[Illustration: I heard a rumor about you yesterday 101]
“Uncle Ike, I heard a rumor about you yesterday that tickled me almost
to death,” said the red-headed boy, as he came into the old gentleman's
room while he was shaving, and the boy took the lather brush and worked
it up and down in the cup until the lather run over the side, and he had
lather enough on hand to shave half the men in town.
“What was it?” said the old man, as he puckered his mouth on one side,
and opened it so he could shave around the corner of his mouth. “Nothing
disreputable, is it; nothing to bring disgrace on the family?” and he
wiped the razor on a piece of newspaper, and stropped it on his hand,
as he looked in the mirror to see if there were any new wrinkles in his
face.
“Well, I don't know as it would disgrace us so very much, if you looked
out for yourself, and didn't steal,” said the boy, as he began to
sharpen his knife on Uncle Ike's razor strop. “There is a rumor among
the boys that you may be nominated for President, and a lot of us boys
got together and took a vote, when we were in swimming, and you were
elected unanimously. I am to be the boss who deals out the offices, and
all the boys are going to have a soft snap. Before the thing goes
any further the boys wanted me to see you, and have you promise that
anything I promised should be good, see?”
“Uncle Ike, I heard a rumor about you yesterday that tickled me most to
death.”
“Well, you are a dum nice lot of politicians, to work up this boom for
me, without my consent,” and the old man put up his razor, and began
to wash the lather off his face, and while he was rubbing his red and
laughing face with a towel, he said: “If I am elected President, and
I want you to understand that I have not yet consented to take the
nomination, I would, the first thing I did, have all my relatives either
sent to jail, or confined in various asylums of one kind or another. I
think I would send you to a home for the feeble-minded.”
“What's the matter with relatives?” said the boy, as he took the razor,
and searched around on his lip for some hairs, and finally got hold of
one, and the razor pulled it so hard the tears came in his eyes; “seems
to me a President with all his relatives in jail would be looked upon as
a disgrace to society.”
“Well, I wouldn't care,” said the old man, as he struggled to make
a fourteen-inch collar button on to a sixteen-inch shirt, and nearly
choked himself before he found out he had got the boy's collar by
mistake. “I have watched this President business a good many years, and
have concluded that the most of the trouble a President has is through
fool relatives. Look at Grant. You couldn't throw a stone in Washington
without hitting a relative, and they got into more scrapes, and dragged
Grant into more disgrace, and fool schemes, than anything. There wasn't
offices enough for all of them, and some had to live in other ways,
which didn't help Ulysses very much. Harrison never had any pleasure
until he had an operation performed on his son to remove his talking
utensils. That boy would be interviewed and jollied, and he would tell
more things that were not so, about pa's policy, than the President
could stand. But a brother is the worst relative a President can have,
if he is a half-way lawyer. A President cannot kill a brother that is
older than he is, and can't prevent his being retained, and can't keep
his brother's fingers out of all the contracts, and his being attorney
for contractors, and can't tell him to keep away from the White House,
and don't dare to tell his brother not to go around looking wise, as
though he was running the whole administration. No, sir; there ought to
be a law that when a man is elected President, all male relatives
that are old enough to talk, should have their mouths sewed up, and be
compelled to put on gloves that are fastened with a time lock, so they
couldn't get their hands into anything that would bring disgrace on
the chief magistrate. Now, if you boys want me for President, with this
understanding, that you shall all keep away from me after the 4th of
March, and never let anybody know that you ever heard of me, and that
you will never write me even a postal card, why, you can go ahead
with your boom,” and the old man tied his necktie so it looked like a
scrambled egg, and he and the boy went in to breakfast, the boy opening
the outside door and whistling a weird whistle, which brought three boys
up on the porch, when he said to them:
“By the way, that presidential boom for Uncle Ike is off. Don't let the
gang do another thing. He is a lobster,” and the boys went out into the
world looking for another candidate, followed by a dog that jumped up
and down in front of them as though he could lead them to a presidential
candidate or a wood-chuck hole mighty quick.
“Speaking of dogs,” said Uncle Ike, as he and the boy sat down to
breakfast, and the other boys went out on the street to wait for the
red-headed boy to finish eating, “where you boys going?”
“Just going to follow the dog,” said the warm-haired proposition, as he
kicked because the melon was not ripe. “Did you ever drown out a gopher,
Uncle Ike?”
“Bet your life,” said Uncle Ike, as he dished out enough food for the
boy to have fed an orphan asylum. “Oh, I had a dog once that knew more
than an alderman. Do you know, boy, that a dog is the best thing a boy
can associate with? A boy never does anything very mean, if he has a dog
that loves him. Many a time I have been just about ready to do a mean
trick, when the dog would sit down in front of me, and look up into my
eyes in an appealing way, and raise up one ear at a time and drop it,
and raise the other, and he would jump up on me and lick my hand, and
seem to say, 'Don't,' and, by gosh! I didn't. Say, if a mean boy has a
dog that loves him, the dog is better than he is, and the boy is careful
about doing mean things, for fear he will shame the dog. I don't suppose
a dog will get to heaven, but, if his master goes to heaven, the dog is
mighty likely to lay down on the outside of the pearly gates, and just
starve to death, waiting to hear the familiar whistle of his master,
who is enjoying himself inside. Now, let's go out on the porch while I
smoke;” and the old man led the way, and lighted up the old churn, and
puffed away a while, and the boy was in a hurry to get away with the
other boys; and finally the boys came up on the porch, and the dog went
up to Uncle Ike and licked his hand, as though he knew the old man was
a friend of dogs and boys. “What's this scar on his nose? Woodchuck bite
him?”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the boys. “And this one on the under lip?” said
the old man. “Looks like a gopher had took a bite out of that lip.”
“That's what it was,” said another boy, and they all laughed to think
that a dignified old man like Uncle Ike could tell all about the scars
on a cheap dog. “Well, boys, I won't detain you if you are going out to
exercise the dog on woodchucks or gophers. But let me tell you this,”
and he puffed quite a little while on the pipe, and seemed to be harking
away back to the bark of the dog friend of his boyhood, and the boys
could almost see the dirt flying out of an old-time woodchuck hole
as the dog of Uncle Ike's memory was digging and biting at roots, and
snarling at a woodchuck that was safe enough away down below the ground.
“Let me tell you something. You want to play fair with the dog. A
dog has got more sense than some men. He can tell a loafer, after one
wood-chuck hunt. The boy who gets interested when the clog is digging
out a woodchuck, gets down on his knees and pushes the dirt away, and
pats the dog, and encourages him, and when he comes to a root, takes his
knife and cuts it away, is the thoroughbred that the dog will tie to;
but the boy who sits in the shade and sicks the dog on, and don't help,
but bets they don't get the woodchuck, and when the dog and his working
partner pulls the woodchuck out, gets up out of the shade and begins to
talk about how we got the woodchuck, is the loafer. He is the kind of
fellow who will encourage others to enlist and go to war, in later life,
while he stays home and kicks about the way the war is conducted, and
shaves mortgages on the homes of soldiers, and forecloses them. That
kind of a boy will be the one who will lie in the shade when he grows
up, and not work in the sun. Didn't you ever see a dog half-way down a
woodchuck hole, kicking dirt into the bosom of the boy's pants who is
backing him, suddenly back out of the hole, wag his tail and wink his
eyes, full of dirt, at the boy who is working the hole with him, and
then run out his tongue and loll, and look at the fellows who are
sitting around waiting for the last act, in the shade, and say to them,
as plain as a dog can talk, 'You fellows make me tired. Why don't you
get some style about you, and come in on this game on the ground floor?'
and then he gets rested a little, and you say, 'dig him out,' and he
swallows a big sigh at their laziness, and goes down in the hole and
digs and growls so the lazy boys think he has forgotten that they are
deadheads in the enterprise, but the dog does not forget.”
“Well, I swow, if your Uncle Ike ain't away up in G on woodchuck
hunting,” said one of the neighbor boys as they all sat around the old
man, with their eyes wide open. “How about drowning out a gopher?”
“Same thing, exactly,” said Uncle Ike, as he filled up the pipe again,
and lit it, and run a broom straw through the stem, to give it air. “The
dog watches the hole, and keeps tab on the boys who carry water. You
have got to keep the water going down the gopher hole, and you got to
work like sixty. Gophers know better than to have holes too near the
water, and the dog knows what boy flunks after he carries one pail of
water, and says, 'Oh, darn a gopher anyway; I hain't lost no gopher,'
and goes and sits down and lets the other boys carry water. The dog
knows that the boy who keeps carrying water and pouring it in the hole
is the thoroughbred, and that the quitter has got a streak of yellow in
him. When the hole is filled up with water, and the gopher comes to the
surface, and the dog grabs for it, and the boy who took off his clothes
and carried water also grabs, and either the dog or the boy gets bit,
usually the boy, the dog knows that the boy who worked with him on that
gopher hole has got the making of a good business man in him. A business
or professional career, boys, is just like digging out a woodchuck, or
drowning out a gopher, and the fellows who help the dog when they are
boys, are the ones who are mighty apt to get the business woodchuck when
they grow up. I will bet you ten dollars that if you pick out the most
successful business man in town, and go look at his left thumb nail, you
will find a scar on it where a half-drowned gopher bit him, because he
was at the hole at the right time. Now, go and have fun, and be sure and
play fair with the dog,” and Uncle Ike took down a broom and shook it at
them as they scattered down the street, the dog barking joyously.
“I speak for carrying the water to drown out the gopher!” yelled the
red-headed boy.
“Me, too!” shouted the other boys in chorus, as they disappeared from
sight, and Uncle Ike listened until they were out of hearing, and then
he limped down to the gate and looked up the road toward the country,
but all he could see was a cloud of dust with a dog in it, and he walked
back to the house sadly, and as he lifted the lame leg upon the porch,
and took his hat, he said:
“Blamed if I don't hitch up the mare and drive out there where those
boys have gone. I'll bet I know woodchuck holes and gopher holes them
kids never would find if they had a whole passel of dogs,” and he went
out to the barn and pretty soon Aunt Almira heard him yell, “Whoa, gosh
darn ye, take in that bit!” and she put on her sunbonnet and went out to
the barn to see if he had actually gone crazy.