Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1882 — THE REVENGERS. [ARTICLE]

THE REVENGERS.

“ Pop!” “ Yes’m.” “ Take that big basket with the broken bale, an’ dig me 'bout a peck o' potatoes. Look lively now. Don’t stand there staring at me like a dumb thing. Fly around." “Yes’m." Pop, a thick-set little fellow, black as the ace of spades, seized the basket Miss Faithful Sharpe designated with her lean fore-finger, and started out. In the garden, Andy, Miss Faithful’s and the cause of much of her tribulation, was engaged in weeding. He averaged one weed a minute. At that rate it would take about three months of constant work to clear the beds. But Andy didn’t care. He hated work, and it wouldn’t have distressed him if the garden had remained uu weeded from the beginning to the end of the year. His aunt’s example, and her many maxims, and long lectures on the nobility of honest toil never had any perceptible effect upon him. ‘ * What are you going to do, Pop ?” he asked as his co-sufferer, who viewed things pretty much as “Mars Andy ” did, emerged from the house. “ Goin’ to dig taters.” Digging potatoes had always been hateful work in Andy’s eyes before. But now it did not strike him so. Anything was better than weeding. ~ “ Say, Pop, I’ll dig the potatoes, if you’ll weed some.” Pop shook his head. “ Can’t, Mars Andy,” he answered. “Ole Missus, she tole me I’d got to go and get dese yere taters my own self, an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ with nobody. She says she spec Mars Andy gwine to ax me to weed, an’ so she tole me not to stop nohow.” This was delivered very glibly, for Pop hated weeding as much as Andy did, and never found any difficulty in framing an excuse. “O, pshaw,” said Andy, who did not think of doubting Pop’s veracity, knowing as he did his aunt’s opinion of his industry. “ That’s the way she always talks. She don’t mean nothin'. Give me the basket.” “ 1 dasn’t, Mars Andy,” and Pop clung with a well-simulated shiver of fear to the broken bail. “ Ole Missus, she’d take ah’ tar de head square ofFn me, deed she would. ” “ She 1 Now you know you’re gassin’, Pop. There ain’t as much fight in her ns she makes out. But go ’long. I believe I’d druther weed anyhow,” said Andy, making the best of the inevitable. “ I only know one thing : you’re that mean a Jew wouldn’t buy you.” Pop proceeded to the potato patch with a heavy heart. Andy’s last words cut doep. He wondered how he could make peace, and turned out the contents of his pockets, thinking he might find something to propitiate the friend whose friendship was so dear to him. But nothing appeared of sufficient value t o serve as a peace offering—an alligator’s tooth, a rattlesnake’s rattle, a big cone, a piece of striug, the core of a turnip, a glass button, and a piece of rusty iron. For none of these things would Andy care. He had plenty like them ; only better.

Two boys, in cloge conversation, came to the rail fence, taking the road which led to the river, half a mile off. Pop pricked up his ears on hearing something one of them said, and ran to repeat it to Andy, forgetting, in his ex- . citement, all about their recent difference. “ I say, Mars Andy, now’s our chance. We can get eben wid dat Bob Harris and Tim Waters for stealin’ our clo’es when we was irfa swimmin’ las’ Sat’day. Dey’s gone down now to go in deir T solves “ Good luck 1 ” cried Andy. “ I didn’t believe we’d get a chance for revenge so soon.. Yon get through your potatoes, Pop, and let’s be off. We’ll show ’em thtft stealin’ clothes is a trick we can plaly at too.” Pop wasn’t ten minutes digging the potatoes. Then he walked softly around tp the kitchen window, which was open, for the weather was very warm, and succeeded in setting the basket on the deal without attracting the attention of arguseyed Miss Faithful, A little later, when she went to the door to see how the boy’s weeding progressed, neither of the boys were t > be seen, and she screamed their names until she was hoarse, without eliciting any reply save from the echoing pine woods. The boys proceeded with great caution as they neared the river. In the middle of it lay a small island, almost overgrown with bushes, which afforded a capital screen. On the other side of this island from where the boys were, the water was very deep, but nearest to them it was so shallow that they could wade across with ease and perfect safety. Very careful to make no noise, they hunted around among the bushes until they found two piles of olothes. Hastily picking them up, they ran off with them just as a shout was raised by some one in the deep water. “ You know how it feels to have your clothes carried off, now,” sung out Andy, as he and Pop waded back to the shore in great haste. “ You’ll let ours alone the next time we go in, I reckon.” did jjqt stop to hear the t^awer

that was shouted after them, but, hurrying home, hid the clothes in-an empty bin in Miss Faithful's corn-shed. “ Let ’em get home as best they.can,” chuckled Andy. ‘ 1 We had a good right to take our revenge.” “ Lessen us call ourselves de revengers,” suggested Pop. “ That’s the name for us,” cried Andy. “You’ve hit it this time, Pop. ‘Revenge is sweet,’ you know, and I reckon we never felt better then we do now. Tim and Bob’ll never'hear the last of this.” This was Thursday. Every Thursday night there was a prayer meeting held in Crosstown Methodist Church, situated a mile from Miss Faithful’s house. Andy and Pop always went; not because they liked it, bnt because Miss Faithful, who was a devout member of the congregation, was afraid to leave them at home, for fear they wonld bum the house down or commit some other desperate deed of a like nature. “Please let us stay home to-night, aunt,” pleaded Andy, as he sat with her at supper, while Pop slowly polished the tins at the sink, averaging a mb every two or three minutes. “ No, don’t ask it,” was the decided reply. “ I can’t trust you. Like as not you’d burn the whole place down before I’d got half to Cross town. Come, Pop sit down and eat, while I clear away the dishes, and then we’ll start. You both deserve a thrashing for going off this afternoon without leave, and attending meeting is small enough punishment, goodness knows.” The church was full. It had beon previously announced that Deacon Ellis and Deacon Snow, of Glenville, who were visiting Deacon Marley for a few days, would give their experience, and the attendance was consequently very large, for these gentlemen were looked upon as “shining lights,” and great respect was shown them. Miss Faithful had invited them both to a late supper when meeting should be over, and had, on tbe way to church, given Andy and Pop many and earnest directions as to their conduct on the forthcoming great occasion. But neither of the eminent gentlemen had arrived when Miss Faithful, a little late, entered the church with her two charges. Already inquiries were being made about them, and anxiety, mingled with disappointment, was visible on every countenance.

Half an hour passed, and still the deacons did not come. And then Deacon Marley rose slowly from his seat. “My friends,” he said, “lam unable to account for the extraordinary absence of our respected brothers. They left my honse at five o’clock with the intention of taking a walk by the river, and, since they did not return to tea, I anticipated meeting them here. I greatly fear some accident has befallen them. ” Andy looked at Pop. Pop returned the look. The same idea presented itself to the minds of both. It was an idea that struck a chill to the very marrow in their bones. “Aunt,” whispered Andy to Miss Faithful, “ I’m awful sick to my stomach. I guess it was that piece of cocoanut pie I ate. I’ve got to go out. Can’t Pop go with me?” He looked so pale that Miss Faithful credited his assertion of sudden illness, and nodded assent. The boys went out together, careful not to glance at each other, for fear of being suspected of their complicity in the absence of the deacons. “ We’ve done gone an’ done it now, shore’ 'nnff,” whispered Pop, with a shiver, when they were once out of the church. They set off for the river with the speed of young deer. When within a few yards of it they heard shouts for help. “Dat’s dem,” said Pop. “Dey mils’ be pow’ful mad by dis time.” The deacons were, indeed, considerably out of temper, as well they might be, for they had been wading around in the shallow water near the island for nearly three hours, shouting at the top of their lungs for assistance. “Hollo!” answered Andy, “what ’d want ?” He asked the question by way of taking every precaution against suspicion, for, of course, he knew very well what they wanted. * ‘ Some wicked boys stole our clothes,” answered Deacon Snow, and we’ve been here ever since half-past 5. Whoever you are, I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll go to Deacon Marley’s, and tell him to send us something to put on. ” “ And I’ll give you another dollar if you’ll hurry up,” said Deacon ELis. The boys were off like a flash, and returned in a short time with ail necessary garments, and Deacon Marley following in their wake. It was too late now for the deacons to attend meeting; the congregation had dispersed. So they went at once to Miss Faithful’s, where, over a goodly supper, they recounted the story of their wrongs. “ What made you think of coming to the river ?” asked Deacon Ellis, as he patted Andy on the head in a benign manner. “Deacon Marley said you’d gone there to walk,” answered Andy, in a very low tone, “ and we thought you might have fallen in.” “Good boys,” said the deacon. “You deserve a holiday to-morrow for this. ” The boys did not appear ve»y appreciative to the praise lavished so freely upon them. Miss Faithful, made suspicious by sad experience, detected embarrassment in their manners, and guilt in their faces. A horrible thought seized her as she recollected their unexplained absence of the afternoon. She waited until the deacons had lighted their pipes, and then excused herself for a few minutes. Going up-stairs, she opened the door of the back attic. Pop’s bed was empty. In the front attic the condition of affairs was the same; Andy’s bed had not been disturbed. Suspicion ripened into certainty at once. Miss Faithful leaned from the window of the back attic, and looked down into the yard below. Nothing was to be seen or heard. Going softly down the back stairs she opened the kitchen door and went out. AJI was still. Exercising great caution in her movements she made her way toward the barn-yard, turned a corner of tbe barn suddenly, and almost fell over two small boys, who, by the light of a lantern, were digging with an energy she had never seen equaled. The hole was already nearly, two feet deep. On the edge of it, awaiting burial, lay a heap of clothes. “Andy! Pop!” Perhaps it is as well to draw a veil over the scene that followed. Sufficient be it, that both the deacons were givGn a chance to exercise their muscles on two small boys, and that the boys in question “took their meals standing” for a week to come. More than all, the story got oat, and was the source of unmitigated delight to Tim Waters and Bob Harris, who, after all, had not gone in swimming on that fatal day, and who were never weary of taunting the unhappy revengers with their unfortunate mistake. Ballou's Magazine.