CHAPTER IV A SECRET AMBITION REVEALED

As Lieutenant Purcell and Morey clambered out on the bank the military man began laughing heartily.

“I suppose they are a pretty wide fit,” remarked Morey holding out Marsh Green’s loosely hanging trousers with one hand.

“I was laughing at my mistake in thinking you were a ‘pot’ fisher,” explained the soldier. “But I’d known if I had seen your rod—it’s a beauty.”

Morey handed Lieutenant Purcell his father’s old split bamboo, silver ferruled, and colored a rich brown from long use.

“Since we caused you to lose your own rod I want you to take mine,” said Morey promptly. “It is a little heavy and old-fashioned but it has landed many a fine fish. It was my father’s.”

“Your father is dead?”

“Yes sir. My mother lives—Aspley Place is our home.”

“Well, I want to shake hands with you, sir, and to say again I am heartily sorry I lost my head. Losing my rod serves me right. I couldn’t think of taking yours. It’s a beauty,” he added, taking the rod in his hands.

“But I want you to,” exclaimed Morey. “My father was a sportsman. He loved his horse, rod and gun. I don’t know what Amos meant. I reckon it’s the first time a trout was ever taken out of Aspley Creek in a net. I’ll feel better if you’ll take the rod. If you don’t,” he added, his eyes snapping, “I’ll take it and break it over that nigger’s back.”

Amos, skulking within earshot—the rock still in his hand—hurried away among the pines.

“I insist that the fault was all mine. But I’ll compromise. I am stationed near Linden, some miles from here, on special duty. It was a long drive over here and a man will be waiting for me some miles down the stream. I’d like to fish the creek down to my rendezvous. If you lend me your rod I’ll send it to you tomorrow.”

“At least,” said Morey, giving ready assent, “you will consider yourself as having at all times, for yourself and friends, the use of the creek. And when you are nearby,” he continued, pointing among the trees toward the west, “my mother will be glad to have you call at our home. A real fisherman will always find a welcome there. I’ve got better pants at home,” laughed Morey.

The soldier shrugged his shoulders and laughed in turn. Then he lifted the lid of Morey’s broken creel and saw the two small trout. In turn he exposed his own catch—seven beautiful fish, one weighing at least a pound and a quarter. Before Morey could stop him the lieutenant had dumped his own string into the boy’s basket.

“With my compliments to your mother, my boy.”

The pride of the Marshalls rose in the water-soaked, ragged boy’s heart.

“On one condition, sir; that you will take dinner with us this evening.”

The man hesitated.

“Not today, thank you. I’m deuced glad to meet a son of one of our old families—I’m a Virginian myself—but, not today.”

“You are stationed at Linden, you say?”

“For a time. I may leave any day. If I do I hope we may meet again. Won’t you take my card?”

He handed Morey a card reading: “Lieutenant Fred Purcell, U. S. Signal Corps, Fort Meyer, Virginia.”

“It will be a favor to me if you’ll take the rod,” insisted Morey.

“The obligation is all mine,” insisted the stranger. “And, if we meet again I hope I can find opportunity to return the favor in some way.”

When the two finally parted company Morey had little reason to suspect how much that statement meant, nor how soon he was to avail himself of Lieutenant Purcell’s kind offices.

A half hour later Morey reached his home and entered the musty, quiet horse lot. There was hardly a breath of air and the sun lay on the place with almost midsummer heat. A few chickens pecked in silence but no other living thing was in sight. Until then the boy had not realized how desolate and run-down was the place where once the activities of a busy plantation centered. There were hardly signs even, of the farm implements that had rotted away for years. The yard seemed abandoned.

With a little lump in his throat the boy hurried forward, his long, ragged trousers gathering new dust and weight as he did do. As he climbed the broken-down fence and got a view of the big, paintless, loose-boarded house beyond he almost sighed. But there at least were flowers and he could hear the hum of bees among the hollyhocks by the garden fence. There he could see Marsh, his old hat well down on his head, bent over his hoe, as the colored man rose at times among the rank weeds. Beyond the garden patch, in the low meadow, he could see, too, old Betty and Jim the mule. Amos was not in sight.

“Old Marsh is getting pretty careless,” said Morey to himself. “There’s a good many things he ought to do around here. Lazy niggers,” he mused.

It did not occur to Morey that he might do some of these things himself. Such had not been the lad’s training. With another sigh he made his way to Marsh Green’s cabin. Never before had it looked so poor and desolate.

“Marsh ought to fix up his old place,” Morey muttered. Then he turned and looked at the big house. The wide shingles, green with moss, were missing in many places. The big chimney, with one side of the top missing, stood like a monument to the departed glories of other days. On the grey-green roof a few chimney bricks lay where they had fallen. But, around the far corner where the gallery showed, the honeysuckle, crawling over the columns and roof, hung a deep green curtain of new fragrance. And, through the crookedly hanging shutters which were the color of dead grass, he saw fresh white curtains.

For the first time in his life the sight of the bricks on the roof annoyed Morey. With a sharp reprimand on his tongue he was about to call to the busy Marsh when a sound fell upon his ear. There was some one in the cabin. Stealing around behind the crumbling shack Morey cautiously approached it and peered through a crack. Amos, crooning to himself, was standing in the middle of the hard, clay floor with Morey’s Richmond trousers held up, before him in his outstretched hands.

Amos’ eyes were set. On his solemn black face there was a look of longing. His temptation was too great. Squatting on the floor the colored boy emptied the contents of the trousers’ pockets on the clay; seventy-five cents in money—dimes, nickels and a shining quarter—Morey’s key ring, a silver pencil case, note-book, handkerchief, rubber eraser and his new pocket knife, the last thing he had bought in Richmond.

Each thing the colored lad fondled, felt and smelled. Then he opened the knife, tested it and held it off at arm’s length. Gradually he returned each object to its place, the knife last of all. He sprang to his feet, and Morey was just about to call out, but stopped. The black boy, giving way to temptation, plunged his hand again into a pocket of the trousers and pulled out the new knife. He shoved the knife into his own pocket and dropped the trousers where Morey had left them.

Chuckling to himself, Morey, a few moments later, sauntered into the cabin.

“Amos,” said Morey, “did that man hurt you when he pushed you over?”

“Push me?” said Amos. “He done hit me wid his fis’.”

“Did he hurt you?” persisted Morey, doffing Marsh’s unwieldly trousers.

For answer Amos produced and exhibited the mossy boulder that he had carried from the creek.

“Don’ mak no diffunce ’bout dat. But ef dat man ebber comes dis way,” and he shook his head belligerently, “yo’ don’ need ast him no sich quesson. He ain’t gwine to be hurted—he gwine to be kilt—da’s right.”

“Anyway don’t stab him,” said Morey putting on his own trousers.

“I ain’t no stabbin’ colored boy,” began Amos with dignity, “an’ I ain’t gwine hit no pusson when he ain’t lookin!”

“Good. Never do any thing behind another man’s back.”

The colored boy shifted a little uneasily but Morey only laughed and said no more. As the two boys passed out of the cabin Morey pointed to the distant home.

“Amos,” he said, “why don’t you get up there and take those bricks down?”

“Yo’ ma don’ tell me to take no bricks down. How I gwine to git ’way up dar? ’Sides, I ain’t got no time—.”

“Well, I tell you—”

“Miss Marshall, don’ tell me—.”

“Git, boy!” snapped Morey nodding toward the house.

But Amos hung back, digging his toes into the dust, with a defiant look on his face. Morey began to feel in his pockets and his face assumed a puzzled look.

“I reckon I must have dropped my new knife in the cabin,” said Morey, turning back.

There was a swift pat-pat of bare feet and, as Morey glanced over his shoulder he saw Amos in a cloud of dust loping at the top of his speed toward the house.

Morey followed the flying colored boy who in a few minutes was scrambling up the kitchen roof. Mammy Ca’line was in the kitchen ironing and singing softly to herself. Throwing the now stiff trout on a table Morey said:

“Here you are, Mammy, trout for supper.”

“Ain’t you all gwine to Major Carey’s dis ebenin’?”

Morey’s jaw fell. He had forgotten about the proposed call.

“Anyway,” he said, “we aren’t going there for supper.”

“Wha’ fo’ yo’ gwine den? Yo’ ma’ she always stay fo’ eatin’.”

“Where is mother?” asked Morey.

“Sh! sh!” whispered Mammy Ca’line, “yo ma been gettin’ her beauty sleep, chile.”

“You cook the fish, Mammy; we’ll go after supper.”

The old colored woman looked up with a shrewd smile.

“Yo’ all bettah go ’long to Major Carey’s tomorrow, lessen yo’ git ’nother mess o’ fish. Major Carey ain’t gwine to turn no one way from de table. De Carey’s has fish when dey wants dem. We all has ’em when we kin get ’em.”

Morey grew thoughtful. But, passing on into the hall he made his way lightly upstairs, that he might not disturb his mother, and entered his own little room.

It certainly looked restful, after his day’s activity, and throwing himself on the big, high-posted bed, he prepared to rest. But Morey was not used to passing the daylight hours thus and in a few minutes he was up and busy. His unpacked trunk was before him and he squatted on the floor beside it.

About five o’clock Mrs. Marshall, fresh and smiling, dressed in white and with a spray of honeysuckle in her dress, softly opened the door. On the floor, fast asleep, lay Morey. About him, in the direst confusion and disorder, were books, circulars, catalogues and newspaper clippings. The floor was littered with what had apparently been the principal contents of the boy’s trunk.

Mrs. Marshall picked her way among them; automobile catalogues, price list of motors, advertisements of balloon manufacturers, descriptions of aeroplane and dirigible balloon motors; newspaper clippings relating to airships and their flights; motor-boat pictures. By the unconscious boy’s arm lay a paper backed volume, “Aeroplanes; their Manufacture and Use.” Not less than fifty such items constituted the litter on the floor.

Mrs. Marshall touched Morey on the forehead. He sprang up, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“Is this your school library?” asked his mother, laughing.

“Some of it,” answered Morey soberly. “I borrowed the rest.”

Mrs. Marshall looked surprised.

“Does this interest you?” she went on, picking up a picture of a revolving gyroscopic motor as if it were dynamite.

“Interest me?” exclaimed Morey. “I reckon it interests any one in my business.”

“Your business?”

“Surely. That’s what I’m goin’ to be.”

Mrs. Marshall could only look at him, dazed and bewildered.

“Haven’t had time to tell you,” smiled Morey. “I’m an aviator. I’m going to make an aeroplane this summer.”