For the rest of the way to town Peter held the boy very close in his arms, and did not think of his tired muscles at all. He was thinking of his perfidy to the trusting child, for he was without money and without it he could see nothing to do but deliver the boy to Briggles and the Unknown.

XIV. A RAY OF HOPE

THE Marcy’s Run Road, on which Peter’s sister lived, led into Riverbank past the cemetery, and near the cemetery stood a group of small stores. One of these, half grocery and half saloon, was even more unkempt than the others, but before its window Peter stopped. A few small coins – the residue after his purchasing trip of the day before – remained in his pocket, and in the window was a square of cardboard announcing “Hot Beef Soup To-day.”

Hot beef soup, when a man has tramped many miles carrying a heavy child, is a temptation. Buddy himself would be glad of a bowl of hot soup, and Peter opened the door and entered.

The store was narrow and dark. A few feet, just inside the door, were occupied by the scanty stock of groceries, tobacco and cheap candy, and back of this was the bar, with two small tables in the space before it. The whole place was miserably dirty. It was no gilded liquor palace, with mirrors and glittering cash-registers. The bar was of plain pine, painted “barn-red,” and the whole arrangement was primitive and cheap. Beyond the bar room a partition cut off the living room, and this completed “Mrs. Crink’s Place.”

Mrs. Crink had a bad reputation. During the stringent prohibition days she had run a “speak-easy” without paying the town the usual monthly disorderly house fine, and had served her term in jail. After that she was strongly suspected of boot-legging whisky, and she had purchased this new place but a few days since. She was a thin, sour-faced, angular woman, ugly alike in face and temper. When Peter opened the door a bell sounded sharply, but the high voice of Mrs. Crink in the living room drowned the bell. She was scolding and reviling at the top of her voice – swearing like a man – and a child was sobbing and pleading. Peter heard the sharp slap of a hand against a face, and a cry from the child, and Mrs. Crink came into the bar room, her eyes glaring and her face dark with anger.

“Well, what do you want?” she snarled.

“I’d like to get two bowls of soup for me and the boy, if it ain’t too much trouble,” said Peter.

“Everything’s trouble,” whined Mrs. Crink. “I don’t expect nothing else. A woman can’t make a living without these cranks tellin’ her what she shall and what she shan’t. Shut up that howlin’, you little devil, or I’ll come in there and bat your head off.”

She went into the living room and brought out the two bowls of soup, placing them on one of the small tables. Peter lifted Buddy into a chair. Mrs. Crink began wiping off the beer-wet bar.

“I wonder if you could let me have about a dime’s worth of crackers and cheese?” he asked, and Mrs. Crink dropped the dirty rag with which she was wiping the bar.

“Come out here, and shut up your bawlin’, and swab off this bar,” she yelled, and the door of the back room opened and a girl came out. She was the merest child. She came hesitatingly, holding her arm before her face, and the old hag of a woman jerked up the filthy, wet rag and slapped her across the face. It was none of Peter’s business, but he half arose from his chair and then dropped back again. It made his blood boil, but he had not associated with shanty-boat men and women without learning that in the coarser strata of humanity slaps and blows and ugly words are often the common portion of children. He would have liked to interfere, but he knew the inefficiency of any effort he might make, and like a shock it came to him that it was for things like this that Briggles rescued, – or pretended to rescue – little children. It was not so bad then, after all. If he must give up Buddy there would be some compensation in telling Briggles of this poor child, who deserved far more the attention of his Society. All this passed through his mind in an instant, but before he could turn back to his bowl of soup Buddy uttered a cry of joy and, scrambling from his chair, ran across the floor toward the weeping girl.

“Oh! Susie! Susie! My Susie!” he shouted and threw himself upon her.

The impetus of his coming almost threw the child off her feet, and she staggered back, but the next instant she had clasped her arms around the boy, and was hugging him in a close, youthful embrace of joy.

“My Buddy! My Buddy!” she kept repeating over and over, as if all other words failed her, as they will in an excess of sudden surprise. “My Buddy! My Buddy!”

The woman stared for an instant in open-mouthed astonishment, and then her eyes flashed with anger. She reached out her hand to grasp the girl, but Peter Lane thrust it aside.

His own eyes could flash, and the woman drew back.

“Now, don’t you do that!” he said hotly.

“You git out of my store, then!” shouted Mrs. Crink. “You take your brat and git out!”

“I’ll get out,” said Peter slowly, “as soon as I am quite entirely ready to do so. I hope you will understand that. And I’ll be ready when I have ate my soup.”

The woman glared at him. She let her hand drop behind the bar, where she had a piece of lead pipe, and then, suddenly, she laughed a high, cackling laugh to cover her defeat, and let her eyes fall. She slouched to the front of the shop for the crackers and cheese and Peter seated himself again at the small table, and looked at the children.

“Where’s Mama?” he heard the girl ask, and Buddy’s reply: “Mama went away,” and he saw the look of wonder on the girl’s face.

“Come here,” Peter said, and the girl came to the table.

“I guess you ‘re Buddy’s sister he’s been tellin’ me about, ain’t you?” said Peter kindly, “and I’m his Uncle Peter He’s been staying with on a shanty-boat. Your ma” – he hesitated and looked at the girl’s sweet, clear eyes – “your ma went away, like Buddy said, Susie, but you don’t want to think she run away and left him, for that wouldn’t be so, not at all! She had to go, or she wouldn’t ‘ve gone. I guess – I guess she’d ‘ve come and got you. Yes, I guess that’s what she had on her mind. She spoke of you quite a little before she went on her trip.”

“I want you should take me away from here,” said the girl suddenly.

“Well, now, I wish I could, Susie,” said Peter, “but I don’t see how I can. Maybe I can arrange it – ” He poised his soup spoon in the air. “Did Reverend Mr. Briggles bring you here?”

“Not here,” said Susie. “Mrs. Crink didn’t live here, then.”

“Well, that’s all the same,” said Peter. “I just wanted to enquire about it. You’d better eat your soup, Buddy-boy. Well, now, let me see!”

Peter stared into the soup, as if it might hold, hidden in its muggy depths, the answer to his riddle.

“Just at present I’m sort of unable to do what I’d like to do myself,” he said. “I’d like to take you right with me, but I’ve got a certain friend that was quite put out because I didn’t bring your ma to – to see her when your ma stopped in at my boat, and I guess maybe” – Mrs. Crink was returning with the crackers and cheese, and Peter ended hurriedly – “I guess maybe you better stay here until I make arrangements.”

It was a strange picture, the boy eating his soup gluttonously, Peter Lane in his comedy tramp garb of blanket and blanket-strips, and the little girl staring at him with big, trustful eyes. Mrs. Crink put the crackers and cheese on the table.

“If you’ve got through takin’ up time that don’t belong to you, maybe I can git some work out of this brat,” she snapped.

“Why, yes, ma’am,” said Peter politely. “It only so happened that this boy was her brother. We didn’t want to discommode you at all.”

Susie turned away to her work of swabbing the bar, and Peter divided the crackers and cheese equally between himself and Buddy.

“I don’t care much to have tramps come in here anyway,” said Mrs. Crink. “I never knew one yit that wouldn’t pick up anything loose,” but Peter made no reply. He had a matter of tremendous import on his mind. He felt that he had taken the weight of Susie’s troubles on his shoulders in addition to those of Buddy, and he had resolved to ask Widow Potter to take the two children!

The parting of the two children had for them none of the pathos it had for Peter. When Buddy had eaten the last scrap of cracker he got down from his chair.

“Good-by, Susie,” he said.

“Good-by, Buddy,” she answered, and that was all, and Peter led the boy out of the place.

There are, in Riverbank, alleys between each two of the streets parallel with the river, and Peter, now that he had once more resolved not to allow Briggles to have Buddy, took to the alleys as he passed through the town. The outlandishness of his garb made him the more noticeable, he knew, and he wished to avoid being seen. He traversed the entire town thus, even where a creek made it necessary for him to scramble down one bank and up another, until the alleys ended at the far side of the town. There he crossed the vacant lot where a lumber mill had once stood, and struck into the river road.

The boy seemed to take it all as a matter of course, but Peter kept a wary eye on the road, ready to seek a hiding-place at the approach of any rig that looked as if it might contain the Reverend Briggles, but none appeared. A farmer, returning from town with a wagon, stopped at a word from Peter, and allowed him to put Buddy in the wagon and clamber in with him. They got out again at Mrs. Potter’s gate.

The house was closed, and the doors locked. Peter tried them all before he was convinced he had had the long tramp for nothing, and then he led Buddy toward the barn. As he neared the barn the barn door opened and a man came out, carrying a water bucket. He stared at Peter.

“Mrs. Potter is not at home, I guess?” said Peter.

“Nope,” said the man. “Anything I can do for you?”

“It’s business on which I’ll have to see her personally,” said Peter. “She wasn’t expecting I’d come. Is she going to be back soon?”

“Well, I guess she won’t be back to-day,” said the man. “She only hired me about a week ago, so she ain’t got to telling me all her plans yet, but she told me it was as like as not she’d go up to Derlingport to-day, and maybe she might come home to-morrow, and maybe not till next day. Want to leave any word for her?”

“No,” said Peter slowly, “I guess there’s no word I could leave. I guess not. I’m much obliged to you, but I won’t leave no word. Come on, Buddy-boy, we got to go back to town now, before night sets in.”

“Where are we going now, Uncle Peter?” asked the boy.

“Now? Well, now we ‘re going to see a friend I’ve got. You never slept in a great, big stable, where there are a lot of horses, did you? You never went to sleep on a great big pile of hay, did you? That’ll be fun, won’t it, Buddy-boy?”

“Yes, Uncle Peter,” said the child cheerfully, and they began the long, cold walk to town.

XV. AN ENCOUNTER

THAT horse,” said George Rapp, slapping the colt on the flank, “is as good a horse as you can get for the money in ten counties, and you won’t find anybody that will offer what I do in trade for your old one. Nowhere.”

“You’d say that anyway, George Rapp,” said Mrs. Potter. “You ain’t here to run down what you want to sell. Seems to me the colt acts skittish.”

“What you said you wanted was a young horse,” said Rapp with a shrug. “I don’t know what you want. You want a young horse, and this is young, and you don’t want a skittish horse, and all young horses are more or less that way.”

“What I want is a young, strong horse – ” Mrs. Potter began.

“You’ve told me that a million times and two, and if you tell me it again I’ll know it by heart well enough to sing it,” said Rapp. “There he stands, just like you say – a young, strong horse.”

“A skittish animal like this colt ain’t fit for a woman to drive,” said Mrs. Potter.

“And you ought to have a driver to drive him, as you said about ten thousand times before,” said Rapp with good-natured tolerance, “but Peter Lane ain’t come up to town yet, if that’s what you’re working round to.”

“Oh, get along with you!” said Mrs. Potter. “I got a hired man now.”

“Well, you meant Peter, didn’t you? Why don’t you come right out and say so? But I guess you won’t get Peter to drive this colt for a while yet.”

“He ain’t sick?”

“No. Nor he ain’t dead. But as near as I can make out Peter is goin’ to jail.”

Mrs. Potter turned sharply and George Rapp grinned. He could not help it, she showed such consternation.

“Peter – in – jail?” she cried.

“Well, not yet,” said Rapp, chuckling at her amazement. “They ‘re out hunting him now. The dogs of the law is on his trail. That feller Briggles I told you of got his head broke by a tramp Peter took into my boat, and he’s real sore, both in head and feelings. Last night him and a sort of posse went down to get the whole crowd, but Peter had skipped out with the kid.”

“Good for Peter! Good for Peter!” exclaimed Mrs. Potter. “I never looked for so much spunk. It was his boy as much as anybody’s, wasn’t it?”

“Looks so to me,” said Rapp, “but this here United States of Riverbank County seems to think different. Maybe Peter ain’t been washin’ the boy’s face regular, three times a day. Anyhow, Briggles got a court order for the boy and he’s goin’ to jug Peter.”

“You talk so much nonsense, I don’t know what to believe,” complained the widow.

“Anything I say is apt to be more or less nonsense, except when I’m talkin’ horse,” said Rapp, “but this ain’t. Briggles and the dep’ty sheriff is out now, swearin’ to bring Peter in by the seat of his pants or any way they can get him.”

“Well, if Peter Lane had a wife to look after him and tell him how-so once in a while, he wouldn’t get into trouble like this,” said Mrs. Potter, with aggravation. “He’s enough to drive a body crazy.”

George Rapp’s eyes twinkled. “The next time I see Peter I’ll say, ‘Peter, I been tryin’ to sell a colt to Mrs. Potter since Lord-knows-when, and she’s holdin’ off until she gets a husband to tend the colt. I don’t want to hurry you none,’ I’ll say to him, ‘but when you get done servin’ them ten years in the pen’tentiary, just fix it up for me. I’d like to sell this colt before he dies of old age.”

“You think you ‘re smart, George Rapp,” said Mrs. Potter, reddening, “but when you talk like that, when I’ve heard Peter Lane say, a dozen times, that you’re the best friend he’s got in the world, it’s time somebody took hold for him. I wouldn’t buy a horse off you, not if it was the only one in the world!”

George Rapp patted the colt on the neck and ran his hand down the sleek shoulder.

“Now, Mrs. Potter,” he said, “you know better than that. I’m just as much Peter’s friend as anybody is. I’ll bail him out if he gets in jail, and I’ll pay his fine, if there is one. But don’t you worry. Peter ain’t a fool. By this time Peter and that boy is in Burlington. Peter’s safe – ”

It seemed as if Rapp’s cheerful prediction had been fulfilled, for, as he spoke, horses’ hoofs clattered on the plank incline that led into the stable. Rapp led the colt out of the way as the two-horse rig, containing the Reverend Rasmer Briggles and the deputy sheriff, reached the main floor. It was evident they had not found Peter.

“Wild goose hunt this time, George,” said the deputy as he jumped from the carriage.

“That so?” said Rapp, walking around the team. “Got the team pretty hot for such cold weather, didn’t you?”

“We drove like blazes,” said the deputy, “but I didn’t get heated much. Colder than th’ dickens. H’ar you, Mrs. Potter? George robbin’ you again?”

Mr. Briggles was climbing from the carriage slowly. He was bundled in a heavy ulster with a wide collar that turned up over his ears. He wore ear-mufflers, and a scarf was tied over his cap and under his chin. On his hands were thick, fur-lined mittens, and his trouser legs were buckled into high arctics. Over his nose and across one cheek a strip of adhesive plaster showed where Booge had “hit the old kazoozer and scratched him on the nose,” as he had sung.

Mr. Briggles was not in a good temper. Under his arrangement with his society this had been an unprofitable week, for he had not “rescued” a single child (at twenty dollars per child). He slowly untied his scarf, removed his ear-tabs and unbuttoned his ulster. He affected ministerial garb under his outer roughness; it had a good effect on certain old ladies as he sat in their parlors coaxing money from them (forty per cent, commission on all collected), and his face had what George Rapp called “that solemncholy sneaker” look. You expected him to put his finger-tips together and look at the ceiling. There are but few Briggleses left to prey on the gullibly charitable to-day, and thank God for that. Their day is over. Most of them are in stock-selling games now.

“We were on sheriff’s business to-day, Brother Rapp,” said Briggles, when he had opened his coat. “You can charge the rig to the county.”

“How about that, Joe?” Rapp asked the deputy.

“What’s the diff.?” asked Joe carelessly. “The county can stand it.”

He had entered the office, where Rapp always kept his barrel-stove red hot, and was kicking his toes against the foot-rail of the stove.

“Want the team again to-morrow?” asked Rapp.

“I want it to-morrow,” said Joe. “I got to go to Sweetland to put an attachment on to a feller’s hogs. I don’t know what your friend Briggles wants.”

“I want you to help me find this boy, Brother – ” Briggles began, but the deputy merely turned his back to the stove and looked at him over one shoulder.

“Oh, shut up!” he said. “I ain’t your brother.”

“What’s the matter with you, Joe?” asked Rapp. “You act sore.”

“Sore nothin’! I’m sick at my stummik. You’d be if you had to drive a pole-cat around the county all day.”

“Now, Brother Venby,” said Mr. Briggles pleadingly, “you misunderstood me entirely. If you will let me explain – ”

“You go and explain to your grandmother,” said Joe roughly. “You can’t explain to me. If I didn’t have on my dep’ty sheriff badge, I’d come out there and do some explainin’ with a wagon spoke on my own account. Say, George, did this feller get a rig from you once to take a young girl that he brought down from Derlingport, to a ‘good home’? Nice little girl, wasn’t she? Where d’you suppose he took her? Mrs. Crink’s! Say, come in here a minute.”

Rapp went into the office and Joe closed the door. A hostler led the team to the rear of the stable, and Mr. Briggles, as if feeling a protective influence in the presence of Mrs. Potter, moved nearer to her. He pushed back his cap and wiped his forehead.

“In this charity work we meet the opposition of all rough characters, Madame,” he began suavely, but she interrupted him.

“You ‘re the man that’s pestering Peter Lane, ain’t you?” she asked.

“Only within the law, only within the law!” said Mr. Briggles soothingly. “I act only for the Society, and the Society keeps within the law.”

“Law – fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Potter. “What’s this nonsense about putting Peter Lane in jail?”

“We fear we shall have to make an example of him,” said Mr. Briggles. “The ungodly throw obstructions in our path, and we must combat them when we can. This Lane has evaded a court order. We trust he will receive a term in prison. We have faith that Judge Bennings will uphold the right.”

“Huh! So that old rascal of a Bennings is the man that let you bother Peter Lane, is he? Seems to me he’s getting pretty free with his court orders and nonsense! But I guess he ain’t heard from me yet!”

She turned her back on Mr. Briggles and almost ran down the incline into the street. Unluckily for Judge Bennings, he was almost too convenient to Rapp’s Livery, Feed and Sale Stable, living in an old brick mansion that occupied the corner of the block but, luckily for him, he was not at home. Mrs. Potter poured out her wrath on the German servant girl.

When Mrs. Potter had hastened away, Mr. Briggles hesitated. He could see the deputy sheriff and George Rapp through the smoky glass of the office door, and Joe was talking steadily, only stopping now and then to expectorate, while Rapp’s good-natured face was scowling. Mr. Briggles buttoned his ulster. From the look on George Rapp’s face he felt it would be better to be out of the stable when Rapp came out of the office. He turned. Peter Lane was staggering wearily up the incline into the stable, his back bent with fatigue, and Buddy, sound asleep, in his arms. Mr. Briggles watched the uncouth, blanket-draped pair advance, and when Peter stood face to face with him, a smile of satisfaction twisted his hard mouth. Peter looked into the fellow’s shrewd eyes and drew a long breath.

“Your name’s Briggles, ain’t it?” he asked listlessly. “Mine’s Peter Lane. This here’s Buddy. I guess we got to the end of our string.”

Peter shifted the sleeping boy to his shoulder and touched the child’s freckled face softly.

“I wisht you would do what’s possible to put him into a nice home,” said Peter; “a home where he won’t be treated harsh. I’ve got so used to Buddy I feel almost like he was my own son, and I wouldn’t like him to be treated harsh. He’s such a nice little feller – ”

He stopped, for he could say no more just then. He lowered his arms until Buddy’s head slid softly from his shoulder to the crook of his arm.

“Well,” he said, holding out the sleeping boy, “I guess you might as well take him now as any time.”

Mr. Briggles reached forward to take the boy just as Mrs. Potter came rushing up the stable incline, waving her hand wildly.

“Oh, Smith!” she called. “Peter Smith! You ‘re just the man I been looking for, Smith!”

Peter stared at her uncomprehendingly for one instant, and as he understood her useless little strategy, his eyes softened.

“I’m just as much obliged to you, Mrs. Potter,” he said, “but I’ve already told this man who I am. I guess I’ll go now.”

He looked from one to the other helplessly and Mrs. Potter put out her arms and took the sleeping boy.

“Peter, you’re a perfect fool!” she said angrily.

“I guess I am,” said Peter. “Yes, I guess I am!”

He bent and kissed Buddy’s warm cheek.

“I’d like to be somewheres else when he wakes up,” he explained and turned away. He had started down the driveway when Mr. Briggles stepped after him and laid a detaining hand on his arm.

“Wait!” said Mr. Briggles. “The sheriffs deputy is in the office here; he has been looking for you.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said Peter. “You can tell Joe I’ve gone on up to the jail,” and he drew his arm away and went on down to the street. Mrs. Potter called after him.

“Peter Lane! Peter!” she called, but Peter had hurried away. Buddy raised his head suddenly and looked up into Mrs. Potter’s face.

“I know who you are,” he said fearlessly. “You ‘re Aunt Jane.”

“No, child,” said Mrs. Potter, “I ain’t anybody’s aunt. I’m just a worthless old creature.”

“Where’s Uncle Peter?” asked Buddy in his sudden way.

“Now, don’t you worry,” said Mrs. Potter. “Uncle Peter has gone away.”

“I know,” said Buddy, now wide awake. “Uncle Peter told me. I want to get down.” Mrs. Potter put him down and he stood leaning against her knee, holding tightly to her skirt and eyeing Mr. Briggles distrustfully, for his quick eyes recognized the “old kazoozer” Uncle Booge had thrown off the boat, but before he could give utterance to what was running through his small head, the office door opened and George Rapp and the deputy came out. Rapp walked up to Mr. Briggles.

“All right,” he said roughly. “You’ve got the kid, I see, and I guess that’s all you want in my stable, so you pick him up and get out of here, and don’t you ever come here again. Do you understand that? If you do, I’m going to show you how I treat skunks. Y’ understand?”

Involuntarily Mr. Briggles put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow, and Buddy clung the tighter to Mrs. Potter’s skirt. The ex-minister reached out his hand for the child, and Buddy turned and ran.

Mr. Briggles did not run after him. He stood staring at the child. “I don’t want that boy,” he said. “I don’t want him. I couldn’t do anything with that boy. He’s a cripple!”

Buddy, stopping at the head of the incline, gazed, wide-eyed from one to the other.

Didn’t anybody want a boy that was lame? “I got one good foot,” he said boastingly. And suddenly Mrs. Potter’s strong, work-muscled arms gathered Buddy up and held him close to her breast, so that one of the sharp buttons of her coat made him shake his head and forget the angry tears he had been ready to shed.

“I want him!” she cried, her eyes blazing. “I’ll take him, you – you – ”

No one knew what she would have called Mr. Briggles, for with an unexpectedness that made Mr. Briggles’s teeth snap together George Rapp shut an iron hand on the back of his neck, and bumped a knee into Mr. Briggles from behind so vigorously as to lift him off his feet. With the terrible knee bumping him at every step, Mr. Briggles was rushed down the incline with a haste that carried him entirely across the street and left him gasping and trembling against a tool box alongside the railway tracks. George Rapp returned wiping his hands in his coat skirts as if he had just been handling a snake, or some other slimy creature.

“Now we got done with pleasure,” he said with a laugh, “we’ll talk business. Do you want that colt, or don’t you, Mrs. Potter?”