Julius, The Street Boy

CHAPTER XXII.

AN INDIAN’S REVENGE

After Mr. Fairbanks assumed charge of the school there was no further trouble. He was a teacher of large experience, good judgment, and a happy faculty of imparting what he knew. He was not a man of extensive acquirements, but he was thoroughly versed in all the branches he was required to teach. Though he never boasted of his remarkable achievements, like his predecessor, his pupils had far greater confidence in his knowledge.

Julius learned rapidly under his care. After the winter term was over Mr. Fairbanks was induced to open a private school by those who thought the more of him from comparing him with his predecessor; and to this school Julius also was sent. But, though his progress was steady, no events of interest call for mention here. He became popular with his schoolfellows, distinguishing himself in the playground as well as the classroom. Nearly all the street phrases which he carried to the West with him dropped away, and only now and then did he betray the manner of his former life.

Having written so much to let my readers know how Julius was advancing, I pass to describe a character who has something to do with my story. Though no tribe of Indians was settled near Brookville, single representatives of the race, from time to time, visited the village—occasionally with baskets of beadwork to sell, occasionally in the less honorable character of mendicant. Most were subject to the curse which civilization brought with it to these children of the forest, namely, the love of strong drink; and a large portion of whatever money they received was spent for what the Indian appropriately calls fire water.

It was on a day in the following summer that a tall Indian, wrapped in a dirty blanket, presented himself at the back door of Mr. Taylor’s house. His features were bloated, and clearly indicated his habits. His expression otherwise was far from prepossessing, and the servant, who answered his call, looked at him rather uneasily, knowing that her mistress, herself and little Carrie were alone in the house. Mr. Taylor had gone to a neighboring town and taken Julius with him, while Abner was in the fields.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Money,” said the Indian, laconically.

“I have no money,” she answered. “I will give you something to eat.”

“Want money,” repeated the Indian.

“I’ll go and ask my mistress,” said Jane.

Mrs. Taylor, on being informed of the matter, went herself to the door. Little Carrie’s curiosity had been aroused, and she asked if she might go too. As there seemed to be no objection, Mrs. Taylor took the little girl by the hand, and presented herself at the door.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, of her dusky visitor.

“No; want money,” was the reply.

“I am not in the habit of giving money at the door. My husband does not approve of it,” she answered.

“Go ask him,” said the Indian.

“He is not at home,” she answered, incautiously; “but I am sure he would not be willing to have me give you any money.”

As soon as she had admitted the absence of her husband she realized her imprudence. There was a scarcely perceptible gleam of exultation in the eye of the Indian as he heard what was so favorable to his purpose. A man would be in his way, but a woman he could frighten.

“Must have money; must have two dollar,” he reiterated.

“What do you want money for?” asked Mrs. Taylor.

“Buy rum—good!”

“Then I am sure I shall give you none. Rum is bad,” said Mrs. Taylor.

“It makes Indian feel good.”

“It may for the time, but it will hurt you afterward. I will give you some meat and some coffee. That is better than rum.”

“Don’t want it,” said the Indian, obstinately. “Want money.”

“You’d better give it to him, ma’am, and let him go,” said Jane, in a low voice.

“No,” said Mrs. Taylor; “Mr. Taylor is very much opposed to it. The last time I gave money he blamed me very much. If he is not satisfied with coffee and meat I shall give him nothing.”

“Ugh! Ugh!” grunted the Indian, evidently angry.

“I’m afraid of him, mamma. He’s so ugly,” said Carrie, timidly, clinging to her mother’s hand.

“He won’t hurt you, my darling,” said Mrs. Taylor.

But the Indian had caught the little girl’s words, and probably understood them. He scowled at her, and this terrified the child still more.

“Will you have some coffee?” Mrs. Taylor asked once more.

“No; rum.”

“I have no rum to give you.”

“Money.”

“Neither shall I give you money.”

The Indian emitted a guttural sound, probably indicating dissatisfaction, and turned slowly away.

“I am glad he is gone,” said Mrs. Taylor. “I don’t like his looks.”

“Is he a bad man?” asked Carrie.

“I don’t know, my dear, but he likes to drink rum.”

“Then he must be bad.”

“He’s the worst lookin’ Indian I ever see,” said Jane. “I don’t want to set my eyes upon him again. He ought to be ashamed, goin’ round askin’ for money, a great, strong man like him. Why don’t he work?”

“Indians are not very fond of working, I believe, Jane.”

“If he wants money, he might make baskets.”

“Why didn’t you tell him so?”

“I was afraid to. He looked so wicked.”

So the subject was dismissed. They supposed that the Indian was gone, and that they would not hear from him again. But they had forgotten that the red man is quick to take offense, and is revengeful by nature. They did not suspect that he was even then planning a revenge which would strike anguish into the heart of all in the household.

The Indian had not gone away, as they supposed. He was still hovering about the house, though he carefully avoided observation. He had been greatly incensed at the persistent refusal of Mrs. Taylor to supply him with rum, or the means of purchasing it. Years before he had become a slave to the accursed fire water, and it had become a passion with him to gratify his thirst. But it could not be obtained without money, and money was not to be had except by working for it, or by begging. Of these two methods the Indian preferred the last.

“Work is for squaws!” he said, in a spiteful and contemptuous manner. “It is not for warriors.”

But John, as he was sometimes called, did not look like the noble warriors whom Cooper describes. He was a shaggy vagabond, content to live on the alms he could obtain from the whites in the towns which he visited. As for lodgings, he was forced to lie down in his blanket wherever he could find the shelter of a tree or a forest.

The sight of the child had suggested to John a notable revenge. He could steal the little child, who had called him an ugly man—an expression which he understood. Thus he could wring the mother’s heart, and obtain revenge. There would be little danger of interference, for he knew that Mr. Taylor was away.

Mrs. Taylor and Carrie went back to the sitting-room where the mother resumed her sewing, and Carrie began to play with her blocks on the floor. Neither of them suspected that, just outside, the Indian was crouching, and that from time to time he glanced into the room to watch his chances of carrying out his plan.

By and by Carrie grew sleepy, as children are apt to do in the hot summer afternoons, and when they are tired.

“Lie down on the sofa, my darling,” said her mother.

“So I will, mother,” said Carrie. “I am very hot and sleepy.”

She lay down, and her mother tenderly placed a cushion under the little, weary head.

Soon Carrie was wrapped in the deep, unconscious sleep of childhood. The Indian, with a look of satisfaction, beheld her repose, as he stole a glance through the window.

Soon Mrs. Taylor thought of a direction she wished to give Jane. Glancing at little Carrie, she left the room, knowing that the child would not miss her.

No sooner had she left the room than the Indian, who had been waiting for this, sprang in through the open window, clasped the unconscious child in his arms, whose slumber was too profound to be disturbed even by this action, and in a moment was out on the lawn, speeding rapidly away with the little girl in his arms.

Suspecting no harm, Mrs. Taylor remained absent for fifteen minutes, then returning, her first glance was at the sofa, where she had left Carrie. Her heart gave a sudden bound when she discovered her absence. But even then she did not suspect the truth. She thought the child might have waked up, and gone upstairs.

“Carrie! Carrie!” she called out, in the greatest uncertainty and alarm.

But there was no answer.

She summoned Jane, and together they hunted high and low for the little girl, but in vain.

Then first a suspicion of the truth came to her.

“The Indian has carried her off!” she exclaimed in anguish, and sank fainting to the floor.

CHAPTER XXIII.

KIDNAPPED

The Indian was fleet-footed, like most of his race. After obtaining possession of the child, he struck across the fields, for on the public road he would have been liable to be seen and stopped. Little Carrie was in the deep sleep of childhood, and did not awake for some time. This of course was favorable to his design, for he had over a mile to go before he reached the woods, in which the instinct of his race led him to take refuge. It was not till a stray twig touched her cheek that the little girl awoke.

Opening her eyes, her glance rested on the dark face of the Indian, and, as might have been expected, she uttered a shriek of terror. At the same time she tried to get away.

“Put me down,” she cried in her fright.

“Not yet,” said the Indian.

“Where are you taking me, you ugly Indian? I want to go to my mamma.”

“No go,” said the Indian.

“I want to go home,” said Carrie; and she renewed her efforts to get away.

“No go home. Stay with John,” said the Indian.

“I don’t want to stay with you. Take me home.”

“No take home,” said the Indian; but he put her down, tired perhaps with carrying her.

Carrie looked about her bewildered. All about her were thick woods, and she could not see her way out. She did not know in what direction lay the home to which she was so anxious to return, but she thought it might be in the direction from which they had come. She started to run, but in an instant the Indian was at her side. He seized her hand in his firm grasp, and frowned upon her.

“Where go?” he asked.

“Home to my mamma.”

“No go,” said he, shaking his head.

“Why did you take me away from my mamma?” asked the poor child.

“Bad woman! No give poor Indian money,” responded the savage.

“Take me home, and she will give you money,” urged the child.

“Not now. Did not give before. Too late,” responded John.

“Are you going to keep me here? Will you never take me home?” asked Carrie, overwhelmed with alarm.

“Little girl stay with Indian; be Indian’s pickaninny.”

“I don’t want to be a pickaninny,” said Carrie. “Poor mamma will be so frightened. Did she see you take me away?”

“No. She go out. Leave child asleep. Indian jump through window. Take little girl.”

When Carrie understood how it was that she had been kidnapped, she felt very much frightened; but even in her terror she felt some curiosity about the Indian, and his mode of life.

“Where is your house?” she asked. “Is it here in the woods?”

“All places, under trees.”

“What! do you sleep under trees, without any roof?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you build a house?”

“Indian live in wigwam.”

“Then why don’t you live in a wigwam?”

“My wigwam far away—over there,” and he pointed to the north.

“Where will you sleep to-night?”

“Under tree.”

“Then you must take me home, I can’t sleep under a tree. I would catch my death of cold. So mamma says.”

“Must stay. Get used to it. Indian make bed of leaves for pickaninny.”

“I don’t want to sleep on leaves. I want to sleep in my little bed at home.”

“Come,” said John; and he dragged the child forward.

“Where are you taking me? Oh, carry me home!” pleaded Carrie.

“Stop!” said the Indian, sternly. “No cry, or I kill you.”

Carrie stopped, in greater fear than ever. The stern face of her companion made it not improbable that he might carry out the fearful threat he had uttered. So she checked her audible manifestations of grief, but the tears still coursed silently down her cheeks.

“What will mamma say, and papa—and Julius?” This was the thought that continually occupied her mind. Would she never see these dear ones again? Must she spend all her life with the wicked Indian? At any rate, when she got to be a woman—a great, strong woman, and knew her way about, she would run away, and go home. But there would be a good many years first. She wondered whether her skin would turn red, and she would look like the Indians. Then her father and mother would not know her, and would send her back again to live with the Indians. Altogether, however groundless some of her fears might be, little Carrie was very miserable and unhappy.

Meanwhile the Indian strode along. The little girl was forced at times to run, in order to keep up with her companion. She began to feel tired, but did not dare to complain.

At length they stopped. It was at a place where the Indian had spent the previous night. A few leaves had been piled up, and the pile was arched over by some branches which he had broken off from the surrounding trees. It was a rude shelter, but was a little better than lying on the bare ground.

He turned to the little girl, and said, “This Indian’s house.”

“Where?” asked the child, bewildered.

“There,” he said, pointing to the pile of leaves. “Suppose pickaninny tired; lie down.”

Carrie sat down on the leaves, for she did feel tired, and it was a relief to sit. Had Julius been with her, or her father, she would have enjoyed the novel sensation of being in the heart of the woods, knowing that she would be carried home again. But with the Indian it was different. Her situation seemed to her very dreadful, and she would have cried, but that she had already cried till she could cry no more.

The Indian gathered some more leaves, and threw himself down by her side. He looked grave and impassive, and did not speak. Carrie stole glances at him from time to time, but also kept silence. She felt too miserable even to repeat her entreaties that he would take her home.

But a child cannot always keep silence. After an hour she mustered courage to accost her fearful companion.

“Are you married?” she asked.

The Indian looked at her, and grunted, but did not reply.

“Have you got a wife?”

“Had squaw once—she dead,” answered John.

“Have you got any little girls like me?”

“No.”

“I wish you had,” sighed Carrie.

“What for you wish?”

“Because, then you would let me go to my papa. If you had a little girl, you would not like to have any one carry her off, would you?” and the little girl fixed her eyes on his face.

He grunted once more, but did not reply.

“Think how sorry your little girl would be,” said Carrie.

But the Indian was not strong in the way of sentiment. His feelings were not easily touched. Besides, he felt sleepy. So he answered thus: “Little girl no talk. Indian tired. He go sleep.”

So saying, he stretched himself out at length on the leaves. But first he thought it necessary to give the child a caution.

“Little girl stay here,” he said. “Sleep, too.”

“I am not sleepy any more,” said Carrie.

“No go way. Suppose go, then Indian kill her,” he concluded, with a fierce expression.

“You wouldn’t be so wicked as to kill me, would you?” said Carrie, turning pale.

“Me kill you, if go away.”

Carrie implicitly believed him; and, as she did not know her way about, she would not have dared to disobey his commands. Then all at once there came another fear. The evening before Julius had read her a story of a traveler meeting a lion in the forest, and narrowly escaping with his life. It is true the forest was in Africa, but Carrie did not remember that. She did not know but that lions were in the habit of prowling about in the very forest where she was. Suppose one should come along while the Indian was asleep. She shuddered at the thought, and the fear made her speak.

“Are there any lions in this wood?” she asked.

“Why ask?” said the Indian.

“If one came while you were asleep, he might eat me up.”

The Indian was quick-witted enough to avail himself of this fear to prevent the child’s leaving him.

“Suppose one come; you wake me. Me kill him.”

“Then there are lions here?” she repeated, terror-stricken.

“Yes. Suppose you go away. Maybe meet him; he kill you.”

“I won’t go away,” said Carrie, quickly. “Are you sure you could kill one, if he came?”

“Yes; me kill many,” answered the Indian, with a disregard of truth more often to be found among civilized than barbarous nations.

Poor Carrie!—her sensations were by no means to be envied, as she sat by the side of the sleeping Indian, agitated by fears which, to her, were very real. On the one side was the Indian, on the other the lion who might spring upon her at any minute. From time to time she cast a terrified glance about her in search of the possible lion. She did not see him; but what was her delight when, as a result of one of these glances, she caught sight of a boy’s face—the face of Julius—peeping from behind a tree!

She would have uttered a cry of joy, but he put his hand to his lips, and shook his head earnestly. She understood the sign, and instantly checked herself.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FOUND

Mr. Taylor and Julius had reached home about twenty minutes after Mrs. Taylor’s discovery of the disappearance of her little girl. The former was not a little startled, when his wife, pale and with disheveled hair, ran out to meet them.

“What is the matter, Emma?” he asked hastily.

“Oh, Ephraim, our poor child!”—and the poor mother burst into tears.

“What has happened to her? Is she sick?” he asked, anxiously.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone! What do you mean?” he asked, utterly at a loss to understand his wife’s meaning.

“An Indian has carried her off. I shall never see her again;” and Mrs. Taylor burst into a fresh flood of tears.

“Tell me how it all happened, as quickly as possible,” said the father. “I don’t understand.”

After a time he succeeded in obtaining from his wife an account of the Indian’s application, and the revenge which followed her refusal to supply him with money.

“Oh, I wish I had given him what he asked! I would rather give all I had, than lose my little darling. But I knew you did not want me to give money to strangers,” sobbed Mrs. Taylor.

“You did right, Emma. Whatever the consequences, you did right. But that is not the question now. We must immediately go in search of our lost child. Julius, call Abner.”

Abner was at the barn, having just returned from the fields. He came back with Julius.

“Abner,” said Mr. Taylor, after briefly explaining the case, “we will divide. You go in one direction, and I in another. Have you got a gun?”

“Yes, Mr. Taylor.”

“Take it; you may need it. I have another.”

“Have you got one for me?” asked Julius.

“Do you know how to fire a gun?”

“Yes, sir; Abner showed me last week.”

“I am afraid even with one you would be no match for an Indian. I cannot give you a gun, but I have a pistol in the house. You shall have that.”

“I’ll take it,” said Julius. “Perhaps I shall be the one to find Carrie.”

“Take it, and God bless you!” said the father, as he brought out a small pistol, and placed it in the hands of Julius. “Be prudent, and run no unnecessary risk.”

The three started in different directions, but it chanced that Julius had selected the right path, and, though he knew it not, was on the track of the Indian and the lost child, while Abner and Mr. Taylor started wrong.

There had been some delay in getting ready, and altogether the Indian had a start of nearly an hour. On the other hand, he was incumbered with the weight of the child, which had a tendency to diminish his speed. Again, Julius ran a part of the way. He knew little of the Indians from personal observation, but he had read stories of Indian adventure, and he concluded that the captor of little Carrie would take to the woods. He therefore struck across the fields for the very woods in which the little girl was concealed.

He wandered about at random till chance brought him to the very tree from behind which he caught sight of the object of his search, under the guardianship of the sleeping Indian. His heart gave a bound of exultation, for he saw that circumstances were favorable to her rescue. His great fear was that when she saw him she would utter a cry of joy, which would arouse the sleeping savage. Just at this moment, as described in the last chapter, Carrie espied him. Fortunately she caught his signal, and checked the rising cry of joy. She looked eagerly toward Julius, to learn what she must do. He beckoned her to come to him. She arose from her leafy seat cautiously, and moved, with a caution which danger taught her, toward our hero. He had the satisfaction of taking her hand in his, and of observing that her movements had not been heard by her savage companion, who was so tired that he still slept.