The Young Vigilantes: A Story of California Life in the Fifties. Drake Samuel Adams
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and wrote on the table top: 'I'm going away to hunt for work. When I get some, I'll let you know. Please take care of my chest. Look on the mantelpiece. Good-bye. From Walter.'
"Then, like a thief, I slipped out of the house by a back way, in my stocking feet, and never stopped running till I was 'way out of town. There I struck the railroad. I knew if I followed it it would take me to Boston. And it did. That's all."
III
AND CHARLEY TELLS HIS
There was silence for a minute or two, each of the lads being busy with his own thoughts. Apparently they were not pleasant thoughts. What a tantalizing thing memory sometimes is!
But it was not in the nature of things for either to remain long speechless. Walter first broke silence by reminding Charley of his promise. "Come now, you've wormed all that out of me about my folks, pay your debts. I should like to know what made you leave home. Did you run away, too?"
At this question, Charley's mouth puckered up queerly, and then quickly broke out into a broad grin, while his eyes almost shut tight at the recollection Walter's question had summoned up. "It was all along of 'Rough on Rats,'" he managed to say at last.
"'Rough on Rats?'"
"Yes, 'Rough on Rats.' Rat poison. You just wait, and hear me through.
"I've got a father somewhere, I b'leeve. Boys gen'ally have, I s'pose, though whether mine's dead or alive, not knowin', can't say. We were poor as Job's turkey, if you know how poor that was. I don't. Anyway, he put me out to work on a milk and chicken farm back here in the country, twenty miles or so, to a man by the name of Bennett, and then took himself off out West somewhere."
"And you've never seen him since?"
"No; I ha'n't never missed him, or the lickin's he give me. Well, my boss he raised lots of young chickens for market. We was awfully pestered with rats, big, fat, sassy ones, getting into the coops nights, and killing off the little chicks as soon's ever they was hatched out. You see, they was tender. Besides eating the chicks they et up most of the grain we throw'd into the hens. The boss he tried everything to drive those rats away. He tried cats an' he tried traps. 'Twan't no use. The cats wouldn't tech the rats nor the rats go near the traps. You can't fool an old rat much, anyhow," he added with a knowing shake of his head.
"Well, the boss was a-countin' the chicks one mornin', while ladling out the dough to 'em. 'Confound those rats,' he sputtered out; 'there's eight more chicks gone sence I fed last night. I'd gin something to red the place on 'em, I would.'
"'Uncle,' says I (he let me call him uncle, seein' he'd kind of adopted me like) – 'uncle,' says I, 'why don't you try Rough on Rats? They say that'll fetch 'em every time.'
"'What's that? Never heer'd on't. How do you know? Who says so?' he axed all in one breath."
"'Anyhow, I seen a big poster down at the Four Corners that says so,' says I. 'The boys was a-talkin' about what it had done up to Skillings' place. Skillings allowed he'd red his place of rats with it. Hadn't seen hide nor hair of one sence he fust tried it. Everybody says it's a big thing.'
"The old man said nothin' more just then. He didn't let on that my advice was worth a cent; but I noticed that he went off and bought some Rough on Rats that same afternoon, and when the old hens had gone to roost and the mother hens had gathered their broods under 'em for the night, uncle he slyly stirred up a big dose of the p'isen stuff into a pan of meal, which he set down inside the henhouse.
"Uncle's idea was to get up early in the mornin', so's to count up the dead rats, I s'pose.
"But he did not get up early enough. When he went out into the henhouse to investigate, he found fifteen or twenty of his best hens lying dead around the floor after eatin' of the p'isen'd meal.
"When I come outdoors he was stoopin' down, with his back to me pickin' 'em up."
Walter laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks, sobered down, and then broke out again. Charley found the laugh infectious and joined in it, though more moderately.
"Go ahead. Let's have the rest, do," Walter entreated. "What next?"
"I asked Uncle Bennett what he was goin' to do with all those dead hens. He flung one at my head. Oh! but he was mad. 'Just stop where you be, my little joker,' says he, startin' off for the stable; 'I've got somethin' that's Rough on Brats, an' you shall have a taste on't right off. Don't you stir a step,' shakin' his fist at me, 'or I'll give you the worst dressin' down you ever had in all your life.'
"While he was gone for a horsewhip, I lit out for the Corners. You couldn't have seen me for dust.
"I darsen't go back to the house and I had only a silver ninepence in my pocket and a few coppers, but I managed to beg my way to Boston. Oh! Walt, it was a long time between meals, I can tell you. I slept one night in a barn, on the haymow. Nobody saw me slip in after dark. I took off my neckerchief and laid it down within reach, for it was hot weather on that haymow, and I was 'most choked with the dust I swallowed. I overslept. In the morning I heard a noise down where the hosses were tied up. Some one was rakin' down hay for 'em. I reached for my neckerchief, thinkin' how I should get away without being seen, when a boy's voice gave a shout, 'Towser! Towser!' and then I knew it was all up, for that boy had raked down my neckerchief with the hay, and he knew there was a tramp somewhere about.
"The long and short of it is, that the dog chased me till I was ready to drop or until another and a bigger one came out of a yard and tackled him. Then it was dog eat dog.
"When I got to Boston it was night. I had no money. I didn't know where to go. Tired's no name for it. I was dead-beat. So I threw myself down on a doorstep and was asleep in a minnit. There was an alarm of fire. An ingine came jolting along. I forgot all about being tired and took holt of the rope, and ran, and hollered, with the rest. The fire was all out when we got there, so I went back to the ingine house, and the steward let me sleep in the cellar a couple of hours and wash up in the mornin'. But I'm ahead of my story. They had hot coffee and crackers and cheese when they got back from the fire. No cheese ever tasted like that before. Give me a fireman for a friend at need. I hung round that ingine house till I picked up a job. The company was all calkers, gravers, riggers, and the like. Tough lot! How they could wallop that old tub over the cobblestones, to be sure!"
And here Charley fell into a fit of musing from which Walter did not attempt to rouse him. In their past experiences the two boys had found a common bond.
IV
WHAT HAPPENED ON BOARD THE "ARGONAUT"
Seeing that Walter also had fallen into a brown study, Charley quickly changed the subject. "See here, Walt!" he exclaimed, "the Argonaut's going to sail for Californy first fair wind. To-morrow's Sunday, and Father Taylor's goin' to preach aboard of her. He's immense! Let's go and hear him. What do you say?"
Walter jumped at the proposal. "I want to hear Father Taylor ever so much, and I shouldn't mind taking a look at the passengers, too."
Sunday came. Walter put on his best suit, and the two friends strolled down to the wharf where the Argonaut lay moored with topsails loosened, and flags and streamers fluttering gayly aloft. The ship was thronged not only with those about to sail for the Land of Gold, but also with the friends who had come to bid them good-bye; besides many attracted by mere curiosity, or, perhaps, by the fame of Father Taylor's preaching. There was a perfect Babel of voices. As Walter was passing one group he overheard the remark, "She'll never get round the Horn. Too deep. Too many passengers by half. Look at that bow! Have to walk round her to tell stem from starn."
"Oh, she'll get there fast enough," his companion replied. "She knows the way. Besides, you can't sink her. She's got lumber enough in her hold to keep her afloat if she should get waterlogged."
"That ain't the whole story by a long shot," a third speaker broke in. "Don't you remember the crack ship that spoke an old whaler at sea, both bound out for California? The passengers on the crack ship called out to the passengers on the old whaler to know if they wanted to be reported. When the crack ship got into San Francisco, lo and behold! there lay the 'old tub' quietly at anchor. Been in a week."
Strange sight, indeed,