Classic Audiobook Collection - The Jack-Knife Man by Ellis Parker Butler ~ Full Audiobook [family]

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

The Jack-Knife Man by Ellis Parker Butler audiobook. Genre: family Ellis Parker Butler's The Jack-Knife Man is a warm, quietly comic story of unlikely family and hard-won belonging along the Mississippi River. Peter Lane is an aging drifter who lives alone on a battered houseboat, passing his days with a jack-knife in hand, whittling small wooden figures and keeping to himself. But on a stormy night, a desperate woman arrives at his door with her young son, Buddy - and by morning Peter finds himself with a child to feed, protect, and somehow claim as his own. As Peter and Buddy settle into life on the river, a ragged wanderer named Booge drifts into their orbit, and the three form a makeshift household held together by simple decency, improvised joy, and the little toys Peter carves. Their fragile peace is tested by suspicious townspeople and well-meaning authorities who believe Buddy would be better off anywhere else, forcing Peter to prove he can offer more than shelter - he can offer a future. Tender, humorous, and deeply humane, Butler's novel explores charity without sentimentality and the stubborn courage it takes to love when the world says you should let go. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:26:09) Chapter 02 (00:37:02) Chapter 03 (00:57:41) Chapter 04 (01:26:32) Chapter 05 (01:55:12) Chapter 06 (02:23:42) Chapter 07 (02:43:00) Chapter 08 (02:53:35) Chapter 09 (03:05:26) Chapter 10 (03:22:41) Chapter 11 (03:31:54) Chapter 12 (04:03:24) Chapter 13 (04:17:31) Chapter 14 (04:36:38) Chapter 15 (04:51:44) Chapter 16 (05:08:37) Chapter 17 (05:28:19) Chapter 18 (05:38:15) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

chapter i of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler chapter one the jackknife man peter lane george rap the red-faced livery man from town stood with his hands in the pockets of his huge bearskin coat his round face glowing looking down at peter lane with amusement wrinkling the corners of his eyes tell you what i'll do peter he said i'll give you thirty-five dollars for the boat i guess i won't sell george said peter i don't seem to care to he was sitting on the edge of his bunk in the shanty boat he had spent the summer in building he was a thin wiry little man with yellowish hair that fell naturally into ringlets but which was rather thin on top of his head his face was brown and weather seemed it was difficult to guess just how old peter lane might be when his eyes were closed he looked rather old quite like a thin tired old man but when his eyes were open he looked quite young for his eyes were large and innocent like the eyes of a baby and their light blue suggested hopefulness and imagination of the boyish air-castle building sort the shanty boat was small only some twenty feet in length with a short deck at either end the shanty part was no more than fifteen feet long and eight feet wide built of thin boards and roofed with tar paper inside were the bunk of clean white pine a home-made pine table a small sheet-iron cook stove, two wooden pegs for Pete's shotgun, a shelf for his alarm clock,

a bread box, some driftwood for the stove, and a wall lamp with a silvered glass reflector. In one corner was a tangle of nets and trot lines. It was not much of a boat, but the flat-bottomed hull was built of good two-inch planks, well cocked and tarred. was the prevailing odor. Peter bent over his table, on which the wheels and springs of an alarm clock were laid in careful rows. Did you ever stop to think, George, what a mighty fine companion a clock like this is for a man like I am? he asked. Yes, sir, a tin clock like this is a grand thing for a man like me. I can take this clock to pieces, George, and mend her, and put her

together again, and when she's mended all up, she needs mending more than she ever did. A clock like this is always something to look forward to. I might give as much as forty dollars for the boat, said George Rapp, temptingly. No, thank you, George, said Peter, and it ain't only when you're mending her that a clock like this is interesting. She's interesting all the time, like a baby. She don't do a thing you'd expect all day long. I can mend her right up, and wind her and set her right in the morning, and set the alarm to go off at four o'clock in the afternoon,

and at four o'clock what do you think she'll be doing? Like as not, she'll be pointing at half-past eleven. Yes, sir, and the alarm won't go off until half-past two at night, maybe. Why, I mended this clock. once and left two wheels out of her. Tell you what I'll do, Peter, said Rapp. I'll give fifty dollars for the boat and five dollars for floating her down to my new place down the river. I'm much obliged, but I guess I won't sell, said Peter nervously.

You better take off your coat, George, unless you want to hurry away. That stove is heating up. She's a wonderful stove that stove is. You wouldn't think to look at her right now That she could go out in a minute, would you? But she can Why, when she wants to That stove can start in and get red hot all over

Stove pipe and legs and all Until it's so hot in here The tar melts off them nets yonder Drops off them like rain off the bobwires You'd think she'd suffocate me out here But she don't no sir the very next minute she'll be as cold as ice for a man alone as much as i am that's a great stove george will you sell me the boat or won't you asked rap now i wish you wouldn't ask me to sell her george said peter regretfully for it hurt him to refuse his friend

To tell you the honest truth, George, I can't sell her because it would upset my plans. I've got my plans all laid out to float down river next spring, soon as the ice goes out, and when I get to New Orleans, I'm going to load this boat onto a ship, and I'm going to take her to the Amazon River and trap Chinchillas. I read how there's a big market for Chinchilla skins right now. I'm going up the Amazon. River, and then I'm going to haul the boat across to the Orinoco River and float down the Orinoco,

and then— You told me last week you were going down to Florida next spring and shoot alligators from this boat, said Rapp. Peter looked up blankly, but in a moment his cheerfulness returned. If I didn't forget all about that, he began. Well, sir, I'm glad I did. That would have been a sad mistake. It looks to me like alligator skin was going out of fashion. I'd be foolish to take this boat all the way to Florida and then find out there was no market for alligator skins, wouldn't I?

You would, said Rapp, and you might get down there in South America and find there was no market for chinchillas. It looks to me as if the style was veering off from chinchillas all over. already. You'd better sell me the boat, Peter. You know I'd sell to you if I would to anybody, George, said Peter, pushing aside the works of the clock. But this boat is a sort of home to me, George. It's the only home I've got, since Jane don't want me round no more. You're the best friend I've got, and you've done a lot for me.

You let me sleep in your stable whenever I want to, and you give me odd jobs and clothes, and I appreciate it, George, but a man don't like to get rid of his home, if he can help it. I haven't had a home I could call my own since I was fourteen years old, as you might say, and I'm going on fifty years old now. Ever since Jane got tired having me around, I've been living in your barn, and in old shacks, and anywhere. And now, when I've got a boat that's a home for me, and I can go traveling in her whenever I want to go,

you want me to sell her. No, I don't want to sell her, George. I think maybe I'll start her downriver tomorrow, so as to be able to start up the Missouri when the ice goes out. I thought you said Amazon a minute ago, said Rapp. Well, now I don't know, said. Peter soberly. The fevers they catch down there wouldn't do my health a bit of good. Rocky Mountain Air is just what I need.

It is grand air. If I can get seventy or eighty dollars together and a good rifle or two, I may start next spring. I always wanted to have a try at bear shooting. I've got several plans. And somehow, said Rapp, who knew Pee, Peter could no more raise $70 than freeze the sun. Somehow you always land right back in widow Potter's cove for the winter, don't you? She'll get you yet, Peter, and then you won't

need this boat. All you got to do is to ask her. Peter pushed the table away and stood up, a look of trouble in his blue eyes. I wish you wouldn't talk like that, George, he said seriously. it ain't fair to the widow to connect up my name and hers that way she wouldn't like it if she got to hear it you know right well she don't think no more of me than she does of any other river rat or shanty boatman that hangs around this cove all summer and yet you keep sayin widow widow widow to me all the time i wish you wouldn't george he opened the door of his shanty boat and looked out the coven which the boat was tied was on the iowa side of the mississippi and during the summer it had been crowded with a small colony of worthless shanty boatmen and their ill-kempt wives and children direly poor and afflicted with all the ills that dirt is heir to here each summer they gathered coming from up river in their shanty boats and floating on down river just ahead of the cold weather in the fall all summer their shanty boats left high and dry by the receding high water of the june flood stood on the parched mud and peter looked askance on all of them dirty and lazy as they were but somehow he could not have told you why.

He made friends with them each summer, lending them dimes that were never repaid, helping them set their trot lines that the women might have food, and even aiding in the caulking of their boats when his own was crying to be built. All summer and autumn, Peter had been building his shanty boat, rowing loads of lumber in his heavy skiff from the town to the spot he had chosen on the Illinois shore, five miles above the town. He had worked on the boat, as he did everything, for himself, irregularly and at odd moments,

and had been completed but a few days before George Rapp drove up from town, hoping to buy it. Peter believed he loved solitude, and usually chose a summer dwelling place far above town, but if he had gone to the uttermost solitudes of Alaska, he would have found some way of mingling with his fellow men and doing a good turn to someone. He never dreamed he was associating with the worthless shanty boatman, yet somehow he spent a good part of his time with them.

They were there, they were willing to accept aid of any and all kinds, and on his occasional trips to town, Peter passed them. This was enough to draw him into the entanglement of this, their woes and to waste thankless days on them. Yet he never thought of making one of their colony. He would row the two miles to reach them, but he rode back again each evening. It was because he was better at heart,

and not because he thought he was better, that he remained aloof to this extent. In his own estimation, he ranked himself even lower than the shanty-boatman, for they at least had the social merit of having families, while he had none. His sister Jane had told him many times just how worthless he was, and he believed it. He was nothing to anybody, he felt, and that is what a tramp is.

Once each week or so, Peter rode to town to sell the product of his jackknife and such fishes he caught. He was not an enthusiastic fisherman, but his jackknife, all always keen and sharp, was a magic tool in his hand. When he was not making shapely boats for the shanty-boat kids, or whittling for the mere pleasure of whittling, his jack-knife-shaped wooden kitchen spoons and other small household articles, or netmaker's shuttles, out of clean maplewood, and these, when he went to town, he peddled from door to door.

What he could not sell, he tried, for coffee or bacon at the grocery stores. With the coming of cool weather and the fall rise of the river, the shantyboat colony left the cove to float down river ahead of the frost, and Peter hurried the completion of his boat that he might float it across to the cove. Rheumatism often gave him a twinge in winter, and when the river was closed, the walk to town across the ice was cold and long. the iowa side was more thickly populated too for the iowa bottom was narrow the hills coming quite to the river in places

while on the illinois side five or six miles of untillable bottom stretched between the river and the prosperous hill farms the iowa side offered opportunities for corn husking and wood-sawing and other odd jobs such as necessity sometimes drove peter to see seek. These opportunities were the reasons Peter gave himself, but the truth was that Peter loved people. If he was a tramp, he was a sedentary tramp, and if he was a hermit, he was a socialistic hermit. He liked his solitudes well-peopled. This early November day, Peter had brought his shanty boat across the river to the cove. A fair up-river breeze and his rag of a sail had helped him fight off the stiff current. But it had been a hard all-day pull at the oars of his skiff, and when he had towed the boat into the cove and had made her fast by looping his line under the railway track that skirted the bank, he was wet and weary.

His tin bread-box was empty, and he had but a handful of coffee left. But he was too tired to go to town, and he had nothing to trade if he went, and he knew by experience that an appeal to a farmer, even to widow potter, meant wood-sawing, and he was too tired to saw wood. But he was accustomed to going without a meal now and then, and there being nothing else to do, he tightened his belt, made a good fire, took off his shoes, and dissected his alarm clock. He was reassembling it when George Rapp arrived. George Rapp was a bluff, hearty, loud-voiced, duck-hunting liveryman. He ran his livery stable for a living, and like many other men in the Mississippi Valley, he lived for duck hunting.

He owned the four best duck dogs in the county. He had traded a good horse for one of them. Although George Rapp would not have believed it, It was a blessing that he could not hunt ducks the year around. The summer and winter months gave him time to make money, and he was making all he needed. Some of his surplus he had just paid for a tract of low, wooded-bottom land in the section where ducks were most plentiful in their seasons.

The land was swamp, for the most part, and all so low that the river spread over it at every spring rise and often in the autumn. It was cut by a slew, or bayou, as they are called farther south, and held a nice lake, which was no more than a widening of the slu. This piece of property, far below the town, Rapp had bought because it was a wild duck haunt, and for no other reason,

and after looking it over, he wisely decided that a shanty boat moored in the slew would be a better hunting cabin than one built on the shore, where it would be flooded once or perhaps twice a year, the river leaving a deposit of rich yellow mud and general dampness each time. But Peter would not sell his boat, and Peter's boat, new, clean and sturdy of hull, was the boat wrap wanted.

I wish you wouldn't talk that way about the widow, George, said Peter, looking out of his boat. of the open door. The liveryman's team was tied to a fence at the foot of the hills, and between the road and the railway tracks that edged the river, a wide cornfield extended. A cold drizzle half hid the hillside where widow potter's low white farmhouse, with its green shutters, stood in the midst of a decaying apple orchard. I wish the widow lived farther off. There ain't no place like this cove to winter a boat, and when I'm here, I've got to saw wood for her and shuck corn, and do odd jobs for her, and then she lights into me.

I don't say I'm any better than a tramp, George, but the way the widow jaws at me, and the thing she calls me ain't right. She thinks I'm scum, just common, low-down, worthless scum. So that's all there is to that. oh shucks said george rap but peter believed it for five years the widow potter had kept a jealous eye on peter lane tall and thin penny-saving and hard-working she had been led a hard life by the late mr potter who had been something rather worse than a brute and since death had removed mr potter the widow had given peter lane the full benefit of her experience tongue whenever opportunity offered. It was her way of showing Peter unusual attention. But Peter never suspected that when she glared at him

and told him he was a worthless, good-for-nothing loafer, and a lazy, paltering river rat, and in no-account idling vagabond, she was showing him a flattering partiality. He knew she could make him squirm. It was love in chapped hands. But Mrs. Potter herself did not know she scolded Peter because she liked him. She counted him as a poor stick, of little account to himself or to anyone else.

But what her mind could not, her heart did recognize, that Peter was romance. He was a whiff of something that had never come into her life before. He was a gentleman, a chivalrous gentleman, a gentleman down at the heel, but a true gentleman for all that. The way me and her hates each other, George, is like cats and dogs, said Peter. I don't go near her unless I have to, and when I do, she claws me all up. All right, said Rapp, laughing. But you could do a lot worse than tie up to a good house. and cook stove.

If you make up your mind to go housekeeping and sell the boat, let me know. I'll get along home. It is going to be a dog of a night. I won't change my mind about the boat, George, said Peter. Good night. He closed the door and bolted it. George means all right, he said, settling himself to his task of reassembling his clock. But he sort of.

course. The storm, increasing with the coming of night, darkened the interior of the cabin, and Peter lighted his lamp. As he worked over the clock, the drizzle turned into a heavy rain through which damp snowflakes fluttered, and the wind strengthened and turned colder, slapping the rain and snow against the small, four-paned window and freezing it there. It was blowing up colder every minute, and Peter put his handful of coffee in his coffee pot and set it on the stove to boil while he completed his clock job.

He tested the clock and found that if he set the alarm for six o'clock, it burst into song at seventeen minutes after three. A thin smile twisted the corners of his mouth humorously. You schizek's! you old skeez-zics he said affectionately ain't you a caution he set the clock on its shelf where it ticked loudly while he drew his table closer to the bunk his only seat and put his coffee-pot and tin cup on the table well now he said cheerfully as long as there ain't anything to eat i might as well wet up my jack-knife he whetted the large blade of his knife while he sipped the large blade of his knife while he sipped the large blade of his knife while he sipped the the coffee. From time to time he put down the tin cup and tried the blade of the knife on his thumb, and when he was satisfied it was so sharp, any further wetting meant a wire edge,

he took her crumpled newspaper from under the pillow of his bunk and read again, the article on the increased demand for chinchilla fur, but it had lost interest. The wind was slapping against the side of the boat in gusts, and the fire. frost was gathering on his windows, but Peter replenished his fire and lighted the cheap cigar George Rapp had left on the clock shelf. What does a hermit do when he is shut in for a long night with a winter storm raging outside? Peter put his newspaper back under the pillow and hunted through his driftwood for a piece that would do to whittle, but had to give that up as a bad job. Then his eyes alighted on the wooden pegs on which his shotgun lay,

and he took down the gun and pulled one of the pegs from its hole. He looked out of the door to see that his line was holding securely and slammed the door quickly, for the night was worse, the rain freezing as it fell, and the wind howling through the telegraph wires. With a sigh of satisfaction that he was alone, and that he had a snug shanty boat in which to spend the winter, Peter propped himself up in his bunk and began carving the head of an owl at the end of the gun-pig,

screwing his face to one side to keep the cigar smoke out of his eyes. He was holding the half-completed carving at a distance, to judge of its effect, when he heard a blow on his door. He hesitated like a timid animal, and then slipped from the bunk and let his hand glide to the shotgun lying on his table. Quietly he swung the gun around

until the muzzle pointed full at the door and with the other hand he grasped his heavy stove poker for he knew that tramps on such a night are not dainty in seeking shelter and he had no wish to be thrown out of his boat and had the boat floated away from him. Who's out there? there he shouted but before he could step forward and bolt the door the latch lifted and the door forced violently inward by a gust of wind clattered against the cabin wall

a woman one hand extended stood in the doorway her face was deathly white and her left hand held the hand of a three-year-old boy this much peter saw before the flame of his lane lamp flared high in a smoky red and went out, leaving utter darkness. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of the Jackknife Man. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. Peter's guests. Come right in, ma'am, said Peter. Step inside and close the door. Nobody here's going to hurt you.

I'll put my shoes on. in a minute. He was feeling for the matches on his clock shelf, but he hardly knew what he was doing or saying. The ghastly white face of the woman was still blazed on his mind. Excuse me for being barefoot. I wasn't looking for callers, he continued nervously, but he was interrupted by the sound of a falling body and a cry. He pushed one of the stove lids aside, letting a glare of red light into the room. the woman had fallen across his dorsal and lay half in and half out of the boat with the boy crying as he clung to her relaxed fingers don't mamma don't the small boy wailed not understanding peter stood irresolute he was a coward before women they drove his wits away and his first wild thought was of flight of leaping over the fallen body

but as he stood the alarm clock after a preliminary warning click burst into a loud jangling clatter and the boy sore frightened howled with all his strength that decided for peter there now don't you cry son he begged on his knees beside the boy in an instant don't you mind the racket it ain't nothing but my old funny alarm clock. She goes off that way sometimes, but she don't mean any harm to anybody. No, sir, don't you cry? The boy wailed more wildly than ever, calling on his mother to get up. Don't cry, your ma will be all right, urged Peter. That clock will stop right soon, and she won't begin again, not unless she takes a notion. The clock stopped ringing abruptly. The boy stared at it, open-mouthed. "'That's a big boy,' said Peter approvingly.

"'And don't you worry about your ma. I guess she'll be all right in a minute. You go over by that stove and warm yourself, and I'll help your ma in so this rain won't blow on her.' Peter led the boy to the stove and lighted his lamp. He put the peg back in the wall and placed the gun behind. the boy's reach before he turned to the woman she was neither young nor old but as she lay on the floor she was ghastly white even in the glare from the smoking oil lamp and her lips were blue her cheap hat was wet and waded down with sleet and the green dye from the trimmings had run down and street her face she was fairly well clad but not against the winter rain and her shoes were too light and too high of heel for tramping a railway track peter saw she was wet to the skin he bent down and with his knee against her shoulder moved her inside the door and closed that's hut in there said the boy who had been staring into the glowing coals of the open stove i better not put my hand in there i'll burn my hand if i put it in there won't i yes indeedy said peter but now i got to fix your ma so she will be more comfortable i wish i had some liquor or something he said looking at the woman helplessly

brandy or whisky would be right handy and i ain't got a drop this ain't no case for cold water she's had too much cold water already i wonder what coffee would do he put his coffee-pot down among the coals of his fire and while he waited for it to heat he drew on his shoes i guess your ma will feel sort of sick when she wakes up he told the boy and i guess she'd be right glad if we took off them wet shoes and stockings of yours and got your feet nice and warm you want to be ready to help look after your ma you ain't goin to be afraid to let me are you no said the boy promptly and held out his arms for peter to take him he was a solid little fellow as peter found when he picked him up and his hair was a tangled halo of long white kinks that burst out when peter pulled off the red stocking cap into which they had been compressed from the first moment the boy snuggled to peter settling himself contentedly in peter's arms as affectionate children do He had a comical little up-tilt to his nose and eyes of a deeper blue than Peter's, and his face was white but covered with freckles.

"'That's my good foot,' said the boy, as Peter pulled off one stocking. "'Well, it looks like a mighty good one to me, too,' said Peter. "'So far as I can see, it is just as good as anybody'd want.' "'Yes, it's my hop-on foot.' explained the boy the other foot is the lame one it ain't such a good foot it's mamma's honey foot shah now said peter gently well i'll be real careful and not hurt it a bit he began removing the shoe and stocking from the lame foot with delicate care and the boy laughed delightedly ho you don't have to be careful with it he laughed he laughed giving a little care he laughed giving a little care kick you thought it was a sore foot didn't you it ain't sore it's only lame peter put the barefoot boy on the edge of the bunk and hung the wet stockings over his wood-pile

the boy asked for the jack-knife again and peter handed it to him you just sat there he told the boy and wiggle your toes at the stove like they was ten little kittens and i'll see if your ma wants a drink of knife hot coffee." He poured the coffee into his tin cup and went to the woman, raised her head, and held the hot coffee to her lips. At the first touch of the hot liquid, she opened her eyes and laughed, a harsh, mirthless laugh, which made her strangle on the coffee, but when her eyes met Peter's eyes, the oath that was on her lips died unspoken. No woman, and but few men, could look into Peter's eyes and curse, and her eyes were not those of a drunkard, as Peter had supposed they would be. "'That's all right,' she said.

"'I must have keeled over, didn't I? "'Where's buddy?' "'He's right over here, warming his little feet as nice as can be,' said Peter. "'And he was real concerned about you.' "'I wouldn't have come in but for him,' said the woman, trying to straight a her hat. I thought maybe he could get a bite to eat. It don't matter much what. He ain't eat since noon. A piece of bread would do him till we get to town. She leaned back wearily against the pile of nets in the corner. I want butter on it, bread and butter on it, said

buddy promptly. There now, said Peter, accusingly. I might have known it was foolish to let myself run so low on food. A man can't tell when food is going to come in handiest, and here I went and let myself run clean out of it. But don't you worry, ma'am, he hastened to add. I'll get some in no time. Just you let me help you over to my bunk. I ain't got a chair, or I'd offer it to you whilst I've run up to one of my neighbors and get you a bite to eat. I've got good neighbors. That's one thing. That's one thing. The woman caught Peter by the arm and drew herself up, laughing weakly at her weakness. She tottered, but Peter led her to the bunk with all the courtesy of a Raleigh escorting in Elizabeth, and she dropped on the edge of the bunk, and sat there warming her hands and staring

at the stove. She seemed still near exhaustion. "'If you'll excuse me now, ma'am,' said Peter, when he had made sure she was is not going to faint again. I'll just step across to my neighbors and get something for the boy to eat. I won't probably be gone more than a minute, and whilst I'm gone, I'll arrange for a place for me to sleep tonight. You had not to make that boy walk no further tonight. It's a real bad night outside. That's all right. I don't want to chase you out, said the woman. Not at all, said Peter. politely. I frequently sleep elsewhere's. It'll be no trouble at all to make arrangements.

He put more wood in the stove, opened the dampers, and lighted his lantern. Then he pinned his coat close about his neck with a blanket pin, and, as he passed the clock shelf, slipped the alarm swiftly from its place and hit it beneath his coat. I'll be right back as soon as I can, he said, and drawing his worn felt hat down over his eyes, he stepped out hastily and slammed the door behind him. Why did the man take the clock? asked the boy as the door closed. I guess he thought I'd steal it, said the woman languidly. Would you steal it? asked the boy.

I guess so, the woman answered and closed her eyes. End of chapter two. chapter three of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler this livervox recording is in the public domain chapter three peter lodges out as peter crossed the icy plank that led from his boat to the railway embankment he tried to whistle but the wind was too strong and sharp and he drew his head between his shoulders and closed his mouth tightly he had understated the distance to widow potters when he had said it was just a cross in fair weather and daylight he often cut across the cornfield but on such a night as this the trip meant a long plod up the railway track until he came to the crossing and then a longer tramp back the slushy road a good half mile in all when he turned in at widow potter's open gate a great yellow dog came rushing at him barking but a word from peter silenced him and the dog fell behind obediently but watchfully and followed peter to where the light shone through the widow's kitchen window peter rapped on the door who's out there mrs potter called sharply i got a gun in here and i ain't afraid to use it if you're a tramp you'd better

git. It's Peter Lane, Peter called, loud enough to be heard above the wind. I want to buy a couple of eggs off you, Mrs. Potter. The door opened the merest crack, and Mrs. Potter peered out. She did not have a gun, but she held a stove-poker. When she saw Peter, she opened the door wide. It was a brusk welcome. Of all the shiftiness I ever heard of, Peter Lane, she said angrily, you beat all. Coming for eggs this time a night, when your boat's been in the cove, nobody knows how long. I suppose it never come into your head to get eggs until you got hungry for them, did it? Peter closed the door and stood with his back to it.

At all times he feared Mrs. Potter, but especially when he gave her some cause for her. reproof. I had some company drop in on me unexpected, Mrs. Potter, he said apologetically. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have bothered you. I hate it worse than you do. Tramps, I dare say, said the widow. You're that shiftless you'd give the shoes off your feet and the food out of your mouth to feed any good for nothing that come camping on you. You don't get my good eggs to feed such trash, Peter Lane.

"'Winter eggs are worth money.' "'I thought to pay for them,' said Peter, meekly. "'I wouldn't ask them of you any other way, Mrs. Potter.' "'Well, if you've got the money, I suppose I've got to let you have them,' said the widow, grudgingly. "'Egs is worth three cents apiece, and I hate to have them fed to tramps. "'How many do you want to buy?' peter shifted from one foot to another uncomfortably well now i'm what you might call a little short of ready money to-night he said i thought maybe i might come over and saw some wood for you to-morrow and so you can said mrs potter promptly and when the wood is sawed they will be paid for in eggs or money and not until it is sawed i'm not going to encourage you to run into it

to debt. You're shiftless enough now, goodness knows." Peter tried to smile and ignored the accusation. "'There couldn't be anything fairer than that,' he said. Nobody ought to object to that sort of arrangement at all. That's real business-like. Only there's a small boy amongst the company that dropped in on me, and he's only about so high.' Peter showed a height that would have been small for an infant dwarf. He's a real nice little fellow, and if you was ever a boy that high, and crying because you wanted something to eat...

I don't believe a word of it, snapped Mrs. Potter. If there is a child down there, he ought to be in bed long ago. Yes, him, agreed Peter meekly. That's so. You wouldn't put even a dog that size to bed hungry. so if you could let me have about half a dozen eggs i'll go right back six eggs at three cents is eighteen cents said mrs potter firmly looking peter directly in the eye she was not bad looking her cheek bones were rather high and prominent and her cheeks hollow and she had a strong chin for a woman but the downward twist of discouragement that had marked her mouth during her later married years had already disappeared, giving place to a firmness that told she was well able to manage her own affairs.

Peter drew his alarm clock from beneath his coat and stood it on the kitchen table. I brought along this alarm clock, he said, so you'd know I'd come back like I say I will. She's a real good clock. I paid 80 cents for her when she was new, and I just fixed her up fresh today. She's running quite, quite a little since I fixed her. Mrs. Potter did not look at the clock. She looked at Peter. "'So,' she exclaimed,

"'so that's what you've come to, Peter Lane, "'ponning your goods and shadows. "'That's what shiftless folks always come to in the end. "'And so, if you'll let me have half a dozen days, and maybe some pieces of bread and butter and a handful of coffee said peter i'll leave the clock right here as security that i'll come up first thing in the morning and saw a wood till you tell me i've sought enough mrs potter took the clock in her hand and looked at peter how old did you say that boy is she asked going on three i should judge he's a real nice little feller said peter eagerly mrs potter put the clock on her kitchen table fatal sticks i don't believe a word of it who else have you got down there just his-his-paren't his parent said peter blushing i wish you could see that little feller maybe i'll bring him up here to-morrow and let you see him maybe you won't said the widow if you're hungry you can set you

down and i'll fry you as many eggs as you want to eat but you can't come over me with no story about visitors bringing your children on a night like this no sir you don't get none of my eggs for your worthless tramps shall i fry you some peter looked down and frowned then he raised his head and looked full in the widow's eyes and smiled nothing but the direct need could have induced him to smile thus at the direct need could have induced him to smile thus at the the widow, for he knew and feared the result. When, once or twice before, he had looked into her eyes and smiled in this way, unthinkingly, she had fluttered and trembled like a bird in the presence of an overmastering fascination. And Peter did not like that. Such power frightened him. The widow, scolding and condemning, he could escape,

but the widow fluttering and trembling was a thing to be afraid of it made him flutter and tremble too when peter smiled the widow drew in her breath sharply six six eggs will six eggs be all you want she asked hurriedly yes'm said peter still smiling unless you could spare some bread and butter he especially asked for butter and then he looked down the widow drew another long breath i don't believe you've got a boy down there and i don't believe you've got a visitor that deserves nothing she said crossly she was herself again i know you from hair to soul leather peter lane and if any worthless scamp came and camped on you you'd lie your head off to get food for him and that's what i think you're doing now But there ain't no way of telling. If so be, you've got a boy down there. I don't want him to go hungry. But if it's just some worthless tramp,

I hope these eggs choke him. You ain't got a mite of common sense in you. You're too soft, and that's why you don't get on. You'd come up here tomorrow and do a dollar's worth of wood-sawing for eighteen cents worth of eggs, and then give the eggs to the first tramp that asked you. what you ought to have is a wife you ought to have a wife with a mind like a hatchet and a tongue like a black snake whip and you might be worth shucks anyway you just provoke me beyond patience yes'm said peter nervously mrs potter was cutting thick enticing slices from a big loaf and spreading them with golden butter

i reckon you'd want jam on this bread she asked suddenly yes thank you said peter well maybe you have got a boy down there said mrs potter reluctantly you'd be ashamed to ask for jam if you hadn't if you had a wife and she was any account you'd have bread and jam when boys come to see you but i do pity the woman that gets you peter lane no woman on this earth but a widow that has experience with menfolks could ever make anything out of you peter put his hand on the door-knob ready for instant flight when he smiled on mrs potter something like this usually resulted and that was why he tried it so seldom it was he now who trembled and fluttered i'm not thinking of getting married at all he said i couldn't afford to anyway you needn't think just because you're in no account some fool woman wouldn't take you snapped mrs potter look at what my first husband was women marry all sorts of trash peter watched the progress of the bread and jam trusting its preparation would not be delayed long if they're asked said mrs potter she seemed very cross about something she wrapped the slices of bread in a clean sheet of paper from her table drawer folding in the ends of the paper angrily but they don't do the asking she added peter took the parcel and slipped the six clean white eggs into his pocket he wanted to get away but mrs potter stopped him

i suppose if there is a boy down there i've got to give you what's left of my roast chicken she grumbled or you'll be comin up here about the time i get into bed routing me out for more if i had a husband and he was like you and he had a mind to feed all the tramps in the county he wouldn't have to rout me out of bed to do it he could go to the cupboard himself and feed them now that clock said peter hastily if i was you i wouldn't depend too much on her alarm to get you up i can't say she's regulated just the way i'd like to have her yet and i'm much obliged to you i don't want your clock said mrs potter but peter had slipped out of the door closing it behind him the widow held the clock in her hand for a full minute and then said it gently beside her own opulent Seth Thomas. I dare say, you're about as well regulated as he is, she said. And that ain't saying much for either of you. He ain't got the eyes to see through a grindstone.

When Peter returned to the boat, the boy was busily trying to work one of the trot line hooks out of the sleeve of his jacket. But the woman had dropped back on the bunk and her eyes were closed. she opened them when the rush of cold air from the door struck her face and looked at peter listlessly i guess you don't feel like cookin a couple of eggs said peter so if you'll excuse me remaining here a while i'll do it for you i'm a ferre to middellin fried egg cook son you let me get that hook out of you and then see if you can eat five or six of these pieces of bread and jam i could when I was a boy, and then I could wind up with a piece of chicken like this.

I hooked myself, the boy explained. I should say you did, said Peter. You want to look out for these hooks. They bite a boy like a catfish stinger, and that ain't much fun. I'm right glad you dropped in, he said to the woman, because I've got such good neighbors. It's almost impossible to keep you. them from forcing more eggs and butter and such things on me than I'd know what to do with.

Just come up on me when you want anything, they are always saying, and help yourself. So it's quite nice to have somebody drop in and give me a chance to show my neighbors, I ain't too proud to take a few eggs and such. It would surprise you to see how eager they are that way. He scraped the butter from one of the pieces of bread, needing it to fry the eggs. eggs in and he worked as he talked breaking the eggs into the frying pan and watching that they were cooked to a turn I certainly am blessed with nice neighbors he said there's a widow lady lives a step or two beyond the railroad and seems as if she couldn't do enough for me she just lays herself out to see that I'm overfed do you

feel like you could eat a small part of chicken the woman her eyes rest on Peter some time before she spoke. "'I ought to feel hungry, but I don't,' she said. "'Well, maybe a soft boiled egg would be better. "'I ought to have thought of that,' said Peter, as if he had been reproved. "'You'll have to excuse me for boiling it in the coffee pot. "'I've been so busy planning a trip I'm going to take, "'I haven't had time to lay in much tinware yet.'

where did you take the clock asked the boy suddenly peter reddened under his tan that clock he said hesitatingly where did i take that clock well the fact is the fact is that clock is a nuisance that's it she's a nuisance i've been meanin to throw that clock into the river for i don't know how long unless you were used to that clock you'd just have just can't sleep where she is ratterly bang she goes whenever she takes an ocean like a dishpan falling down stairs all times of the night so i just thought as long as i was going out anyway now's a good time to get rid of the old nuisance mamma would steal the clock said the boy oh you mustn't say that said peter you come here and eat these two nice eggs i hope ma'am you don't think i had any such notion as that when i have visitors they can steal everything in the boat and welcome i mean i know what you mean said the woman you're the white kind i'm glad you look at it that way said peter the boy he don't understand such things he's so young yet maybe you'd feel better if i've propped you up with the pillow a little better if i've propped you up with the pillow a little better I'll lay this extra blanket on the foot of the bunk here in case it should get cold during the night. You look nice and warm now.

I'm burning up, said the woman. I judge you've got a slight fever, said Peter. I often get them when I get overtook by the rain when I'm out for a stroll. I'll be all right if I can lie here for an hour or so, said the woman, listlessly. Then buddy and me will get on. Is it far to town? Now, you and that boy ain't going another step tonight, said Peter firmly.

You're going to stay right here. You won't discommode me for a bit, for I've made arrangements to sleep elsewhere, like I often do. He gave the woman the egg in his tin cup, and while she ate, he put his trot lines outside on the small forward deck so the boy might get in no more trouble with the hooks then he removed the shells from a shotgun put the remaining eggs and bread and butter and chicken in his tin box and pinned his coat collar i'm going up to the place i arranged to sleep at now he said and i hope you'll find everything comfortable and nice there's more wood there by the stove and before i come in in the morning i'll knock on the door so i guess maybe you'd better take off as many of them wet clothes as you wish to you'll take a worse cold if you don't i am afraid i'm too weak said the woman if you will just give me some help with my dress

but peter fled he was a strange mixture was peter and he fled as a blushing boy would have fled not to stop running until he was far up the railway track then he realized by the chill of the sleety rain against his head where the hair was thinnest that he had forgotten his hat and he laughed at himself pshaw i guess that woman scared me he said he did not follow the path to mrs potter's kitchen door this time but skirted the orchard and climbed a rail fence into the cow pasture he made a wide circle through the pasture and climbed another fence into the cow pasture he made a wide circle through the pasture and climbed another fence into the house to the yard behind the barn, where a haystack stood. He was trembling with cold by this time, and wet through, and the water froze stiff in his coat cuffs, but he dug deep into the base of the haystack and crawled into its shelter, drawing the sweet hay close around him.

For a while he lay with chattering teeth, his knees close under his chin, and then he felt warmer and straightened his knees. the next moment he was asleep end of chapter three chapter four of the jack-knife man by ellis parker butler this libravox recording is in the public domain chapter four the scarlet woman when peter crawled out of his haystack the next morning the weather was intensely cold and the wind was gone every twig and weed sparkled with the ice frozen upon it he had needed no alarm clock to awaken him for an uneasy sense of discomfort gradually opened his eyes and he found his knees aching and his whole body chilled and stiff he climbed the fence into the farmhouse yard he had no doubt now that he was hungry and he was well aware that his head was cold wherein the hair was thin indeed his hands and feet were cold too but he tightened his belt another hole and made for mrs potter's woodshed among the chips and sawdust he found a piece of white cloth which had he known it was the remains of one of mrs potter's petticoats he would have left it where it lay

but not knowing this he made a makeshift turban by nodding the corners and drew it well down over his ears like a nightcap it was more comfortable than the raw morning air and peter had no more pride than a tramp. He found the wood saw hanging in the shed, a piece of bacon rind on the windowsill, and the ice-covered sawbuck in the yard, and he set to work on the pile of pin-oak, as if he meant to earn his clock, his breakfast, and a full day's wages,

before Mrs. Potter got out of bed. The exercise warmed him, but he kept one eye in the top of Mrs. Potter's kitchen chimney, looking for the thin smoke signal telling that breakfast was under way the pile of stovewood grew and grew under his saw but still the house gave no sign of life the sun climbed making the icy coating of trees and fences glow with color and still mrs potter's kitchen chimney remained hopelessly smokeless that woman must have a good clear conscience or she couldn't sleep like that said the hungry peter but i've got folks on my hands and i've got to see to them if this ain't enough wood to satisfy her i'll saw some more when i come back he was worried for no smoke was coming from a stove pipe that protruded from the roof of his shanty boat when he reached the boat he knocked three times without answer before he opened the door cautiously and peered in ready to retreat should his entrance be inopportune the woman was lying where he had left her still in her wet clothes and the cabin was icy cold the boy when peter opened the door was

was standing on the table trying to lift the shotgun from its pegs. His face showed he had made a trip to the bread and jam. He looked down at Peter as the door opened. "'Mama's funny,' he said, and reached for the gun again. The woman was indeed funny. She was in the grip of a raging fever. Her cheeks were violently red, and against them the green dye from her hat made hideousy.

stakes. Her hair had fallen and lay in a tangle over the pillow, with the rain-soaked hat still clinging to a strand. As he moved her head, the hat moved with it, giving her a drunken, disreputable appearance. She talked rapidly and angrily, repeating the names of men, of Susie and Buddy, stopping to sing a verse of a popular song, breaking into profanity and laughingly, loudly. All human emotions except tears flowed from her, and Peter stood with his back against the door, uncertain what to do. The table, tipping suddenly and throwing the boy to the floor, decided him. "'There now, you little rascal,' he said, gathering the weeping boy in his arms. "'You might have broke your arm or your leg. You oughtn't to stand on a table you ain't acquainted with

that way? I wanted to fall down, said the boy, ceasing his tears at once. I like to fall off tables I ain't acquainted with. Well, I just bet you do, said Peter. You look like that sort of a boy to me. Does your ma act funny like this often? You poor young un, I hope not. No, said buddy.

Peter looked at the woman studying her. It might have been possible that she was insane, but the vivid red of her cheeks convinced him she was delirious with fever. Her hat, askew over one ear, gave Peter a feeling of shame for her, and he put Buddy down and walked to the bunk. He saw that the hat-pin had made a cruel scratch along her cheek.

"'Now, ma'am,' he said, i'm just going to help you off with this hat because it's getting all mashed up and it ain't needed in the house he put out his hand to take the hat but the woman raised herself on one arm and with the other fist struck peter full in the face so that he staggered back against the table while she swore at him viciously you hadn't ought to do that he said reprovingly i wasn't going to hurt you i know you shouted the woman in a rage i know you you can't come any of that over me you took susy you beast but you don't get buddy let me get at you she tried to clamber from the bunk but fell back coughing now you're absolutely wrong ma'am said peter earnestly you've got me placed entirely wrong i ain't the man you think i am at all i'm the man that got something for buddy to eat last night you recall that don't you the woman looked at him craftily where's buddy she asked i'm i'm cooking eggs mamma said buddy promptly and peter turned well you little rascal cried peter you must be hungry the boy had put the frying pan on the floor while peter's back turned and had broken the remaining eggs in it. Much of the omelette had missed the pan,

decorating Buddy's clothes and the floor. The woman seemed satisfied when she heard the boy's voice and closed her eyes, and Peter took the opportunity to kindle the fire and start the breakfast. He cooked the omelet, the condition of the eggs suggesting that is the only method of preparing them. The woman opened her eyes as the pleasant odor filled the cabin and followed every movement Peter made. "'I know you. You'll run me out of town, will you?' she cried suddenly. "'All right, I'll go, I'll go. That's what I get for being decent. You know, I've been decent since you took Susie away from me, and that's just what I get. Run me out. What do I can? What I care. I'll go. She put her feet to the floor, but another coughing fit threw her back against

the pillow, and when she recovered, she burst into tears. Don't take her, she pleaded. I'll be decent. Don't. I tell you, I'll be decent. Don't I feed her plenty? Don't I dress her warm? Ain't she going to school like the other kids? Don't take her? before God, I'll be decent. Come here, Susie. Now, that's all right, ma'am, said Peter, as she began coughing again. Nobody's going to take anybody whilst I'm in this boat, and you can make your mind up to that right off. Here's buddy right here, eating like a little man, ain't you, buddy?

Poor baby, said the woman. Come and let Ma try to carry you again. your poor little legs all tired out, ain't it? It's rested, said Buddy. It ain't tired? Tired. Oh, God, I'm tired, she wept. You'll have to get down, buddy. Ma can't carry you another step.

God knows when I get to Riverbank, I'll be straight. I've got enough of this. Where's Susie? Now, I wished, if you can, you'd try to lie quiet, ma'am, said Peter, for you ain't well. Try lying still, and I'll go to town and get a doctor to come out and see you. I didn't mean you no harm at all. I know you, you snake, she cried. You're from the society. You took my Susie, and you want buddy. I'll kill you first. Come here, buddy. The boy went to her obediently, and she'd

drew him to the bunk and ran her hand through his white kinks of hair it seemed to quiet her to feel him in her arm now ma'am said peter you see nobody's going to take buddy at all and you can take my word i won't let anybody take him whilst i'm around you can depend on that i'm going to town now and i guess i'd better leave buddy right here for you'll be more comfortable knowing where he is don't you worry about nothin at all until i get back and if you find the door locked it's just so nobody can't get in and bother you he looked about the cabin it was comfortably warm and he poured water on the fire he wished to take no chances with the woman in her present state he even took his shotgun and the heavy poker as he went out but he watched him with interest are you stealing that gun he asked no son said peter gravely nobody's stealing anything you want to get that idea out of your head nobody in this cabin you nor me nor your ma would steal anything your ma's sick and don't know what she's doing but she don't mean no real harm i guess she ain't been treated right and she feels upset about it but a boy don't want ever to say anything bad about his ma he went out and closed and locked the door involuntarily he glanced at widow potter's chimneys no smoke came from any of them now i just bet that woman has gone and got sick just when i've got my hands plumb full he said disgustedly i've got to go up and see what's the matter with her or she might lie there and die and nobody know a thing about it

the cold had frozen the slush into hardness and peter cut across the cornfield he tried mrs potter's doors and found them all locked which was a bad sign unless she had gone to town while he was in the shanty boat but he knocked on the kitchen door noisily and was rewarded after a reasonable wait by hearing the widow dragging her feet across the kitchen is that you peter lane she asked yes'm peter answered well it's time you come i must say said the widow between groans you the only man anywhere's near and you'd leave me die here as soon as not you got to feed the cows and the horse and give the chicken some grain and then hitch up and fetch a doctor as fast as he can be fetched i might have laid here for weeks you're that unreliable i'll put the barn key on the kitchen table and when the doctor comes i'll be in my bed if the lord lets me live that long i'll be in it anyway i dare say dead or alive if i can manage to get to it and don't you come in until i get out of the way for i ain't got a stitch on but my nightgown i won't said peter and he didn't he gave mrs potter time to get into twenty beds if she had been so minded before he opened the kitchen door a crack and peeped in he hurried through the chores as rapidly as he could feeding the stock in the chickens and milking the cows he had eaten part of the omelet buddy had commenced but he thought it only right he should have a satisfying drink of the warm milk and he took it

he made a fire in the kitchen stove and saw that the iron tea kettle was full of water and then he harnessed the horse and drove briskly to town and saw that the dog It was the hour when physicians were making their calls, and the first two Peter sought were out, but Dr. Roth, the new doctor who had come from Willets to build a practice in the larger town, happened to be in his office over Moore's drugstore, and he drew on his coat and gloves while Peter explained the object of his visit. "'I ain't running Mrs. Potter's affairs,' said Peter, for there ain't no call for her to have nobody to run them but if i was i'd get a sort of nursewoman to go up and take care of her she's all alone and i don't know how sick she is then you are not mr potter asked the doctor i ain't nothing at all like that said peter i'm a shanty boatman and my boat is right near the widow's place and i do odd chores for her

Old Potter died and went where he belongs quite some time ago. The doctor agreed to pick up Mrs. Skinner on his way, Mrs. Skinner being one of those plump, useful creatures that are willing to do nursing, washing, or general housework by the day. And another thing, doctor, said Peter, as the doctor closed his office door. Whilst you are out there, I want you to drop down to the cove below the widow, house to a shanty boat you'll see there and take a look at the woman I've got in it. So far as I can make out, she's a mighty sick woman.

I'll try to get back before you get through with the widow, but you better take my key if I shouldn't. I'll pay whatever it costs to treat her. I'm quite ready to do that. Why not drive out with me? I got some business to transact, said, said Peter. But maybe it might be just as well to wait till I do get there. She's sort of out of her mind, and she might think you would come to do her some harm if I wasn't there. The business

Peter had to transact took him to George Rapp's livery, sale, and feed stable, and by good luck he found George in his stuffy overheated office, redolent of tobacco smoke, harness soap, and general stable odors. all men who brave cold weather at all hours, George liked to be well-baked when indoors. "'Well, George,' said Peter, "'since I've seen you yesterday, circumstances has occurred to change my mind about making any trips this year in my boat. For a man of my constitution, I've made up my mind it would be just the worst thing to go south at all. It ain't the right air from my lungs, and when you got to talking about Chinchinch,

chilla's going out of fashion, I seen it wasn't worth a risk. What I need is cold climate, George, and it's an unfortunate thing this here Mississippi River don't run any way but south, because there's one for never does go out of style, and that's Arctic Fox. All right, I'll give you $40 for the boat, laughed Rapp, putting his hand in his pocket. "'Now wait,' said Peter. "'I don't want you to think I'm doing this "'just because I want to sell the boat, George.

"'That ain't so. "'I guess maybe I could raise what money I need to outfit, "'one way or another. "'But I can't afford to pay a caretaker "'to take care of that boat "'while I'm away up in Labrador or Alaska "'or wherever I'm going. "'And it ain't safe to leave a shanty boat vacant.

Tramps would run away with her. When do you aim to start north? asked Rapp, grinning. My mind ain't quite made up to that, said Peter. I want to look over a map and see where a Labrador is before I start out. I thought maybe you'd let me remain in the shanty boat a while, George. Stay on her as long as you like, said Rapp. You can live right in there all winter. all i want is to get her down to my place right away before the river closes so she'll be there when the ducks fly next spring now that's another thing said peter uneasily

with all the preparations i have to make from my trip i'll have to be round town more or less this winter and as your place is a long way down river i thought maybe you might let the boat stay where she is this winter george you can sleep in my barn any time you want to peter said rap i might as well let that boat lie where she is forever as leave her there all winter i want her down there when the ducks fly north i'll give you five dollars extra for floating her down and a dollar or so a week for taking care of her but if she can't go down she ain't any use to me the way the ice is beginning to run i'd have to start her down to-day or to-morrow said peter regretfully it upsets my plans but i got to have some ready cash if the wind shifts your slew will be ice-blocked and there ain't no other safe place to winter a boat down there you don't have to sell her if you don't want to said rap you can put off your trip seems like i've heard you put off trips before now peter well i guess i'll sell george said peter maybe i can trap muskrats or something down there i'll make out somehow he took the money rap handed him and once more peter was homeless he was no better than a tramp now his plans were vague as to the sick woman but forty-five dollars seemed a great deal of money to Peter. He might hire a room from Mrs. Potter, if that lady would permit, and have the sick

woman cared for there, or he might have her brought to town and lodged somewhere, if anyone would take her in. There was no hospital in Riverbank. But he was happy. Somehow he did not doubt he could care for the woman, for he had money in his pocket. To turn her over to the county poor farm did not enter his mind. He would not have given a dog that fate. He drove to Main Street first and tied his horse before the grocery that received his infrequent patronage. Here he bought a bag of flour and six packages of roasted coffee, some bacon and beans, condensed milk and canned goods, sugar and other necessities, and then let his eyes wander over the grocer's shelves. He had about decided to buy a can of green gauge plums, as a dainty he loved and never

indulged in, and therefore suitable to buy for the sick woman, when he saw the small white jars of beef extract, and he bought one for the sick woman. While his parcels were being wrapped, he picked up the copy of the Riverbank News that lay on the counter and glanced over it, for a newspaper was a rare treat for Peter. On the first page, his eye caught the headline, Pass her along. It was at the head of an article on the news reporter's best humorous style, and told how Lise Meriden, a notorious character, had been run out of Durlingport, the next town up the river, and ordered never to return under pain of tar and feathers. The gay girl hit the ties in the direction of Riverbank at a maud S pace,

yanking her young male offspring after her by the arm, wrote the reporter. And when last scene seemed intended to favor Riverbank with her society, but up to last reports nothing has been seen of her there. It is a two-day's jaunt for a gentle creature-like lies, but when she hits the River Street Depot, she will find Riverbank a regular springboard, and the bount she will get here will impress on her receptive mind

the fact that Riverbank is not hankering for her company. Pass her along. Peter folded the paper and laid it on the counter. So that was who his visitor was and how she came to be tramping the railway track. He walked to where G. great golden oranges glowed in a box near the door, and chose half a dozen, and laid them beside his other purchases. These two were for the sick woman. Then he selected a dozen

big red apples and laid them beside the oranges. They were for buddy. It was Peter's method of showing his disapproval of the bad taste of the news article. When Peter reached the widow's farmhouse, the doctor's horse still stood in the barnyard, and Peter put up his own horse while waiting for the doctor to come out. How is the widow? Is she bad off? he asked when the doctor appeared. Mrs. Potter thinks she is a very sick woman, and she isn't a well one, said the doctor. She'll stay in bed a week anyway. That's some woman. She has Mrs. Skinner hopping around like a toad in a skillet already, and she sent orders by me that you are to come and sleep in the

kitchen to be handy if she has a relapse in the night. You are to take care of her stock, and saw the rest of her cord wood, and do the odd chores. And if the pump freezes, thaw it out before it gets frozen any worse. Now, ain't that too bad, said Peter, just when I've got to get started down river this afternoon. Things always happen like that, don't they? He led the way across the frozen cornfield to his shanty boat and opened the door. But he had managed to turn the table upside down and was riding a boat in it. The doctor gave the boy in the cabin one glance

and had Peter classed as one of the shiftless shanty boatman before he had pulled off his fur gloves. Then he turned to the woman. She was lying with her face toward the wall. He bent over her, and when he straightened his back and turned to Peter, his face was very serious. Your wife is dead, he said.

Peter's pale blue eyes stared at the doctor vacantly. Dead, he stammered. My wife? Why, doctor, she ain't— Yes, said the doctor, not wanting to hear the conclusion of Peter's sentence. She has been dead for an hour at least. A weak heart, overtaxed, I should say. What do you mean by leaving her in these damp clothes?

I should have been called long ago. Now, ain't that too bad? Ain't that too bad? said Peter regretfully. It ain't nobody's fault but mine. I ought to have gone for you last night, and there I was, asleep in a way as comfortable as could be. She should have been under treatment for some time, said the doctor severely.

He was a young doctor, and important, and not inclined to spare the feelings of a mere shanty-boatman. Here he could be severe, who had to be suave and politic with better people, people. He told Peter brutally that the woman had not been properly cared for, that with her constitution she should have had delicacies and comforts and kindness. If you want my candid opinion, you as much as killed her, said Dr. Roth. He was nettled by Peter's apparent heartlessness, for while Peter showed that the death had shocked him,

he gave way to no outburst of sorrow such as might be accounted. expected from a bereaved husband. But now deep regret in Peter's eyes touched him. I shouldn't have said that, he said more kindly. I might not have been able to do anything. Probably not much after all. But if you don't want the boy to go the same way, treat him better. You have him left. Peter turned and looked at Buddy, who, all unconscious, was rowing his tableboat with a piece of driftwood for ore. "'That's so, ain't it?' said Peter. "'She's left the boy on my hands, ain't she?'

"'I guess I got to take care of him. Yep, I guess I have.' When the doctor left the boat half an hour later, he shook his head as he closed the door. "'Shiftless and unfeeling,' he muttered to himself. left the boy on my hands poor boy i'm sorry for you with a father like that for he did not see peter drop on his knees beside the curly-headed child as soon as the door was closed and he did not see how peter took the boy in his arms he could not hear what peter said buddy boy said peter how'd it be if you and uncle peter just sort of snuggled up close and at a big red apple.

End of chapter four. Chapter 5 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. Buddy steers the boat. Now don't you fret, Buddy Boy, said Peter Lane with forced cheerfulness, because I'm going to let you do something you never did before, and that I wouldn't let many boys do. do. You are going to help Uncle Peter steer this boat, just like he was a big man.

Buddy stood in the skiff, which was drawn up on the bank. Peter, with a rock into stove poker, was undoing the frozen knot that held his shanty boat to the Rock Island Railway system, and by means of that to the state of Iowa. He was preparing to take the shanty boat down the river to George Rapp's place. his provisions were aboard the rag of a sail lay ready to raise should the wind serve but it promised not to and the long sweep that had reposed on the roof of the boat was on its pin at the bow if a boat both ends of which were identical could be said to have a bow i like to steer boats said buddy out of his boyish optimism i bet you do said peter and a mighty good steerer you'll make i don't know how uncle peter could get down river if he didn't have somebody to steer for him now you let me push that skiff into the water and we'll row around the boat and before you know it you'll be steering like a regular little sailor he threw the mooring rope on to the stern deck of the shanty boat pushed the skiff into the water and pulled to the other end of the boat where the long sweep was held with its blade suspended in the air the handle caught under a cleat on the deck

peter lifted buddy to the deck made the skiff's painter fast and climbed to the deck after the boy now buddy we'll be off in a minute and a half he said just as soon as i fix you the way they fix sailors when they steer a ship in a big storm he drew a ball of sane twine from his pocket nodded one end about buddy's waist cut off a generous length and tied the other end to the cleat don't said buddy imperatively i don't want to be tied uncle peter oh yes you do said peter why a sailor man couldn't think of steering a great boat like this unless he was tied to it no shouted buddy and peter stood holding his end of the cord studying the boy now buddy boy he said appealingly don't holler like that ain't i told you that we must keep right quiet because your ma is asleep in there but i don't want to be tied cried the boy but uncle peter's going to be tied tied, too, said Peter. Yes, sirree, Bob. Just as soon as I get this boat out into the river, I'm going to be tied like you are, and no mistake. You didn't know that, I guess, did you? The boy looked at him

doubtfully. Are you? he asked. If I say I am, I am, said Peter. You can always be right sure that when Uncle Peter says a thing, he ain't trying to fool you, buddy. No, sir. You can just believe what Uncle Peter says with all your might. I might lie to grown folks now and then, but I wouldn't lie to a little boy. No, sir. I ain't a little boy. I'm a big sailor man, said the boy. And you said I could steer, and I want to steer. Right away you can, said Peter. You're going to steer with one of them skiff-or. but first I've got to row this boat out into the river away, so you'll have plenty of room.

So don't you fret. You watch Uncle Peter. He made the skiff fast to the boat with a length of rope, took the oars, and as he rode, the heavy boat moved slowly from behind the point out into the river current. Peter towed her well out into the river before he let the skiff drop back.

He meant the shanty boat. boat to float sweep first, if it was all the same to her, and he fastened the painter of the skiff to the shanty boat stern, and edged his way along the narrow strip of wood that marked the division between the hill and the superstructure, holding himself by clasping the edge of the roof with his cold fingers and sliding an oar along the roof as he went. It would have been much simpler and safer to have passed through the cabin. To satisfy Bud's, to satisfy Bud's, he tied a length of sane cord about his own waist and fastened the end of the deck ring and then he laughed buddy's oar to a small iron ring the boy could take a few steps and splash the water with the oar without falling into the river then peter took the heavy sweep handle in his hands and the shanty boat was under way it was time the rising water had dislodged heavier ice than had yet

come down and the river was filling with it the wind such as there was while it blew almost dead upstream was an aid in that it swept the floating ice toward the illinois shore leaving peter's course clear and an occasional dip of the sweep was sufficient to keep the boat head on in the current the wind made the river choppy but the shanty boat not having had time to waterlogue since peter put it in the water floated high. For a while, Buddy steered energetically, splashing the water with the blade of his oar, but Peter was ready for the first sign of weariness. "'My, but you are a fine steerer,' he said approvingly. "'When you grow just a bit bigger, Uncle Peter is going to teach you how to row a boat and a song to sing while you row it. Hurry up now and help Uncle Peter steer.' let's sing a song to steer a boat said buddy no i guess we won't sing to-day said peter some other day we'll sing

for peter and buddy were not taking the voyage alone when peter assisted by mrs skinner had completed the preparations he felt were due any woman who was making the great journey he found his money too little to afford her arresting place in the town but peter lane could not let one who had knocked at his door seeking shelter go from there to the pottersfield any more than he could let her boy go to the county farm while a smart reporter was wondering whether the power of the press in his article pass her along had warned lies murden to take the road to some other town and while dr roth was telling of the shanty boatman whose wife had died without medical attendants peter by roundabout questions regarding george rap's place learned of a small county burying-ground not too far from the spot where the shanty-boat was to be moored for the winter there he was taking lyse murden who decent at last and forever lay within the cabin through the long forenoon peter leaned on the handle of his sweep pressing his breast against it now and then to sweep swing the shanty boat into the full current. There was no other large boat on the river. Here and there a fisherman pulled at his oars on a heavy skiff or moved slowly from hook to hook of his trot line, lifting from time to time a pop fly protesting fish, but gave the shanty boat no more than a glance.

The boat floated past the empty log boom of the upper mill, silent for the winter, passed the great lumber piles still bearing their covering of sleet peter could hear the gun-like slap of board on board coming from where some man was loading timber in a freight car and occasionally a voice came across the water with startling distinctness i told him he could chop his own wood i wouldn't do it what did he say to that he said he could get plenty of men that would do it he said he could get plenty of men that would do it it. He knew the men must be sitting close to the water's edge, and finally his sharp eyes made them out below the railway embankment. Two black specks crouched over a small yellow blaze. He recognized one voice, the voice of one of the town loafers. The other was strange to him, probably that of some tramp. Below that, dwellings fronted the river and the streets of the town opened in long vistas as the boat came to them, closing again immediately as it passed.

The hissing of a switch engine sidetracked to await the passing of a train soon due, and the clanking of a poker on the great bars, as the fireman dislodged the clinkers, came to Peter's ears distinctly. Then the boat slipped past George Rapp's stable, with its bold red brick front, and as he passed the door, Peter could hear for an instant the scrape of a horse's hoof in the stall, although the boat was a good half mile out in the river. Beyond the stable was the low-lying canning factory, and the row of saloons, and the hotel, and the wholesale houses,

partly hidden by the railway station on the river side of Front Street, and the packet warehouse on the river. edge. Then the low rumbling of the dusty oatmeal mill, cut by the excited voices of small children playing at the water's edge, became the prominent voice of the town. From the edge of the river, the town rose on two hills, showing masses of gray leafless trees, with here and there a house peeping through. From Peter's boat, it looked like the dead corpse of a town, but he knew every street of it and he knew life with its manifold business of work and play was hurrying feverishly there and he knew too that not one of all those so busy with life knew he was floating by or if knowing it would have cared that there is a town buddy said peter that's river bank is it said buddy is it said buddy without any

interest. He gave it but a glance. "'Yes, sir,' said Peter. "'That's the town. And it's sort of funny to think of that whole town full of people rushing around and going and coming and doing things that seem mighty important to them whilst your— whilst this boat goes floating down this river as calm and peaceful as if the day of judgment had come and gone again. It's funny. Probably the there ain't man or woman in that whole town but a couple of days ago was better and whiter than than a certain party and now there ain't one of them but is all smudgy and soiled if compared with her yes sir it's funny he worked his sweet vigorously to carry the shanty-boat to the east of the large island the tow-head that lay before the lower town the screech of boards passing through the

boards passing through the knives of a planing mill drowned the rumble of the oatmeal mill a long passenger train hurried along the river bank like a hasty worm and stopped panting at the water tank and went on again the boat as it passed on the far side of the island seemed to drop suddenly into silence and the chopping of the waves against the hull of the boat made itself heard yes sir towns is funny said peter now take the way going behind this island has wiped that one out so far as you and me are concerned buddy that town might be wiped off the earth and we wouldn't know we wouldn't hardly care at all the folks in it ain't nothin to us at all right now and yet if i go into that town i'm interested in every one of the folks i meet and it makes me sort of sick to see any of them cold and hungry maybe that's what towns is for maybe i live alone too much i get so all i think about is sleep and eat and eatin ain't a bad habit how'd you like to buddy was willing he was willing to eat any time he ate two apples and eight crackers and watched the apple-course float beside the boat now you're goin to fish said peter right here looks like a good place to fish maybe you'll catch a whale you're just as apt to catch a whale here as anything else ain't mamma hungry asked buddy so suddenly the peter was startled now hear that he said ain't you just as thoughtful why no buddy it's real nice for you to think of that

but your ma ain't hungry she ain't going to be hungry or cold or wet any more so don't you bother your little head about it one bit she don't want anything but that what you should grow up and be a big fine man like you uncle peter asked buddy my land no said peter impulsively i mean no indeed don't you take me for no model buddy you want to grow up and be i'll explain when you get older i want you to grow up to be a good man the kind of man that takes some interest in other folks you don't want to be a dried-up old codger like me what's a codger asked buddy a codger is a stingy old hard-shell cuss peter began i guess you could eat another apple he finished and buddy did the island they were passing was low and fringed with willows now bearer of leaf and the shanty-boat kept close in until the current veered to the illinois shore with its water elms and maples and tangles of wild grape-vines peter knew every mark of this part of the river well the current swung from shore to shore now crossing to the iowa side again where the levee guarded the fields and now swinging back to the illinois bottom land for the boy the scene held little interest for peter it was a new chapter of an old story he loved here a giant sycamore he had known since youth had been blackened and shortened by lightning there an elm falling had created a new sand-bar on which willows were already finding a foothold

in time it might be quite an island or perhaps the next spring rise might sweep it away entirely a farmhouse high on the illinois bluff had a new windmill a sweet potato barn on the other side of the river was now a blackened pile of timbers rotting sandbags told the spot where the river on its last rampage had threatened to cut the levee buddy fished patiently until even a more interested fisherman would have given it up as a bad job and peter fed him a slice of bread and butter for half an hour he watched peter whittle a nubbin off the end of the sweep and fashion it into a top but at the first attempt to spin it the top bounded into the water and floated away and this suggested boats for the rest of the afternoon peter doled out pieces of the pile of driftwood on the deck and they went over the side as boats peter naming each after one of the river steamers until buddy himself said this is the war eagle uncle peter or this is the long annie she'll splash peter did not grudge his firewood there was an abundance of driftwood to be had in the slew for which they were making. The last piece he fitted with a painter of twine, and Buddy let it drag in the water, enjoying its pole, until the afternoon grew late and the sun set like a huge red ball

that almost reached from bank to bank, and made the river a path of gold and copper. As they floated down this glowing way, Peter fed the boy again. Little as he knew about boys, he knew they must be fed. There now, he said, when the boy could eat no more, and the tired eyes blinked. I guess you'll sleep like a sailor tonight, and no mistake, buddy boy,

and I'm going to give you a treat such as boys don't often have. You see that great, big, white moon up there? I'm going to let you go to bed outdoors here so you can look right up at that moon and blink your eyes at it, and see if it blinks back at you that's what i'm going to do and whenever you want to you can open your eyes and you'll see that big old moon and those stars and uncle peter i don't want to go to sleep said buddy nobody said you had to go to sleep said peter you stay awake if you want to and watch that funny old moon you'd think we'd float right past it

but she floats along up there like a sort of shanty boat up in the sky and the stars follow along like the play-boats you put in the water you wait until you see the bed uncle peter is going to make for you but he fixed his eyes very seriously on the moon while peter unlocked the cabin door and brought out an armful of nets and blankets and a pillow close against the cabin peter built a bed of nets and net and blankets. There now, he said. That's some bed. I hope that moon didn't blink at you. Did she? No, she didn't, said Buddy,

but she almost did. You crawl in here where you'll be nice and warm then, said Peter. Uncle Peter has to have somebody to watch that moon and tell him if she blinks, and you can lie here and look up, like the sailors do. if she blinks you tell me won't you yes said buddy seriously and peter tucked him in the blankets uncle peter he said after a minute she blinked

did she now said peter but buddy said no more he was asleep but the moon did not blink much big and clear and cold she filled the river valley with white light through the moon did not blink much big and clear and cold she filled the river valley with white light through through which sparkles of frost glittered, and through the evening and late into the night, Peter Lane stood at his sweep, looking out over the water and thinking his own strange thoughts. Now and then he stooped and arranged the blanket over Buddy's shoulders,

and now and then he knelt and dipped water from the river with his cupped hand to pour upon the sweet-pin lest it creak and awaken the boy. When he swung the sweep, he swung it slowly and carefully so that only the softest gurgle of water could be heard above the splashing of the small waves against the hull after midnight the night became intensely cold and peter's fingers stiffened on the sweep handle and he warmed them by hugging them in his armpits it was about two in the morning when the shanty boat slipped into the mouth of the slew that cut george rap's place and floated more slowly down the narrow winding water until the soft grating of sand on the bottom of the hull told peter she was going aground on a bar

very quietly then peter pulled the boat close to the low muddy bank frozen now and made her fast his voyage was over he gathered driftwood and made a fire well back from the boat so the light might not disturb the boy's slumber and sat beside it warming his hands and feet until the sun lighted the east it was a full hour after sunrise before buddy awakened and then he looked expectantly at the sky the moon got lost uncle peter he said with deep concern well we haven't time to bother about any moon this morning said peter briskly this is the day you are going to have a real good time because a farmer man lives not so far away from here and he has more pigs than you ever heard of and horses and cows and chickens and turkeys and guinea hens, and I don't know what all. And I dare say, he's wondering why you haven't come to see them by this time. Yes, sir, he's wondering why Buddy hasn't come yet. And so are the pigs and the cows and the horses and the chickens and the guinea hens.

And the turkeys, said Buddy eagerly. Yes, sir, ebob, said Peter. So we'll hurry up and wash our face. buddy scrambled to his feet all eagerness and then with the sudden changefulness of a small boy he turned from peter toward the cabin door i want my mamma to wash my face he said peter lane put his thin brown hand on buddy's shoulder son he said so seriously that buddy looked up do you recall to mind the other night when you and your ma come a-knockin at my door and how cold and wet and tired in the leg and hungry you was well buddy your ma was awful sorry you was so tired out of and all. I guess I couldn't have tell you how sorry she was, son, not in a week. You took notice how your ma cried whilst you was on that trip, didn't you?

Yes, Mama cried, said Buddy. Yes, she cried, said Peter. And the reason she cried was because she had to take you on that trip, that she didn't know what was to be the end of. That's what she cried for, because she had to let you get all tired and hungry. And you wouldn't want to make your ma cry any more, would you? No, said Buddy simply. Well then, said Peter, clearing his throat, your ma, she has had to go on another trip, unexpected, and she says to me, in a way, so to speak, Uncle Peter, she said, Here's Buddy, and he just can't go with me on this trip, and I want you to take him and, and show him the pigs and...

And cows, Buddy prompted, and horses and turkeys. Why, yes, said Peter Lane. So to speak, that's what she meant, I guess. The horses and turkeys and the things in the world. So she went away. and she wouldn't like to have you fret too much just because she couldn't take you along. All right, said Buddy quite satisfied. Let's go see the pigs and the cows and the turkeys.

For Peter, it was a long day, from the time he carried Buddy on his shoulder to the farmhouse, two miles back on the bluff, to the time he stopped for him at the farmhouse again late in the afternoon and bore him back to the boat with a chunk of jimps. gingerbread in his hand, and the farmer's kind wife standing in the door, wiping her eyes on her blue apron. When Peter had tucked the boy in the bunk and had said good night, he took out his jackknife to shape a wooden spoon. The boy, raising his head, watched him, and Peter, looking up, saw the blue eyes and thought he saw a reproach in them.

"'That's so,' he said. so. I forgot a tea totally last night." He seated himself on the edge of the bunk and leaned over the boy, taking the small hands in his. I don't know if your ma had you say your prayers to her or not, buddy, he said, and I don't rightly remember how that our father goes. So we'll get along the best we can till I go up the farm again and I find out for sure. You just say this after Uncle peter oh god make us all well and happy to-morrow buddy and uncle peter and aunt jane and aunt jane repeated buddy and and and mrs potter said peter and mrs potter said buddy and the pigs and the horses and the cows and the chickens and the turkeys well yes said peter i guess it won't do any harm to put them in, although it ain't customary. They might as well be well and happy as

not. Amen. Uncle Peter, said the boy suddenly. Will Mama come back? Oh, yes, said Peter Lane, in his unpreparedness, and then he opened his mouth again to tell the boy the truth. But he heard the sigh of satisfaction, as Buddy dropped his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. I got to take that lie back tomorrow, said Peter gravely. But he never did take it back. Never.

It stands against him to this day, but it is quite hidden in the heaped up blossoms of his gentle kindness. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. chapter six boogh no s'ry buddy said peter shaking his head my jack-knife is one thing you can't have to play with there's two things a man oughtn't to trust to anybody one's his jackknife and one's his soul he ought to keep both of them nice and sharp and clean if i've been letting my soul get dull and rusty and all nicked up it's no sign i'm goin to let my jackknife get that way what i got to do is to polish up my soul and i guess there ain't no better place to do it than down here where there ain't nobody to bother me whilst i do it

you ain't no idea what a soul is but you will have some day maybe i ain't right sure i know that myself the shanty boat was moored in rap slew and had been there three days the cold weather which continued unabated had sealed the boat in by spreading a sheet of ice over the surface of the slew but peter did not like the way the river was behaving between the new-formed ice and the shore a narrow strip of water appeared faster than the cold could freeze it and the ice that covered the slough cracked now and then in long irregular lines all telling that the river was rising and rising rapidly this meant that the cold snap was merely local and that up the river unseasonably warm weather had brought rains or a great thaw there was no great danger of a long period of high water so late in the season for cold waves were sure to freeze the north soon but the present high water was not only apt to be inconvenient but actually dangerous for the shanty boat a rise of another foot would cover the lowland and if the weather turned warm buddy and peter would be cut off from the hill farms by two miles of water-covered bottom to weigh to which in Peter's thin shoes would be most unpleasant. The danger was that the wind, which now blew steadily toward the Iowa side and downstream,

might force the huge weight of floating ice into the head of the slew, pushing and pressing it against the newly formed slew ice, and crumbling it, cracked and loosened at the edges as it was, and thus pile the whole mass irresistibly against the little shanty-boat. in such an event the boat would either be overwhelmed by one of those great ice hills that pile up when the river ice meets an obstruction or born before the tons of pressure be carried out of the slough with the moving ice and forced down the river for many miles perhaps before peter could work the boat into the clear water and find shelter behind some point the water reached the height of the bank of the slu the third day and Peter made every possible preparation to save the boat should the ice begin to move.

There was not much he could do. He unshipped his small mast and drove a spike in its butt to use as a pike pole, stowed his skiff in a safe place between two large trees on the shore, and saw to the hitch that held the boat that he might cast off promptly if the strain became too great. Peter did not blame himself for the position in which the untimely rise had placed him. The slew would have been a safe place.

Once let the ice firmly seal the slew, any slu, and all the weight of all the floating ice of the whole river could not disturb the boat. When the ice moved out of the river, in the spring, it would pile up in a mountain at the head of the island formed by the slew, choking the entrance, and not until the slew ice softened and rotted and honey-combed, and at last dissolved in the sun could anything move the shanty boat. A big rise in November is rare indeed. "'But I want your jack-knife, Uncle Peter,' said the boy insistently. "'I want to whittle.' "'And I wouldn't give two cents for a boy that didn't want to whittle,' said Peter.

A jackknife is one of the things I've got to get you when I go uptown, and I'll put it right down now. From his clock shelf, still lacking its alarm clock, he took a slip of paper and a pencil stub. It was his list of goods to be bought, and it was growing daily. Coffee, rubber boots for bee, lard, sweater for bee, red one, Bible, soap, Hymn book. Stockings for B. A. B. C. Blocks for B. 60 thread. 82. Under this, he added, jackknife for B, and replaced the list and pencil. He shook his head as he did so. He had 40 cents in his pocket, and the small pile of wooden spoons that represented his trading capital had not increased. Getting settled for the winter had been.

taken most of his time, and while his jackknife was busy each evening, its work was explained by the toys with which Buddy had littered the floor. These were crudely whittled and grotesque animals, a horse, a cow, two pigs, and a cat much larger than the cow, all of clean white maplewood, the beginnings of a complete farm yard. Of them all, Buddy preferred the funny cat, funny cat it was. Peter had his own ideas on the question of when a small boy should go to bed, but Buddy had other ideas, and Peter was not sorry to have the boy playing about the cabin long after normal bedtime. When, on the night of the funeral, it became a matter of plain decency for Buddy to retire, and he wouldn't, Peter had compromised by agreeing to whittle a cat

if Buddy would go to bed like a little soldier as soon as the cat was completed. The result was a very hasty cat. Peter made it with twenty quick motions of his jackknife, which was putting up a job on Buddy. But Buddy was satisfied. The cat had no ears. It might have been a rabbit or a bear, if Peter had chosen to call it so.

It was a most impressionistic cat. But Buddy loved. it. Ho! He laughed, throwing his legs in the air, as was his way when he was much amused. That's a funny cat, Uncle Peter. Make another funny cat. You go to bed, young buddy, said Peter.

I said I'd make you a cat, and you say that's a cat. And you said you'd go to bed, so to bed you go. And to bed buddy went, with the cat. in one hand next to Peter himself buddy loved the cat more than anything in the world he loved to look at the cat it was the sort of cat that left something to the imagination that may be why he liked it children are happiest with the simplest toys in Peter's list of prospective purchases the Bible had been put down because Peter watching Buddy's curly head as it lay beside the cat on the the pillow of the bunk, had suddenly perceived that a child is a tremendous responsibility. Buddy's hair did it. He noticed that Buddy's hair, which had been almost white, had, in the few days Peter had him in charge, turned to a dirty gray. He had not minded Buddy's dirty face and hands.

They were normal to a boy, but the soiled tow hair shamed Peter. Even a mother, like, Like Buddies had kept that hair as it should be, and Peter was shocked to think that he was already letting the boy deteriorate. If this continued, Buddy would soon be no better than himself. A shiftless, as per Mrs. Potter, careless, no-account scrub of a boy. And it made Peter wince. He thought too much of the freckled face and the little towhead to have that happen. It made him downhearted for a minute, but Peter was never despondent long.

If the cold chilled his bones, it suggested a trip to New Orleans or Cuba, and he instantly forgot the cold in building one detail of the trip on another until he had circumnavigated the globe and decided he would go to neither one nor the other but to Patagonia or Peru. If that was the way Buddy's hair looked after a few days under the old Peter, then Peter must turn over so many new leaves, he would be in the second volume. He would be a tramp no more. He would have money and a home and be a respected citizen,

with the black silk watch fob, and go to church. And that suggested the Bible. With soap and the scripture on his list, Peter felt less gills. guilty. The hymn book was a sequential thought. Bibles and hymn books go hand in hand. Peter meant to start Buddy Wright, and he was going to begin with himself. He meant now to be a good man and a prosperous one, perhaps a millionaire. His idea was a little vague, including a shadowy Prince Albertcoat and a silk hat, but he thought a Bible and a hymn book, at least, ought to be in the stock of a man that was going to be what peter meant to be the ab c blocks on the list were to be the cornerstone of buddy's education and on them peter visioned a gilded structure of college and other vague things of culture peter's plans were always dreamlike and all the more beautiful for that reason he was forever about to trap some elusive chinchilla on some unattainable amazon Make a funny cat, Uncle Peter, said Buddy when he was convinced he could not coach the jackknife from Peter. Oh, no, said Peter, you've got one funny cat. I guess one funny cat like that is enough in one family.

Uncle Peter has to keep his eye out to watch if the ice is going to move this morning. He can't make cats. Make a funny dog, said Buddy promptly. "'Well, buddy, if I make you a funny dog,' said Peter, "'will you be a good boy and play with it, and let Uncle Peter get some stovewood aboard the boat?' "'Yes, Uncle Peter,' said Buddy. He had the smile of a cherub and the splendid mendacity of youth.

He would promise anything. Only the most unreasonable expect a boy to keep such promises, but it does the heart good to hear them. Peter took a thin slice of maplewood from his pile and seated himself on his bunk. He held the wood at arm's length until he saw a dog in it, and Buddy leaned against his knee.

Now this is going to be a real funny dog, said Peter, as his keen blade sliced through the wood as easily as a yacht's prow cuts the water. Suppose we put his head up like that, hey? Like he was laughing. at the moon. Two deaf turns of the blade. And we'll have this funny dog a-sitting on his hind legs, eh?

Four swift turns of the knife. That's a funny dog, laughed buddy. Give me the funny dog. Now don't you be so impatient, said Peter. This is going to be a real funny dog if you wait a minute. There now, he's scratching that ear with his paw, and he's ready to shake hands with this one, and— Two or three quick turns of the knife. There he is, cocking his eye up at you,

like he was tickled to death to see you had your face washed this morning without howling no more than you did. Ho! ho! laughed, buddy. That's a funny dog. Now make a funny rabbit, Uncle Peter. No, sirree, buddy, said Peter sternly. you promise to be good if i made a dog so you just sit down and be it when a body makes a promise he'd always ought to keep it if it ain't too inconvenient so you stay right here and don't touch the stove or anything whilst i get in some wood that's my duty and when a man has a duty to do he ought to do it unless something he'd rather do turns up meanwhile peter took his shot gun there was always a chance of a shot at a rabbit he crossed the plank to the shore but there was not much burnable driftwood along the slew

what there was had been frozen in the ice and peter pushed his way up to where the slew made a sharp turn in such places abundant driftwood was thrown against the willows at high water and peter set his gun against a log and filled his arms he was stooping for a last stick when a cotton-tail darted from under the tangled pile and zigzagged into the willow thicket peter dropped his wood and grasped his gun and ran after the rabbit but his foot turned on a slimy log and he went down he had a bad fall for a man just beginning a career of superhuman goodness peter swore quite freely as he sat on the log and hugged his ankle grinning with pain. It relieved his mind, and the rubbing he gave his ankle relieved the pain, and he felt better all through when he put his foot to the ground and tried it. He limped a little, but he grinned too, for he knew Buddy would be amused to see Uncle Peter limping, like Buddy. Buddy could see something funny in anything. Peter limped back to his driftwood, but as he pushed through the leaf,

willows, he dropped his gun and hobbled hastily toward the shanty boat. Forced by the weight of river ice pressing in at the head of the slew, the slew ice was going out, and it was going out rapidly. Already, as far as Peter could see down the slew, the surface was covered with hurrying river ice, borne along by wind and current. In his concern for the shanty boat and buddy, Peter forgot his auntie. ankle he knew well the power of the ice and he fought his way along the shore through the willow thickets fearing at each glimpse to see the shanty-boat crushed against some great water elm and heaped high with ice and fearing still more to see nothing of it whatever once let the shanty boat find the mouth of the slew and pass out into the broad mississippi and he well knew he might have a long fight to overtake it. The boat might travel for days, jammed in the floating ice, before he could reach it,

or it might be crushed against some point, or in some cove. What would then be buddy's fate? What indeed might not be the boy's fate already, if he had been frightened by the grinding of the ice against the boat, by the snapping of the shore cable by the motion of the boat, and had attempted to reach the shore? Peter beat the willow saplings aside with his arms as he tried to make haste, jumping into them and thrusting them aside like a swimmer. In places the water had overflowed the feet of the willows, and through this Peter splashed unheeding. Once, in trying to keep outside the willow fringe, he would have slipped into the slew had he not saved himself by clinging to the bushes, and he was wet to the waist.

Here and there the bank lay a foot or two higher, and there were no willows, but a tangle of dead grapevines impeded him. In other places the shore dipped, and the water stood as deep as Peter's knees, and he crashed through the thin ice into icy water. He did not dare venture back from the shore lest he passed the shanty boat,

stranded against some tree. Cold as the air was, the sweat ran from Peter's face, and he panted for breath. To pass leisurely along the bank of such a slew is strenuous work, but to fight along it as Peter was fighting is real man's work, and Peter, thin, delicate as he looked, was all iron and leather. For a mile and a half he worked his way, until he reached a great sycamore known to all the duck hunters as the big tree below the big tree the slew widened into a broad expanse of water known as big tree lake

peter stopped short in the middle of the lake knee deep in water and holding fast to a worn imitation leather valise from which the water was dripping stood a man the shanty boat thrown out of the main current had been pushed into shallow water where it had grounded unharmed and it was for the shanty boat the man with the valise was making swearing heartily each time he took a new step in the icy water peter yelled and the man turned and looked back at the first glimpse of the face peter picked up a stout slab of driftwood the man wore the ragged remnant of a felt hat on a mass of iron-gray hair that hung over his beady eyes and all his face but his eyes and a round red nubbin of a nose was hidden by a mat of brown beard when he saw peter he scowled and splashed recklessly toward the boat swearing as he went the western side of the lake was overgrown with wild rice a favorite friend feeding spot for the migrating ducks. Indeed, the entire lake was apt to disappear during very low water, leaving only sun-baked mud, with a slew running along the eastern margin. Through the shallow ice-topped water, Peter splashed after the tramp, breaking the ice as he

went. Until he was well out in the lake, the ice had not been broken, and Peter could not understand this. It was as if the tramp had jumped a hundred yards from the shore. But Peter did not give it much thought. He had something more important to think of. The tramp had reached the shanty boat and had clambered aboard, and with the pike pole Peter had left lying on the roof, was trying frantically to pull the boat off the bar into deeper water. A boat adrift is anyone's boat if he can keep it. and once the boat swung clear of the bar into deeper water, the tramp could laugh at Peter. He rammed the pike-pole into the sand-bar and threw his weight upon it,

straining and jumping up and down while Peter splashed toward him. But the boat would not budge. The pike-pole found no grip in the soft sand of the bar, and Peter came nearer, holding up one arm to protect his head. He expected the tramp to strike him down with the heavy pike pole, and he was ready to make a fight for it. But as Peter's hand touched the deck, the tramp put down a hand to help him aboard.

All right, partner, he said in a voice so gruff it seemed to come from great depths. I'll give you half the vessel. I've been dying for company since I come aboard. It's lonely on this yacht. Peter grinned a grin he had when he was angry, that made his face wrinkle like a wolf's. "'This is my boat,' he said briefly, and threw open the door. Buddy sat on the floor as Peter had left him, playing with a funny dog. As Peter entered, he looked up.

"'My funny dog ain't got no tail, Uncle Peter,' he said. "'Yes, he has, buddy.' said Peter with a great sigh of relief. He's got a tail, but you can't see it because he's sitting on it. But Buddy was looking past Peter at the tramp. The man, his thumbs in the torn armholes of his coat, his head on one side, one leg raised in the air, was making faces, said Buddy.

As Peter turned, the tramp put the toe of his boot through the handle of his valise and raised, it tossing it in the air with his foot buddy laughed with glee that's a funny man uncle peter he said who's him the tramp stepped aside and put his wet valise on the floor then he took off his hat and laid it across his breast and bowed low to buddy your royal highness he said gravely i am knowed from near to far as the a no less talented stranger who came out of the east and got his permanent setback in the booze. Can you say that? Buddy laughed. Booge, he said.

That's a funny name. Peter stood with one hand on the door and the tramps dripping valise in the other. But it was evident booze did not mean to accept Peter's attitude as an invitation to depart. He went inside and seated himself on the edge of the bunk and pulled off first one wet boot and then the other. He paid no attention to pete or whatever, but from time to time he screwed up his hairy face and winked at the boy. "'My name's buddy,' said Buddy.

"'Buddy?' queried Bouge. "'That's a bully name for a little feller. first the bud and then the flower and then the apple green and sour peter had never seen a tramp just like he had seen tramps as dirty and as ragged and as hairy but he had never seen one that little boys did not fear and it was plain that buddy was captivated by booge's good nature but a tramp was a tramp no matter how captivating and a tramp was no companion for a boy who was to grow up to be a bank president or goodness knows what of respectability he hardened his heart booges continued to buddy you didn't know i was a teacher did you oh yes indeed i'm an educated feller and i figured to teach you but it seems some folks want you to grow up just as ignorant as possible oh yes peter hesitated at any rate there was no need of making the fellow walk through the ice-covered lake again what can you teach him he asked well there's soprano rumbled bouge i can teach him soprano that's a good thing for a young fellow to know

soprano or alto just as you say or bass i can teach bass if the board is good how is the board on board peter ignored the question he was trying to guess what sort of strange creature this was. Well, if it's as good as you say, said Bouges, I'll teach him all three. That's liberal. I'll give you a sample of my singing. You don't need to, said Peter. When I want any singing, I'll do my own.

Well, since you urge it that way, said Bouges, I can't refuse. And tapping his bare foot on the floor, he sent. He found, somewhere in his head, a high, squeaky falsetto. It seemed to dwell in his nose. He sang, Go wash the little baby, the baby, the baby, go wash the little baby, and give it toast and tea.

Go wash the little baby, the baby, the baby. Go wash the little baby and bring it back to me. He let the last word drone out long. and thin, and as it droned, he made faces at Buddy, screwing up his eyes, wriggling his nose, and waggling his chin. "'Sing it again, bouged, Bouged, cried Buddy enthusiastically. "'Sing it again!' The tramp arose and bowed gravely, first to Buddy and then to the frowning Peter.

"'That's enough of that,' said Peter. "'Sing it again. sing it again bouge commanded buddy and the tramp standing with his hand inside his coat sang in the deepest bass don't swear before the baby the baby the baby don't swear before the baby or cheat or steal or lie don't swear before the baby the baby the baby don't swear before the baby but give it apple pie now laugh shouted buddy ha ha ha ha said bouges exactly as it is printed i want your face to laugh ordered buddy boge screwed up his thin face and buddy looked and was satisfied boge was satisfied too he knew buddy was boss of the boat now and he knew he stood well with buddy end of chapter six chapter seven of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler this libervox recording is in the public domain chapter seven rivals thundering cats cried peter with exasperation when the trampid ha haed and grinned through two more verses of the idiotic song i've got to go outside and tend to this boat

you play with your toys a minute now buddy said bouge as soon as peter was outside my voice is such a delicate voice i got to rest it between songs or it's liable to get sick and die away for good you wait till i rest it and i'll sing about that funny dog you've got there if you remember to ask me he took his few belongings from the valise and hung them before the fire and then crawling into the bunk settled himself comfortably and went to sleep when peter came in a minute later with feet and legs chilled booge was snoring get up here said peter shaking him you better not wake up booge uncle peter said buddy he's got to get his voice rested up you get up and get your boots on quick and come out here and help me peter commanded the tramp we got to get this boat afloat quick or we'll be here all winter all right captain kidd said booge cheerfully and you remember to ask me to sing you that song about the funny dog he told buddy the slew was now free from floating river ice but peter noticed that the wind was still from the east this should have kept the ice running through the slew he knew the ice must have jammed at the head head of the slew and that it might act as a dam lowering the water in the slu enough to make it impossible to move the boat he was working at the pike pole but with poor success and when booge came out their combined effort seemed to accomplish no more but peter knew the boat must be moved and long after bouch wanted to give it up as a bad job peter made him labor at the pole

by standing on the landward edge of the deck and jogging the boat as they pushed on the pole they succeeded in inching the shanty boat toward deeper water and at length she floated free and swung down the current where the lake narrowed and ended peter ran the boat against the shore letting her rest against a fallen tree it was a precarious position and one in which it would not be safe to leave the boat if the river ice ran again, but just above this, where the lake widened, Peter saw a safe harbor. Fifty feet out from the southern shore of the lake, a bar had formed, and between the bar and the shore, there was deep water enough to float the boat. To break the ice of this cove, warp the boat around the point, and into this snug harbor was Peter's intention. His only cable had snapped close to the boat when she broke away, and he made Bouges hold the bow of the boat close against the bank,

while he hastily twisted a makeshift rope of trot lines, hooks and all. With Bouges on the shore dragging the rope end, and Peter breaking the ice with his pike-pole from the deck, and pushing with the pole, the shanty boat moved slowly out of the current of the slew and into the quiet water, where, as the river fell, it would be stranded with its hull in the mud, as safe from danger as if on top of one of the hills two miles back from the slew. It was hard work, the hardest Bouges had tackled for years,

and it consumed the balance of the day. When the two men went inside, Peter did not complain when Bouges threw himself on the bunk. If Bouges imagined he had won an easy and permanent victory, leading to a life of listless ease, he misestimated Buddy and Peter. Buddy alone could have kept him busy, but Peter let Bouges know immediately that if he was to stay even a day, he must earn his food in lodging. The Tramp was an odd combination of good nature and laziness, of good intentions and poor fulfillments. he could twang a banjo when he had one to twang and his present low estate was due to the untimely end of the career of a medicine show one of those numerous half vaudeville half peddling aggregations that at that time filled the country charging a dime for admission to the show and a dollar a bottle for the remedy out of the hidden past bougie had dropped into the position of general rostibout for the show for the show

caring for the tent, doing a banjo turn when the artist went on his regular spree, and driving the wagon when the show moved from town to town. When the final catastrophe came, Bouges sold his banjo and started on the trail of another medicine show. It fled as he advanced and his garments decayed, were replaced with cast-off clothes, until he awoke one morning with a sharp realization that he was no longer a specialist seeking a position, but a common everyday tramp. It did not annoy him at all. Being a tramp had advantages.

He accepted it as its ultimate destiny. Caught near riverbank by the cold weather, he recalled Lone Tree Lake, where the duck hunters usually had a shack or a shanty boat, vacant at this season, and he left the main road only to find nothing but the scant shelter of the duck-blind. Peter's boat, when it appeared, had seemed a gift from the gods. The shore against which the boat now lay was a thicket of willows,

so close of growth that it was almost impossible to fight through them. And while most were no larger than whips, some were as large as a man's wrist. Against the low bank the boat lay broad. broadside, and so close that the willow branches reached over her roof, and as soon as Bouges had brought his valise inside, Peter reached far under the bunk and brought forth an axe. Now Bouges ain't going to have time to sing songs to you daytimes, buddy, because everybody that lives in this boat has work to do, said Peter. And as I've got to make some spoons, Bouges is going to take this axe and clear away a path through the willows. and you want to cut them off close down to the roots he warned booge or you'll have to do it over again you cut a path from the front door through that willow clump so we can pass in and out and get firewood and when you've got the path you can fetch the firewood i'm going to stay in to-day and make spoons booge took the axe and looked at it quizzically

well if this ain't my old friend wood splitter i've been dodging for years and years he said good-naturedly how do wood splitter how's your cousin buck saw is all the little buck saws well you better get at them willows said peter i just wanted to inquire about them old friends of mine said bouges you'll have time enough to talk to mr wittes you'll have time enough to talk to mr wood axe before you get done with him, said Peter dryly, and Booge laughed and went out. That evening, when Buddy was in bed, Peter put down his jackknife long enough to scribble down the new variations of The Tell the Little Baby Song. Write in a book, Booge asked. Writing home to my folks to tell them how much I'm enjoying your visit, Peter said, and how sorry I am you've got to be moving along in a day or so.

But Booge did not move along. After Peter had ostentatiously bathed once or twice, Bouges became painfully clean. He would come in from the jobs Peter set him and wash his face and hands violently. You're getting as clean as them fellows that get five dollars worth of baths at the YMCA, ain't you? Peter said scornfully.

A feller can get lots of things at the YMCA for five dollars that he can't get without it, said Booge good-naturedly. You don't want to knock me all the time, Peter. A horse crops grass one way and a cow crops at another way, and the Lord is the maker of them all, as the feller said. So long as a man has a clean conscience and a clear eye, he can walk right up to any bull alive, if they're a man. the bull wants to let him. I'm glad you got a clean conscience, said Peter. Maybe that's why you don't worry. If you feed a pig regular, it don't ask to be petted, said Bouges, and that's the way with me.

But you ought to give me some credit for the way I pitched in and labored in this here driftwood vineyard when you said to. I bet the prodigal son hated to get down to work after his paws park. party, and yet he got to be quite a respected feller in his neighborhood. You oughtn't to think a man can't work because he don't. There's lots of fellers never seen the sea that has eat salt codfish. I guess you read that in a book, said Peter. I guess not, said Bouged. I never read but one book in my life.

I read the Bible, unexpergated edition. when I was a kid, and it sort of cured me of book-reading. There ain't hardly a comfortable word in it for an easy-going man. If the Bible had been published today, it would have got some mighty severe criticism. Booge, said Peter suddenly. How'd you ever happen to become a tramp? How'd you ever happen to become a shanty boatman? asked Boge, grinning. But Peter was serious. i guess you're right about that he said i hadn't ought to object to what you are when i'm what i am i just let myself slide was how i had bad lungs was what was the matter with me when i was a kid so my pa bought me a farm and put a man on it to run it for me and i just fooled around and tried to get husky and stout and by the time i was old enough to run the farm father busted

and then a certain circumstances took the farm from me and i took to the river it seemed like me and the river was old friends from ever so far back so i stuck to it and it stuck to me and that's the story just run down hill commented bouge cheerfully it's funny ain't it that water's about the only thing that don't get blamed for running down hill you and the one thing that don't get blamed for running down hill you and the one the river sort of run down together. What started me with something just about as common as lungs. It was wives. Yes, sir, plain wives. Don't mean to say you had two of them, asked Peter. Almost, said Boge. I had one half of that many. I'm a naturally happy man, and I've had all sorts of ups and downs, and as near as I can make out, I'm a man can be happy in most any circumstances, except where he don't give his wife the clothes she

wants. My notion of hell is a place where a man has fifty wives and no money to buy clothes for him. My wife got to go and through my pockets every night for money to buy clothes, so I skipped out. You don't mean to say a woman would rob a man's pockets whilst he was asleep, asked Peter. Was that what she done? Took money from them? No, the trouble was she didn't find no money to take, said Booge. Light on money and strong on breath was what was my trouble. He made an expressive drinking motion with his hand. Booze, he said.

Booze done it. You ought to quit it, Peter said. You don't seem like a common tramp. i wouldn't let you stay here if you was look at the harm booze done you look at what had done when you went to sleep in that duck-blind that's so agreed booge i've got me a good shanty boat to sleep in and three square meals a day and a place to practice my voice in but i suppose you mean it got me where i have to listen to temperance lectures from you that was sort of hard on peter although he would not have admitted it he was growing fond of the careless happy-go-lucky tramp booge had a fund of rough philosophy and more than all else he was good to buddy and had not peter resolved to be a different man himself on buddy's account he would have liked nothing better than to have bougie make his winter home in the shanty-boat but he felt that bouges must go the trouble was to drive him away bouges would not drive and peter thought of a hundred quite impossible schemes for getting rid of him before he hit on the one he finally decided to put into effect

he had noticed that the farmer on the hill back of the lake where buddy had spent the day of his mother's funeral had a huge pile of cord wood in his yard and he tramped across the lowland to the farmer's house and dickered for the sawing of his funeral had a huge pile of cordwood in his yard and he tramped across the lowland to the farmer's house and dickered for the sawing of the sawing of the wood. It was a large contract, and Peter, as a rule, did not care to saw wood except in dire straits, but he had decided that if he was to be a man of worth, he must be a man of work to begin with, and the woodpile was opportunity. It was while walking home after making his bargain with his farmer friend that he had his happy idea. Bouges must saw wood. His food supply would be cut off otherwise. He explained it to Booge that evening. Here they were in the shanty boat, Peter explained,

the two of them and Buddy, all eating from the common store of food, and that store dwindling daily. Buddy could not work, but Peter could. And Bouge must. Then he explained about the pile of wood, a good winter's work for the two of them. booze listened in silence he was silent for several minutes after peter ceased talking and then he grinned the man that says he wouldn't rather find a silver dollar in the road than earn five dollars a workin is like that man that got killed with a thunderbolt for careless conversation he said cheerfully so i won't say it woodson and me has been enemies ever since i became a tourist i guess i'll have to go

i bet you would said peter yes said bouges i'll have to go up to that farmer's and saw wood his eyes twinkled as he saw peter's face fall and he was as good as his word the two men taking turns carrying buddy or leading him by the hand walked across the snow-covered bottom to the farm the next morning and while bougge did not overexert himself he at least sawed wood he sought enough to prevent any unduly harsh criticism from peter for buddy the trips were pleasant jaunt he was able to play all day with the farmer's little daughter just enough older than he to hold her own against his imperious little will and bouge might have developed into an excellent sawer of wood but one morning the little girl did not come out to play with buddy she was sick and in due time she was sick and in due time and Buddy became sick, too. Plain simple measles. Now then, said Peter, when one morning he awakened to find Buddy's face covered with the red spots and the boy complaining, One of us has got to stay here in the boat and take care of Buddy.

You'd better stay, said Booge promptly. You stay, Peter, and I'll go on up and saw wood. I'm getting quite fond of it. Peter hesitated. He ran his hand over the boy's whitehead lovingly. Who do you want to stay with you, Buddy? he asked. I don't care, Uncle Peter, said Buddy listlessly. It was a full minute before Peter took his hand from Buddy's curls.

I guess you'd better stay, Bouges, he said then. You can sing what he likes better than I can. well if you think i can amuse him better than you can i'll stay peter said bouged reluctantly if he seems to hanker for you i'll fire the shotgun and you can come to him so one of these two men went to his work and the other seated himself on the floor of the cabin with his back against the wall and sang go tell the little baby the baby the baby through his nose and made faces to amuse a freckle-faced little boy with a very light attack of the measles end of chapter seven chapter eight of the jack-knife man by ellis parker butler this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter eight peter gives warning the weather turned extremely cold peter came back from his wood-sawing one evening and found buddy astride a rocking-horse the table was on top of the bunk to make room for the horse, and Bouged in one of the blankets, was playing the part of a badly scared Indian, after whom Buddy was riding in violent chase.

For a week, Buddy had been well, but Bouges managed to make Peter think he could still see spots on the boy. Bouges had no desire to begin sawing wood again. It was much pleasanter in the shanty boat with Buddy. The rocking horse was the oddest looking horse that ever cantered. Among the driftwood, Bouges had found the remains of an old rocking chair, and on the rockers he had mounted four willow legs, with the bark still on them, and on these a section of log for the body.

With his axe he had cut out a rough semblance of a head and neck from a pine board. The tail and mane were sain twine. but Buddy thought it was a great horse. "'Looks like you was a great sculptist, don't it?' said Peter, jealously, as he stood watching Buddy riding recklessly over the prairies of the shanty-boat floor. "'So that's why you've been trying to make me think freckles was measles. It's a pity you didn't have a saw to work with,' Booge looked at Peter suspiciously. "'I guess maybe by tomorrow I can find one for you,' continued Peter.

I saw a right good one up at the farm, and quite a lot of cordwood to practice on. "'If you ain't just like a mind-reader, Peter,' exclaimed Bouge, "'you must have known I've been hankering to get back there at that pleasant occupation. But I hated to ask you. You're so dumb jealous of everything. It's been so long since you've invited me to saw wood, I was beginning to think you wanted a whole job for yourself. you won't have to hanker to-morrow said peter dryly to-morrow now ain't that too bad said bouges to-morrow's just the one day i can't saw wood i've been hired for the day uncle buggs is goin to make me a wagon said buddy uncle buggs is going to take you up to the farm while he saws wood declared peter

uncle peter will make you a wagon later on buddy i want uncle buggie to make me a wagon to-morrow buddy insisted he said he would make me a wagon to-morrow with wheels and a seed into it added bouges all right said peter with irritation stay here and make a wagon then but that night when buddy was in the bunk and asleep peter had a word for buggie had a word for buggins but he had a word for borkman but he was in the bunk and asleep peter had a word for bouch. I don't want to hasten you any buge, he said, trimming the handle of a wooden spoon with great care as he spoke. But day after tomorrow, you'll have to pack your valise and get out of here. I don't want to seem inhospitable or anything, but when a visitor gets permission to stay overnight to dry his boots and then camps down and loafs and stays half the winter and makes wagons and horses there ain't no room for in the boat. He's done about all the sting he's entitled to.

Buddy's been asking to have me go again, said Bouges. No, he ain't, answered Peter. He caught the twinkle in Bouges' eye and stopped. Let's wake buddy up and ask him, said Bouges. Buddy ain't got anything to say on this matter. said Peter firmly. And I ain't sending you away because you're trying to play off from doing your share of wood-sawing either. I'm buddy's uncle, and I've got to look out for how he's raised, and I don't want him raised by no tramp, and that's how he's being raised. Every day I think I'll chase you out to saw wood, and every day you come it over me somehow, and I go, and you don't.

i don't know how you do it but you're smart enough to make a fool of me that's why you got to go is it asked beauch placidly i thought it was because he was jealous of me yep that's what i was just thinking he's jealous and he don't care nothin for what buddy likes or wants or nothing of the sort said peter indignantly you ain't no sort of example to to set the boy. I heard you swear this morning when Buddy stuck a fork into you to wake you up. No man that uses words like you used is the sort of man I want Buddy to be with. Booge grinned. There was no use in rebutting such an accusation. Indeed, he felt he had no call to argue with Peter. Day after tomorrow was a distant future for a man who had lately lived from one meal to the next. Booge believed Buddy would be the final dictator in the matter,

and he was sure of Buddy now. So I guess you'll have to go, continued Peter. For a tramp, you ain't been so bad, but it crops out on you every once in a while, and it's liable to crop out strong any time. If it wasn't for the boy, I'd let you stay until the ice goes out. I'd got just about to the point where I wasn't no better than a tramp myself, but when—but I've changed, and I'm going to change more."

Booge nodded an assent. "'I can almost notice a change myself,' he said. But the way you're going to change ain't a marker to the way I'm going to change. I've been planning what I'd change into ever since I come here. I ain't quite decided whether to be an angel cherub like you or a bank president. I sort of lean to being a bank president. Whiskers look better on a bank president than on an angel cherub. But if you think I'd better be an angel cherub, I'll shave up and make a stab at...

You might as well be serious. My mind's made up, said Peter coldly. You've got to go. "'Suppose,' said Bouges slowly. "'I was to withdraw out of this here uncle competition "'and leave it all to you. "'Suppose I let on I lost my singing voice.' "'No use,' said Peter firmly. "'My mind settled on that question.

"'The longer you stay, the harder it'll be to get you to go. "'I'm given you till day after tomorrow "'because I've got to go up to town tomorrow. We're shy on food. If it wasn't for that, I'd start you off tomorrow. Now, suppose I stop being Uncle Booge. Say I start being Grandpa Boge, or Aunt Boge, proposed Boge gravely. I'll get a gingham apron and a calicoed dress.

You'll get nothing but out, said Peter firmly. You'll be nothing but away from here. The trip to town had become absolutely necessary. Peter had drawn ten dollars from the farmer, and he had some spoons ready for sale. The farmer was going to town, and Peter had at first decided to take Buddy with him, but the spoon-pedaling excursion would, he feared,

tire the boy too much, and he ended by planning to let Booge and Buddy stay in the shanty boat. It was an index to Peter's change opinion of the tramp that he felt reasonably safe in leaving buddy in booge's care for one thing boge was sure to stay with the boat as long as food held out and work was not too pressing the river had closed and the boat was solidly frozen in the slew there was no possibility of boge's floating away in it i won't be back until late said peter the next morning as he pinned his thin coat close about his neck. And as possible I won't get my spoons all sold out today.

If I don't, I'll stay all night with a friend uptown and get back somewhere tomorrow. And you take good care of buddy, for if anything happens to him, I'll hunt you up, no matter where you are, and make you wish it hadn't. Unless this horse runs away with him, there ain't nothing to happen, said Booge. You needn't worry. And, buddy, if you were a good boy and let Bouge put you to bed, if I don't get back, Uncle Peter will bring you something you've been wanting this long while. I know what you're going to bring me, said Buddy.

I bet you do, you little rascal, said Peter, thinking of the jackknife. We both of us know, don't we? Goodbye, buddy boy. He picked up the... boy and kissed him. You don't know what Uncle Peter is going to bring me, Uncle Bouges, said Buddy joyfully when Peter was gone. No, sir, said Bouges. No, sir, repeated Buddy, because I know. Uncle Peter's going to bring me back my mama.

End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. this livervox recording is in the public domain chapter nine a violent incident booge waited until he knew peter was well on his way then he took buddy on his knee where is your ma buddy he asked mamma went away said buddy vaguely did she go away from this boat yes let's make a wagon uncle bugee but booge was not ready he considered his next question carefully we'll make that wagon right soon he said was uncle peter your pa before your ma went away i don't know said buddy indefinitely you'd ought to know whether he was or not said bouch didn't you call uncle peter pa or papa or daddy or something like that no said buddy you said you'd make a wagon uncle bouch right away said bouch what did you call uncle peter before your ma went away buddy the child looked at bouges in surprise why course i didn't call him at all he said as if bose should have known as much he wasn't my uncle peter then your ma just sort of stayed around the boat did she no my mamma come to the boat and i come to the boat and my mamma went away but uncle peter and buddy didn't not go away i want to make a wagon uncle bouch

just one minute and we'll make that wagon buddy said booge i just want to get this all straight first what did your ma do when she came to the boat mamma cried said buddy i bet you said bouch and what did your ma do then buddy mamma hit uncle peter said buddy and mamma went away and uncle peter floated the boat and i floated the boat and i steered the boat and your ma left you with uncle peter when she went away said what was your ma's name buddy was it lane it was mamma said buddy but what was your name insisted bougge what did you say your name was when anybody said what's your name little boy buddy said the boy buddy what urged boge mamma's buddy for five minutes more he questioned the boy while buddy grew more and more impatient to be at the wagon making of buddy's past peter had of course never told booge a word but the tramp had his own idea of it he felt that peter was no ordinary shanty boat man and he imputed peter's silence regarding the boy's past and parentage to a desire on peter's part to shake himself free from the past why was peter continually telling that he had begun a more respectable life peter's wife might have been one of the low shanty-boat women a shiffless mother and a worse than shiftless wife

running away from peter only to bring back the boy when he became a burden taking what money peter had and going away again possibly peter had never been married to the woman in digging into buddy's memories buggish hoped to find find some thread that would give him a hold on peter however slight. Booge liked the comfortable boat, but deeper than his love of idleness, had grown an affection for the cheerful boy and for simple-minded Peter. If Peter had chosen this out-of-the-way slew for his winter harbor, when shanty-boat people usually came nearer the towns, in order that he might keep himself in hiding from the troublesome wife, veiling himself and the the boy from discovery by giving out that he and buddy were uncle and nephew it was no more than boge would have done i suppose when your ma come to the boat she slept in the bunk didn't she asked

yes uncle boge said buddy i want you to make a wagon all right beau said boge gleefully come ahead and make a wagon and when uncle peuge peter comes back we'll have a nice surprise for him we'll shout out at him when he comes in hello papa and just see what he says that'll be fun won't it bouch worked on the wagon all morning toward noon he made a meal for himself and buddy and set to work on the wagon again he had found a canned corn box that did well enough for the body and he chopped out wheels as well as he could with the axe. He wished by the time he had completed one wheel that he had told Buddy it was to be a sled rather than a wagon, but he could not persuade the boy that a sled would be better, and he had to keep on. He worked on the clean ice before the shanty boat, and he was deep in his work when Buddy asked a question. Who is that man, Uncle Boge? he asked.

Boge glanced up quickly. Across the ice, from the direction of the road, a man was coming. He was well wrapped in overcoat and cap, and he advanced steadily, without haste. Booge leaned on his axe and waited. When the man was quite near, Boge said, Hello! Good afternoon, said the stranger. Are you Peter Lane?

Bouges' little eyes studied the stranger, sharply the man for all the bulk given him by his ulster and cap had a small sharp face and his eyes were shrewd and shifty maybe i am rumbled bouge crossing his legs and putting one hand on his hip and one on his forehead and maybe i ain't let me recall now if i was peter lane what might you want of me the stranger smiled ingratiatingly and cleared his throat my my name he said slowly is briggles reverend rassner brignals of derlingport my duty here is i may say one that if you are peter lane should give you some cause only for satisfaction extreme satisfaction yes boge was watching the reverend mr briggles closely i bet that so he said i sort of recall now that i am peter lane and i don't know when i've had any extreme satisfaction i'll be glad to have some yes said mr briggles rather doubtfully yes i am the president of the child rescue society an organization incorporated to rescue ill-cared-for children placing them in good homes buddy said booze roughly you go into that boat and you stay there understand the child did as he was told

boge's tone was one that he had never heard the tramp use and it frightened him it has come to my attention said mr briggles that there is a child here you will admit this is no place for a tender little child. You may do your best for him, but the influence of a good home must be sadly lacking in such a place. In fact, I have an order from the court. He began unbuttoning his ulster. I bet you have, said Bougedly. Genially. So, if you want to, you can sit right down on that bank there and read it. And if it's in poetry, you can sing it. And if you can't sing, and you hang around here for half an hour, I'll come out and sing it for you. Just now I've got to go in and sing my scales. He boosted himself to the deck of the shanty boat and went inside, closing and locking the door.

In a moment, Mr. Briggles, out in the cold, heard Booge burst into song. Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby, go tell the little baby he can't go out to-day. day. Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby, go tell the little baby, old Briggles needn't stay. Mr. Briggle stood holding the court order in his hand. Armed with the law, he had every advantage on his side. He clambered up the bank and stepped to the deck of the shanty boat. He rapped sharply on the door. Mr. Lane, open this door, he ordered. the door opened with unexpected suddenness and bouch threw his arms around mr briggles and lifted him from his feet he drew him forward as if to hug him and then with a mighty out-thrust of his arms cast him bodily off the deck mr briggs fell full on the newly constructed wagon and there was a crash of breaking wood bouch came to the edge of the deck and looked down at him

the man was wedged into the rough wagon box his feet and legs hanging over he was bleeding at the nose and his face was rather scratched it was white with fear or anger boge laughed i owed you that he rumbled i owed you that since the day you married me and now i'll give you what i owe you for comin after this boy he jumped down from the deck and mr briggle struggled to release himself from the wagon box he was caught fast he kicked violently and bouch grinned if he had intended punishing the interloper further he changed his mind the lake lay wide and smooth with only a pile of snow here and there and bouss grasped the damaged wagon and pushed it like a sled It slid along on its broken wheels, and Booge ran, gathering speed as he ran, until, with a last push, he sent the wagon and Mr. Briggles skimming alone over the glassy surface of the lake toward the road. Then he went into the shanty boat and closed and locked the door. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of The Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10. Peter hears news. Peter reached town about noon and set about his peddling at once, going to the better residential sections, where his spoons were in demand, and so successful was he that by three o'clock he had but a few left to trade at the grocer's. He made his purchases with great care, for his list had, grown large in spite of the refilling of his larder from time to time through the errands in town done for him by the farmer. He bought the Bible and the ABC blocks and a red sweater, stockings for Buddy and socks for himself, and the provisions he needed, and a bright new jackknife

for Buddy. All these he tied in a big gunny sack except the knife, slung the sack over his shoulders and went down to report to George Rapp, stopping at the post office where he asked for mail. The clerk handed him, among the circulars and other advertising matters, a letter. Peter turned the letter over and over in his hand. He had a sister, but this letter was not from her. It was addressed in pencil and bore the local postmark. Peter held it to the light, playing with the mystery as a cat-plank. with a mouse, and finally opened it. It was from Mrs. Potter.

"'Now I know all about you, Peter Lane,' it ran, and not much good, I must say, although I might have expected it, and I am much surprised, and such shiftlessness, and you might have let me know that woman was sick, for I am not a heathen, whatever you may think. I want you to come and get your clock out of my sight, and if you have time to to saw me some wood, I will pay cash." Mrs. Potter. Peter folded the letter slowly and put it in his pocket. He knew very well the widow had no cause to single him out to saw her wood,

and that she would not be apt to write him for that reason, however much he might underscore cash. That she should write him about the clock was not sufficient excuse for a letter. There was no reason why she should write to him at all, unless the underscoring of that woman meant she had heard how he had taken the woman and her boy in and it had given her a better opinion of him. If that was so, Peter meant to keep far from Mrs. Potter.

He began to fear George Rapp might be right and that the woman had an eye on him, a matrimonial eye. When widows begin writing letters. When Peter entered George Rapp's livery stable, Rapp was superintending the harnessing of a colt. Hello, he called heartily. How's Peter? How's the boat?

Friend of yours was just inquiring for you in here. Friend from up the river road. She, who was? You guess it, laughed Rapp. Widow Potter. Say, why didn't you tell me you were married? Me? to widow Potter, cried Peter, aghast.

I never in my life married her, George. Oh, not her, said Rapp. Not her yet, the other woman. You with a boy, three or four years old, posing around as a goody-goody-batter. But that's the way with you, two good fellows. Hope you can keep your little son. My son? stammered Peter.

But he's not my son, not my own son. Gee whiz, is that so? said Rapp with surprise. She was that bad, was she? Well, it does you all the more credit, taking him to raise. Anybody else would have sent him to the poor farm or to old snoozer briggles. You beat anything I ever seen,

with your wives nobody else. ever guessed you had, and your sons that ain't your sons, what makes you act so mysterious? Peter put his gunny sack on the floor. I don't know what you're talking about, George, he said. What is it you think you know? I think I know all about it, said Rapp, laughingly. Come into the office. What a man in the livery stable don't hear ain't worth finding out. I know your wife come back to you at the shanty boat, Peter, when she was sick and played out, and hadn't nowhere else to go, and I know you took her in and got a doctor for her, and I know she brought along her boy, which you say ain't your son.

And I know you sold me your boat so you could take her down river and bury her decent, just as if she hadn't ever run off from you. Who said she was my wife? who said she run off from me asked peter you tell me that george why widow potter said so said rap everybody knows about it there was a piece in the paper about it the doc you had up there told it all around town i guess and widow potter is so interested she can't sit still she's just naturally bothering the life out of me she says she's buying the life out of me she says she's buying a horse from me but that's all gee whiz anyway she's dropped in to look at a colt near every day lately and sort of inquires if you've been up to town she says she can understand a lot of things she couldn't be for she says she can forgive you a lot of things now she knows what kind of a wife you had she says it's some excuse for being shiftless she's anxious to see you people Peter. "'She ain't in town now, is she?' asked Peter, nervously. "'You didn't tell her I was likely to stop in here.'

"'I just naturally had to tell her something,' Rapp said. "'She's plumb crazy. She says she's willing to let bygones be bygones, that it's all as plain as day to her now.' "'All what?' asked poor Peter. "'Why, all?' said rap everything the whole business why you didn't marry her long ago i reckon she didn't say so in that many words but she spoke about how curious it was a man could hang around a woman year in and year out and saw three times as much wood for her as need be and take any sort of tongue lashing as meek as moses and look kind of marriage-like and not do it she said a woman could not do it she said a woman couldn't understand that sort of thing but it was easy to understand when she knew you had a wife somewhere she said she's sorry for your loss and she'd like you to come right up and see her

rap lay back in his chair and laughed did she honestly say that asked peter very white did she said rap you ought to hear what she said she and me trying to hear what she said to sell her that bay colt of mine all the time good withers on this animal mrs potter well he may be considered worthless by some says she but i've studied him many a year and the whole trouble is he's too good and he's a speedy colt speedy but strong says i having a wife like that is what did it says she for a wife like that chasens a man too much but i guess he'll be more human now he's gone and look after his own rights want the colt i says and she just stared at the animal without seeing him and says for my part i'd enjoy having a small boy around the house did she say that asked peter she didn't say that asked peter she didn't didn't say that i never told anything nearer the truth rap assured him she said that she believed now that you are a hopeful proper person to raise a small boy but that if briggles was bound to take the boy she briggles asked peter breathlessly who is briggles what has he got to do with it don't you know who briggles is briggles is asked rap with real surprise he used to be a reverent but he got kicked out i hearsay he hires a team now and again to take a child out in the country what does he take children to the country for to put them in families rap explained and he told peter how mr briggles hunted up children for the society he had organized how he collected money and spent the money and put the children in any family that would take them

and paid himself twenty dollars a child for doing it charging mileage and expense extra last time he come down here he had a nice little girl from derlingport said rap her name was susy he put her with a woman named crink susy susy what asked peter i don't know but i felt sorry for her he might as well have put her in hell as with that crink woman he'll probably get twenty dollars by and by for taking her out and putting her somewhere else if they don't work her to death it's god's help the little children but give me the money so for for taking her out and putting her somewhere else if they don't work her to death it's god's help the little children but give me the money so for far as I see. He gets an order from the court, just like he did in your case. Peter had let himself drop into a chair, as Rap talked, but now he leaped from it. What's that? He ain't after Buddy, he cried aghast. He drove down today, said Rap. I told him, but Peter was gone. He slammed the office door so hard, that one of the small panes of glass clattered tinkingly to the floor he slung his gunny sack over his shoulder and was dog-trotting down the incline into the street before george rap could get to his feet for rap was never hasty

along the street toward the feed yard where his farmer friend had put up his team peter ran the heavy sack swinging from side to side over his shoulder and almost swinging him off his side feet. He had spent more time at wraps than he had intended, but he met the farmer driving out of the feed yard and threw the sack into the wagon bed. Whoa, up, said the farmer, pulling hard on his reins, but Peter was already on the seat beside him. Get along, he cried. I want to get home. I want to get home quick. Through all the long ride, Peter sat staring straight. ahead, holding tight to the wagon seat.

The cold wind blew against his face, but he did not notice it. He was thinking of Buddy, of tow-headed, freckle-faced, blue-eyed, merry buddy, perhaps already on his way to a good home, like the good home to which Susie had been condemned. There were no hills, and the horses, with their light load and a driver with several warming drinks in his body, covered most of the distance at a good trot. But when the track left the road to avoid the snow drifts that covered it in places, and the horses slowed to a walk,

Peter longed to get down and run. It was long after dark when they reached the gate that opened into Raps Lowland, and Peter did not stop to take his purchases from the wagon. He did not wait to open the gate, but cleared it at one leap and ran down the faintly. defined path between the trees and bushes as fast as he could run. Years in the open had mended the weak lungs that had driven him to the open air,

but long before he came in sight of the shanty boat, his breath was coming in great sobs, and he was gasping painfully. But still he kept on, falling into a dog-trot and pressing his elbows close against his sides, breathing through his open mouth. the path was rough rising and falling littered with branches and roots the calves of his legs seemed swelled to bursting time and again he fell but scrambled up and ran on until at last he caught sight of the light in the cabin-boat window he stopped and leaned with his hand against a tree striving to get one last breath sufficient to carry him to the boat and as he stopped and leaned with his hand against a tree striving to get one last breath sufficient to carry him to the boat and as he stopped he heard the shrill falsetto of booge go wash the little baby the baby the baby go wash the little baby and give it toast and tea go wash the little baby the baby the baby the baby go wash the little baby and bring it back to me it was buddy's supper song sing it again uncle bougge sing it again came buddy's sharply commanding voice and peter wrapped his arms around the tree trunk and laid his forehead against it.

He was happy, but trembling so violently, that the branches of the small elm shook above his head. He twined his legs around the tree to still their trembling, and hugged the tree close, for he felt as if he would be shaken to pieces. Even his forehead rattled against the bark of the trunk, but he was happy. buddy was not gone he clung there while his breath slowly returned and until his trembling dwindled into mere shivers listening to bouges boom and trill his songs and to buddy clamber for more

and as he stepped toward the boat bouch's voice took up a new verse one peter had never heard we took the old kazooser kazoozer kazoozer we grabbed the old kazoozer and tore his preacher clothes. We kicked the old kazoozer, casuser, casuzer, we scratched the old casuzer and smote him on the nose. Peter opened the door. Buddy flew from his seat on the bunk and threw himself into Peter's arms. Uncle Peter, Uncle Peter, he cried. Did you bring me my mama? No, buddy boy, said Peter gently. she's off on the long trip yet we mustn't fret about that ain't you glad uncle peter come back yes and-and uncle buggie made me a wagon said buddy and it got broke

a feller sort of fell on it explained buggish carelessly and busted it he come visiting when we wasn't ready for company peter listened while buggie boogge told the story of mr briggles's arrival reception and departure and he followed on the wagon and broke it said buddy and boge slided him and boge is going to mend my wagon maybe uncle peter'll mend it for you buddy said boge i guess booge has got to take a trip like your ma did to-morrow you couldn't talk sense if you tried could you said Peter with vexation. You are going to stay here every bit as long as I do, ain't he, buddy boy? End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 11 The Return of Old Cazoozer I'm much obliged to you, Peter, said Booge after a minute. but I'm afraid I can't stay. I got a telegram saying Caruso's got a cold, and I've got to go to New York and sing Grand Opry. You're real welcome to stay, said Peter, warming his hands over the stove. I'd like you to stay. That fella is sure to come back. He's got a court order, said Bouged. I guess he heard you was so kind-hearted, you'd hand Buddy right over to it. him and say, thank you, mister. I surprised him. Boosh looked at Buddy, playing on the floor.

Ain't it funny how you get attached to a kid? he asked. I was just as mad when that old kazoozer said he was going to take Buddy as if he was after my own boy instead of yours. I guess they think this ain't a good enough home for him, said Peter. He looked about the cabin with new interest to peter it had seemed all that a home need be and he had been proud of it and satisfied with it but now it looked poor and shabby there were no chairs with tidies on them no chairs at all there was no piano lamp nor even a hanging lamp with prisms no carpet not even a rug it was not a good home it was only a shanty boat not much better than any other shanty boat, and it was not even Peter's shanty boat. It was George Raps. Bouges was ramming his belongings into his valise. "'Not a good enough home?' he growled.

"'What do they want for a home? A town hall or an opera house?' "'It's all right for you or me, Bouges,' said Peter. But what would be a good home for a couple of old hard shells like us ain't what a boy-like buddy ought to have i'll bet we're eight miles from a sunday school my my said bouch i wouldn't have remained here a minute if i thought i was that far from sunday school and we're two miles from a woman a boy like buddy ought to be nearer a woman than that when i was a little tyke like him i was always right up against my ma's knee And look how fine you turned out to be, said Bouge. Well, a place ain't a home, unless there's a woman in it, said Peter gravely. I can see that now. I thought when I built this boat I had a home, but I hadn't. And when I got buddy,

I thought I had a home for sure, but I hadn't. I never thought there ought to be a woman. I went at it wrong and two. I'd ought to have looked up a woman first. Then I could have got a house, and the boy would tag on somewheres along after. Only it wouldn't have been buddy. I guess I'd rather have buddy. Booge snapped his valise shut and looked about for any stray bit of clothing belonging to him. You won't have him if you don't look out, he said. You'd stand there until that old kazoozer came back and took him if i'd let you of course if you're the sort to give him up i ain't got a word to say i ain't that sort said peter hotly if that man comes back i've got the shotgun ain't i of course he said more gently unless buddy wants to go you don't want to go away from uncle peter do you buddy do you buddy no said Buddy in a way that left no doubt.

I can't do anything until that man comes back, said Peter helplessly. Maybe he won't come. Don't you fret about that, he'll come, said Booge, grinning. He's got my address and number scratched on his face, and I'd ought to clear out right now, but you see how I've got to help you out when trouble comes. You're like a child, Peter. you and buddy would do for twins when old kazooser comes back he'll bring a wagon-load of sheriffs and a cannon or something what would you do if you come to me with a peaceable court order and got thrown all over a toy wagon

if he can shoot i can shoot said peter i bet and get buddy shot full of holes we've got to skedaddle and scoot and vamoos listen in the silence that followed they could hear voices a number of voices and buddy crept to peter's side and clung to his knee frightened by the tense expression on the two uncle's faces peter stood with one hand resting on the table and the other clutching buddy's arm suddenly he put out his free hand and grasped his shotgun booge jerked it away from him and slid it under the bunk you idiot he said what good would that do you listen have you got any place you can take the kid to if you get away from here i've got a sister up near town all right now i'm going to sing and whilst i sing you get buddy's duds on and your own and be ready to skin out the back door with him. I can hold off any constable that ever was, long enough to give you a start anyway. And then you've got to look out for yourself. Peter hurried Buddy into his outer coat and hat, and Booge searched the bread box for portable food, as he sang in his deepest base.

He crowded some cold corn cake into Peter's pocket, and some into his own, as he sang. And as his song ended, he whispered, "'Hurry now! I'm going to put out this lamp in a minute, and when it's out, you slide out of that back door. Quick, you understand?' He let his voice rise to his falsetto. "'Sing it again, Uncle Boge!' he cried, imitating Buddy's voice. "'No, buddy's got to go to sleep now,' he growled,

and the next instant the shanty-boat's interior was dark. Scoot! he whispered, and Peter opened the rear door of the cabin and stepped out upon the small rear deck. He stood an instant listening and dropped to the ice, sliding in behind the willows, and the next moment he was around the protecting point and hurrying down the slew on the snow-covered ice, with buddy held tight in his arms.

he heard bouges throw open the other door of the boat and began a noisy confab with the men in the shore bouches was bluffing telling them they had lost their way that they had come to the wrong boat that there was no boy there peter had crossed the slew and was on the island that separated it from the river when he saw the light flash up in the shanty boat window he slipped in among the island willows he slipped in the island willows and crouched there, listening, but he heard nothing, for he was too distant from the boat to hear what went on inside, and he pushed deeper into the willows and sat there shivering and waiting. It was an hour later, perhaps, when he heard Bouch's voice boom out, deep and cheerful, repeating one song until his words died away in the distance. Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby. Go tell the little baby, we won't be back today.

Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby. Go tell the little baby, they're taking Booge away. Come now, buddy, said Peter. We can go back to the boat. Uncle Booge says there ain't nobody there now. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. this lubervox recording is in the public domain chapter twelve aunt jane peter approached the shanty boat cautiously but there was no sign of danger

indeed finding buddy gone the five men who had come to the boat were quite satisfied to get booge four were but little interested in helping briggles pick up a small boy and nobody wanted peter but Bouges, being a tramp and having assaulted a bearer of a court order, was a desirable capture. Bouges, when he felt reasonably sure Peter had reached safety, ended his half-joking parley abruptly and said he was willing to accompany his captors in peace. He was satisfied he would not be given much more than six months in the county jail for the assault, and six months would carry him through the winter into good, warm, summer weather. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle against five men except more trouble.

Once more in his cabin, Peter put Buddy to bed in the dark and ate his much-delayed supper. Buddy seemed to take the flight as a matter of no moment. Flights, he probably thought, were a part of every small boy's life, and he dropped asleep the moment he was tucked in the bunk. peter however did not sleep he had much to think over when an hour had elapsed he lighted his lamp knowing it could not be seen from any distance and set to work preparing to leave the boat forever he had few portable belongings worth carrying away what food was left he made into a parcel he cut with his jack-knife strips from one of his blankets to work wind about his legs and sliced off other pieces in which to tie his feet, for his shoes were thin and worn through in places. He cut a hole in the center of what was left of the blanket, making a

serapie of it for Buddy. Later he cut a similar hole in the other blanket for himself. All Buddy's toys he stored away under the bunk with his shotgun. Then he baked a corn cake and stowed pieces of it in his pockets. He was ready for his flight. His sister Jane should afford a refuge for him and the boy. Long before sunrise, he awakened Buddy and fed him, ate his own breakfast, tied his feet in the pieces of blanket, and left the shanty boat. They were two strange objects as Peter worked his way down the slew, taking care to avoid the snow patches, and keeping to that part of the ice blown clean by the wind. Peter had dressed Buddy and himself for comfort and not for show. The blue serrape enveloped Buddy and hung below his feet as Peter carried him, and both Peter and

Buddy had strips of blanket tied over their heads to protect their ears. Peter, in his own gray blanket, tied about the waist with same twine, looked like an untidy friar, his feet huge gray paws. A quarter of a mile below the shanty boat, Peter turned and crossed the island, and, issuing on the other side, the whole broad river lay before him. It was still dark as he began his long tramp across the river, and on the vast field of ice, it was frigidly cold. There, the wind had a clearer sweep than in the protected slew, and one could understand why Peter, had risked the return of the boat for additional garments after having once fled from it the wind carried the snow in low white clouds lifting it from one drift to deposit it in another piling it high against every obstruction on the ice without their blanket surrappes it would have been impossible for peter hardened as he was to withstand the cold of the long journey he had planned

for a quarter of a mile after leaving the island peter had to struggle over the rough hummocks that had been drift ice until the river closed but beyond that the going was smoother in places the ice was so glassy that he could not walk but had to slide his feet along without lifting them the wind cut his face like a knife and the blowing snow gathered on his eyelashes and buddy grew heavier and heavier in his arms he could have carried him all day pick a back but he did not dare risk that mode lest he slip and fall backward on the little fellow his arms and back eight with his arms and back eight with a strain, but still he kept on, making straight across the river, and not until he had passed the middle did he set Buddy down. Then, believing he was beyond the jurisdiction of an Iowa court order, he rested, sitting flat on the ice with Buddy in his lap. I can walk, Uncle Peter, said Buddy. Uncle Peter will carry you a while yet, Buddy, said Peter.

By and by, when he gets tired again, he'll let you walk. Uncle Peter is in a hurry now. He lifted the boy again and plodded on, and when he reached the roughly wooded Illinois shore, he pushed in among the great vine festoon trees until he was well hidden from the river. There he made a fire and rested until he and buddy were warmed through. Then out upon the river again,

and keeping close to the bank upstream. Here he was sheltered from the cutting wind, and the walking was surer, for the sand had blown upon the ice in many places, but his progress was slow for all that. About noon he halted again and made a fire and ate, and then went on. Toward four o'clock,

coming abreast of a tall lightning-scarred sycamore, Peter plunged into the brush until he came to a clearing on the edge of a small slew. Here stood an old log cattle shed, and here, with a fire burning on the dirt floor, they spent the night. Buddy huddled in Peter's arms with his back to the fire. They had covered half the distance to Riverbank. "'Where are we going now, Uncle Peter?' asked Buddy the next morning. "'I guess we won't go nowhere today,' said Peter. "'We ain't likely to be bothered here, this time of the year,

so we'll just make a good fire and stay right here and be comfortable. And tonight we're going to start over across to your Aunt Jane's house.' "'Is Aunt Jane's house like this house?' asked Buddy. "'Well, it's quite considerable better,' said Peter. you'll see what is like when you get to it. If everything turns out the way I hope it will, you and me will live at Aunt Jane's quite some time. Not until well toward nine o'clock did Peter awaken Buddy that night.

He was haunted by the fear that, once he touched Iowa soil, every eye would be watching for him and every hand eager to tear Buddy from him. If, however, he could get Buddy, safely into jane's care, Peter believed he could make a fight against Briggles or any other man, for Jane's house was a home. There was a woman in it. Peter meant to time his trip to reach Janes in the early morning. The moon was full and bright, glaring bright on the river, as Peter started, and the cold was benumbing. The long diagonal course across the river brought Peter and

buddy to the Iowa shore some three miles below Riverbank, just before sunrise. On shore, new difficulties met him. A road ran along the shore, but Peter's destination lay straight back in the hills, and two miles of sandy farmland, in frozen furrows, crossed by many barbed wire fences, lay between Peter and the foot of the hills. The sun came up while he was still struggling across the plowed land, and by the time he reached the road that led up the hillside, it was glaring day. Twice early farmers, bound to town, passed him as he trudged along the winding road, staring at him curiously, and Peter dropped to the creek bed that followed the road. Here he could hide if he heard an approaching team.

Just below his sister's house, the road crossed the creek, and here Peter climbed the bank. A wind had risen with the sun, and Peter's blanket flapped against his legs. At his sister's gate, he paused behind a mass of leafless elderberry bushes, and deposited Buddy on the low bank that edge the road. "'Now you stay right here, buddy,' said Peter to the boy, and just sort of look at the landscape over there, whilst I run up and tell your Aunt Jane you're coming. She don't like to be surprised.

But I don't want to look at the landscape, Uncle Peter, but he complained. I want to go with you. It ain't much of a landscape, and that's a fact, said Peter, glancing at the bare clay bank across the creek, and if it wasn't very important that I should speak, to your Aunt Jane first, I wouldn't ask you to wait here. I know just how a boy feels about waiting. My goodness, did I see a squirrel over there? A little gray squirrel with a big bushy tail?

No, said buddy. Well, you just keep a sharp eye on that clay bank, and maybe you will. Maybe you'll see a little jumpy rabbit. I don't want to be a sharp eye on that clay bank, and maybe you will. I don't want to see a rabbit. I want to go with you, said buddy. Peter looked at the house. It was hardly more than a weather-beaten shanty. Its fence, once an army of white pickets, was now but a tumble-down affair of rotting posts and stringers, with a loose picket here and there, and the dooryard was cluttered with tin cans and wood ashes. The woodshed, as free from paint as the house, was well filled with stove-wood for peter had filled it in the early fall beyond the woodshed the garden peter worked it for his sister each spring was indicated by the rows of cabbage-stocks with their few frozen leaves still clinging to them the whole place was run down and slipshod but it was a house and it held a woman goodness me said peter of course you don't want to look for rabbits

i've got that jackknife i bought for you right here in my pocket and now i guess you'll want to wait here for uncle peter you will if uncle peter opens the big blade and gets you a stick to whittle i want to whittle said buddy promptly i want to whittle a funny cat peter looked about for a stick there he said there's a stick but if i was you i'd make a funny snake out of it that stick don't look like it would make a cat you make a snake and if it don't turn out to be a snake maybe it'll be a sword now you stay right here and uncle peter won't be gone very long. I'm going to put you right back in among these bushes, and don't you move." "'I won't,' said Buddy. When Peter left the shanty boat, he had felt that he could walk up to Jane with the front of a lion and demand shelter for himself and for Buddy all the advantages of a home. From that distance it had seemed quite reasonable, for he owned the house and the small plot

of ground on which it stood. Ownership ought to give some right, and he had planned just what he would say. He would tell Jane he had come, then he would tell her he had reformed, and how he had reformed, and that he was a changed man, and was going to work hard and make things comfortable for her, and give up shanty-boating and the river and all the things he had loved. He would say he now saw all these were bad for his character. Then when she got used to that, he would incidentally mention Buddy and tell her what a nice little fellow he was

and what a steadying effect the boy would have on his shiftless life. Then he would get Buddy and his sister would see what a fine boy Buddy was and wrap her arms around him and weep. Peter was sure she would weep, and there would be a home for Buddy with a woman in it.

But if Jane objected, as she might, Peter meant to set his foot down hard. It was his house, and he could do what he wished with it. That he had allowed Jane to possess it in a single piece was well enough, but it was his house. That would bring her to time. It... The nearer he had approached the house, however,

the more doubtful he had become that Jane would welcome him, and that she would, after a little talk, order him to bring Buddy in. The closer he came to Jane, the better he recalled, the many times he had fled precipitately after doing her chores, and his many moist and mournful receptions. Now he walked to the kitchen door and knock, and Jane's voice bade him enter. He took off his hat as he entered. His sister was sitting at the kitchen table, where, despite the lateness of the hour, she had evidently just finished her breakfast.

As she turned her head, all Peter's optimism fled, for Jane's eyes were red with weeping. When her sorrows pressed heavily upon Jane, she was a very fountain of tears. She threw up her hands as she saw Peter. Oh, mercy me, Peter Lane, she cried in a heartbroken voice. Look what you've come to at your time of life. Nothing to wear but old rags and horse blankets on back and foot. It does seem as if nothing ever went right for you since the day you were born. Just poverty and bad health and trouble and one thing after another.

She wiped her eyes to make room in them for fresh tears. Every time I think of you, freezing to death in that shanty boat and going hungry and cold. I, it makes me so miserable, it makes me feel so bad. Now, Jane, said Peter, uncomfortably, don't cry, don't do it. It ain't so bad as all that. Every time I come to see you, you just cry and carry on, and I tell you I don't need it done for me. I'm all right, I get along somehow. Now? Never, never once have I said an unkind word to you, Peter," said Jane,

dampling. You shouldn't upbraid me with it, for I know it ain't your fault you turned out this way. I know you ain't got the health to go to work and earn a living if you wanted to. I do what I can to keep your house from falling down on my head. When I think what would become of this house, if you didn't have me to do what I can to mend it, it up, the roof's leaking worse than ever. As soon as spring comes, I'm going to get some shingles and shingle up the leaky places, said Peter. Maybe I'll put a whole new roof on. Now, just listen to I want to say,

please, Jane. It's that makes me feel so awful bad, Peter, said Jane, shaking her head. You mean so well, and you promise so much, and you see things so big, and yet you ain't got money to buy shoes nor clothes nor anything and for all i know you might be lying sick without a bite to eat and me having all i can do to hold body and soul together in a house like this time and again i've made up my mind to go and leave it and i would if it wasn't for you i feel my duty by you and i stay but work in a house like this wears me to the bone it does to the bone it may have warned someone to the bone but not jane she was one of those huge flabby women who are naturally lazy who sit thinking of the work they have to do but do not do it and who linger long over their meals and weep into them to peter her tears were worse than mrs potter's sharp tongue for mrs potter's reproaches were single of motive while jane's tears were too apt to be a mask for reproaches more cutting than mrs potter's out-and-out hard words jane did not weep continually she had the knack of weeping when tears would serve her purpose from time to time as the spirit moved her jane went to town and did plain sewing she had had a husband but had one no more and he had left her a little money which she had kept her a little money which she had

kept in the bank, drawing four percent regularly. It did not amount to much, only a couple of hundred dollars a year, but this she used most sparingly, leaving the greater part of the interest to accumulate. Perhaps she was sincere in her mourning for Peter, but she certainly did not want him in the house. As a provider, Peter had never been a success. He was too liberal, and in his periods of financial stringency he had been known to ask Jane for money.

Not that he ever got it, but it was a thing to be guarded against. Jane guarded against it with tears. In 15 minutes of tearful reproaches, she could make Peter feel that he was the most worthless and cruel of men. She had so often reduced him to that state that he had come to fall into it now, naturally whenever he saw Jane, and he was usually only too glad to escape from her presence again and go back to the river life. Tears proclaim injustice, and a man like Peter, seeing them, falls easily into the belief that he must be in the wrong, and very badly in the wrong. In flying from Jane, he fled from this self-incrimination she planted in him.

Now he sighed and took a seat on one of the kitchen chairs. Jane, he said, This house is my house, ain't it? You know it is, Peter, she said reproachfully. No need to remind me of that, nor that I ain't any better than a pauper. If I was, it would be far from me to stay here trying to hold the old boards together for you. many and many a time i wish you had health to live in this house so i could go somewhere and live like a human being and let you take care of this cow pen for it ain't no better than that yourself it would be a blessed thing for me peter if you ever got your health i could go then peter moved uneasily and frowned at the fresh tears i wish you wouldn't cry jane he

he said i want to talk sort of business to you this morning he paused appalled by the effect his revelation would be apt to have on jane it must be made however and he plunged into it i've got a boy i've got a little feller about three years old that come to me one night when his ma died and he ain't got anybody in the world but me jane to take care of him i've had him some months down at my boat and he's the cutest nicest little tyke you ever set eyes on why he's he's no more trouble round a place than a little kitten or a pup or something like that you'd be just tickled to death with him my first notion he said more slowly my first idea was to have him and me come here so you could be a sort of ma to him and i could be a sort of p'i'n't a sort of p'n't ah so we'd make a sort of family like what he's got to have is a good home first of all and a shanty boat ain't that i see that but i can see how easy-going i am and how i might be an expense to you for a while anyway so i thought maybe if you would take the boy in now wait a minute jane wait a minute you're bound to hear me out his sister had forgotten her sorrows in open-mouthed amazement as peter talked but as the startling proposal became clear she dabbled at her eyes and sniffled peter knew what was coming a new torrent of tears an avalanche of sorrow for heaven's sake shut up for a minute till i get through he cried in exasperation

you ain't done nothin but weep over me since i was knee high give me a rest for one time i don't need weeping over i'm all right ain't i just said i'll go away again you never understand me wept jane yes i do too said peter angrily i understand you good all you want is to weep me out of house and home and i know it i'm a sort of old bum and i know that too but i've been fair to you right along and all i get for it is to be wept over and i'm sick of it you ain't a sister You're a fountain. You're an everlasting fountain. You let me come up and saw your wood, and you weep. And you let me make your garden, and you weep. And if you do give me a meal while I'm working for you,

it's so wept into that my mouth tastes of salt for a week. I've put up with it just as long as I'm going to. I'll go, said Jane, sniveling. I'll go. i never thought to get such unkind words from my brother brother nothing said peter thoroughly exasperated what did you ever give me but shoves wrapped up in sorrow and grief what did you ever do but jump on me and tear me to pieces and pull me apart to show me how worthless i was whilst you let on you was mourning over me i guess i've had it done to me long enough to see through it jane so you may as well shut off the bawling you ain't no sister you're a miser peter lane that's what you are a miser said peter rising from his chair you're a weeping miser and you might as well know it that's why you don't want me around you're afraid i might cost you a nickel some time for two cents i'd put you out of the house you'd ball some

if you had to pay rent peter should have felt a sense of shame but he did not in some inexplicable way a huge weight seemed lifted from his chest he felt big and strong and efficient it was a wonderful thing he had discovered he who had for so many years cringed before his sister's cruelty was making her wince he peter lane was not feeling worth and mean. He was talking out as other men do. He was having a rage, and yet he was so self-controlled that he knew he could stop at any moment. He was not the tool of his anger. The anger was his instrument. His pale eyes blazed, but he ended with a scornful laugh. Jane did not flare up. She dropped her head on her table and cried again, but with real self-pity this time. Now, it ain't worthwhile to cry, said Peter coldly. I've said all I've got to say on that subject.

All I've got now is a business proposition, and you can take it or not. If you want to take buddy in and feed him and sleep him and treat him white the way he deserves, I'll pay you for it just as soon as I earn some money, and I'm going to get work right away. If you won't do that, you can take the house and have it, and I'm through with you. He stood with his hat in his hand, waiting. It seemed to him that Jane was waiting too long, that she was calculating the chances of getting her pay if she took the boy, and Peter knew his past record did not suggest to any very strong probability of that.

You'll get your money, he said. I'm going to look for a job, soon as I get out from here. Don't you be afraid of that. You won't lose anything. Her reply came so suddenly that it startled, Peter. She jumped from her chair and stamped her foot angrily. Oh, she cried, clenching her fists, while all her anger blazed in her face. Ain't you insulted me enough? Get out of my house. Don't you ever come back? Peter put on his hat. He paused when his hand was on the doorknob, his face deathly white.

If you ever get sick, Jane, he said, you can leave word at George Rapp's livery stable. I'll come to you if you are sick. And he went out, closing the door softly. But he was waiting where Peter had left him. I'm making a funny snake for you, Uncle Peter, he said. well i should think you were said peter summoning all his cheerfulness that's just the funniest old snake i ever did see but you better let uncle peter have your jack-knife now buddy we'll get along he gathered the boy who obediently yielded the knife into his arms i'm going to see aunt jane now said the boy contentedly

no i guess we won't go see your aunt jane to-day buddy said peter holding the boy close put your head close up against uncle peter's shoulder and he can carry you better you ain't so heavy that way buddy put his head on peter's shoulder and crooned one of buges's verses contentedly they walked a long way in this manner toward the town from time to time peter shifted the boy from one shoulder to the other and once or twice he allowed him to walk but not far he wanted to feel buddy in his arms i shouldn't wonder said peter as they entered the outskirts of the town if i had to go on a trip right soon i can't seem to think of any way out of it i like to go on trips with you uncle peter said buddy well you see buddy boy said peter this here trip i can't take you on so i've got to leave you with a man a man that looks a good deal like that kazoozer man, but you mustn't be afraid of him because all he is going to do is to take you for a ride in a horse and buggy out to where you'll stay. It may be some time before I see you again, but I want you should remember me. I guess you will, won't you? Yes, Uncle Peter. That's right.

You just remember Uncle Peter every day, but don't you worry for him, and someday maybe I'll come get you i've got a lot of work to do first that you wouldn't understand such as building up a new man from the ground to the top of his head but i'll get it done sometime and i'll come for you the first thing after i do you want i should don't you yes said buddy for the rest of the way to town peter held the boy very close in his arms and did not think of his tired muscles at all. He was thinking of his perfidy to the trusting child, for he was without money and without it he could see nothing to do but deliver the boy to briggles and the unknown. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13 A Ray of Hope

The Marcy's Run Road, on which Peter's sister lived, led into Riverbank past the cemetery, and near the cemetery stood a group of small stores. One of these, half grocery and half saloon, was even more unkempt than the others, but before its window, Peter stopped. A few small coins, the residue after his purchasing trip of the day before, remained in his pocket, and in the window was a square of car. board announcing hot beef soup today. Hot beef soup, when a man has tramped many miles carrying a heavy child, is a temptation.

Buddy himself would be glad of a bowl of hot soup, and Peter opened the door and entered. The store was narrow and dark. A few feet just inside the door were occupied by the scanty stock of groceries, tobacco, and cheap candy, and back of this was the bar, with two small tables in the space before it. The whole place was miserably dirty. It was no gilded liquor palace with mirrors and glittering cash registers. The bar was of plain pine, painted barn red, and the whole arrangement was primitive and cheap. Beyond the bar room a partition cut off the living room,

and this completed Mrs. Crink's place. Mrs. Crink had a bad reputation. During the stringent prohibition days, she had run a speakeasy without paying the town the usual monthly disorderly house fine and had served her term in jail. After that, she was strongly suspected of bootlegging whiskey, and she had purchased this new place but a few days since.

She was a thin, sour-faced angular woman, ugly alike in face and temper. when peter opened the door a bell sounded sharply but the high voice of mrs crink in the living-room drowned the bell she was scolding and reviling at the top of her voice swearing like a man and a child was sobbing and pleading peter heard the sharp slap of a hand against a face and a cry from the child and mrs crink came into the bar-room her eyes glaring and her face dark with anger well what do you want she snarled i'd like to get two bowls of soup for me and the boy if it ain't too much trouble said peter everything's trouble whined mrs crink i don't expect nothin else A woman can't make a living without these cranks telling her what she shall and what she shan't. Shut up that howling, you little devil, or I'll come in there and bat your head off. She went into the living room and brought out the two bowls of soup, placing them on one of the small tables.

Peter lifted Buddy into a chair. Mrs. Crink began wiping off the beer-wet bar. I wonder if you could let me have a box. a dime's worth of crackers and cheese, he asked, and Mrs. Crink dropped the dirty rag with which she was wiping the bar. "'Come out here and shut up your ballin' and swab off this bar,' she yelled, and the door of the back room opened, and a girl came out. She was the merest child. She came hesitatingly, holding her arm before her face, and the old hag of a woman jerked up the filthy wet rag

and slapped her across the face. It was none of Peter's business, but he half arose from his chair and then dropped back again. It made his blood boil, but he had not associated with shanty-boat men and women without learning that in the coarse strata of humanity, slaps and blows and ugly words

are often the common portion of children. He would have liked to interfere, but he knew the inefficiency of, any effort he might make and like a shock it came to him that it was for things like this that briggs rescued or pretended to rescue little children it was not so bad then after all if he must give up buddy there would be some compensation in telling briggles of this poor child who deserved far more attention of his society all this passed through his mind in an instant but before he could turn back to his bowl of soup buddy uttered a cry of joy and scrambling from his chair ran across the floor toward the weeping girl oh susie susy my susy he shouted and threw himself upon her the impetus of his coming almost threw the child off her feet and she staggered back but the next instant she had clasped her arms around the boy and was hugging him in a close youthful embrace of joy my buddy my buddy she kept repeating over and over as if all other words failed her as they will in her

in excess of sudden surprise. My buddy! My buddy! The woman stared for an instant in open-mouthed astonishment, and then her eyes flashed with anger. She reached out her hand to grasp the girl,

but Peter Lane thrust it aside. His own eyes could flash, and the woman drew back. Now don't you do that, he said hotly. You get out of my store, then, shouted Mrs. Crink. You take your brat and get out. I'll get out, said Peter slowly, as soon as I am quite entirely ready to do so. I hope you will understand that, and I'll be ready when I have ate my soup. The woman glared at him. She let her hand drop

behind the bar, where she had a piece of lead pipe, and then, suddenly, she laughed a high-catch-a-a-half. laugh to cover her defeat and let her eyes fall. She slouched on the front of the shop for the crackers and cheese, and Peter seated himself again at the small table and looked at the children. "'Where's Mama?' he heard the girl ask, and Buddy's reply. "'Mama went away!' and he saw the look of wonder on the girl's face. "'Come here,' Peter said, and the girl came to the table. i guess your buddy's sister he's been telling me about ain't you said peter kindly and i'm his uncle peter he's been staying with on a shanty boat your ma he hesitated and looked at the girl's sweet clear eyes your ma went away like buddy said susy but you don't want to think she ran away and left him for that wouldn't be so not at all she had to go or she wouldn't have gone

i guess i guess she'd have come and got you yes i guess that's what she had on her mind she spoke of you quite a little before she went on her trip i want you should take me away from here said the girl suddenly well now i wish i could susy said peter but i don't see how i can maybe i can arrange it he poised his soup-spoon in the air did reverend mr briggles bring you here not here said susy mrs crink didn't live here then well that's all the same said peter i just wanted to inquire about it you'd better eat your soup buddy boy well now let me see peter stared into the soup as if it might hold hidden in its muggy depths the answer to his riddle just at present i'm sort of unable to do what i'd like to do myself he said i'd like to take you right with me but i've got a certain friend that was quite put out because i didn't bring your ma to-to see her when your ma stopped in at my boat and i guess maybe mrs crink was returning with the crackers and cheese and peter ended hurriedly i guess maybe you'd better stay here until i make arrangements it was a strange picture the boy eating his soup gluttonously peter lane in his comedy tramp garb of blanket and blanket strips and the little girl staring at him with big trustful eyes mrs crink put the crackers and cheese on the table if you've got through takin up time that don't belong to you maybe i can get some work out of this brat she snapped why yes ma'am said peter politely it only so happened that this boy was her brother we didn't want to discomode you at all susie turned away to her work of swabbing the bar and peter divided the crackers and cheese equally between himself and buddy

i don't much care to have tramps come in here anyway said mrs crank i never knew one yet that wouldn't pick up anything loose but peter made no reply he had a matter of tremendous import on his mind he felt that he had taken the weight of susy's troubles on his shoulders in addition to those of buddy and he had resolved to ask widow potter to take the two children the parting of the two children had for them none of the pathos had had for peter when buddy had eaten the last scrap of cracker he got down from his chair good-bye susie he said good-bye buddy she answered and that was all and peter led the boy out of the place there are in river bank alleys between each two of the streets parallel with the river and peter now that he had once more resolved not to allow briggles to have buddy took to the alleys as he passed through the town the outlandishness of his garb made him the more noticeable he knew and he wished to avoid being seen he traversed the entire town thus even where a creek made it necessary for him to scramble down one bank and up another until the alleys ended at the far side of the town there he crossed the vacant lot where a lumber mill had once stood and struck into the river road the boy seemed to take it all as a matter of course but peter kept a wary eye on the road ready to seek a hiding-place at the approach of any rig that looked as if it might contain the reverend briggles but none appeared a farmer returning from town with a wagon stopped at a word from peter and allowed him to put buddy in the wagon

and clamber in with him. They got out again at Mrs. Potter's gate. The house was closed and the doors locked. Peter tried them all before he was convinced he had had the long tramp for nothing, and then he led Buddy toward the barn. As he neared the barn, the barn door opened, and a man came out, carrying a water bucket.

He stared at Peter. "'Mrs. Potter is a... not at home, I guess, said Peter. Nope, said the man. Anything I can do for you? It's business on which I'll have to see her personally, said Peter. She wasn't expecting I'd come. Is she going to be back soon? Well, I guess she won't be back today, said the man. She only hired me about a week ago, so she ain't got to telling me all her plans yet,

but she told me it was like as not she'd go up to Durlingport today, and maybe she might come home tomorrow, and maybe not till next day. Want to leave any word for her? No, said Peter, slowly. I guess there's no word I could leave. I guess not. I'm much obliged to you, but I won't leave no word.

Come on, buddy boy. We got to go back to town now, before night sets in. Where are we going now, Uncle Peter? asked the boy. Now? Well, now we're going to see a friend I've got. You never slept in a great big stable where there are lots of horses, did you?

You never went to sleep on a great big pile of hay, did you? That'll be fun, won't it, buddy boy? Yes, Uncle Peter, said the child cheerfully, and they began. the long, cold walk to town. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 14. An encounter. That horse, said George Rapp, slapping the colt in the flank, is as good a horse as you can get for the money in ten counties, and you won't find anybody that will offer what I do and trade for your old one nowhere you'd say that anyway George Rapp said Mrs. Potter you ain't here to run down what you want to sell seems to me the Coltack skittish what you said you wanted was a young horse said Rapp with a shrug i don't know what you want you want a young horse and this is young and you don't want a skittish horse you don't want a skittish horse you don't want a skittish horse you don't want a skittish horse. horse, and all young horses are more or less that way. What I want is a young strong horse, Mrs. Potter began.

You've told me that a million times and two, and if you tell me it again, I'll know it by heart well enough to sing it, said Rapp. There he stands, just like you say, a young strong horse. A skittish animal like this colt ain't fit for a woman to drive. said Mrs. Potter. "'And you ought to have a driver to drive him, as you said about ten thousand times before,' said Rapp, with good-natured tolerance.

But Peter Lane ain't come up to town yet, if that's what you're working around to.' "'Oh, get along with you,' said Mrs. Potter. "'I got a hired man now.' "'Well, you meant Peter, didn't you? Why don't you come right out and say so?' but i guess you won't get peter to drive this colt for a while yet he ain't sick no nor he ain't dead but as near as i can make out peter is going to jail mrs potter turned sharply and george rap grinned he could not help it she showed such consternation peter in jail she cried

well not yet said rap chuckling at her amazement they're out hunting him now the dogs of the law is on his trail that feller briggles i told you of got his head broke by a tramp peter took into my boat and he's real sore both in head and feelings last night him and a sort of posse went down to get the whole crowd but peter had skipped out with the kid good for peter good for peter exclaimed mrs potter i never looked for so much spunk it was his boy as much as anybody's wasn't it look so to me said rap but this here united states of riverbank county seems to think different maybe peter ain't been washing the boy's face regular three times a day anyhow briggle's got a court order for the boy and he's goin to jug peter you talk so much nonsense i don't know what to believe complained to the widow anything i say is apt to be more or less nonsense except except when I'm talking horse, said Rapp. But this ain't. Briggles and the deputy sheriff is out now,

swearing to bring Peter in by the seat of his pants, or any way they can get him. Well, if Peter Lane had a wife to look after him and tell him how so once in a while, he wouldn't get into trouble like this, said Mrs. Potter with aggravation. He's enough to drive a body crazy. George Rapp's eyes twinkled.

The next time I see Peter, I'll say, Peter, I've been trying to sell a colt to Mrs. Potter since Lord knows when, and she's holding off until she gets a husband to tend the colt. I don't want to hurry you, none, I'll say to him, but when you get done serving them ten years in the penitentiary, just fix it up for me. I'd like to sell this colt before he dies of old age.

"'You think you're smart, George Rapp,' said Mrs. Potter, reddening. "'But when you talk like that, when I've heard Peter Lane say a dozen times "'that you're the best friend he's got in the world, "'it's time somebody took hold for him. "'I wouldn't buy a horse off you, not if it was the only one in the world.' George Rapp patted the colt on the neck and ran his hand down the sleek shoulder. "'Now, Mrs. Potter,' he said, you know better than that. I'm just as much Peter's friend as anybody is. I'll bail him out if he gets in jail,

and I'll pay his fine, if there is one. But don't you worry, Peter ain't a fool. By this time, Peter and that boy is in Burlington. Peter's safe. It seemed as if Rapp's cheerful prediction had been fulfilled, for, as he spoke, hoofs clattered on the plank incline that led into the stable. Rapp led the colt out of the way as the two-horse rig containing the Reverend Rasmur Briggles and the deputy sheriff reached the main floor. It was evident they had not found Peter.

Wild goose hunt this time, George, said the deputy as he jumped from the carriage. That so, said Rapp, walking around the team. Got the team pretty hot for such cold weather, you we drove like blazes said the deputy but i didn't get heated much colder than the dickens how are you mrs potter george robbing you again mr briggles was climbing from the carriage slowly he was bundled in a heavy ulster with a wide collar that turned up over his ears he wore ear mufflers and a scarf was tied over his cap and under his chin chin. On his hands were thick fur-lined mittens, and his trouser legs were buckled into high arctics. Over his nose and across one cheek, a strip of adhesive plaster showed where

Bouges had hit the old kizuzzer and scratched him on the nose, as he had sung. Mr. Bregles was not in a good temper. Under his arrangement with his society, this had been an unprofitable week, for he had not rescued a single child at twenty dollars per child. He slowly untied his scarf, removed his ear tabs, and unbuttoned his ulster. He affected ministerial garb under his outer roughness. It had a good effect on certain old ladies as he sat in their parlors, coaxing money from them, forty percent commission on all collected, and his face had what George Rapp called, that solemn collie sneaker look.

You expected him to put his fingertips together and look at the ceiling. There are but few Briggles'es left to pray on the gullibly charitable today, and thank God for that. Their day is over. Most of them are in stock-selling games now. We were on sheriff's business today,

brother Rapp, said Briggles, when he had opened his coat. You can charge him. the rig to the county. How about that, Joe? Rapp asked the deputy. What's the diff? asked Joe carelessly. The county can stand it.

He had entered the office, where Rapp always kept his barrel stove red hot, and was kicking his toes against the footrail of the stove. Want the team again tomorrow? asked Rapp. I want it tomorrow, said Joe. i got to go to sweetland to put an attachment to a feller's hogs i don't know what your friend briggles wants i want you to help me find this boy brother briggles began but the deputy merely turned his back to the stove and looked at him over one shoulder oh shut up he said i ain't your brother what's the matter with you joe asked rap you act sore sore nothin i'm sick at my stomach you'd be if you had to drive a pole cat around the county all day now brother venby said mr briggles pleadingly you misunderstood me entirely if you will let me explain you go and explain to your grandmother said joe roughly you can't explain to me if i didn't have on my deputy sheriff badge i'd come out there and do some explaining with a wagon spoke on my own account

say george did this feller get a rig from you once to take a young girl that he brought down from derlingport to a good home nice little girl wasn't she where do you suppose he took her mrs crinks say come in here a minute rap went into the office and joe closed the door a hustler led the team to the rear of the stable and mr briggles as if feeling a protective influence in the presence of mrs potter moved nearer to her he pushed back his cap and wiped his forehead in this charity work we meet the opposition of all rough character Madam, he began swively, but she interrupted him. "'You're the man that's pestering Peter Lane, ain't you?' she asked. "'Only within the law, only within the law,' said Mr. Briggles, soothingly. "'I act only for the society, and the society keeps within the law.' "'Law fiddlesticks,' said Mrs. Potter.

"'What's this nonsense about putting Peter Lane in jail?' We fear we shall have to make an example of him, said Mr. Briggles. The ungodly throw obstructions in our path, and we must combat them when we can. This Lane has evaded a court order. We trust he will receive a term in prison. We have faith that Judge Bennings will uphold the right. Huh, so that old rascal of a Bennings is the man that let you bother Peter Lane, is he? Seems to me he's getting pretty free with his court orders and nonsense,

but I guess he ain't heard from me yet. She turned her back on Mr. Briggles and almost ran down the incline into the street. Unluckily for Judge Bennings, he was almost too convenient to Rapp's livery-feed-and-sale stable, living in an old brick mansion that occupied the corner of the block, but luckily for him, he was not at home. mrs potter poured out her wrath on the german servant girl when mrs potter had hastened away mr briggles hesitated he could see the deputy sheriff and george rap through the smoky glass of the office door and joe was talking steadily only stopping now and then to expectorate while rap's good-natured face was scowling mr briggles buttoned his ulster from the look on george rap's face he felt it would be better to be out of the stable when rap came out of the office he turned peter lane was staggering wearily up the incline into the stable his back bent with fatigue and buddy sound asleep in his arms

mr briggles watched the uncouth blanket-draped pear advance and when peter stood face to face with him a smile of satisfaction twisted his hard mouth peter looked into the fellow's shrewd eyes and drew a long breath your name's briggles ain't it he asked listlessly mine's peter lane this here's buddy i guess we got to the end of our string peter peter shifted the sleeping boy to his shoulder and touched the child's freckled face softly i wished you would do what's possible to put him into a nice home said peter a home where he won't be treated harsh i've got so used to buddy i feel almost like he was my own son and i wouldn't like him to be treated harsh he's such a nice little feller he stopped for he could say no more just then he lowered his arms until buddy's head slid softly from his shoulder to the crook of his arm well he said holding out the sleeping boy i guess you might as well take him now as any time mr briggs reached forward to take the boy just as mrs potter came rushing up the stable incline waving her hand wildly oh smith she called peter smith you're just the man i've been lookin for smith peter stared at her uncomprehendingly for one instant and as he understood her useless little strategy his eyes softened i'm just as much obliged to you mrs potter he said but i've already told this man who i am i guess i'll go now he looked from one to the other helplessly and mrs potter put out her arms and took the sleeping boy

peter you're a perfect fool she said angrily i guess i am said peter yes i guess i am he bent and kissed buddy's warm cheek i'd like to be somewhere else when he wakes up he explained and turned away he had started down the driveway when mr briggles stepped after him and laid a detaining hand on his arm wait said mr briggles the sheriff's deputy is in the office here he has been looking for you oh that's all right said peter you can tell joe i've gone up to the jail and he drew his arm away and went on down the street mrs potter called after him peter lane peter she called but peter had hurried away butty raised his head suddenly and looked up into mrs potter's face i know who you are he said fearlessly your aunt jane no child said mrs potter's face I ain't anybody's aunt. I'm just a worthless old creature. Where's Uncle Peter? asked Buddy in his sudden way. Now don't you worry, said Mrs. Potter. Uncle Peter has gone away. I know, said Buddy, now wide awake.

Uncle Peter told me. I want to get down. Mrs. Potter put him down, and he stood leaning against her knee. holding tightly to her skirt and eyeing mr briggles distrustfully for his quick eyes recognized the old kizuzzer uncle booge had thrown off the boat but before he could give utterance to what was running through his small head the office door opened and george rap and the deputy came out rap walked up to mr briggles all right he said roughly you've got the kid i see and i guess that's that's all you want in my stable, so you pick him up and get out of here, and don't you ever come here again? Do you understand that?" If you do, I'm going to show you how I treat skunks. You understand?"

Involuntarily Mr. Briggles put up his elbow, as if to ward off a blow, and Buddy clung the tighter to Mrs. Potter's skirt. The ex-minister reached out his hand for the child, and Buddy turned and ran. Mr. Briggles did not run after him. He stood staring at the child. I don't want that boy, he said. I don't want him. I couldn't do anything with that boy.

He's a cripple. Buddy, stopping at the head of the incline, gazed wide-eyed from one to the other. Didn't anybody want a boy that was lame? I got one good foot, he said boastingly. and suddenly mrs potter's strong work-muscled arms gathered buddy up and held him close to her breast so that one of the sharp buttons of her coat made him shake his head and forget the angry tears he had been ready to shed i want him she cried her eyes blazing i'll take him you you-you no one knew what she would have called mr briggles for with an unexpectedness that made mr briggles's that made mr briggles's his teeth snapped together, George Rapp shut an iron hand on the back of his neck and bumped a knee

into Mr. Briggles from behind so vigorously as to lift him off his feet. With the terrible knee bumping him at every step, Mr. Briggles was rushed down the incline with a haste that carried him entirely across the street and left him gasping and trembling against a toolbox alongside the railway tracks. George Rapp returned, wiping his hands in his coat skirts, as if he had just been handling a snake or some other slimy creature. "'Now we got done with pleasure,' he said with a laugh. "'We'll talk business. Do you want that colt, or don't you, Mrs. Potter?' End of Chapter 14.

Chapter 15 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 15. Jail Uncles The county jail stood back of the courthouse on Maple Street, and was a three-story brick building, flush with a sidewalk, with barred windows. To the right was the stone yard, where, when the sheriff was having good trade, you could hear the slow tapping of hammers on limestone, as the victims of the law pounded rock, breaking the large stones into road metal. As a factory, the prisoners did not seem to care whether they reached a normal output of cracked rock or not.

Seated on a folded gunny sack, laid upon a smooth stone in this yard, Bouge was receiving justice at the hands of the law. He pulled a rough piece of limestone toward him, turned it over eight or ten times to find the point. of least resistance, settled the stone snugly into the limestone chips, and yawned. Eight or ten minutes later, feeling chilly and cramped in the arms, he raised his hammer and let it fall on the rock, and yawned. The other prisoners, there were five and all, worked at the same breathless pace. The stone yard was protected from the vulgar gaze of the outer slaves of business and labor by a tall bored fence, notable as the only fence of any size

in Riverbank that never bore circus posters on its outer surface. Several times within the memory of man there had been jail deliveries from the stone yard. In each case, the delivery had been effected in the same manner. The escaping prisoner climbed over the fence and went away. One such renegade, recaptured, told why he had fled. I won't stay in no hotel, he said, where they've got cockroaches in the soup. If this here sheriff don't brace up, there won't be none of us patronize his darn hotel next winter. Peter, enveloped in his blanket serapé, pulled the knob of the doorbell of the jail, and waited. He heard the bell gradually ceased jangling, and presently,

he heard feet in the corridor and the door opened well what do you want asked the sheriff's wife if you want ed he ain't here you'll have to come back i've come to give myself up said peter my name's peter lane well it don't make any difference what your name is said mrs stevens flatly you can't give yourself up to me and that's all there is to it every time the weather turns cold a lot of you fellows come around and give yourselves up and i'm sick and tired of it i won't take another one of you unless you're arrested in a proper manner half the time ed can't collect the board money if you want to get in here you go down to the calaboose and get arrested in the right way but i'm sort of looked for here said peter joe venby knows i'm coming here and if ed was here oh if ed was here he'd feed you for nothing i dare say said mrs stevens he's the easiest creature i ever see if it wasn't for me he'd lose money on this jail right along can't i come in and wait for ed asked peter i ought to stay here when i'm wanted i don't want ed or jo to think i'd play a trick on them you can't come in said mrs stevens the last man that come and gave himself up to me stole a shell-box off my what-not and i won't have that happen again you can come back after a while can't you let me wait in the stone yard asked peter see here said the sheriff's wife i'm busy getting a meal and i've no time to stand talking

ed locked them boarders in the yard when he went away and he took the key if you want to get into that stone yard you'll have to climb over the fence and that's all there is to it i have no time to fritter away talking she slammed the door in peter's face and peter turned away the fence was high but peter was agile and he scrambled up and managed to throw one leg over and thus reached the top come on in booge's gruff voice greeted him and peter looked down to see the tramp immediately below him they got buddy said peter as he dropped to the ground inside the fence did eh said bouge stretching his arms i was sort of in hopes you'd kill that old kizuzer if you had to i don't like him he's the feller that married me and lies and i ain't ever forgive him one murdin was enough in a town i was all of that name the world ought to have had in it murdin said peter is that your name why sure it is didn't i ever tell you asked booge no i guess i didn't come to think of it it wasn't important what you called me and buddy sort of clung to booze where is the little feller your name's murden and your wife was lies murden repeated peter staring at the tramp is that so cross my heart if you want me to i'll sing it for you booges said peter soberly she's dead your wife is dead the tramp was serious now lies is dead he asked honest peter she's dead peter repeated

she died in my boat she come there one awful stormy night and she died there she was run out of derlingport and she died her-and i buried her boosh put down his stone hammer and for a full minute stared at the chapped and soiled hands on his knees then he shook his head ain't that peculiar ain't that odd he said lies dead and she died in your boat and why he cried suddenly but he's my boy ain't he yes said peter he's your boy ain't that queer ain't that strange booze repeated shaking his bushy head ain't that odd and buddy was my boy all the time and he's a nice little feller too ain't he he's a real nice little feller ain't that odd he still shook his head as he picked up the hammer he struck the rock before him several listless blows i wonder if lies told you what become of susy he asked i know what become of her said peter briggles got her too she's with a-with a lady in town here he could not bring himself to tell the imprisoned man what the lady was in reality that's fine said bouges laughing mirthlessly i know it all along i'd bring up my family first class all we needed to make our home a regular god bless her was for me to get far enough away and for someone to get the kids away from lies do you know peter i feel sort of sorry for lies too that's funny ain't it

not if she was your wife it ain't said peter yes it is booze insisted a man don't feel sorry for a wife like that generally he's glad when she's gone, but I sort of feel like lies didn't have a fair show. She was real bright. If I hadn't married her, she'd probably have worked her way over to Chicago and got on a chorus, or blackmailed some rich feller. But I was a handicap to her right along. She couldn't be out and out whole-souled bad when she was a married lady. She'd just get started and begin whooping things when she'd remember. she was a wife and a mother and all that, and she'd lose her nerve. She never got real bad, and she never got real good.

I guess I stood in her way too much. You mean you wasn't one thing or the other? asked Peter. Yep, that's why I went away when I did go, said Bouges. I seen lies wasn't happy, and I wasn't happy, so I went. The sight of me just made her mind. miserable. She'd come in after being away a week or so, and she'd moan out how wicked she was, and how good I was, and that she was going to reform for my sake, and she'd be unhappy for a month, all regrets and sorrow and punishing herself, and then I'd take my turn and get on a spree,

and when I come back she'd be gone. Then she'd come back and go through the whole thing once more. it was real torture for her she never figured that my kind of bad was as bad as her kind of bad i never gave her no help to stay straight either i guess what i ought to have done was to whack her over the head with an axe handle when she come back or give her a black eye but i didn't have no real stamina i was a fool that way i don't see why you married her said simple peter well i was a fool that way too said bouch she seemed so young in all to be thrown out by her mother and father so i just married her because nobody else offered to as you might say to give her baby some sort of a dad when it come it didn't get much of a sort of a dad either when it got me ain't susy's paw asked peter lord no and buddy oh yes and ain't he a nice little feller seems like he's got all lies as in my good in him don't it and none of our bad and to think i was there with him all the time and you didn't even like me to be uncle to him i wonder peter if you ever see him again just tell him his dad's dead will you peter if you want i should bouges said peter reluctantly yes and tell him some sort of story about his poor but honest parents tell him i was a traveling man and got killed in a wreck tell him i had a fine voice to sing with or some little thing like that so he can remember it

a little kid likes to remember things like that when he grows up and misses the folks he ought to have i'll tell him you were always kind to him for so you was in my boat said peter i'll tell him that when he was a little fellow you used to sing him to sleep yeah something like that said bouges and went on breaking rock suddenly he looked up i wonder if it would do any good for me to give you a paper saying you were to have all my rights in him i don't know that i've got any but i'd sort of like to have you have buddy they talked of this for some time and it was agreed that when bouch had served his term and was released he was to sign such a paper before a notary and leave it with george rap and they were still discussing the possibility of such a paper being of any value you when the door of the jail opened and the sheriff came into the stone yard. Hello, Peter, he said. My wife tells me you want to see me. What's the trouble? Peter explained. Well, I'm sorry I've got to turn you out, said the sheriff, regretfully. I've got the jail so full you mightn't be comfortable anyway, and I've taken in about all I can afford to

take on speculation. i'd like to keep you but i don't see how i can do it peter i don't make enough feeding you fellows to take any risk on not getting paid i guess you'll have to get out but i'm guilty ed said peter i guess i am anyway can't help it said the sheriff firmly i don't know nothing about that if you want to come to jail you've got to be served with papers in the regular way way. The city don't okay my bills hit or miss no more. I guess you'll have to get out. I can't run the risk of keeping you on your own say-so. If you say so, Ed, said Peter. If anything comes up, you'll know I've tried to get into jail anyway. What should you say I ought to do? What you ought to do, said the sheriff, is to go home and wait until somebody comes and a you in proper shape i'll do so if you say so ed said peter i'm living in george rap's houseboat down at bigtree lake and if you want me i'll be there i'll wait till you come

he shook bouch's hand and the sheriff unlocked the gate of the stone yard and peter passed out into the cold world end of chapter fifteen Chapter 16 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16. Funny Cats Peter avoided the main street, for he was aware he was a curious sight in his blanket serap and it was too comfortable to throw away, and, in addition, would be his only bed clothing when he reached his boat. He hurried along Oak Street, as less frequented than the main street, for he had almost the entire length of the town to pass through.

As it was growing late, he was anxious to strike the bluff road in time to catch a ride with some homeward-bound farmer. His bag of provisions was still at the farmers on the hillside. The shanty boat awaited him, and he must take up his life where it had been interrupted. for the present he was powerless to aid either Susie or Buddy. Peter had a long walk before him if he did not catch a ride, and he started briskly, but in front of the Baptist Church he paused. A bulletin board stood before the door, calling attention to a sale to be held in the Sunday school room, and the heading of the announcement caught his eye.

All for the children, it said. It seemed that there were poor children. children in the town, children with insufficient clothes, children with no shoes, children without underwear, and a sale was to be held for them. Candy, cakes, fancy work, toys, and all the usual Christmastime church sale articles were enumerated. Peter read the bulletin and passed on. He was successful in catching a ride and found his sack of provisions at the farmers and carried it to the boat on his back. The boat was as he had left it, and little damage had been done during his absence. The river had fallen, and his temporary mooring rope, too taught to permit the strain,

had snapped, but the shanty boat had grounded and was safe locked in the ice until spring. Inside the cabin, not a thing had been touched. The shavings still lay on the floor, where they had fallen while he was making Buddy's last toy, and the toys themselves were under the bunk, just as he had left them. Peter felt a pang of loneliness as he gathered them up and placed them on his table, with the new stockings and the ABC blocks. He put the new Bible on the clock shelf. The toys made quite an array, and Peter looked at them one by one, thinking of the child. There were more than a dozen. There were more than a dozen. of them, all sorts of animals, and they still bore the marks of Buddy's fingers.

It was quite dark by the time Peter had stowed away his provisions, and he lighted the lamp, with a newly formed resolution in his mind. He dropped the ABC blocks into the depths of his gunny sack, and, looking at each for the last time, let the crudely carved animals follow, one by one. He held the funny cat in his hand, quite a while, hesitatingly, and then set it on the clock shelf beside the Bible. But almost immediately he took it down again and dropped it among its fellows in the sack. The Bible, too, he took from the shelf and put in the sack,

and, last of all, he added the few bits of clothing, but he had left in his flight. He tied the neck of the sack firmly with sane twine and set it under the table. All his mementos of Buddy were in that sack, and Peter, with a sigh, chose a clean piece of maplewood, seated himself on the edge of the bunk, and began whittling a kitchen spoon. Once more he was alone. Once more he was a hermit. Once more he was a mere jackknife man.

And Buddy was but a memory. Peter tried to put even the memory out of his mind, but that was not as easy as putting toys in a gunnysack. If he tried to think of painting the boat, he had to think of George Rapp, and then he could think of nothing but the hasty parting in Rapp's barn and how the soft kinks of Buddy's hair

snuggled under the rough blanket hood. If he tried to think of wooden spoons, he thought of funny cats. And if he tried to think of nothing, he caught Booge's nonsense rhymes running through his head and saw Buddy clinging eagerly to Booge's knee and begging, "'Sing it again, Booge, sing it again!' "'Thunder!' he exclaimed at last.

"'I wished I had that clock to take apart.' He put the unfinished spoon aside, and choosing another piece of maplewood, began whittling a funny cat, singing, "'Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby,' as he worked. it was late when his eyelids drooped and he wrapped himself in his blanket three more cats had been added to the animals in the gunny sack some little kid like buddy you'll like them he thought with satisfaction and dropped asleep early the next morning he tramped across the bottom to the farmers you said you was going to town to-day peter said and i thought maybe you'd leave this sack at the baptist's church for me, if it ain't too much out of your way. It's some old truck I won't have any use for, and I took notice they were having a sale there today. You don't need to say anything. Just hand it in.

Before the farmer could ask him in to have breakfast, Peter had disappeared toward the wood yard, and when later he started for town he could hear Peter saw. At the Baptist church, the farmer left the sack. a dozen or more women were busily arranging for the sale and one of them took the sack holding it well out from her skirt for our sale how nice she cried in the excited tone women acquire when a number of them are working together in a church who are we to thank for it oh i guess there ain't no thanks necessary said the farmer i guess you won't find it much i just you won't find it much i just brought it along because I promised I would. It's from a shanty-boatman down my way. Lanes, his name, Peter Lane. Oh, said the woman, her voice losing much of its enthusiasm. Yes, I know who he is. He's the jackknife man. Tell him Mrs. Van Dyn thanks him.

It is very kind of him to think of us. All right, get up. Mrs. Van Dine carried the sack into the Sunday school room and snipped the twine with her scissors, which hung from her belt on a pink ribbon. She was a charming little woman, with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and she was the more excited this afternoon because she had been able to bring her friend and visit her, Mrs. Montgomery, and Mrs. Montgomery was making a real impression. Mrs. Montgomery was from New York, and just how well and socially important she was at home, everyone knew, and yet she mingled with the ladies

quite as if she was one of them. And not only that, but she had ideas. Her manner of arranging the apron table, as she had once arranged one for the actors' fair, was enough to show she was no common person. Already her ideas had quite changed the old cut and dried arrangements. At her request, ladies were constantly running out to buy rolls of crepe paper and other inexpensive decorative accessories, and the dull gray room was blossoming into a fairy garden. And when you come tonight, I want each of you to wear a huge bow of crepe paper in your hair, and, what have you there, Jane? Mrs. Montgomery, although beyond her fortieth year, had the fresh and youthfully bright face of

of a girl of eighteen. She was one of those splendidly large women who retain a vivid interest in life and all its details, and Mrs. Van Dine, who was smaller and lesser in every way, was her riverbank counterpart. Nothing much, Mrs. Van Dine answered, dipping her hand into the sack. But it was kind of the man to send what he could, wooden spoons, I suppose. well will you look at this anna it was one of the funny cats mrs van dyne held it up that all the ladies might see how perfectly ridiculous exclaimed mrs wilcox what do you suppose it was meant to be do you suppose it is a bear or an otter or something asked mrs ferguson oh i know it's a squirrel did you ever see anything so-so ridiculous the ladies all except mrs montgomery laughed gleefully at the funny cat-buddy had hugged and loved

we might get a dime for it anyway alice said one are there any more they will help fill the toy table do you think they would spoil the toy table mrs montgomery the new yorker had taken the cat in her hand and mrs van dyne was standing one after another of peter's toys on the table spoil it exclaimed mrs montgomery enthusiastically i have not seen anything so nice since I was in Russia. It is like the Russian peasant toys, but different, too. It has a character of its own. Oh, how charming! She had seized another of the funny animals. But what is it? asked Mrs. Wilcox. "'Mercy, I don't know what it is,' laughed Mrs. Montgomery. But what does that matter? You can call it a cat. It looks something like a cat? Yes, I'm sure it is a cat, or a squirrel. That doesn't matter.

Can't you see that no one but a master impressionist could have done them? Just see how he has done it with a dozen quick turns of his... Jackknife, Mrs. Van Dine supplied. Do you think they are worth anything, Alice? Worth anything? exclaimed Mrs. Montgomery. My dear, they're worth anything you want to ask. for them really they are little masterpieces can't you see how refreshing they are after all the painted and prim toys we see in the shops just look at this funny frog or whatever it is the ladies all laughed you see said mrs montgomery you can't help laughing at it the man that made it has humor and he has art and and untrammeled vision and really

the most wonderful technique. Peter Lane and the technique of a jackknife The ladies of the Baptist Aid Society were too surprised to gasp. The enthusiasm of Mrs. Montgomery took their breath away, and Mrs. Montgomery was not loathed to speak still more, with the discoverer's natural pride in her discovery. She examined one toy after another, and her enthusiasm grew, and in fact that she was

grew and infected the other women. They too began to see the charm of Peter's handy work and to glimpse what Mrs. Montgomery had seen clearly, that the toys were the result of a frank, humorous, boyish imagination combined with a man's masterly sureness of touch. Here was no jigsaw, paper-patterned, conventional, German or French, slop-shop toy, daubed over with ill-smelling paint,

she tried to tell the ladies this and being in new york the president of several important art and literary and musical societies she succeeded we must ask twenty-five cents apiece for them said mrs ferguson oh twenty-five cents a dollar at least said mrs montgomery the work of an artist don't you see it is not the intrinsic value but the art the people will pay for but do you think riverbank will pay a dollar for art asked mrs van dine mrs montgomery glanced over the toys i will pay a dollar apiece for all of them and be glad to get them she said i feel-i feel as if this alone made my trip to riverbank worth while you have no idea what it will mean to go home and take with me anything so new and unconventional i shall be famous i assure you as the discoverer of his name is peter lane said mrs van dine he is one of the shanty-boatmen that live on the river a little mildly blue-eyed man a sort of hermit they call him the jack-knife man because he whittles wooden spoons and peddles them oh he will be a success cried mrs montgomery even his name is delicious peter lane isn't it old fat fashioned and charming?

Peter Lane, the Jackknife Man. How many of these toys may I have, Anna? I want one, said Mrs. Wilcox promptly, and before the ladies were through, Mrs. Montgomery had to insist that she be permitted to claim two of the toys by her right as discoverer. Later, as they went homeward for supper,

Mrs. Van Dine gave a happy little laugh. That was splen, "'plendid, Alice,' she said, "'to think you were able to make them "'pay a dollar a piece for those awful toys.' "'Awful!' exclaimed Mrs. Montgomery. "'My dear, I meant every word I said. "'You will see. Your Peter Lane is going to make me famous yet.'

That evening, while Peter sat in his shanty-boat, lonely and thinking of buddy as he whittled a spoon, Mrs. Montgomery stood, tall and imposing and sweet-faced, behind the toy table on which all of Buddy's toys stood with sold tags strung on them and told about Peter Lane, the jackknife man. I'm very sorry, she said time after time, but they are all sold. We do not know yet whether we can persuade the jackknife man to make duplicates, but we will take your order subject to his whim, if you wish. we cannot promise anything definite artists are so notably irresponsible but there was one voice which had peter been able to hear it would have set him making jackknife toys on the instant while the ladies of the baptist church were exclaiming over the toys in the sunday-school room a small boy with freckles and white kinky hair was leaning on the knee of a harsh-faced woman in a white farmhouse three miles up the river road auntie potter he said longingly i wish uncle peter would come and make me a funny cat if he don't said mrs potter with great vigor he's a worthless scamp end of chapter sixteen chapter seventeen of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler this librivox recording is in the public domain

chapter seventeen more funny cats new york being a great mill that grinds off rough corners and operates as it seems for no other purpose than to make each new york inhabitant and each new york creation a facsimile of every other new york inhabitant and creation loves those who introduce the quaint the strange and the outlandish which is to say anything not after the conventional new york model Women have become rich with the discovery of a rag-rug or a cornhusk door mat. To Mrs. Montgomery, the trip to Peter Lane shanty boat was a path to fame. Her quick perception grasped every detail and saw its value, or, to put it most crudely, its advertising potency. As she, with Mr. and Mrs. Van Dine, whirl down the smooth bluff road in the Van Dine, she said,

Anna, I do wish we could have come in an ox-cart or a straddle little donkeys, or in a hay wagon at least. My dear, isn't this comfortable enough? Oh, I was thinking of my talk before the Arts and Crafts Club. It makes such a difference. It is so conventionalable to be taken in a carriage.

And probably I'll find your Peter Lane just an ordinary man and his shanty-boat nothing but a common-house boat. But when the carriage ran into the farmer's yard, it was Sunday, and the farmer volunteered to show the route to Peter's shanty-boat and warned Mrs. Montgomery, after a glance at her handsome furs, that it would be a rough tramp, her spirits rose again. Perhaps there would be some local color after all.

The event fully satisfied her. In single file they tramped the long path to the boat, stooping under low boughs, climbing over fallen tree trunks, dipping into hollows. Rabbits turned and stared at them and scurried away. Great grapevine swings hung from the water elms, and when the broad expanse of big tree lake came into view, Mrs. Montgomery stood still and absorbed the scene. It represented absolute loneliness. acres of waving rice straw, acres of snow-covered ice, and, closing under the bank, the low-squot shanty-boat overshadowed by the leafless willows. It was a romantic setting for her hermit.

The farmer had brought them by the shorter route, so that they had to cross the lake, and Peter, gathering driftwood, was amazed to see the procession issue from the rice and come toward him across the lake. "'That's Peter,' said the farmer. "'He acts like he don't expect company.' Peter was standing at the edge of the willows, his arms full of driftwood, the gray blanket, Sarapé, with its brilliant red stripes

hanging to his ankles, and a homemade blanket cap pulled down over his ears. He stood like a statue until they reached him, then doffed his cap politely, and Mrs. Montgomery saw him. his eyes and knew this was the artist i guess you'd better step inside my boat if it's big enough said peter but it's sort of mussey maybe you'd like to wait out here till i sweep out i've been whittling all morning we will go in just as it is said mrs montgomery promptly i want to see where you work just as it is when you work peter looked at her with surprise you ain't mistookin the man you're lookin for are you ma'am he asked i'm peter lane i don't work in this boat lately i've been working up at the farmers sawin wood

mrs montgomery laughed delightedly and peter looking into her eyes grinned he liked this large wholesome woman you are the man said mrs montgomery gaily and since mrs van dine won't introduce me i'll introduce myself peter was justified in his doubts regarding the capacity of his boat and the farmer after trying to feel comfortable inside went out and sat on the edge of the deck The shavings on the floor, the wooden spoons, there were but three or four, the boat itself, when she learned Peter had built it himself, all delighted her. She asked innumerable questions that would have been impertinent, but for her kindly smile, and she was delighted when she learned that Peter had but one blanket, which was his coat by day and his bedclothing by night. but more than all else she liked Peter's kindly eyes. She explained in detail the object of their visit, and Peter listened politely. "'It's right kind of you to come down so far,' he said when he had heard.

"'But I guess I'll have to refuse you, Mrs. Montgomery. I don't seem to have no desire to make no more funny toys. I guess I won't.' "'I can understand the feeling. perfectly, said Mrs. Montgomery, too wise to try coaxing. You haven't an artist's reluctance to undertake for pay what you have done for pleasure only. It ain't that, said Peter. I just whittled out them toys for a little feller I had here, because he used to laugh at them. That's all I'd done it for, and since he ain't here to laugh,

it don't seem as if I could get the grin into them. I don't know as I can explain. I don't know as you could consider if I did. But I do, I do, said Mrs. Montgomery eagerly. You mean you lack the sympathetic audience. Maybe so, said Peter, doubtfully. But what I do mean is that I'd miss the look in his eyes and how he quicked up his mouth

whilst I was cutting out a toy. Maybe it looks to you like this hand and this old wetted down jackknife was what made them toys, but that ain't so. No, ma'am. All I'd done was to take a piece of maplewood and start things going. This is going to be a cat, buddy, I'd say, maybe, and he'd sparkle up at me and say, A funny old cat, Uncle Peter!

And then it had got to be a funny old cat, like he said. And his eyes and his mouth would tell me just how funny to make that, cat, and just how funny not to make it. He sort of seen each whittle before I seen it myself, and told me how to make it by the look of his eyes, and the way his mouth sort of felt for it, until I got it just right, and then he would laugh. So, you see, now the buddy's gone, I couldn't. No, I guess I couldn't. and you made no more after buddy after he left he didn't die said peter if that's what you mean he was took away yes'm i did make a couple i made a couple more cats to put in the gunny sack but that was because i sort of saw buddy a sitting there on the floor even when he was gone but don't you see cried mrs

Montgomery eagerly, that you can always see Buddy? Don't you know there are hundreds of other buddies, boys and girls, all over the country? And that, as you work, a man of your imagination, can feel their eyes and smiling mouths guiding your hand and your knife? They want your funny cats, too, Mr. Lane. Don't you see that you could sit here in your lonely boat and have all the children of America clustered about your knee? yes i do sort of see it said peter but it's a thing i'm liable to forget any time but you must not forget it exclaimed mrs montgomery

your work is too rare too valuable to permit you to forget how many artists do you suppose are like the musicians able to draw their inspiration face to face from their audiences very few mr lane do you suppose a dickens was able to have those for whom he wrote crowded in his workroom and yet those he worked to please guided his pen he heard the laughs and saw the tears and was guided by them as he chose the words that were to cause the laughs and tears you too can see the children's faces she paused for she saw in peter's eyes that he understood and agreed but then there's another reason i can't whittle more toys he said i've got about thirty more cords of wood to saw this winter but that is not like you said mrs montgomery reproachfully you see i know you mr lane you are not the man to saw wood when all the buddies are eager for your toys it ain't like me usually admitted peter i don't know who's been telling you about me but usually I don't do any work I don't have to, and that's a fact. But certain circumstances—' He hesitated.

You didn't know why they took Buddy away from me, did you? I wasn't fit to keep him. I was like a certain woman was always telling me, I guess, shiftless and no account. So they took Buddy. And I guess they were right. But I've changed. It's going to take some. time, but I'm going to make money, and I'm going to be like other folks, and I'm going to

get buddy back." "'So, you see,' he said after this outburst, "'I've got to saw wood. If it wasn't for that, I'd be right eager to make toys for all the kids you speak of. It would be a pleasure, but I've got to make some money.' Mrs. Montgomery stared at him. You don't mean to tell me, she began. You don't mean to say you thought I wanted you to give up everything and make toys for nothing? Why, yes, said Peter.

But my dear Mr. Lane, exclaimed Mrs. Montgomery, I do believe I almost persuaded you to do it. She laughed joyously. Oh, you are a true artist. Why, you can make many, many. times as much money whittling jackknife toys as you could make sawing wood, you can hire your own wood sawed." She descended to details and told him what he could sell the toys for, how she would tell of them

in New York and interest a few dealers. You'll be working for buddy all the while you're working for the other buddies, she ended, making the home you want while you make the toys that will make little children happy. that so agreed peter eagerly and her battle was won the rest was mere detail her address in new york prices samples peter's address and other similar matters the farmer was willing enough to hunt another man to saw his wood mrs van dyne placed the orders with which she had been commissioned by the baptist ladies mr van dine the cashier of the the First National Bank, actually shook Peter's hand and farewell, and Peter was alone again. When the voices of his visitors had died in the distance, he lifted the mattress of his bunk and felt under it with his hand until he found a round, soft ball. He unrolled it and smoothed it out.

Buddy's old worn stockings, out at knees and toes. "'There now!' he said, hanging them on a nose. nail under his clock shelf. I guess I ain't afraid to have you look me in the face now. What happened to the child he mentioned, Mrs. Montgomery asked, when she was snugly rug and wrapped in the barouche once more? I think some society took it, Mrs. Van Dine answered. I'll have Jim look it up.

No doubt Jim can have the boy return to Peter Lane. I'll do what I can, said Mr. Van Dine, but Mrs. Montgomery was silent while the carriage traveled a full mile. "'I wouldn't,' she said at last. "'No, I wouldn't. You might see that the boy is where he is properly cared for, but I think it will be best to let the jackknife man earn the boy himself. I know what he has been, and I can see what he hopes to be. If he could step outside himself and see as we see, he would say what I say.

The best thing for him is to have something to work for. He could work for money like the rest of us, suggested Mr. Van Dine. Oh, you utter Philistine, cried Mrs. Montgomery. You must wait until he gets the habit, and then— Then what? Then he will have a bank-book, laughed Mrs. Montgomery. The winter passed rapidly enough for Peter. Between the stockings and the vision of the children Mrs. Montgomery had conjured up,

and his eagerness to win a home for Buddy, Peter worked as faithfully as an artist should, and he made many raids on the farmer's woodpile to secure dry, well-seasoned maple wood. When the vision of Buddy's eyes grew dim, Peter was always able to bring it back by humming Bouges' song, and before the winter was over, Peter had crowded his clocking, shelf with toys, and had constructed another shelf, which was filling rapidly. For while he made many duplicates, he kept one of each for Buddy. Buddy's menagerie, he called them. Thus he kept his own

interest alive, too, for when it flagged he made a new animal, making it as he thought Buddy would like it made, and so that it would bring that happy, ho! ho! That's a funny old squirrel, Uncle Peter! letter Peter wrote, soon after the visit to his boat, which was to Mrs. Van Dine. It brought this answer. My husband called at the place you mentioned, but the little girl is there no longer. I can find no trace of her. Mr. Briggles, I understand, has had to leave this state, and no one knows where he is. Peter had no time to go to town.

Mrs. Montgomery had been as good as her word, and had, her return to New York and mid-season, introduced the Peter Lane Jackknife Toys, to her arts and crafts club, and to two of those small shops on the avenue that seem so inconspicuous and yet are known to everyone. The toys, after their first few weeks as a fashionable fad, settled into a vogue,

and James Van Dine, who Mrs. Montgomery had wisely asked to act as Peter's agent, received letters from other shops and from wholesalers asking for them. The toys were, of course, almost immediately counterfeited by other dealers, and it was Van Dyn who wisely secured copyrights on Peter's models, and who, later in the winter, sent Peter a small branding iron, with which he could burn his autograph on each toy. Peter's farmer friend stopped at the bank on each trip to town,

delivering the toys which Van Dine tagged and turned over to the express company. The farmer brought back such supplies as Peter had commissioned him to buy. The entire business was crude and unsystematic, even to Peter's method of packing the toys in hay and sowing the parcels in gunny-sacking. But it all served. It was naive. When the ice in the river went out, and that in Big Tree Lake softened and honeycombed, Peter put aside his jackknife for a few days and repaired the old duck-blind that had been booze's damp and temporary home and built two more, knowing George Rapp and his friends would be downed before long.

He built two more bunks in the narrow shanty boat and cleared a tent space on the highest ground near the boat, constructing a platform four feet above the ground, in case the high water should come with the ducks. All this put a temporary close to his toy making, but Peter was ready for Rapp when the first flock of ducks dropped into the lake, and that night he sent the farmer's hired man to town with a message to Rapp. Late the next evening, Rapp and his two friends found Peter waiting for them at the road,

and the best part of the night was spent getting the provisions and duckboats to the slew. The four men dropped asleep the instant they touched their beds, and it was not until the next morning, when Peter was cooking breakfast, that he had an opportunity to ask a question that had been in his mind. George, he said, You didn't ever hear where they took buddy to, did you? Rapp looked up and stared at Peter. until the match with which he had been lighting his pipe burned his fingers,

and he snapped them with pain. "'Do you mean to tell me you don't know where that boy is?' he asked. "'Well, I'll be Petered. Why Mrs. Potter's got him!' Peter was holding a plate, but he was quick, and he caught it before it struck the floor. "'I got that one,' he said in silly fashion. you're going to catch something else when widow potter sees you said george rap end of chapter seventeen chapter eighteen of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter eighteen peter goes to town one day if we saw a woman gowned as mrs montgomery was gowned when she visited riverbank we would laugh her to ridicule but the toys peter lane whittled that winter are still admired for their design and execution there is a collection of them in the rooms of the river bank historical society

we laugh too when we see photographs of main street as it was when peter came to town after his winter on big tree lake with the mud almost hubbed deep that was before the new banks were built or the brick paving laid and main street was a ragged ill-kept thoroughfare, with none of the city heirs it has since dawned. But as Peter stepped out of the First National Bank and stood for a minute on the steps in the warm spring sunshine, the street looked like an old friend, and this was the more odd because it had never looked like a friend before. Jim Van Dine had just cashed the checks and money orders Peter had accumulated during the winter.

They were for small amounts, a few dollars each, and not until the cashier had pushed the pile of Chris bills under the wicket, mentioning the amount, did happy-go-lucky Peter realize how much his winter earnings had amounted to. Quite a lot of money, Jim had said. How would you like to open an account? And Peter had opened his first bank account. The warm leather-bound bank book now reposed,

in his pocket. Peter could feel it pressing against him, and he could feel the extra bulge the checkbook made in his hip pocket. He felt like a serf raised to knighthood, with armor protecting him against harm. As he stood there, Mr. Howard, the bank's president, came briskly down the street. He was a short, chubby man, and he had always nodded cheerfully to Peter. But now he stopped and he stopped and ended his hand. How do you do? he said cheerfully. Jim Van Dine has been telling me what you have been doing this winter.

Glad to know you are making a go of it. It was not much. The bank president was not a great bank president, and the bank was not much of a bank, as great banks go. And he had not, after all, said much, but it made Peter's brown cheeks glow. Bank presidents did not often stop to shake hands with shanty-boatmen, nor do they pause to congratulate them,

although the bank president may be an infernal rascal, and the shanty-boatman a moral king. But Peter did not philosophize. He knew that if enough bank presidents shake the hand of an ex-shanty-boatman, the world will consider that shanty-boatman respectable enough to raise one freckle-faced, kinky-headed little walteman. waif of a boy. Peter raised his head higher than ever, and he had always held it high. He was a man, like other men now. He could, if he wished, build another shanty boat. He could hire

it built. He could rent a house and put a carpet on the parlor floor. He could say he was going to Florida, and people would believe him. He could buy a suit of clothes, a whole complete, and tire suit, vest and all. It had been years and years since he could do that, and when he had been able to do it, he had always spent the money otherwise. Now he crossed the street and entered the Riverbank Clothing Emporium. It gave him a warming feeling of respectability to be buying clothes, but he did not plunge recklessly. He bought everything he needed from socks and shoes to tie and hat. but the shoes were stout and cheap and the shirt a woollen one and the hat a soft felt that would stand wind and weather mr rosenheim himself came and stood by peter when he was trying on the shoes my wife was showing me the piece about you in the magazine he said i guess you are the first man in riverbank to get into magazines we should be proud of you lane

who me in a magazine i guess not oh sure i read some of it some such art and crafts magazine with photo cuts from them toys you make ain't you seen it nope let me try on a seven and a half b he said calmly but his pulse quickened well i suppose you're used to being puffed up already said mr rosenheim i wish i could get such free advertising when peter looked at himself in the store mirror he was well satisfied mr rosenheim nodded his approval that suit looks like it was made for you mr lane he said and he did not know what a great truth he was uttering for peter so long in rags and the simple quiet suit seemed well fitted for each other's company peter went out upon the street and at the first corner he met bouges he was the same old frowsy hairy bouge and he greeted peter in the same deep bass did you get the papers to rescue the child he asked melodramatically i hid them under the stone at the corner of the lane meet me at midnight hush a stranger approaches there were several strangers approaching for they were standing on the corner of the two principal streets peter grinned george rap brought it down to me he said i thought you were in for six months sheriff discharged me said bouch i ate too much he couldn't figure a profit so he kicked me out you don't mean it no teacher excused me at noon so i could go to dancing class said bouch how did you get out peter insisted it

there wasn't room from me and briggles in the same jail said bouges we was always singing out of harmony was briggles in jail they caught the old kazooser kazooser kazooser kazooser they caught the old kizuzzer and took him to the jail hummed and i got excused so i could go and hunt up susy i was her responsible guardian ain't that a joke what are you going to do now asked peter i don't know said booge thoughtfully i ain't made up my mind whether to run for mayor or buy the opera house but if anybody was to give me a nickel i'd give up whisky and buy beer if not i'll stand around here till I do get arrested. The town cop is promised and promised to do it, but he ain't reliable. I've got so I don't depend on his word no more. Peter took a silver dollar from his pocket and handed it to the tramp, and Booge started across the street to the nearest saloon without farewell. Peter took a step after him and then turned back. I guess it's what he likes, he said.

and I couldn't stop him if I wanted to. Peter turned into the Star Restaurant and took a seat at one of the red-covered tables. Bob, he said, can you get me up one of them oyster stews of yours? One of them milk stews with plenty of oysters and a hunk of butter thawing out on top. Fix me one, and then I want a chicken,

a nice, fresh young chicken, killed about day before yesterday, split open and broiled right on top of the coals, so the burned smell will come sifting in before the chicken is ready, and I want it on a hot plate. A plate so hot, I'll holler when I grab it. And I want some of your fried potatoes in a side dish, hash-browned potatoes, browned almost crisp in the dish, with bacon chopped up in them.

And I want a big cup of coffee. with real cream, even if you have to send out for it. And then, Bob, I want a whole lemon meringue pie, a whole one, three inches thick and fourteen inches across. I've been wanting to eat a whole lemon meringue pie ever since I was fourteen years old, and now I'm going to. I'm going to have one full, fine, first-class meal, and then... Then what?

asked Bob. Then I'm going to go and get an alarm clock that belongs to me. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of the Jackknife Man by Ellis Parker Butler. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 19. Peter gets his clock. For a man who means to walk it, considering the usual state of the river road in spring, the railway is the best path between riverbank and widow potter's farm, and Peter, leaving the town, took to the railway track. He had, he assured himself, a definite purpose in visiting Mrs. Potter.

She had expressed her views of a man who fell so low as to pawn his goods and shadows, and the wound still rankled, and Peter meant to have back his alarm clock. That, he repeated to himself, was why he was going to mrs potters but in his heart he knew this was not so he wanted to see buddy he wanted before the boy forgot him to re-establish for a moment the old ties in short he was jealous of mrs potter as he walked up the track he planned the interview in advance mrs potter he would say i have come to get my clock here is the money and i'm sorry i had to trouble you to keep it so long then he would lay the money on the kitchen table and mrs potter slightly awed by his new clothes would hand him the clock and if possible he would say then i'd like to speak with buddy a few minutes mrs potter would then call buddy that was as he planned it but the nearer he approached mrs potter's cove the less likely it seemed to peter that mrs potter would be much awed by the clothes by the time he was within half a mile of the cove he was not only sure that mrs potter was not the woman to be awed by anything

But he began to wish he had not bought the clothes. He could imagine her tone as she put her hands on her hips, and looked him over and said, Well, of all the shiftlessness I ever heard tell of, Go on and dressing yourself up like a dude, and you not a roof in the world to hide your head under. He wished he could see himself just once more in a large mirror, so that he might renew the feeling of confidence he had felt at Rosenheims.

instead he felt much as a young fellow feels when he dons his first dress suit and steps upon the dancing floor he felt stiff and awkward and that every garment he wore was a showy misfit he did not seem to be peter lane at all but some flashy overdressed uncomfortable stranger he suddenly realized that he had his hands and feet and that the new hat was stiff and uncomfortable and that the tie so placidly blue in the desk of the clothing store was rampantly and screamingly blue in the full light of day he felt that he had done an inexcusable and reckless thing in buying the new clothes and he knew mrs potter would tell him so peter decided that since he was sure to be in for a horrible half-hour he would assert his manhood if mrs potter scolded he would sass back he had money in the bank hadn't he he had heard enough of her hard words hadn't he all right the minute she said shiftless he would speak right up he would look her firmly in the eye and say something like now stop you've talked to me that way before mrs potter when i was a poor shanty boatman but i've had just about enough of it i'm tired of that he would hide the misery of his clothes in a flood of high words that is to say if mrs potter gave him a chance for as peter turned from the track to the road and neared the gate he saw it all depended on mrs potter if she did not wish him to talk that would end it and it was a meek uneasy uncomfortable undecided miserable peter that turned in at the gate

and then before he could tuck the sleeves of his flannel shirt which seemed to have grown until they were ridiculously long into his coat cuffs which seemed to have become ridiculously short a young girl jumped from behind one of the old apple trees and stood staring at him peter took off his hat as if she had been a princess he was in the state of mind when he would have taken off his hat to a wax figure but the girl stood but for a moment then she ran toward him i know who you are she cried your uncle peter ain't you i'm susy susy said peter are you susy he tried he tried to greet you're uncle peter ain't you i'm susy susy said peter are you susy he tried to greet as a man should greet a strange child, but she would have none of it. She threw her arm around his right arm and hugged it, jumping up and down. Oh, Uncle Peter, Uncle Peter, she cried joyously, and turning, she screamed at the top of her voice, Buddy, buddy, buddy, here's Uncle Peter. Around the corner of the house popped a hatless kinky head. uncle peter uncle peter screamed buddy running with a strange little hippety hop oh uncle peter my uncle peter my uncle peter

and he threw himself into peter's arms laughing and crying and trembling with joy repeating over and over through the laughter and the tears my uncle peter my uncle peter my uncle peter my buddy my old buddy boy, Peter murmured, hugging him close. My old buddy boy. So it happened that he was not thinking of his new clothes when Mrs. Potter came to the kitchen door. Well, for the land's sake, Peter Lane, she cried, while Buddy clung to his neck and Susie clung around one leg. It's about time. I thought you never was coming.

I've been waiting here for you. with these two fatherless children? From the kitchen came the rackety banging of the alarm clock, proving that, as the clock was set to ring at six, Peter had found a mother for the fatherless children at just seventeen minutes past three. If it wouldn't annoy you too much to get married, Mrs. Potter, said Peter, gasping at his own temerity,

and wiping his forehead on the sleeve of his new coat, i can i could we'd have quite a nice little family to start off with right away annoy me is that what you call a proposal to marry me peter lane asked mrs potter scornfully ain't you ever going to be able to talk up like a man yes i am snapped peter will you marry me yes i will snapped the will snap peter the end end of chapter nineteen end of the jackknife man by ellis parker butler