CHAPTER XVII
"TALL OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW"
If you wish an illustration of how great events often flow from triflingcauses read what follows. It is one of the many events which prove that"tall oaks from little acorns grow."
You have not forgotten Jim, the gawky, overgrown boy who had a verbalcontract with Mrs. Friestone which bound him to go to the store eachweekday morning and set out on the front porch the score or more samplesof the goods that were on sale within. The same agreement required him tocome around at dusk each evening and carry them inside, his weekly wagefor such duty being twenty-five cents. When, therefore, Mike Murphyhanded him a silver quarter and assumed the job for that single night,Jim received a whole week's pay for turning it over to the Irish lad. Itis not so strange that the youngster was confused at first over his bitof luck, which he did not fully understand until he reached home and hadeaten his supper.
Now by one of those curious coincidences which occur oftener in this lifethan most people think, that day was the anniversary of Jim's birth.Being a good boy, as such things go, his father presented him with a finepocketknife, than which nothing could have pleased his son better. It wasreally an excellent article, having four blades, one of which was a file,two of small size, and one quite large, the three being almost askeen-edged as a razor. Straightway the happy lad selected his right handtrousers pocket as the home of the knife when not in use. Themiscellaneous articles, such as a jewsharp, a piece of twine, a key,three coppers, a piece of resin, several marbles, two ten-penny nails, astub of a lead pencil and a few other things were shifted to the leftside repository, where also he deposited the shining silver coin, aftershowing it to his parents and telling them how he fell heir to it.
The chat of the family shut out reference to the knife for most of theevening. Both parents were inclined to be gossipy, and they indulged inmany guesses as to the identity of the donor and what caused him to be soliberal. The mother's first thought was that the red-haired,freckle-faced youth was a newcomer to Beartown, and had secured Jim'sjob, but that fear was removed by Jim's declaration that the strangerdistinctly said he intended to do the work only for that evening.
It was not very late when Jim went to his bedroom on the second floor toretire for the night. When ready to disrobe, he took out the wealth oftreasures in his left pocket, including the bright quarter, and shovedhis hand into the other for the prize that outweighed them all. Then heemitted a gasp of dismay: the pocket was empty!
For a few moments he could not believe the truth. He frantically searchedhis clothing over and over again, but in vain. The explanation was asclear as noonday. In the bottom of his right-hand pocket was a gapingrent, through which he pushed two fingers and disgustedly spread themapart like a fan. He turned the cloth wrong side out and the dreadfulyawn seemed to grin at him.
Weak and faint he sat down on the edge of his trundle bed.
"What made that blamed hole? It wasn't there a little while ago. It musthave wored the hole while I was walking. I wouldn't lose that knife forten million dollars. It _can't_ be lost!"
And then he repeated the search, as almost anyone will do in similarcircumstances. He even looked under the jewsharp and among the marbles onthe stand, where a mosquito could not have hidden itself.
"Oh, what's the use!" he exclaimed, dropping down again despairingly onthe bed. "It's lost! Where did I lose it?"
Pulling himself together, he recalled the experiences of the day, fromthe time he received the present directly after breakfast. He had testedthe implement many times in the course of the forenoon and afternoon, andby and by remembered snapping the big blade shut and slipping it into hispocket as he was going out of the house to the post office to perform hisdaily task. He reasoned well.
"I lost it somewhere atween here and the store. I can't see how itslipped down my trousers leg without me feeling it, but that's what itdone. It's a-laying on the ground atween here and there, onless," headded, with a catch of his breath, "that ugly looking willain seen medrop it inside the store. I wonder if he give me that quarter so as tohurry me out that he might git my knife!"
He shivered at the probability, but rather singularly the dread wasdissipated by a few minutes more of thought.
"If he'd seen it, so would Nora and she'd told me. It's somewhere alongthe street."
Such being his conclusion, the all-important question was what should hedo to retrieve his crushing loss. His first inclination was to tell hisparents and then hurry back over the route to look for the treasure. Butit was night. There was no such thing as a lantern in the house, he couldnot carry an ordinary light in the breeze, and the search would behopeless.
"I'll get up as soon as it is light," he said, "and hunt till I find it."
Trying to gain hope from this decision, he knelt at the side of his bedto say his prayers, which he never omitted. His petition was longer thanusual and I need not tell you what its chief if not its whole burden was.
Despite the depressing weight upon his spirits, Jim fell asleep andremained so for several hours, though his slumber was tortured by dreamsof his knife. Sometimes it was tiny as a pin and then bigger thanhimself, but it always slipped from his grasp when he reached out toseize it.
Suddenly he awoke. It took a minute or two to recall his situation, butsoon the startling truth came back to him. He had lost his knife, and,remembering his resolve before going to sleep, he bounded out of bed,certain that day not only had dawned but that it had been light for sometime. He soon discovered, however, that what he took for the glow of therising sun came from the moon, whose vivid illumination made the mistakenatural.
"I never seen it so bright," he said, stepping to the window and peeringout.
And then as if by inspiration he whispered:
"It's the right time to hunt for my knife."
He did not know what time it was nor did he care to know. There was somuch moongleam in his room that he easily dressed without any artificiallight. Then, too, the night was mild and his covering scanty. Shirt andtrousers were his only garments. He left his straw hat where he had"hung" it on the floor in one corner beside his shoes and stockings. Thechief cause for now going barefoot was that his steps would be lighter,though as a rule he saved his shoes for Sunday and his trips to and fromthe store.
He knew his father was a light sleeper, and if awakened would probablyforbid him to go out before morning. So Jim opened his bedroom door sosoftly that not the slightest noise was caused. He went down the stairsas if he were a real burglar in rubber shoes. He stopped several timeswith a faster beating heart, for although he had never known the steps tosqueak before they now did so with such loudness that he was sure hisfather heard him. But the snoring continued unbroken and Jim reached thedoor, where he stealthily slid back the bolt and reversed the key,without causing any betraying sound.
This side of the house was in shadow, and he stood for a minute or two onthe small, covered porch looking out upon the highway or main street. Nota soul was in sight, nor did he see a twinkle of light from any of thewindows. It cannot be said that Jim felt any fear, nor did he reflectupon the risk caused by leaving the door unlocked behind him. He wasthinking only of that loved knife.
He had walked to and from the store so many times that he knew every steptaken earlier in the evening. It was impossible to go wrong, and he wasquite confident of finding the knife unless the brilliant moonlight haddisclosed it to some late passerby.
Jim always crossed the street at a certain point, the post office beingon the other side, so he trod in his own footsteps, which would have worna path long before but for those of others, including horses and wagons.He walked slowly, scanning every inch of the ground and clay pavement infront of him, but when he drew near the well-remembered building he hadnot caught sight of the prize. He was within a few paces of the steps ofthe porch of the store, when he was suddenly startled by a gruff voice:
"Hello, there! Where you going?"
He turned his head as
a man stepped from under the small elm behind him.Both being on the same level the slouch hat only partially hid the grimface and big mustache. Jim would have been more scared had he not caughtsight an instant before of his knife lying at the foot of the steps ofthe porch. He sprang forward, caught it up and then faced the stranger,who had stepped into the street.
"I'm looking fur my knife that I dropped and I've found it too!" hereplied gleefully, holding up the cool, shiny implement. "Gee! aint Ilucky?"
"Well, you get out of here as quick as you can. Go back home and staythere till morning. Do ye hear me?"
"Yaws; I'm going."
A strange discovery had come to Jim the instant before. As he stooped toseize his property, his eyes were at the same height as the bottom of thedoor leading into the store. It was only for a second or two, but in thatbrief space he saw a faint glimmer through the crevice, which he knew wascaused by a light within. With a shrewdness that no one would haveexpected from him he said nothing of his discovery to the man who hadaccosted him.
"Mind what I told you!" added the stranger, "and don't show your noseoutside your house before morning. Understand?"
"Yaws; I don't want to, 'cause I've got my knife. Hooray!"
"Shut up! Off with you!"
"Yaws;" and Jim broke into a trot which he kept up until he reached hisown porch. In his exuberance of spirits, he was careless and awoke hisfather. He came into the hall and roared out a demand for an explanation,which his son gave in a few hurried words.
"Hooh!" exclaimed his parent; "there's robbers in the post office and Ithink I'll take a hand as soon as I can get hold of my shotgun."
Which may serve to explain how it was that Gerald Buxton became involvedin the incidents that speedily followed.