Yesterday Uncle Jacob came into the house and said he had brought a carriage to carry me over to Aunt Phebe’s; and when I looked out it wasn’t anything but a wheelbarrow. My grandmother said I must wrap up, for ’t was the first time; so she put two overcoatson me, and my father’s long stockings over my shoes and stockings, and a good many comforters, and then a great shawl over my head so I needn’t breathe the air; and ’t was about as bad as to stay in. Uncle Jacob asked her if there was a Billy in that bundle, when he saw it. “Hallo, in there!” says he. “Hallo, out there!” says I. Then he took me up in his arms, and carried me out, and doubled me up, and put me down in the wheelbarrow, and threw the buffalo over me; but one leg got undoubled, and fell out, so I had to drag my foot most all the way. Aunt Phebe undid me, and set me close to the fire; and Lucy Maria and the rest of them brought me story-books and picture-papers; and Tommy, he kept round me all the time, making me whittle him out little boats out of a shingle, and we had some fun sailing ’em in a milk-pan. Aunt Phebe had chicken broth for dinner, and I had a very good appetite. She let me look into all her closets and boxes, and let me open all her drawers. But I had to have a little white blanket pinned on when I went round, because she was afraid her room wasn’t kept so warm as my grandmother’s. Soon as Uncle Jacob came in and saw that little white blanket he began to laugh. “So Aunt Phebe has got out thesignal of distress,” says he. He calls that blanket the “signal of distress,” because when any of them don’t feel well, or have the toothache or anything, she puts it on them. She says he shall have to wear it some time, and I guess he’ll look funny, he’s so tall, with it on. The fellers played base-ball close to Aunt Phebe’s garden. I tell you I shall be glad enough to get out-doors. I tell you it isn’t much fun to look out the window and see ’emplay ball. But Uncle Jacob says if the ball hit me ’t would knock me over now. Aunt Phebe was just as clever, and let me whittle right on the floor, and didn’t care a mite. And we made corn-balls. But the best fun was finding things, when I was rummaging. I found some pictures in an old trunk that she said I might have, and I want you to give them to Bubby Short to put in the Panorama he said he was going to make. He said the price to see it would be two cents. They are true ones, for they are about Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy. One day, when he was a good deal smaller feller than he is now, he went out when it had done raining one day, and the wind blew hard, and he found an old umbrella, and did just what is in the pictures. The school-teacher that boarded there, O, she could draw cows and pigs and anything; and she drew these pictures, and wrote about them underneath.
I wish you would write me a letter, and tell Benjie to and Bubby Short.
From your affectionate friend,William Henry.
P. S. What are you fellers playing now?
Thinking the school-teacher’s pictures might please other little Tommys, I have taken some pains to procure them for insertion here. Little “fellers” usually are fond of carrying umbrellas,—large size preferred. Nothing suited Tommy better than marching off to school of a rainy day with one up full spread, provided he could hold it. His cousin Myra once took an old umbrella and cut it down into a small one, by chopping off the ends of the sticks, supposing he would be delighted with it. But no, he wanted a “man’s one.”
Tommy sets forth upon his travels around the house, taking with him his whip.
At the first corner he picks up an umbrella. A larger boy opens the umbrella, and shows him the way to holdit. Being an old umbrella, it shuts down again. But Tommy still keeps on in his way.
At the second corner a gust of wind takes down the umbrella, and blows his capes over his head. He pushes on, however, whip in hand, dragging the umbrella behind him.
On turning the third corner a hen runs between his legs, and throws him down in the mud.
He is taken inside, stripped and washed, and left sitting upon the floor in his knit shirt, waiting for clean clothes. He can reach the handle of the molasses-jug. He does reach the handle, and tips over the jug. His mother finds him eating molasses off the floor with his forefinger. Tommy looks up with a sweet smile.
Here we have William Henry back at school again.
My dear Grandmother,—
I’ve been here three days now. I came safe all the way, but that glass vial you put that medicine into, down in the corner of the trunk, broke, and some white stockings down there, they soaked it all up; but I sha’ n’t have to take it now, and no matter, I guess, for I feel well, all but my legs feeling weak so I can’t run hardly any. When I got here, the boys were playing ball; but they all ran to shake hands, and slapped my shoulders so they almost slapped me down, and hollered out, “How are you, Billy?” “How fares ye?” “Welcome back!” “Got well?” “Good for you, Billy!” Gus Beals—he’s the great tall one we call “Mr. Augustus”—he called out, “How are you, red-top?” And then Dorry called out to him, “How are you, hay-pole?” Dorry and Bubby Short want me to tell you to thank Aunt Phebe for their doughnuts,and you, too, for that molasses candy. The candy got soft, and the paper jammed itself all into the candy, but Bubby Short says he loves paper when it has molasses candy all over it. I gave some of the things to Benjie. Something hurt me all the way coming, in the toe of my boot; and when I got here I looked, and ’t was a five-cent piece right in the toe! I know who ’t was! ’T was Uncle Jacob when he made believe look to see if that boot-top wasn’t made of mighty poor leather. I went to spend it yesterday, down to the Two Betseys’ shop. Lame Betsey called me a poor little dear, and was just going to kiss me, but I twisted my face round. I’m too big for all that now, I guess. She looked for something to give me, and was just going to give me a stick of candy; but the other Betsey said ’t was no use to give little boys candy, for they’d only swallow it right down, so she gave me a row of pins, for she said pins were proper handy things when your buttons ripped off. Just when I was coming back from the Two Betseys’ shop I met Gapper Skyblue. He goes about selling cakes now. A good many boys were round him, in a hurry to buy first, and all you could hear was, “Here, Gapper!”
“This way, Gapper!” “You know me, Gapper!” “Me, me, me!” One boy—he’s a new boy—spoke up loud and said, “Mr. Skyblue, please attend to me, if you please, for I have five pennies to spend!” He came from Jersey. The fellers call him “Old Wonder Boy,” because he brags and tells such big stories. But now, just as soon as he begins to tell, Dorry begins too, and always tells the biggest,—makes them up, you know. O, I tell you, Dorry gives it to him good! You’d die a laughing to hear Dorry, and so do all the fellers. W. B.,—that’s what we call Old Wonder Boy sometimes,—W stands for Wonder, and B stands for Boy,—he says cents are not cents; says they are pennies, for the Jersey folks call them pennies, and he guesses they know. He says he gets his double handful of pennies to spend every day down in Jersey. But Bubby Short says he knows that’s a whopper, for he knows there wouldn’t anybody’s mother give them their double handful of pennies to spend every day, nor cents either, nor their father either. And then Dorry told Old Wonder Boy that he supposed it took his double handful of pennies to buy a roll of lozenges down in Jersey. Then W. B. said that our lozenges were all flour and water, but down in Jersey they were clear sugar, and just as plenty as huckleberries. Dorry said he didn’t believe any huckleberries grew out there, or if they did, they’d be nothing but red ones, for the ground was red out in Jersey. But W. B. said no matter if the ground was red, the huckleberries were just as black as Yankee huckleberries, and blacker too, and three times bigger, and ten times thicker. Said he picked twenty quarts one day.
Dorry said, “Poh, that wasn’t much of a pick!” Says he, “Now I’ll tell you a huckleberry story that’s worth something.” Then all the boys began to hit elbows, for they knew Dorry would make up some funny thing. Says he: “I went a huckleberrying once to Wakonok Swamp, and I carried a fourteen-quart tin pail, and a great covered basket, besides a good many quart and pint things. You’d better believe they hung thick in that swamp! I found a thick spot, and I slung my fourteen-quart tin pail round my waist, and picked with both hands, and ate off the bushes with my mouth all the while. I got all my things full without stirring two yards from the spot, and then I didn’t know what to do. But I’ll tell you what I did. I took off my jacket, and cut my fishing-line, and tied up the bottom ends of my jacket sleeves and picked them both full. And then I didn’t know what to do next. But I’ll tell you what I did. I took off my overalls, and tied up the bottoms of their legs, and picked them so full you wouldn’t know but there was a boy standing up in ’em!” Then the boys all clapped.
“Well,” Old Wonder Boy said, “how did you get them home?”
“O, got them home easy enough,” Dorry said. “First I put the overalls over my shoulders, like a boy going pussy-back. I slung all the quart and pint things round my waist, and hung the covered basket on one arm, and took the fourteen-quart tin pail in that same hand. Then I tied my jacket to the end of my fishing-pole, and held it up straight in my other hand like—like a flag in a dead calm!”
O, you ought to ’ve seen the boys,—how they winked at one another and puffed out their cheeks; and some of ’em rolled over and over down hill to keep from laughing! Bubby Short got behind the fence, and put his face between two bars, and called out, “S—e—double l!” But Dorry says they don’t know what a “s—e—double l” is down in Jersey. But I don’t believe that W. B. believes Dorry’s stories; for I looked him in the face, and he had a mighty sly look when he asked Dorry how it was he got his huckleberries home.
To-day they got a talking about potatoes. Old Wonder Boy said that down in Jersey they grow so big you have to pry ’em up out of the hill, and it don’t take much more than two to make a peck. Dorry told him that down in Maine you could stand on top the potato-hills and look all round the country, they were so high; and he asked W. B. how they planted ’em in Jersey, with their eyes up or down? He said he didn’t know which way they did turn their eyes. Then Dorry told him the Yankees always planted potatoes eyes up, so they could see which way to grow. Said he planted a hill of potatoes in his father’s garden, last summer, with their eyes all down, and waited and waited, but they didn’t come up. And when he had waited a spell longer, he raked off the top of that hill of potatoes, and all he saw was some roots sticking up. And he began to dig down. And he kept digging. Followed their stems. But he never got to the potato-tops; and says he, “I never did get to those potato-tops!” O, you ought to ’ve heard the boys!
Old Wonder Boy wanted to know where Dorrythought they’d gone to. Dorry thought to himself a minute, and looked just as sober, and then says he, just like a school-teacher, “The earth, in the middle, is afire. I think when they got deep enough to feel the warm, they guessed ’t was the sun, and so kept heading that way.”
Is the world afire in the middle? Dorry told me that part of his story was really true. How Uncle Jacob would laugh to sit down and hear Dorry and Old Wonder Boy tell about whales. W. B. calls ’em wales. His uncle is a ship-captain, he says, and once he saw a wale, and the wale was making for his ship, and it chased ’em. And, no matter how they steered, that wale would chase. And by and by, in a calm day, he got under the vessel and boosted her up out of water, when all the crew gave a yell,—such a horrid yell that the wale let ’em down so sudden that the waves splashed up to the tops of the masts, and they thought they were all drowned.
“O, poh!” Dorry cried out. “My uncle was a regular whaler, and went a whaling for his living. And once he was cruising about the whaling-grounds and ’t was in a place where the days were so short that the nights lasted almost all day. And they got chased by a whale. And he kept chasing them. Night and day. And there came up a gale of wind that lasted three days and nights; and the ship went like lightning, night and day, the whale after them. And, when the wind went down, the whale was so tuckered that he couldn’t swim a stroke. So he floated. Then the cap’n sang out to ’em to lower a boat. And they did. And the cap’n got in and took a couple of his men to row him. The whale was ratherlonger than a liberty-pole. About as long as a liberty-pole and a half. He was asleep, and they steered for the tail end. A whale’s head is about as big as the Two Betseys’ shop, and ’t is filled with clear oil, without any trying out. The cap’n landed on the whale’s tail, and went along up on tiptoe, and the men rowed the boat alongside, and kept even with him; and, when he got towards her ears, he took off his shoes, and threw ’em to the men to catch. After a while he got to the tip-top of her head. Now I’ll tell you what he had in his hand. He had a great junk of cable as big round as the trunk of a tree, and not quite a yard long. In one end of it there was a point of a harpoon stuck in, and the other end of it was lighted. He told the men to stand ready. Then he took hold of the cable with both hands, and with one mighty blow he stuck that pointed end deep in the whale’s head, and then gave one jump into the boat, and he cried out to the men, ‘Row! row for your lives! To the tail end! If you want to live, row!’ And before that whale could turn round they were safe aboard the ship! But now I’ll tell you the best part of the whole story. They didn’t have any more long dark nights after that. They kept throwing over bait to keep her chasing, and the great lamp blazed, and as fast as the oil got hot it tried out more blubber, and that whale burned as long as there was a bit of the inside of him left. Flared up, and lighted up the sea, and drew the fishes, and they drew more whales; and they got deep loaded, and might have loaded twenty more ships. And when they left they took a couple in tow,—of whales,—and knocked out their teeth for ivory, and then sold their carcasses to an empty whaler.”
Dorry says some parts of this story are true. But he didn’t say which parts. Said I must look in the whale-book and find out.
Your affectionate grandchild,William Henry.
P. S. I wish you would please to send me a silver three-cent piece or five-cent. Two squaws have got a tent a little ways off, and the boys are going to have their fortunes taken. But you have to cross the squaws’ hands with silver.
W. H.
My dear Brother Billy,—
O Billy, my pretty, darling little bird is dead! My kitty did it, and O, I don’t know what I shall do, for I love my kitty if she did kill my birdie; but I don’t forget about it, and I keep thinking of my birdie every time my kitty comes in the room. I was putting some seeds in the glass, and my birdie looked so cunning; and I helda lump of white sugar in my lips, and let him peck it. And while I was thinking what a dear little bird he was, I forgot he could fly out; but he could, for the door was open, and he flew to the window. I didn’t think anything about kitty. It flew up to that bracket you made, and then it went away up in the corner just as high as it could, on a wooden peg that was there. I didn’t know what made it flutter its wings and tremble so, but grandmother pointed her finger down to the corner, on the floor, and there was my kitty stretching out and looking up at my bird. And that was what made poor birdie tremble so. And it dropped right down. Before we could run across to catch kitty, he dropped right down into her mouth. I never thought she could get him. I didn’t know what made grandmother hurry. I didn’t know that kitties could charm birds, but they do. She didn’t have him a minute in her teeth, and I thought it couldn’t be dead. But, O Billy, my dear birdie never breathed again! I warmed him in my hands, and tried to make him stir his wings, but he never breathed again. Now the tears are coming again. I thought I wasn’t going to cry any more. But they come themselves; when I don’t know it, they come; and O, it was such a good birdie! When I came home from school I used to run to the cage, and he would sing to meet me. And I put chickweed over his cage.
Grandmother has put away that empty cage now. She’s sorry, too. Did you think a grandmother would be sorry about a little bird as that? But she’d rather give a good deal. When she put the plates on the table, and rattled spoons, he used to sing louder and louder. Andin the morning he used to wake me up, singing away so loud! Now, when I first wake up, I listen. But O, it is so still now! Then in a minute I remember all about it. Sometimes kitty jumps up on the bed, and puts her nose close down, and purrs. But I say, “No, kitty. Get down. You killed little birdie. I don’t want to see you.” But she don’t know what I mean. She rubs her head on my face, and purrs loud, and wants me to stroke her back, and don’t seem as if she had been bad. She used to be such a dear little kitty. And so she is. She’s pretty as a pigeon. Aunt Phebe says she never saw such a pretty little gray and white kitty as she is. I was going to have her drowned. But then I should cry for kitty too. Then I should think how she looked all drowned, down at the bottom, just the same way I do now how my birdie looked when it couldn’t stir its little wings, and its eyes couldn’t move. My father says that kitty didn’t know any better. I hope so. I took off that pretty chain she had round her neck. But grandmother thinks I had better put it on again. Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy says, “Don’t kye, Dordie, I’llbungdat tat. I’ll take a tick andbungdat tat!” He calls me Dordie, I guess I rather have kitty alive than let her be drowned, don’t you? Grandmother wants you not to catch cold and be sick.
From your affectionate sister,Georgianna.
P. S. Grandmother showed me how to write this letter.
A caged bird is never a very interesting object to me. But this little canary of Georgie’s was really a beautiful creature, and very intelligent. They used to think that he listened forher step at noon and night; for no sooner was it heard in the entry than he peeped out with his little bright eyes, and tuned up, and sang away, as if to say, “Glad! glad! glad you’ve come! glad you’ve come!”
Then she would go to the cage and talk to him, and let him take sugar from her mouth, and would hang fresh chickweed about its cage. Mornings she used to sing, from her bed, and the bird would answer. Indeed, he really seemed quite a companion for her.
At the time the accident happened I had been staying for a few weeks at the hotel, a mile or two off, and called at the farm that very day. Lucy Maria told me, as I stopped at their door, what the kitten had done, and how Georgianna had cried and mourned and could not be comforted.
I found her sitting on the doorstep. She had placed the bird in a small round basket, lined with cotton-wool, and was bending over, and stroking it. I had always noticed the bird a great deal, used to play with it, and whistle to make it sing louder and louder. The sight of me brought all this back to her mind, and she burst into tears again, sobbing out, “O, he never—will sing—any more! Dear little birdie! He had to fall down! He couldn’t—help it!”
I talked with her awhile, in a cheerful way, and when she had become quite calm I held out my hand and said, “Come, Georgie, don’t you want to go with me and find a pretty place where we can put birdie away, under the soft grass? And we will plant a flower there.”
The idea of the soft grass and the flower seemed to please her. She took my hand, and we went to look about.
We thought the garden not a very good place, because it was dug up every year, and the field would be mowed and trampled upon. But just over the fence, back of the garden, we came upon some uneven ground, where the old summer-sweeting trees grew. In one place there was a sudden pitchdownwards, into a little hollow, which grass and plantain leaves made almost forever green. For here was what they called the Boiling Spring. The water bubbled out of the ground on the slope of the bank, and in former times, before the well was dug, had been used in the family. Several trees grew about there,—wild cherry, damson, and poplar,—and a profusion of yellow flowers, wild ones. Some of these grandmother called “Ladies’ Slipper”; the others, “Sullendine.” The spring had once been stoned up and boxed over. But the boards were now rotting away, the stones falling in, and our little hollow had quite a deserted look. The water trickled out and ran away around the curve of the bank.
Grandmother came with us, and Georgie’s teacher, and Matilda and Tommy. We hollowed out a little place under the wild-cherry tree, wrapped the birdie in cotton-wool, lay him in, and covered him over with the green sod. I then went down by the stone wall, where sweetbriers were growing, dug up a very pretty little one, and set it out close by, so that it might lean against the cherry-tree. Tommy kept very sober, and scarcely spoke a word, till it was all over. He then said to me, in a very earnest tone, “Mr. Fwy, now will another birdie grow up there?” I suppose he was thinking of his father’s planting corn and more corn growing.
My dear Little Sister,—
I’m sorry your little birdie’s dead! He was a nice singing birdie! But I wouldn’t cry. Maybe you’ll have another one some time, if you’re a good little girl. Maybe father’ll go to Boston and buy you one, or maybe Cousin Joe will send one home to you, in a vessel, or maybe I’ll catch one, or maybe a man will come along with birds to sell, or maybe Aunt Phebe’s bird will layan egg and hatch one out. I wouldn’t feel bad about it. It isn’t any use to feel bad about it. Maybe, if he hadn’t been killed, he’d ’a’ died. Dorry says, “Tell her, ‘Don’t you cry,’ and I’ll give her something, catch her a rabbit or a squirrel!” Says he’ll tease his sister for her white mice. Says he’ll tease her with the tears in his eyes,—or else her banties.
How do you like your teacher? Do you learn any lessons at school? You must try to get up above all the other ones. We’ve got two new teachers this year. One is clever, and we like that one, but the other one isn’t very. We call the good one Wedding Cake, and we call the other one Brown Bread. Did grandmother tell you about the Fortune Tellers? We went to-day and she told mine true. She said my father was a very kind man, and said I was quick to get mad, and said I had just got something I’d wanted a long time (watch, you know), and said I should have something else that I wanted, but didn’t say when. I wonder how she knew I wanted a gun. I thought perhaps somebody told her, and laid it to Old Wonder Boy, for we two had been talking about guns. But he flared up just like a flash of powder. “There. Now you needn’t blame that on to me!” says he. “You fellers always do blame everything on to me!” Sometimes when somebody touches him he hollers out, “Leave me loose! Leave me loose!” Dorry says that’s the way fellers talk down in Jersey. The Fortune Teller told W. B. that he came from a long way off, and that he wanted to be a soldier, but he’d better give up that, for he wouldn’t dare to go to war, without he went behind to sell pies. All of us laughed tohear that, for Old Wonder Boy is quick to get scared. But he is always straightening himself up, and looking big, and talking about his native land, and what he would do for his native land, and how he would fight for his native land, and how he would die for his native land. He says that why she told him that kind of a fortune was because he gave her pennies and not silver money. His uncle that goes cap’n of a vessel has sent him a letter, and in the letter it said that he had a sailor aboard his ship that used to come to this school.
I was going to tell you a funny story about W. B.’s getting scared, but Dorry he keeps teasing me to go somewhere. I made these joggly letters when he tickled my ears with his paint-brush. Has your pullet begun to lay yet? I hope my rooster won’t be killed. Tell them not to. Benjie says he had a grand great rooster. It was white and had green and purple tail feathers, O, very long tail feathers, and stood ’most as high as a barrel of flour, with great yellow legs, and had a beautiful crow, and could drive away every other one that showed his head, and he set his eyes by that rooster, but when he got home they had killed him for broth, and when he asked ’em where his rooster was they brought out thewish-bone and two tail feathers, and that was all there was left of him. I wouldn’t have poor little kitty drowned way down in the deep water ’cause to drown a kitty couldn’t make a birdie alive again. Have your flowers bloomed out yet? You must be a good little girl, and try to please your grandmother all you can.
From your affectionate brother,William Henry.
P. S. Now Dorry’s run to head off a loose horse, and I’ll tell you about Old Wonder Boy’s getting scared. It was one night when—Now there comes Dorry back again! But next time I will.
W. H.
My dear Sister,—
I will put that little story I am going to tell you right at the beginning, before Dorry and Bubby Short get back. I mean about W. B.’s getting scared. But don’t you be scared, for after all ’t was—no, I mean after all ’t wasn’t—but wait and you’ll know by and by, when I tell you. ’T was one night when Dorry and I and some more fellers were a sitting here together, and we all of us heard some thick boots coming-a hurrying up the stairs, and the door came a banging open, and W. B. pitched in, just as pale as a sheet, and couldn’t but just breathe. And he tried to speak, but couldn’t, only one word at once, and catching his breath between, just so,—“Shut—the—door!—Do!—Do!—shut—the door!” Then we shut up the door, and Bubby Short stood his back upagainst it because ’t wouldn’t quite latch, and now I will tell you what it was that scared him. Not at the first of it, but I shall tell it just the same way we found it out.
Says he, “I was making a box, and when I got it done ’t was dark, but I went to carry the carpenter’s tools back to him, because I promised to. And going along,” says he, “I thought I heard a funny noise behind me, but I didn’t think very much about it, but I heard it again, and I looked over my shoulder, and I saw something white behind me, a chasing me. I went faster, and then that went faster. Then I went slower, and then that went slower. And then I got scared and ran as fast as I could, and looked over my shoulder and ’t was keeping up. But it didn’t run with feet, nor with legs, for then I shouldn’t ’a’ been scared. But it came—O, I don’t know how it came, without anything to go on.”
Dorry asked him, “How did it look?”
“O,—white. All over white,” says W. B.
“How big was it?” Bubby Short asked him.
“O,—I don’t know,” says W. B. “First it looked about as big as a pigeon, but every time I looked round it seemed to grow bigger and bigger.”
“Maybe ’t was a pigeon,” says Dorry. “Did it have any wings?”
“Not a wing,” says W. B.
“Maybe ’t was a white cat,” says Mr. Augustus.
“O, poh, cat!” says W. B.
“Or a poodle dog,” says Benjie.
“Nonsense, poodle dog!” says W. B.
“Or a rabbit,” says Bubby Short.
“O, go ’way with your rabbit!” says W. B. “Didn’t I tell you it hadn’t any feet or legs to go with?”
“Then how could it go?” Mr. Augustus asked him.
“That’s the very thing,” said W. B.
“Snakes do,” says Bubby Short.
“But a snake wouldn’t look white,” says Benjie.
“Without ’t was scared,” says Dorry.
I said I guessed I knew. Like enough ’t was a ghost of something.
I said like enough of a robin or some kind of bird.
“Of what?” then they all asked me.
“That he’d stolen the eggs of,” says Dorry.
“O yes!” says Old Wonder Boy. “It’s easy enough to laugh, in the light here, but I guess you’d ’a’ been scared, seeing something chasing you in the dark, and going up and down, and going tick, tick, tick, every time it touched ground, and sometimes it touched my side too.”
“For goodness gracious!” says Dorry. “Can’t you tell what it seemed most like?”
“I tell you it didn’t seem most like anything. It didn’t run, nor walk, nor fly, nor creep, nor glide along. And when I got to the Great Elm-Tree, I cut round that tree, and ran this way, and that did too.”
“Where is it now?” Dorry asked him.
“O, don’t!” says W. B. “Don’t open the door. ’T is out there.”
“Come, fellers,” Dorry said, “let’s go find it.”
Benjie said, “Let’s take something to hit it with!” And he took an umbrella and I took the bootjack, and Bubby Short took the towel horse, and Mr. Augustus took a hair-brush, and Dorry took his boot with his arm run down in it, and first we opened the door a crack and didn’t go out, but peeped out, but didn’t see anythingthere. Then we went out a little ways, and then we didn’t see anything. And pretty soon, going along towards the stairs, Bubby Short stepped on something. “What’s that?” says he. And he jumped, and we all flung our things at it. “Hold the light!” Dorry cried out.
Then W. B. brought out the light, and there wasn’t anything there but a carpenter’s reel, with a chalk line wound up on it, and they picked it up and began to wind up, and when they came to the end of it—where do you s’pose the other end was? In W. B.’s pocket! and his ball and some more things held it fast there, and that chalk-line reel was what went bobbing up and down behind Old Wonder Boy every step he took,—bob, bob, bobbing up and down, for there was a hitch in the line and it couldn’t unwind any more, and the line under the door was why ’t wouldn’t latch, and O, but you ought to ’ve heard the fellers how they roared! and Bubby Short rolled over on the floor, and Dorry he tumbled heels over head on all the beds, and we all shouted and hurrahed so the other fellers came running to see what was up, and then the teachers came to see who was flingingthings round so up here, and to see what was the matter, but there couldn’t anybody tell what the matter was for laughing, and W. B. he looked so sheepish! O, if it wasn’t gay! How do you like this story? That part where it touched his side was when that reel caught on something and so jerked the string some. Now I must study my lesson.
Your affectionate brother,William Henry.
P.S. When you send a box don’t send very many clothes in it, but send goodies. I tell you things taste good when a feller’s away from his folks. Dorry’s father had a picture taken of Dorry’s little dog and sent it to him, and it looks just as natural as some boys. Tell Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy he may sail my boat once. ’T is put away up garret in that corner where I keep things, side of that great long-handled thing, grandmother’s warming-pan. I mean that little sloop boat I had when I’s a little feller.
W. H.
My Dear Brother Billy,——
Kitty isn’t drowned. I’ve got ever so many new dolls. My grandmother went to town, not the same day my kitty did that, but the next day, and she brought me home a new doll, and that same day she went there my father went to Boston, and he brought me home a very big one,——no, not very, but quite big,——and Aunt Phebe went a visiting to somebody’s house that very day, and she brought me home a doll, and while she was gone away Hannah Jane dressed over one of Matilda’s old onesnew, and none of the folks knew that the others were going to give me a doll, and then Uncle J. said that if it was the family custom to give Georgianna a doll, he would give Georgianna a doll, and he went to the field and catched the colt, and tackled him up into the riding wagon on purpose, and then he started off to town, and when he rode up to our back door there was a great dolly, the biggest one I had, and she was sitting down on the seat, just like a live one. And she had a waterfall, and she had things to take off and on. Then Uncle J. asked me what I should do with my old dollies that were ’most worn out. And I said I didn’t know what I should. And then Uncle J. said that he would take the lot, for twenty-five cents a head, to put up in his garden, for scarecrows, and he asked me if I would sell, and I said I would. And he put the little ones on little poles and the big ones on tall poles, with their arms stretched out, and the one with a long veil looked the funniest, and so did the one dressed up like a sailor boy, but one arm was broke off of him, and a good many of their noses too. The one that had on old woman’s clothes Uncle J. put a pipe in her mouth. And the one that had a pink gauze dress, but ’t is all faded out now, and a long train, but the train was torn very much, that one has a great bunch of flowers——paper——pinned on to her, and another in her hand, and the puppy he barks at ’em like everything. My pullet lays, little ones, you know. I hope she won’t do like Lucy Maria’s Leghorn hen. That one flies into the bedroom window every morning, and lays eggs on the bedroom bed. For maybe ’t would come in before I got up. My class has begun to learn geography, and myfather has bought me a new geography. But I guess I sha’ n’t like to learn it very much if the backside is hard as the foreside is. Uncle J. says no need to worry your mind any about that old fowl, for he’s so tough he couldn’t be killed. I wish you would tell me how long he could live if it wasn’t killed, for Uncle J. says they grow tougher every year, and if you should let one live too long, then he can’t die. But I guess he’s funning, do you? Our hens scratched and scratched up some of my flowers, and so did the rain wash some up that night it came down so hard, but one pretty one bloomed out this morning, but it has budded back again now. Aunt Phebe says she sends her love to you, tied up with this pretty piece of blue ribbon. She says, if you want to, you can take the ribbon and wear it for a neck bow. Grandmother says how do you know but that sailor that went to your school in Old Wonder Boy’s uncle’s vessel is that big boy, that bad one that ran away, you called Tom Cush?
Father laughs to hear about Old Wonder Boy, and he says a bragger ought to be laughed at, and bragging is a bad thing. But he don’t want you to pick out all the bad things about a boy to send home in your letters; says next time you must send home a good thing about him, because he thinks every boy you see has some good things as well as some bad things.
A dear little baby has moved in the house next to our house. It lets me hold her, and its mother lets me drag her out. It’s got little bits of toes, and it’s got a little bit of a nose, and it says “Da da! da da! da da!” And when I was dragging her out, the wheel went over a poorlittle butterfly, but I guess it was dead before. O, its wings were just as soft! and ’t was a yellow one. And I buried it up in the ground close to where I buried up my little birdie, side of the spring.
Your affectionate sister,Georgianna.
Among the other letters I find the following, from Tom Cush. As the people at Summer Sweeting place had been told the circumstances of his running away, it was not only proper, but just, that William Henry should send them this letter.
Dear Friend,——
I have not seen you for a great while. I hope you are in good health. Does William Henry go to school there now? And does Benjie go, and little Bubby Short? I hope they are in good health. Do the Two Betseys keep shop there now? Is Gapper Skyblue alive now? I am in very good health. I go to sea now. That’s where I went when I went away from school. I suppose all the boys hate me, don’t they? But I don’t blame them any for hating me. I should think they would all of them hate me. For I didn’t act very well when I went to that school. Our captain knows about that school, for he is uncle to a boy that has begun to go. He’s sent a letter to him. I wish that boy would write a letter to him, because he might tell about the ones I know.
I’ve been making up my mind about telling you something. I’ve been thinking about it, and thinking about it. I don’t like to tell things very well. But I am goingto tell this to you. It isn’t anything to tell. I mean it isn’t like news, or anything happening to anybody. But it is something about when I was sick. For I had a fit of sickness. I don’t mean afterwards, when I was so very sick, but at the first beginning of it.
The captain he took some books out of his chest and said I might have them to read if I wanted to. And I read about a man in one of them, and the king wanted him to do something that the man thought wasn’t right to do; but the man said he would not do what was wrong. And for that he was sent to row in a very large boat among all kinds of bad man, thieves and murderers and the worst kind. They had to row every minute, and were chained to their oars, and above their waists they had no clothes on. They had overseers with long whips. The officers stayed on deck over the rowers’ heads, and when they wanted the vessel to go faster, the overseers made their long whip-lashes cut into the men’s backs till they were all raw and bleeding. Nights the chains were not taken off, and they slept all piled up on each other. Sometimes when the officers were in a hurry, or when there were soldiers aboard, going to fight the enemy’s vessels, then the men wouldn’t have even a minute to eat, and were almost starved to death, and got so weak they would fall over, but then they were whipped again. And when they got to the enemy’s ships, they had to sit and have cannons fired in among them. Then the dead ones were picked up and thrown into the water. And the king told the man that if he wanted to be free, and have plenty to eat and a nice house, and good clothes to wear, all he had to do was to promise to do that wrongthing. But the man said no. For to be chained there would only hurt his body. But to do wrong would hurt his soul.
And I read about some people that lived many hundred years ago and the emperor of that country wanted these people to say that their religion was wrong and his religion was the right one. But they said, “No. We believe ours is true, and we cannot lie.” Then the emperor took away all their property, and pierced them with red-hot irons, and threw some into a place where they kept wild beasts. But they still kept saying, “We cannot lie, we must speak what we believe.” And one was a boy only fifteen years old. And the emperor thought he was so young they could scare him very easy. And he said to him, “Now say you believe the way I want you to, or I will have you shut up in a dark dungeon.” But the boy said, “I will not say what is false.” And he was shut up in a dark dungeon, underground. And one day the emperor said to him, “Say you believe the way I want you to, or I will have you stretched upon a rack.” But the boy said, “I will not speak falsely.” And he was stretched upon a rack till his bones were almost pulled apart. Then the emperor asked, “Now will you believe that my religion is right?” But the boy could not say so. And the emperor said, “Then you’ll be burned alive!” The boy said, “I can suffer the burning, but I cannot lie.” Then he was brought out and the wood was piled up round him, and set on fire, and the boy was burned up with the wood. And while he was burning up he thanked God for having strength enough to suffer and not lie.
Dorry, I want to tell you how much I’ve been thinking about that man and that boy ever since. And I want to ask you to do something. I’ve been thinking about how mean I was, and what I did there so as not to get punished. And I want you to go see my mother and tell her that I’mashamed. Don’t make any promises to my mother, but only just tell, “Tom’s ashamed.” That’s all. I don’t want to make promises. But I know myself just what I mean to do. But I sha’ n’t talk about that any. Give my regards to all inquiring friends.
Your affectionate friend,Tom.
P.S. Can’t you tell things about me to William Henry and the others, for it is very hard to me to write a letter? Write soon.
T.
Mr. Carver’s visit to the Crooked Pond School alluded to in the following letter was quite an event for my Summer Sweeting friends, and caused an extra amount of cooking to be done in both families. Boys don’t half appreciate the blessing of not being too old to have goodies sent them. Now goodies taste good to me, very good, but I haven’t a friend in the world who would think of boiling up a kettleful of molasses into candy, or of making a waiterful of seed-cakes to send me.Too old, they say,—in actions, if not in words. How cruelly we are misjudged sometimes, and by those who ought to know us best! I shall never be too old to receive a box like that of William Henry’s, never, never!—unless my whole constitution is altered and severalclausestaken out of it.
I remember of seeing that waiter of “good seed-cakes” on grandmother’s best room table, between the front windows, waiting to be packed in Mr. Carver’s valise. Mr. Carver’s black silk neck-handkerchief, tall hat, clean dickies, stockings,two red and white silk pocket-handkerchiefs, and various other articles were distributed over the adjacent chairs, and his umbrella, in a brown cambric covering, stood near by. I have the impression that most of these things were ironed over, five or six times, as grandmother felt that apparel going away from home could not be too much ironed. Besides, it seemed to her impossible that such an event as Billy’s father setting out on his travels should take place without extra exertions in some quarter.
Mr. Carver had other business which took him from home, but as “going to see Billy” was thoughtenough to tell Mrs. Paulina, why, it is enough for me to tell. “Mrs. Paulina” was an elderly woman, the wife of Mr. John Slade, one of the neighbors, and she was called “Mrs. Paulina,” to distinguish her from several other Mrs. Slades.
Mrs. Paulina had her own opinion as to how money and time should be spent,—everybody’s money and time. She was one of the prying sort, and had wonderful skill in ferreting out all the whys and wherefores of her neighbor’s proceedings. It was a common thing at the Farm to say, when undertaking some new scheme, “Well, how much shall we tell Mrs. Paulina?” It being a matter of course that she would inquire into it. The girls often amused themselves by giving herblindinganswers just to see how she would contrive to carry her point. I remember their having great fun doing this, just after William Henry went away to school. Lucy Maria said ’t was just like a conundrum to Mrs. Paulina, a great mammoth conundrum, and the poor thing must be told about “Old Uncle Wallace,” or she would wear herself out, wondering “how Mr. Carver could possibly afford the money.”
The “Old Uncle Wallace” thus brought to the rescue of Mrs. Paulina would probably not have came to her rescue, or to any woman’s rescue, had he been free to choose, seeing that he lived and died a bachelor, and a stingy bachelor at that! The old miser was a distant uncle,—either half-uncle,or grand-uncle, or half grand-uncle of the Mr. Carvers, and lived, that is before he died, in a town some twenty miles off. Billy’s father was named for Uncle Wallace, and when a little boy, lived in the same neighborhood, and was quite a favorite with him.
The acquaintance with that distant branch of the family, however, had not been kept up, in fact I have no recollection of a single member of it ever coming to the Farm. They were people well to do in the world, and neither Mr. Carver nor Uncle Jacob were men to “honey round” rich relations. Certainly they never would have fawned upon the miserly old fellow, who had the reputation of being mean and tricky as well as miserly.
It seems, however, that “Uncle Wallace” did not wholly forget his namesake, for in his will he left him quite a valuable wood-lot near Corry’s Pond,—some six or eight miles from the Farm,—and a few hundred dollars besides.
This occurred not a great while before my first ride out with Uncle Jacob. Mr. Carver had long felt that Billy was being spoiled at home, and the Crooked Pond School being recommended at that time as “really good,” and “not too expensive,” he resolved that whilefeeling richhe would place his son at that institution. And he was more especially inclined to do so for the reason that an old friend of his lived near there, and this friend’s wife promised to see that the boy did not go about in actual rags. She is probably the person to whom William Henry refers in his first letters, as “the woman I go to have my buttons sewed on to.”
The above circumstances were duly imparted to Mrs. Paulina, yet that perplexed woman got no relief. True, it was something to know where the money came from, but “How could a man,” she asked, “spend so much money on eddication, when it might be drawing interest, or put into land?”
Mrs. Paulina couldn’t guess. She gave it up.
My Dear Grandmother,——
I suppose my father has got home again by this time. I like to have my father come to see me. The boys all say my father is a tip-top one. I guess they like to have a man treat them with so many peanuts and good seed-cakes. I got back here to-day from Dorry’s cousin’s party. My father let me go. I wish my sister could have seen that party. Tell her when I get there I will tell her all about the little girls, and tell her how cunning the little ones, as small as she, looked dancing, and about the good things we had. O, I never saw such good things before! I didn’t know there were such kinds of good things in the world.
Did my father tell you all about that letter that Tom Cush wrote to Dorry? Ask him to. Dorry sent that letter right to Tom Cush’s mother. And when Dorry and I were walking along together the next morning after the party, she was sitting at her window, and as soon as she saw us she said, “Won’t you come in, boys? Do come in!” And looked so glad! And laughed, and about half cried, after we went in, and it was that same room where we went before. But it didn’t seem so lonesome now, not half. It looked about as sunshiny as our kitchen does, and they had flower-vases. I wish I could get some of those pretty seeds for my sister, for she hasn’t got any of that kind of flowers.
She seemed just as glad to see us! And shook hands and looked so smiling, and so did Tom’s father when he came into the room. He had a belt in his hand that Tomused to wear when he used to belong to that Base-ball Club. And when we saw that Dorry said, “Why! has Tom got back?” Tom’s mother said, “O no.” But his father said, “O yes! Tom’s got back. He hasn’t got back to our house, but he’s got back. He hasn’t got back to town, but he’s got back. He hasn’t got back to his own country, but he’s got back. For I call that getting back,” says he, “when a boy gets back to the right way of feeling.”
Then Tom’s mother took that belt and hung it up where it used to be before, for it had been taken down and put away, because they didn’t want to have it make them think of Tom so much.
She said when Tom got back in earnest, back to the house, that we two, Dorry and I, must come there and make a visit, and I hope we shall, for they’ve got a pond at the bottom of their garden, and Tom’s father owns a boat, and you mustn’t think I should tip over, for I sha’ n’t, and no matter if I should, I can swim to shore easy.
Your affectionate grandchild,William Henry.
P.S. Bubby Short didn’t mean to, but he sat down on my speckled straw hat, and we couldn’t get it out even again, and I didn’t want him to, but he would go to buy me a new one, and I went with him, but the man didn’t have any, for he said the man that made speckled straw hats was dead and his shop was burnt down, and we found a brown straw hat, but I wouldn’t let Bubby Short pay any of his money, only eight cents, because I didn’t have quite enough. Don’t shopkeepers have the most money of all kinds of men? Wouldn’t you be a shopkeeperwhen I grow up? It seems just as easy! If you was me would you swap off your white-handled jack-knife your father bought you for a four-blader? My sister said to send some of W. B.’s good things. He wrote a very good composition about heads, the teacher said, and I am going to send it, for that will be sending one of his good things. It’s got in it about two dozen kinds of heads besides our own heads. W. B. is willing for me to copy it off. And Bubby Short wrote a very cunning little one, and if you want to, you may read it. The teacher told us a good deal about heads.
W. H.