The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall: or, Great Days in School and Out. Davenport Spencer
than the involuntary one he had taken an hour before.
Mrs. Rushton, with tears in her eyes, turned to Fred, in the lower hall.
“It’s just awful,” she said. “Tell me, Fred, dear, how it all happened.”
“Uncle Aaron makes too much of it, Mother!” exclaimed Fred, who had had all he could do to keep still during his uncle’s tirade. “Of course, it might have been a bad accident. But you know just as well as I do that Teddy wouldn’t have done it for all the world, if he had thought anybody would get hurt. The boys were teasing him about hitting the ball straight, and, as luck would have it, Jed’s team came along just that minute. It just struck Teddy that here was something to aim at, and he let fly. Of course, there was only one chance out of ten of hitting the horse at all, and, even if it had hit him, it might have only made him jump, and that would have been the end of it. But everything went wrong, and the team ran away. Nobody felt worse about it than Teddy. If you’d seen how white he looked – ”
“Poor boy!” murmured Mrs. Rushton softly. Then, recollecting herself, she said a little confusedly: “Poor Uncle Aaron, I mean. It must have been a terrible shock to him. Think what a blow it would have been to all of us, if he had been killed!”
“Sure, it would!” assented Fred, though his voice lacked conviction. “But he wasn’t, and there’s no use of his being so grouchy over it. He ought to be so glad to be alive that he’d be willing to let up on Teddy. I suppose that all the time he’s here now he’ll keep going on like a human phonograph.”
“You mustn’t speak about your uncle that way, Fred,” said his mother reprovingly. “He’s had a great deal to try his temper, and Teddy is very much to blame. He must be punished. Yes, he certainly must be punished.”
“There’s one thing, too, Mother,” went on Fred, determined to put his brother in the best light possible, “Ted might have lied out of it, but he didn’t. Uncle Aaron put the question to the boys straight, or rather he was just going to do it, when Teddy spoke up and owned that he was the one who hit the ball.”
“Bless his heart,” cried Mrs. Rushton delightedly, pouncing on this bit of ammunition to use in Teddy’s behalf when the time came.
Fred went to his room to wash and brush up, and a few minutes later the family, with the unexpected guest, were gathered about the table, spread with the good things that Martha had heaped upon it.
Last of all, came Teddy. Usually, he was among the first. But a certain delicacy, new to him, seemed to whisper to him to-night that he would do well not to thrust himself obtrusively into the family circle. Perhaps, also, a vague desire to placate the “powers that be” had made him pay unusual attention to his face and nails and hair. He was very well groomed–for Teddy–and he tried to assume a perfectly casual air, as he came down the stairs.
Martha caught sight of him from the kitchen, and shook her head ominously. She had heard enough to know that storm signals were out.
“Dat po’ chile!” she mourned, “he sho am goin’ like a lam’ to de slo’ter!”
CHAPTER VI
TEDDY’S BANISHMENT
Teddy slipped in like a ghost. That is, as far as noise was concerned. If he could also have had the other ghostly quality of being invisible, it would have suited him to a dot.
He drew out his chair and was about to sit down, when his father lifted his hand.
“Stop!” he said, and there was a tone in his voice that was not often heard. “You don’t sit down at this table to-night.”
Teddy stared at him, mortified and abashed. With all eyes turned toward him, he felt as though he would like to sink through the floor.
“I mean it,” said his father. “Go straight to your room and stay there. I’ll have something to say to you later on. But before you go, I want you to apologize to your Uncle Aaron for the danger you put him in this afternoon.”
Teddy turned toward his uncle, and the sour smile he saw on the latter’s thin lips made him almost hate his relative.
“Of course, I’m sorry,” he blurted out sullenly. “I told him so, down at the bridge. He knows well enough, that I didn’t mean – ”
“That will do now,” interrupted his father. “There’s no need of adding impudence to your other faults.”
Teddy took his hand from the back of the chair and started for the hall, after one despairing glance at the table.
“But, Father – ” ventured Fred.
“Wouldn’t it be enough to make him go without dessert?” interposed Mrs. Rushton. “Can’t you let him have at least a piece of bread and butter? The child’s health, you know – ”
“Well,” hesitated Mr. Rushton. But he caught sight of the sarcastic grin on Aaron’s face.
“No,” he went on more firmly, “he can’t have a thing. It won’t hurt his health to go without his supper for once. No, nothing at all!”
“Except what Agnes or Fred may slip to him later on,” put in Aaron, with a disagreeable smile.
“Mansfield’s wish is law in this house, and Fred would not go against his father’s will,” answered Mrs. Rushton, with a coldness that for a moment silenced her brother-in-law and wiped the smile from his face.
Old Martha, over in one corner, glowered with indignation.
“Cantankerous ole skinflint,” she muttered under her breath. “Dey ain’t never nuffin’ but trouble when dat man comes inter dis house. Sittin’ dere, stuffin’ hisself, while dat po’ lam’ upstairs is starvin’ ter def. I on’y hopes one of dem chicken bones sticks in his froat. It’d be do Lo’d’s own jedgment on ’im.”
But Martha’s wishes were not realized, and Aaron finished his supper without suffering from any visitation of Providence. In fact, he had seldom enjoyed a meal more. It was one of Martha’s best, and, to any one that knew that good woman’s ability in the culinary line, that meant a great deal. Then, too, Teddy, was in disgrace, and the discomfort he had suffered that afternoon was in a fair way to be atoned for. He was not by any means willing to let it rest at that, and he figured on putting another spoke in the wheel of that young man’s fortunes.
But, if Aaron had enjoyed his meal, nobody else had.
Mr. Rushton was wondering whether he had not been too severe. Mrs. Rushton, on the verge of tears, was sure he had. And Fred, who had been thinking all the time of poor Teddy, agreed with her.
That morning, their home had been one of the happiest in Oldtown. To-night, every inmate was thoroughly miserable, except their guest.
Why was it, Mrs. Rushton wondered, that trouble always came with Aaron? Never had he come except to her regret, and never had he left without a sigh of heartfelt relief on the part of every member of the family. He was a shadow on the hearth, a spectre at the feast.
He was not without good qualities, and plenty of them. In the community where he lived, he was highly respected. He was upright and square-dealing, and nobody could say that Aaron Rushton had ever wilfully done him a wrong.
But, though everybody esteemed him, there were few who really liked him. His was not a nature to inspire affection. He was too rigid and severe. The “milk of human kindness” had either been left out of his composition, or, at best, it had changed to buttermilk. Whenever one brushed against him, he was conscious of sharp edges. He was as full of quills as the “fretful porcupine,” and always ready to let them fly.
With young people especially, he had little sympathy. Although as far apart as the poles in many things, he and Jed Muggs were absolutely at one in this–their utter disapproval of boys.
Fred and Teddy had always felt in his presence that they ought to apologize for being alive.
But, if Aaron did not go so far as that, he at least resented the fact that they were so very much alive. Their noise offended him, and their pranks