Part 5 (1/2)

”Now,” said Earle, ”I'm going to give you time to think about it. Then I'm going to wear you out!”

”Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!” cried the boy, the blood rus.h.i.+ng to his face.

His father turned and spoke to him confidentially, as man to man. They would have to cure Frank, right now, before killing chickens got to be a habit. They couldn't afford to have a chicken-killing dog on the place--it was too expensive.

And that was just the beginning of his troubles and complications. Every afternoon since he could remember, he and his father and Frank had gone to the pasture to see about the cattle. But now old Frank was chained up. And when his father asked _him_ to come along, he shook his head. He didn't want to be alone with his father. He had an idea that it would be terribly and silently embarra.s.sing down there with no one around but the two of them.

”I don't want to go,” he declared.

”Very well,” said Earle, and went off alone, through the lot and into the corn.

And he got no comfort whatever out of the talk he had with his mother a little later in the living room, though she smiled at him when he entered, and put her sewing aside.

Encouraged, he went to her and leaned against her knee; she brushed his hair back off his forehead, just as she always did.

”What is it, dear?” she asked.

”Papa ain't goin' to whip F'ank, is he, Mama?”

”Why, yes--he has to.”

”I tol' F'ank to kill him!”

”But Frank's a grown dog--he knew better.”

He grew suddenly angry--angry at her very simplicity.

”F'ank won't kill any more chickens!”

”How do you know?”

”I know!” he cried, and stamped his foot. ”I know!”

He came away from this futile interview in a suppressed rage. From the hall he saw old Aunt Cindy waddling about in the dining room. No use to appeal to her. She knew too much, anyhow, that old woman. There was in her nature none of the simple credulity that characterized his parents.

She was worldly wise, like himself.

He avoided her, therefore, his face turned over his shoulder, afraid she would see and call him. He went out on the front porch, down the steps, and, gun under his arm, sauntered round the house to the kennel. Old Frank came to meet him as far as the chain would allow. Frank thought he was going to be turned loose now--his eyes showed it. There was a log of wood beside the kennel, and the boy sat down on it. Frank nestled close to him, tail dragging across the ground.

Suddenly the boy was all attention, and Frank had p.r.i.c.ked his ears.

Steve Earle had come from the pasture, gone up the back steps, and into the room with the boy's mother. Through the open window just above the kennel he could hear them talking in a confidential sort of way, as grown folks talk when they think no one is listening.

”Where's the boy?” asked Earle.

”I don't know, Steve--he went out just now.”

She was silent a while, then she spoke, with a little laugh that didn't sound like a laugh:

”Steve--it's pitiful, pitiful!”

”It's drastic, Mother--but it's the best way.”