PEACE GETS EVEN

“Peace, come here, I want to talk with you,” called Mr. Hartman, leaning over the fence and beckoning to the child at work in her melon patch, measuring the mottled green fruit thickly dotted through the vines.

“It’s grown two inches since I measured it last,” said the brown-eyed gardener to herself, leaving her task to see what the man wanted. “Here I am.”

“Do you know what kind of a mess you have got me into now?”

Peace looked her surprise, and answered saucily, “You don’t fool me any more, my friend. You’ve teased me so often that it is an old story now. I know just what to ’xpect when I meet you.”

At any other time he would have been delighted with this reply, but under the circumstances for he was really much disturbed over her latest prank her jaunty, don’t-care air nettled him, and he said sharply, “This is no joking matter, Miss Greenfield, I can tell you that! Why did you tie red rags all over my pasture fence?”

“So’s to keep the deacon’s bull busy. We couldn’t get those berries any other way.”

“Well, I guess you succeeded. He broke one horn off and pretty near skinned himself, I judge. The only wonder is that he didn’t tear the fence down and get loose.”

“As long as he didn’t, I shouldn’t care about his horns,” answered Peace with provoking indifference. “The deacon said I could have all the berries I could get, and he didn’t say how I was to get them, either. I thought and thought, and I couldn’t see any way out but the red flags. It worked beau ti fully. We got two buckets chock-full!”

“Yes,” groaned Mr. Hartman; “and got old Skinner red hot at me! I signed a note a year or two ago for a friend of mine, expecting by this time that he would be on his feet and able to take care of it, but he isn’t, and I’ve got to settle. Where the money is coming from is more than I can tell. It took all my ready cash to build that new barn, and old Skinner is so blamed mad that he won’t give me any more time. And all this fuss on account of those berries. Plague take the old bushes, and you, too, you little rascal!”

Peace drew herself up haughtily and with eyes flashing fire, demanded, “Do you mean that?”

“Every word. I’d just like the chance to give you a good trouncing.”

He was not in earnest, but he looked so harsh and stern that Peace for a moment trembled in her shoes. Then all her natural childish passion was aroused, and stamping her foot, she declared wrathfully, “I’ll not be friends with you any longer. You said I could have the berries, and the deacon said I could have all I could get. You aren’t being square with me, and I won’t have anything more to do with you.” She turned on her heel and flung herself indignantly across the garden to the road, leaving Mr. Hartman still leaning against the fence, lost in thought.

The forest was her favorite retreat in times of trouble, but today the cool shadows and whispering trees did not soothe her, and after wandering about until the afternoon began to wane, she started for home, still wrathful and passionate, for she felt that Mr. Hartman had been very unfair in his treatment of her.

While she was still some distance from the little brown house, a carriage drove up to their gate, and stopped, but she did not recognize the rig, nor could she make out who had alighted; and for the time being, her rage was lost in her greater curiosity. “Wonder who it can be,” she said to herself. “It isn’t the doctor’s horse, nor the Judge’s buggy, and that woman is too little for Mrs. Lacy or Mrs. Edwards. She’s got a big bundle. Maybe it’s the Salvation Army bringing us some old duds like they did the German family last week. But s’posing it was some rich aunt or grandmother we didn’t know we had. It’s awfully hard not to have any relations like other folks. I am going through old Cross-Patch’s cornfield, ’stead of running clear around by the road.”

She crawled between the strands of barbed wire and ran swiftly down the rows of rustling, whispering, silken corn, thinking only of the unexpected visitors at home, until a big barn loomed up before her, shining in its newness. Then she stopped abruptly, having suddenly remembered her grievance.

“He isn’t square!” she cried. “I’d like to fight him good. I’ll get even with you some day, Mr. Hardman! Bet he’s going to paint his old barn. Here is a whole ocean of red paint in this pail, and there is a stack of brushes. I I’m going to tell him what I think of him in red paint. Yes, sir, I’m going to do it this very minute!”

All thought of the mysterious visitor at home had vanished, all thought of the consequences were stifled, and choosing the smallest brush in the heap beside the pail, she began daubing scrawly, tipsy letters across the new, white boards: Mister Hardman isnt square.

“There!” she breathed, as the last straggling “r” was finished. “I’ll bet that makes him mad, but maybe next time he won’t blame me for his old fusses. He said I could have those raspberries.”

She dipped the brush into the paint once more, made a few little red spots below the printed letters, and labelled them raspberries for fear they might not otherwise be recognized. Then dropping the brush back where she had found it, she skipped off home, feeling an uncomfortable sense of guilt and shame in her heart for having wreaked her revenge in such a manner.

At the gate Allee met her, shouting, “Mrs. Strong is here with the baby, and she’s going to stay for supper. Elva Munson brought her in their new buggy. Come see Glen. We’ve hunted all over for you, and even blew the horn.”

The excited child danced up the path, and Peace followed, forgetting her mean prank in her pleasure at seeing her beloved friends. Nor did she remember any more about it until the next morning, when, seated on the shed-roof, under the overhanging boughs of a great elm, she saw Mr. Hartman striding angrily up the path to the kitchen door. Then her heart gave a great thump and seemed to sink clear to her toes, as she thought of her miserable method of getting even. Her passion had subsided during the night, and try as she would, she could now think of no justifiable excuse for her mean act.

Gail answered the imperative knock, and Peace heard him demand wrathfully, “Where is Peace?”

“Somewhere around the place. She was under the maple there at the corner a few moments ago. Is something wrong? Has she been annoying you again?”

“Annoying me? She has daubed letters all over the back of my new barn. I shall have to paint the whole building now, and it isn’t very funny business. If I had got hold of her when I first saw her work, I’d have given her a thrashing she wouldn’t have forgotten in one while. You will whip that child like she deserves, or pay for the damage she has done, one or the other, and I mean it, too!” Without waiting for her reply, he started down the path again, leaving Gail white-faced and distressed in the kitchen door.

As soon as he was out of sight Peace slid from her perch to the ground below, deserting the corncob doll she had been dressing, and scurried away to the barn loft to face the new and undreamed-of situation. A licking or pay for the damage done! Why had she been so thoughtless and mean? She might have known that Gail would be the one to suffer. She hated herself, as she always did after her mischievous pranks, but that didn’t help matters any. She must take her medicine. There was no money to settle for her wanton mischief; it would have to be the licking.

“I wonder whether she’ll use a shingle or her shoe,” she thought nervously, making ready to descend and brave Gail’s displeasure, when Cherry’s head appeared on the ladder, and the older girl announced excitedly, “Now you’ve done it, Peace Greenfield! Mr. Hartman is as mad as a hornet about your painting his barn, and he says Gail must either whip you hard, or pay for it. There isn’t any money to pay ”

“Then I s’pose I’ll have to take the licking,” answered Peace with a great show of indifference, though the pounding of her heart nearly stifled her.

“But Gail says she can’t lick you, and even Faith has backed out, though at first she said she would give it to you good.”

Here was an unlooked-for state of affairs no money, and no one willing to use the rod, though she undoubtedly deserved it.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Cherry curiously.

“Lick myself likely,” retorted Peace sarcastically. “You better lug those eggs up to the doctor’s. I’ve d’livered my bunch.”

Cherry vanished as quickly as she had come, and as the sound of her footsteps died away in the distance, Peace slid down the ladder. But instead of going to the house for an interview with Gail, she slipped through the garden, crawled under the fence, and presented herself at the door of the new barn where Mr. Hartman, still in a blaze of anger, was at work.

“What do you want here, you tormented rascal?” he yelled in fury, shaking a hazel switch threateningly at her.

“I came to get licked,” she answered steadily, though quaking inwardly.

“Wh-at?” he gasped in unbelieving amazement.

“I heard what you said to Gail about paying or licking me, and she hasn’t got any money to pay for my meanness, and she says she says she can’t whip me; so I’ve come to you for it.”

She really did not expect him to punish her in that manner, for ordinarily he was not a hard-hearted man; but in view of Peace’s misdemeanor, Gail’s hesitation angered him only the more, and catching the child by her shoulder, he gave her a dozen sharp, stinging lashes with his switch, then released her, thoroughly ashamed of himself.

He expected her to cry and scream, but she bit her lips, blinked her brown eyes rapidly to keep the tears back, and stood like a statue until he dropped his stick. Then choking back the sobs in her throat, she faced him with the curt demand, “Give me a receipt, please.”

“A a what?”

“A receipt. Gail says we should never settle a bill without getting a receipt.”

“What do you want of a receipt?”

“So’s I can show Gail that this bill is settled.”

“Aha!” he mocked. “You are afraid Gail will repent and give you another thrashing, are you?”

“No, I’m not! But I want to be sure you don’t try to c’llect twice.”

He stared at her open-mouthed, too hurt for words; and she, unaware that she had deeply offended him, urged impatiently, as she rubbed her smarting shoulders, “Hurry up! Write it on a piece of paper, so’s I can have it to keep always. Haven’t you got any in your pocket?”

Mechanically he searched his pockets, drew forth a scrap of an envelope, wrote the receipt she demanded, and handed it to her gravely. She accepted it as gravely, spelled it through, and turned to go, saying piously, “Thank you, Mr. Hardman. I hope you will get your reward in heaven.” She meant this in all reverence, thinking only of the receipt he had given her, but he thought she was sarcastically referring to the whipping she had suffered at his hands; and with a queer tightening of his throat, he returned to his work, while she hurried homeward with her precious bit of paper.

“Here is Mr. Hardman’s receipt, Gail,” she announced, briefly, entering the kitchen where the two older girls were still discussing the new problem.

“Where did you get the money!” asked Faith severely.

“I took the licking,” was the short answer.

“Took the licking! From whom!”

“Mr. Hardman.”

“Do you mean to say that Mr. Hardman whipped you!”

“Yes, I do. I went over and told him to.”

“Did it hurt?” whispered Allee, with eyes brimming full of sympathy.

“It might have been worse, s’posing he had used a piece of iron instead of a stick.”

Profound silence reigned in the little room. Then Gail said abruptly,
“Come upstairs with me. I want to see you alone.”

Peace glanced apprehensively at the pale face, which looked unusually stern and severe, and said, “That is a sure-enough receipt, but if you don’t b’lieve it, you can ask Mr. Hardman about it.”

“I am not doubting your story in the least,” answered the big sister, smiling in spite of herself, “but I want to talk to you, dear.”

When Gail said “dear,” she was never angry, so, without further hesitation, Peace followed her to the small room under the eaves, wondering what was coming next. Gail seated herself in the rickety chair by the window, and drawing the small girl down into her lap, she asked, “Now what is all this trouble about? Tell sister everything.”

So Peace related the story of the raspberries and her anger at their neighbor, which had led to the painting of the barn.

“What did you write on the building?” questioned Gail when Peace paused at this point in her recital.

“Just the truth. I said, ‘Mr. Hardman isn’t square.’ Then, so’s he would know what he wasn’t square about, I made a lot of raspberries under the printing.”

“Peace! After Mr. Hartman has been so kind to us! What do you think of a little girl who will do a thing like that!”

“At first I thought she was all right,” answered the candid maiden. “But now I’ve changed my mind, and I guess she was pretty bad when she did it. Though he needn’t have said what he did to me. He told me we could have the berries.”

“At the same time he warned you about Mr. Skinner’s bull.”

“Yes, and I warned Mr. Skinflint I mean Mr. Skinner.”

“Mr. Skinner is a hot-tempered man, and I am afraid if the Hartmans owe him money, as you say, he will make it very uncomfortable for them.”

“Maybe I better go see old Skinflint I mean Mr. Skinner and tell him ”

“No, indeed!” cried Gail in alarm. “You have done damage enough already. Promise me that you won’t say anything to him about it, Peace.”

“I promise. I ain’t anxious to see him anyway, only I thought if it would do any good I would go and tell him how it happened. I am awfully sorry now.”

“Then don’t you think you better apologize to Mr. Hartman?”

“Wasn’t the licking a napology enough?”

“The whipping only settled your account. It didn’t say you were sorry. And it was wrong to tell him that you hoped he would get his reward in heaven.”

“Why?” cried Peace in genuine astonishment. “That’s what the lame peddler woman always tells you when you buy a paper of needles or pins.”

“That is different. She means what she says. The words are no idle mockery to her. Every penny she can earn, helps her that much, and she is truly grateful ”

“And I am truly grateful for my receipt, too! It isn’t every man that would give me one. Old Skinner now ”

“Oh, Peace!”

“But, Gail, dear, I wasn’t mocking him. I wanted him to know that I knew how much that receipt was worth. S’posing he hadn’t written it, how would you have known that I had settled that fuss?”

Gail gave up in despair. She never could argue with this small sister, who so sadly needed a mother’s wisdom to keep her sweet and good; so she abruptly ended her lecture by gently insisting, “Mr. Hartman deserves your apology. What if he had made us pay for the damage you did, or had had you arrested? He was good to let you off with just a licking, Peace, even if you do think it was hard punishment. If you are going to be a bad girl, you must expect whippings.”

“I don’t think he likes me any more. He may chase me home before I can apologize,” suggested the unhappy culprit, with hanging head.

“I guess not,” smiled Gail behind her hand. “Try it and see.”

“Well,” sighed miserable Peace, “I s’pose I must, then.”

She reluctantly descended the stairs again, and disappeared down the path toward the Hartman house, wishing with all her heart that the ground would swallow her up before she had to meet the enemy. Suddenly a way out of the dilemma presented itself. She searched hastily through her pockets for paper and pencil, and folding both among the clutter, she wrote her apology on a ragged, dirty scrap, and carried it to the green house, intending to leave it on the doorstep and hurry away, but as she peered cautiously around the corner of the shed she saw Mrs. Hartman sitting on the porch, and retreated, murmuring, “Oh, dear, I s’pose I’ll have to say it to him after all. I might pin it to the barn door, or maybe ’twould be better if I fastened it beside the painting. That’s what I’ll do!”

She stole away to the barn, tacked the paper to the new boards, and was about to depart when her eyes chanced to fall upon her sprawling decorations of the previous day; and she halted, horrified at the glaring scarlet letters. “Mercy! How they look! No wonder Mr. Hartman gave me such a tre men jous switching. The paint is still here. I will cover it all up.”

The big brush did the work this time, and in a brief period a wide, brilliant stripe of red hid the uneven letters from sight. But somehow Mr. Hartman did not think the barn had been improved very much when he found it, and was wrathfully; setting out in search of the artist when the fluttering paper caught his eye.

“She’s a great one for notes,” he muttered, jerking the scrawl down, half impatiently, half amused. “What does she say this time? Whew!” Involuntarily he whistled a long-drawn-out whistle, for this is what Peace had written:

“I ipolijize for painting your barn cause Gale says I otto and anyway I didn’t know it was going to look so bad so Ive erased the letters with some more paint but I still feel the same way about the raspberries. Also I hope you don’t get your reward in Heaven.

Peace Greenfield.

“P.s. Gale said I should come myself and say this but I thot it was
safest to rite as long as youre still mad.”