The happy six — Context and Discussion

ng members come into their clubs. She was sure Paul would welcome Master Donald cordially, and would agree with them all that the new name proposed by Molly was exactly the thing.

Thus it happened that Donald and his “Mary Five” became straightway “The Happy Six;” and this is a true account of the transaction; though, to be sure, it had not been settled yet that the club was going to Europe.

“But what difference does that make?” asked Pauline. “Can’t we be The Happy Six, all the same, wherever we are? I move that we try to be happy right here in California till the middle of June, anyway, and then”--

“I second the move,” responded Molly.

“’Tis a vote,” cried Kirke and little Number Six in chorus.

And now, in the chapters that follow, you will hear more of this new brother-and-sisterhood, and will learn of its whereabouts and all its proceedings.

Whether the Rowes should decide to go to Europe or not, the Bradstreets were going; and Captain Bradstreet thought it high time to inform Paul of the plan. The boy had not been well for some days, and for change of air had been sent to the ranch of Mr. Keith, a relative, who had a warm regard for himself and his sister Pauline.

“Kirke,” said the captain, driving up that afternoon after school, “I’m going out to Mr. Keith’s to see Paul. Would you like to go with me?”

“Thank you, thank you, Captain Bradstreet, I’ll be ready in a second,” cried Kirke, rushing for his hat.

The spirited horse had been reined up to the hedge, where he pawed and champed the bit, till his passenger appeared and vaulted headlong into the phaeton.

In his haste, Kirke had forgotten to tie Shot, the fox-terrier, into his kennel.

“Weezy, Weezy,” he called over his shoulder, as the carriage started. “Look out for Shot, please, Weezy; don’t let him follow us.”

“I won’t let him,” said Weezy; “I’ll keep him.” And she drew him into the house and closed the door.

Having done this, she went back upon the veranda to finish her sewing. She was making a golf cape for her pet doll to wear at sea; and the work proved so absorbing that she failed to notice what Donald was doing. Before she knew it, the child had opened the front door, and run into the hall; and at the same time Shot had run out, and gone tearing after the phaeton.

Kirke looked rather crestfallen when the little animal came barking about the wheels.

“There’s that dog, after all. I didn’t mean he should come.”

“Send him home, then,” suggested the captain. “Why don’t you send him home, Kirke?”

“Because he wouldn’t go,” answered the lad, in laughing confusion. “He wouldn’t go, and I should only hurt his feelings for nothing.”

The ruddy-faced captain suppressed a smile, and listened patiently, while Kirke proceeded to sing the praises of the graceful white terrier, who would not obey his master.

“He loves me tremendously; he can’t bear to stay away from me: there’s the trouble.”

And in truth a more affectionate dog than little Shot never lived. He was a general favorite, which certainly could not have been said of Zip, Donald’s Mexican cur that had died the preceding autumn.

As the phaeton whirled along, Shot darted first to one side of the road and then to the other, to chase squirrels and gophers into their holes, but without once losing sight of his beloved owner.

“I suppose, Kirke, you’re very fond of the little rascal,” observed the captain, as they drew near the end of their drive.

“You’d better believe I am, Captain Bradstreet. I wouldn’t part with him for a farm.”

“The lad’s in sober earnest,” thought the gentleman, peering from beneath his white eyebrows at Kirke’s animated face. “I never knew a boy more devoted to his friends.”

They were now spinning along the winding avenue leading to Mr. Keith’s house. At their right was a green lawn, bordered with orange-trees; on their left, a thrifty olive-orchard, in which a Chinaman was plowing.

“They’re always plowing somewhere,” commented the captain. “I understand the soil has to be turned over pretty often to keep it light and moist.”

“And it has to be irrigated, too, doesn’t it?” asked Kirke, watching Shot, skipping nimbly across the field toward the mule-team.

“Irrigated? Oh, yes. But there’s not water enough at present to do the thing thoroughly, and that is why Mr. Keith is having a new well dug over yonder.”

“I see it,” said Kirke, glancing in the direction indicated by the captain; “and he has got the curb up already.”

“So he has. Ah, here comes Paul. I”--

The sentence was cut short by a prolonged howl from Shot. The confiding little creature had ventured too near the Chinaman’s heels, and Sing Wung, suspecting him of evil intentions, had driven him away by a vigorous kick.

“The old wretch!” cried Kirke, springing over the carriage-wheel. “He’s been abusing my poor little Shot!”

And as the yelping dog ran up to him for protection, Kirke soothed him as he would have soothed a baby.

Before Captain Bradstreet could hitch his horse to the post under the pepper-tree, Paul was beside him, his face aglow with pleasure as well as with sunburn. The sunburn caused him to look more than ever like his father. Each had large, frank, blue eyes and a ruddy complexion; but while the captain’s hair was snow-white, his son’s was flaxen, or, as Pauline would have it, “a light _écru_.”

“How are you, Paul? How are you, my dear boy? Better, I hope?”

“Oh yes, papa, ever so much better, thank you. But why haven’t you come before? I’ve looked for you and looked for you!”

Paul spoke with feeling. He and Pauline, though now fifteen years of age, were not ashamed to show their love for their father. The affection existing between Captain Bradstreet and his motherless twins was something beautiful to behold.

Kirke was surprised to see how coolly Paul received the news of the proposed trip to Europe. Though greatly pleased, he was by no means as excited as Kirke had been that morning when the plan was first mentioned. Paul was a quieter sort of boy than Kirke, and two years older. Moreover, he had already been to sea several times, and the novelty was pretty well worn off. Still, he wished to go again very much, especially if the Rowes would go, too, for “that would make it a good deal jollier.”

After chatting awhile, Captain Bradstreet went into the lemon-house to speak with his cousin, Mr. Keith, leaving the boys to entertain each other. Paul, acting as host, at once invited Kirke to visit the well that had been begun; and they sauntered by the lemon-grove to a deep hole sunk in the ground. Above the hole stood a windlass with a bucket attached to it.

“Is anybody down there now?” asked Kirke, dropping upon his knees and peering into the dark cavern.

“No, Yeck Wo is sick to-day; so Sing Wung left off working here, and is cultivating in the orchard.”

“So it takes two to run this thing?”

“Yes. Sing Wung stays below to shovel earth into the bucket, and Yeck Wo stays up here to turn the windlass and draw the bucket up into daylight.”

“I see,” said Kirke, “and the Wo fellow tips the earth out of the bucket on to this heap here, then sends the bucket back empty. It must be fun to watch him.”

“It’ll be more fun, though, when they strike hard pan, for then they’ll begin to blast.”

It was not Paul who said this, but Mr. Keith. He and Captain Bradstreet had now joined the boys and were standing with them near the well. “When they begin to blast, Kirke, you must come down here and make us a little visit,” added Mr. Keith.

Kirke accepted the invitation eagerly, for, like most boys of thirteen, he revelled in the explosion of gunpowder.

“Let’s see, can’t you come Saturday, bright and early? I’ve promised to let Sing Wung go home Friday, and Paul will drive out for him Saturday morning, and could bring you back with him as well as not.”

“O Mr. Keith, I _hope_ I can come,” said Kirke joyously, as he and the captain took their departure.

But in repassing the olive-orchard the youth’s happy face clouded. In the distance he caught a glimpse of Sing Wung in the very act of flinging a stone at little Shot, who, forgetful of the recent repulse, had frisked again into his neighborhood.

“If that old Chinaman wasn’t so far off I’d give him ‘Hail Columbia!’” muttered he. “Mean creature! Wouldn’t I like to dump him into that new well?”

“No; you certainly wouldn’t,” said the captain with an indulgent smile. “On the contrary, I’ll wager that if he should fall in, you’d be the first to help pull him out.”

Kirke was indignantly protesting that he “should do no such thing,” when suddenly the horse, Pizarro, stumbled upon a rolling stone and turned a half-somersault down the hill.

In an instant Captain Bradstreet and Kirke had leaped to the ground.

“Sit upon his head, Kirke,” ordered the captain. “So long as his head is kept down he can’t flounder about.”

Kirke did as he was told, and while he was perched upon Pizarro’s broad cheek, Captain Bradstreet unbuckled the harness and detached it from the phaeton.

“The thill is broken, isn’t it?” asked Kirke.

“Yes, broken almost in two.”

Captain Bradstreet firmly grasped the horse’s bridle. “Now jump, Kirke, and be quick about it.”

Kirke promptly obeyed, and Pizarro straightway struggled to his feet, looking very much ashamed.

“He doesn’t seem to be injured anywhere,” said the captain, after carefully feeling the horse’s limbs. “I wish the same could be said of the phaeton. Have you a string about you, Kirke, to splice that shaft with?”

For a wonder Kirke’s pocket to-day did not boast of even so much as a fishing-line.

“I might run to the next ranch and beg a bit of rope,” he suggested.

“Wait a moment, my boy, here comes a greaser. Let’s see what he can do for us.”

A “greaser” is the common name for a Mexican Indian.

“What an ugly, stupid-looking fellow,” thought Kirke; “I don’t believe he knows a string from a rattlesnake.”

But, unpromising as he appeared, the Indian understood a little English, and, on being offered a silver quarter, uncoiled from his neck a long, narrow strip of deerskin, and with it tied together the splintered ends of the thill.

“The greasers use those strips of deerhide when they tote bundles on their backs,” explained the captain, when they were again on their way. “He has spliced the shaft pretty firmly, Kirke, but it may draw apart. You’d better keep close watch of it.”

The damaged thill was the one on Kirke’s side of the phaeton, and for the rest of the drive he felt such a responsibility about it that he forgot everything else; he even forgot his beloved little terrier.

They were entering the city before he noticed that Shot was nowhere in sight. Then he remembered that he had not seen him since leaving Mr. Keith’s ranch.

“Now I think of it, I haven’t seen him either,” said Captain Bradstreet. “Maybe the little scamp took a notion to stay with Paul.”

“Oh, no, Captain Bradstreet, that wouldn’t be a bit like Shot!” exclaimed Kirke vehemently. “Don’t you know how he’s always tagging after me?”

“Yes, like a dory after a pilot boat,” said the captain, smiling.

“Where can he be, I wonder? Do you suppose--you _don’t_ suppose--that hateful Chinaman can have lamed him or anything?”

Kirke looked so extremely troubled that the tender-hearted captain hastened to reply, “No, indeed! I don’t suppose anything of the kind. More likely Shot has picked a quarrel with a gopher and is bound to have the last word. If he’s not at home by sunrise we’ll ride back to the ranch to look him up.”

He fully expected to hear the dog’s merry bark at any moment, and was quite disturbed the next morning when Kirke ran over to tell him that the little terrier was still missing.

“Don’t worry, we’ll soon find him,” he said; and immediately telephoned for the horse and surrey.

But when he and Kirke reached the ranch Shot was not there, nor had he been there since the previous afternoon. “The very last I saw of him, Sing Wung was shying a stone at him,” said Paul. “He hates dogs, that Chinaman does. I believe he’s afraid of them.”

“He couldn’t have been afraid of my dear little innocent terrier,” exclaimed Kirke savagely; “he stoned him just for meanness.”

On being interviewed, Sing Wung protested that the dog had followed the carriage, and that was all he knew about him. But he spoke in such a hesitating way that Kirke was sure he kept back the truth. The lad was passing through a fiery ordeal and his heart was hot within him. “If ever I saw lies I saw ’em to-day in those slanting eyes behind us,” he said in Paul’s ear as they turned away from the suspected Celestial. “I feel just as if he had killed poor little Shot and pitched him into the cañon.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that, Kirke; ’twould take too much courage--Sing Wung is a chicken-hearted creature.”

“Not too chicken-hearted to stone my dog, though.”

Paul could not gainsay this, but as he bade Kirke good-by, he remarked cheerily,--

“I half believe you’ll find Shot at home waiting for you. I shall know Saturday morning. Remember I’m coming for you Saturday morning at six o’clock, sharp.”

Paul called for Kirke on the following Saturday, long before breakfast-time. He had driven in from the ranch in Mr. Keith’s two-seated wagon, drawn by a pair of little brown mules, and was evidently in a prodigious hurry.

“Hello, Selkirk!” he shouted to the side of the house. “Stir around lively. Mr. Keith wants Sing Wung to get to work on the well early.”

“I’ll be there in two seconds,” returned Kirke, thrusting a tumbled head through an open window. “All dressed but my hair.”

“Good! Can’t you eat your breakfast on the road?”

“To be sure. I can eat anywhere, everywhere.”

The tumbled head disappeared; and Paul began to munch a buttered roll just brought him by his sister Pauline. Their home was just across the street, and she had watched for Paul, and rushed out to meet him, and now stood leaning against the front wheel of the wagon, chatting with him. She was a warm-hearted, impulsive girl, rather too heedless and outspoken at times. She had no mother to guide her, and lacked the gentle manners of her friend, Molly Rowe.

“You ought to put on your hat, Polly. You’re getting as brown as a Mexican,” remarked Paul, with brotherly frankness, as he attacked a second roll.

“Black, you should say,” corrected she coolly. “I’ve noticed it myself. You’re an albino. I’m a negress. I’ve no manner of doubt people call us ‘the black and white twins.’”

“What about Shot, Paul? Has he been heard from?” called Molly from behind the window-shade of her chamber.

“Oh, I hoped he had turned up by this time. No, we haven’t seen a sign of him, Molly; but we’ve found this.”

Here Paul held up a dog’s collar.

“Shot’s collar!” cried Molly.

“You don’t mean to say you’ve found that and haven’t found the dog?” exclaimed Kirke, rushing down the steps of the veranda, flourishing in one hand a gripsack, in the other a small bunch of bananas. “Where did you find it, Paul? And when?”

“Last night, Kirke, in the hedge of the olive-orchard.”

“Yes, tucked under it, ’way out of sight.”

“Then somebody hid it there--Sing Wung! I’ll bet ’twas Sing Wung!” muttered Kirke, as he mounted the wagon. “He killed Shot. Got mad with him and killed him, and then saved his collar. He thought he could get money for it.”

“Has somebody killed Shot?” piped half-dressed Weezy, screening herself from view behind her sister. “Oh, dear, dear! Poor little Shot!”

“Deah, deah, poo’ ’ittle S’ot!” echoed Don, running to the casement in his ruffled white night-dress, and standing there quite unabashed.

“Such a sweet, lovely little dog as he was!” went on Weezy, in a tearful voice. “Just as white and good as he could be. S’pose he’s got up to heaven yet, Kirke?”

“The idea, Weezy!” Kirke’s tone was at once grieved and scornful. “Who ever heard of a fox-terrier’s going to heaven?”

“Don’t good little fox-terriers go to heaven? Nobody ever told me that before,” sighed Weezy, as Paul turned the mules toward Chinatown. “O Kirke, don’t you wish Shot had been a good little skye-terrier ’stead of a fox? He would have gone to heaven _then_, you know!”

“It’s no sign Shot is dead, Weezy, dear, because he just happened to lose his collar,” cried Pauline, stepping back from the wheel with a smothered laugh. “He’ll come trotting home, wagging his tail, one of these days, you’ll see!”

It was like Pauline to prophesy pleasant things. She was always hopeful, always cheerful. They called her the merriest member of The Happy Six.

“Yes, Polly, and you’ll see, too,” was Kirke’s gloomy rejoinder. “Good-by, everybody.”

“Good-by, Sobersides,” retorted Pauline, brushing her sleeves, which had rested upon the dusty tire. “Good-by, Twinny, love, I’ll be happy to meet you later in Europe, both of you.”

Kirke hardly smiled at this nonsensical farewell. He cared very little just now about Europe, or any other foreign country. He could only think of Shot’s collar found in the hedge. Somebody had hidden it there; and in his heart Kirke convicted Sing Wung.

“That collar was expensive, you know, Paul,” he broke forth, before they had reached the first corner. “He was going to sell it at one of the second-hand stores.”

“How could he have sold it? That would have given him away, Kirke. Shot’s name is on it.”

“Poh! couldn’t the villain have ripped off that plate?”

“Not very easily. Besides, Kirke, if Sing Wung really meant to sell the collar, why didn’t he carry it home with him yesterday?”

“Perhaps he couldn’t screw his courage up. He might have been afraid of getting caught taking it.”

Though by nature unsuspicious, Kirke was a boy of strong prejudices. Since making up his mind that the Chinaman was guilty of a crime, he could no longer tolerate him.

“But how are we going to prove that Sing Wung put the collar in the hedge?” asked Paul earnestly. “Mr. Keith says it isn’t fair to condemn _anybody_ on circumstantial evidence.”

“Fudge! What more evidence does he want? Didn’t we both see Sing Wung stoning my Shot? And has anybody set eyes on my Shot from that day to this?”

“No,” said Paul, “it does look dark against Sing Wung, I confess, and I’m just as mad with him as you are.”

“I shouldn’t think Mr. Keith would keep such a sneak. He ought to discharge him, and I’ve a great mind to tell him so,” returned Kirke, as if his opinion and advice would carry great weight with that gentleman.

“Oh, he can’t discharge him now, Kirke! How can he, right in the height of the barley harvest?”

“He can hire somebody else.”

“No, he can’t for love or money. The Mexicans and Chinamen are all engaged for the season by this time. Besides, there’s the well not half done.”

Kirke bit his lip. He knew that this well was needed at once. He had seen for himself how Mr. Keith’s young orange-trees were turning yellow for want of proper irrigation. As they approached the Chinese quarter of the city, he broke the silence by remarking grimly,--

“I sha’n’t speak to Sing Wung. I want him to know I suspect him.”