The Rebellion of William Henry

NTHRONED in the memory of William Henry Jones is a sweet wild moment when, flinging down all barriers, he rushed forth to do battle with the whole world—and won. Half the village remembers, too, that this triumph fell upon a Saturday afternoon not long ago. It was upon this day that, for the first time in all the ten years of his adventurous life, William Henry Jones received a whipping that was not altogether deserved. The eventful Saturday upon which this happened was marked in the Jones family by a succession of heart-breaking calamities. Marguerite, the baby, started the day going by falling out of her crib; a little later Samantha, the hired girl, compelled by some unholy magic, broke one of Mrs. Jones' cherished blue plates; just about noon, Mr. Jones' new straw hat fell into the well; and half an hour after dinner—the Misfortune came to William Henry.

Although during the entire forenoon our hero had walked so close upon the border line of the forbidden as to keep the tempers of both parents at a sharp edge, still he had succeeded in avoiding a crisis. However, notwithstanding this unusual success, William Henry had a feeling that, in the words of his father, there was something coming to him and he'd “get it pretty soon, and mark my words, it'll be worth having.”

Yet when, shortly after dinner, he found himself being led out to the woodshed, the knowledge that he was not guilty but was the innocent victim of circumstantial evidence added poignancy to his clamorous grief. The interview in the woodshed did not last long, but the injustice of it rankled after the physical smart had passed.

“It's bad enough to have to take a lickin' when ye've done suthin',” he complained tearfully to the old red rooster which had stood at the woodshed door, a startled witness to the pain and humiliating spectacle of his punishment. “I won't stand it no longer, I won't. I'll run away from home; you see if I don't.”

If he had expected sympathy from the rooster he was disappointed, because the haughty fowl, with its head cocked knowingly on one side, stared scornfully a moment, then stalked majestically away. There was no one else near to ease his mind upon—indeed, the last thing his grief desired was company; so with his heart, as well as other portions of his body, smarting under the recent injustice, the boy withdrew to the solitude of the woodpile, and there perched himself on its top, a blue-waisted, shock-haired bundle of gloom. As though emphasizing his misery there laughed and danced about him the sunniest, jolliest kind of a Saturday afternoon; and to make matters still worse in contrast, he knew that at that very minute there was assembled behind his father's barn a band of wild Indians, who waited for him to act as their chief. From where he sat, he could hear their shouted expostulations with one another, and suddenly he saw the figure of an Indian brave stealthily creeping toward him from behind the fence. Any one might have known by reason of the lordly chicken feathers in the approaching warrior's brimless hat, and because of the broad streaks of red and black down and across his face, that Bobby Smithers, aged eleven, was a peculiarly ferocious and fearless hostile. William gazed moodily down at the aborigine, and the savage red man stared inquiringly up at the tear-furrowed face of the chief.

“Get a lickin', Billy?” asked the Indian, in a coldly inquisitive voice.

William Henry sniffed and made no reply, but his silence was eloquent. Bobby Smithers hesitated a minute; then, animated by several sentiments, among which curiosity was by far the strongest and sympathy by many degrees the weakest, he placed a bare, scratched foot upon a projecting stick of wood and, climbing up, seated himself beside his sulky chieftain. There he twisted a moment in fidgety silence, blinking white eyelashes at the sun and rubbing his palms together between the patched knees of his gray knickerbockers. Nor did William evince any overwhelming cordiality; for the chief knew well that it was no feeling of kindly sympathy that brought him this companionship, but only an intense curiosity on the warrior's part to be entertained with the particulars of the recent whipping.

Notwithstanding this knowledge, and because of the momentary silence which ensued, there flickered a faint hope in William's heart that the Indian might rise to the finer sentiments of the occasion and let the subject drop; but there was no false delicacy about the warrior.

“For breakin' suthin'?” he asked, in a business-like way, rattling the marbles in his pocket as he spoke.

William scratched the heel of one foot with the great toe of the other, resentfully eyeing his friend the while, and shook his head.

“Sassin' yer big sister?” the Indian questioned coaxingly. A flush of anger wiped out the finer freckles on the chief's face, but he only gulped back a sob and twisted away.

“Get kotched tellin'a whopper?” The pain of utter suspense grew upon the savage questioner's face.

The victim could stand it no longer, so made reply, but in the tone of his voice was the indignant suggestion that the inquiry was closed.

“Naw, nothin' like it,” he said.

The Indian brave, thus impolitely rebuffed, blinked disconsolately at tree and bird and sky as though seeking information from them and, finding none, turned with an injured air to his friend and tribesman.

“Well, Billy, what was it, then?” he whined resentfully. “Can't yer tell a feller?”

In a sudden recollection of the great wrong he had suffered, William for an instant lost sight of the present annoyance.

“It was him,” said William, nodding toward a gray-bearded man over in the garden, who was digging up the soil for the Spring planting.

The red man's relentless eyes glued themselves for one instant to the busy figure of the old man bobbing up and down over the spade.

“Huh!” he grunted. “Who is he? I hain't seen him around here before.”

“I dunno,” William Henry answered wearily. “My pa hired him to dig up the garden. He says he's a Ghost Fighter by purfession. That's all I know erbout him.”

The effect of this announcement on the savage warrior was extraordinary. His bare legs and his thin arms grew rigid, his eyes bulged to the point of dropping out, and he held his breath until one long-suffering suspender button gave a despairing pop and was lost in the woodpile.

Comforting emotions come quick and strong to the heart of a boy and are easily aroused. So, noticing the surprise his words created, a revulsion of feeling swept into the soul of William Henry Jones. The distinction of having been closely associated with a Ghost Fighter had not before impressed him; but now it began to produce an undefined yet pleasant feeling of importance. So swiftly did this comforting sensation spread that by the time Master Smithers had somewhat recovered his self possession, William had grown cheerful and rather proud of the situation.

“I don't think I'd orter tell yer, Bobby,” he said mysteriously. “It might skeer ye.”

“Naw, it wouldn't,” Bobby cried indignantly. “I'll tell yer what I'll do. You tell me all erbout it, and I'll go down in the alley and throw stones at him.”

The two turned instantly and faced each other. “Hope ter die if yer won't?” whispered the chief, hoarse with feeling. The warrior made two swift strokes across his chest with a dirty thumb, meanwhile repeating, “Hope ter die. Cross my heart. Honest Injun.”

William hesitated. The thrice solemn oath was repeated. A satisfied light crept into William's eye as he began: “I was out there,” he said, pointing with his foot, “follering him round picking up fishworms to make fishworm ile out of”

The red man nodded intelligently, interrupting him. “I know,” he said. “I made some the other day and rubbed it all over my joints, and just see how limber it made 'em.” He threw himself on his back and began wriggling and twisting his arms and legs in the most astonishing manner.

Yes, I know,” said the admiring William, as the warrior regained his equilibrium; “it makes a feller as limber as a circus actor.

“Well,” he went on solemnly, “as I was following the man round, he turned all of a suddint, and his white whiskers put me in mind of ghosts; so I ses, 'Mister, do you know any true ghost stories?' and he ses 'Do you know where I can get a chaw er terbacker?' 'N' I ses 'No,' and then he ses, 'Well, I do. Yer pa's coat is hangin' on the knob of the kitchen door and there's a big hunk in the right hand pocket. Go an' git a piece.'

“'N' I ses to the man, 'No, sir! that's not what I'm teached in Sunny School—things like that. But if ye'll tell me a ghost story first, I'll do it,' I ses.”

The Indian nodded approval of this wise stipulation, and William went on, growing, as he proceeded, interested in his own narrative to the verge of excitement.

“And the man said 'All right,' and he stopped digging and told me about a house he bought down in Ingeanny which was ha'nted. It only cost him ten dollars because it was terrible ha'nted. The man didn't have much schooling, but he knew his own rights when they was rights, he did. So after he paid for this house and owned it, he went down there all alone one dark midnight—the time the ghost used to wake up and do things—and the man unlocked the front door”

“Gee! that's what I call real nerve,” said the red man, hugging his knee.

“Yes; 'n' there he caught the skellington right in the act—a-setting on the kitchen stove, a-clanking his chains and rattling his bones and hollering so you could hear him nearly a mile.” At the fearful picture the warrior shivered, and a whistle froze on his puckered lips.

William noticed this, and there was marked satisfaction in his voice as he went on. “But the man wasn't skeered a mite. He up and ses to the skellington, ses he, 'I'd like to know why you hang round here a-keeping me from renting my house. That's what I'd like to know,' he ses, 'You don't pay anythink as I know of,' ses he.

“And the ghost ses in a holler voice, 'I was murdered here in this house, I was, that's why I'm hangin' round here,' it ses, cool as a cucumber, crossing his legs and folding his arms.

“'Well, what's that got to do with me?' the man ses, 'I didn't murder you, did I?' ses he.

“'Mebbe not,' ses the ghost, kind of slow, 'mebbe not, but this house has a good deal to do with me. I've got aright to ha'nt it ae And ha'nted it is, an' ha'nted it's goin' ter be.' With that the skellington guv' a whoop an' a rattle which you could hear way up at the Court House.

“The man got mad in a minute, he did, an' he just whipped off his coat 'n' rolled up his sleeves an' he slapped his hands together this way. 'Now, then,' he ses, 'Ol' Mr. Skellington, just for that I'm goin' to break every single bone in yer ornery body.'

“Well, first the ghost was s'prised, he was, for people ginerally lit out at the first screech, and so when he saw the man coming for him, the skellington got scared himself, he did, and slid off the other side of the stove to the floor. But the man chased around after him.

“Well, the ghost kep' a running round the stove and the man kep' chasing him with the poker, and every jump the ghost med it guv a holler, an' every holler it guv it got a crack from the poker. All the time its chains kep' rattling something frightful.

“At last the ghost made a bolt for the door, but the man was too quick for him, he was, and he caught him by the throat with one hand and shoved him into a corner and shook his other fist in the ghost's face like that.

“'Now, dog gone ye,' he ses, 'will ye, or won't ye?'

“Well, the ghost just fairly wilted. He begged and promised everythink he could think of till the man kinder got sorry for him and let him off. Then the ghost wrapped his white sheet around him as meek as Moses, and follered the man out of the house and down the street till they came to the graveyard, where the ghost hopped over the fence and began playing with the other ghosts. He never went to the house any more. Next day some people moved into the house and lived in it, and the man sold it for more'n a thousand dollars. The man's got the money yet. He don't need to work. He just digs gardens in the Summer and chops wood and sweeps snow in the Winter to make believe he's poor, so as to fool the robbers.”

William paused for breath and went on:

“When the man told me all that, he began scraping mud off'n his boots with the spade, and ses he to me, ses he, 'You look like a boy that ain't afeared o' nothin'. I may be mistaken, but yer looks like a purty brave boy. Hain't ye?' An' I ses 'Yes sir,' an' he ses 'All right then; go up to the house an' git me er chaw er terbacker.'

“So I run up to the kitchen and took out the terbacker, an' I bit on it an' bit on it till I bit off a piece.”

The Indian whistled softly. “Gee! where was yer pa?” he said.

“In the kitchen watching me, an' I didn't see him.”

At this remembrance a strong emotion seized William and crushed him into half-tearful silence. But his warrior companion, growing restless and fidgety, entreated, “What then, Billy? Billy, why don't yer go on?”

At which William Henry, rousing himself, reluctantly continued. “An' I took the piece of terbacker back to the garden an' my pa follered behind all the way from the house'n I didn't know it, 'n' jest as I was going to give the terbacker to the man, my pa kotched hold of me an' took it out of my hand. An' the Ghost Fighter looked awful s'prised, and he ses:

“'Well, well, will yer look at that! Chawin terbacker at his age! I wunner what this generation's a-comin' to?'

“'An' my pa ses to me, 'I declare, I don't know what ter do with you.'

“'And the man ses, 'If he was mine, I know what I'd do with him mighty quick. I'd tan the hide off'n him,' he ses.

“Then my pa took me over to the woodshed an' he went an' done it.”

The bitter remembrance put fresh salt on William's wounds. He sniffed twice and, with the back of his hand, furtively wiped a tear from the end of his nose. But the savage friend sat in pleasant reverie, elbows on knees and his cheeks buried in his hands. The expression on Bobby's face, indeed, was that of one who had just eaten a hearty meal. This happy abstraction was soon broken by the voice of William.

“Now, Bobby, go down and throw stones at him,” he said.

The red man started uneasily. “Course I'll do it if you say, Billy,” he replied, nervously, “cause I said, 'Hope to die,' but some way or other chuckin' stones at a Ghost Fighter seems suthin' like throwin' things at a Minister. Now, don't it?”

William gave an indignant start, but his friend hastened to add, soothingly, “I'll tell yer what I'll do. The other boys don't know he's a Ghost Fighter, so I'll run back in the alley an' tell 'em that he's a pale face inemy, an' they'd better attackt him. You keep still till I come back 'n' then we'll both set here an' watch him dodge around from the stones.”

Without waiting for a reply, Bobby Smithers, the treacherous aborigine, clutching his buttonless trousers, slid down from the woodpile and disappeared behind the fence. For some time William sat anxiously waiting the commencement of the deadly hostilities. But he waited in vain. The benevolent-looking old man in the garden continued digging and serenely whistled a revival hymn as he dug.

Then from the direction of the river came the receding sound of boys' voices. His tribe was on its way to the swimming hole, leaving him to his gloom. A great wave of bitterness swept over the heart of the forsaken chief. He realized that for the second time that day he had been betrayed.

The first clear purpose that followed in William's mind sprang from a longing to get within arm's reach of Bobby Smithers. Suggested by it and following so close to this longing as to be almost its sequel was the seduction of the cool, dark swimming pool itself. Notwithstanding he had been forbidden to leave his own yard, William Henry set about persuading himself that, with great good luck, an hour's absence might remain undiscovered. The physical pain of his late chastisement was now utterly gone, and so its moral impressions had become more or less vaporish.

He was just about to slide off the woodpile, slip back of the barn and race straight for the willow-shaded pool when a sharp, energetic voice broke the drowsy Summer stillness.

“William Hen-ry, William Hen-ry!” It was his mother's voice that called. She stood at the kitchen door, her sun-bonnet tilted back from her face like the visor of a knight-errant, her hand upon a baby carriage. A moan surged upward from the bottom of William's being, for well he understood the meaning of that summons.

The voice continued, “You get right down off that wood-pile and come over here this minute and take care of your little sister Marguerite.”

There are two things a boy loathes with a giant loathing. One is to wipe the supper dishes, and the other is to mind the baby on Saturday afternoon. However, there was nothing left for Willliam [sic] but to grumble and obey.

Taking his place behind the coach and glowering fiercely at the back of the innocent lace hood, he began his irksome task. Down the vine-shaded walk, drowsy with the hum of Summer, the carriage rolled; past the tall, old-fashioned bee-hive it went up to the very edge of the back garden; there it stopped within a yard of where the cheerful old Ghost Fighter crooned to himself as he worked. That guileless-looking old man paused to hitch up his trousers and, as he did, gazed compassionately at his late victim.

“You pore, pore feller,” he sighed pityingly.

This sympathy in some way grated upon the sensibilities of William Henry, but our hero gave no sign, save to scratch thoughtfully his right shin with the heel of his left foot.

“When I heard you hollering over there in the woodshed a bit ago,” the Ghost Fighter continued, combing his white beard with his knotted fingers, “I ses to myself, ses I, there's a brave boy, if there ever was one in this world.”

This compliment was not ungrateful to William, but a sense of the man's treachery took away much of its balm.

“It's a cryin' pity, I ses, to keep a brave boy like that choppin' kindling, totin' pails of water wash days, an' mindin' babies. He orter be doin' a man's work—takin' keer of hosses and things like that.”

These were the first really sympathetic words our hero had heard that day, and under their influence his mind grew less rigid; but even as he listened, his eyes rested thoughtfully upon a semi-circle of undug ground around the beehive.

“Why don't you dig over there?” he asked, knowingly nodding toward the untouched ground.

The old man leaned confidentially forward on his spade. “Bekase,” he said impressively, “I'm saving that little spot for a boy I know what I'm mighty sorry for. It ain't every boy I'd let dig for me—no, nor man nuther. But when I have to purtend and by purtendin' get a friend of mine a good lickin', the least I kin do is to save him a soft little piece of ground to dig up. So I saved”

“You're a-skeered of the bees, that's what,” crowed William Henry.

It was plain from his look that the Ghost Fighter was wounded in the most sensitive part of his nature. Without another word, he bent again over his work. But William noticed that the man kept a distrustful eye upon a couple of sentinel bees which, no doubt recognizing him as a stranger, buzzed warningly above his head.

William stood for a time pushing the baby carriage gently back and forth, meanwhile nursing in his heart the pleasant hope that by and by the bees would whirl in and make things lively. Suddenly came an overwhelming desire to dig up the piece of ground the man was afraid to touch. The boy knew well that the bees would not harm him or any other member of the Jones family; but woe to the stranger who trespassed on their rights.

“Gimme the spade; I'll dig it,” he said abruptly.

The old man mopped his face with a bandanna handkerchief, “I don't know whether I'd orter let you,” he complained. “You've used me purty mean after all I've done for yer,” he added reproachfully. However, he handed over the spade and seating himself upon an upturned bucket which was well within the shadow of the beehive, began filling his pipe.

“Now go on,” he said. “Let's see how fast you can dig; and while you're a-diggin', you'll hear the riptearin'est ghost story you ever listened to in all your born days.”

The shadows of an unhappy day faded from William's face. There was allurement in the promise; there was pleasure in the work. He had already sunk his spade half-way into the earth and was pushing on it with both bare feet when Marguerite sent up an ear-splitting protest. The grizzly appearance of the Ghost Fighter so near her throne worked upon that young lady's æsthetic feelings till her continual howls brought Mrs. Jones furious to the door.

“William Henry, William Hen-ry, what on earth are you doing to that child?” she called.

“Nothin', Ma!”

“Nothing? Then you stop it this minute. Bring that child here to me,” the voice called again. Simple words these, to have been so pregnant with historic event! With eager alacrity, William swung the buggy round and started up the walk. As he did so, the venerable man sitting in the very shadow of his tragedy began to sing softly the air of a well-known Gospel hymn. But the words improvised for the tune were:

The hollow hypocrisy of the words roused anew the sleeping resentment in William's breast.

When half-way up to the house the boy stopped and turned to make indignant response to the song, and as he looked back noticed for the first time how dangerously the beehive tilted above the benevolent old gentleman as he sat all unconscious on the upturned bucket. Only for an instant William Henry hesitated; then the wrongs, the humiliations, the oppressions of the day, swept over him. The Ghost Fighter represented not only the tragedy of the woodshed, but, sitting there in calloused indifference, also personified, vicariously, society in general.

With one wild chuckle of delight, the boy gave a running push to the baby carriage, which sent it bump against the feet of his astonished mother. Then as that lady bent to lift the breathless Marguerite, William Henry—William Henry no longer, but once more Jumping Leopard, Chief of the Apache band—with two wild whoops, sent himself, an animated battering ram, down the walk, and against the side of the beehive. The tall, heavy affair went over with a crash. Its apex struck fair between the shoulder of the unconscious Ghost Fighter and knocked him upon his in the soft loam. At the same instant a thousand furious bees rushed fiercely out to the attack.

Mrs. Jones, her attention attracted by a series of [screams] which brought surprised faces to block doors a block away, looked up to see the old man scramble to his feet and [begin] what might perhaps be best characterized as an [elementary] hornpipe. Some of the bees had found their way inside his trousers' legs; others had crept inside the collar of his shirt, while a score of others were making busy within his shirt sleeves. Up and down, and round and round he danced, kicking aimlessly in all directions and striking savagely at unseen adversaries, all the while accompanying his movements with screams of “Help! Murder! Fire! Pe”

It could not have been more than three minutes before William's father rescued the Ghost Fighter, but in that time an eager crowd had swarmed through the front gate, [trampl]ing over Mrs. Jones's flower-beds and doing no end of damage.

Because of the general excitement, it was half an hour before anyone thought of looking for William Henry; and at last when a searching party came up with the culprit he was disporting himself in the swimming pool, his face expressing that solemn pleasure with which a condemned felon enjoys the last breakfast before execution. Mr. Jones led home his erring son in awful state, followed through the streets by a dozen of excited, wet-haired tribesmen. On the way the cortège passed a man whose face was swathed in bandages, only one eye being visible; but spite enough gleamed from that one old organ to have furnished malice for the eyes of Argus.

“See there!” hissed Mr. Jones, shaking his culprit heir. “You might have killed the poor old man. I don't know what I am ever goin' to do with you.”

Then it was that Bobby Smithers, trotting along, breathless, at the head of his tribe, ruined for himself and friends the pleasure of witnessing a repetition of what had happened that morning in the woodshed.

“Yes'n see what he done to Billy,” cried Master Smithers.

Jones turned. “What did he do to Billy?” he asked. Instantly a group formed in front of Mrs. Davis' picket gate; there, under the elm tree, Bobby Smithers began his memorable argument for the defence. So well did the orator plead his case that, before his speech was over, acquittal was assured. When he had done, Mr. Jones stood a moment in deep thought; then, having fished a nickel from the depths of his trousers' pocket, he said with a touch of sternness:

“Go back and finish your swimming, William Henry; then go and buy your popcorn; but the next scrape you get into, you'll ketch it good. Now, mind!”