XIV

OLD POLYPOD

Frank was impulsive and eager to lead. Margaret was quiet and submissive and generally very willing to follow. Thus they agreed very well together and seldom got involved in dispute; and yet Frank was often very capricious and went from one thing to another in his plays drawing Margaret with him, each undertaking being soon abandoned in its turn.

For instance, one summer morning after breakfast, when he and Margaret came out to play, he proposed that they should go and work in the garden. He had a corner there which Beechnut had assigned him, and, in this corner he had sown flower seeds about a month previous. The plot was now covered with a very luxuriant vegetation, weeds and flowers having come up together in great profusion.

Frank had neglected his garden corner entirely since putting the seeds into the ground, but now the idea struck him that it would be good amusement to put it in order. Margaret assented to the proposal. So he went into the barn to get his little wheelbarrow and the tools.

He loaded up his wheelbarrow with a great variety of implements that he might be sure to have all he should need, and proceeded toward the garden. Margaret followed, gathering up such tools as fell off from the wheelbarrow, and dragging them on as well as she could.

Frank worked in the garden a short time — long enough to make considerable litter in the walk opposite his plot, with the weeds he pulled out from among the flowers and threw down there. Then he became tired. He told Margaret it was a fine day to go fishing, and that he thought they had better go down to the pier and see what they could catch. He would leave the tools and the wheelbarrow where they were, he said; for he was coming back to work in his garden after he had rested himself a while, fishing.

To find his fishline caused him quite a little trouble. He looked in the proper place for it, but it was not there. He was sure he had put it there after he last used it. Somebody must have taken it away, he said, and he went to ask Beechnut if he had seen it anywhere.

"Yes," replied Beechnut, "it is around the corner of the house by the well. You left it there day before yesterday when you came home from fishing and went to the well to get a drink of water."

"Oh, so I did," said Frank. "Now I remember."

The hook was off from Frank's line. He had more hooks somewhere in a box, but he did not know exactly where. He looked in all the probable places that he could think of and inquired of every one he met; but the hooks could not be found.

After fretting a little at this vexation, and wishing somewhat pettishly, "that people would not take his things," he contrived to make a hook of a large pin which his mother gave him, and went down to the pier. He threw his line out into the water, sat down on a log and began watching the cork for indications of a bite. Margaret stood by his side. with her eyes fixed very intently on the cork.

But the fish did not bite, and Frank soon tired of this sport. He drew in his line, saying it was of no use to fish that morning. He declared that he did not believe there was a fish in the river. Besides, he did not blame them for not biting at a pin. Frank was beginning to get out of humor. He wound up his line and went back to the house.

There was a wagon standing in the yard. "Ah, Margaret!" he exclaimed, "this wagon is just the thing. Let us get in and have a ride."

He leaned his fishpole against a tree that was near by and helped Margaret into the wagon. Then he took the reins and fastened one of the ends to each shaft. After that, with great labor he drew the wagon along to a woodpile and rested the shafts on the wood so as to keep them in a horizontal position. Margaret was in the wagon and she was much pleased to be drawn, and urged Frank to go on and give her a ride in the wagon all about the yard. But Frank said she was too heavy.

He now got into the wagon, took the reins and whip, and began to drive. However, he found that the rest of the harness which was lying on the floor of the wagon under his feet was somewhat in his way. So he threw it out on the grass. He pretended that the wagon was a ship at sea in a storm, and he was throwing the cargo overboard. This idea amused both him and Margaret very much.

When the harness was all out Frank gathered up the reins again and drove on, talking all the time about the scenery supposed to be in view, and the various objects and incidents which he fancied as occurring by the way in their imaginary ride. Sometimes he would pretend that they were going through a gloomy wood and that he was afraid they would meet robbers; and he would whip his horses and urge them on with the utmost vigor to escape from the danger. Then he would come into an open country, very rich and beautiful, and would point out to Margaret the streams and lakes and waterfalls, or the lofty precipices and the dark mountains which came successively into sight. At length he would rein in at the door of a tavern, and hold long conversations with the landlord about the accommodations which he wanted and the terms on which the landlord would furnish them.

Frank entertained himself and Margaret in this way for about a quarter of an hour, and then he became tired of riding. He got down from the wagon and helped Margaret down. For a moment he paused while he looked at the harness lying on the ground, with an indistinct idea in his mind that it was his duty to put it back in the wagon before he went away. But he thought he would come back pretty soon to take another ride, and meanwhile he would go into the workshop and see what Beechnut was doing.

The workshop was a large room in one of the sheds; and Frank and Margaret had heard a hammering there and concluded Beechnut was busy inside. They found him mending some hay rakes. He was standing before a great bench on which were several of the rakes he had brought in to be repaired. One needed a new tooth, another a new handle, while a third needed a wedge to tighten a loose joint.

Frank climbed up and sat on the edge of the bench near where Beechnut was working; and he reached a hand to Margaret and helped her up so she could sit by his side. Beechnut was driving in a wooden peg which was to form a new tooth for the rake that he was mending.

"O Beechnut!" said Frank, "that reminds me — you promised a great while ago to make me a wooden horse, and you have not done it.

I don't think you keep your promises well at all."

"That is a heavy charge to bring against me," said Beechnut. "When did I promise it should be made?"

"I don't know," replied Frank. "You didn't say any particular time. You were to make it for me sometime or other, and you have never made it at any time."

"There is more time coming," said Beechnut, "plenty of it. Perhaps I shall make the wooden horse sometime or other yet."

"But you ought to have made it before now," argued Frank. "To cause me to think you are going to make it when you don't make it, is deceiving."

"Hi-yo!" said Beechnut, "what a character I am getting."

"It is as wrong to deceive anybody as it is to tell a lie," declared Frank.

"Always?" asked Beechnut.

"Yes, always," answered Frank very positively.

"Once I knew a boy," said Beechnut speaking very gravely, "who had a hen; and as he thought that she would forsake her nest if he took the eggs all out and left it empty, he made a wooden egg and left it there for a nest egg. He wished to make the poor hen think it was a real egg, and so deceive her."

"I know who you mean," said Frank. "You mean me. But that is a different thing. She was only a hen. I meant one does wrong to deceive men."

"Well, I once knew a man," continued Beechnut, "who had only one arm. The other had been shot off in the wars. He found that it was rather disagreeable to other people to see a man with one of his arms off at the shoulder. So he had a cork arm made with a hand to it, and it was so exactly like a real arm that nobody observed any difference. He kept a glove on the cork hand, and every one was deceived and thought it was a real hand."

"I could tell," affirmed Frank.

"Do you think," asked Beechnut, "that it would be wrong for a man to wear a cork arm or a cork leg so exactly made that people would think it was a real one?"

"Yes," declared Frank desperately. He did not know how else to get out of the corner into which Beechnut had driven him.

"Well," said Beechnut, " we won't talk about that any longer, and as soon as I have finished this rake I will go and make a wooden horse."

In a few minutes the rake was done, and Beechnut conducted Frank and Margaret to the woodshed to look at a great log which he had laid aside some time before for the body of the wooden horse. It was a log of a very irregular shape having some rude resemblance to a horse. Beechnut had observed this odd appearance of the log the winter before when it was in the woodpile in the yard, and had thrown it aside intending to put legs to it some day for the children; but the convenient time for doing this had not arrived until now.

"There," said Beechnut as he pointed out the log to Frank and Margaret, "what sort of a horse do you think that will make for you?"

"Excellent," replied Frank. "Let's haul him to the shop and put his legs in immediately."

So Beechnut and Frank, after rolling the log over and over several times to get it out where they could take hold of it, lifted it up and lugged it into the shop. Margaret tried to help by taking hold of a branch which represented the tail and lifting with the little strength which she had at her disposal. Thus the monster was finally got into the shop and tumbled down there on the floor.

Beechnut then made legs for the horse and bored holes with a great augur in the log for their insertion. While he was doing this, Frank asked what name his horse should have when he was finished.

"You must name him yourself," said Beechnut. "I am going to make him a galloping horse. He will have three pairs of legs, and they will be of different lengths, and when you rock him back and forth on them you can suppose that he is galloping. You had better go and ask Wallace what would be a good name for an animal with six legs."

"All right," said Frank, "I will; or no," he added, after a moment's thought, "it will be better for you to go, Margaret, because you see I want to stay and watch Beechnut finish the horse."

"But I want to stay, too," said Margaret.

"Why, that isn't of so much consequence," argued Frank. "You know it is necessary I should learn how horses are made; for perhaps I shall have to make one myself some day. I may want to make a little one for you, if I can find the right kind of a log next winter. So it is better you should go and ask Wallace about the name."

Margaret was easily persuaded in such cases as these, and though she had no great confidence that Frank's plans of making a horse for her would ever be accomplished, she consented to go on his errand. In due time Frank saw her returning, and he called out to know what Wallace had said the name was to be.

"It is Polly something," replied Margaret. "He has written it down on this paper."

Frank took the paper, repeating at the same time in a tone of contempt the name which Margaret had suggested, "Polly!" said he, "Polly is no name for such a horse as this."

He opened the paper and read what was written on it to Beechnut and Margaret, thus:

"I think you had better call him Polypod."

Frank threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, Polypod!" he exclaimed, "what a name!"

The legs of the horse were soon finished. They were formed of short stakes sharpened a little at one end and driven firmly into the augur holes which had been bored to receive them. They were set in such a manner as to slant outward to prevent the horse from falling over on his side. The middle pair of legs was a little longer than those before and behind, and a rider seated on the horse and rocking it to and fro would produce a sort of jolting motion.

When the work was done they carried the horse out to a plank platform at the end of the house, and established him there. Beechnut brought two buffalo robes from the barn, and folding them twice, he placed them on the horse, one behind the other. The foremost formed a saddle for Frank, and the other a pillion for Margaret. It happened there was a stub of a branch growing out of the log between Margaret's seat and Frank's, and this was very convenient for Margaret to enable her to hold on.

To add interest to the sport Beechnut taught the children a song to sing which he made up for the occasion, and then he went away leaving them singing and riding old Polypod, keeping time with their music to the jolting of the horse. The song was this:

The children sang this stanza with great glee at the top of their voices.

An hour or two later, Beechnut, in looking about the premises, found. the traces of disorder which Frank and Margaret had left in the garden and around the wagon in the yard. He put away the things Frank had left out of place and noted the time it required to do so. It took him ten minutes. He then went in search of Frank.

"Well, Frank," said he, "how do you like old Polypod?"

"Very much, indeed," answered Frank. "Have I fulfilled my promise to your satisfaction?" continued Beechnut.

"Yes," said Frank, "entirely."

"Now I have a charge against you," said Beechnut. "You have been at work in the garden, and you have left the wheelbarrow and the tools and ever so many weeds in the walks. Then you went to play in the wagon, and finally left it out of its place, and with the reins tied to the shafts, the harness on the ground, and everything in confusion."

Frank appeared quite astounded at these accusations. He did not know what to say.

"Are you guilty or not guilty?" Beechnut asked.

"Why, guilty, I suppose," replied Frank; "but I will go and put the things right away."

"No," said Beechnut, "that is done already. Everything is put away except your fishpole. That is your property and I have nothing to do with it. But it is my business to take care of the garden and the wagon. So I have put them in order, and all you have to do is to submit to a proper punishment for putting them out of order."

"Well," responded Frank, "I will. What is the punishment?"

"You must pay double damages," said Beechnut. "It took me ten minutes to clear up after you, and you must do work for me equal to twenty minutes; but as your time is not worth more than half as much as mine it will take you forty minutes to do the work."

"What is the work to be?" Frank inquired.

"Turning the grindstone after supper for me to grind the scythes," replied Beechnut.

Frank made no objection. In fact he went at this task so industriously and was so pleasant about it that Beechnut released him at the end of half an hour.

Beechnut never scolded; yet he always punished the boys he had dealings with for their faults and delinquencies. Sometimes his punishments were of a very odd and whimsical character and afforded great amusement  — while they answered the purpose of punishments perfectly well: It is true that the boys were not obliged to submit to them, but they generally did so of their own accord, for the punishments were sure to be reasonable, and Beechnut was very good-natured in inflicting them.