第2章 CHAPTER I THE COWARD(2)

The conductor graduated the tempo so as to include the rhythmic beat of the hammer with the other instruments in his band. The blacksmith looked, smiled and let his hammer fall in consonance with the beat of the boy's hand, and for some moments there was glorious harmony between anvil and mouth organ and the band invisible. At the store door across the street the band paused long enough simply to give and receive an answering salute from the storekeeper, who smiled upon his boy as he marched past. At the crossroads the band paused, marking time. There was evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction. The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty, uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved along, swung into the path under the trees and suddenly came to a halt. With a magnificent flourish the band concluded its triumphant hymn and with the conductor and brigadier the whole brigade stood rigidly at attention. The cause of this sudden halt was to be seen at the foot of a maple tree in the person of a fat lump of good natured boy flesh supine upon the ground.

"Hello, Joe; coming to school?"

"Ugh," grunted Joe, from the repose of limitless calm.

"Come on, then, quick, march." Once more the band struck up its hymn.

"Hol' on, Larry, it's plenty tam again," said Joe. The band came to a stop. "I don' lak dat school me," he continued, still immersed in calm.

Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he "no lak dat school." Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian father, Joe Gagneau, "Ol' Joe," was a survival of a bygone age, the glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring deed, of wild adventure.

"An' it ees half-hour too queek," persisted Joe. "Come on hup to de dam." A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for the grist mill standing near. At the farther end of the pond a cedar bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce, balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar swamp and the woods beyond.

Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a flat-bottomed boat.

"There's big Ben and Mop," cried Larry eagerly. "Hello, Ben," he called across the pond. "Goin' to school?""Yap," cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its toilsome way past the boys.

"Hello, Ben," cried Larry. "Take us in too.""All right," said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. "Let me take an oar, Ben," said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not any too wide.

"Here, where you goin'," cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely pointed toward the cedars. "You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben." But Ben sat rigid with his eyes intent upon the cedars.

"What's the matter, Ben?" said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze.

"By gum, he's in, boys," said Ben in a low voice. "I thought he had his nest in one of them stubs.""What is it--in what stub?" inquired Larry, his voice shrill with excitement.

"That big middle stub, there," said Ben. "It's a woodpecker. Say, let's pull down and see it." Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made its way toward the big stub.

They explored the stub, finding in it a hole and in the hole a nest, the mother and father woodpeckers meanwhile flying in wild agitation from stub to stub and protesting with shrill cries against the intruders. Then they each must climb up and feel the eggs lying soft and snug in their comfy cavity. After that they all must discuss the probable time of hatching, the likelihood of there being other nests in other stubs which they proceeded to visit. So the eager moments gaily passed into minutes all unheeded, till inevitable recollection dragged them back from the world of adventure and romance to that of stern duty and dull toil.

"Say, boys, we'll be late," cried Larry, in sudden panic, seizing his oar. "Come on, Ben, let's go.""I guess it's pretty late now," replied Ben, slowly taking up his oar.

"Dat bell, I hear him long tam," said Joe placidly. "Oh, Joe!"cried Larry in distress. "Why didn't you tell us?"Joe shrugged his shoulders. He was his own master and superbly indifferent to the flight of time. With him attendance at school was a thing of more or less incidental obligation.

"We'll catch it all right," said Mop with dark foreboding. "He was awful mad last time and said he'd lick any one who came late again and keep him in for noon too."The prospect was sufficiently gloomy.

"Aw, let's hurry up anyway," cried Larry, who during his school career had achieved a perfect record for prompt and punctual attendance.