CHAPTER III
A NARROW ESCAPE

Modesty was not one of Teddy’s strong points, but just then he had a most violent desire to fade gently out of sight. He had not the slightest wish to be “in the limelight.” Never had he been more eager to play the part of the shrinking violet.

He tried to slip behind the other boys who came crowding around. But, even though partly blinded by the water that streamed over his face, the sharp eyes of his uncle had recognized him.

“So it’s you, is it?” he asked ungraciously. “I might have known that if there was trouble anywhere you’d be mixed up in it.”

Fred, ever eager to shield Teddy, came forward.

“Why, Uncle Aaron!” he exclaimed. “I’m awfully sorry this happened. Just wait a minute and I’ll hustle round to get a rig to take you – ”

“Happened!” broke in the shrill voice of his uncle. “Happened!” he snorted again, his wrath rising. “This thing didn’t just happen. Something made those horses run away, and I want to know just what it was. And I’m not going to be satisfied till I find out,” the man went on, glaring suspiciously from one to the other of the boys until he finally settled on Teddy.

But Teddy just then was intently studying the beautiful sunset.

Good-natured Jim Dabney tried, right here, to make a diversion.

“The horses must have got frightened at something,” he ventured hopefully.

“Yes,” said Jack Youmans, following his lead, “I could see that they were awfully scared.”

“You don’t say so!” retorted Uncle Aaron, with withering sarcasm. “I could guess as much as that myself.” And the two boys, having met with the usual fate of peacemakers, fell back, red and wilted.

“Gee, isn’t he an old crank?” muttered Jim.

“That’s what,” assented Jack. “I’d hate to be in Teddy’s shoes just now.”

To tell the truth, Teddy would gladly have loaned his shoes to any one on earth at that moment.

“Come here, Teddy,” called his uncle sharply, “and look me straight in the eye.”

Now, looking Uncle Aaron straight in the eye was far from being Teddy’s idea of pleasure. There were many things he would rather do than that. There had been many occasions before this when he had received the same invitation, and he had never accepted it without reluctance. It was a steely eye that seemed to look one through and through and turn one inside out.

Still, there was no help for it, and Teddy, with the air of an early Christian martyr, was slowly coming to the front, when suddenly they heard a shout of triumph, and, turning, saw Jed Muggs hold up something he had just found on the floor of the coach.

“Here it is!” he cried; “here’s the identical thing what done it!” And as he came shambling forward he held up, so that all could see it, the ball that had been only too well aimed when it had hit the gray horse.

Jed was a town character and the butt of the village jokes. He had been born and brought up there, and only on one occasion had strayed far beyond its limits. That was when he had gone on an excursion to the nearest large city. His return ticket had only been good for three days, but after his return, bewildered but elated, he had never tired of telling his experiences. Every time he told his story, he added some new variation, chiefly imaginary, until he at last came to believe it himself, and posed as a most extensive traveler.

“Yes, sir-ree,” he would wind up to his cronies in the general store, as he reached out to the barrel for another cracker, “they ain’t many things in this old world that I ain’t seen. They ain’t nobody kin take me fur a greenhorn, not much they ain’t!”

For more years past than most people could remember, he had driven the village stage back and forth between Oldtown and Carlette, the nearest railway station. He and his venerable team were one of the features of the place, and the farmers set their clocks by him as he went plodding past. Everybody knew him, and he knew the past history of every man, woman and child in the place. He was an encyclopedia of the village gossip and tradition for fifty years past. This he kept always on tap, and only a hint was needed to set him droning on endlessly.

Jed’s one aversion was the boys of Oldtown. He got on well enough with their elders, who humored and tolerated the old fellow. But he had never married, and, with no boys of his own to keep him young in heart, he had grown crankier and crustier as he grew older. They kept him on edge with their frequent pranks, and it was his firm conviction that they had no equals anywhere as general nuisances.

“I’ve traveled a lot in my time,” he would say, and pause to let this statement sink in; “yes, sir, I’ve traveled a lot, and I swan to man I never seen nowhere such a bunch of rapscallions as they is in this here town.”

Then he would bite off a fresh quid of tobacco and shake his head mournfully, and dwell on the sins of the younger generation.

Now, as he hobbled eagerly up to the waiting group, forgetting for the moment his “roomatics,” he was all aglow with animation. His loose jaw was wagging and his small eyes shone like a ferret’s.

“Here’s what done it,” he repeated, in his high, cracked voice, as he handed the ball to his partner in the accident. “I knew them horses of mine wouldn’t run away for nuthin’.”

“Nobody ever saw them run before,” Jack Youmans could not help saying.

“You shet up!” cried Jed angrily. “They was too well trained.”

Aaron Rushton took the ball and examined it carefully.

“I found it in the corner of the coach under the seat,” volunteered Jed. “It wasn’t in there when we started. I kin stake my life on that.”

“This explains the blow I got on the back of the neck,” commented Teddy’s uncle. “The ball must have hit one of the horses first, and then glanced off into the coach. Were you boys playing ball, when we went past?” he asked, turning to Fred.

“Yes, we were,” answered Fred. “That is, we weren’t playing a regular game. We’d got through with that and were having a little practice, batting flies.”

“Why weren’t you more careful then?” asked his uncle sharply. “Don’t you see that you came within an ace of killing one or both of us? Who was doing the batting?”

Jim and Jack loyally looked as though they were trying their hardest to remember, but could not feel quite sure.

“Yes,” broke in old Jed, “who was doin’ it? That’s what I want to know. ’Cos all I got to say is that it’ll cost somebody’s father a consid’able to make good the damages to the coach and the hosses. The pole is snapped and the sorrel is actin’ kind o’ droopy.”

A smothered laugh ran around the group of boys, whose number had by this time been considerably increased. No one in Oldtown had ever known either sorrel or gray to be anything else than “droopy.”

Jed transfixed the boys with a stony stare. He had, at least, the courage of his convictions.

“Yes, sir-ree,” he went on, “them hosses is vallyble, and I don’t kalkilate to be done out of my rights by nobody, just becos some fool boy didn’t have sense enough to keep from scarin’ ’em. Somebody’s father has got to pay, and pay good, or I’ll have the law on ’em, by ginger! Come along now. Who done it?”

“Jed is right, as far as that goes,” said Mr. Aaron Rushton. “Of course, it was an accident, but it was a mighty careless one and somebody will have to make good the damage. Now, I’m going to ask you boys, one by one – ”

Teddy stepped forward. His heart was in his boots. The game was up and he would have to face the consequences. He knew that none of the other boys would tell on him, and he would be safe enough in denying it, when the question came to him. But the thought of doing this never even occurred to him. The Rushton boys had been brought up to tell the truth.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Aaron,” he said, “but I’m the one that hit the ball.”

CHAPTER IV
FACING THE MUSIC

There was a stir of anticipation among the boys, and they crowded closer, as Teddy faced his angry relative.

“Jiminy, but he’s going to catch it!” whispered Jim.

“You bet he will. I wouldn’t like to be him,” agreed Jack, more fervently than grammatically.

His uncle looked at Teddy sourly.

“I’m not a bit surprised,” he growled. “From the minute I saw you on the bank I felt sure you were mixed up in this some way or other. You’d feel nice now, if you’d killed your uncle, wouldn’t you?”

Poor Teddy, who did not look the least like a murderer and had never longed to taste the delights of killing, stammered a feeble negative.

“Why did you do it?” went on his merciless cross-examiner. “Didn’t you see the stage coming? Why didn’t you bat the other way?”

The culprit was silent.

“Come,” said his uncle sharply, “speak up now! What’s the matter with you? Are you tongue-tied?”

“You see, it was this way,” Teddy began, and stopped.

“No,” said his uncle, “I don’t see at all.”

“Well,” Teddy broke out, desperately, goaded by the sarcasm to full confession, “I was batting flies to the fellows, and one of them said I couldn’t hit anything, and I wanted to show him that he was wrong, and just then I saw the coach coming, and I took aim at the gray horse. I didn’t think anything about his running away–I’d never seen him run hard, anyway–and–and–I guess that’s all,” he ended, miserably.

“No, it ain’t all, not by a long sight!” ejaculated Jed, who had been especially stung by the slur on his faithful gray. “Not much, it ain’t all! So, yer did it on puppose, did yer? I might have s’spicioned from the fust thet you was at the bottom of this rascality. They ain’t anything happened in this town fur a long time past thet you ain’t been mixed up in.

“I’m mortal sure,” he went on, haranguing his audience and warming up at the story of his wrongs, “thet it was this young varmint thet painted my hosses with red, white and blue stripes, last Fourth of July. I jess had time to harness up to get to the train in time, when I found it out, and I didn’t have time to get the paint off before I started. And there was the people in Main Street laffin’ fit ter kill themselves, and the loafers at the deepo askin’ me why I didn’t paint myself so as to match the hosses. It took me nigh on two days before I could get it off, and the hosses smelt of benzine fur more than a week. Ef I could a ketched the feller what done it, I’d ’a’ taken it out of his hide, but I never had no sartin proof. Howsumever, I knowed pooty well in my own mind who done it,” and he glared vindictively at Teddy.

But Teddy had already done all the confessing he cared to do for one day, and the author of Jed’s unwilling Fourth of July display was still to remain a mystery.

Far more important to Teddy than Jed’s threats was the wrath of his uncle, who stood looking at him with a severity before which Teddy’s eyes fell.

“And you mean to tell me,” said Mr. Aaron Rushton slowly, “you have the nerve to stand there and tell me that you actually aimed at that horse–that you deliberately – ”

“No, not deliberately, Uncle Aaron,” interrupted Fred, who had been trying to get in a word for his brother, and now seized this opening. “He didn’t think of what he was doing. If he had, he wouldn’t have done it. He didn’t have any idea the horses would run away. Teddy wouldn’t hurt – ”

“You keep still, Fred,” and his uncle turned on him savagely. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask you for it. If you weren’t always making excuses for him and trying to get him out of scrapes, he wouldn’t get into so many.

“Not another word,” he went on, as Fred still tried to make things easier for Teddy. “We’ll finish this talk up at the house. I want your father and mother to hear for themselves just how near this son of theirs came to killing his uncle.”

“I’ll see if I can get a rig of some kind to carry you up,” volunteered Fred.

“Never mind that,” answered his uncle shortly. “It isn’t far, and I don’t want to wait. Bring that valise that you’ll find in the coach along with you. I want to get into some dry things as soon as possible. Lucky it isn’t a shroud, instead of regular clothes,” and he shot a glance at Teddy that made that youth shudder.

“As to the damage done to the coach and horses,” Mr. Rushton said, turning to Jed, who had been watching Teddy’s ordeal with great satisfaction and gloating over what was still coming to him when he should reach home, “you need not worry about that. Either my brother or I will see you to-morrow and fix things up all right.”

“Thank yer, Mr. Rushton,” mumbled Jed, as he mentally tried to reach the very highest figure he would dare to charge, with any hope of getting it. “I knowed you would do the right thing. I’m only sorry that you should have so much trouble with that there young imp,” and he shook his head sorrowfully and heaved a sigh, as though he already saw ahead of Teddy nothing but the gallows or the electric chair.

Nor could he forbear one parting shot at that dejected youth.

“Don’t forget, young man, thet you may have to reckon with Uncle Sam yet,” he hinted, with evident relish, as the party prepared to move away. “It ain’t no joke to interfere with the United States mail and them thet’s carryin’ it. The padlock on that mailbag was all bent and bunged up when the stage smashed up against that tree. Course, I ain’t sayin’ what may come of it, but them gover’ment folks is mighty tetchy on them p’ints. They’ve got a big prison at Leavenworth and another at Atlanta where they puts fellers that interferes with the mails in any way, shape or manner. Oh, I know all about them places. I’ve traveled a good deal in my time, and – ”

But by this time, the uncle and nephews were well on their way up the hill, and Jed had to save the rest of his discourse for his cronies that evening at the general store.

The Rushton home stood on a beautiful elm-shaded street just beyond the field where the boys had been playing ball. It was a charming, up-to-date house, capacious and well arranged, and furnished with every comfort. A broad, velvety lawn stretched out in front, and towering elms threw their cool shadows over the roadway.

Around three sides of the house ran a hospitable veranda, with rugs and rattan furniture that made of it one large outside room. Tables, on which rested books and magazines, with here and there a vase of flowers fresh cut from the garden, showed that the inmates of the house were people of intelligence and refinement.

Mansfield Rushton, the boys’ father, was one of the most prominent citizens of Oldtown. He was a broker, with offices in a neighboring city, to which he commuted. His absorption in his business and his interest in large affairs left him less time and leisure than he would have liked to devote to his family. He was jovial and easy-going, and very proud of his two boys, to whom he was, in fact, perhaps too indulgent. “Boys will be boys,” was his motto, and many an interview, especially with Teddy, that ought, perhaps, to have ended in punishment, was closed only with the more or less stern injunction “not to do it again.”

His wife, Agnes, was a sweet, gracious woman, who, while she added greatly to the charm and happiness of the household, did not contribute very much to its discipline. She could be firm on occasion, and was not as blind as the father to what faults the boys possessed. Although each one of them was as dear to her as the apple of her eye, she by no means adopted the theory that they could do no wrong. Like most mothers, however, she was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it was not hard to persuade her that they were “more sinned against than sinning.”

The Rushton system of household management, with love, rather than fear, the ruling factor, was not without its critics. The boys’ uncle, Aaron, some years older than his brother Mansfield, and wholly different in disposition, had been especially exasperated at it. On his occasional visits to Oldtown he never tired of harping on his favorite proverb of “spare the rod and spoil the child,” and his predictions of Teddy’s future were colored with dark forebodings.

To be sure, he had never gone so far as to prophesy that Teddy’s mischief would ever come near killing any one. And yet, that was precisely what had happened.

And as Aaron Rushton toiled up the hill the discomfort he felt from his wet clothes was almost forgotten in the glow of satisfaction that at last he had proved his theory. He would show Mansfield and Agnes that even if he was a bachelor–as they had at times slyly reminded him–he knew more about bringing up boys than they did.

The unsuspecting parents were sitting on the veranda, waiting for the boys to come in to supper. The table was spread and waiting, and Mr. Rushton had once or twice glanced impatiently at his watch.

“What on earth is keeping those boys?” he exclaimed. “Oh, here they are now. But who’s that with them? Why, it’s Aaron! Great Scott! What’s the matter?” he cried, as he sprang up excitedly.

Mrs. Rushton uttered a little shriek as her eyes fell on the three figures entering the gateway.