Chapter 15

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_ CHAPTER XV

The next mornin' when I got down to breakfast, everybody had et and grandpa had gone down the road where the tenant was buildin' a fence. So I took my kite and went way into the middle of the pasture and sent her up. Then I lay on the grass and watched her sail and drift and looked over at the Mason County Hills, that seemed so mysterious and quiet and never ending. By and by I thought I heard somebody callin' me--and there was. It was grandma. So I hollered back and drew in my kite, and went to the house. And there was my pa. He looked so powerful, and his voice was so deep, and he was so full of fun. You'd never thought he was the same man who was beside hisself over Little Billie. And he was awful glad to see me, and took me on his knee and pulled out a knife he had brought me for a present. Of course grandpa wouldn't say anything about that sign in front of my pa--it warn't the place and didn't fit in. But, anyway, grandpa seemed himself again. So I sat down and listened to 'em talk.

Before they had got very far my grandpa said he'd seen slavery abolished and the time warn't far off when hard drink would be done away with. I was eyein' my pa close, for I knew he drank a beer now and then, and I wanted to see what he'd say. But he didn't say nothin'. He just looked calm, and as grandpa went right on talkin', it would have been interruptin' if my pa did say anything. So he got over that place in the conversation without any trouble. Later, just before dinner, I saw grandma give pa a drink of blackberry wine and take a little herself. She came from a different part of Kentucky from what grandpa did. And yet they lived happy. It was because she was so smart and like a piece of oiled leather that bends and don't crack.

Well, as I said, I sat listenin' to my pa and grandpa talk--awful interesting too. Pa was tellin' about "Pinafore"; but grandpa kind o' smiled in a forced way, because he didn't believe in shows. But pretty soon it came out that Joe Rainey had been killed the night before, and Temple Scott had killed him, which boarded at their house. And so I knew there was another case. And I said to myself, it's lucky I was here, for if I'd been in town, most likely Mitch and me would have been around sommers and been witnesses, and got into another tangle, to keep us from goin' to see Tom Sawyer.

It was this a way, as pa told it. Joe Rainey was drinkin' and he and Temple Scott was always the best of friends, but when he was drinkin' he always quarreled with Scott and threatened him. Then my pa says: "His threats came to nothin'. He wouldn't harm a child. He's threatened me a hundred times. I never paid any attention to him. Every one knows he was harmless."

They were practicin' "Pinafore" at Joe Rainey's house--my pa, my ma, and just as my pa was singin':

The merry, merry maiden, the merry, merry maiden,
The merry, merry maiden and the tar,

all of a sudden they heard a shot, and then another shot, and somebody opened the door, and there was Joe Rainey lyin' on the porch, almost dead--unconscious, and bleedin'. And Temple Scott had stood his ground and said that Rainey had threatened to kill him, and had drawn his pistol first, and that he shot him in self-defense. My grandpa interrupted to talk about the sin of drink and what it makes people do. Then pa went on to say that they searched Joe Rainey's pocket and couldn't find his pistol; that later they searched the house and his office and couldn't find his pistol, and the wonder was where it was. And pa said he didn't believe he had a pistol, at least with him at the time. But Mrs. Rainey said that her husband had come into the house earlier in the evening and got the pistol. But pa said that Mrs. Rainey was too sweet on Temple, and he didn't believe her, and he intended to prosecute Temple Scott as hard as he could and hang him. Then he said that this broke up the practicin' of "Pinafore," that Mrs. Rainey was goin' to play Josephine, but now that her husband was killed, she couldn't. That they all went home, and that the town was full of talk over it, and where the pistol was if Joe Rainey ever had one.

Well, Joe Rainey had died about one o'clock that mornin', beggin' every one not to let him fall asleep for fear he wouldn't wake up no more. They had give him ether or somethin' and so he kept gettin' drowsier and drowsier, and finally died in his sleep.

So my pa and grandpa talked till noon--most wonderful talk; and then we had dinner and grandma told more funny stories than you ever heard, and had the best time in the world. And after dinner, grandpa hitched up the horses and drove pa to Atterberry to catch the train for Havaner. But pa wouldn't take me. He says, "No, sir, you stay here and get well, and mind your grandma and help her. If you don't, I'll whale you. And I'll come for you a week from Saturday, maybe."

That settled that, I was afraid. "Well, then," I said, "will you tell Mitch that I'll be back a week from Saturday?" He said he would, and I made up my mind to it.

What do you suppose, when we got to Atterberry, there was Willie Wallace in charge of a freight train which had side-tracked for the passenger goin' to Havaner. You can't imagine how funny it seemed to see him talkin' to the conductor and everything; and how funny it seemed that I knowed him so well, since I had seen him plow and drive a team and all that on the farm.

"How do you like it?" says I to Willie.

"No more farm for me," says Willie.

"Ain't you afeard? Ain't it dangerous?"

"Yes, it's dangerous," says he. "But look at the pay. And then look at the fun. One night it's Springfield, the next night Peoria--always somethin' new."

Just then the passenger train whistled, and Willie got up and began to motion to the engineer on his train. I went back to the platform and said good-by to pa. And then we drove back to the farm. _

Read next: Chapter 16

Read previous: Chapter 14

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