After the time I tried to photograph the baby, my camera was taken away
from me and locked up for ever so long. Sue said I wasn't to be trusted
with it and it would go off some day when you think it isn't loaded and
hurt somebody worse than you hurt the baby you good-for-nothing little
nuisance.
Father kept the camera locked up for about a month, and said when I see
some real reformation in you James you shall have it back again. But I
shall never have it back again now, and if I did, it wouldn't be of any
use, for I'm never to be allowed to have any more chemicals. Father is
going to give the camera to the missionaries, so that they can
photograph heathen and things, and all the chemicals I had have been
thrown away, just because I made a mistake in using them. I don't say it
didn't serve me right, but I can't help wishing that father would change
his mind.
I have never said much about my other sister, Lizzie, because she is
nothing but a girl. She is twelve years old, and of course she plays
with dolls, and doesn't know enough to play base-ball or do anything
really useful. She scarcely ever gets me into scrapes, though, and
that's where Sue might follow her example. However, it was Lizzie who
got me into the scrape about my chemicals, though she didn't mean to,
poor girl.
One night Mr. Travers came to tea, and everybody was talking about
freckles. Mr. Travers said that they were real fashionable, and that all
the ladies were trying to get them. I am sure I don't see why. I've
mornamillion freckles, and I'd be glad to let anybody have them who
would agree to take them away. Sue said she thought freckles were
perfectly lovely, and it's a good thing she thinks so, for she has about
as many as she can use; and Lizzie said she'd give anything if she only
had a few nice freckles on her cheeks.
Mother asked what made freckles, and Mr. Travers said the sun made them
just as it makes photographs. "Jimmy will understand it," said Mr.
Travers. "He knows how the sun makes a picture when it shines on a
photograph plate, and all his freckles were made just in the same way.
Without the sun there wouldn't be any freckles."
This sounded reasonable, but then Mr. Travers forgot all about
chemicals. As I said, the last time I wrote, chemicals is something in a
bottle like medicine, and you have to put it on a photograph plate so as
to make the picture that the sun has made show itself. Now if chemicals
will do this with a photograph plate, it ought to do it with a girl's
cheek. You take a girl and let the sun shine on her cheek, and put
chemicals on her, and it ought to bring out splendid freckles.
I'm very fond of Lizzie, though she is a girl, because she minds her own
business, and don't meddle with my things and get me into scrapes. I'd
have given her all my freckles if I could, as soon as I knew she wanted
them, and as soon as Mr. Travers said that freckles were made just like
photographs, I made up my mind I would make some for her. So I told her
she should have the best freckles in town if she'd come up to my room
the next morning, and let me expose her to the sun and then put
chemicals on her.
Lizzie has confidence in me, which is one of her best qualities, and
shows that she is a good girl. She was so pleased when I promised to
make freckles for her; and as soon as the sun got up high enough to
shine into my window she came up to my room all ready to be freckled.
I exposed her to the sun for six seconds. I only exposed my photograph
plates three seconds, but I thought that Lizzie might not be quite as
sensitive, and so I exposed her longer. Then I took her into the dark
closet where I kept the chemicals, and poured chemicals on her cheeks. I
made her hold her handkerchief on her face so that the chemicals
couldn't get into her eyes and run down her neck, for she wanted
freckles only on her cheeks.
I watched her very carefully, but the freckles didn't come out. I put
more chemicals on her, and rubbed it in with a cloth; but it was no use,
the freckles wouldn't come. I don't know what the reason was. Perhaps I
hadn't exposed her long enough, or perhaps the chemicals was weak.
Anyway, not a single freckle could I make.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND SUE MADE A DREADFUL FUSS.]
So after a while I gave it up, and told her it was no use, and she could
go and wash her face. She cried a little because she was disappointed,
but she cried more afterwards. You see, the chemicals made her cheek
almost black, and she couldn't wash it off. Mother and Sue made a
dreadful fuss about it, and sent for the doctor, who said he thought it
would wear off in a year or so, and wouldn't kill the child or do her
very much harm.
This is the reason why they took my chemicals away, and promised to give
my camera to the missionaries. All I meant was to please Lizzie, and I
never knew the chemicals would turn her black. But it isn't the first
time I have tried to be kind and have been made to suffer for it.