I had a birthday last week. When I woke up in the morning I found right
by the side of my bed a mahogany box, with a round hole on one side of
it and a ground-glass door on the other side. I thought it was a new
kind of rat-trap; and so I got out of bed and got a piece of cheese, and
set the trap in the garret, which is about half full of rats. But it
turned out that the box wasn't a rat-trap. Mr. Travers gave it to me,
and when he came to dinner he explained that it was a camera for taking
photographs, and that it would improve my mind tremendously if I would
learn to use it.
I soon found out that there isn't anything much better than a camera,
except, of course, a big dog, which I can't have, because mother says a
dog tracks dirt all over the house, and father says a dog is dangerous,
and Sue says a dog jumps all over you and tears your dresses a great
good-for-nothing ugly beast. It's very hard to be kept apart from dogs;
but our parents always know what is best for us, though we may not see
it at the time; and I don't believe father really knows how it feels
when your trousers are thin and you haven't any boots on, so it stings
your legs every time.
But I was going to write about the camera. You take photographs with the
camera--people and things. There's a lens on one end of it, and when you
point it at anything, you see a picture of it upside down on the little
glass door at the back of the camera. Then you put a dry plate, which is
a piece of glass with chemicals on it, in the camera, and then you take
it out and put it in some more chemicals, the right name of which is a
developer, and then you see a picture on the dry plate, only it is right
side up, and not like the one on the ground-glass door.
It's the best fun in the world taking pictures; and I can't see that it
improves your mind a bit--at least not enough to worry you. You have to
practise a great deal before you can take a picture, and everybody who
knows anything about it tells you to do something different. There are
five men in our town who take photographs, and each one tells me to use
a different kind of dry plate and a different kind of developer, and
that all the other men may mean well, and they hope they do, but people
ought not to tell a boy to use bad plates and poor developers; and don't
you pay any attention to them, Jimmy, but do as I tell you.
I've got so now that I make beautiful pictures. I took a photograph of
Sue the other day, and another of old Deacon Brewster, and you can tell
which is which just as easy as anything, if you look at them in the
right way, and remember that Deacon Brewster, being a man, is smoking a
pipe, and that, of course, a picture of Sue wouldn't have a pipe in it.
Sue don't like to have me take pictures, but that's because she is a
girl, and girls haven't the kind of minds that can understand art. Mr.
McGinnis--Tom's father--don't like my camera either; but that's because
he is near-sighted, and thought it was a gun when I pointed it at him,
and he yelled, "Don't shoot, for mercy's sake!" and went out of our
front yard and over the fence in lessenasecond. When he found out what
it was he said he never dreamed of being frightened, but had business
down-town, and he didn't think boys ought to be trusted with such
things, anyway.
I made a great discovery last week. You know I said that when you look
through the camera at anything you see it upside down on the ground
glass. This doesn't look right, and unless you stand on your head when
you take a photograph, which is very hard work, you can't help feeling
that the picture is all wrong. I was going to take a photograph of a big
engraving that belongs to father, when I thought of turning it upside
down. This made it look all right on the ground glass. This is my
discovery; and if men who take photographs could only get the people
they photograph to stand on their heads, they would get beautiful
pictures. Mr. Travers says that I ought to get a patent for this
discovery, but so far it has only got me into trouble.
Saturday afternoon everybody was out of the house except me and the baby
and the nurse, and she was down in the kitchen, and the baby was asleep.
So I thought I would take a picture of the baby. Of course it wouldn't
sit still for me; so I thought of the way the Indians strap their babies
to a flat board, which keeps them from getting round-shouldered, and is
very convenient besides. I got a nice flat piece of board and tied the
baby to it, and put him on a table, and leaned him up against the wall.
Then I remembered my discovery, and just stood the baby on his head so
as to get a good picture of him.
[Illustration: I DID GET A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE.]
I did get a beautiful picture. At least I am sure it would have been if
I hadn't been interrupted while I was developing it. I forgot to put the
baby right side up, and in about ten minutes mother came in and found
it, and then she came up into my room and interrupted me. Father came
home a little later and interrupted me some more. So the picture was
spoiled, and so was father's new rattan. Of course I deserved it for
forgetting the baby; but it didn't hurt it any to stand on its head a
little while, for babies haven't any brains like boys and grown-up
people, and, besides, it's the solemn truth that I meant to turn the
baby right side up, only I forgot it.