MOSES HAS EXCITING EXPERIENCES.
It was Saturday afternoon on a busy street in the city. Moses Wopp and
Clarence Crump, at whose home the former was spending the week end,
were on their way to the skating-rink. If they had wanted to skate
there, the streets would have accommodated them with a sufficiently
smooth surface, as an early frost had rimed the pavement.
A tall, lean, loose-jointed, large-limbed man was enjoying the frosty
air and walked briskly humming a gay tune. All at once he found his
face upturned to the glorious blue sky and a youthful voice reached
his ear, “Did you see the telegraph pole sail over that icy spot?”
Then another voice equally youthful, but with a distinct absence of
city polish, answered, “Betcher life I seen him, wouldn’t of missed it
fer a punkin pie, he’s lookin’ fer gopher holes in the ground yet.”
The loose-jointed one at last regained his feet and turning in the
direction of the witnesses of his ignominy gave them a resentful
glare. Moses was leaning against a fence and laughing till it seemed
as though his eyes must remain indefinitely imbedded in their sockets.
“I’ll give you spalpeens something to laugh over!” threatened the
injured one, as he brushed the snow and dust from his hat. Then he
slowly went on looking back at the unyielding glacier-like surface of
the sidewalk.
He had not gone far when Moses caught up to him, “Please, Mister, here
is three buttings orff yer vest, I guess.” His hilarity was not under
strict control and again he broke into uproarious laughter.
“None of your nonsense,” replied the long-limbed pedestrian, his
thankyou’s cut short by Moses’ cheerfulness.
In a few minutes Moses again touched the man’s elbow, “Say, Mister, I
come to arsk yer parding fer larfin’ at yer, but, Glory be! I couldn’t
help it. My curtings never rolled up on a funnier sight.”
Here his laughter became a series of concussions decidedly menacing to
his well-being.
“I’ll lick you good and plenty,” answered the man, his face purple
with indignation. Whereupon Moses, overcome utterly with mirth, lost
his own balance and rubbed his freckled nose along a shining streak of
slippery pavement.
Presently Clarence caught up to him and bore him down a side street
lest further attempts at apology should cause him to again accost the
irate stranger.
At the rink the enthusiastic country boy enjoyed the vast expanse of
ice with no snags to interrupt his skating. A little girl wearing a
bright red cap was enraptured to find her hand caught in Moses’ strong
grasp and to feel herself, still a learner, whirled giddily over the
ice feeling as safe as on a carpeted floor.
The band struck up and, intoxicated with the rhythm of the music,
Moses skated as he had never done before. At first an object of
amusement to the city boys he became the centre of an admiring throng.
His spirals and figure eight’s were such as to call forth envious
remarks. Even Clarence Egerton Crump thawed and admitted to several
school mates that Moses Wopp was a pretty solid pal, only a bit gawky
in his get-up.
Moses returned to the Crump home with a prodigious appetite.
“I c’d eat a rhindoceros,” he confided to Clarence.
“Well, Moses,” queried his genial host at the supper table, “did the
skating go pretty good to-day?”
“It was shore a wonder, with the band playin’ an’ all. I never heard
sich moosic, not sence the circus.”
At this moment the dining-room door opened and the daughter of the
house entered the room.
“Here is Isobel. What kept you so late, young lady?” As Mr. Crump
spoke he viewed the young girl with justifiable pride.
“O, Dadsie,” was the reply, “this is recital afternoon, you know.”
“My eye!” exclaimed Clarence, mockingly shading his eyes from his
sister’s radiance, “She’s got her joy-bells on, what’s the stunt?”
A haughty toss of the head was all the reply vouchsafed to this
brotherly jibe.
“Are you hungry, Isobel?” questioned her mother.
“I’m ever so hungry, Mumsie.” As she spoke, Isobel glanced at Moses
who was sitting dumbfounded before the dainty girl he was meeting for
the first time. His face was scarlet; his ears were by nature stiffly
folded forward and the light shining through them from an electric
globe on the wall made them now glow like red shells.
Suddenly a light, as a blinding flash of lightning, seemed to reveal
to the boy his deficiencies. He stroked into place the strand of red
hair that always stood upright on the crown of his head, untwisted his
left leg from around his right and otherwise tried to attain the ideal
of knightliness which on the moment crystallized in his mind.
Notwithstanding Moses’ endeavors to be attractive, Isobel Crump’s
voice, as she addressed her brother’s friend was so frigid that her
words penetrated his ear like sharply-pointed icicles.
Later in the evening, as Isobel moved about the drawing-room in a
flounced white frock, her shimmering hair falling over her shoulders,
and her dainty high-heeled silver-buckled shoes skimming the roses on
the carpet, Moses’ eyes followed her in wonderment. Never before had
he seen a creature so dainty, so airy, and so altogether like a
princess. Betty was just plain Betty, straight hair plaited stiffly
and tied with red ribbon, tanned face and hands, and big brown eyes
“looking like they loved everybody.” But here was a girl who could
turn disdainful hazel eyes on one and could make one feel like an
ignoble worm. Somehow Moses liked feeling like a worm, Isobel Crump
was so immeasureably above him that he might as well feel like a worm
as like any other more noble inhabitant of this terrestrial globe.
Clarence brought out his high-school books to display before the
simple country boy the profundity of his learning. He opened his
“Euclid” and Moses, sitting at the table, was vastly impressed with
the sight of angles and triangles, and rash but interesting statements
about _abc_ being equal to _bed_. His attitude toward Clarence became
one of utter abasement as that budding Archimedes produced his
exercise book covered with squat-shaped triangles gleefully pursuing
circles whose rims were horribly mangled by reason of defective
compasses.
Clarence had crossed the Pons Asinorum; a series of intoxicated
circles, with sharp-cornered triangles piercing their fat sides, bore
eloquent testimony to his faltering steps.
To further impress the unsophisticated guest, a Latin Grammar was
exhumed from a pile of books, and totally careless of how Moses was
smarting under such an exhibition of scholarship, Clarence recited
loudly “Amo, amas, amat.”
“What does that mean?” queried Moses.
“I love, thou lovest, he loves,” said Clarence, scornfully, in answer
to this preposterous question.
Moses blushed deeply and dared not raise his eyes from the ground lest
Isobel should see his embarrassment.
In the Crump household, Clarence stood for all that was brilliant and
intellectual, while Isobel stood for all that was fairy-like and
charming. Moses felt himself a cipher, of no account whatever, in this
wonderful home. He would need an extra administration of sympathy from
Betty on his return. He thought at that moment very tenderly of the
great brown eyes that “looked like they loved everybody.”
“Isobel, play one of your pieces, let’s see how your recital helped
you to-day.”
As Isobel seated herself on the piano-stool in compliance with her
father’s wishes, her white-flounced dress billowed up around her,
reminding Moses, even in his chaotic state of mind, of the delicious
creamy meringue on a lemon pie.
The captivating music of Grieg’s “Butterfly” floated through the room
and Moses watched the white supple fingers of the player with
breathless eagerness.
“Gosh!” he exclaimed, as Isobel closed on the last startlingly
unexpected note, “that’s where some feller planks his strawr hat on a
beauty butterfly!”
Covered with confusion at his outburst, Moses sank into his chair and
remained silent till Mr. Crump, by adroit conversation, caused him to
once again lose his self-consciousness. He called Moses’ attention to
a few musical instruments in the corner of the room and led him over
to view them more closely.
Mr. Crump indulged in an unusual hobby, the collection of old musical
instruments, and a motley group it was that Moses eyed with growing
wonder.
“This here thing looks like a mule with his ribs druv in an’ stan’in’
on his haunches. What d’ye call it?”
“That’s a string bass.”
“An orful good-natured tied-in-at-the-waist critter, aint it?”
commented Moses.
“This is a lyre, very old,” said Mr. Crump, handling an ancient
instrument tenderly. Moses looked up suddenly, he hoped nothing he had
said called forth the remark.
“This is a xylophone, take this little wooden hammer and play a few
notes.” Moses took the hammer held out to him and striking a wooden
bar brought out a weird but sweet sound. He struck several bars in
succession and was enraptured to find that they produced a sort of
veiled silvery music. “Sounds like the moon looks when you carnt see
it fer clouds,” he mused, “Mar thinks I’d make a moosican, mebbe she’s
right.”
“Did Clarence show you the sights of the city this morning?” asked Mr.
Crump, trying to repress a smile.
“Yeh, we went to the shootin’ gallery, an’ the amuseum, an’ got inter
a little square cage an’ shot away up to the top of an orful high
buildin’ an’ got a sparrer’s eye view of the city.”
“Would you like to live in the city?”
“Sometimes yes an’ orftener no. I’d hate to leave Betty an’ the pinto.”
“What is Betty like?”
“Hev you ever hed a toothache an’ orl at onct it bust an’ stopped
achin’? Well, no matter what trouble yer in, jist a sight o’ Betty’s
like that.”
“She must come to visit us sometime.”
“She’d like fust-rate to come, but Glory be! She’d want ter fetch her
pet turkey and Jethro.”
“Whose Jethro?”
“He’s jist the plainest gorl-darndest dorg in the worl’, but me an’
Betty thinks heaps of him, an’ Job’s lorst one eye but he’s a dandy
live feather duster orl right.” Gestures and grins illuminated this
earnest speech.
“Now, Clarence, recite William Tell for us.” Mrs. Crump put her hand
on her son’s shoulder and turned him away from the bookcase which had
been serving as a screen for the boy’s laughing countenance, “You must
help Moses enjoy his visit.”
“O, that chestnut!” scornfully ejaculated Isobel.
“Yes, I s’pose we can listen to you scramble up and down the piano
keys all night, but if I do anything it’s another story.”
“No quarreling now. Come, Clarence, do as your mother asks.”
Thus adjured by his father the elocutionist began in a loud dramatic
voice:
“WILLIAM TELL.
“‘Place there the boy,’ the tyrant said
‘Fix me the apple on his head’.”
As Clarence depicted the terror of the father, lest his arrow miss the
mark and kill his son, Moses rose from his chair in breathless
suspense. However, the arrow cleft the apple and left the boy
unscathed, and the relieved Moses, sinking back in his chair,
recovered himself sufficiently to murmur “What an orful chanct fer
anyone ter take!”
Mrs. Crump smiled kindly at the impressionable boy, and lest her son’s
evident amusement should wound his feelings, she asked, “Do you like
hearing of other countries and of other people?”
“Yeh, Mar says I’m a reglar jographer I like it so much.”
“In that case, Clarence must take you to the Sunday-school hall
to-morrow afternoon to hear a talk on China. There will be all sorts
of curious things shown and you are sure to enjoy it.”
In his anticipation of the Sunday afternoon treat in store for him,
Moses dreamed all that night of little dark-skinned men running round
after him with bowls of rice and jabbing him with chop-sticks.
Early on the following afternoon the two boys found their way into
front seats in the Sunday-school hall. The address was fairly well
under way when the excitement of absorbing so much information in so
short a space of time told on Moses’ constitution. His nose began to
bleed. With a handkerchief like a small-sized counterpane applied to
the offending nasal organ the boy tiptoed squeakily out of the room.
Vainly he explored the corridors seeking a tap for water to bathe his
bleeding nose. The more doors Moses went through the more doors seemed
to beckon him on through their portals. He reflected that if he had
only had the good fortune to bring the key of the pantry door at home,
that large piece of cold steel applied to the back of his neck would
speedily have stopped the sanguinary flood.
Turning to the right he entered a short dark corridor and noticed at
the end of the passageway a brass knob gleaming. With renewed hope he
approached the shining mark and extended his hand to open the door.
It was dark and the handkerchief over his nose rendered one eye
ineffective so that he could not see more than a few inches ahead of
him. On opening the door he found himself on what seemed a short
flight of steps which he proceeded to descend. All at once he tripped
and down he went struggling for breath into the font that had been
filled with water for the evening baptismal service.
“Holy Smoke! Be this the River Jording I’ve come ter?”
Dim religious lights from stained glass windows shone through the
church and falling on the boy chilled him to the marrow.
“Gosh! Wisht Betty was here right this minute. Mebbe I’m dyin’. Hope
nobody starts twangin’ a harp. My nose is worser’n ever!”
Moses regained his equilibrium and as the water came just to his hips
he turned to retrace his way to the steps down which he had wandered.
“Where is my cap?” With his free hand he felt his bare head. Looking
around the luckless boy saw his headgear in the middle of the font and
turned to rescue it. The water became deeper, until he stood in it
almost to his arm-pits.
As he reached for his cap a door opposite the one through which he had
passed opened, and the grey head of the sexton appeared.
“Shade of Beelzebub! Where did you spring from?” shouted the
astonished man.
“Please, Mister, my nose was bleedin’ an’ I lorst my way lookin’ fer
warter, an’ here I am on Jording’s stormy banks.”
“You young scamp, you found water, didn’t you, more than you needed?
For the love of St. Patrick, if it isn’t the spalpeen that split his
sides laughing at me falling on the ice yesterday!”
The old man peered over the steps, and Moses recognized the
loose-jointed long-limbed individual who had provided him with such
mirth on the previous day.
“Just to think I’ve got to heat up more water and fill this tank again
for a good-for-nothing urchin like you! Begorra! It’s worth it though
to see you get a good ducking!”
Through the open door could be heard the strains of “Pull for the
shore” sung with heart and soul by the intermediate class, and to that
lively air Moses made for the exit as expeditiously as his sodden
garments would allow.
“My religion’s purty well wartered now, I guess,” said Moses,
sheepishly, to Clarence, who met him at the end of the fateful
corridor. That youth had followed his country friend from the
Sunday-school hall, but not in time to direct his erring steps.
“You are one simp,” he comforted, at the same time putting his own
overcoat about the shivering boy.
At the door of the Crump household, Moses stood before the daughter of
the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an
overwhelming embarrassment. His body glowed so that steam might have
been seen arising from his dripping garments. He almost yearned for
incarceration in an ice-house. His personal pulchritude had not been
enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl
failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. More than ever
Moses longed for the encircling arms of Betty.
On the morrow, before returning home, he made several purchases with
the money his mother had slipped into his hand as she whispered, “Hev
a good time, Mosey, but don’t fergit to say yer prayers reglar.”
He arrived home Monday evening, and was received as though a visit of
several months’ duration had torn him from the bosom of the family.
Ebenezer Wopp became the grateful recipient of a quire of paper for
notes. Miss Gordon was enabled to add to the decorations of her bureau
a celluloid pictureframe on which were painted vivid blue and pink
forget-me-nots. Mrs. Wopp reckoned “to git great comfort fer her corns
an’ bungions” in a pair of soft house-shoes.
It was evident that great care had been exercised over Betty’s gift.
She exclaimed joyously over a Cyclamen, whose pale pink blooms brought
the flush of delight to her cheeks; a bag of peppermint bulls’ eyes
elicited a like degree of appreciation.
“This here flower aint a mornin’-glory, but the leaves is mighty like
it, an’ the flowers is jist as purty.” Moses explained.
“O, Mosey, these leaves is lovely, an’ jist look here roun’ the edge,
looks like the fairies has left footprints!”
Another gift Moses brought his little sister was a small shell purse
containing a new silver coin. This largess was in a way expiatory. He
had not yet regained his self-respect since his refusal to grant
Betty’s request for a quarter, and it seemed as though the act of
expiation must repeat itself indefinitely.
Betty said her prayers that night before her cyclamen. It seemed to
her a “mornin’-glory that had been growed by an angel, its petals
sparkled so, an’ it smelled so pure.” She breathed very softly her
thanksgiving, with a vague feeling that it had wings and could find
its way better than she knew.
As she thought how dear and kind Moses had been to her, bringing this
wonderful plant and the shell purse, not forgetting the peppermint
bulls’ eyes, she went to sleep with the conviction that she must be
the happiest girl in the world.