I made this expedition many times in my first three summers at Hackley Falls; and by degrees, as nothing spectacular ever happened, I was beginning to think myself a fool. Still, the rumors about the Willards grew in number and intensity—they were becoming almost legendary figures of heroic size—and it was easy enough, even for a boy, to see that all three of them were half crazy; one had only to watch the way they walked. Moreover, I had got into the habit of going to the Willard pasture—it was something to do. And in the fall there were the chestnut trees, the best of which were directly north of the field. I used to go there and club the trees and then carry my spoils down to my Tarpeian Rock, there to eat them at leisure while I kept an eye on the enemy.
I was clubbing my favorite tree one afternoon, in the third fall, when suddenly, from behind, a cold hand closed round my neck, and I felt myself being shaken. My heart fairly fell out of me when I looked up and saw that it was old Isaac who had hold of me. But to my astonishment—not that it by any means mitigated my terror—I saw that he was smiling, smiling in a horrible way which looked as if it might be meant to be playful or affectionate. He continued to hold me by the neck and to shake me gently.
“Whose tree is that?” he said.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“It’s mine. So you know, now—don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you never read the Bible?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ever learn the Ten Commandments?”
“Yes, sir.”
Keeping his hold on my neck, he turned me round, so that I faced him directly for the first time. He had on a dirty corduroy coat with a red lining. He was still smiling, and I was more frightened than ever. It seemed to me that he was drunk.
“Well, what’s the eighth?”
“I don’t remember, sir.”
He shook me playfully—but harshly—by the neck.
“‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Say it.”
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“Who’s your father?”
This question was shot at me so abruptly that I was confused. Did he mean—since we were talking of the Commandments—God? Or did he simply want to tell my father what I’d been doing?
“Mr. Walter Crapo, sir.”
“Say!… I knew your mother. She was a godfearing woman. Now give me that there club.”
I gave him the stick, which all this time I had been holding guiltily in my hand, and I trembled, thinking he was going to beat me with it. To my amazement, instead, he drew away, bent over backwards till the stick was touching the ground, all the while smiling at me with half-shut eyes (and I saw for the first time the thickness of his white eyebrows) and then with a whip of his long arm, let the club fly upward into the very top of the tall tree, where it went crashing among the thickest cluster of nuts. The burrs pattered heavily on the grass and sweetfern about us, and then the stick followed more slowly, rocking from branch to branch and sliding over the planes of nodding leaves. Old Isaac was delighted.
“That was good,” he said, breathing heavily. “And I ain’t done it for years, neither.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now fill your cap, boy, and git home, and then you cut those nuts in two and butter them with cheese. That’s Adamneve on a raft!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t you go coming here any more like a thief! When you want my chestnuts, you come and ask for ’em.”
Before I had time to say a word in reply, he turned and went plunging down the hillside. He had on his red rubber boots as usual, and his mane of white hair looked very bright in the sunlight. I watched him until he had entered his cow-yard, and the shed, and then, reappearing, had stumbled into the house. Then I gathered the chestnuts and went home.
But I said nothing to Aunt Julia and Aunt Jenny.
It was two years before I visited “Witch Elms” again, and when I did I found that startling changes had occurred. In the first place, Jim met me at the station with a spick-and-span brand-new Ford touring car. I could hardly believe my eyes. Were my aunts being modernized? To tell the truth, I was feeling this year rather grown up and superior, and had somewhat reluctantly consented to be sent once more to Hackley Falls. And as I see it now, the Ford was a very cunning piece of foresight on the part of my Aunts Jenny and Julia. Possibly my father had conferred with them. At all events, the sight of the Ford cheered me up at once. The summer wouldn’t be so bad. And I felt still better when Jim told me that I was going to be taught to drive, after which I was to be the family chauffeur. I understood this further, when I saw that Jim himself was decidedly uncomfortable in the car. It was apparent that he missed his whip. He had also (I noticed with amusement) given up the old time-honored derby hat and substituted for it a tweed cap, in which he looked extraordinarily foolish. This too, I supposed, was a concession to modernity.
“Well, Jim,” I said, “what’s the news? I suppose the aunts are fine?”
“Well, yes, they been very well, Mr. Billy, they been very well this winter, except for Miss Jenny’s gout, which troubled her some. But I reckon she’ll be all right again, come hot weather.”
“And Captain Phippen?”
“Yep—same as ever.”
“I suppose he still sits there with that spyglass.”
“Oh, sure! It’s as good as a movie to him. Not much the old man misses with that glass!”
Jim drove very slowly, and it was some time before we passed the footbridge which led to the Willard farm. I turned and looked at the house, which was more incredibly dilapidated than ever. The shingles were beginning to curl with rot. A great poll of trumpet-vine had collapsed from the western gables and hung raggedly toward the ground, just as the wind had left it. The front fence of the cow-yard had fallen in, too, and lay where it had fallen. Otherwise, it was just as I remembered it, with all the windows shuttered except one. But there were no cows on the hillside at the back.
“Where are the cows?” I said.
“Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Why, the old man, old Isaac, he had a stroke.”
“A stroke? You mean he’s dead?”
“Oh, no—no such luck. Just paralyzed. Paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Good Lord. When did that happen?”
“Last year—year and a half ago. The judgment of God, too, that’s what they say. He was beating Miss Lydia when he was struck down.”
“You don’t say!”
“Yep! He laid unconscious like a log for two weeks, and they thought he was all through. But then he come to. He would! Now he reads his Bible in a wheel-chair, and I guess, from what I hear, he gets what’s coming to him from the women folks!”