I've made up my mind that half the trouble boys get into is the fault of
the grown-up folks that are always wanting them to improve their minds.
I never improved my mind yet without suffering for it. There was the
time I improved it studying wasps, just as the man who lectured about
wasps and elephants and other insects told me to. If it hadn't been for
that man I never should have thought of studying wasps.
One time our school-teacher told me that I ought to improve my mind by
reading history, so I borrowed the history of _Blackbeard the Pirate_,
and improved my mind for three or four hours every day. After a while
father said, "Bring that book to me, Jimmy, and let's see what you're
reading," and when he saw it, instead of praising me, he-- But what's
the use of remembering our misfortunes? Still, if I was grown up, I
wouldn't get boys into difficulty by telling them to do all sorts of
things.
There was a Professor came to our house the other day. A Professor is a
kind of man who wears spectacles up on the top of his head and takes
snuff and doesn't talk English very plain. I believe Professors come
from somewhere near Germany, and I wish this one had stayed in his own
country. They live mostly on cabbage and such, and Mr. Travers says they
are dreadfully fierce, and that when they are not at war with other
people, they fight among themselves, and go on in the most dreadful way.
This Professor that came to see father didn't look a bit fierce, but Mr.
Travers says that was just his deceitful way, and that if we had had a
valuable old bone or a queer kind of shell in the house, the Professor
would have got up in the night, and stolen it and killed us all in our
beds; but Sue said it was a shame, and that the Professor was a lovely
old gentleman, and there wasn't the least harm in his kissing her.
Well, the Professor was talking after dinner to father about balloons,
and when he saw I was listening, he pretended to be awfully kind, and
told me how to make a fire-balloon, and how he'd often made them and
sent them up in the air; and then he told about a man who went up on
horseback with his horse tied to a balloon; and father said, "Now listen
to the Professor, Jimmy, and improve your mind while you've got a
chance."
The next day Tom McGinnis and I made a balloon just as the Professor had
told me to. It was made out of tissue-paper, and it had a sponge soaked
full of alcohol, and when you set the alcohol on fire the tumefaction of
the air would send the balloon mornamile high. We made it out in the
barn, and thought we'd try it before we said anything to the folks about
it, and then surprise them by showing them what a beautiful balloon we
had, and how we'd improved our minds. Just as it was all ready, Sue's
cat came into the barn, and I remembered the horse that had been tied to
a balloon, and told Tom we'd see if the balloon would take the cat up
with it.
[Illustration: PRESENTLY IT WENT SLOWLY UP.]
So we tied her with a whole lot of things so she would hang under the
balloon without being hurt a bit, and then we took the balloon into the
yard to try it. After the alcohol had burned a little while the balloon
got full of air, and presently it went slowly up. There wasn't a bit of
wind, and when it had gone up about twice as high as the house it stood
still.
You ought to have seen how that cat howled; but she was nothing compared
with Sue when she came out and saw her beloved beast. She screamed to me
to bring her that cat this instant you good-for-nothing cruel little
wretch won't you catch it when father comes home.
Now I'd like to know how I could reach a cat that was a hundred feet up
in the air, but that's all the reasonableness that girls have.
The balloon didn't stay up very long. It began to come slowly down, and
when it struck the ground, the way that cat started on a run for the
barn, and tried to get underneath it with the balloon all on fire behind
her, was something frightful to see. By the time I could get to her and
cut her loose, a lot of hay took fire and began to blaze, and Tom ran
for the fire-engine, crying out "Fire!" with all his might.
The firemen happened to be at the engine-house, though they're generally
all over town, and nobody can find them when there is a fire. They
brought the engine into our yard in about ten minutes, and just as Sue
and the cook and I had put the fire out. But that didn't prevent the
firemen from working with heroic bravery, as our newspaper afterwards
said. They knocked in our dining-room windows with axes, and poured
about a thousand hogsheads of water into the room before we could make
them understand that the fire was down by the barn, and had been put out
before they came.
This was all the Professor's fault, and it has taught me a lesson. The
next time anybody wants me to improve my mind I'll tell him he ought to
be ashamed of himself.