FullReads

“Numb-head!” muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin with his whip-stock. “Come out and show yourself! We know you’re in there, and it’s no use hiding!”

At last in response to a deafening blow from Rube Hobson’s hard fist, there came the answering note of a weak despairing voice.

“Tom ain’t ter hum,” it said; “Tom’s gone to Bonny Eagle.”

“That’s all right!” guffawed the men; “but you’ve got to go some more, and go a diff’rent way. It ain’t no use fer you to hold back; we’ve got a ladder, and by Jiminy! you go with us this time!”

The ladder was put against the side of the hut, and Pitt Packard climbed up, took his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top to bottom, and turned back the flap.

The men could see the inside of the chamber now. They were humorous persons who could strain a joke to the snapping point, but they felt, at last, that there was nothing especially amusing in the situation. Tom was huddled in a heap on the straw bed in the far corner. The vacant smile had fled from his face, and he looked, for the first time in his life, quite distraught.

“Come along, Tom,” said the sheriff kindly; “we ‘re going to take you where you can sleep in a bed, and have three meals a day.”

“I’d much d’ruth-er walk in the bloom-in’ gy-ar-ding,”

sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head in a paroxysm of fear.

“Well, there ain’t no bloomin’ gardings to walk in jest now, so come along and be peaceable.”

“Tom don’ want to go to the poor-farm,” he wailed piteously.

But there was no alternative. They dragged him off the bed and down the ladder as gently as possible; then Rube Hobson held him on the back seat of the wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the horse. As they were on the point of starting, the captive began to wail and struggle more than ever, the burden of his plaint being a wild and tremulous plea for his pail of molasses.

“Dry up, old softy, or I’ll put the buggy robe over your head!” muttered Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started on the trip, and had lost it all by this time.

“By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!” said Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, comforting the shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive silence that lasted until the unwelcome journey was over.

Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours. It did not enter the minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate as to be admitted into that happy haven would decline to stay there. The unwilling guest disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, after some search, they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed into his beloved retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, had mended the willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace. They dragged him out again, and this time more impatiently; for it was exasperating to see a man (even if he were a fool) fight against a bed and three meals a day.

The second attempt was little more successful than the first. As a place of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable or attractive on near acquaintance than it did at long range. Tom remained a week, because he was kept in close confinement; but when they judged that he was weaned from his old home, they loosed his bonds, and–back to the plains he sped, like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a bit of iron leaping to the magnet.

What should be done with him?

Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that the village had done its duty, and if the “dog-goned lunk-head” wanted to starve and freeze, it was his funeral, not theirs. Others thought that the community had no resource but to bear the responsibility of its irresponsible children, however troublesome they might be. There was entire unanimity of view so far as the main issues were concerned. It was agreed that nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand guard over Tom night and day, and that the sheriff could not be expected to spend his time forcing him out of his hut on the blueberry plains.