I don't like Mr. Travers as much as I did. Of course I know he's a very
nice man, and he's going to be my brother when he marries Sue, and he
used to bring me candy sometimes, but he isn't what he used to be.
One time--that was last summer--he was always dreadfully anxious to hear
from the Post-office, and whenever he came to see Sue, and he and she
and I would be sitting on the front piazza, he would say, "Jimmy, I
think there must be a letter for me; I'll give you ten cents if you'll
go down to the Post-office;" and then Sue would say, "Don't run, Jimmy;
you'll get heart disease if you do;" and I'd walk 'way down to the
Post-office, which is pretty near half a mile from our house. But now he
doesn't seem to care anything about his letters; and he and Sue sit in
the back parlor, and mother says I mustn't go in and disturb them; and I
don't get any more ten cents.
I've learned that it won't do to fix your affections on human beings,
for even the best of men won't keep on giving you ten cents forever. And
it wasn't fair for Mr. Travers to get angry with me the other night,
when it was all an accident--at least 'most all of it; and I don't think
it's manly for a man to stand by and see a sister shake a fellow that
isn't half her size, and especially when he never supposed that anything
was going to happen to her even if it did break.
When Aunt Eliza came to our house the last time, she brought a steam
chair: that's what she called it, though there wasn't any steam about
it. She brought it from Europe with her, and it was the queerest sort of
chair, that would all fold up, and had a kind of footstool to it, so
that you put your legs out and just lie down in it. Well, one day it got
broken. The back of the seat fell down, and shut Aunt Eliza up in the
chair so she couldn't get out, and didn't she just howl till somebody
came and helped her! She was so angry that she said she never wanted to
see that chair again, and you may have it if you want it Jimmy for you
are a good boy sometimes when you want to be.
So I took the chair and mended it. The folks laughed at me, and said I
couldn't mend it to save my life; but I got some nails and some
mucilage, and mended it elegantly. Then mother let me get some varnish,
and I varnished the chair, and when it was done it looked so nice that
Sue said we'd keep it in the back parlor. Now I'm never allowed to sit
in the back parlor, so what good would my chair do me? But Sue said,
"Stuff and nonsense that boy's indulged now till he can't rest." So they
put my chair in the back parlor, just as if I'd been mending it on
purpose for Mr. Travers. I didn't say anything more about it; but after
it was in the back parlor I took out one or two screws that I thought
were not needed to hold it together, and used them for a boat that I was
making.
That night Mr. Travers came as usual, and after he had talked to mother
awhile about the weather, and he and father had agreed that it was a
shame that other folks hadn't given more money to the Michigan
sufferers, and that they weren't quite sure that the sufferers were a
worthy object, and that a good deal of harm was done by giving away
money to all sorts of people, Sue said,
"Perhaps we had better go into the back parlor; it is cooler there, and
we won't disturb father, who wants to think about something."
So she and Mr. Travers went into the back parlor, and shut the door, and
talked very loud at first about a whole lot of things, and then quieted
down, as they always did.
I was in the front parlor, reading "Robinson Crusoe," and wishing I
could go and do likewise--like Crusoe, I mean; for I wouldn't go and sit
quietly in a back parlor with a girl, like Mr. Travers, not if you were
to pay me for it. I can't see what some fellows see in Sue. I'm sure
if Mr. Martin or Mr. Travers had her pull their hair once the way she
pulls mine sometimes, they wouldn't trust themselves alone with her very
soon.
All at once we heard a dreadful crash in the back parlor, and Mr.
Travers said Good something very loud, and Sue shrieked as if she had a
needle run into her. Father and mother and I and the cook and the
chambermaid all rushed to see what was the matter.
[Illustration: IT HAD SHUT UP LIKE A JACK-KNIFE.]
The chair that I had mended, and that Sue had taken away from me, had
broken down while Mr. Travers was sitting in it, and it had shut up like
a jack-knife, and caught him so he couldn't get out. It had caught Sue
too, who must have run to help him, or she never would have been in that
fix, with Mr. Travers holding her by the waist, and her arm wedged in so
she couldn't pull it away.
Father managed to get them loose, and then Sue caught me and shook me
till I could hear my teeth rattle, and then she ran up-stairs and locked
herself up; and Mr. Travers never offered to help me, but only said,
"I'll settle with you some day, young man," and then he went home. But
father sat down on the sofa and laughed, and said to mother,
"I guess Sue would have done better if she'd have let the boy keep his
chair."