DEACON DODD'S CALF.

BY SYDNEY DAYRE.

Three of us boys—Will Harald, his cousin from the nearest city, who was visiting him, and myself—went down to Deacon Dodd's farm one Friday afternoon, after tea. We found the old gentleman mowing the grass in the front yard.

"Come in, boys; set down on the steps there. Hot, isn't it?" He wiped his forehead vigorously with his red silk handkerchief.

"Deacon," said Will, "we came to ask you for a peck or so of your pound sweets, for our fishing excursion to-morrow."

"Have a drink of cold water? Pound sweets, eh? Well, now, I'm sorry. Won't anything else do you? Fact is, every pound sweet I've got's promised; there wa'n't many this year, and they're a skurse kind, you see. But you can have anything else you can find on the farm, and welcome. The bell-flowers are tiptop—help yourselves."

We thanked him, but didn't care for anything else. We had plenty of other apples ourselves, and had set our minds on having some of the Deacon's great yellow pound sweets. We wandered discontentedly into the orchard without finding anything we wanted, peeped at the big snapping-turtle by the spring, patted the pretty gentle Jersey cow and her half-grown calf, both of which were the pride and delight of the Deacon's heart, and then sat down in the open doorway of the great barn.

"He's a mean old skinflint, I say," said George, the boy from town. Will and I knew he wasn't any such thing, but we were out of humor at having our walk for nothing, and did not take the trouble to argue the matter.

"I don't think he would have missed a peck," I said.

"Wants to sell 'em, I s'pose. Seems to me I'd oblige a few boys even if it was a few cents out of my pocket."

"Let's play a trick on the old codger," said George. "Last summer our teacher wouldn't give us a holiday when we wanted it, so we shut him up in the school till late at night."

"And what came of it?" we inquired, in great interest.

"Oh, well, one or two of us got expelled for awhile, but that just suited us."

This did not sound to me like a very successful issue of the trick, but George went on:

"Let's run off his calf."

"How do you mean?" asked Will.

"Why, lead it clear off, and tie it up somewhere, so he'll think it's lost."

"He thinks about as much of that cow and calf as he does of his children," I said, with some misgivings.

"All the better—he'll be in a jolly sputter over it. We won't hurt anything; just have a little fun on the old fellow. Nobody'll know. Come on."

Somehow I couldn't help feeling that I hated to do anything like playing a trick on the Deacon, for as a general thing he was very good to us boys. But then, on the other hand, it did seem perfectly unreasonable for him to refuse to give us just a few of those apples when we knew he had three times as many as he and all his family put together could eat. Still, I don't think I would have given in if George hadn't urged the matter so. He is one of those fellows who always takes the lead, and the rest of us just follow on. He started off, and Will and I went after him.

We quietly stole round the back of the barn to the lot in which we had seen the cow and calf. No one happened to be about just then. We found a rope, tied it to the calf, and led her into a lane. Soon she got tired of being handled by so many strangers, and I tell you she gave us a lively time. She was a stout, skittish little creature, and we boys had no end of exercise getting her along. She would walk quietly enough for a few steps, and then make a jump forward, which would nearly jerk us off our feet; or she would stop suddenly and turn back, tipping over a boy or two, like enough. At last we put our apple-bag over her head, and she travelled a little easier, but you'd better believe all our hands were sore hanging on to that rope. At last we tied her in a bushy grove about half a mile from the far end of the Deacon's farm.

We had thought it great fun as long as we were all together, but when I was at home alone it didn't seem half so smart to be putting a joke on an old man, and a good kindly old man at that. I woke up several times in the night with the stinging and burning in my hands, and thought what if anything should happen to the calf. Not a word had been said between us as to how it was to be got back again—I don't believe any of us had thought so far ahead as that.

It is dreadful hard work to sleep when you've got anything troublesome on your mind. I tossed about and thought it over just what the Deacon would say when he found the calf was gone; and how Mrs. Dodd would worry. Finally I thought of the piles of doughnuts she had given us boys at one time and another. I got so wretched that I couldn't stand it any longer.

I didn't know how long George intended to keep it hidden, but I made up my mind to get up with the first streak of day, and went to see if I couldn't get the calf back by myself. Then I meant to leave George and Will to bother themselves awhile, wondering what could become of it. It was a long walk, but at last I reached the place, and then I tell you I stood and stared—that calf was gone!

I hunted and hunted all about there, but it was no use. The faces of Will and George grew as blank as my own as I told them, and we joined the fishing party of a dozen or so boys with a heavy sinking at our hearts, and many doubts as to what might be the outcome of our clever joke on the old Deacon.

Early in the afternoon we saw a spring-wagon working its way along under the willows where we were fishing. Two men were in it, one of whom, a stumpy, freckle-faced Irishman, I recognized as Deacon Dodd's new hired man. The other was a neighbor of ours, and it was not until he had beckoned George and Will and myself a little apart from the other boys that I remembered all of a sudden, with a great addition to the weight on my mind, that he was the deputy-sheriff.

"Yis, sor, thim's the very b'ys," said the Irishman, with a very positive nod of his head at us.

The deputy-sheriff looked puzzled.

"Why, my man," he said, "you don't mean it's these boys you're after?"

"It's jist these same I'm maning—the very wans me own eyes saw shtalin' away the Daacon's calf."

At this we burst out laughing, and gave the deputy-sheriff an account of our frolic of the night before. Mike listened unmoved, simply asking, as we finished:

"But wheriver is the Daacon's baste, thin?"

This we could not answer. The deputy-sheriff whispered with the Irishman, seeming to intercede for us; but Mike only answered, doggedly:

"The Daacon was called away suddint lasht night, and only mesilf to see to things. Them b'ys had the calf—wheriver is the calf?"

His stubborn faithfulness was not to be shaken, and the deputy-sheriff gave up.

"Well, boys, seeing he's so set, I guess you'd better just jump in and go along with me—being such a valuable animal, you see. Of course it won't amount to anything, mere matter of form; only a little talk before Squire Granger."

We were a crest-fallen three as we mounted that spring-wagon, dimly realizing that, spite of the deputy-sheriff's politeness, the plain English of all this was that we were under arrest, and on our way to a magistrate's office. Our worst fears all the morning had been of our being called upon to pay the price of a choice specimen of blooded stock, but an indefinite train of horrible possibilities now seemed to open out before our imaginations.

How our cheeks burned as we found ourselves before the country justice, and perceived the crowd drawn by the excitement of a preliminary examination, and heard the astonishment and horror expressed that we should be the criminals. How our shame and confusion increased as the other members of the picnic, whom we had devoutly hoped would not allow their day's sport to be shortened by our leaving the party so early, quietly filed in, and added their gaze to the others'.

The justice seemed somewhat embarrassed himself. There did not seem to be much of a case, but what little there was was dead against us. The only thing about it was Mike's unwavering testimony to having seen us in the lane driving away the calf. This we could not deny, and all our protestations of its being only a joke were thrown into confusion by his stubbornly repeated question:

"Thin, wheriver is the Daacon's baste?"

The thing began to look less and less like a joke to us as we found it impossible to bring any witnesses for the defense. The justice and the deputy-sheriff whispered solemnly together.

All at once there was a stir in court. Deacon Dodd elbowed his way into our neighborhood, and as he looked us over, his genial face expanded into a laugh that shook the very rafters.

"Well, boys, have you had enough fun?"

We had nothing to say. The justice seemed cheered by the entrance into the case of something lively, and asked the Deacon if he had any evidence to offer. We, the prisoners, were not encouraged, feeling very sure his testimony could not be in our favor. The justice had some trouble in getting things sobered down enough to swear the Deacon properly, but when this was accomplished he was allowed to give his account in his own way, which went something like this:

"Yes, your honor, I felt bad when the boys wanted them pound sweets, for I always do take to giving to boys—used to be a boy myself, you know, and it don't seem so very long ago neither, 'though I don't pretend to be as young as I was once. Well, when I got into my little tool-room in the barn to hang up my scythe, and sat there to cool off a bit, being as the evening was warmish, and them poor chaps, after having tired themselves all out trying to find something nice in the orchard, and couldn't, come to take a rest at the barn door, and says they, 'The Deacon's an old skinflint, and wants to put every cent he can in his pocket.' Likewise wishing every apple on his place would rot and such like—I say, Squire, I could hardly forbear just getting up and going out to them boys and saying, 'Boys, just you go 'n' get every pound sweet on that tree—don't you leave one.' But, you see, my wife, Mis' Dodd, had told me how she'd been and promised every individual one of them pound sweets to the hospital; for them poor souls lying there sick found it hard to get anything real relishing, and liked 'em baked. So I couldn't help myself, seeing she'd passed her word for a charity, and would 'a felt hard at me, naturally, if I'd gone back on her.

"But when the boys thought they'd like a little fun with the Jersey calf, I knew they wouldn't do the pretty creatur' any hurt, for I heard 'em saying how they knew I set great store by her. The evening was getting cooler then, so I just took a walk along behind the hedge, they being on t'other side.—You did have a time with her, didn't you, boys?"

What a roar went up from that roomful of listeners!

"'Twas tough; yes, I could see that, a regular tussle to get her along. I'd 'a helped you, for she follows me like a lamb, only I was afraid 'twould spoil your fun if I took hold too. So I just kept along till you tied her up safe and comfortable—"

Here Mike broke in, in total disregard of the proprieties of a court-room:

"But, Daacon, wheriver's the baste now? Be the howly poker she's clane gone off the farrum!"

"She's in the northeast corner pasture. I'd been calculating to put her there, to be more in the shade, and the boys gave me just so much help with her, you see. After I'd put her there and got home, I found a letter from my son Isaac, telling how he was sick, and wanted to see me and his mother, Mis' Dodd. So I just hitched up, and without waiting to see Mike, me and her started off to drive over there—better than four miles 'tis—and the calf slipped my mind till I just now got back, and heard tell how Mike here was making a bother with the boys. That's all, your honor."

His honor, I knew, had been dreadfully worried at not having been able to give more dignity to the court, and he now opened his mouth, I suppose to dismiss the proceedings in proper form, but the Deacon gave him no chance at all. I am not prepared to say that we three are not legally under arrest to this day.

"Better go back to your fishing now, boys," he said. "Too bad to have your day broke up so; but Mike meant well, you know."

"Three cheers for Mike!" shouted some one, intent on pushing the fun as far as possible.

"Three cheers for Deacon Dodd!" came next, and when they had been given with a will by the merry crowd, a cry arose:

"Three cheers for the half-grown calf!"

Before they had died away, Mike turned with a most meaning look at us three boys, exclaiming:

"Ivery wan of 'em."

And they gave us a tiger.