GEORGE
For a while, I did have a real boy to play with, right in the house. It
happened this way:--
Martha, who is Aunty Edith's colored washerwoman in the city, had a boy
called George, who used to bring the clothes home. He was a little older
than me--twelve years old--and he was always smiling, and his teeth were
white and his eyes shiny. And when his mother wrote Aunty Edith that he
was poorly, Aunty Edith had him sent down for a week--on trial, to stay
in the attic above my room, and do the dishes for the Aunties, and run
errands. He was to stay longer, if it was all right.
I wish it had been, for George was awful funny. He was very obliging,
too, and I liked him. So did Aunty May, for he remembered all the
stories his teachers had told him in school, and he would tell them to
Aunty May and me, when we sat down under the willow trees, and we
just loved it.
What Aunty Edith didn't love was what he did with the green paint. Aunty
Edith had a lot left over in a pot after the kitchen was painted, and
she thought it would be nice to paint the chairs and tables that we used
out of doors.
We used to have breakfast and lunch, and even dinner, out in the little
grapevine-covered back porch, which had a cement floor, level with
the ground.
So just to keep George happy, Aunty Edith gave him that to do. He
commenced it while Aunty May and I were doing lessons, and we could hear
Aunty Edith explaining--Aunty Edith always does the explaining--and
George all the time saying, "Yas, 'm, yas, 'm, Miss Edith." And by and
by Aunty Edith came in and we could hear George whistling and singing.
George did sing awful loud, and funny songs, so you'd have to stop
and listen.
This morning he kept singing something about a man named "Sylvester,"
and he kept singing out the same thing over and over again, till Aunty
May said, "Oh, dear, I can't hear myself speak. Edith, will you quiet
the blackbird?" And Aunty Edith called to George not to sing so loud,
and he said, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith"; and the next minute it began louder
than ever.
Then Aunty Edith went downstairs to tell him to take his work farther
away from the house.
She hadn't been gone a minute till we heard her say, "Oh, good
gracious, what shall I do? Come here, George, and see if you can take it
off." George kept saying, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith, yas, 'm"; and Aunty
Edith was being so very spluttery, that Aunty May and I leaned out the
window, and then we jerked our heads in and Aunty May said, "Don't you
dare laugh out loud, Billy."
Then we looked again, and jerked our heads inside the window every time
we felt the laugh coming on, which was pretty often, for you see George
had put the paint-can, a small one, right on the doorsill, and Aunty
Edith had put her foot in it, and it had caught.
There was Aunty Edith holding on to the grape-arbor while George pulled
at the can, and the paint flowing around pretty free. Well, George
couldn't pull it off, and finally he had to take a can-opener and cut
Aunty Edith's foot out, just as though she were salmon, or something.
When we got to that part, Aunty May and I forgot ourselves and laughed
out loud, and then Aunty Edith looked at us, and looked at her foot, and
at George's black face all daubed with green paint, and his clothes,
too, as he carefully cut her out, and she laughed, too. But it spoiled
her shoe, and it took several days to wear the green off George.
[Illustration: He had to take a can-opener and cut Aunty Edith's foot
out]
That was the too bad part of it. George was so fine for singing and
telling stories and he just couldn't remember to do anything else.
When he went for the mail and the groceries, unless I went with him,
he'd forget everything, and come home just as smiling as ever.
And he was brave, too, for he used to chase the village boys when they
ran after him and called names, and besides that he and I built a lovely
Filipino house up in the biggest willow tree, and had lots of fun,
escaping from two boys at the farm across Rabbit Run Bridge, who chased
us and tried to catch us. We got up in our tree-house and shot at them
with bows and arrows, and they couldn't reach us. I liked having George.
If he'd only stayed funny, without getting dangerous. But George got
dangerous.
It was this way: George and the two boys on the farm, Samuel and Charlie
Crosscup, were having a talk on the middle of Rabbit Run Bridge, about
fire engines. Samuel said the East Penniwell fire engine could get up
steam and run to a fire, with Sol Achers's old white horse hitched to
her, quicker than a New York fire engine could. George and me said it
couldn't. He said, "It could, because why? The East Penniwell horse and
engine were used to the roads and the New York horses and engine would
have to be showed."
I couldn't think of anything to say, but George said, "No, sah. Dat
ain't noways so. For de New York fire engines and horses is so trained
that they goes over any road and anywhere according as the Fire Chief
he directs, and it doan mek no difference whether they've been up
dataways befo' or not They jist naturally eats up all distances."
Well, that made the Crosscup boys mad, and they kept telling all about
the East Penniwell engine house, and my! it must be a lovely place, if
all they say is true. George he told them then about the New York engine
houses, and my! they must be splendid if George really knew. He said he
did. He said his mother's cousin washed for three firemen and she'd
oughter know. I guess she ought to, but George did remember so much
about those things, and forgot so quick about others, that sometimes I
really didn't know what to be sure about.
Well, it began to rain, and George was going to take me home, when one
of the boys said, "Aw, don't go home, yet. Come on into the old barn and
let's play knife until the rain stops."
I guessed we'd ought to go home right away with the bundles and change,
but George said, "On no account can I git you wet. Miss Edith wouldn't
stand for that nohow." So I went with him. And we played knife on the
floor. It was a big empty barn. That is there weren't any cattle in
it, just hay.
It stood a long way from the house, and on a little hill. By and by the
thunder and lightning got quieter, but the rain made it dark, and I
said, "Oh, George, let's go. It's too dark to see in here anyway." But
George wouldn't go until he had finished his game, and when the other
boys said, "It's too dark to play knife any more," George said, "Let's
play robber's cave. I got something in my pocket will make it light." He
took out a box of matches and a candle-end, and said, "Let's stick it up
yere, and then play robbers. This'll be the den"; and he put the candle
into the neck of an old bottle.
I said, "Oh, George, Aunty Edith doesn't let you have matches." George
said, "Look yere, these matches was give me to-day, and this ain't Miss
Edith's barn. If these young gemmun is willing to play in their father's
barn with a candle, you ain't got no call to say anything, has yer?" And
the boys said, "Aw, it's all right. Come on. William ain't yer boss.
He's nothing but a kid anyway."
Well, that made me mad, and I wouldn't play robbers with them, and I
slid down to the barn floor, and went to the door, and looked out to see
if it was getting any lighter. But George, he put on a terrible look,
and began to say, "I'm the King of the Robbers, who's this yere
a-peekin' and a-spyin' in my den?" Then Sam called out, "It's me. I'm
the King of the Pirates, and I've come to take ye bound hand and foot to
my ship. Stand by, men!" "Men" was his brother Charlie, and they made a
dash at George. He danced and flew at them with a stick and called to me
to come and be his man and help him fight 'em off.
I was just running to do it, for it looked like pretty good fun, and the
rain was pretty hard, when somebody knocked the bottle with their foot,
and over it went into a heap of straw, and before the boys could race
back and put it out, the hay was on fire.
Oh, dear! I hope I never see anything like that again. We boys were so
scared at first, we couldn't move, and then, with a yell, the Crosscup
boys ran to tell their father, with me and George after them.
[Illustration: We all worked with hose and everything.]
We only ran a little ways toward the other barn, and then we found an
old bucket, and George yelled to me to get a bit of rope, and we
lowered it into the canal and ran back to throw the water on the fire.
But it was too little, and the fire was too big.
Farmer Crosscup came running with his hired man, and we all worked with
hose and everything, but the barn burned, all but the north wall, and so
fast that though George and I ran and ran for help, and though Mrs.
Crosscup telephoned to town for engines, it was through burning before
they got up.
After this, George had to go. Aunty Edith got him sent to a place for
colored children, where he could have fresh air, and some one to look
after him, but he had to go away from East Penniwell. The farmers said
he was "dangerous." I was sorry and Aunty May was sorry, too, but it
couldn't be helped. George was sorry, too, but at the last minute he
leaned from the wagon and whispered to me, "Anyway, I done proved dat
dere old fire engine wuz too slow."