Part 7

Pretty nearly all the school came down to the pasture to see our bull-fight. The Queen of Spain sat on the fence, because there wasn't any other throne, and the rest of the fellows and girls stood behind the fence. The bull was pretty savage; but Tom and I had our red rags, and we weren't afraid of him.

As soon as we went into the pasture the bull came for me, with his head down, and bellowing as if he was out of his mind. Tom rushed up and waved his red rag, and the bull stopped running after me, and went after Tom, just as the lecturer said he would.

I know I ought to have waved my red rag, so as to rescue Tom, but I was so interested that I forgot all about it, and the bull caught up with Tom. I should think he went twenty feet right up into the air, and as he came down he hit the Queen of Spain, and knocked her about six feet right against Mr. McGinnis, who had come down to the pasture to stop the fight.

The doctor says they'll all get well, though Tom's legs are all broke, and his sister's shoulder is out of joint, and Mr. McGinnis has got to get a new set of teeth. Father didn't do a thing to me--that is, with anything--but he talked to me till I made up my mind that I'd never try to learn anything from a lecturer again, not even if he lectures about Indians and scalping-knives.

OUR BALLOON.

I've made up my mind that half the trouble boys get into is the fault of the grown-up folks that are always wanting them to improve their minds.

I never improved my mind yet without suffering for it. There was the time I improved it studying wasps, just as the man who lectured about wasps and elephants and other insects told me to. If it hadn't been for that man I never should have thought of studying wasps.

One time our school-teacher told me that I ought to improve my mind by reading history, so I borrowed the history of _Blackbeard the Pirate_, and improved my mind for three or four hours every day. After a while father said, "Bring that book to me, Jimmy, and let's see what you're reading," and when he saw it, instead of praising me, he-- But what's the use of remembering our misfortunes? Still, if I was grown up, I wouldn't get boys into difficulty by telling them to do all sorts of things.

There was a Professor came to our house the other day. A Professor is a kind of man who wears spectacles up on the top of his head and takes snuff and doesn't talk English very plain. I believe Professors come from somewhere near Germany, and I wish this one had stayed in his own country. They live mostly on cabbage and such, and Mr. Travers says they are dreadfully fierce, and that when they are not at war with other people, they fight among themselves, and go on in the most dreadful way.

This Professor that came to see father didn't look a bit fierce, but Mr. Travers says that was just his deceitful way, and that if we had had a valuable old bone or a queer kind of shell in the house, the Professor would have got up in the night, and stolen it and killed us all in our beds; but Sue said it was a shame, and that the Professor was a lovely old gentleman, and there wasn't the least harm in his kissing her.

Well, the Professor was talking after dinner to father about balloons, and when he saw I was listening, he pretended to be awfully kind, and told me how to make a fire-balloon, and how he'd often made them and sent them up in the air; and then he told about a man who went up on horseback with his horse tied to a balloon; and father said, "Now listen to the Professor, Jimmy, and improve your mind while you've got a chance."

The next day Tom McGinnis and I made a balloon just as the Professor had told me to. It was made out of tissue-paper, and it had a sponge soaked full of alcohol, and when you set the alcohol on fire the tumefaction of the air would send the balloon mornamile high. We made it out in the barn, and thought we'd try it before we said anything to the folks about it, and then surprise them by showing them what a beautiful balloon we had, and how we'd improved our minds. Just as it was all ready, Sue's cat came into the barn, and I remembered the horse that had been tied to a balloon, and told Tom we'd see if the balloon would take the cat up with it.

So we tied her with a whole lot of things so she would hang under the balloon without being hurt a bit, and then we took the balloon into the yard to try it. After the alcohol had burned a little while the balloon got full of air, and presently it went slowly up. There wasn't a bit of wind, and when it had gone up about twice as high as the house it stood still.

You ought to have seen how that cat howled; but she was nothing compared with Sue when she came out and saw her beloved beast. She screamed to me to bring her that cat this instant you good-for-nothing cruel little wretch won't you catch it when father comes home.

Now I'd like to know how I could reach a cat that was a hundred feet up in the air, but that's all the reasonableness that girls have.

The balloon didn't stay up very long. It began to come slowly down, and when it struck the ground, the way that cat started on a run for the barn, and tried to get underneath it with the balloon all on fire behind her, was something frightful to see. By the time I could get to her and cut her loose, a lot of hay took fire and began to blaze, and Tom ran for the fire-engine, crying out "Fire!" with all his might.

The firemen happened to be at the engine-house, though they're generally all over town, and nobody can find them when there is a fire. They brought the engine into our yard in about ten minutes, and just as Sue and the cook and I had put the fire out. But that didn't prevent the firemen from working with heroic bravery, as our newspaper afterwards said. They knocked in our dining-room windows with axes, and poured about a thousand hogsheads of water into the room before we could make them understand that the fire was down by the barn, and had been put out before they came.

This was all the Professor's fault, and it has taught me a lesson. The next time anybody wants me to improve my mind I'll tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself.

OUR NEW WALK.

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.

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.

A STEAM CHAIR.

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.

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."

ANIMALS.

I should like to be an animal. Not an insect, of course, nor a snake, but a nice kind of animal, like an elephant or a dog with a good master.

Animals are awfully intelligent, but they haven't any souls. There was once an elephant in a circus, and one day a boy said to him, "Want a lump of sugar, old fellow?" The elephant he nodded, and felt real grateful, for elephants are very fond of lump-sugar, which is what they live on in their native forests. But the boy put a cigar instead of a lump of sugar in his mouth.

The sagacious animal, instead of eating up the cigar or trying to smoke it and making himself dreadfully sick, took it and carried it across the circus to a man who kept a candy and cigar stand, and made signs that he'd sell the cigar for twelve lumps of sugar. The man gave the elephant the sugar and took the cigar, and then the intelligent animal sat down on his hind-legs and laughed at the boy who had tried to play a joke on him, until the boy felt that much ashamed that he went right home and went to bed.

In the days when there were fairies--only I don't believe there ever were any fairies, and Mr. Travers says they were rubbish--boys were frequently changed into animals. There was once a boy who did something that made a wicked fairy angry, and she changed him into a cat, and thought she had punished him dreadfully. But the boy after he was a cat used to come and get on her back fence and yowl as if he was ten or twelve cats all night long, and she couldn't get a wink of sleep, and fell into a fever, and had to take lots of castor-oil and dreadful medicines.

So she sent for the boy who was a cat, you understand, and said she'd change him back again. But he said, "Oh no; I'd much rather be a cat, for I'm so fond of singing on the back fence." And the end of it was that she had to give him a tremendous pile of money before he'd consent to be changed back into a boy again.

Boys can play being animals, and it's great fun, only the other boys who don't play they are animals get punished for it, and I say it's unjust, especially as I never meant any harm at all, and was doing my very best to amuse the children.

This is the way it happened. Aunt Sarah came to see us the other day, and brought her three boys with her. I don't think you ever heard of Aunt Sarah, and I wish I never had. She's one of father's sisters, and he thinks a great deal more of her than I would if she was my sister, and I don't think it's much credit to anybody to be a sister anyway. The boys are twins, that is, two of them are, and they are all about three or four years old.

Well, one day just before Christmas, when it was almost as warm out-doors as it is in summer, Aunt Sarah said,

"Jimmy, I want you to take the dear children out and amuse them a few hours. I know you're so fond of your dear little cousins and what a fine manly boy you are!" So I took them out, though I didn't want to waste my time with little children, for we are responsible for wasting time, and ought to use every minute to improve ourselves.

The boys wanted to see the pigs that belong to Mr. Taylor, who lives next door, so I took them through a hole in the fence, and they looked at the pigs, and one of them said,

"Oh my how sweet they are and how I would like to be a little pig and never be washed and have lots of swill!"

So I said, "Why don't you play you are pigs, and crawl round and grunt? It's just as easy, and I'll look at you."

You see, I thought I ought to amuse them, and that this would be a nice way to teach them to amuse themselves.

Well, they got down on all fours and ran round and grunted, until they began to get tired of it, and then wanted to know what else pigs could do, so I told them that pigs generally rolled in the mud, and the more mud a pig could get on himself the happier he would be, and that there was a mud puddle in our back yard that would make a pig cry like a child with delight.

The boys went straight to that mud puddle, and they rolled in the mud until there wasn't an inch of them that wasn't covered with mud so thick that you would have to get a crowbar to pry it off.

Just then Aunt Sarah came to the door and called them, and when she saw them she said, "Good gracious what on earth have you been doing?" and Tommy, that's the oldest boy, said,

"We've been playing we were pigs ma and it's real fun and wasn't Jimmy good to show us how?"

I think they had to boil the boys in hot water before they could get the mud off, and their clothes have all got to be sent to the poor people out West whose things were all lost in the great floods. If you'll believe it, I never got the least bit of thanks for showing the boys how to amuse themselves, but Aunt Sarah said that I'd get something when father came home, and she wasn't mistaken. I'd rather not mention what it was that I got, but I got it mostly on the legs, and I think bamboo canes ought not to be sold to fathers any more than poison.

I was going to tell why I should like to be an animal; but as it is getting late, I must close.

A PLEASING EXPERIMENT.

Every time I try to improve my mind with science I resolve that I will never do it again, and then I always go and do it. Science is so dreadfully tempting that you can hardly resist it. Mr. Travers says that if anybody once gets into the habit of being a scientific person there is little hope that he will ever reform, and he says he has known good men who became habitual astronomers, and actually took to prophesying weather, all because they yielded to the temptation to look through telescopes, and to make figures on the black-board with chalk.

I was reading a lovely book the other day. It was all about balloons and parachutes. A parachute is a thing that you fall out of a balloon with. It is something like an open umbrella, only nobody ever borrows it. If you hold a parachute over your head and drop out of a balloon, it will hold you up so that you will come down to the ground so gently that you won't be hurt the least bit.

I told Tom McGinnis about it, and we said we would make a parachute, and jump out of the second-story window with it. It is easy enough to make one, for all you have to do is to get a big umbrella and open it wide, and hold on to the handle. Last Saturday afternoon Tom came over to my house, and we got ready to try what the book said was "a pleasing scientific experiment."

We didn't have the least doubt that the book told the truth. But Tom didn't want to be the first to jump out of the window--neither did I--and we thought we'd give Sue's kitten a chance to try a parachute, and see how she liked it. Sue had an umbrella that was made of silk, and was just the thing to suit the kitten. I knew Sue wouldn't mind lending the umbrella, and as she was out making calls, and I couldn't ask her permission, I borrowed the umbrella and the kitten, and meant to tell her all about it as soon as she came home. We tied the kitten fast to the handle of the umbrella, so as not to hurt her, and then dropped her out of the window. The wind was blowing tremendously hard, which I supposed was a good thing, for it is the air that holds up a parachute, and of course the more wind there is, the more air there is, and the better the parachute will stay up.