CHAPTER TWELVE.
A PLEASANT LESSON.
One minute Helen Grayson was delighted at the freshness of nature, andthe genuine delight and enthusiasm displayed by her companion, the nextthere came quite a cloud over everything, for it seemed to her that herewas a bright young spirit corroded and spoiled by the surroundings towhich it had been accustomed.
"What's that? What flower's this? Oh, look at that butterfly! Here,Miss Grayson, see here--a long thin fly with his body all blue; and suchlovely wings. There's another with purple edges to it. Oh, howlovely!"
Helen's eyes brightened, and she began to enjoy her walk, and forget thestone-throwing, when Dexter damped her enjoyment.
"Oh, here's a lark!" he cried, plunging down into a ditch, andreappearing after a hunt in the long wet grass with a large greenishfrog.
"What have you found, Dexter!"
"A jolly old frog. Look here; I'll show you how the boys do up there atthe House."
"I think you had better not," said Helen, wincing.
"But it's such a game. You get a flat piece of wood, about so long, andyou lay it across a stone. Then you set the frog on one end, andperhaps he hops off. If he does, you catch him again, and put him onthe end of the wood over and over again till he sits still, and he doeswhen he is tired. Then you have a stick ready, as if you were going toplay at cat, and you hit the end of the stick--"
"Oh!" ejaculated Helen.
"I don't mean the end where the frog is," cried Dexter quickly, as hesaw Helen's look of disgust; "I mean the other end; and then the frogflies up in the air ever so high, and kicks out his legs as if he wasswimming, and--"
Dexter began his description in a bright, animated way, full ofgesticulation; but as he went on the expression in his companion's faceseemed to chill him. He did not understand what it meant, only he feltthat he was doing or saying something which was distasteful; and hegradually trailed off, and stood staring with his narrative unfinished,and the frog in his hand.
"Could you do that now, Dexter!" said Helen suddenly.
"Do it?" he faltered.
"Yes; with the frog."
"I haven't got a bit of flat wood, and I have no stick, and if I had--I--you--I--"
He stopped short, with his head on one side, and his brows puckered up,gazing into Helen's eyes. Then he looked down, at the frog, and back atHelen.
"You don't mean it?" he said sharply. "You don't want me to? I know:you mean it would hurt the frog."
"Would it hurt you, Dexter, if somebody put you on one end of a plank,and then struck the other end!"
The boy took off his cap and scratched his head with his little finger,the others being closed round the frog, which was turned upside down.
"The boys always used to do it up at the House," he said apologetically.
"Why!" said Helen gravely.
"Because it was such fun; but they always made them hop well first.They'd begin by taking great long jumps, and then, as the boys huntedthem, the jumps would get shorter and shorter, and they'd be so tiredthat it was easy to make them sit still on the piece of wood."
"And when they had struck the wood, and driven it into the air, what didthey do to the poor thing then?"
"Sent it up again."
"And then?"
"Oh, they caught it--some of the boys did--caught it like a ball."
"Have you ever done so?"
Dexter shuffled about from foot to foot, and looked at the prospect,then at the frog, and then slowly up at the clear, searching eyeswatching him.
"Yes," he said, with a sigh; "lots of times."
"And was it to save the poor thing from being hurt by the fall on thehard ground!"
Dexter tried hard to tell a lie, but somehow he could not.
"No," he said slowly. "It was to put it back on the stick, so as theother boys could not catch it first."
"What was done then!"
Dexter was silent, and he seemed to be taking a wonderful deal ofinterest in the frog, which was panting hard in his hot hand, with onlyits comical face peeping out between his finger and thumb, the brightgolden irised eyes seeming to stare into his, and the loose skin of itsthroat quivering.
"Well, Dexter, why don't you tell me!"
"Am I to?" said the boy slowly.
"Of course."
There were a few more moments of hesitation, and then the boy said withan effort--
"They used--"
He paused again.
"We used to get lots of stones and shy at 'em till they was dead."
There was a long silence here, during which Helen Grayson watched theplay in the boy's countenance, and told herself that there was astruggle going on between the good and evil in the young nature, andonce more she asked herself how she could hesitate in the task beforeher.
Meanwhile it was very uncomfortable for the frog. The day was hot;Dexter's hand was hotter still; and though there was the deliciouslycool gurgling river close at hand, with plenty of sedge, and the rootsof water grasses, where it might hide and enjoy its brief span of life,it was a prisoner; and if frogs can think and know anything about thechronicles of their race, it was thinking of its approaching fate, andwondering how many of its young tadpoles would survive to be as big asits parent, and whether it was worth while after all.
"Dexter," said Helen suddenly, and her voice sounded so clear andthrilling that the boy started, and looked at her in a shame-facedmanner. "Suppose you saw a boy--say like--like--"
"That chap we saw with the hat and stick? him who sneered at me?"
Helen winced in turn. She had young Edgar Danby in her mind, but wasabout to propose some other young lad for her illustration; but the boyhad divined her thought, and she did not shrink now from the feelingthat above all things she must be frank if she wished her companion tobe.
"Yes; young Danby. Suppose you saw him torturing a frog, a lowlyreptile, but one of God's creatures, in that cruel way, what would yousay, now?"
"I should say he was a beast."
Helen winced again, for the declaration was more emphatic and to thepoint than she had anticipated.
"And what would you do?" he continued.
"I'd punch his head, and take the frog away from him. Please, MissGrayson," he continued earnestly; "I didn't ever think it was like that.We always used to do it--we boys always did, and--and--"
"You did not know then what you know now. Surely, Dexter, you willnever be so cruel again."
"If you don't want me to, I won't," he said quickly.
"Ah, but I want you to be frank and manly for a higher motive than that,Dexter," she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder. "There, I willnot say any more now. What are you going to do!"
"Put him in the river, and let him swim away."
The boy darted to the side of the rippling stream, stooped down, andlowered the hand containing the frog into the water, opened it, and fora moment or two the half-dead reptile sat there motionless. Then therewas a vigorous kick, and it shot off into the clear water, diving rightdown among the water weeds, and disappearing from their view.
"There!" said Dexter, jumping up and looking relieved. "You are notcross with me now!"
"I have not been cross with you," she said; "only a little grieved."
"Couldn't he swim!" cried the boy, who was anxious to turn theconversation. "I can swim like that, and dive too. We learned in ourgreat bath, and--Oh, I say, hark at the bullocks."
Helen listened, and could hear a low, muttering bellow in the nextmeadow, accompanied by the dull sounds of galloping hoofs, which werenear enough to make the earth of the low, marshy bottom through whichthe river ran quiver slightly where they stood.
Just then there was a piercing shriek, as of a woman in peril, anddirectly after a man's voice heard shouting for help.