Bunch Grass | Page 6

mutineers and held them. "And,"
her eyes shone, "I believe that I have been sent to kill the evil in you, as
I am going to kill this venomous beast. Stand back!"
They shrank back against the walls, open-eyed, open-mouthed,
trembling. Alethea-Belle unfastened for the second time the lid of the
basket; once more the flat head protruded, hissing. Alethea-Belle struck
sharply.
"It is harmless now," she said quietly; "its back is broken."
But the snake still writhed. Alethea-Belle shuddered; then she set her
heel firmly upon the head.
"And now"--her voice was weak and quavering, but a note of triumph,

of mastery, informed it--"and now I am going to cane you three boys; I
am going to try to break your stubborn wills; but you are big and strong,
and you must let me do it. If you don't let me do it, you will break my
heart, for if I am too weak to command here, I must resign. Oh, I wish
that I were strong!"
The mutineers stared at each other, at the small white face confronting
them, at the boys and girls about them. It was a great moment in their
lives, an imperishable experience. The biggest spoke first, sheepishly,
roughly, almost defiantly--
"Come on up, boys; we'll hev to take a lickin' this time."
Alethea-Belle went back to the rostrum, trembling. She had never
caned a boy before, and she loathed violence. And yet she gave those
three lads a sound thrashing. When the last stroke was given, she
tottered and fell back upon her chair--senseless.
* * * * *
Later, I asked her how she had caught the snake.
"After you left me," she said, "I sat down to think. I knew that the boys
wanted to scare me, and it struck me what a splendid thing 'twould be
to scare them. Just then I saw the snake asleep on the rocks; and I
remembered what one o' the cowboys had said about their being stupid
and sluggish at this time o' year. But my! when it came to catching it
alive--I--nearly had a fit, I'd chills and fever before I was able to brace
up. Well, sir, I got me a long stick, and I fixed a noose at the end of it;
and somehow--with the Lord's help--I got the creature into my
work-basket; and I carried it home, and put it under my bed, with a big
stone atop o' the lid. But I never slept a wink. I'm teetotal, but I know
now what it is to have the--the--"
"Jim-jams," said I.
"I believe that's what they call it in California. Yes, I saw snakes,
rattlers, everywhere!"

"You're the pluckiest little woman in the world," said I.
"Oh no! I'm a miserable coward, and always will be. Now it's over I
kind of wish I hadn't scared the little children quite so bad."
About a month later, when Alethea-Belle was leaving us and about to
take up new quarters in Paradise, near the just finished village
schoolhouse, Mrs. Spafford came to me. The schoolmarm, it seemed,
had stepped off our scales. She had gained nearly ten pounds since the
day of the great victory.
"Your good cooking, Mrs. Spafford--" Mrs. Spafford smiled scornfully.
"Did my good cooking help her any afore she whacked them boys? Not
much. No, sir, her scholars hev put the flesh on to her pore bones; and I
give them the credit. They air tryin' to pay for what their schoolmarm's
put into their heads and hearts."
"Miss Buchanan has taught us a thing or two," I suggested.
"Yes," Mrs. Spafford replied solemnly, "she hev."

II
THE DUMBLES
Looking back, I am quite sure that John Jacob Dumble's chief claim to
the confidence of our community--a confidence invariably abused--was
the fact that the rascal's family were such "nice folks," "so well-
raised," so clean, so respectable, such constant and punctual "church-
members." After the Presbyterian Church was built in Paradise, no
more edifying spectacle could be seen than the arrival on Sunday
mornings of the Dumble family in their roomy spring wagon. The old
man--he was not more than fifty-five--had two pretty daughters and a
handsome son. Mrs. Dumble, a comely woman, always wore grey
clothes and grey thread gloves. She had a pale, too impassive face, and
her dark hair, tightly drawn back from her brows, had curious white

streaks in it. Ajax said a thousand times that he should not sleep
soundly until he had determined whether or not Mrs. Dumble was a
party to her husband's misdemeanours. My brother's imagination, as I
have said before, runs riot at times. He was of opinion that the wearing
of grey indicated a character originally white, but discoloured by her
husband's dirty little tricks. Certainly Mrs. Dumble was