Tales of Trail and Town Part 17

"Now, Johnny," said Mrs. Medliker, setting her lips together as the door closed, "look me right in the face, and say where you stole that gold."

But Johnny evidently did not think that his mother's face at that moment offered any moral support, for he did not look at her; but, after gazing at the kettle, said slowly, "I didn't steal no gold."

"Then," said Mrs. Medliker triumphantly, "if ye didn't steal it, you'd say right off HOW ye got it."

Children are often better logicians than their elders. To John Bunyan the stealing of gold and the mere refusal to say where he got it were two distinct and separate things; that the negation of the second proposition meant the affirmation of the first he could not accept. But then children are also imitative, and fearful of the older intellect. It struck Johnny that his mother might be right, and that to her it really meant the same thing. So, after a moment's silence he replied more confidently, "I suppose I stoled it."

But he was utterly unprepared for the darkening change in his mother's face, and her furious accents. "You stole it?--you STOLE it, you limb!

And you sit there and brazenly tell me! Who did you steal it from? Tell me quick, afore I wring it out of you!"

Completely astounded and bewildered at this new turn of affairs, Johnny again fell back upon the dreadful truth, and gasped, "I don't know."

"You don't know, you devil! Did you take it from Frazer's?"

"No."

"From the Simmons Brothers?"

"No."

"From the Blazing Star Company?"

"No."

"From a store?"

"No."

"Then, in created goodness!--WHERE did you get it?"

Johnny raised his brown-gooseberry eyes for a single instant to his mother's and said, "I found it."

Mrs. Medliker gasped again and stared hopelessly at the ceiling. Yet she was conscious of a certain relief. After all, it was POSSIBLE that he had found it--liar as he undoubtedly was.

"Then why don't you say where, you awful child?"

"Don't want to!"

Johnny would have liked to add that he saw no reason why he should tell.

Other people who found gold were not obliged to tell. There was Jim Brody, who had struck a lead and kept the locality secret. n.o.body forced him to tell. n.o.body called him a thief; n.o.body had dragged him about by the arm until he showed it. Why was it wrong that a little boy should find gold? It wasn't agin the Commandments. Mr. Staples had never got up and said, "Thou shalt not find gold!" His mother had never made him pray not to find it! The schoolmaster had never read him awful stories of boys who found gold and never said anything about it, and so came to a horrid end. All this crowded his small boy's mind, and, crowding, choked his small boy's utterance.

"You jest wait till your father comes home," said Mrs. Medliker, "and he'll see whether you 'want to' or not. And now get yourself off to bed and stay there."

Johnny knew that his father--whose teams had increased to five wagons, and whose route extended forty miles further--was not due for a week, and that the catastrophe was yet remote. His present punishment he had expected. He went into the adjoining bedroom, which he occupied with his sister, and began to undress. He lingered for some time over one stocking, and finally cautiously removed from it a small piece of flake gold which he had kept concealed all day under his big toe, to the great discomfort of that member. But this was only a small, ordinary self-martyrdom of boyhood. He scratched a boyish hieroglyphic on the metal, and when his mother's back was turned sc.r.a.ped a small hole in the adobe wall, inserted the gold in it, and covered it up with a plaster made of the moistened debris. It was safe--so was his secret--for it need not, perhaps, be stated here that Johnny HAD told the truth and HAD honestly found the gold! But where?--yes, that was his own secret! And now, Johnny, with the instinct of all young animals, dismissed the whole subject from his mind, and, reclining comfortably upon his arm, fell into an interesting study of the habits of the red ant as exemplified in a crack of the adobe wall, and with the aid of a burnt match succeeded in diverting for the rest of the afternoon the attention of a whole laborious colony.

The next morning, however, brought trouble to him in the curiosity of his sisters, heightened by their belief that he could at any moment be taken off to prison--which was their understanding of their mother's story. I grieve to say that to them this invested him with a certain romantic heroism, from the gratification of which the hero himself was not exempt. Nevertheless, he successfully evaded their questioning, and on broader impersonal grounds. As girls, it was none of their business!

He wasn't a-going to tell them HIS secrets! And what did they know about gold, anyway? They couldn't tell it from bra.s.s! The att.i.tude of his mother was, however, still perplexing. She was no longer actively indignant, but treated him with a mysterious reserve that was the more appalling. The fact was that she no longer believed in his theft,--indeed, she had never seriously accepted it,--but his strange reticence and secretiveness piqued her curiosity, and even made her a little afraid of him. The capacity for keeping a secret she believed was manlike, and reminded her--for no reason in the world--of Jim Medliker, her husband, whom she feared. Well, she would let them fight it out between them. More than that, she was finally obliged to sink her reserve in employing him in the necessary "ch.o.r.es" for the house, and he was sent on an errand to the country store at the cross-roads. But he first extracted his gold-flake from the wall, and put it in his pocket.

On arriving at the store, it was plain even to his boyish perceptions that the minister had circulated his miserable story. Two or three of the customers spoke to each other in a whisper, and looked at him. More than that, when he began his homeward journey he saw that two of the loungers were evidently following him. Half in timidity and half in boyish mischief he once or twice strayed from the direct road, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a fearful joy in observing their equal divergence. As he pa.s.sed Mr. Staples's house he saw that reverend gentleman sneak out of his back gate, and, without seeing the two others, join in the inquisitorial procession. But the events of the past day had had their quickening effect upon Johnny's intellect. A brilliantly wicked thought struck him.

As he was pa.s.sing a perfectly bare spot on the road he managed, without being noticed, to cast his glittering flake of gold on the sterile ground at the other side of the road, where the minister's path would lie. Then, at a point where the road turned, he concealed himself in the brush. The Reverend Mr. Staples hurried forward as he lost sight of the boy in the sweep of the road, but halted suddenly. Johnny's heart leaped. The minister looked around him, stooped, picked up the piece of gold, thrust it hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket, and continued his way. When he reached the turn of the road, before pa.s.sing it, he availed himself of his solitude to pause and again examine the treasure, and again return it to his pocket. But, to Johnny's surprise, he here turned back, walked quickly to the spot where he had found it, carefully examined the locality, kicking the loose soil and stones around with his feet until he had apparently satisfied himself that there was no more, and no gold-bearing indications in the soil. At this moment, however, the two other inquisitors came in sight, and Mr. Staples turned quickly and hurried on. Before he had pa.s.sed the brush where Johnny was concealed, the two men overtook him and exchanged greetings. They both spoke of "Johnny" and his crime; of having followed him with a view of finding out where he went to procure his gold, and of his having again evaded them. Mr. Staples agreed with their purpose, but, to Johnny's intense astonishment, SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS OWN FIND! When they had pa.s.sed on, the boy slipped from his place of concealment and followed them at a distance until his own house came in view. Here the two men diverged, but the minister continued on towards the other "store" and post-office on the main road.

He would have told his mother what he had seen, and his surprise that the minister had not spoken of finding the gold to the other men, but he was checked, first by his mother's att.i.tude towards him, which was clearly the same as the minister's, and, second, by the knowledge that she would have condemned his dropping the gold in the minister's path,--though he knew not WHY,--or asked his reason for it, which he was equally sure he could not formulate, though he also knew not why. But that evening, as he was returning from the spring with water, he heard the minister's voice in the kitchen. It had been a day of surprises and revelations to Johnny, but the climax seemed to be reached as he entered the room; and he now stood transfixed and open-mouthed as he heard Mr.

Staples say:--

"It's all very well, Sister Medliker, to comfort your heart with vain hopes and delusions. A mother's leanin's is the soul's deceivin's,--and yer leanin' on a broken reed. If the boy truly found that gold he'd have come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and hev poured it inter yer lap. Yes," continued Mr. Staples aggressively to the boy, as he saw him stagger back with his pail in hand, "yes, sir, THAT would have been the course of a Christian child!"

For a moment Johnny felt the blood boiling in his ears, and a thousand words seemed crowding in his throat. "Then"--he gasped and choked.

"Then"--he began again, and stopped with the suffocation of indignation.

But Mr. Staples saw in his agitation only an awakened conscience, and, nudging Mrs. Medliker, leaned eagerly forward for a reply. "Then," he repeated, with suave encouragement, "go on, Johnny! Speak it out!"

"Then," said Johnny, in a high, shrill falsetto that startled them, "then wot for did YOU pick up that piece o' gold in the road this arternoon, and say nothin' of it to the men who followed ye? Ye did; I seed yer! And ye didn't say nothin' of it to anybody; and ye ain't sayin' nothin' of it now ter maw! and ye've got it in yer vest! And it's mine, and I dropped it! Gimme it."

Astonishment, confusion, and rage swelled and empurpled Staples' face.

It was HIS turn to gasp for breath. Yet in the same moment he made an angry dash at the boy. But Mrs. Medliker interfered. This was an entirely new feature in the case. Great is the power of gold. A single glance at the minister's confusion had convinced her that Johnny's accusation was true, and it was Johnny's MONEY--constructively HERS--that the minister was concealing. His mere possession of that gold had more effect in straightening out her loose logic than any sense of hypocrisy.

"You leave the boy be, Brother Staples," said Mrs. Medliker sharply. "I reckon wot's his is hisn, spite of whar he got it."

Mr. Staples saw his mistake, and smiled painfully as he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. "I believe I DID pick up something," he said, "that may or may not have been gold, but I have dropped it again or thrown it away; and really it is of little concern in our moral lesson. For we have only HIS word that it was really his! How do we KNOW it?"

"Cos it has my marks on it," said Johnny quickly; "it had a criss-cross I scratched on it. I kin tell it good enuf."

Mr. Staples turned suddenly pale and rose. "Of course," he said to Mrs.

Medliker with painful dignity, "if you set so much value upon a mere worldly trifle, I will endeavor to find it. It may be in my other pocket." He backed out of the door in his usual fas.h.i.+on, but instantly went over to the post-office, where, as he afterwards alleged, he had changed the ore for coin in a moment of inadvertence. But Johnny's hieroglyphics were found on it, and in some mysterious way the story got about. It had two effects that Johnny did not dream of. It had forced his mother into an att.i.tude of complicity with him; it had raised up for him a single friend. Jake Stielitzer, quartz miner, had declared that Burnt Spring was "playing it low down" on Johnny! That if they really believed that the boy took gold from their sluice boxes, it was their duty to watch their CLAIMS and not the boy. That it was only their excuse for "snooping" after him, and they only wanted to find his "strike," which was as much his as their claims were their own! All this with great proficiency of epithet, but also a still more recognized proficiency with the revolver, which made the former respected.

"That's the real n.i.g.g.e.r in the fence, Johnny," said Jake, twirling his huge mustache, "and they only want to know where your lead is,--and don't yer tell 'em! Let 'em bile over with waitin' first, and that'll put the fire out. Does yer pop know?"

"No," said Johnny.

"Nor yer mar?"

"No."

Jake whistled. "Then it's only YOU, yourself?"

Johnny nodded violently, and his brown eyes glistened.

"It's a heap of information to be packed away in a chap of your size, Johnny. Makes you feel kinder crowded inside, eh? MUST keep it to yourself, eh?"

"Have to," said Johnny with a gasp that was a little like a sigh.

It caused Jake to look at him attentively. "See here, Johnny," he said, "now ef ye wanted to tell somebody about it,--somebody as was a friend of yours,--ME, f'r instance?"

Johnny slowly withdrew the freckled, warty little hand that had been resting confidingly in Jake's and gently sidled away from him. Jake burst into a loud laugh.

"All right, Johnny boy," he said with a hearty slap upon the boy's back, "keep yer head shut ef yer wanter! Only ef anybody else comes b.u.mmin'

round ye, like this, jest turn him over TO ME, and I'll lift him outer his boots!"