CHAPTER XVI WHEN THE LAW IS ON.

ETHEL was out in the little orchard south of the house with Minerva, looking for “queen’s lace.” She had two purposes in mind. To teach Minerva something more of nature and to make a conventionalized design of the ground plan of the flower for use in her everlasting embroidery.

“Mis. Vernon.”

“What is it, Minerva?”

“Don’t the apples we have in the city come from the country?”

“Why, yes,” said Ethel.

She told me of the conversation later, I being at the time fishing for trout (in all innocence) with James (who knew the law).

“Well, then, how come that apples here is so little and city apples is so big?”

“Why,” said Ethel, “these haven’t grown yet.”

“Do they grow on the tree?” said Minerva.

“Why, certainly. You surely didn’t suppose that they grew after they were picked.”

“But the stems is so little that I wouldn’t think they’d hold apples like I see in the grocery stores.”

“Why, but the stems grow, too.”

“Oh,” said Minerva.

Minerva’s ignorance of common things was a never-ending marvel.

“Who do you pay for these apples, Mis. Vernon,” she went on.

“Why, nobody. They go with the house.”

And then Minerva gave utterance to a wise remark.

“Ain’t it queer, Mis. Vernon, that in the country, where you don’t have to pay for apples, every man has apple trees of his own, and in the city, where you do have to pay, nobody has any?”

“Just what do you mean?” said Ethel, wishing (as she told me) to draw out Minerva’s thought.

“Why, I mean poor people in the city has to pay for apples, an’ in the country people don’t have to pay for ’em, but it don’t do no good, because they have their own trees.”

“Well, but if they didn’t have their own trees, they would have to pay for them,” said Ethel, puzzled.

“Yas’m, but people in the city, if they had trees,—I mean poor people, then they wouldn’t have to pay for apples and they could use their money for somethin’ else, and people in the country has more money than poor people in the city, and they don’t have to spend it on apples, because they have ’em on their own trees.”

“Oh, I see,” said Ethel. “You mean that it doesn’t seem fair that poor people in the city, who would appreciate apples on their own trees, if they had them, have to pay for apples, while in the country people who could afford to pay for apples don’t have to, but can go out and pick them.”

“Yas’m,” said Minerva. “I guess that’s what I meant.”

“Yes,” said Ethel. “That must have been just what you meant. There are a great many things that we can’t understand about those things, but you know that farmers sell their apples to the people in the city, and that’s one of the ways they make their money.”

Minerva thought a minute. “Apples on the stands in the city sells for five cents, and I’ve seen rows of trees up here full of apples.”

“They call them orchards,” said Ethel.

“Why don’t they call them apples?” asked Minerva.

“No, no, the rows of trees are called orchards, and if the farmers could sell the apples for five cents apiece they would make a great deal of money, but they sell them to other men, who sell them to others, and they sell them to the men who keep the apple stands. The farmers don’t get a cent apiece for them.”

Minerva’s mind must have been in good working order that day, for she now said,

“If the poor people in the city knew they could get them for nothing they would all come to the country. An’, Mis. Vernon,” said she, with a characteristic chuckle, “If the farmers knew they sold for five cents in the city they’d take ’em down theirselves and sell ’em.”

Even Minerva felt that the middle man was an excrescence.

They were still hunting for the queen’s lace when I returned with what was for me a fine string of trout. James had taken his string home.

“Oh, what beauties. Did James catch them for you?” said Ethel. “We’ll have them for lunch.” Minerva took the forked stick that held the half dozen, not one less than eight inches in length, and as soon as she had left, Ethel told me of her thoughtful conversation. She also told me that she despaired of getting any queen’s lace.

“I must send to the seedsman for some seeds and sprinkle it in the grass so that we may have some next year.”

“Do so,” said I with the tone that fits superior knowledge. “Do so, and help fill the cell of a model Massachusetts prison. Don’t you know that that’s wild carrot and it’s counted as big a nuisance as the Canada thistle. Don’t you know we’d be fined?”

“Well, certainly farmers don’t know a beautiful thing when they see it,” said Ethel jumping to an illogical conclusion. “Are you sure that it is a nuisance? It grew all over the grass in Barnham.”

“Yes, and they were shiftless people in that place. Here, give me your nature book.” I took it and soon found the page. “Here it is: ‘This is, perhaps, the “peskiest” of all the weeds with which he has to contend.’ The farmer may think it’s beautiful, but it isn’t beauty so much as a living that he is after. We have to obey the laws in a civilized state like Massachusetts. It’s a punishable offence to let it grow.”

“Well, I don’t see how it could harm just on this place. Nobody farms it very near us.”

“No, but the wind has a way of carrying seeds, Ethel,” said I, sarcastically. “It was the way of the wind with a seed that first suggested rural delivery, I have no doubt. Who is that talking to Minerva?”

It was a man who, driving by, had stopped and hailed her, and had now left his horse in the middle of the road and had gone over to her.

We could not hear what he said, but we saw her suddenly put her two hands behind her back as if to conceal her string of fish.

I hurried over to the man, followed by Ethel.

“Are those trout,” said the man, carelessly.

“No, they’re fishes,” said Minerva, in a tone of contempt for his ignorance.

“Yes, they’re trout?” said I. “Why do you want to know?”

There was something in his manner that I did not like.

“Who caught those trout,” said he.

I felt like saying, “I, said the fly with my hook and eye,” but I really did say “I caught them. Have you any objections?”

“Decidedly,” said he, his manner becoming stern and official. “I am the game warden, and this is the middle of July. The law went on on July 1st. I can arrest you.”

There seemed to be something cockily pompous about this man, who was not above five feet high, but whose erectness of bearing and awesome manner made him seem (to himself) at least six feet two in his stocking feet.

So when he said “I can arrest you,” I said, “And will you?” and felt quite Shakespearean as I said it. It recalled the scene between Arthur and Hubert de Burgh.

“Well,” said he, seeing that I stirred not, “Perhaps it can be settled out of court. As game warden I can sell you the right to have caught those fish.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said I, “Bribery and corruption. And in Massachusetts. Well, I don’t believe I care to buy the right. I went out fishing this morning not knowing of the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, I know that, but the point is, that if I have got to pay out money I prefer to pay it in a fine than to pay it to you for a right you can’t give me. The law makes no distinction, if I know anything about laws” (and I know precious little) “and if I mustn’t catch trout out of season, I mustn’t catch ’em, that’s all. Lead me to prison.”

I said this in mock heroics and he in his turn said,

“Well, of course, I didn’t mean to take a bribe. You misunderstood me. As game warden I own the fish. I represent the state and the state owns the fish, therefore I own them. Now you have caught some of my fish. I can’t sell you the right to catch them, very true, but I can sell you the fish now that they are caught.”

Minerva’s hands had fallen to her sides and he now took the string from her, while she was off her guard, and said:

“There are six of them. This season of the year they are worth fifty cents apiece for the males and a dollar for the females.”

I laughed in his face.

“My dear man, if you think I am going to pay anywhere from three to six dollars for a fish lunch you are mistaken. I’d rather throw away the fish and pay my fine like a man.”

“You can’t throw them away,” said he, defiantly; “I have the fish and possession is nine points of the law. Did you have an aider and abettor?”

“I refuse to answer,” said I.

He turned quickly on Minerva. “Did your master go out with anyone?”

“I didn’t see him go out,” said Minerva, sullenly. It was plain to be seen that her sympathies were not with the myrmidon of the law.

“I am not afraid of this law,” said I. “I fished innocently and I am willing to pay the fine. I will also consider it my duty to tell the judge that you attempted to compromise with me on a money basis.”

His manner changed in a twinkling. “See here,” said he. “You’re a stranger up here and you’re from the city. It’s easy to see that. I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

He walked slowly over to his wagon, holding the string of fish in front of him, while he gazed at them thoughtfully. He climbed into the wagon and seemed to be hunting for something under the seat. He soon found it. It was the whip. He applied it to the horse and the animal responded in a spurt of speed that took him out of sight before we realized what had happened.

Our fish lunch was gone.

“I’m glad it ended that way,” said Ethel. I looked at her and saw that she was rather pale. “It would have been dreadful if he had arrested you.”

“I think I’d like to be the game warden,” said I, “if people generally are innocent of the law. But he was afraid of my bribery talk.”

It may have been five minutes later that Bert drove over to the house on his way to town. He had with him another dish of brains.

“Bert,” said I, “When does the law on trout go on?”

“First of July,” said he.

“What’s the name of the game warden?”

“Why, father. Been fishin’?” said he, with a laugh.

“Yes, but that wasn’t your father that you must have just passed.”

“No,” said he. “That’s Cy Holden.” He laughed reminiscently. “Cy’s a great boy.”

“How is he great?”

“Oh, he’s always playing practical jokes,” said he.

“Much obliged for the brains,” said I. “We’ll have them for lunch.”