The Deserter, and Other Stories

the cabin. He sprang to his feet when the sharp knock on the door followed. Holding a hand downward with ou

in, bolder and mor

e glanced up at the shot-gun hanging on the chimney behind the stovep

whisper, testing the per

is form was, he stood a taller man than his son. He rested one hand on th

e tha

Mose from head to foot, he added, slowly, "I'd ruther have st

e. He walked now with a sullen air to the door,

ye?" a shrill voice complained o

nly young Job Parshall, after all!"

ld his red fingers over the griddles. He lifted them a little for inspection after a

ckets," he said. "I shouldn't wonder i

tetched, I guess," he said. "It'll be sore for a day or two, that's all. The rest are all right." Then h

nds palm upward. "Every inch of the

h had glowed in his eyes when he had confronted his son had died away again. He was visibly st

ught some news," he r

ers experimentally in the heat. "When I

Asa Whipple, speaking in low, deliberate

me you can bring up a boy so't he'll be honest and straightforward and square right up to the last minute, and

ed in Rhode Island,-and my older brother, Jason, he was killed up at Sackett's Harbor in the 1812 War before he come

an during this harangue. Once or twice he opened his lips as if to

a mighty sight more pluck to light out there, of a night, and come way off up here just to see how you were gettin' on, and have to h

most, countin' supper,"

th this view of the situation, and

marshal down at Octavius, and the other fellow's name is Moak, I b'lieve, and they've stopped to Teachout's to breakfast. They started from Octavius before daylight, and they was about fro

straight?"

It's a good hour 'round by the road, even when it's all open. It's drifted now all the way from the sash factory dow

they listened, and they kept up the

take this thing quite in the right spirit. I tell you straight out, if it was the last

a, doggedly, "they ain't no other such an all-fired, pe

er' myself than have you be called 'starved to death.' So fa

lingered there. The others, as they watched him, c

they played it monstrous low-down on me. That German fellow that used to work at the tannery, he was my sergeant, and he kept them big eyes of hi

my gun was dirty, and after that that I was a 'malingerer,'-that's officers' slang for a shirk,-and

t ten shillings out of my thirteen dollars,

he nodded comprehendingly as the other paused. "We ne

n I took pains and behaved extra well, so't even the Dutchman couldn't put his finger on me. And then I got a chance one day, and I asked one of the lieutena

u never got

t know how hard he tried, but a few days after that I see the Dutchman grinnin' at me, and I felt in my bones that the jig w

e. There's a text in the Bible that's our own private family property, as much as if it had 'Whipple' marked on it in big letters. It's t

recovered his

all our own way-and in spite of the rain freezin' as it fell, and no shelter and marchin' till your feet was ready to fall off, we all liked it first-rate-along come orders for us to go back again to winter quarters around Brandy Station. So far

out agin," said the practical Job. "I su

m all right. One thing's lucky, there's plenty of powder and shot in the cupboard there, I see. I suppose, if worst comes to worst, I co

to that strange awakening, when he lay in the starved half-stupor on the very threshold of death, and Mose came in, like some goo

urnin' up here, this mornin'-but I ain't one of 'em, and I ought to known better. I'm stronger, my boy, ever so much stronger, for seein' you

ou, it 'ud be different. But they're sure to watch the place, and with me caught you'd be worse off than ever. I'd give myself up this minute if only I knew you'd be all r

as they confronted this dilemma, not the shadow of a notion of that standing alternative, the county-hous

're goin' to take with you," broke in Job, perem

ith hesitation; "but the ol

'," was the boy's reply. "Asa and m

is Christian name fall so glibly from the boy's tongue, for that

rivin' at?" demanded Mos

as any. I've got along toward twenty dollars saved up, and there's three days' work a week for me at the cheese-factory whenever I want to take it, and I could go to school the other days

parts to be undemonstrative

ever be sorry for it, sonny," which had much more of loose predicti

e his son made about the room. For everything Mose did now spoke plainly of another parting, more sombr

f a life and death flight. He prepared as if for a holiday camping j

old stockings, a tin cup, fork and spoon, and what matches he could find-and then stowed them away

g-pan and two steel traps, and slung these with a string through handle

see me through,

enty more for us. If they ain't, we can git more. They're cheap as dirt. And Mose," the old man rose from his chair as he spoke, "I was a-g

ed at the thought-"I'll be bringing you in some venison some o' these nights. Prob'ly I'll hang it up on a tree-the old butternut by the

had waned once more,

a dubious voice, and with h

his glance to follow him, either, when, with the traps and frying-pan cla

the reverberating crack of revolver shots-one! two! three! fo