Jack the Hunchback: A Story of Adventure on the Coast of Maine

"I don't understand how that can be done, Jack."

"Neither do I; but he has come to do it, an' you can't stop him. Now I'll promise to go where you'd never guess of our bein', an' then there wouldn't be the least little bit of a lie in sayin' you didn't know."

"I would do almost anything for the sake of keeping you here, Jack, except to commit a sin."

"This way you won't be doin' anything of the kind. I reckon my clothes are dry now, an' I'd better put 'em on so's to be ready to watch for Mr. Pratt."

Then Jack hurried off as if the matter had been positively settled.

Aunt Nancy gazed after him with an expression of mingled pain and perplexity on her wrinkled face, and just then Louis crept to her knee, begging in his odd language to be taken on her lap.

"You dear little creature!" she cried, pressing him to her bosom while he chattered and laughed. "It would be cruel to send you among the paupers, when a lonely old woman like me loves you so much!"

Jack looked back just in time to see this picture, and there was no longer any doubt in his mind but that Aunt Nancy would accede to his request.

Five minutes later he returned clad in his own garments, which looked considerably the worse for the hasty drying, and said as he ran swiftly past the little woman, —

"Don't let Louis go into the house, for I'll want to get hold of him in a hurry!"

Aunt Nancy began to make some remark; but he was moving so swiftly that the words were unheard, and the old lady said to herself with a long-drawn sigh as she pressed the baby yet more closely, —

"I'm afraid it is wrong to do as he wishes; but how can I allow cruel men to take this dear child from me, when I know he will not be cared for properly?"

Then she began to think the matter over more calmly, and each moment it became clearer to her mind that by acceding to Jack's request she would be evading the truth, if not absolutely telling a lie.

"I can't do it," she said, kissing the baby affectionately. "Much as I shall grieve over them, it is better they should go than for me to do what I know to be wrong."

Having thus decided, she hurried up the lane to warn Jack; but before reaching the road the boy was met coming at full speed.

"Mr. Pratt has just shown up at the top of the hill; he's stoppin' at the house over there! I'll get Louis and hide."

"But, Jack dear, I have been thinking this matter over, and I can't even act a lie."

"Why didn't you say so before, when I had a chance to get away?" he cried reproachfully. "By lettin' me think you'd do it, you've got us into a reg'lar trap!"

The boy did not wait to hear her reply, but ran to where Louis was seated contentedly on the grass, raised him in his arms and disappeared behind the barn, leaving the little woman feeling very much like a culprit.

Chapter VII

FARMER PRATT

Aunt Nancy was now in a fine state of perplexity.

Jack's reproachful tone had cut very deeply, and she began to consider herself responsible for all which might happen because of not having warned him in time.

"I'm a wicked woman," she said, wringing her hands distractedly, "and accountable for all that happens now. Why was I so weak as not to give the dear boy a decided answer when he came from the barn?"

Then she ran to the bars and called after Jack in a whisper; but if any one had asked why she wanted him to come back just at that time, she could not have explained.

Returning to the old oak, she was about to sit down again when the rattle of wheels told that Farmer Pratt was near at hand.

Hardly aware of what she did, the little woman went hurriedly into the house, and there awaited what must necessarily be a very painful interview.

A few moments later the man whom Jack looked upon as a merciless enemy knocked at the door, and Aunt Nancy said feebly, "Come in."

Farmer Pratt entered without very much ceremony, and as the little woman gazed at his face she fancied, probably from what Jack had told her, that it was possible to see covetousness and hard-heartedness written on every feature.

He did not remove his hat, but stood in the centre of the floor, whip in hand, as he said, —

"Mornin' ma'am, mornin'. I'm from Scarborough, an' my name is Nathan Pratt. P'rhaps you've heard of me."

Aunt Nancy was about to say she never had, meaning that her neighbors never had spoken of him as a person of importance; but she checked herself on remembering this would be a falsehood because of what Jack had said.

"I have heard the name," she replied faintly.

"I thought so, I thought so. I've lived, man an' boy, in Scarborough for nigh on to fifty years, an' when that's been done without givin' anybody a chance to say a word agin me, except that I want my own, as other folks do, then it would be kinder strange if I wasn't known within a dozen miles of home."

"Was that all you came here to say?" Aunt Nancy asked.

"Of course not, – of course not"; and the farmer seated himself without waiting for an invitation. "The fact of the matter is, ma'am, I'm huntin' for a couple of children what drifted ashore on my place the other day. One of 'em was a hunchback, an' I must say he is bad, for after eatin' all the food in my house that he an' the young one wanted, he run away, leavin' me in the lurch."

"I don't suppose they stole it, did they?" and Aunt Nancy spoke very sharply, for it made her angry to hear such things said about Jack.

"No, it wasn't exactly that," and the farmer hesitated, as if to give her the impression something equally wrong had been done by the boy; "but as a citizen of the town I don't want it said we let a couple of youngsters run around loose like calves."

"What do you intend to do with them?" the little woman asked severely.

Farmer Pratt had no idea of telling a secret which he believed would be worth at least an hundred dollars to him, and by keeping it he again defeated himself.

"They oughter be carried to the poor farm till we can find out who owns 'em. You see I'm as big a tax-payer as there is in Scarborough, an' if any other town takes care of the children, we're likely to be sued for the cost of keepin'. Now I don't believe in goin' to law, for it's dreadful expensive, so I've come out to save myself an' my neighbors what little money I can."

If Farmer Pratt had told the truth, Aunt Nancy would have done all in her power to aid him, and Jack could not but have rejoiced, although the farmer received a rich reward; but by announcing what was a false proposition, he aroused the little woman's wrath.

She no longer remembered that it was wrong even to act a lie, and thought only of the possibility that those whom she had learned to love were really to be taken to the refuge for paupers, if her visitor should be so fortunate as to find them.

"It seems hard to put children in such a place," she said, with an effort to appear calm.

"That's only prejudice, ma'am, sheer prejudice. What do we keep up sich institoots for? Why, to prevent one man from bein' obleeged to spend more'n another when a lot of beggars come around."

"And yet it seems as if almost any one would be willing to feed a couple of children who were lost."

"There's where you are makin' a mistake ag'in, ma'am. Youngsters eat more'n grown folks, an' I know what I'm talkin' about, 'cause I've raised a family. Heaven helps them as helps themselves, an' when we find two like the one I'm huntin' for, then I say since heaven won't take a hand at it, the town should."

Aunt Nancy remained silent, but those who knew her intimately would have said, because of the manner in which she moved her chair to and fro, that the little woman was struggling very hard to "rule her spirit."

"I don't reckon you know anything about 'em, ma'am," Farmer Pratt said after a long pause, during which Aunt Nancy had rocked violently, with her gaze fixed upon an overbold honey bee who was intent on gathering the sweets from a honeysuckle blossom which the wind had forced through the open window.

"I know this much," she replied with vehemence, "that I hope you won't find the children if it is simply to carry them to the poor farm. We are told of the reward which – "