The Red House. George Agnew Chamberlain
faced about, Meg found her tongue. “That’s wicked,” she said hoarsely. “Perhaps you did scare Nath into going the long way. But he’s started, hasn’t he? He’ll get home hours from now and frighten his mother most to death.”
“One fool at a time is enough,” said Pete pleasantly. “Git ye off to bed, and Ellen too.”
III
AT SUNRISE Pete went poking around in search of Nath. First he stopped at the plank cabin, but the boy wasn’t there. He told Lot he could forget the home chores from now on, and ordered him to get to plowing. Leaving the cabin, he started for the barn, and it wasn’t by accident that he caught sight of Nath in the corncrib, because Pete never saw anything by accident. Nath had been so cold that he had slept only by fits and starts, and his eyes were wide open.
“Hello,” he said sheepishly.
“How’d ye come to get in there?” asked Pete, full of concern. “Somebody chase ye?”
“Only you,” said Nath boldly. “You scared the hell out of me all right.”
“Well, now,” said Pete, “I’m sorry, Nath, and I don’t understand it. Seems like the truth oughtn’t never to scare nobody, boy or man.”
Nath stood up, shook himself and gave Pete a long look. “The truth!” he muttered. “You and your jumpity house!”
“Eh? How’s that now?”
“Aw, nothing,” said Nath.
“Come along then; let’s git them chores done afore breakfast.”
Nath wondered if he was going to be rooked for double duty on single pay or perhaps no pay at all, but he didn’t say anything—not yet. He worked fast, but couldn’t keep from studying Pete at every chance. Perched on his stool, Pete seemed wrapped in the benign innocence of an oversized baby.
“Come here, boy,” he said, the minute the work was done.
Squirming like a huge grub, he managed to extract a wallet from his hip pocket and took out an ancient dollar bill more than seven inches long and over three inches wide. “Here you be,” he continued, “fifty cents for last night and fifty more for this morning. Come along in and feed.”
Nath didn’t follow at once; instead, he stood looking at Pete’s receding back. There was nothing babyish about the old devil now. Why hadn’t he handed over fifty cents last night? Had he planned the whole crazy show yesterday when he was thinking hard enough to raise a sweat? Nath felt so sore at being played for a dope that when he went inside to breakfast, he wasn’t even embarrassed, and nobody else seemed to be either. Only Meg looked uneasy, her eyes resting solemnly on Pete. It made her angry to think he had known Nath wouldn’t go home, angry and a little frightened. When she and Nath started off to school, their silence lasted well into the tunneled lane.
“Meg,” said Nath, “does Pete often talk so crazy as last night?”
“No,” said Meg. “I never heard such storying before from him or anybody else.”
“Me neither,” said Nath. He laughed and then frowned. “I was good and scared.”
“So was I,” said Meg. “When he got through, I wouldn’t have stepped outside for anything, not for anything.”
“Well,” said Nath, “you notice I didn’t get so far myself.” Then he added, “But I will tonight.”
They boarded the bus, and when it reached the school, Tibby Rinton was waiting. Nobody could belittle her beauty, with hair rising like an orange flame from the whitest skin you ever saw. But it wasn’t white this morning and, since she never used rouge, only anger could account for the color in her cheeks. She didn’t move; she just waited until they came near.
“You got a nerve, Nath Storm!” she exploded. “Where were you last night when I phoned, the way I said I would?”
“Working,” said Nath.
“Working all night long!” gibed Tibby wrathfully.
“Aw, Tibby,” protested Nath, “where’s the harm? I did chores last night and again this morning. Can’t a guy earn a dollar without you throwing sixteen hundred fits?”
“Not if it takes all night,” said Tibby, turning away with a swirl.
After school Nath was torn between wanting to make it up with her and anxiety to see his mother. Tibby had been his girl from the first time she had called hello to him, and there were plenty of fellows ready and willing to take his place, yet when he remembered the chores waiting to be done at Yocum Farm, he decided to go straight home.
“Look, mom,” he announced. “One of those funny old dollars.”
Mrs. Storm was only thirty-four, but looked a lot older. Her husband had died when she was seventeen, and with the insurance money she had bought the little store and refurnished the living quarters in the rear. Up to lately, she had made a fair living for herself and Nath, but the war had knocked everything so topsy-turvy that now things were harder to get than to sell.
“It’s a real dollar just the same,” she said, smoothing out the bill. “Twice as much as the store took in today.”
“For you,” said Nath, “and I can get you more if you’ll let me. Over to Yocum’s.”
“I know. Mr. Yocum phoned me twice; the last time to say you wouldn’t be home.”
“Did, eh?” said Nath with a scowl.
“Say, Nath, perhaps if you could stay steady over at Yocum’s, it might be a good thing. Because that way I could go off to one of those high-paying war jobs and leave you fixed to finish school.”
“I don’t know,” said Nath doubtfully; “it calls for thinking. Anyways, I got to beat it now, mom.”
“Run along,” she said. “But if you don’t turn up tonight, remember I’ll know why.”
Twenty abandoned roads wander vaguely from the Fries-burg Pike through Oxhead Woods, but only one ends at the Yocum Farm tarn. Nath knew he could find the way by day, but what about coming back after dark? He struck into the road he sought, moss-grown and hollowed out like a trough between banks from which sprang a tangle of laurel and holly. Arriving at a fork in reverse, he stopped to break a bush and bar the wrong way back. He did this several times, but twice he had to retrace his steps to correct a mistake. Abruptly he descended into a region where beeches, oaks and giant gums mingled their boughs high above the lesser growth so thickly that they blotted out the sky. The air turned dank, and a moment later he caught the gleam of water.
He noticed a strange indentation on the left, a sort of triangular trench that looked as if a plow had been dragged along on its side, only no plow could have passed through such thick cover. The next moment he came to a rotted bridge, jumped a ragged black hole and stopped, halted by a sudden recollection. He faced about and there it was, just as Pete had said—no Red House, but a monster beech whose branches stretched across a pitch-black pool. The sight filled him with rage, and clawing up a clod, he hurled it at the pool. The water made a gulping sound and its widest oily ripple took on the look of a sardonic grin. He felt ashamed and hurried on. With startling suddenness, the narrow path widened into the flat platform at the base of the ramp. He didn’t look for Meg or anybody else; he just went to the barn and got to work. Presently Pete came out with his stool and settled down.
“Late today,” he remarked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” said Nath. “I had to go home first, didn’t I?”
“So you did,” said Pete, “but I’d forgot.”
Nath gave him a steady look. “I came across Oxhead Woods.”
“Did ye now?” said Pete blandly. “Sure, sure, that would be quickest—daytimes.”
“Or any other time,”