The Debtor Part 10

"He don't look scared," said Amidon. "He's Southern, and he's got grit. He's backed up there like the whole Confederacy."

A kindly look overspread the sleek, conceited face of the man. His forebears were from Alabama. His father had been a small white slave-owner who had drifted North, in a state of petty ruin after the war, and there Amidon, who had been a child at the time, had grown up and married the thrifty woman who supported him. The wrangle increased, the boys danced more energetically, the small fists of the boy at bay were on closer guard.

"Hi, there!" sung out Amidon. "Look at here; there's too many of ye.

Look out ye don't git into no mischief, now."

"Hullo, boys! what's the trouble?" shouted the postmaster, in a voice of authority. He was used to running these same boys out of his office when they became too boisterous during the distribution of the mails, making precipitate dashes from the inner sanctum of the United States government. They were accustomed to the sound of his important shout, and a few eyes rolled over shoulder at him. But they soon plunged again into their little whirlpool of excitement, for they were quick-witted and not slow to reason that they were now on the king's highway where they had as much right as the postmaster, and could not be coerced under his authority.

"What is it all about?" the postmaster called, loudly, above the hubbub, to Anderson.

Anderson shook his head. He was listening to the fusillade of taunting, threatening yells, with his forehead knitted. Then all at once he understood. Over and over, with every pitch possible to the boyish threats, the cry intermingling and crossing until all the vowels and consonants overlapped, the boys repeated: "Yerlie--yerlie--yerlie--" They clipped the reproach short; they elongated it into a sliding thrill. From one boy, larger than the others, and whose voice was changing, came at intervals the demand, in a hoa.r.s.e, cracking treble, with sudden descents into gulfs of ba.s.s: "Take it ba-ck! Take it ba-ck!"

Always in response to that demand of the large boy, who was always the one who danced closest to the boy at bay, came the reply, in a voice like a bird's, "Die first--die first."

After a most energetic dash of this large boy, Anderson stepped up and caught him by the shoulder on his retreat from the determined little fist. He knew the large boy; he was a nephew of Henry Lee, whose wife had invaded the Carroll house in the absence of the family.

"See here, Harry," said Anderson, "what is this about, eh?"

The large boy, who, in spite of his size, was a youngster, looked at once terrifiedly and pugnaciously into his face, and beginning with a whimper of excuse to Anderson, ended with a snarl of wrath for the other boy. "He tells lies, he does. He tells lies. Ya-h!" The boy danced at the other even under Anderson's restraining hand on his shoulder. "Yerlie--yerlie! Ya-h!" he yelled, and all the others joined in. The chorus was deafening. Anderson's hand on the boy's shoulder tightened. He shook him violently. The boy's cap fell off, and his shock of fair hair waved. He rolled eyes of terrified wonder at his captor. "What, wha-at?--" he stammered. "You lemme be. You-- Wha-at?"

"I'll tell you what, you big bully, you," said Anderson, sternly.

"That boy there is one to a dozen, and he's the smallest of the lot--he's half your size. Now, what in thunder are you all about, badgering that little chap so?"

A sudden silence prevailed. They all stood looking from under lowered eyebrows at the group of watching men; their small shoulders under their little school-jackets were seen to droop; scarcely a boy but shuffled his right leg, while their hands, which had been gyrating fists, unclinched and twitched at their sides. But the boy did not relax for a second his expression of leaping, bounding rage, of a savage young soul in a feeble body. Now he included Anderson and the other men. He held his head with the haughtiness of a prince. He seemed to question them with silent wrath.

"Who are you who dare to come here and interfere in my quarrel?" he seemed to say. "I was sufficient unto myself. I needed none of your protection. What if I was one to a dozen? Look at _me!_" His little hands did not for a second unclinch. He was really very young, probably no more than ten. He was scarcely past his babyhood, but he was fairly impressive, not the slightest maturity of mind, but of spirit. He could never take a fiercer stand against odds than now if he lived to be a hundred.

Anderson approached him, in spite of himself, with a certain respect.

"What is the matter, young man?" he inquired, gravely.

The boy regarded him with silent resentment and scorn; he did not deign an answer. But the big boy replied for him promptly:

"He--he said his father kept a tame elephant when they lived in New York State, and he--he used to ride him--"

He spoke in a tone of aggrieved virtue, and regarded the other with a scowl. The men guffawed, and after a second the boys also. Then a little fellow behind the ringleader offered additional testimony.

"He said he used to get up a private circus once a week, every Sat.u.r.day, and charge ten cents a head, and made ten dollars a week,"

he said. Then his voice of angry accusation ended in a chuckle.

Anderson kept his face quite grave, but all the others joined in the chorus of merriment. The little fellow backed against the iron fence gave an incredulous start at the sound of the laughter, then the red roses faded out on his smooth cheeks and he went quite white. The laughter stung his very soul as no recrimination could have done. He suffered tortures of mortified pride. His fists were still clinched, but his proud lip quivered a little. He looked very young--a baby.

Anderson stepped to his aid. He raised his voice. "Now, look here, boys," he said. But he made no headway against the hilarity, which swelled higher and higher. The crowd increased. Several more men and boys were on the outskirts. An ally pressed through the crowd to Anderson's side.

"Now, boys," he proclaimed, and for a moment his thin squeak weighted with importance gained a hearing--"now, boys," said the barber, "this little feller's father is an extinguished new denizen of Banbridge, and you ain't treatin' of him with proper disrespect. Now--" But then his voice was drowned in a wilder outburst than ever. The little crowd of men and boys went fairly mad with hysterical joy of mirth, as an American crowd will when once overcome by the humor of the situation in the midst of their stress of life. They now laughed at the little barber and the boy. The old familiar b.u.t.t had joined forces with the new ones.

"They have formed a trust," said Amidon, deserting his partisans.h.i.+p, now that it had a.s.sumed this phase of harmless jocularity.

But the boy at bay, as the laughter at his expense increased, was fairly frantic. He lost what he had hitherto retained, his self-possession. "I tell you I did!" he suddenly screamed out, in a sweet screech, like an angry bird, which commanded the ears of the crowd from its strangeness. "I tell you I did have an elephant, I did ride him, and I did have a circus every Sat.u.r.day afternoon, so there!"

The "so there" was tremendous. The words vanished in the sound. The boyish expression denoting triumphant climax became individual, the language of one soul. He fired the words at them all like a charge of shot. There was a pause of a second, then the laughter and mocking were recommencing. But Anderson took advantage of the lull.

"See here, boys," he shouted, "there's been enough of this. What is it to you whether he had a dozen elephants and rode them all at once, and had a circus every day in the week with a dozen tame bears thrown in? Clear out and go home and get your dinners. Clear out! Vamoose!

Scatter!" His tone was at once angry and appealing. It implied authority and comrades.h.i.+p.

Anderson had given great promise as a speaker during his college course. He was a man who, if he exerted himself, could gauge the temper of a mob. The men on the outskirts began moving away easily; the boys followed their example. The little barber took the boy familiarly by the arm.

"Now, you look at here," said he. "Don't you hev them chaps a-pesterin' of you no more, an' ef they do, you jest streak right into my parlor an' I'll take care of ye. See?"

The boy twitched his arm away and eyed the barber witheringly. "I don't want anything to do with you nor your old barber-shop," said he.

"You had better run along, John," said Anderson to the barber, who was staring amazedly, although the complacent smirk upon his face was undiminished.

"I guess he's a child kinder given to speakin' at tandem," he said, as he complied with Anderson's advice.

The boy turned at once to the man. "What business had that barber telling me to go into his old barber-shop?" demanded he. "I ain't afraid of all the boys in this one-horse town."

"Of course not," said Anderson.

"I did have an elephant when I lived in Hillfield, and I did ride him, and I did have circuses every Sat.u.r.day," said the boy, with challenge.

Anderson said nothing.

"At least--" said the child, in a modified tone. Anderson looked at him with an air of polite waiting. The boy's roses bloomed again. "At least--" he faltered, "at least--" A maid rang a dinner-bell frantically in the doorway of the house near which they were standing. Anderson glanced at her, then back at the boy. "At least--"

said the boy, with a blurt of confidence which yielded nothing, but implied the recognition of a friend and understander in the man--"at--least I used to make believe I had an elephant when I lived in Hillfield."

"Yes?" said Anderson. He made a movement to go, and the boy still kept at his side.

"And--" he added, but still with no tone of apology or confession, "I might have had an elephant."

"Yes," said Anderson, "you might have."

"And they did not know but what I might," said the boy, angrily.

Anderson nodded judicially. "That's so, I suppose; only elephants are not very common as setter dogs for a boy to have around these parts."

"It was a setter dog," said the boy, with a burst of innocence and admiration. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I guessed."

"You must be real smart," said the boy. "My father said he thought you were, and somehow had got stranded in a grocery store. Did you?"

"Yes, I did," replied Anderson.

Anderson was now walking quite briskly towards home and dinner, and the boy was trotting by his side, with seemingly no thought of parting. They proceeded in silence for a few steps; then the boy spoke again.

"I began with the setter dog," said he. "His name was Archie, and he used to jump over the roof of a part of our house as high as"--he looked about and pointed conclusively at the ell of a house across the street--"as high as that," he said, with one small pink finger indicating unwaveringly.

"That must have been quite a jump," remarked Anderson, and his voice betrayed nothing.