeches was immediately made to suit his convenience and a motor car
placed at his disposal.
Thus it happened that Harris Wayne was being driven rapidly in the
direction of his home when the terrific thunder storm that had been
brewing all day broke in its full intensity.
Ever since leaving his home that evening after kissing Doris good
night he had been haunted by a strange foreboding, a sense of
impending disaster. There were moments when he seemed to hear a
voice warning him to watch for something. What it was he must watch
for he could not determine. No sooner had he arrived at the banquet
and dismissed his chauffeur, telling the latter he would telephone
him when to return, than he had again been conscious of the voice, or
influence or whatever it was, this time urging him to go
home--home--hurry home.
It was this mysterious warning and not mere dislike of a thunder
storm that had impelled him to make his request of the committee
chairman. And now, as he rode on through the black night with the
thunder crashing about him and the lightning blinding his eyes, even
with the curtains of the car drawn, he could hear, it seemed, but one
word:
"Hurry--Hurry--Hurry!"
Wayne felt as if he were again on the battlefield, struggling to save
a wounded comrade's life. He clinched his fists and, for a moment,
closed his eyes.
"Oh, God," he groaned, "whatever it is, let me get there in time!"
The car tore up the driveway like a mad thing and stopped at the
great, porticoed entrance of the old, colonial house where several
generations of Wayne's had lived.
The servants, laughing and dancing to radio music heard it above
their own din.
"Mr. Wayne has come," said the butler, and vanished swiftly in the
direction of the entrance hall to meet his master.
"Thank the Lord, I don't have to go out again to-night!" exclaimed
the chauffeur kissing his bride.
"Oh, my heavens!" cried the nurse, disappearing like a flash up the
rear stairway.
The cook chuckled. "If Mr. Wayne gets to the nursery before she
does, there'll be hell to pay."
"Rufus will delay him in the hall. That'll give her time," answered
the bride. Rufus was the butler.
Then they heard the nurse shriek.
It was a penetrating, hysterical shriek such as a woman utters when
she comes face to face with a burglar or finds the house afire. It
was not repeated. Just that one, wild, amazed outcry that echoed
through every room in the house and into the grounds beyond.
Harris Wayne heard it as he was handing his hat to Rufus and asking
if everything was all right at the house. The chauffeur who had
driven Wayne home and who had been told to drive on around to the
garage and wait until the storm was over, heard it and wondered what
calamity had occurred. Then, thinking discretion the better part of
valor, decided not to wait but quickly turned his car and started
back toward town. As he left the driveway he thought he saw a low,
dark racing car scud silently out from behind a group of cedars and
off into the night in an easterly direction. He, himself, was going
north.
Almost as the shriek sounded, Wayne mounted the stairs in two bounds,
the butler following. The nursery door stood wide and the nurse,
speechless for the moment, was gesticulating frantically from the
baby's empty crib to the open window through which the rain was
beating and the ends of a ladder extended.
"What is it? Did she fall?" cried the alarmed father, passing the
bewildered nurse and striving to peer out the window. "Who put this
ladder up here? Where's Doris--the baby?"
Then the nurse got her breath. With a trembling finger she pointed
toward the bed.
"Gone!" she gasped. "She was there--sleeping--when I left--" She
commenced to sob.
"When you left?" repeated Wayne, questioningly, with difficulty
restraining himself from taking hold of the nurse and shaking some
information out of her. "Where were you? Weren't you here? Where's
the baby, I say?"
Unable, unwilling to sense the fact that the child had been stolen,
he looked from the nurse to the butler for an answer.
"I only went to get her a drink of milk," faltered the nurse.
"But you said she was asleep," interrupted Wayne. "There's something
wrong here. You're not telling me the truth." Like a flash came a
recollection of the permission he had given for the chauffeur's
wedding feast. "Were you down in the dining room?" he thundered.
"Was the baby left here alone?"
The nurse burst into tears.
Wayne turned to the butler.
"What about it, Wilkins? Was she down there? Tell me the truth or
I'll choke it out of you."
The butler knew better than to refuse.
"Yes sir," he said, "for just a short time, sir."
"That will do. That's all I want to know. The baby was here alone.
Anna ran in when she heard me come. She found the baby gone--stolen.
You don't know whether it was done before the storm or afterward. Am
I right?"
The words came like a rain of bullets.
They both nodded, helplessly.
"Yes sir. It couldn't have been very long ago, sir," commenced the
butler, "for Anna only came--"
He caught a glimpse of the cold fire in his employer's eyes and
paused, trembling, lest he, himself, be cast bodily out of the open
window, through which the baby had been taken.
"Get out of the room--Get out of my sight before I kill you," shouted
Wayne as he sprang toward the telephone. "Call James--get the
gardners--everybody--search the grounds. Never mind the rain--turn
on the lights--raise the devil--but find the man who's got my baby or
I'll break every one of your necks." Then, getting an answer to his
violent rattling of the hook on the telephone, he shouted to the
operator:
"Call the chief of police--Send men and detectives to Harris Wayne's
and drive like hell. Baby kidnapped. Five thousand dollars reward--"
The receiver dropped limply from his hand, his body lurched heavily
to one side and his head drooped forward upon the table. For the
first time in his life Harris Wayne had fainted.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT
"Until the Day break and the shadows flee away,"--Song of Sol. iv, 6
"Oh, my tooth! Oh, my tooth! Mollie, hain't ther nawthin' ye kin
do?"
Bobbie, tearful and angry, was almost rebellious.
"Wow! Lawsey! Hain't thet thunder turrible? Mollie, does thunder
strike?" Johnnie wanted to know.
"What ef hit set fire ter th' barn! Would we burn up, Mollie?" That
was Leon.
"Mollie, Mollie, I'm afeared. Didja ever see sich a storm, Mollie?
Hain't yo' afeared? D'y s'pose Stevie's out in hit?"
"Don't--don't none o' yo' talk about Stevie. Hit makes me feel bad.
He's gone 'n' Cynthy's gone, an' ther's only me left ter look arter
all yo' young-uns an' I cain't do hit alone--I jist cain't. I'm
a-nigh sick thinkin' erbout hit. An' I dunno what's become o' ary
one on 'em. Mebbe they're worsser off en ary o' us! When I think
thet, I feel ter set me right down an' die.--Hyar, Bobbie, I'm
a-makin' a poultice now fer thet that tooth. Come hyar til I tie hit
on.--Shore, the thunder strikes, jist same as th' light'nin', but hit
don't strike good little boys an' girls. Go ter bed now an' fergit
hit. I'll read yo' all some stories soon es I kin.--Is thet Amy
a-cryin'? Leathie, give her thet that sugar teat I made. Hit fell
on th' floor. I wisht she hed a dollie!"
Poor Mollie was almost distracted. She did not wonder that the
children were frightened. The storm that was raging was unusually
severe. They could hear the trees bending and snapping under the
strain of the wind, and the rain pouring in torrents upon the roof of
the old structure in which they were so precariously sheltered. All
the farm animals were uneasy and restless and the children were as
wakeful as young hawks. If any of them didn't really have an ailment
or need some kind of attention they were in a mood to imagine
something.
Mollie wondered, dully, how it would seem to have somebody wait upon
her as she waited upon them. When she first came to the farm there
had been only herself--and Splutters. They had been frightened by
the storms and the dark, and they had had to sit, shivering and
crying, until they had fallen asleep from sheer weariness. It was
because she knew from experience how awful it was that she had so
much sympathy and patience with the little ones.
Now, there were some comforts. She had even managed to warm milk for
the baby. But little Amy was fast lapsing into a condition where
neither milk, dollies, nor any of the ordinary consolations of
babyhood would interest or aid her. White and still she lay,
unmindful, possibly unconscious of the children's efforts to help and
amuse.
How the thunder crashed! It fairly jarred the old barn. The
lightning was almost continuous. Suppose something should happen?
What would they do! What could they do? And where, oh, where was
Stevie?
Mollie ran frantically from one child to the other in a desperate
effort to quiet them and get them settled for the night.
This was difficult, for they were all hungry. Always with barely
enough food to keep them alive, their hunger became acute and painful
when Grimes took away their supper as he had done to-night because
Mollie, in her efforts to relieve their hunger had filled her dress
with potatoes. A furious slap administered to Ambrose had revealed
the potatoes. The ungainly youth had taken pleasure in witnessing
her punishment and her tearful pleas to Grimes not to take away the
children's food because of what she, alone, had done. Grimes had
long ago learned that the way to make Mollie suffer was by making the
children unhappy and miserable.
But as the storm increased in fury she took what was left of the
picture books from their hiding place, gathered the children about
her and told them the stories anew. It would serve, she thought, to
dispel their fears and make them forget their misery. Just as that
object had been accomplished the bell over the gate clanged forth
above the roar of the storm. It sent every child scurrying to the
usual cracks and crevices for observation. Mollie as quickly
extinguished the light. It would be wise to let Grimes think them
asleep.
"Thar he goes with a lantern," exclaimed Johnnie, as Grimes came
forth from the house and strode, with more alacrity than they had
ever seen him manifest, down to the gate, where the bell continued to
ring.
"Mebbe hit's Splutters comin' back," suggested one of the children.
"I wisht hit war."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mollie. "We mustn't wish him back hyar. He war
sick. He wanted to git away. Ef he gits a chanst he'll tell
somebody erbout us. Thet hain't him. See, hit's a man."
"He's a carryin' sumpin'--I reckon hit's another baby."
"What's thet big light a-blazin' down thar?"
"Aw, hit's a owttymobeel--hain't yo'-all ever seed one? I hev."
Mollie was not heeding the whispered conversation going on about her.
She was wondering how she could possibly manage to look after another
very young child, now that neither Cynthy nor Splutters was there to
help her. She noticed that when the stranger left the house, after
remaining in the kitchen but a few moments, he carried no bundle.
Peter made a second trip to the gate to lock it after his mysterious
visitors and again returned to the house. From the door he shouted
for Mollie. She knew she must make haste to obey the summons.
Quickly depositing little Amy where she would be most comfortable,
Mollie turned to the children. She had already replenished the light.
"Now don't git frightened," she said. "I'm a comin' right back an'
I'll try ter fotch yo' a snack ter eat."
She slipped, barefooted as usual, down the ladder and ran, through
the mud and rain, to the house. To her surprise, the whole family
was up. They had evidently been expecting the late visitor for Maria
had her hair combed and there was a cloth upon the table, at which
something in the nature of food was about to be served.
The table was large. Over the opposite end was thrown a large,
old-fashioned, blanket shawl and seated in the very center of the
shawl, which had evidently served to wrap about her, was the very
prettiest, most beautifully dressed baby girl that Mollie had ever
seen. Mollie did not realize that the beribboned little frock the
child wore was only a night-gown, nor did she think of the
incongruity of her appearance and that of the other children at the
farm. There were no class distinctions in Mollie's world. She only
knew that the little one was beautiful--more like an animated doll
than a real, flesh and blood baby. Mollie hesitated for a moment,
scarce knowing what was required of her.
Grimes nodded sullenly toward the child on the table. The little one
had risen now and, with chubby, outstretched arms was endeavoring to
make overtures to Peter. She laughed, revealing two rows of tiny,
even, white teeth and a pair of bewitching dimples. The short curls
that clustered closely about her head bobbed and danced when she
nodded and bowed in her evident enjoyment of the strange situation in
which she found herself.
"Take keer of her," snarled Grimes to Mollie. "Git her outen hyar."
"Me--take keer o' her?" gasped Mollie, thinking she had not heard
aright. "Yo' mean ter giv her ter me--ter hev her with us--out
thar?" This with an inclination of her head toward the barn loft.
"Yo' heered whut I sed," returned Grimes. "Git her outen hyar mighty
quick, afore I lam yo'."
With a cry of joy Mollie swept the beautiful baby into her arms. She
had never had a doll since she arrived at the farm. All her dolls
had been live babies. But this one looked like the doll she
remembered playing with in the long ago, when she played by her
mother's knee. And this one could walk and talk! She snatched up
the shawl and wrapped it about the child, preparatory to dashing with
it through the rain to the barn. Peter reached forth his begrimed
hand and dragged the shawl away.
He did not speak. The action sufficed. Mollie stared out at the
storm and wondered what to do. The baby must be covered and it must
be fed. With two quick, bird-like darts she caught up food that lay
within reach and which Maria would not miss, pulled off the old coat
which she had been holding over her own head and wrapped it tightly
about the new baby. Then, totally unprotected herself, she dashed
out into the storm.
Five minutes later the roly-poly baby girl was holding a levee in the
barn loft and trying to tell the children her name. Patiently, and
with irresistible smiles, she pronounced it again and again, but not
one of those who heard could understand or pronounce it after her.
"Yo' must go ter sleep, now, honey," said Mollie, as she made a place
for the child upon one of the make-shift beds. "Shut them pretty
eyes tight an' see whut nice things yo'll see." The child, having
already been aroused from sleep to make the trip and now wearied by
excitement, sweetly obeyed Mollie's urging and promptly fell asleep.
But there was no rest for Mollie. Little Amy's plaintive moans rent
her heart. She had never seen anyone die, but she knew,
instinctively that the frail little creature would not live through
the night. There was nothing more she could do. For weeks she had
been doing everything she could possibly think of to sooth and cure
the sick baby but evidently her prayers were not going to be
answered. God had not even indicated that he had received their
message on the kite. It was very strange. She could not understand
it. And she was tired--very, very tired. Her head nodded forward,
but she drew herself up hastily and forced her eyes wide open.
She must not sleep-she must not sleep. Something strange and
miraculous was going to happen to Amy. She must keep watch and see
what it was. Perhaps the child might awake and be frightened--It was
still now in the loft. All the children were asleep, herself, was
the only one awake, and she was very, very tired!--She leaned her
head back against an upright post that supported the root and gazed
down upon the dying child in her lap. No, she would not go to sleep,
but she would close her eyes--and rest them--for one, little minute.
Just one minute. Then Mollie gave a little sigh, and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER XVI
THE AWAKENING
"He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in his
bosom."--Isaiah x, 11
Mollie gave an exclamation of delight at the wonderful scene spread
out before her eyes. She blinked several times to make sure it was
no hallucination and that what she beheld was real. There could be
no mistake.
The barn loft was just as she was accustomed to seeing it. The
children were asleep in their miserable beds. The improvised light
was dim. It only accentuated the shadows in the far corners and made
the disorder everywhere appear more wretched. And there was she,
herself, sitting, tired and distressed, on an over-turned box, with
little Amy, so white and still, lying across her lap, breathing--just
breathing, so faintly it could scarce be called by the name, her
little soul lingering on the brink of--death, was it? Or life?
Mollie wondered.
Then the strange thing happened. The whole end of the loft toward
which she faced suddenly dissolved. It disappeared as completely
from her sight as if it had never existed.
Instead, there were fields--beautiful green pastures, as far as eye
could reach. One could step from the loft right out onto the velvety
slope of a little knoll. There was not a thing to mar the beauty and
charm of that landscape. One glimpse of it made her forget all the
sordidness and terror through which she had struggled for years. She
wanted to cry out in very ecstasy of joy but restrained herself,
after the one, involuntary exclamation of rapture, because there was
Someone sitting there, on that gentle incline, looking at her with an
expression of such ineffable peace upon His beautiful features that
instinctively she felt the slightest sound would be sacrilege.
Where had He come from? Why had He paused there?
The questions floated vaguely through her mind as she looked into
that calm, tranquil face, striving with all her might to comprehend
the meaning of the Stranger's presence. It was evident that He was
kind and thoughtful, for there were little lambs lying about His
feet, resting. Others close by were enjoying the wondrous pasture
into which their steps had been led.
For He must have led them. There was a Shepherd's crook in His hand
to keep any of them from wandering away and getting lost. How
beautiful his hands were! And yet there was a scar on each of them!
But Oh, what gentle, loving hands they looked to be. Mollie felt
tears welling into her eyes at very sight of them.
Who was this glorious Stranger who by one look had made her want to
run to Him, to kneel beside Him and ask Him so many puzzling
questions? She felt sure He would be able to explain them all.
There was that in His eyes which comforted her and made her feel so
rested, so satisfied! She wished the children were awake. She
wanted to lead them over to Him, so He could lay those marvellous
hands upon them, as He did upon the lambs.
Why, it was--it was--Oh, it couldn't be! But it was. She knew Him
now. She recognized Him--the Shepherd! The Good Shepherd, who fed
His flocks, who cared for the sparrows and who loved little children!
The realization awed and thrilled her. The joy of it made her want
to shout, to sing, to weep such tears of happiness as she had never
wept in her short life.
At last, He had come! God had heard their prayers! He had received
the message their kite had carried! He was sending them help. He
was going to take them away. The Good Shepherd had come to tell her.
And only yesterday she had been thinking that He had not heard or was
not going to answer their prayers! The recollection made her feel so
ashamed. She could hardly bear to look up into those loving, tender
eyes. Yet she knew, somehow, that He understood just how she felt,
and that He didn't hold anything against her.
His very nearness made her feel calm and courageous. Even if He
didn't stay, she knew she would never feel afraid and discouraged
again. Seeing Him, knowing Him, even for a moment seemed to have
dispelled all her old, haunting terror of Grimes and her dread of the
future. She felt strong--strong to face even a lion, as her father
had done. Strong enough to defy Grimes, if necessary, to help those
children.
But the sudden ecstasy and sense of exhilaration gradually gave place
to an exquisite calm. A great hush fell, even upon her thoughts. It
permeated the entire landscape and spread itself over into the loft.
The little lambs on the hillside stood still. A soft, yet radiant
light appeared as the Shepherd arose from His seat on the grassy
knoll and passed, slowly and majestically, between them.
Like one transfixed Mollie watched Him come--nearer, ever nearer,
straight toward her, His sweet, loving eyes looking down so tenderly,
so pityingly at Amy's little form lying, weak and helpless, across
Mollie's lap, the strange, mysterious light emanating from Him
falling in a direct ray, like a glorified sunbeam, full on the baby's
face.
Was it the magnetism of that wondrous light that drew Amy's soul away
from its tiny tenement of pain and suffering, or was it those strong,
gentle, scarred hands that reached forth and lifted the little
sufferer from Mollie's tired arms?
It may have been both. Mollie did not know. It was all so brief!
So wonderful! So beautiful! She could not tell at just what instant
the miracle took place. She only knew that in the twinkling of an
eye there had been a change and when she looked again at the child in
her lap little Amy had ceased to suffer, a smile of seraphic
sweetness lingered upon her face and the Good Shepherd had gone away.
Mollie was wide awake. She had not slept. She had only closed her
eyes for one little minute, but what wonders had taken place!
From the small, waxen form on her lap she turned her gaze toward the
rough boards of the barn where, but a moment before, He had stood
looking into her eyes and had walked, in that glorious light, over to
stand beside her.
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"THESE ARE MY KIDS!"]
Everything about the loft seemed just the same as usual--but no! No!
It never would--never could be the same to her again. The Good
Shepherd had walked among the children as they slept. He had
gathered one in his arms. He had given her, Mollie, strength and
courage. No, nothing would ever be the same again. Somewhere, she
knew, He was watching over her darlings. With Him they were as safe
as were his sparrows. God did not forget!
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE TRAIL
"But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the end of the
wicked shall be cut off."--Pa. xxxvii, 38
When the police arrived at the home of Harris Wayne they found the
house and grounds brilliantly illumined and every employee on the
place engaged in searching for the kidnappers. Between the havoc
wrought by the storm and the zeal of the searchers, if any clue had
been left it was obliterated.
The detectives inspected every nook and corner of the nursery and
questioned the servants. None of the latter could recall having seen
any suspicious characters about, nor suggest any reason for the
kidnapping.
"It was somebody who knew that Wayne was going to be away and that
the servants were having a jollification," remarked one of the
detectives. "He'd probably been tipped off by somebody in the house.
Might be intentionally; might be by accident.
"Are you sure none of yo'-all has talked to any stranger, even if he
wasn't suspicious looking?" asked the Chief, who had come personally
to direct the investigation. He looked inquiringly from one to the
other of the little group.
No one could recall any such conversation.
"Have yo' talked with anybody who showed a lot of interest,--asked
questions? I don't care who the person is, whether it's someone you
know or don't know? Anybody from out of town--visitin' hereabouts!
Think, now--Think!"
They bent their brows in thought. The chauffeur spoke.
"There was a fellow--" he commenced, then paused as if loath to think
of the individual in question as having any connection with the
kidnapping.
"Yes, go on. What about him?" prompted the Chief.
"Oh, I don't know as it's worth anything," continued the chauffeur,
"but when I stopped in at Grier's, where we always deal, to get some
supply parts for the car, a fellow I never saw before was talking
about the best car for these roads. But he didn't ask anything in
particular and there was nothing about him anyway suspicious."
"No?" said the Chief, interrogatively. "How did you come to think of
him? What impressed him on your mind!"
The chauffeur grinned, rather sheepishly.
"Nothing but his tie pin," he replied.
"H'm! What kind of a pin?"
"That's what I wondered. It didn't look just right."
"Why didn't it look just right!"
"Well, it didn't sort of seem to match up with him."
"Diamond!"
"Might have been."
"How was he dressed?"
"I don't remember. I didn't pay much attention to him except the
pin." He grinned again. "I couldn't get my eyes off it."
"Was he in the store when you went in?"
"Yes, talking to Tom."
"Tom Grier?"
"Yes."
"Hm!" The Chief exchanged glances with one of the detectives. "If
Tom Grier'd work more and talk less he'd be a mighty rich man. What
were they talking about when you went in?"
"Oh, just about the regimental rally."
Again the detectives exchanged glances.
"You say you'd never seen this fellow before? Did he have a badge
on, or button or anything? Lot of strangers in town, you know.
Hotel's full of 'em. Think he was one of the veterans!"
The chauffeur shook his head. "Oh, no," he said, contemptuously.
"He wasn't one of them."
The Chief eyed the chauffeur sharply. "Why not!" he snapped.
"Oh, I don't know," returned the harrassed James. "Like the pin, I
guess. He didn't match up."
"Didn't impress you favorably, eh?"
"Didn't impress me at all."
"Well, if he wanted information, about anything, from politics to
bee-raisin', he couldn't have picked out a better man than Tom
Grier," put in the detective.
"You say you always deal at Tom's?" asked the Chief.
"Buy our supplies for the car there."
"Leave your car outside his store or down on the Square?"
"Outside his store."
"Then this bird probably knew you dealt there."
"But I don't see what--"
The Chief interrupted. "Call Tom up," he said, turning to the
detective. "Get him out of bed. Find out who that fellow was, if he
knows, and get a line on their conversation. Get his description,
anyhow."
The servants, all but the chauffeur, were dismissed, and while the
detective was occupied at the telephone the chief persuaded Wayne,
who had been pacing the floor, to sit down for a few minutes and talk
with him. He wanted to know if Wayne had any enemies, if anyone had
ever threatened him in any way.
"I never had anyone threaten me in my life--but once," exclaimed
Wayne, "and that was over in France."
"Tell me about it."
"I can't!" Wayne exclaimed, irritably. "Not now. It hasn't anything
to do with this affair. All I want now is to find my baby. While
we're wasting time here she may be killed." He pressed his hands to
his throbbing temples and started to rise but the Chief put his hand
upon his arm and detained him.
"We're not wasting time," he said. "We're doing very nicely. By
daybreak we'll have something, at least, to work on. The chances are
that the baby is not in danger for the present. Everything indicates
this kidnapping was a carefully laid plan. People who plan a thing
in such detail usually have a motive. By to-morrow morning you'll
probably receive a letter demanding money for ransom. The letter
will probably contain a threat. As soon as that letter comes you
must let me have it. Don't lose an instant. In the meantime, rest
assured the baby is safe. Now tell me about this affair you
mentioned in France. Who threatened you--and why?"
Wayne groaned. He didn't want to go over that old story now, when
his mind was filled with thoughts of the present. He wished the
Chief wouldn't be so insistent.
"Oh, I just caught a cheap crook stealing from a Marine at the Y.
hut," he exclaimed, impatiently, "and I collared him. He fought like
a snake and I kicked him clear across the room. Then I turned him
over to the M.P.'s."
"And he threatened you?"
"Yes. I met him twice after that. Both times he vowed to get even.
He said the marine's money belonged to him--that he owed it to him.
The marine was killed and the fellow never got it, he claimed. The
last time I saw him, was in a restaurant, he came over to my table,
leaned over my shoulder and said in a low and most disagreeable tone
that I needn't think he had forgotten. That the day would come when
he'd get even and he'd make me pay, and pay till it hurt. But that
was six--seven years ago and I've never seen the fellow since."
The Chief seemed to be revolving something in his mind. For a moment
he did not speak.
"Was this fellow a marine?" he asked, finally.
"God! No," returned Wayne with emphasis. "He was a civilian
supposed to be doing something or other over there. He was doing it
all right when I discovered him," he added. "I reckon he'll remember
me as long as he lives."
"What did he look like?"
"The devil, I should say. A mighty disagreeable face. He had a way
of drawing his lip back from his teeth when he smiled just like a
vicious dog will do when he's planning to spring at your throat."
Little by little the Chief got the man's description. He was dark
skinned, and smooth-faced, Wayne said.
The detective who had been telephoning joined them at the moment to
make his report. "Tom didn't know that fellow," he observed. "Said
he'd been out and in his place several times during the past week.
Had bought a few little things but mostly asked questions. Tom
answered them as well as he could, so he said, and that must have
been considerable, if I know Tom, at all. Yesterday they got to
talking about country estates and old houses and prominent citizens,
and Tom said Wayne's name was mentioned. That means that Tom gave
him the whole Wayne history as far back as Noah and clear up to date.
Did Tom know about your wedding celebration?" he asked, turning to
the chauffeur.
"Yes," admitted the latter. "I told him how kind Mr. Wayne had been
to let the cook fix it up for us, and he wanted me to bring him a
piece of the cake."
"Well," said the Chief, rising, "I guess we've got a start. Now
we'll go after our men. 'Phone Ashton to check up on all the garages
and gas stations around and have Burke find out who's who at the
hotel. He may run across a dark, smooth-faced man with a nasty
smile. It seems to me I have seen someone like that just lately but
I can't quite place him. You say James didn't come in for you
to-night, Mr. Wayne? Who drove you home!" he asked, turning suddenly
back to where the distracted young father was pacing the floor.
"Some driver from town. I don't know his name. He works for
Lawrence. I think James knows him."
"Get him on the 'phone. Ask him if he saw or heard anything
suspicious going or coming," snapped the Chief to his assistant.
But the chauffeur who had driven Wayne home could not be located that
night.
"Never mind. We'll look him up down town. There's a chance he might
have seen a car or something suspicious."
After again warning Wayne to notify them the instant he received any
word from the kidnappers the police and detectives started back to
town.
By nine o'clock in the morning considerable more information had been
gained, but as yet there was no direct clue to the whereabouts of the
missing child.
A strange, low car had been seen early in the evening near the Help-U
Gas Station. It had waited for a full half hour near the woods
beyond the tobacco patch. A man working in the tobacco patch had
observed it and mentioned it at the gas station when he stopped
there, later, for a smoke and a chat. He gave a general description
of the man who drove the car as well as the man who finally joined
him.
The chauffeur who had driven away when the nurse's scream resounded,
told of having seen what looked like a low, high-powered car scud off
to the east, just as he came out of the driveway.
"All this helps," the Chief telephoned Wayne, "for it gives us a
tangible working basis. In about half an hour--as soon as Burke gets
back from the hotel--we're going to start east and see what we can
learn from the farmers out that way."
When detective Burke appeared he was jubilant. He had made a find.
Somebody at the hotel had lost a cuff-link. To find it the trash
barrel into which all waste paper baskets had been emptied was
over-hauled. Burke had witnessed the search. A scrap of paper
attracted attention and was examined. He had picked it up thinking
it was the report of a private operative and was amazed to find it
pertained to the Wayne affair. He produced the paper and handed it
to his Chief.
"But who was it sent to? Who threw it in the trash barrel?" the
latter asked. That was a mystery. "Go back to the hotel," he told
the detective, "and pump every employee on the premises. Get
anything you can about a dark man with a nasty smile, and a chunky
fellow wearing a flashy pin and a plaid suit."
He put the paper in his pocket. "Now," he remarked to those who were
to accompany him on the trip through the farming district, "when the
letter comes demanding ransom, we'll compare it with this handwriting
first, and then with the register at the hotel."
True to the Chief's prophecy, the letter demanding ransom reached
Harris Wayne with his morning's mail. He ordered his car and drove
at once to the Chief's office. There, after a consultation he was
advised against meeting the ransom terms.
"We've got information now that will enable us to run down the
kidnappers within a few hours," declared the Chief. "You wait here
while I send this letter over to Burke to check it up with
handwriting on the hotel register." For the letter that threatened
the life of little Doris Wayne unless the sum of twenty-five thousand
dollars was paid to the kidnappers at the river pier near the
cross-roads before noon that following day, was not penned by the
same hand as that which wrote the report found in the wastebasket.
It was soon discovered, however, that the writing corresponded in
some respects with that of someone who had registered at the Mansion
House as "W. J. Bailey, Phila." And Mr. Bailey was said to have a
very peculiar smile--but he was not smooth faced. He wore a
mustache. And he had already checked out.
"You may say," said the Chief, speaking to the newspaper men who
begged him for information, "that our entire force is at work on the
case and we expect to round up the criminals in a few hours."
After the reporters were gone he summoned his secretary. "Get hold
of Carey and Wright," he snapped. "Tell them to slip the Mary Ann
out quietly and keep watch of any suspicious looking or acting craft
in the neighborhood of Simpson's pier by the cross-roads. Now, Mr.
Wayne," he added, "if you care to come with us, we're going to take a
little cross-country run and interview our farmer friends."
"Do you think we'll gain anything by going?" asked Wayne. "With so
much information right at hand it seems like a waste of time to be
driving aimlessly about the country. I feel as if I must be doing
something drastic and violent toward locating my baby."
"That's just what we are going to do, Mr. Wayne," returned the Chief,
rising and starting for the door, Wayne accompanying him. "The child
is being secreted somewhere in the vicinity. We must learn the
identity of any questionable character in the county who, for a
consideration, would be apt to shelter her. My object is not only to
recover the child but to wipe out the entire gang of villains
involved in this outrage. They are a menace to any community. I'll
not stop until I've either brought them to trial or exterminated
them. Come. We're hot on the trail. Let's go."
A few hours later newspaper accounts stated that the criminals were
known to the police and that arrests, with startling disclosures,
were momentarily expected.
CHAPTER XVIII
STEPHEN GIVES A CLUE
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."--Matt. v, 7
Away sped the police car, over the country roads and lanes throughout
the district towards which the kidnapper's car was believed to have
disappeared. The sun shone brightly after the storm of the night
before and the heavy fragrance of flowers was in the air. On all
sides of the valley were tumbled hills and beyond the hills rose the
rugged tops of mountain ranges, bristling with interminable forest.
Up and down and round about these hills they made their search,
keeping always to the east. Passers-by were stopped and questioned.
Deserted log cabins and prosperous farm houses were visited. Again
and again some member of the party got out of the car and proceeded
afoot into some thicket or along a little-used path to ask questions
of people living off from the main roads.
Everywhere the answer was the same. No one had seen a strange car of
any description passing, or stopping, at an unusual hour or in any
manner to attract attention. The search was discouraging, even to
the optimistic Chief.
Just as they were on the verge of turning back and beginning their
search all over again, a little more to the south, they came upon a
farmer sitting in his wagon, waiting by the side of the road to let
their car go by. He was tall and gaunt, and he wore a broad slouch
hat, pushed sufficiently back from his face for his features to be
distinguishable. He smiled genially and called, "Howdy, Chief," as
the police car whizzed by.
"Want to stop, Chief," asked the driver, instantly changing gear.
"Yes," answered the Chief. "Turn around. I know that fellow. He's
got something under his hat that he wants to gossip about or he
wouldn't have been so cordial. Don't scare his mare, now. She's
skittish. That's why he pulled off the road. It's all right. He
sees we're coming back. He'll wait."
"How are you, Mr. Tyler," called the Chief as he came again within
speaking distance of the farmer. "I wonder if you can give us a
little help in a search we're making for a kidnapped child."
"Well, now, mebbe I kin," drawled the farmer. "War hit a leetle,
sawed-off feller with big, starey blue eyes an' yaller haar?"
Harris Wayne groaned. His heart had throbbed with hope at the man's
first words. Now he leaned back in his seat and pressed his hand
over his eyes as if he would shut out, if possible the sight of
everything in the world but the one face which was ever before him.
His baby! Little Doris! What were they doing to her? Where was
she? Whose hands were caring for her! Was she crying, sobbing her
little heart out, calling constantly for him, or had they drugged her
into insensibility? A thousand such thoughts were continually
floating before his mind. He gave no heed to the conversation which
now ensued between the Chief and the garrulous farmer. A little chap
with blue eyes and fair hair meant nothing to him. For him there was
now but one child in the whole world, and that one, Doris.
The Chief, however, manifested considerable interest in the farmer's
unexpected question. He had had no report of any other lost child.
If there was one, he wanted to know about it. He explained that
their quest was not for a boy, but for Mr. Wayne's little girl. Of
her, the farmer knew nothing but he had a strange story to tell of
another farmer, living over by the old turnpike, from whose place he
had just come.
"Yo' mind thet creepy kind of a critter what tuk over ole Honeycut's
place an' datter, Chief, thet feller by name o' Pete Grimes, thet
folks allus thought hed a screw er sumpin' loose in his haid?"
The Chief nodded.
"Well, hit seems he raises hawgs up thar now, stid o' whiskey, an'
Rich Craddock driv up ter his place a day er so back ter buy him a
shoat. Yo' know Rich got religin and j'ined th' chu'ch a spell back
an' he's plumb pious but he shore thought he'd met up with th' ole
boy himself when he found this hyar Grimes hed locked the gate behind
him and 'lowed ter let him walk pin't-blank inter one o' them sink
holes thet section's full of. Rich 'lowed th' feller had gone crazy.
Then, whilst they was a-talkin', right spang out o' th' tree over
their haids come the skeertest, sickest lookin' leetle feller yo'
ever sot eyes on a-tumblin' down alongside them. Rich tol' me he
thought fer a minnit thet feller Grimes was a-goin' ter toss thet
leetle runt plumb inter th' bog. He seed from the boy's eyes thet he
expected sumpin' like thet, too, fer he kind o' aidged erlong to'rd
Rich, like es ef he wanted him ter do sumpin'. Rich sed he done some
mighty quick thinkin'. An' he wanted ter git out er thet place
mighty quick, too. So he jist axed who th' leetle feller war an'
when Grimes sed he didn't aim ter keep him an' th' boy commenced ter
kind o' shiver, Rich jist peeled out a dollar bill an' sed he'd tote
th' young-un home ter pick tater bugs. Now thet jist shows yo' what
religion'll do fer a man, becus Rich Craddock hain't got dollar bills
ter hire help with, an' him jist losin' a full bar'l o' m'lasses in
thet devilish sink hole.
"Anyhow, he gits himself an' th' leetle feller out o' th' dum place
an' starts fer home, lickety-split, with the shoat he bought in th'
back o' th' wagon an' th' boy a-settin' up on th' bar'l whar Grimes
hed pitched him. Rich hed 'lowed ter hev th' boy set up on th' seat
along o' him, but he didn't feel ter delay none in thet
hell-for-sartain place, so es soon es he war shut of hit, he pulled
up an' sed:
"Come an' set up hyar with me, sonny," but thar wa'n't no answer.
An' when he looked back, ef thar wa'n't th' boy a-layin' stone-daid
in th' bottom o' th' wagon. Co'se he wasn't stone-daid, he jist
looked thet-a-way.
"Well, Rich, he driv fer home es ef th' devil war arter him. Him an'
his ole woman worked over thet leetle feller the hull night. He war
plumb light-haided an' kep' a-talkin' 'bout somebody a-breakin' some
baby's arm, an' a-throwin' babies inter a bog an'--"
"Oh, my God!"
The interruption came from Wayne. He had roused from his troubled
thoughts sufficiently to grasp the latter part of the farmer's
narrative and the possibilities it suggested filled his soul with
horror and apprehension.
"Where is that boy now? Still at Craddock's? Have you seen him?"
The Chief shot the questions so rapidly, the farmer was unable to
answer them as they came. He was distressed, too, at having his
thrilling tale interrupted, though the interest it aroused in his
auditors was extremely gratifying.
"Why, ye-e-s, an' ag'in no," he drawled. "Craddock's old woman--"
"You mean Mrs. Craddock?" interrupted their Chief.
"Shore," returned the farmer. "Melindy, she sets a heap on her
nussin' an' she says th' boy's nigh crazed es 'tis, an' she won't
'low no one ter ax him much. Es soon es he gits ter talkin' he goes
right off his haid an' inter fever ag'in. But he hed a leetle passel
o' papers tied 'roun' his waist thet Craddock aimed ter fotch down
ter yo' fellers but he hain't hed a minnit ter spare yit ter do
nawthin'. He'll be right glad ter show 'em ter yo'-all ef yo' want
ter drive out thet-a-way. Yo' know how ter git thar, don't yo'? Yo'
go along this hyar road ter th' bend an' then cut through Miller's
place an' that'll fotch yo 'out on th' old pike. Frum thar on hit's
not mor'n a whoop an' a holler, an' all clar 'goin'."
The Chief thanked his informant, sprang into the car and they started
off according to the directions given.
"Why not go right out to that hog farm, Chief, if you know where it
is," suggested one of the detectives in the car.
"Not yet," answered the Chief. "We haven't any evidence against the
man. I know who he is. I've seen him around town for years.
Devilish ugly looking type but I always understood he was harmless.
This may all be the result of delirium--fever, you know. The boy may
just be rambling, or he may be crazy, himself. We've got to see him
before we can take any action. And then, if Mr. Wayne's little girl
has been taken to any such place--which I doubt--we'll have to
proceed with every caution or some harm will come to the child."
Again Wayne groaned aloud. Every moment they delayed, riding about
the country, seemed to increase Doris' danger. He urged the Chief to
hurry.
The Chief reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter demanding
ransom which Wayne had received that morning. After studying it a
minute he said:
"This was written by a man of fair education, not by such a type as
Grimes. The fact that he was stopping at the Mansion House,
according to the handwriting we found on the register, seems to
indicate that he is a stranger to these parts and would therefore not
know anything about Grimes. I understand he is a pretty disagreeable
person and shuns acquaintances. But we can't afford to overlook any
chance, however remote. That's why I'm going up to the Craddock
place. If what the boy says warrants it, we'll institute some
inquiries around the hotel as to whether or not Grimes was seen about
the place by anyone during the past week. If he was, and we can link
him up with this man Bailey, as he calls himself, then we'll have
something to work on. Meanwhile," he turned to Wayne, "you've got
until to-morrow noon to meet the terms of the ransom."
"Well don't you think, Chief," Wayne urged, "that it would be wise
for me to get word to them that I am willing to meet their demands,
so as to ensure the baby's safety?"
"I wouldn't advise it--at least not yet," the Chief replied.
"There'll be time enough this evening if you want to do it."
Waiting was torture for Wayne, but he strove to control his nerves
and to look at the situation from the detective's viewpoint.
The story they had heard from their loquacious informant was
corroborated by Richard Craddock when they reached his farm. The
boy, he said, was very, very ill and might, or might not rally enough
at their entrance to answer questions. His wife, a kind-hearted,
motherly person, who went out nursing whenever her services were
required, was caring for the child as well as the average rural
practitioner could do, and she, too, thought it unlikely that the boy
could be roused sufficiently to give them any intelligent information.
But the slight stir of their entrance made him open his eyes and look
at them at first with terror, then with something akin to pleasure.
"I knowed--knew--hit was a mistake," he murmured, looking straight
into the eyes of Wayne. "I thought--mebbe--she'd send--you." Then
he sighed as if with satisfaction and closed his eyes, apparently to
sleep. But after a moment it was noticed that two great tear-drops
were slowly making their way from under the transparent lids and
coursing down the sick boy's cheeks. Mrs. Craddock stepped forward
and gently wiped them away. "Mollie--" murmured the boy. "Mollie
and--the--children--the babies--." Mrs. Craddock laid her fingers
upon his pulse.
"Hit's a sin an' a shame ter bother him with questions," she said.
"Cain't ye wait til termorrer? He'll be better then."
"I'll tell you what," said the Chief, in a low tone to Mrs. Craddock.
"I'll have someone from my office stay right here the rest of the day
and through the night, and you must do your best to get him in
condition to answer a few questions before daybreak. This gentleman,
here, Mr. Wayne,----"
"Oh, howdy, Mr. Wayne," interrupted the farmer's wife, in some
confusion that so distinguished a person should be in her humble
home, "I thought I'd seed yore face afore. Won't yo' set?"
She pushed a chair forward but Wayne shook his head. The Chief
continued.
"Mr. Wayne's little girl has disappeared--been stolen. They have
given him until noon to-morrow to decide whether or not he will pay
them a large sum of money in exchange for the child. If he pays the
money they may not keep their word. I am trying to find the child
for him before their time limit expires. What I want to learn from
this boy is whether or not there are children on the Grimes farm and
how he came to be there. I know Grimes has one child of his own. I
never heard of any other child being on the premises."
Wayne and the detectives withdrew. As they passed through the
kitchen door out onto the porch the farmer came forward with some
papers.
"These were tied onto him," he said, "but bein' es I don't read I
cain't make nawthin' out o' them."
The letter was unfolded. It was old, torn and begrimed from
handling, for Stephen had looked at it often. When it was handed to
Wayne, he stared in blank amazement. The signature was that of
Wayne's sister who had died following an operation shortly after the
letter was written.
"She had planned to adopt him," Wayne explained to the astonished
detectives. "He was an orphan. My sister had made all arrangements
for his education. Quite a search was made for him but when my
sister died it was abandoned. We all thought he ran away to avoid
going to school."
"And the picture,--do you know the likeness?" asked the Chief.
"My sister," answered Wayne. "Poor little Stephen! God alone knows
what happened to him. He must have recognized me. That's why he
spoke as he did. For God's sake, Chief, clear up this tangle. It
gets worse every minute. What about those children thrown in bogs,
with broken arms and legs? That talk isn't delerium. If this boy is
Stephen, and he's kept these means of identification all these years,
the boy's got sense. He's trying to tell something. And by heavens,
if they've got my baby in any such hellish hole with a crazy fiend in
charge of her, I'll--I'll--Oh, my God, my God, this is killing me!"
Then, suddenly drawing himself erect he started for the road. "I'll
go out there alone, Chief, and I'll search that place myself," he
thundered.
Both the Chief and the farmer spoke in protest.
"Yo' cain't git in," said the latter. "There's bogs all about th'
place, 'cept, jist in front o' th' gate an' hit is ten foot high,
with wire an' glass a-top an' a big bell ter ring. Ef he doan want
ter see yo' he'll never open th' gate an' he mought fling th' leetle
gal inter th' mire."
"That's right," added the Chief. "You don't want to do anything
rash. I'll leave a man here, as I said--Joe, you better stay," he
added, turning to one of the detectives with them. "And the instant
that boy can talk coherently you get word to me. There's a telephone
down at the Murphy place. That's not far from here. Come on, Mr.
Wayne. We'll go down and see what Burke has unearthed at the hotel.
I'll have him make some inquiries there, as I said I would, about
this man Grimes."
CHAPTER XIX
MOLLIE AT BAY
"For the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand saying unto thee,
'Fear not; I will help thee.'"--Isaiah xl, 13
Baby Doris was blissfully unaware of danger. She awoke, not with the
lark, but with the crowing of the old, dominique rooster under the
barn window.
It was dawn. Time for the children to get up and begin their day's
work. Mollie hated to rouse them. She knelt for a moment beside the
wonder-child that had been so unexpectedly given into her keeping the
night before.
"Oh, yo' darlin'--yo' wonderfulest baby!" she exclaimed, softly,
pressing one of the dimpled hands against her lips. "I never seed
ary thing so pretty in my life!"
It was then the rooster crowed and Doris opened her eyes. They were
eyes that danced, twinkled and sparkled all at once. They were
brimming over with fun. They beamed coquettishly upon Mollie for an
instant, then the rosebud lips parted and there came a sound of
laughter like the tinkle of silver bells.
"Muh--Mollie! Muh--Mollie!" the child chirruped, then laughed again
in glee over her own cleverness, for Mollie had taught her the words
before she went to sleep.
"Oh, yo' doll! Yo' angel!" cried Mollie, cuddling the little one
close in an ecstasy of joy. "An' ter think I don't even know yore
name!"
Another peal of silvery laughter greeted this statement. Just as if
names counted for anything in the life of a baby! Little Doris
didn't care that minute whether she had a name or not. She twisted
her fingers in the meshes of Mollie's hair and as suddenly released
them to throw her arms enthusiastically about her neck. She loved
this muh-Mollie. She was glad that dumpy old nurse was gone. She
had never liked her, anyway. So she cooed and kicked and wriggled
and laughed in the exuberance of her joy.
Mollie was enraptured. "Oh, baby, baby," she cried, "I'd jes' lov
ter play wif yo' all day, but ef yo' only knowed--" The girl paused
to crush the little one to her as if to protect her from threatened
evil.
Know! This beautiful child know the horrors and hardship of the
ogre's farm! Never. She must never, never know. To be beaten and
made to do hard, dirty work with those beautiful little hands! To be
frightened and hungry and punished for nothing and perhaps flung into
the bog? Oh, no, no! It must never be. Something must be done to
save her. Mollie, herself, must do it. She was old enough, now, and
strong enough to do something,--though she did not know what--to save
both herself and the children.
With feverish energy she hurried to get the children up and about
their tasks. They were all hungry. They had gone supperless to bed.
There was nothing to eat that morning save what they could steal from
the animals or eat raw in the garden. Mollie contrived, however, to
get milk for the baby.
Then another problem presented. This new baby was not weak and
passive like little Amy. This baby was robust and mischievous. She
wanted to romp and play. She could not be left to her own devices.
Someone must be with her every minute. They would have to take turns
and they must not let old Grimes catch them idling. It was going to
be difficult. Well, everything was difficult. They would just have
to manage, that's all.
"Muh-Mollie! Muh-Mollie!"
Doris kept singing the beautiful new words she had learned and
chuckling like a little witch each time after their utterance. She
felt so clever--so accomplished. And all this wonderful excitement
in this strange place! Why, it was entrancing. Children--lots of
them--running hither and thither, each one stopping now and then to
smother her with kisses or tickle her under the chin, or clap their
hands to make her laugh and show her pretty teeth. It really was the
best time she had ever had in her life. Once--twice she looked
around and called for "Daddy"; but daddy didn't come right away and
the next instant Mollie was there, so it was all right. Daddy was
probably around somewhere. Anyway, it didn't matter because they
were going to play games and Daddy didn't play games. This was a new
one. Doris clapped her hands at the spectacle.
The children all ran to a hole in the floor and disappeared into some
mysterious depth below. Doris toddled toward the place to see where
they went. She wanted to go, too.
It was then Mollie caught her up with a splendid swoop and, taking
her in her arms, went right down the hole after the children. Doris
squealed with delight and pounded Mollie's head with her pink fists.
"Oh, honey darlin', yo' mustn't," whispered Mollie. "This hain't no
place ter laugh. Ef he hyars yo' mebbe he'll make me leave yo' set
hyar alone, tied with a string ter sumpin' like he's done afore.
Honey, chile, be Mollie's good girl and shut yore eyes tight and keep
thet sweet mouf shet til we-uns all git ter th' co'n-field." Mollie
smothered the gurgles of laughter against her breast and ran, as fast
as her sturdy legs would carry her, toward the field where the other
children were already relaxing from the restraint of the loft, where
every word might be overheard.
Grimes was not yet out of bed. Ambrose would not come prowling about
until after breakfast. Before that repast could be served Mollie
must go to the house to help prepare it. For the time being the
children were free. The day was unusually warm. The day previous
had been filled with especially hard and dirty work. The children
had all slept with their clothes on. This morning they looked more
than ordinarily wretched. Mollie, scanning them, had an idea.
"How many o' yo' young-uns 'ud like ter git washed?" she asked.
There was a clamor of childish voices and a general rush toward her.
The clamor was not loud, like the merry voices heard in a children's
play-ground but a subdued, apprehensive babble that could not have
been heard beyond the confines of that corn-patch. But every child
knew what Mollie's words implied. If they hurried and kept quiet so
that no one heard them, there would be time for a quick dash into
that beautiful pool where old Walter drank and where the cow-brute
loved to stand, soaking her feet and swishing her tail during the
heat of the day.
Now, after the heavy storm of the previous night, the pool would be
fresh and clean. Mollie had stolen some soap from the house. They
would be able to cleanse the scratches and bruises and insect bites
that kept them all in misery. The children nearly overwhelmed Mollie
in their eagerness to be off. She glanced quickly toward the house,
then up at the sun. It was not yet high. There would be time.
"Run, then! Yo'-all go an' git in th' water. I'll be thar en time
ter soap yo'," she told them.
The children trooped off. Mollie came more slowly with Doris in her
arms and Leathy by the hand.
All too soon their frolic had to cease. But when they returned to
the field to hoe those interminable rows of corn they looked very
unlike the forlorn band of half-asleep, fretful and bedraggled
youngsters that had first assembled.
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrows_.
"DO YOU MEAN SLEEP HERE AND EAT--AND--EV'RYTHING?"]
Baby Doris thought it a picnic--a glorious adventure that promised
new entertainment every minute. Throughout the day Mollie had not
the slightest trouble with her new and winsome charge. A bond of
sympathy and understanding seemed to exist between them. Each was
irresistibly drawn toward the other.
But all day Mollie was thinking of a way of escape. To dig under the
fence or to attempt to scale it would be hopeless. The children,
even if they once were outside in the road, could not walk or even
run fast enough to elude Grimes. And if any were overtaken they
would be killed or, at best, treated worse than ever.
No, whatever was undertaken must be accomplished. There must be no
failure. No coming back. If they could only take the route followed
by the sparrows, thought Mollie. Somewhere, beyond that bog, there
was safety--if only they could reach it!
And while the children worked in the corn-field and the police
scoured the countryside and Stephen was moaning with fever, Peter
Grimes learned what the newspapers had printed regarding the
kidnapping.
"Hell's banjers!" he thundered, bringing his great fist down heavily
upon the table. "Th' police is a-goin' ter make arrests."
"An' hain't thar goin' ter be no more money?" Maria asked in
amazement, not unmixed with consternation.
"Not ef Wayne doan pay thet ransom," growled Peter. "They're aimin'
ter recover th' child."
Maria turned and faced him. There are times when even a worm will
turn. Maria had been improving in proportion to their financial
condition. She wore shoes now and sometimes combed her hair. And
she didn't use her snuff dip as constantly as formerly. Maria was
getting ambitious.
"I was afeared ter hev yo' hol' thet child," she said.
"Aw, shet up. Yo' didn't know a damned thing about hit."
"I s'picioned hit. En now, ef they come hyar an' git her, they'll
git all th' young-uns--"
"Like hell they'll git her! I'll fling her so fur--" He paused and
started for the door.
"Yo'-all take keer," warned Maria. "I ben a-tellin' yo' right along
yo'll fling one too many in thet bog an--"
Peter paused and fixed his eyes upon her. "Air yo'-all a-goin' ter
shet up?" he asked. "Ef yo' hain't, I'll fling yo' in with her, d'
yo' hyar?"
Maria heard. Without another word she returned to her cooking.
Grimes strode toward the gate. Before destroying the child it would
be well to find out from Bailey and Swazey whether or not the report
was true that the ransom was not going to be paid. He knew where the
two were in hiding. It was he who had directed them to the old,
ruined cobble-stone house in which they were now secreted. He would
walk there in a few minutes after he reached the pike.
But Ambrose, who had heard the conversation between his parents, had
scudded from the kitchen chortling with glee. He had a standing
grudge against Mollie, drat her! She fought him off when he tried to
kiss her, and his paw had cuffed him because he bellowed and had
pushed him backwards and shoved his face right into the molasses on
the bread he was eating! Now, he'd fix her--now, he'd fix her!
The fat, chuckle-headed moron kept singing the words over as he
betook himself in the direction of the farm outbuildings in search of
Mollie and the beautiful baby with which she was so enraptured.
"Haw, haw, haw!" he guffawed at the mere thought of what Mollie would
say and do when she realized his purpose. He had already made her
lose her supper, and the children, too. Served her right. They were
his paw's potatoes, anyhow. Mollie had stuffed her clothes with
them. If she hadn't slapped him he wouldn't have told. When she
fought and kicked him the way she did, anybody would get mad. He
laughed again at the memory of the picture Mollie had made when his
maw shook her and the potatoes came rolling out from all parts of her
clothing. And how mad his paw was when he came and saw the potatoes!
Of course he wouldn't let her have any supper after that--not she nor
any of the children.
Still chuckling over the inefficiency of poor Mollie's pleas that she
alone be punished and not the children, Ambrose waddled about in
search of his prey.
Ah, there they were! Mollie had stood little Doris on the ground for
a minute. It was only a minute but that minute sufficed for Ambrose.
"Haw, haw, haw!" he guffawed again as he jerked the unsuspecting baby
girl up in his murderous embrace and tore with her toward the bog.
"Oh, oh, Mollie--Oh, look!" shrieked the children who had seen the
performance.
Mollie looked, then with a scream that resounded to every part of the
farm confines, she flew to the rescue of her beloved. There was
cause, indeed, for Harris Wayne to fear for his baby daughter's
safety. Her life now hung not by a thread but by the speed of
Mollie's small, naked feet and the strength of her brown young arms.
She reached the edge of the quagmire as quick as Ambrose. Had the
boy been more of an athlete he could have hurled the baby from him
without first pausing to get his breath but he was fat and clumsy.
Mollie was fleet and agile as a wild-cat. And like a wild-cat she
sprang upon him, at the risk of precipitating all three of them into
the bog. She never spoke. She fought, just as she had in the long
ago days when she had fought the ogre single handed in her attempt to
save Stephen. She clung to Ambrose's arms as she had clung to the
ogre's legs. She pulled that precious baby from him and, with the
child in her arms, fought to save herself from the fate from which
she had just rescued the baby. If she went, the baby would go with
her. Ambrose's fat, bulky form effectually blocked her way. He
stood between her and safety. One step backward and she would be in
the clutches of that sinister mass from which there was no escape.
"Oh, dear God, help me," she moaned, half aloud, as she struggled on
the very brink of death to retain her footing and fight off this
young fiend.
Just beyond Ambrose stood the huddled, frightened children,
round-eyed, trembling, not daring to utter a sound nor raise a hand
to help Mollie.
With her right hand she struck Ambrose back. She had not known she
possessed so much strength. How did it happen? Ambrose lurched
slightly to the left. He lost his balance and clutched at Mollie to
save himself. In that instant she whirled about. The movement was
unexpected and brought Ambrose himself to the edge of the mire.
Simultaneously they pulled, each seeking to break the other's hold.
Mollie won. She had fought with one hand, she held the baby with the
other, but she had won!
The suddenness with which she broke away from Ambrose sent him
plunging backwards into the bog. His frantic cries and now howls
rent the air.
Mollie, dazed and breathless, stood for a moment gasping and
horrified. The children voiced their glee. They thought it was the
result for which Mollie had been fighting. The sound of their voices
awakened her to a sense of her surroundings and the result of all of
them if anything happened to Ambrose. He must be pulled out. But
how? She looked wildly about for a rope, a stick, anything long
enough to reach him. There was nothing in sight.
Placing Doris with the other children, Mollie sped to the barn and
procured a heavy rope. When she returned, Ambrose was engulfed to
the waist. He was still howling. Maria, in the house, was too
accustomed to the sound to be disturbed by it. Peter had gone out
the big gate. For this Mollie was thankful.
"Hold yore hands up high," she called to Ambrose, "an' ketch this
rope 'fore hit falls in th' mud." The boy was in mud almost to the
arm-pits now. Every second was precious if he was to be saved.
Mollie flung the rope high. Her aim was true. Ambrose clutched it
and with desperate haste knotted it about his neck, clinging to it
with his hands that it might not choke him.
Then Mollie pulled, but it was of no use. The children ran to help
her. It seemed almost as if the suction of the mud would drag them
all down with the sinking boy. Their puny strength combined was as
nothing against its relentless grip.
"Oh, what shall we do?" wailed Mollie. Then in an inspiration she
cried: "Run, Jimmie, Bobbie--somebody--quick an' fetch Walter."
So promptly were the children accustomed to obeying the slightest
command, that almost before the words were fairly uttered little feet
were tearing toward the stable, little hands were untying the horse
and leading him out of his stall and across the yard.
It seemed to Mollie as if she were ages getting the rope fastened
securely to the animal. At last it was accomplished. Ambrose's chin
was now touching the mud. The rope about his neck was submerged.
Only his hands and his face remained visible.
"Go, Walter, go!" "Giddep!" cried the children together, striking the
horse across the flanks with such force that he started with every
ounce of his strength back toward the stable. So sudden and so
forceful was the action that it brought Ambrose up like a cork out of
a bottle and dragged him, fish-like and covered with mud, across the
ground on his stomach.
At that moment Peter entered the gate. He had reconsidered his
decision to go in search of his confederates in the kidnapping
conspiracy and decided to return home. The newspaper statement was
undoubtedly true, he reflected. That being the case he had better
not endanger his own safety by wandering about but make such
preparations at home that, if Bailey and Swazey did bring his name
into the case, any police search of his farm would reveal nothing.
"That gal, Mollie knows too much, anyway," he decided for the dozenth
time. He had been saying it for months but had kept her for two
reasons--the income which Bailey sent him monthly for her
maintenance, and the value of her service in caring for the other
children. But if Bailey was going to be sent to prison the money
would no longer come, so Mollie would best be silenced before any
police got around; she and the brat for which he had expected to
receive a thousand dollars! Peter was therefore returning home to
act upon this decision. Ambrose's howls and the commotion in the
stable-yard led him in that direction.
When he learned what had happened his rage, already at white heat,
knew no bounds.
"Give me thet brat," he commanded Mollie, as she stood, holding Doris
tight in her arms. "The boy's right, I was a-goin' ter fling her in
th' bog, an' I be a-goin' ter do hit this minnit. Gi'n her hyar, I
say; then I'm a-comin' back fer yo'."
He writhed toward her, hands extended for the baby. Mollie gave one
wild cry:
"Run, chil'en, run!"
But the children, in a panic of terror, were already scuttling up the
ladder into the loft. Never had they gone so rapidly. Mollie,
tugging Leathy and carrying the precious Doris brought up the rear.
It seemed to her that hours were consumed in getting up the ladder.
Each second was an age. She could almost feel the ogre's breath at
her back, the grip of his hands upon her shoulders.
"Oh, hurry, hurry, chil'en."
She thought she said it, but her lips uttered no sound. They were
dry and parched. Her heart was pounding. With a supreme effort she
pushed Leathy and Doris through the hole in the floor and dragged
herself up behind them.
But he was coming--the ogre! He was close upon them. Snorting and
growling forth threats, Grimes was mounting the ladder. He was
infuriated now. He would kill them all. He was roaring like a
lion--Ah! The thought was an inspiration again. Lions must be faced
bravely--with a spear. And there was the spear!
The next instant Mollie had whirled like a trapped animal at bay.
Pitchfork in hand, she was looking the ogre straight in the eye.
There was no nervousness in the manner those little brown,
work-hardened hands gripped that heavy handle. They were as steady
and taut as steel. And there was no flinching in those clear eyes.
She meant what she said.
"Doan yo' come up hyar!"
There was no threat. The prongs of that pitchfork backed by the
strength of purpose revealed in Mollie's eyes were more than
sufficient for any coward, and Grimes was a coward.
Step by step he descended, and one step, two steps came Mollie with
the pitchfork, until he was back on the stable floor. Then, still
using the pitchfork as a defense, she quickly sprang back into the
loft, seized the top of the ladder and, with the children's help,
pulled it up into the loft, and closed the hole in the floor.
They were prisoners.
CHAPTER XX
THE FLIGHT OF THE SPARROWS
"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow
that flieth by day."--Ps. sci, 5
Mollie dropped, exhausted, upon the floor. The children clustered
about her. Some were crying. All were tired and hungry. Little
Doris, not in the least understanding what all the excitement had
been about, crept forward and patted Mollie's cheek with the palm of
her much-soiled little hand.
"Muh-Mollie!" she lisped, then snuggled into her lap and embraced her
with such ardor that Mollie was forced to respond, tired and
trembling though she was.
But youth revives quickly. Mollie was now keyed up to such a pitch
that she could not be still a moment.
"We-uns has getter do sumpin', now!" she exclaimed, turning for
encouragement toward the eldest of the children. "I cain't hol' back
thet ole ogre only fer ter-night. Gi'n termorrer he'll kotch us,
shore. An' I cain't see no way ter git out 'cept over thet bog; an'
I ben a-figurin' all day erbout hit. Ther hain't no use'n our
a-settin' hyar a-waitin' fer God ter come an' do somethin'. We-uns
has gotter do hit our own selfs. He's a-goin' ter watch over us,
same es He does th' sparrows an' take keer on us an' see thet
nawthin' hurts us, but hits we-uns an' not Him thet's got ter git th'
soon start. I hain't afeerd now, o' nawthin'. I tol' you-all down
thar in th' co'n field 'bout th' Good Shepherd who come las' night
whilst you-all war a-sleepin'. Well, I l'arned a lot, jist a-lookin'
at Him.
"An' ter-day I ben a-watchin' th' sparrows. I ben a-watchin' them
ever sence I war es leetle es Leathie an' a-thinkin' thet when I war
big 'nough I'd fin' out whar they go when they fly straight-a-way
over th' bog. I hain't never seed ary one fall. He holts 'em up.
An' ef He'll holt sparrows up He'll holt little chil'en up. All we
hafter do es hang on ter trees an' things like th' birds. Willie has
l'arnt yo'-all how ter do thet. Now ef we-all hold together, an'
take thet thar rope we used ter-day, an' fling hit acrost frum one
tree ter 'nother, so thet we kin keap aholt on hit, I feel thet we'll
git just whar them sparrows git an' whar thet air, ole Grimes cain't
never come."
The children listened, breathless with anticipation. The theory was
excellent. The tree stunts appealed to them. The fear of Grimes
spurred them in their eagerness to put the plan into operation.
"S'pose'n he gits arter us," suggested one of the boys.
"We mustn't gi'n him a chanst," returned Mollie. "We must git Ole
Walter outter th' gate an' git his key ter th' gate an' fling hit
inter th' bog. I'll do thet. I'll do hit whilst he's a-sleepin'. I
know whar hit is. Hit's with his pants. His pants hang 'side his
bed. I see 'em mornings when I go ter help Maria an' he ain't up
yit. I'll git th' key."
There were many other things to be thought of. Mollie would have to
carry Doris on her back. The baby must be tied on very, very
securely. Then there was Johnnie. It would be hard for him, with
his mis-shapen foot and his crutch, but Johnnie was not sickly. He
was as strong and sturdy as any and he could climb trees almost as
well as Willie. His crutch could be used if any of them slipped and
someone had to extend a helping hand. They could extend the crutch
instead of the hand. It would be longer and stronger. The alert,
childish minds were working swiftly and in perfect harmony. What one
did not think of the others did.
"Yo' boys'll hev ter help Leathy, an' take keer on her. She's th'
least-un, 'ceptin' Honey, an' I'll hev her on my back," said Mollie.
In lieu of any other name for the new baby, Mollie had called her
Honey, and by that name the children now knew her.
Some of the boys wanted to start at once. Mollie was firm in her
opposition. Despite her youth, she had an old head. She had been
made old by the experiences through which she had passed.
"No," she counseled. "Not till jist 'fore sun-up. We gotter hev
light 'nuff ter see whut we air a-doin'. An' when we air ready ter
go, I--golly, we-all's got ter git acrost thet thar bog en such a
swivvet he won't be able ter tell one o' us frum t'other."
Then she made the little ones all say their prayers and lie down for
a bit of rest, promising to call them in plenty of time. But for
herself there was no rest. For hours she mounted guard. From the
darkness and quietness of the Grimes dwelling it finally became
evident that the ogre had gone to rest and would not disturb them
again that night.
The undertaking Mollie proposed was so hazardous that no person of
mature years would ever have conceived it. The idea of dragging a
dozen small children, including a cripple and a baby, strung together
by a rope and equipped only with a small, wooden crutch, across those
man-eating swamps and quagmires was so beyond the bounds of
reasonable possibility that the mere mention of it to any denizen of
the locality would have been considered proof of the person's mental
irresponsibility.
Of this, however, Mollie was blissfully unaware. From her viewpoint
and under existing circumstances it was the only way out and she was
going that way. Through the hours she watched the stars. Then, just
before the first faint streaks of dawn lighted the sky she went from
bed to bed, and from child to child, whispering the words that
brought each little dreamer up with a start, eager to put their plan
into action.
It was still dark. That intense darkness that comes just before dawn
and everything was very, very still.
The plans had been well laid and the children well instructed. Their
training in obedience was a wonderful asset. There was no talking,
no confusion. Like a band of busy little gnomes they worked,
silently, swiftly. Burlap bags were filled with straw and hay. They
were for Walter to walk on, that the thud of his hoofs might not
arouse the ogre. The little boys attended to that part of the work.
The girls looked after the baby while Mollie attended to everything.
Very softly, stealthily they extended the ladder and crept down into
the stable. Walter was sleepy but he loved the children and yielded
willingly to their soft persuasions. The old horse seemed to sense
that something wonderful was occurring and that much depended upon
him. And while the boys led him slowly, with padded hoofs across the
yard to the gate and the other children made their way noiselessly
toward the edge of the bog where they were to await Mollie and the
boys, the brave girl crept, little by little, into the home of the
monster, across the kitchen floor and up the narrow stairs leading to
that dark, windowless alcove where the ogre slept.
He was snoring, loudly. She could hear him. She could also hear
Ambrose's heavy breathing from the small alcove adjoining. She did
not hear Maria but she hoped and prayed that she, also, might be
sleeping with equal soundness. It was very dark. If she stubbed her
bare toes on anything that hurt she must make no sound, no move for a
moment. But she escaped that danger.
At the door of the room she paused again to listen. Then she stole
in, oh, so lightly! No fairy could have been more still. Her hand
reached out toward the bed post where the ogre's trousers were wont
to hang, ready to be donned with speed if the great bell rang in the
night. He moved heavily in his sleep. Mollie stood rigid, her heart
in her mouth. But he continued snoring. Maria groaned and snuffled.
She was dreaming. She thought, probably, that she was being beaten.
Again Mollie's hand reached toward the bed post. This time she was
successful. The trousers were there. She detached them with the
lightness of touch and deftness of a little bird struggling with a
string for its nest. Then she turned. If the ascent of the stairs
had been dangerous the descent was more so. She wanted to go fast
and dared not. Every creak seemed as loud as a thunderclap. But
nothing happened. She reached the door in safety and fairly shot
across the yard to where the boys were waiting with the horse.
She did not see the window back of her--that small, glass window that
Grimes had had put into the alcove where Ambrose slept and which was
not there the night Mollie and Stephen had said their childish
prayers, beseeching guardian angels to watch over them in that dark
and fearsome place. And now Ambrose, like a young imp, was peering
out at the array of tiny, dark outlines which dotted the yard as far
as he could see. Something had creaked, he thought. He was not yet
accustomed to that new window. He thought the wind might break it,
or something. So he got up to examine it. And what he saw terrified
him.
Not for a moment did he think the children could be trying to escape.
There was no place to escape to. This must be some kind of an army
of robbers. They were stealing Walter. Or else the police his Paw
had been talking about had come to arrest them. It was this last
thought which terrified him sufficiently to make him cower in silence
long enough for the brave little band of children to eject the horse
from the home where he, as well as they, had never known happiness,
and send him at a canter down the road to the pike. Then the gate
was re-locked and the ogre's pants, with the key attached, were
thrown in the bog.
It took but a moment to secure baby Doris to Mollie's back. The
child laughed and crowed with delight at such a novel way of playing
"ridey-horse."
"Quick, Willie, fling th' rope up to the limb o' thet tree yan,"
ordered Mollie.
Away went the heavy rope. It caught and tightened upon the limb of a
tall tree standing upon a tiny oasis of more solid ground well out in
the bog. Thank God! It held.
"Now, chil'en," said Mollie, "we-uns has all said our pra'rs. We's
tol' God whut we air a-goin' ter do an' axed Him ter holt us up. So
we doan need ter git skeered. Jist leave arything ter Him an' keep
a-goin'. Now! Yo' air all fixed tight. I'll go fust."
And Mollie, with Harris Wayne's baby girl strapped on her back,
looked fearlessly up at the heavenly glow far in the east and stepped
off into the bog, her hands clutching the rope to which they were all
tied.
And from the house came a wild cry of alarm.
"Paw--Paw--Git up! Th' young-uns is doin' sumpin'. Hit wa'n't
police. Hit war Mollie. She's got 'em in th' bog!"
CHAPTER XXI
CROSSING THE BOG
"He led them through the depths as through the wilderness."--Ps. cvi,
9
Peter bounded from his bed in a daze. What was Ambrose yelling
about? Was the house afire? He reached, from force of habit, for
his pants. His hand failed to touch them.
"Whar be they?" he thundered. "Whar en hell es my pants?"
Maria was awake, too, groping about for a light. "Hain't they whar
yo' put 'em?" she asked.
"Naw, they hain't," he shouted. "Somebody's tuk 'em. Hit's thet
Mollie--thet's who hit es."
He pranced about, roaring invectives, while Maria made a light and
Ambrose appeared in the doorway.
"Whar be they?" he repeated. "War she in hyar? Whar'd yo' see her?"
"Out in th' yard," cried Ambrose, trembling with excitement. "She
war a-goin' es ef th' devil hed kicked her on end. Gosh! but she war
a-steppin'. An' they shoved ole Walter outten th' gate--"
Grimes gave a whoop. "Whut!" he cried. "Whar war yo'? Ef yo' seed
hit, whyn't yo' yell? Yo' kin make noise 'nuff 'bout nawthin'." He
tore down the stairs and out into the yard with no further thought of
pants. He did not propose to lose his horse as well. But the great
gate was locked. The key was attached to the pants. The pants were
gone. The Grimes family were prisoners in their own home.
They ran about like a bevy of frightened jack-rabbits and finally
brought up on the edge of the bog. There was light now, light enough
to see clearly. And what they saw was so incredible that for a
moment they thought their eyes were deceiving them.
Children--a swaying, floundering string of them, like the tail of a
kite, with the largest, Mollie, in the lead, clear out in the bog,
beyond the reach of any plank on the premises--and nobody would have
ventured to cross on a plank had one been available.
Grimes stared, rubbed his eyes and stared again. "Plumb idjits!" he
ejaculated. "Th' dum fools! I'll git 'em off en thar mighty quick."
He tore indoors and returned on the jump, his shirt flying like a
sail in the morning breeze, and carrying a shot-gun. He paused,
raised the gun to his shoulder and took aim.
From her precarious position on the limb of a tree, her feet barely
out of the mud, Mollie watched him.
"He ain't a-goin' ter hit none on us," she told the children with a
calmness of tone and a sense of conviction that was nothing short of
inspired. "Th' Good Shepherd's a-watchin'. He'll put up His hand,
er sumpin'. They was scarred hands. Mebbe thet's how hit happened.
He was a helpin' little chil'en."
But the hand that reached forth and touched the ogre's arm was the
hand of a poor, ignorant, half-witted woman, the victim of
circumstances, the creature of her environment--Maria.
"I wouldn't shoot 'em," she said, and who knows but that she, too,
was inspired, "th' police might be aroun' an' hear yo'. Leave 'em
an' they'll die in th' mire, anyhow."
Peter lowered the gun. Several sparrows twittered and went flying
over his head in the direction of the children. Neither the children
nor the sparrows fell. Maria's hand had performed the most noble
deed of her life.
"Thet's right," remarked Peter, for once not berating her for
interference. Then he commenced to laugh. The laugh was a cross
between that of a fiend and a hyena. And when he laughed, Ambrose,
his son, laughed. It was a good joke on Mollie! But Maria did not
laugh.
Then Peter remembered his unclad extremities and the run-a-way horse
and the missing key. He gritted his teeth and shook his fist
futilely toward the children before turning and making his way back
to the house.
"Now, didn't I tell yo-all?" said Mollie, smiling upon the children.
"I'm jist es happy es this hyar Honey-baby on my back. An' I hain't
a-feared o' nawthin'. Come on, we-uns has got our breff now. Kin
yo' git out on thet limb, Willie, ter fling th' rope?"
Willie was already climbing like a monkey out on the limb from which
he was to cast the rope to the next tree, further on in the depths of
the swamp. The trees were closer together now, the ground seemed to
be firmer and the mud less tenacious than in that one awful hole so
close to the farm outbuildings.
Leathy was quickly getting tired. She had run a sliver in her
finger. Every time she tried to cling tightly to a tree-limb the
sliver pierced her hand anew.
"Ain't we 'most thar?" she whispered.
"Shore," called back Johnnie. "Luk out, thar, now. Ef yo' hain't
keerful, yo're a-goin' ter slip." Leathy emitted a little scream.
It was true, she was slipping. She tried to right herself. The
sliver hurt. She tried to move her hand to ease it. Down she went!
But she was still fast to the rope. Practical Johnnie extended his
crutch. She grasped it. She clambered back into safety. On they
went.
But it was slow work--very slow work. Mollie was hampered by the
baby on her back; but a better, less troublesome child it would have
been difficult to find. Little Doris laughed and sang and clapped
her chubby hands at everything.
It was truly a venture of faith. Not one of that sad little
procession had the slightest idea of the topography of the country
save Johnnie. He declared that when he arrived at the farm he was
brought along a river road. He remembered it because he had been
looking at a boat that was just being docked. It dimly recalled to
Mollie's mind the boat she remembered playing about when she was
almost a baby. Perhaps if they could get to this river Johnnie told
about, they could get in a boat. Then Grimes would surely never find
them. But did the bogs extend to a road, and was there a river near
that road? There was no one to answer the question.
"Whar th' birds go thar has ter be sumpin' to eat an' drink,"
declared Mollie. "We-all is a-goin' ter foller th' sparrows, hain't
we, Honey-chile?"
Baby Doris tugged at Mollie's long braids and chirruped merrily:
"Gittep--Gittep hossey!" She knew not the meaning of fear.
Yet there were dangers all about them. The dangers were of the
deadliest kind. The little boys knew it. Mollie knew it. There
were poisonous bugs, insects and snakes. They infested the trees and
foliage as well as the ground under the trees. Every move the
children made, every step they took was a veritable gamble with
death. But all along the line of mud-stained little pilgrims bright,
alert, trained eyes kept watch, and acute little ears, ever attuned
to detect the slightest sound that might mean a closely menacing
danger, were constantly on duty.
It was Bobbie who saw the snake and Johnnie's crutch that killed it.
It was Willie who, with a branch broken from a tree, brushed the
horrid spider from Leon's shoulder without the younger boy's
knowledge. It was Leon, himself, who cried out a warning to Jimmie
and the girls to dodge some flying creature. They were on guard,
each one, like a little band of soldiers. They were fighting a
battle with death. Every one of those tired, half-starved little
ones, climbing with the ease of monkeys along those low-hanging
branches knew with an awful certainty that they were fleeing for
their lives. Any one of them would instantly have dropped into the
engulfing mud rather than fall again into the clutches of the ogre
they had left behind.
But their passage was as if the sparrows that flew ahead had, with
their wings, swept the way clear before them. The snakes crawled
away, or were sleeping, having gorged themselves during the night.
The bugs and spiders seemed incurious regarding the strange
procession, and the sun shone down between the trees with such
unusual brightness that the insects sought deeper shade.
"Everything a-goin' fine," called Mollie from her place up ahead.
"Yo'-all don't need ter be a-feared ter laugh, now. Ther hain't ary
one ter whup yo'-all. Jimmie, yo' kin sing ef yo' feel fer hit.
Thar hain't nawthin' a-goin' ter tech us an' time we gits ter thet
thar nex' tree we'll set a spell on thet low limb an' each on us eat
a potato."
For Mollie had left nothing forgotten. She had included in her
provisions for the journey, milk for the baby, water for the children
and raw potatoes for them all. She did not know that greater
struggles lay ahead; that they had accomplished but a small part of
their tortuous journey.
CHAPTER XXII
RANSOM MONEY
"Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."--Matt. xxiii, 38
All through the night just passed a haggard man paced the floor of an
empty nursery in his lonely home, awaiting for a message that did not
come.
Whether or not he would have been cheered by the knowledge that his
baby daughter was being prepared to start at daybreak on the back of
a young girl, little more than a child herself, through the swamps
and quagmires that lay between the Grimes farm and the river road, it
is difficult to say.
It might, at least, have reassured him regarding her welfare for the
moment and dispelled the haunting fear that the little one was in the
hands of a fiend.
But Harris Wayne did not know. And uncertainty as to the safety and
whereabouts of a loved one is always torture.
He was not rendered more tranquil by what had been learned at the
hotel. The man, Grimes, had actually been seen leaving the Mansion
House several days prior to the kidnapping. It was not known with
whom he had visited there. Yet the script of the letter demanding
ransom corresponded in part with the handwriting of the man who had
registered at the hotel as Bailey.
Were the two acquainted, Wayne wondered. Were they in league
together! Had his child really been turned over to the hog farmer
for shelter while arrangements for ransom were pending?
Again and again he asked himself the questions. He blamed himself
for not having paid the ransom at once, thus saving himself from
torment and Doris from danger. He might have had her back in his
arms again by now! What a fool he had been to listen to the Chief.
Naturally, all the police thought about was apprehending criminals.
They could not be expected to understand his feelings and emotions!
He did not know that the Chief had six children and the detectives
were each fathers of families numbering from two to seven. He did
not realize that it was their very love of children and their desire
to protect other fathers and other children from such suffering that
made them concentrate their energies upon running down the criminals.
People in great trouble are apt to be selfish. They think no trouble
can possibly equal theirs and that no one can properly understand
their sorrow or anxiety.
So Harris Wayne paced the floor, nursing his grief and listening,
ever listening for a sound--a step on the gravel, a tap on the
window, a knock at the door, a ring at the telephone--heralding a
message that his child had been recovered.
His nerves were exhausted, his hands trembling, his hair disheveled.
The Chief had told him that he would telephone the very instant
anything new developed. Evidently nothing new had developed, for the
Chief was depending upon information he hoped to gain from a sick
child, unconscious and apparently at the point of death. It was
nonsense from Wayne's point of view--sheer nonsense!
Morning dawned. Food was brought him but he could not eat. Still no
word from the Chief. Time had gone slowly during the night. Now,
the minutes seemed flying. And the time limit would expire at noon!
Wayne grew desperate. He looked at his watch. Six o'clock. The
Chief had said he would sleep in his office that night. All right,
Wayne would see him at once and arrange to pay that ransom. He would
brook no argument against it.
He ordered his car. Five minutes later it was tearing at high speed
along the road to town. A few minutes more and Wayne burst in upon
the Chief as he was eating his breakfast, brought in from a near-by
restaurant.
"I can't stand this suspense any longer, Chief," Wayne exclaimed.
"I'm going to pay that ransom. I'm on my way to the Herald office
now, to insert the notice as they requested. I'll just have time to
get it in before the city edition goes to press. By nine o'clock the
paper will be out--perhaps a little before."
The Chief knitted his brows. For a few seconds he sat considering
the matter from all angles.
"It might not prove a bad idea," he said at length. "The time is
short, now; and if the boy up at Craddock's rallies enough to talk
and says anything worth while we'd be able to round up the whole
bunch just as they're getting ready to make the transfer and receive
the ransom."
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrow_.
"WE SHALL GA-A-THER AT THE RIV-VER."]
He reached for the telephone.
"Herald office," he said, shortly. "Mr. Gavin."
When the connection was given he wasted no words nor time. "Hello,
Jimmie," he exclaimed, in greeting the editor. "This is Adams, over
at Headquarters. Paper gone to press yet?--Well, hold it a minute.
I've got to get a notice in.--No, don't change your make-up. Just
run a big head across the front page. It'll sell the paper. Here it
is: 'Wayne agrees to meet kidnapper's terms.' That's all, now. Not
another word or you'll queer the whole deal. As soon as the story is
ready I'll give it to you and you can get out an extra. Make a
display of that, now, and rush the paper onto the streets, will you?
All right. Thanks. Good-by."
He hung up the receiver and turned to Wayne. "Now, that's done," he
said. "As soon as the bank's open you can go over and draw the
money. Meanwhile, pull up a chair and have a cup of coffee. There's
plenty here, and it's good."
He got another cup out of a locker and poured some of the coffee for
Wayne who, now that the agreement to pay the ransom was made, found
himself able to relax sufficiently to drink it. Had he known that
his little daughter was at that moment perched on the limb of a tree,
in the depth of a swamp, absorbed in the enjoyment of a drink of
milk, served in a bottle that had once contained corn liquor while
her companions breakfasted on raw potatoes, his own enjoyment of the
coffee would have been sadly marred.
Within an hour the Herald's big headline was being shouted on the
streets by the newsboys. And within half an hour thereafter the same
car that had waited near the Help-U Gas Station on the night of the
kidnapping was dashing along the old pike in the direction of the
private thoroughfare which led to the Grimes estate. Bill Swazey was
at the wheel. Bailey sat beside him.
"Boat ready?" asked the latter.
"Fine shape," returned Swazey.
"If Grimes fetches the kid quick we'll be able to get there and have
the engine going nicely before Wayne's due at the pier," said Bailey.
"I got word to Louis. He's already there," Swazey announced.
"So far, so good," declared Bailey. "Now what we want to do, is
this. After Wayne has paid over the money and sits down on the bench
on the pier, we get into the automobile, see, where this fellow
Grimes and Louis will already be, and we reach out and put the kid
down on the ground where Wayne can see her, but he'll not dare make a
move toward her until our car gets out of sight. But we don't go
with the car, see? We step right out the other door and through the
bushes onto the boat. If Wayne has any police following him, they'll
take after this car. When they overhaul it,--which they won't, for
Louis knows his business--there won't be anyone in it that Wayne can
identify. This fellow Grimes won't talk--I've got his grand all
ready to slip him as we duck through the car--and Louis, when he does
talk, will have a story that will pull him through anything. Now all
we have to do is get the child and step on the gas on the way back."
But even then Swazey was stepping on the gas in a manner that made
their progress over the Grimes' private roadway decidedly precarious.
As they neared the formidable gate they slowed down and honked
fiercely for admittance. There was no response. Bailey muttered
oaths and cursed Grimes for a fool. Swazey sent forth another
powerful blast of the horn. Finally Bailey sprang out and rang the
bell which swung above the gate. It clattered and clanged with a
fury that told Grimes it would be dangerous to ignore its summons.
"Hit's th' police," he told Maria, "but they won't find nawthin'.
I've cleaned out th' loft. Now you'all keep yore mouths shet or yo'
know whut'll happen. Reach me thet ax."
Maria handed him the ax. Then he strode off, across the yard, and
chopped open the gate.
Bailey, annoyed by the delay and the necessity of making such a noise
to announce their arrival was in no mood for listening to apologies
or explanations even if Grimes had attempted to make any. But the
latter's surprise upon seeing Bailey instead of the police so
paralyzed his tongue that he could not have spoken had he tried.
"The child--where is it?" demanded Bailey, after he had cursed Grimes
roundly and called him all the unpleasant names he could think of at
the moment. "Come on, speak up. We can't lose time. Where's the
child?"
Then Peter regained his voice. He smiled ingratiatingly. "Hit's all
right," he drawled. "Thar hain't a mite o' evidence. I heered how
things was a-goin', an' I 'lowed ter git hit outen th' way ter day
but thet danged gal, Mollie, lit out airly this mornin' takin' th'
Wayne young-un with her."
He did not mention that she had also taken a dozen other children
beyond his reach. What he said, however, was sufficiently startling.
Bailey fairly shouted. His former oaths were as nothing.
"Gone!" he exclaimed. "Where? When?"
"Inter th' bog. This mornin' 'fore sun-up. They're prob'ly mired by
now."
Bailey knew nothing of the death gripping tendencies of the bog that
lay so close to the farmer's house. He started toward it. "Then we
must get them out," he shouted. "Is that them, out there," pointing
to what seemed to be moving figures far in the distance.
Grimes chuckled.
"Thar hain't nawthin' on earth thet kin git 'em out," he drawled, as
if the statement were a most delectable morsel.
"Then I'll raise hell and get them out," thundered Bailey, "and
you'll go after them, yourself. We've got to get back to the
crossroads ahead of Wayne and we've got to have the child. He's
coming to pay the ransom!"
It was Peter's turn to rave. He did so, handsomely. Then he
explained and demonstrated the impossibility of crossing the bog
after the fleeing children.
"How en hell they ever got acrost, beats me," he told Bailey. "Thet
thar Mollie's plumb bewitched er sumpin'. She doan know nawthin'
'bout whar she's a-headin', but ef she keeps on a-goin' th' way she
is now, she's bound ter come out some'eres aroun th' river road, not
fur frum th' cross-roads. Hit's one chanst in a million."
"That'll suit us," exclaimed Bailey, making flying leaps toward the
automobile, which Swazey had already headed in the opposite
direction. "Step on her, Bill."
But they had forgotten Grimes.
"Hey, whut erbout my thousand dollars?" he cried, springing upon the
running board, with an agility never before attained by his twisted
limbs. Bailey not replying, and the car going too fast for the door
to be unfastened to permit him to enter, the farmer continued to
cling to the running board from which, by way of retaliation upon
Bailey, he roared back to where Maria and Ambrose stood in the open
gateway:
"Hyar, you-uns, don't stand thar a-gawpin. run--Sic th' dawg on them
young-uns--Let 'im chaw 'em up!"
CHAPTER XXIII
PURSUED AND PURSUERS
"He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that
getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare."--Jer. xlviii,
44
At the door of the bank Harris Wayne paused. Someone was calling to
him. He turned to perceive the Chief's car pulling up to the curb
just beyond his own.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Wayne," called the Chief. "Don't draw that
money, yet. I want to speak to you first."
Wayne stepped back to the curb and, after hearing what the Chief had
to say, dismissed his own car and stepped into the one in which the
Chief and several of his men were seated. The man at the wheel threw
in the clutch and the car shot ahead, making for the hill country
where lay the Craddock farm.
"The message came right after you left," said the Chief. "The boy's
conscious. Weak but perfectly rational and eager to talk. I gave
orders that he was to be kept quiet and do no talking until we got
there. They're giving him nourishment and getting him ready. That
Craddock woman is a good nurse. She can break up a fever, they say,
quicker than most doctors."
It was fortunate for Stephen that he had fallen into such kind and
capable hands. He was lying, pale and emaciated, against the pillows
that Mrs. Craddock prided herself upon possessing, and looked up with
something like a smile when the Chief and Wayne entered. That
mistake--that dreadful mistake that had landed him at the Grimes farm
instead of the school for which he had yearned, was at last to be
rectified.
But it was not of himself, nor of the school that the boy wished to
talk. He had escaped just when escape, for him, seemed impossible
and he had resigned himself to die. Yet here he was, lying in a real
bed for the first time in all those long years--he didn't know how
many--enjoying comforts that he had forgotten existed and feeling
that he never, never wanted to move his thin, wasted limbs from the
cool, comforting linen on which they now rested.
And back on the farm Mollie, his little companion in misery, even
though she had now outgrown him, who had saved his life from the
hands of the ogre, was every day still risking her life for others,
not knowing at what moment the ogre's wrath would turn against her.
It was of Mollie, that Splutters wanted to talk. Mollie must be
saved.
There was so much to tell. The lad was not naturally talkative, but
the pent up thoughts of years were released when the flood-gates
opened. The hill language which had been so foreign to him and
which, by silence, he had struggled not to acquire, seemed to slip
away from him with the fever, leaving the pure diction of his
childhood that he had learned from his beloved books.
Softly, gently, steadily he told his story. Twice they made him
pause to rest. Several times Mrs. Craddock administered some
medicinal preparation or held water to the pale lips. He knew
nothing, however, of Mr. Wayne's little girl.
"Show him that picture."
Wayne looked up in surprise at the Chief's words. They were
addressed to Burke, the detective who had been engaged in running
down clues at the hotel and who now accompanied the party to the
farmhouse. The latter reached into his pocket and drew forth a sheet
of hotel stationery on which appeared a rough pencil sketch of a
man's face. This he held where the boy could observe it closely.
"Did you ever see anyone who looked like that come to the Grimes
place?" the Chief asked.
"No, sir," answered the boy. "He didn't come to the farm. He met us
at a place where two roads cross. I was walking beside Mr. Grimes
when the buggy came along and he was sitting in it with the little
girl beside him--Mollie, you know--and he asked Mr. Grimes where he
lived and if he was paid enough money would he keep the little girl.
And Mr. Grimes said if the money came he'd keep her and if it didn't
he get rid of her. And this man told him the money would come
regular as long as she lived and so Mr. Grimes said all right. So
they took her out of the buggy and told her to walk along with me and
I didn't hear what they said after that. She was a good little girl
and didn't cry or anything. I think I told you about it, didn't I?
I forgot. But I didn't know you had his picture."
The Chief was on his feet. Everyone present was alert. The moment
was pregnant with action. That picture--the rough sketch which an
idle night clerk had made to amuse himself, just because he had not
liked the peculiar smile which Bailey bestowed upon him when he gave
him his mail,--now proved beyond a doubt that Grimes was known to
Bailey and that it must have been Bailey with whom Grimes had been in
communication the day he was seen leaving the hotel. But the Chief
had another idea.
"Have you got an eraser, Burke? Sub out that mustache. Be careful.
Don't spoil the likeness."
The slight change was quickly made and the Chief, taking the picture
from Burke, handed it to Wayne.
"Any resemblance to that fellow you told about over in France?" he
asked.
Wayne had almost forgotten having told the Chief about the old threat
that had been made against him. He looked at the picture first with
some impatience, then with perplexity and finally with amazed
interest. The Chief, noting the rapid changes of expression on
Wayne's face, did not wait for a reply.
"We've got our men," he remarked succinctly. "If we hurry we can
catch them all at the Grimes place. That's where they've taken the
child. This boy was already gone. They'll have seen the morning
papers and be going there to fetch her away." He started toward the
door.
Stephen, realizing their purpose, strove to raise himself in bed.
"Go quietly," he warned, fear again lighting his large, sunken eyes.
"Just all break down the gate and go in together or he'll throw the
baby into the bog. He will. He's terrible."
The Chief, even in his haste, managed to call back to Mrs. Craddock
to reassure the little fellow. "Tell him not to worry," he said.
"That's our business--saving children. I'll send somebody to tell
him about it."
And Splutters, feeling that he had done all he could and that Mollie
and the children were going to be saved, went tranquilly to sleep.
Craddock was sitting on the rail fence by the side of the road
talking to the driver of the police car as Wayne and the detectives
hurried toward it. He descended as they approached and came around
to meet them.
"How's the quickest way to get to the Grimes place?" the Chief asked.
"Is there any short cut--any back way we can get in?"
The farmer shook his head. "Not as I knows on," he said. "But
yo'-all kin git over ter th' river road less'n no time ef yo' jist
foller this road es fur es Murphy's place, then cut acrost thet
stretch o' timber-land o' his'n--Mike'll let yo' take down th' bars
an' go through. Hit's a good road--an' thet'll fotch yo' ter th' top
o' th' knob whar hit runs inter th' hill road thet goes down ter
Simpkins' dock. Thet's whar hit jines th' river road. Frum thar on
ter th' ole pike yo'll hev th' river on one side an' th' swamps on
t'other, so yo' wanter drive keerful like--an' th' same arter yo'
turn off onto th' Grimes road, thet runs inter th' pike 'bout a whoop
an' a holler further."
The farmers in this section had once been wont to measure distance by
sound and the expression still lingered, even though meaningless to a
modern generation.
The route was more direct than it sounded. It was not a waste of
time to listen to the directions for they ensured a through journey
once the car started, which it did with a suddenness and swiftness
that left the farmer gazing with amazement. One statement he had
made impressed every man in the car. From the top of that knob to
which the timber-land route would lead them, they would descend
almost direct to the Simpkins' dock--the place designated by the
kidnappers for Wayne to bring the money demanded for the ransom of
his child.
Wayne and the Chief simultaneously looked at their watches.
"We'll just about make it," said the latter.
"God grant we may be in time," groaned Wayne.
And in that other automobile, tearing away from the Grimes place and
along the pike and river roads, coming directly toward them, Bailey
looked at his watch and made the same remark. His object was to
reach the cross-roads in time to head off the children, get
possession of the Wayne baby and park his car, with engine throttled
down, in the position he had already described to Swazey to cover
their escape after the ransom was paid.
The sun was mounting higher in the heavens and Mollie was growing
tired. Her back ached with the heavy load she was carrying and her
body was one mass of scratches, bruises and mud. The children were
in even worse condition. She looked back along the struggling line,
and her brave heart ached for the little creatures. Not one had made
a complaint; not one had been fretful or impatient. The boys were
even making jokes and doing their utmost to celebrate their freedom.
Then from behind them sounded the baying of a dog. Tige was
unloosed! Maria was urging him to brave the swamp and come after
them. The children called to Mollie.
"Poor Tige!" she exclaimed. "He'd hev ben a good dawg ef Pete hed
gi'n him a chanst. Ef he goes inter th' bog he'll die."
Tige, however, combined his strength with his intelligence. He
seemed to sense that the bog would drag him down to death and, by an
almost impossible leap, succeeded in landing close to the foot of the
first tree at which the children had halted. From there he
alternately plunged and plowed his way, his loud bays echoing through
the swamps in a manner to strike terror to the ears of anyone who
chanced to be fleeing before him.
For the first time the children manifested some degree of
nervousness. They had for so long lived in fear of everyone and
everything connected with the Grimes establishment that the thought
of pursuit from that quarter was in itself alarming.
Mollie strove to reassure the frightened little ones. Tige, she
reminded them, had kept singularly quiet all during their departure
that morning. Once she had even heard him whine, as if he would like
to come with them.
"I reckon he's sick o' bein' cooped up in thet leetle dog house an'
not' lowed ter run no furder'n th' rope he's tied with," she said,
cheerfully. "I s'pose he thinks now she's gi'n him a chanst he wants
ter run away with we-uns. He's jist hollerin' thet-a-way ter let
we-uns know he's a-comin'. Mebbe 'twould be better ef us h'isted
ourselfs up inter this hyar tree an' set a spell ter wait fer him."
Mollie was not quite sure just how Tige would behave. It would be
wise, she thought, to get the children out of harm's way. But before
they could act upon her suggestion, she glanced down into the
sluggish water that lay beyond and almost swooned at the fearful
object which loomed directly ahead.
CHAPTER XXIV
NEW TERRORS
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and dragon
shalt thou trample under feet."--Ps. xci, 13
Shriek after shriek rent the air.
The children, too, had glimpsed the hideous black creature lying
half-imbedded in mud. A few inches more and Mollie would have
stepped upon it.
"Oh, look!" they cried.
The creature was moving. It was coming toward them. It was raising
its horrible head and opening its mouth.
"Oh! Oh! Hit will bite off Mollie's legs--"
"Hit'll swaller some on us whole--"
"Oh, Mollie, whut es hit--whut es hit?"
Panic seized them as they scrambled for safety along the
low-over-hanging limb of the tree Mollie had just indicated.
But Mollie did not know what the creature was. She had never even
seen a picture of so terrifying an object. Her face went white under
its coating of tan and mud. Her knees shook. Her heart seemed to
leap into her throat. She was powerless to move. Her arms fell limp
at her sides and her teeth chattered.
"Quick, Mollie! He'll git yo', shore."
It was Jimmie's voice. It roused Mollie from the momentary paralysis
that had seized her at sight of the on-coming horror. She sprang for
the bough and struggled to pull herself and little Doris upward.
Never in her recollection had Mollie been conscious of such
over-powering weakness. She was shaking from head to foot. It
seemed she would fall before she succeeded finally in getting herself
beyond the reach of those yawning, murderous jaws, up-stretched
toward her naked feet.
"Git up--git up! Set clost. Hol' on tight," she managed to
articulate to the wide-eyed, frightened children. "Lawsey, I dunno
whut hit air."
"W-w-will hit come--u-u-up hyar?" wailed Leathy, tears rolling over
her mud-stained cheeks.
Mollie steadied herself with her hands clutching the tree limb and
looked down.
The giant shape was moving about in the muddy water. It seemed to
have a tail. It did not look as if it could climb. But even as she
looked, the fearsome thing reared its grisly head and extended its
jaws again with terrible menace. Mollie shuddered but did not cry
out. The creature was directly underneath. It floundered. It
lashed the mud with its whole body. Was it the devil coming right up
out of the pit to confront them and prevent their escape?
Cold chills crept over the courageous little girl. Still she did not
lose her nerve entirely. It was the shock and lack of knowledge that
disturbed her. She had not expected to encounter wild beasts and
gigantic creatures, the existence of which she had never even dreamed.
True, she was frightened--terribly frightened. But not for herself.
Never once did the little heroine think of herself. It was of the
baby strapped to her back and the dozen small children tied to a rope
behind her.
The sense of responsibility weighed upon her. She had led the
children forth into the swamps. If any evil befell them there she
would be to blame. They had trusted her. She must not fail them.
Johnnie lifted his crutch. "Shall I lam 'im?" he asked, somewhat
nervously.
"No--Oh, lawsey, no!" cried Mollie. "Doan rile 'im more'n he is.
Hit cain't climb. Hit's too big."
The muddy water ahead commenced to churn furiously. From out it
another black bulk became visible. Another and another followed. It
was like one long, endless serpent making voluminous convulsions and
creeping steadily onward in the direction of the children, hanging
precariously to the limb of that mangrove tree. If it should break--
Again they screamed and clung to one another. This horror was beyond
anything their childish imaginations had ever conjured.
And following them, ever coming nearer and nearer, was the dog. His
baying had never ceased. They could see him, now plunging along,
clawing at the mangrove roots to regain his footing, pulling himself
up by desperate efforts, baying with the weird, nerve-racking
regularity of his kind, his livid mouth hanging open, eyes gleaming
from the strain of his endeavors to keep himself alive and overtake
the children.
Would he leap at them and jerk them down from their present security
into the very mouths of these appalling reptiles? Mollie didn't
think so.
"Never yo' min' Tige," called Mollie, still speaking with difficulty
through teeth that continued to chatter like castanets. "He ain't so
mean's Pete thunk he war. He'll git chawed up, shore es sartin, ef
he lan's on ary o' them thing's." She lifted up her voice then and
shouted back to the plunging dog that she had pitied from the day
Peter had kicked him into unconsciousness for some trivial thing.
"Go back, Tige. Go hum--go hum!"
But Tige had no thought now of turning back. He knew his best friend
was up in that tree and he came on, unable to sense that his
formidable appearance belied his kind intentions and only increased
the terror of the little ones whose prattling voices he had loved to
hear as he lay, day after day, in his gloomy prison house. He only
knew that he was free at last and that he was coming to them as fast
as he could.
Poor Tige! He reached the foot of the tree, hesitated, gave one
startled, guttural sniff mingled with a growl of fear, caught one
glimpse of the dragon-like monster under the tree, then dropped his
tail and bounded back, faster and faster, in the direction from
whence he had come. Whether or not he ever succeeded in re-crossing
the death-gripping bog at the farm entrance Mollie never knew. She
could not think of Tige. Her struggle, at that moment, was for the
string of little, human sparrows, lined out on that limb behind her.
Her nerves had arrived at so sensitive a state that even the rustling
of a leaf was enough to startle her, but the sound which now crept to
her ears was far more ominous than the mere falling of a bit of
foliage. It was accompanied by an almost imperceptible jar. Again
it came. Mollie's blood ran cold. She gave one quick glance in the
direction of the sound then another down at the swirling welter of
what she had now decided were "water-hawgs" almost directly under the
limb upon which they were perched. If that limb broke and the
children fell, nothing on earth could save them!
"Set still," she commanded, and there was that in her tone which made
every one of the little flock know that their lives depended upon
instant obedience. "Doan move--ary one o' yo'. Doan' jar." Her
eyes, shining like stars, scanned the trees about them. The trees
were closer together than at any part of the swamp just crossed. And
it was strange that there should be more water. Were they nearing
the river, she wondered. If the trees stopped and the river
commenced, what would they do, even after they had passed this
present danger.
Questions crowded upon her. She brushed them aside. She had heard
that ominous crackling sound again. Every second increased their
peril.
"Willie," said Mollie, addressing the boy with the rope, "Kin yo'
fling thet rope ter thet tree over yan? 'Tain't so good but we
gotter go over. Be keerful. Doan jar. An' git ready, ary one o'
yo' ter hang on ter th' rope. Leathy, doan cry, now. Nobody's
a-goin' ter fall."
Willie flung the rope. It caught, tightened, held fast. But the jar
was more than the limb could stand. It creaked again--they all heard
it now--and slowly, surely, commenced to sag. There was no mistake.
The limb upon which the little flock of sparrows was perched was
breaking under them!
"Oh, God, hol' us up," cried Mollie, suddenly inspired, and instantly
the panic which a few moments before had gripped them passed as
suddenly as it had come, and the children seemed fairly to develop
wings, so quickly did they contrive, by means of the rope, to cross
from the breaking limb to the tree beyond without a single mishap.
"Keep right on a'goin', keep right on a-goin," called Mollie, while
Johnnie extended his crutch again and again to help first one and
then another get a firmer hold upon the rope which brought them all
up to another limb; for the strange, floundering creatures with the
lashing tails and jaws that could swallow a child were still all
about underneath.
Leon was beginning to be fretful. His throat was sore when they
started. The frightful experiences through which they had passed had
not served to improve his spirits. Leathy, in her terror, kept
edging closer and closer to her brother. Her little hands clutched
nervously at his waistband as they all squirmed and crawled slowly
across the limb to what seemed to be a sort of elevation just beyond.
They were almost across now, Mollie had stepped down onto a log.
There was no water nor mud beyond it. One had to climb up a sort of
rubbish-like bank. The little ones on the limb made haste to follow
their leaders. Leon jerked himself forward. Leathy wasn't ready to
move. The button of the waistband gave way. Leathy's little hands
still clutched. At all events, she held of the top of his breeches.
She hitched herself along another inch and Leon pulled ahead a good
six inches. The inevitable happened. Danger and disaster were all
forgotten in that tragic moment when the little fellow realized that
his small twin sister had, in her eagerness to escape, exposed his
rear anatomy to the cool breeze of the tree tops. At the risk of his
own life he released his hold on the limb with one hand and, reaching
back struck at his twin and uttered those momentous words which they
all remembered in after years:
"Leg-go my pants!"
Leathy commenced to cry. But as they dropped, one by one upon the
rubbish heap and edged their way across the log just before ascending
the little slope beyond, they heard Mollie's voice calling, merrily:
"Hit's all right, chil'en. We-uns air hyar. Thar hain't nawthin'
ter tech us now. Git erlong up. Help Leathy, Bobbie. Jimmie, whut
er yo' a-waitin' fer? Hyar's th' road by thet thar river yo'-uns war
a-talkin' 'bout. Th' river's jist acrost on t'other side. Thet thar
mud water runs under th' road. Thet's how them thar critters swum
inter th' swamp. Git erlong, now. We-uns hes gotter fin' us a boat,
so's Pete won't ketch us. Come on, Jimmie--come on!"
(But Jimmie was waiting to make a gesture of defiance at the biggest
alligator. Leon was tearfully struggling with his pants!)
CHAPTER XXV
AT THE CROSS-ROADS
"Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all
the plain."--Gen. xix, 17
Down the road the children trudged, mud-smeared from head to foot,
their little, bare legs scratched and bleeding, their hair matted and
unkempt, clad in tattered, non-descript garments, hungry and weary to
the point of exhaustion but in a veritable transport of delight.
They had escaped from the ogre! They were free!
Oh, what joy it was to look about them and view the sunlit landscape
and admire the flowers that grew by the roadside without dread lest
the harsh voice and still harsher hand of "ole Pete" descend upon
them.
With the vitality and exuberance of childhood they laughed and
prattled, asking Mollie question after question and holding up
flowers and shrubs for Baby Doris to smell of, and clutch at while
she laughed her silvery, tinkling laugh and displayed her tiny white
teeth and dimples.
But Mollie hurried them all on. "Thar hain't time yit fer
foolishment," she warned them. "Sumpin' may happen. We doan want
ole Pete ter ketch us ag'in."
"Shore don't," supplemented one of the boys.
"An' thar hain't ary boat thet I kin see, 'cept thet one sort o'
settin' aroun' 'way out thar." Mollie pointed to where the police
boat, "Mary Ann," was drifting with the current out in the middle of
the river.
The children withdrew more and more to the side of the road where
berries were growing along the fence and they could eat as they went.
They were inclined to loiter. The tots were all so worn out by the
events of the morning that any one of them could have dropped down in
the grass and fallen asleep in less than five minutes.
A strange noise in the distance made them turn their heads to look
back in the direction whence they had come. Instantly every one of
the little band, even Mollie, scurried for cover with as much speed
as if the farm bell were ringing and they were climbing into the loft.
"Hit's an injine--an injine--Hit's runnin' away!" shrieked Bobbie.
"Injine nawthin'," retorted Willie. "Whur d'y live 'fore yo' all
come hyar. Hain't yo' ever seed an autymobile?"
Before the question could be answered the speeding car was
sufficiently near for bright eyes peeping from between the leaves of
the blackberry bushes and rhododendron to recognize the tall man
clinging to the running board.
"'Sh! Hit's Pete!"
"Hit's Pete!"
"'Sh! Keep still."
"Oh, Mollie, will he see us? Will he kotch us?"
"'Sh! No. Shet up. D'y want him ter hyar yo'?"
It was a near panic but Mollie averted it, and not a leaf stirred nor
a whisper sounded as the car tore past, carrying with it Messrs.
Bailey, Swazey and Grimes.
"Didja seed him?--Didja seed him?" whispered the children, excitedly.
"He war a-hangin' on like he war afeared he'd fall off."
"I wisht he would."
"Oh, Johnnie! Doan say thet."
"Well, I do," persisted the boy. "He hurted me awful."
Willie, who had been following the car with his eyes, suddenly
extended his arm, pointing to where another car, tearing along at
even greater speed, was coming down a slight incline almost at right
angles with the road along which the Grimes and Bailey car was
traveling.
"Golly!" he exclaimed in great excitement. "Lookit--Lookit! They'll
smash--shore es shootin'--jes' whar them roads cross. Come on--Let's
we-uns run back o' th' bushes hyar an' see does he git killed."
Thrilled by any diversion, the newly emancipated little farm laborers
hurried as fast as they could toward the point where it seemed the
two cars must collide. To their amazement, the men in the car coming
down hill were standing up. Suddenly they commenced shooting at the
other car. Then the men with Grimes began to shoot back. The
children cowered on the ground.
"Lawdy!" gasped Mollie, "hit's a fight!" Her eagerness to see
automobiles wrecked had vanished. "Git back thar--git
back--run--over thar ter th' edge o' th' river, whar they won't see
us."
Bullets were flying all about them. The children were terrified.
Mollie feared they would cry out and so apprise Grimes of their
presence. She herded them together as closely as possible and
hurried on. The noise of the shooting seemed to deafen them. Leathy
was crying again. Suddenly they found themselves in a little
clearing. There was a platform, like a little bridge, and a shed.
They sped along it breathlessly without in the least knowing where
they were going and Mollie, running ahead, thinking principally of
getting the baby sheltered from that hail of bullets, rushed straight
on, across a narrow plank and into the cutest little house the
children had ever seen. In less than a minute they were every one
across the plank and, with Mollie, snuggled down under beds, behind
chairs and under tables in the small room in which they found
themselves. They were none too soon.
Footsteps were coming close behind them. The next instant two men
dashed in breathlessly and shouted:
"Louis--Louis!"
The children crouched closer in their hiding places, hardly daring to
breathe.
"He must have gone," said one of the men. "He knew he was to take
the car. He's probably up near the road. Get her started, Bill.
Hurry, damn it! The engine's going."
Thumping, bumping noises sounded. The house commenced to shake and
quiver. The children could feel it moving, faster and faster. What
was it, they wondered. A boat?
"I reckon so," whispered Mollie in reply to the question. The little
ones clutched one another's hands and held their breaths. It must be
a boat. They found themselves swaying from side to side. Cautiously
peeking out, Mollie found that they were alone in this queer little
room. Where were the men? She reconnoitered.
Yes, there they were, up in front. One was turning a wheel just like
the wheel that had been on her father's boat. Oh, glory! They were
actually on a boat and sailing away, she didn't care where, away from
Grimes and his old farm forever!
But there was little time for rejoicing. They were still in danger,
it seemed. That man at the wheel looked like someone she had seen
before. She was trying to think where. Then another shot rang out.
It came right across in front of the boat. The man turned the craft
to the left. Another shot sounded.
Mollie looked in the direction the shots came from and observed the
boat she had previously seen loitering idly out in the middle of the
river. It seemed to be trying to overtake the one on which she and
the children had taken refuge. Were they after them? Had someone
seen them come aboard? Was Grimes, himself, on that pursuing boat?
Oh, why didn't the man at the wheel make it go faster? She watched
his every motion.
He seemed to be terribly afraid. He kept looking back over his
shoulder. The dark brown boat was almost alongside. There was lots
of shooting now. Mollie slipped back out of range of the bullets.
But she could still see what was happening.
The man at the wheel was afraid. He was running frantically now and
letting the wheel go all by itself. Another man was running about.
He had red hair and a plaid suit. He seemed more scared than the man
with the dark mustache.
"I'm going to jump," he called to the other. "I'm not going to stay
here and be caught like a rat in a trap. Come on. We can swim.
Dive. Let 'em think we're drowned. We can make the shore anywhere
along here. You can stay if you want to. I'm going."
He sprang up on the rail and plunged into the water. The other man
did the same. Mollie and the children were alone!
When the bullets commenced to fly at the cross-roads and the tires
were punctured, one after another, bringing their car to a halt Peter
Grimes had leaped from the running board and run, as fast as his
withered leg would let him, back along the river road in the
direction he had come.
But the men in the other car were jumping out to pursue the
kidnappers. They were running down the lane to the pier. And they
hadn't seen him! But they might, any minute. He parted a clump of
bushes and ran down a slight embankment. The swamps came in around
here, somewhere, but there was nothing dangerous, so far as he knew,
such as the bog that lay at his door. A shot whistled past his ears,
so close as to make him dodge. Were they shooting at random or had
they seen him? He cowered and shivered in terror. He gave no
thought to his footsteps. Let them lead him anywhere--anywhere so
long as it was away from danger of death out there in the open road.
He plunged, he floundered. He drew forth his lame leg with
difficulty, only to find that the other leg was going deeper into the
mud. A frenzy of terror seized him. He lifted up his voice and
shouted with all his strength:
"Help! Help!"
But the only other sound that broke the summer stillness was the boom
of a gun out on the river where the police boat, Mary Ann, was
chasing a motor launch that was apparently running amuck.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PIT OF DEATH
"It is appointed to all men once to die, and after death, the
judgement."--Heb. ix, 27
The sun was high in the heavens but the air was hot and sultry.
Occasionally there were far distant mutterings of thunder. A storm
was brewing. It was nearly noon, the time appointed for the paying
of the ransom. At the cross-roads the sound of shooting had died
away. The air was still with that ominous, pregnant stillness which
precedes a storm. There was no twitter of bird nor hum of insect. A
brooding silence seemed to have suddenly descended over all the
landscape.
On the river road, near its intersection with the lane leading to the
Simpkins' dock and the hill road stood an abandoned automobile. It
was the car in which Bailey and Swazey had planned to make their
escape and from which Peter Grimes had leaped when it was halted by
bullets. Its tires were now riddled, its windshield wrecked and its
radiator a-leak. The gasoline that dripped to the ground sullied the
fragrance of the air with its heavy fumes.
Just across, and headed directly toward it, from the incline of the
hill road stood another car. It was the one in which Harris Wayne
and the detectives had sought to reach the Grimes farm in time to
apprehend the kidnappers and recover his little girl.
They had failed, but from the crest of the hill they had recognized
the men they sought and had speeded to intercept them. The tall,
lank, crooked frame of Peter Grimes, clinging, hatless, to the side
of the car, his long coattails waving with the speed at which it was
going, would have been recognizable at an even greater distance than
across the corner of a field.
Wayne had begged the detectives not to shoot. He feared his child
might be in the kidnapper's car, but when the tires were riddled and
the car halted it was seen that none of the occupants who took to
their heels was carrying a baby.
"They haven't got her," shouted the Chief, springing from his own car
and running in pursuit. "Shoot to kill if necessary. Don't let one
of them escape."
But the men on the lower road had the advantage. Shielded by their
car, which blocked the road between them and their pursuers, they
were able to disappear into the bushes and seek shelter aboard the
boat which they had known was waiting. Grimes, however, not knowing
about the boat and thinking only of concealment, had gone in the
opposite direction.
As they reached the end of the little dock the detectives saw the
launch making for the open water.
"The Mary Ann will over-haul her," said the Chief, chagrined at the
turn affairs had taken. "The crooks had their boat all ready. The
child must be back at the farm."
They supposed, naturally enough, that Grimes had accompanied the
kidnappers in their mad dash for the boat and had sailed away with
them. Disappointed, but by no means hopeless, the chief led the way
back to where they had left his car. The driver was not there. The
car was empty. There was nothing to indicate how, where or when he
disappeared.
They waited a few moments for him to reappear and, when he did not,
commenced a search of the bushes that lined the fences along the side
of the road. Then they saw him coming up the river road from the
direction the kidnapper's car had come. He was running and, as he
drew near, they observed that he looked somewhat alarmed.
"You-all went down on the dock," he observed. "The geezers didn't
all go that way. That tall fellow--the guy that was hanging on the
side of the car--made a bee line in that direction."
He pointed off to the side of the road, somewhat in the direction
from which he had just come.
"Are you sure!" asked the Chief and Wayne in a breath. "That was
Grimes--the one we think had the child. Perhaps he's got her hid out
there somewhere." They started quickly forward as if to continue
their search but the chauffeur interposed.
"No," he said. "She isn't there. I looked. I started to follow him
but it's all swamp after you get in a few rods. That's why I came
back by the road. Look at my feet."
It was evident that the man spoke the truth. His feet and legs were
covered with thick, black muck.
"But if Grimes went in there, we can go," urged Wayne.
"I don't know about that," returned the chauffeur. "He may not come
back. I wouldn't want to try it. Listen!"
The chauffeur's nerves seemed to have been somewhat upset by even the
brief investigation he had made of the swamp. He had been alarmed,
for a moment or so, he told them, lest he, himself, get mired and be
unable to return. "You never would have known what had happened to
me," he said.
At his sudden exclamation they all paused to listen. Someone was
certainly calling. They could all hear the voice. On the still,
heavy air it sounded weird and far away:
"Help! Help!--Who-o-o-p--Who-o-o-p--Hallo-o-o!--Help!"
It was a man's voice. In it there was a wail of despair. Again it
sounded. It increased in volume and mounted to a shriek. It was the
cry of a soul in torment. Cold chills ran through the veins of the
men who listened.
"My God!" exclaimed one of the detectives. "I can't stand that,
Chief."
"If he went in there, something's got him," said another. "Maybe
it's 'gators. There's a lot of them in there, down the road a little
further."
"If 'twas alligators he'd never yell more than once," said the Chief.
"It sounds to me as if he might be mired, but I doubt it."
"Perhaps it's a trap," said the man who had suggested alligators.
The cries continued. They varied from shrieks to howls. They became
maniacal. And the final appeal was always the same:
"Help--Oh, help!"
The Chief looked quickly about. "Anybody want to come with me," he
snapped. "You don't have to, you know."
"Good God!" exclaimed the chauffeur who had just emerged from the
edge of the swamp, "You don't mean you're going in there, Chief?"
But the Chief had already started. The others followed. A leaden
haze now enveloped the countryside. The air was hot and muggy. The
sultry stillness seemed intensified by the low rumble of thunder
which continued to mutter in the distance as if the vengeance of
heaven were being aroused. Occasionally fierce, flying streaks of
lightning zig-zagged across the skyline just where it seemed to meet
the trees which dotted the swamps. There was something vibrant and
supernatural in the atmosphere. The butterflies, the birds and the
insects seemed all to have sought shelter from some demonstration of
power against which they were as nothing.
Subconsciously the men now running along the dusty road felt the
influence of the strange phenomenon but they did not swerve from
their purpose. The cries for help had not ceased. They were
growing, if anything, more constant, more tragic. Of a sudden they
paused then burst forth again in peal after peal of wild, mocking
laughter. The man had gone mad!
Trampled flowers on the crest of a slight rise by the side of the
road marked the spot where he had entered the bushes. The Chief,
followed closely by Wayne and the detectives, forced his way through.
As they did so the shadows lengthened about them and finally closed
over their heads. A heavy vapor seemed to rise from the marshy
ground under their feet. There was a sulphuric tang to it that added
to the silence of all nature.
The mud grew deeper. They picked their steps cautiously, selecting
the roots and branches of trees as a footing but halted abruptly as
the Chief, who was in the advance, held up his hand. The wild
laughter had lessened now and, as they neared the spot from whence it
had proceeded, gave place to low, incoherent mumblings. At the
Chief's signal those with him peered curiously forward.
There was little to see. Only the head and shoulders of the creature
known as Peter Grimes. His naturally distorted features were twisted
into a mask of unbelievable malignancy. His gleaming eyes were
baleful as a snake's and his chattering tongue was releasing such
horrible mouthings as none who heard ever wished afterward to recall.
He did not see them. He would not have known them if he had.
And he was still going down--down--into the pit. Suddenly two
blood-curdling cries burst from him. They were cries of fright and
abject terror. His eyes rolled in their sockets. He looked
fearfully upward.
"Babies--babies--git away--quit lookin' at me," he shrieked.
A fiery shaft of lightning penetrated the gloom of that death pit.
The thunder crashed directly overhead. The detonation brought a
gleam of returning reason to the shattered brain of the creature
about to meet judgement. The baleful light went out of his eyes but
the fear remained. For the first time in all his twisted, warped
life Peter Grimes was rational.
"Oh, God--" he mumbled, as the mud crept up onto his chin, "I
war--awful mean--I didn't know--nawthin'." The shaggy head drooped
forward.
With one accord, the watchers closed their eyes. When they opened
them again the mud was forming little circles where the ogre had
disappeared.
CHAPTER XXVII
MOLLIE IN COMMAND
"And the waters covered their enemies; there was not one of them
left."--Ps. cvi, 11
As the second man sprang overboard from the launch on which the
children had taken refuge Mollie came from her hiding place. She was
back again, at last, in her proper sphere in life. The faint
recollections of her early childhood when she had made a "play-house"
in her father's discarded boat came suddenly before her with
startling vividness. The intervening years seemed more like a bad
dream--a night-mare.
She did not realize that she had grown considerably in the interval,
that the little, fragile creature of the long ago was now almost a
young woman, that she had missed much of her childhood by having
responsibilities heaped upon her and by the farm work she had done.
She only knew that she was free at last to play again, to have a good
time, to laugh and make the children laugh and to actually sail in a
boat instead of make believe.
She called the children to come out from where they had been
concealed and rushed, herself, to grasp that crazily acting wheel.
She had watched the man just long enough to have an idea it was an
easy task and one which she would much enjoy performing. But it was
not so easy as it looked. My, but she had to hold on, with all her
might. Well, her arms were strong. She was equal to the tugging.
But which way ought it to go?
She gave it a whirl to the left. The boat veered so suddenly that
the assembled children, watching her movements with curious, excited
eyes, went tumbling like nine-pins to the deck. They scrambled up
laughing. Mollie whirled the big wheel to the right. Again the
children went down. This time two of them received bumps.
"Cain't yo' make hit stand still?" asked one of the older boys.
"Lemme help."
Mollie declined assistance.
"Hit's all right," she assured them. "Thet's th' way boats act up.
You-uns set down in a row an' watch me. We'll git some place ef thet
boat'll only git outten th' way. Whut's thet man holler'n 'bout,
Willie?"
"He's flingin' sumpin' over ter them fellers whut jumped off'n this
boat. An' now--look but, Mollie! He's shootin' at 'em."
As he spoke, two shots rang out in rapid succession. The black
mustached man who was swimming toward shore was seen to throw up his
firms and go down under water. The other man was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly he came up some distance ahead, looked about wildly, flung
his arms above his head and shrieked for aid. Then he, too,
disappeared.
"I reckon he hed a cramp," said Willie.
But the man with the revolver who stood in the front of the other
boat was now leveling it at Mollie. He shouted to her to stop the
boat.
Mollie's cheeks were crimson from her exertions. Her eyes were
dancing with their old-time roguishness. Her voice sounded across
the water as clear and resonant as a bell when she called her reply:
"I cain't stop hit. I dunno whut ter do with hit. This dum wheel
keeps right on a-goin'."
"How'd you get on that boat? Who is with you?" the man called, as
his own boat was being maneuvered to get along side of Mollie's
erratic craft.
"Hide, chil'un, hide," whispered Mollie, now suddenly fearful that
this troublesome person might turn her and the children back to the
ogre from whom they had just escaped. There was a patter of little
bare-feet, a momentary flurry, then all was deserted. That little
bevy of sea-going sparrows was experienced in darting to cover.
When the captain of the police boat and his assistants managed to get
aboard Mollie's careening vessel she confronted them bravely.
"Nobody brung me hyar," she told them. "I brung m'self. I wanted
ter ride in a boat. I war on hit when them two men come a-runnin' in
an' set hit a-goin'. No sir. I dunno who they war. I never seed
'em afore. Leastways I doan think I did, but I mought ha' seed thet
thar feller with the mustache--"
Mollie paused abruptly, with her mouth open. Enlightenment came
suddenly upon her. "Shore, I hev," she exclaimed, her eyes dilated
with excitement and her slight frame almost trembling at the
recollection. "Hit war thet man th' lady give me to when my Daddy
tol' me ter go with her. But she didn't let me stay with her. She
tol' me to go with him. An' he giv' me ter Pete."
The river police captain and his companions looked at Mollie and then
at each other. They were completely mystified.
"Crazy in the head, ain't she?" said one.
Mollie flared up. This was an insult. "I hain't no crazier then
what yo' be," she retorted. "Ef yo' doan know whut I'm a-talkin'
erbout yo'-all kin jist go ast Splutters. He's up yan, some'ers I
reckon, with thet man what fotched away one o' Pete's hawgs."
This time there was a flicker of intelligence in the river captain's
eyes. "D'y suppose she means that fellow Pete Grimes?" he said.
"That's the one the Chief's got his eye on in connection with the
Wayne kidnapping."
Mollie caught the words. It was out, now. In her excitement she had
been foolish enough to mention Grimes. They would know, now, that
she had run away and would, without doubt, send her and the children
back again. But that must never be. She would tell them about Pete
and how he treated the children. They looked like kind men. They'd
certainly believe her.
"Shore, hit's Pete Grimes," she explained.
The police sought to question her further but the sudden recollection
that she did not know who these men were nor whether they were
friends of Pete's or not, caused her to shut her lips tight together
and refuse to say another word.
"Well, I reckon we'd best get her down to the Chief as soon as
possible," said the captain. He was staring directly at the swaying
curtains under a berth. Surely that was a child's hand that he saw,
palm downward on the floor. "What's that?" he exclaimed, turning to
the man beside him. He, too, looked.
Then, without another word, he strode over and pulled the curtain
aside. Jimmie was flat on his stomach, small hands extended, palm
downward, while he elevated his head sufficiently to peer through the
curtains at the men who were talking with Mollie. And Jimmie there
was instantly dragged forth from a variety of hiding places Leathy
and Leon, Johnnie, Willie and all the rest of the "sparrows."
But the child upon whom all eyes were focused and which sent the
captain into a great state of excitement was the beautiful,
well-dressed, curly-haired, laughing baby which Mollie now grasped
and held tightly in her arms.
"Whose is that?" they asked her.
"Mine," she declared with such vehemence that they all laughed.
"And whose are all these?" the captain asked, indicating the ragged
group assembled for police inspection.
"Mine," snapped Mollie, again. No tigress fighting for her young
could have exceeded Mollie's fervor, though she might have manifested
it in a less gentle manner.
Again the policemen laughed.
"Now listen, little girl," said the captain, addressing Mollie in a
tone that compelled her undivided attention. "There's something not
right about all this and it has got to be straightened out. You
needn't talk to me if you don't want to, but I'm going to tow this
boat, with you and all these children, right down to town. Then
we'll go up to see the Chief and you can talk to him."
And even then poor Mollie had no idea who he was nor who a chief was.
She had never seen nor heard of a policeman before she was brought to
the Grimes farm and certainly she had never seen nor heard of one
since. To her and to all the half-starved little ones with her, they
were merely men with shiny buttons on their coats. But somehow,
Mollie liked them, despite their big voices and stern eyes. They
were so good to the children. And during the cruise down the river
to the town they allowed the children to look over the rail at
everything along the bank. But not once did one of the children
speak. Mollie had signalled them to be silent.
That the hot, sultry day developed suddenly into a one of storm, that
lightning flashed and thunder roared seemed only to increase the
pleasurable excitement of the young mariners. They were accustomed
to rain. They had worked many a day in the rain. They were not
afraid of thunder and lightning when they were outside the barn loft.
Only once did there seem to be anything unusual about this storm
which crashed over their heads on that memorable day. That was when
one excessively vivid flash of lightning swept across the sky and
seemed to dart downward back toward the point at which they had
entered the boat. With it came a thunder clap more violent, more
furious than anything they had ever heard.
"Golly!" exclaimed Johnnie, "Thet war a whopper. I reckon ef thet
hit somebody, he war a gonner."
"He shore war," echoed Willie.
A great wave of pity suddenly swept over Mollie. She shivered as if
cold. "I feel es ef sumpin' had happened," she said to herself.
"Thet seemed 'most es ef God hed spoke. I reckon Pete's dead."
CHAPTER XXVIII
A WOMAN'S CONFESSION
"The wicked are overthrown and are not; but the house of the
righteous shall stand."--Prov. xii, 7
After making their way from the perilous swamp in which they had seen
the hog-farmer engulfed, the detectives, with Wayne, made all haste
to the Grimes farm, hoping they might find the kidnapped child there
unharmed.
Their interview with Maria, however, had been bitterly disappointing.
When she told of Mollie's venture into the swamp, with little Doris
strapped on her back, Wayne collapsed and had to be taken home.
The horrible death of Grimes which he had just witnessed, convinced
him that a similar fate must have overtaken his baby. The pictures
his imagination conceived as to what took place after the children
had passed beyond Maria's range of vision were more than any father
could endure with stoicism.
Maria, when they told her of Peter's tragic end, manifested no trace
of grief or affection. She dropped down on the door-step with a sigh
that was plainly one of relief. The wild, hunted look which had for
so many years dwelt in her eyes, giving her an aspect of fierceness
which she was far from feeling, gave place to the stupid dullness and
placidity that had been hers before Peter Grimes ever walked into her
life and home.
"Then I reckon I kin tell yo'-all jist how mean he war," she remarked
in a voice that was not unpleasant. "Thar wa'n't a dangder scoundrel
ever trod shoe leather. He needed killin'. He war jus' nachully
mean. Ary man, woman er child on earth thet went contrary ter him
he'd fling in th' bog es quick es scat. Ef I be alive ter-day hit
air becus I allus done whut he sed. Many's th' time I'd a-gi'n them
young-uns sumpin' ter eat ef I didn't know he'd pitch me inter th'
bog fer doin' hit. Thet thar Mollie war th' bes' leetle gal on
earth. I knowed th' dawg hain't a-goin' ter harm 'em when I sic'd
'im onter them. But Pete tol' me ter do hit an' I knowed I mus'."
Poor thing. She was actually trembling.
Fourteen years of living under such a strain would have told upon a
stronger mentality than Maria's.
"An' I got thet brat," she went on, indicating Ambrose. "When he war
leetle I thunk mebbe he'd grow up ter be a good son ter me, but he's
jes' like his Pappy an' orter be put away whar he cain't do nobody no
harm. I'm mos' es skeered o' him es I war o' Pete."
"All right," interrupted the Chief, "we'll look after him for you.
It isn't safe for the community to have such people at large. The
greatest kindness their own folks can ever do them is to put them
some place where they will be cared for and treated like human beings
but kept from doing harm to anybody. They're mental cripples. In
other words, their heads are twisted inside just like some people
have a mis-shapen arm or leg which keeps them from using it. These
fellows with twisted, warped brains shouldn't be expected to use
them, either. They can't use them right and when they try to use
them, they only commit crimes. And now Mrs. Grimes,--"
Maria raised her head to say morosely: "Doan yo' call me thet name no
mor'. I hain't Mrs. Grimes. I don't never wanter hyar th' name
spoke. I'm Maria Honeycut, ole Am. Honeycut's datter an' this hyar
farm es my place that my Pappy giv me."
There was a trace of pride in the poor woman's tone which had not
been there before and which demanded respect as well as pity. She,
too, had suffered under the domination of the ogre.
She and Ambrose, however, accompanied the officers to headquarters to
make what statements were necessary before a notary and to arrange
for the boy's admittance to an institution. There was so much to
tell and, for Maria, conversation was difficult. After the first
sudden outpouring of the fear and resentment she had nursed for years
she retreated into her usual shell of reticence and responded only to
questioning.
But when the Chief entered the big room at headquarters he stood for
an instant as if transfixed. What on earth, he wondered, had been
brought in? A kindergarten? It looked like it. There were children
on all sides of him and, squarely facing him, the brightest-eyed
little girl just entering upon her teens that he had ever seen. She
wore her hair in two long braids that fell below her waist, was
bare-footed and hatless and clad mostly in rags. She, as well as the
other children, were soiled and disheveled and drenched with rain.
It was plain they had been out in the storm that had passed. But the
child that particularly riveted the Chief's gaze was the
curly-headed, winsome baby in the oldest girl's arms.
He turned to the lieutenant at the desk. "Where'd you find her?" he
asked, in evident relief.
"Who--which--Oh, that one?" returned the man at the desk. "She came
in with the bunch. Captain Carey brought 'em. He found 'em cruising
down the river on a motor launch. He's up-stairs. Shall I call him
down? He's got a report to make about a couple of fellows who jumped
overboard."
The Chief wanted very much to see Captain Carey and said so. A
moment later he and the river captain were closeted in his private
office comparing notes regarding the launch, the kidnappers, all of
whom seemed to have met death within a few moments of one another,
Mollie's remarkable story and the recovery of Wayne's little girl.
"Of course, you'll get the reward," the Chief told the captain, as he
reached for the telephone to notify the distracted father that his
baby was safe.
"I don't see it that way," the captain instantly retorted. "I didn't
find her. It was that little girl. From what she says and you've
just told me, if she hadn't taken the child and fled with her into
the swamp, keeping her up in the trees, that fellow Grimes would have
flung her in the bog two or three hours before the other fellows got
there looking for her."
"That's right," said the Chief. "I'll mention that to Wayne. What
we've done has only been in the line of duty, just what we'd do for
anybody in trouble."
"That's right," echoed the captain.
Connection with the Wayne establishment was quickly secured but the
telephone was answered by the butler. Mr. Wayne was ill and unable
to speak to anyone, he said.
"Tell him," said the Chief, "that his little girl is safe, well,
unharmed and happy down at police headquarters. I think that news
will make him get well at once."
No better restorative could have been administered to Harris Wayne.
Within ten minutes after the message came over the wire he was on his
way to town. A regiment of doctors and nurses could not have
deterred him. When he dashed into the room at headquarters and saw
little Doris in Mollie's arms his impetuous rush almost frightened
the child.
After her one glad cry of "Daddy!" she flung her arms about Mollie's
neck as if fearing to be taken away.
"Muh-Mollie! Muh-Mollie!" she repeated over and over. Mollie held
her firmly, reluctant to release her even into her father's arms.
Realizing that the baby she so adored was going to be taken from her
and out of her sight, Mollie made one last desperate stand.
"She wants me--an' I love her," she declared, with tears in her big,
lustrous eyes. "Ef she hain't got no mammy she needs me ter look
arter her, so's she won't git stol'd ag'in."
But the father's thoughts were, for the moment, solely for his child.
"That's all right about the reward, Chief," he found time to say.
"Give it to this girl. She deserves credit. But give me my baby and
let me get away. I'm all in."
The baby was taken from Mollie's arms and given to her father. As he
carried her from the room she waved her chubby hand in farewell.
"Bye-bye, muh-Mollie--bye-bye, muh-Mollie!"
Mollie buried her head in her hands and sobbed aloud.
The lieutenant at the desk was speaking over the telephone. "Have
they got the body?" he asked. "Yes. Black mustache, eh! You say
Burke identified him as the fellow called Bailey? All right. Send
down any letters or papers you may find on him."
He turned to the Chief, who was trying to make friends with Leathy,
for as yet none of the children would talk. The sight of Mollie in
tears impressed them with the idea that she was being abused and they
must each stand by her.
"They've got that fellow Bailey's body," the lieutenant remarked.
"There was an unmailed letter in his pocket addressed to some woman.
They're sending it down."
A messenger soon arrived with the expected packet. After the Chief
examined it, a look of amazed incredulity overspread his face.
"Well, I'll be darned!" he ejaculated. Then he called one of his
men, gave the latter a brief message to deliver and told him to go in
civilian clothes. "Don't attract any attention," he said, "and fetch
her right back with you. Take a cab."
An hour or so later, after he had been talking for a long time in his
private office with a woman whose identity no one knew, the Chief
sent for a notary. And after the latter, as well as the woman had
gone, he put papers in the safe which he said would be the means of
proving Mollie's identity.
Meanwhile the matron was instructed to make the little waifs
comfortable for the night. Mollie, alone, refused to be comforted or
comfortable. She shivered in her wet clothes and gratefully accepted
a policeman's coat in lieu of a jacket, but refused to part with the
bottle in which she had thoughtfully carried milk for her
"Honey-baby" when they traversed the death-haunted swamps. Bolt
upright she sat, listening, listening for the summons which her love
and intuition knew would come.
It was nearing midnight when the messenger came. Mollie was on her
feet instantly. She had never seen James, Wayne's chauffeur, before,
but she sensed that he had come for her. "Mr. Wayne sent me down to
fetch up the girl, Mollie," said the man. "The baby wants her."
Mollie started forward, the bottle that had once contained corn
liquor gripped tightly in her hands. A policeman handed her a
newspaper. She tore off a piece, wrapped it about the bottle and
hurried out the door with the chauffeur.
It was not her first ride in an automobile. They had driven up from
the river in the police patrol only that afternoon. Before the Wayne
residence was reached Mollie had told the chauffeur of the thrilling
experience and learned all the principal points of difference between
the Wayne limousine and the "black Maria."
The car had hardly paused before Mollie was out and running up the
steps, brushing past the astonished butler who opened the door, and
tearing on through the house as if she had entered it many times
before. Straight up the stairs she sped, her queer little figure
with its bare feet and legs extending rather startlingly from below a
policeman's coat, appearing an incongruous note in the harmony of
that stately, sumptuous mansion. The nursery door was open and
Mollie, hearing the baby's voice, dashed in.
"Muh-Ma-Mollie!" cried the little one, extending her arms and fairly
leaping into Mollie's embrace.
"She wouldn't take her bottle--she wouldn't do anything," explained
the poor little rich girl's father, by way of excuse for having sent
for Mollie.
The latter examined the bottle they had been trying to persuade
little Doris to accept. It was modern and extremely sanitary.
Mollie inspected it and put it contemptuously aside.
"She knowed it wa'n't hern," she remarked, with great dignity. "I
reckon she wanted this'n," and to Harris Wayne's horror she took from
out its newspaper wrappings the corn liquor relic, partially filled
with a lacteal fluid evidently procured by some kindly policeman from
the open can of a delicatessen store, and, after first testing the
milk herself, placed the improvised rubber top of the bottle in his
child's mouth. The baby accepted it with gurgles of joy. The
child's nurse cried out in horror. Mollie sniffed.
"She doan know nawthin' 'bout babies," she remarked, of the nurse.
"She hain't hed th' sperience I've hed."
Neither Wayne nor Mollie knew that down at police headquarters,
securely locked in the safe, were papers that told of Mollie's family
and the fortune, rightfully hers, that was invested through his own
bank and remitted in monthly sums, supposedly for her education and
maintenance, through the medium of a woman connected with a
fashionable private school.
Mollie's story had been corroborated. Bailey's sister had confessed.
CHAPTER XXIX
REUNION
"Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the
snare is broken and we are delivered."--Ps. cxxiv, 7
Mollie had been up all of the night previous preparing for that
hazardous day through which she and the children had just passed.
She had eaten scarcely anything until she arrived at the police
station where the kind policeman had sent to a restaurant and had
food brought in for them all. Never in their recollection had the
children seen so much food at one time. They ate ravenously and were
already dozing in their chairs before the matron came to take them to
their beds. But Mollie had fought off sleep, or it may have been
that sheer excitement kept her awake, until after her arrival at the
Wayne home.
There, sitting in a comfortable chair, for the first time in her
recollection, with little Doris dropping contentedly to sleep in her
arms, Mollie found her own head nodding every now and then, and her
eyes closing in spite of her efforts to keep them open. She was only
a child, herself, yet she had performed a feat of heroism that day
which was the culmination of long years of daily sacrifice of her own
comfort that little children might be succored and comforted. Now,
tired nature was beginning to assert itself by demanding rest and
sleep.
As Harris Wayne sat watching the ragged, lonely little girl who had
so nobly and unhesitatingly risked her life to save his baby daughter
his heart smote him with the realization of his own selfishness. The
thought that sickened him--made him feel mean and small--was that he,
with all his wealth and education was, little better than Grimes.
True, he had not knowingly inflicted suffering upon anyone, but he
had by his self-absorption and disinterest in affairs outside his own
household been guilty of criminal negligence. It was he, and men
like him, who had permitted such a state of affairs as had been
revealed on the Grimes farm to exist year after year for the
enrichment of some criminal or abnormal person at the expense of
helpless little children. Why had it not been discovered and
investigated? Peter Grimes was ignorant, abnormal and irresponsible.
Dying, he spoke the truth. He literally knew no better.
But Harris Wayne knew better. He, who had professed to love
children, had done nothing whatever for any child in the world other
than his own. He had not even made the search for little Stephen
that he knew he ought to have made. He was the one actually
responsible for the little boy's unhappy, wasted years. If Stephen
had been traced and located all these other children might have been
spared suffering and the lives of those saved that had perished for
lack of food and care.
That such horrors should have existed unsuspected and unmolested in
his own township, seemed a crime in which he and every citizen like
him were participants. He wanted to do something to atone for his
selfishness and indifference. Something to make other children as
happy and content as this tattered, neglected little girl had made
his baby. He had prated of the inadequacy of hireling service as
compared with that actuated solely by love but he had viewed the
matter from only one side--his side. He wanted someone to love his
child and give to her unselfish devotion but it had never occurred to
him that other children might also be suffering for lack of affection.
This little girl had been starved of love and care all during her
childhood. She had realized it and in her way had tried to supply to
other little ones that for which she, herself, had yearned.
He crossed to where she was sitting and lifted his sleeping baby into
her crib. Then he took Mollie's little brown hand in his and stroked
it tenderly.
"Little girl," he said, "to-morrow there is much that I shall want to
talk to you about. You have done more for me--and for little
children--than you, perhaps, realize. I shall not try to thank you
now. In fact I never will be able to thank you enough for what you
have done. But I want you to feel that this house is your home. I
want to see you happy--very, very happy. I have been selfish
to-night in keeping you up till this hour. I should have brought you
with us the first time. Now, the baby is sleeping and I want you to
go with the nurse and let her make you as comfortable as you have
made Doris. She will bandage your poor, bruised feet and get you
everything necessary for the present. To-morrow we will talk about
the future."
Mollie was too near asleep, from sheer fatigue, to grasp much beyond
the statement that she was to remain there with the baby and that
this nurse, who didn't know how to take care of babies, seemed to be
doing just the right things to make her more comfortable than she had
been in years. She was almost afraid to touch the dainty bed to
which the nurse finally conducted her. Oh, how comfortable it was!
She had not known before how tired she had grown, nor how her back
ached from carrying the baby. She tried to think--there was
something the baby's father had said about Stephen--Did he know
Splutters?--She would ask to-morrow.--And the children--She hoped
they were all right--They were so tired--She, too, was tired--How
nice it was here--If only--Splutters--The children--could enjoy it
too!
It was Mollie's last waking thought. Her tight-clinched little hands
relaxed, the long-lashed lids drooped over her tender, brooding eyes,
the sweet lips parted in a smile. When the nurse entered the room,
she was sleeping as tranquilly as she had slept that last night
before she was turned over to the custody of Peter Grimes.
When Mollie awoke it was with the sense that she had slept too late
and the children would not get to the field in time. For a full
moment she could not comprehend where she was nor what had happened.
The sight of a maid placing a dainty breakfast tray beside her bed
made her think that she was dreaming. The maid spoke, and then she
remembered. It was not a dream--it was true. At last, they had
escaped! She moved and was surprised to find how bruised and sore
her limbs and body were. The nurse entered.
"After you have had your breakfast I will fix you up for the day,"
she said, placing a tray of interesting looking little jars and
bottles down on a table. "You were pretty badly bitten by insects.
It was lucky you didn't meet a snake."
"We said our pra'rs," Mollie said, simply. Then, suddenly starting
up, "Oh, whar's th' baby?"
The baby was taking her nap, the nurse explained. Mollie stared.
Then she asked the time. When she realized that she had slept until
afternoon she laughed as she had not laughed in years. Mr. Wayne had
gone to town, she learned, for the purpose of bringing all the
children out to his house.
Mollie gave a cry of joy. She could hardly restrain herself from
leaping out of bed and dispensing with the food which had been
brought her. But the nurse persuaded her to yield to her
ministrations, to eat her breakfast and later to be fitted into
proper clothes.
The poor little girl laughed and cried by turns. It all seemed like
a fairy tale. It began to look as if she might yet find out about
her father and her former home. There was so much she wanted to talk
about to Mr. Wayne. She was ashamed that she had behaved so badly
about surrendering the baby to him after he had felt so badly because
the child had been stolen.
Several times during the progress of her toilette she slipped into
the nursery to admire Doris as she lay in her beautiful bed and to
contrast it with the horrible rags and disorder of the barn loft.
"No wonder her daddy war upsot," she told the nurse. "Hit'll take a
long time fer we-uns ter git used ter all th' fine things you-uns has
hyar. Them chil'en will hev ter be mighty keerful not ter spile
nawthin'."
At last she saw them coming. With the baby in her arms she ran to
the gate to meet them. Harris Wayne, as he rode those few miles out
to his home, felt more content and satisfied with life than he had
since his wife's death. His limousine swarmed with children. They
asked him a thousand questions. They laughed and chattered like
sparrows. Wayne thought of the simile himself. When he mentioned
it, every child tried to explain to him about the sparrows that flew
across the swamp and didn't fall.
"So Mollie said we war jist es good es sparrows an' ef we'd keep
a-lookin' up et th' sky an' not down in th' mud we-uns could git ary
place. An' we done hit, mister, we done hit," explained Jimmie,
triumphantly.
"An' when we-all seed them things th' man tol' us war 'gators an' had
ter git up in th' tree quick, God jist a'most giv wings ter all on
us," declared Willie. "Yo' jist oughter ha' seed Johnnie skedaddle
'thout usin' his crutch. Hain't et th' truf, Johnnie?"
"Shore es," returned Johnnie.
Harris Wayne glanced down at the child's bare, crippled foot and made
a quick decision.
"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," he said, "if Johnnie would be able
to throw his crutch away some of these days. I think I know a man
who'll be able to make his foot as good as new."
Johnnie gave a whoop of delight. The other boys joined. From the
gate, Mollie answered. Then they all saw her. They waved and
shouted hilariously. Harris Wayne found himself laughing with them
as he turned them loose to awaken the echoes of his all too silent
home.
But the final note of happiness was achieved a little later when the
chauffeur again appeared with the car and drove gently in at the gate
and up to the front door. The children ran to see who had come.
Then the door of the car opened and they recognized Stephen, sitting
weakly among the pillows that had been arranged for his comfort, and
smiling upon them.
Mollie flew to his side, eager to ask about his illness, of which she
had not known and to learn all that had befallen him since he had
been so suddenly taken from among them.
"Oh, I missed yo' turrible, Splutters," she exclaimed, tears brimming
over the lashes of her large, luminous eyes that now seemed like deep
pools of thought. "I missed yo' turrible."
"But th' mistake hes been found out," he told her eagerly. "Mr.
Wayne come for me, an' he's goin' ter hev a man come and teach me
every day, so's I kin go ter school right soon."
The boy's pinched little face was shining with happiness. The blue
eyes that beamed upon Mollie were full of an affection far beyond
words. To Splutters there was no one like Mollie in the whole, wide
world.
But Mollie's surprise was yet to come. When Mr. Wayne drew her away
from the children and told her all that he had learned regarding her
from the Chief, down at police headquarters, she could not at once
comprehend that for her, too, there would be opportunity for
education and training.
"But hit's th' chil'en I wanter help," she exclaimed, looking
straight into Harris Wayne's eyes in a manner that seemed to read his
very soul. "This is such a big, big house. Hit hain't a doin' yo'
ary good es I kin see, 'thout folks in hit. Hain't thar room fer
these hyar young-uns--all on em--ter live hyar?"
Harris Wayne admitted there was. Mollie need not worry about the
children, he assured her. They would be provided for. And she need
never be separated from little Doris. But the plan he proposed was
somewhat different. It was bigger, better, more enduring and would
be the means not only of helping the little flock she had led through
the swamps but generations of children to come.
His house, he explained to her, would not be large enough for such an
extensive plan. It might serve temporarily. But by the time she had
received her education, by the time Stephen would get through college
there would be established upon his broad acres such an institution
for children that it would be known, throughout the country.
Mollie entered into the plan heartily. "An' hit mus' hev money," she
insisted, "so thet pore folks like little Amy's mammy, doan hev ter
fret ef th' hain't got money ter pay fer the'r chil'en. Let th'
young-uns stay jest th' same."
"That's my idea, exactly," exclaimed Wayne, at which Mollie, in sheer
gratitude, grasped his hand and pressed it to her lips.
CHAPTER XXX
IN PERPETUITY
"They shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that Day when I make
up my jewels."--Malachi iii, 17
All the children joined in planning for that new Home. They talked
of it morning, noon and night. Harris Wayne consulted architects and
contractors. Surveyors came and went. Drawings were submitted and,
because the children were so deeply interested, these were patiently
explained to them. Competing architects and contractors came.
Consultations and conferences were continuous. Harris Wayne had
never been so busy in his life. And with it all he looked younger,
as if a load of care had been removed from his shoulders. He was
living now, to make others happy and the world a better place for
children to live in. He was completely absorbed and happier than he
had ever expected to be.
The project was not one that could be completed in a day, a week or
even a year. The scope and magnitude of the plans attracted
widespread attention. The story of the "sparrows" that flitted from
the Grimes baby farm and miraculously crossed the terrible swamps
under the leadership of a little girl with a baby on her back was
published all over the world. The home of which they would be the
first occupants became known as The Sparrows' Nest.
Mollie and the children became famous over night. Their exploits and
experiences were recounted in press, pulpit and club rooms. Tourists
came to the section for no other purpose than to visit the Grimes
place, greet Maria, now living there in peace and solitude, look at
the impassable bog over which the children did pass, then motor down
to view the progress being made in the erection of their new
habitation and to ask permission to contribute toward its maintenance.
Large sums of money poured in unsolicited. Some came from anonymous
donors. Some gave funds in memory of other little ones whose
memories they wished to perpetuate. Every train brought great sacks
of mail, every letter expressing the writer's interest in the
gigantic undertaking.
Contributions of all kinds were offered and some even sent without
previous notification. Furniture, clothing, food supplies, linens
and household appurtenances seemed to rain down upon the Wayne estate
months before the new building was even under roof.
Yet there had been no requests made, no agitation on the part of any
of the adults now aiding Wayne in pulling his experiment through to a
successful finish. It was all the result of one little girl's
heroism supplemented by the children's own enthusiasm over a home
that should be their very own, and to the graphic accounts they could
each give as to what sometimes happens to little children farmed out,
as they had been, to one so totally incapable of looking after their
well being as was Peter Grimes.
Mollie insisted upon a wonderful nursery with all kinds of toys.
Stephen helped plan the library and reading room. Johnnie, now that
his foot was being cured by means of braces, announced his intention
of becoming a doctor and wanted one wing of the building adapted to
surgical purposes so that one day he might help other children as he
had been helped. Each child gravitated naturally into the particular
sphere for which each was best adapted. The building of The
Sparrows' Nest, developed, automatically, into a school for
vocational training, so Wayne declared, when he espied one boy
devoting all his energy to aiding the carpenters, another to the
brick-layers and a third concentrating his attention upon the
plumbing arrangements.
Letters from parents and relatives of children asking to have them
granted admission to the Home arrived almost as quickly as did the
supplies with which to furnish it. Wayne had never imagined there
were so many uncared for and homeless little ones awaiting such a
shelter as was now going forward.
Former friends came to see him and looked at him curiously. He
informed them that he was having "the time of his life."
As for Mollie, she had not believed it possible that she could ever
be so happy. She was studying, too, at home, under competent
teachers as were the other children. She was making rapid progress.
No one, seeing her now would have believed that she was the same
ragged, mud-begrimed, barefoot and hungry-looking little girl who,
after emerging from the swamp had undertaken to run a launch down the
river.
Time came when The Sparrows' Nest was completed and the original
nestlings, clad in their neat, new uniforms, welcomed more people
than any of them had ever seen at one time. They sang a chorus they
had learned and Mollie, not in the least awed by the many curious
eyes turned upon her, delivered the little address she had rehearsed
for weeks. It was very brief and couched in perfect English. Harris
Wayne was proud of her. She would be an ornament to any home and
could mother as many children as would ever come within its doors.
His daughter worshipped her. Why, he asked himself, should he not?
She was fast growing up. She would soon be going away to a finishing
school, that she might later be fitted to accompany Doris on her
travels. When she returned he might--well, he would wait and see.
* * * * *
Time passed. The gigantic Sparrows' Nest was filled with little
ones. They were happy. They loved to sing. They were singing now.
Mollie heard them as she approached. Those blessed voices! To her
ears they had always been as the sound of heavenly music. How
sweetly the piping treble rang out on the balmy air. It mingled with
the songs of the birds in the trees and went upward on the breeze of
heaven, just as that kite had mounted upward in those dark days of
the past.
It was a past that was getting more and more remote. Wonderful
changes had come into all their lives. Everything had dated from
that day they had flown the kite. It had been a novel idea.
Childish, of course, but as an act of faith nothing could have been
more sincere. How miserable they all were that day--how desperate
she had been! She would have stormed a fortress, if there had been
one to storm. God had surely heard their prayers--those prayers of
little children!
Mollie smiled and sang softly to herself as she moved swiftly along
the driveway leading to the beautiful Home. Let's see, she
reflected. Just how many would it accommodate? Five--six hundred,
now that the east wing was completed. Splutters had not seen it yet.
He would be home soon for the holidays. How thrilled he would be.
He was growing tall, he had written. He would be taller than she
when they met again. She wondered if she would know him.
Just beyond towered the massive building, surrounded by broad
porches, sun parlors and gardens brilliant with flowers. Somewhere
there was a fountain playing. Children of all sizes were running
about the grounds.
A beautiful little girl with clustering curls and most alluring
dimples suddenly detached herself from the others and ran to meet
Mollie.
"Oh, Ma-Mollie!" she exclaimed, holding up her rosebud mouth for a
kiss. "Isn't it a beautiful home!"
"A home for little children is always a beautiful home if it is built
for their happiness," Mollie replied with an adoring look that
embraced the Home, the broad lawns and every child within sight or
hearing.
"And this," she said softly, half to herself and half to the child at
her side, "is the great good that came out of all our suffering."
For Mollie never forgot her wonderful experience that night in the
barn loft when the Good Shepherd walked among the children while they
slept and tenderly took one of them--the least one--into his arm. At
the recollection she raised her eyes to where, near the entrance to
this beautiful Home was a marble tablet on which were lettered the
words:
To
The Least-Ones
In Perpetuity.
--------------
ADDENDUM
Should it be suggested that the characters and incidents of this
story are exaggerated or improbable, it is only necessary to refer to
the newspapers of May 2nd, 1926, which published Associated Press
accounts of the living counterpart of Peter Grimes and pictures of
the children for whose care and maintenance he was paid by their
widowed mother.
That human counterpart of the ogre described in these pages did not
die in a bog. He was sentenced to die on May 11, 1926 for the murder
of one child and the mutilation of others. The verdict against him
was reached on the first ballot by a jury of mountaineers from his
own district and by whom, until his crimes were discovered, he had
for years been considered harmless. The only reason why he did not
conceal the evidence of his crimes in a bog was because there
happened to be no bog on his premises.
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