For once I have done right. I always used to think that if I stuck to
it, and tried to do what was right, I would hit it some day; but at last
I pretty nearly gave up all hope, and was beginning to believe that no
matter what I did, some of the grown-up folks would tell me that my
conduct was such. But I have done a real useful thing that was just what
father wanted, and he has said that he would overlook it this time.
Perhaps you think that this was not very encouraging to a boy; but if
you had been told to come up-stairs with me my son as often as I have
been, just because you had tried to do right, and hadn't exactly managed
to suit people, you would be very glad to hear your father say that for
once he would overlook it.
Did you ever play you were a ghost? I don't think much of ghosts, and
wouldn't be a bit afraid if I was to see one. There was once a ghost
that used to frighten people dreadfully by hanging himself to a hook in
the wall. He was one of those tall white ghosts, and they are the very
worst kind there is. This one used to come into the spare bedroom of
the house where he lived before he was dead, and after walking round the
room, and making as if he was in dreadfully low spirits, he would take a
rope out of his pocket, and hang himself to a clothes-hook just opposite
the bed, and the person who was in the bed would faint away with fright,
and pull the bedclothes over his head, and be in the most dreadful agony
until morning, when he would get up, and people would say, "Why how
dreadful you look your hair is all gray and you are whiternany sheet."
One time a man came to stay at the house who wasn't afraid of anything,
and he said, "I'll fix that ghost of yours; I'm a terror on wooden
wheels when any ghosts are around, I am." So he was put to sleep in the
room, and before he went to bed he loosened the hook, so that it would
come down very easy, and then he sat up in bed and read till twelve
o'clock. Just when the clock struck, the ghost came in and walked up and
down as usual, and finally got out his rope and hung himself; but as
soon as he kicked away the chair he stood on when he hung himself, down
came the hook, and the ghost fell all in a heap on the floor, and
sprained his ankle, and got up and limped away, dreadfully ashamed, and
nobody ever saw him again.
Father has been having the front garden walk fixed with an askfelt
pavement. Askfelt is something like molasses, only four times as sticky
when it is new. After a while it grows real hard, only ours hasn't
grown very hard yet. I watched the men put it down, and father said, "Be
careful and don't step on it until it gets hard or you'll stick fast in
it and can't ever get out again. I'd like to see half a dozen meddlesome
boys stuck in it and serve them right." As soon as I heard dear father
mention what he'd like, I determined that he should have his wish, for
there is nothing that is more delightful to a good boy than to please
his father.
That afternoon I mentioned to two or three boys that I knew were pretty
bad boys that our melons were ripe, and that father was going to pick
them in a day or two. The melon patch is at the back of the house, and
after dark I dressed myself in one of mother's gowns, and hid in the
wood-shed. About eleven o'clock I heard a noise, and looked out, and
there were six boys coming in the back gate, and going for the melon
patch. I waited till they were just ready to begin, and then I came out
and said, in a hollow and protuberant voice, "Beware!"
They dropped the melons, and started to run, but they couldn't get to
the back gate without passing close to me, and I knew they wouldn't try
that. So they started to run round the house to the front gate, and I
ran after them. When they reached the new front walk, they seemed to
stop all of a sudden, and two or three of them fell down.
[Illustration: PRYING THE BOYS OUT.]
I didn't wait to hear what they had to say, but went quietly back, and
got into the house through the kitchen-window, and went up-stairs to my
room. I could hear them whispering, and now and then one or two of them
would cry a little; but I thought it wouldn't be honorable to listen to
them, so I went to sleep.
In the morning there were five boys stuck in the askfelt, and frightened
'most to death. I got up early, and called father, and told him that
there seemed to be something the matter with his new walk. When he came
out and saw five boys caught in the pavement, and an extra pair of shoes
that belonged to another boy who had wriggled out of them and gone away
and left them, he was the most astonished man you ever saw. I told him
how I had caught the boys stealing melons, and had played I was a ghost
and frightened them away, and he said that if I'd help the coachman pry
the boys out, he would overlook it. So he sat upon the piazza and
overlooked the coachman and me while we pried the boys out, and they
came out awfully hard, and the askfelt is full of pieces of trousers and
things. I don't believe it will ever be a handsome walk; but whenever
father looks at it he will think what a good boy I have been, which will
give him more pleasure than a hundred new askfelt walks.