Читать книгу Cole of Spyglass Mountain - Arthur Preston Hankins - Страница 9

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Joshua Cole’s home was alight when he and the big detective entered the block. The plainclothes man had talked with the boy all the way from the gypo camp, and Joshua had found him a not unkindly person. He himself had a boy and a girl, he said, but they gave him little trouble. He had listened carefully while Joshua told him that he had not appropriated the razor with intent to use it as a weapon of offense or defense during his travels Westward, but the detective could not believe the story of the slug.

“Where d’ye get such confounded weird ideas, kid?” he wanted to know, and repetition of the whys and wherefores only brought forth laughter.

“Well, I don’t blame you for runnin’ off that way,” said the big fellow finally. “You’re a smart kid, if you are a little queer, and your dad’s a no-good son-of-a-gun, from what I’ve heard. But that’s between you an’ me—don’t tell ’im I said it. It’d maybe get me into trouble. But no matter how I feel about it, I gotta hang onto you—that’s what I’m paid for. Say, where’d you learn all that star racket? Gee! I don’t know when I’ve had as much fun as listenin’ to you spoutin’ about the good ship What-d’ye-call-it and all that!”

In silence the two climbed the steps of the Cole home, and the detective pressed the bell button. Presently Zida answered his ring, threw aloft her black hands, and rolled her eyes.

“Lawd bless us, heah he is! Wheah yo’-all been all dis time, honey? Yo’ mothah done go purt’ neah wil’! Come in heah dis minnit! Yo’ pappy drownd yo’, Ah reckon.”

“I wanta see Mr. Cole,” said the detective.

But before Zida could call him, John Cole, his dark face as gloomy as a goblin’s, came into the hall.

“Here he is, Mr. Cole,” said the officer.

“Yes, so I see,” returned Cole with seeming cold indifference. “Joshua, sit down there at the foot of the stairs while I talk to this man. Zida, go back to the kitchen.”

Both Zida and Joshua obeyed the ruthless voice, and John Cole entered into low-voiced conversation with the detective. This continued for perhaps a minute, while Joshua, pale and suddenly deathly sick at his stomach, crouched on the first step of the flight of stairs. Then the detective’s voice began rising gradually, and the boy heard:

“I’ll tell you just this much, Mr. Cole: I don’t wanta hear o’ your duckin’ that boy! I know all about it. Huntin’ ’im up led me to several niggers that used to work for you when you lived on Park Avenue, and all of ’em told the same story. You ain’t got any right to treat a kid like that, and if I find out you done it I’ll see what I c’n do down at headquarters. That’s all I gotta say, but I mean it. I got kids o’ my own, and I guess they ain’t any better’n other ord’nary kids. But I never found it necessary to hold their heads in a bathtub full o’ water until they fainted.”

“I guess that will be about enough from you, officer,” was John Cole’s dismissal of the man.

“Well, that’s all right. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble. But I’m gonta tell the cop on this beat to keep his ears open to-night, that’s all. I’ll make it hot for you if you try that duckin’ racket to-night. That’s all—good night.”

And the door closed after him.

Slowly John Cole turned to his son. For over half a minute he stood eyeing him with cold savagery, then he said crisply:

“Go up to your room, Joshua.”

“I—can’t I see Mother first?” pleaded the boy.

“Your mother has gone to bed, ill from worrying over you. Go to your room, as I told you.”

Joshua got up and slowly climbed the stairs.

Lester and he had separate rooms, for the house was large. Joshua wanted to talk with his brother, with some one—any one—but he dared not disobey his father. In his room he undressed slowly and, extinguishing the light, climbed into bed. Soon he heard metallic sounds as his door was locked, then dull footsteps as his father went away. There he lay looking up into the blackness, fearful that any moment he would hear the water running in the bathroom and his father’s step at the door.

But the house remained silent, and the silence became cruelly oppressive. When he could stand the suspense no longer, he cautiously climbed out of bed, taking care that no creak came from the springs, and went to a window. Holding the shade aside, he found himself looking at blackness, striped at intervals with the soft radiance of a starry, moonlit night. The soft streaks of light, he found, came in through cracks between heavy boards that had been nailed across the window.

For hours after this he tossed about, and then fell suddenly asleep. He was awakened by a knocking at his door, and when he answered Zida came in with his breakfast on a tray.

He questioned the old negress, for she was his friend, but she had nothing to report. She had no knowledge of what his father intended to do. He ate but little, and in the midst of his meal his mother entered the room.

She took him in her arms, knelt beside his chair, and sobbed brokenly. Then she arose, caressed his black hair, and murmured, “My poor boy! My poor boy!” That was all she said to him, for presently she tore herself away, and, crying softly, went through the door and closed it after her.

Then came Lester, and in low voices the brothers talked for several minutes. Lester himself was to be confined to his room during the entire period of his suspension from school, but he had neither been whipped nor ducked. A telegram to their father had brought him home when the fickle Lester had told that Joshua was going West. Lester did not know what was to be Joshua’s punishment; his father had told him to go in and see his brother for a minute or so, and then to return to his room. And in the midst of their eager conversation John Cole’s voice was heard ordering Lester back to his prison, and with a gulp he hurried to obey. The key grated in the lock again after Lester had left the room.

An hour of terrible suspense followed, and then Joshua heard the key once more. The door opened and his father, cold and merciless, stood in the doorway.

“Get your coat and cap,” he ordered. “We’re going for a walk.”

Joshua joined his father in the upper hall. He followed him silently down the stairs and through the front door.

“Step up beside me here,” came the command, as they passed through the front gate and started along the sidewalk.

Nothing was said until they reached the business district—a short walk from home. Here John Cole turned into a retail hardware store, and Joshua followed.

“Sit down here,” said his father, indicating a chair. “I want to have a talk with the owner of this store.”

Now Joshua thought he understood what was to be done with him. He was to be taken from school, for good, perhaps, because he was a failure, and placed in a hardware store to learn his father’s business. Well, though he had no taste for business, that was better than being half drowned—better than returning to Old Madmallet next season, a year behind in his studies.

He sat there obediently, gray-blue eyes traveling over the store, while his father talked with a fat man in shirt-sleeves. Frequently he heard his father’s voice lifted in laughter, and once he saw him slap the hardware man good-naturedly on the back. What a different man he was, thought Joshua, when dealing with people not connected with his family. The two parted presently with a hearty handclasp, and Joshua followed his father into the street again.

Side by side they continued their journey, and Joshua, believing that there was no opening for him in the hardware store they had just left, wondered where they were going now. Five blocks farther on they entered a second hardware store, where a similar performance took place.

But again Joshua was not called to meet the proprietor, as he had fully expected he would be, and once more the uncommunicative pair resumed their sauntering.

There followed one more similar call, which to Joshua seemed as fruitless of results as had been the previous ones, and then again they walked away together. And now, coming suddenly abreast a large brick building, his father said:

“Let’s go in here a minute.”

Side by side they climbed a short flight of wide stone stairs. Ahead of them and above them were great glass doors in an arched doorway. John Cole turned the knob of one of them, and stood back for Joshua to enter first.

Joshua went in, to find himself gazing at a blue-coated policeman, with white chevrons on his arm, seated behind a high, dark wood desk, busily writing in a large, flat book. There was a low railing before the desk, and on Joshua’s side of it three more policemen lounged in office chairs.

John Cole stepped before the high desk, and the man behind it looked at him inquiringly.

“You remember me, Sergeant,” said John Cole.

“Oh, yes—Mr. Cole,” said the officer. “And this is the boy, is it?” And his keen, quizzical eyes coasted over Joshua from head to feet. “Um! Bad actor, is he? Um! ... Well, Mr. Cole, you can go right up to the court room. There’s not much doing this morning.”

The sergeant spoke to one of the lounging policemen, and this man motioned to John Cole and led the way out into the corridor. Joshua followed his father, who lagged behind when outside in the long hall, allowing Joshua to catch up with him.

“Now, listen,” he said in a voice so low that the policeman ahead of them could not hear: “When you stand before the judge I want you to tell him that you are willing to do what I want you to. Do you understand?”

“I—I guess so,” faltered Joshua.

“Because,” said his father, “if you don’t, you know what’s awaiting you at home. Think it over before we reach the court room. Make your choice. And remember this: What I have done to you in the past won’t be worth considering to what I’ll do to you if you are left with me.”

Joshua was bewildered, of course. He hardly realized what it was all about, it had happened so suddenly. But there was no doubt in his mind as to the deep threat in his father’s words, and a cold fear took hold on him as he thought again of the bathtub filled with water, the nightmare of his young life.

The police judge was a short, fat man, very brisk and businesslike, with fair skin, blond hair, and big blue eyes that somehow seemed to gaze in an odd surprise at all that came before them. There was little ceremony to what followed, and there were no preliminaries at all. Almost before he knew it Joshua was facing those surprised blue eyes, and the judge was looking him over as if he were some strange new animal just captured.

“Well, well, well!” he said in an oily tone. “Incorrigible, eh? Won’t study and disobeys the rules. And he stole his father’s razor when he ran away. Incorrigible! Young man, don’t you know that you are incorrigible?”

“Ye-yes, sir,” answered Joshua. He did not know what incorrigible meant, but he knew the blackness that came with being all but drowned in a bathtub filled with water.

“Tk-tk-tk!” clucked the judge. “And you can do nothing with him at all, Mr. Cole?”

“I’m away from home most of the time, as I told you,” said John Cole. “And his mother is not well, and can’t handle him at all. Why, didn’t he threaten to strike his teacher with a heavy iron poker? And he was so—er—desperately in earnest that Mr. Madmallet, a grown man and used to handling boys, was actually afraid to punish this boy’s brother.”

“Tk-tk-tk! Well, they’ll take a good deal of that out of him at the House of Refuge, Mr. Cole. My boy”—to Joshua—“have you any reason to state why you should not be committed to an institution for the disciplining of incorrigible boys like you?”

But before Joshua could reply he heard a low voice beside him saying:

“Tell ’im yes, kid! Tell ’im you’ll be good and that you don’t wanta go.”

Joshua’s frightened eyes fell on the big plainclothes detective who had found him at the gypo camp of Bloodmop Mundy.

“Oh, here you are, Dickinson,” said the judge. “And they tell me you found this razor on young Joshua Cole here. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir, he had it in his inside coat pocket,” replied the detective. “But I think he just took it in fun. He told me all about it—somethin’ about makin’ one o’ these slugs walk on it or somethin’ like that. Just kid play, I’m thinkin’. If you’ll permit a suggestion, Your Honor, I’d advise lookin’ into this matter pretty careful before committin’ this boy to the House of Refuge.”

“I have the sworn testimony of the boy’s father that he cannot be disciplined,” said the judge. “Mr. Cole is away a great part of the time, traveling as a salesman for a wholesale hardware firm. The mother is not well, and finds it impossible to make the boy behave. He is a thief, behind in his studies—though apparently bright enough—and a terror to the neighborhood. Aren’t all these things true, Joshua?”

Joshua looked at the commanding eyes of his father and said, “Yes, sir.”

“And don’t you think it would be a good thing for you to be committed to the House of Refuge until you are twenty-one?”

Seven years! “Yes, sir,” replied the boy, as if hypnotized by the warning in his father’s steadfast gaze.

“Then I will commit you,” said the judge. “Mr. Cole, you will swear to a warrant.”

Some time later, as John Cole, the commitment papers in his pocket, and Joshua entered the broad corridor they found Dickinson, the big detective, pacing up and down.

“Well,” he remarked, “all fixed, eh?”

Cole nodded briefly.

“Sure you c’n get him out to the House of Refuge by yourself, are you?”

John Cole turned on the man, but Dickinson’s face was a blank.

“Are you trying to make fun of me?” asked Cole. “If you are, I’ll make trouble for you.”

“Who, me? Why, no, Mr. Cole. I just asked you if you needed any help in takin’ the boy out there. I could get a couple o’ policemen to go with you, you know, and then you’d be pretty safe. But o’ course if you c’n handle ’im, all well an’ good.”

“You’re a little impertinent, aren’t you?” asked Cole.

“Oh, no—not at all. But it’s my duty to try and keep the peace at all times. Just offerin’ my help.”

“Well, it’s not needed,” snapped John Cole, well knowing that he was being ridiculed, but helpless to make a complaint that Dickinson was doing more than offering his services in good faith.

“Well, so-long, kid,” said the detective, as John Cole started on again. “Be good out there, and they’ll parole you in about a year.”

“You mind your own business,” raged Cole.

But Dickinson kept on: “Just obey the rules, kid, no matter what happens. And always tell the truth. It’s the only way to make the best of a bad bargain. Don’t fight back. Stand for anythin’ they hand you, and you’ll win out in the end. So-long!”

And then John Cole and Joshua reached the entrance and passed out through the great glass doors.