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Clackett, and the schoolmaster, carrying a cot between them on which lay Moses Jones, at last minus his ball and chain, and feeling as if he didn't know himself so utterly amazed was he. Amid a sudden outringing cheer the cot was carefully deposited in an open space that had been kept for it, close beside that throne where Eunice still sat smiling in gracious hospitality.
The fact was old Dame Clackett was a very staunch churchwoman, and used always to go both on Wednesdays and Fridays, Rain or sunshine, hot or cold, nothing could keep her away from her church, and we silly boys laughed at her for it. Poor old creature! she felt more real pleasure in this than we could imagine. "I will tell you what we will do," said Quidd.
I would sooner crawl to church on my hands and knees than not go to-day, young gentlemen. And then Mr. Hassock, the kind, good curate, to ask for me!" "Yes, and then there is the 'coal money' given on the fifth, that all the widows in the parish may have a good fire through the winter, you know, Goody." "Yes, I must go to church," said Mrs. Clackett.
"There is in our outhouse an old wheeled chair which my mother used to ride about in when she was so long ill, a year or two ago. Now, I know old Dame Clackett is very lame just now, from having let fall her fender on her foot. I will take this chair down, and offer to draw her to church in it, and then, when we have once got her in the chair, we can do as we like with her. Hurrah!"
"What is that?" said Mrs. Clackett. "Oh, yes, I could not keep away from my church! Good young gentlemen, I shall never forget your kindness." We stopped to hear no more. We were overjoyed with the success of our plot. Away we ran to our companions, and, without stopping to explain, cried out: "The chair! the chair! We shall have a guy, the best in the whole country!"
During all this time Dame Clackett cried out loudly, and in the confusion her chair was upset, and she became liberated from her duress. As soon as she was free, she laid about on all sides of her with her stick, pulled off the helmet and jacket in which she had been nearly smothered, and cried out at the top of her voice: "I am no guy! I am Dame Clackett!
But he had done none of these thoughtful things. He had been just plain boy! Girls? Were there any she might visit uninvited? Aunt Eunice was very particular about that. She had explained that the Turner girls, Sophronia Walker, and even the Clackett sisters, Mercy and Lucinda, had many household duties to perform.
We withdrew to the backyard of the schoolroom, and there, in a corner where we thought we could not be overheard, we began to plot against the liberty of Dame Clackett. Hardy was one of the rarest boys for making fireworks I ever knew in my life.
I shall be killed!" and many such exclamations. The populace took this as a part of the character, and laughed most heartily. The greatest number of persons thought the guy to be a boy dressed up, and cried out that he acted his part well. No one suspected it was old Dame Clackett. Away they went in the midst of the hubbub, up one street and down another, over the market-place and by the church.
Girls in white frocks; boys in Sunday suits; all uncomfortable in freshly donned winter flannels since this was to be a sort of out-doors party and there must be no afterclaps of croup; and elders in their second-best attire, worn with an affected indifference of its just happening so. Said Mrs. Turner to Mrs. Clackett: "Course we wasn't asked.