IT HAD SHUT UP LIKE A JACK-KNIFE.
The chair that I had mended, and that Sue had taken away from me, had broken down while Mr. Travers was sitting in it, and it had shut up like a jack-knife, and caught him so he couldn't get out. It had caught Suetoo, who must have run to help him, or she never would have been in that fix, with Mr. Travers holding her by the waist, and her arm wedged in so she couldn't pull it away.
Father managed to get them loose, and then Sue caught me and shook me till I could hear my teeth rattle, and then she ran up-stairs and locked herself up; and Mr. Travers never offered to help me, but only said, "I'll settle with you some day, young man," and then he went home. But father sat down on the sofa and laughed, and said to mother,
"I guess Sue would have done better if she'd have let the boy keep his chair."
I should like to be an animal. Not an insect, of course, nor a snake, but a nice kind of animal, like an elephant or a dog with a good master.
Animals are awfully intelligent, but they haven't any souls. There was once an elephant in a circus, and one day a boy said to him, "Want a lump of sugar, old fellow?" The elephant he nodded, and felt real grateful, for elephants are very fond of lump-sugar, which is what they live on in their native forests. But the boy put a cigar instead of a lump of sugar in his mouth.
The sagacious animal, instead of eating up the cigar or trying to smoke it and making himself dreadfully sick, took it and carried it across the circus to a man who kept a candy and cigar stand, and made signs that he'd sell the cigar for twelve lumps of sugar. The man gave the elephant the sugar and took the cigar, and then the intelligent animal sat down on his hind-legs and laughed at the boy who had tried to play a joke on him, until the boy felt that much ashamed that he went right home and went to bed.
In the days when there were fairies—only I don't believe there ever were any fairies, and Mr. Travers says they were rubbish—boys were frequently changed into animals. There was once a boy who did something that made a wicked fairy angry, and she changed him into a cat, and thought she had punished him dreadfully. But the boy after he was a cat used to come and get on her back fence and yowl as if he was ten or twelve cats all night long, and she couldn't get a wink of sleep, and fell into a fever, and had to take lots of castor-oil and dreadful medicines.
So she sent for the boy who was a cat, you understand, and said she'd change him back again. But he said, "Oh no; I'd much rather be a cat, for I'm so fond of singing on the back fence." And the end of it was that she had to give him a tremendous pile of money before he'd consent to be changed back into a boy again.
Boys can play being animals, and it's great fun, only the other boys who don't play they are animals get punished for it, and I say it's unjust, especially as I never meant any harm at all, and was doing my very best to amuse the children.
This is the way it happened. Aunt Sarah came to see us the other day, and brought her three boys with her. I don't think you ever heard of Aunt Sarah, and I wish I never had. She's one of father's sisters, and he thinks agreat deal more of her than I would if she was my sister, and I don't think it's much credit to anybody to be a sister anyway. The boys are twins, that is, two of them are, and they are all about three or four years old.
Well, one day just before Christmas, when it was almost as warm out-doors as it is in summer, Aunt Sarah said,
"Jimmy, I want you to take the dear children out and amuse them a few hours. I know you're so fond of your dear little cousins and what a fine manly boy you are!" So I took them out, though I didn't want to waste my time with little children, for we are responsible for wasting time, and ought to use every minute to improve ourselves.
The boys wanted to see the pigs that belong to Mr. Taylor, who lives next door, so I took them through a hole in the fence, and they lookedat the pigs, and one of them said,
"Oh my how sweet they are and how I would like to be a little pig and never be washed and have lots of swill!"
So I said, "Why don't you play you are pigs, and crawl round and grunt? It's just as easy, and I'll look at you."
You see, I thought I ought to amuse them, and that this would be a nice way to teach them to amuse themselves.
Well, they got down on all fours and ran round and grunted, until they began to get tired of it, and then wanted to know what else pigs could do, so I told them that pigs generally rolled in the mud, and the more mud a pig couldget on himself the happier he would be, and that there was a mud puddle in our back yard that would make a pig cry like a child with delight.
The boys went straight to that mud puddle, and they rolled in the mud until there wasn't an inch of them that wasn't covered with mud so thick that you would have to get a crowbar to pry it off.
"WE'VE BEEN PLAYING WE WERE PIGS, MA."
Just then Aunt Sarah came to the door and called them, and when she saw them she said, "Good gracious what on earth have you been doing?" andTommy, that's the oldest boy, said,
"We've been playing we were pigs ma and it's real fun and wasn't Jimmy good to show us how?"
I think they had to boil the boys in hot water before they could get the mud off, and their clothes have all got to be sent to the poor people out West whose things were all lost in the great floods. If you'll believe it, I never got the least bit of thanks for showing the boys how to amuse themselves, but Aunt Sarah said that I'd get something when father came home, and she wasn't mistaken. I'd rather not mention what it was that I got, but I got it mostly on the legs, and I think bamboo canes ought not to be sold to fathers any more than poison.
I was going to tell why I should like to be an animal; but as it is getting late, I must close.
Every time I try to improve my mind with science I resolve that I will never do it again, and then I always go and do it. Science is so dreadfully tempting that you can hardly resist it. Mr. Travers says that if anybody once gets into the habit of being a scientific person there is little hope that he will ever reform, and he says he has known good men who became habitual astronomers, and actually took to prophesying weather, all because they yielded to the temptation to look through telescopes, and to make figures on the black-board with chalk.
I was reading a lovely book the other day. It was all about balloons and parachutes. A parachute is a thing that you fall out of a balloon with. It is something like an open umbrella, only nobody ever borrows it. If you hold a parachute over your head and drop out of a balloon, it will hold you up so that you will come down to the ground so gently that you won't be hurt the least bit.
I told Tom McGinnis about it, and we said we would make a parachute, and jump out of the second-story windowwith it. It is easy enough to make one, for all you have to do is to get a big umbrella and open it wide, and hold on to the handle. Last Saturday afternoon Tom came over to my house, and we got ready to try what the book said was "a pleasing scientific experiment."
We didn't have the least doubt that the book told the truth. But Tom didn't want to be the first to jump out of the window—neither did I—and we thought we'd give Sue's kitten a chance to try a parachute, and see how she liked it. Sue had an umbrella that was made of silk, and was just the thing to suit the kitten. I knew Sue wouldn't mind lending the umbrella, and as she was out making calls, and I couldn't ask her permission, I borrowed the umbrella and the kitten, and meant to tell her all about it as soon as she came home. We tied the kitten fast to the handle of the umbrella, so as not to hurt her, and then dropped her out of the window. The wind was blowing tremendously hard, which I supposed was a good thing, for it is the air that holds up a parachute, and of course the more wind there is, the more air there is, and the better the parachute will stay up.
The minute we dropped the cat and the umbrella out of the window, the wind took them and blew them clear over the back fence into Deacon Smedley's pasture before they struck the ground. This was all right enough, but theparachute didn't stop after it struck the ground. It started across the country about as fast as a horse could run, hitting the ground every few minutes, and then bouncing up into the air and coming down again, and the kitten kept clawing at everything, and yowling as if she was being killed. By the time Tom and I could get down-stairs the umbrella was about a quarter of a mile off. We chased it till we couldn't run any longer, but we couldn't catch it, and the last we saw of the umbrella and the cat they were making splendid time towards the river, and I'm very much afraid they were both drowned.
Tom and I came home again, and when we got a little rested we said we would take the big umbrella and try the pleasing scientific experiment; at least I said that Tom ought to try it, for we had proved that a little silk umbrella would let a kitten down to the ground without hurting her, and of course a great big umbrella would hold Tom up all right. I didn't care to try it myself, because Tom was visiting me, and we ought always to give up our own pleasures in order to make ourvisitors happy.
After a while Tom said he would do it, and when everything was ready he sat on the window-ledge, with his legs hanging out, and when the wind blew hard he jumped.
HE LIT RIGHT ON THE HAN'S HEAD.
It is my opinion, now that the thing is all over, that the umbrella wasn't large enough, and that if Tom had struckthe ground he would have been hurt. He went down awfully fast, but by good-luck the grocer's man was just coming out of the kitchen-door as Tom came down, and he lit right on the man's head. It is wonderful how lucky some people are, for the grocer's man might have been hurt if he hadn't happened to have a bushel basket half full of eggs with him, and as he and Tom both fell into the eggs, neither of them was hurt.
They were just getting out from among the eggs when Sue came in withsome of the ribs of her umbrella that somebody had fished out of the river and given to her. There didn't seem to be any kitten left, for Sue didn't know anything about it, but father and Mr. McGinnis came in a few minutes afterwards, and I had to explain the whole thing to them.
This is the last "pleasing scientific experiment" I shall ever try. I don't think science is at all nice, and, besides, I am awfully sorry about the kitten.
A boy ought always to stand up for his sister, and protect her from everybody, and do everything to make her happy, for she can only be his sister once, and he would be so awfully sorry if she died and then he remembered that his conduct towards her had sometimes been such.
Mr. Withers doesn't come to our house any more. One night Sue saw him coming up the garden-walk, and father said, "There's the other one coming, Susan; isn't this Travers's evening?" and then Sue said, "I do wish somebody would protect me from him he is that stupid don't I wish I need never lay eyes on him again."
I made up my mind that nobody should bother my sister while she had a brother to protect her. So the next time I saw Mr. Withers I spoke to him kindly and firmly—that's the way grown-up people speak when they say something dreadfully unpleasant—and told him what Sue had said about him, and that he ought not to bother her any more. Mr. Withers didn't thank me and say that he knew I was trying to do him good, which was what he ought to havesaid, but he looked as if he wanted to hurt somebody, and walked off without saying a word to me, and I don't think he was polite about it.
He has never been at our house since. When I told Sue how I had protected her she was so overcome with gratitude that she couldn't speak, and just motioned me with a book to go out of her room and leave her to feel thankful about it by herself. The book very nearly hit me on the head, but it wouldn't have hurt much if it had.
Mr. Travers was delighted about it, and told me that I had acted like a man, and that he shouldn't forget it. The next day he brought me a beautiful book all about traps. It told how to make mornahundred different kinds of traps that would catch everything, and it was one of the best books I ever saw.
Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Schofield, keeps pigs, only he don't keep them enough, for they run all around. They come into our garden and eat up everything, and father said he would give almost anything to get rid of them.
Now one of the traps that my book told about was just the thing to catch pigs with. It was made out of a young tree and a rope. You bend the tree down and fasten the rope to it so as to make a slippernoose, and when the pig walks into the slippernoose the tree flies up and jerks him into the air.
I thought that I couldn't please father better than to make some traps and catch some pigs; so I got a rope, and got two Irishmen that were fixing the front walk to bend down two trees for me and hold them while I made the traps. This was just before supper, and I expected that the pigs would come early the next morning and get caught.
It was bright moonlight that evening, and Mr. Travers and Sue said the house was so dreadfully hot that they would go and take a walk. They hadn't been out of the house but a few minutes when we heard an awful shriek from Sue, and we all rushed out to see what was the matter.
Mr. Travers had walked into a trap, and was swinging by one leg, with his head about six feet from the ground. Nobody knew him at first except me, for when a person is upside down he doesn't look natural; but I knew what was the matter, and told father that it would take two men to bend down the tree and get Mr. Travers loose. So they told me to run and get Mr. Schofield to come and help, and they got the step-ladder so that Sue could sit on the top of it and hold Mr. Travers's head.
I was so excited that I forgot all about the other trap, and, besides, Sue had said things to me that hurt my feelings, and that prevented me from thinking to tell Mr. Schofield not to get himself caught. He ran ahead of me, because he was so anxious to help, and the first thing I knewthere came an awful yell from him, and up he went into the air, and hung there by both legs, which I suppose was easier than the way Mr. Travers hung.
Then everybody went at me in the most dreadful way, except Sue, who was holding Mr. Travers's head. They said the most unkind things to me, and sent me into the house. I heard afterwards that father got Mr. Schofield's boy to climb up and cut Mr. Travers and Mr. Schofield loose, and they fell on the gravel, but it didn't hurt them much, only Mr. Schofield broke some of his teeth, and says he is going to bring a lawsuit against father. Mr. Travers was just as good as he could be. He only laughed the next time he saw me, and he begged them not to punish me, because it was his fault that I ever came to know about that kind of trap.
Mr. Travers is the nicest man that ever lived, except father, and when he marries Sue I shall go and live with him, though I haven't told him yet, for I want to keep it as a pleasant surprise for him.
Aunt Eliza never comes to our house without getting me into difficulties. I don't really think she means to do it, but it gets itself done just the same. She was at our house last week, and though I meant to behave in the most exemplifying manner, I happened by accident to do something which she said ought to fill me with remorse for the rest of my days.
Remorse is a dreadful thing to have. Some people have it so bad that they never get over it. There was once a ghost who suffered dreadfully from remorse. He was a tall white ghost, with a large cotton umbrella. He haunted a house where he used to walk up and down, carrying his umbrella and looking awfully solemn. People used to wonder what he wanted of an umbrella, but they never asked him, because they always shrieked and fainted away when they saw the ghost, and when they were brought to cried, "Save me take it away take it away."
One time a boy came to the house to spend Christmas. He was just a terror, was this boy. He had been a DistrictTelegraph Messenger boy, and he wasn't afraid of anything. The folks told him about the ghost, but he said he didn't care for any living ghost, and had just as soon see him as not.
That night the boy woke up, and saw the ghost standing in his bedroom, and he said, "Thishyer is nice conduct, coming into a gentleman's room without knocking. What do you want, anyway?"
The ghost replied in the most respectful way that he wanted to find the owner of the umbrella. "I stole that umbrella when I was alive," he said, "and I am filled with remorse."
"I should think you would be," said the boy, "for it is the worst old cotton umbrella I ever saw."
"If I can only find the owner and give it back to him," continued the ghost, "I can get a little rest; but I've been looking for him for ninety years, and I can't find him."
"Serves you right," said the boy, "for not sending for a messenger. You're in luck to meet me. Gimme the umbrella, and I'll give it back to the owner."
"Bless you," said the ghost, handing the umbrella to the boy; "you have saved me. Now I will go away and rest," and he turned to go out of the door, when the boy said,
"See here; it's fifty cents for taking an umbrella home, and I've got to be paid in advance."
"But I haven't got any money," said the ghost.
"Can't help that," said the boy. "You give me fifty cents, or else take your umbrella back again. We don't do any work in our office for nothing."
Well, the end of it all was that the ghost left the umbrella with the boy, and the next night he came back with the money, though where he got it nobody will ever know. The boy kept the money, and threw the umbrella away, for he was a real bad boy, and only made believe that he was going to find the owner, and the ghost was never seen again.
But I haven't told about the trouble with Aunt Eliza yet. The day she came to our house mother bought a lot of live crabs from a man, and put them in a pail in the kitchen. Tom McGinnis was spending the day withme, and I said to him what fun it would be to have crab races, such as we used to have down at the sea-shore last summer. He said wouldn't it, though; so each of us took three crabs, and went up-stairs into the spare bedroom, where we could be sure of not being disturbed. We had a splendid time with the crabs, and I won more than half the races. All of a sudden I heard mother calling me, and Tom and I just dropped the crabs into an empty work-basket, and pushed it under the sofa out of sight, and then went down-stairs.
I meant to get the crabs and take them back to thekitchen again, but I forgot all about it, for Aunt Eliza came just after mother had called me, and everybody was busy talking to her. Of course she was put into the spare room, and as she was very tired, she said she'd lie down on the sofa until dinner-time and take her hair down.
HE PINCHED JUST AS HARD AS HE COULD PINCH.
About an hour afterwards we heard the most dreadful cries from Aunt Eliza's room, and everybody rushed up-stairs, because they thought shemust certainly be dead. Mother opened the door, and we all went in. Aunt Eliza was standing in the middle of the floor, and jumping up and down, and crying and shrieking at the top of her voice. One crab was hanging on to one of her fingers, and he pinched just as hard as he could pinch, and there were two more hanging on to the ends of her hair. You see, the crabs had got out of the work-basket, and some of them had climbed up the sofa while Aunt Eliza was asleep.
Of course they said it was all my fault, and perhaps it was. But I'd like to know if it's a fair thing to leave crabs where they can tempt a fellow, and then to be severe with him when he forgets to put them back. However, I forgive everybody, especially Aunt Eliza, who really doesn't mean any harm.
We've been staying at the sea-shore for a week, and having a beautiful time. I love the sea-shore, only it would be a great deal nicer if there wasn't any sea; then you wouldn't have to go in bathing. I don't like to go in bathing, for you get so awfully wet, and the water chokes you. Then there are ticks on the sea-shore in the grass. A tick is an insect that begins and bites you, and never stops till you're all ettup, and then you die, and the tick keeps on growing bigger all the time.
There was once a boy and a tick got on him and bit him, and kept on biting for three or four days, and it ettup the boy till the tick was almost as big as the boy had been, and the boy wasn't any bigger than a marble, and he died, and his folks felt dreadfully about it. I never saw a tick, but I know that there are lots of them on the sea-shore, and that's reason enough not to like it.
We stayed at a boarding-house while we were at the sea-shore. A boarding-house is a place where they give you pure country air and a few vegetables and a little meat,and I say give me a jail where they feed you if they do keep you shut up in the dark. There were a good many people in our boarding-house, and I slept up-stairs on the third story with three other boys, and there were two more boys on the second story, and that's the way all the trouble happened.
There is nothing that is better fun than a pillow fight; that is, when you're home and have got your own pillows, and know they're not loaded, as Mr. Travers says. He was real good about it, too, and I sha'n't forget it, for 'most any man would have been awfully mad, but he just made as if he didn't care, only Sue went on about it as if I was the worst boy that ever lived.
You see, we four boys on the third story thought it would be fun to have a pillow fight with the two boys on the second story. We waited till everybody had gone to bed, and then we took our pillows and went out into the hall just as quiet as could be, only Charley Thompson he fell over a trunk in the hall and made a tremendous noise. One of the boarders opened his door and said who's there, but we didn't answer, and presently he said "I suppose it's that cat people ought to be ashamed of themselves to keep such animals," and shut his door again.
After a little while Charley was able to walk, though his legs were dreadfully rough where he'd scraped themagainst the trunk. So we crept down-stairs and went into the boys' room, and began to pound them with the pillows.
They knew what was the matter, and jumped right up and got their pillows, and went at us so fierce that they drove us out into the hall. Of course this made a good deal of noise, for we knocked over the wash-stand in the room, and upset a lot of lamps that were on the table in the hall, and every time I hit one of the boys he would say "Ouch!" so loud that anybody that was awake could hear him. We fought all over the hall, and as we began to get excited we made so much noise that Mr. Travers got up and came out to make us keep quiet.
It was pretty dark in the hall, and though I knew Mr. Travers, I thought he couldn't tell me from the other boys, and I thought I would just give him one good whack on the head, and then we'd all run up-stairs. He wouldn't know who hit him, and, besides, who ever heard of a fellow being hurt with a pillow?
So I stood close up by the wall till he came near me, and then I gave him a splendid bang over the head. It sounded as if you had hit a fellowwith a club, and Mr. Travers dropped to the floor with an awful crash, and never spoke a word.
I NEVER WAS SO FRIGHTENED IN MY LIFE.
I never was so frightened in my life, for I thought Mr. Travers was killed. I called murder help fire, and everybody ran out of their rooms, and fell over trunks, and there was the most awful time you ever dreamed of. At last somebody got a lamp, and somebody else got some water and picked Mr. Travers up and carried him into his room, and then he came to and said, "Where am I Susan what is the matter O now I know."
He was all right, only he had a big bump on one side of his head, and he said that it was all an accident, and that he wouldn't have Sue scold me, and that it served him right for not remembering that boarding-house pillows are apt to be loaded.
The next morning he made me bring him my pillow, and then he found out how it came to hurt him. All the chicken bones, and the gravel-stones, and the chunks of wood that were in the pillow had got down into one end of it while we were having the fight, and when I hit Mr. Travers theyhappened to strike him on his head where it was thin, and knocked him senseless. Nobody can tell how glad I am that he wasn't killed, and it's a warning to me never to have pillow fights except with pillows that I know are not loaded with chicken bones and things.
I forgot to say that after that night my mother and all the boys' mothers took all the pillows away from us, for they said they were too dangerous to be left where boys could get at them.
Sue ought to have been married a long while ago. That's what everybody says who knows her. She has been engaged to Mr. Travers for three years, and has had to refuse lots of offers to go to the circus with other young men. I have wanted her to get married, so that I could go and live with her and Mr. Travers. When I think that if it hadn't been for a mistake I made she would have been married yesterday, I find it dreadfully hard to be resigned. But we ought always to be resigned to everything when we can't help it.
Before I go any further I must tell about my printing-press. It belonged to Tom McGinnis, but he got tired of it and sold it to me real cheap. He was going to write to theYoung People's Post-office Box and offer to exchange it for a bicycle, a St. Bernard dog, and twelve good books, but he finally let me have it for a dollar and a half.
It prints beautifully, and I have printed cards for ever so many people, and made three dollars and seventy centsalready. I thought it would be nice to be able to print circus bills in case Tom and I should ever have another circus, so I sent to the city and bought some type mornaninch high, and some beautiful yellow paper.
Last week it was finally agreed that Sue and Mr. Travers should be married without waiting any longer. You should have seen what a state of mind she and mother were in. They did nothing but buy new clothes, and sew, and talk about the wedding all day long. Sue was determined to be married in church, and to have six bridesmaids and six bridegrooms, and flowers and music and things till you couldn't rest. The only thing that troubled her was making up her mind who to invite. Mother wanted her to invite Mr. and Mrs. McFadden and the seven McFadden girls, but Sue said they had insulted her, and she couldn't bear the idea of asking the McFadden tribe. Everybody agreed that old Mr. Wilkinson, who once came to a party at our house with one boot and one slipper, couldn't be invited; but it was decided that every one else that was on good terms with our family should have an invitation.
Sue counted up all the people she meant to invite, and there was nearly three hundred of them. You would hardly believe it, but she told me that I must carry around all the invitations and deliver them myself. Of course Icouldn't do this without neglecting my studies and losing time, which is always precious, so I thought of a plan which would save Sue the trouble of directing three hundred invitations and save me from wasting time in delivering them.
I got to work with my printing-press, and printed a dozen splendid big bills about the wedding. When they were printed I cut a lot of small pictures of animals and ladies riding on horses out of some old circusbills and pasted them on the wedding bills. They were perfectly gorgeous, and you could see them four or five rods off. When they were all done I made some paste in a tin pail, and went out after dark and pasted them in good places all over the village. I put one on Mr. Wilkinson's front-door, and one on the fence opposite the McFaddens' house, so they would be sure to see it.
SHE GAVE AN AWFUL SHRIEK AND FAINTED AWAY.
The next afternoon father came into the house looking very stern, and carrying one of the wedding bills in his hand. He handed it to Sue and said, "Susan, what does this mean? These bills are pasted all over the village, and there are crowds of people reading them." Sue read the bill, and then she gave an awful shriek, and fainted away, and I hurried down to the post-office to see if the mail had come in. This is what was on the wedding bills, and I am sure it was spelled all right:
Now what was there to find fault with in that? It was printed beautifully, and every word was spelled right, with the exception of the name of the church, and I didn't put that in because I wasn't quite sure how to spell it. The bill saved Sue all the trouble of sending out invitations, and it said everything that anybody could want to know about the wedding. Any other girl but Sue would have been pleased, and would have thanked me for all my trouble, but she was as angry as if I had done something real bad. Mr. Travers was almost as angry as Sue, and it was the first time he was ever angry with me. I am afraid now that he won't let me ever come and live with him. He hasn't said a word about my coming since the wedding bills were put up. As for the wedding, it has been put off, and Sue says she will go to New York to be married, for she would perfectly die if she were to have a wedding at home after thatboy's dreadful conduct. What is worse, I am to be sent away to boarding-school, and all because I made a mistake in printing the wedding bills without first asking Sue how she would like to have them printed.
I've had another dog. That makes three dogs that I've had, and I haven't been allowed to keep any of them. Grown-up folks don't seem to care how much a boy wants society. Perhaps if they were better acquainted with dogs they'd understand boys better than they do.
About a month ago there were lots of burglars in our town, and father said he believed he'd have to get a dog. Mr. Withers told father he'd get a dog for him, and the next day he brought the most beautiful Siberian blood-hound you ever saw.
The first night we had him we chained him up in the yard, and the neighbors threw things at him all night. Nobody in our house got a wink of sleep, for the dog never stopped barking except just long enough to yell when something hit him. There was mornascuttleful of big lumps of coal in the yard in the morning, besides seven old boots, two chunks of wood, and a bushel of broken crockery.
Father said that the house was the proper place for the dog at night; so the next night we left him in the fronthall. He didn't bark any all night, but he got tired of staying in the front hall, and wandered all over the house. I suppose he felt lonesome, for he came into my room, and got on to the bed, and nearly suffocated me. I woke up dreaming that I was in a melon patch, and had to eat three hundred green watermelons or be sent to jail, and it was a great comfort when I woke up and found it was only the dog. He knocked the water-pitcher over with his tail in the morning, and then thought he saw a cat under my bed, and made such an awful noise that father came up, and told me I ought to be ashamed to disturb the whole family so early in the morning. After that the dog waslocked up in the kitchen at night, and father had to come down early and let him out, because the cook didn't dare to go into the kitchen.
We let him run loose in the yard in the daytime, until he had an accident with Mr. Martin. We'd all been out to take tea and spend the evening with the Wilkinsons, and when we got home about nine o'clock, there was Mr. Martin standing on the piazza, with the dog holding on to his cork-leg. Mr. Martin had come to the house to make a call at about seven o'clock, and as soon as he stepped on the piazza the dog caught him by the leg without saying a word. Every once in a while the dog would let go just long enough to spit out a few pieces of cork and take a freshhold, but Mr. Martin didn't dare to stir for fear he would take hold of the other leg, which of course would have hurt more than the cork one. Mr. Martin was a good deal tired and discouraged, and couldn't be made to understand that the dog thought he was a burglar, and tried to do his duty, as we should all try to do.
The way I came to lose the dog was this: Aunt Eliza came to see us last week, and brought her little boy Harry, who once went bee-hunting with me. Harry, as I told you, is six years old, and he isn't so bad as he might be considering his age. The second day after they came, Harry and I were in Tom McGinnis's yard, when Tom said he knew where there was a woodchuck down in the pasture, and suppose we go and hunt him. So I told Harry to go home and get the dog, and bring him down to the pasture where Tom said the woodchuck lived. I told him to untie the dog—for we had kept him tied up since his accident with Mr. Martin—and to keep tight hold of the rope, so that the dog couldn't get away from him. Harry said he'd tie the rope around his waist, and then the dog couldn'tpossibly pull it away from him, and Tom and I both said it was a good plan.
HOW THAT DOG DID PULL!
Well, we waited for that boy and the dog till six o'clock, and they never came. When I got home everybody wanted to know what had become of Harry. He was gone andthe dog was gone, and nobody knew where they were, and Aunt Eliza was crying, and said she knew that horrid dog had eaten her boy up. Father and I and Mr. Travers had to go and hunt for Harry. We hunted all over the town, and at last a man told us that he had seen a boy and a dog going on a run across Deacon Smith's corn-field. So we went through the corn-field and found their track, for they had broken down the corn just as if a wagon had driven through it. When we came to the fence on the other side of the field we found Harry on one side of the fence and the dog on the other. Harry had tied the dog's rope round his waist, and couldn't untie it again, and the dog had run away with him. When they came to the fence the dog had squeezed through a hole that was too small for Harry, and wouldn't come back again. So they were both caught in a trap. How that dog did pull! Harry was almost cut in two, for the dog kept pulling at the rope all the time with all his might.
When we got home Aunt Eliza said that either she or that brute must leave, and father gave the dog away to the butcher. He was the most elegant dog I ever had, and I don't suppose I shall ever have another.
Mr. Franklin was one of the greatest men that ever lived. He could carry a loaf of bread in each hand and eat another, all at the same time, and he could invent anything that anybody wanted, without hurting himself or cutting his fingers. His greatest invention was lightning, and he invented it with a kite. He made a kite with sticks made out of telegraph wire, and sent it up in a thunder-storm till it reached where the lightning is. The lightning ran down the string, and Franklin collected it in a bottle, and sold it for ever so much money. So he got very rich after a while, and could buy the most beautiful and expensive kites that any fellow ever had.
I read about Mr. Franklin in a book that father gave me. He said I was reading too many stories, and just you take this book and read it through carefully and I hope it will do you some good anyway it will keep you out of mischief.
I thought that it would please father if I should get some lightning just as Franklin did. I told Tom McGinnisabout it, and he said he would help if I would give him half of all I made by selling the lightning. I wouldn't do this, of course, but finally Tom said he'd help me anyhow, and trust me to pay him a fair price; so we went to work.
We made a tremendously big kite, and the first time there came a thunder-storm we put it up; but the paper got wet, and it came down before it got up to the lightning. So we made another, and covered it with white cloth that used to be one of Mrs. McGinnis's sheets, only Tom said he knew she didn't want it any more.
We sent up this kite the next time there was a thunder-storm, and tied the string to the second-story window where the blinds hook on, and let the end of the string hang down into a bottle. It only thundered once ortwice, but the lightning ran down the string pretty fast, and filled the bottle half full.
It looked like water, only it was a little green, and when it stopped running into the bottle we took the lightning down-stairs to try it. I gave a little of it to the cat to drink, but it didn't hurt her a bit, and she just purred. At last Tom said he didn't believe it would hurt anything; so he tasted some of it, but it didn't hurt him at all.
The trouble was that the lightning was too weak to do any harm. The thunder-shower had been such a little onethat it didn't have any strong lightning in it; so we threw away what was in the bottle, and agreed to try to get some good strong lightning whenever we could get a chance.
It didn't rain for a long time after that, and I nearly forgot all about Franklin and lightning, until one day I heard Mr. Travers read in the newspaper about a man who was found lying dead on the road with a bottle of Jersey lightning, and that, of course, explains what was the matter with him my dear Susan. I understood more about it than Susan did, for she does not know anything about Franklin being a girl, though I will admit it isn't her fault. You see, the cork must have come out of the man's bottle, and the lightning had leaked out and burned him to death.
The very next day we had a tremendous thunder-shower, and I told Tom that now was the time to get some lightning that would be stronger than anything they could make in New Jersey. So we got the kite up, and got ourselves soaked through with water. We tied it to the window-ledge just as we did the first time, and put the end of the string in a tin pail, so that we could collect more lightning than one bottle would hold. Itwas so cold standing by the window in our wet clothes that we thought we'd go to my room and change them.