CHOICESCHOICES
In the hour since Teaspoon had come into town, he had broken up a drunken brawl
outside the saloon, arrested the participants, took a lost child back to her
parents, scolded two boys on the evils of gambling and picked up some more nails
from Thompkins’ store. He had barely arrived back at his office and taken
his
chair, when a loud ruckus outside caught his attention.
“This just isn’t my day.” Teaspoon muttered to himself as he got up from his chair and went to see what all the fuss was about.
On investigating where the ruckus was coming from, he discovered a crowd gathering on the steps of Thompkins store. “Now what has that man gotten himself into.”
Teaspoon made his way through the crowd, brushing aside passersby so that he
could reach the foot of the steps. When he had finally succeeded in breaking
through the crowd, Teaspoon discovered Thompkins held two young boys firmly
by the arms, while they struggled to free themselves from his grasp. Another
child, this one a girl, was continuously kicking the aged storekeeper in the
shins. All three children had hair the color of burnt copper and wore tattered
clothing and holy shoes. By
the pained, enraged expression on Thompkins face, it looked like the storekeeper
was losing the battle.
Hiding his amusement over the storekeeper’s predicament, Teaspoon climbed the steps. Seeing the badge shining on his shirt, the three children stopped fighting and promptly broke into tears. Teaspoon smiled down at them and was rewarded with shy smiles in return.
“Alright folks. Go on about your business, now.” Teaspoon ordered
the townspeople gathered. As soon as the crowd had dissuaded, Teaspoon turned
his attention
back to Thompkins and the children.
“I caught these Irish hooligans trying to steal produce from my store. When I caught them at it and started out of the store toward your office, that prissy there, came out of nowhere and started kicking me! You’ve got to do something about all those foreigners camping outside of town Teaspoon. It’s getting to where decent, hardworking folks can’t even walk the streets of Rock Creek without running into a bunch of lying, thieving foreigners!” Bill Thompkins shouted, his rage deepening his already reddened skin to a rich magenta.
“ ‘Me brothers and I aren’t trash, you, you bad man!” the young girl cried out angrily. She swept back a leg in readiness of kicking the storekeeper in the shins once again, but was stopped by Teaspoon.
“Hold on a minute, missy.” Teaspoon told the enraged child. “No cause to waste a good pair of shoes on kicking, when you could be running and playing instead.” Then he directed his attention back to Thompkins. “How much fruit did they get?”
“None. I caught them with it before they could get out of the door.” Thompkins replied.
“Then quit your bellyaching! I’m sure it won’t happen again once I have a talk with the young’uns parents.” Teaspoon told the storekeeper.
“Fine. This town’s going to come to ruins if we keep letting people like that in.” Thompkins muttered angrily and entered his store.
Teaspoon rounded up the three children and escorted them down the street and
a short distance out of town, where a group of Irish had made their camp. A
tall man with the same hair came forward to claim the children and Teaspoon
explained what had occurred in town. The man promised that the children would
be disciplined
for their misdeed and then explained to Teaspoon that their father had taken
ill and died on the journey to America and that the children’s mother was
in frail health due to a recent miscarriage.
