Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates

“We’ll make it,” replied Harvey. “Whoever heard of a farm without a ladder of some sort?”

They found one, after a cautious hunt, lying alongside another shed. In a twinkling, they had raised it to the upper window, ascended, and were inside.

There was absolutely no way of telling where they were, save that they were in some sort of a hay-loft, with a window at the farther end, through which the stars gave scarcely any light at all. They ventured to strike one match, but it gave them only a transient, shadowy view of their surroundings; and they dared not repeat the experiment amid the dry hay.

There were cattle and perhaps other stock on the floor below, judging by the sounds. There was hay scattered all about them, and a huge mow of it on one side. There was a bucket filled with sand that Harvey discovered by bumping his shins against it. A rope went up from this to the beam above. Harvey knew the contrivance, for he had seen the like in barns at home. The rope ran through a big block fastened to a beam overhead, and passed down again from that pulley through a hole in the floor, to the room below. There it connected, he knew, with a barred door, like a large gate, that was used in summer nights, instead of the regular sliding doors, to admit of a free supply of air into the barn. The rope connected with it like a window cord, and the bucket of sand answered for the weight. This much of their surroundings was apparent. All the rest was hidden in darkness.

Tom Edwards unbuttoned his oil-skin coat, removed it, and dropped upon a little pile of hay, using the coat to cover him.

“It’s gorgeous! Jack, my boy,” he exclaimed. “It beats any bed in the Parker House in Boston. Turn in. There’s room for two, and not a cent to pay. My, but I’m tired!”

“I’m with you,” answered Harvey, “but I’ll just close that door a bit more. We haven’t got much bed-clothing.”

He stepped to the door and shut it almost tight. Then he started back, for where Tom Edwards lay. It was dark, and he could not see his way. He took a few steps, when something impelled him to stop abruptly. The next moment he discovered he was at the top of a pair of stairs leading down to the lower floor.

“Jimminy! Tom,” he cried softly, “I came near taking a flying trip that time. Here’s a pair of stairs.”

He retraced his steps a little, and stumbled against a pitchfork, that was leaning against the side of the barn.

“Tom,” he laughed, “where are you, anyway? This is the easiest place to get lost in I ever saw.”

Before Tom Edwards had opportunity to reply, Harvey had taken a few more steps in the darkness. Then Tom Edwards heard him utter a startled, frightened, half-smothered cry. There was a queer, scraping sound, and a heavy thud somewhere on the floor below.

Tom Edwards sprang to his feet, in alarm.

“Jack,” he cried, “what’s the matter? What’s happened?”

There was no answer. He groped his way across the floor.

“Jack,” he called again, anxiously, “where are you? What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

He peered into the darkness, and listened. Then he heard the frightened whinny of a horse, followed by a clatter of hoofs on the barn floor. Tom Edwards made his way in the darkness to the top of the stairs.

“Jack, Jack,” he called.

To his inexpressible relief, the voice of Harvey came up to him; then the vague figure of Harvey, himself, ascending the stairway. He was limping, but taking two stairs at a jump.

Tom Edwards seized him by an arm as he arrived at the top.

“Good gracious, my boy, what happened?” he asked.

Harvey gasped.

“I’m more scared than hurt, I guess,” he said, panting for breath. “Cracky! How I did go. Dropped down one of the chutes that they feed the hay down into the stalls through. It was all over in a minute. I thought I was going clear to China, and then I struck and landed in a manger. Scared? You bet! But the horse in that stall was scared worse than I was. He gave a snort and jumped to his feet, broke his halter and cleared out of that stall quicker than scat. There he goes about the stable, making a racket to wake the whole farm. I’ve done it, I expect. Say, Tom, we’ve got to hide, and hide quick.”

“Where’ll we go – down the ladder and make a run for it?” asked Tom Edwards.

“I can’t do it,” answered Harvey. “I’ve got a bad ankle. I know what. Where’s that pitchfork?”

He groped his way cautiously to the side of the barn, and had the good fortune to put his hand on the handle of the fork.

“Lie down there again, Tom,” he said. “I’ll heap the hay over you. Here, take my coat, too. I’ll cover you, and then I’ll go up the rope. I can climb, if I can’t run.”

Tom Edwards, confused by the sudden turn of affairs, obeyed instructions. Harvey hurriedly pitched a quantity of the loose hay over the form of his friend, pressed it down until Tom Edwards begged for mercy, vowing he should smother, then tossed the pitchfork aside. Grasping the rope, Harvey went rapidly up, hand-over-hand, until he could seize the beam. He drew himself up, caught one leg over the beam and swung himself astride of it. Then he stretched himself out at length upon the beam, holding to the block for safety. It was an easy accomplishment for him. He had done a similar feat in the gymnasium at home a hundred times; and the fear of discovery now lent him strength which made little account of the extra weight of clothing that encumbered him. It was dusty and uncomfortable on the great beam, but he could stick.

Sometime after midnight, Henry Burns and young Joe Warren, asleep in that corner room of the old Warren house that was nearest the big barn, awoke suddenly. Of one accord, the two sat bolt upright in bed and wondered if the house were tumbling down about their heads. Then they realized that the noise was outside the house – a most extraordinary racket, as of a stampede of cattle, or a horse galloping through a covered bridge at full speed. They sprang out of bed and ran to the window.

Henry Burns laughed.

“It’s all right, Joey,” he said. “It isn’t an earthquake nor a cyclone. I thought we were all going in a heap for a moment, though. It’s out in the barn – one of the horses got loose, I guess.”

They heard sounds of stirring in the room opposite, and presently Edward Warren called out to them.

“Don’t be scared, boys,” he said. “It’s old Billy, got loose, somehow. Funny, too, I hitched him all right last night. What on earth is the matter with him? He’s scared at something, sure. I reckon it isn’t thieves, for they don’t steal horses around here. I’ll have a look pretty quick, though. There’s something wrong.”

“Come on, Joe,” said Henry Burns. “Let’s see what’s the matter.”

But Young Joe was not eager. He yawned and returned to bed. Henry Burns dressed and hurried out into the hall. A few moments later, Edward Warren, carrying a lantern, and George and Arthur Warren and Henry Burns made their way out of the back door and entered the barn at the door facing the house.

As they threw open the sliding door and entered, with the lighted lantern, the whinny of a horse greeted them. Then old Billy, recognizing his master’s voice, came ambling up and thrust his nose into Edward Warren’s hand.

Edward Warren gave an exclamation of surprise.

“That’s queer,” he said. “Look at that halter. If he hasn’t broken it short off. I never knew him to do that before. What’s the matter, Billy – had bad dreams?”

“You don’t think anybody has broken into the barn?” suggested George Warren, peering into the dancing shadows cast by the lantern.

“Oh, no,” replied Edward Warren. “I never knew that to happen here. This door was fastened, and so is the one at the farther end.” He held the lantern aloft and threw the light across the barn. “That’s fastened up tight,” he said.

“Come on, Billy,” continued Edward Warren, “I’ll hitch you up again. Confound you, old scamp, what do you mean by acting this way?”

The horse, led by his master, followed quietly; but at the entrance to the stall he stopped and danced about, trembling. It was with difficulty that he was dragged to the manger and hitched up.

“That’s queer, sure enough,” said Edward Warren. “There’s something about that manger he acts afraid of. I’ll just step up-stairs, pitch him down a feed of hay, and quiet him.”

He took the lantern and ascended to the floor above, leaving the boys in darkness.

Jack Harvey, stretched at length on the beam, heard the footsteps, with alarm. Peering down, he caught the gleam of the lantern. He clung rigidly on his perch, till every bone and muscle in his body seemed to be aching. He saw the man hunt for his pitchfork, heard him remark impatiently when he did not see it in its place against the wall; saw him pick it up from another part of the loft, on the floor. Then, to his dismay, he saw the man turn toward the pile of hay that he had thrown over Tom Edwards.

But the man stopped, gathered up a fork-full from the floor and thrust it down the chute.

“That will be enough to quiet the old boy,” he muttered, and departed down the stairs. Harvey felt a shiver of relief run through him.

“Lucky I closed that door,” he muttered. “If he’d gone to that and seen the ladder, we’d have been done for.”

A few minutes later, the little party from the house had shut and locked the barn door again and returned to their beds. Harvey, stiff in every joint, managed to slide down the rope into the arms of Tom Edwards. A moment more, and they were both snug in the hay, exhausted but thankful.

Sleep soon overtook them, and they rested till the morning light came in through the window. Then they aroused and scurried down the ladder, setting off on as brisk a run as Harvey could manage with his lame ankle, across the fields to the woods, without stopping to remove the ladder.