Michael O'Halloran — Initiations in an Ancient and Honourable Brotherhood

"Yes you ought to see the 'amusing things' and the 'happy people' when your stomach's cramping and your head splitting!"

cried Junior.

"I tell you down among them it looks different from riding past in an automobile."

"Exactly!"

conceded Peter.

"Exactly what I'm coming at.

All your life I've given you the wrong viewpoint.

Now you can busy yourselves planning how to make our share of the world over, so it will bring all the joy of life right to the front door.

I guess the first big thing is to currycomb the whole place, and fix it as it should be to be most convenient for us.

Then we better take a course of training in making up our minds to be _satisfied_ with what we can afford.

Junior, does home look better to you than it did this time last week?"

"Father," began Junior, and sobbed aloud.

"The answer is sufficient," said Peter dryly.

"Never mind son!

When, with our heads put together, we get our buildings and land fixed right, I suggest that we also fix our clothes and our belongings right.

I

can't see any reason why a woman as lovely as Ma, should be told from any other pretty woman, by her walk or dress.

I don't know why a man as well set up as I am, shouldn't wear his clothes as easy as the men at the club house.

I can't see why we shouldn't be at that same club house for a meal once in a while, just to keep us satisfied with home cooking, and that game looks interesting.

Next trip to Multiopolis I make, I'm going to get saddles for Junior and Mickey and teach them what I know about how to sit and handle a horse properly; and it needn't be a plow horse either.

Next day off I have, I'm going to spend hauling lumber to one of these lakes we decide on, to build a house for a launch and fishing-boat for us.

Then when we have a vacation, we'll drive there, shelter our car, and enjoy ourselves like the city folks by the thousand, since we think what they do so right and fine.

They've showed us what they like, flocking five thousand at a clip, to Red Wing Lake a few miles from us.

Since we live among what they are spending their thousands every summer to enjoy, let's help ourselves to a little pleasure.

I am going to buy each of us a fishing rod, and get a box of tackle, soon as I reach it, and I'm going fast.

I've wasted sixteen years, now I'm on the homestretch, and it's going to be a stretch of all there is in me to make our home the sweetest, grandest place on earth to us.

Will you help me, Nancy?"

"I think maybe I'll be saved nervous prostration if I can help just a few of these things to take place."

"Yes, I've sensed that," said Peter.

"Mickey pointed that out to me the morning you jumped your job and headed for sunup.

For years, just _half your time and strength has been thrown away using old methods and implements in your work, and having the kitchen unhandy and inconvenient; and I'm the man who should have seen it, and got you right tools for your job at the same time I bought a houseful for myself and my work_.

We must stir up this whole neighbourhood, and build a big entertainment house, where we can have a library suitable for country folks, and satisfying to their ways of life.

It's got to have music boxes in it, and a floor fit for dancing and skating, and a stage for our own entertainments, and the folks we decide to bring here to amuse us.

We can put in a picture machine and a screen, that we can pay for by charging a few cents admission the nights we run it, and rent films once or twice a week from a good city show.

We could fix up a place like that, and get no end of fun and education out of it, without going thirty miles and spending enough money in one night to get better entertainment for a month at home, and in a cool, comfortable hall, and where we can go from it to bed in a few minutes.

Once I am started, with Mickey and Junior to help me, I'm going to call a meeting and talk these things over with my neighbours, and get them to join in if I can.

If I can't, I'll go on and put up the building and start things as I think they should be, and charge enough admittance to get back what I invest; and after that, just enough to pay running expenses and for the talent we use.

I'm so sure it can be done, I'm going to do it.

Will you help me, son?"

"Yes father, I'd think it was fine to help do that," said Junior.

"_Now_ may I say what I want to?"

"Why yes, you might son," said Peter, "but to tell the truth I can't see that you have anything to say.

If you have got the idea, Junior, that you have wronged us any, and that it's your job to ask us to forgive you for wanting to try the things we started and kept you hankering after all your life so far, why you're mistaken.

If I'd trained you from your cradle to love your home, as I've trained you to love Multiopolis, you never would have left us.

So if there is forgiving in the air, you please forgive me.

And this includes your Ma as well.

I should ask her forgiveness too, for a whole lot of things that I bungled about, when I thought I was loving her all I possibly could.

I've got a new idea of love so big and all-encompassing it includes a fireless cooker and a dish-washing machine.

I'm going to put it in practice for a year; then if my family wants to change back, we'll talk about it."

"But father----" began Junior.

"Go to bed son," said Peter.

"You can tell us what happened when you ain't as sleepy as you are right now."

Junior arose and followed his mother to the kitchen.

"Ain't he going to let me tell what a fool I've been at all?"

he demanded.

"I guess your Pa felt that when he got through telling what fools we've been, there wasn't anything left for you to say.

I know I feel that way.

This neighbourhood does all in its power, from the day their children are born, to teach them that _home_ is only a _stopping-place,_ to eat, and sleep, and work, and be sick in; and that every desirable thing in life is to be found _somewhere else_, the else being, in most cases, Multiopolis.

Just look at it year after year gobbling up our boys and girls, and think over the ones you know who have gone, and see what they've come to.

Among the men as far as I remember, Joel Harris went into a law office and made a rich, respectable man; and two girls married and have good homes; the others, many of them, I couldn't name to you the places they are in.

This neighbourhood needs reforming, and if Pa has set out to attempt it, I'll lend a hand, and I guess from what you got this week, you'll be in a position to help better than you could have helped before."

"Yes I guess so too," said Junior emphatically.

He gladly went back to the cream wagon.

Peter didn't want him to, but there was a change in Junior.

He was no longer a wilful discontented boy.

He was a partner, who was greatly interested in a business and felt dissatisfied if he were not working at furthering it.

He had little to say, but his eyes were looking far ahead in deep thought.

The first morning he started out, while Junior unhitched his horse, Peter filled the wagon and went back to the barn where Mickey was helping him.

Junior, passing, remembered he had promised Jud Jason to bring a bundle he had left there, and stopped for it.

He stepped into the small front door and bent for the package lying in sight, when clearly and distinctly arose Mickey's voice lifted to reach Peter, at another task.

"Course I meant him to get enough to make him good and sick of it, like we agreed on; but I never intended him to get any such a dose as he had."

Junior straightened swiftly, and his lower jaw dropped.

His father's reply was equally audible.

"Of course I understand _that_, Mickey."

"Surest thing you know!"

said Mickey.

"I like Junior.

I like him better than any other boy I ever knew, and I've known hundreds.

I tell you Peter, he was gamer than you'll ever believe to hang on as long as he did."

"Yes I think that too," said Peter.

"You know he didn't come because he was all in," explained Mickey.

"You can take a lot of pride in that.

He'd about been the limit when he quit.

And he quit, not because he was robbed and knocked out, but because what he had seen showed him that Multiopolis wasn't the job he wanted for a life sentence.

See?"

"I hope you are right about that," said Peter.

"I'm glad to my soul to get him home, cured in any way; but it sort of gags me to think of him as having been scared out.

It salves my vanity considerable to feel, as you say, that he had the brains to sense the situation, and quit because he felt it wasn't the work for which he was born."

Then Mickey's voice came eagerly, earnestly, warming the cockles of Junior's heart.

"Now lemme tell you Peter; I was there, and I _know_.

It _was_ that way.

_It was just that way exact!

_ He wasn't scared out, he'd have gone at it again, all right, if he'd seen anything in it he _wanted_.

It was just as his mother felt when she first talked it over with me, and the same with you later: that if he got to the city, and got right up against earning a living there, he would find it wasn't what he wanted;

and he did, like all of us thought.

Course I meant to put it to him stiff; I meant to 'niciate him in the ancient and honourable third degree of Multiopolis all right, so he'd have enough to last a lifetime; but I only meant to put him up against what I'd. had myself on the streets; I was just going to test his ginger; I wasn't counting on the robbing, and the alleys, and the knockout, and the morgue.

Gee, Peter!"

Then they laughed.

A dull red surged up Junior's neck, and flooded his face.

He picked up the bundle, went silently from the barn, and climbed on the wagon.

The jerk of the horse stopping at its accustomed place told him when to load the first can.

He had been thinking so deeply he was utterly oblivious to everything save the thought that it had been prearranged among them to "cure" him; even his mother knew about, if he heard aright, had been the instigator of the scheme to let him go, to be what Mickey called "initiated in the ancient and honourable third degree of Multiopolis."

Once he felt so outraged he thought of starting the horse home, taking the trolley, going back to Multiopolis and fighting his way to what his father would be compelled to acknowledge success.

He knew that he could do it; he was on the point of vowing that he _would_ do it; but in his heart he knew better than any one else how repulsed he was, how he hated it, and against a vision of weary years of fighting, came that other vision of himself planning and working beside his father to change and improve their home life.

"Say Junior are you asleep?"

called Jud Jason.

"You sit there like you couldn't move.

D'ye bring my bundle?"

"Yes, it's back there," answered Junior.

"Get it!"

"How'd you like Multiopolis?"

asked Jud.

Junior knew he had that to face.

"It's a cold-blooded sell, Jud," he said promptly.

"I'm glad I went when I did, and found out for myself.

You see it's like this, Jud: I _could_ have stayed and made my way; but I found out in a few days that I wouldn't give a snap for the way when it was made.

We fellows are better off right where we are, and a lot of us are ready to _throw away_ exactly what _many of the men in Multiopolis are wild to get_.

Now let me tell you----" Junior told him, and through putting his experience into words, he eased his heart and cleared his brain.

He came to hints of great and wonder-working things that were going to happen soon.

There was just a possibility that Jud gleaned an idea that the experience in Multiopolis had brought his friend home to astound and benefit the neighbourhood.

At any rate Junior picked up the lines with all the sourness gone from his temperament, which was usually sweet, except that one phrase of Mickey's, and the laughter.

Suddenly he leaned forward.

"Jud, come here," he said.

Junior began to speak, and Jud began to understand and sympathize with the boy he had known from childhood.

"Could we?"

asked Junior.

"'Could we?'

Well, I just guess we _could!

_" "When?"

queried Junior.

"This afternoon, if he's going to be off," said Jud.

"Well I don't know what his plans are, but I could telephone from here and by rustling I could get back by two.

I've done it on a bet.

Where will we go, and what for?"

"To Atwater.

Fishing is good enough excuse."

"All right!

Father will let me take the car."

"Hayseed!

Isn't walking good enough to suit you?

What's the matter with the Elkhart swale, Atwater marsh, and the woods around the head of the lake----" "Hold the horse till I run in and 'phone him."

When he came down the walk he reported: "He wants to go fishing awful bad, and he'll be ready by two.

That's all settled then.

We'll have a fine time."

"Bully!"

said Jud laconically, and started to the house of another friend, where a few words secured a boy of his age a holiday.

Junior drove fast as he dared and hurried with his work; so he reached home a little before two, where he found Mickey with poles and a big can of worms ready.

Despite the pressing offer of the car, they walked, in order to show Mickey the country which he was eager to explore on foot.

Junior said the sunfish were big as lunch plates at Atwater, the perch fine, and often if you caught a grasshopper or a cricket for bait, you got a big bass around the shore, and if they had the luck to reach the lake, when there was no one ahead of them, and secured a boat they were sure of taking some.

"Wouldn't I like to see Lily eating a fish I caught," said Mickey, searching the grass and kicking rotting wood as he saw Junior doing to find bass bait.

"Minnies are the real thing," explained Junior.

"When we get the scheme father laid out going, before we start fishing, you and I will take a net and come to this creek and catch a bucketful of right bait, and then we'll have man's sport, for sure.

Won't it be great?"

"Exactly what the plutes are doing," said Mickey.

"Gee, Junior, if your Pa does all the things he said he was going to, you'll be a plute yourself!"

"Never heard him say anything in my life he didn't do," said Junior, "and didn't you notice that he put _you_ in too?

You'll be just as much of a plute as I will."

"Not on your bromide," said Mickey.

"He is _your_ father, and you'll be in business with him; I'll just be along sometimes, as a friend, maybe."

"I usually take father at just what he says.

I guess he means you to stay in our family, if you like."

"I wonder now!"

said Mickey.

"Looks like it to me.

Father and mother both like you, and they're daffy about Peaches."

"It's because she's so little, and so white, and so helpless," Mickey hastened to explain, "and so awful sweet!"

"Well for what ever it is, it _is_," said Junior, "and I'm just as crazy about her as the rest.

Look out kid!

That fellow's coming right at us!"

Junior dashed for the fence, while Mickey lost time in turning to see what "that fellow" might be; so he faced the ram that had practised on Malcolm Minturn.

With lowered head, the ram sprang at Mickey.

He flew in air, and it butted space and whirled again, so that before the boy's breath was fully recovered he lifted once more, with all the agility learned on the streets of Multiopolis; but that time the broad straw hat he wore to protect his eyes on the water, sailed from his head; he dropped the poles, and as the ram came back at him he hit it squarely in the face with the bait can, which angered rather than daunted it.

Then for a few minutes Mickey was too busy to know exactly what happened, and movements were too quick for Junior.

When he saw that Mickey was tiring, and the ram was not, he caught a rail from the fence and helped subdue the ram.

Panting they climbed the fence and sat resting.

"Why I didn't know Higgins had that ram," said Junior.

"We fellows always crossed that field before.

Say, there ain't much in that '_Gentle sheep pray tell me why, In the pleasant fields you lie?

_' business, is there?"

"Not much but the lie," said Mickey earnestly.

Junior dropped from the fence and led the way toward a wood thick with underbrush, laughing until his heart pained.

As they proceeded they heard voices.

"Why that sounds like my bunch," said Junior.

He whistled shrilly, which brought an immediate response, and soon two boys appeared.

"Hello!"

said Junior.

"Hello!"

answered they.

"Where're you going?"

asked Junior.

"To Atwater Lake, fishing.

Where you?"

"There too!"

said Junior.

"Why great!

We'll go together!

Sam, this is Mickey."

Mickey offered his hand and formalities were over.

"But I threw our worms at the ram," said Mickey.

"Well that was a smart trick!"

cried Junior.

"Wasn't it?"

agreed Mickey.

"But you see the ram was coming and I had the worms in my strong right, so I didn't stop to think I'd spent an hour digging them; I just whaled away--" "Never mind worms," said Jud.

"I guess we got enough to divide; if you fellows want to furnish something for your share, you can find some grubs in these woods, and we'll get more chance at the bass."

"Sure!"

said Mickey.

"What are grubs and where do you look for them?"

"Oh anywhere under rotting wood and round old logs," said Jud.

"B'lieve it's a good place right here, Mickey; dig in till I cut a stick to help with."

Mickey pushed aside the bushes, dropped on his knees and "dug in."

A

second later, with a wild shriek, he rolled over and over striking and screaming.

"Yellow jackets!"

shouted Jud.

"Quick fellers, help Mickey!

He's got too close to a nest!"

Armed with branches they came beating the air and him; until Mickey had a fleeting thought that if the red-hot needles piercing him did not kill, the boys would.

Presently he found himself beside a mudhole and as the others "ouched" and "o-ohed" and bewailed their fate, and grabbed mud and plastered it on, he did the same.

Jud generously offered, as he had not so many stings, to help Mickey.

Soon even the adoring eyes of Peaches could not have told her idol from the mudhole.

He twisted away from an approaching handful crying: "Gee Jud!

Leave a feller room to breathe!

If you are going to smother me, I might as well die from bites!"

"Bites!"

cried the boys while all of them laughed wildly, so wildly that Mickey flushed with shame to think he had so little appreciation of the fun calling a sting a bite, when it was explained to him.

"Well they sure do get down to business," he chattered, chilling from the exquisite pain of a dozen yellow-jacket stings, one of which on his left eyelid was rapidly closing that important organ.

He bowed a willing head for Jud's application of cold mud.

Finally they gathered up their poles and bait and again started toward the lake.

The day was warm, and there was little air in the marsh, and on the swampy shore they followed.

Suddenly Jud cried: "I tell you fellows, what's the use of walking all the way round the lake?

Bet the boats will be taken when we get there!

Let's cut fishing and go swimming right here where there's a cool, shady place.

It will be good for you Mickey, it will cool off your stings a lot."

Mickey promptly began to unbutton, and the others did the same.

Then they made their way through the swamp tangle lining the shore at the head of the lake, and tried to reach the water beside the tamaracks.

Sam and Junior found solid footing, and waded toward deep water.

Jud piloted Mickey to a spot he thought sufficiently treacherous, and said: "Looks good here; you go ahead Mickey, and I'll come after you."

Mickey was unaccustomed to the water.

He waded in with the assurance he had seen the others use, but suddenly he cried: "Gee boys, I'm sucking right down!"

Then on his ears fell a deafening clamour.

"Help!

Help!

Quicksands!

Mickey's sinking!

Help him!"

Mickey threw out his arms.

He grabbed wildly; while a force, seemingly gentle but irresistible, sucked him lower and lower, and with each inch it bore him down, gripped tighter, and pulled faster.

When he glanced at the boys he saw panic in their faces, and he realized that he was probably lost, and they were terror stricken.

The first gulp of tepid shore water that strangled him in running across his gasping lips made him think of Peaches.

Struggling he threw back his head and so saw a widespreading branch of a big maple not far above him.

All that was left of Mickey went into the cry: "Junior!

Bend me that branch!"

Junior swiftly climbed the tree, crept on the limb, and swayed it till it swept the water, then Mickey laid hold; just a few twigs, and then as Junior backed, and the branch lifted higher and higher, Mickey worked, hand over hand, and finally grasped twigs that promised to stand a gentle pull.

Then Jud began to shout instructions: "Little lower, Junior!

Get a better grip before you pull hard, Mickey!

Maple is brittle!

Easy!

It will snap with you!

Kind of roll yourself and turn to let the water in and loosen the sand.

Now roll again!

Now pull a little!

You're making it!

You are out to your shoulders!

Back farther, Junior!

Don't you fall in, or you'll both go down!"

Mickey was very quiet now.

His small face was pallid with the terror of leaving Peaches forever with no provision for her safety.

The grip of the sucking sand was yet pulling at his legs and body; while if the branch broke he knew what it meant; that sucking, insistent pulling, and caving away beneath his feet told him.

Suddenly Mickey gave up struggling, set his teeth, and began fighting by instinct.

He moved his shoulders gently, until he let the water flow in, then instead of trying to work his feet he held them rigid and flattened as he could, and with the upper part of his body still rolling, he reached higher, and kept inching up the branch as Junior backed away, until with sickening slowness he at last reached wood thick as his wrist.

Then he dragged his helpless body after him to safety, where he sank in a heap to rest.

"Jud, it's a good thing I went in there first," he said.

"Heavy as you are, you'd a-been at the bottom by now, if there _is_ any bottom."

Mickey's gaze travelled slowly over his lumpy, purple frame, and then he looked closely at the others.

"Why them stingers must a-give about all of it to me," he commented.

"I don't see any lumps on the rest of you."

"Oh we are used to it," scoffed Jud.

"They don't show on you after you get used to them.

'Sides most all mine are on my head, I kept 'em off with the bushes."

"So did I," chimed in Sam and Junior with one voice.

"I guess I did get a lot the worst of it," conceded Mickey.

"But if they only stung your heads, it's funny you didn't know where to put your mud!"

"Well I'll tell you," said Jud earnestly.

"On your head they hurt worst of all.

They hurt so blame bad, you get so wild like you don't know where you _are_ stung, and you think till you cool off a little, you got them all over."

"Yes I guess you do," agreed Mickey.

The boys were slowly putting on their clothing and Junior was scowling darkly.

Jud edged close.

"Gosh!"

he whispered.

"I thought it was only a little spring!

I didn't think it was a quicksand!"

"You cut out anything more!"

said Junior tersely.

Jud nodded.

After a while they started home, walking slowly and each one being particularly careful of and good to Mickey.

When he had rested, he could see that it was only an accident; such an astounding one he forgot his bites and could talk of little else.

They made another long pause under a big tree, and Mickey felt so much better as they again started home, that Junior lagged behind, and Jud seeing, joined him.

Junior asked softly: "Have any more?"