That invincible spirit which dwelt in Tom's breast--that spirit which had dared Lathers, outwitted Duffy, cowed Crimmins, and braved the Union, did not, strange to say, dominate all the members of her own household. One defied her. This was no other than that despoiler of new-washed clothes, old harness, wagon-grease, time-books, and spring flowers, that Arab of the open lot, Stumpy the goat.
This supremacy of the goat had lasted since the eventful morning when, only a kid of tender days, he had come into the stable-yard and wobbled about on his uncertain legs, nestling down near the door where Patsy lay. During all these years he had ruled over Tom. At first because his fuzzy white back and soft, silky legs had been so precious to the little cripple, and later because of his inexhaustible energy, his aggressiveness, and his marvelous activity. Brave spirits have fainted at the sight of spiders, others have turned pale at lizards, and some have shivered when cats crossed their paths. The only thing Tom feared on any number of legs, from centipedes to men, was Stumpy.
"Git out, ye imp of Satan!" she would say, raising her hand when he wandered too near; "or I'll smash ye!" The next instant she would be dodging behind the cart out of the way of Stumpy's lowered horns, with a scream as natural and as uncontrollable as that of a schoolgirl over a mouse. When he stood in the path cleared of snow from house to stable door, with head down, prepared to dispute every inch of the way with her, she would tramp yards around him, up to her knees in the drift, rather than face his obstinate front.
The basest of ingratitude actuated the goat. When the accident occurred that gained him his sobriquet and lost him his tail, it was Tom's quickness of hand alone that saved the remainder of his kidship from disappearing as his tail had done. Indeed, she not only choked the dog who attacked him, until he loosened his hold from want of breath, but she threw him over the stable-yard fence as an additional mark of her displeasure.
In spite of her fear of him, Tom never dispossessed Stumpy. That her Patsy loved him insured him his place for life.
So Stumpy roamed through yard, kitchen, and stable, stalking over bleaching sheets, burglarizing the garden gate, and grazing wherever he chose.
The goat inspired no fear in anybody else. Jennie would chase him out of her way a dozen times a day, and Cully would play bullfight with him, and Carl and the other men would accord him his proper place, spanking him with the flat of a shovel whenever he interfered with their daily duties, or shying a corn-cob after him when his alertness carried him out of their reach.
This afternoon Jennie had missed her blue-checked apron. It had been drying on the line outside the kitchen door five minutes before. There was no one at home but herself, and she had seen nobody pass the door. Perhaps the apron had blown over into the stable-yard. If it had, Carl would be sure to have seen it. She knew Carl had come home; she had been watching for him through the window. Then she ran in for her shawl.
Carl was rubbing down the Big Gray. He had been hauling ice all the morning for the brewery. The Gray was under the cart-shed, a flood of winter sunlight silvering his shaggy mane and restless ears. The Swede was scraping his sides with the currycomb, and the Big Gray, accustomed to Cully's gentler touch, was resenting the familiarity by biting at the tippet wound about the neck of the young man.
Suddenly Carl raised his head--he had caught a glimpse of a flying apron whipping round the stable door. He knew the pattern. It always gave him a lump in his throat, and some little creepings down his back when he saw it. Then he laid down the currycomb.
The next instant there came a sound as of a barrel-head knocked in by a mixing-shovel, and Stumpy flew through the door, followed by Carl on the run. The familiar bit of calico was Jennie's lost apron. One half was inside the goat, the other half was in the hand of the Swede.
