Peter's cousin,who had gone last year,was to meet her,and have a room ready where she boarded if she could,and if she couldn't right away,then the first one who left,Shelley was to have the place,so they'd be together.
There were eight of us left,counting Candace and Miss Amelia,and you wouldn't think a house with eight people living in it would be empty,but ours was.Everything seemed to wilt.The roses on the window blinds didn't look so bright as they had;mother said the only way she could get along was to keep right on working.She helped Candace all she could,but she couldn't be on her feet very much,so she sat all day long and peeled peaches to dry,showed Candace how to jelly,preserve,and spice them,and peeled apples for butter and to dry,quantities more than we could use,but she said she always could sell such things,and with the bunch of us to educate yet,we'd need the money.
When it grew cold enough to shut the doors,and have fire at night,first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table,then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day,and then father lined us against the wall,all in a row from Laddie down,and he pronounced words--easy ones that divided into syllables nicely,for me,harder for May,and so up until I might sit down.For Laddie,May and Leon he used the geography,the Bible,Roland's history,the Christian Advocate,and the Agriculturist.My,but he had them so they could spell!After that,as memory tests,all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day,especially the poetry pieces.I knew most of them,from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them.I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans,""Casablanca,""Gray's Elegy,"or "Mark Antony's Speech,"but best of all,I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl."When he was tired,if it were not bedtime yet,all of us,boys too,sewed rags for carpet and rugs.Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats,and they were pretty,and "very useful too,"like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.
Then they picked the apples.These had to be picked by hand,wrapped in soft paper,packed in barrels,and shipped to Fort Wayne.Where they couldn't reach by hand,they stood on barrels or ladders,and used a long handled picker,so as not to bruise the fruit.Laddie helped with everything through the day,worked at his books at night,and whenever he stepped outside he looked in the direction of Pryors'.He climbed to the topmost limbs of the trees with a big basket,picked it full and let it down with a long piece of clothesline.I loved to be in the orchard when they were working;there were plenty of summer apples to eat yet;it was fun to watch the men,and sometimes I could be useful by handing baskets or heaping up apples to be buried for us.
One night father read about a man who had been hanged for killing another man,and they cut him down too soon,so he came alive,and they had to hang him over;and father got all worked up about it.He said the man had suffered death the first time to "all intents and purposes,"so that fulfilled the requirements of the law,and they were wrong when they hanged him again.Laddie said it was a piece of bungling sure enough,but the law said a man must be "hanged by his neck until he was dead,"and if he weren't dead,why,it was plain he hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the law,so they were forced to hang him again.Father said that law was wrong;the man never should have been hanged in the first place.They talked and argued until we were all excited about it,and the next evening after school Leon and I were helping pick apples,and when father and Laddie went to the barn with a load we sat down to rest and we thought about what they said.
"Gee,that was tough on the man!"said Leon,"but I guess the law is all right.Of course he wouldn't want to die,and twice over at that,but I don't suppose the man he killed liked to die either.I think if you take a life,it's all right to give your own to pay for it.""Leon,"I said,"some time when you are fighting Absalom Saunders or Lou Wicks,just awful,if you hit them too hard on some tender spot and kill them,would you want to die to pay for it?""I wouldn't want to,but I guess I'd have to,"said Leon.
"That's the law,and it's as good a way to make it as any.But I'm not going to kill any one.I've studied my physiology hard to find all the spots that will kill.I never hit them behind the ear,or in the pit of the stomach;I just black their eyes,bloody their snoots,and swat them on the chin to finish off with.""Well,suppose they don't study their physiologies like you do,and hit YOU in the wrong place,and kill you,would you want THE Mhanged by the neck until they were dead,to pay for it?""I don't think I'd want anything if I were dead,"he said."I wonder how it feels to die.Now THAT man knew.I'd like to be hanged enough to find out how it goes,and then come back,and brag about it.I don't think it hurts much;I believe I'll try it."So Leon took the rope Laddie lowered the baskets with,and threw it over a big limb.Then he rolled up a barrel and stood on it and put my sunbonnet on with the crown over his face,for a black cap,and made the rope into a slip noose over his head,and told me to stand back by the apple tree and hold the rope tight,until he said he was hanged enough.Then he stepped from the barrel.
