Three Little Women: A Story for Girls Read online

  CHAPTER III

  The Spirit of Mad Anthony

  Jean Carruth stood thus for about one minute absolutely rigid, herface the color of chalk and her eyes blazing. Then several thingshappened with extreme expedition. The position of the closed umbrellain her hands reversed with lightning-like rapidity; one quick step_forward_, _not_ backward, was made, thus giving the intrepid littlebody a firmer foothold, and then crash! down came the gun-metal handleacross Jabe Raulsbury's ample-sized nasal appendage.

  The blow, with such small arms to launch it, was not of necessity avery powerful one, but it was the suddenness of the onslaught whichrendered it effective, for not one sound had issued from the child'sset lips as she delivered it, and Jabe's position placed him at adecided disadvantage.

  He resumed his seat with considerable emphasis, and clapping his handto his injured feature, bellowed in the voice of an injured bull:

  "You--you--you little devil! You--you, let me get hold of you!"

  But Jean did not obey the command or pause to learn the result of herdeed. With a storm of the wildest sobs she turned and fled from thebarnyard, down the driveway leading to the road, and back to the spotwhere she had left Baltie in his misery, her tears nearly blindingher, and her indignation almost strangling her; back to the poor oldhorse, so sorely in need of human pity and aid.

  This, all unknown to his little champion, had already reached him, forhardly had Jean disappeared beneath the tumble-down fence, than avehicle came bowling along the highway driven by no less a personagethan Hadyn Stuyvesant, lately elected president of the local branch ofthe S. P. C. A. Poor old Baltie's days of misery had come to an end,for here was the authority either to compel his care or to mercifullyrelease him from his sufferings.

  Perhaps not more than twenty minutes had elapsed from the time Jeanstarted across the fields, to the moment of her return to the oldhorse, but in those twenty minutes Mr. Stuyvesant had secured aid fromMr. Fletcher's place, and when Jean came hurrying upon the scene, hersobs still rendering breathing difficult, and her troubled little facebathed in tears, she found three men standing near Baltie.

  "Oh, Baltie, Baltie, Baltie, I'm so glad! So glad! So glad!" sobbedthe overwrought little girl, as she flew to the old horse's head.

  Mr. Stuyvesant and the men stared at her in astonishment.

  "Why little girl," cried the former. "Where in this world have _you_sprung from? And what is the matter? Is this your horse?"

  "Oh, no--no; he isn't mine. It's old Baltie; don't you know him? I wentto tell Jabe Raulsbury about him and he--he--" and Jean pausedembarrassed.

  "Yes? Well? Is this his horse? Is he coming to get him? Did you findhim?"

  "Yes, sir, I _found_ him," answered Jean, trembling from excitementand her exertions.

  "And is he coming right down?" persisted Mr. Stuyvesant, lookingkeenly, although not unkindly, at the child.

  "He--he--, oh, _please_ don't make me tell tales on anybody--it's somean--but he--"

  "You might as well tell it right out an' done with it, little gal,"broke in one of the men. "It ain't no state secret; everybody knowsthat that old skinflint has been abusing this horse shameful, formonths past, an' I'll bet my month's wages he said he wouldn't comedown, an' he hoped the horse 'd die in the ditch. Come now, out withit--_didn't_ he?"

  Jean would not answer, but there was no need for words; her eyes toldthe truth.

  Just then the other man came up to her; he was one of Mr. Fletcher'sgrooms.

  "Aren't you Mrs. Carruth's little girl?" he asked.

  But before Jean had time to answer Jabe Raulsbury came running alongthe road, one hand holding a handkerchief to his nose, the otherwaving wildly as he shouted:

  "Just you wait 'till I lay my hands on you--you little wild cat!" Hewas too blinded by his rage to realize the situation into which he washurrying.

  Again Anthony Wayne's spirit leaped into Jean's eyes, as the dauntlesslittle creature whirled about to meet the enemy descending upon her.With head erect, and nostrils quivering she stood as though rooted tothe ground.

  "Great guns! How's _that_ for a little thoroughbred?" murmured thegroom, laughing softly.

  Reaching out a protecting hand, Mr. Stuyvesant gently pushed thelittle girl toward the man who stood behind him, and taking her placelet Jabe Raulsbury come head-on to his fate. Had the man been lessenraged he would have taken in the situation at once, but his nosestill pained severely from the well-aimed blow, and had also bledpretty freely, so it is not surprising that he lost his presence ofmind.

  "Go slow! Go slow! You are exactly the man I want to see," said Mr.Stuyvesant, laying a detaining hand upon Jabe's arm.

  "Who 'n thunder air you?" demanded the half-blinded man.

  "Someone you would probably rather not meet at this moment, but sinceyou have appeared upon the scene so opportunely I think we might aswell come to an understanding at once, and settle some scores."

  "I ain't got no scores to settle with you, but I have with _that_little demon, an' by gosh she'll know it, when I've done with her! Whythat young 'un has just smashed me over the head with her umbril, Itell ye. _There_ it is, if ye don't believe what I'm a tellin' ye. I'mgoin' ter have the _law_ on her and on her Ma, I tell ye, an' I callyou three men ter witness the state I'm in. I'll bring suit agin' herfer big damages--that's what I'll do. Look at my _nose_!"

  As he ceased his tirade Jabe removed his handkerchief from the injuredmember. At the sight of it one of the men broke into a loud guffaw.Certainly, for a "weaker vessel" Jean had compassed considerable. Thatnose was about the size of two ordinary noses. Mr. Stuyvesant regardedit for a moment, his face perfectly sober, then asked with apparentconcern:

  "And this little girl hit you such a blow as that?"

  Poor little Jean began to tremble in her boots. Were the tables aboutto turn upon her? Even Anthony Wayne's spirit, when harbored in such atiny body could hardly brave _that_. The Fletcher's groom who stoodjust behind her watched her closely. Now and again he gave a nodindicative of his approval.

  "Yes she did. She drew off and struck me slam in the face with herumbril.," averred Jabe.

  "Had _you_ struck her? Did she strike in self-defense?" Mr. Stuyvesantgave a significant look over Jabe's head straight into the groom'seyes when he asked this question. The response was the slightest nodof comprehension.

  "Strike her? _No_," roared Jabe. "I hadn't teched her. I was a-sittin'there sortin' out my turnips 's peaceful 's any man in this town, whenthat little rip comes 'long and tells me I must go get an old horseout 'en a ditch: _that_ old skate there that's boun' ter die _any_how, an' ought ter a-died long ago. I told her ter clear out an' mindher own business that I hoped the horse _would_ die, an' that's whatI'd turned him out _to_ do. Then she drew off an' whacked me."

  "Just because you stated in just so many words that you meant to getrid of the old horse and had turned him out to die on the roadside. Is_that_ why she struck you?"

  Had Jabe been a little calmer he might have been aware of a change inHadyn Stuyvesant's expression and his tone of voice, but men wild withrage are rarely close observers.

  "Yis! Yis!" he snapped, sure now of his triumph.

  "Well I'm only sorry the blow was such a light one. I wish it had beenstruck by a man's arm and sufficiently powerful to have half killedyou! Even _that_ would have been _too_ good for you, you mercilessbrute! I've had you under my eye for your treatment of that poor horsefor some time, and now I have you under my _hand_, and convicted byyour own words in the presence of two witnesses, of absolute cruelty.I arrest you in the name of the S. P. C. A."

  For one brief moment Jabe stood petrified with astonishment. Then thebrute in him broke loose and he started to lay about him right andleft. His aggressiveness was brought to a speedy termination, for at aslight motion from Mr. Stuyvesant the two men sprang upon him, hisarms were held and the next second there was a slight click and JabeRaulsbury's wrists were in handcuffs. That snap was the signal for hisblustering to take flight for
he was an arrant coward at heart.

  "Now step into my wagon and sit there until I am ready to settle yourcase, my man, and that will be when I have looked to this little girland the animal which, but for her pluck and courage, might have diedin this ditch," ordered Mr. Stuyvesant.

  No whipped cur could have slunk toward the wagon more cowed.

  "Now, little lassie, tell me your name and where you live," said Mr.Stuyvesant lifting Jean bodily into his arms despite her mortificationat being "handled just like a baby," as she afterwards expressed it.

  "I am Jean Carruth. I live on Linden Avenue. I'm--I'm terribly ashamedto be here, and to have struck him," and she nodded toward the humbledfigure in the wagon.

  "You need not be. You did not give him one-half he deserves," was thesomewhat comforting assurance.

  "O, but what _will_ mother say? She'll be _so_ mortified when I tellher about it all. It seems as if I just _couldn't_," was thedistressed reply.

  "Must you tell her?" asked Mr. Stuyvesant, an odd expressionoverspreading his kind, strong face as he looked into the littlegirl's eyes.

  Jean regarded him with undisguised amazement as she answered simply:

  "Why of _course_! That would be deceit if I _didn't_. I'll have to bepunished, but I guess I _ought_ to be," was the naive conclusion.

  The fine face before her was transfigured as Hadyn Stuyvesantanswered:

  "Good! _Your_ principles are all right. Stick to them and I'll want toknow you when you are a woman. Now I must get you home for I've a wordto say to your mother, to whom I mean to introduce myself under thecircumstances," and carrying her to his two-seated depot wagon, heplaced her upon the front seat. Jabe glowered at him from the rearone. His horse turned his head with an inquiring nicker.

  "Yes, Comet, I'll be ready pretty soon," he replied, pausing a secondto give a stroke to the satiny neck. Then turning to the men he said:

  "Now, my men, let's on with this job which has been delayed too longalready."

  He did not spare himself, and presently old Baltie was out of theditch and upon his feet--a sufficiently pathetic object to touch anyheart.

  "Shall I have the men lead him up to your barn?" asked HadynStuyvesant, giving the surly object in his wagon a last chance toredeem himself.

  "No! I'm done with him; do your worst," was the gruff answer.

  "Very well," the words were ominously quiet, "then _I_ shall take himin charge."

  "Oh, _where_ are you going to take him, please?" asked Jean, herconcern for the horse overcoming her embarrassment at her novelsituation.

  "I'm afraid he will have to be sent to the pound, little one, for noone will claim him."

  "Is that the place where they _kill_ them? _Must_ Baltie be killed?"Her voice was full of tears.

  "Unless someone can be found who will care for him for the rest of hisnumbered days. I'm afraid it is the best and most merciful fate forhim," was the gentle answer.

  "How long may he stay there without being killed? Until maybe somebodycan be found to take him."

  "He may stay there one week. But now we must move along. Fasten thehorse's halter to the back of my wagon, men, and I'll see to it thathe is comfortable to-night anyway."

  The halter rope was tied, and the strange procession started slowlyback toward Riveredge.