"Say, you leave here mighty quick," said the grocery man to the bad boy,
as he came in, with his arm in a sling, and backed up against the stove to
get warm. "Everything has gone wrong since you got to coming here, and I
think you are a regular Jonah. I find sand in my sugar, kerosene in the
butter, the codfish is all picked off, and there is something wrong every
time you come here. Now you leave."
"I aint no Joner," said the boy as he wiped his nose on his coat sleeve,
and reached into a barrel for a snow apple. "I never swallered no whale.
Say, do you believe that story about Joner being in the whale's belly, all
night? I don't. The minister was telling about it at Sunday school last
Sunday, and asked me what I thought Joner was doing while he was in there,
and I told him I interpreted the story this way, that the whale was fixed
up inside with upper and lower berths, like a sleeping car, and Joner had
a lower berth, and the porter made up the berth as soon as Joner came in
with his satchel, and Joner pulled off his boots and gave them to the
porter to black, and put his watch under the pillow and turned in. The
boys in Sunday school all laffed, and the minister said I was a bigger
fool than Pa was, and that was useless. If you go back on me, now, I won't
have a friend, except my chum and a dog, and I swear, by my halidom, that
I never put no sand in your sugar, or kerosene in your butter. I admit the
picking off of the codfish, but you can charge it to Pa, the same as you
did the eggs that I pushed my chum over into last summer, though I thought
you did wrong in charging Christmas prices for dog days eggs. When my
chum's Ma scraped his pants she said there was not an egg represented on
there that was less than two years old. The Sunday school folks
have all gone back on me, since I put kyan pepper on the stove, when they
were singing 'Little Drops of Water,' and they all had to go out doors and
air themselves, but I didn't mean to let the pepper drop on the stove. I
was just holding it over the stove to warm it, when my chum hit the funny
bone of my elbow. Pa says I am a terror to cats. Every time Pa says
anything, it gives me a new idea. I tell you Pa has got a great brain, but
sometimes he don't have it with him. When he said I was a terror to cats I
thought what fun there is in cats, and me and my chum went to stealing
cats right off, and before night we had eleven cats caged. We had one in a
canary bird cage, three in Pa's old hat boxes, three in Ma's band box,
four in valises, two in a trunk, and the rest in a closet up stairs.
"That night Pa said he wanted me to stay home because the committee that
is going to get up a noyster supper in the church was going to meet at our
house, and they might want to send me on errands. I asked him if my chum
couldn't stay too, 'cause he is the healthiest infant to run after errands
that ever was, and Pa said he could stay, but we must remember that there
musn't be no monkey business going on. I told him there shouldn't be no
monkey business, but I didn't promise nothing about cats. Well, sir, you'd
a dide. The committee was in the library by the back stairs, and me and my
chum got the cat boxes all together, at the top of the stairs, and we took
them all out and put them in a clothes basket, and just as the minister
was speaking, and telling what a great good was done by these oyster
sociables, in bringing the young people together, and taking their minds
from the wickedness of the world, and turning their thoughts into
different channels, one of the old tom cats in the basket gave a 'purmeow'
that sounded like the wail of a lost soul, or a challenge to battle. I
told my chum that we couldn't hold the bread-board over the clothes basket
much longer, when two or three cats began to yowl, and the minister
stopped talking and Pa told Ma to open the stair door and tell the hired
girl to see what was the matter up there. She thought our cat had got shut
up in the storm door, and she opened the stair door to yell to the girl,
and then I pushed the clothes basket, cats and all down the back stairs.
Well, sir, I suppose no committee for a noyster supper, was ever more
astonished. I heard Ma fall over a willow rocking chair, and say, 'scat,'
and I heard Pa say, 'well. I'm dam'd,' and a girl that sings in the choir
say, 'Heavens, I am stabbed,' then my chum and me ran to the front of the
house and come down the front stairs looking as innocent as could be, and
we went in the library, and I was just going to tell Pa if there was any
errands he wanted run my chum and me was just aching to run them, when a
yellow cat without any tail was walking over the minister, and Pa was
throwing a hassock at two cats that were clawing each other under the
piano, and Ma was trying to get her frizzes back on her head, and the
choir girl was standing on the lounge with her dress pulled up, trying to
scare cats with her striped stockings, and the minister was holding his
hands up, and I guess he was asking a blessing on the cats, and my chum
opened the front door and all the cats went out. Pa and Ma looked at me,
and I said it wasn't me, and the minister wanted to know how so much cat
hair got on my coat and vest, and I said a cat met me in the hall and
kicked me, and Ma cried, and Pa said 'that boy beats hell,' and the
minister said, I would be all right if I had been properly brought up, and
then Ma was mad, and the committee broke up. Well, to tell the honest
truth Pa basted me, and yanked me around until I had to have my arm in a
sling, but what's the use of making such a fuss about a few cats. Ma said
she never wanted to have my company again, 'cause I spoiled everything.
But I got even with Pa for basting me, this morning, and I dassent go
home. You see Ma has got a great big bath sponge as big as a chair
cushion, and this morning I took the sponge and filled it with warm water,
and took the feather cushion out of the chair Pa sits in at the table, and
put the sponge in its place, and covered it over with the cushion cover,
and when we all got set down to the table Pa came in and sat down on it to
ask a blessing. He started in by closing his eyes and placing his hands up
in front of him like the letter V, and then he began to ask that the food
we were about to partake off be blessed, and then he was going on to ask
that all of us be made to see the error of our ways, when he began to
hitch around, and he opened one eye and looked at me, and I looked as
pious as a boy can look when he knows the pancakes are getting cold, and
Pa he kind of sighed and said 'Amen' sort of snappish, and he got up and
told Ma he didn't feel well, and she would have to take his place and pass
around the sassidge and potatoes, and he looked kind of scart and went out
with his hand on his pistol pocket, as though he would like to shoot, and
Ma she got up and went around and sat in Pa's chair. The sponge didn't
hold more than half a pail full of water, and I didn't want to play no
joke on Ma, cause the cats nearly broke her up, but she sat down and was
just going to help me, when she rung the bell and called the hired girl,
and said she felt as though her neuralgia was coming on, and she would go
to her room, and told the girl to sit down and help Hennery. The girl sat
down and poured me out some coffee, and then she said, 'Howly Saint
Patrick, but I blave those pancakes are burning,' and she went out in the
kitchen. I drank my coffee, and then took the big sponge out of the chair
and put the cushion in the place of it, and then I put the sponge in the
bath room, and I went up to Pa and Ma's room, and asked them if I should
go after the doctor, and Pa had changed his clothes and got on his Sunday
pants, and he said, 'never mind the doctor, I guess we will pull through,'
and for me to get out and go to the devil, and I came over here. Say,
there is no harm in a little warm water, is there? Well, I'd like to know
what Pa and Ma and the hired girl thought. I am the only real healthy one
there is in our family."