WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON TUESDAY.
Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The
night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe
in her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on
each side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I
must have misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she
kissed the children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor
little motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the
course of my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading
character. As soon as she caught sight of me I knew that my first
thought had been right. Her thin Roman nose went up in the air, and
her sharp eyes glared at me so savagely that I could think of nothing
else but an old war eagle, with arrows in its talons. You may have
seen them on silver dollars.
"Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have
brought home a _monkey_!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in
her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly
the worst!"
"Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to
the boys."
"_They!_" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are _two_!"
Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed
her.
"Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said
that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help
divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor
little lads."
That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our
being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if
she could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour
it has been war to the knife between us.
Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the
eaves, but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys
took us with them wherever they went. We had been there some time
before we were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring.
It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the
attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the
vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room
below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top
of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss
Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands
were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a
high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed.
I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her
room, so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill
beside her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact,
that I do not see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I
give you my word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have
heard her half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It
paralysed me for an instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the
lightning-rod, and streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came
down. Once in my room, I shook all the rest of the evening.
[Illustration]
Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was,
but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her--why, even
the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was
in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear.
But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not
sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It
happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim
Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to see
us. Sim was older than Stuart, and one of those restless, inquiring
boys, never satisfied with letting well enough alone. He was always
making experiments. This time he wanted to experiment on me with a
handful of tobacco,--coax me to eat it, you know, and see what effect
it would have. But Stuart objected. He was afraid it might make me
sick, and proposed trying it on Phil's monkey first. So they called
Matches, and the silly little beast was so pleased and flattered by
their attention that she stood up and ate all they gave her. She did
not like it, I could see that, but they praised her and coaxed her,
and it turned her head. Usually I received the most attention.
It did not seem to hurt her any, so Sim offered me some. But I would
not take it. I folded my hands, first over my ears and then over my
eyes. Then I held them over my mouth. Stuart thought it wonderfully
smart of me, and so did Sim, when he found that it was a trick that
Stuart's grandfather had taught me. The old man had an ebony
paper-weight on his library table, which he called "the three wise
monkeys of Japan." They were carved sitting back to back. The first
one had its paws folded over its eyes in token that it must never see
more than it ought to see, the second covered its ears that it might
not hear more than it ought to hear, and the third solemnly held its
paws over its mouth, in order that it might never say more than it
ought to say.
Stuart thought that I had forgotten the trick. He told Sim that it was
the only one I knew. I was glad that he had never discovered that I am
a trained monkey. If he had known how many tricks I can perform life
wouldn't have been worth living. It would have been like an endless
circus, with me for the only performer. As it was, I was made to go
through that one trick of the wise monkeys of Japan until I was
heartily disgusted with it, or with anything else, in fact, that
suggested the land of the Mikado.
Stuart was in a hurry to show me off to the other fellows, so he
caught me up under his arm, and started off to the ball-ground, where
most of them were to be found. Matches tried to follow us, but Sim
drove her back, and the last I saw of her she was under the table,
whimpering. It was a soft little complaining cry she had, almost like
the chirp of a sleepy bird, and when she made it her mouth drew up
into a pitiful little pucker.
I slept in the laundry that night, for it was after dark when we got
home, and the boys were not allowed to carry a light up into the
attic. Next day, when Stuart took me back to my room, there lay
Matches, stretched out on the floor as dead as a mummy. The tobacco
had poisoned her. Phil was crying over her as if his heart would
break. He didn't know what had killed her, and the boys did not see
fit to tell. As for me, I remembered my lesson, never to say any more
than I ought to say, and discreetly folded my hands over my mouth
whenever the subject was mentioned.
I have no doubt but that I could have eaten as much tobacco as Matches
did, and escaped with only a short illness, but the sickly little
mossback didn't have the constitution that we ring-tails have. She was
a poor delicate creature that the least thing affected. I couldn't
help feeling sorry for her, and yet I was so glad to be rid of her
that I capered around for sheer joy. When I realised that never again
would I be kept awake by her snoring, never again would I be disturbed
by her disagreeable ways, and that at last I was even with her for
spilling me out of my berth on the sleeping-car, I swung on my
turning-pole until I was dizzy. No one knew what a jubilee I had all
alone that night in my little room under the eaves.
Little did I dream of the humiliation in store for me. The next day I
found that Matches was to have a funeral after school, and that I--I,
who hated her--was to take the part of chief mourner. The boys took
off my spangled jacket and dressed me up in some clothes that belonged
to Elsie's big Paris doll. They left my own little cap on my head, but
covered it and me all over with a long crape veil that dragged on the
ground behind me and tripped me up in front when I tried to walk. It
was pinned tightly over my face, and I nearly smothered, for it was a
hot September afternoon. I sputtered and gasped under the nasty black
thing until I was almost choked. It was so thick I could scarcely
breathe through it, but the more I sputtered the more it pleased the
children. They said I seemed to be really crying and sobbing under my
veil, and that I was acting my part of chief mourner beautifully.
All the children of the neighbourhood came to the funeral. There was a
band to lead the procession; a band of three boys, playing on a French
harp, a jew's-harp, and a drum. Johnny Grey's Newfoundland dog was
hitched to the little wagon that held Matches's coffin. Phil drove,
sitting up solemnly in his father's best high silk hat with its band
of crape. It was much too large for his head, and slipped down over
his curls until the brim rested on the tips of his ears. It was
serious business for Phil. His eyes were red and his dirty face
streaked with tears. He had grown to be very fond of Matches.
Elsie and I followed on a tricycle. She had borrowed an old-fashioned
scoop bonnet and a black silk apron from one of the neighbours. I sat
beside her, feeling very hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in
which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long
procession. We went five times around the circle, while Sim
Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he
had borrowed for the occasion.
[Illustration: MATCHES'S FUNERAL.]
When it was all over and the little mound over Matches's grave had
been covered with sod, the children were loath to stop playing
funeral. They had enjoyed it so much. Somebody said that we ought to
march down the street so that people could see how funny I looked in
my crape veil; but I could stand it no longer. When I saw that the
band was really moving toward the gate, and that Stuart was about to
lift me into the wagon that had carried Matches's coffin, I shrieked
with rage and bit and tore at my veil until I was soon free.
In about a minute it was nothing but a heap of rags and tatters, and
Phil and Stuart were looking at it and then at each other with
troubled faces. "It's Aunt Patricia's!" one of them gasped. "And it is
all torn to bits! Oh, Dago, you little mischief, how _could_ you? Now
we'll catch it!" As if it were my fault. I don't know what happened
when the veil was taken back. Luckily I had no share in that part of
it, although Miss Patricia seemed to add that to the long list of
grievances she had against me, and her manner toward me grew even
more severe than before.
The excitement of the funeral seemed to make Phil forget the loss of
Matches that day, but he cried next morning when Stuart came down with
me on his shoulder, and there was no frisky little pet for him to
fondle and feed. How he could grieve for her is more than I could
understand. I didn't miss her,--I was glad she was gone. Every day
Phil put fresh flowers on her grave. Sometimes it was only a stiff red
coxcomb or a little stemless geranium that had escaped the early
frost. Sometimes it was only a handful of bright grasses gone to seed.
The doctor's neglected garden flaunted few blooms this autumn, but the
little fellow, grieving long and sorely, did all he could to show
respect to Matches's memory.
One day, nearly a month later, he went crying into his father's
office, saying that Matches was gone. Stuart and Sim Williams had dug
her up and sold her skeleton to a naturalist in the next block for
fifty cents. He had just heard of it. I never saw a child so excited.
He was sobbing so hard that he could not breathe except in great
choking gasps, and it was some time before his father could quiet him
enough to understand what he was talking about.
Oh, but Doctor Tremont was angry! And yet it did not sound so bad when
Stuart had explained it. He hadn't thought that he was doing anything
dishonest or unkind to Phil. He only thought what an easy way it would
be to make fifty cents. He didn't see how it could make any difference
to Phil, so long as he never found it out, and Sim had sworn not to
tell. The mound would still be there, and he could go on putting
flowers on it just the same. Sim was the one who had first spoken of
it, and Sim had half the money.
I was not in the room all of the time, so I cannot tell what passed
between Stuart and his father. I could hear the doctor's voice for a
long time, talking in low, deep tones, very earnestly. I know he said
something about Phil's being such a little fellow, and how the mother
who had gone away would have been grieved to know that he was so
unhappy. What he said must have hurt Stuart more than a whipping, for
when he came out his eyes were red, and he looked as solemn as an
owl.
He had promised his father several things. One was that he would have
nothing more to do with Sim Williams, who was always leading him into
trouble, and another was that he would beg Phil's pardon, and do
something to make up for the injury he had done him. Stuart thought
and thought a long time what that should be. I know the doctor's talk
must have gone deep, for by and by he took _me_,--_Dago_,--his
best-beloved possession, and gave me to Phil.
At first the little fellow couldn't believe it. "Oh, brother!" he
cried. "Do you really mean it? Is it for keeps?"
"Yes, it's for keeps," said Stuart, grimly. Then he put his hands in
his pockets and walked away, whistling, although there were tears in
his eyes. But Phil ran after him with me in his arms.
"Oh, I couldn't take _all_ of him, Stuart," he said. "You are too
good. That would be too much, when you are so fond of him. But I'd
love to own half of him. Let's go partnerships. You claim half, and
I'll claim half."
Well, they decided to settle it that way, after a great deal of
talking. You can't imagine, Ring-tail, how queer it makes me feel to
be divided up in such a fashion. Sometimes I puzzle over it until I am
dizzy. Which of me belongs to Stuart, and which of me belongs to
Phil?