Part 6 (1/2)

They put out the horses and fed them, and as soon as they could wash themselves at the rain-barrel behind the house, they went in and sat down with the family at dinner. It was a farmer's dinner, as it used to be in southern Ohio fifty years ago: a deep dish of fried salt pork swimming in its own fat, plenty of shortened biscuit and warm green-apple sauce, with good b.u.t.ter. The Boy's Town boys did not like the looks of the fat pork, but they were wolf-hungry, and the biscuit were splendid. In the middle of the table there was a big crock of b.u.t.termilk, all cold and dripping from the spring-house where it had been standing in the running water; then there was a hot apple-pie right out of the oven; and they made a pretty fair meal, after all.

After dinner they hauled more rails, and when they had hauled all the rails there were, they started for the swimming-hole in the creek. On the way they came to a mulberry-tree in the edge of the woods-pasture, and it was so full of berries and they were so ripe that the gra.s.s which the cattle had cropped short was fairly red under the tree. The boys got up into the tree and gorged themselves among the yellow-hammers and woodp.e.c.k.e.rs; and Frank and Jake kept holloing out to each other how glad they were they had come; but Dave kept quiet, and told them to wait till they came to the swimming-hole.

It was while they were in the tree that something happened which happened four times in all that day, if it really happened: n.o.body could say afterwards whether it had or not. Frank was reaching out for a place in the tree where the berries seemed thicker than anywhere else, when a strong blaze of light flashed into his eyes, and blinded him.

”Oh, h.e.l.lo, Dave Black!” he holloed. ”That's mean! What are you throwin'

that light in my face for?”

But he laughed at the joke, and he laughed more when Dave shouted back, ”I ain't throwin' no light in your face.”

”Yes, you are; you've got a piece of look-in'-gla.s.s, and you're flas.h.i.+n'

it in my face.”

”Wish I may die, if I have,” said Dave, so seriously that Frank had to believe him.

”Well, then, Jake Milrace has.”

”I hain't, any such thing,” said Jake, and then Dave Black roared back, laughing: ”Oh, I'll tell you! It's one of the pieces of tin we strung along that line in the corn-field to keep the crows off, corn-plantin'

time.”

The boys shouted together at the joke on Frank, and Dave parted the branches for a better look at the corn-field.

”Well, well! Heigh there!” he called towards the field. ”Oh, he's gone now!” he said to the other boys, craning their necks out to see, too. ”But he _was_ doing it, Frank. If I could ketch that feller!”

”Somebody you know? Let's get him to come along,” said Jake and Frank, one after the other.

”I couldn't tell,” said Dave. ”He slipped into the woods when he heard me holler. If it's anybody I know, he'll come out again. Don't seem to notice him; that's the best way.”

For a while, though, they stopped to look, now and then; but no more flashes came from the corn-field, and the boys went on cramming themselves with berries; they all said they had got to stop, but they went on till Dave said: ”I don't believe it's going to do us any good to go in swimming if we eat too many of these mulberries. I reckon we better quit, now.”

The others said they reckoned so, too, and they all got down from the tree, and started for the swimming-hole. They had to go through a piece of woods to get to it, and in the shadow of the trees they did not notice that a storm was coming up till they heard it thunder. By that time they were on the edge of the woods, and there came a flash of lightning and a loud thunder-clap, and the rain began to fall in big drops. The boys saw a barn in the field they had reached, and they ran for it; and they had just got into it when the rain came down with all its might. Suddenly Jake said: ”I'll tell you what! Let's take off our clothes and have a shower-bath!” And in less than a minute they had their clothes off, and were out in the full pour, dancing up and down, and yelling like Indians.

That made them think of playing Indians, and they pretended the barn was a settler's cabin, and they were stealing up on it through the tall shocks of wheat. They captured it easily, and they said if the lightning would only strike it and set it on fire so it would seem as if the Indians had done it, it would be great; but the storm was going round, and they had to be satisfied with being settlers, turn about, and getting scalped.

It was easy to scalp Frank, because he wore his hair long, as the town boys liked to do in those days, but Jake lived with his sister, and he had to do as she said. She said a boy had no business with long hair; and she had lately cropped his close to his skull. Dave's father cut his hair round the edges of a bowl, which he had put on Dave's head for a pattern; the other boys could get a pretty good grip of it, if they caught it on top, where the scalp-lock belongs; but Dave would duck and dodge so that they could hardly get their hands on it. All at once they heard him call out from around the corner of the barn, where he had gone to steal up on them, when it was their turn to be settlers: ”Aw, now, Jake Milrace, that ain't fair! I'm an Indian, now. You let go my hair.”

”Who's touchin' your old hair?” Jake shouted back, from the inside of the barn. ”You must be crazy. Hurry up, if you're ever goin' to attack us. I want to get out in the rain, myself, awhile.”

Frank was outside, pretending to be at work in the field, and waiting for the Indians to creep on him, and when Jake shouted for Dave to hurry, he looked over his shoulder and saw a white figure, naked like his own, flit round the left-hand corner of the barn. Then he had to stoop over, so that Dave could tomahawk him easily, and he did not see anything more, but Jake yelled from the barn: ”Oh, you got that fellow with you, have you? Then he's got to be settler next time. Come on, now. Oh, do hurry up!”

Frank raised his head to see the other boy, but there was only Dave Black, coming round the right-hand corner of the barn.

”You're crazy yourself, Jake. There ain't n.o.body here but me and Frank.”

”There is, too!” Jake retorted. ”Or there was, half a second ago.”

But Dave was busy stealing on Frank, who was bending over, pretending to hoe, and after he had tomahawked Frank, he gave the scalp-halloo, and Jake came running out of the barn, and had to be chased round it twice, so that he could fall breathless on his own threshold, and be scalped in full sight of his family. Then Dave pretended to be a war-party of Wyandots, and he gathered up sticks, and pretended to set the barn on fire. By this time Frank and Jake had come to life, and were Wyandots, too, and they all joined hands and danced in front of the barn.

”There! There he is again!” shouted Jake. ”Who's crazy _now_, I should like to know?”

”Where? Where?” yelled both the other boys.