after the minister, since he was an unmarried man, and she an eligible if
not youthful spinster, so she went at once into the kitchen to prepare
her supper. But the color did not at once fade from her cheeks as she
moved about in her rapid, methodical manner, and she thought not so
much of the boy who was to come, as of the man who had just gone. If
the minister felt overcome in Miss Lucinda’s presence, she, too, had a
similar feeling after he had left her with some unspoken word on his lips.
“It seems as though he was going to say something sometimes, but I kill
it out of him. I wonder what is the matter with me, anyway?” Miss Lucinda
had acquired a habit of talking to herself, and now nodded gravely to
her reflection in the little mirror over the kitchen shelf. “I’m not
bad-looking and I mean to be pleasant, but, somehow most folks seem kind
of afraid of me. I s’pose I have an up-and-coming way with me that scares
most of them. I don’t seem to be the sort they take to; though I must say
it’s forlorn to be that way,” and the image in the mirror sighed audibly.
When Miss Lucinda had seated herself at her lonely tea-table, her
thoughts took another channel. “What in the world am I to do with a boy?
He’ll upset things on the table-cloth, and let flies in the house and rub
his fingers on the window-pane, and holler. Well, there’s one thing about
it, he’s got to mind every word I say to him!” But here Miss Lucinda
drew herself up with a jerk. “There you go, Lucinda, complaining of
your loneliness, and then finding fault when someone comes to see you;
thinking you’re too fond of running things, and then saying you’re going
to make this boy do just as you want him to.”
It was only a few days later when the boy came, in company with the
minister. He was not so large a boy as Miss Lucinda had expected from his
age, and he was rather thin and pale.
“I’ll give him enough to eat, that’s one thing,” she told the minister.
“And I’ve been thinking there’s one comfort in a boy: he doesn’t talk so
much as a girl—that is, he isn’t likely to.”
“No, he isn’t likely to,” the minister assented, a little doubtfully.
After the minister had gone, Miss Lucinda began to wonder what she should
do with the boy the rest of the morning. She found him in the kitchen,
his short legs stretched to their utmost, trying to capture two flies
buzzing on the window-pane. He paused in his exertions, and turned on her
with a beaming smile.
“Hullo! Is dinner ready?” he asked.
Miss Lucinda drew herself up. “We don’t have dinner till twelve o’clock,”
she said frigidly.
“Oh, that’s all right; you needn’t hurry,” the boy said pleasantly. “I’m
kinder grub-struck, but I guess I kin wait.”
Miss Lucinda stared at him in rebuke. “Perhaps you’d better go out and
play,” she suggested, “while I get dinner;” and off he went.
When the dinner-table was laid, Miss Lucinda rang her seldom-used bell
out of the back door, and the boy came in promptly, with quite a color in
his cheeks.
“My!” he exclaimed, staring at the neat, plentiful table, “ain’t this a
feed!”
“You’d better go and wash your hands,” Miss Lucinda suggested, and the
boy went cheerily to the sink, scrubbing himself vigorously and then
wiping his hands on the spick-and-span roller. Miss Lucinda groaned at
the great black marks on the towel, and went out into the kitchen to
turn it about so that she might not have to look at them through the
dining-room doorway.
“Mercy on us!” she cried in distress as she came out into the kitchen,
“you’ve left the door open. The house’ll be full of flies!”
“Now, don’t you trouble,” the boy said soothingly. “I’ll catch every
single fly that’s got in. I’m a great flycatcher, I am. I’m used to
flies.”
At the table, conversation did not at all flourish. Miss Lucinda had
heard of a boy’s appetite, but she had never dreamed of such awful
capacity as this young person displayed. After he had taken the first
keen edge from his hunger he laid down his knife and fork and looked at
her inquiringly.
“Should you mind if I was to call you aunt?” he asked smilingly. “You
know I useter live with my aunt, and I’m kinder useter sayin’ it.”
“I think it would be better if you called me Miss Tarbox,” Miss Lucinda
said, surprised, but not thrown off her guard.
“That’s rather long,” the boy said meditatively; “but I guess if I say it
often enough I kin git it Miss Tarbox, Misstarbox, Misstubox, Misstibox,
Miss—”
“Don’t say that over again, for goodness’ sake,” Miss Lucinda said
irritably. “What is your name?”
“Well, the whole of it is James Wilson, but I guess you’d better call me
Jim. I’m useter that.”
“What did you do this morning?” Miss Tarbox felt called upon to sustain
and direct further conversation.
“I went over to see the boy ’cross the street and we’re goin’ to play
Indian this afternoon. Did you ever play Indian?”
Miss Tarbox shook her head.
“You stick feathers all ’round your hat, and you make a fire and roast
potatoes, and yell and eat the potatoes. That boy is a mighty nice
feller. I told him I was stoppin’ with you and goin’ to have a dandy
time. I guess he don’t know you very well. I told him I thought you was
kinder hard to git acquainted with. He said we’d git our feathers out o’
his hen-yard, and I thought p’r’aps I might bring the potatoes. Do you
think you could let me have two potatoes? I won’t eat quite so much next
time.”
Miss Lucinda drew a long breath. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll let you have the
potatoes.”
“Now that’s real nice. I told him I thought you’d be willin’.”
As soon as dinner was over Miss Lucinda brought the two potatoes from the
cellar, but the boy did not go at once; he sat on a chair in the kitchen,
and watched her brisk movements as she cleared the table and made ready
to wash the dishes.
“Say, you’re awful smart, ain’t you?” he asked after a moment of
observation, and Miss Tarbox, somewhat overwhelmed did not reply.
He placed his elbow on his round knee and his chin on his small hand and
stared a few moments in silence.
“It looks awful kinder nice the way you hold up your head. Now, my aunt,
she kinder slumps along. She’s a real nice woman, you know, but she
don’t look’s though she had much gumption.”
Another silence.
“Say, what kin I do?” he asked next.
“Mercy on us!” ejaculated Miss Lucinda, “don’t ask me. I thought you were
going to roast potatoes.”
“I thought p’r’aps you might be kinder lonesome all alone, and I’d jest
as soon help you wash up. I’m useter it. I kin make beds and sweep and
wash dishes and do lots o’ things. Try me and see.”
“Thank you, I can get along very well; you needn’t help,” Miss Lucinda
said in grim accents of dismissal but the boy did not move.
“I s’pose you’re pretty busy,” he ventured presently.
“Well, yes, rather,” Miss Lucinda answered shortly.
“Do you usually have a real good time Fourth o’ July?” he went on.
Miss Lucinda gasped. “Well, no. I can’t say I do,” she answered in
mournful truthfulness.
“Now that’s funny,” the boy said, in a surprised tone. “Seem’s though the
country’d be an awful nice place to have a good time in, Fourth o’ July.
Mebbe it’s ’cause you never had nobody to cel’brate with; but you will
this year. You’ll have a real nice time, too; I always enjoy Fourth o’
July.”
Miss Lucinda gave a feeble sigh. “What do you usually do Fourth o’ July?”
she asked, with the desire to learn her coming fate.
“Well, last year I had one bunch o’ firecrackers that got fired off the
very first thing. I thought mebbe this year I’d earn ’nough money to buy
two bunches; d’you think I could?”
“Well, really, I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda said.
“And last year I went to see the percession, and the crowd jammed
me, and I didn’t see nothin’; but this year they’re goin’ to have a
percession out here, and that feller asked me to be in it. D’you suppose
I could?”
“I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda answered again.
“They’re goin’ to have reg’lar uniforms, red, white, and blue”—evidently
the boy took this as half consent—“and it’s goin’ to be jest great. I
s’pose it’d be a good deal o’ trouble to make me a uniform, seein’s
you’re so busy?”
“A soldier suit? Dear me, yes, I should say so!” There was no doubt now
in Miss Lucinda’s tones.
The boy drew a deep breath as he rose to go. “All right,” he said
cheerfully, “I’ll tell the fellers; p’r’aps they’ll let me march, jest
the same.”
When supper-time came and Miss Lucinda rang her bell again out the door,
she saw the boy coming along the path from the barn, helping Joshua, the
man-of-all-work, bring in the brimming pail of milk.
“Supper is ready,” Miss Lucinda said, and this time the boy washed his
hands without special order.
“Say,” he cried, waving the roller, “Josh’s goin’ to teach me how to
milk, and you won’t have to hire him any more. I kin do everything’s well
as not, can’t I, Josh?” But Joshua had, fortunately, gone and did not
hear this threat to usurp his position.
“Well, you do have orful good meals,” he said, sitting down opposite Miss
Lucinda’s handsome, severe figure. “I’m orful hungry, but I did have the
dandiest time to-day you ever heard of. The potatoes didn’t roast very
well, but the fire burned like fun. My Jiminy—”
“James!” called Miss Lucinda in an awful voice.
James opened his innocent eyes and looked at her, then fell to eating
with renewed vigor, and it was some time before he mustered courage to
finish his recital.
But when he came out into the kitchen and watched her moving back and
forth in the dusky light, Miss Lucinda somehow felt herself moved to open
conversation.
“You didn’t eat so very much for supper, James.”
“No, marm,” James answered promptly. “Don’t you remember them potatoes? I
was a-payin’ for ’em.”
“Mercy on us!” cried Miss Lucinda, and she went to the dining-room
and brought from the table the currant pie, of which the boy, to Miss
Lucinda’s amazement, had eaten only two pieces.
He ate the third generous slice she gave him, and again sat still,
watching her with round, admiring eyes as she moved about.
“I think it’s about time for you to go to bed now, James,” his guardian
said presently, and James rose promptly.
“Would you mind calling me Jim? It sounds kinder homesick to be called
James,” he said, with sudden wistfulness engendered, even in his boyish
spirit, by the shadows and the newness of the place.
“Good-night, Jim,” Miss Lucinda responded; but Jim still stood looking at
her with serious eyes.
“My aunt useter kiss me good-night. You don’t exactly look like the
kissin’ kind, and I ain’t neither, but—but I didn’t know, seein’ ’s
you’re so good to me, but—p’r’aps”—he flushed and shifted himself from
one foot to the other.
Miss Lucinda flushed, too, and looked greatly embarrassed, but hers was
no stony heart to refuse so gallant a suitor; she stooped and kissed him
awkwardly and flutteringly somewhere upon his forehead or hair; but
when she would have felt her duty over, he suddenly seized her in an
impetuous hug. He went upstairs quickly, and Miss Lucinda sat down in
her little rocking-chair with hot, red cheeks, and something deeper than
embarrassment brought a new light into her clear eyes.
“I think he tries hard to be a good boy,” Miss Lucinda said to the
minister when he next called, “but he does a great many things that are
rather startling, and now and then he says something he oughtn’t to.”
“Yes?” the minister said, in kindly interest.
“The very first day he got here, he swore at the table.” The minister
looked horrified. “Of course I spoke of it right off and he hasn’t done
it again. He was kind of excited about playing Indian, and I don’t
suppose he really meant it; he said”—the minister reddened and looked
away, and Miss Lucinda flushed—“he said ‘Jiminy.’” The minister drew out
his handkerchief and coughed slightly. “But, as I say, he hasn’t said
anything since, and I think I could get along very well if Fourth of July
wasn’t coming so soon. But what do you think? He wants a soldier suit,
and firecrackers, and all sorts of things. If only he hadn’t come till
after the Fourth! I never did approve of it. I always did think it was a
heathenish holiday,” and Miss Lucinda broke off feelingly.
After the minister had gone Miss Lucinda started to go to the village
store. Jim usually did the errands, but this was something that had been
overlooked, and he was at play, out of calling distance.
On Miss Lucinda’s return, as she came through the lane by a shorter road,
she heard voices in the field beyond; the speakers were hidden by a
hedge, but she recognized the tones as Jim’s and his playfellow’s across
the street.
“Say, can’t you march?” said a wheedling voice.
“No, I guess not,” Jim’s voice answered, a trifle dolefully.
“Why not? Won’t she make you a suit?”
There was a little pause before Jim answered: “Well, I don’t know’s I
care ’bout marchin’.”
“H’m! you needn’t say that. It’s cause that stingy old maid won’t make
you anything to wear, I know.”
There was a sudden movement on the other side of the hedge. “You call her
a stingy old maid again and you’ll see! She’s a handsome lady, she is,
and it ain’t none o’ your business if I don’t want to march.”
“H’m! you needn’t git on your ear so dreadful quick. I wouldn’t stand
up for anybody that only let me earn money enough to buy two bunches of
firecrackers. Why, I’ve got two packages! A great Fourth o’ July you’ll
have!”
“I’ve got some more money, but I ain’t goin’ to buy firecrackers; I’m
savin’ it for a s’prise. Say, look-a-here, you see, Miss Tibbox ain’t
never had a boy ’round, an’ she don’t understand ’bout Fourth o’ July,
that’s all.”
Miss Lucinda did not wait to hear the answer, but went swiftly back to
the village.
The night before the Fourth, as Jim was going to bed, Miss Lucinda said:
“Ain’t you going to march with the boys to-morrow, Jim?”
Jim shook his head and looked at her solemnly. “I ain’t got no suit. The
fellers won’t let you march without one. Never mind, I’ve given up lots
of things. My aunt wa’nt much of a hand for doin’ things, you know.”
Jim had never asked Miss Lucinda to kiss him good-night since that first
time, when he felt so markedly homesick, and certainly she would never
have offered to kiss him, so she merely said, as he took his light to go
upstairs, “Good-night, Jim.”
But she sat down in her rocking-chair, quite near the dining-room door,
with an expectant listening expression on her face. Suddenly there arose
a great commotion above, and Jim came tumbling down the stairs with wild
shrieks of delight.
“Oh, my gracious! oh, my gracious!” he cried. “Look-a-here, did you do
it? Ain’t they butes? I kin march now, can’t I? Oh, my Jimi—my gracious,
my gracious!” And he danced about the room, first on one foot and then on
the other, waving in one hand a wonderful pair of red, white, and blue
trousers, in the other a similarly gorgeous jacket.
Miss Lucinda was really frightened; she was not used to such
demonstrations of joy. But Jim stopped his dancing presently, and,
throwing his cherished outfit on the floor, he embraced her rapturously,
until she gravely extricated herself.
“I’m glad you like it, Jim,” she said a little stiffly.
“Like it!” Jim shrieked, throwing himself about in another wild
pantomime. “Like it! Oh, my gracious, I’m ’fraid I shall bust!”
“I think you had better go to bed now,” Miss Lucinda said, after a pause.
Jim gathered up his suit and looked at her anxiously. “Should you mind if
I was to git up dreadful early, if I didn’t wake you up?” he asked.
And Miss Lucinda, to her own amazement, found herself replying: “Well,
no; but don’t get up too early.”
And after Jim was asleep, and it was time for her to retire, she went
softly into his room to lay two packages of firecrackers on the chair
beside the gay garments.
Poor Miss Lucinda hid her head under the bed-clothes during the night,
and when there came an extra loud explosion thought of Jim. But at
breakfast-time he turned up safe and smiling.
“I never had sech a good time in all my life before. Say, Miss Tibbox,
did you mean all those firecrackers for me? Well, if you ain’t the nicest
woman in the world! I’ve got a s’prise for you, too. Just you wait and
see!” and he nodded mysteriously across the table at Miss Lucinda, who
felt a vague misgiving.
“Why didn’t you wear your soldier suit?” she asked.
Jim beamed upon her. “Why, I’m a-savin’ it. We don’t march till ten
o’clock. You don’t know how much nicer it is to be in a percession than
jest to look at it. I wish you could march, too,” he added politely. “But
you’ll come out on the piazza and watch us go by, won’t you?”
And Miss Lucinda promised to be on the spot.
If Jim had never passed another such day, it was as wholly unprecedented
in Miss Lucinda Tarbox’s calendar. Jim marched by the house as proud as
a peacock in his new soldier suit, and raised a cheer to Miss Lucinda
so loud and hearty that she retired blushing into the house. Then after
dinner there was nothing for Miss Lucinda but to come out on the piazza
and watch Jim fire off some of his crackers; and there the poor lady sat
cringing and shrinking and trying to smile each time Jim would shout,
“That’s the loudest of all!”
But the climax of the day was reached when Jim brought the minister home
to supper. How it happened that the minister appeared upon the scene at
tea-time, Miss Lucinda could not understand; but when he arrived, and Jim
whispered in a loud aside, “I thought p’r’aps he might stay to supper,”
there was no alternative but a cordial invitation, which the minister
accepted promptly. Miss Lucinda likewise never knew the remarks with
which Jim escorted the minister to the house. “She’s the very nicest
woman in the world,” he told the minister, “and I think she thinks
you’re a pretty nice sort of a chap.” The minister never repeated these
compliments of Jim’s to Miss Lucinda.
After tea, Jim’s secret was revealed; he had invested the larger part of
his small earnings in fireworks, which he was quite sure Miss Lucinda
would enjoy, and he had invited the minister to supper that he might help
him set them off. So Miss Lucinda came out on the porch in the darkness,
and the minister and Jim paraded about in the neat little garden in
front, and proceeded to diminish Jim’s purchases. Presently the minister
came up on the piazza and sat down beside Miss Lucinda, for the remaining
fireworks could easily be disposed of by Jim. But just as the minister
was considering whether the time was propitious for an advancement of his
own interests, there came a sudden sharp cry from Miss Lucinda, and he
turned to see a line of flame running about the paper belt of the gallant
little showman. The minister was quick in his movements, and was down
the path and had Jim in his arms and the fire smothered in a few moments,
while Miss Lucinda was by his side, sobbing and bending over Jim’s little
form.
“Oh, let me see him,” she cried; “the dear child! Is he hurt very badly?”
Jim wriggled a little in the minister’s arms, and opening his eyes,
smiled on her. “Now don’t you worry,” he said cheerily, “I ain’t hurt.”
“But I’m ’fraid I’ve spoilt my suit,” he added when the minister had
placed him on the lounge in Miss Lucinda’s little sitting-room.
“Oh, never mind the suit!” Miss Lucinda cried, and Jim looked up at her
in reproachful surprise.
But it was quite true that he was not hurt, though rather weak from the
fright, and presently he came out again, between the minister and Miss
Lucinda, to sit on the piazza and watch the neighbors’ fireworks.
Jim, on the little stool at Miss Lucinda’s feet, leaned his head against
her knee. “I don’t care, it’s been a fine Fourth o’ July,” he murmured.
“So it has,” echoed the minister; “don’t you think so, Lucinda?” But Miss
Lucinda’s only answer was a blush and a consenting silence.
“Do you mind now if I call you aunt?” Jim’s voice asked.
Miss Lucinda laid her hand gently on Jim’s head. “No, dear,” she said
softly; “no.”
“You might call me uncle,” suggested the minister.
Jim nodded brightly. “All right,” he said promptly; “then we’ll be a
reg’lar family.”
And the new uncle and aunt smiled in the darkness.
VIII
THE NEW FOURTH
OUR BARBAROUS FOURTH
BY MRS. ISAAC L. RICE
(From _The Century Magazine_, June, 1908.)
In his first book, Marcus Aurelius gratefully acknowledges his obligation
to Sextus of Chæronea for having taught him to “express approbation
without noisy display.” Alas! in all the centuries which have elapsed
since the time of this emperor-philosopher, we have not yet learned to
appreciate the wisdom of his counsel; and every holiday, in our country,
at least, is made the occasion of a strident outburst of hoodlumism.
Hallowe’en, Election Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Inauguration Day, and
Fourth of July, each witnesses our thoroughfares thronged with shouting
and disorderly crowds, provided with every noisy device from the tin
trumpet to the dangerous pistol, while shrieks of whistles shrill
maddeningly above the street clamor and the booming of bells. Accidents
occur, the sick are made worse by these frenzied demonstrations, and the
young fail to appreciate the significance of the day which is being so
unbeautifully celebrated.
Of all these “noise-fests,” the most shocking is the Fourth of July, and
its grim statistics probably furnish a sadder commentary on human folly
than that afforded by any other celebration in the world.
I often wonder what would be the emotions of a stranger, quite ignorant
of our institutions, if he arrived in our country—“God’s Country,” as we
affectionately call it—just before midsummer, and glanced over our great
newspapers. After reading some items, such as the following, would he be
apt to await a great and glorious anniversary, or the advent of a day of
strife and terror?
The horrible Fourth will soon be here.... In all the big cities
the Fourth of July is now looked forward to with apprehension
and looked back upon with a shudder, and even with horror.
Or,
The Board of Health has established supply stations of tetanus
antitoxin throughout the city. The National Volunteer Emergency
Service has established field dressing stations in the thickly
populated sections. The hospitals also expect their usual busy
day.
And then he would read head-lines like these:
THE NATIONAL BATTLE-FIELD
CARNAGE BEGINS ON HOLIDAY EVE
BLOODIEST FOURTH YET
DEATHS AND INJURIES IN FOURTH OF JULY’S WAKE
After our stranger had grasped the fact that this was not the record of
a battle or other public calamity, but merely some details regarding the
manner in which a great nation commemorates the most solemn event in its
history, I doubt whether he would have an exalted opinion of a people
who could desecrate so noble a memory by so barbarous an observance.
The fitting celebration of Independence Day is a question on which
patriotic Americans are separated into two widely divergent parties, one
claiming that it ought to be observed as noisily as possible, the other
believing that our national birthday is too glorious an occasion to be
marred by din and disorder. Of course we know that even among those who
favor a boisterous observance there are many who cannot tolerate it
themselves, and escape to the country in order to avoid the tortures
of the “awful Fourth”; just as we know that a large proportion of the
noise-makers, including the small boy and the big boy, too, is heedless,
if not ignorant, of all that our holiday stands for, and thinks of it
only as a time when clamor may reign unrestrained.[17]