The Knights of the White Shield / Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play

Chapter V.

The Nation’s Birthday.

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“The great thing on the Fourth is to have a good time,” said the president.

“No, the great thing,” said the practical governor, “is to be sure and wake up in season.”

“That’s so,” chimed several voices in chorus.

“How shall we fix it?” asked Pip.

“Tie your toe to the bed-post,” said some one.

“Put a lot of stones in your bed,” said Sid, “and then you can’t sleep easy.”

“Two sleep together and tie their toes to one another,” said the governor.

Objections were found against all these plans, as they had been ineffectually tried by various members of the club.

“Go and holler under every boy’s window,” said Billy Grimes, with the air of one who had made an important discovery. “I will holler under your’s, Pip,” was his magnificent offer.

“But who will be the feller to go to your window?” asked Sid.

“Why—why—you.”

“Well, who will holler under my window?” said Sid.

“I,” said Wort.

“And under yours?” continued the president.

“I,” said Juggie.

“And who under Juggle’s?”

“I,” said Tony.

“And who under Tony’s?”

“I,” said Charlie.

“And who under Charlie’s?”

That was a problem.

“Aunt Thanthy,” suggested Pip.

“Aunt Stanshy is going out visiting,” remarked Charlie.

There was a very sad pause. Despair was on the faces of the club. A happy thought came to Charlie. “Some one has got to sit up and wake the next one, and I will. I can take a nap the next forenoon, you know.”

“Three cheers for Charlie!” called out Wort, and they were cordially given. It was arranged on the spot that Charlie should sit up. If Aunt Stanshy had been at home she would have vetoed the plan, but, purposing to be absent the night before the Fourth she had engaged Silas Junkins to stay with Charlie and guard the premises. Charlie had no difficulty in obtaining Silas’s consent to the plan, and not only his consent, but also his co-operation. In the main entry of Aunt Stanshy’s house was a tall, old-fashioned clock. It was an aged household servant, and had done duty in the entry many years. It always stood in one place, one particular corner in the rear of the entry. It is a wonder its voice did not show any sign of collapse, as it had called off the hours so many years. It would not have been strange if it had lost its patience. But uncomplainingly, even cheerily and without any sign of weakness, it told you what time it was. Charlie sometimes heard it in the night, and then it sounded like, “Cheer up! cheer up!” its pleasant voice halting on the “cheer,” and then emphasizing the “up.” It divided all its peals into two such notes, and when Charlie heard it strike one o’clock the effect was quite enlivening as be lay there in his dark little chamber. At an hour earlier, when it sounded twelve “Cheer ups,” what a joyous procession of notes that was! It was like a watchman’s voice ringing out “All’s well!” twelve times. It occurred to Charlie that he might occupy a chair in the entry, and, if at all inclined to go to sleep, the striking of the clock would keep him awake. Silas Junking moved a table into the entry for Charlie, and set a lamp on it. At nine Silas, who enjoyed very much a large quantity of sleep, went to his rest in a little bedroom on the same floor with the entry.

“You can step into my room and wake me, Charlie, if any thing happens.”

“O, I sha’n’t need to,” was the watchboy’s very emphatic reply.

“Well, good-night!”

“Good-night!”

“Now all I’ve got to do,” soliloquized Charlie, “is just to keep awake, and it is a great deal better than to go to sleep with a string tying your big toe to the bed-post. Hark, there is some one firing off a gun! Wont I wake ’em with a blow on my horn!” Here he saw himself, as he visited house after house, arousing boy after boy. It would be like the falling of a row of bricks, where the only need is to push over the first one and the whole set will follow. Every thing, though, depended on the fall of the first brick. Would Charlie do his part?

“I’ll take this story-book about Indians, giants, and fairies,” he said, “into the entry, and that will keep me awake splendid.”

It was a book startling enough, and the trouble was that it was too startling.

After looking at the book a while, Charlie’s mind was so peopled with ferocious giants, Indians on the war-path, fire-breathing dragons, and ghostly genii, that he transferred them to all the corners of the room, and especially to that receptacle of shadows, the space under the table, the very place where his legs were—ugh! Charlie did not like to look at the book, and, dared not, at the forms under the table! He shut the book and he shut his eyes. Hark, the clock was saying “Cheer up!” and somebody in the lane fired a pistol that seemed to say, “Wake up!” Yes, yes, that was all right, Charlie thought, but—but—he guessed he would close his eyes just this once—and close them just this once—and close them just this once—and in a few minutes the champion watchman was fast asleep! In an hour the clock struck again, and its voice seemed harsh, as if saying, “Young man, young man, wake up!” The notes had no startling effect on Charlie. Indeed, he heard them only as a very sweet, musical voice. The pistols and cannons going off in Water Street reached his ear as mild little pops. Things went on in this way till morning. About five Charlie dropped on the floor the book of Indians and dragons, that patiently had been resting in his lap all night. It roused him. He partially opened his eyes. Before him was an opened door that led into the parlor, and, sitting in his chair, he could see the parlor windows, whose curtains were up and whose panes were brightened by the light in the eastern sky. What did he see at those windows? Had some of the Indians, imagined to be under Charlie’s table, gone to the outside of the windows, there to look in, grinning at him and shaking their head-feathers at a boy stupidly sitting near a table on which was a lighted lamp? Charlie rubbed his eyes for a better look, then rubbed again and again, and—and—were those Indians shouting, “Charlie, how are you?” He now sprang to his feet, fully awake, and there were several members of the club, their faces streaked with red chalk, their caps ornamented with all kinds of feathers, their—Charlie did not take another look at their decorations! He only glanced at the clock, exclaimed, “Five o’clock! Whew!” seized his cap, and rushed out-doors.

“Wake up, Charlie! Wake up, Charlie!” was the greeting of his comrades.

“Whew, fellers, aint this cheeky?” inquired Charlie.

“I should think it was—in you. Did your nap refresh you?” asked Sid.

“Why didn’t you come round and wake me up?” said the governor.

“And me?” said Billy.

“And me?” said Pip.

“And me?” said Tony.

“You see—you see,” replied Charlie, “I overslept.”

“That is,” said Sid, “you slept over the table. Three cheers for Charlie, our faithful watchman! I nominate Charlie for honorary sentinel.”

The cheers were delivered, and Charlie was declared by the president to have been unanimously chosen honorary sentinel.

“You see, boys,” said Sid, patronizingly, “I don’t know what would have become of you if it hadn’t been for me. My big brother Nehemiah was out banging away all night, and he got tired and came home about three, and said to me, ‘You in bed now? I thought you were going to get up several hours earlier than the lark.’ Well—after a while—I dressed quick, I tell you, and then I went and woke our governor, and Billy, and so on.”

Sid omitted to say how long that “after a while” might be, and that his brother aroused him several times, and finally he got into his clothes. Nobody, however, was disposed to ask questions, as every one had slept later than he intended.

“Knights of the White Shield!” suddenly shouted Sid, “three good ringers on your bugles for our honorary member, Miss Stanshy Macomber? Here she comes!”

Aunt Stanshy was now returning from her visit, having concluded to make an early start for home, feeling somewhat anxious for its safety on “the glorious Fourth.” The club separated into two ranks, and, as Aunt Stanshy passed along, each one of the “knights” touched his feathery head-gear, while every horn sent out as ringing a blast as possible.

“Massy!” cried Aunt Stanshy. “My ears!” Then she retreated to her home as quickly as possible lest another salute be tendered her.

What a day that was! What liberty! It seemed as if those patriots in the Up-the-Ladder Club had been oppressed by a terrible yoke of bondage, domestic especially, but it was all lifted and thrown off that day. There was freedom—to blow horns, freedom to fire crackers, freedom to “holler,” freedom to crack torpedoes, freedom to buy pea-nuts, buns, ancient figs and dates and abominable cheap candy, freedom to make one’s self as dirty, tired—and cross the next day—as possible! O, blessed liberty to boys who had patiently borne the yoke three hundred and sixty-four days, ever since the last Fourth! After a forenoon of miscellaneous and multiplied joys, the club planned to spend an afternoon in the woods. Emptying their pockets, they found that, altogether, they could raise eleven cents, and this was laid out in the judicious expenditure of as many buns as possible.

“It is proposed, White Shields,” said Sid, “this afternoon that we spend a little time playing, a little time in bun-lunching, and then we will have a raft-race on the water near the railroad track.”

This programme was carried out in part successfully. The games concluded with success, there was a successful time in eating, as far as the number of buns would permit. Then there was a little speech-making.

“I understand,” said the president, as he concluded his remarks, “that the rights of one of our number have been interfered with. He has been forbidden to fire off any more crackers, and must confine himself to caps.”

This announcement was followed by groans and hisses, even as thunder and lightning come after the black summer cloud. The person who had lost his freedom and been compelled to return to slavery was Charlie.

Aunt Stanshy had said to him at the dinner-table, “I don’t want you to fire any more crackers to-day.”

Charlie’s chin went down.

“Why?”

“Because there is danger of setting fire to something. The wind is warm and dry.”

Charlie’s chin now went up.

“It was warm and dry, but the wind has just changed, and it is coming in from the sea, and it is damp and misty.”

“But, that wont put out fires.”

Charlie’s chin now dropped again and dropped to stay. He went up stairs and, having a knack at rhyming, wrote a string of lines and put them in his pocket. Sid had found out the contents of Charlie’s pocket when it had been emptied in behalf of the bun fund, and at the “collation” in the woods, he concluded his speech with these words: “I learn that the Hon. Charles Pitt Macomber, who has been forbidden to fire off crackers, has some poetry, and I will ask him to read it I would only add that freemen must stand for their rights.” Cheers were now given for “the poet of the day.” Charlie stood up and read these lines, which were subsequently found by Aunt Stanshy in the pocket of his pants, for these needed the help of her needle after the great and fatiguing duties of the Fourth. The name and age of the author, Charlie had been particular to place over the poetry. We give the lines exactly as they appear in the original now in our possession.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.

By C.P. MACOMBER, (nine years.)

If Charlie should write this again, he would change the above, but it is too late to alter now, and we give it as preserved in our note-book. Furious applause followed this ebullition of poetic genius.

The collation was followed by the raft-race. The ditch that ran beside the railroad embankment widened in one place to forty feet. Half a dozen logs were here floating. The keeper of the great seal had brought with him a hammer and a handful of nails, and seeing on his way several strips of board, he had picked them up and now nailed the six logs together in pairs, making three rafts.

“There will now be a race between our first treasurer, our sentinel, and the keeper of the great seal,” pompously announced Sid. “This will be the first race. I expected Tony and the governor would compete, but they have gone home. The Fourth was too much for them.”

They both began to be sick after the collation. Rick, with his usual pertinacity, wanted to “stick it out,” but his feelings overcame him, and he adjourned. He and Tony had eaten too much green-tinted candy. The participants in the raft-race were preparing for the contest, Charlie having already boarded his craft and pushed off into position, when a cry from Pip arrested the attention of all and made them think of something besides rafting.

“Down-townieth!” he shrieked, and pointed up the railroad embankment. There stood a stout boy whom Charlie recognized immediately as one of the evil force that raided on the club the day of the grand march! It was Tim Tyler, one of the hardest boys in Seamont, aged fifteen. Back of him was a smaller boy, but a competitor in vice, Bobby Landers. How many others might soon show themselves, no one could say, but the down-townies were clannish and loved to turn out in crowds, and to the club the probability appeared to be, that others would speedily rise up and charge along the railroad track. Sid Waters, who had urged freemen to stand for their rights, was now turning on his heel. He headed for a fence that separated the railroad lot from the woods. It was evident that the first club race would be, not on the water, but the land, and that Sid Waters’s legs would take an unexpected but active part in it. Other legs followed his, and this race of freemen for their rights became a general one. At first, it was not positively certain who would reach the fence first and so beat in the race, but Sid’s alacrity in starting was so great that he gained the prize, or would have taken it, had any been offered. The others though made very good time, and showed what freemen could do when hard pushed by their oppressors. Charlie, alas! was too far from shore to share in their good fortune, and, besides, Tim Tyler was on hand to object to any such movement.

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to leave,” he said provokingly to Charlie, and seizing a pole left by one of the retreating club, pushed off the raft that Charlie had shoved near the shore.

“Leave me alone,” growled Charlie.

“I have, haven’t I? I don’t see how any one could be much more aloner than you are off there.”

Charlie looked like a jar of pickles, a keg of gunpowder, and a small thunder-cloud combined. He was so angry that he could now say nothing. When Tim had repeatedly pushed Charlie’s vessel back from the shore, Charlie as obstinately pushing toward it again, Tim cried out, “Say, I will make you an offer. Do you see that?”

He pulled out of his pocket a dirty bottle and held it up.

“There, some of the best beer made anywhere is in that. If you will take a swaller, I’ll let you come ashore.”

Charlie could hardly contain himself now. He was scarcely able to sputter out this defiance, “When you catch me tasting that stuff, you’ll know it!”

“O jest hear him, Bob!” said Tim, mockingly. “I s’pose this young sailor, who don’t know enough about sailin’ to get his craft ashore, has jined a temperance society.”

“Yes,” said Charlie, “I belong to Mr. Walton’s at St. John’s.”

“What saint is that?”

The wrathful Charlie gave Tim a look of contempt and turned away.

“O, so he wont turn his pretty face this way, wont he?”

Having said this, Tim changed his tone and shouted fiercely, “You’ve got to look this way, sir. Bob, you get on that other raft and I will take this one here, and we will catch that young saint.”

The two unoccupied rafts were immediately brought into service. Never did an innocent merchantman fleeing from two pirates make a harder exertion than did Charlie to get away from Tim and Bob. They gained on him, though, rapidly.

“There they come,” thought Charlie, giving one look back at the dirty, saucy buccaneers. Tim had now reached the middle of the little pond when a thing greatly in his favor proved to be a serious thing against him, and that was the strength of his push. The fastenings of the log-raft were not equal to any violent pressure upon them, and suddenly they gave way and the logs separated. Tim’s legs separated with them till they could part no farther, and then he tried to spring from one log to the other. Alas for him, he put his foot in the wrong place, and that wrong place was the water! Down he went into as thorough a bath as ever a young rascal got in this world. The water was not over his head, and he was soon on his feet, but the dip had been complete enough to satisfy the most vindictive members of the Up-the-Ladder Club, and Tim was spitting and sputtering, then spitting and sputtering again, trying to clear month, eyes, nose, ears, of the unwelcome, dirty ditch-water.

“Give—us—a—hand, Bob,” he gasped.

Charlie did not stay to see any further developments, but pushed for the shore, safely reaching it, and then made his way to the fence, climbing it and gaining the wood-lot. In the meantime, the other members of the club had halted and were consulting together. It was Juggie who arrested their flight. “It is too bad,” he said, “to leave Charlie.”

That remark detained Billy, and then Sid, Wort, and Pip stopped.

Sid laughed and said, “My father has been in the army and he would call this the flying artillery. So you see it is all right.”

“I’m afraid it’s all wrong,” said Billy, “to leave Charlie behind.”

“Yes,” said Wort, “to run away from a member of the club.”

There was now a general feeling of indignation toward any member of the club that had deserted Charlie, if that member could be found, as each one’s motive had not been to desert another, but the prudent impulse to save himself.

Sid was among the fiercest to shout and the most furious to propose. “Charlie deserted!” he said. “Who’s deserted Charlie? That wont do! Back, fellers, to the rescue!”

A brave, sympathetic shout arose. A few minutes ago Sid would have been afraid of it as something that might attract the enemy’s attention, but he calculated that they must now be at a safe distance from the down-townies.

“Let’s make a flank movement on the enemy,” said the president.

“What ith that?” asked Pip.

“Why, not so much to go at them as to go about them and take them unawares in the rear.”

This mode of attack, which did not necessitate the actual facing of the enemy, was very popular and took wonderfully with the club. To Sid, in particular, it was a very agreeable mode. He boldly headed this movement. He intended to go off in a direction where no enemy would ever be met, but in his ignorance of the woods, he took a course that would have led the club back to the pond, and it was an agreeable thing for Charlie that he did, as that fugitive from the pirates soon was met.

“Hullo, there he is!” shouted Wort.

“Who?” asked Sid, trembling, and fearful that it might be Tim Taylor.

“Here I am, boys,” shouted Charlie.

“Ho, to the rescue!” cried Sid, now taking long leaps forward. “Charlie, I rescue thee!”

“We are coming to fank de enemy,” said Juggie, anxious to have a hand in winning the laurels now coming so rapidly to the Knights of the White Shield.

“Going to surround the enemy,” exclaimed the warlike Sid, “and also rescue Charlie, but—but—we might as well go back now. Did you have a hard time, Charlie?”

“I did have a time, I tell you,” and Charlie eagerly told the story of his adventures.

“How we will go back, boys,” said the president, “and go round home through the woods.”

“No, sir,” declared Billy, who had somewhat of his cousin’s resoluteness; “I’m going home the way we came, and if any body stops me, it is his lookout.”

The heroic sentiment was loudly applauded, and the club returning valiantly stormed the railroad fence and carried it—a remarkable feat considering that there was nobody on it to oppose them.

Billy Grimes in his earnestness even brought down the top-rail with him.

“Stop, fellers!” warned Sid. “The enemy!” Lifting their eyes to the top of the high railroad embankment, they saw Tim in the act of chastising Bob. It was afterward ascertained that Tim was rewarding Bob for not helping him more efficiently at the time of the raft accident. Tim completed the bestowal of this reward, and then noticing the club, he shook his fist at them. He did not linger, but followed sullenly by Bob, passed down the other side of the embankment. The club did not find out whether this was an intended retreat, or simply the taking of a convenient route to reach home. They put their own construction on it, and the movement was judged to be “a shameful retreat by the enemy.” Billy led off in a brave, determined charge up the embankment—Sid shouting, “Hurrah! Glory for us! Those getting the battle-field are victors, you know!”

Nobody disputed this, and the valiant knights continued their triumphant advance to their very homes.

The Fourth was drawing to a close. The sun was breaking out through the clouds that had covered the heavens, and so brilliant was the outburst of colors, it seemed as if the folds of an immense star-spangled banner had been suddenly let loose in the western sky. It very soon paled though. The clouds thickened everywhere and the easterly wind that had been blowing all the afternoon, bringing occasional mist, now drove to land a blinding fog. Finally it began to rain, and yet gently, as if reluctant to spoil any festivities of the Fourth. Gathering up all their pyrotechnic resources, it was found that the club boys could muster a few pin-wheels, five Roman candles, and a “flower-pot.” Most of these had been stored in the barn, but were now moved out-doors and taken to the shelter of a stout leafy maple by the side of the lane.

“The rain wont trouble us here,” said the president. “Where is Charlie?”

“He has gone to get his fire-works,” replied Billy Grimes. “He left them in the house and it is locked, for his Aunt Stanshy has gone out, and he’s waiting for her, I guess.”

“We had better begin, fellers, and he will come soon. The rain is coming,” said Sid, warned by a big drop that glancing through the branches smote him on the nose. Pin-wheels, candles, and the other attraction were pronounced a success, though their discharge was hastened on account of the thickening rain.

The boys separated, tired and sleepy, sorry to part with the Fourth, and yet secretly glad that there was such a thing as “bed.”

“Whar’s Charlie,” asked Juggie, as the boys separated. No one knew. “Good-bye, Charlie!” shouted one after the other, and all hastened to their homes.

Charlie was where he had been the last twenty minutes, occupying a seat out in the porch at the back door and waiting for Aunt Stanshy. He had fallen asleep, so thoroughly tired was this patriotic young American, and the day for him was ending as it began—in a chair. Aunt Stanshy came at last, feeling her way through the shadows in the porch and striving to reach the back door, whose key she carried.

“What’s this?” she said, running against the sleeper. “If it isn’t that boy! And here the rain has been working round into the porch and it is coming on him! If you don’t take cold, Charles Pitt Macomber, then I am mistaken! Wake up, wake up!”

Chapter VI.

A Sick Patriot.

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The next morning, Aunt Stanshy was stirring at the usual hour, and her usual hour in summer was five. She did not generally expect to see Charlie down stairs until half past six. This morning, Aunt Stanshy; looked up at the clock on the high mantel-piece and saw that it was seven, then half after seven, then eight, and half after eight; but all this time there was neither sound nor sight of Charlie.

“Massy, where is that boy? I thought I would let him sleep, he was so tired, but he ought to be around now,” reflected Aunt Stanshy.

She opened the door that led up to his chamber and slowly mounted the steep, narrow, yellow stairs, turning to the right into Charlie’s sanctum. A turn to the left would have taken her to her own room. Peeping into Charlie’s room, she saw the boy fast asleep on the bed. Stealing softly across the bare floor and reaching the red and yellow home-braided rug before his bed, she looked down on the sleeping Charlie. A smile parted his lips, and be murmured something unintelligible to Aunt Stanshy. Then she laid her hand on his head, giving a little start.

“That boy took cold last night, and is a bit feverish. I’ll let him lie here a spell longer.”

Saying this, she was about to turn away, when Charlie’s eyes opened.

“That you—you, aunty?”

“Yes; why?”

“I thought it was a dream. I had a dream, and thought we gave the down-townies an awful scare.”

“You did? Was that what you were smiling at? I mean just now.”

“I guess so. And then I believe we were going to give three cheers.”

“Well, do you feel like getting up?”

“Y-e-s.”

He rose on his elbows, but sank back again.

“I guess, if you have no objection, aunty, I will lie a little longer.”

“I guess you had better, for you took cold last night out in the porch. Would you like to take your breakfast in bed, and have my little table that I lend to people who are sick in bed?”

“O, yes.”

“And would you like to have a piece of toast, a little tea, and an orange?”

“O, yes. You are the best aunty in the world.”

“Am I, dear?”

Aunt Stanshy was not very demonstrative, so that this “dear” was exceedingly precious to the warm-hearted Charlie, as was also a small hug that she gave him. While she was preparing his breakfast Charlie lay quietly in bed, and heard the sound of the rain on the slanting roof. To a tired boy in bed, and longing to have some excuse for absence from school, what music is sweeter than the sound of rain on the roof? Let it be a real north-easter sweeping in from the sea, pushing along a fleet of many clouds packed with a heavy cargo of rain, and, as it advances, let this wind sound many big, hoarse trumpets all about the houses and barns, up and down the streets! An organ in church played by Prof. Jump-up-and-down is nothing compared with such a north-easter; Charlie heard the grand music of the wind. By and by he heard Aunt Stanshy’s step on the stairs. She came slowly up, up, and then Charlie saw her turning from the entry into his room, bringing the sick-table and Charlie’s breakfast She bolstered him up in bed, putting two or three fat pillows behind his back. Then she put the little sick-table before him. One side had been hollowed in, so that an invalid could draw it close about his body. Charlie was now the invalid to do that thing. What tea! what toast! what an orange!

“Now that you have some strength, do you want to dress and then come down and sit with me in the sitting-room and see me iron?” asked Aunt Stanshy, after breakfast.

“O, yes, and not go to school?”

“No school to-day, when that cold is on you.”

Charlie crawled into his clothes and went down stairs to the sitting-room. Aunt Stanshy was ironing. She generally did her ironing in the sitting-room, as the kitchen was very small, and, on a hot day, it was so hot there that one felt like sizzling at the touch of water.

“Here are some picture-books for you.”

“O, thanks, thanks, aunty!”

“One of those picture-books is about Indian wars.”

“Did you ever see an Injun?”

“Not the raving, tearing, tomahawk kind.”

“I shouldn’t want to see that one.”

“Several years ago sort of tame ones used to come round and have baskets to sell. My great-great-grandmother had quite an adventure with the real kind once.”

“O, tell it to me!”

Opening his eyes to that peculiar width appropriate to the hearing of an Indian story, Charlie intently listened.

“My great-great-grandmother was all alone one day in the house, for the men-folks had gone to market or somewhere. She happened to be looking out of the window, when she saw an Indian looking over the fence. What a customer! He was an ugly-looking crittur, I don’t doubt. What could she do, for he might be tomahawking her in less than no time? Wimmin folks, in them days, were not like Miss Persnips, that keeps the little thread-and-needle store on the corner, without any snap to ’em. My great-great-grandmother just tore round that room at a lively rate. She slammed the shutters, she banged about the chairs. Then she pretended that there were lots of men-folks in the house, and she kept calling to Tom, Bill, Jerry, Nehemiah. O, she had a string of ’em, all on her tongue’s end! I don’t know but she pointed a gun out of the winder, man-fashion. What did that crittur do but gather up his traps and walk off as harmless as a bumble-bee when his sting is gone. I’ve heard with my own eyes my grandmother tell that story about her grandmother.”

“Heard her with your eyes?”

“Of course not! With my ears, ears. Where are yours, for pity’s sake? There is an old garrison-house on the other side of the river, and I will show it to you some time, or I will show you what is left. They have built over the garrison-house and back of it, making a farm-house of it, but there is something still to be seen.”

“What a blessed old aunty!” thought Charlie. And the wind, what grand music it made! The chimney seemed to be a big bass-viol that this north-easter played on.

At noon Aunt Stanshy said, “What will you have for dinner?”

“May I order it, the way I did at a saloon in Boston last summer? May I write what I want on paper, and put it on the table?”

“Yes, if orderin’ will make it taste better, and it seems to affect some folks’ vittles that way.”

So Charlie and Aunt Stanshy “played saloon.” He wrote his order on a slip of paper, and left it on the table for her inspection while he went up stairs. Directing her spectacles toward it, she read, with some amazement, this request:

“Please bring me for dinner, a pickle Aunt Stanshy, would be what you know nice to toast.”

“Toasted pickle!” exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, in alarm.

Charlie had now returned to the sitting-room.

“You don’t mean, Charles Pitt, a toasted pickle!”

“Why, no; ha! ha! There are two things on that paper. I said, ‘Please bring me for dinner, Aunt Stanshy, what you know to toast.’ That is on one side, and on the other, ‘A pickle would be nice,’ and I see now that you could read the words straight across, and it would mean what you say; ha! ha! I don’t expect a pickle, of course, for I am sick, you know.”

“O!”

She did not laugh. She was rather mortified to think she had not read the order aright. The noblest natures have their infirmities. Afterward, being ashamed of herself because she did not take pleasantly this unintended joke, she manifested her penitence by getting up an extra dinner for Charlie. There was more toast, and even of a finer quality. There was another orange, and there was some jelly that Aunt Stanshy took the pains to buy at Miss Persnips’s store. This was a sweet but thin-voiced little woman, who sold a variety of things in a store on the corner of the lane and Water Street.

“It is nice to be sick, Aunt Stanshy.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, just a grain sick.”

It was so pleasant to be in the warm, comfortable sitting-room and watch the dreary weather out in the lane. The back side of the house butted on the lane, no fence intervening. Aunt Stanshy had no objection to such a close contact, but rather liked it, declaring it to be “social.” She did not favor, though, the sociability that drunken sailors manifested several times when going from the saloons on Water Street down to their vessels at the wharf in which the lane ended. They would stagger against the house, pushing one another and bombarding it. Aunt Stanshy was on hand, though. A pail of freshly-drawn water, Arctic cold, and from an upper window, administered freely to the offenders, had been known to produce a healthy effect. Aunt Stanshy’s remedies for various troubles might be vigorous, but they were generally effective. There was not much passing in the lane, that stormy day. A fisherman, in an oil-skin suit, went by, trundling a wheel-barrow of fish to a store in town. At noon, somebody else appeared.

“There’s Mr. Walton,” said Aunt Stanshy.

“And there’s Tony with him,” said Charlie.

“Where’s his father?”

“Tony says he is in Europe.”

“He the one that people say is an Italian, and—and—nobody knows what he is up to?”

“That’s the one, aunty.”

The minister and Tony, hand in hand, passed out of sight.

“This is the kind of day when Mr. Walton’s mother will be watching the weather, looking up at the vane. People say that she has a great deal to say about the sea, and takes a great interest in sailors.”

“What for?”

“Because they say she has a son somewhere at sea.”

“And don’t any one know where he is really?”

“No; and they have hinted and suspected and guessed and done every thing, except ask old Miss Walton right out, but they can’t find out a thing. She’s close as a clam in this matter.”

By and by there appeared in the lane a drunken man. As he staggered along he was exposed to all the pitiless pelting of the wild north east rain, and moved away like a dark, forlorn shadow.

“Poor fellow!” the sympathizing Charlie exclaimed. “Who’s that, I wonder?”

“Where?”

“A drunken man in the lane.”

“If people would only take the water inside and the rum outside, sort of turnin’ things round, it would be much better, better,” said Aunt Stanshy, going to the window. She gave one look and came back to her ironing. Charlie thought he heard her sigh. He had already noticed that Aunt Stanshy never made fun of drunken people.

“Who is it?” he asked.

She did not answer, but taking up her flat-iron again, pounded the clothes with it vigorously, as if trying to call attention from herself to her work.

“Is she crying?” thought Charlie.

As if wet with her tears, her spectacles gleamed sharply. The muscles of her arms swelled as she pounded the innocent sheet before her, and Charlie was reluctant to ask again. For some time there was silence, the only interrupting sound being Aunt Stanshy’s pound—pound—pound. Charlie sat in his chair, looking steadily out upon the somber, dripping rain.

“Don’t you want to play something?”

It was Aunt Stanshy speaking. A troubled look on her face had passed away and she was ironing quietly again.

“Yes;” said Charlie, “you—you sick?”

Aunt Stanshy gave no answer to this, but asked again, “Don’t you want to play?”

“Play what?”

“Boat.”

“Boat! how!”

“O make believe, you know.”

Charlie thought in silence.

“You lend me a box, aunty?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“And that little broom you sweep with?”

The amateur ship-carpenter went to work.

“There is my mast,” said Charlie, securing the broom to the bottom of the box which he had turned over. “Now I must have sails. It is going to be a monitor, too, like what I read about in a book the other day.”

After some effort, and more tribulation, there appeared a splendid piece of naval architecture, a monitor with a turret, the deck bordered with a twine-railing, two sails hanging down from Aunt Stanshy’s small broom.

“That broom makes me think of what I learned at school when I was a girl.”

“What was that?”

“I am not much of a scholar, but I remember this. Admiral Tromp was a Dutchman, and commanded a fleet that went against the English. Tromp was so successful that he tied a broom to his mast-head and went sailing over the waters, and that meant he had swept his enemy from the sea, and if he hadn’t, he would certainly do it and make clean work of it. Over the blue waters he went skipping along, feeling dreadful big, with that broom at the mast-head. The English boys, though, came at him again and whipped him, and poor Tromp was finally killed in a sea-fight. I don’t know what became of his broom. You had better call that an English and not a Dutch broom.”

When Charlie went up stairs that night, the Neponset as he called the monitor, was still sailing in the sitting-room, its sails all set, its broom at the mast-head. He thought it was splendid to be sick.

“How long do you think this sickness may go on?” was the last question he asked Aunt Stanshy that night.

“O, if it is a slow fever, it might last several weeks, but I don’t want to discourage you.”

“Discourage!” It was magnificent. Two or three weeks of toast and jelly and oranges and many soft words, and not a few hugs! That night he was dreaming of boxes of oranges he was emptying, and of glasses of jelly big as hogsheads, out of which he was taking jelly by the shovelful! The next morning he felt—though unwilling to confess it—much better. At noon keen old Dr. Pillipot happened to come along, and Aunt Stanshy referred Charlie’s case to him. Old Dr. Pillipot bent his sharp, gray eyes down toward Charlie and made up a horrid face as he growled, “Let me see your tongue, young man. Hem! Looks quite well. Let me feel your pulse. So! Quite good. The weather has changed, and as it is mild and sunny, he might walk down to school this—afternoon.

“O dear!” groaned Charlie, when the doctor had left. “I wish I had scared his horse off when I saw him coming down the lane. You and I, aunty, did have such a nice time!”

O, the trials of this life!

Charlie, though, had a dose of comfort from Aunt Stanshy. She told him he need not go to school until the next day, and when the morning came, she said:

“I believe the Neponset took a cargo on board in the night.”

There in the shadow of the mast-head was a column of doughnuts!

“You may take them all to school with you, Charlie.”

Now he was glad that he was not sick. He disposed of six doughnuts that forenoon, and as these, if tied together, would have made good chain-shot for the monitor, and yet did not affect him unfavorably, it was proof that Charlie was restored to health.

Chapter VII.

The Nailed Door and Window.

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Charlie made a discovery in the barn. In that side toward the river there was a door on the first floor, and there was also a window in the chamber above. Not only was the door closed, and closed also was the wooden shutter of the window, but over each iron hook dropped in its staple and securing the door and window were two nails stoutly driven. All this Charlie had noticed before. He now traced these half-obliterated words in chalk on the door: “This is not to be opened.” He was standing before this prohibition, wondering who put it there, and for what purpose, thinking how nice it would be to have the door open that the club might have a chance to get down that way into the dock. Then he thought how pleasant it would be, also, to have the window open that the club might have a lookout upon the river and off toward the sea, on whose blue rim, a mile away, could be seen the white tower of the light-house, where Simes Badger and his assistant served their country alternate days. Suddenly, Charlie heard a thick, hoarse voice behind him: “Your Aunt Stanshy in, sonny?”

Charlie turned, somewhat startled, and there was Simes Badger himself.

“She has gone out, I guess, sir.”

“What are you looking at that door for? I don’t believe your Aunt Stanshy wants you to open it.”

“O, I was not going to open it.”

If, after the half-effaced chalk-marks, Charlie had seen a written threat, “On pain of death,” he could not have been more determined to let that window alone.

“Do you know, Mr. Badger, who shut and nailed that window?”

“Aunt Stanshy herself. I saw her with my own eyes.”

“You did?”

“Yes. You see—there, I don’t know but I’m telling a secret—but then you won’t say any thing.”

Having made this prudent remark, and not waiting for any promise from Charlie, Simes, who dearly loved to tell a thing, and especially any thing that might astonish a hearer, began his story.

“You see, Tim Tyler is your Aunt Stanshy’s second cousin.”

“Tim’s father?” said Charlie, in astonishment.

“You mean young Tim Tyler’s father? Ginerally old Tim is young Tim’s father, sartin as the sea is father of our river. But this old Tim is young Tim’s uncle. Then you didn’t know it? Well, you are young, and I spose nobody told you. Well, Stanshy and old Tim were brought up side by side in this neighborhood and were good as chickens to one another. Some folks say they’d been better friends still, if their parents hadn’t set their faces agin it, and so they were never married to one another. They were never married at all. Did you ever see old Tim?”

“I don’t know as ever I saw old Tim, but then I’ve seen that boy, and he is rough,” said Charlie, recalling the afternoon of the Fourth.

“Tim Tyler don’t live in this part of the town, and it’s no wonder you never saw him. He hardly ever comes down this way now, though he often did once. Well, the wust lookin’ old drunkard you ever see about town, spot him for Tim.”

“Then I guess I have seen him,” remarked Charlie, recalling the drunkard he had watched the afternoon of his severe sickness, and remembering, too, Aunt Stanshy’s singular conduct.

“Tim looks poorly enough now, but it wasn’t so once. Straight and smart, and bright as the blades of a new jack-knife, was Tim. His face was blushin’ like a posy, and his beard was long and handsome, like Moses the prophet’s. He was nice as a pictur till rum got the better of him, and then he changed, I tell ye. For many years he had the privilege of fishin’ from this barn. From the stairs on the ’tother side of that door, he would get down into his fishin’ boat in the dock. He would bring his fish in here, split ’em and prepare ’em for market. Sometimes Stanshy kept a horse and cow below, and then Tim would hist his fare into the upper window and clean his fish there. But one day Aunt Stanshy cleaned him out, and when Stanshy starts on a cleanin’ tour, she makes thorough work of it, and puts things through promptly. And she did clean out old Tim! But I must go back and hitch the horse into the cart, and say what you know as well as I, that your Aunt Stanshy is a great teetotaler, a leetle too much I think.” [Simes liked his nip.] “But seein’ how her minister’s in favor of it, she is wuss than ever. Now to go on. Your father, boy, let me say, had a hand in this trouble, though not meaningly, and it was this way. Tour father came to live with your Aunt Stanshy, and one day Tim took him out a-fishin’, and not only tipped a jug to his own lips, but sot it to your father’s also. When they came back home, it was plain they had been up to suthin’ besides fishin’. Well, Tim might as well have touched a lion’s whip—what do you call it?”

“Whelp. I was reading about lions to-day.”

“Yes, touched a lion’s whelp as touched your father; for didn’t Aunt Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin’ fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn’t she walk into Tim! I never see an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin’ a poor, motherless boy, as she called your father. ‘Don’t!’ your father would go, tryin’ to pacify her; ‘don’t!’ It had no more effect than tryin’ to fan out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim had been on good terms with one another and understood one another so well, I think for that reason she was all the hotter. You know when brothers do quarrel, they go it wuss than other folks. Well, Tim at fust would say nothing but he was orful mad. He was that kind of mad that you see in the sky when a thunder-storm is brewin’, and yet no rain has fallen; only the flash is there, and the thunder is there a-rumblin’, and the lightnin’ is there a sawin’ up and down, but nary a drop of rain! At last Tim spoke, and he declared it was the last he’d ever have to do with her, and afore he’d ask a favor of her, he took a horrid oath, he’d see hisself a-drownin’ in that dock fust. I hated to hear him swear that way, for, sez I, ‘Young man, you may get there yet, and you may be glad to have Stanshy’s help.’ Then he took a barrel of fish he was fillin’, and he was so mad he rolled the whole mess into the water, sayin’ he would have nothin’ to do with any thing that had touched Aunt Stanshy’s barn. I asked him why he didn’t then throw himself over! That touched him up, and he grabbed his knives and pitched them into the dock. It was a queer sight to see them fish in that barrel floatin’ away. But then the rum was in him and maddened him. When he had left, it was Aunt Stanshy’s turn to do suthin’. I heard it all, for I was in the yard doin’ a few chores for Stanshy. Fust, there was a slam in the barn chamber. I jest slipped up them stairs and peeked over the edge of the floor. Stanshy had pulled the shutter in with a vengeance. Then she hooked it and drove the nails over the hook as tight as bricks. O she is a woman of ’mazin’ vigor, Stanshy is, when she gets agoin’. She came down stairs and she fastened up this door, and then I seed her fumblin’ in her pocket, and, pullin’ out a piece of chalk, she began to write. When Stanshy had finished, of course, I was at my chores agin very busily engaged. Well, since that day, there has been silence between Stanshy and Tim like that round the old tombstones in the church-yard. I hope some day it will be different.”

With this benevolent wish, Simes closed.

“A bad scrape,” remarked Charlie.

“Yes, people ought not to drink so much,” said the abstemious and ascetic Simes. “They ought to stop this side of a drop too much.”

“They ought to stop this side of any drop at all,” stoutly affirmed the young member of Mr. Walton’s temperance society.

“Pre—pre—haps so,” replied Simes.

Chapter VIII.

The Entertainment.

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Aunt Stanshy, as she looked down upon the sitting-room table, saw Charlie’s curly head bending over pen, ink, and card-board. He had cut the card-board into strips three inches long and two inches wide.

“What have you there?”

Charlie was too much occupied to notice this remark.

“What are you doing?”

“Making tickets.”

“Tickets?”

“Yes, will you buy one?”

“I want to see first what I am going to buy.”

“You may.”

Aunt Stanshy then read these lines on a slip of card-board:

Ticket to the Up-the-Ladder Boys'
ENTERTAINMENT.
Admission, 2 nails. Seat, 10 nails.
Elders' admission, 1 cent. Seat, 2 cents.

“O, that is it I Could I go in for nails, or a cent?”

“For a cent.”

“Then I’m an ‘elder.’”

“Yes, aunty.”

“Well, I’ll engage a seat.”

“Goody! That will be two cents. We did think of breaking up the club, but this will cheer them up. Wouldn’t it be too bad to give up? Our new silk badges that our teacher promised, we have this week.”

“The shields?”

“Yes, spick and span new.”

“I hope my two cents will encourage them to be good knights.”

“O it will. You will be on hand this afternoon, after school?”

“Certainly.”

After school, Aunt Stanshy was on hand promptly, and she judged by the noises issuing from the barn that all the others were on hand also. She climbed the, stairs and was about stepping into the chamber, when Pip, the assistant sentinel, came forward. He looked very formidable. A scarlet cap was on his head, a white belt tied round his body, and red flannel epaulets decorated his shoulders. He bore a terrible broom, and Aunt Stanshy recalled the fact that it had served as mast for the Neponset.

“Who goeth there?” cried the valorous Pip.

“Aunt Stanshy,” said a feeble voice.

“Advanth and give the counterthign?”

“I can’t.”

Pip leveled his broom at once. Poor Stanshy, how she wished she had made her will.

“Bang!” he shouted.

Could she survive this?

“Thay pertatoeth!” he whispered.

“Pertatoes,” she fortunately shrieked.

“All right,” said Pip, and she was spared a second shot.

“I’m thankful to get through safe, and now I have not to pay, after all that risk?”

“Certainly, madam,” politely replied Charlie, the treasurer, who now met her. “I’ll take your ticket and punch it.”

Having punched her ticket, he retired. Aunt Stanshy looked about the chamber. She noticed that an old thin sheet served for curtain, as before, and another was strung across a corner and separated it from the rest of the chamber. This second curtain not being long enough to reach the desired distance, was pieced out by a strip of wire netting in one corner. Looking over this corner curtain, Aunt Stanshy saw eight pieces of carpeting on the floor, each member of the club having furnished a piece. Inside this sanctuary were a barrel and a saw-horse.

“What is this for?” asked Aunt Stanshy.

“O for meetings,” said Charlie. “Only the four principals can go in there.”

“Who are they?”

“The president, the governor, the first treasury, and the keeper of the great seal. We stand on the barrel and saw-horse, and make laws to the other members of the club, who stand outside.”

Aunt Stanshy now turned to inspect the other parts of the chamber.

“This is our whipping-post,” said Charlie, calling attention to a post against which leaned the ladder that sloped up to the cupola.

“Have you whipped any one?”

“Yes; Pip deserted once.”

Aunt Stanshy read three notices nailed to the post: “First, no cross words; no swearing and vulgar words; nobody but the treasurer to climb this ladder to go up into the cupola, unless the club say so.”

This was in Charlie’s handwriting.

“Why not go?” asked Aunt Stanshy.

“O we keep our funds up there in a dipper.”

“It looks unsafe to me, for somebody climbing up there might reach into the cup and steal the money.”

“O no, I guess not.”

Sid Waters now stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “two more individuals having arrived”—these were nail patrons—“we will begin our entertainment. First is the dialogue called ‘The Spy.’”

The curtain rose and there stood the inheritor of the warlike name of Jugurtha. He was rather sober and melancholy, and was dressed in a semi-military style that betrayed not in the least the fact to what flag he might possibly be attached. Sid was crouching down, hiding behind a barrel.

“What am I?” Juggie now asked in low tones, “American or British?”

“Of course,” Sid was heard to say, “you are an American, or ought to be. Hush up!”

Juggie now strode over the floor, an exiled broom-handle resting on his shoulder. Suddenly a step was heard. From the rear of a box crept out the governor. He wore a farmer’s dress, and was half smothered under his father’s tall hat.

“Advance!” shouted Juggie, “and gib de count—count—”

“Countersign!” whispered the prompter behind the barrel.

“Count-de-sign!” shouted Juggie, pompously, at the same time presenting the broom-handle threateningly.

“George Washington!” answered the farmer.

“All right. Go ’long dar!”

“No, no!” whispered Sid. “Let me see your papers, friend!”

“Let me see your papers, friend!”

The farmer reads his pass.

“Is dat all?”

“All.”

“Knock off his hat,” whispered Sid.

“What’s de matter wid your hat?” and as Juggie shouted this, he fetched the governor’s hat a merciless rap, one that would have been serious had not the governors head luckily been in the first story of the hat. As the hat dropped, Juggie seized a paper that fell out, and exclaimed, “A spy, a spy! A note to de British commander!”

“Seize him! That is the next thing,” suggested Sid, in smothered tones. But the British spy was too much for Juggie, and the defender of the continental name was obliged to resort to severe measures. Presenting the broom-handle, he shouted, “Aim! Fire! Bang!” but the spy was not considerate enough to fall.

“Drop! drop, why don’t you?” whispered Juggie. “You’ve been shot.”

The spy, alias the governor, showed his usual firmness, and continued to stand.

“Drop!” besought Sid, in a suppressed voice. “Shoot him again, Juggie!”

But the spy did not care to be riddled again and he prudently fell.

“Drag him out, Juggie!” was the prompting of an unknown voice. Juggie seized one of the spy’s fat legs, but pulled in vain. It was an impossible feet. Sid and Charlie now appeared as continentals, supposed to be armed with guns, and were helping Juggie, when the cry was raised, “The British army is coming!” At the head of the stairs appeared Wort Wentworth, his head decorated with a red paper helmet, and carrying on his body various insignia of war. He now made a fierce charge across the floor.

“Into the fort!” shouted Sid, rushing toward the closet, and, as usual, striving after the first chance to retreat. “Into the fort, my men!”

After him scrambled Charlie and Juggie, the dead “spy” manifesting an unusual energy and scrambling after them, forgetting that his friends were in his rear and not in the closet. The next moment all heard an ominous descent from the second to the first story.

“Massy!” shouted Aunt Stanshy. “Somebody has gone down that fodder-box agin!”

She rushed down stairs, followed by the “British army,” and all the members of the Up-the Ladder Club that could move one leg before the other.

“I know those legs! I guess they will stand it,” said Aunt Stanshy, as she reached the lower floor and caught a glimpse of the fodder-box. It was the British spy, whose stout pedestals were sticking out, and he only needed to be once more seized and dragged forward by Juggie and the other “continentals” to give proof of his vigorous, embalmed condition.

“Sakes, boy!” said Aunt Stanshy. “I thought you were shot, but you manifest an immense amount of vitality for a dead man.”

“I came down rather sudden,” said the governor.

“Yes, and it’s the last time,” exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, “that thing is going to happen. I will go up myself and fix that floor, and do it thoroughly.”

In a few moments her hammer was heard vigorously pounding in the closet and securing the club against future harm.

“We didn’t do all we intended,” said Charlie. “We were going to have a reconciliation, aunty.”

“Between whom?”

“The British and Americans. We were going to have the President of the United States and Queen Victoria walk arm in arm up and down the floor, and never have war any more.”

In the confusion attendant upon the fall of the “spy,” the programme was not carried out as planned, and the shadows of those two eminent rulers never darkened the floor of the barn chamber.

“May war never happen, just the same!” said Aunt Stanshy.

Amen! so say we all of us.

Chapter IX.