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She
was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took him into
the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with
an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to
itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she
closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a doughnut.
Then
he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led
to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and the air was
full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and
before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the
rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the
fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing he was too
crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had
settled with Sid for calling attention to his black thread and getting him
into trouble.
Tom
skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the back
of his aunt's cowstable. He presently got safely beyond the reach of
capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of the
village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for
conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of
these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These two
great commanders did not condescend to fight in person -- that being
better suited to the still smaller fry -- but sat together on an eminence
and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through
aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and
hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the
terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary
battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and marched away,
and Tom turned homeward alone.
As
he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl
in the garden -- a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair
plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered
pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain
Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a memory of
herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he had
regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little
evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had confessed
hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the
world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone
out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done.
He
worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had
discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and
began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order
to win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some
time; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic
performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending
her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it,
grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted a
moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great
sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up, right
away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she
disappeared.
The
boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and then
shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if he had
discovered something of interest going on in that direction. Presently he
picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his nose, with his
head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side, in his efforts,
he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his bare foot rested
upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the
treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a minute -- only
while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next his heart -- or
next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy, and not
hypercritical, anyway.
He
returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing
off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though
Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some
window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode home
reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.
All
through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered "what
had got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding Sid,
and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under
his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:
"Aunt,
you don't whack Sid when he takes it."
"Well,
Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into that sugar
if I warn't watching you."
Presently
she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for
the sugar-bowl -- a sort of glorying over Tom which was wellnigh
unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom
was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlled his tongue and
was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when
his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the
mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in
the world as to see that pet model "catch it." He was so brimful
of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old lady came
back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over
her spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And the
next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted
to strike again when Tom cried out:
"Hold
on, now, what 'er you belting ME for? -- Sid broke it!"
Aunt
Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when she got
her tongue again, she only said:
"Umf!
Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some other
audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."
Then
her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and
loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that
she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept
silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart. Tom sulked in a
corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart his aunt was on her
knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the consciousness of it. He
would hang out no signals, he would take notice of none. He knew that a
yearning glance fell upon him, now and then, through a film of tears, but
he refused recognition of it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death
and his aunt bending over him beseeching one little forgiving word, but he
would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid. Ah, how
would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river,
dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would
throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her
lips pray God to give her back her boy and she would never, never abuse
him any more! But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign -- a
poor little sufferer, whose griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his
feelings with the pathos of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing,
he was so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which
overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his
nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he
could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight
intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently,
when his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home
again after an age-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and
moved in clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and
sunshine in at the other.
He
wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate
places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river
invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated the
dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could only be
drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the
uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. He
got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal
felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she cry,
and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and comfort
him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world? This picture
brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he worked it over and
over again in his mind and set it up in new and varied lights, till he
wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighing and departed in the
darkness.
About
half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street to where
the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell upon his
listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain of a
second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the fence,
threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under that
window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid him down
on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with his hands
clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower. And thus he
would die -- out in the cold world, with no shelter over his homeless
head, no friendly hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow, no loving
face to bend pityingly over him when the great agony came. And thus SHE
would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she
drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one
little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut
down?
The
window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the holy calm,
and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!
The
strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz as of a
missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of
shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the fence and
shot away in the gloom.
Not
long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his drenched
garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he had any dim
idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought better
of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye.
Tom
turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made mental note
of the omission.
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