Three Mormon Boys

By Homespun [Susa Young Gates]

Chapter 5

“Say, Johnnie,” said Martin Thompson, one day, in the early fall of 186–, as they were busily engaged in playing marbles, “Bertie is going to be here by this time tomorrow night from Dixie.”

“Who’s Bertie, and where’s Dixie?”

“Don’t you know Bertie Wilson? Why, he’s Bertie Wilson, and his father moved down to Dixie, two years ago, where there ain’t nothing but sand and black rocks, and flies and Indians.”

“Oh!” answered John to Martin’s unintelligible explanation, made after the manner of boys, and understood by John in that peculiar vague manner common to all boys.

John had been in the “Valley” now for a year and had learned many things, among which was that of sheep herding. His father had taken quite a number of the neighbors’ herds — small ones, of course — and John was the herder of the united flocks.

“I wish you would go out with me, Martin, tomorrow to herd.”

“Oh, I can’t. I want to be here and see Bertie; we used to be chums, and he can beat anybody, purty near, playing marbles.”

“Humph!” disdainfully snorted John. “He ain’t played with everybody; I kin whip him in a square fight, I’ll wager.”

“Mebbe you can, for he ain’t near as big as you be, and he ain’t near as old. But he can beat you playing marbles.”

The matter in question was virtually acknowledged by both the boys to be impossible of solution until Bertie himself was on the ground, ready to prove the fact so boldly asserted by the eager friend.

The next morning, in the cool, quiet September dawn, John leisurely followed his sheep out of the pen and away on the distant bench lands to spend the warm, dusty hours in cropping among the sagebrush in search of the delicious clumps of bunch grass that grew here and there in spots, for this valley then was a very large, desolate looking valley, save for the comparatively small space in the center of it, where the few houses and surrounding fields, to the eye of one who stood at a distance on one of the hill sides, was a small oasis of green in a sea of gray barrenness and sterility.

I don’t think John Brown paid much attention to the green checker-board in the center of the valley, nor to the exquisite autumnal hills stretching above his head in all their glory; nor did his eyes linger long on the panorama of wild loveliness which spread between his own high vantage ground on the eastern side of the valley, and the distant lake, blue-rimmed on the western horizon. His thoughts dwelt on this new boy and his boasted skill in marble playing. It would not be John Brown who would quietly sit down and let him or any other boy say they could beat in that or any other boyish feat.

The evening shadows were beginning to fall in mild warnings of the coming night, when he arose from his solitary game of marbles and stretched himself with a tired yawn. A slight rustle behind him caused him to turn round, and not over a rod away, between him and his flock of sheep, stood a huge, gray wolf John looked steadily at the wolf, and the wolf gazed as fixedly back. “Which of us,” questioned the boy, in his own mind, “will get the sheep?” As the animal stood so still, it seemed to the boy that he realized the fact that the same question was asked in the mind of the wolf A sort of colloquy thereupon ensued in the mind of the boy between himself and the mind of the wolf. With all the strength he possessed, the boy said, silently, in his mind, “See here, Mr. Wolf, if you’ll go off and mind your business, I’ll agree to go off and mind mine. You let me alone and I’ll let you alone.” Whereupon, with a slow step, the wolf trotted away. Now, what do you suppose was the reason?

As for John, he did not stop to wonder, but with all gratitude to find the ugly animal going quietly back to his mountain haunts, he hurriedly gathered his flocks together and started for home.

When he was in sight of his father’s house, he saw inside the fence a strange boy playing marbles with Martin, and he knew that the redoubtable Bertie had arrived. Well, let him come; he would practice every day on the hill side by himself until he could beat the newcomer.

He faithfully practiced; I am ready to testify to that. But it did not take more than an hour’s acquaintance with the new boy to make him feel, as everyone else did who knew Bertie Wilson, that he had no feeling of jealousy for the jolly, but kindly-natured lad whom everybody loved and no one disliked. Bertie had no idea of this desirable trait in his own character; he only knew that he liked everybody and that everybody seemed to like him. He was too innocent to even wonder at the cause of all this.

There were many games of marble played by the three boys, but not one in which Bertie Wilson did not come out, if not the best, very near that desirable point. And John acknowleged to himself that he could allow the mortifying fact to occur, so long as it was Bertie who was thus “lucky.”

It would be impossible to follow these three boys in all the scrapes and plays devised and carried out during the following two years in which Bertie and Martin went to school, and John stayed at home and helped his father take care of the garden and herd sheep in the summer.

That summer there was a scant crop of peaches, and people were hoarding them with miserly care. For upon them, when dried, depended much of their income for groceries, etc.

Now, it is a well-known fact that mischief and boys are interchangeable terms; but there is mischief and mischief. Some mischief harms no one, and is as innocent as it is diverting; while there is the opposite kind which makes everyone concerned in its perpetration as uncomfortable and unhappy as it is possible to make people. Then there are many kinds of pranks which partake more or less of both these two extremes of mischief.

John Brown liked mischief as well as ducks are supposed to like water, and he was not very particular as to whose feelings were injured by his pranks; but there was always one element existed in all his nonsense, and that was the element of strict honesty. As for Bertie, he, too, liked mischief, and his pranks were as numerous, if not as originally conceived as John’s, but he had a horror of doing anything which he thought would make anyone really unhappy. However, he was often persuaded into different pranks arranged by the indefatigable John, which were very aggravating to old people who were the unfortunate victims of these practical jokes. Martin Thomson was like every other boy, full of mischievous tendencies, and he was not so very particular about the strictest honesty of his words or actions, although he was not a bad boy in any way, only a little careless about the truth and about returning other people’s property. Neither did he concern himself much about how people felt over his nonsense. He had a good time, and that was his principal care.

Now, there was a good man lived on the opposite side of the block from Martin’s home who had a large and beautiful orchard of peaches. Indeed, it was so large that he was unable to tell even with the strictest watchfulness whether anybody had lightened his crop during his absence or during the night.

You may be sure that our three roguish boys lost no opportunity of playing practical jokes on the old gentleman. One Sunday the brother arose in meeting and, while not calling any names, pointed out in such plain terms the three boys that everybody knew whom he meant, accusing them of stealing his peaches, and scoring the parents for allowing such wickedness.

Sister Brown went immediately home and so thoroughly questioned and quizzed her son that she was convinced he was innocent of the charge. Bertie’s aunt was not at meeting and heard nothing of the matter and so he was not troubled to answer the charge; while Martin’s mother was one of that peculiar but somewhat common class of mothers who think and say that their children, with strong emphasis on the possessive pronoun, could not possibly be guilty of wrong doing. And so Martin escaped questioning. Now, if there was one of the three who would have been guilty it was Martin himself. But more of this later on.

Monday morning early. Brother Jerrold, for this was the brother’s name, hurried as usual to his orchard to see after his fruit, and horror, could he believe his own eyes, there were scores of peach pits thrown down under the trees in evident defiance and carelessness as to the consequences. The ground under his very best trees had been tramped down ruthlessly by the rascals who had stolen his fruit, and with careless, indifferent hands thrown down the pits, the plain evidence of their guilt.

Well, he was a cautious man, and he resolved to give the marauders a full opportunity to implicate themselves and then would come the public exposure.

Two nights more after this he waited, each morning revealing the peach pits scattered in riotous profusion on the ground under his favorite trees and all around the ground trampled down in further evidence of the presence of thieves and robbers.

It was enough. The good man hurried off to the Bishop and asked him as a particular favor to watch with him under the trees the following night and thus have proof incontrovertible of the guilt of the boys. The Bishop made some resistance to this plan, but the other’s entreaties overcame his objections, and to save public trouble over so trifling a thing, he at last consented to be on the ground at ten o’clock the next night.

It was a dark and somewhat squally night, while hurrying clouds of mist and rain swept across the darkened heavens. The two men stationed themselves in the dense shadow of an old apple tree that stood almost in the center of the peach orchard, and waited with what patience they might for the coming of the bold thieves.

It was anything but pleasant surely sitting up in the forked limbs of an old apple tree, for two long and silent hours. The rain came in spasmodic gusts and although they were partially protected by the leaves, yet they caught enough of the spray to make them very uncomfortable. The Bishop was not only getting very stiff and sore from his cramped position, but he was losing all patience with himself and his friend. Brother Jerrold, to find himself on such a bootless quest.

It must have been near midnight when the Bishop leaned over to the other man, and in somewhat angry tones declared he was going to get down and go home. Just as he did so, they both heard the whispering voices of some one approaching, and instinctively both men drew back and waited for further developments.

“Ah,” thought the owner of the orchard with a vengeful smile playing upon his tight lips, “now I have got you, my jail birds; and if you are not made to smart for this it is not because my name is not Andrew Jerrold.”

The whisper drew closer, and in the dim light of the stars, the forms of three boys emerged from the dense shadows under the trees, and halted out in the open space near the apple tree.

“Aha!” said Brother Jerrold, “the very boys I thought to find. Now who is right, me or the Bishop; I told him so, I told him so!”

Meanwhile the three forms under the tree came closely together, and the biggest one said in a low tone of voice,

“Say boys, how many pits have you?”

“I’ve only got five,” said the smallest one.

“Well, I have twenty,” answered the other one who we may as well admit was no other than Martin Thompson. The biggest boy laughed softly in a chuckling manner so peculiar to John Brown, and that same boy it was, too.

The smallest one, who you have already guessed was Bertie, held out his five to John with the remark, “Granny would not let me have any more peaches today. I believe she suspects something.”

“Where did you get so many pits Mart?” asked John suspiciously.”

“I selled eggs and buyed ’em,” quoted Martin with a light laugh.

“It’s kind o’ queer any way to see you with so many if Bertie could only get five.”

“That’s none of your business, John Brown; I got ’em all right. Never you fear.”

There was no more said on the subject, and the boys proceeded to scatter the pits around under the peach trees, tramping down the ground with vicious strength. All at once John grabbed Martin, and there was a fierce and brief struggle.

“Drap it,” cried John, “ I tell ’ee to drap it. There is to be nary o’ bit o’ stealin’ goin’ on here. Nary a peach. It be all right to have a bit o’ fun, but nothink else, d’ you mind that?”

And Martin was compelled to drop the peach he had taken from the ground and hidden in his pocket.

“You’re just as mean as you kin be, John Brown. Why shouldn’t I take one of the stingy old miser’s peaches. We’ve got the name and we might as well have the game.

The old stingy fellow has preached about us and everybody believes we are thieves. It was on the ground anyway, I didn’t pick it off from the trees.”

“No difference, Mart, you know it’s bad as well as I do, and I’ll tell your mother if you take one single peach.”

“Ho, mother wouldn’t believe you; I could lie you right down. And she always believes me.”

“Oh, Mart,” pleaded Bertie, “don’t touch the peaches. Let ’em alone. I’ll give you lots tomorrow if you will let these be. I wouldn’t have come with you boys if I had thought you would steal one single peach. I like fun but that ain’t a bit of fun.”

“ Well, do shut up about it; it was only one peach and the old miser has more than he knows what to do with. I never saw such stupid boys. You don’t know how to have fun.”

Martin was more ashamed than he would admit, and he was glad to scamper away with the boys whose work was done, and all hurried away unmolested by the watchers in the apple tree.

Martin’s shame was such because of being found out, and so far as he was concerned, that was all there was wrong about the matter. But the other two boys had received too good training from their careful mothers to be in any doubt as to the honesty or dishonesty of such actions.

The men watching and listening in the apple tree, were too astonished at the turn affairs had taken to say one word for some minutes after the boys had departed. At last the Bishop, with a snort of disgust drew his cramped limbs down and got to the ground as fast as he could, hurrying off to his home, with a brief good-night to the other, and an added remark about men being cautious before branding boys with dishonesty.

And poor Brother Jerrold! I have not only to record his discomfiture at the result of his watching, but I must also tell how he caught a severe cold sitting up in the tree in the rain so that he suffered with rheumatism all the rest of his life. He had no more faith in boys than he ever had after the peach episode, and was always on the lookout for thieves and plunderers. However, his night’s experience in the apple tree made him very cautious about preaching or talking over these matters unless he had indisputable evidence. Those boys! Well, I suppose John Brown would have been more than human, after the story of their escapade crept out, as it did the next day, if he had resisted the temptation to ask old Brother Jerrold how his rheumatism was every time he saw him. I am afraid that the enmity with which he was viewed by the worthy old man was only increased by his smiling inquiry.

When the boys reached home, or that is the home of two of them, Martin and John, they two crept off quietly to bed after a whispered good- night to Bertie, whose aunt lived across the road.

(To be continued)