Public-domain ebook
Red Head and Whistle Breeches
Language: en358 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Short Stories·American Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #44152.
The opening · free to read
When Tim Murphy let his enthusiasm get the better of his judgment and, in the excitement of that disastrous night, joined the front rank of the strikers in a general mix-up and cracked the head of a deputy sheriff, the result was what he might have expected--two years in the penitentiary. That was all right. The peace of the commonwealth must be preserved, and that is why laws and penitentiaries exist, but it sometimes goes hard with the mothers and wives. That is also to be expected, and the boy should have thought of it before he crowded to the front of the angry mob or struck the deputy.
It went very hard with the boy's mother and wife. It went hard with his old man, too. It is a cruel thing to have one's only boy in the penitentiary, even if one is only a village hod carrier.
Maggie Murphy, the boy's wife, did not suffer for food or shelter after the boy went to wear stripes, for old Mike had a handy little roll in the bank and a shanty of his own, and he took Maggie into his home and made a daughter of her; but the girl grew thin and had no spirits. She cried a good part of the time, quite as if Tim had been a law abiding citizen, instead of a law breaking rowdy. Then the baby came, and after that she cried more than ever.
As for the boy's mother, it was to be expected that she would weep also. Mothers have a way of weeping over the son they love, even if he has gone wrong. It is not logical, but it is a fact. It is one of the grand facts of human life.
When Maggie's baby came the boy's mother could stand it no longer. It had been urged--and there was some evidence to support it--that the boy had acted in self-defense. He said so himself, but he admitted he had been in the front rank. The strikers had carried things with a high hand all along, and the jury had decided against him.
Night and day the boy's mother begged the old man to try for a pardon, but Mike knew it was not worth a trial. The Governor was an old man and a strong man, and not one to forgive an injury done to the State or to himself. He had never been known to forget a wrong, or to leave a debt unpaid.
He was a just man, as the ancient Jews were just. It was this that had made him Governor; his righteousness and fearlessness were greater than cliques and bosses.
Old Mrs. Murphy, however, was only a woman, and the boy was her boy, and she pardoned him. She knew he was innocent, for he was her boy. Mike refused a thousand times to ask the Governor for a pardon, but as Mrs. Murphy was the boy's mother and had a valiant tongue, the old man changed his mind. One day he put on his old silk hat, and with Father Maurice, the good gray priest, went up to the capital.
A strange pair they were to sit in the Governor's richly furnished reception room--Mike with his smoothly shaven face, red as the sunset, his snowy eye brows, his white flecked red hair, and the shiny black of his baggy Sunday suit; Father Maurice with his long gray beard that had been his before the days of the smoothly shaven priests, his kindly eyes, and the jolly rotundity of his well fed stomach. The father's gentle heart was hopeful, but Mike sat sadly with his eyes on the toe of his boot, for he knew the errand was folly; not alone because the Governor had never pardoned a condemned man, but because it was he, Mike Murphy, who came.
He remembered an incident of his boyhood, and he frowned as he recalled it. Think of it! He, Mike Murphy, had bullied the Governor--had drubbed him and chased him and worried the life out of him. That was why he had told the old woman it was no use to try it.
Who was he to come asking pardons when, years ago, he had done his best to make life miserable for the quaking schoolboy who was now the stern faced Governor--the Governor who never forgot or forgave, or left a debt unpaid?
II.
When the Governor entered the reception room he came in unexpectedly, as Father Maurice was leaning forward with one of Mike's red hands clasped in his two white ones. Mike was wiping his eyes with his coat sleeve.
The Governor paused in the doorway and coughed. His visitors started in surprise, and then arose.
It was Father Maurice who stated their errand, his seamed face turned upward to the serious eyes of the Governor; and as he proceeded, choosing his quaint Frenchified English carefully, the Governor's face became grave. He motioned them to their chairs.
He was a gray haired man, and his face was the face of a nobleman. Clear, gray eyes were set deep under his brows, and his mouth was a straight line of uncompromising honesty. He sat with one knee thrown over the other. With one hand he fingered a pen on the desk at his side; the other he ran again and again through the hair that stood in masses on his head. His face was long, and the cheekbones protruded. His nose was power, and his chin was resistance.
“He should have considered them before,” said the Governor sadly. “If you prepare a petition, I will consider it, but I cannot offer you any hope. They all come to me with the same plea--the wife and the mother--but they do not take the wife and the mother into account when the blow is struck. It is late to think of them when the prison door is closed. You will pardon me, father, but I am very tired to-night.”
He extended his hand, in token that the interview was at an end, and Mike arose from his chair in the shadow. He stood awkwardly turning his hat while the Governor shook the priest's hand, and then shuffled forward to be dismissed.
“Good night, sir,” said the Governor. “I did not hear your name--”
“Murphy,” said the priest quickly--“Michael Murphy. He is the father of the boy.”
The Governor looked the old man over carefully, and the old man's eyes fell under his keen glances.
“Mike Murphy?” asked the Governor slowly. “Are you the Mike Murphy who used to go to old No. 3 school in Harmontown, forty--no, nearly fifty--years ago? There was a Mike Murphy sat on my bench. Are you the boy they called Red Head?”
The old man tried to answer. His lips formed the words, but his voice did not come. He nodded his head.
“Be seated, gentlemen,” said the Governor, and Father Maurice sat down hopefully. Mike Murphy dropped into a chair with deeper dejection.
“Well, well!” The Governor nodded his head slowly, his gray eyes searching the ruddy face before him. “So you are the Mike Murphy who used to drub me?”
He smiled grimly. His eyes strayed from the old man's face, and their glance was lost in the air above his head. He smiled again, as he sat with the fingers of his left hand pressing the thin skin into a roll above his cheek bone, for he recalled an incident of his boyhood.
The Governor had once been an arrant little coward. His mother lived in the big white house two blocks above the schoolhouse, on the opposite side of the street. Red Head Mike lived across the alley in a shanty. The Governor's mother bought milk of Mrs. Murphy, and Red Head brought it every evening.
Red Head was a wonderful boy. He was the first to go barefoot in the spring, picking his way with painful carefulness over the clods in the street. He was the only boy who chewed tobacco. The others chewed licorice or purple thistle tops, but Red Head had the real thing. He even smoked a real pipe without dire consequences, and laughed at the other boys' mild substitutes of corn silk and “lady cigars”; and the way he swore was a liberal education. All the boys swore more or less, especially when they were behind the barn smoking com silk, but they knew it was not natural It was a puny imitation, but the Red Head article sounded right.
But it was when it came to fighting that Red Head had proved his right to the worship of the world. He could lick any two boys in the school. The Governor, who was plain Willie Gary then, could not fight at all. His early youth was one great fear of being whipped. The smallest boys in the school were accustomed to practice on him until they gained sufficient dexterity or courage to attack one another. He had a hundred opprobrious nicknames, which he accepted meekly. “Cry-baby” was the favorite. When he was attacked he hid his face in his arm and bawled, leaning his arm against any convenient fence or tree, while his tormentor drubbed his back at pleasure. He was happy when he could sneak home unmolested. The chiefest of his tormentors was Red Head, but there was no partiality. All the boys drubbed him.
One day Mrs. Gary made him a pair of breeches. They were good, stout breeches of dove colored corduroy, and his mother was proud of them. So was Willie. As he walked to school he felt that every one saw and admired them He felt as conspicuous as when, in a dream, he went to school in his night dress, but he felt more comfortable.
He took his seat in the school room proudly, and when he was called to the blackboard to do a sum he walked with a strut. He felt that even the big boys--the wonderful youths who had money to jingle in their pockets--observed him, and he blushed as he imagined the eyes of the little women on the girls' side of the room following him.
As he crossed the floor, the legs of his breeches rubbed against each other, giving forth the crisp corduroy sound of “Whist--whist--whist.” It could be heard in the farthest corner. All the scholars looked up from their slates or books. He caught Bessie Clayton's eye upon him, and his cheek flamed. She had blue eyes and yellow curls, and snubbed him daily.
Even the teacher glanced at his new breeches. Willie paused in his sum and looked at them with satisfaction himself. Then he walked back to his bench, and the corduroy spoke again--“Whist--whist--whist.” It was as musical as the clumping of a new pair of red topped boots.
As he slid into his place on his bench, Red Head turned his face and made a mouth.
“Don't you think you're smart, Whistle Breeches?” he whispered.
“Whist--whist,” said the breeches in reply, as Willie moved, and every eye in the school seemed to gaze on him, not enviously as before, but sneeringly. Who'd want whistle breeches?
When the recess bell rang, Willie walked to the playground with short steps, but still the corduroy whistled. Two boys behind him laughed, and Willie burned with shame. They must be laughing at his new breeches. Bessie Clayton passed him, and he stood motionless, crowded against the wall, until she was out of hearing.
He paused in the doorway timidly. Red Head was standing just outside, one shoulder turned toward Freckles Redmond. It was the signal for a fight, and the small boys were crowded about them.
“Aw, you're one yourself,” Red Head was saying, “an' you dassan't say it agin. I dare you to say it,” he cried, but he caught sight of Willie. “Huh!” he shouted. “Look here, fellers! Here's Whistle Breeches. Let's spit on 'em!”
The boys crowded into the entry and spat on them. Red Head pulled Willie's hair twice, drawing his head forward as he would pull a bell rope.
The book keeps going
Keep reading, and see it illustrated
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
