Back to the Woods by Hugh McHugh
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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?"