The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (179 page)

The twin gulped for a moment in his anxiety to make the proper reply. He was at the point where the roads forked. Finally he hazarded, “Yes.”

“There,” said the chief, “that’s one of ‘em. Now, Dan, you be a witness. Did he do it?”

Dan Earl, having before him the twin’s example, did not hesitate. “Yes,” he said.

“Well, then, pards, what shall be his fate?”

Again came the ringing answer, “
Death
!”

With Jimmie in the principal rôle, this drama, hidden deep in the hemlock thicket neared a kind of perfection. “You must blind-fold me,” cried the condemned lad, briskly, “an’ then I’ll go off an’ stand, an’ you must all get in a row an’ shoot me.”

The chief gave this plan his urbane countenance, and the twins and Dan Earl were greatly pleased. They blindfolded Jimmie under his careful directions. He waded a few paces into snow, and then turned and stood with quiet dignity, awaiting his fate. The chief marshalled the twins and Dan Earl in line with their sticks. He gave the necessary commands: “Load! Ready! Aim! Fire!” At the last command the firing party all together yelled, “Bang!”

Jimmie threw his hands high, tottered in agony for a moment, and then crashed full length into the snow — into, one would think, a serious case of pneumonia. It was beautiful.

THE EXECUTION

He arose almost immediately and came back to them, wondrously pleased with himself. They acclaimed him joyously.

The chief was particularly grateful. He was always trying to bring off these little romantic affairs, and it seemed, after all, that the only boy who could ever really help him was Jimmie Trescott. “There,” he said to the others, “that’s the way it ought to be done.”

They were touched to the heart by the whole thing, and they looked at Jimmie with big, smiling eyes. Jimmie, blown out like a balloon-fish with pride of his performance, swaggered to the fire and took seat on some wet hemlock boughs. “Fetch some more wood, one of you kids,” he murmured, negligently. One of the twins came fortunately upon a small cedar-tree the lower branches of which were dead and dry. An armful of these branches flung upon the sick fire soon made a high, ruddy, warm blaze, which was like an illumination in honor of Jimmie’s success.

The boys sprawled about the fire and talked the regular language of the game. “Waal, pards,” remarked the chief, “it’s many a night we’ve had together here in the Rockies among the b’ars an’ the Indyuns, hey?”

“Yes, pard,” replied Jimmie Trescott, “I reckon you’re right. Our wild, free life is — there ain’t nothin’ to compare with our wild, free life.”

Whereupon the two lads arose and magnificently shook hands, while the others watched them in an ecstasy. “I’ll allus stick by ye, pard,” said Jimmie, earnestly. “When yer in trouble, don’t forgit that Lightnin’ Lou is at yer back.”

“Thanky, pard,” quoth Willie Dalzel, deeply affected. “I’ll not forgit it, pard. An’ don’t you forgit, either, that Dead-shot Demon, the leader of the Red Raiders, never forgits a friend.”

But Homer Phelps was having none of this great fun. Since his disgraceful refusal to be seized and executed he had been hovering unheeded on the outskirts of the band. He seemed very sorry; he cast a wistful eye at the romantic scene. He knew too well that if he went near at that particular time he would be certain to encounter a pitiless snubbing. So he vacillated modestly in the background.

At last the moment came when he dared venture near enough to the fire to gain some warmth, for he was now bitterly suffering with the cold. He sidled close to Willie Dalzel. No one heeded him. Eventually he looked at his chief, and with a bright face said,

“Now — if I was seized now to be executed, I could do it as well as Jimmie Trescott, I could.”

The chief gave a crow of scorn, in which he was followed by the other’boys. “Ho!” he cried, “why didn’t you do it, then? Why didn’t you do it?” Homer Phelps felt upon him many pairs of disdainful eyes. He wagged his shoulders in misery.

“You’re dead,” said the chief, frankly. “That’s what you are. We executed you, we did.”

“When?” demanded the Phelps boy, with some spirit.

“Just a little while ago. Didn’t we, fellers? Hey, fellers, didn’t we?”

The trained chorus cried: “Yes, of course we did. You’re dead, Homer. You can’t play any more. You’re dead.”

“That wasn’t me. It was Jimmie Trescott,” he said, in a low and bitter voice, his eyes on the ground. He would have given the world if he could have retracted his mad refusals of the early part of the drama.

“No,” said the chief, “it was you. We’re playin’ it was you, an’ it
was
you. You’re dead, you are.” And seeing the cruel effect of his words, he did not refrain from administering some advice: “The next time, don’t be such a chuckle-head.”

Presently the camp imagined that it was attacked by Indians, and the boys dodged behind trees with their stick-rifles, shouting out, “Bang!” and encouraging each other to resist until the last. In the mean time the dead lad hovered near the fire, looking moodily at the gay and exciting scene. After the fight the gallant defenders returned one by one to the fire, where they grandly clasped hands, calling each other “old pard,” and boasting of their deeds.

Parenthetically, one of the twins had an unfortunate inspiration. “I killed the Indy-un chief, fellers. Did you see me kill the Indy-un chief?”

But Willie Dalzel, his own chief, turned upon him wrathfully: “
You
didn’t kill no chief.
I
killed ‘im with me own hand.”

“Oh!” said the twin, apologetically, at once. “It must have been some other Indy-un.”

“Who’s wounded?” cried Willie Dalzel. “Ain’t anybody wounded?” The party professed themselves well and sound. The roving and inventive eye of the chief chanced upon Homer Phelps. “Ho! Here’s a dead man! Come on, fellers, here’s a dead man! We’ve got to bury him, you know.” And at his bidding they pounced upon the dead Phelps lad. The unhappy boy saw clearly his road to rehabilitation, but mind and body revolted at the idea of burial, even as they had revolted at the thought of execution. “No!” he said, stubbornly. “No! I don’t want to be buried! I don’t want to be buried!”

THE FUNERAL ORATION

“You’ve
got
to be buried!” yelled the chief, passionately. “‘Tain’t goin’ to hurt ye, is it? Think you’re made of glass? Come on, fellers, get the grave ready!”

They scattered hemlock boughs upon the snow in the form of a rectangle, and piled other boughs near at hand. The victim surveyed these preparations with a glassy eye. When all was ready, the chief turned determinedly to him: “Come on now, Homer. We’ve got to carry you to the grave. Get him by the legs, Jim!”

Little Phelps had now passed into that state which may be described as a curious and temporary childish fatalism. He still objected, but it was only feeble muttering, as if he did not know what he spoke. In some confusion
they carried him to the rectangle of hemlock boughs and dropped him. Then they piled other boughs upon him until he was not to be seen. The chief stepped forward to make a short address, but before proceeding with it he thought it expedient, from certain indications, to speak to the grave itself. “Lie still, can’t ye? Lie still until I get through.” There was a faint movement of the boughs, and then a perfect silence.

The chief took off his hat. Those who watched him could see that his face was harrowed with emotion. “Pards,” he began, brokenly—”pards, we’ve got one more debt to pay them murderin’ red-skins. Bowie-knife Joe was a brave man an’ a good pard, but — he’s gone now — gone.” He paused for a moment, overcome, and the stillness was only broken by the deep manly grief of Jimmie Trescott.

THE
FIGHT

I

THE child life of the neighborhood was sometimes moved in its deeps at the sight of wagon-loads of furniture arriving in front of some house which, with closed blinds and barred doors, had been for a time a mystery, or even a fear. The boys often expressed this fear by stamping bravely and noisily on the porch of the house, and then suddenly darting away with screams of nervous laughter, as if they expected to be pursued by something uncanny. There was a group who held that the cellar of a vacant house was certainly the abode of robbers, smugglers, assassins, mysterious masked men in council about the dim rays of a candle, and possessing skulls, emblematic bloody daggers, and owls. Then, near the first of April, would come along a wagon-load of furniture, and children would assemble on the walk by the gate and make serious examination of everything that passed into the house, and taking no thought whatever of masked men.

One day it was announced in the neighborhood that a family was actually moving into the Hannigan house, next door to Dr. Trescott’s. Jimmie was one of the first to be informed, and by the time some of his friends came dashing up he was versed in much.

“Any boys?” they demanded, eagerly.

“Yes,” answered Jimmie, proudly. “One’s a little feller, and one’s most as big as me. I saw ‘em, I did.”

“Where are they?” asked Willie Dalzel, as if under the circumstances he could not take Jimmie’s word, but must have the evidence of his senses.

“Oh, they’re in there,” said Jimmie, carelessly. It was evident he owned these new boys.

Willie Dalzel resented Jimmie’s proprietary way.

“Ho!” he cried, scornfully. “Why don’t they come out, then? Why don’t they come out?”

“How d’ I know?” said Jimmie.

“STAMPING BRAVELY AND NOISILY ON THE PORCH”

“Well,” retorted Willie Dalzel, “you seemed to know so thundering much about ‘em.”

At the moment a boy came strolling down the gravel walk which led from the front door to the gate. He was about the height and age of Jimmie Trescott, but he was thick through the chest and had fat legs. His face was round and rosy and plump, but his hair was curly black, and his brows were naturally darkling, so that he resembled both a pudding and a young bull.

He approached slowly the group of older inhabitants, and they had grown profoundly silent. They looked him over; he looked them over. They might have been savages observing the first white man, or white men observing the first savage. The silence held steady.

As he neared the gate the strange boy wandered off to the left in a definite way, which proved his instinct to make a circular voyage when in doubt. The motionless group stared at him. In time this unsmiling scrutiny worked upon him somewhat, and he leaned against the fence and fastidiously examined one shoe.

In the end Willie Dalzel authoritatively broke the stillness. “What’s your name?” said he, gruffly.

“Johnnie Hedge ’tis,” answered the new boy. Then came another great silence while Whilomville pondered this intelligence.

Again came the voice of authority—”Where’d you live b’fore?”

“Jersey City.”

These two sentences completed the first section of the formal code. The second section concerned itself with the establishment of the new-comer’s exact position in the neighborhood.

“I kin lick you,” announced Willie Dalzel, and awaited the answer.

The Hedge boy had stared at Willie Dalzel, but he stared at him again. After a pause he said, “I know you kin.”

“Well,” demanded Willie, “kin
he
lick you?” And he indicated Jimmie Trescott with a sweep which announced plainly that Jimmie was the next in prowess.

Whereupon the new boy looked at Jimmie respectfully but carefully, and at length said, “I dun’no’.”

This was the signal for an outburst of shrill screaming, and everybody pushed Jimmie forward. He knew what he had to say, and, as befitted the occasion, he said it fiercely: “Kin you lick me?”

The new boy also understood what he had to say, and, despite his unhappy and lonely state, he said it bravely: “Yes.”

“Well,” retorted Jimmie, bluntly, “come out and do it, then! Jest come out and do it!” And these words were greeted with cheers. These little rascals yelled that there should be a fight at once. They were in bliss over the prospect. “Go on, Jim! Make ‘im come out. He said he could lick you. Aw-aw-aw! He said he could lick you!” There probably never was a fight among this class in Whilomville which was not the result of the goading and guying of two proud lads by a populace of urchins who simply wished to see a show.

Willie Dalzel was very busy. He turned first to the one and then to the other. “You said you could lick him. Well, why don’t you come out and do it, then? You said you could lick him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” answered the new boy, dogged and dubious.

Willie tried to drag Jimmie by the arm. “Aw, go on, Jimmie! You ain’t afraid, are you?”

“No,” said Jimmie.

The two victims opened wide eyes at each other. The fence separated them, and so it was impossible for them to immediately engage; but they seemed to understand that they were ultimately to be sacrificed to the ferocious aspirations of the other boys, and each scanned the other to learn something of his spirit. They were not angry at all. They were merely two little gladiators who were being clamorously told to hurt each other. Each displayed hesitation and doubt without displaying fear. They did not exactly understand what were their feelings, and they moodily kicked the ground and made low and sullen answers to Willie Dalzel, who worked like a circus-manager.

“Aw, go on, Jim! What’s the matter with you? You ain’t afraid, are you? Well, then, say something.” This sentiment received more cheering from the abandoned little wretches who wished to be entertained, and in this cheering there could be heard notes of derision of Jimmie Trescott. The latter had a position to sustain; he was well known; he often bragged of his willingness and ability to thrash other boys; well, then, here was a boy of his size who said that he could not thrash him. What was he going to do about it? The crowd made these arguments very clear, and repeated them again and again.

Finally Jimmie, driven to aggression, walked close to the fence and said to the new boy, “The first time I catch you out of your own yard I’ll lam the head off’n you!” This was received with wild plaudits by the Whilomville urchins.

But the new boy stepped back from the fence. He was awed by Jimmie’s formidable mien. But he managed to get out a semi-defiant sentence. “Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t,” said he.

However, his short retreat was taken as a practical victory for Jimmie, and the boys hooted him bitterly. He remained inside the fence, swinging one foot and scowling, while Jimmie was escorted off down the street amid acclamations. The new boy turned and walked back towards the house, his face gloomy, lined deep with discouragement, as if he felt that the new environment’s antagonism and palpable cruelty were sure to prove too much for him.

II

The mother of Johnnie Hedge was a widow, and the chief theory of her life was that her boy should be in school on the greatest possible number of days. He himself had no sympathy with this ambition, but she detected the truth of his diseases with an unerring eye, and he was required to be really ill before he could win the right to disregard the first bell, morning and noon. The chicken-pox and the mumps had given him vacations — vacations of misery, wherein he nearly died between pain and nursing. But bad colds in the head did nothing for him, and he was not able to invent a satisfactory hacking cough. His mother was not consistently a tartar. In most things he swayed her to his will. He was allowed to have more jam, pickles, and pie than most boys; she respected his profound loathing of Sunday-school; on summer evenings he could remain out-of-doors until 8.30; but in this matter of school she was inexorable. This single point in her character was of steel.

The Hedges arrived in Whilomville on a Saturday, and on the following Monday Johnnie wended his way to school with a note to the principal and his Jersey City school-books. He knew perfectly well that he would be told to buy new and different books, but in those days mothers always had an idea that old books would “do,” and they invariably sent boys off to a new school with books which would not meet the selected and unchangeable views of the new administration. The old books never would “do.” Then the boys brought them home to annoyed mothers and asked for ninety cents or sixty cents or eighty-five cents or some number of cents for another outfit. In the garret of every house holding a large family there was a collection of effete school-books, with mother rebellious because James could not inherit his books from Paul, who should properly be Peter’s heir, while Peter should be a beneficiary under Henry’s will.

“‘THE FIRST TIME I CATCH YOU I’LL LAM THE HEAD OFF’N YOU’”

But the matter of the books was not the measure of Johnnie Hedge’s unhappiness. This whole business of changing schools was a complete torture. Alone he had to go among a new people, a new tribe, and he apprehended his serious time. There were only two fates for him. One meant victory. One meant a kind of serfdom in which he would subscribe to every word of some superior boy and support his every word. It was not anything like an English system of fagging, because boys invariably drifted into the figurative service of other boys whom they devotedly admired, and if they were obliged to subscribe to everything, it is true that they would have done so freely in any case. One means to suggest that Johnnie Hedge had to find his place. Willie Dalzel was a type of the little chieftain, and Willie
was a master, but he was not a bully in a special physical sense. He did not drag little boys by the ears until they cried, nor make them tearfully fetch and carry for him. They fetched and carried, but it was because of their worship of his prowess and genius. And so all through the strata of boy life were chieftains and subchieftains and assistant subchieftains. There was no question of little Hedge being towed about by the nose; it was, as one has said, that he had to find his place in a new school. And this in itself was a problem which awed his boyish heart. He was a stranger cast away upon the moon. None knew him, understood him, felt for him. He would be surrounded for this initiative time by a horde of jackal creatures who might turn out in the end to be little boys like himself, but this last point his philosophy could not understand in its fulness.

He came to a white meeting-house sort of a place, in the squat tower of which a great bell was clanging impressively. He passed through an iron gate into a play-ground worn bare as the bed of a mountain brook by the endless runnings and scufflings of little children. There was still a half-hour before the final clangor in the squat tower, but the play-ground held a number of frolicsome imps. A loitering boy espied Johnnie Hedge, and he howled: “Oh! oh! Here’s a new feller! Here’s a new feller!” He advanced upon the strange arrival. “What’s your name?” he demanded, belligerently, like a particularly offensive custom-house officer.

“Johnnie Hedge,” responded the new-comer, shyly.