“What you scratching yourself on the chest for?” said Uncle Ike, as the
red-headed boy stood with one hand inside his vest, digging as though
his life depended on his doing a good job. “Is there anything the matter
with you that soap and water will not cure?” and the old man punched the
boy in the ribs with a great big, hard thumb, as big as a banana.
“Uncle Ike, how long will a porous plaster stay on, and isn't there
any way to stop its itching? I have had one on for seventeen days and
nights, and it seems to be getting worse all the time,” said the boy, as
he dug away at his chest.
“Good heavens, take it off quick!” said Uncle Ike, as he laid his
lighted pipe down on the table, on a nice, clean cloth, and the
ashes and fire spilled out, and burned a hole in it. “You will die of
mortification. Those plasters are only intended to be used as posters
for a day or two. What in the name of common sense have you worn it
seventeen days for? Let's rip it off.”
“No, I have got to wear it eighteen days more,” said the boy, with a
look of resignation. “Now, don't laugh, Uncle Ike, will you? You see my
girl has gone to the seashore to be gone five weeks, and she gave me a
tintype and told me to wear it next my heart till she got back, and I
thought I could get it nearer my heart by putting it right against the
skin, and putting a porous plaster over it, and by gum, I can feel her
on my heart every minute. Now don't laugh, Uncle.”
[Illustration: Here, this plaster has got to be removed 111]
“Well, I guess not,” said Uncle Ike, as he put out the fire on the
table-cloth, and smoked a little while to settle his thoughts. “Here,
this plaster has got to be removed before the fatal day of her return,
or you will be holding down a job as a red-headed angel. Now, open your
shirt,” and the old man reached in and got a corner of the plaster, and
gave a jerk that caused every hair on the boy's head to raise up and
crack like a whiplash, while the tintype of the girl, covered with
crude India rubber and medicated glue, dropped on the floor, and the boy
turned pale and yelled bloody murder. “Now, don't ever do that again.
A picture in your inside pocket is near enough to the heart for all
practical purposes. Next, you will be swallowing her picture in the hope
that it will lodge near your heart. Now I got something serious to talk
with you about. One of the park policemen was here this morning looking
for you. He said some of you boys just raised merry hades at the park
concert last night. What did you do?”
“Just flushed quails,” said the boy, as he buttoned his shirt, and gave
the sore spot a parting dig. “We played we were hunting quail, and we
had more fun than you ever saw.”
“There are no quail in the park,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked curiously
at the boy through the smoke.
“Here, this plaster has got to be removed before the fatal day of her
return,” and puffed until his cheeks sank in, and the tears came to his
eyes. “What is this quail fable, anyway?”
“You see,” said the boy, as he took a piece of ice out of the water
pitcher and held it in his bosom, where the plaster came off, “when
there is an evening concert at the park, the boys and girls go off in
couples and sit under the trees in the dark, or on the grass, where no
one can see them very well, and they take hold of hands and put their
arms around each other, and all the time they are scared for fear they
will be caught, and ordered to quit. Well, us boys go around in the
dark, and when we see a couple in that way, one boy comes to a point,
like a dog, another boy walks up to the couple and flushes them, and as
they get up quick to go somewhere else, I blow up a paper bag and bust
it, and they start off on a run. Say, Uncle Ike, it is fun. We chased
one couple clear to the lake.”
“You did, did you, you little imp?” said the old man, as his sympathies
were aroused for the young people who were disturbed at a critical time.
“Don't let me ever hear of your flushing any more couples, or I'll flush
you the first time I catch you with your girl. How would you like to be
flushed? The parks are the only places many young people have to talk
love to each other, and it is cruel to disturb them by bursting paper
bags in their vicinity. If I was mayor I would build a thousand little
summer houses in the parks, just big enough for a poor young couple to
sit in, and talk over the future, and I would set policemen to watch out
that nobody disturbed them, and if one of you ducks come along, I would
have you thrown in the lake. The idea of a boy who is in love the way
you pretend to be, having no charity for others, makes me sick, I'll bet
none of those you flushed last night had it so bad they had tintypes
of the girls glued on their hearts with a porous plaster. Bah! you
meddler!” and the old man stamped his foot on the floor, and the boy
looked ashamed.
“Well, that's the last time I will mix in another fellow's love affair,”
said the boy, as he climbed up on Uncle Ike's knee.
“Now, I want to talk to you seriously,” said the boy, as he looked up
into Uncle Ike's round, smooth, red and smiling face. “Us boys have been
reading about the serious condition of our country, when its wealthy
citizens are leaving it and going abroad to live. Do you think, uncle,
that William Waldorf Astor's deserting this country, and joining
England, is going to cause this country to fail up in business? In case
of war with England, do you think he would fight this country?”
“Well, you kids can borrow more trouble about this poor old country of
ours than the men who own it can borrow. Astor! Why, boy, his deserting
his country will have about as much effect as it would for that man
working in the street to pack up his household goods and move to
Indiana. Do you suppose this state would tip up sideways if he should
quit running that scraper and move out of the state? Not much. The
Astors have been rich so long that they are un-American. It is not the
natural condition of an American to be rich. When a man gets too rich,
he is worried as to what to do with his money. There is no great
enjoyment that the very rich can have in this country that the poor
cannot have a little of. The first thing a very rich man acquires is a
bad stomach. He becomes too lazy to' take exercise, and lets a hired man
take exercise for him. He looks at his money, and thinks of his stomach.
In Astor's case there was nothing in this country that he could enjoy,
not even sleep. Nobody respected him any more than they did every other
honest man. Only a few toadies would act toward him as though he was a
world's wonder, on account of his wealth. People with souls, and health,
and good nature, in the West, got rich as he, and went to New York, and
knew how to spend money and have fun, and do good with it; and Astor
couldn't understand it. He wanted to be considered the only, but he
never had learned how to blow in money to make others happy. If he gave
to the poor, an agent did it for him, and squeezed it, and made a
memorandum and showed it to him once a year, and he frowned, and his
stomach ached, and he took a pill, and sighed. I suppose two girls from
California, daughters of an old Roman of the mines and the railroads,
who died too soon, a senator with a soul, taught Astor how to do good
with money, and maybe scared him out of the country. Those girls seemed
to, know where there was a chance for suffering among the poor, and they
kept people in their employ on the run to get to places before the bread
was all gone, until half a million of the people that only knew there
was an Astor by the signs on buildings for rent, knew these Fair girls
by sight, and worshiped them as they passed. The girls are married now,
but they give just the same, and wherever they are in the world there is
the crowd, and there is the love of those who believe them angels. Astor
could not find any one to love him for any good he ever did that did not
have rent or interest as the object, and he went away where a man is
respected in a half-way manner, in proportion to the money he spends on
royalty, in imitating royalty, and he will run a race there, and get
tired of it; and some day, if he lives, he will come back to this
country in the steerage, as his ancestors did, and take out his first
papers and vote, and maybe he will be happy. The only way for a rich man
to be very happy is to find avenues for getting his congested wealth off
his mind, where it will cause some one who is poor and suffering to look
up to him, and say that riches have not spoiled him. But to inherit
money and go through life letting it accumulate, and not finding any
avenue where it can leak out and be caught in the apron of a needy soul,
is tough. No, you boys need not worry about the desertion of Astor. If
we have a war with Great Britain, you would find Astor taking a night
trip across the channel, and France would draw him in the lottery. One
foreigner who landed in this country the day Astor sailed away, will be
of more value in peace or war than Astor could be if he had remained.”
“Gosh!” said the boy, as he got up out of Uncle Ike's lap, “if you
are not a comfort! Between that porous plaster, and Astor's going to
England, and my girl at the seashore, I was about down with nervous
prostration, but I am all right now,” and the redheaded boy went out to
round up the gang and tell them the country was all safe enough, as long
as they had Uncle Ike to run it.