Caddie Woodlawn (18 page)

“Oh!” said Caddie.

“Oh!” said everybody else in various degrees of consternation and amusement. The titters spread into a roar of laughter.

“Warren Woodlawn,” said Miss Parker grimly, “you will please stop and see me after school.” She rapped on her desk with her ruler, and silence was restored. But what a merry silence—for everyone except Warren, and poor, outraged Miss Parker.

The “whoop” and “hurrah!” with which school always
let out for the term was somewhat spoiled for Tom and Caddie and Hetty. How could one jump and shout with Warren still sitting uncomfortably on his bench waiting for Miss Parker to finish shaking hands with the parents? Besides, the storm which had been saving its fury all the morning was just beginning to break over the schoolhouse. There were gusts of wind and rain and clap after clap of thunder with jagged streaks of lightning in the dark sky. The children scattered for their homes more quickly and silently than usual. Tom, Caddie, and Hetty stayed in the cloakroom waiting for Warren.

“Golly! I wish she'd hurry up,” said Tom. “We're going to get a good ducking before we get home if she doesn't.”

“Let's go in,” said Caddie. Cautiously they pushed the schoolroom door and entered the room which was now deserted except for Warren and Miss Parker.

“Now, Warren,” Miss Parker was saying, “I give you one more opportunity to say your piece correctly. Now go ahead, do.” Warren, his face very red, his hands very much in the way, began to mumble the famous piece. But all that would come out, try as he might, was “Fry, fry a hen.” Ominously Miss Parker reached for her ruler.

“Oh, say, ma'am,” said Tom, coming quickly forward
with his nicest smile, “I guess it's my fault, 'cause I taught him that. You see, it's the first piece he ever spoke and I guess he's pretty scared. I hope you'll forgive him and lay the blame on me.”

Miss Parker laid down her ruler with a sigh of relief. “Well, well,” she said, “it's the last day of school. Run along now, all of you.”

But as they were starting home, all happily reunited, she ran after them to say: “Better come back and wait until the storm's over. You've got a long ways to go.”

“We can make it,” called back Tom cheerfully. “Mother'll worry if we're late. Good-by, Miss Parker.”

“Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!” called the other three.

“Good-by!” called Miss Parker, “and you're nice children, all of you, even if Warren did disgrace me.”

Before they had gone half a mile, the storm broke with all its strength. Lightning and thunder crashed and flashed together in a perfect fury! Stunned by the force of it, the children ran for shelter under the great oak tree that marked the halfway point between home and school. Its branches lashed and creaked, but it was something sturdy to cling to. Caddie and Warren and Hetty clung together under the tree, but Tom urged them on.

“Let's get home,” he shouted, “let's run for it.”

“Oh, please let's wait here,” begged the others.

“No!” cried Tom, “we've got to get home. Come along, every one of you.” When Tom made up his mind, the others followed him. Shielding their faces, they dashed out of shelter and along the road.

Crash! Bang! There was a blinding flash and something hurled them onto the ground. Dazed and crying, they picked themselves up and looked back. The oak tree had been split in two by lightning. Another moment under its shelter and all of them might have been killed.

How they ran that last half mile! No one had ever run it so quickly before. Even Hetty could not outstrip the others to be the first to tell. Breathless and wild-eyed, with wet and muddy clothes, they rushed into the kitchen.

“Mother!”
they shouted all together. “Mother, listen to what happened to us!”

Some days later the members of the Woodlawn family were finishing breakfast. Caddie, Tom, and Warren, at one side of the table, were buzzing and tittering over some project for the day. Now that school was over, their days were full of delight. Today they were talking of going to Chimney Bluffs. Father folded his napkin and pushed back his chair.

“All play and no work,” said Father, purposely misquoting the old adage, “makes Tom, Caddie, and Warren lazy children. Isn't that so?” He looked down the table at them and smiled.

“Oh, no, Father,” said Caddie, “we've been very industrious.”

“The results of their industry,” said Mrs. Woodlawn dryly, “being dirty faces, holes in their stockings, and three-cornered rents in trousers and pettitcoats.”

“Well,” said Father, “suppose I put them to work? I'm going to give you three children the far field to plow, the one next to the woods. You may hitch Betsy to the plow and take turns at it if you wish. Take as long as you like, but I'll expect your task well done.”

“All by ourselves? Without Robert? That'll be bully! We can go to Chimney Bluffs some other day,” cried the three adventurers, and away they dashed for Betsy and the plow. Indian John's dog barked and ran with them. It was almost as good as having Nero.

The first few furrows were great fun. Sometimes in the past they had turned up Indian arrowheads in plowing the far field, but nothing so fortunate happened today and plowing gets very monotonous after a while. It was a sparkling spring day with a blue sky and a warm sun. The silver birches in the wood had begun to glow with a faint aura of budding green, and the willows at the edge of the river were turning yellow. Overhead flew a phœbe bird, crying: “Pee-wee! Pee-wee!”

“Let's take turns with the plow,” said Tom. “All three of us don't have to go around every time. It takes only one to guide the plow. Let one guide the plow
twice around the field while the other two sit in the fence corner and tell stories.”

“Hurrah!” yelled Warren. “I speak to be first to sit in the fence corner.”

“All right,” said Tom. “I'll take Betsy around first while you and Caddie sit. I'll be thinking up a story.”

“You spoke to be first to sit,” said Caddie to Warren. “I speak to be the one to sit when Tom tells his story.”

“Oh, that's no fair. Tom's got to tell it to me, too.”

“All right,” said Tom again. “I'll tell it twice, but first I've got to make it up.” He flapped the reins over Betsy's back, caught the handles of the plow, and started his first furrow. Caddie and Warren settled down in a sunny corner of the zigzag rail fence to think up stories. They usually retold Robert Ireton's lusty Irish tales or some old favorites from the tattered volume of Andersen's
Fairy Tales.
Sometimes they even told the stories which Mother read them from
The Young Ladies' Friend
or
The Mother's Assistant,
when they weren't too dull or moral. But Tom made his stories up. That's why Tom's stories were always in demand. Tom's stories had the virtue of novelty, and they were full of wild and bloody action. That they, too, were a sort of compound of Ireton and Andersen did not occur to the children, who knew few stories, except those in the Bible and the school reader.

“Have you thought it up yet?” cried Warren and Caddie, as Tom came around at the end of his first furrow. “Pee-wee! Pee-wee!” called the phœbe bird overhead. Betsy would have stopped, but Tom slapped the reins over her back and swung into his second furrow.

“Yep!” he called back. “I'm gettin' it.”

Reluctantly Warren took the plow when Tom came back from his second round. Caddie and John's dog cuddled close to Tom as he sat down. The spring air was still a little keen for sitting long in comfort.

“Well, begin,” said Caddie.

Tom's eyes were bright with satisfaction over his

story. “Well,” he said, “once upon a time there was an old farmer named Pee-Wee.”

“What a funny name for a farmer!” exclaimed Caddie.

“Never you mind that,” said Tom, a trifle impatient at being interrupted. “You'll know why his name had to be Pee-Wee in a minute, if you'll listen.”

“Go on, then.”

“Well, once there was an old farmer named Pee-Wee, and he had a farm beside a lake. And one day he was out plowing up his field when a little bird flew overhead, calling ‘Pee-wee! Pee-wee!' Now, old man Pee-Wee had a pretty bad temper, and he thought the little bird was just making fun of him. So what did he do but pick up a rock he had just plowed out, and heave it at the bird. ‘I'll teach you to make fun of old man Pee-Wee!' says he. The bird just flapped his wings and flew on, but the rock fell back and hit one of Pee-Wee's oxen on the head, and it fell over dead.

“Well, old man Pee-Wee was mighty mad, but he wouldn't ever let anything get him down. So he stopped plowing and skinned his ox and took the hide to town to see what he could get for it.

“Well, just as he was driving into town, he saw a secondhand store with a lot of old furniture sitting out in front, and there were some young people running
about and playing I Spy. Just as Pee-Wee drove up, he saw a very rich young man run and hide himself in a big, empty churn, and pull the cover shut after him. So Pee-Wee got down off his wagon and took the ox hide in to the storekeeper.

“ ‘What'll you give me for this hide?' says he to the storekeeper.

“ ‘Why, nothing,' says the storekeeper. ‘I haven't got money to spend on old ox hides.'

“ ‘I'll tell you what,' says Pee-Wee. “Trade me that worthless old churn for my hide, an' you'll be getting the best of the bargain.'

“ ‘All right,' says the storekeeper, ‘if you'll carry it off.' So Pee-Wee left his hide and loaded the churn up onto his wagon.

“Now, when Pee-Wee had got the churn a little ways out into the country, the rich young man began to pound on the side of it and yell: ‘Let me out! Let me out!'

“ ‘How so?' says Pee-Wee. ‘I bought this churn and everything in it. You belong to me.'

“ ‘I'm rich,' says the young man. ‘I'll pay you anything. Only let me out.'

“So Pee-Wee let the young man out an' the young man gave him a purse full of gold. When Pee-Wee got home, he showed all his neighbors the purse full of
gold which he had got in exchange for the ox hide. As soon as they saw it, the neighbors all ran to kill their best oxen and take the hides to town. When they found they could get nothing for them, they were so mad at Pee-Wee they swore they'd never speak to him again.”

“Is that all?” asked Caddie eagerly, as Tom paused for breath.

“Oh, no,” said Tom, “the best part's coming.”

Warren, going by on his first furrow, looked at them wistfully, but Tom motioned him on.

“Well, some time after that,” continued Tom, “Pee-Wee and his old wife were out hoeing potatoes, when that same bird flew over the potato patch, and sang: ‘Pee-wee! Pee-wee!'

“ ‘You'll try that again, will you?' yells Pee-Wee, flying into a passion. ‘I'll teach you!' and he threw his hoe at the bird. But the bird flew away and the hoe came down and hit Pee-Wee's wife over the head and killed her.”

“Oh, dear!” said Caddie. “Did you really mean it to kill her, Tom?”

“That's all right,” said Tom, “it's just a story. So then, when Pee-Wee saw that his wife was dead, of course he felt very sorry, but he wouldn't ever let anything get him down. So he tied her sunbonnet on her to shade her face, and set her up on a seat with her back