Seventoes' Ghost by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety SevenToes Ghost by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman You needn't waste any more time talking about it, Benjamin. You can just take that puppy dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do with him. You can carry him back to where you got him or give him away or swap him off but just as sure as you leave him here, half an hour longer.

I'll call Jimmy up from the hayfield and have him shoot him. I won't have a dog around the place now. Couldn't keep seven Toes a minute. He's a dreadful scar of a dog.

Grants, sir. Take that puppy dog and go along. I tell you, I won't have any more talk of it. Benjamin Wellman, small and slight, sandy haired and blue-eyed, stood before his grandfather, who sat in his big armchair in the east door.

Benjamin held in his right hand an old rope, which was attached to a leather strap around the puppy's neck. The puppy pulled at the rope, keeping it taught all the time. He also yelled, "Tryly." He did not like to be tied.

The puppy was not a pretty boy, being yellow and very clumsy. But Benjamin thought he was a beauty. He had urged to his grandfather that there would not be a dog to equal him in the neighborhood when he was grown up, but the old man had not been moved. He were tears in Benjamin's pretty blue eyes, but his square chin looked square.

He tried to speak again. Grants, sir, he began. "Not another word," said the grandfather. Benjamin looked past his grandfather into the kitchen.

His mother sat in the stem in currents. He went around to the other door and entered, dragging the puppy after him. "Mother," he said, "in a low voice. Can't I keep him?"

His grandfather in the east door looked around suspiciously, but he could hear nothing. He was somewhat deaf. "No, not if your grandfather don't want you to," said his mother. "You know, I can't let you, Benjamin."

The puppy was whining piteously, and Benjamin seemed to echo it when he spoke. "I don't see why he don't want me to. It ain't as if Caesar was a common puppy. You ask him, Mother."

"No," returned his mum. "It won't do any good." "You know how much he thinks of Seven Toes, and the dog might kill him when he is grown." "Wouldn't care if he did," muttered Benjamin.

"Nothing but a cross-old stealing cat. Don't begin to be worth that, what is this puppy is?" "Now, Benjamin, you mustn't talk any more about it," said his mother severely. "Grandsir does too much for you, and may as well for you to make any fuss about a thing like this.

Take the puppy and run right along with it, as he tells you to." Grandsir's suspicions suddenly took shape then. "Bengeman, you run right along," he called out. "Don't stand there teasing your mother about it."

So Benjamin gathered the puppy up in his arms with a chirp. It was impossible to lead him any distance, and plunged out of their house. He gave two or three little choking sobs as he hurried along. It was a hot day, and he was tired and disappointed and discouraged.

He had walked three miles over to the village and back to get that puppy, and now he had to walk a mile more to give it away. He had no doubt whatsoever as to the disposal of it. He knew Sammy Tucker would give it a hearty welcome, but there was an understanding to that effect. Benjamin had been a little doubtful as to the reception the puppy might have from his grandfather.

But when Mr. Dyer, who kept the village grocery store, had offered it to him three weeks before, he had not the courage to refuse. Sammy Tucker too had been in the store, buying three bars of soap frizz mother, and he had looked on admiringly and enviously. When Benjamin had mentioned hastingly that his doubts about his grandfather, Sammy, had pricked up his ears. "Say Ben, you give him to me if your grandfather won't let you keep him," Pied whispered with an urge.

"Father said I might have a dog soon, as there was a good chance, and Mr. Dyer don't want it back." "You'll give it away all but this, and he wants to get rid of him." "Their common kind of dogs anyhow, I heard him say so." Benjamin had looked at him stiffly.

"Oh, I guess, Grandsirel, let me keep this puppy. He's such a smart one," Pied answered with dignity. "Well, you ask him, and if he won't, I'll take him," said Sammy. But Benjamin had not asked his grandfather. He'd not have the courage to run the rest.

He'd waited the three weeks, which the storekeeper had said, "Mess laps before the little dog could leave its mother, and then he had gone over to the village and brought it. He'd brought it home without a word to anyone, trusting to the puppy's own attractions to plead for it." It had seemed to Benjamin that nobody could resist that puppy, but Grandfather Welman had all his life preferred cats to dogs, and now he was charged with some fond of seven toes. Benjamin's mother often said that she didn't know what Grandsirel would do if anything happened to seven toes.

Benjamin got out of the yard with a puppy under his arm, could see seven toes sitting on the shed rave, that and the ledge of the old wall behind the barn were his favourite purges. Grandfather Welman thought he chose them because he was so afraid of dogs. Benjamin looked at him and wished Caesar was big enough to shake him. He had named the puppy Caesar on his way home from the village.

There was a great master over there by the same name. Benjamin had always admired this big Caesar, and now thought he would name his dog after him. It was the same principal reduced on which Benjamin himself had been named after Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin trudged down the road, kicking up the dust with his toes. That was something he had been told not to do, so now in a state of mind he liked to do it.

The sun beat down fiercely upon the small red cropped head in the burnt straw hat and his slender shoulders in the Calico blouse. The puppy was large and fat for his age and made his arms ache. The stone walls on both sides of the road were hidden with wild rows and meadow sweep pushes. The fields they were dotted with hay makers.

Now and then a loaded hay cart loomed up in the road. Many boys, no older than Benjamin had to work hard in the hay fields, but grandfather Welman was too careful of him. He would not let him work much in vacation. He had never been considered very strong, but Benjamin did not think of that.

One grievance will outweigh a hundred benefits. He hugged the struggling puppy tight in his arms and trudged on painfully brooding over his wrongs. He muttered to himself as he went, wanted a dog ever since I was born, all the other boys have got him, ain't never had nothing but an old cat. Sharp never have a chance to get such a dog as this again.

Wish something would happen to that old cat, shouldn't care a might. He stubbed more fiercely in the dirt and it flew higher, a squirrel ran across the road and he looked at it within a different scale. When he reached Sammy Tucker's house, he saw Sammy out on the great North yard raking hay with his father. Sammy looked up and saw Benjamin coming.

A hole at he sang out eagerly. Then he dropped his rake and raced into the road. His black eyes went fast with excitement. Say, won't he let you keep him Ben?

He cried? No, he won't let me keep nothing. Going to let me have him then. Suppose so.

Sammy reached forth with eager hands and took the kicking puppy from Benjamin's reluctant arms. "Nice fella, nice little fella," he said tenderly. "I've named him Caesar," said Benjamin. That's a good name asserted Sammy.

"High Caesar, high sir." Sammy's father came smilingly forward to the fence. He was fond of dogs. He also took the puppy and talked to it.

Benjamin thought to himself that he wished his grandfather was more like Sammy's father. He looked on gloomily. "Hate to give it up, don't you Ben," said Mr. Tucker kindly. "Shot never have such chance again."

"Oh yes you will. Your grandfather will let you have a dog sometime." "No, you won't never let me have nothing." "Oh, don't you give up yet Ben?" Benjamin shook his head like a discouraged old man and turned to go home.

Sammy all feed him up and take real good care of him. You can come over here and see him, Mr. Tucker called after him as he went down the road. Benjamin thought to himself that he should not want to as he marched whereily home would. His arms were lightened, only the puppy can outgone, but his heart seemed heavy within him.

Two boys, whom he knew, sang out to him from a load of hay and he gave only a grim nod in response. They've got a dog he mattered and indeed the pretty shepherd dog was following after the load. Benjamin, when he came in sight of home, thought he would take a shortcut through the orchard. He meditated, stealing up the back stairs to his chamber, staying up there and saying that he did not want any supper.

He was not hungry. They had not cut the grass in the orchard and he plunged through the clover, the feathery grass and the daisies to his waist. He felt pleased to know how he was making a furrow through his grandfather's hay. He emerged on the orchard and went onwards towards the barn, directly back of it was the old well.

When you reached there, you stopped short. There was seven toes. Beautiful, great yellow cat stretched out in the sun. All his wonderful seven-toed paws spread out.

The ledge of the old well was a strange place for a cat but seven toes was fun of it and stayed there much of the time when he was not on the shed roof.

Benjamin walked close to the well and looked at seven toes. His small face was burning red with his feet, his blue eyes gleamed angrily. "You lazy old cat," said he. He stood a second longer than he thrust out his hand and gave seven toes a push.

There was a pitiest yaw and a great clawing and seven toes was out of sight. Benjamin ran. He gasped. A white streak was settling around his mouth.

He was well versed in Bible stories and he thought of Kane. What had he done? What would happen to him? Could he ever get away from his guilt, run fast as he would? Benjamin ran as he had never ran before.

His heart pounding, although he did not know clearly what he was running for. He tore around the barn through the pasture bars towards the house. When he came inside to the shed, a great calm of guilt and remorse forced him to glance up at the space where poor seven toes had so loved to sit and where he would sit no more. Benjamin glanced, then he stood, stock still, fairly aghast with awe and terror.

There sat seven toes. All the red faded out of Benjamin's cheek. He had never been encouraged in superstitious beliefs, but he was an imaginative child. And just now bewildered and unstrung, he stared at the shed roof.

Yes, he saw seven toes there and seven toes was at the bottom of the old well. Had he not seen him fall, clawing down? Benjamin rushed, staggering into the kitchen. A grandson, "Oh, mother, you wailed.

Oh, I've pushed seven toes into the well and drowned him, and his ghost is sitting on the shed roof. Oh, mother!" Grandfather Wellman was confined to his chair with rheumatism, but he arose. Pushed seven toes into the well he repeated, while Benjamin's mother turned as perilous her son.

"I have, I have, sobbed Benjamin. I didn't know I was going to, but I have, and he's in the well and he's sitting on the shed roof too." What do you mean, his mother gasp? Stop acting so and tell me what you've done.

I pushed seven toes into the old well. I didn't know I was going to, but I did, and he's dead in there, and he's on the shed roof. Oh, mother!" You ain't pushed that cat into the well, grown grandfather Wellman.

If you have, you was trying to limp across the kitchen with his cane. He, too, was pale and trembling from head to foot. "Hannah," he said to Benjamin's mother, "you come right along quick and see if we can't get him out. I wouldn't take $100 for that cat."

Benjamin's mother started. Benjamin, sobbing and trembling, was clinging to her. Just then, seven toes walked in through the east door. His splendid ringing tail waving a little uneasily, but not a hair of him was hurt. A frightened cat can run faster than a guilty little boy, and seven toes had found his unusual number of claws of good service in climbing a well, and retarding his progress towards the bottom.

They all looked. "Is it seven toes, gas Benjamin with wild eyes?" Of course it's seven toes growled his grandfather. "I'd like to know what you've been cutting up so for, pussy, pussy, pussy."

Benjamin's mother took him over to the sink and put some water on his head and made him drink some. "There's no such thing as a ghost, and you're acting very silly," she said. "But I don't wonder you are scared. When you've done such a dreadful thing, it scares me to think of it. It was almost as bad as killing somebody. I never thought a boy of mine would do such a thing.

Grandsire, good as he is to you too." "I won't ever do so again, so Benjamin, all trembling. I'm sorry. I am sorry." Benjamin was not whipped. The scourging of his own conscience had been a severe enough punishment, but he sat pale and sober in the kitchen, while Grandsire, with seven toes on his knees, and his mother talked to him.

"If you ever do anything like this again, Benjamin," said his grandfather, "I shall be harsh with you. "Harshier than I've ever been, and you must remember it." "I guess he must," said his mother. "It was a dreadful wicked thing, and he should be punished now if I didn't think he'd suffered enough for his own guilty conscience, and would never as long as he lived to such a terrible thing again. I won't. I won't," choked Benjamin.

At supper time, when the new milk was brought in from the barn, Benjamin filled a sauce with it, and carried it to the door for seven toes. He filled it so full that he spilled it all the way over his clean, kitchen floor, but his mother said nothing. Seven toes, lapped his milk happily. Benjamin, with his little contrite, tear-stained face, stood watching him, and Grandsire sat in his armchair. Over in the fields the hay-makers were pitching the last loads into the carts, the east sky was red with a reflected colour of the west. Everything was sweet and cool and peaceful, and the sun was not going down on Benjamin's child's wrath. His grandfather put out his hand and patted his little red cropped head.

"You're always going to be a good boy after this, aren't you, Sonny?" "Yes, sir," said Benjamin, and he got down on his knees and hugged seven toes.