Jingo Django Read online

  JINGO DJANGO

  By Sid Fleischman

  COPYRIGHT © 1971 by Sid Fleischman, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-386-0

  Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9440-0

  Cover photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  For Marty and Carol and Henry

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock

  Chapter 2: The Soot Devil

  Chapter 3: The Chimney-hid Thing

  Chapter 4: Mr. Jeffrey Peacock, Gent.

  Chapter 5: Cactus Gold

  Chapter 6: The Missing Faces

  Chapter 7: Fingle-fangled

  Chapter 8: Captain Daylight

  Chapter 9: At the Red Jacket Inn

  Chapter 10: The Scrimshaw Map

  Chapter 11: The Dreadful Visitor

  Chapter 12: The Man with the White Goose

  Chapter 13: Dr. Custis and Other Varmints

  Chapter 14: The Grasshopper

  Chapter 15: The Pin

  Chapter 16: The Fetching Stick

  Chapter 17: The Horse Trade

  Chapter 18: The Man in the Rain

  Chapter 19: The River Swan

  Chapter 20: The Cake of Ice

  Chapter 21: The Mark of a Thief

  Chapter 22: The Hornet’s Nest

  Chapter 23: The Horse Race

  Chapter 24: The Man in the Dark

  Other ebooks by Sid Fleischman

  JINGO DJANGO

  1

  GENERAL DIRTY-FACE JIM SCURLOCK

  I’d just as soon disremember Mrs. Daggatt and General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock. But I’m not likely to forget them either.

  Mrs. Daggatt was big as a skinned ox. When I awoke she was lumbering through the boys’ dormitory. It was still dark and she was holding a three-pronged candle holder like it was the Devil’s own pitchfork. In the flaring yellow light she looked us over as if she were picking a lamb for slaughter. Her eyes settled on me.

  “Rise up and follow,” she said.

  I took all the time I could pulling on my linsey-woolsey shirt, making a mux of the sleeves and keeping her standing. I think I was the only boy in the orphan house who wasn’t mortally afraid of her — at least, I wouldn’t show it.

  “Lively, now.”

  “I can’t find my shoes,” I said. The truth was I had traded them off for a breakfast of oysters and biscuits the last time I had run away. The year was 1854 and it was mud time — early April. Shoes were a pesky bother in mud time.

  She shot me an impatient scowl. “Bare feet’ll do. Come along! There’s a gentleman waiting.”

  I knew what that meant. She was hiring me out. If there was a mean, no-souled job offered, Mrs. Daggatt was always glad to apprentice one of her strays. Not that we ever saw a penny for our labors. Every copper found its way directly into Mrs. Daggatt’s fat, pink hand and disappeared forever.

  Well, I could be the most contrary apprentice in Boston. I didn’t mean to stay hired out for long.

  I followed her along the hall and down the old stairs. The floorboards creaked and groaned under her great weight.

  “Maybe my pa’s come to fetch me,” I said.

  “He’s never coming to fetch you,” she snapped.

  That suited me fine, though I never let on to anyone. It was my closest secret. I might as well confess the truth — I’m a liar. I was always making up howling good stories about my pa. I’d say he stood seven feet tall and was master of the fastest China clipper in the trade. Oh, he was shipwrecked many a time, I’d say, and captured by Chinese pirates once and almost eaten by cannibals twice. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he was shipwrecked again, but one day he’d turn up and snatch me out of Mrs. Daggatt’s confounded Beneficent Orphan House and off we’d frolic to sea again.

  The truth was that my pa might have been a fishmonger for all I knew, or a common thief. A murderer, even. I could barely recollect him, except that he was a one-legged man with teeth as black as tar. He’d shed himself of me when I was five or six, after my ma died, and if I never laid eyes on him again I’d reckon myself lucky.

  I never talked to anyone about my ma. I remembered her dark hair blowing about on a windy day, and the flash of her gold earrings and even the sound of her laughter. That was all I remembered, but it was something to hold on to and I held it close.

  “Now mind what I say,” Mrs. Daggatt grumbled. “You’ll answer the gentleman’s questions with ‘Yes, sir.’ Stand erect, hands at your sides, and show proper respect. Now whack your cheeks to put some color into them.”

  I gave my cheeks a pat or two and we hauled up at Mrs. Daggatt’s back parlor. The grandfather clock was striking as we entered and I shot a glance at the gentleman standing with his back to the window.

  I knew him at once. I’d seen him on the streets many a time, blowing his army trumpet and followed by his raggedy pack of soot devils. It was the chimney master — General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock.

  He was a flop-eared man with a dented top hat and a nose as heavy as a turnip. His twitchy eyes settled on me like a found penny, and his face broke into a huge smile.

  “Aye, there’s the lad I be lookin’ for,” he laughed. “No bigger’n a pint o’ cider — that’s the ticket, me dear Daggatt. But he is a bit all skin and bones, ain’t he?”

  “There’s small choice in rotten apples,” Mrs. Daggatt grunted. “But his cheeks are healthy — you can see that. His name is Jingo. Jingo Hawks.”

  “Aye, there’s a bloom to his cheeks,” the chimney master agreed, moving closer. He felt the muscles in my arm and then pried open my jaws. He checked my teeth as if he were buying a horse. Finally he stepped back with a grin and blew his nose in a large blue handkerchief.

  “Be ye a climbing boy, Jingo?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Fine. First rate. Not afraid of high places and dark places, eh? There’s a brave lad. Do ye know your age?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, although it was a mystery to me when I was born or where I was born. I made up dates and places to suit my fancy.

  “He’s eleven or twelve or thirteen by my reckoning,” Mrs. Daggatt put in.

  “A bit oldish,” the chimney master said, and gave my dark eyes and curly black hair a squint and a grin. “Brown as a berry, ain’t he? What brand of boy do ye take him for, me dear Daggatt?”

  “Mohawk Indian for all I know. He’s learned his letters behind my back and can sign his own name. I hope you won’t hold that against him, General.”

  “I’ll overlook it,” the chimney master grinned, and then rolled his eyes in mock horror. “Be ye an Indian, lad! Can I count on ye not to lift my scalp, Jingo?”

  I didn’t favor him with an answer and he roared out laughing. I stood like a statue and watched the clock pendulum dawdling back and forth, slicing seconds off the hour. If I had savage blood it would please me hugely, but I knew better than to take Mrs. Daggatt’s word for it. Still, my head rattled with the oddments of a language no one at the orphan house had ever heard before. I could cough up words like mishto and sar shan and hatchi-witchu, but I no longer clearly recollected what they meant.

  The chimney master gave me his twitchy eye. “Ain’t ye a lucky lad, eh? I’ll learn you a splendid profession. Aye, a noble profession.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’d ye like to be one of General Jim Scurlock’s famous chimney squirrels, eh? Does it take
your fancy?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. And no, sir, I said to myself. His nose would turn bluer’n a whetstone before he turned me into a chimney sweep. But I was answering him according to Mrs. Daggatt’s own exact instructions.

  “Now ye ain’t one of them nippers given to running away, be you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t seem to be listening. “And you’re an honest lad. I can see that, Jingo. Ye wouldn’t cadge and steal and filch from your true friend and benefactor.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  That caught him up short. “What’s that, lad? Did I hear ye right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mrs. Daggatt shot me a glance like the milltail o’ thunder, but the chimney master was already looking at me own one side of his nose. “Don’t try to flummox me. Can’t you answer anything but yes, sir and yes, sir and another yes, sir?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His mouth puckered and then he bent closer so that we were almost nose to nose. “Ever seen the sun shine at night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ever heard a cat bark like a dog?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Be ye dull-witted, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I thought he’d chuck me for sure. But he broke into a devilish smile. He gave his coattails a flick and turned to Mrs. Daggatt. “He’s buffle-brained, for certain. First rate. First rate and a half. It don’t require a scholar to sweep chimneys. I’ll take him, me dear Daggatt!”

  2

  THE SOOT DEVIL

  Fire and furies! I had outfoxed myself. The worst of it was the look Mrs. Daggatt shot at me. It was a smile. It was a smirk. It was sour enough to make a pig squeal.

  “Come along, lad,” General Scurlock beamed. “And there’ll be a ten-dollar gold piece if ye find a thing I be looking for. A chimney-hid thing. How does that strike ye, eh?”

  I could see sunrise glowing up through the window. I’d make a flying, bald-headed dash for it as soon as we hit the street. He wasn’t going to sniggle me with chimney-hid things. He wasn’t going to dangle a gold piece in front of my nose to keep me from running off.

  But that man could read thoughts. The moment Mrs. Daggatt shut the door behind us he snatched me by the left ear and hoisted me up to my toes.

  “I’ll twist your ear off before ye give me the slip,” he grinned, his twitchy eye a-flutter. “That’s the first lesson I learn me soot devils, Jingo. And I’ll snap your other ear off if ye get so much as a faraway look in your eye. That’s your second lesson! And if ye do slope away I’ll find ye quick and certain. I’ve never lost a climbing boy yet. That’s your third lesson.”

  I thought he’d never turn loose of my ear. “But sir,” I said before he laid down more lessons than I could bear. “But sir, you rescued me from the orphan house. I’m eternally grateful. I’m eager to learn a splendid, noble profession in the chimneys.” And then I added for good luck, “Do you think I might grow up to be a sweep master like yourself?”

  “Buffle-brained,” he wheezed, easing off on my ear at last. “Let’s march.”

  Beneath all his chuckles and smiles he was a scaresome man, and I elected to keep ears on my head until after breakfast. I’d dodge him in my own good time. A full stomach was the first lesson in running away and I’d almost forgot it.

  Before long we hauled up at his shack along the river. His other boys were waiting under a large shed that was a kind of ash dump. He sold those ashes for fertilizer or for making soap.

  We stood looking at each other. They were a silent, beaten lot. I felt sorry for them and I reckon they felt sorry for me. They were bundled up in blackened rags and wore oilskin chimney hats pointed like dunce caps.

  “Sampson,” he said to a skinny, red-haired boy, “fetch Jingo a scraper.” Then he turned to an even skinnier boy with soot-rimmed eyes. “Casharagoo, fetch him a brush and a hat.”

  “I’m dreadful hungry,” I said.

  “Aye, a fine bit of cling-john and coffee’ll be waiting when your work’s done, lad,” he answered, and ducked into his shack.

  There was no getting the best of that man. Breakfast was just a tricksy promise! But he hadn’t got the best of me yet, either.

  He reappeared all dandied up for the streets. “Fall in!” he shouted and led his company of soot devils across the yard. Each of us was burdened with large hemp blankets.

  You never saw such a shivering, hungry and ragged procession. General Scurlock wasn’t exactly spic and span himself, but he was warm enough in his general’s faded blue frock coat. A cavalry sword dangled from a red sash tied around his middle, like bunting, and you’d think he was marching off to war.

  The cobbled streets were still morning wet and the windows seemed lacquered over with sunlight. From time to time General Scurlock would lift an old trumpet to his lips and blast loud enough to wake snakes. Then he’d let go with his street cry.

  Sweep ho! Sweep ho!

  Here come General Scurlock’s soot devils!

  Sweep for your soot, ho!

  From the bottom to the top,

  Without a ladder or a rope!

  Sweep ho! Sweep ho-o-o-o!

  I’d heard it many a time from the orphan house. I had done harder work than scraping down a chimney, but I felt six kinds of a fool marching along in that dunce cap. I dropped it behind the first bush we came to.

  But Casharagoo fished it up with his scraper and snuck it back to me. “Old Split-Foot’ll give you a whippin’,” he whispered.

  “I’ve been whipped before,” I said.

  “You’ll need it in the flues,” he muttered. “It’ll keep the muck out of your hair.”

  He gazed at me through his wispy, soot-rimmed eyes and I nodded. “What kind of flapdoodle general is he?” I asked.

  “That off-ox? Weren’t no general at all. Just puts on the flamigigs. He was in the Mexico war a few years back. Lucky if he rose to the rank of private.”

  I canted the dunce cap back on my head and General Scurlock gave another blast of his lungs.

  Sweep ho! Sweep ho!

  Here and there along the streets a window would rise or a door would open and there’d be a beckoning gesture. He’d peel off a couple of boys to clean the chimneys.

  “And don’t forget to fetch me back the ashes,” he warned.

  Finally there was no one left in his ragged army but me. We ended up in an old sidehill house on Salem Street. It had a short chimney at the kitchen and a long one shooting up through an overhanging second story. The back roof almost sloped down to the ground, and that put ideas in my head.

  General Scurlock stuck his head up the parlor chimney and said it was a wonder the soot hadn’t caught fire, it was so caked up. He haggled with the old widow who owned the place and she finally agreed to thirty-eight cents for the first story and twenty cents for the second. “Nothing extra for clearing out the swallows’ nests, me good lady,” he added generously.

  General Scurlock fixed my hemp blanket across the fireplace to keep the soot and ash out of the parlor. Then he motioned me behind the blanket.

  “Up ye go, Jingo.”

  I took one look up the long, narrow flue and said, “No, sir.” The bit of sunlight at the top seemed a mile high.

  “Ye ain’t scared?” he chuckled.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Why, that’s a good, snug flue. Just your size. The first time’s the hardest, lad. I’ll give ye a lift up.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Ain’t ye forgetting that chimney-hid thing? It might be waiting for ye up there.” He plucked a ten-dollar gold piece from his pocket and flashed it before my eyes. “And I’ll be waiting for ye down here with this, Jingo Hawks. Think of that!”

  “I aim to stay right here on the ground,” I said.

  With that he grabbed hold and gave me a heave up the chimney. “Squirrel up there! Once ye reach the top scrape your way back down.”

  I managed to brace mysel
f against the bricks, and then with a foothold in the old mortar joints raised myself out of his reach.

  “I calculate this is as high as I’m going,” I said. Now that I was in the flue I broke into a sweat at the thought of climbing to the sky.

  But he drew his sword and gave me a sharp prod. I scurried up and out of reach, again.

  “Use your back and elbows, lad. Keep a-going. And if ye turn up a whale’s tooth — why that’s the chimney-hid thing. Up toward the top, most likely, and sooted over. Spy out the broken bricks and every deepish crack, eh?”

  “I’m as far as I aim to climb,” I answered, wedging myself in as best I could.

  He couldn’t reach me with his sword point and he was too large himself to squirrel up the flue after me. But he was a chuckling man and a tricksy man and before long he had built a straw fire under me. The smoke and the rising heat began to do me in.

  I took one fearsome look at the sky and clawed my way toward it. I scuffed my toes and elbows raw, and all the while he stood below chuckling. That infernal hatchi-witchu! I thought.

  When I reached daylight I wiped my eyes clear of soot and gazed out, past the rooftops, toward the harbor. I could pick out the orphan house and supposed Mrs. Daggatt was already counting the pennies old Split-Foot would pay her for my labors.

  Well, she could wait till the crack of doom. I wasn’t going back down that chimney, but I began scraping away. I calculated General Scurlock would duck out of the fireplace when chunks of soot began to fall. A moment later I started down the sloping back roof on my sweaty hands and feet. I tried not to make a sound. When I ran out of roof I wasn’t more than ten feet off the ground. I jumped into a row of tall bushes and slipped away.

  I don’t know how long General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock stood behind the fireplace blanket waiting for me to come down.

  3

  THE CHIMNEY-HID THING

  That afternoon I spied a one-legged man at India Wharf. I froze on the spot as if a black cat might cross my path. I didn’t reckon he was my pa, but he might have been, and the thought put me in a thumping sweat.

  I spun back around the corner of a ship chandler’s shop and almost charged into Casharagoo.