I've made up my mind to one thing, and that is, I'll never have anything
to do with Mr. Martin again. He ought to be ashamed of himself, going
around and getting boys into scrapes, just because he's put together so
miserably. Sue says she believes it's mucilage, and I think she's right.
If he couldn't afford to get himself made like other people, why don't
he stay at home? His father and mother must have been awfully ashamed of
him. Why, he's liable to fall apart at any time, Mr. Travers says, and
some of these days he'll have to be swept up off the floor and carried
home in three or four baskets.
There was a ghost one time who used to go around, up-stairs and
down-stairs, in an old castle, carrying his head in his hand, and
stopping in front of everybody he met, but never saying a word. This
frightened all the people dreadfully, and they couldn't get a servant to
stay in the house unless she had the policeman to sit up in the kitchen
with her all night. One day a young doctor came to stay at the castle,
and said he didn't believe in ghosts, and that nobody ever saw a ghost,
unless they had been making beasts of themselves with mince-pie and
wedding-cake. So the old lord of the castle he smiled very savage, and
said, "You'll believe in ghosts before you've been in this castle
twenty-four hours, and don't you forget it." Well, that very night the
ghost came into the young doctor's room and woke him up. The doctor
looked at him, and said, "Ah, I perceive: painful case of imputation of
the neck. Want it cured, old boy?" The ghost nodded; though how he could
nod when his head was off I don't know. Then the doctor got up and got a
thread and needle, and sewed the ghost's head on, and pushed him gently
out of the door, and told him never to show himself again. Nobody ever
saw that ghost again, for the doctor had sewed his head on wrong side
first, and he couldn't walk without running into the furniture, and of
course he felt too much ashamed to show himself. This doctor was Mr.
Travers's own grandfather, and Mr. Travers knows the story is true.
But I meant to tell you about the last time Mr. Martin came to our
house. It was a week after I had scalped him; but I don't believe he
would ever have come if father hadn't gone to see him, and urged him to
overlook the rudeness of that unfortunate and thoughtless boy. When he
did come, he was as smiling as anything; and he shook hands with me,
and said, "Never mind, Bub, only don't do it again."
By-and-by, when Mr. Martin and Sue and Mr. Travers were sitting on the
piazza, and I was playing with my new base-ball in the yard, Mr. Martin
called out, "Pitch it over here; give us a catch." So I tossed it over
gently, and he pitched it back again, and said why didn't I throw it
like a man, and not toss it like a girl. So I just sent him a swift
ball--a regular daisy-cutter. I knew he couldn't catch it, but I
expected he would dodge. He did try to dodge, but it hit him along-side
of one eye, and knocked it out. You may think I am exaggelying, but I'm
not. I saw that eye fly up against the side of the house, and then roll
down the front steps to the front walk, where it stopped, and winked at
me.
I turned, and ran out of the gate and down the street as hard as ever I
could. I made up my mind that Mr. Martin was spoiled forever, and that
the only thing for me to do was to make straight for the Spanish Main
and be a pirate. I had often thought I would be a pirate, but now there
was no help for it; for a boy that had knocked out a gentleman's eye
could never be let to live in a Christian country. After a while I
stopped to rest, and then I remembered that I wanted to take some
provisions in a bundle, and a big knife to kill wolves. So I went back
as soon as it was dark, and stole round to the back of the house, so I
could get in the window and find the carving-knife and some cake. I was
just getting in the window, when somebody put their arms around me, and
said, "Dear little soul! was he almost frightened to death?" It was Sue,
and I told her that I was going to be a pirate and wanted the
carving-knife and some cake and she mustn't tell father and was Mr.
Martin dead yet? So she told me that Mr. Martin's eye wasn't injured at
all, and that he had put it in again, and gone home; and nobody would
hurt me, and I needn't be a pirate if I didn't want to be.
It's perfectly dreadful for a man to be made like Mr. Martin, and I'll
never come near him again. Sue says that he won't come back to the
house, and if he does she'll send him away with something--I forget what
it was--in his ear. Father hasn't heard about the eye yet, but if he
does hear about it, there will be a dreadful scene, for he bought a new
rattan cane yesterday. There ought to be a law to punish men that sell
rattan canes to fathers, unless they haven't any children.