JIMMY THE RHYMER.
JIMMY THE RHYMER.
James Redmond, the boys used to say, was small for his size and old for his age. He was not exactly humpbacked, but his shoulders came so nearly up to the level of his ears that he seemed so; and he was not exactly an invalid, though we never counted on him in any of the games or enterprises that required strength or fleetness. I have no idea what his age was. He must have been some years older than I, and yet all the boys in my set treated him tenderly and patronizingly, as if he were a little fellow who needed their encouragement and protection.
Jimmy used to make little ballads, generally taking for his subject some incident that had occurred among the boys of the neighborhood, and often sticking to the facts of the case—at the expense of rhyme and rhythm—with a literalness that made him valuable as a historian, whatever he was as a poet. He was called "Jimmy the Rhymer," and the polite thing to do, on meeting him, was to ask him if he had anything new to-day—meaning any new poem. If he had, he was always willing to read it, sometimes accompanying it with remarks in prose that were quite as entertaining as the ballad itself.
"Hello, Jimmy!"
"Hello, boys!"
"Got anything new to-day?"
"Not much."
"That means that you have something."
"Well, yes; a little one. But I don't think very much of it."
This didn't satisfy us. Jimmy, like many greater artists, was a poor judge of his own productions. Some of his ballads of which he had been proudest were so long and dull that we had almost told him they were failures; but it would have required a very hard-hearted boy to say anything unpleasant to Jimmy. Others, which he thought little of, the boys would call for again and again.
"Let us hear it, please," said Ned.
"I'm afraid I've left it at home," said Jimmy, feeling in his pockets. "Oh, no; here it is."
So we sat down on the horse-block in front of the Quaker meeting-house, and while Ned whittled the edge of the block—which had not been rounded off quite enough, by previous jack-knives, to suit his fancy—Jimmy read his newest ballad.
"It is called 'The Unlucky Fishermen,'" said he; "and you will probably recognize some of the characters.
"What!" said Ned, interrupting, "the little yellow cur that Joe bought of Clam Jimmy for a six-pence?"
"Yes, that's the one."
"But his name isn't Fido—it's Prince. Haven't you ever noticed that the smaller and snarlier and more worthless a dog is, the surer it is to be called Prince?"
"Perhaps that's the way with princes," said Jimmy, who had more than once uttered the most extreme democratic sentiments, expressing contempt for all royalty, merely because it was royalty. "But I don't know,—I never saw one. At any rate, I didn't know the dog's name, and I had to call him something. I think you'll find that everything else is correctly stated."
I ventured to suggest that it didn't make much difference whether the dog's name was right or wrong, in a poem.
"Oh, yes, it does," said Jimmy. "I always try to have my poems true to life; and I shall change that, and make it Prince—that is, after I have inquired of Joe, and found out that the dog's name really is Prince. I am glad you spoke about it."
Then he continued the reading.
"My brother Fay says there isn't a Limerick hook in this whole town," said Ned.
"You can buy plenty of them at Karl's—two for a cent," said Jimmy.
"Oh, no, you can't," said Ned. "Fay says you can't get a Limerick hook this side of New York."
"What is a Limerick hook?" said I, for I was not much of a fisherman.
"Why, don't you know?" said Jimmy. "A hook that's made like a little file on the end where you tie the line, instead of a flat knob."
"A real Limerick hook is one that's made in Limerick," said Ned. "Those you get in this town are made in Connecticut, and are only imitations."
I began to suspect that Ned had been nettled at the failure of his lightning-rod invention, and was venting his spite on poor Jimmy's literary invention.
"I can't see," said I, "that it makes any difference with the poem, whether they were real Limerick hooks, or only imitation. The poetry is just as good."
"Oh, no, it isn't," said Jimmy; "and I'm glad to have my attention called to it. I'll inquire about that, and if I find they were not true Limericks, I'll change that line." Then the reading proceeded.
"Holman's father hasn't been at home for four months," said Ned. "He's gone to Missouri to see about an iron mine."
"I admit," said Jimmy, "that there I drew a little on my imagination. I didn't know what they said, and so I put in what I thought they would be likely to say. But if Holman's father wasn't at home, of course he couldn't have said anything at all. However, I think you'll find that the rest of the poem is entirely true to nature.
"I doubt if any robin sings so late in the season as this," said Ned.
"Still," said Jimmy, "if one did sing, it would certainly be overhead, and not on the ground. No robin ever sings when he's on the ground. You admit that?"
"Oh, certainly," said Ned.
"Then I think that line may stand as it is," said Jimmy.
"He's been anything but a frisky dog when I've seen him," said Ned.
"Perhaps so," said Jimmy; "but there are exceptions to all rules.
"Of course they did," said Ned. "There's not a thing in Karl's store that's not a cheat—all imitation."
"I am glad to hear you say so," said Jimmy. "I thought you would see that the rest of the poem was true to nature.
"Isaac told me," said Jimmy, interrupting himself, "that that thing happened every time with him, and every time but once with Joe."
"He probably said that as an excuse for coming home with no fish," said Ned.
"Oh, no,—Ike wouldn't lie about it," said Jimmy. "He's one of the most truthful boys I ever knew."
"Everybody lies about fishing," said Ned. "It's considered the proper thing to do. That's what they mean by a fish-story."
"But I saw the lines myself," said Jimmy. And then he hurried on with the reading.
"How could he know what kind of fish it was that robbed his hook?" said I.
"I didn't think to ask," said Jimmy. "But, at any rate, he said it was a bass, and Isaac is generally pretty correct.
"That must have been a Dublin boy," said Ned. "Nobody on our side of the river is mean enough to holler 'whip behind!'"
"I think it was a Dublin boy," said Jimmy. "If I can find out for certain, I shall state it so in the poem.
"That's a good poem," said I, as we rose from the horse-block. "I like that."
"Yes," said Ned; "it ought to be printed."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said Jimmy. "But I think I can improve it in a few spots, if I can get at the facts. At any rate, I shall try."
Jimmy continued his walk up the street, while we sauntered toward home.
"I think you were too severe in your criticisms on the poem," said I. "I'm afraid Jimmy felt hurt."
"Do you think so?" said Ned. "Well, now, I didn't mean to be. I wouldn't hurt that boy's feelings for the world. I suppose I must have been a little cross on account of my lightning-rod. But I shouldn't have played it off on Jimmy, that's a fact."
"I think he has great genius," said I, "and it ought to be encouraged."
"Yes, it ought," said Ned. "I've often thought so, myself, and wished I could do something for him. Perhaps I can, now that I have capital. Father says nothing can be done without capital."
"Jimmy's folks are very poor," said I.
"That's so," said Ned. "I don't suppose his father ever had fifteen dollars at one time in his life. Do you think of any good way in which I could help him with a little capital?"
"I don't know of any way, unless it is to print his poems. I should think if his poems could once be published, he might make a great deal of money out of them, and be able to support himself, and perhaps help his mother a little."
"That's so," said Ned. "I'll publish his poems for him. Come over after supper, and we'll talk it up."
THE PRICE OF POETRY.
THE PRICE OF POETRY.
When I went over in the evening, I found that Ned had gone to Jimmy's house, and obtained thirteen of his poems in manuscript, and was now carefully looking them over, correcting what he considered errors.
"I tell you what 'tis," said he, "Jimmy's an awful good poet, but he needs somebody to look out for his facts."
"Do you find many mistakes?" said I.
"Yes; quite a few. Here, for instance, he calls it a mile from the Four Corners to Lyell street. I went with the surveyors when they measured it last summer, and it was just seven eighths of a mile and three rods over."
"But you couldn't very well say 'seven eighths of a mile and three rods over' in poetry," said I.
"Perhaps not," said Ned; "and yet it wont do to have that line stand as it is. It'll be severely criticised by everybody who knows the exact distance."
I felt that Ned was wrong, but I could not tell how or why. In later years I have learned that older people than he confidently criticise what they don't understand, and put their own mechanical patches upon the artistic work of others.
"Perhaps we'd better see what Fay thinks about it," said I. "He probably knows more about poetry than we do."
"He's in the library, getting Father to help him on a hard sum," said Ned. "He'll be here in a minute."
When Phaeton returned, we pointed out the difficulty to him.
"That's all right," said he. "That's poetic license."
"What is poetic license?" said I.
"Poetic license," said Phaeton, "is a way that poets have of making things fit when they don't quite fit."
"Like what?" said Ned.
"Like this," said Phaeton; "this is as good an example as any. You see, he couldn't say 'seven eighths of a mile and three rods over,' because that would be too long."
"That would be the exact distance," said Ned.
"I mean it would make this line too long," said Phaeton; "and, besides, it has to rhyme with that other line, which ends with the wordstyle."
"And if that other line ended withcheek, would he have to call it aleaguefrom the Four Corners to Lyell street?" said Ned.
"I suppose so," said Phaeton, "though it wouldn't be a very good rhyme."
"And is that considered all right?"
"I believe it is."
"Then you can't depend upon a single statement in any poem," said Ned.
"Oh, yes, you can," said Phaeton—"a great many."
"Mention one," said Ned.
said Phaeton.
"That's true," said Ned; "but it's only because the words happen to come so. At any rate, you've greatly lessened my respect for poetry, and I don't know whether I'd better publish them, after all."
"These poems?—were you going to publish them?" said Phaeton.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To make a little money for Jimmy. You know his folks are very poor," said Ned.
"The papers wont pay you anything for them," said Phaeton. "Alec Barnes's sister had a poem two columns long in theVindicatorlast week, and Alec told me she didn't get a cent for it."
"But we're going to make a book of them," said Ned. "You can make money on a book, can't you?"
"I believe you can," said Phaeton. "Wait a minute."
He went to the library, and came back with three volumes of a cyclopædia, out of which, after looking through several articles, he got, at intervals, these bits of information:
"Moore received three thousand guineas for 'Lalla Rookh.'"
"How much is that?" said Ned.
"Over fifteen thousand dollars," said Phaeton.
"Whew!" said Ned.
"Scott made a profit of ten thousand dollars on 'The Lady of the Lake.'"
"Good gracious!" said Ned.
"Byron received more than seventy-five thousand dollars for his poems."
"Great Cæsar!" said Ned.
"Tupper must have made thirty thousand dollars on his 'Proverbial Philosophy.'"
"That's enough!" said Ned. "That's plenty! I begin to have great respect for poetry, in spite of the license. And I suppose that if the poets make all that money, the publishers make a little something, too."
"They probably know how to look out for themselves," said Phaeton. "But who is going to publish this book for you?"
"I'm going to publish it myself. You know we haven't used up the capital I got from Aunt Mercy," said Ned.
"But you're not a publisher."
"Nobody is a publisher until after he has published something," said Ned.
"But that won't be capital enough to print a book," said Phaeton. "Printing costs like fury."
"Then I shall have to get more from Aunt Mercy."
"Yes, I suppose you can—she'd give you anything; but, the truth is, Ned, I—I had a little plan of my own about that."
"About what?"
"About the fifteen dollars—or a part of it. I don't think I should need all of it."
"What is it? Another foolish invention?"
"Yes, it is a sort of invention; but it is sure to go—sure to go."
"Let's hear all about it," said Ned.
"Will you lend me the money to try it?"
"How much will it take?"
"Six or eight dollars, I should think."
"Yes; I'll lend you six dollars on it. Or, if it is really a good thing, I'll put in the six dollars as my share, and go partnership."
"Well, then, it's a substitute for a balloon," said Phaeton. "Much cheaper, and safer, and better in every way."
"How does it work?" said Ned.
"It makes a horizontal ascension. I could tell you all about it; but I would rather wait a week, and then show you."
"All right!" said Ned. "You can have the money, and we'll wait."
"Thank you!" said Phaeton. "But now tell me how you are going to publish Jimmy's poems."
"Why, just publish them, of course," said Ned.
"And what do you understand by that?"
"Take this copy to the printer, and tell him to print the books. When it's done, load them into big wagons, and drive around to the four book-stores and leave them. After a few days, call around and get the money, and divide with Jimmy. We wouldn't ask them to pay for them till they had a chance to look them over, and see how they liked them."
"I don't believe that would work," said Phaeton.
"Why not?" said Ned.
"The booksellers might not take them."
"Not take them!" said Ned. "They'd be only too glad to. Of course they would make a profit on them. I suppose the price would be—well, about half a dollar; and we should let them have them for—well, say for forty-seven cents apiece. Maybe if they took a large number, and paid cash down, they might have them for forty-five."
Phaeton laughed.
"They don't do business for any such small profits as that," said he.
"I've heard Father tell of a man," said Ned, "that made his fortune when wheat rose three cents on a bushel. And who wouldn't rather have a volume of Jimmy's poems than a bushel of wheat? If nobody happened to buy the wheat for a year or two, it would spoil; but that volume of poems could stand on the shelf in the book-store for twenty years, and be just as good at the end of that time as the day it was put there."
"All that sounds very well," said Phaeton; "but you'd better talk with some one that knows about it, before you rush into the enterprise."
"I'll go and see Jack-in-the-Box, of course," said Ned. "He must know all about books. I never yet asked him anything that he didn't know all about."
Ned could hardly wait for the night to pass away, and when the next day came, off we posted once more to see Jack-in-the-Box. When we got there, Ned plunged at once into the business, before we had fairly said good morning.
"Jack," said he, "did you ever publish a book?"
Jack blushed, and asked why he wanted to know.
"I am thinking of publishing one," said Ned.
"Indeed?" said Jack. "I didn't know that you had written one."
"I haven't," said Ned. "Jimmy the Rhymer wrote it. But I talk of publishing it."
"I see," said Jack. "I didn't understand you before."
"I thought you would understand all about it," said Ned.
"Your expression might have meant either one of two things," said Jack. "When a publisher prints a book and sells it, he of course is said to publish it; and when a person writes a book, and gets a publisher to publish it for him, he also is said to have published a book."
"I see," said Ned. "And did you ever publish one?"
"I never was a publisher," said Jack.
"Still, you may know a good deal about it."
"I know a little about it," said Jack, "and shall be glad to give you all the advice I can. Is this the manuscript?"
Ned said it was, and handed him a roll which he had brought in his hand.
"Ah, poetry, I see," said Jack, turning over the leaves.
"Yes, first-rate poetry," said Ned. "A few licenses here and there; but that can't be helped, you know."
"Of course not," said Jack.
"We want to make as much money as we can," said Ned, "for Jimmy's folks are awful poor, and he needs it, and poetry's the stuff to make money."
"Is it?" said Jack. "I'm glad to hear it."
"There was Sir Walter Tupper," said Ned, "made thirty thousand dollars, clean cash, on a poem called 'The Lady and the Snake'—probably not half so good as these of Jimmy's. Who'd want to read about such a dreadful thing? And Mr. Barrons was paid seventy-five thousand dollars for his poem called 'The Little Rook,' whatever that is. And there was Lord Moore got three thousand guineas—that's fifteen thousand dollars, you know—for some sort of philosophy all turned into rhyme. I don't see how a philosophy could be in rhyme, though, for you know everything in philosophy has to be exact, and in poetry you have to take licenses. Suppose you came to the five mechanical powers, and the line before ended withsticks, what could you do? You'd have to say there weresixof them."
Jack laughed heartily.
"Yes, it would be ridiculous," continued Ned. "But that's Lord Moore's lookout. In these poems of Jimmy's, there isn't any trouble of that sort. They don't need to be exact. Suppose, for instance, one of them says it's a mile from the Four Corners to Lyell street. What odds? Very few people know that it's just seven eighths of a mile and three rods over. I might not have known it myself, if I hadn't happened to be with the surveyors when they measured it. Jimmy admits that he has drawn on his imagination in one or two places; but he isn't going to do it any more, and I think those can be fixed up somehow."
Jack laughed again, said he thought imagination was not altogether objectionable in poetry, and kept on turning over the leaves.
"Where is the title-page?" said he.
"What is that?" said Ned.
"The one with the name on it—the first page in the book," said Jack.
"Oh!" said Ned, "we never thought about that. Won't the printer make it himself?"
"Not unless you write it first."
"Then we've got to name the book before we go any further," said Ned.
"That's it, exactly," said Jack.
"Couldn't you name it for us?"
"I might suggest some names," said Jack, "and let you choose; but it seems to me, the person who wrote it ought to name it."
"Oh, never mind Jimmy," said Ned. "He'll be satisfied with anything I do."
"It might be called simply, 'Poems. By Jimmy the Rhymer,'" said Jack.
"His name is James Redmond," said Ned.
"I'll write down a few," said Jack, as he reached into the box under his chair and took out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and in five minutes he showed us the list:
"Rhymes and Roundelays. By James Redmond."
"A Picnic on Parnassus. By James Redmond."
"The Unlucky Fishermen, and other Poems. By James Redmond."
"Jimmy's Jingles."
"Songs of a School-boy."
"Minutes with the Muses. By James Redmond."
It did not take Ned very long to choose the third of these titles, which he thought "sounded the most sensible."
"Very well," said Jack, as he wrote a neat title-page and added it to the manuscript. "And how are you going to publish it?"
"I thought I'd get you to tell me how," said Ned, who by this time had begun to suspect that he knew very little about it.
"The regular way," said Jack, "would be to send it to a firm in New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia."
"And then what?"
"They would have a critic read it and tell them whether it was suitable."
"He'd be sure to say it was; but then what?"
"Then they would have it printed and bound, and advertise it in the papers, and sell it, and send it to other stores to be sold."
"But where would our profits come from?"
"Oh, they would pay you ten per cent. on all they sold."
"And how many do you think they would sell?"
"Nobody can tell," said Jack. "Different books sell differently—all the way from none at all up to a great many."
Ned borrowed Jack's pencil, and figured for two or three minutes.
"Then," said he, "if they should sell a hundred of our book, we would only get five dollars—two and a half for Jimmy, and two and a half for me."
"That's about it," said Jack.
"Then that won't do," said Ned. "Jimmy's folks are very poor, and he needs more than that. Isn't there some way to make more money out of it?"
"Not unless you pay for the printing and binding yourself," said Jack.
"And how much would that cost?"
Jack looked it over and said he guessed about two hundred dollars for an edition of five hundred.
"We can't do it," said Ned, with a sigh. "Aunt Mercy wouldn't give me so much money at a time."
"There is one other way," said Jack.
"How is it?"
"To get up a little printing-office of your own, and print it yourselves."
"That sounds like business; I guess you've hit it," said Ned, brightening up. "How much money would it take for that?"
"I should think twenty-five or thirty dollars would get up a good one."
"Then we can do it," said Ned. "Aunt Mercy will let me have that, right away."
"Do you know anything about printing?" said Jack.
"Not much; but my brother Fay knows all about it. He worked in a printing-office one vacation, to earn money to buy him a chest of tools."
"Indeed! what did your brother do in the printing-office?" said Jack.
"They called him second devil," said Ned, "but he was really a roller-boy."
"They're the same thing," said Jack. "There's no harm in a printer's devil; he's only called so because he sometimes gets pretty well blacked up with the ink."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said Ned, who had been a little ashamed to tell what Fay did in the office, but now began to think it might be rather honorable. "In fact, he was first devil one week, when the regular first devil was gone to his grandfather's funeral in Troy."
"Then he knows something about the business," said Jack; "and perhaps I can help you a little. I understand the trade to some extent."
"Of course you do," said Ned. "You understand everything. And after we've finished Jimmy's book, we can print all sorts of other things—do a general business, in fact. I'll see what Fay says, and if he'll go in, we'll start it at once."
While Ned was uttering the last sentence, Jack's alarm-clock went off, and Jack took his flag and went out to flag the Pacific express, while we walked away. We must have been very much absorbed in the new project, for we never even turned to look at the train; and a train of cars in swift motion is a sight that few people can help stopping to look at, however busy they may be.
Readers who have followed this story thus far will perhaps inquire where the scene of it is laid. I think it is a pertinent question, yet there is a sort of unwritten law among story-writers against answering it, excepting in some vague, indefinite way; and I have transgressed so many written laws, that I should like at least to keep the unwritten ones. But if you are good at playing "buried cities," I will give you a chance to find out the name of that inland city where Phaeton and his companions dwelt. I discovered it buried, quite unintentionally, in one of Jimmy the Rhymer's poems. Here is the couplet:
PHAETON'S CHARIOT.
PHAETON'S CHARIOT.
Ned and I pushed on the project for a printing-office with great energy. We made the acquaintance of a man named Alvord, who kept a job office—where they never seemed to be in a hurry, as they always were in the newspaper offices—and was never unwilling to answer questions or sell us old type. It was great fun to explore the mysteries of his establishment. I think he liked boys as much as Jack-in-the-Box did, and I'm sure it was a pleasure to us, in laying out Ned's capital, to pay so much of it to so pleasant a man.
But energy without skill is like zeal without knowledge; in fact, it is about the same thing, and we couldn't really make much progress till Phaeton should take hold; and he would have nothing to do with it till he had finished his apparatus for "a horizontal balloon-ascension," which he was at work upon every minute that he could spare from sleep and meals.
With the help of the carriage-maker and the blacksmith, and Ned's capital—which he drew upon much more freely than had been bargained for—he constructed a low, broad, skeleton-like carriage, the body of which was hung below the axles of the wheels, instead of above them, and almost touched the ground. This was to prevent it from tipping over easily. The front axle turned on a swivel, and was controlled by two stout handles, by means of which the carriage could be steered. On the front of the box were three iron hooks. At the back there was a single hook. The wheels were pretty large, but the whole was made as light as possible.
When it was finished, Phaeton brought it home and put it away carefully in the wood-shed.
"I am afraid," said he, "that somebody will steal this car, or come in and damage it, unless we put a lock on this wood-shed door."
"Who would want to steal it or damage it?" said Ned.
"The Dublin boys," said Phaeton, half under his breath. "Two of them were seen prowling around here the other day."
One section of the town, which was divided from ours by the deep gorge of the river, was popularly known as Dublin, and the boys who lived there, though probably very much like other boys, were always considered by us as our natural enemies—plotters against the peace of boy society, capable of the most treacherous designs and the darkest deeds ever perpetrated in the juvenile world. Every piece of mischief not obviously to be accounted for in any other way, was laid to the Dublin boys as a matter of course.
"But we haven't any padlock," said Ned, "except that old brass one, and the key of that is lost, and we couldn't turn it when we had it."
"I suppose we shall have to buy a new one," said Phaeton.
"All right—buy one," said Ned.
"I haven't any money," said Phaeton.
"Nor I," said Ned—"spent the last cent for a beautiful little font of Tuscan type; weighed just five pounds, fifteen cents a pound—nothing the matter with it, only the Es are gone."
"The Es are gone?" said Phaeton. "Do you mean to say that you have been buying a font of type with no Es in it?"
"Yes; why? What's the harm in that?" said Ned. "You don't expect everything to be perfect when you buy things second-hand."
"Of course not," said Phaeton; "but what can you do without Es? If the Qs or the Xs were gone, it wouldn't so much matter; but there's hardly a word that hasn't at least one E in it. Just count the Es on a page of any book. And you've been fooling away your money on a font of type with no Es! Mr. Alvord ought to be ashamed of himself to cheat a boy like that."
"You needn't be scolding me for fooling away the money," said Ned. "What have you been doing, I should like to know? Fooling away the money on that old torrid-zontal balloon thing, which will probably make a shipwreck of you the first time you try it. And, besides, I didn't buy the type of Mr. Alvord."
"Where did you get it?"
"Bought it of a boy that I met on the stairs when I was coming down from Alvord's."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know. He lives on one of those cross-streets down by the aqueduct. I went to his house with him to get the type. He said he used to have a little office, but his father wouldn't let him keep it any more, just because the baby ate some of the ink."
"It's too bad," said Phaeton; "the type will never be of any use. What do you suppose could have become of the Es?"
"I don't know," said Ned, a little morosely, "unless the baby sister ate them too."
"They'd set rather heavy on her stomach," said Phaeton. "But how are we going to get a lock for this door?"
"I don't see that we can get one at all," said Ned.
I suggested that the door of the wood-shed might be nailed up, to keep out the Dublin boys, till we had a chance to get a padlock.
"That's a first-rate idea," said Phaeton, and he at once brought out the hammer and nail-box, and began to nail up the door. It was a heavy, panelled door, which had evidently come from some old mansion that was torn down.
"It's as well to make it strong while we're about it," said he; "for if those fellows should come, they'd pry it open if they could," and he put in a few more nails.
"Father showed me how to drive nails so as to make them hold," said I. "Let me show you;" and taking the hammer from his hand, I drove eight or ten more nails into the door, driving them in pairs, each pair slanting in opposite directions.
"That's a thing worth knowing," said Ned. "Let me practice on it a little."
He took the hammer, and drove one or two pairs in the manner I had shown him, and was so pleased with his success, that he kept on till he had used up all the nails in the box.
"No Dublin boy is going to get that car this night," said he, as he gave a final blow to the last nail.
"No," said Phaeton; "I think that's pretty safe."
As it began to rain, I was obliged to hurry home. That night, as I afterward learned, there was sorrow in the breast of the youngest member of the Rogers family. Little May Rogers, who never went to sleep without her favorite cat, Jemima, curled up on the foot of her little bed, couldn't go to sleep because Jemima was nowhere to be found in the house, and had not come when every outside door in turn was opened, and she was called from the vasty darkness. Even when Mrs. Rogers stood in the kitchen-door and rasped the carving-knife on the steel, Jemima failed to come bounding in. That was considered decisive as to her fate. The cat would be sure to come at that sound, if she were able to come at all.
But a much more serious commotion shook the family next morning. When Mr. Rogers went down to his breakfast, it was not ready; in fact, the kitchen fire was not made.
"How is this, Biddy?" said he to the cook.
"Sure, I couldn't help it, sir; I could get no kindlings."
"Why so, Biddy?"
"Because, sir, the wood-shed door's bewitched. I couldn't get it open. And everything outside is soakin' wet wid the rain, and so of course I couldn't kindle the fire."
Mr. Rogers walked out to the wood-shed door, and attempted to open it with an impatient and vigorous jerk, but the handle came off in his hand. Then he tried to get hold of it by the edge, but there wasn't a crack where he could insert his fingers. Then he took hold of it at the bottom, where there was considerable space, but it would not budge a hair. He was becoming a little excited, for he had an engagement to leave town by the early train. He went into the house for some sort of tool, and brought out the poker. Cutting a little hole with his pocket-knife at the edge of the door, he inserted the poker, and pried; but the poker bent double, and the door did not stir. Then he went in again, and brought out the stove-wrench. Cutting the hole a little larger, he pried at the door with the wrench; but the wrench was of cast-iron, and snapped in two.
"Biddy," said he, "I see a light at Robbins's,"—it was very early in the morning—"go over and borrow an axe."
Biddy soon returned with an axe, and Mr. Rogers tried to pry the door open with that, but only succeeded in breaking splinters from the edge.
"Biddy," said he, "bring a light, and let's see what ails it."
Biddy brought out a candle, but trembled so at the idea of letting out the witches, that she dropped it at Mr. Rogers's feet, and it struck on its lighted end and immediately went out.
Biddy made rapid apologies, and ran in for another candle. But Mr. Rogers would wait no longer. He raised the axe in fury, and began to slaughter the door, like a mediæval soldier before the gate of a besieged castle.
Slice after slice was torn off and flew inward, striking the opposite side of the shed; but the door as a whole would not fall. When a considerable hole had been made, a frightened cat, its eyes gleaming wildly, and its tail as large as a feather-duster, leaped out from the inner darkness, passing over Mr. Rogers's head, and knocking his hat off, landed somewhere in the yard, and immediately made for the woods. Biddy, who arrived on the ground with the second candle just in time to witness this performance, dropped the light again, and fled screaming into the house.
This aroused two neighbors, who threw up their windows, thrust their heads out, and, hearing the powerful blows of the axe, thought a maniac was abroad, and hallooed for the police.
The watchman on that beat, ever on the alert, waited only eight or nine minutes, till he could call four others to his aid, when all five of them started for the scene of the trouble. Separating after they had entered Mr. Rogers's gate, they made a little circuit through the yard, and cautiously approached him, two on each side, and one behind. As the one behind laid his hand on his shoulder, Mr. Rogers dropped the axe, whirled around, and "hauled off," as the boys say, but caught the gleam of the silver star on the policeman's breast, and dropped his fist.
"What do you want?" said he.
"If it's you, we don't want anything," said the policeman, who, of course, knew Mr. Rogers very well. "But we thought we wanted a crazy man."
"Then you might as well take me," said Mr. Rogers, "for I am pretty nearly crazy. The mischief has got into this door, so that it couldn't be opened, and the cook had no kindlings and I no breakfast; and I shall lose the early train, and if I don't reach Albany to-day, I can't tell how many dollars it will cost me, but a good many."
Mr. Rogers drew out his handkerchief, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
One of the policemen produced a bull's-eye lantern, and examined the ruined door, passing it up and down the edge where the outer frame, studded with many nails, still clung tightly to the jambs, all the central portion having been cut away in ragged slices.
"This door has been nailed up with a great many nails," said he.
"I can't imagine who would do that," said Mr. Rogers; "this isn't the first day of April."
Neither could the policemen. In fact, I have observed that policemen have very little imagination. In this instance, five of them, all imagining at once, could not imagine who nailed up that door. The nearest they could come to it was, that it was probably done with a heavy, blunt instrument, in the hands of some person or persons unknown.
When, later in the day, we boys stood contemplating what Ned called the "shipwreck of the door"—older people than he call all sorts of wrecks shipwrecks—he remarked that he didn't know what his father would say, if he should find out who did it.
Mr. Rogers had taken the next train for Albany.
"He will find out," said Phaeton; "for I shall tell him as soon as he gets home."
The day that his father returned, Phaeton told, at the tea-table, the whole story of how the door was bewitched. A week had then passed, and—such are the soothing influences of time—Mr. Rogers laughed heartily at the whole affair, and at his own excitement most of all.
"I had no idea," said Ned, solemnly, "that so much trouble could be caused by a few nails."
His mother thought "few" was good.
The next day I heard little May Rogers telling another child about it. This was her story:
"You see, brother Fay and brother Neddie, they drived a nail in the wood-shed door; and Biddy, she lended Mr. Robbins's axe; and then Papa, he got besited; and so we haven't any wood-shed door any more."