Driven from Home; Or, Carl Crawford's Experience. Alger Horatio Jr.
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fields to a story-and-a-half farmhouse, and standing near it a good-sized barn, brown from want of paint and exposure to sun and rain. The buildings were perhaps twenty-five rods distant.
“Are you used to hayin’?” asked the farmer.
“Well, no, not exactly; though I’ve handled a rake before.”
Carl’s experience, however, had been very limited. He had, to be sure, had a rake in his hand, but probably he had not worked more than ten minutes at it. However, raking is easily learned, and his want of experience was not detected. He started off with great enthusiasm, but after a while thought it best to adopt the more leisurely movements of the farmer. After two hours his hands began to blister, but still he kept on.
“I have got to make my living by hard work,” he said to himself, “and it won’t do to let such a little thing as a blister interfere.”
When he had been working a couple of hours, he began to feel hungry. His walk, and the work he had been doing, sharpened his appetite till he really felt uncomfortable. It was at this time—just twelve o’clock—that the farmer’s wife came to the front door and blew a fish horn so vigorously that it could probably have been heard half a mile.
“The old woman’s got dinner ready,” said the farmer. “If you don’t mind takin’ your pay in victuals, you can go along home with me, and take a bite.”
“I think I could take two or three, sir.”
“Ho, ho! that’s a good joke! Money’s scarce, and I’d rather pay in victuals, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Do you generally find people willing to work for their board?” asked Carl, who knew that he was being imposed upon.
“Well, I might pay a leetle more. You work for me till sundown, and I’ll give you dinner and supper, and—fifteen cents.”
Carl wanted to laugh. At this rate of compensation he felt that it would take a long time to make a fortune, but he was so hungry that he would have accepted board alone if it had been necessary.
“I agree,” he said. “Shall I leave my rake here?”
“Yes; it’ll be all right.”
“I’ll take along my valise, for I can’t afford to run any risk of losing it.”
“Jest as you say.”
Five minutes brought them to the farmhouse.
“Can I wash my hands?” asked Carl.
“Yes, you can go right to the sink and wash in the tin basin. There’s a roll towel behind the door. Mis’ Perkins”—that was the way he addressed his wife—“this is a young chap that I’ve hired to help me hayin’. You can set a chair for him at the table.”
“All right, Silas. He don’t look very old, though.”
“No, ma’am. I ain’t twenty-one yet,” answered Carl, who was really sixteen.
“I shouldn’t say you was. You ain’t no signs of a mustache.”
“I keep it short, ma’am, in warm weather,” said Carl.
“It don’t dull a razor any to cut it in cold weather, does it?” asked the farmer, chuckling at his joke.
“Well, no, sir; I can’t say it does.”
It was a boiled dinner that the farmer’s wife provided, corned beef and vegetables, but the plebeian meal seemed to Carl the best he ever ate. Afterwards there was apple pudding, to which he did equal justice.
“I never knew work improved a fellow’s appetite so,” reflected the young traveler. “I never ate with so much relish at home.”
After dinner they went back to the field and worked till the supper hour, five o’clock. By that time all the hay had been put into the barn.
“We’ve done a good day’s work,” said the farmer, in a tone of satisfaction, “and only just in time. Do you see that dark cloud?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In half an hour there’ll be rain, or I’m mistaken. Old Job Hagar is right after all.”
The farmer proved a true prophet. In half an hour, while they were at the supper table, the rain began to come down in large drops—forming pools in the hollows of the ground, and drenching all exposed objects with the largesse of the heavens.
“Where war you a-goin’ to-night?” asked the farmer.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I was thinkin’ that I’d give you a night’s lodgin’ in place of the fifteen cents I agreed to pay you. Money’s very skeerce with me, and will be till I’ve sold off some of the crops.”
“I shall be glad to make that arrangement,” said Carl, who had been considering how much the farmer would ask for lodging, for there seemed small chance of continuing his journey. Fifteen cents was a lower price than he had calculated on.
“That’s a sensible idea!” said the farmer, rubbing his hands with satisfaction at the thought that he had secured valuable help at no money outlay whatever.
The next morning Carl continued his tramp, refusing the offer of continued employment on the same terms. He was bent on pursuing his journey, though he did not know exactly where he would fetch up in the end.
At twelve o’clock that day he found himself in the outskirts of a town, with the same uncomfortable appetite that he had felt the day before, but with no hotel or restaurant anywhere near. There was, however, a small house, the outer door of which stood conveniently open. Through the open window, Carl saw a table spread as if for dinner, and he thought it probable that he could arrange to become a boarder for a single meal. He knocked at the door, but no one came. He shouted out: “Is anybody at home?” and received no answer. He went to a small barn just outside and peered in, but no one was to be seen.
What should he do? He was terribly hungry, and the sight of the food on the table was tantalizing.
“I’ll go in, as the door is open,” he decided, “and sit down to the table and eat. Somebody will be along before I get through, and I’ll pay whatever is satisfactory, for eat I must.”
He entered, seated himself, and ate heartily. Still no one appeared.
“I don’t want to go off without paying,” thought Carl. “I’ll see if I can find somebody.”
He opened the door into the kitchen, but it was deserted. Then he opened that of a small bedroom, and started back in terror and dismay.
There suspended from a hook—a man of middle age was hanging, with his head bent forward, his eyes wide open, and his tongue protruding from his mouth!
CHAPTER VIII
CARL FALLS UNDER SUSPICION
To a person of any age such a sight as that described at the close of the last chapter might well have proved startling. To a boy like Carl it was simply overwhelming. It so happened that he had but twice seen a dead person, and never a victim of violence. The peculiar circumstances increased the effect upon his mind.
He placed his hand upon the man’s face, and found that he was still warm. He could have been dead but a short time.
“What shall I do?” thought Carl, perplexed. “This is terrible!”
Then it flashed upon him that as he was alone with the dead man suspicion might fall upon him as being concerned in what might be called a murder.
“I had better leave here at once,” he reflected. “I shall have to go away without paying for my meal.”
He started to leave the house, but had scarcely reached the door when two persons—a man and a woman—entered. Both looked at Carl with suspicion.
“What are you doing here?” asked the man.
“I beg your pardon,” answered Carl; “I was very hungry, and seeing no one about,