University of Virginia Library

1. I.
WHAT MR. DUCKLOW BROUGHT HOME IN HIS BOOT-LEG.

ON a certain mild March evening, A. D. 1864, the
Ducklow kitchen had a general air of waiting for
somebody. Mrs. Ducklow sat knitting by the light of a
kerosene lamp, but paused ever and anon, neglecting her
stocking, and knitting her brows instead, with an aspect
of anxious listening. The old gray cat, coiled up on a
cushion at her side, purring in her sleep, purred and slept
as if she knew perfectly well who was coming soon to
occupy that chair, and meant to make the most of it.
The old-fashioned clock, perched upon the high mantel-piece
of the low-studded room, ticked away lonesomely,
as clocks tick only when somebody is waited for who does
not come. Even the teakettle on the stove seemed to be
in the secret, for it simmered and sang after the manner
of a wise old teakettle fully conscious of the importance
of its mission. The side-table, which was simply a leaf on
hinges fixed in the wall, and looked like an apron when
it was down, giving to that side of the kitchen a curious
resemblance to Mrs. Ducklow, and rested on one arm when
it was up, in which position it reminded you more of Mr.
Ducklow leaning his chin on his hand, — the side-table
was set with a single plate, knife and fork, and cup and
saucer, indicating that the person waited for was expected

to partake of refreshments. Behind the stairway door was
a small boy kicking off a very small pair of trousers with a
degree of reluctance which showed that he also wished to
sit up and wait for somebody.

“Say, ma, need I go to bed now!” he exclaimed rather
than inquired, starting to pull on the trousers again after
he had got one leg free. “He 'll want me to hold the
lantern for him to take care of the hoss.”

“No, no, Taddy,” for that was the boy's name (short
for Thaddeus), “you 'll only be in the way, if you set up.
Besides, I want to mend your pants.”

“You 're always wantin' to mend my pants!” complained
the youngster, who seemed to think that it was by no
means to do him a favor, but rather to afford herself a
gloating pleasure, that Mrs. Ducklow, who had a mania for
patching, required the garment to be delivered up to her.
“I wish there was n't such a thing as pants in the world!”
— utterly regardless of the plight the world would be in
without them.

“Don't talk that way, after all the trouble and expense
we 've been to to clothe ye!” said the good woman, reprovingly.
“Where would you be now, if 't was n't for me
and yer Pa Ducklow?”

“I should n't be goin' to bed when I don't want to!”
he muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

“You ungrateful child!” said Mrs. Ducklow, not without
reason, for Taddy knew very well — at least he was
reminded of the fact often enough — that he owed to them
his home and all its comforts. “Would n't be going to
bed when you don't want to! You would n't be going to
bed when you do want to, more likely; for ten to one you
would n't have a bed to go to. Think of the sitewation
you was in when we adopted ye, and then talk that way!”

As this was an unanswerable argument, Taddy contented

himself with thrusting a hand into his trousers and recklessly
increasing the area of the forthcoming patch. “If
she likes to mend so well, let her!” thought he.

“Taddy, are you tearing them pants?” cried Mrs. Ducklow
sharply, hearing a sound alarmingly suggestive of
cracking threads.

“I was pullin' 'em off,” said Taddy. “I never see such
mean cloth! can't touch it but it has to tear. Say, ma, do
ye think he 'll bring me home a drum?”

“You 'll know in the morning.”

“I want to know to-night. He said mabby he would.
Say, can't I set up?”

“I 'll let ye know whether you can set up, after you 've
been told so many times!”

So saying, Mrs. Ducklow rose from her chair, laid down
her knitting-work, and started for the stairway door with
great energy and a rattan. But Taddy, who perceived
retribution approaching, did not see fit to wait for it. He
darted up the stairs and crept into his bunk with the
lightness and agility of a squirrel.

“I 'm abed! Say, ma, I 'm abed!” he cried, eager to
save the excellent lady the trouble of ascending the stairs.
“I 'm 'most asleep a'ready!”

“It 's a good thing for you you be!” said Mrs. Ducklow,
gathering up the garment he had left behind the door.
“Why, Taddy, how you did tear it! I 've a good notion
to give ye a smart trouncing now!”

Taddy began to snore, and Mrs. Ducklow concluded that
she would not wake him.

“It is mean cloth, as he says!” she exclaimed, examining
it by the kerosene lamp. “For my part, I consider it a
great misfortin that shoddy was ever invented. Ye can't
buy any sort of a ready-made garment for boys now-days
but it comes to pieces at the least wear or strain, like so
much brown paper.”

She was shaping the necessary patch, when the sound
of wheels coming into the yard told her that the person so
long waited for had arrived.

“That you?” said she, opening the kitchen door and
looking out into the darkness.

“Yes,” replied a man's voice.

“Ye want the lantern?”

“No: jest set the lamp in the winder, and I guess I can
git along. Whoa!” And the man jumped to the ground.

“Had good luck?” the woman inquired in a low voice.

“I 'll tell ye when I come in,” was the evasive answer.

“Has he bought me a drum?” bawled Taddy from the
chamber stairs.

“Do you want me to come up there and 'tend to ye?”
demanded Mrs. Ducklow.

The boy was not particularly ambitious of enjoying that
honor.

“You be still and go to sleep, then, or you 'll git
drummed!”

And she latched the stairway door, greatly to the dismay
of Master Taddy, who felt that some vast and momentous
secret was kept from him. Overhearing whispered conferences
between his adopted parents in the morning,
noticing also the cautious glances they cast at him, and the
persistency with which they repeatedly sent him away out
of sight on slight and absurd pretences, he had gathered a
fact and drawn an inference, namely, that a great purchase
was to be made by Mr. Ducklow that day in town, and
that, on his return, he (Taddy) was to be surprised by the
presentation of what he had long coveted and teased for,
— a new drum.

To lie quietly in bed under such circumstances was an
act that required more self-control than Master Taddy
possessed. Accordingly he stole down stairs and listened,

feeling sure that if the drum should come in, Mrs. Ducklow,
and perhaps Mr. Ducklow himself, would be unable to
resist the temptation of thumping it softly to try its
sound.

Mrs. Ducklow was busy taking her husband's supper
out of the oven, where it had been kept warm for him,
pouring hot water into the teapot, and giving the last
touches to the table. Then came the familiar grating
noise of a boot on the scraper. Mrs. Ducklow stepped
quickly to open the door for Mr. Ducklow. Taddy, well
aware that he was committing an indiscretion, but inspired
by the wild hope of seeing a new drum come into the
kitchen, ventured to unlatch the stairway door, open it a
crack, and peep.

Mr. Ducklow entered, bringing a number of parcels containing
purchases from the stores, but no drum visible to
Taddy.

“Did you buy?” whispered Mrs. Ducklow, relieving
him of his load.

Mr. Ducklow pointed mysteriously at the stairway door,
lifting his eyebrows interrogatively.

“Taddy?” said Mrs. Ducklow. “O, he 's abed, —
though I never in my life had such a time to git him off
out of the way; for he 'd somehow got possessed with the
idee that you was to buy something, and he wanted to set
up and see what it was.”

“Strange how childern will ketch things sometimes,
best ye can do to prevent!” said Mr. Ducklow.

“But did ye buy?”

“You better jest take them matches and put 'em out o'
the way, fust thing, 'fore ye forgit it. Matches are dangerous
to have layin' around, and I never feel safe till
they 're safe.”

And Mr. Ducklow hung up his hat, and laid his overcoat

across a chair in the next room, with a carefulness
and deliberation exhausting to the patience of good Mrs.
Ducklow, and no less trying to that of Master Taddy, who
was waiting to hear the important question answered.

“Come!” said she, after hastily disposing of the matches,
“what 's the use of keeping me in suspense? Did ye
buy?”

“Where did ye put 'em?” asked Mr. Ducklow, taking
down the bootjack.

“In the little tin pail, where we always keep 'em, of
course! Where should I put 'em?”

“You need n't be cross. I asked, 'cause I did n't hear
ye put the cover on. I don't believe ye did put the cover
on, either; and I sha' n't be easy till ye do.”

Mrs. Ducklow returned to the pantry; and her husband,
pausing a moment, leaning over a chair, heard the cover
go on the tin pail with a click and a clatter which betrayed,
that, if ever there was an angry and impatient cover, that
was.

“Anybody been here to-day?” Mr. Ducklow inquired,
pressing the heel of his right boot in the jack, and steadying
the toe under a round of the chair.

“No,” replied Mrs. Ducklow.

“Ye been anywheres?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” mildly inquired Mr. Ducklow.

“No matter,” said Mrs. Ducklow, with decided ill-temper.

Mr. Ducklow drew a deep sigh, as he turned and looked
upon her.

“Wal, you be about the most uncomf'table woman ever
I see,” he said, with a dark and dissatisfied countenance.

“If you can't answer my question, I don't see why I
need take the trouble to answer yours,” — and Mrs. Ducklow

returned with compressed lips to her patching. “Yer
supper is ready; ye can eat it when ye please.”

“I was answerin' your question as fast as I could,” said
her husband, in a tone of excessive mildness, full of sorrow
and discouragement.

“I have n't seen any signs of your answering it.”

And the housewife's fingers stitched away energetically
at the patch.

“Wal, wal! ye don't see everything!”

Mr. Ducklow, having already removed one boot, drew
gently at the other. As it came off, something fell out on
the floor. He picked it up, and handed it with a triumphant
smile to Mrs. Ducklow.

“O, indeed! is this the —”

She was radiant. Her hands dropped their work, and
opened the package, which consisted of a large unsealed
envelope and folded papers within. These she unfolded
and examined with beaming satisfaction.

“But what made ye carry 'em in yer boot so?”

“To tell the truth,” said Mr. Ducklow, in a suppressed
voice, “I was afraid o' bein' robbed. I never was so
afraid o' bein' robbed in my life! So, jest as I got clear o'
the town, I took it out o' my pocket” (meaning, not the
town, but the envelope containing the papers), “an' tucked
it down my boot-leg. Then, all the way home, I was
scaret when I was ridin' alone, an' still more scaret when I
heard anybody comin' after me. You see, it 's jest like so
much money.”

And he arranged the window-curtain in a manner to
prevent the sharpest-eyed burglar from peeping in and
catching a glimpse of the papers.

He neglected to secure the stairway door, however.
There, in his hiding-place behind it, stood Taddy, shivering
in his shirt, but peeping and listening in a fever of curiosity

which nothing could chill. His position was such
that he could not see Mr. Ducklow or the documents, and
his mind was left free to revel in the most daring fancies
regarding the wonderful purchase. He had not yet fully
given up the idea of a new drum, although the image,
which vaguely shaped itself in his mind, of Mr. Ducklow
“tucking it down his boot-leg,” presented difficulties.

“This is the bond, you see,” Mr. Ducklow explained;
“and all these little things that fill out the sheet are the
cowpons. You have only to cut off one o' these, take it
to the bank when it is due, and draw the interest on it in
gold!”

“But suppose you lose the bonds?” queried Mrs. Ducklow,
regarding, not without awe, the destructible paper
representatives of so much property.

“That 's what I 've been thinkin' of; that 's what 's
made me so narvous. I supposed 't would be like so much
railroad stock, good for nothin' to nobody but the owner,
and somethin' that could be replaced if I lost it. But the
man to the bank said no, — 't was like so much currency,
and I must look out for it. That 's what filled all the
bushes with robbers as I come along the road. And I tell
ye, 't was a relief to feel I 'd got safe home at last; though
I don't see now how we 're to keep the plaguy things so we
sha' n't feel uneasy about 'em.”

“Nor I either!” exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, turning pale.
“Suppose the house should take fire! or burglars should
break in! I don't wonder you was so particular about the
matches! Dear me! I shall be frightened to death!
I 'd no idee 't was to be such dangerous property! I shall
be thinking of fires and burglars! — O-h-h-h!”

The terrified woman uttered a wild scream; for just then
a door flew suddenly open, and there burst into the room
a frightful object, making a headlong plunge at the precious

papers. Mr. Ducklow sprang back against the table
set for his supper with a force that made everything jar.
Then he sprang forward again, instinctively reaching to
grasp and save from plunder the coupon bounds. But by
this time both he and his wife had become aware of the
nature of the intrusion.

“Thaddeus!” ejaculated the lady. “How came you
here? Get up! Give an account of yourself!”

Taddy, whose abrupt appearance in the room had been
altogether involuntary, was quite innocent of any predatory
designs. Leaning forward farther and farther, in the
ardor of discovery, he had, when too late to save himself,
experienced the phenomenon of losing his balance, and
pitched from the stairway into the kitchen with a violence
that threw the door back against the wall with a bang,
and laid him out, a sprawling figure, in scanty, ghostly apparel,
on the floor.

“What ye want? What ye here for?” sternly demanded
Mr. Ducklow, snatching him up by one arm, and
shaking him.

“Don't know,” faltered the luckless youngster, speaking
the truth for once in his life. “Fell.”

“Fell! How did you come to fall? What are you out
o' bed for?”

“Don't know,” — snivelling and rubbing his eyes.
“Did n't know I was.”

“Got up without knowing it! That 's a likely story!
How could that happen you, sir?” said Mrs. Ducklow.

“Don't know, 'thout 't was I got up in my sleep,” said
Taddy, who had on rare occasions been known to indulge
in moderate somnambulism.

“In your sleep!” said Mr. Ducklow, incredulously.

“I guess so. I was dreamin' you brought me home a
new drum, — tucked down yer — boot-leg,” faltered Taddy.

“Strange!” said Mr. Ducklow, with a glance at his
wife. “But how could I bring a drum in my boot-leg?”

“Don't know, 'thout it 's a new kind, one that 'll shet
up.”

Taddy looked eagerly round, but saw nothing new or interesting,
except some curious-looking papers which Mrs.
Ducklow was hastily tucking into an envelope.

“Say, did ye, pa?”

“Did I? Of course I did n't! What nonsense! But
how came ye down here? Speak the truth!”

“I dreamt you was blowin' it up, and I sprung to ketch
it, when, fust I knowed, I was on the floor, like a thousan'
o' brick! 'Mos' broke my knee-pans!” whimpered Taddy.
“Say, did n't ye bring me home nothin'?' What 's them
things?”

“Nothin' little boys know anything about. Now run
back to bed again. I forgot to buy you a drum to-day,
but I 'll git ye somethin' next time I go to town, — if I
think on 't!”

“So ye always say, but ye never think on 't!” complained
Taddy.

“There, there! Somebody 's comin'! What a lookin'
object you are, to be seen by visitors!”

There was a knock. Taddy disappeared. Mr. Ducklow
turned anxiously to his wife, who was hastily hiding the
bonds in her palpitating bosom.

“Who can it be this time o' night?”

“Sakes alive!” said Mrs. Ducklow, in whose mind burglars
were uppermost, “I wish, whoever 't is, they 'd keep
away! Go to the door,” she whispered, resuming her work.

Mr. Ducklow complied; and, as the visitor entered,
there she sat plying her needle as industriously and demurely
as though neither bonds nor burglars had ever
been heard of in that remote rural district.