YOUTHFUL PRANKS
It is not our purpose to give a full history of the boyhood of our
hero. We would rather hurry on to give an account of his life as a
man. But we hope our readers will not think it tedious, if we give an
episode or two of his boyhood’s life, which will enable the reader the
better to understand and sympathise with him in his aspirations and
ambitions.
Steve was by no means a paragon of goodness at all times--no boy ever
is. He loved mischief as much as any other boy. We do not believe in
the perfect hero. Every boy and man, as well as girl and woman, has
his or her faults. Steve’s greatest fault was a keen sense of the
ludicrous, which often led him into mischief; besides he loved mischief
for its own sweet sake. He, one night, nearly had to sleep in the
lock-up through his mischievous pranks. He and a companion, thinking it
a pity not to make the best use of a fine moonlight night, proceeded
to prepare for a game of _snake_. To the reader, who has never had the
pleasure and excitement to play snake, I will explain how it is done.
A dark coloured strip of cloth is obtained in the shape and size of a
fine large healthy snake. To one end of this artificial snake the end
of a thin and almost invisible string is tied. The longer the string
the safer the operation is.
Well, Steve and his companion manufactured just such a snake. They laid
the snake on one side of the street in the regulation way. That is in
the shape a snake is supposed to delight in assuming, viz., curled up
in a zigzag form. Then they took the further end of the string to the
opposite side of the street, crept through a hole in the hedge, taking
their end of the string with them, and watched their opportunity.
Presently a man came down the street, walking jauntily along as if he
feared neither man nor devil; but as soon as he is in a line with the
snake the fun commences. The first thing our peaceful citizen is aware
of is a snake entangled with, and curling between, his legs, in a most
lively fashion (operated by the string of course). Who is going to
fight a snake of such a size in the uncertain moonlight, and unarmed
too? Not he! no fear! So the only result was a yell, a whoop, and a
mighty jump, and our peaceful citizen disappears round the first corner
with long record-beating strides, leaving the destruction of the snake
to the next comer. Of course, as soon as the victim is out of earshot,
Steve and his companion are holding their sides, laughing at the jolly
fun. The snake is soon replaced and the fun recommences. After sundry
victims had afforded copious fun to the mischievous operators, they
began to think it rather slow waiting for customers, so they started
walking up the street in search of the slow-coming victims. The fun was
lively and brisk for some time, but they reached the summit of their
enjoyment when they frightened a troop of servant girls, accompanied by
their beaux, out for a walk. The troop scattered all over the street,
howling, yelling and screaming, fit to wake the dead. They did wake
someone from his sleep, who was not quite dead yet--the night watchman.
Now this night watchman was not a bird to be caught by chaff twice.
_He_ had seen this trick before. He caught up the snake, and, following
the line up, soon came to the hiding youths. But if he thought that
he was going to gain promotion by catching these night-birds he was
mightily mistaken, for these slippery gents crushed their way through
the hedge lining the street into a garden, and climbing hedge after
hedge, from one garden into the other, until they came to another
street, easily escaped, and walked quietly home, minus their snake,
which had fallen into the hands of the watchman. Of course this spice
of danger made the fun all the greater.
Steve and his friends had one grand playground. It was on the edge of
the town on the river bank. There they would congregate of an afternoon
and indulge in all the different kinds of games dear to a boy’s heart.
Steve was one of the youngest of the boys who met here, and therefore
was not as yet initiated into all the crafts of the band. One night,
while playing cricket at this spot, Steve’s cousin and namesake--a boy
easily led astray and into mischief, vacillating and weak principled,
of which more will be seen further on--came to him, and, after leading
him on one side, said in English (which, the reader must understand, is
a foreign language to Steve, his mother’s tongue being Dutch, or rather
Afrikander, and he was only just beginning to learn English at school).
‘I say, Steve, do you want to smoke?’
‘Smoke? Smoke? What is that?’
‘Rook, rook!’ replied his cousin.
‘Oh, rook! I don’t know. Is it nice?’
‘Oh, yes; come and try.’
Of course the policy of his elder companions in asking Steve to join
them was to make him participate in their stealthy practice, and thus
incriminate him, to prevent him from getting them into trouble by
telling anyone about it, by which means their parents might come to
hear of it, which, of course, would mean severe punishment to them.
Steve’s cousin led him into a dense bush on the river bank, which he
had never explored as yet, therefore he was surprised to see his cousin
part the bushes and lead him into a large but thoroughly concealed
opening among the bushes. The overhanging branches made it a nearly
rainproof retreat. Here Steve found about half-a-dozen members of
the secret smoking club. After a look round, our hero was offered a
smoke, which he accepted, and was soon puffing away at--what does the
uninitiated reader think?--a piece of ratan, which was one of the
first stages in learning the art of smoking in this particular band;
the porous wood of the ratan, or cane, serving as a good conductor
of the smoke from the burning end. Of the whole band gathered here,
only one was advanced enough to indulge in the real article, viz.,
tobacco; the rest were all smoking one, or another, of the different
substitutes for tobacco known to the rising generation. I suppose the
manly reader who has been brought up in a proper and an enlightened
manner has learned to smoke with the usual cigarette, made up of
Turkish, or mixed tobacco. But these youths, sons of more or less poor
parents, being allowed no pocket money, had to satisfy themselves with
the best substitutes for tobacco they could discover; and they showed
a rare genius in discovering different cheap articles to serve their
purpose, amongst which were such things as pumpkin stalk, cane, leaves
of various trees, and various similar rubbish. All this is vulgar is it
not? Yet I can assure you it is not as bad as it sounds. It produces
plenty of the chief thing desired--smoke!
But to resume. Steve did not remain satisfied for many days with these
insipid and weak substitutes; so when his cousin, who was the only one
who smoked tobacco regularly, offered to allow him a few puffs at the
real thing, he accepted readily enough, and smoked like all novices
generally do, viz., smoked as if his life depended upon his finishing
the pipe as fast as possible. All went well until he had finished the
pipe, for while he was yet smoking, he had thought it not at all as
nasty as it had been described to him. But when he had put the pipe
down (which was made of two joints of reeds, one about an inch in
diameter serving as the bowl, and another one with a tiny opening
serving as the stem) he began to feel the effects. He felt as if the
world were whirling round and round on purpose to make him sick. He
made his way to some water the best way he could, plunged his head
therein and washed out his mouth, but nothing would take away that
awful feeling which most readers who are also smokers know to be the
effect of the first pipe of tobacco. It was only after having lain down
on the grass for an hour or so, with closed eyes, vowing innumerable
vows never to touch tobacco again, that he got well enough to go home,
amid the teasings and jokes of his companions. But I must state here
that Steve did not keep his vow never to touch tobacco again. Who does
not make these vows when learning to smoke, and who does not break
them? Steve tried again and again, and after having broken his pipe and
renewed his vow not to smoke again for some dozen times, he succeeded
at last in smoking without getting sick, and to-day he can smoke his
pipe against any man.