UNCLE EZRA PAYS A VISIT--UNCLE EZRA CAUSES THE BAD BOY TO
BACKSLIDE--UNCLE EZRA AND THE OLD MAN WERE BAD PILLS--THEIR
RECORD IS AWFUL--KEEPING UNCLE EZRA ON THE RAGGED EDGE--THE
BED SLATS FIXED--THE OLD MAN TANGLED UP--THIS WORLD IS NOT
RUN RIGHT--UNCLE EZRA MAKES HIM TIRED.
“I hear your Uncle Ezra is here on a visit,” said the grocery man to
the bad boy. “I suppose you have been having a high old time. There is
nothing that does a boy more good than to have a nice visit with a good
uncle, and hear him tell about old times when he and the boy's father
were boys together.”
“Well, I don't know about it,” said the boy, as he took a stick of
maccaroni, and began to blow paper wads through it at a wood sawyer, who
was filing a saw outside the door. “When a boy who has been tough has
got his pins all set to reform, I don't think it does him any good to
have a real nice Uncle come to the house visiting. Anyway, that's my
experience. I have backslid the worst way, and it is going to take me
a month after Uncle Ezra goes away to climb up to the grace that I have
fallen from. It is darn discouraging,” said the boy as he looked up to
the ceiling in an innocent sort of a way, and hid the macarroni under
his coat when the wood sawyer, who had been hit in the neck, dropped his
saw and got up mad.
“What's the trouble? Your uncle has the reputation where he lives, of
being one of the pillars of society. But you can't tell about these
fellows when they get away from home. Does he drink?”
“'No, he don't drink; but as near as I can figure it, he and Pa were
about the worst pills in the box, when they were young. I don't wan't
you to repeat it, but when Pa and Ma were married they eloped. Yes,
sir--actually ran away, and defied their parents--and they had to hide
about a week, for fear Ma's father would fill Pa so full of cold lead
that he would sink if he fell in the water. Pa has been kicked over the
fence, and chased down alleys dozens of times by Ma's grandfather, when
he was sparking Ma; and Ma was a terror too, 'cause her mother couldn't
do anything with her, though she is awful precise now, and wants
everybody to be too good. Why, Ma's mother used to warm her ears, and
shake the daylights out of her, but it didn't do any good. She was
mashed on Pa, and there was no cure for her except to have Pa prescribed
for her as a husband, and they ran away. Uncle Ezra told me all about
it. Ma hain't got any patience with girls now days that have minds of
their own about fellows, and she thinks their parents ought to have all
the say. Well, maybe she thinks she knows all about it. But when people
get in love it is the same now as when Pa and Ma were trying to keep out
of the reach of my grandfather's shot gun. But Pa and Uncle Ezra and Ma
are good friends, and they talk over old times and have a big laugh.
I guess Uncle Ezra was too much for Pa in joking when they were boys,
'cause Pa told me that all rules against joking were suspended while
Uncle Ezra was here, and for me to play any thing on him I could. I told
Pa I was trying to lead a different life, but he said what I wanted to
do was to make Uncle Ezra think of old times, and the only way was to
keep him on the ragged edge. I thought if there was anything I could do
to make it pleasant for my Uncle, it was my duty to do it, so I fixed
the bed slats on the spare bed so they would fall down at 2 A. M. the
first night, and then I retired. At two o'clock I heard the awfulest
noise in the spare room, and a howling and screaming, and I went down
to meet Uncle Ezra in the hall, and he asked me what was the matter in
there, and I asked him if he didn't sleep in the spare room, and he said
no, that Pa and Ma was in there, and he slept in their room. Then we
went in the spare room and you'd a dide to see Pa.”
[Illustration: Pa was all tied up 146]
“Ma had jumped out when the slats first fell, and was putting her hair
up in curl papers when we got in, but Pa was all tangled up in the
springs and things. His head had gone down first, and the mattrass and
quilts rolled over him, and he was almost smothered, and we had to take
the bedsted down to get him out, the way you have to unharness a horse
when he runs away and falls down, before you can get him up. Pa was mad,
but Uncle Ezra laughed at him, and told him he was only foundered, and
all he wanted was a bran mash and some horse liniment and he would come
out all right. Uncle Ezra went out in to the hall to get a pail of water
to throw on Pa, 'cause he said Pa was afire, when Pa asks me why in
blazes I didn't fix the other bed slats, and I told him I didn't know
as they were going to change beds, and then Pa said don't let it occur
again. Pa lays everything to me. He is the most changeable man I ever
saw. He told me to do everything Uncle Ezra wanted me to do, and then,
when I helped Uncle Ezra to play a joke on Pa, he was mad. Say, I don't
think this world is run right, do you? I haven't got much time to talk
to you to-day, cause Uncle Ezra and me are going fishing but don't it
strike you that it is queer that parents trounce boys for doing just
what they did themselves. Now, I have got a friend whose father is
a lawyer. That lawyer would warm his boy if he should tell a lie, or
associate with anybody that was bad, and yet the lawyer will defend a
man he knows is guilty of stealing, and get him clear and take the money
he got from the thief, who stole it, to buy the same boy a new coat to
wear to church, and he will defend a man who committed murder, and make
an argument to the jury that will bring tears to their eyes, and they
will clear the murderer. Queer, ain't it? And say, how is it that we
send missionaries to Burmah, to convert them from heathenism, and the
same vessel that takes the missionaries there carries from Boston a
cargo of tin gods to sell to the heathen? Why wouldn't it be better to
send the missionaries to Boston? I think the more a boy learns the more
he gets mixed.” “Well, how's your theater? Have any of the great actors
supported you lately?” said the grocery man, to change the subject.
“No, we are all off on vacations. Booth and Barrett, and lots of the
stars, are gone to Europe, and the rest work down to less high-toned
places. Some of the theater girls are waiters at summer resorts, and
lots are visiting relatives on farms. I tell you, it makes a difference
whether the relatives are visiting you or you are visiting them. Actors
and actresses feels awfully when an old granger comes to the town
where they are playing, and wants to see them. They are ashamed of his
homespun clothes, and cowhide boots, and they want to meet him in an
alley somewhere, or in the basement of the theater, so the other actors
will not laugh at their rough relatives, but when the season is over,
an actor who can remember a relative out on a farm, is tickled to death,
and the granger is all right enough there, and the actor does not think
of the rough, nutmeg grater hands, and the blistered nose, as long as
the granger relative will put up fried pork and things, and 'support'
the actor. My Uncle Ezra is pretty rough and it makes me tired sometimes
when I am down town with him to have him go into a store where there are
girl clerks and ask what things are for, that I know he don't want, and
make the girls blush, but he is a good hearted old man, and he and
me are going to make a mint of money during vacation. He lives near a
summer resort hotel, and has a stream that is full of minnows, and we
are going to catch minnows and sell them to the dudes for fish bait. He
says some of the fools will pay ten cents apiece for minnows, so if we
sell a million minnows, we make a fortune. I am coming back in September
and will buy out your grocery. Say, let me have a pound of raisins, and
I'll pay you when I sell my uncle's minnows.”