The Guardsman

Hallowe’en! Religion, romance and mischief give life and color to the name. But in the mind of the American boy mischief is the predominating thought when the name is spoken. It is still a mystery why this particular night should have been chosen for indulgence in that form of juvenile pleasure which consists chiefly in removing loose property of Mr. Smith to the front yard of Mr. Jones. But that it has been so chosen no early promenader of the streets on the first morning in November will have the temerity to deny. Convincing evidence of such transfers may be seen in almost every block.

The boys of the city of Fairweather were not different from the boys of other American cities and villages in this respect. So it was that on Hallowe’en in the year 1909, groups of these young citizens, on mischief bent, were plainly visible to the discerning eye. In the well-lighted and peopled streets they paraded boisterously, through the darker ways they stole quietly with whispered words.

It was not a pleasant night to be out, rain had fallen during the day, and with the cessation of the storm had come a mist that shrouded the town, blurred the lights, and made the wet air heavy and lifeless.

A small group of boys, perhaps a half dozen, ranging in age from twelve to sixteen years, moved quietly up a side street and approached the business quarter of the city. If they had been in mischief the evidences of it were not visible among them. If they contemplated mischief, only a reader of minds could have discovered that fact.

It was past midnight. Few people were abroad. A loitering policeman stopped at a street-corner as the boys went by and carelessly scanned the group. They were not openly violating any law nor breaking any city ordinance, therefore it was not his duty to interfere with their proper use of the highway, nor to investigate their proposed activities. So he swung his club back against his forearm, hummed under his breath a tune that he used to know as a boy, and went placidly on about his business. But if he had been suspicious, and had stealthily followed them, he might have seen something that would have aroused within him a measure of zeal in the performance of his undeniable duties. For, passing down the main street of the city, not three blocks distant from the corner where they had met the guardian of the public peace, these young American citizens came to a cobbler’s shop on the door-casing of which hung a board sign inscribed with the words:

“PUPPIES FOR SALE HERE.”

“That sign,” said Halpert McCormack, the apparent leader of the group, “ought to come down. In my opinion a cobbler has no business to be selling puppies. ‘Shoemaker, stick to your last!’ That’s a proverb we parsed in Miss Buskin’s class this morning. What do you say, fellows?”

“Sure it ought to come down,” was the immediate and unanimous response.

“Besides,” added Little Dusty, the youngest boy in the company, “his puppies is no good anyway. My cousin Joe bought one off of him last week, and he can’t even bark yet.”

One member of the group, inclined to be facetious, inquired:

“Who can’t bark? Joe or the dog?”

“Neither one of ’em,” was the quick reply. “But the puppy’s got fleas an’ Joe ain’t.”

“That settles it,” said Hal McCormack, gravely. “A man that will sell puppies with fleas on ’em deserves no consideration from us.”

“Right you are!” was the response. “Here goes!”

It took but a minute to cut the sign loose from its fastenings and to carry it around into a side street where darkness threw a protecting mantle over mischief.

One of the other boys turned to Hal. “Well,” he said, “you told us to take it down; now you got to say what we do with it.”

“Blessed if I know,” replied Hal.

“Stick it up somewheres,” suggested Little Dusty.

“Sure, stick it up somewheres,” exclaimed the first boy, “but where?”

“We might fasten it to the sign o’ Jim Nagel, the butcher,” responded Little Dusty.

Then a boy known as Slicker spoke up. “Butchers don’t sell puppies,” he said, “they buy ’em. Folks’d think he was goin’ out o’ business if he put up a sign like that.”

“Oh,” commented Hal, “can that joke. It’s got whiskers.”

“Besides,” continued Slicker, “I know a better stunt than that. We’ll take it up to Barriscale’s, an’ fasten it on the gate-post.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Little Dusty. “My dad works at Barriscale’s, and if Mr. Barriscale found out I had a hand in it, Pop might get fired.”

“Well,” replied Slicker, “nobody’s goin’ to know who had a hand in it. We ain’t goin’ to hire no brass band an’ go around shoutin’ what we done. Are we, Hal?”

“No,” said Hal soberly. “This is secret business. No boy’s got a right to tell on anybody but himself, not even if they skin him alive. I won’t.”

“Nor I,” “Nor I.” The response was unanimous and whole-hearted.

“I don’t know about this Barriscale business, though,” added Hal. “If Mr. Barriscale should get mad about it, he’d scour the city to find out who did it, and then he’d have us all put in jail. Young Ben isn’t any easy proposition to butt up against, either.”

“Oh, you’re chicken-hearted!” exclaimed Slicker. “It’s no fun to swipe things if you don’t put ’em where folks don’t like it. I say hang the puppy sign on the king’s gate-post an’ let the consekences take care o’ theirselves. Am I right?”

“Right you are!” responded one member of the group after another. But Hal said: “Well, whatever you fellows say, goes. I’m game if you are. Where’s your sign? Let me have it!”

He took the oblong board and concealed it under the capacious folds of his rain-coat. “Now,” he added, “come on!”

So they started, heading again toward the main street of the city. Two blocks up that street they once more passed the loitering policeman on duty. If he had any suspicion that the outer garment of the leader of the group hid contraband property from his sight he did not mention it. But when they were well by he turned and called to them.

“You boys,” he said, “have no business on the street this time o’ night. I want you to go home, every one o’ you.”

“That’s where we’re headed for,” replied Slicker; and with that the incident was closed.

Benjamin Barriscale, toward whose private property the boys were moving, was at the head of the principal industry of the city, operated by a corporation known as the Barriscale Manufacturing Company. He was reputed to be a man of great wealth, of unbending will, generous or domineering as best suited his purpose. To invade his premises at midnight, on a mischief-making errand, was therefore an adventure which called for both courage and caution. His mansion was a full half mile from the center of the city; a square, stately house set well back from the street in the midst of a spacious lawn. Two massive, ornamental gate-posts guarded the entrance to the grounds, but the gates that swung between them were rarely closed. When the boys reached the place it was well past midnight and the lights in the electric lamps at the porch entrance had been extinguished. A single gleam showed faintly at an upper window; for the rest the darkness was complete save that a street lamp, a block away, endeavored, quite ineffectually, to send its rays into the thick mist overhanging the Barriscale grounds. For the perpetration of undiscoverable mischief the night was ideal.

Midway of the journey the heavy board sign had been transferred from its hiding-place under Hal’s rain-coat to the possession of two of the younger boys. Even to them it had grown increasingly substantial, and they were not loath now to relieve themselves of their burden.

After careful inspection of the gate-post it was the consensus of opinion that there was but one place on it where the sign could be conspicuously and safely fastened, and that was at the moulding near the top of the post.

And to hold it in place a piece of stout twine of sufficient length to pass across the face of the board and be tied behind the iron ornament at the summit was absolutely necessary. But the twine was immediately forthcoming. There was scarcely a boy in the company who had not that necessary equipment in one or another of his pockets. And the combined supply of the group, doubled and twisted and knotted, left nothing in the way of fastening material to be desired. So the puppy sign was hoisted into place, and two boys, at the risk of tumbling and breaking their necks, anchored it securely to the stone coping and the iron ornaments of Benjamin Barriscale’s massive gate-post.

But the incident was not yet quite closed. Before the mischief-makers were ready to turn their faces toward the street Slicker bethought himself of a supplementary task.

“Who’s got some black crayon?” he asked of the company.