The Jucklins. Opie Percival Read
I should think," I replied, giving him what I conceived to be a look of severe rebuke, "that a teacher of common decency and politeness is most needed of all."
"I reckon you are right," he rejoined. "Is he the man you are looking for?"
"I don't want to get into trouble here," said I, "but I insist upon fair treatment and I'm going to have it."
"All right, sir. Now, what is it you want to know?"
"Why, I was told that there was an opening for a school teacher in this neighborhood."
"And so there is, but don't you know that no neighborhood could be proud of such a fact? Therefore, you ought to be more careful as to how you make your inquiries."
I saw that he wanted to joke with me and I joked with him. And I soon found that this was the right course, for he invited me into his office and insisted upon my sharing his luncheon, cold bread and meat and a tin bucket of boiling coffee. I soon learned that he was newly graduated from a school of telegraphy, and that this was his first position. He had come from a city and he gave me the impression that he was buried alive; he said that he had entered an oath in his book that if some one didn't get off at his station pretty soon he would set the whole thing on fire and turn train robber. "Don't you think that would be a pretty good idea?" he asked, laughing.
"It would be a pretty dangerous one, at least," I answered.
"Yes, but without danger there is never any fun. My old man insisted upon my taking that night-school course; and the professor of the institution held out the idea that I could be a great man within a short time after graduating; led me to believe I could get charge of a big office in town, but here I am stuck up here in these hills. No rags about here at all."
"No what?"
"Rags, calico, women—catch on?"
"You mean no society, to speak of."
"That's it. Oh, away off in the country it's all right, but I can never go more than three miles from this miserable place. You'll have to go about fifteen miles."
"How do you know?"
"Why, an old fellow from a neighborhood about that far away came out here the other day and sent off a dispatch, telling some man off, I don't remember where, to send a teacher out there."
"And one might have come by this time," I suggested, with a sense of fear.
"No, you are the only one that has put in an appearance, and the only one that is likely to come. I understand that they don't treat teachers very well out there."
"How so?"
"The boys have a habit of ducking them in the creek, I hear."
"Oh, is that all? Be fun for me."
"You won't think so after you see those roosters. Let me see. Take the Purdy road out there, and go straight ahead to the east, and when you think you have gone about fifteen miles, ask for the house of Lim Jucklin. The last teacher, I understand, boarded at his house."
"You appear to know a good deal about it."
"Well, the truth of it is, I do, for the last teacher came and went this way. And he told me like this: 'The thing opened up all right, plenty of rags, but that evening some of the young fellows came to me and said that unless I brought some sort of treat the next morning they would put me in the creek; said that they hated to do it, but that time-honored customs must be observed. I didn't bring any treat and I went into the creek. Then I left.' Yes, that's what he said, and I concluded that as for me I would rather be here. It isn't so lively, but it is a good deal dryer. But you can't get there to-night. Better take a shake-down here with me till morning, and then you may catch some farmer going that way with a wagon."
I thanked him for this courtesy, and readily accepted it. And the next morning, with my trunk on my shoulder, I set out upon what I conceived to be my career in life.
CHAPTER II.
The month was April, and the day was blithe, with no blotch in the sky. The country was rough, the road was pebbly in the bottoms and flinty on the hills, but there was a leaping joy everywhere; in the woods where the blue-jays were shouting, down the branch where the woodpecker tapped in an oak tree's sounding board. It must have been a low-hanging ambition to be thrilled with the prospect of teaching school, or was it buoyant health that made me happy? I eased down my trunk, and boyishly threw stones away off into an echoing hollow. A rabbit ran out into the road and stopped, and with a stone I knocked it over. Tenderly I picked it up, felt its fluttering heart, and groaned inwardly when the little heart was stilled. I called myself a murderer, an Anglo-Saxon brute, to kill a harmless creature merely upon a devilish impulse, and in the gravelly ground I began to dig a grave with my knife, and I was so much taken up with this work and with my grief, that I heeded not the approach of a wagon.
"What are you doing there?" some one called.
I looked up. A farmer had stopped his blowing horses and was looking at me. "I'm digging a grave," I answered.
"Diggin' a grave? Why, who's dead?"
"A rabbit." He moved uneasily, and gave me a searching look. And I saw that he took me to be insane. "I killed the poor thing," I explained, "killed it out of mere wantonness, and I am so grief-stricken that I am going to do the best I can for the poor thing—going to give it a Christian burial."
The man laughed. "I wish you would kill the last one of them," he said. "Set out as nice a young orchard as you ever saw last winter, and the devilish rabbits killed every one of the trees."
"Then I am not so much of a murderer after all," I replied. "I might have known that rabbits are not altogether harmless. How far do you go on this road?"
"About ten miles."
"Will you let me ride with you?"
"Yes, be glad to have you."
I put the rabbit into his grave, raked the dirt on him with my foot—hardly a Christian-like way, I admit—placed my trunk into the body of the wagon, and took a seat beside the man. And there was something about him that at once interested me. His hat was off and the breeze was stirring his grizzly hair. His nose was large and thin, and when he turned his face square upon me, I saw that his eyes were gray and clear. He wore no coat, his shirt sleeves were rolled back, and though he must have been more than fifty years old, I could see that he had enormous strength in his arms. And he was looking at me admiringly, for he said, "You must be pretty much of a man."
"I am not a child except in my lack of wisdom," I answered.
"Gad, you talk like a preacher. Which way are you going?"
"Over to Lim Jucklin's house."
He gave me another square look and remarked, "That's my name."
"You don't tell me so?"
"Didn't you hear me tell you so?"
"Yes, but——"
"Well, then, I did tell you so."
"I am delighted to meet you, sir. I am a school teacher, and I hear that one is wanted in your neighborhood."
He looked at me from head to foot, and replied: "I shouldn't wonder but you are the right man. What's your name?"
I told him and after a few moments of silence he asked, "Any kin to the Luke Hawes that fought in the Creek war?"
"He was my grandfather."
"Ah, hah, and my daddy fit with him—was a lieutenant in his company. Let's shake hands. Whoa, boys." He stopped his horses, got up, shook down the wrinkled legs of his trousers and reached forth his hand.
"You