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WHEN YOU WERE A BOY
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[Illustration: Frontispiece]
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WHEN YOU
WERE A BOY
BY
EDWIN L. SABIN
WITH PICTURES BY
FREDERIC DORR STEELE
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[Illustration: Figure]
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New York
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
33-37 EAST 17TH STREET, UNION SQUARE (NORTH)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1905, by THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
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Published October, 1905
The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
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For permission to republish the following
sketches the author is gratefully indebted
to the Century Magazine, the Saturday Evening
Post, Everybody’s Magazine, and the National
Magazine.
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CONTENTS
❦
PAGE
I The Match Game 11
II You at School 39
III Chums 65
IV In the Arena 91
V The Circus 111
VI When You Ran Away 135
VII Goin’ Fishin’ 155
VIII In Society 179
IX Middleton’s Hill 195
X Goin’ Swimmin’ 219
XI The Sunday-School Picnic 239
XII The Old Muzzle-Loader 257
XIII A Boy’s Loves 277
XIV Noon 297
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THE MATCH GAME
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[Illustration: “YOU”]
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WHEN YOU WERE A BOY
THE MATCH GAME
“OUR” NINE
Billy Lunt, c
Fat Day, p
Hen Schmidt, 1b
Bob Leslie, 2b
Hod O’Shea, 3b
Chub Thornbury, ss
Nixie Kemp, lf
Tom Kemp, rf
“You,” cf.
“THEIR” NINE
Spunk Carey, c
Doc Kennedy, p
Screw Major, 1b
Ted Watson, 2b
Red Conroy, 3b
Slim Harding, ss
Pete Jones, lf
Tug McCormack, rf
Ollie Hansen, cf
We: 5 9 9 8—31
They: 11 14 9 16—50
FAT DAY was captain and pitcher. He was captain because, if he was
_not_, he wouldn’t play, and inasmuch as he owned the ball, this would
have been disastrous; and he was pitcher because he was captain.
In the North Stars were other pitchers—seven of them! The only member
who did not aspire to pitch was Billy Lunt, and as catcher he occupied a
place, in “takin’ ’em off the bat,” too delightfully hazardous for him
to surrender, and too painful for anybody else to covet.
[Illustration: FAT DAY]
The organization of the North Stars was effected through verbal
contracts somewhat as follows:
“Say, we want you to be in our nine.”
“All right. Will you lemme pitch?”
“Naw; Fat’s pitcher, ’cause he’s captain; but you can play first.”
“Pooh! _Fat_ can’t pitch—”
“I can, too. I can pitch lots better’n _you_ can, anyhow.” (This from
Fat himself.)
“W-well, I’ll play first, then. I don’t care.”
Thus an adjustment was reached.
A proud moment for you was it when _your_ merits as a ball-player were
recognized, and you were engaged for center-field. Of course, secretly
you nourished the strong conviction that you were cut out for a pitcher.
Next to pitcher, you preferred short-stop, and next to short-stop, first
base. But these positions, and pretty much everything, in fact, had been
preempted; so, after the necessary haggling, you accepted center-field.
Speedily the North Star make-up was complete, and disappointed
applicants—those too little, too big, too late, or not good enough—were
busy sneering about it.
[Illustration: BILLY LUNT]
The equipment of the North Star Base-Ball Club consisted of Fat’s
“regular league” ball, six bats (owned by various members, and in some
cases exercising no small influence in determining fitness of the same
for enlistment as recruits), and four uniforms.
Mother made your uniform. To-day you wonder how, amidst darning your
stockings and patching our trousers and mending your waists, she ever
found time in which to supply you with the additional regalia which,
according to your pursuits of the hour, day after day you insistently
demanded. But she always did.
[Illustration: SPUNK CAREY]
The uniform in question was composed of a pair of your linen
knickerbockers with a red tape tacked along the outside seam, and a huge
six-pointed blue flannel star, each point having a buttonhole whereby it
was attached to a button, corresponding, on the breast of your waist.
And was there a cap, or did you wear the faithful old straw? Fat Day,
you recollect, had a cap upon the front of which was lettered his
rank—“Captain.” It seems as though mother made you a cap, as well as the
striped trousers and breastplate. The cap was furnished with a
tremendously deep vizor of pasteboard, and was formed of four segments,
two white and two blue, meeting in the center of the crown.
All in all, the uniform was perfectly satisfactory; it was distinctive,
and was surpassed by none of the other three.
Evidently the mothers of five of the North Stars did not attend to
business, for their sons played in ordinary citizen’s attire of hats,
and of waists and trousers unadorned save by the stains incidental to
daily life.
The North Stars must have been employed for a time chiefly in parading
about and seeking whom they, as an aggregation, might devour, but as a
rule failing, owing to interfering house-and-yard duties, all to report
upon any one occasion. The contests had been with “picked nines,” “just
for fun” (meaning that there was no sting in defeat), when on a sudden
it was breathlessly announced from mouth, to mouth that “the
Second-street kids want to play us.”
[Illustration: HEN SCHMIDT]
“Come on!” responded, with a single valiant voice, the North Stars.
“We’re goin’ to play a match game next Tuesday,” you gave out, as a bit
of important news, at the supper-table.
“That so?” hazarded father, who had been flatteringly interested in your
blue star. “Who’s the other nine?”
“The Second-street fellows. Spunk Carey’s captain and—”
“Who is _Spunk_ Carey? Oh, Johnny, what outlandish names you boys do
rake up!” exclaimed mother.
“Why, he’s Frank Carey the hardware man’s boy,” explained father,
indulgently. “What’s his first name, John?”
[Illustration: CHUB THORNBURY]
“I dunno,” you hurriedly owned; “Spunk” had been quite sufficient for
all purposes. “But we’re goin’ to play in the vacant lot next to Carey’s
house. There’s a dandy diamond.”
So there was. The Carey side fence supplied a fine back-stop, and thence
the grounds extended in a superb level of dusty green, broken by burdock
clumps and interspersed with tin cans. The lot was bounded on the east
by the Carey fence, on the south and west by a high walk, and on the
north by the alley. It was a corner lot, which made it the more
spacious.
The diamond itself had been laid out, in the beginning, with proportions
accommodated to a pair of rocks that would answer for first and second
base; a slab dropped where third ought to be, and another dropped for
the home plate, finished the preliminary work, and thereafter scores of
running feet, shod and unshod, had worn bare the lines, and the spots
where stood pitcher, catcher, and batter.
A landscape architect might have passed criticism on the ensemble of the
plat, and a surveyor might have taken exceptions to the configuration of
the diamond, but who cared?
[Illustration: DOC KENNEDY]
“We” had promised that “we” would be there, ready to play, at two
o’clock, and “they” had solemnly vowed that “they” would be as prompt.
Tuesday’s dinner you gulped and gobbled; in those days your stomach was
patient and charitable almost beyond belief in this degenerate present.
It was imperative that you be at Carey’s lot immediately, and despite
the imploring objections of the family to your reckless haste, you
bolted out; and as you went you drew upon your left hand an old
fingerless kid glove, which was of some peculiar service in your
center-field duties.
[Illustration: RED CONROY]
Your uniform had been put on upon arising that morning. You always wore
it nowadays except when in bed or on Sundays. It was your toga of the
purple border, and the bat that you carried from early to late, in your
peregrinations, was your scepter mace.
At your unearthly yodel, from next door rushed out your crony, Hen
Schmidt, and joined you; and upon your way to the vacant lot you picked
up Billy Lunt and Chub Thornbury.
The four of you succeeded in all talking at once: the Second-streets
were great big fellows; their pitcher was Doc Kennedy and it wasn’t
fair, because he threw as hard as he could, and he was nearly sixteen;
Hop Hopkins said he’d be “empire”; Red Conroy was going to play, and he
always was wanting to fight; darn it—if Fat only wouldn’t pitch, but let
somebody else do it! Bob Leslie could throw an awful big “in,” etc.
The fateful lot dawned upon the right, around the corner of an alley
fence. Hurrah, there they are! You see Nixie and Tom Kemp, and Hod
O’Shea, and Bob Leslie, and Spunk, and Screw Major, and Ted Watson, and
Slim Harding, and the redoubtable Red Conroy (engaged in bullying a
smaller boy), and others who must be the remainder of the
Second-streets.
[Illustration: OLLIE HANSEN]
“Hello, kids,” you say, and likewise say your three companions; and with
bat trailing you stalk with free and easy dignity into the crowd.
“Where’s Fat? Who’s seen Fat?” asked everybody of everybody; for Captain
Fat was the sole essential personage lacking. However, even without him,
pending his arrival the scene was one of stirring animation.
Thick and fast flew here and there the several balls on the grounds,
each nine keeping to itself, and each boy throwing “curves”—or, at
least, thus essaying.
You yourself, brave in your splendor of blue star and red stripe,
endeavored, by now and then negligently catching with one hand, to make
it plain that you were virtually a professional.
[Illustration: BOB LESLIE]
The Second-streets were as yet ununiformed, even in sections. But they
were a rugged, rough-and-ready set, and two of them had base-ball shoes
on, proving that they were experts.
“Here’s Fat! Here comes Fat!” suddenly arose the welcoming cry; and
appareled in his regimentals, his cap announcing to all beholders his
high rank, panting, hot, perspiring, up hustled the leader of the North
Stars.
It was time to begin.
“Who’s got a ball?” demanded Umpire Hopkins, sometimes called Harry, but
more generally known as Hop or Hoptoad.
The query disclosed a serious condition. Balls there were, but not
suitable for a championship match game. They were ten- and
fifteen-centers, as hard as grapeshot or already knocked flabby.
“Where’s your ball, Fat?” you asked incautiously.
“In my pocket,” admitted Fat—a bulging fact that he could not well deny.
[Illustration: PETE JONES]
“What is it? Le’ ’s see, Fat,” demanded Captain Spunk.
“It’s a regular dollar league,” you informed glibly; and Fat, with
mingled pride and reluctance, extracted it from the pocket of his
knickerbockers,—peeled it, so to speak, into the open,—and handed it out
for inspection.
“Gee!” commented Spunk, thumbing it, and chucking it up and catching it.
“It’s a dandy! Come on, kids; here’s a ball!”
“But if you use my ball, you’ve got to give us our outs,” bargained Fat,
dismayed.
[Illustration: HOD O’SHEA]
“G’wan!” growled Red Conroy. “Don’t you do it, Spunk. ‘Tain’t goin’ to
hurt his old ball any.”
Awed by the ever-belligerent Red, Fat submitted to the customary lot by
bat. Spunk tossed a bat at him, and he caught it, with an elaborate show
of method, about the middle; then with alternate hands they proceeded to
cover it upward to the end.
The last hand for which there was space was Fat’s; by no manner of means
could Spunk squeeze his grimy fist into the two inches left.
“We’ll take our outs,” majestically asserted Captain Fat; whereat
whooped shrilly all the North Stars, and quite regardless of their
affiliations whooped shrilly the spectators also, composed of small
brothers and a few friends about equally divided between the contestant
nines.
Some preliminaries were yet to be gone through with. Doc Kennedy was
protested because he pitched so swift.
“Aw, _I_ won’t throw hard,” he assured bluffly.
“Of course not! _He’s_ easy to hit,” chorused his companions.
Then, in view of the fact that Billy Lunt had a sore finger, as
evidenced by a cylinder of whitish rag (which he slipped off,
obligingly, whenever solicited), it was agreed that he be allowed to
catch the third strike on the first bounce.
[Illustration: SCREW MAJOR]
A foul over the back-stop fence was out; a like penalty was attached to
flies over the boundary walks.
And now, turning hand-springs and otherwise gamboling exultantly, the
North Stars scattered to their respective positions.
Away out in center-field you prepared to guard your territory. You bent
over, with your hands upon your knees, and ever and anon you spat
fiercely, sometimes upon the ground and sometimes into your kid glove.
This was the performance of the players upon the town’s nine, the Red
Stockings and evidently greatly added to their efficiency.
[Illustration: TED WATSON]
Besides, on the edge of the walk just back of you were sitting and
swinging their slim legs two little girls, whom it was pleasant to
impress.
Overhead the sun was blazing hot, but not to you; underfoot the dust
from a long dry spell lay choking thick, but not to you; a
“darning-needle” whizzed past, and you scarcely ducked, although he
might be bent upon sewing up your ears. Your work was too stern to admit
of your noticing sun, or dust, or mischievous dragon-fly. So you spat
into your glove, replaced your hands on your knees, and waited. “Hello,
Johnny!” piped one of the little girls; but you deigned not to make
answer.
To right and to left were the Kemp boys, with their hands upon _their_
knees; and before were the infielders, with their hands likewise upon
_their_ knees; that is, all except the pitcher.
[Illustration: SLIM HARDING]
“Play ball!” gruffly bade the umpire.
Captain Spunk advanced to the slab.
“Gimme a low ball,” he ordered, sticking out his bat to indicate the
proper height that would meet his wishes.
Captain Fat rolled the ball rapidly between his palms, and thus having
imparted to it what he fondly believed was a mysterious twist, hurled
it.
“One ball!” cried the umpire.
Captain Spunk banged the slab with his bat.
“Aw, gimme a low ball over the plate!” he urged.
Again the pitcher rubbed twist into the sphere, and out in center—field
you hung upon his motions.
“One strike!” declared the umpire, and a great shout of derision arose
from the North Stars and their adherents.
[Illustration: TOM KEMP]
Captain Fat smiled wickedly: the unfortunate batter was being fooled by
those deceptive curves.
“What did you strike at that fer—’way up over yer head!” censured Red
Conroy, angrily.
“Darn it! gimme a good low ball! You’re ’fraid to!” challenged Captain
Spunk.
Whack! He had hit it. Right between Short-stop Chub’s legs it darted,
and you and left-field together stopped it, but too late to prevent the
runner’s reaching first.
Chub came in for a tongue-lashing from all sides; and then Spunk stole
second, and Billy threw over Bob’s head there (at the same time throwing
the rag cylinder, also, half-way to the pitcher’s box), and you
desperately fielded the ball in, and Fat got it, and threw over Hod’s
head at third, and to the wild cries of “Home! Home! Sock her home!”
Nixie got it and threw it at Billy; but nevertheless Spunk, spurred on
by the frantic exhortations of his fellows, panting “Tally one!” crossed
the slab.
Triumphantly cheered the Second—streets, and busily flashed the
jack-knife of each spectator as he cut a tally-notch in a stick.
Billy ran forward and reclaimed his precious rag.
[Illustration: NIXIE KEMP]
Ten more tallies were recorded before the half-inning closed. The whole
North Star nine was red from running after the ball and disputing with
the umpire—disputes into which everybody on the ground had earnestly
entered. Red Conroy had threatened to “smash” several North Stars, you
among them; Catcher Billy had long since witnessed his cylinder trampled
into the diamond and ruined; Captain Fat had tried all the most deadly
twists in his repertoire; when, finally, hot and irritated, you and
yours had come in.
And now, reminding Pitcher Doc that he had promised not to throw hard,
Billy stepped to the plate, to hit, to reach first, daringly to steal
second, foolishly to be caught between bases, successfully to dash past
Red, who endeavored to trip him, and out of the confusion safely to
attain third, whence soon he galloped home, and tallied.
“’Leven to five!” declared the sprawling spectators, every one a
score-keeper, to each other, as at last in scampered the Second-streets
and out lagged the North Stars.
You had not batted, and you were relieved, because batting was a great
responsibility, with your critical fellows advising you, and castigating
you whenever you missed.
In this their next inning the Second-streets made fourteen!
Notwithstanding Fat’s utmost art, as signified by his various occult
motions, they batted him only too easily, and kept infield and outfield
chasing all over the lot. Yet he angrily refused to “let somebody else
pitch.” Bob Leslie even attempted to take the ball away from him and
forcibly trade places—a mutiny which called forth an “Aw, g’wan an’ play
ball, you kids!” from the waiting batter, Screw Major.
“Why don’t you fellows stop some of them grounders, then?” retorted Fat
to derogatory accusations. “Gee whiz! You don’t stop nothin’!”
Thus it resolved into a question of whether ’t was not stopping, or
having o’ermuch to stop, that brought disaster.
It was your turn. You faced the mighty Doc. He threw, and the ball came
like a cannon—shot, you thought.
“You’re throwin’ swift!” you remonstrated.
“Shut up!” sneered Red, from third. “Who’s a—throwin’ swift? Give him
one in the head, Doc!”
Blindly you struck, and the condemnations of your mentors squatting
anear raked you fore and aft.
Quite unexpectedly you hit it. You did not know where it went, but you
scudded for first.
“Second! Second!” gesticulating frantically, bawled all your companions,
coaching you onward.
“Second! Second!” bawled with equal fervor your opponents, coaching the
fielder.
You grabbed off your cap,—it is strange how much faster a boy can run
when thus assisted,—and madly dug for second. Praise be! There you were,
beating the ball, which appeared from a mysterious somewhere, by a
hair’s-breadth.
You stuck to second, meanwhile dancing and prancing to tantalize the
pitcher, until another hit forwarded you to third, for which you slid,
not because it was absolutely necessary to slide, but because the slide
was a part of the game.
Here, at third, while you were dreaming of the home slab, and the honor
of admonishing, hoarsely, for the information of the world, “Tally me!”
Red, the ruthless, abruptly gave you a shove, hurling you from position.
“Quick, Doc!” he cried.
Doc responded with the ball.
“Out!” decreed the umpire.
“But he shoved me! He shoved me off the base!” you shrieked.
“_Who_ shoved yer? I didn’t, neither! G’wan! Yer out; don’t you hear the
empire?” snarled back Red.
“You did, too!” you asserted.
“He did, too! No fair! He shoved him like everything!” vociferated all
the North Stars and their supporters.
“You’re out! You’re out!” gibed the Second-streets, from catcher to
farthest fielder.
“Out!” majestically pronounced the umpire again.
Slowly, obedient to the higher authority represented in the
freckled-faced Hoptoad, you walked down the base-line. In some way,
apparently, you had disgraced your blue star, begrimed from your manful
slide, for “Why did you let him touch you?” accused your comrades.
The idea! How could you help it, you’d like to know.
* * * * *
It was the first half of the fifth inning. The score, according to the
notches on the sticks, was fifty to thirty-one, in favor of the
Second-streets. Those spectators who had exercised the forethought to
start with long sticks were in clover, while those with short sticks
were having hard work to find space for all the runs.
The sun was not so high as when the game began, neither were your
spirits. Much excited chasing, and much strenuous yelling, had told upon
you. Your face was streaked; your hair was in dank disorder; your blue
star flapped, and your waistband sagged behind, mourning for departed
buttons. You were what mothers style “a perfect sight.”
The air had been rent by incessant wranglings. Tom Kemp and Screw Major
had indulged in a brief rough-and-tumble, because Screw had thought that
Tom had purposely trodden upon his sore toe, Screw injudiciously being
barefoot.
Every member of the North Stars had committed egregious errors, and had
been tartly excoriated by all hands. You yourself had muffed, and had
thrown the ball seven ways for Sunday.
Fat was still doggedly clinging to pitch, and Doc was throwing swift.
The two little girls, once your admirers, had gone away in disgust. And
the score, as remarked above, was fifty to thirty-one.
Tug McCormack it was who picked out one of Fat’s wonderful twisters and
batted it over your head. After it you raced, deliriously discarding, of
course, your sadly abused cap, that you might gain in speed. Behind you
bellowed friends and enemies, and around the bases was pelting Tug.
Where was the ball—oh, where _was_ it! It must have struck a can or
stick, and bounded crooked.
“Hurry! Hurry!” exhorted the Second-streets to Tug.
“Home! Home! Home with it!” exhorted the North Stars to you.
“Pick it up now and look for it afterward!” yelled second base.
“What’s the matter with you? It’s right there!” yelled Captain Fat.
“Darn it! Ain’t you got eyes?” yelled left-field, and “You darned fool!”
yelled right-field, converging from each side.
“Lost ball!” you screamed, tramping hither and thither to show that you
spoke truth.
“Lost ball!” screamed the Kemp brothers.
“Lost ball! Lo-o-ost ba-a-all!” chimed in the North Stars generally.
But Tug had scored.
“No fair!” objected Billy Lunt. “He’s got to go back to second. Lost
ball! Don’t you hear? Lost ball!”
“I don’t care. ’Tain’t my fault,” confuted Tug.
“Course not!” said Captain Spunk, scornfully.
“But you can’t come in on a lost ball; can he, Hop?” appealed Billy to
the umpire.
“Shut up! What yer talkin’ about? Course he can,” affirmed Red.
“Shut up yourself!” hotly bade Billy. “_You_ aren’t runnin’ the game.
Can he, Hop?”
“I dunno!” confessed Umpire Hop, digging with his toe at a mound of
dirt.
“Ya-a-a-a-ah!” sneered Red at the discomfited Billy.
“Well, he can’t just the samee!” resolved Captain Fat. “It’s my ball.”
“Just the samee, he can!” contradicted Captain Spunk. “It’s my father’s
lot.”
“Lost ball! Lo-o-ost ba-a-all!” you and Nixie and Tom had been calling
as unceasingly as the tolling of a bell; and continuing the discussion,
which abated never, the members of both nines, and the spectators, who
also were the score-keepers, scattered over the ground to assist in the
search.
It seemed that no effort or artifice, even to lying down and rolling
where the weeds were thick, could bring to light that ball, until
suddenly piped little Jamie Watson:
“Red Conroy’s runnin’ off!”
“He’s got it, I bet you! Hey! Stop, thief!” hailed Tom, quickly.
“Drop that ball! Stop, thief!” swelled the chorus.
But down the alley legged Red, and disappeared over a fence. Evidently
he had “got it.”
“Wait till I catch him!” promised Fat, in deep, wrathful tones.
* * * * *
You ought to have been very tired that evening at the supper-table, but
you were not, for in those days you never were tired, save momentarily.
However, you still were green and brown in spots that your hurried
washing had not touched, and dusty in other sections that your equally
hurried brushing had omitted. Your face was as red as a setting sun, and
you were full of experiences—a fulness that did not in the slightest
impair your appetite.
“Who beat?” had inquired mother, as you had come trudging in.
“We only played four innin’s, and they were fifty and we were
thirty-one, and then Red Conroy stole the ball,” you explained.
“Well, who beat?” asked father, at the table.
“Nobody did,” you stated, this solution having occurred to you. “We
didn’t finish, ’cause Red Conroy he ran off with the ball.”
“But what was the score when this happened?” pursued father.
“Fifty to thirty-one—but it was only four innings,” you answered, with a
wriggle.
“And who made the fifty?” persisted father, ignoring mother’s warning
frown.
“They—they did,” you blurted; and then you hastened to add, “But they’re
lots bigger’n us.”
[Illustration: TUG MCCORMACK]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
YOU AT SCHOOL
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: “I WANT TO GET UP”]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
YOU AT SCHOOL
NOW and again you dream one special dream. Suddenly you find yourself
back in school. There you are, a great awkward man, squeezing into the
old familiar seat and essaying some strangely mixed-up lesson. And about
you are the mates of yore, who have not, apparently, grown a bit.
Although they seem not to notice anything peculiar in your presence,
nevertheless your position is decidedly embarrassing to you. You feel
that you must mind the teacher, of course, and yet you cannot, for the
life of you, get that lesson! What a gawk you are! And how in the world
are you ever going to stand this awful reversal?
Then you awaken, and with a sigh of relief discover yourself, in the
gray of the morning, safely brought down to date, in your bed.
And once more you sigh, but this time not in relief. It is a sigh
tenderly laid by retrospection upon the urn of the past.
In your dream the schoolroom was unusually small, and your seat was
constricted to the extent that your knees were tightly pressed against
the under side of the desk, while the edge of it was creasing your
stomach. However, probably it was not that the room and the seat had
shrunk; it was that you had expanded beyond limits.
In the days when it was quite proper that you should be in school, the
room was extensive indeed, and the seat was ample for innumerable
wriggles. For instance, it permitted you to slide down until, reaching
forward with your two feet, you engaged the insteps of Billy Lunt, and
hauling back with all your might, deliciously held him so that he could
move only from the waist upward. Abruptly you released him, and his feet
dropped with a big thump that made the teacher frown.
This seat and desk was your little state, surrounded by other little
states similar to it, and all ruled by “teacher,” who, like some Pallas
Athena, from her Olympia platform surveyed and appraised, bade and
forbade.
Your state was bounded on the rear by Snoopie Mitchell’s, on the front
by Billy Lunt’s, on the right and the left by a river, or aisle, such as
at regular intervals divided the country and opened up the interior to
travel.
This was a country of equal suffrage; some of the states were feminine,
some were masculine. All, but especially the masculine, were liable to
internal troubles, produced through external agencies.
As example, the bent pin was an indefatigable disturber of the peace. It
would intrude at the slightest opportunity, and the first thing that you
knew it was in your midst—almost literally. The canny explored their
seat of state (or their state of seat, if preferred) with their hands,
before venturing to settle for the pursuance of routine duties.
Poor, long-suffering Billy Lunt (yet poor you, as well; for although you
are behind him, the mischievous Snoopie is behind _you_)! Down he
plumps, and up he jumps with a wild “Yow!” at which your whole being
exults even while your heart beats uneasily. You descry, where he is
frantically clutching, the steely glint of _it_!
“Will, sit down!” thunders the teacher.
This, forsooth, is adding insult to injury; for had he been able to sit,
assuredly he would not thus have arisen. In a moment he cautiously,
gingerly obeys, at the same time holding into sight the pin, as though
it were a monstrosity, so that all must see.
To “yow” very loudly, and to expose the cause with great ostentation to
the utmost publicity, was the resort of every pin-afflicted petty ruler.
“John, did you put that pin on Will’s seat?” demands the teacher.
[Illustration: TEACHER]
The wave of sniggers that had swelled during Billy’s antics ebbs and
dies, and all the world listens for your reply.
With the frankest astonishment—astonishment that ought to have
completely turned suspicion—you have been gazing at the Lunt
performance. Has he gone crazy? What can ail him? Who could have done it
to him?
This simulated wonder is _your_ part of the program—your voluntary part,
that is.
“John, I ask you if you put that pin there,” reiterates the persistent
examiner, judge, and executioner.
And now that the glamour of the deed has faded, how you wish that you
had _not_! For the voluntary part of the program is always followed by
an involuntary part.
All in all, the possession of a state in these united states is fraught
with peril. So much is prohibited. It is unlawful to have a poor memory
or a dull brain or a careless tongue; it is unlawful to carry on
intercourse, either written or oral or by signs, with neighbor states;
it is unlawful to import articles for consumption—such as cinnamon
drops, or lemon drops, or jujube, or licorice; while to import gum is a
capital offense.
Nevertheless, gum is imported and secreted by being stuck to the inner
surface of the desk-top, thence to be peeled off at recess and at
closing-time, and chewed. Sometimes it is forgotten, and the janitor
contemptuously scrapes it to the floor for his dust-heap, or a successor
to you rapturously finds it. Whenever one moves into a new state, one
runs a pleasurable chance of discovering a gum-deposit.
The principal penalties are “stayin’-after-school,” “gettin’-sent-home,”
and “lickin’s.”
It is the close of a day in this despotic monarchy, and the despot has
tapped her bell for books to be put away. The next tap will mean
dismissal; but between taps comes the allotment of punishments.
You reflect—and regret. There was once during the day when you asked
Billy Lunt if he had “the first example.” You whispered it very
circumspectly, but the unruly sibilants in your tones somehow spread
into the open. “Teacher” pricked her ears in your direction, and with
her pencil she apparently made a memorandum upon her ready slip.
Was it your name she jotted? Or was it Billy’s? He was in the act of
showing you his slate. You are ungenerous enough to hope that it was
Billy’s.
In the meantime you hold your breath (as, in similar anxiety, round
about you do your compatriots, save the goody-goodies and the “teacher’s
pets,” whose names never are read) and listen.
The kids are going swimming; the signal has been passed along. You have
set your heart upon going with them. Consequently, never have you felt
so repentant, so full of high resolves and the best intentions, and your
appealing gaze might well have moved a stone, to say nothing of a
teacher.
“Those whose names I read may remain,” she announces calmly: “Sam
Jessup, Dolly Smith, Horace Brown, Leonard Irving, Patrick Conroy, Olga
Jansen, _John Walker_!”
[Illustration: “STAYIN’-AFTER-SCHOOL”]
Crushed, you hear the second tap; freed, the others rise; out they file,
but you stay behind—you and a few companions in misery scattered at wide
intervals through the nearly deserted room.
From without sound gay shouts and laughter, growing fainter and fainter,
and dying in the distance.
You are marooned.
“Take your books and go to work at some lesson!” orders the teacher.
Maybe, if you strive hard and obediently, she will let you go soon. Some
of the prisoners shuffle angrily, and rebelliously bang things about in
their desks; but you promptly open your geography, and hoping that her
eye is noting you, pretend to apply yourself to its text. Silence falls,
broken only by the measured _tick-tock_ of the clock on the wall.
Presently you glance up. Five minutes have passed. “Teacher,” with eyes
fastened upon her desk, is engaged in correcting a quantity of
exercises. She seems to pay not the slightest attention to the clock.
You give a weary little shuffle—your first—and turn a page.
Two more minutes. Even yet you could catch the kids. How good you are!
But, blame it, what is the sense, if she does not notice?
_Tick-tock, tick-tock_, repeats the monitor on the wall, checking off
the wasted moments.
Ten minutes! Is she going to keep you all night? Doesn’t she see what
time it is getting to be? You make a lot of noise, to warn her; but she
never looks. For all that is evident, she might have forgotten the
existence of you and everybody else. She simply goes on reading and
marking.
Twelve minutes. You raise your hand. You keep it raised. You shuffle
some more, and you cough, and you shuffle again.
“Well, John, what is it?” she vouchsafes in a tired voice.
She has heard you all the time, but you don’t know it. Neither do you
know that she has been reading you while reading scrawly exercises.
“How long do I have to stay?”
“Until I tell you you may go.”
Fifteen minutes. You throw off your hypocritical sainthood, and you
lapse into your genuine boiling, raging self. Darn her. Darn the
teacher! Darn the old teacher! What does she care about going swimming?
She just wants to keep a fellow in! You’ll show her sometime! And you
shuffle and scrape and kick and bang, and she apparently pays not the
least heed to it.
The darned old thing (although, in truth, she is _not_ old, save in boy
eyes and in boy ways)!
Twenty minutes! Darn the—
“You may go now, Johnny.”
She cuts your condemnatory sentence right in the middle; and not
finishing it, you hastily throw the geography into your desk, and make
for the door. On your way you dart a glance at her, wondering if she
knows what names you have been calling her. She smiles at you, and you
feel rather sheepish.
After all, you have time for a swim, delightfully prefaced by throwing
mud at the whole crowd in ahead of you.
Staying-after-school is a penalty for misdemeanors; for crimes there is
“gettin’-sent-home”—not bad at all until you get there, furnishing, as
it does, a vacation—and “lickin’s,” which sounds worse than it really
is.
“Lickin’s” don’t hurt half the time. Never would a boy admit, outside,
that a licking hurt; he “bellered just for fun”! The fact is, lots of
the kids declared they had rather take a licking than be kept after
school, for a licking was soon over, and then you were through.
But by virtually unanimous vote the kids all asserted that they had
rather be licked, any day, or stay after school for a whole month, than
“speak.”
It is Friday afternoon—a fateful Friday when sashes and squeaky shoes
and slicked hair and significantly arrayed chairs herald “speaking day.”
And you are among the elect, as testify your red tie without and your
uneasy heart within.
Early the books are put away, and with the clearing of the desks are
cleared also the metaphorical decks.
A bustle is heard at the threshold, and in come the first of the
visitors—a pair of mothers. Whose mothers they are is speedily indicated
by the flaming ears of a very red girl and a very red boy, at whom, as
the intelligence spreads, all the school looks.
The mothers rustle chairward, settle into place, and smilingly wait.
Another bustle! More visitors! Out of the corner of your eye you slant
one apprehensive glance in their direction, and then you quickly turn
your head the other way. It is _your_ mother. You felt it even before
Snoopie gave you a painful telegraphic kick. She has come. She said that
she might. You have been alternately hoping and fearing. Now you know.
In impish ecstasy Snoopie keeps dealing you irritating jabs. _His_
mother _never_ comes.
Teacher moves from the platform and seats herself at one side. It is the
final preparation. In her hand she holds the list of prospective
performers, and somewhere adown it is your name.
You would give worlds to know just where—just whom you follow. The chief
agony attached to the afternoon is in the racking uncertainty as to when
one will be called upon. The nearer the top of the list, the better, for
thereafter one will be free to revel in the plight of others. But to be
reserved until toward the last, and to sit in a cold sweat through most
of the afternoon—ah, this is the suspense that fairly curls one’s toes!
Listen! She is going to read.
“Harry Wilson. Recitation: ‘George Nidiver.’”
Amid oppressive silence Harry clumps up the aisle, and stumbling
miserably on the platform step receives a tribute of grateful titters.
Teacher taps rebukingly with her pencil, and frowns. Harry bobs his head
for a bow, and, white and blinky, proceeds:
“Men have done brave deeds,
And bards have sung them well:
I of good George Nidiver
Now the tale will tell.
“In California mountains
A hunter bold was he:
Keen his eye and sure his aim
As any you should see.
“A little Indian boy
Followed him everywhere,
Eager to share the hunter’s joy,
The hunter’s meal to share.”
You would bask the more unrestrictedly in Harry’s presence did you not
see in him your unlucky self; and while he is speaking you feverishly go
over and over parts of your own piece.
As Harry approaches the end, his pace grows faster and faster, until at
a gallop he dashes through the concluding stanza, offers a second bob in
lieu of other punctuation, long lacking, and clumps back to his seat,
where he grins rapturously, as if he had at last had a tooth pulled.
[Illustration: “NINA GOTTLOB. COMPOSITION: ‘KINDNESS’”]
How you envy Harry’s light-heartedness as with bated breath you strain
your ears for the next announcement!
This proves to be “Nina Gottlob. Composition: ‘Kindness.’” After Nina
somebody else, not you, is summoned; and thus name after name is read,
with you hanging on by your very eyebrows, before, at the most
unexpected moment, come to you, like the crack o’ doom, the words:
“_Johnny Walker_. Recitation: ‘The Soldier of the Rhine.’”
The teacher looks at you expectantly. Snoopie trips you as you tower
into the aisle. Oh, the tremendous distance which you, all feet and
arms, traverse in getting to the platform! You mount; and here you
stand, a giant, and bow. Away below, and stretching into space remote,
are faces of friends and enemies—the ones (mostly those of little girls)
gravely staring at you, and the others twisted into hideous grimaces
calculated to make you laugh. As in a dream you witness your mother
gazing up at you with beaming, prideful, but withal anxious eye.
Very vacant-headed, you drag from your throat a thin stranger voice
which says:
“A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears,”
and mechanically maintains the narrative for some moments, and then on a
sudden peters out!
You cast about for something with which to start it up again, but you
light upon nothing. All the faces in front watch you curiously,
amusedly, grinningly. Helpless, you look in the direction of Billy Lunt,
upon whose desk, as you passed, you had laid the book, that he might
prompt you, if necessary.
Billy has lost the place, and is desperately running his forefinger
adown the page.
“‘Tell my mother that her other sons—’” presently he assists, in husky
tones; and, as if set in motion by the vibrations, your voice, with an
apologetic “Oh, yes,” goes ahead once more.
“‘Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age,
For I was ay a truant bird, that thought his home a cage;
For my father was a soldier—’”
And so forth.
Several times it stops again, but Billy sits alert to fill in each
hiatus; and vastly relieved in mind you triumphantly regain your seat,
only to ascertain, to your disgust, that you are the last of the
afternoon’s victims.
Escape from this despotism of school, with its penalties and speaking
and other disagreeable features, which combined to outweigh any possible
advantages or profit, was always engaging in prospect, although apt to
be unsatisfactory in realization.
You longed to be a man. You wondered how it would seem to walk about
paying no attention whatsoever to the old bell. Were the people outside
the school aware of their fortunate state? Gee!
[Illustration: “‘A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION LAY DYING IN ALGIERS’”]
It was an odd fact that in the week the finest and most interesting
days, out of doors, habitually were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday—and Sunday. The best fishing invariably came on
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—and Sunday. You always felt
the most like having fun on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday—and Sunday. What was measly little Saturday, eclipsed so by these
other days all-glorious without!
If your folks were only like Snoopie’s folks you could play hooky once
in a while. Snoopie asserted that his father “didn’t care.” Yours
did—very much.
The sole recourse which remained for you was being sick; and insomuch as
the real article was annoyingly scarce with you, it was requisite that
you manufacture some substitute.
’Tis a spell of beautiful weather—the kind of weather that came, as
aforesaid, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays—and
Sundays. Your feet lagged to school, and your heart kept pace with them.
Now you are idling in your seat, utterly unable to work. A vagrant bee
hums in through an open window, and hums out through another. A
woodpecker drums, as on a sounding-board, upon the spire of the
Congregational church. A blue jay screams derisively, like an exultant
truant, among the elms arching the street in front. All these things
upset you, stirring as they do the _Wanderlust_ of boyhood.
The sky never has been so blue, the grass and the trees never so green,
the sunshine never so golden, nor the air so mellow, as at recess.
You hate school. You don’t want to go in. Snoopie volunteers:
“Let’s play hooky this afternoon, and go fishin’!”
“My father won’t let me,” you declare.
“Aw, come on. He’ll never know,” scoffs Snoopie.
But he would, just the same.
The only chance you have is to be sick.
It is over-late to be sick to-day, for there is a ball game after
school, and you are to take part. If you are sick this evening, when the
sports of the day are finished, your mother will accuse you of having
played too hard, and such a notion would turn your attack into a
boomerang.
You will be sick in the morning.
Accordingly, with great languidness you flop into your chair at
breakfast, and carefully dawdle over your food. You endeavor not to eat,
although, as luck would have it, the menu is one of which you are
particularly fond. But so much the better.
“Why, John, you aren’t eating! Isn’t the breakfast good?” exclaims
mother, instantly noting.
“Yes, ’m.”
“Then why don’t you eat it?”
“Come, eat your breakfast, Johnny,” supplements father.
“I don’t want to,” you plead.
“Don’t you feel well?” asks mother anxiously.
“Not very.”
“Where do you feel sick?”
“Oh, my head aches.”
“Give me your hand.”
You lay it in hers, and she thoughtfully holds it and scrutinizes you.
“I do believe that the boy has a little fever, Henry,” she says to
father.
“Maybe he’s caught cold. Better have him keep quiet to-day,” suggests
father. “I’ll do his chores this morning.”
You really begin to feel ill, the word “fever” has such a portentous
sound. And you thereby submit the easier to being stowed upon the sofa
against the wall, your head upon a pillow and the ready afghan over your
feet and legs.
“There’s so much measles about now; don’t you think we ought to have Dr.
Reese come in and look at him?” remarks mother to father, in that
impersonal mode of conversation, like an aside, which seems to
presuppose that you have no ears.
“N-n-no,” decides father. “I’d wait and see if he doesn’t feel better
soon.”
In his eye there is a twinkle, at which mother’s face clears, and they
exchange glances which you do not comprehend.
The first bell rings. The chattering boys and girls on their way to
school pass the house. But no school for you, you bet! And the last bell
rings. As you hark to some belated, luckless being scampering madly by,
you hug yourself. Let the blamed old bell bang; you don’t care!
The summons dies away in a jarring clang. Here you are, safe.
You remain prone as long as you can, but your sofa-station at last grows
unbearably irksome. It is time that you pave the way for more action.
Mother is bustling in and out of the room, and you are emboldened to
hail her:
“I want to get up.”
“Not yet,” she cautions. “Lie quiet and try to go to sleep.”
Sleep!
She places her cool palm, for a moment, upon your forehead.
“I don’t think that you’ve got much fever, after all,” she hazards. “But
lie still.”
Out of policy you strive to obey for a while longer, but every muscle in
your eager body rebels. You twist and toss; you stick up one knee, and
then the other, and then both at once; and finally a leg dangles to the
floor over the outer edge of your unhappy bed.
“I want to get up. I feel lots better,” you whine.
“No,” rebukes mother, firmly. “Papa said that you were to keep quiet.”
“But I will be quiet,” you promise.
“W-well, only you must not go outdoors,” she warns.
However, anything to be released from that narrow sofa; so off you roll,
and apply yourself further to the delicate business of gaining health
not too rapidly, yet conveniently.
It appears, however, that, according to some occult line of reasoning,
“a boy who is not well enough to do his chores or go to school is not
well enough to play”! The more vigorous you grow, the more this maxim is
rubbed into you.
When the afternoon has fairly set in, you have become so very, very well
that in your opinion you may, without risk of a relapse, play catch
against the barn—which, of course, would be a preliminary warming up,
leading to meeting the kids after school. You propose the half of your
project to your mother; but she sees only impropriety in it, and
proffers that if you really need exercise you may finish uncompleted
chores!
After school you hear the other boys tearing around; but you must “keep
quiet”! The only consideration won by your suddenly bursting health is
intimation from mother that unless you moderate, you will be deemed
strong enough to stand a “good whipping.”
In fact, the whole bright day proves more of a farce than you had
anticipated. What is the use of being sick, if you are not allowed to
have any fun?
By bedtime your mysterious malady is by common consent a thing of
antiquity and in the morning you go to school.
The time arrives when you go no more. You yourself are now of that free
company whom you have so envied. Yet it does not seem such a wonderful
company, after all. You find that your position still has limitations.
When you had lived within, it was permitted you to pass and mingle with
the life without; but now that you have chosen the without, not again
may you pass within, save in dreams.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHUMS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHUMS
DON’T you remember when, your mother laughingly dissenting, your father
said that you might have him, and with rapture in your heart and a broad
smile on your face you went dancing through the town to _get_ him?
There was quite a family of them—the old mother dog and her four
children. Of the puppies it was hard to tell which was the best; that
is, hard for the disinterested observer. As for yourself, in the very
incipiency of your hesitation something about one of the doggies
appealed to you. Your eyes and hands wandered to the others, but
invariably came back to him.