The Jack-Knife Man. Butler Ellis Parker
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had left on the clock shelf.
What does a hermit do when he is shut in for a long night with a winter storm raging outside? Peter put his newspaper back under the pillow and hunted through his driftwood for a piece that would do to whittle, but had to give that up as a bad job. Then his eyes alighted on the wooden pegs on which his shot-gun lay, and he took down the gun and pulled one of the pegs from its hole. He looked out of the door, to see that his line was holding securely, and slammed the door quickly, for the night was worse, the rain freezing as it fell and the wind howling through the telegraph wires. With a sigh of satisfaction that he was alone, and that he had a snug shanty-boat in which to spend the winter, Peter propped himself up in his bunk and began carving the head of an owl on the end of the gun peg, screwing his face to one side to keep the cigar smoke out of his eyes. He was holding the half-completed carving at a distance, to judge of its effect, when he heard a blow on his door. He hesitated, like a timid animal, and then slipped from the bunk and let his hand glide to the shot-gun lying on his table. Quietly he swung the gun around until the muzzle pointed full at the door, and with the other hand he grasped his heavy stove poker, for he knew that tramps, on such a night, are not dainty in seeking shelter, and he had no wish to be thrown out of his boat and have the boat floated away from him.
“Who’s out there?” he shouted, but before he could step forward and bolt the door, the latch lifted and the door, forced violently inward by a gust of wind, clattered against the cabin wall. A woman, one hand extended, stood in the doorway. Her face was deathly white, and her left hand held the hand of a three-year-old boy. This much Peter saw before the flame of his lamp flared high in a smoky red and went out, leaving utter darkness.
II. PETER’S GUESTS
COME right in, ma’am,” said Peter.
“Step inside and close the door. Nobody here’s going to hurt you. I’ll put my shoes on in a minute – ”
He was feeling for the matches on his clock shelf, but he hardly knew what he was doing or saying. The ghastly white face of the woman was still blazed on his mind.
“Excuse me for being bare foot; I wasn’t looking for callers,” he continued nervously, but he was interrupted by the sound of a falling body and a cry. He pushed one of the stove lids aside, letting a glare of red light into the room. The woman had fallen across his doorsill and lay, half in and half out of the boat, with the boy crying as he clung to her relaxed fingers.
“Don’t, Mama! don’t!” the small boy wailed, not understanding.
Peter stood, irresolute. He was a coward before women; they drove his wits away, and his first wild thought was of flight – of leaping over the fallen body – but, as he stood, the alarm-clock, after a preliminary warning cluck, burst into a loud jangling clatter and the boy, sore frightened, howled with all his strength. That decided for Peter.
“There, now, don’t you cry, son!” he begged, on his knees beside the boy in an instant. “Don’t you mind the racket. It ain’t nothing but my old funny alarm-clock. She goes off that way sometimes, but she don’t mean any harm to anybody. No, sir! Don’t you cry.”
The boy wailed, more wildly than ever, calling on his mother to get up.
“Don’t cry, your ma will be all right!” urged Peter. “That clock will stop right soon, and she won’t begin again – not unless she takes a notion.”
The clock stopped ringing abruptly, the boy stared at it open-mouthed.
“That’s a big boy!” said Peter approvingly. “And don’t you worry about your ma. I guess she’ll be all right in a minute. You go over by that stove and warm yourself, and I’ll help your ma in, so this rain won’t blow on her.”
Peter led the boy to the stove, and lighted his lamp. He put the peg back in the wall, and placed the gun behind the boy’s reach before he turned to the woman.
She was neither young nor old, but as she lay on the floor she was ghastly white, even in the glare from the smoking oil lamp, and her lips were blue. Her cheap hat was wet and weighted down with sleet, and the green dye from the trimmings had run down and streaked her face. She was fairly well clad, but not against the winter rain, and her shoes were too light and too high of heel for tramping a railway track. Peter saw she was wet to the skin. He bent down and with his knee against her shoulder moved her inside the door and closed it.
“That’s hot in there,” said the boy, who had been staring into the glowing coals of the opened stove. “I better not put my hand in there. I’ll burn my hand if I put it in there, won’t I?”
“Yes, indeedy,” said Peter, “but now I got to fix your ma so’s she will be more comfortable.”
“I wish I had some liquor or something,” he said, looking at the woman helplessly. “Brandy or whisky would be right handy, and I ain’t got a drop. This ain’t no case for cold water; she’s had too much cold water already. I wonder what coffee would do?”
He put his coffee-pot down among the coals of his fire and while he waited for it to heat, he drew on his shoes.
“I guess your ma will feel sort of sick when she wakes up,” he told the boy, “and I guess she’d be right glad if we took off them wet shoes and stockings of yours and got your feet nice and warm. You want to be ready to help look after your ma. You ain’t going to be afraid to let me, are you?”
“No,” said the boy promptly, and held out his arms for Peter to take him. He was a solid little fellow, as Peter found when he picked him up, and his hair was a tangled halo of long, white kinks that burst out when Peter pulled off the red stocking-cap into which they had been compressed. From the first moment the boy snuggled to Peter, settling himself contentedly in Peter’s arms as affectionate children do. He had a comical little up-tilt to his nose, and eyes of a deeper blue than Peter’s, and his face was white but covered with freckles.
“That’s my good foot,” said the boy, as Peter pulled off one stocking.
“Well, it looks like a mighty good one to me, too,” said Peter. “So far as I can see, it is just as good as anybody’d want.”
“Yes. It’s my hop-on-foot,” explained the boy. “The other foot is the lame one. It ain’t such a good foot. It’s Mama’s honey-foot.”
“Pshaw, now!” said Peter gently. “Well, I’ll be real careful and not hurt it a bit.” He began removing the shoe and stocking from the lame foot with delicate care, and the boy laughed delightedly.
“Ho! You don’t have to be careful with it,” he laughed, giving a little kick. “You thought it was a sore foot, didn’t you? It ain’t sore, it’s only lame.”
Peter put the barefoot boy on the edge of the bunk and hung the wet stockings over his woodpile. The boy asked for the jack-knife again, and Peter handed it to him.
“You just set there,” he told the boy, “and wiggle your toes at the stove, like they was ten little kittens, and I’ll see if your ma wants a drink of nice, hot coffee.”
He poured the coffee into his tin cup and went to the woman, raised her head, and held the hot coffee to her lips. At the first touch of the hot liquid she opened her eyes and laughed; a harsh, mirthless laugh, which made her strangle on the coffee, but when her eyes met Peter’s eyes, the oath that was on her lips died unspoken. No woman, and but few men, could look into Peter’s eyes and curse, and her eyes were not those of a drunkard, as Peter had supposed they would be.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I must have keeled over, didn’t I? Where’s Buddy?”
“He’s right over there warming his little feet, as nice as can be,” said Peter. “And he was real concerned about you.”
“I wouldn’t have come in, but for him,” said the woman, trying to straighten her hat. “I thought maybe he could get a bite to eat. It don’t matter much what, he ain’t eat since noon. A piece of bread would do him ‘til we get to town.” She leaned back wearily against the pile of nets in the corner.
“I want butter on it. Bread, and