WHAT THE MIRROR-MONKEY HEARD ON WEDNESDAY.
Do you see any gray hairs in my fur, Ring-tail, or any new wrinkles in
my face? Life in this family is such a wear and tear on the nerves
that I feel that I am growing old fast. So much happens every day.
Something is always happening here. Really, I have had more exciting
experiences in one short forenoon, here in this house, than I used to
have in a whole month in the Zoo. It is bad for me to be in such a
state of constant fright.
The day after I was divided between Phil and Stuart, the boys of the
neighbourhood had a Cuban war in our back yard. At least they started
to have one,--built a camp-fire and put up a tent and got their
ammunition ready. Each side made a great pile of soft mud-balls, and
it was agreed that as soon as a soldier was hit and spotted by the
moist clinging stuff he was to be counted dead. You see the sport was
not dangerous, only dirty.
Stuart had his coat off, rolling mud-balls with all his might and
main. He was plastered with mud to his elbows, and his face was a
sight.
Phil was busy sweeping up dead leaves for the camp-fire. Suddenly he
dropped his old broom and went trotting off toward the house. "I am
going to get something that will make it sound like a real war," he
said to me as he left. The boys did not hear him, and he came back
presently, with his little blue blouse all pouched out in front with
the things he had stuffed inside of it.
I followed him into the tent and watched him unload. First there was
the old powder-horn that always hangs over the hall mantelpiece. Then
there was a big, wide-necked bottle, a large, clean handkerchief, and
a spool of thread. "You see this, Dago?" he said to me. "Now you watch
and see what happens."
He tore the hem off the handkerchief, poured a lot of powder into the
middle of the square that was left, and then drew the corners together
in one hand. With the other hand he squeezed the powder into a ball
in the middle of the handkerchief, and wrapped the thread around and
around above it to keep the wad in place.
"Now I'll put the wad of powder into the bottle," he said, "and leave
the ends of the cloth sticking out for a fuse. See?"
I didn't know anything about gunpowder then, so I put my head close to
his as he squatted there in the tent, talking as he worked. "Come on,
Dago," he said, when it was ready, "I'll light this at the camp-fire
and hold the bottle straight out in the air, so it won't hurt
anything. It'll go off like a pistol--bim!--and make the boys jump out
of their boots." I thought it would be better for me to get out of the
way if a racket like that was coming, so I scuttled up to the top of
the tent-pole.
Phil stooped down by the bonfire, held the rag to the coals until it
began to smoulder, and swung around to point it at the fence. There
was no sound. Evidently the bottle did not make as good a pistol as he
thought it would. "The light's gone out," he muttered, bringing the
bottle cautiously around to look at it. Then he blew it, either to
see if he could rekindle it, or to make sure that the last spark was
out,--I could not tell. The next instant there was a puff, a flash,
and then, jungles of my ancestors! such a noise and such screams and
such a smell of burning powder! After that I could see nothing but a
tangled mass of boys, all legs and elbows, crowding around poor little
Phil to see what had happened. If war is like that, then my voice and
vote are henceforth for peace, and peace alone. It's awful!
They carried him up-stairs, and his father was sent for, and the
neighbours came running in as soon as the boys had scampered home with
the news. For awhile it seemed to me that the whole world was
topsy-turvy. Miss Patricia was so frightened she couldn't do a thing.
I really pitied her, for her hands trembled and her voice shook, and
even the little bunches of gray curls bobbed up and down against her
pale cheeks. I have had the shivers so often that I can sympathise
with any one whose nerves are unstrung from fright.
The doctor turned us all out of the room, and I waited with the boys
out by the alley-gate until he came down-stairs and told us how badly
Phil was burned. His front hair and eyebrows and beautiful long curly
lashes were singed off, and his face was so full of powder that it was
as speckled as a turkey egg. The grains would have to be picked out
one by one,--a slow and painful proceeding. The doctor could not tell
how badly his eyes were hurt until next day, but thought he would have
to lie in a dark room for a week at least, with his eyelids covered
with cotton that had been dipped in some soothing kind of medicine.
But that week went by, and many a long tiresome day besides, before
Phil could use his eyes again. They would not let me go into the room
that first day, but after Phil had gone to sleep I hid under a chair
in the upper hall, where Miss Patricia and the doctor were talking.
"Tom," said Miss Patricia, "what do you suppose made that child do
such a reckless thing? Sometimes I think that boys are like monkeys,
and are possessed by the same spirit of mischief. Neither seem
satisfied unless they are playing tricks or making some kind of a
disturbance. They are always getting into trouble."
"Yes, it does seem so," answered the doctor, "but if we could look
down to the bottom of a boy's heart, we would find that very little of
the mischief that he gets into is planned for the purpose of making
trouble. He does things from a pure love of fun, or from some sudden
impulse, and because he never stops to think of what it may lead to.
Phil never stopped to think any more than Dago would have done, what
would be the result of setting fire to the powder. You must remember
that he is a very little fellow, Aunt Patricia. He is only eight. We
shouldn't expect him to have the reasoning powers of a man, and the
caution and judgment that come with age."
Now I thought that that was a very sensible speech. It seemed to
excuse some of my own past mistakes. But Miss Patricia put on her old
war-eagle look.
"Really, Tom," she said, "that sounds very well, but it is not what
was taught in my day. A wholesome use of the rod after the first act
of disobedience helps boys to stop and think before committing the
second. It is a great developer of judgment, in my opinion. If you had
punished Phil the first time he took down his grandfather's
powder-horn after you had forbidden him to touch it, he would never
have taken it down the second time, and so would have been spared all
this suffering to-day."
"I know you are right, Aunt Patricia," said the doctor, "but I seem to
remember my own boyhood so clearly, the way I thought and felt and
looked at things, that I have a very warm sympathy for my little lads
when they go wrong."
Miss Patricia rose to go down and prepare the lemon jelly that Phil
had asked for, saying, as she moved toward the stairs:
"Well, I love Phil and Stuart dearly. I'm devoted to them, and willing
to do anything in my power for their comfort, but I'm free to confess
that I don't understand them. I never did understand boys." Then she
tripped over me as I nearly upset us both in my frantic efforts to get
out of her way. "Or monkeys either," she added, shaking her skirts at
me with a displeased "_Shoo_," as if I had been a silly old hen.
It was very quiet about the house for a few days, and then some jolly
times began in Phil's room. As soon as the boys were allowed to visit
him I showed them some of my tricks, and kept them in roars of
laughter. I wheeled little Elsie's doll carriage around the room, and
I sat up with the doctor's pipe in my mouth, I drilled and danced, and
performed as if I had been on a stage. It was wonderful to them, for
they had never guessed how much I knew. One day I sat down in a little
rocking-chair with a kitten in my arms, and rocked and hugged it as if
it had been a baby. It wasn't breathing when I stopped. The boys said
I hugged it too hard, but they kept on bringing me something to rock
every day, until five kittens and a rabbit had been put to sleep so
soundly that they wouldn't wake up.
One day Phil was moved into Miss Patricia's room while his own was
being cleaned. Of course no boys were allowed to go in there with him
except Stuart. They had a good time, for Miss Patricia told them
stories and showed them the curious things in her cabinet and gave
them sugar-plums out of the big, blue china dragon that always stands
on top of it. But I could see that she was not enjoying their visit.
She was afraid that Stuart's rockers would bump against her handsome
old mahogany furniture, or that they would scratch it in some way, or
break some of her fine vases and jardinières.
After awhile she was called down to the parlour to receive a guest,
and there was nothing to amuse the boys. Time dragged so heavily that
Phil begged Stuart to bring his little rubber-gun--gumbo-shooter he
called it. It was a wide rubber band fastened at each end to the tips
of a forked stick shaped like a big Y. They used buckshot to shoot
with, nipping up a shot in the middle of the band with thumb and
finger, and drawing it back as far as possible before letting it fly.
There was a fire in the grate, so they were comfortably warm even when
they opened the window to take turns in shooting at the red berries on
the vine just outside. It was as much as Phil could do, lying on the
sofa, to send a buckshot through the open window without hitting the
panes above, but Stuart cut a berry neatly from the vine at each
trial.
Soon he began to boast of his skill, and aimed his sling at an ancient
portrait over the mantel. It was of a dignified old gentleman in a
black stock and powdered wig. He had keen, eagle eyes like Miss
Patricia, which seemed to follow one all around the room.
"I bet I could hit that picture square in the apple of its eye," he
bragged, "right in its eye-ball,--bim!"
"Oh, don't try!" begged Phil. "It's our great-great-grandfather, and
Aunt Patricia thinks a lot of that picture."
"'Course I wouldn't do it," answered Stuart, taking another aim, "but
I could, just as easy as nothing." Still dallying with temptation, he
pointed again at the frowning eye and drew the rubber slowly back. All
of a sudden, zip! The buckshot seemed to leap from the rubber of its
own accord, and Stuart fell back, frightened by what he had done. A
round black hole the size of the buckshot gaped in the middle of the
old-ancestor's eye-ball, as clean cut as if it had been made with a
punch. It gave it the queerest, wickedest stare you can imagine. It
was the first thing one would notice on looking about the room. Stuart
was white about the mouth.
"Oh, dear," sighed Phil, half crying, "if Aunt Patricia was only like
the wise monkeys of Japan, then she wouldn't notice."
"But she will," said Stuart; "she always sees everything."
Phil had given me an idea. As soon as I heard Miss Patricia's silk
skirts coming slowly through the hall with their soft swish, swish, I
ran and sat in the doorway with my hands over my eyes, in token that
there was something that she ought not to look at. It should have
amused her, for she knew the story of the ebony paper-weight, but
instead it seemed to arouse her suspicion that something was wrong.
She looked at the boys' miserable faces and then all around the room,
very slowly. It was so still that you could have heard a pin drop. At
last she looked up at the picture. Then she fairly stiffened with
horror. She couldn't find a word for a moment, and Stuart cried out,
"Oh, Aunt Patricia, I'm _so_ sorry. It was an accident. I didn't
_mean_ to do it, truly I didn't!"
[Illustration: "SHE FAIRLY STIFFENED WITH HORROR."]
There's no use harrowing up your feelings, Ring-tail, repeating all
that was said. Miss Patricia simply couldn't believe that the shot
could have struck dead centre unless the eye had been deliberately
aimed at, and she thought something was wrong with a boy who would
even take aim at his great-great-grandfather's eyeball.
Stuart was sent from the room in disgrace to report to his father, and
the last I saw of Miss Patricia that day, she was looking up at the
portrait, and saying, with a mournful shake of her gray curls: "How
can they do such things? I must confess that I don't understand
boys!"