This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty
bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy
myself.
Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here
that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of
a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young
gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly
because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an
amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no
hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I
didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird
Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my
little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent
it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real
human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more
like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one
that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at
recess with the following words: “My name's Tom Bailey; what's your
name?” If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new
pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was
particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and Spriggins
were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the
like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.
Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather elderly boys by this
time--lawyers, merchants, sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil
Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul at Shanghai, where I
picture him to myself with his head closely shaved--he never had too much
hair--and a long pigtail hanging down behind. He is married, I hear;
and I hope he and she that was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together,
sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of tea in a skyblue
tower hung with bells. It is so I think of him; to me he is henceforth
a jewelled mandarin, talking nothing but broken China. Whitcomb is a
judge, sedate and wise, with spectacles balanced on the bridge of that
remarkable nose which, in former days, was so plentifully sprinkled with
freckles that the boys christened him Pepper Whitcomb. Just to think
of little Pepper Whitcomb being a judge! What would he do to me now, I
wonder, if I were to sing out “Pepper!” some day in court? Fred Langdon
is in California, in the native-wine business--he used to make the best
licorice-water I ever tasted! Binny Wallace sleeps in the Old South
Burying-Ground; and Jack Harris, too, is dead--Harris, who commanded us
boys, of old, in the famous snow-ball battles of Slatter's Hill. Was it
yesterday I saw him at the head of his regiment on its way to join the
shattered Army of the Potomac? Not yesterday, but six years ago. It was
at the battle of the Seven Pines. Gallant Jack Harris, that never drew
rein until he had dashed into the Rebel battery! So they found him--lying
across the enemy's guns.
How we have parted, and wandered, and married, and died! I wonder what
has become of all the boys who went to the Temple Grammar School at
Rivermouth when I was a youngster? “All, all are gone, the old familiar
faces!”
It is with no ungentle hand I summon them back, for a moment, from that
Past which has closed upon them and upon me. How pleasantly they live
again in my memory! Happy, magical Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even
Conway, mine ancient foe, stands forth transfigured, with a sort of
dreamy glory encircling his bright red hair!
With the old school formula I commence these sketches of my boyhood. My
name is Tom Bailey; what is yours, gentle reader? I take for granted
it is neither Wiggins nor Spriggins, and that we shall get on famously
together, and be capital friends forever.