Part 5

But there was an awful scene when the party tried to eat that ice-cream. Sue handed it round, and said to everybody, "This is my ice-cream, and you must be sure to like it." The first one she gave it to was Dr. Porter. He is dreadfully fond of ice-cream, and he smiled such a big smile, and said he was sure it was delightful, and took a whole spoonful. Then he jumped up as if something had bit him, and went out of the door in two jumps, and we didn't see him again. Then three more men tasted their ice-cream, and jumped up, and ran after the doctor, and two girls said, "Oh my!" and held their handkerchiefs over their faces, and turned just as pale. And then everybody else put their ice-cream down on the table, and said thank you they guessed they wouldn't take any. The party was regularly spoiled, and when I tasted the ice-cream I didn't wonder. It was worse than the best kind of strong medicine.

Sue was in a dreadful state of mind, and when the party had gone home--all but one man, who lay under the apple-tree all night and groaned like he was dying, only we thought it was cats--she made me tell her all about the salt and the golden sirup. She wouldn't believe that I had tried to do my best, and didn't mean any harm. Father took her part, and said I ought to eat some of the ice-cream, since I made it; but I said I'd rather go up-stairs with him. So I went.

Some of these days people will begin to understand that they are just wasting and throwing away a boy who always tries to do his best, and perhaps they'll be sorry when it is too late.

MY PIG.

I don't say that I didn't do wrong, but what I do say is that I meant to do right. But that don't make any difference. It never does. I try to do my very best, and then something happens, and I am blamed for it. When I think what a disappointing world this is, full of bamboo-canes and all sorts of switches, I feel ready to leave it.

It was Sue's fault in the beginning; that is, if it hadn't been for her it wouldn't have happened. One Sunday she and I were sitting in the front parlor, and she was looking out of the window and watching for Mr. Travers; only she said she wasn't, and that she was just looking to see if it was going to rain, and solemnizing her thoughts. I had just asked her how old she was, and couldn't Mr. Travers have been her father if he had married mother, when she said, "Dear me how tiresome that boy is do take a book and read for gracious sake." I said, "What book?" So she gets up and gives me the _Observer_, and says, "There's a beautiful story about a good boy and a pig do read it and keep still if you know how and I hope it will do you some good."

Well, I read the story. It told all about a good boy whose name was James, and his father was poor, and so he kept a pig that cost him twenty-five cents, and when it grew up he sold it for thirty dollars, and he brought the money to his father and said, "Here father! take this O how happy I am to help you when you're old and not good for much," and his father burst into tears, but I don't know what for. I wouldn't burst into tears much if anybody gave me thirty dollars; and said, "Bless you my noble boy you and your sweet pig have saved me from a watery grave," or something like that.

It was a real good story, and it made me feel like being likewise. So I resolved that I would get a little new pig for twenty-five cents, and keep it till it grew up, and then surprise father with twenty-nine dollars, and keep one for myself as a reward for my good conduct. Only I made up my mind not to let anybody know about it till after the pig should be grown up, and then how the family would be delighted with my "thoughtful and generous act!" for that's what the paper said James's act was.

The next day I went to Farmer Smith, and got him to give me a little pig for nothing, only I agreed to help him weed his garden all summer. It was a beautiful pig, about as big as our baby, only it was a deal prettier, and its tail was elegant. I wrapped it up in an old shawl, and watched my chance and got it up into my room, which is on the third story. Then I took my trunk and emptied it, and bored some holes in it for air, and put the pig in it.

I had the best fun that ever was, all that day and the next day, taking care of that dear little pig. I gave him one of my coats for a bed, and fed him on milk, and took him out of the trunk every little while for exercise. Nobody goes into my room very often, except the girl to make the bed, and when she came I shut up the trunk, and she never suspected anything. I got a whole coal-scuttleful of the very best mud, and put it in the corner of the room for him to play in, and when I heard Bridget coming, I meant to throw the bedquilt over it, so she wouldn't suspect anything.

After I had him two days I heard mother say, "Seems to me I hear very queer noises every now and then up-stairs." I knew what the matter was, but I never said anything, and I felt so happy when I thought what a good boy I was to raise a pig for my dear father.

Bridget went up to my room about eight o'clock one evening, just before I was going to bed, to take up my clean clothes. We were all sitting in the dining-room, when we heard her holler as if she was being murdered. We all ran out to see what was the matter, and were half-way up the stairs when the pig came down and upset the whole family, and piled them up on the top of himself at the foot of the stairs, and before we got up Bridget came down and fell over us, and said she had just opened the young masther's thrunk and out jumps the ould Satan himself and she must see the priest or she would be a dead woman.

You wouldn't believe that, though I told them that I was raising the pig to sell it and give the money to father, they all said that they had never heard of such an abandoned and peremptory boy, and father said, "Come up-stairs with me and I'll see if I can't teach you that this house isn't a pig-pen." I don't know what became of the pig, for he broke the parlor window and ran away, and nobody ever heard of him again.

I'd like to see that boy James. I don't care how big he is. I'd show him that he can't go on setting good examples to innocent boys without suffering as he deserves to suffer.

GOING TO BE A PIRATE.

I don't know if you are acquainted with Tom McGinnis. Everybody knows his father, for he's been in Congress, though he is a poor man, and sells hay and potatoes, and I heard father say that Mr. McGinnis is the most remarkable man in the country. Well, Tom is Mr. McGinnis's boy, and he's about my age, and thinks he's tremendously smart; and I used to think so too, but now I don't think quite so much of him. He and I went away to be pirates the other day, and I found out that he will never do for a pirate.

You see, we had both got into difficulties. It wasn't my fault, I am sure, but it's such a painful subject that I won't describe it. I will merely say that after it was all over, I went to see Tom to tell him that it was no use to put shingles under your coat, for how is that going to do your legs any good, and I tried it because Tom advised me to. I found that he had just had a painful scene with his father on account of apples; and I must say it served him right, for he had no business to touch them without permission. So I said, "Look here, Tom, what's the use of our staying at home and being laid onto with switches and our best actions misunderstood and our noblest and holiest emotions held up to ridicule?" That's what I heard a young man say to Sue one day, but it was so beautiful that I said it to Tom myself.

"Oh, go 'way," said Tom.

"That's what I say," said I. "Let's go away and be pirates. There's a brook that runs through Deacon Sammis's woods, and it stands to reason that it must run into the Spanish Main, where all the pirates are. Let's run away, and chop down a tree, and make a canoe, and sail down the brook till we get to the Spanish Main, and then we can capture a schooner, and be regular pirates."

"Hurrah!" says Tom. "We'll do it. Let's run away to-night. I'll take father's hatchet, and the carving-knife, and some provisions, and meet you back of our barn at ten o'clock."

"I'll be there," said I. "Only, if we're going to be pirates, let's be strictly honest. Don't take anything belonging to your father. I've got a hatchet, and a silver knife with my name on it, and I'll save my supper and take it with me."

So that night I watched my chance, and dropped my supper into my handkerchief, and stuffed it into my pocket. When ten o'clock came, I tied up my clothes in a bundle, and took my hatchet and the silver knife and some matches, and slipped out the back door, and met Tom. He had nothing with him but his supper and a backgammon board and a bag of marbles. We went straight for the woods, and after we'd selected a big tree to cut down, we ate our supper. Just then the moon went under a cloud, and it grew awfully dark. We couldn't see very well how to chop the tree, and after Tom had cut his fingers, we put off cutting down the tree till morning, and resolved to build a fire. We got a lot of fire-wood, but I dropped the matches, and when we found them again they were so damp that they wouldn't light.

All at once the wind began to blow, and made a dreadful moaning in the woods. Tom said it was bears, and that though he wanted to be a pirate, he hadn't calculated on having any bears. Then he said it was cold, and so it was, but I told him that it would be warm enough when we got to the Spanish Main, and that pirates ought not to mind a little cold.

Pretty soon it began to rain, and then Tom began to cry. It just poured down, and the way our teeth chattered was terrible. By-and-by Tom jumped up, and said he wasn't going to be eaten up by bears and get an awful cold, and he started on a run for home. Of course I wasn't going to be a pirate all alone, for there wouldn't be any fun in that, so I started after him. He must have been dreadfully frightened, for he ran as fast as he could, and as I was in a hurry, I tried to catch up with him. If he hadn't tripped over a root, and I hadn't tripped over him, I don't believe I could have caught him. When I fell on him, you ought to have heard him yell. He thought I was a bear, but any sensible pirate would have known I wasn't.

Tom left me at his front gate, and said he had made up his mind he wouldn't be a pirate, and that it would be a great deal more fun to be a plumber and melt lead. I went home, and as the house was locked up, I had to ring the front-door bell. Father came to the door himself, and when he saw me, he said, "Jimmy, what in the world does this mean?" So I told him that Tom and me had started for the Spanish Main to be pirates, but Tom had changed his mind, and that I thought I'd change mine too.

Father had me put to bed, and hot bottles and things put in the bed with me, and before I went to sleep, he came and said, "Good-night, Jimmy. We'll try and have more fun at home, so that there won't be any necessity of your being a pirate." And I said, "Dear father, I'd a good deal rather stay with you, and I'll never be a pirate without your permission."

This is why I say that Tom McGinnis will never make a good pirate. He's too much afraid of getting wet.

RATS AND MICE.

It's queer that girls are so dreadfully afraid of rats and mice. Men are never afraid of them, and I shouldn't mind if there were mornamillion mice in my bedroom every night.

Mr. Travers told Sue and me a terrible story one day about a woman that was walking through a lonely field, when she suddenly saw a field-mouse right in front of her. She was a brave woman; so after she had said, "Oh my! save me, somebody!" she determined to save herself if she could, for there was nobody within miles of her. There was a tree not very far off, and she had just time to climb up the tree and seat herself in the branches, when the mouse reached its foot. There that animal stayed for six days and nights, squeaking in a way that made the woman's blood run cold, and waiting for her to come down. On the seventh day, when she was nearly exhausted, a man with a gun came along, and shot the mouse, and saved her life. I don't believe this story, and I told Mr. Travers so; for a woman couldn't climb a tree, and even if she could, what would hinder the mouse from climbing after her?

Sue has a new young man, who comes every Monday and Wednesday night. One day he said, "Jimmy, if you'll get me a lock of your sister's hair, I'll give you a nice dog." I told him he was awfully kind, but I didn't think it would be honest for me to take Sue's best hair, but that I'd try to get him some of her every-day hair. And he said, "What on earth do you mean, Jimmy?" And I said that Sue had got some new back hair a little while ago, for I was with her when she bought it, and I knew she wouldn't like me to take any of that. So he said it was no matter, and he'd give me the dog anyway.

I told Sue afterwards all about it, just to show her how honest I was, and instead of telling me I was a good boy, she said, "Oh you little torment g'way and never let me see you again," and threw herself down on the sofa and howled dreadfully, and mother came and said, "Jimmy, if you want to kill your dear sister, you can just keep on doing as you do." Such is the gratitude of grown-up folks.

Mr. Withers--that's the new young man--brought the dog, as he said he would. He's a beautiful Scotch terrier, and he said he would kill rats like anything, and was two years old, and had had the distemper; that is, Mr. Withers said the dog would kill rats, and of course Mr. Withers himself never had the distemper.

Of course I wanted to see the dog kill rats, so I took him to a rat-hole in the kitchen, but he barked at it so loud that no rat would think of coming out. If you want to catch rats, you mustn't begin by barking and scratching at rat-holes, but you must sit down and kind of wink with one eye and lay for them, just as cats do. I told Mr. Withers that the dog couldn't catch any rats, and he said he would bring me some in a box, and I could let them out, and the dog would kill every single one of them.

The next evening Sue sent me down to the milliner's to bring her new bonnet home, and don't you be long about it either you idle worthless boy. Well, I went to the milliner's shop, but the bonnet wasn't done yet; and as I passed Mr. Withers's office, he said, "Come here, Jimmy; I've got those rats for you." He gave me a wooden box like a tea-chest, and told me there were a dozen rats in it, and I'd better have the dog kill them at once, or else they'd gnaw out before morning.

When I got home, Sue met me at the door, and said, "Give me that bandbox this instant you've been mornanour about it." I tried to tell her that it wasn't her box; but she wouldn't listen, and just snatched it and went into the parlor, where there were three other young ladies who had come to see her, and slammed the door; but the dog slipped in with her.

In about a minute I heard the most awful yells that anybody ever heard. It sounded as if all the furniture in the parlor was being smashed into kindling wood, and the dog kept barking like mad. The next minute a girl came flying out of the front window, and another girl jumped right on her before she had time to get out of the way, and they never stopped crying, "Help murder let me out oh my!"

I knew, of course, that Sue had opened the box and let the rats out, and though I wanted ever so much to know if the dog had killed them all, I thought she would like it better if I went back to the milliner's and waited a few hours for the bonnet.

I brought it home about nine o'clock; but Sue had gone to bed, and the servant had just swept up the parlor, and piled the pieces of furniture on the piazza. Father won't be home till next week, and perhaps by that time Sue will get over it. I wish I did know if the dog killed all those rats, and how long it took him.

HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS.

We ought always to be useful, and do good to everybody. I used to think that we ought always to improve our minds, and I think so some now, though I have got into dreadful difficulties all through improving my mind. But I am not going to be discouraged. I tried to be useful the other day, and do good to the heathen in distant lands, and you wouldn't believe what trouble it made. There are some people who would never do good again if they had got into the trouble that I got into; but the proverb says that if at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again; and there was lots of crying, I can tell you, over our rhinoceros, that we thought was going to do so much good.

It all happened because Aunt Eliza was staying at our house. She had a Sunday-school one afternoon, and Tom McGinnis and I were the scholars, and she told us about a boy that got up a panorama about the _Pilgrim's Progress_ all by himself, and let people see it for ten cents apiece, and made ten dollars, and sent it to the missionaries, and they took it and educated mornahundred little heathens with it, and how nice it would be if you dear boys would go and do likewise and now we'll sing "Hold the Fort."

Well, Tom and I thought about it, and we said we'd get up a menagerie, and we'd take turns playing animals, and we'd let folks see it for ten cents apiece, and make a lot of money, and do ever so much good.

We got a book full of pictures of animals, and we made skins out of cloth to go all over us, so that we'd look just like animals when we had them on. We had a lion's and a tiger's and a bear's and a rhinoceros's skin, besides a whole lot of others. As fast as we got the skins made, we hung them up in a corner of the barn where nobody would see them. The way we made them was to show the pictures to mother and to Aunt Eliza, and they did the cutting out and the sewing, and Sue she painted the stripes on the tiger, and the fancy touches on the other animals.

Our rhinoceros was the best animal we had. The rhinoceros is a lovely animal when he's alive. He is almost as big as an elephant, and he has a skin that is so thick that you can't shoot a bullet through it unless you hit it in a place that is a little softer than the other places. He has a horn on the end of his nose, and he can toss a tiger with it till the tiger feels sick, and says he won't play any more. The rhinoceros lives in Africa, and he would toss 'most all the natives if it wasn't that they fasten an India-rubber ball on the end of his horn, so that when he tries to toss anybody, the horn doesn't hurt, and after a while the rhinoceros gets discouraged, and says, "Oh, well, what's the good anyhow?" and goes away into the forest. At least this is what Mr. Travers says, but I don't believe it; for the rhinoceros wouldn't stand still and let the natives put an India-rubber ball on his horn, and they wouldn't want to waste India-rubber balls that way when they could play lawn-tennis with them.

Last Saturday afternoon we had our first grand consolidated exhibition of the greatest menagerie on earth. We had two rows of chairs in the back yard, and all our folks and all Tom's folks came, and we took in a dollar and sixty cents at the door, which was the back gate.

I was a bear, first of all, and growled so natural that everybody said it was really frightful. Then it was Tom's turn to be an animal, and he was to be the raging rhinoceros of Central Africa. I helped dress him in the barn, and when he was dressed he looked beautiful.

The rhinoceros's skin went all over him, and was tied together so that he couldn't get out of it without help. His horn was made of wood painted white, and his eyes were two agates. Of course he couldn't see through them, but they looked natural, and as I was to lead him, he didn't need to see.

I had just got him outside the barn, and had begun to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the raging rhinoceros," when he gave the most awful yell you ever heard, and got up on his hind-legs, and began to rush around as if he was crazy. He rushed against Aunt Eliza, and upset her all over the McGinnis girls, and then he banged up against the water-barrel, and upset that, and then he fell into the hot-bed, and broke all the glass. You never saw such an awful sight. The rhinoceros kept yelling all the time, only nobody could understand what he said, and pulling at his head with his fore-paws, and jumping up and down, and smashing everything in his way, and I went after him just as if I was a Central African hunting a rhinoceros.

I was almost frightened, and as for the folks, they ran into the house, all except Aunt Eliza, who had to be carried in. I kept as close behind the rhinoceros as I could, begging him to be quiet, and tell me what was the matter. After a while he lay down on the ground, and I cut the strings of his skin, so that he could get his head out and talk.

He said he was 'most dead. The wasps had built a nest in one of his hind-legs as it was hanging in the barn, and they had stung him until they got tired. He said he'd never have anything more to do with the menagerie, and went home with his mother, and my mother said I must give him all the money, because he had suffered so much.

But, as I said, I won't be discouraged, and will try to do good, and be useful to others the next time I see a fair chance.

DOWN CELLAR.

We have had a dreadful time at our house, and I have done very wrong. Oh, I always admit it when I've done wrong. There's nothing meaner than to pretend that you haven't done wrong when everybody knows you have. I didn't mean anything by it, though, and Sue ought to have stood by me, when I did it all on her account, and just because I pitied her, if she was my own sister, and it was more her fault, I really think, than it was mine.

Mr. Withers is Sue's new young man, as I have told you already. He comes to see her every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, and Mr. Travers comes all the other evenings, and Mr. Martin is liable to come any time, and generally does--that is, if he doesn't have the rheumatism. Though he hasn't but one real leg, he has twice as much rheumatism as father, with all his legs, and there is something very queer about it; and if I was he, I'd get a leg of something better than cork, and perhaps he'd have less pain in it.

It all happened last Tuesday night. Just as it was getting dark, and Sue was expecting Mr. Travers every minute, who should come in but Mr. Martin! Now Mr. Martin is such an old acquaintance, and father thinks so much of him, that Sue had to ask him in, though she didn't want him to meet Mr. Travers. So when she heard somebody open the front gate, she said, "Oh, Mr. Martin I'm so thirsty and the servant has gone out, and you know just where the milk is for you went down cellar to get some the last time you were here do you think you would mind getting some for me?" Mr. Martin had often gone down cellar to help himself to milk, and I don't see what makes him so fond of it, so he said, "Certainly with great pleasure," and started down the cellar stairs.

It wasn't Mr. Travers, but Mr. Withers, who had come on the wrong night. He had not much more than got into the parlor when Sue came rushing out to me, for I was swinging in the hammock on the front piazza, and said, "My goodness gracious Jimmy what shall I do here's Mr. Withers and Mr. Travers will be here in a few minutes and there's Mr. Martin down cellar and I feel as if I should fly what shall I do?"