MY mother was a good woman--a thrifty, kindly, helpful woman, a good
neighbor, in spite of her poverty.
My short temper, my cheeky disposition, my generally ready impulse to
grab in on short notice, all belong to the Sidney side, I guess. All we
know of the family has come down by word of mouth, and I suspect that
the first rovers who came over in the old days when New England was
really new were pretty tough characters who had plenty of original nerve
to start with and then developed more as occasion required. Well, some
of that sort had to come on ahead and smooth things with the ax and
crowbar--yes, and with the musket, so that the country could get a good
running start.
My mother was a good neighbor, I repeat. Up in the attic, hanging in
dried bunches from the beams, were spearmint, thoroughwort, hardback,
mullein, pennyroyal, and other pasture herbs which she sent me forth
to gather. Her thoroughwort syrup was guaranteed to cure any case of
whooping-cough--and she gave freely to all who came to her.
My father was a helpful sort of a man in his own way. He used to
volunteer as boss of all the barn-raising bees in our section--but his
enemies, made up of a considerable army of the men whom he had licked in
his life, said, behind his back, that the only reason he had for helping
at a barn-raising was to show off by running the ridgepole first of
all the crew, and then to start the regular free fight. He fell off a
ridge-pole one day and my mother was widowed.
I take it that her chief ambition in life was to tame the Sidney
disposition in me--that earnest desire explaining my involuntary
investment in the catechism. My mother’s axioms and teachings would have
made excellent addenda and foot-notes for any catechism. Always did she
counsel me to count ten before speaking angry word or performing angry
act; I don’t remember that I ever did as she told me, though the Lord
Himself knows how much I have suffered in my life on account of that
lack of self-restraint. Two days after I bought the catechism my good
mother thought it was having its effect on my nature. She saw a boy
heave a rock at me in our door-yard and I stood perfectly motionless and
speechless.
“That’s right, my own son! Count your ten!” she called to me.
But just at that moment a bumblebee was crawling around over my bare
foot and I was in no mind to disturb him. Therefore, my enemy was
enabled to collect a full supply of rock ammunition and to defy and rout
me when at last I was free from the restraint of the bumblebee. It would
have been the same if I had waited to count ten. Somehow, as the world
is constituted, I have never taken much stock in this watchful-waiting
game while your enemy is hustling to pile up his ammunition and you know
he is doing so. I may be wrong. Maybe this story of mine will show that
I’m wrong. But I hear you say, let’s get on to the story!
I mean to do so at once; but if I have paused to pull the curtain aside
from my family and my character a bit you may be able to understand some
parts of the story a mite better, because, in spite of that catechism,
in spite of mother-influence, and perhaps mother-goodness deep down in
me, I have butted into adventures which you will not find set down in
the volumes of any well-conducted Sunday-school library.