OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR
In a minute he came out with a tin pail in his hand, and all the cats
ran after him, and he said, "Shoo, Teddy," and they ran away a little
bit, but came back and mewed and rubbed against his feet. He handed me
the pail across the fence, and I took it, and he said, "A little at a
time, boy." Then he went up to his porch and got a big dish and said,
"Here, Teddy, Teddy," and all the cats ran to him, and he fed them.
I stood watching him, and he said, "Why don't you ease the pump?" and I
said, "If you please, sir, which one of your cats is Teddy?" He said,
"Sho, boy, they're all named Teddy after President Roosevelt, and
because it saves trouble. When I calls, 'Here, Teddy,'--they all comes.
When I calls, 'Shoo, Teddy,'--they all shoos," And I said, "That's the
best idea I ever heard of--for cats."
He said, "Now, boy, you lift the handle of that pump high and throw some
water into her, and then keep a-pumping." And I did, and the water came,
and I pumped up a glassful, but he wouldn't take any.
Then I said I'd fill the pail and bring it round because I'd like to
see his cats close to, and he said, "Never mind the pail, young fellow,
jist hand it over and come round yourself,"
[Illustration: He smoked a pipe, and I played with all his Teddy-cats]
So I did, first calling to Aunty Edith to ask if I might, and she came
to the door and shook hands with him, over the fence, and said, "How do
you do, Mr. Taylor. This is William Gordon, the son of Captain Gordon, I
told you of." Then he said, "Sho, you don't meanter say it! I served
under his grandfather." And Aunty Edith said to me, "William, Mr. Taylor
was a soldier in the army all through the Civil War, and he can tell you
lots about it." So I went over to his house and we sat on his back
porch, and he smoked a pipe, and I played with all his Teddy-cats.
[Illustration]
Mr. Taylor told me he was seventy-three years old, and I said, "My! I'd
never guessed it, you look younger than that"; and he said, "Yes, boy,
I'm stepping along."
Then he told me when he was a boy he worked on one of the canal boats,
and at that time there were many more boats, for most of the freight,
that goes in freight trains now on railroads, came down the canal in
boats. After that he enlisted in the army and went away out West. He
told me when he was young the West was the West, and you could shoot
buffaloes. He knows because he shot them. Then when the Civil War broke
out, he stayed in the army, enlisted again and fought all through it,
and came home with a bullet in his leg.
His father was a cooper and built the stone house Mr. Taylor lives in
for a cooper shop, and that was why it was built so solid and had such
thick walls. He took me into the cellar and showed it to me, for that
was where they set the iron hoops to cool. I asked him who lived with
him in it, and he said he was all alone, everybody was gone, he said,
but him. I told him about my father and mother then, and how I would be
all alone if it wasn't for Uncle Burt, and he said Uncle Burt was a fine
man and a good soldier.
He said he was glad I lived next door. I told him I was glad, too. He
asked me if I went in for any kind of sport like shooting; and I said,
not yet, but I climbed trees, and he said, when his cherries were ripe,
if I didn't make myself sick on Aunty Edith's, I could climb his, when
he was around.
Then I asked him if he would tell me a story about the Civil War, and he
laughed and said the most of them were too full of fighting and sad
things for a little boy like me; and I told him I didn't mind them being
a little bloody; that I wasn't a kindergarten baby.
He laughed some more, and said: "Speaking of climbing trees makes me
think of how near I was to being captured by some rebels once. You know,
boy, Quakers is agin all fighting, so at the beginning of the war, when
we regulars was sent to drill with a lot of new men and knock them into
shape, I was some surprised when fust thing I seen was young Jim Wilton,
whose father I knowed to be a Quaker living on the corner of the same
street where my uncle lived in Phillydelphy.
"I says to him, 'Hullo, Jim, what you doing here?' and he said, 'Well,
Tom, I come here to larn you how to fight.' 'And you a Quaker's son,'
says I. 'Yup,' he says, 'and thee knows that my old folks is none too
pleased; but somehow I couldn't stay home comfortable with all the other
boys fighting to free the blacks, so here I be.'
"Well, I was right glad to see him, and get news of all the old
neighbors, and Jim and me gits very chummy; and when there's a piece of
business needing the attention of one of us, it usually gits the
attention of both. Me and him hunting in couples as it were.
"That's how it come about that one time, there being a bit of spying to
be done, me and Jim finds ourselves in rebel uniforms, waiting and
listening beside a camp-fire outside the rebel Gineral's tent, using our
ears and our eyes too. When up rides Gineral Stuart, who used to be my
commanding officer in the old days before he turnt reb, when he was in
the regular army.
"My! but I was in a terrible taking, for Stuart had a gredge agin me for
somepin I'd done. I'll tell ye about that another day. 'T warn't me was
to blame. But if he onct caught sight of me, it would be short shrift at
the end of the rope.
"So Jim and me begins edging away, until we could get a gait on without
being noticed; and get away we did, and into the woods where our own
clothes were hid; made the change and was getting back to our own
quarters, happy as larks to be on the home road; laughing to think how
near we'd been to Gineral Stuart, without his knowing it; and patting
ourselves on the back at how neatly we'd done the trick, when Jim looks
up and says, 'Hey, Tom, look at them persimmons,' Sure enough, there was
a tree full of the nicest ripe persimmons you ever see, right in
our way.
"Now our rations hadn't been any too full lately and we were pretty nigh
hungry all the time.
"'Tom,' he says, 'I uster be the best tree-climber in the county. I
gotter get me some of those,'
"'Aw, Jim,' I says, 'don't be a fool. The woods may be full of rebels.
I'm full as hungry as you are, but I ain't going to stop for any
persimmons.'
"'Just a handful,' he says, 'and it won't take a minute. Will you wait?'
"'No, I won't,' I says, being so doggoned tired that I knew if I sat
down I'd fall asleep. 'I'm for pushing back to camp, and if you ain't
all kinds of a foolish boy, you'll do the same.'
"So I went on, and Jim, he gives me one look, and then he gives the tree
a squint, and sho! he was off and up it before you could say 'Jack
Robinson.' Climb! well, rather. He was up it in no time, and eating and
slinging the persimmons into his hat. It made me so mad that I just
naturally turned my back and went right on.
"Suddenly I hears a kind of whistle that was our signal--Jim's and
mine--to look out for trouble. So I drops right down and rolls over into
the bushes, and draws them over me, so I can't be seen. Then I lays
quiet and listens.
"I hears voices, and turning my head so softly that the bushes don't
move, I peeps out and sees a party of rebs a-coming down the path.
They'd seen Jim, just after he'd give me his warning, and they lays for
him under the tree, and one of them rebs, who was just as handy at the
climbing as Jim, goes up and brings him down, persimmons and all. The
rebs laugh, and eat his persimmons and take him prisoner and march off;
Jim allowing that he was so hungry that he'd stolen off by his lonesome
to get something to eat. One of the men had heard the whistle Jim gave,
but Jim explaining that he whistled in surprise at seeing them, they
only beats up the bush a little, not coming near me.
[Illustration: "Brings him down, persimmons and all"]
"They go off, with Jim never so much as looking my way, though they
passed so clost to me that the lieutenant's heel scrunched my little
finger. I had to take it without hollering or moving, for if I had
they'd taken me along with Jim. And that's what tree climbing brings a
man to."
"What became of Jim?" I asked.
"Oh, Jim, he was kept a prisoner all through the war, so he never got no
enjoyment out of his life, never seeing a bit of real fighting--just
marching and drilling and prison. So that, as he said, he might just as
well never 'a' run away,--seeing he had to bide a non-combatant, which
is the same as Quaker, after all."
"Then he didn't like it, did he?" I asked.
"No," Mr. Taylor said, laughing, "he didn't. And let this be a warning
to you, young man. Don't you go up a tree for persimmons or cherries or
other fruits whatsomever, agin the advice of your elders and betters."
"No, sir, Mr. Taylor," I said, "I never will."