Ellis Parker Butler

“ The wind made the river choppy, but the shanty-boat, not having had time to water-log since Peter put her in the water, floated high.
For a while Buddy steered energetically, splashing the water with the blade of his oar, but Peter was ready for the first sign of weariness.
“My! but you are a fine steerer!” he said approvingly. “When you grow just a bit bigger, Uncle Peter is going to teach you how to row a boat, and a song to sing while you row it. Hurry up, now, and help Uncle Peter steer.” ”

“ There the wind had a clearer sweep than in the protected slough, and one could understand why Peter had risked the return to the boat for additional garments after having once fled from it. The wind carried the snow in low white clouds, lifting it from one drift to deposit it in another, piling it high against every obstruction on the ice. Without their blanket serapes it would have been impossible for Peter, hardened as he was, to withstand the cold of the long journey he had planned. ”

“ A fair up-river breeze and his rag of a sail had helped him fight the stiff current, but it had been a hard, all-day pull at the oars of his skiff, and when he had towed the boat into the cove and had made her fast by looping his line under the railway track that skirted the bank, he was wet and weary. His tin breadbox was empty and he had but a handful of coffee left, but he was too tired to go to town, and he had nothing to trade if he went, and he knew by experience that an appeal to a farmer—even to Widow Potter—meant wood-sawing, and he was too tired to saw wood. ”

“ Once each week or so Peter rowed to town to sell the product of his jack-knife and such fish as he caught. He was not an enthusiastic fisherman, but his jack-knife, always keen and sharp, was a magic tool in his hand. When he was not making shapely boats for the shanty-boat kids, or whittling for the mere pleasure of whittling, his jack-knife shaped wooden kitchen spoons and other small household articles, or net-makers' shuttles, out of clean maplewood, and these, when he went to town, he peddled from door to door. What he could not sell he traded for coffee or bacon at the grocery stores. ”

“ Women have become rich with the discovery of a rag rug or a corn-husk door-mat.
To Mrs. Montgomery the trip to Peter Lane's shanty-boat was a path to fame. Her quick perception grasped every detail and saw its value or, to put it most crudely, its advertising potency. As she, with Mr. and Mrs. Vandyne, whirled down the smooth bluff road in the Vandyne barouche, she said: “Anna, I do wish we could have come in an ox-cart, or a-straddle little donkeys, or in a hay-wagon, at least.” ”

“ Peter said scornfully.
“A feller can get lots of things at the Y. M. C. A. for five dollars that he can't get without it,” said Booge good naturedly. “You don't want to knock me all the time, Peter. A horse crops grass one way, and a cow crops it another way, and the Lord is the maker of them all, as the feller said. So long as a man has a clean conscience and a clear eye he can walk right up to any bull alive—if the bull wants to let him.” ”

“ Potter reluctantly. “You'd be ashamed to ask for jam if you hadn't. If you had a wife and she was any account you'd have bread and jam when boys come to see you. But I do pity the woman that gets you, Peter Lane! No woman on this earth but a widow that has had experience with men-folks could ever make anything out of you.” ”

“ The wind was slapping against the side of the boat in gusts and the frost was gathering on his windows, but Peter replenished his fire and lighted the cheap cigar George Rapp had left on the clock shelf.
What does a hermit do when he is shut in for a long night with a winter storm raging outside? Peter put his newspaper back under the pillow and hunted through his driftwood for a piece that would do to whittle, but had to give that up as a bad job. Then his eyes alighted on the wooden pegs on which his shot-gun lay, and he took down the gun and pulled one of the pegs from its hole. ”

“ The shanty part was no more than fifteen feet long and eight feet wide, built of thin boards and roofed with tar paper. Inside were the bunk—of clean white pine—a home-made pine table, a small sheet-iron cook-stove, two wooden pegs for Peter's shotgun, a shelf for his alarm-clock, a breadbox, some driftwood for the stove, and a wall lamp with a silvered glass reflector. In one corner was a tangle of nets and trot-lines. It was not much of a boat, but the flat-bottomed hull was built of good two-inch planks, well caulked and tarred. ”

“ To pass leisurely along the bank of such a slough is strenuous work, but to fight along it as Peter was fighting, is real man's work, and Peter—thin, delicate as he looked—was all iron and leather. For a mile and a half he worked his way, until he reached a great sycamore, known to all the duck hunters as the “Big Tree.” Below the Big Tree the slough widened into a broad expanse of water known as Big Tree Lake. Peter stopped short. In the middle of the lake, knee-deep in water and holding fast to a worn imitation-leather valise from which the water was dripping, stood a man. ”

“ The man, for all the bulk given him by his ulster and cap, had a small, sharp face, and his eyes were shrewd and shifty.
“Mebby I am,” rumbled Booge, crossing his legs and putting one hand on his hip and one on his forehead, “and mebby I ain't. Let me recall! Now, if I was Peter Lane, what might you want of me?”
The stranger smiled ingratiatingly and cleared his throat.
“My—my name,” he said slowly, “is Briggles—Reverend Rasmer Briggles, of Derlingport. My duty here is, I may say, one that, if you are Peter Lane, should give you cause only for satisfaction. Extreme satisfaction. Yes!” ”

“ Buddy could not work, but Peter could, and Booge must. Then he explained about the pile of wood, a good winter's work for the two of them. Booge listened in silence. He was silent for several minutes after Peter ceased talking, and then he grinned.
“The man that says he wouldn't rather find a silver dollar in the road than earn five dollars a-workin', is like that man that got killed with a thunderbolt for careless conversation,” he said cheerfully, “so I won't say it. Wood-sawin' and me has been enemies ever since I became a tourist. ”

“ The current swung from shore to shore, now crossing to the Iowa side again, where the levee guarded the fields, and now swinging back to the Illinois bottom-land. For the boy the scene held little interest; for Peter it was a new chapter of an old story he loved. Here a giant sycamore he had known since youth had been blackened and shortened by lightning; there an elm, falling, had created a new sand-bar on which willows were already finding a foothold. In time it might be quite an island, or perhaps the next spring “rise” might sweep it away entirely. ”

“ He had noticed that the farmer on the hill back of the lake, where Buddy had spent the day of his mother's funeral, had a huge pile of cord wood in his yard, and he tramped across the lowland to the farmer's house and dickered for the sawing of the wood. It was a large contract, and Peter as a rule did not care to saw wood except in dire straits, but he had decided that if he was to be a man of worth he must be a man of work to begin with, and the wood pile was opportunity. It was while walking home after making his bargain with his farmer friend that he had his happy idea—Booge must saw wood! ”

“ The tramp had reached the shanty-boat and had clambered aboard, and with the pike pole Peter had left lying on the roof, was trying frantically to pole the boat off the bar into deeper water. A boat adrift is any one's boat, if he can keep it, and once the boat swung clear of the bar into deeper water the tramp could laugh at Peter. ”

“ I guess one funny cat like that is enough in one family. Uncle Peter has to keep his eye out to watch if the ice is going to move this morning. He can't make cats.”
“Make a funny dog,” said Buddy promptly. “Well, Buddy, if I make you a funny dog,” said Peter, “will you be a good boy and play with it and let Uncle Peter get some stove wood aboard the boat?”
“Yes, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy. He had the smile of a cherub and the splendid mendacity of youth. He would promise anything. Only the most unreasonable expect a boy to keep such promises, but it does the heart good to hear them. ”

“ The shore against which the boat now lay was a thicket of willows so close of growth that it was almost impossible to fight through them, and while most were no larger than whips some were as large as a man's wrist. Against the low bank the boat lay broadside and so close that the willow branches reached over her roof, and as soon as Booge had brought his valise inside Peter reached far under the bunk and brought forth an ax. ”

“ The business Peter had to transact took him to George Rapp's Livery, Sale and Feed Stable, and by good luck he found George in his stuffy, over-heated office, redolent of tobacco smoke, harness soap and general stable odors. Like all men who brave cold weather at all hours George liked to be well baked when in-doors. ”

“ Why, when she wants to, that stove can start in and get red hot all over, stove-pipe and legs and all, until it's so hot in here the tar melts off them nets yonder—drips off 'em like rain off the bob-wires. You'd think she'd suffocate me out of here, but she don't. No, sir. The very next minute she'll be as cold as ice. For a man alone as much as I am that's a great stove, George.”
“Will you sell me the boat, or won't you?” asked Rapp.
“Now, I wish you wouldn't ask me to sell her, George,” said Peter regretfully, for it hurt him to refuse his friend. ”

“ Booge, when he felt reasonably sure Peter had reached safety, ended his half-joking parley abruptly, and said he was willing to accompany his captors in peace. He was satisfied he would not be given much more than six months in the county jail for the assault, and six months would carry him through the winter, into good, warm, summer weather. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle against five men except more trouble.
Once more in his cabin, Peter put Buddy to bed in the dark, and ate his much delayed supper. Buddy seemed to take the flight as a matter of no moment. ”

“ Peter came back from his wood-sawing one evening and found Buddy astride a rocking-horse. The table was on top of the bunk to make room for the horse, and Booge, robed in one of the blankets, was playing the part of a badly scared Indian after whom Buddy was riding in violent chase. For a week Buddy had been well, but Booge managed to make Peter think he could still see spots on the boy. Booge had no desire to begin sawing wood again. It was much pleasanter in the shanty-boat with Buddy.
The rocking-horse was the oddest looking horse that ever cantered. ”

“ Peter did not blame himself for the position in which the untimely rise had placed him. The slough should have been a safe place. Once let the ice firmly seal the slough—any slough—and all the weight of all the floating ice of the whole river could not disturb the boat. When the ice moved out of the river in the spring it would pile up in a mountain at the head of the island formed by the slough, choking the entrance, and not until the slough ice softened and rotted and honeycombed and at last dissolved in the sun, could anything move the shanty-boat. A big rise in November is rare indeed. ”

“ That evening, while Peter sat in his shanty-boat, lonely and thinking of Buddy as he whittled a spoon, Mrs. Montgomery stood, tall and imposing and sweet-faced, behind the toy table on which all of Buddy's toys stood with “Sold” tags strung on them, and told about Peter Lane, the Jack-knife Man.
“I'm very sorry,” she said time after time, “but they are all sold. We do not know yet whether we can persuade the Jack-knife Man to make duplicates, but we will take your order subject to his whim, if you wish. We cannot promise anything definite. Artists are so notably irresponsible.” ”

“ The boy, when Peter opened the door, was standing on the table trying to lift the shot-gun from its pegs. His face showed he had made a trip to the bread and jam. He looked down at Peter as the door opened.
“Mama's funny,” he said, and reached for the gun again.
The woman was indeed “funny.” She was in the grip of a raging fever. Her cheeks were violently red and against them the green dye from her hat made hideous streaks. Her hair had fallen and lay in a tangle over the pillow, with the rain-soaked hat still clinging to a strand. ”