Harper's Young People, December 13, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly

LADY RAGS.

HOW THE WAR OF THE WOODS AND THE TINS--INCLUDING THE SHORTS--CAME TO AN END.

BY MARGARET EYTINGE.

The fight, begun a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that 24th of December, was still raging furiously when the hands of the big clock on the market tower pointed to half past four, and the pale sun was preparing to bid the world good-by until Christmas morning.

Snow-balls, some of them as hard as stones, were flying in every direction.

The Tins, yelling like wild Indians, were rushing up on and scrambling over the snow-covered piles of wood, brick, and mortar that lay in front of the half-dug-out cellar of the new building that was to be in Short Street.

The Woods, yelling like some more wild Indians, were sallying out from the cellar--named "Fort Hurrah" for the occasion--and driving the enemy back, every now and then capturing two or three of them, and dragging them triumphantly into the fort.

There had been war between the Wood Street boys and the Tin Street boys for more than a year. It originated in Tim Ashburner's taking Jack Lubs's parrot--which Jack had lent to him for a week only--into the country with him, and keeping it there all vacation.

Jack Lubs's father, who was a sea-captain, had brought this parrot from some far-distant land, together with a monkey, which Mrs. Lubs said, the moment she saw it, she would not have in the house. "Parrots were bad enough, but monkeys--no indeed!"

So Jack was obliged to sell Boomerang, and he sold it so many times--the little creature being always returned on account of its mischievousness and destructiveness--that he became the richest boy in marbles, balls, knives, and nickels for blocks around. And when no other acquaintance could be found anxious to secure Boom for a household companion, Jack gave him to a showman, who had pitched his tent in an adjoining square, for an order admitting "bearer and friends" to the show. But when "bearer" presented that order shortly after, accompanied by "friends" to the number of two-and-twenty, the showman opened his eyes very wide indeed, and exclaimed, "Great elephants! I'll never be caught that way again."

But it wasn't only the stealing--I mean the taking--of the parrot that caused the trouble, for Ashburner brought it back in good condition, it was the adding of insult to injury by teaching it to say, in a hoarse voice, "Hi! Squint-eye, ho! Squint-eye, shiver your timbers, please."

This remark the lawful owner justly considered somewhat personal, he being the son of a sailor, and having an eye that did not look as straight ahead as its companion eye did. And after he had been sainted with "Hi! Squint-eye, ho! Squint-eye, shiver your timbers, please" at short intervals for an entire Saturday morning, he became very angry, and the result of his anger was that he and four of his chummiest chums decided to go round to Tin Street and demand satisfaction.

They went, and were met by Ashburner, who was on his way home from the baker's with a pumpkin pie. As soon as he learned their errand, however, he, in the most obliging manner, placed the pie on the nearest stoop, and quickly mustering four of his chummiest chums, gave them "satisfaction"; that is, if a black eye for Jack, and sundry swollen lips and noses for his comrades, can be called by that name. As for the Ashburner party, with the exception of the pumpkin pie being squashed, that received no injuries whatever.

This doesn't seem exactly right, for Lubs certainly had cause for complaint in the first place. But Justice, they say, is blind, and I suppose that is the reason why she makes mistakes once in a while.

Jack went home breathing vengeance, and his chums, feeling called upon by the sacred voice of Friendship to breathe vengeance too, from that day forth there was war between the Woods, under Captain Lubs, and the Tins, under Captain Ashburner, first one side and then the other being victorious.

The two companies took their names from the streets in which they lived. These streets were on the outskirts of the city and only a block long, and ran in such a way that they, with a very short block named Short Street as a base, formed an isosceles triangle. At the point of this triangle was a drug-store having two front doors, one on each street.

The Shorts were part of them "Woods" and part of them "Tins," and their street faced the open square on the nearest side of which the new building already mentioned had been begun.

"Such a splendid place for a fight we'll never get again," said Lieutenant Rube Howell, to his captain. "The workmen have gone home, and nobody passes that way 'count of the heaps of stuff. I say, Lubs, let's have a last grand battle to end the old year with."

"You're right, Rube," said Lubs, and forthwith sent a challenge to the Tins' commander, and soon a lively skirmish for the possession of the fort--the half-dug-out cellar with a rough board fence around it--was going on.

The Woods won it, and then the fight began in earnest.

Captain Lubs, waving his sword--a long lath--above his head, and his lieutenant, backed by their men, mounted the fence, and derisively requested the besiegers to "come on!" The besiegers, led by Captain Ashburner, waving his sword--a broad strip of tin--above his head, and his lieutenant, Jimmy Mullally, did come on.

Over the snowy hills they rushed, slipping, falling, and scrambling to their feet again; swarming up the fence, to be knocked off by well-directed blows; crawling under the fence in hopes of catching an enemy by the legs, and being caught by the heads themselves, or making narrow escapes, leaving behind them locks of hair, and taking away scratches and bruises.

Lieutenant Mullally twisted his ankle, and sank down groaning behind an embankment. Little Willie Bond's cheek was badly cut with a pebbled snow-ball. A dozen other boys were more or less hurt.

The fight grew fast and furious. Neither side stopped to look after its wounded, when small Bond, who had climbed a ladder leaning against a pile of brick, and who was sitting on the topmost round nursing his wounded face, called out, in his shrillest voice,

"Halloo! a flag of truce! H-a-l-l-o-o! a flag of truce is comin'."

"Don't belong to us," shouted the Woods.

"Don't belong to us," shouted the Tins.

"It's only a girl," said Mullally, getting up on one leg; whereupon his captain, spying him, asked in an indignant tone,

"What are you shirkin' for, Lally? They've got ten of our men. Tins to the rescue! Tins to the rescue!" And in his excitement he let his flashing sword fall so suddenly on the head of the warrior next to him that that warrior immediately bit the dust--snow, I should say. At the same moment a scout flying in with the cry, "It's Lady Rags," fell over him at the captain's feet.

"It's Lady Rags," ran through the ranks.

"It's Lady Rags," Lubs informed his soldiers from the ramparts, and deserting the fort, they all joined him on the sidewalk, their prisoners promptly seizing the chance to escape.

A young girl bearing a white flag made of a piece of muslin neatly tacked to an old broom-handle came slowly toward them. She wore a skirt of blue and red flannel, a black jacket, half silk and half cloth, and a cap of three or four kinds of fur, bordered with soft swan's-down. Her cheeks were glowing with the cold, her great brown eyes beamed with frankness and innocence, and her hair, in two long golden braids, caught the last ray of the setting sun.

"Boys," she said, in a clear, ringing voice, as she reached them, "I want to speak to you."

"Great time to want to speak to fellers," growled Sandy Grip, "when they're finishin' up the old year, and only got a few minutes to do it in."

"You keep still, Grip," said Ashburner. "Guess you forget who prayed for you when you had the diphtheria."

"And the Woods have got to be quiet, or get another captain," said Jack Lubs, remembering the dear little sister who with her dying breath begged him to always be good to "darling Lady."

"I couldn't wait till to-night to say what I have to say," said Lady, "for my mothers need me at home, and so, as I knew I'd find you all here fighting, I thought I'd bring a flag of truce, and you'd stop long enough--oh, how I wish you'd stop forever!--to hear what I have to ask of you."

"Go ahead, Lady," said the boys, with one accord.

And planting the flag-staff in the snow heap behind her, Lady Rags folded her little red hands, and began.

But before I tell you what she said I must tell you something about herself.