The Cock Of The Walk
DOWN the road, kicking up the dust until he
marched, soldier-wise, in a cloud of it, that
rose and grimed his moist face and added to the
heavy, brown powder upon the wayside weeds and
flowers, whistling a queer, tuneless thing, which yet
contained definite sequences -- the whistle of a bird
rather than a boy -- approached Johnny Trumbull,
aged ten, small of his age, but accounted by his
mates mighty.
Johnny came of the best and oldest family in the
village, but it was in some respects an undesirable
family for a boy. In it survived, as fossils survive
in ancient nooks and crannies of the earth, old traits
of race, unchanged by time and environment. Liv-
ing in a house lighted by electricity, the mental con-
ception of it was to the Trumbulls as the conception
of candles; with telephones at hand, they uncon-
sciously still conceived of messages delivered with
the old saying, "Ride, ride," etc., and relays of
post-horses. They locked their doors, but still had
latch-strings in mind. Johnny's father was a phy-
sician, adopting modern methods of surgery and pre-
scription, yet his mind harked back to cupping and
calomel, and now and then he swerved aside from
his path across the field of the present into the future
and plunged headlong, as if for fresh air, into the
traditional past, and often with brilliant results.
Johnny's mother was a college graduate. She was
the president of the woman's club. She read papers
savoring of such feminine leaps ahead that they
were like gymnastics, but she walked homeward
with the gait of her great-grandmother, and inwardly
regarded her husband as her lord and master. She
minced genteelly, lifting her quite fashionable skirts
high above very slender ankles, which were heredi-
tary. Not a woman of her race had ever gone home
on thick ankles, and they had all gone home. They
had all been at home, even if abroad -- at home in
the truest sense. At the club, reading her inflam-
matory paper, Cora Trumbull's real self remained
at home intent upon her mending, her dusting, her
house economics. It was something remarkably
like her astral body which presided at the club.
As for her unmarried sister Janet, who was older
and had graduated from a young ladies' seminary
instead of a college, whose early fancy had been
guided into the lady-like ways of antimacassars and
pincushions and wax flowers under glass shades,
she was a straighter proposition. No astral pre-
tensions had Janet. She stayed, body and soul to-
gether, in the old ways, and did not even project
her shadow out of them. There is seldom room
enough for one's shadow in one's earliest way of
life, but there was plenty for Janet's. There had
been a Janet unmarried in every Trumbull family
for generations. That in some subtle fashion ac-
counted for her remaining single. There had also
been an unmarried Jonathan Trumbull, and that
accounted for Johnny's old bachelor uncle Jonathan.
Jonathan was a retired clergyman. He had retired
before he had preached long, because of doctrinal
doubts, which were hereditary. He had a little,
dark study in Johnny's father's house, which was
the old Trumbull homestead, and he passed much
of his time there, debating within himself that mat-
ter of doctrines.
Presently Johnny, assiduously kicking up dust,
met his uncle Jonathan, who passed without the
slightest notice. Johnny did not mind at all. He
was used to it. Presently his own father appeared,
driving along in his buggy the bay mare at a steady
jog, with the next professional call quite clearly
upon her equine mind. And Johnny's father did
not see him. Johnny did not mind that, either.
He expected nothing different.
Then Johnny saw his mother approaching. She
was coming from the club meeting. She held up her
silk skirts high, as usual, and carried a nice little
parcel of papers tied with ribbon. She also did not
notice Johnny, who, however, out of sweet respect
for his mother's nice silk dress, stopped kicking up
dust. Mrs. Trumbull on the village street was really
at home preparing a shortcake for supper.
Johnny eyed his mother's faded but rather beau-
tiful face under the rose-trimmed bonnet with ad-
miration and entire absence of resentment. Then he
walked on and kicked up the dust again. He loved
to kick up the dust in summer, the fallen leaves in
autumn, and the snow in winter. Johnny was not
a typical Trumbull. None of them had ever cared
for simple amusements like that. Looking back for
generations on his father's and mother's side (both
had been Trumbulls, but very distantly related),
none could be discovered who in the least resembled
Johnny. No dim blue eye of retrospection and re-
flection had Johnny; no tendency to tall slender-
ness which would later bow beneath the greater
weight of the soul. Johnny was small, but wiry of
build, and looked able to bear any amount of men-
tal development without a lasting bend of his physi-
cal shoulders. Johnny had, at the early age of ten,
whopped nearly every boy in school, but that was a
secret of honor. It was well known in the school
that, once the Trumbulls heard of it, Johnny could
never whop again. "You fellows know," Johnny
had declared once, standing over his prostrate and
whimpering foe, "that I don't mind getting whopped
at home, but they might send me away to another
school, and then I could never whop any of you
fellows."
Johnny Trumbull kicking up the dust, himself
dust-covered, his shoes, his little queerly fitting dun
suit, his cropped head, all thickly powdered, loved
it. He sniffed in that dust like a grateful incense.
He did not stop dust-kicking when he saw his aunt
Janet coming, for, as he considered, her old black
gown was not worth the sacrifice. It was true that
she might see him. She sometimes did, if she were
not reading a book as she walked. It had always
been a habit with the Janet Trumbulls to read im-
proving books when they walked abroad. To-day
Johnny saw, with a quick glance of those sharp,
black eyes, so unlike the Trumbulls', that his aunt
Janet was reading. He therefore expected her to
pass him without recognition, and marched on kick-
ing up the dust. But suddenly, as he grew nearer
the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray
eyes, before which waved protectingly a hand clad
in a black silk glove with dangling finger-tips, be-
cause it was too long, and it dawned swiftly upon
him that Aunt Janet was trying to shield her face
from the moving column of brown motes. He
stopped kicking, but it was too late. Aunt Janet
had him by the collar and was vigorously shaking
him with nervous strength.
"You are a very naughty little boy," declared
Aunt Janet. "You should know better than to walk
along the street raising so much dust. No well-
brought-up child ever does such things. Who are
your parents, little boy?"
Johnny perceived that Aunt Janet did not recog-
nize him, which was easily explained. She wore
her reading-spectacles and not her far-seeing ones;
besides, her reading spectacles were obscured by
dust and her nephew's face was nearly obliterated.
Also as she shook him his face was not much in evi-
dence. Johnny disliked, naturally, to tell his aunt
Janet that her own sister and brother-in-law were
the parents of such a wicked little boy. He there-
fore kept quiet and submitted to the shaking, mak-
ing himself as limp as a rag. This, however, exas-
perated Aunt Janet, who found herself encumbered
by a dead weight of a little boy to be shaken, and
suddenly Johnny Trumbull, the fighting champion
of the town, the cock of the walk of the school,
found himself being ignominiously spanked. That
was too much. Johnny's fighting blood was up.
He lost all consideration for circumstances, he for-
got that Aunt Janet was not a boy, that she was quite
near being an old lady. She had overstepped the
bounds of privilege of age and sex, and an alarming
state of equality ensued. Quickly the tables were
turned. The boy became far from limp. He stiff-
ened, then bounded and rebounded like wire. He
butted, he parried, he observed all his famous tac-
tics of battle, and poor Aunt Janet sat down in the
dust, black dress, bonnet, glasses (but the glasses
were off and lost), little improving book, black silk
gloves, and all; and Johnny, hopeless, awful, irrev-
erent, sat upon his Aunt Janet's plunging knees,
which seemed the most lively part of her. He kept
his face twisted away from her, but it was not from
cowardice. Johnny was afraid lest Aunt Janet
should be too much overcome by the discovery of
his identity. He felt that it was his duty to spare
her that. So he sat still, triumphant but inwardly
aghast.
It was fast dawning upon him that his aunt was
not a little boy. He was not afraid of any punish-
ment which might be meted out to him, but he was
simply horrified. He himself had violated all the
honorable conditions of warfare. He felt a little
dizzy and ill, and he felt worse when he ventured
a hurried glance at Aunt Janet's face. She was very
pale through the dust, and her eyes were closed.
Johnny thought then that he had killed her.
He got up -- the nervous knees were no longer
plunging; then he heard a voice, a little-girl voice,
always shrill, but now high pitched to a squeak with
terror. It was the voice of Lily Jennings. She
stood near and yet aloof, a lovely little flower of a
girl, all white-scalloped frills and ribbons, with a
big white-frilled hat shading a pale little face and.
covering the top of a head decorated with wonder-
ful yellow curls. She stood behind a big baby-car-
riage with a pink-lined muslin canopy and con-
taining a nest of pink and white, but an empty nest.
Lily's little brother's carriage had a spring broken,
and she had been to borrow her aunt's baby-carriage,
so that nurse could wheel little brother up and down
the veranda. Nurse had a headache, and the maids
were busy, and Lily, who was a kind little soul and,
moreover, imaginative, and who liked the idea of
pushing an empty baby-carriage, had volunteered
to go for it. All the way she had been dreaming of
what was not in the carriage. She had come directly
out of a dream of doll twins when she chanced upon
the tragedy in the road.
"What have you been doing now, Johnny Trum-
bull?" said she. She was tremulous, white with
horror, but she stood her ground. It was curious,
but Johnny Trumbull, with all his bravery, was
always cowed before Lily. Once she had turned and
stared at him when he had emerged triumphant
but with bleeding nose from a fight; then she had
sniffed delicately and gone her way. It had only
taken a second, but in that second the victor had
met moral defeat.
He looked now at her pale, really scared face, and
his own was as pale. He stood and kicked the dust
until the swirling column of it reached his head.
"That's right," said Lily; "stand and kick up
dust all over me. WHAT have you been doing?"
Johnny was trembling so he could hardly stand.
He stopped kicking dust.
"Have you killed your aunt?" demanded Lily.
It was monstrous, but she had a very dramatic im-
agination, and there was a faint hint of enjoyment
in her tragic voice.
"Guess she's just choked by dust," volunteered
Johnny, hoarsely. He kicked the dust again.
"That's right," said Lily. "If she's choked to
death by dust, stand there and choke her some more.
You are a murderer, Johnny Trumbull, and my
mamma will never allow me to speak to you again,
and Madame will not allow you to come to school.
AND -- I see your papa driving up the street, and there
is the chief policeman's buggy just behind." Lily
acquiesced entirely in the extraordinary coincidence
of the father and the chief of police appearing upon
the scene. The unlikely seemed to her the likely.
"NOW," said she, cheerfully, "you will be put in
state prison and locked up, and then you will be put
to death by a very strong telephone."
Johnny's father was leaning out of his buggy, look-
ing back at the chief of police in his, and the mare
was jogging very slowly in a perfect reek of dust.
Lily, who was, in spite of her terrific imagination,
human and a girl, rose suddenly to heights of pity
and succor. "They shall never take you, Johnny
Trumbull," said she. "I will save you."
Johnny by this time was utterly forgetful of his
high status as champion (behind her back) of Ma-
dame's very select school for select children of a
somewhat select village. He was forgetful of the
fact that a champion never cries. He cried; he
blubbered; tears rolled over his dusty cheeks, mak-
ing furrows like plowshares of grief. He feared lest
he might have killed his aunt Janet. Women, and
not very young women, might presumably be un-
able to survive such rough usage as very tough
and at the same time very limber little boys, and
he loved his poor aunt Janet. He grieved because
of his aunt, his parents, his uncle, and rather more
particularly because of himself. He was quite sure
that the policeman was coming for him. Logic had
no place in his frenzied conclusions. He did not
consider how the tragedy had taken place entirely
out of sight of a house, that Lily Jennings was the
only person who had any knowledge of it. He looked
at the masterful, fair-haired little girl like a baby.
"How?" sniffed he.
For answer, Lily pointed to the empty baby-car-
riage. "Get right in," she ordered.
Even in this dire extremity Johnny hesitated.
"Can't."
"Yes, you can. It is extra large. Aunt Laura's
baby was a twin when he first came; now he's just
an ordinary baby, but his carriage is big enough for
two. There's plenty of room. Besides, you're a
very small boy, very small of your age, even if you
do knock all the other boys down and have mur-
dered your aunt. Get in. In a minute they will
see you."
There was in reality no time to lose. Johnny
did get in. In spite of the provisions for twins,
there was none too much room.
Lily covered him up with the fluffy pink-and-lace
things, and scowled. "You hump up awfully,"
she muttered. Then she reached beneath him and
snatched out the pillow on which he lay, the baby's
little bed. She gave it a swift toss over the fringe
of wayside bushes into a field. "Aunt Laura's nice
embroidered pillow," said she. "Make yourself just
as flat as you can, Johnny Trumbull."
Johnny obeyed, but he was obliged to double him-
self up like a jack-knife. However, there was no
sign of him visible when the two buggies drew up.
There stood a pale and frightened little girl, with
a baby-carriage canopied with rose and lace and
heaped up with rosy and lacy coverlets, presumably
sheltering a sleeping infant. Lily was a very keen
little girl. She had sense enough not to run. The
two men, at the sight of Aunt Janet prostrate in the
road, leaped out of their buggies. The doctor's
horse stood still; the policeman's trotted away, to
Lily's great relief. She could not imagine Johnny's
own father haling him away to state prison and
the stern Arm of Justice. She stood the fire of
bewildered questions in the best and safest fashion.
She wept bitterly, and her tears were not assumed.
Poor little Lily was all of a sudden crushed under
the weight of facts. There was Aunt Janet, she had
no doubt, killed by her own nephew, and she was
hiding the guilty murderer. She had visions of
state prison for herself. She watched fearfully while
the two men bent over the prostrate woman, who
very soon began to sputter and gasp and try to sit
up.
"What on earth is the matter, Janet?" inquired
Dr. Trumbull, who was paler than his sister-in-
law. In fact, she was unable to look very pale on
account of dust.
"Ow!" sputtered Aunt Janet, coughing violently,
"get me up out of this dust, John. Ow!"
"What was the matter?"
"Yes, what has happened, madam?" demanded
the chief of police, sternly.
"Nothing," replied Aunt Janet, to Lily's and
Johnny's amazement. "What do you think has
happened? I fell down in all this nasty dust. Ow!"
"What did you eat for luncheon, Janet?" in-
quired Dr. Trumbull, as he assisted his sister-in-
law to her feet.
"What I was a fool to eat," replied Janet Trum-
bull, promptly. "Cucumber salad and lemon jelly
with whipped cream."
"Enough to make anybody have indigestion,"
said Dr. Trumbull. "You have had one of these
attacks before, too, Janet. You remember the time
you ate strawberry shortcake and ice-cream?"
Janet nodded meekly. Then she coughed again.
"Ow, this dust!" gasped she. "For goodness' sake,
John, get me home where I can get some water and
take off these dusty clothes or I shall choke to
death."
"How does your stomach feel?" inquired Dr.
Trumbull.
"Stomach is all right now, but I am just choking
to death with the dust." Janet turned sharply tow-
ard the policeman. "You have sense enough to
keep still, I hope," said she. "I don't want the
whole town ringing with my being such an idiot as
to eat cucumbers and cream together and being
found this way." Janet looked like an animated
creation of dust as she faced the chief of police.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, bowing and scraping
one foot and raising more dust.
He and Dr. Trumbull assisted Aunt Janet into
the buggy, and they drove off. Then the chief of
police discovered that his own horse had gone.
"Did you see which way he went, sis?" he inquired
of Lily, and she pointed down the road, and sobbed
as she did so.
The policeman said something bad under his
breath, then advised Lily to run home to her rna,
and started down the road.
When he was out of sight, Lily drew back the
pink-and-white things from Johnny's face. "Well,
you didn't kill her this time," said she.
"Why do you s'pose she didn't tell all about it?"
said Johnny, gaping at her.
"How do I know? I suppose she was ashamed
to tell how she had been fighting, maybe."
"No, that was not why," said Johnny in a deep
voice.
"Why was it, then?"
"SHE KNEW."
Johnny began to climb out of the baby-carriage.
"What will she do next, then?" asked Lily.
"I don't know," Johnny replied, gloomily.
He was out of the carriage then, and Lily was
readjusting the pillows and things. "Get that nice
embroidered pillow I threw over the bushes," she
ordered, crossly. Johnny obeyed. When she had
finished putting the baby-carriage to rights she
turned upon poor little Johnny Trumbull, and her
face wore the expression of a queen of tragedy.
"Well," said Lily Jennings, "I suppose I shall have
to marry you when I am grown up, after all this."
Johnny gasped. He thought Lily the most beau-
tiful girl he knew, but to be confronted with murder
and marriage within a few minutes was almost too
much. He flushed a burning red. He laughed fool-
ishly. He said nothing.
"It will be very hard on me," stated Lily, "to
marry a boy who tried to murder his nice aunt."
Johnny revived a bit under this feminine disdain.
"I didn't try to murder her," he said in a weak
voice.
"You might have, throwing her down in all that
awful dust, a nice, clean lady. Ladies are not like
boys. It might kill them very quickly to be knocked
down on a dusty road."
"I didn't mean to kill her."
"You might have."
"Well, I didn't, and -- she --"
"What?"
"She spanked me."
"Pooh! That doesn't amount to anything,"
sniffed Lily.
"It does if you are a boy."
"I don't see why."
"Well, I can't help it if you don't. It does."
"Why shouldn't a boy be spanked when he's
naughty, just as well as a girl, I would like to know?"
"Because he's a boy."
Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull. The great fact
did remain. He had been spanked, he had thrown
his own aunt down in the dust. He had taken ad-
vantage of her little-girl protection, but he was a
boy. Lily did not understand his why at all, but
she bowed before it. However, that she would not
admit. She made a rapid change of base. "What,"
said she, "are you going to do next?"
Johnny stared at her. It was a puzzle.
"If," said Lily, distinctly, "you are afraid to go
home, if you think your aunt will tell, I will let you
get into Aunt Laura's baby-carriage again, and I
will wheel you a little way."
Johnny would have liked at that moment to knock
Lily down, as he had his aunt Janet. Lily looked
at him shrewdly. "Oh yes," said she, "you can
knock me down in the dust there if you want to,
and spoil my nice clean dress. You will be a boy,
just the same."
"I will never marry you, anyway," declared
Johnny.
"Aren't you afraid I'll tell on you and get you
another spanking if you don't?"
"Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be
spanked than marry you."
A gleam of respect came into the little girl's
wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness
of her sex, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the
making of a man. "Oh, well," said she, loftily,
"I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not
grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get,
and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to
Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet
a boy much nicer than you on the steamer."
"Meet him if you want to."
Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull with more than
respect -- with admiration -- but she kept guard over
her little tongue. "Well, you can leave that for
the future," said she with a grown-up air.
"I ain't going to leave it. It's settled for good
and all now," growled Johnny.
To his immense surprise, Lily curved her white
embroidered sleeve over her face and began to weep.
"What's the matter now?" asked Johnny, sulkily,
after a minute.
"I think you are a real horrid boy," sobbed Lily.
Lily looked like nothing but a very frilly, sweet,
white flower. Johnny could not see her face. There
was nothing to be seen except that delicate fluff of
white, supported on dainty white-socked, white-
slippered limbs.
"Say," said Johnny.
"You are real cruel, when I -- I saved your -- li-fe,"
wailed Lily.
"Say," said Johnny, "maybe if I don't see any
other girl I like better I will marry you when I am
grown up, but I won't if you don't stop that howl-
ing."
Lily stopped immediately. She peeped at him,
a blue peep from under the flopping, embroidered
brim of her hat. "Are you in earnest?" She smiled
faintly. Her blue eyes, wet with tears, were lovely;
so was her hesitating smile.
"Yes, if you don't act silly," said Johnny. "Now
you had better run home, or your mother will won-
der where that baby-carriage is."
Lily walked away, smiling over her shoulder, the
smile of the happily subjugated. "I won't tell any-
body, Johnny," she called back in her flute-like
voice.
"Don't care if you do," returned Johnny, looking
at her with chin in the air and shoulders square,
and Lily wondered at his bravery.
But Johnny was not so brave and he did care. He
knew that his best course was an immediate return
home, but he did not know what he might have to
face. He could not in the least understand why his
aunt Janet had not told at once. He was sure that
she knew. Then he thought of a possible reason for
her silence; she might have feared his arrest at the
hands of the chief of police. Johnny quailed. He
knew his aunt Janet to be rather a brave sort of
woman. If she had fears, she must have had reason
for them. He might even now be arrested. Suppose
Lily did tell. He had a theory that girls usually
told. He began to speculate concerning the horrors
of prison. Of course he would not be executed,
since his aunt was obviously very far from being
killed, but he might be imprisoned for a long term.
Johnny went home. He did not kick the dust
any more. He walked very steadily and staidly.
When he came in sight of the old Colonial mansion,
with its massive veranda pillars, he felt chilly. How-
ever, he went on. He passed around to the south
door and entered and smelled shortcake. It would
have smelled delicious had he not had so much on
his mind. He looked through the hall, and had a
glimpse of his uncle Jonathan in the study, writing.
At the right of the door was his father's office. The
door of that was open, and Johnny saw his father
pouring things from bottles. He did not look at
Johnny. His mother crossed the hall. She had
on a long white apron, which she wore when making
her famous cream shortcakes. She saw Johnny,
but merely observed, "Go and wash your face and
hands, Johnny; it is nearly supper-time."
Johnny went up-stairs. At the upper landing he
found his aunt Janet waiting for him. "Come
here," she whispered, and Johnny followed her,
trembling, into her own room. It was a large room,
rather crowded with heavy, old-fashioned furni-
ture. Aunt Janet had freed herself from dust and
was arrayed in a purple silk gown. Her hair was
looped loosely on either side of her long face. She
was a handsome woman, after a certain type.
"Stand here, Johnny," said she. She had closed
the door, and Johnny was stationed before her.
She did not seem in the least injured nor the worse
for her experience. On the contrary, there was a
bright-red flush on her cheeks, and her eyes shone
as Johnny had never seen them. She looked eagerly
at Johnny.
"Why did you do that?" she said, but there was
no anger in her voice.
"I forgot," began Johnny.
"Forgot what?" Her voice was strained with
eagerness.
"That you were not another boy," said Johnny.
"Tell me," said Aunt Janet. "No, you need not
tell me, because if you did it might be my duty to
inform your parents. I know there is no need of
your telling. You MUST be in the habit of fighting
with the other boys."
"Except the little ones," admitted Johnny.
To Johnny's wild astonishment, Aunt Janet seized
him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes
with a look of adoration and immense approval.
"Thank goodness," said she, "at last there is going
to be a fighter in the Trumbull family. Your uncle
would never fight, and your father would not. Your
grandfather would. Your uncle and your father are
good men, though; you must try to be like them,
Johnny."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Johnny, bewildered.
"I think they would be called better men than
your grandfather and my father," said Aunt Janet.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I think it is time for you to have your grand-
father's watch," said Aunt Janet. "I think you are
man enough to take care of it." Aunt Janet had
all the time been holding a black leather case. Now
she opened it, and Johnny saw the great gold watch
which he had seen many times before and had always
understood was to be his some day, when he was a
man. "Here," said Aunt Janet. "Take good care
of it. You must try to be as good as your uncle and
father, but you must remember one thing -- you
will wear a watch which belonged to a man who
never allowed other men to crowd him out of the
way he elected to go."
"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He took the
watch.
"What do you say?" inquired his aunt, sharply.
"Thank you."
"That's right. I thought you had forgotten your
manners. Your grandfather never did."
"I am sorry. Aunt Janet," muttered Johnny,
"that I --"
"You need never say anything about that," his
aunt returned, quickly. "I did not see who you
were at first. You are too old to be spanked by a
woman, but you ought to be whipped by a man,
and I wish your grandfather were alive to do it."
"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He looked at her
bravely. "He could if he wanted to," said he.
Aunt Janet smiled at him proudly. "Of course,"
said she, "a boy like you never gets the worst of it
fighting with other boys."
"No, ma'am," said Johnny.
Aunt Janet smiled again. "Now run and wash
your face and hands," said she; "you must not keep
supper waiting. Your mother has a paper to write
for her club, and I have promised to help her."
"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He walked out,
carrying the great gold timepiece, bewildered, em-
barrassed, modest beneath his honors, but little
cock of the walk, whether he would or no, for reasons
entirely and forever beyond his ken.
-THE END-
Mary E Wilkins Freeman's short story: The Cock Of The Walk
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