Edward A. Rand

“ The smoke had now shifted its coarse, and rolling away from Miss Persnips’s, hung in a dark, sullen cloud above the forest but a little way off.
Away went the engine and its allies, sweeping along men and boys, and also every able-bodied member of the Up-the-Ladder Club whose legs could carry him. Down past shops and houses and farms rushed the crowd, pulling along several fat men who had grasped the rope. By and by they came to a farmer in a red shirt who pointed his spectacles at them across the top-rail of the fence at the right of the road. ”

“ Tony and his father went to Italy in a bark that left Seamont bound for the Mediterranean. Charlie watched the vessel from the barn window.
Like a gull that flying afar sinks lower and then disappears behind some rising billow, so the sails of the bark, receding farther and farther, vanished behind that blue rim of the horizon that rises up to check our sight and hide away the vessels that may hold our dearest hopes. ”

“ In his peregrinations over various roofs, he had examined the cupola, and reaching a paw through an opening where a slat chanced to have been removed, he had abstracted the property of the club. Whatever money was in the dipper had been spilled hopelessly as marbles in the sea. Attempting to come down by a spout from the last barn-roof visited, he was entangled in the cord that had caught about a nail in the roof. Finally, the cord was twisted about his neck and twisted the life out of him. ”

“ He laid down his crook and lifted Charlie at once. Then the beauty of the dream, its light, its ladder, the Good Shepherd, seemed to vanish, slowly though, even as the stars die away out of the early morning sky. Charley knew what it all meant. When he awoke and thought it over, he knelt by his bed and he prayed to the Saviour. He told him that he wanted to lead that better life, and would he not lift a little fellow where he could not climb himself? And a Saviour’s arms, ever waiting to raise us all, were lowered for Charlie’s help, and they lifted him to the “round higher up.” ”

“ Grimes, and each one, happy in the thought that he could have a sword as speedily as his neighbor, cheered lustily.
“Now, boys, let’s go and see ‘teacher’ about our name,” suggested the president. The barn was vacated at once, and the members of the club went down stairs as if a fire were after them, and then rushed along the lane, all heading for a cozy story-and-a-half house where “teacher” lived. “The Sunday-school teacher” was Miss Bertha Barry, brown-haired, brown-eyed, vivacious Bertha Barry. All the boys were in her class, save Tony. ”

“ The boat stopped in the midst of the commotion that followed the governor’s tumble, and when Will started his craft again, he did not appreciate the fact that its bow had shifted its aim.
“Where are we goin’?” inquired Aunt Stanshy.
“Home,” answered Will. “I’m all right. A few more strokes must fetch us all right to the wharf,” and he pulled lustily on his oars.
“It is my fear that we are all wrong,” said Aunt Stanshy. “I know something about this river, and about fogs, and about people rowing round like fools and getting nowhere.” ”

“ How Charlie did admire Sid for his easy flow of language! The “lane,” as Seamont called the narrow street before the barn, was now searched for recruits, and the barn-chamber was deserted a whole hour. The big horse-flies sawed on their bass-viols at their leisure. The warm gold of the sunshine undisturbed continued to decorate the floor of the chamber. Hark! There’s a noise in the yard! It grows to a harried, breathless scramble on the stairs. Finally eight boys appeared, the future members of the club, save one or two later additions. There was Sid or Sidney Waters, aged eleven. ”

“ Not only was the door closed, and closed also was the wooden shutter of the window, but over each iron hook dropped in its staple and securing the door and window were two nails stoutly driven. All this Charlie had noticed before. He now traced these half-obliterated words in chalk on the door: “This is not to be opened.” He was standing before this prohibition, wondering who put it there, and for what purpose, thinking how nice it would be to have the door open that the club might have a chance to get down that way into the dock. ”

“ The mother would watch the pigeons flying into their hiding-places in the steeple, seeking a refuge from the wild storm, and then her eyes would be lifted higher to the weather-vane, as if seeking for news about the sea-wind. Still higher went her thoughts—to God.
“She’s thinking of him, that son,” said the observant neighbors, who never knowingly gave up a chance to see something. To Aunt Stanshy this bit of mystery only made Mr. Walton all the more interesting.
Mr. Walton thought the next day he would fish for scholars in the Grimes neighborhood, where Tony lived. ”

“ It seemed as if those patriots in the Up-the-Ladder Club had been oppressed by a terrible yoke of bondage, domestic especially, but it was all lifted and thrown off that day. There was freedom—to blow horns, freedom to fire crackers, freedom to “holler,” freedom to crack torpedoes, freedom to buy pea-nuts, buns, ancient figs and dates and abominable cheap candy, freedom to make one’s self as dirty, tired—and cross the next day—as possible! ”

“ He stayed there only a minute, and then rushed to the head of the stairs leading down cellar, calling:
“Aunt Stanshy! Aunt Stanshy, come quick, do! There goes Tony’s father!”
Aunt Stanshy was down cellar fishing for pork in a capacious barrel. She dropped the piece for which she had successfully angled, and rushed to the stairs as if a whirlwind was after her. Breathless, she arrived at Charlie’s window.
“There, aunty, that is he!”
“What, Mr. Walton?”
“No, Mr. Walton is coming down the lane; but don’t you see that other man going up the lane?” ”

“ It was Aunt Stanshy, who, from her window, had watched the boys, and, seeing the approach of that down-town thunder-cloud, rushed out to meet the storm. Her prowess was witnessed by Simes Badger, who, as a leading village gossip, was loafing away an hour of leisure in a flag-bottomed chair before Silas Trefethen’s grocery. He told the story to all the village gossips of the masculine sex who gathered at the grocery as soon as they had swallowed their tea and had done as few chores at home as possible. ”

“ It was the angriest tumult of foam possible, as if the frothing of millions of enraged creatures of the sea.
“Ah, there she is!” shouted John Fisher, as the cart neared the shore-end of the point.
“We will get her!” screamed Charlie, as he reached the cart. The men laughed.
“It’s a three-masted schooner,” bawled Captain Peters, “and she’s where the life-boat can’t reach her, but our wreck-gun will. That craft has keeled over on Deep Rock, near the very P’int itself! Get out the gun!”
The men now took from the cart a small cannon, then a mass of rope, and then a rope of larger size. ”

“ The wind from the water swept cool across the vessel. Where was he? Adrift? He turned toward the sea. The light at Simes Badger’s lighthouse was still blazing, but far away above the dark, angry sea, there was a faint glow in the heavens.
“Good!” thought Wort. “Father’s vessel hasn’t broke loose, for there is the light-house where it was yesterday, and that’s morning over there. She’s coming!” ”

“ The curtain rose and there stood the inheritor of the warlike name of Jugurtha. He was rather sober and melancholy, and was dressed in a semi-military style that betrayed not in the least the fact to what flag he might possibly be attached. Sid was crouching down, hiding behind a barrel.
“What am I?” Juggie now asked in low tones, “American or British?”
“Of course,” Sid was heard to say, “you are an American, or ought to be. Hush up!”
Juggie now strode over the floor, an exiled broom-handle resting on his shoulder. Suddenly a step was heard. From the rear of a box crept out the governor. ”

“ Rick Grimes was made governor.
“Treasurer now!” called out Sid.
“Charlie, would you like to be that?” he whispered. Charlie was about to say “Yes,” when the fruit hanging before his thirsty lips was suddenly snatched away.
“I’d like that,” piped a voice. It was Pip Peckham.
“Ahem!” said the president, “I think the office ought to be given to experience,” and here he looked in the direction of Charlie.
“Who’s he?” inquired Billy. “Who’s Sperience?”
“Silence!” ordered the president. “Little boys must speak only when they are spoken to.” ”

“ At the supper-table that night Charlie asked, “Aunty, what do you suppose we are going to have now in our club? Something at our fair, I mean?”
“A tornado.”
“No, a refreshment saloon; and the boys said they knew you would be in every day to buy something.”
“O dear!” groaned Aunt Stanshy, inwardly.
“We are going to have ice-cream, too, may be. We couldn’t afford it in summer.”
“Not in summer? Why, that’s the time when people want it most.”
“But we make ours out of snow, you know, and could only have it in cold weather.” ”

“ The people began to gather about them.
“Ah, poor Tim, poor Tim!” said a woman, bending over one of the boys.
“That’s Ann there with Tim Tyler,” said Charlie to Sid Waters, these two enterprising knights having made good use of their legs and quickly reached the spot.
“Who’s Ann?”
“It is Tim’s mother.”
“I recognize the other boy. It’s Bob Landers.”
“Will Somers, this you?” asked Charlie.
“It will be when my face is washed. Dirty work at fires.”
“Why, Mr. Walton, is this you? What a ’ero! Did you save one of them boys?” squeaked Miss Persnips to Will’s companion. ”

“ He had a flag over his mother’s picture. Then there was a red-hot chromo of a fire-engine, and a cool one of two white bears on a cake of ice.
“O dear, what a boarder!” said Aunt Stanshy, going into the room twenty-four hours after it had been very orderly arranged by her. “Things are stirred up now. It looks like a tornader.”
That was the way it generally appeared, and yet Will Somers, impulsive, careless, thoughtless, but frank, enthusiastic, generous, dashing, and honorable always, was very popular with Aunt Stanshy and Charlie. In Charlie’s eyes he was a marvelous being. ”

“ It was so pleasant to be in the warm, comfortable sitting-room and watch the dreary weather out in the lane. The back side of the house butted on the lane, no fence intervening. Aunt Stanshy had no objection to such a close contact, but rather liked it, declaring it to be “social.” She did not favor, though, the sociability that drunken sailors manifested several times when going from the saloons on Water Street down to their vessels at the wharf in which the lane ended. They would stagger against the house, pushing one another and bombarding it. Aunt Stanshy was on hand, though. ”

“ It was Tim Tyler, one of the hardest boys in Seamont, aged fifteen. Back of him was a smaller boy, but a competitor in vice, Bobby Landers. How many others might soon show themselves, no one could say, but the down-townies were clannish and loved to turn out in crowds, and to the club the probability appeared to be, that others would speedily rise up and charge along the railroad track. Sid Waters, who had urged freemen to stand for their rights, was now turning on his heel. He headed for a fence that separated the railroad lot from the woods. ”

“ Startled by the sound Charlie awoke.
The next Sunday Miss Barry said: “Boys, I don’t think I need ask about the round higher up which your ladder needs. You understand me, and I want you to put it in. We never can climb very high, unless our life is pure and lovely and noble. It must be like Christ’s life, and filled with the beautiful thoughts and purposes he had. That is the round higher up we need.” ”

“ Will Somers was popular in a very short time with every body. In the club-circle he was the object of an open, undisguised admiration. They quickly made him an honorary member, and he quickly set them up a “pair of bars,” put in proper position the ladder, and suspended swings, that they might practice gymnastics every day. Every mother who had a boy in that club expected almost any day that her idol might be brought home stretched on a shutter or bundled up in a wheelbarrow. ”

“ O, young people, do dare to be rainy-weather Christians!
Aunt Stanshy and Charlie were walking away from the church the noon of the Sunday after the grand march. At St. John’s, the Sunday-school followed the morning service.
“Aunty,” said Charlie, nudging his companion, “here comes somebody.”
That somebody was Mr. Walton, to whom were intrusted the spiritual interests of the congregation. He was tall, stalwart, owned a fair complexion, and wore his hair rather long; hair, too, that would curl, no matter how patiently the brush and comb coaxed it to be straight and dignified. ”

“ Wort found a rope, made one end fast to the rail, and then, throwing the other end down to Simes, safely lowered himself into the stern of the light-keeper’s boat. In fifteen minutes more Wort was at home, to the surprise and joy of his parents.
The club boys heard about Wort’s experience, and had a word to say concerning it.
“I say, Wort,” asked Charlie, “how do you like going to sea?”
“Did you catch any waleths?” inquired Pip.
“What did the mermaids say to you?” asked the governor.
“It is the last of your going to sea, Wort. You will have to be a land-lubber,” said Sid. ”

“ The club belonged to the up-townies, “the only fit class for gentlemen,” Sid had declared The down-townies delighted to hurl all kinds of epithets at the other boys, and these “gentlemen” up-townies could sling titles almost as successfully, and both sides would sometimes give additional flavor to their epithets by means of missiles, even as mothers sometimes season their injunctions to boys with a twig from the old apple-tree in the yard. The club had had no hand in these intestine feuds, but sympathized with the warriors in their neighborhood, the up-townies. ”

“ She was a tall, resolute woman, so tall that Simes Badger told Charlie that when he wanted to put colors on a flag-staff, he needn’t go out of the house. That made Charlie mad. Aunt Stanshy had sharp, black eyes, and spectacles made them look all the sharper. As Charlie said, “Aunt Stanshy’s eyes sometimes look as if they had snappin’ crackers in ’em.” Aunt Stanshy was really kind at heart and really loved Charlie, and he had all the comforts of home; but she would sometimes speak quick, and she was always sure to “speak her mind,” be the rate of speech slow or quick. ”

“ It rolled over the wharves, swept up the shipyards, and even ventured into the yard back of Silas Trefethen’s store, floating away a hencoop with its squawking tenants.
“It beats all!” said Simes Badger. “The oldest person round here never saw such a tide.”
The Up-the-Ladder Club did the tide the honor of making it a call in a body, and from the rear of Silas Trefethen’s store watched the swollen current beyond the yard.
“Let’s go down to the beach and see the waves to-morrow. It’s Saturday, you know, and the waves pile up tremendous in a storm. Who’s for it!” inquired Sid Waters. ”

“ Away they all went, Rick strutting forward with great dignity, but Juggie waved his flag cautiously, for the flourishing of such a long pole might lead to his capsizing. Tony followed Juggie. Billy and Pip still tugged at the go-cart that the president continued to monopolize. Charlie solemnly guarded the precious freight in the “chariot.” Wort, who had been at the head of the column, had now wandered to the rear, and his face wore a puzzled look, as if he did not know where to put the chief marshal.
“You ought to have two policemen in front,” squeaked a little voice from the sidewalk. ”