Part 19 (1/2)
”Contribute money, Nickey. Don't be slangy,” his mother interjected.
”Well I says, 'I'm runnin' the Juv'nals, and you've got to do just what I say. I've got a dandy scheme for raisin' money and we'll have some fun doin' it, or I miss my guess.' Then I asked Sam Cooley how much money he'd got, and Sam, he had forty-four cents, Billy Burns had fifty-two cents, and Dimple had only two. Dimp never did have much loose cash, anyway. But I said to Dimp, 'Never mind, Dimp; you aint to blame. Your dad's an old skinflint. I'll lend you six to start off with.' Then I made Billy Burns sweep the floor, while Sam went down to the chicken yard and caught my bantam rooster, Tooley. Then I sent Dimp after some chalk, and an empty peach basket, and a piece of cord.
Then we was ready for business.
”I marked a big circle on the barn floor with the chalk, and divided it into four quarters with straight lines runnin' through the middle.
Then I turned the peach basket upside down, and tied one end of the string on the bottom, and threw the other end up over a beam overhead, so I could pull the basket off from the floor up to the beam by the string. You see,” Nickey ill.u.s.trated with graphic gestures, ”the basket hung just over the middle of the circle like a bell. Then I took the rooster and stuck him under the basket. Tooley hollered and scratched like Sam Hill and----”
”For mercy sake, Nickey! What will you say next?”
”Say, ma, you just wait and see. Well, Tooley kicked like everything, but he had to go under just the same. Then I said to the kids to sit around the circle on the floor, and each choose one of the four quarters for hisself,--one for each of us. 'Now,' I said, 'you must each cough up----'”
”Nicholas!”
”Oh ma, do let me tell it without callin' me down every time. 'You kids must hand out a cent apiece and put it on the floor in your own quarter. Then, when I say ready, I'll pull the string and raise the basket and let Tooley out. Tooley'll get scared and run. If he runs off the circle through my quarter, then the four cents are mine; but if he runs through Dimp's quarter, then the four cents are Dimp's.'
”It was real excitin' when I pulled the string, and the basket went up. You'd ought to 've been there, Mrs. Maxwell. You'd have laughed fit to split----”
”Nicholas Burke, you must stop talkin' like that, or I'll send you home,” reproved Mrs. Burke, looking severely at her son, and with deprecating side-glances at his audience.
”Excuse me, ma. It will be all over in a minute. But really, you'd have laughed like sin--I mean you'd have just laughed yourself sick.
Tooley was awful nervous when the basket went up. For a minute he crouched and stood still, scared stiff at the three kids, all yellin'
like mad; then he ducked his head and bolted off the circle through my quarter and flew up on a beam. I thought the kids would bust.”
Mrs. Burke sighed heavily.
”Well, burst, then. But while they were laughin' I raked in the cash.
You see I just had to. I won it for fair. I'd kept quiet, and that's why Tooley come across my quarter.”
Mrs. Maxwell was sorting over her music, while Maxwell's face was hidden behind a paper. Mrs. Burke was silent through despair. Nickey glanced furtively at his hearers for a moment and then continued:
”Yes, the kids was tickled; but they got awful quiet when I told them to fork over another cent apiece for the jack-pot.”
”What in the name of conscience is a jack-pot?” Hepsey asked.
Donald laughed and Nickey continued:
”A jack-pot's a jack-pot; there isn't no other name that I ever heard of. We caught Tooley and stuck him under the basket, and made him do it all over again. You see, every time when Tooley got loose, the kids all leant forward and yelled like mad; but I just kept my mouth shut, and leaned way back out of the way so that Tooley'd run out through my quarter. So I won most all the time.”
There was a pause, while Nickey looked a bit apprehensively at his audience. But he went on gamely to the end of the chapter.
”Once Tooley made a bolt in a straight line through Dimp's quarter, and hit Dimp in the mouth, and bowled him over like a nine-pin. Dimp was scared to death, and howled like murder till he found he'd scooped the pot; then he got quiet. After we made Tooley run ten times, he struck work and wouldn't run any more; so we just had to let him go; but I didn't care nothn' about that, 'cause you see I had the kids'
cash in my pants pocket, and that was what I was after. Well, sir, when it was all over, 'cause I'd busted the bank----”
”Nicholas Burke, I am ashamed of you.”
”Never mind, ma; I'm most through now. When they found I'd busted the bank, they looked kind of blue, and Dimp Perkins said it was a skin game, and I was a bunco steerer.”