Chapter 2 CHAPTER II.

SHOOTING DOUBLE.–A FRONTIER DOCTOR.

Tom slept soundly, and notwithstanding he charged his memory to awaken him before daybreak, dawn was brightening the east while he was still in the shadowy land of dreams. The low attic had no window, save a pane of glass nailed over a hole under the eaves; and long the lad might have slumbered on, had not a loud sound suddenly aroused him.

"Does it thunder?" he exclaimed, fearing a prairie tempest had arisen to interfere with his cherished project of leaving home.

Peering through the window pane, he saw, to his surprise, that the morning was cloudless. What could it mean? Assuredly he had heard the rolling of thunder! He looked out again, for another and more agreeable thought had struck him.

"Yes, it's the hens!" he ejaculated; "my! what a heap of them!"

By "the hens," he meant prairie hens; for in this familiar way they are spoken of at the west. 24 They had spied out the corn, and the fact that it was there, by some telegraphic system in vogue among the birds, had spread for miles around; and making their way through the tall grass from every direction, at once, as the sun appeared, they flew in a huge body over the little cabin into the field. For this species of grouse (Tetrao cupido) are models of good order and punctuality as to their meals, and many an eastern boy or girl might, we suspect, get a useful hint from them on table etiquette. They assemble, as if by appointment, around the farmer's grain-field, and quietly wait for the breakfast signal, which is the rising of the sun, then enter the enclosure together, and having fed just one hour by their unerring chronometer, they retire, to return at sunset for another hour's feeding. This was their first visit to Mr. Jones's patch; doubtless the trampled and scattered corn had tempted them in now.

Tom's eyes danced for joy, as, peeping at the hens, he hurried on his clothes. Hundreds were there pecking along like so many turkeys. It was the combined whirr of their wings that woke him so effectually; many an older person on the frontier has been deceived by the same sound, supposing it to be thunder, so heavy a noise do these wild fowl of the prairies make when numbers of them fly together.

"Won't mother be glad!" he whispered to himself; 25 "and what a dinner she'll have to-day!" And descending the ladder, he took from the hooked pegs overhead his father's old shot-gun, where it had hung unused for months, and from a little box some powder and shot, and a percussion cap; then loading in haste, he rested the weapon on the window-sill, that he might take steady aim, and fired at the fowl. A terrible report followed, and Tom came to himself to find his mother bathing his forehead, and his sisters crying. The gun was out of order, and, being also overloaded, had blown off the lock, burning his face, and stunning him by the recoil.

Poor Tom returned to consciousness to suffer. His face began rapidly to swell, and presented a frightful appearance, so blackened was it by the powder, and the smarting was intense. Mrs. Jones, in her isolated life, had been too many times thrown on her own resources to be wholly overcome by the disaster. Her chief anxiety was lest Tom's eyes were destroyed, as the eyebrows and eyelashes had been completely burned off by the explosion. When she saw, however, that he was not blind, she said, with tears,–

"O, how glad I am, dear child, that your eyes are spared!"

A couple of miles away lived a doctor,–or an individual who wore that title,–on whom, in emergencies, the scattered settlers were wont to call. 26 This queer ?sculapian specimen was remarkably tall and lank, always went with his pants tucked in the tops of his thumping cowhide boots, and wore a red woollen shirt, the soiled and limpsy neck-band of which, coming nearly to his ears, served instead of a collar. He dwelt alone, with his cat, in a rude, claim-shanty, sleeping with his window open and door unfastened; and if his services were needed in the night, the messenger would put his head in at the window and call to him, or pull the latch-string and walk in. The doctor was pompous in conversation, and affected long words; but it was understood–unfortunately for his patients–that his advantages had been poor.

For this worthy Charley had been promptly despatched by his mother; and good time did the child make, so frightened was he about poor Tom. He was an imaginative lad, and, when much excited, apt to see "two hundred black cats fighting in the yard," when there was only a frolicsome kitten chasing its tail; and at such times he had the bad habit of running his words together. He was just the one to send on the errand, so far as speed was concerned; but when he burst into the doctor's cabin, shouting,–

"Blews-sed-off! blews-sed-off!" the slumbering man of herbs prematurely awakened, rubbed his forehead, to be sure he was not dreaming, and stammered,– 27

"Wha-wha-what's to pay?"

"Blews-sed-off! blews-sed off!" reiterated the urchin.

"Boy," said the doctor, now fully aroused, "be self-possessed and collected, and state distinctly what has happened." And holding the lad by the shoulders, he added, "Speak very slowly, that I may understand you!"

"Blew–his–head–off!" emphatically repeated Charley, pausing after each word.

"A shocking occurrence, truly!" ejaculated the physician. "I do not wonder, boy, that one so unaccustomed to such sanguinary events should be terrified. But who is the unfortunate victim of this tragical and fatal accident–or was he murdered in cold blood?"

"Yes, sir," replied Charley, who, in turn, did not understand the doctor, but supposed he must assent to all he said.

"Yes–what?" sharply asked the physician. "Was it, I say, an accident, or was the man assassinated? Be quick, now!"

"Yesir!" instantly screamed Charley, thinking the doctor was now reproving him for speaking slowly.

"Well, you are scared out of your seven senses, you wretched dunce!" retorted the doctor, out of temper; and, shaking the lad, he said, "See if you can tell me now who it is that's killed." 28

"It's our Tom!"

"And how do I know who your Tom is?" roared the physician. "There's my Tom;" and he pointed to a monstrous gray cat that sat on an oak chest watching the boy with green-glaring eyes; "and if he should mistake you for a thieving gopher some fine morning, and eat you up alive, small loss would it be to the world, I'm thinking!"

"He's my brother!" timidly interposed Charley, keeping to the question.

"Your brother! Well, old hunter, what do you say to that?" said the doctor, stroking his disagreeable pet: "that dirty-faced, uncombed, ill-dressed ignoramus of a boy claims you for a relative. Do you realize the honor, eh?"

"I mean that our Tom is my brother," explained Charley, bursting into tears.

The doctor, softened by his distress, asked more gently,–

"But hasn't your Tom any other name?"

"No, sir," answered the boy.

"Well, what is your name?"

"Charley."

"Charley what?"

"Charley Jones."

"O, I see! you belong to the Jones tribe; not much matter if all their heads were blown off. But what do you want of me?" 29

"Mother wants you to come right down quick, and make Tom well."

"What! after his head's blown off? That's a job, anyhow. Nice-looking young man he'd be–wouldn't he? going round, well as ever, without any head on his shoulders. But I see how it is: his head isn't all gone–just a trifle left–enough to grow another with;" and the doctor, now in good humor, succeeded in drawing from the lad an intelligible account of the accident, and mounting his horse, with saddle-bags behind him, and a tin pail in his hand, he proceeded to a well-to-do settler's, and narrating the accident with nearly as much exaggeration as did little Charley, he added, with an emphatic jerk of his collar, "I'll fix the fellow up so that he'll be as good as new." He then begged some yeast, and a roll of cotton batting, and, repairing to the Joneses, covered Tom's face with the cotton dipped in the yeast, and returned to his loggery. Whether the application was in accordance with the Materia Medica of orthodox practice or not, after a short time the pain subsided, and Tom dropped into a peaceful sleep; seeing which, Mrs. Jones went about her morning's work with a thankful heart. The children had had nothing to eat as yet, and now that their brother's moanings had ceased, they realized that they were hungry.

"Tan't I have my supper?" sobbed Bub, clinging to his mother's dress as she walked. 30

"'Tisn't supper; it's breakfast!" answered Bob, giving the child a push, which helped him cry the louder.

"Cry-baby cripsy," mocked Bob, making ugly faces at the little fellow; for fasting had made Bob quarrelsome.

Sad-eyed Mrs. Jones tried in vain to quiet them, carrying and nursing baby and preparing the meal at the same time, for even the older children were cross as unfed cubs. Mrs. Jones was no disciplinarian; she was too broken-spirited to command her offspring; if she ruled at all, it was by affection and tact. In this instance she set the older ones at work. One she directed to replenish the fire, another to wash the potatoes, a third to sweep the floor: a slow job the latter was, as the "truncheon," or floor of split logs, was jagged, and the broom worn nearly to the handle. She suggested to Charley to see if the fawn had got away, which had the effect of causing Bub to go on the same mission. This stratagem, however, did not avail much in the case of Charley, who quickly saw through his mother's device, and returned, exclaiming,–

"Pooh! I guess the fawn's all right!"

But Bub found congenial occupation in teasing the fawn. The pen was narrow; and Bub, not being able to reach the deer, and tired of shouting at him, started off into the field for a famous long 31 stick which had served him for a steed the day before. As he looked for it among the corn, he saw something flutter, then heard a curious cackle. It was a prairie hen, whose wings had been broken by shot from Tom's gun. The bird moved painfully away, trying to hide behind the leafy stalks. But Bub's bright eyes could not be eluded, and he followed after, calling, "Chick, chick, chick!" mistaking it for a domestic fowl. The cunning bird dodged in and out among the standing and prostrate stacks with marvellous swiftness, considering its condition; but persevering curly-pate seized the hen at last by the neck, saying, exultantly,–

"I dot yer; now you 'have!"

The strong wild fowl struggled desperately, scratching his chubby hand until it bled; but Bub trudged on with his prize into the cabin, saying, as he entered,–

"See, marm! I totched a biddy!"

The little captor's entrance was greeted with shouts of delight on the part of the children, and by a loving kiss from his mother; for Bub was a great favorite, and a manly wee boy, despite his loud-lunged blubbering, in which he excelled on occasions, and his mischievious pranks, in which also he was the equal of Bubs of more civilized communities. As he stood in the cabin door, coolly holding the kicking prairie hen, heedless 32 of its cruel claws, his torn and soiled baby-frock surmounted by a round fat face, bright blue eyes, and light hair falling in tangled ringlets, the golden sun resting upon his bare head and lighting up his dimpled cheek, he formed a picture worthy the pencil of an artist.

"What a little man you are!" exclaimed the mother, taking the heavy fowl from him. "You shall have some nice breakfast for this!" and she put a baked potato and a piece of corn-cake on the corner of a trunk, and while Bub with a satisfied hum partook of the food, she quietly slipped out of doors and wrung the hen's neck.

The children plied the little hero with questions as to where and how he caught the hen, which he took his own time to answer while he munched. Then they rushed out in a body, hoping to find another. Their search was successful, and they brought back two, which they found lying some distance apart, quite dead. The old gun had "scattered" prodigiously, but, as the flock of hens was so large, did good execution, as appeared from the result.

Tom was asleep on his mother's bed,–which occupied a corner of the one room,–but, aroused by the din which greeted Bub when he came in with the "biddy," regarded the affair quite complacently, although he said nothing. And as the hens were being picked by 'Lize and Sarah, he 33 was comforted by the reflection that his well-meant attempt at gunning had brought the family something to eat. Tom, indeed, had never seen fowl prepared for the household under just such circumstances, and he watched each step in the process with peculiar interest. Mrs. Jones, with a fond mother's quickness, understood well how he felt, and, though she seemed not to notice him, made unusual parade in all that was done.

"Be very careful of those feathers, girls. Why, how thick and soft they are! We'll save every one; and who knows but when Tom gets well he'll contrive some traps and catch hens enough to make a pair of pillows, or a feather-bed?"

"Is a feather-bed very nice?" asked Sarah.

"Very, when the weather is cold, and a body is weakly, as Tom is now; it's so easy to rest upon. There, Eliza, you may pass me the one that is picked, and I'll dress it. How fat it is! and so tender! What a feast we shall have! How thankful we ought to be that Tom's eyes were not put out when he shot these hens! How good he was to think of getting them for us! I hope, girls, you'll help him all you can, when he gets about, and not let him do all the chores."

Mrs. Jones was very handy at such work, and she took care to face the bed so that he might see every part of the operation.

"There's the heart, and there's the liver–sweet 34 as a nut!" and she smelled of them with the air of an epicure. "We must keep them by themselves for the present." Then, deftly jointing the fowl, she put the parts to soak in cold water, strongly salted. "That will take out the wild taste," said she. "How I do wish Tom could eat some of this when it is cooked, it will be so strengthening! But I guess, if nothing happens, the doctor will let him have a taste to-morrow!"

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