Back to the Woods

  E-text prepared by Al Haines

  BACK TO THE WOODS

  The Story of a Fall from Grace

  BY HUGH McHUGH

  AUTHOR OF

  "JOHN HENRY," "DOWN THE LINE WITH JOHNHENRY," "IT'S UP TO YOU," ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED

  1902

  To all the boys in the Hammer Club:--Greetingsand gesundheit! Get together now and hithard--for the Devil loveth a Cheerful Knocker.

  CONTENTS.

  JOHN HENRY'S LUCKY DAYS

  JOHN HENRY'S GHOST STORY

  JOHN HENRY'S BURGLAR

  JOHN HENRY'S COUNTRY COP

  JOHN HENRY'S TELEGRAM

  JOHN HENRY'S TWO QUEENS

  JOHN HENRY'S HAPPY HOME

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Yours till the last whistle blows, believe me! John Henry

  Clara J.--A Dream of Peaches--Please Pass the Cream

  Uncle Peter--the Original Trust Tamer

  Aunt Martha--a Short, Stout Bundle of Good Nature

  Tacks--the Boy Disaster

  Bunch Jefferson--All to the Good and Two to Carry

  CHAPTER I.

  JOHN HENRY'S LUCKY DAYS.

  Seven, come eleven!

  After promising Clara J. that I would never again light a pipe atthe race track, there I stood, one of the busiest puff-puff laddieson the circuit.

  Well, the truth of the matter is just this: I fell asleep at theswitch and somebody put the white lights all over me.

  Just how I happened to join the Dream Builders' Association I don'tknow, but for several weeks I was Willie the Wild Boy at the racetrack and I kept all the Bookmakers busy trying not to laugh whenthey took my money.

  Every day when I showed up at the gate the Pipers played "Darling,Dream of Me!" and every time I picked a skate the Smokers' Societywent into executive session and elected me a life member.

  Every horse that finished last gave me the trembling lip as hecrawled home, well aware of the fact that I had caught him with thegoods.

  I blame Bunch Jefferson for putting the bug in my Central.

  Bunch went down to the skating pond one day with $18 and pickedfour live wires at an average of 8 to 1. Then he began to talkabout himself.

  After that event whenever I happened to meet Bunch he would raisehis megaphone and fill the neighborhood with hot ozone, fresh fromthe oven.

  It was pitiful to see that boy swell.

  Just to cure Bunch and drive him out of the balloon business I madeup my mind one day I'd run down to the Flatfish Factory and drag afew honest dollars away from the Bookmakers.

  Splash!

  That's where I fell overboard.

  One bright Saturday P. M. found me clinging to a wad the size ofa fountain pen and trying to decide whether I'd better playDinkalorum at 40 to 1 or Hysterics at 9 to 5.

  I finally decided that a ten-spot on Dinkalorum would net me enoughto give Bunch a line of sad talk, so I stepped up to the poor-boxand contributed.

  Dinkalorum started off in the lead like a pale streak and Iimmediately bought an entirely new set of furniture for the flat.

  About half way around a locomotive whistle happened to blow nearby. Dinkalorum, being a Union horse, thought it was six o'clockand refused absolutely to work a minute overtime.

  I had to put the furniture back in the store.

  In the next race I decided to play a system of my own invention soI took my program, counted seven up, four down and two up, all ofwhich resulted in Pink Slob at 60 to 1.

  It looked good and I handed Isadore Longfinger $10 for the purposeof tearing $600 away from him a little later on.

  Pink Slob got away in the lead but he made the mistake of walkingfast instead of running, with the result that when the other horseswere back in the stable Pinkie was still giving a heel and toeexhibition around near third base.

  It wasn't my day, so I squeezed into the thirst parlor and bathedmy injured feelings with sarsaparilla.

  Just before the last race I ran across Bunch. He was over $300 tothe good and he wanted to treat me to a lot of kind words he feltlike saying about himself.

  Oh! but maybe he wasn't the City Boy with the Head in the Suburbs!

  When I reached home that night I felt like a sock that needsdarning.

  Clara J. had invited Uncle Peter to take dinner with us and hebegan to give me the nervous look-over as soon as I answered rollcall.

  Uncle Peter is a very stout, old gentleman. When he squeezes intoour little flat the walls act like they are bow-legged.

  Uncle Peter always goes through the folding doors sideways andevery time he sits down the man in the flat below kicks because wemove the piano so often.

  Tacks was also present.

  Tacks is my youthful brother-in-law with a mind like a walkingdelegate because he's always looking for trouble and when he findsit he passes it up to somebody who doesn't need it.

  "Evening, John!" gurgled Uncle Peter; "late, aren't you?"

  "Cars blocked, delayed me," I sighed.

  "New York will be a nice place when they get it finished, won'tit?" chirped Tacks.

  Just then Aunt Martha squeezed in from a shopping excursion and Iwent out in the hall while she counted up and dragged out the day'sspoils for Clara J. to look at.

  Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife only she weighs more and breathesoftener.

  When the two of them visit our bird cage at the same time thejanitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with aview to catching it if it falls.

  That night I waded into all the sporting papers and burned dreampipes till the smoke made me dizzy.

  The next day I hit the track with three sure-fires and a couple ofperhapses.

  There was nothing to it. All I had to do was to keep my nerve andnot get side-tracked and I'd have enough coin to make AndrewCarnegie's check book look like a punched meal ticket.

  I played them--and when the Angelus was ringing Moses O'Brien andthree other Bookbinders were out buying meal tickets with my money.

  Things went along this way for about a week and I was all to thebad.

  One evening Clara J. said to me, "John, I looked through your checkbook to-day and I've had a cold on my chest ever since. At first Ithought I had opened the refrigerator by mistake."

  At last the blow had fallen!

  I had promised her faithfully before we were married that I'd neverplay the ponies again and I fell and broke my word.

  The accident was painful, and I'd be a sad scamp to put her wise atthis late day, especially after being fried to a finish.

  I simply didn't dare confess that my money had gone into a fund tofurnish a home for Incurable Bookmakers--what to do? What to do?

  She had me lashed to the mast.

  "May I inquire," my wife continued with the breath of winter in hertones, "why it's all going out and nothing coming in? Have youbegun so soon to lead a double life?"

  Mother, call your baby boy back home! If Uncle Peter would onlydrop in, or Tacks or Aunt Martha or even the janitor!

  Suddenly it occurred to me:

  "Dearie," I said, "you have surprised my secret, and now nothingremains but the pleasure of telling you everything."

  A thaw set in.

  "As you have stated, not incorrectly, my dear, large bundles ofGreen Fellows have severed their home ties and tiptoed into theelsewhere," I continued, gradually getting my nerve back.

  The thermometer continued to go up.

  "Clara J., on several occasions you have expressed a desire toleave this torn-up city and retire to the woodlands, haven't you?"I asked.

  She nodded and the weather grew warmer.

  "Once you said to me, 'Oh, John, if they'd only take New York offthe operating table and give the poor cit
y a chance to get well,how nice it would be!'--didn't you?"

  Another nod.

  "Well," I said, backing Munchausen in a corner and dragging hismedals away from him, "that's the answer, You for the Burbs! Youfor the chateau up the track! Henceforth, you for the cage in thecountry where the daffydowndillys sing in the treetops andbuttercups chirp from bough to bough!"

  "Oh, John!" she exclaimed, faint with delight; "do you really meanyou've bought a home in the country? How perfectly lovely! You,dear, dear, old John! And that's what you've been doing with allyour money, just to surprise me! Bless your dear good heart! Oh!I'm so glad, and so delighted. Won't it be simply grand?"

  I could feel the cold, spectral form of Sapphira leaning over myleft shoulder, urging me on.

  "What is it like? How many rooms? Where is it?" she inquired, allin one breath.

  Where was the blamed thing? What did it look like? How did Iknow? She could search me. I could feel my ears getting red.Presently I braced and mumbled, "No more details till the castle iscompleted, then I'll coax you out there and let you revel."

  "How soon will that be?" she asked, "To-morrow? Yes, John,to-morrow?"

  "No," I whispered croupily, "in--in about a week."

  I wanted time to arrange my earthly affairs.

  "Oh! lovely!" she said, and kissing me rushed away to break thenews to mother.

  I felt like a rain check after the sun comes out.

  Suddenly Hope tugged at my heart strings and I remembered that Ihad a week in which to beat the ponies to a pulp and win out enoughcoin to buy six Swiss Cheese cottages in the country.

  Day after day I waded in among the jelly fish at the track but thebest I ever got was an $8 win.

  Eight dollars wouldn't buy a dog house.

  I was desperate. Every evening I had to sit around and listenwhile Clara J. told Tacks or Uncle Peter or Aunt Martha or Motherwhat she intended doing when we moved to the country.

  They had it all cooked up. Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha were comingto live with us and Tacks would be there to let us live with him.

  Uncle Peter intended starting a garden truck farm in the back yardand Tacks figured on building a chicken coop somewhere between thefront gate and the parlor.

  Aunt Martha and Clara J. almost came to blows over the question ofmilking the cow. Aunt Martha insisted that cows are milked bymachinery and Clara J. was equally positive that moral suasion isthe only means by which a cow can be brought to a show down.

  In the meantime I was dying every half hour.

  Finally the day preceding the long-talked of country excursionarrived and I began to figure on the safest and least inexpensivemethods of suicide.

  I went to the track in the afternoon and threw out enough gold dustto paint our country home from cellar to attic--but never a sardineshowed.

  Frostbitten and suffocated by the odor of burning money I creptinto a seat in the car and began to plan my finale.

  Presently an elbow poked me in the ribs and I looked into thesmiling face of Bunch Jefferson.

  "Still piking, eh?" he chuckled; "you wouldn't trail along afterYour Uncle Bunch and get next to the candy man, would you? Only$400 to the good to-day. Am I the picker from Picklesburg, son ofthe old man Pickwick?--well, I guess yes!"

  Then in that desperate moment I broke down and confessed all toBunch. I told him how my haughty spirit disdained a tip and how inthe pride of my heart I doped the cards myself and fell in thewell. I told him of my feverish desire to beat the Bookmakers downthrough the earth till they yelled for mercy, and I told him of mypitiful dilemma and how I had to build a home in the country beforenoon to-morrow or do a dog trot to the Bad lands.

  Then Bunch began to laugh--a long, loud, discordant laugh whichended in, "John, I'll help you make good!" and then I began to situp and notice things.

  "I'm away head of this pitty-pat game at the Merry-go-Round," Bunchwent on, "and it so happens that recently I peeled the wrapper offmy roll and swapped it for a country home for my sister and herdaughter. She's a young widow, my sister is, and one of theloveliest little ladies that ever came over the hill. And she hasa daughter that's a regular plate of peaches and cream."

  Still I sat in darkness, and he went on:

  "Now, my sister won't move out there for a day or two, soto-morrow, promptly on schedule time, you lead your domestic fleetover the sandbars to that house and point with pride to its variousbeauties--are you wise?"

  "But, Great Scott, man! it's not mine!" I gasped.

  "Roll a small pill and get together," admonished Bunch, with aseraphic smile. "Can't you figure the trick to win? All you haveto do is to coax your gang out there and then break the painfulnews to them that you've suddenly discovered the place is hauntedand that you're going to sell it and buy a better bandbox--gettingwise?"

  "Bunch," I murmured, weakly, "you've saved my life, temporarily,at least. Where is this palace?"

  "Only forty minutes from the City Hall--any old City Hall," heanswered, "It's at Jiggersville, on the Sitfast & Chewsmoke R.R.,eighteen miles from Anywhere, hot and cold sidewalks and nomosquitoes in the winter. Here you are, full particulars," andwith this Bunch handed me a printed card which let me into all thesecrets of that haven of rest in the tall grass.

  Bless good old Bunch!

  I offered to buy him a quart of Ruinart but he said his thirstwasn't working, so I had to paddle off home.

  That evening for the first time in several weeks I felt likespeaking to myself.

  I was the life of the party and I even beamed approvingly whenUncle Peter tuned up his mezzo contralto voice and began to write abook about the delights of a country home.

  It was a cinch, I assured myself, that the ghost story I hadbroiled up to tell on the morrow would send my suburban-mad familyscurrying back to town.

  Many times mentally I went over the blood curdling details and Iflattered myself that I surely had a lot of shivery goods for sale.

  I couldn't see myself losing at all, at all.

  So me for Jiggersville in the morning.