Cowboy Kim

By Ida Stewart Peay

(Previous chapter)

Chapter 3.

Mrs. McCree had not the least intention to make things harder for Kim and when she urged him to share Pattie’s bread and jelly she did so without knowing that the boy had not eaten his breakfast. So she quickly answered:

“Oh, no, we insisted upon him taking that little bite, we wouldn’t be refused.”

To be thus reprimanded before these new found friends humiliated Kim to the very dust. He flushed painfully with shame, but instantly he knew he had been accused falsely. he had not “begged his breakfast” – even if he had done wrong in accepting this morsel. Slowly the color ebbed out of his small face leaving it almost fragile looking.

“Don’t stand there staring at me, haven’t you any manners?” said his aunt. “Go home and see if you can find something to do.”

Kim walked away but his shoulders were squared and his head was held high; even a back view of him gave evidence that he was not contrite. Mrs. Sloane relaxed, sighing heavily.

“That boy is a case. He’s going to be an awful problem for me.”

“Not so bad if you knew anything about your job,” though Ruth McCree. Presently she took pains to mollify Mrs. Sloane’s wrath against Kim by telling about the boy’s early morning trip.

“But why didn’t he tell us about it?” complained Mrs. Sloane with an injured air refusing to recall the fact that she had given him no opportunity.

“I don’t know. I’m quite sure he is naturally open minded,” said Mrs. McCree. ‘Just why children withhold their confidence from us is not always clear but my husband says there is a good reason in most cases and his judgment is so good concerning children. It will probably be difficult to win this impulsive little Kim but it will be worth the effort, I imagine. How is he taking his sorrow?”

“He never speaks of it,” hesitated Mabel Sloane, slightly pricked in her conscience because she had never thought of trying to comfort the child in his grief; her only anxiety was to make him instantly ready to do her will.

“No, children never talk about a deep hurt like that,” said Mrs. McCree. ‘Nevertheless it’s a terrible shock to lose both parents inside of a year. It isn’t long since his mother died, is it?”

“Only ten months, then came the accident that took both his father and Buck, a cowboy who has lived with them for five years, all in a minute, you might say.”

“O, the poor little dear?” sympathized Ruth McCree with genuine emotion.

“Yes, it’s certainly been bad!” Mabel Sloane’s feelings were quite touched now and she went home determined to be very good to the poor little orphan.

The child had been undergoing the most acute suffering. The visit of death had dazed and awed him, gripped him with a dumb despair; but this inhospitable, unfriendly treatment was like a two-edged sword in his flesh cutting so deeply that his mind was full of revenge at times with a desire to run away from it or to struggle against it with all his power of resistance.

“Come, Kim, I’ll give you some breakfast if you will promise not to treat me this way again,” she said, making up to him in her kindest tones.

“I’m sorry I put you out, but I don’t want any breakfast,” the boy refused coldly.

“Really!” cried Aunt Mabel, deeply hurt at this cool reception of her good will. “Well, then, you may clean this whole yard before you can have any dinner. We’ll see about this high hand you’re trying!” she declared in a flare of temper and went quickly into the house.

“All right,” Kim agreed at once. He really wished to do something to earn what he ate in his aunt’s house so he might feel more welcome to it; and he had no idea as yet of the extent of the job she had given him.

The “yard he was to clean reached from the back door of the house straight through the lot to the other street, the ground space being about 8 by 20 rods. It was decorated from one end to the other by weeds, rocks, cans, trash of all kinds, and innumerable pieces of wood and scrap iron. The clearing out of the place might have baffled a man, to say nothing of a boy of his age. But, strange as it may seem, Kim was not entirely appalled. had he been an ordinary boy he probably would not have accomplished the things which make his story worth the telling; or, if he were ordinary the distressing circumstances in which he found himself placed brought out extra qualifications. At any rate, he set himself to work with a will as though fully equal to this man-sized job.

However, though he labored the best he knew, at the end of an hour and a half he had made no showing. Slightly disheartened he gravitated to the sand pile and was making pictures in the sand with a stick when Mrs. McCree came tripping through the lane on some errand I the street below. Noticing the boy’s dejection, she lost no time in discovering, by a few clever questions, the cause thereof.

“O, that will be a fine job, and I’ll send Pattie over to help you,” she said, when Kim had told her what was expected of him. “I’ll tell you how I would go at it if I were you. First, I would fence off a dooryard about ten steps from the house with those rocks. Then I’d make a wood-pile in the corner by Carson’s fence, cart all the wood there and pile it up neatly. Then I’d put all the iron in one place, all the trash in another, and all the weeds in another.”

Kim’s mind was just orderly enough to appreciate this splendid working plan so repaying busy little Mrs. McCree with a shy smile of gratitude for her interest in him, he went to work with new life. He meant to show her what he could do with that lot.

He scampered up to the house and measured off the contemplated yard by taking ten long steps from the back door. This unusual performance aroused the curiosity of Wallie Carson, who was killing time in the next enclosure. By way of introducing himself he pecked through the fence demanding: “What’s you doing?”

“Going to make a wall,” Kim replied with a glance of pretended indifference at his questioner.

“What for?”

“A yard.”

“What with?”

“Rocks.”

“Who told you to?”

“Told myself to.”

“Bet your aunt made you.”

“She never – she doesn’t know I’m doing it.”

That satisfied Wallie. If no one forced Kim to make this fence it must be some mischief he was up to, otherwise fun, so Wallie decided to have a hand in it, he jumped the division fence asking with zest, “Where you goin’ to get your rocks?”

“All over the yard,” said Kim and the two boys were soon chasing thither and yon trying to see which could find the bst rocks for their purpose. Before the wall had progressed far enough to attract anyone’s attention, Uncle Pete came to the back door and called Kim to dinner. His wife was by his side immediately.

“Has he cleaned the yard?” she asked, peering out. “Why, no, he hasn’t done a thing!” she deplored, answering her own question. “Peter, I told him he couldn’t have any dinner until he had cleared out this yard and see how he has flouted me – he hasn’t raised his hand.”

“Cleaned this yard, indeed!” scorned the man, a new timbre in his voice. No one hated a family jar as Uncle Pete did and no one knew better than he what would precipitate one, still this was not to be borne. He hastened to explain with a fine show of spirit, “Why, Mabel, cleaning this yard is a day’s work for two men.”

“But he hasn’t even started it.”

“Of course he hasn’t, he doesn’t know where to begin. If you asked a man to remove a mountain he would refuse you point blank knowing it would be impossibl4e for him. The boy doesn’t know you have asked the impossible of him. he probably doesn’t even know he’s stumped. Furthermore, I have a very vivid recollection of a small boy’s appetite and I cannot think of allowing you to make him go without his meals as a punishment,” he finished decisively as he went out to bring in his small nephew.

Kim was by no means anxious to go in. In fact, he was reconciled to go without food until his job was finished. That seemed the most noble and independent thing to do. However, when Uncle Pete assured him it would take two weeks to clean the premises and that after dinner they would look the place over together and decide what should be done first, he consented to break his long fast. As soon as Kim allowed himself to think of eating it began to appear very enticing to him. He was sure no one had gone without so long and still survived. he thought he had broken a world’s record. Aunt Mabel though so, too, only she passed her judgment when he was at the table rather than concerning his fast. And it must be owned that Kim made short work of the bread, meat and potatoes even under his aunt’s attentive eye. He never had enjoyed himself so well before and later he discovered it was not because his aunt was a remarkable cook. So strong is the force of habit that when he left the table he expressed his pleasure notwithstanding his aunt’s cool manner.

“That was a fine dinner, Aunt Mabel,” he praised after he had politely excused himself. Mrs. Sloane made no reply by word or look; nevertheless, she was pleased in her heart as are all human beings at having their efforts appreciated.

It chanced that Uncle Peter hurried back to his work when the meal was over, forgetting to direct Kim, so the boy was left to take his own course. This was as he wished for now he could surprise his Uncle. At the Deer Run they spent half their time surprising each other and Kim remembered it was the jolliest kind of fun. He confided his delightful secret to Wallie, who was back on the job as soon as Kim came out, and though that young lad was considerably astonished at such an exhibition o good will towards a “boss,” as he called all parents and guardians, he entered into the plot with good will for its very newness.

Presently Aunt Mabel called Kim to the house to inform him she was going away and that he must take care of Baby Belle. He was admonished again and again not to forget her for a second. The boy smiled disdainfully at these cautions. He did not believe himself capable of neglecting a baby. He liked nothing better than to have her with him. Taking her tenderly by the hand and leaning down continually to make promises about the good times she would have with him, he led her out into the garden. Here he found Pattie McCree and her two small brothers, Joe and Harry, awaiting him.

“We want to play cowboy,” announced the curly headed little miss, her tiny brothers echoing her words in baby dialect.

“All right,” Kim agreed quickly, while a broad grin all over his face bespoke an eloquent welcome to his new guests. “We’re cowboys and we’re building a great wall here to keep the Rustlers out.”

“What are Rustlers?” all the children wanted to know. Even Wallie was mystified.

“Oh, they’re cattle thieves,” defined Cowboy Kim and then he told them several incidents of the daring deeds of these particular mischief-makers. This information sufficed to interest the crowd in the wall and Kim’s door yard was soon fenced off to everybody’s satisfaction.

“Now we have got to have a ’round up,” declaimed the head cowboy.

“What’s that?” cried his curious followers.

“Corralling the cattle for branding,” explained the ranch boy. Then he showed them a piece of wood with the explanation that everything resembling it was cattle and must be driven, or lassoed and dragged, into the big corral by Carson’s fence. So they aol galloped off on the great “round up,” with spurs jingling and voices gruff and commanding. Kim directed the drive using the language of good old Buck and the other children picked up the new tongue with astonishing celerity. By means of this fascinating game the wood pile took shape like magic. When interest showed the least sign of lagging, Pattie infused new life through her vivid imagination.

(To be continued)