E-text prepared by Al Haines

BACK TO THE WOODS

The Story of a Fall from Grace

BY HUGH McHUGH

AUTHOR OF

"JOHN HENRY," "DOWN THE LINE WITH JOHN HENRY," "IT'S UP TO YOU," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

1902

To all the boys in the Hammer Club:—Greetings and gesundheit! Get together now and hit hard—for the Devil loveth a Cheerful Knocker.

CONTENTS.

JOHN HENRY'S LUCKY DAYS

JOHN HENRY'S GHOST STORY

JOHN HENRY'S BURGLAR

JOHN HENRY'S COUNTRY COP

JOHN HENRY'S TELEGRAM

JOHN HENRY'S TWO QUEENS

JOHN HENRY'S HAPPY HOME

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Yours till the last whistle blows, believe me! John Henry

Clara J.—A Dream of Peaches—Please Pass the Cream

Uncle Peter—the Original Trust Tamer

Aunt Martha—a Short, Stout Bundle of Good Nature

Tacks—the Boy Disaster

Bunch Jefferson—All to the Good and Two to Carry

CHAPTER I.

JOHN HENRY'S LUCKY DAYS.

Seven, come eleven!

After promising Clara J. that I would never again light a pipe at the race track, there I stood, one of the busiest puff-puff laddies on the circuit.

Well, the truth of the matter is just this: I fell asleep at the switch and somebody put the white lights all over me.

Just how I happened to join the Dream Builders' Association I don't know, but for several weeks I was Willie the Wild Boy at the race track and I kept all the Bookmakers busy trying not to laugh when they took my money.

Every day when I showed up at the gate the Pipers played "Darling, Dream of Me!" and every time I picked a skate the Smokers' Society went into executive session and elected me a life member.

Every horse that finished last gave me the trembling lip as he crawled home, well aware of the fact that I had caught him with the goods.

I blame Bunch Jefferson for putting the bug in my Central.

Bunch went down to the skating pond one day with $18 and picked four live wires at an average of 8 to 1. Then he began to talk about himself.

After that event whenever I happened to meet Bunch he would raise his megaphone and fill the neighborhood with hot ozone, fresh from the oven.

It was pitiful to see that boy swell.

Just to cure Bunch and drive him out of the balloon business I made up my mind one day I'd run down to the Flatfish Factory and drag a few honest dollars away from the Bookmakers.

Splash!

That's where I fell overboard.

One bright Saturday P. M. found me clinging to a wad the size of a fountain pen and trying to decide whether I'd better play Dinkalorum at 40 to 1 or Hysterics at 9 to 5.

I finally decided that a ten-spot on Dinkalorum would net me enough to give Bunch a line of sad talk, so I stepped up to the poor-box and contributed.

Dinkalorum started off in the lead like a pale streak and I immediately bought an entirely new set of furniture for the flat.

About half way around a locomotive whistle happened to blow near by. Dinkalorum, being a Union horse, thought it was six o'clock and refused absolutely to work a minute overtime.

I had to put the furniture back in the store.

In the next race I decided to play a system of my own invention so I took my program, counted seven up, four down and two up, all of which resulted in Pink Slob at 60 to 1.

It looked good and I handed Isadore Longfinger $10 for the purpose of tearing $600 away from him a little later on.

Pink Slob got away in the lead but he made the mistake of walking fast instead of running, with the result that when the other horses were back in the stable Pinkie was still giving a heel and toe exhibition around near third base.

It wasn't my day, so I squeezed into the thirst parlor and bathed my injured feelings with sarsaparilla.

Just before the last race I ran across Bunch. He was over $300 to the good and he wanted to treat me to a lot of kind words he felt like saying about himself.

Oh! but maybe he wasn't the City Boy with the Head in the Suburbs!

When I reached home that night I felt like a sock that needs darning.

Clara J. had invited Uncle Peter to take dinner with us and he began to give me the nervous look-over as soon as I answered roll call.

Uncle Peter is a very stout, old gentleman. When he squeezes into our little flat the walls act like they are bow-legged.

Uncle Peter always goes through the folding doors sideways and every time he sits down the man in the flat below kicks because we move the piano so often.

Tacks was also present.

Tacks is my youthful brother-in-law with a mind like a walking delegate because he's always looking for trouble and when he finds it he passes it up to somebody who doesn't need it.

"Evening, John!" gurgled Uncle Peter; "late, aren't you?"

"Cars blocked, delayed me," I sighed.

"New York will be a nice place when they get it finished, won't it?" chirped Tacks.

Just then Aunt Martha squeezed in from a shopping excursion and I went out in the hall while she counted up and dragged out the day's spoils for Clara J. to look at.

Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife only she weighs more and breathes oftener.

When the two of them visit our bird cage at the same time the janitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with a view to catching it if it falls.

That night I waded into all the sporting papers and burned dream pipes till the smoke made me dizzy.

The next day I hit the track with three sure-fires and a couple of perhapses.

There was nothing to it. All I had to do was to keep my nerve and not get side-tracked and I'd have enough coin to make Andrew Carnegie's check book look like a punched meal ticket.

I played them—and when the Angelus was ringing Moses O'Brien and three other Bookbinders were out buying meal tickets with my money.

Things went along this way for about a week and I was all to the bad.

One evening Clara J. said to me, "John, I looked through your check book to-day and I've had a cold on my chest ever since. At first I thought I had opened the refrigerator by mistake."

At last the blow had fallen!

I had promised her faithfully before we were married that I'd never play the ponies again and I fell and broke my word.

The accident was painful, and I'd be a sad scamp to put her wise at this late day, especially after being fried to a finish.

I simply didn't dare confess that my money had gone into a fund to furnish a home for Incurable Bookmakers—what to do? What to do?

She had me lashed to the mast.

"May I inquire," my wife continued with the breath of winter in her tones, "why it's all going out and nothing coming in? Have you begun so soon to lead a double life?"

Mother, call your baby boy back home! If Uncle Peter would only drop in, or Tacks or Aunt Martha or even the janitor!

Suddenly it occurred to me:

"Dearie," I said, "you have surprised my secret, and now nothing remains but the pleasure of telling you everything."

A thaw set in.

"As you have stated, not incorrectly, my dear, large bundles of Green Fellows have severed their home ties and tiptoed into the elsewhere," I continued, gradually getting my nerve back.

The thermometer continued to go up.

"Clara J., on several occasions you have expressed a desire to leave this torn-up city and retire to the woodlands, haven't you?" I asked.

She nodded and the weather grew warmer.

"Once you said to me, 'Oh, John, if they'd only take New York off the operating table and give the poor city a chance to get well, how nice it would be!'—didn't you?"

Another nod.

"Well," I said, backing Munchausen in a corner and dragging his medals away from him, "that's the answer, You for the Burbs! You for the chateau up the track! Henceforth, you for the cage in the country where the daffydowndillys sing in the treetops and buttercups chirp from bough to bough!"

"Oh, John!" she exclaimed, faint with delight; "do you really mean you've bought a home in the country? How perfectly lovely! You, dear, dear, old John! And that's what you've been doing with all your money, just to surprise me! Bless your dear good heart! Oh! I'm so glad, and so delighted. Won't it be simply grand?"

I could feel the cold, spectral form of Sapphira leaning over my left shoulder, urging me on.

"What is it like? How many rooms? Where is it?" she inquired, all in one breath.

Where was the blamed thing? What did it look like? How did I know? She could search me. I could feel my ears getting red. Presently I braced and mumbled, "No more details till the castle is completed, then I'll coax you out there and let you revel."

"How soon will that be?" she asked, "To-morrow? Yes, John, to-morrow?"

"No," I whispered croupily, "in—in about a week."

I wanted time to arrange my earthly affairs.

"Oh! lovely!" she said, and kissing me rushed away to break the news to mother.

I felt like a rain check after the sun comes out.

Suddenly Hope tugged at my heart strings and I remembered that I had a week in which to beat the ponies to a pulp and win out enough coin to buy six Swiss Cheese cottages in the country.

Day after day I waded in among the jelly fish at the track but the best I ever got was an $8 win.

Eight dollars wouldn't buy a dog house.

I was desperate. Every evening I had to sit around and listen while Clara J. told Tacks or Uncle Peter or Aunt Martha or Mother what she intended doing when we moved to the country.

They had it all cooked up. Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha were coming to live with us and Tacks would be there to let us live with him.

Uncle Peter intended starting a garden truck farm in the back yard and Tacks figured on building a chicken coop somewhere between the front gate and the parlor.

Aunt Martha and Clara J. almost came to blows over the question of milking the cow. Aunt Martha insisted that cows are milked by machinery and Clara J. was equally positive that moral suasion is the only means by which a cow can be brought to a show down.

In the meantime I was dying every half hour.

Finally the day preceding the long-talked of country excursion arrived and I began to figure on the safest and least inexpensive methods of suicide.

I went to the track in the afternoon and threw out enough gold dust to paint our country home from cellar to attic—but never a sardine showed.

Frostbitten and suffocated by the odor of burning money I crept into a seat in the car and began to plan my finale.

Presently an elbow poked me in the ribs and I looked into the smiling face of Bunch Jefferson.

"Still piking, eh?" he chuckled; "you wouldn't trail along after Your Uncle Bunch and get next to the candy man, would you? Only $400 to the good to-day. Am I the picker from Picklesburg, son of the old man Pickwick?—well, I guess yes!"

Then in that desperate moment I broke down and confessed all to Bunch. I told him how my haughty spirit disdained a tip and how in the pride of my heart I doped the cards myself and fell in the well. I told him of my feverish desire to beat the Bookmakers down through the earth till they yelled for mercy, and I told him of my pitiful dilemma and how I had to build a home in the country before noon to-morrow or do a dog trot to the Bad lands.

Then Bunch began to laugh—a long, loud, discordant laugh which ended in, "John, I'll help you make good!" and then I began to sit up and notice things.

"I'm away head of this pitty-pat game at the Merry-go-Round," Bunch went on, "and it so happens that recently I peeled the wrapper off my roll and swapped it for a country home for my sister and her daughter. She's a young widow, my sister is, and one of the loveliest little ladies that ever came over the hill. And she has a daughter that's a regular plate of peaches and cream."

Still I sat in darkness, and he went on:

"Now, my sister won't move out there for a day or two, so to-morrow, promptly on schedule time, you lead your domestic fleet over the sandbars to that house and point with pride to its various beauties—are you wise?"

"But, Great Scott, man! it's not mine!" I gasped.

"Roll a small pill and get together," admonished Bunch, with a seraphic smile. "Can't you figure the trick to win? All you have to do is to coax your gang out there and then break the painful news to them that you've suddenly discovered the place is haunted and that you're going to sell it and buy a better bandbox—getting wise?"

"Bunch," I murmured, weakly, "you've saved my life, temporarily, at least. Where is this palace?"

"Only forty minutes from the City Hall—any old City Hall," he answered, "It's at Jiggersville, on the Sitfast & Chewsmoke R.R., eighteen miles from Anywhere, hot and cold sidewalks and no mosquitoes in the winter. Here you are, full particulars," and with this Bunch handed me a printed card which let me into all the secrets of that haven of rest in the tall grass.

Bless good old Bunch!

I offered to buy him a quart of Ruinart but he said his thirst wasn't working, so I had to paddle off home.

That evening for the first time in several weeks I felt like speaking to myself.

I was the life of the party and I even beamed approvingly when Uncle Peter tuned up his mezzo contralto voice and began to write a book about the delights of a country home.

It was a cinch, I assured myself, that the ghost story I had broiled up to tell on the morrow would send my suburban-mad family scurrying back to town.

Many times mentally I went over the blood curdling details and I flattered myself that I surely had a lot of shivery goods for sale.

I couldn't see myself losing at all, at all.

So me for Jiggersville in the morning.

CHAPTER II.

JOHN HENRY'S GHOST STORY.

When the alarm clock went to work the next morning Clara J. turned around and gave it a look that made its teeth chatter.

She had been up and doing an hour before that clock grew nervous enough to crow.

Her enthusiasm was so great that she was a Busy-Lizzie long before 7 o'clock and we were not booked to leave the Choo-Choo House till 10:30.

About 8 o'clock she dragged me away from a dream and I reluctantly awoke to a realization of the fact that I was due to deliver some goods which I had never seen and didn't want to see.

"Get up, John!" Clara J. suggested, with a degree of excitement in her voice; "it's getting dreadfully late and you know I'm all impatience to see that lovely home you've bought for me in the country!"

[Illustration: Clara J.—A Dream of Peaches—Please Pass the
Cream.]

Me under the covers, gnawing holes in the pillow to keep from swearing.

"Oh, dear me!" she sighed, "I'm afraid I'm just a bit sorry to leave this sweet little apartment. We've been so happy here, haven't we?"

I grabbed the ball and broke through the center for 10 yards.

"Sorry," I echoed, tearfully; "why, it's breaking my heart to leave this cozy little collar box of a home and go into a great large country house full of—of—of rooms, and—er—and windows, and—er—and—er—piazzas, and—and—and cows and things like that."

"Of course we wouldn't have to keep the cow in the house," she said, thoughtfully.

"Oh, no," I said, "that's the point. There would be a barn, and you haven't any idea how dangerous barns are. They are the curse of country life, barns are."

"Well, then, John, why did you buy the cow?" she inquired, and I went up and punched a hole in the plaster.

Why did I buy the cow? Was there a cow? Had Bunch ever mentioned a cow to me? Come to think of it he hadn't and there I was cooking trouble over a slow fire.

When I came to she was saying quietly, "Besides, I think I'd rather have a milkman than a cow. Milkmen swear a lot and cheat sometimes but as a rule they are more trustworthy than cows, and they very seldom chase anybody. Couldn't you turn the barn into a gymnasium or something?"

"Dearie," I said, trying my level best to get a mist over my lamps so as to give her the teardrop gaze, "something keeps whispering to me, 'Sidestep that cave in the wilderness!' Something keeps telling me that a month on the farm will put a crimp in our happiness, and that the moment we move into a home in the tall grass ill luck will get up and put the boots to our wedded bliss."

Then I gave an imitation of a choking sob which sounded for all the world like the last dying shriek of a bathtub when the water is busy leaving it.

"Nonsense, John!" laughed Clara J.; "it's only natural that you regret leaving our first home, but after one day in the country you'll be happy as a king."

"Make it a deuce," I muttered; "a dirty deuce at that."

"Now," she said, joyfully; "I'm going to cook your breakfast. This may be your very last breakfast in a city apartment for months, maybe years, so I'm going to cook it myself. I've got every trunk packed—haven't I worked hard? Get up, you lazy boy!" and with this she danced out of the room.

Every trunk packed! Did she intend taking them with her, and if she did how could I stop her?

Back to the woods!

I began to feel like a street just before they put the asphalt down.

For some time I lay there with my brain huddled up in one corner of my head, fluttering and frightened.

Presently an insistent scratch-r-r-r-r aroused me and I began to sit up and notice things.

The things I noticed consisted chiefly of Tacks and the kitchen carving knife. The former was seated on the floor laboriously engineering the latter in an endeavor to produce a large arrow-pierced heart on the polished panel of the bedroom door.

"What's the idea?" I inquired.

"I'm farewelling the place," he answered, mournfully. "They's only two more doors to farewell after I get this one finished. Ain't hearts awful hard to drawr just right, 'specially when the knife slips!"

"You little imp!" I yelled; "do you mean to tell me you've been doing a Swinnerton all over this man's house? S'cat!" and I reached for a shoe.

"Cut it!" cried Tacks, indignantly. "Didn't the janitor say he'd miss me dreadful, and how can he miss me 'less'n he sees my loving rememberments all over the place every time he shows this compartment to somebody else? And it is impolite to go 'way forever and ever amen without farewelling the janitor!"

"Where do you think you're going?" I inquired, trying hard to be calm.

"To the country to live, sister told me," Tacks bubbled; "and we ain't never coming back to this horrid city, sister told me; and you bought the house for a surprise, sister told me; and it has a pizzazus all around it, sister told me; and a cow that gives condensed milk, sister told me; and they's hens and chickens and turkey goblins and a garden to plant potato salad, and they's a barn with pigeons in the attic, and they's a lawn with a barbers wire fence all around it, sister told me; and our trunks are all packed, and we ain't never coming back here no more, sister told me; and I must hurry and farewell them two doors!"

Tacks was slightly in the lead when my shoe reached the door, so he won.

At breakfast we were joined by Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha, both of whom fairly oozed enthusiasm and Clara J.'s pulse began to climb with excitement and anticipation.

I was on the bargain counter, marked down from 30 cents.

Every time Uncle Peter sprang a new idea in reference to his garden, and they came so fast they almost choked him, I felt a burning bead of perspiration start out to explore my forehead.

Presently to put the froth of fear upon my cup of sorrow there came a telegram from "Bunch" which read as follows:

New York ——

John Henry
No. 301 W. 109th St.

Sister and family will move in country house tomorrow be sure to play your game to-day good luck.

Bunch.

"Poor John! you look so worried," said Clara J., anxiously; "I really hope it is nothing that will call you back to town for a week at least. It will take us fully a week to get settled, don't you think so, Aunt Martha?"

I dove into my coffee cup and stayed under a long time. When I came to the surface again Uncle Peter was explaining to Tacks that baked beans grew only in a very hot climate, and in the general confusion the telegram was forgotten by all except my harpooned self.

Clara J. and Aunt Martha were both tearful when we left the flat to ride to the station, but to my intense relief no mention was made of the trunks, consequently I began to lift the mortgage from my life and breathe easier.

On the way out Tacks left a small parcel with one of the hall boys with instructions to hand it to the janitor as soon as possible.

"It's a little present for the janitor in loving remembrance of his memory," Tacks explained with something that sounded like a catch in his voice.

"Hasn't that boy a lovely disposition?" Aunt Martha beamed on Tacks; "to be so forgiving to the janitor after the horrid man had sworn at him and blamed him for putting a cat in the dumb waiter and sending it up to the nervous lady on the seventh floor who abominated cats and who screamed and fell over in a tub of suds when she opened the dumb-waiter door to get her groceries and the cat jumped at her. Mercy! how can the boy be so generous!"

Tacks bore up bravely under this panegyric of praise and his face wore a rapt expression which amounted almost to religious fervor.

"What did you give the janitor, Angel-Face?" I asked.

"Only just another remembrance," Tacks answered, solemnly. "I happened to find a poor, little dead mouse under the gas range and I thought I'd farewell the janitor with it."

Aunt Martha sighed painfully and Uncle Peter chuckled inwardly like a mechanical toy hen.

On the train out to Jiggersville Clara J. was a picture entitled, "The Joy of Living"—kind regards to Mrs. Pat Campbell; Ibsen please write.

As for me with every revolution of the wheels I grew more and more like a half portion of chipped beef.

"Oh, John!" said Clara J., her voice shrill with excitement; "I forgot to tell you! I left my key with Mother, and she's going to superintend the packing of the furniture this afternoon. By evening she expects to have everything loaded in the van and we won't have to wait any time for our trunks and things!"

"Great Scott!" I yelled; "maybe you won't like the house! Maybe it's only a shanty with holes in the roof—er, I mean, maybe you'll be disappointed with the lay-out! What's the blithering sense of being in such a consuming fever about moving the fiendish furniture? I'm certain you'll hate the very sight of this corn-crib out among the ant hills. Can't you back-pedal on the furniture gag and give yourself a chance to hear the answer to what you ask yourself?"

Clara J. looked tearfully at me for a moment; then she went over and sat with Aunt Martha and told her how glad she was we were moving to the country where the pure air would no doubt have a soothing effect on my nerves because I certainly had grown irritable of late.

At last we reached the little old log cabin down the lane and after the first glimpse I knew it was all off.

The place I had borrowed from Bunch for a few minutes was a dream, all right, all right.

With its beautiful lawns and its glistening gravelled walks; with a modern house perfect in every detail; with its murmuring brooklet rushing away into a perspective of nodding green trees and with the bright sunshine smiling a welcome over all it made a picture calculated to charm the most hardened city crab that ever crawled away from the cover of the skyscrapers.

As for Clara J. she simply threw up both hands and screamed for help. She danced and yelled with delight. Then she hugged and kissed me with a thousand reiterated thanks for my glorious present.

I felt as joyous as a jelly fish. Ten-legged microbes began to climb into my pores. Everything I had in my system rushed to my head. I could see myself in the giggle-giggle ward in a bat house, playing I was the king of England.

I was a joke turned upside down.

After they had examined every nook and cranny of the place and had talked themselves hoarse with delight I called them all up on the front piazza for the purpose of putting out their lights with my ghost story.

I figured on driving them all back to the depot with about four paragraphs of creepy talk, so when I had them huddled I began in a hoarse whisper to raise their hair.

I told them that no doubt they had noticed the worried expression on my face and explained that it was due chiefly to the fact that I had learned quite by accident that this beautiful place was haunted.

Tacks grew so excited that he dropped a garden spade off the piazza and into a hot house below, breaking seven panes of glass, but the others only smiled indulgently and I went on.

I jumped head first into my most blood-curdling story and related in detail how a murder had been committed on the very site the house was built on and how a fierce bewhiskered spirit roamed the premises at night and demanded vengeance. I described in awful words the harrowing spectacle and all I got at the finish was the hoot from Uncle Peter.

"Poor John," said Clara J., "I had no idea you were so run down. Why, you're almost on the verge of nervous prostration. And how thoughtful you were to pick out a haunted house, for I do love ghosts. Didn't you know that? I'll tell you what let's do. I'll give a prize for the first one who sees and speaks to this unhappy spirit—won't it be jolly? Where are you going, John?"

"Me, to the undertakers—I mean I must run back to town. That telegram this morning—important business—forgot all about it—see you later—don't breathe till I get back—I mean, don't live till I—Oh! the devil!"

Just then I fell over the lawn mower, picked myself up hastily and rushed off to town to find Bunch for I was certainly up against it good and hard.

CHAPTER III.

JOHN HENRY'S BURGLAR.

When finally I located Bunch and told him the bitter truth he acted like a zee-zee boy in a Wheel House.

Laugh! Say! he just threw out his chest and cackled a solo that fairly bit its way through my anatomy.

Every once in a white he'd give me the red-faced glare and snicker, "Oh, you mark! You Cincherine! You to the seltzer bottle—fizz!—fizz! The only and original Wheeze Puller, not! You're all right—backwards!"

Then he'd throw his ears back and let a chortle out of his thirst-teaser that made the neighborhood jump sideways and rubber for a cop.

"What are you going to do?" he asked me when presently his face grew too tired to hold any more wrinkles.

[Illustration: Uncle Peter—the Original Trust Tamer.]

"Give me the count," I sighed; 'I'm down and out."

"Have you no plan at all?" inquired Bunch.

"Plan, nothing," I said; "every time I try to think of a plan my brain gets bashful and hides. There's nothing in my noddle now but a headache."

"Well," said Bunch, "I'll throw a wire at my sister and tell her not to move out to Jiggersville until day after to-morrow. In the mean time we'll have to get a crowbar and pry your family circle loose from my premises. Nothing doing in the ghost business, eh?"

"Nothing," I answered, mournfully; "I couldn't coax a shiver."

"A fire wouldn't do, would it?" Bunch suggested, thoughtfully.

"It wouldn't do for you, unless you are aces with the insurance
Indians," I answered.

"We-o-o-u-w!" yelled Bunch, "I have it—burglars!"

"Burglars!" I repeated, mechanically.

"Sure! it's a pipe!" Bunch went on with enthusiasm. "You will play Spike Hennessy and I'll be Gumshoe Charlie. We'll disguise ourselves with whiskers and break into the house about 2 o'clock in the morning. We'll arouse the sleeping inmates, shoot our bullet-holders in the ceiling once or twice and hand them enough excitement to make them gallop back to town on the first train. Do you follow me, eh, what?"

"Not me, Bunch," I shook my head sadly. "Nix on the burgle for yours truly. I must take the next train back to the woods. Otherwise wee wifey may suspect something and begin to pass me out the zero language. But I like the burglar idea. Couldn't you do it as a monologue?"

"What! all by my lonesome?" cried Bunch. "Say! John, doesn't that sound like making me work a trifle too hard to get my own goods back ?"

I sighed and looked as helpless as a nut under the hammer.

Bunch laughed again. "Oh, very well," he said, "I see I'm the only life-saver on duty so I'll do a single specialty and pull you out of the pickle bottle."

I grasped my rescuer's hand and shook it warmly in silence.

"Leave a front window open," Bunch directed, "and somewhere around two o'clock I'll squeeze through."

"I'll have it worked up good and proper," I said, eagerly. "I'll throw out dark hints all the evening and have the bunch ready to quiver when the crash comes. As soon as I hear your signal I'll rush bravely down stairs and you shoot the ceiling. I'll give you a struggle and chase you outside. Then I'll run you down behind the barn. There, free from observation, you can shoot a couple of holes in my coat so that I can produce evidence of a fierce fight, and then you to the tall timber. I'll crawl breathlessly back to my palpitating household, and, displaying my wounded coat, declare everything off. I'll refuse to live any longer in a house where murder and sudden death occupy the spare room. It looks to me like a cinchalorum, Bunch, a regular cinchalorum!"

"It sounds good," Bunch acquiesced, "and I'll give you an imitation of the best little amateur cracksman that ever swung a jimmy. I'll take a late train out and hang around till it's time to ring the curtain up. By the way, are there any revolvers on the premises?"

"Not a gun," I answered, "not even an ice-pick. Uncle Peter won't show fight. All he'll show will be a blonde night gown cutting across lots to beat the breeze. Aunt Martha will climb to the attic, Clara J. will be busy doing a scream solo, and Tacks will crawl under the bed and pull the bed after him. There'll be no interference, Bunch; it's easy money!"

With this complete understanding we parted and I hustled back to
Jiggersville.

I found the family still delirious with delight with the exception of Clara J. whose enthusiasm had been dampened by my sudden departure.

My reappearance brought her back to earth, however, and in the presence of so many new excitements she didn't even question me with regard to my City trip.

As the evening wore on my nervousness increased and I began to wonder if Bunch would really turn the trick or give me the loud snicker and leave me flat.

I had gone too far now to confess everything to Clara J. She'd never forgive me.

If I told her the facts in the case the long Arctic Winter Night would set in, and I'd be playing an icicle on the window frame.

I felt as lonely as a coal scuttle during the strike.

About six o'clock Uncle Peter waded into the sitting room, flushed and happy as a school boy. "I've just left the garden," he chuckled.

"No, you haven't," I said, glancing at his shoes; "you've brought most of it in here with you."

I never touched him. The old gentleman sat down in a loud rocker and began to tell me a lot of things I didn't want to hear. Uncle Peter always intersperses his remarks on current topics with bits of parboiled philosophy that make one want to get up and drive him through the carpet with a tack hammer. When it comes to wise saws and proverbial stunts Uncle Peter has Solomon backed up in the corner.

"John," he said, "this country life is great. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man's stomach digest mince pies—how's that? Notice the air out here? How pure and fresh and bracing! You ought to go out and run a mile, John!"

"I'd like to run ten miles," I answered, truthfully.

"Exercise, that's the essence of life, my boy!" he continued. "I firmly believe I could run five miles to-day without straining a muscle."

I laughed internally and thought of the glorious opportunity he'd have before the morning broke.

"You may or may not know, John," the old gentleman kept on, "that I was a remarkably fine swordsman in my younger days. Parry, thrust, cut, slash—heigho! those were the times. And, to tell you the truth, I'm still able to hold my own with the sword or pistol. I found a sword hanging on the wall in the hall to-day and I've been practising a few swings."

A vision of Uncle Peter running a rusty sword into the interior department of the disguised and disgusted Bunch rose before me, but I blew it away with a laugh.

"He laughs best who laughs in his sleeve," chuckled the old party. "Now that we're out in the country all of us should learn to handle a sword or a pistol. It gives us self reliance. It's very different from living in the city, I tell you. A tramp in the lock-up is worth two in the kitchen. I shot at a mark for an hour to-day."

"What with?" I gasped.

"With a bow and arrow I bought for Tacks yesterday directly I learned we were coming to the country. I hit the bull's eye five out of six times. An ounce of prevention is worth two hundred pounds of policemen, you know. Tacks practised, too, and drove an arrow through a strange man's overalls and was chased half a mile for his skill in marksmanship, but, as I said before, the exercise will do him good."

"Where do you keep this bow and arrow?" I inquired, with a studied assumption of carelessness.

"To-night I'll keep it under my pillow. Honi soit qui oncle Pierre, which means, evil be to him who monkeys with Uncle Peter," he said, solemnly. "To-morrow I'm going to town to buy a bull dog revolver, maybe a bull dog and a revolver, for a dog in the manger is the noblest Roman of them all."

I could see poor Bunch scooting across the lawn with a bunch of arrows in his ramparts and Uncle Peter behind, prodding his citadel with a carving knife.

I began to get a hunch that our plan of campaign was threatened with an attack of busy Uncle Peter, and I had just about decided to remove his door key and lock the old man up in his room when Clara J. came in to announce dinner.

Aunt Martha and Clara J. had collaborated on the dinner and it was a success. Uncle Peter said so, and his appetite is one of those brave fighting machines that never says die till every plate is clean.

I was so nervous I couldn't eat a bite, but I pleaded a toothache, so they all gave me the sympathetic stare and passed me up.

We went to bed early and I rehearsed mentally the stage business for the drama about to be enacted when Bunch crept through the picket lines.

About midnight a dog in the neighborhood began to hurl forth a series of the most distressing bow-bows I ever heard. I arose, put up the window and looked out.

I saw a tall man with a bunch of whiskers on his face flying across the lot pursued by a black-and-tan pup, which snapped eagerly at the man's heels and seemed determined to eat him up if ever the runner stopped long enough.

I felt in my bones that the one in the lead was Bunch, and I sighed deeply and went back to bed.

I must have dropped into an uneasy sleep for Clara J. was tapping me on the arm when I started up and asked the answer.

"There's somebody in the house," she whispered, not a bit frightened, to my surprise and dismay, "Maybe it's only the ghost you told us about—what a lark!"

"Somebody in the house," I muttered, going on the stage blindly to play my part; "and there isn't a gun in the castle."

"Yes there is," she answered, joyfully, I fancied; "mother brought father's revolver over yesterday and made me put it in my satchel. She said we would feel safer at night with it in the house. Do let me shoot him; I can aim straight, indeed I can! Why, John, what makes you tremble so?"

"I'm not trembling, you goose!" I snarled; "I can't find my shoes, that's all. Doggone if I'm going to live in a joint like this with ghosts and burglars all over the place."

Just then an alarming yell ascended from the regions below, followed by a crash and a series of the most picturesque, sulphur-lined oaths that mortal man ever gave vent to.

It was Bunch. His trademark was on every word. I could recognize his brimstone vocabulary with my eyes shut.

But what dire fate had befallen him? Surely, not even an amateur cracksman would give himself and the whole snap away unless the provocation was great.

Lights began to appear all over the house. Aunt Martha in a weird makeup came out of her room screaming, "What is it? What is it?" followed by Uncle Peter and his trusty bow and arrow.

I began to pray. It was all over. A rosewood casket for Bunch.
Me for the Morgue.

Just as I was ready to rush down to investigate, Tacks came bounding up the stairs, two steps at a time, clad only in his nightie.

Up the stairs, mind you! The nerve of that kid!

"Gi'me the prize, sister!" he yelled; "I caught the ghost! I caught him!"

"What do you mean?" I said, shaking him.

Tacks grinned from ear to ear. "You know they's a trap door in the hall so's to get down in the cellar and it ain't finished yet, so this evening I took the door up and laid heavy paper on it so's if the ghost walked on it he'd go through and he did, and I get the prize, don't I, sister?"

I rushed down to the scene of the explosion, followed by my excited household.

Leaning over the yawning cellar trap door I yelled, "Who's down there?"

"Oh! you go to hell!" came back the voice of the disgusted Bunch, whereupon Aunt Martha almost fainted, while Uncle Peter loaded his bow and arrow and prepared to sell his life dearly.

Great Scott! what a situation! The man who owned the house nursing his bruises in the muddy cellar while the bunch of interlopers above him clamored for his life.

While I puzzled my dizzy think-factory for a way out of the dilemma there came a terrific knock at the door and Tacks promptly opened it.

"Have you got him? Have you got him?" inquired the elongated and cadaverous specimen of humanity who burst into the hall and stared at us.

"I seen him early this evening a'hangin' around these here premises and I ups and chases him twicet, but the skunk outrun me," the newcomer gurgled, as he excitedly swung a policeman's billy the size of a fence rail.

"Then I seen the lights here and says I, 'they has him'! Perduce the maleyfactor till I trot him to the lock-up!" and with this the minion of the law rolled up his sleeves and prepared for action.

"I presume you are the chief of police?" inquired Uncle Peter, with an affable smile.

"I'm all the police they is and my name is Harmony Diggs, and they's no buggular livin' can get out'n my clutches oncet I gits these boys on him," the visitor shouted, waving an antiquated pair of handcuffs excitedly in the air.

Tacks watched him open-mouthed. That boy was having the time of his life and it would have pleased me immeasurably to paddle him to sleep with Harmony's night stick.

"I caught him!" Tacks cried in exultant tones when the village copper looked his way; "he's down there."

"Down there, eh?" snorted the country Sherlock, getting on his knees and peering into the depths, but just then Bunch handed him a handful of hard mud which located temporarily over Harmony's left eye and put his optic on the blink.

With the other eye, however, Mr. Diggs caught a glimpse of a step ladder, which he immediately lowered through the trap, and drawing a murderous looking revolver from his pocket, commanded Bunch to come up or be shot.

Bunch decided to come up. I didn't hold the watch on him, but I figure it took him about seven-sixteenths of a second to make the decision.

As the criminal slowly emerged from the cellar the spectators stood back, spellbound and breathless; Aunt Martha with a long tin dipper raised in an attitude of defense, and Uncle Peter with the bow and arrow ready for instant use.

These war-like precautions were unnecessary, however. Bunch was a sight. His clothing had accumulated all the mud in the unfinished cellar and his false whiskers were skewed around, giving his face the expression of a prize gorilla.

Bunch looked at me reproachfully, but never opened his head. Say! if ever there was a dead game sport, Bunch Jefferson is the answer.

He didn't even whimper when the village Hawkshaw snapped the bracelets on his wrist and said, "Come on, Mr. Buggular! This here's a fine night's work for everybody in this neighborhood because you've been a source of pesterment around here for six months. If you don't get ten years, Mr. Buggular, then I ain't no guess maker. Come along; goodnight to you, one and all; that there boy that catched this buggular ought to get rewarded nice!"

"He will be," I said mentally, as Mr. Diggs led the suffering Bunch away to the Bastile.

"I've got to see that villain landed in a cell," I said to Clara J. as the door closed on the victor and vanquished.

"Do, John!" she answered; "but don't be too hard on the poor
fellow. You can't tell what temptations may have led him astray.
I certainly am disappointed for I was sure it was the ghost.
Anyway, the burglar had whiskers like the ghost's, didn't he?"

I didn't stop to reply, but grabbing my coat rushed away to formulate some plan to get Bunch out of hock.

CHAPTER IV.

JOHN HENRY'S COUNTRY COP.

Ahead of me, plodding along the pike under the moonlight, were
Bunch and his cadaverous captor, the former bowed in sorrow or
anger, probably both, and the latter with head erect, haughty as a
Roman conqueror.

Bunch's make-up was a troubled dream. Over a pair of hand-me-down trousers, eight sizes too large for him, he wore a three-dollar ulster. On his head was an automobile cap, and his face was covered with a bunch of eelgrass three feet deep. He was surely all the money.

As I drew near I could hear Mr. Diggs expatiating on crime in general and housebreaking in particular, and I fancied I could also hear Bunch boiling and seething within.

[Illustration: Aunt Martha—a Short, Stout Bundle of Good Nature.]

"Mr. Buggular," Diggs was saying, "I don't know just what your home trainin' was as a child, but they's a screw loose somewhere or you'd a'never been brought to this here harrowful perdickyment, nohow. I s'pose you jest started in nat'rally to be a heenyus maleyfactor early in life, huh? You needn't to answer if you're afeared it'll incrimigate you, but I s'pose you took to it when a boy, pickin' pockets or suthin' like that, huh?"

"Oh, cut it out, you old goat, and don't bother me!" snapped Bunch, just as I joined them.

"A dangerous maleyfactor," said Diggs to me, as he tightened his grip on Bunch's arm; "but they ain't no call for you to assist the course of justice, because if the dern critter starts to run I'll pump him chuck full of lead. He's been a'tellin' me he started on the downward path to predition as a child-stealer."

"I told you nothing, you old tadpole," shrieked Bunch, unable to contain himself longer.